Monster Translator

There was a need for translation help at church today and I was happy to do it. But the truth is, for now, my flesh is weak. Really weak. I'm not fully recovered from the infected head syndrome of last week. Impatient with myself, I decided it would be fine to put in my contacts this morning. 

My poor eyeballs. By lunchtime, I was in pain. I hadn't even thought to bring my glasses along. I took one of my contacts out so I could continue catching up with a friend. But it was too little, too late, and now I'm back where I started, my eyes blood red and aching. And yes, tomorrow is a Japanese holiday but school is on. 

No time like today for digging into the lovely stock of Trader Joe's goods Mom sent for Christmas. 

Trader Joe's macaroni and cheese, plus kimchi tofu soup. What? Not a common combo at your house?! 

I pray that when I wake up tomorrow, the color of my eyes will not so closely resemble the color of this soup...

Elderberry Syrup

I made this yesterday. I used Wellness Mama's recipe but I put too much honey in this time. Best tasting medicine ever! 

Medical Leave

Thankfully my work place has made generous provision for illness. I had to take advantage of it today and it looks like I'll have to do the same tomorrow. I call this illness "head infection," although for that to be a perfectly accurate description, I'd need afflicted sinuses. Fortunately, all I'm dealing with is ringing near aftermath of a double ear infection and an infected right eye that gives me a monster face. Guess it's just too hard for me to hold back the sarcasm. 

The straight truth is, I'm pretty sick. My in laws and our friends the H Family were lifesavers today, taking care of the girls so I could rest. I tried to rest. I think I was somewhat successful. I took a short nap, I watched a documentary called "Angry Sky," and in fulfillment of a long time wish, I bought the TV series Firefly and watched the pilot episode. 

Enough about me, how is everyone else out there? I'm feeling disconnected! 

To the Doctor

Dear Dr. T, 

Thank you for being open today, January 5th. Last year at this same time, when I was suffering from the same affliction, you were still on New Year's holiday. 

It's hard for me to write this without coming across sarcastically, so I'll switch to question format: 

1. Why do you personally have to re-ask me each question on the "Have You/Do You?" form? Wouldn't that be a great way to occupy the two nurses that were standing there? 

2. Same for your notes, Doctor. Why not let someone else take notes? What do you do with those, anyway? Why such excruciating detail? 

3. Is it really helpful to prepare a detailed graph that shows how much hearing loss I'm experiencing? I came to you because I don't like this and want to change it. 

Well. Enough suggestions on what you could consider changing. In the end, you gave me antibiotics. Generally I'm opposed but this nasty double ear infection really has me down and out. 

Thank you, Doctor T

Your new patient, 

Jamie Matsuoka

Cast Your Bread Upon the Water

When I was growing up in the 1970's, my parents, and therefore I, loved a Christian band called The Imperials. Ever heard of them? I think if given the opportunity, I could still sing all their songs. 

They had a song about casting your bread on the water, and it will come back to you. I don't recall being an extremely deep thinking child. So I would bellow along happily when the song came piping from the cassette player. 

I don't remember stopping to ponder--perhaps lacking adult cynicism?--how it would be possible for bread that would turn soggy and drown when waterlogged to then be returned to its owner in any kind of desirable state. 

In any case, here is the source of the song: 

"Cast your bread upon the waters,
    for you will find it after many days."

Ecclesiastes 11:1

Hm. I thought there was a clear connection between this verse and a story I wanted to tell. I'm not so sure now but I'll go on with the story anyway. 

When we were living in Skokie about four and a half years ago, I became very interested in healthy, natural eating. One result was that I started to make my own kombucha. I loved it. I never knew for sure if it truly boosted my health but I felt better about drinking it than standard soft drinks. 

When we came here, because the starter culture necessary to make kombucha is "alive," I assumed I couldn't bring it along. Since, I've scoured Tokyo for bottled kombucha, and/or someone who would share a starter. 

I actually got a starter from a friend several months ago, and I was/am excited to have it. But the brewing process is a bit involved in the front end and I just haven't gotten started. 

My point is, I was surprised, delighted and feeling like I had "found my bread" when I discovered this in Aeon Mall about a week ago: 

Just drank it tonight (hoping it would help with the nasty sickness hopping me) and it was delicious! In summary, I'm sure the connection is tenuous and far fetched but I'm going for it. Kombucha now reminds me of The Imperials.....

New Year, Old Friends

Aogu's oldest--longest?--friend, nicknamed "Yatchan," has been in Saitama on a work assignment since October. It's a big deal for him. He's from the countryside beyond Kumamoto, where he's stayed since he and Aogu were in church and elementary school together as small boys. He has a family, three kids just a bit older than ours, but he never imagined himself working in the big city. 

God has brought him here now, and we've been fortunate to spend time with him on a few different Sundays when he's been able to visit church. Today we were privileged to visit with him and his whole family, who flew up for a short visit to Tokyo. 

Honestly, I had a different agenda for today. But this morning, I felt compelled to change my plan and head off to church instead. Thankfully! 

My brother-in-law Ken had prepared some verses in envelopes to be "otoshidama" (usually money that is handed to children at New Year's. It was interesting to hear each person read his or her verse. One woman who is often tearful in worship got a verse that said something like, "Don't cry anymore, dry your tears!". 

I got this verse: 

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...."

Isaiah 30:15 NIV

http://bible.com/111/isa.30.15.niv

The timing of this seems not coincidental. I've known I need more adult conversation, and that need continues. But I also recognize, perhaps for the first time? that I also need quietness and rest. 

I will need so much help and wisdom from God to know how to engage it, but this feels like a call to get started. 

Anticipating. 

Selfie Stick

So. My friend Chris says telling yourself "I did ______ and I'm amazing" will speed one along towards further accomplishments in life. 

Well, I bought a selfie stick and I'm amazing. 

And actually, it may well promote further accomplishments in my life. Because I frequently want to take photos of those I'm with. And I want to be in them, not for narcissism's sake, truly, but because I value WITH. If you and I were together at a certain place and time, it would heighten my experience to anticipate remembering that moment later. Got that? That sentence contained a bunch of time travel.... 

Anyway, thanks to Flying Tiger in Omotesando, I am now the proud owner of a pink selfie stick. Let the WITHness begin! 

Photo taken with Chris and S, with selfie stick

Happy New Year! 2016 is Here

If only I had actually sat and written each time I thought of sitting and writing in 2015, my book would be off to the publisher by now. I don't necessarily have plans to write a book in 2016 either, but I suppose if I want to write one someday, I ought to practice writing. 

Ought to sounds dangerously like should, and I'm pretty allergic to should. But I need it because my number of some days grow smaller at an increasingly rapid clip. 

So, here goes! 

2015 Lookback--January

January 1-- 2nd annual ice skating at Toshimaen

January 2--Tokyo Disneyland

Sleepover with the Nakazawas

Therefore we got to go out! 

Tsukada Nojo in Ikebukuro; did NOT realize their speciality is RAW chicken....

Parkour at Nishiguchi Park with Mizuba-affiliated guys

Koji's last days as a 5th grader in Kashiwaba Basketball 

Koji & Yuito

Misaki lost her first (or second?) tooth

WIWW Must Go On

Happy 2015! 

So that my sister knows I'm alive and wearing clothes, here's What I Wore Wednesday (WIWW):

WIWW--Leg Coverings

Oh, hello!

Here I am to confirm my continued existence. This is turning into No Post November instead of the National Blog Frequently Month I had hoped for. 

Anyway, isn't it the pinnacle of boring for a post to elaborate on exactly how much blogging hasn't happened? 

On to the clothes, and to hoping (planning would be better than hoping, but me & Planning, we're not BFFs) for a different sort of week to come. 

On this day, I put on a thrifted dress and walked around in it for an hour or two as I was performing morning kid-herding (love my kids, but the AM rush truly holds similarities to trying to make a bunch of wooly mammals go to school). I decided it was a go. I sprinted to the front door, looked down to put my shoes on, and found the front of my dress covered with ???? It was probably water but I couldn't be sure. I was sure the large conspicuous  spots were on a level with kindergarten faces. There was nothing for it but changing to this randomness. Which actually was OK, considering the speed with which I assembled it. 

Saturday, for a mochi pounding event with Izumi's after school program. See below if you don't know what mochi pounding is. 

Sunday, for church and meeting up with friends visiting from Hawaii. I was foolish enough to go out like this, no additional coverings. And so I froze. Note to self, the days of bare legs are over for 2014, OK? 

A wiser me wears tights for school on Monday. But dumb me is still hangs around, preventing me from digging out my hats, so that my ears freeze when I'm on my bike. 

Lemons match orange, I know because it's citrus season. 

This outfit felt pretty pleasing, except I forgot to wear a neck covering to go with my lovely stripey "function of long johns but please pretend with me they are leggings". So, cold neck. Oh, and then there was the way the only other tulle skirt I saw all day was on one of my kindy students. Am I influencing their fashion, or is it the other way around? 

Discuss. Feeling some déjà vous like I've written this exact thing here before....

Bonn Nuit

Same Jellybeans as Harry Potter: a Photo Essay

My English conversation student did not know that we are very into Harry Potter right now. In fact, we are two-thirds of the way through the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 

So God must care about details--thankfully, since I don't--because my student brought a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans to class for me today anyway. She received them from her cousin, who recently visited Universal Studios Japan, where The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened this past summer. 

If you're not steeped in all things Potter at the moment, as we are, you may not know what these "beans" are. Let me introduce you, here's a quote from the source above: 

They are the same as Muggle jelly beans, except the range encompasses every flavour imaginable....There are ordinary flavours like chocolate, peppermint, and marmalade, but also less fanciable ones like spinach, liver, and tripe. There are also flavours that are not actual foods, like grass, farm dirt, vomit, earwax, paper and bogeys. 

Most of the Beans were not exactly delicious, but eating them was definitely an interesting experience! Surely making these is not the most useful application of modern science. Still, isn't it really amazing that someone out there knows how to combine chemicals to make a red jellybean called "Worm," and it somehow truly tastes like dirt and grass?

Have you ever tried these? What do you think? 

See below for our reactions!

from top left corner and going across: Snot, Banana, Worm,
Earwax, Green Apple, Marshmallow, Black Pepper, Barf, Rotten Egg, Soap

Blueberry, Sausage, Lemon Candy, Cinnamon, Cotton Candy,
Grass, Watermelon, Dirt, Sugar-Flavored Black Stuff (?), Cherry

What's Your Second Language?

My second language is Japanese. I would like to learn a third. I keep joking to the moms of the Korean kids in my class that I'll start studying Korean soon. 

Maybe I should stop joking and start studying..... look at this map of second languages around the world. 

Image courtesy of poringpang at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Which language would you like to learn? If you are even a little bit serious about learning another language, I recommend the blog Fluent in 3 Months. 

Resolved: Don't Be So Serious

The other night we were at a friends' house, and as the adult-kid ratio was not in our favor, my friend had the clever idea to have the kids do a "show". And here you see some sample photos of the "shows". 

Did you see what that was about? The perfectly memorized lines, the choreography, the chemistry between the actors? Me, either. What I did see was, the kids had a great time! They didn't care (much) that their show was unrehearsed and imperfect. They enjoyed (mostly, full disclosure is, I think there were a couple of fights, but no one suffered actual bodily injury in the making of these shows) the process they had and the results they came up with. Now we will remember for quite awhile, "that time you guys did that show". 

So I want to learn to take it easy. Really, I'm already relatively good at that, but because I like to drive myself crazy*, hear me out, please. At some point on most days, I take my process too seriously. Of course I want and need to work hard and focus, of course I want to do my best. But often when I am trying to proceed to a result, I don't allow myself awareness, let alone enjoyment of the process. Because, I am trying to proceed to a result. Which I have decided to believe is more important than having fun getting there. 

And this is kind of killing me with my kids. Because I'm also a pro at "compound thinking," (bedtime is at 8 so we better eat at 6 and then I guess the kids can have screen time but it absolutely has to be done at 7, after all they need to take a shower and get ready for bed and get their bags ready for school.....etc) and my compounding is based on perfect math, that is, there is no room for error which means, no comedy either. 

I don't want to become all loosey-goosey, because really, I already struggle with that too. Speaking of struggling, I read about "struggles only ENFPs" will understand the other day and I can't stop thinking about it:

Though ENFPs loves being around people, they crave alone time much more than the average extrovert. ENFPs search for a deeper meaning in just about everything, and use their much-coveted alone time to decide how their experiences fit in with their system of core values. *To be frank, it’s an exhausting personality to have (asterisk inserted by me). 

Intentionally or not, today was better. If you were with the poster child for cotton candy, wouldn't your day be better, too? Seriously. 

PS. these words are unedited! I hope they make some sense, but if not, I'm sorry. Click on the link above and read about ENFP, at least. ENFP or no, do you struggle with any of these things? I'd like to know!

Nostalgia for Chocolate

Lacking the vital ingredient, ENERGY (where have you gone, we used to be BFFs and now you are nowhere, energy, you traitor!), I decided to look in my drafts for something interesting to cough up at  pass on to you. Found this "historical" note, almost exactly four years old. Gives a brief description of my equally brief running life.... Also makes me wish most fervently that I brought the gray sweater with the rainbow on it that Erika and I bought together that day. Bad move*

from: http://www.chicagonow.com/pace-of-chicago/2011/10/tips-on-how-to-recover-from-the-chicago-marathon/

Now here comes the "throwback" paragraph:
[composed 11/7/10: Here I am with Erika, Laura and Elizabeth at the Hot Chocolate 5K/15K.  Alas, we never saw L and E again after this because they are real runners and did the 15K.  Still, Erika and I had a fantastic time; we surprised ourselves by running most of the way.  We weren't as surprised that we thoroughly enjoyed the fondue and the chocolate.  Last but not least, a bit of shopping on State Street... Though it was so cold that I never once regretted wearing bike shorts and long johns under my track pants, I mean, trousers, I would do it again in a second!  But maybe with a smaller bag, I did NOT need that giant backpack!]

*Bedtime around here is almost always hideous and utterly lacking in peace and grace. Which causes me to leak the remaining grace I may have right out of my body and become a ogress. I don't actually enjoy the feeling but 98.5 of 100 nights, but I feel incapable of humanity (any moms tracking with me?!). Point is, the other night, desperate to retain a shred of composure when I wanted to lose it, I made up a song/rap that goes like this:

Bad move!
B A D M O V E
That was a mistake
etc.

You would appreciate this more if I performed it live BUT life performance is not on my agenda right now....

verse

What I Learned in October 2014, A List

*I can blog every day! I might not be able to be profound every day and my posts never go viral. But I CAN DO IT. And, though 31 Days October 2014 is over, I want to keep going. Next up, as November is conveniently designated NaPoBloMo (disgusting collapsed wanna be word that means "National Post to your Blog Month), the external pressure to do so is ON. Phew. Need that external pressure.  ps. not linking to NPBM stuff deliberately, I need to look at it more and see if I actually want to connect with it or just let it motivate me from afar.

*LOVE to read and my best love within loving to read is sci-fi/fantasy so I was thrilled and delighted and even further behind in my housework this month, thanks to the Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness. Wow. The premise is a human settlement somewhere out in the galaxy-and the catch is that men's thoughts cannot be hidden and are broadcast to those around. This has all kinds of implications, and the "what if?" nature of it was what made it my very favorite kind of story. I couldn't read it fast enough, though the speed with which I went through it then gave me a backlash of grieving. If you think that grieving after you finish a book or a series is not a thing, google "grief felt after finishing a book" and click on a few of those links. The other problem with finishing an engrossing series is, where to go next?!

*I already knew this, but was reminded afresh that PAL System (Japanese link), my grocery delivery service, is a lifesaver. The items can be a little more expensive but in my new, nearly working full-time life, the ability to have our groceries dropped at our door (very carefully swaddled in many many styrofoam boxes and also DRY ICE) feels close to priceless.

this is the catalog full of the edible goods keeping us alive these days

*Speaking of groceries, sadly but truly and honestly, I confess in October I was reminded of this equation: too many groceries + almost no exercise (except rushing to work on my bike...but the distance is too short) + not enough sleep = well-rounded-in-a-bad-way me. Ugh. So discouraging.  I know what to do but making myself do it?!!  ARGH. In my defense, though there's mostly no defense for "ate all the chocolate in the house," Japan is just so carb-centric!! SO, SO, SO (get it?! do you speak Japanese?!  Haha~) Everything comes with rice. Which is delicious and seems to have no effect on the slim population, but can't say the same for this Caucasian digestive system. If it doesn't come with rice then it's noodles or bread or potatoes or sweet potatoes or cake or cookies and did I mention rice?! This dietary business is one of my primary big cultural shocks. Before we moved here, my life in the suburbs of Chicago meant hours in the car every day. But it also meant comparatively inexpensive food. Whether American food should even be that inexpensive is something to explore separately, the fact remains, maintaining the same kind of diet here as I did there has been mostly too difficult.

*Halloween is fun. When the kids were younger I sometimes wondered if it was appropriate to join in, as a Christian.  I came to agree with this, Halloween is for Christians, too. Don't misunderstand, wondering never caused us to miss a chance to dress up and get candy... 

Now, there's no point debating Halloween: we're here.  Halloween has become a big thing for adults, but the part I like is the opportunity to visit neighbors and show off kids in cute costumes, which hasn't caught on. So I'm actually a little in mourning, although I have to be thankful that we did get to do a wee bit of trick or treating and we didn't even have costumes, to speak of .... (if I must speak of them, Izumi and Misaki are "artists" and Koji is, um, a member of the Seattle Sounders?!) We were also invited to a really great Halloween party, see below~

Reminder to self; though Halloween here is not the same as Halloween in Skokie, it is a different kind of great. Thank God!

on our short trick or treating circuit, these kind friends not only welcomed us and
gave us candy but invited us in to play "carnival games"
Wow!

almost all the friends we were privileged to spend time with at the Halloween party,
we are so blessed!

Now, I will abruptly end this post by saying, Good night! I hope to see you here in November~