A B+ for the weekend

I can't believe the weekend was here and gone already. It went by so quickly! And so will the next 8 weeks or so hopefully, because (drumroll) we got a faint line on the HPT I took yesterday!! I took another one this morning and still only a faint line, but my period was due Friday-ish depending on how long my cycle is, which I'm not exactly sure of, so it could have been due anywhere from Friday to yesterday (Sunday) and it didn't come!!! Yippeeeeee!!! I'm going to wait another couple of days before doing a test again, but I can't wait to go to the Dr. and see my little yolk sac on the big screen!

Getting past the first trimester is pretty nerve wracking though. I don't know how it is in the States since I've never been pregnant there, but in Japan people are so worried about you making any kind of false move that could cause a miscarriage before you're 12 weeks along. In my understanding, exercise or lifting, or any normal activity is not what causes miscarriages, but I'm no expert. When I got pregnant with Sara, the doctor told me at my very first appointment when I was 5 weeks and 2 days along, "Congratulations! Now continue living life and doing everything exactly as you have been." That's why I loved my doctor in Osaka. She was awesome. Although the clinic where I gave birth to Sara was awesome, I want to try giving birth at a midwifery near here this time. Hopefully they'll have the same attitude as my doctor in Osaka did.

It was really nice to have Sarah and Sakura (and in the end, Ryohei) here with us to share in our happy news. Sarah and Sakura arrived Friday afternoon and we hung out here and ordered a pizza for dinner and watched a movie, and Sara and Sakura played together, which was soooooo cute. I've never seen Sara be so gentle with another child before, but she seemed to understand that Sakura was littler than she was and she kept patting her head and cuddling her and being very big sister-like and cute. Up until now she's mostly played with children very close to her age or older, so there's much more rough and tumble going on. It was actually quite a relief to see her behaving so well with a baby smaller than she is. She's going to be a very good big sister I think (hope).

On Saturday we went for a short walk around Zenkoji temple (the big tourist attraction around here, which happens to be 3 minutes from our house), and then I wanted to provide Sarah with a pseudo-Mexican lunch, but wouldn't you know it, the one and only Mexican restaurant in Nagano is only open for lunch Sunday through Thursday! WTF is that all about? So I took her to a very nice Italian restaurant that we often go to in the next town over. Then we went grocery shopping and I made tacos for dinner. At least I was able to provide her with somewhat of a Mexican fix.

Sarah went to bed early as Sakura was up really early that morning. It was early the next morning that the weekend went from being an A+ to a B+. Around 5:30, Akinori and I both woke up with a start from the distinct sound of wretching and crying. The first sound was from poor Sarah, and the second from poor Sakura. Don't want to go into too much detail, but Sarah was not in a good place! She was meant to meet up with Ryohei on the way home Monday morning, but she got in touch with him, and he came to Nagano on Sunday night to help look after Sakura. Sarah's temperature started to go up in the afternoon/evening, and the 3 of us (Ryohei, Akinori and myself) sort of insisted that Sarah go to the hospital and hopefully get a drip. So I took Sara to the hospital and we left the boys to take care of the girls. It would have been awesome if Sarah was healthy and the two of us got to go for a GNO, but unfortunately our little trip wasn't much fun.

The hospital didn't give Sarah a drip, nor a proper diagnosis as it was Sunday night and they were seeing her during emergency hours, but Akinori went to the pharmacy earlier that day (to pick up more HPTs) and when he described Sarah's symptoms to the chemist, two of them right away said "without a doubt Noro virus". Akinori's mother is a chemist too, and she said the same thing. Anyway, the Dr. gave Sarah some meds and we came back to our place, and ordered more pizza. (Poor Sarah had to have o-kayu. It's really no fun being sick.) Ryohei was really good with Sakura though, and even managed to get her to sleep while we were gone! Sakura was obviously thrilled to see him too. She gave him a HUGE smile when he came in the house.

I took the K family to the station this morning before my mommy/baby yoga class. After yoga Sara and I went shopping to stock up on baby food, and she slept most of the time we were in the car and store. Once we got home, I think the excitement of the weekend caught up with both of us and we had a nice looooong nap. I woke up around 4 and Sara woke up at 5.

Well I guess it's back to our boring every day routine of braving the cold and thinking up ways to avoid Mrs. X. Speaking of which, I plan on using the whole pregnancy thing to my advantage as much as possible on that front. Wish my luck that the next 36 weeks are as uneventful as possible!

Narrow escape

Well today was a much better day, despite meeting Mrs. X for lunch/coffee. Luckily (usually unluckily) Sara is at an age right now where she will not sit still for longer than 20 minutes at a time, 30 if it's a good day. So I didn't make a particularly big effort at keeping Sara by my side, and after 30 minutes or so of Mrs. X pointless naddering I just started getting Sara dressed again in her coat, and said we had to go.

Mrs. X would not be fobbed off that easily though and suggested we go for a walk. It was a really beautiful day so I said OK. Somehow it's easier to listen to her talk on and on about nothing when I can concentrate on something else and don't actually have to look at her. After visiting MUJI and Heiando though she suggested we go to a shopping mall nearby, but luckily (usually unluckily) I was wearing boots with fairly high heels on them, and it was the first time I wore them and my feet were starting to hurt, so that was the perfect time to say I just couldn't go on any longer, had to go home, bye! As we're parting ways she says "I'll call you next week!" And I very nearly blurt out "please don't!" But I just said it under my breath instead.

I feel bad that Sara seems to have picked up on my dislike for this woman though, and she has started showing a dislike for her as well. (Although I secretly think this is kind of funny, but I still feel a little guilty.) Mrs. X used to pick her up and kind of grind her face into Sara's, sort of kissing her cheek/chin, and it would make Sara laugh hysterically. Although I hated watching this woman defile my daughter like that, and leave her perfume and make-up/lipstick all over my poor baby for the rest of the day, it made Sara laugh, and what mother doesn't love to hear the sound of her baby laugh? Today though, she picked her up, and tried to do the same thing, and it looked like she was actually hurting her, she was pressing her face into Sara's so hard, but not a giggle or even a smile from Sara. Just pushes to get away. I wanted to grab her away since she looked so miserable, but she was able to wriggle herself out of Mrs. X's grasp on her own. (That's my girl!)

All in all it was one of the more painless meetings with her. I just don't want to see her again next week. I think I'm going to be abducted by aliens for awhile.

Afterward I went grocery shopping and when I walked into the store I thought I recognized the woman with a child in front of me as a woman from my maternity yoga class, and who happened to give birth at the same clinic, but she lives in Turkey, so I figured I was mistaken until she obviously recognized me back. We chatted for a bit, and it turns out she's visiting until the end of March while her husband remains in Turkey. It seems she had planned to come back just for the New Year, but found out she was pregnant with her second child just before she left Turkey, and since she's having severe morning sickness, decided to stay for longer so her mother can help with her daughter. This woman was also due to give birth 2 or 3 days after me, and gave birth 9 days before me. It seems I am destined to forever be envious of her reproductively.

I'm glad I bumped into her though because I really like her, and we promised to get in touch and hang out with our daughters soon. I think it was seeing her and hearing her news though that threw me over the edge and I did an hpt when Akinori got home. Not even a faint little line. I know it doesn't mean anything until I don't get my period because it's quite possible that if I am pregnant then my hcg numbers aren't high enough to register yet, but I thought since AF is due this weekend, if I were pregnant then I might get even a faint line, and since there was NOTHING, I am resigned to trying again next month. Still praying I am wrong, but better to be resigned than get really upset when I get my period.

I promised myself I was going to sleep before midnight tonight, so getting off the computer...now!

Just generally pissed off, oh and happy 2nd anniversary

*There may be a lot of swearing in this post, if you're easily offended don't even bother reading

So the morning starts off with me taking my temperature as I have been everyday for the last 2 months or so, because I am now addicted to taking my temperature as well as trying to get pregnant, and it is a wee bit lower than it has been for the last week. The thought that I am not pregnant just puts me in a bad mood from the very start. That and the fact that Sara woke up at 7:30 and refused to go back to sleep. Until sometime last week she was sleeping until 10 or 11 o'clock, letting me have plenty of rest, but all of a sudden she has decided to join the ranks of the civilized and wake up at a reasonable hour. Before giving up on getting Sara to go back to sleep, I took my temperature about 3 more times and it was up then down, then up, so really who the fuck knows whether or not I am pregnant. I am feeling really pre-menstrual though, so I have a feeling I'm going to be getting a visit from Sarah, Sakura and Aunt Flo this weekend. Not happy!

So we go downstairs and I try and feed Sara breakfast. Not happening. She won't sit in her high chair and she won't open her mouth. Great, you're going to starve to death child, and everyone is going to blame me because I'm the mother. She will of course eat akachan senbei (rice crackers for babies) and she is pawing and snatching at the package faster than I can open it, thus crumbling the senbei into little wee bits. Thanks for the mess! I get us dressed because I have decided that from this week we are going back to our Tuesday playgroup (great way to avoid Mrs. X too!). Getting ready to leave the house and notice Sara squatting and getting red around the eyes, which is a sure sign there is poopage. Pull off her pants rather wildly as I'm trying to make her laugh, and a whole shitload of poop (pun intended) sprays all over the place. There is poop all over the inside of her pants, now on her socks, her undershirt onesie and the long-sleeved onesie she was wearing over that. Just lovely! Good thing I decided against the leggings under the pants or there would have been an even bigger mess.

All cleaned up and ready to go. Get to the jidokan and there is only 1 other member of playgroup there with her son. No one else showed up today, and the 1 kid who did show up has to leave within 30 minutes of us getting there so he can go get his flu shot. Just my fucking luck today. But what was even worse was we got there at lunchtime so I bought a bento and thought I would feed Sara some of that, since she only seems to want to eat whatever the grown-ups are eating these days. Sit her down and since she is plenty hungry by now, she is more than happy to eat whatever I put in her mouth. 10 minutes later, it all comes right back out. The damage wasn't too bad. Not a single tear or even whine for that matter, after puking. Her sweater and pants got the brunt of it, and I was able to get most of the yuck out of them. Luckily I decided to put leggings on her when I re-dressed her after the poop fiasco, so I just let her run around in her leggings and onesie since she seemed genki and was dying to be allowed to go play.

Spent two hours at the jidokan chasing Sara and trying to prevent her from taking all the toys off other innocent kids, listening non-stop to "kawaii ne" "yappari gaijin no ko wa chigau ne". Honestly this was the first time that phrase has really bothered me, and maybe it's because I'm so hormonal and all, but I don't want my child being told "wow, foreign kids are obviously different". I know they mean it in a "good way" but it was the first time I really felt that my daughter is going to have to hear how "different" she is for the rest of her life.

Anyway, Sara falls asleep 2 seconds after I put her in the car seat to go home, and I decide she definitely has the right idea, so I forego shopping for cat food, even though we are all out. The cat had a little food left this morning so she can suffer a few more hours without food. We go back home and lay down on the living room floor for a nap. I would love to stay there forever. Am totally not interested in teaching belly dance tonight, but I know I will feel better after I go to the lesson and start moving.

Sara is still sleeping (going on 3 hours now) when Akinori comes home at 5:30 with 1 red rose for me. Today is the 2nd anniversary of our wedding in Hawaii. I still can't believe it was 2 years ago already, or that it was even real. It was such a beautiful wedding, in such a beautiful location. It was my dream wedding. Ah, reality is such a downer, but back to it. So I accept the rose, a quick kiss and "sorry I don't have the money today. It's in the bank, but with my work schedule I won't be able to get it out of the bank until Friday." WTF?! I forgot to mention before that my money unsavvy husband doesn't have a cash card OR bank book for this account, so he has to go to the bank in person and hanko every fucking time he wants to withdraw money, which means he has to get there by 3:00 because that's what time the banks close. Why in the fucking world do banks close at 3:00? Do they not realize that the rest of the country works until at least 5:30? Where is the bloody logic in this? Anyway he tells me he will sleep in the K-truck. It is -5 degrees outside right now. I am obviously not about to let him sleep in the truck, nevermind the fact that it is our anniversary. I really, really hate the fact that this money saga is not yet finished though.

So he drives me to my belly dance lesson and of course I am much happier for having done the lesson, he comes to pick me up after, then we go to get cat food and some home pregnancy tests, which I can't even use yet, but I feel better having them on hand. I don't know why. I am probably just insane and addicted to hpt's too. I am having a lot of trouble being patient and waiting to see if my period comes or not this weekend. We get home and that's when all hell breaks loose over the most stupid shit anyone has ever fought about. But this is what happens when I am hormonal, and in my book when a woman is hormonal men should just shut up and apologize, and pretend to be sincere about it, regardless of the reason. So much time and anger would be saved if he would just cop on to what time of the month it is, or the fact that I am upset about something so stupid it doesn't warrant a serious argument, but he doesn't. He just ends up getting his knickers twisted and being an asshole and pissing me off even more. So I tell him to go sleep in the car.

Of course this is not what I really want, despite everything I've said in my previous 2 posts. I really do not want him to not be in bed with me at night. I just want to teach him a lesson. So he says that regardless of the fight we are currently having he is going to sleep in the car anyway, as he broke his promise to me, and he needs to do a penance to show how sorry he is and that he will mend his evil ways. So now I am forced to apologize for telling him to go sleep in the car during the heat of the moment, which pisses me off even more, because I'm hormonal and that's all the reason I need to be pissed off.

And to top it all off I am currently still meeting Mrs. X for lunch tomorrow. Ugh. Despite Mrs. X tomorrow's got to be a better day right?

Give them an inch...

So first of all a brief update of the weekend as I'm sure everyone is wondering if I am getting divorced tomorrow or not. As pissed off as I was with hub Saturday morning, I kind of had to put that aside as Sara was puking her poor little guts out all Saturday afternoon and night. She didn't have a fever and besides a bit of a cry after a puke she was as genki as ever, so we weren't too worried, and by Sunday morning she was fine.

I, on the other hand, have been nauseous since Friday afternoon. This morning I was feeling better, but now not so much. I'm hoping to not get my period this weekend and then this will all make sense, but I think it is a little too early for morning sickness. We made a fantastic effort at making a baby this month though, with all the counting days and whatnot, so hopefully there will be some happy news in a week or so.

Which brings me to today. Akinori called his friend yesterday and told him outright that if I didn't get the money today, then I was going to divorce him, and the friend promised he would transfer it today. Yesterday Akinori and I had another discussion about the whole situation, and it seemed really silly to me to divorce someone I love so much and who loves me. I mean, what if I am pregnant? That would just be silly to get divorced without even knowing whether I am or not, but I didn't want him to think that there still were not serious repercussions to his actions, so I told him he couldn't come back home until I had the money. I am still waiting for confirmation that the money has been transferred into his account. Apparently his friend has been at work all day, but promised that he would transfer the money before the day was out and send a photo of the receipt after it was done. So if Akinori doesn't come home with 470,000 yen tomorrow after work, he's not coming home. (He did come home with 40,000 yen Saturday. An attempt at a peace offering.) He knows that this is still a big deal since he can't go back to his parents' house as he, nor I, want to worry them with our domestic situation, and he doesn't want to impose on any of his friends. He swears he is going to sleep in the K-truck. He has offered to leave tonight, but I am giving him until tomorrow as that was the original date I was going to go to city hall anyway. Stay tuned.

About the title, I haven't seen Mrs. X for nearly a month now, and what a peaceful, happy month it has been for me! I said I wasn't going to blog about her anymore, but there was a lot of stuff in December that went on that is really pushing me towards the edge. The last time I saw her, her constant ramblings and outright insanity nearly had me in tears by the time I went home. I was just so stressed from listening to her. I could write a book of all the crazy things she says and does, and no one would believe that half of it was true. The woman is INSANE! She gave me a Christmas present the second to last time I saw her. It was the book that she had been reading one of the times I saw her previously. The thought was nice and all, but I didn't plan on buying her a Christmas present to begin with, and seeing as she was giving me a sort-of recycled gift, I didn't see the need to reciprocate. Even if she had spent money on a gift for me, I don't think I would have given her one. I just don't want to, and therefore I am not going to. In my mind you give presents to people you want to, when you want to, regardless of the occassion, not out of obligation, which is exactly what it would have been. Maybe I'm just a bitch, but I'm not going to be guilted into being her friend! She made a comment at that time though about not getting gifts from people who you had given gifts to and how much that hurt. I pretty much ignored the comment. Maybe I'm a bitch. I don't care.

Anyway, getting to the point...she texted last week asking if I wanted to meet for lunch Friday, but I already had plans for Friday, so I said maybe next week (this week). So of course it's Monday morning and at 10 am I get a text, "Let's meet at Starbucks at 12." Lucky for me Akinori had the day off work today so I wrote back saying we were spending the day together (especially as it may be the last for awhile), but that I was free only on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. So she has the nerve to write back, "Let's meet Tuesday AND Wednesday." WTF? I'm pretty sure that any normal person who recieved my message would understand that I meant I would meet her one day OR the other, not both! Why would you assume that I even wanted to meet you two days in a row? I've been a right bitch to her too, the last few times I saw her, so why on earth she wants to spend any time at all with me, I have no idea. Maybe not an out-and-out bitch, but I basically don't talk at all (not that I have much of a chance to say anything, but in the rare silent moments I don't even make an effort to make conversation), carefully watch the clock, and after an hour, get up and tell her I have to go. I can tell that she is getting a vibe from me, but she is quite clueless, so she may not understand the vibe she is getting. I've said before that I don't necessarily want to hurt her feelings, but I can't handle this forever, and as long as we both live in Nagano, she is never going to leave me alone. I'm going to have to make a greater effort at only seeing her in a group of people. So this may not be the last you have heard of Mrs. X after all.

Money troubles...again (>.<)

To be honest, I'm not sure I really want to blog about this as it frustrates me beyond belief and just makes me sad in general. But the ultimate goal of keeping this blog is to let off some steam so that things don't have to bother me so much.

My husband is many, many things, but money savvy he is not. Not an ounce of it in his body, not a drop, not a nano-drop. You get the picture. Unfortunately he is quite good at selling things on Yahoo Auction, and if he were money savvy, he could probably make us a nice little nest egg, but alas he is not, and here is where the problem lies. His friends who are not computer savvy ask him to sell stuff on Yahoo Auction quite often. He also gets asked by other people who he's met online through selling things before. He has a reputation of sorts of being able to put buyers and sellers together, and make a small profit for himself. However once in awhile, and once is far too often if you ask me, something will happen, and he will be put in the position to front the money to the seller before the buyer comes through with the cash. Are the alarms going off yet?

My husband has no access to our savings, and of course, not being money savvy, has no savings of his own. So when the above mentioned situation comes up, he comes crying to me about needing money and promising left, right and center he will pay me back the next day, or sometime within the week, or whatever, but it's always soon. More often than not, he pays me back later than he promised, whether it be by a few days, weeks or worst case scenario, months. In fact, his debt to the family savings as of yesterday was just over 300,000 yen. Half of that is sitting in his bank account, but he hasn't had a chance to get to the bank this past week because of work (he does construction of sorts so he works at different sites all over the prefecture, this past week a particularly far and busy site). That's all fine and good, but he promised that I would have half of that half January 4th, and the other half I was supposed to get 2 days after I loaned it to him. But something ALWAYS comes up! He can't get to the bank or he has to pay this or that, so can I wait another day? or week?

He promised me that he would stop this nonsense at the end of last year and stop selling things for friends so that these types of situations would not come up anymore. The last time I loaned him money I told him it was the last, and that no matter how much he begged and pleaded, I wasn't doing it again, and certainly not while he still had a huge debt to the family savings. And then yesterday happened.

He came home all upset and said he introduced a friend of his in Tokyo, with an item to sell, to someone he met through Yahoo Auction looking for that particular item. It was a piece of silver jewelry, a very expensive piece of jewelry in the shape of an eagle. So the buyer (who happens to live in Nagano, about an hour away from here) sent the seller the money, and the seller was supposed to send the buyer the item, however one of the eagles' wings broke. So the seller offered to send the buyer his money back. The buyer refused and said that if he didn't get the item by Sunday he was calling the police and claiming he had been scammed. WTF? Why is this my husband's problem? And why won't the buyer just take the fucking money back??!!

So the seller is willing to pay to buy a new eagle at a considerable loss, but the only one they can find is 370,000 yen at a second hand store online, and the only way they can get the eagle to the buyer by Sunday is to pay by credit card and have the online store deliver the item to our house Sunday morning, and Akinori will hand deliver it on Sunday. I guess it makes sense to not deliver it to the buyer directly as he can possibly claim it was never delivered even if it was. Anyway, the only person with a credit card is, you guessed it, me. By his own admission, handing a credit card to my husband in his own name is too dangerous, so he doesn't have any. I told Akinori that if his friend in Tokyo transferred the funds to my account by noon today (Saturday) and sent a photo of the receipt saying he did so (since it wouldn't show up in my account until Monday) that I would use my credit card. He said that his friend wouldn't be able to get the funds together until Monday. So that rules out me helping. End of story, right? I only wish.

Since I refused to help, Akinori said that he would have to go to Tokyo after work today and blah, blah, blah. Whatever, his problem, he has to deal with it. Not happy about the situation either way, but not going to be swayed to help this time. He then wakes me at the crack of fucking dawn asking if there is any way at all I will change my mind. I told him no and to let me go back to sleep. This is then followed of promises to have the funds in my account on Monday, and if they aren't there then he will drive to Tokyo on Monday and pick up the money himself. Loaning him cash is one thing, but I don't want to be pissing around with my credit card. More begging and pleading. So I finally break down, but I told him that if I don't get that money back on Monday I am going to city hall on Tuesday and filing for divorce, and I'm not kidding, and I'm telling all of you too, I am not kidding. I may be a swinging single at this time next week.

Usually I try not to pressure him too much about when he is going to return the funds he has previously borrowed because I know it stresses him out and he knows he has to return the money, and it just causes a fight. But I took this opportunity to give him as much shit as I possibly could about all the money he has borrowed. So basically he needs to cut his debt down to 100,000 yen by the end of the month, or we are, in no uncertain terms, getting a divorce February 1st (or sooner depending on what happens Monday).

So he tells me how relieved he feels and thanks me and showers me with kisses, which I am not in the mood to receive. It's all bloody well and fine that he feels better, but I feel 370,000 times worse, so don't expect me to rejoice until you show me the money.

Perhaps I am being a bit melodramatic, or too drastic, but if doesn't think I am serious, or that there aren't serious repercussions to his actions, he will just continue to be irresponsible with money. It's how he was raised. His family is by no means wealthy, but as the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of a family of Japanese craftsmen, with their old and revered traditions, he was raised as the golden boy, and his every whim catered to, and his every wish granted. This is the end of the line for me. I am not dealing with this type of bullshit anymore.

All I can say is we are in for a very tense weekend at the Kaneta household.

Late night cooking

Bless the little old lady who lives next door and always shares the loot she gets sent from relatives. Curse her for the same reason. Some things I am very happy to receive, usually fruit. Vegetables not so much because that means you have to use them in cooking, which means I have to cook. I usually buy one onion at a time since I rarely use them. Little Old Lady gave us a whole bag, more than half went in the bin after several months. I know! I know! I hate to waste food too, which is why receiving it usually stresses me out.

A week or two ago Little Old Lady's daughter came by with apples (yeah!) and a nagaimo (boo!). But I promised myself that I was going to 1. cook as much as possible and 2. do my best not to waste food products. So that meant looking for a way to use nagaimo. I decided to finally get off my ass and out of the house today (because the only thing left to eat in the house was dill pickles and canned soup) so before going grocery shopping I checked the Internet for nagaimo recipes and decided I would try okonomiyaki, which despite all my years living in Osaka I have never attempted to make the traditional way even.

Anyway go to Nishimatsuya and the grocery store with Sara who is becoming more and more difficult to take out of the house. She kept trying to crawl out of the shopping cart seat and into the back of the cart with the food. She's a little daredevil with no sense of fear and we have to keep a constant eye on her or she'll try to climb everything and anything and end up falling on her head the second we look away for a moment. But I digress. By the time I got home I was exhausted since I hadn't left the house since we came back from Kyushu on Thursday , except to take Sara to the doctor Saturday morning, and had turned into a sloth-like recluse. So I got Sara down for a nap when we got home and I relaxed a bit before I had to go teach a belly dance class.

I got home around 8:45. Akinori had already dug around and found something to eat for himself, so I'm not sure why I decided it would be a
good idea to start grating the nagaimo to make okonomiyaki at 9 pm, but I did. I started out working in the kitchen on my own, but Akinori comes in with Sara, puts her in her high chair and says "she missed you, she wants to be with you, call me if you need anything." He's lucky
I wasn't holding a knife! Sara will not sit in her high chair willingly for more than 3 minutes when she's starving. It took 30 seconds for her to crawl out of the high chair so she was standing on the foot rest from outside the high chair. I've got sticky, slimey nagaimo all over my hands
at this point but I do my best to grab her without touching her with my hands and take her and the goddamn nagaimo into the living room
where Akinori is so he can watch her, and she won't freak out because I'm in the other room.

It took me 45 minutes to grate the potato. 45 minutes! Luckily Akinori was able to get Sara to sleep during that time and I was able to go back into the kitchen to cook. The recipe called for 380g of grated nagaimo. I had a helluva lot more than that, but nevermind I figured I'd find something to do with it. Follow the instructions on the recipe and after just a few minutes in the fry pan it is obvious my concoction is not
cooking the way it is meant to, but nevermind I just continue to let it fry while I look for more nagaimo okonomiyaki recipes. Find one and start cutting up more ingredients as the 1st batch continues to fry and get nowhere. So now the 2nd batter is mixed and ready and the 1st batch is just looking more and more pathetic with every attempted flip so I give up on it and dump it on a plate. I was honestly ready to give up on cooking altogether, like ever again it was such a pathetic attempt, but then a miracle happened and the 2nd attempt came out perfect! I was very proud! Unfortunately it was 11:30 pm at this point and I was not in the mood to eat okonomiyaki, and Akinori had passed out on the floor in the living room who knows how long before that. I took photos of both attempts which I'll post later.

Akinori was asleep, but we had baby-making plans last night that fell through again thanks to a super-genki Sara, and I am bound and determined to get pregnant, especially since I got an email from my dad tonight saying my sister-in-law is pregnant again and due at the end of August. Why do I feel more pressure to get pregnant with every announcement of someone else's pregnancy? I know it's not a race and it's stupid to want to be pregnant because everyone else is, but with every notice of someone else's pregnancy I feel another surge of urgency. Probably the best way to not get pregnant. Anyway Akinori got a very pleasant wake up call and gave it a good effort. Whether or not we do get pregnant, I have to say that all these efforts have been great for our relationship. We fight so much less and we're both in better moods. There is definitely something to be said for regular sex.
call and

SAD

I'm totally convinced I have this, Seasonal Affective Disorder. At least I hope this is what's wrong with me. Is it normal to be this unmotivated and weepy and easily irritated? I don't think so. I don't feel depressed necessarily, but if I didn't have Sara I don't think I would ever get out of bed. Even with Sara, I rarely get us out of the house, or even out of the living room, and I'm ashamed to say how often we spend the entire day in our pajamas.

I just hate winter, and I really hate how fucking cold our house is! I hate the fact that you can see your breath in any room that is unheated, which is pretty much every room other than the living room, thus we never leave the living room. We have a heater in the kitchen, but it takes forever to get warm enough to be comfortable in it, and the kitchen is at the opposite end of the house from the living room, which means walking through the ice cold hallway to get there.

I love Japan, and I love living here. I mean I am one of those people that other foreigners usually find incredibly annoying because I have so few complaints about the country or its people, but the lack of central heating or decent insulation in homes is the one thing about this country that I just cannot understand and pisses me off beyond belief. I can see how heating an entire house, including rooms you're not using, is a waste of resources and money, but then at least put some decent insulation in!!

I'm not like this at all when the weather is warm. Sara and I rarely spent a full day at home over the spring and summer. The really sucky thing is that on the rare occassion when I muster up the energy to get us out of the house, it usually feels warmer outside than it does in the house. Seriously, how do other people deal with the cold? I think perhaps having a job would help, because then I would be forced to leave the house, but since that's not an immediate option or solution to the problem I'd really like to know exactly how abnornal I am, and how other people deal with the cold. I seriously feel useless, and depressed when I don't leave the house, or even get dressed all day, but so far that hasn't been enough motivation to make me get dressed or leave the house.

Hopefully when Sara is a little older she will demand that we get dressed and leave the house, which will hopefully be all the motivation I need. Oh winter, how I long for you to go away and never come back! Bring on the global warming!

Postponed indefinitely

So just as I was getting ready to seduce hub last night, Sara decided to wake up and join the party, which of course meant the party got postponed. By the time Sara was ready to go to sleep again, Akinori was already snoring and I was exhausted. Thought we might get some baby-making action in tonight but Sara has a fever and will not sleep unless someone is holding her which makes for some difficult logistics. I just hope she doesn't have the flu. I am now kicking myself in the ass for not getting any of us jabbed. I have (had) my reasons for not doing so, but I think if we go to the doctor tomorrow and it's not the flu, then I am definitely making appointments for all of us to get our flu shots. Poor thing. I hate seeing her sick. Definite the worst part about being a parent, so far.

No long post tonight. I need to try and grab some sleep while I can! Good night!

Home again! Home again! Jiggidy jig!

After a quiet, uneventful New Year's, Akinori, Sara and I got on a plane on Monday (1/4) and went to Okagaki, a small town in Fukuoka, to visit my Japanese homestay sister and family. Makiko stayed with my family for a year in high school. It was my first year in college and I wasn't living at home, but we still became quite close over the year.

Since I don't have any real sisters of my own, she is really the closest thing, and her family has been my family since I came to study abroad in 1996. I was studying in Osaka, but I went to Kita-Kyushu, where they were living at the time, to visit with them for 10 days before school started and during all of the breaks. Makiko is the one who I call whenever Akinori and I have a fight or whenever I have big news, or am sad or lonely, or just want to chat to someone. She came to Hawaii for our wedding while 6 months pregnant, and her oldest son was one of our ring bearers. Her parents came to Hawaii too, and my father always says that he feels closer to her father than he does to his own BIL, even though they can't speak the same language.

Whenever my parents come for a visit, we always go to Kyushu for at least one night, last time Sara was only 3 weeks old, so my parents went to Kyushu on their own to visit their Japanese daughter and her family. At her brother's wedding I sat at the table with the rest of the family and was in all the photos with the siblings. At her sister's wedding her dad said in his speech that he was only waiting now for his oldest daughter (me) to get married.

We have been wanting to visit since Sara was born, but Akinori could never take the time to make it worthwhile. He always gets a long New Year's holiday, so we decided to go after the New Year's travel rush. We didn't get in until quite late, and stayed the first night at Makiko's parents' house. It was close to 11 by the time we got to their house, but that didn't stop us from having a feast when we walked in the door. I love sashimi and sushi, and after living in Osaka for so long where I could get fresh seafood any time I wanted, coming to Nagano, prefecture without a sea border, has been quite a disappointment in the fish department. So I requested a chance to eat lots of seafood when we told them we were coming for a visit.

We had buri (yellowtail) sashimi and namako (sea cucumber) the first night (usually I'm not a big fan of namako, but it was yummy!). The 2nd night we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet type place right on the ocean, and ordered buri shabu-shabu and an arrangement of various sashimi, in addition to the buffet. The 3rd night we ate at home, but they ordered a super-deluxe sushi platter with o-toro (fatty tuna) and crab and big-ass shrimp to eat in addition to what Makiko and her MIL cooked for dinner. Man did we feast! and drink! LOVED LOVED LOVED the fact that Akinori and I could both drink beer, shochu and whatever else our cups were filled with to our hearts content, and there were more than enough hands and eyes willing to take care of Sara for us, and neither of us had to drive anywhere.

We didn't go anywhere or do anything particularly special while we were there, but it didn't matter. It was just so relaxing and fun and what going home should feel like. I really wished we lived closer! It wasn't remarkably warmer in Kyushu, but it was so much warmer inside their houses. You can see your bloody breath in our house! If it weren't for how cold it is INSIDE our house during the winter, I wouldn't mind living in Nagano at all, I don't think. I can deal with most of the other inconveniences, no matter how lonely I get. It's the goddamn cold, INSIDE the goddamn house that I really can't handle. Well that's a rant for another time.

Now that we are back, it's time to get down to business and adjust to reality, clean the house, do the laundry, etc. Akinori was supposed to be off until the 11th, but it looks like a lot of work has suddenly come in and he has to go back tomorrow. Lots of work coming in is always a good thing, so I'm not complaining, but it was nice having him around all the time. I find it difficult to get motivated to leave the house in this cold when he's not around. I'm going to have to get my butt in gear and get out of the house though because Sara had so much stimulation while we were in Kyushu from Makiko's 3 kids, and all the jiji's and baba's to play with. She's going to be so bored with just me as a playmate. Hopefully Akinori and I will be able to provide her with a live-in playmate by the end of the year though.

Baby making requires more effort than we expected. Sara was a miracle baby, in that we decided we stop trying to not get pregnant, had sex once and got pregnant. Not that we made a huge effort last month, but we definitely could have given it a better go. Thank goodness making babies is enjoyable work! Hopefully I'll have some good news to post soon! And with that, I am off to seduce my husband!

Happy New Year! My decade in a nutshell

Akinori is watching Sara in the living room as I shirk mother responsibilities while sitting in the kitchen waiting for my brownies to bake and pretending to busy cleaning. I'm typing this on my iPod Touch which is why it is so very handy. No need to actually sit at the computer where hubs could see me very obviously shirking mother responsibilities. It's nice to have these few moments to myself though from the sound of it, or lack thereof really, he has gotten Sara to take a nap and found some peace and quiet for himself. Because if she's still awake and being this quiet then I really think we ought to seriously consider switching roles. This whole brownie making thing isn't going to well either. It's just Betty Crocker's way of laughing in my face, telling me her brownie mix is so simple to make and then watching me screw it up. I obviously don't have a hope in hell of even stepping on Betty's shadow, let alone be her. Ah well let's see Betty shimmy and undulate her belly around the local Indian restaurant some time!

Speaking of belly dancing, I am going to start teaching a class or two at the dance studio where I held the workshops last month. I'm not sure how I feel about that as I really have a problem with authority and don't like to be employed, but getting paid no matter how many students do or do not show up is a very attractive prospect. I suppose I can always quit after awhile if it doesn't work out, but I don't want to screw up my relationship with the older couple who own the studio. They have been very kind to me so far and I'd like to use the studio in the future again for workshops and such. They offered to rent the studio to me instead of paying me to give lessons, but then I would have to pay for the studio regardless of how many students show up and I don't think I would actually end up making very much money at all if any. They also want me to teach their son English and offered to pay me ¥3000 an hour to do so, but I would rather lick my cat's ass than teach English. I know it's almost like throwing away good money but unless we are really down and out for cash, I just cannot teach English. I think teaching English is a very respectable way to earn a living, if that's what you want to be doing. I have taught enough English though to know that I HATE teaching it. End of story.

I've seen this on other blogs and thought I might try it too. I'll bet it's going to be long though because I have a lot of trouble keeping my posts to a reader-friendly length if you haven't noticed already. It's my blog though and I'll write as much as I damn well please!

So here we go:
2000 - Ring in the new century at home in bed with the flu. Dating and living with Tadashi. Visit England for the 1st time in March/April. Go back to Chicago for brother's wedding in May. Finish 3 years as an ALT in Osaka city in July and move out of my JET apartment in the city to the house that Tadashi bought with his ex-wife, who he was still married to when we started dating 2 years earlier, though I did not know this at the time (should have known then that he would be a total fucker). The house is in Hirakata (aka The Middle of Fucking Nowhere Osaka). Went home to Chicago for most of July and August and had a lovely little fling with Des from Dublin, prompting me to realize what an arsehole Tadashi truly was. Came back to Japan and started working for a trading company in September, that neither imported nor exported a single item in the entire time I worked there. Went home for best friend's wedding and short visit with Des in beginning of November. Fed up with the long, incredibly painful commute to work and my asshole boyfriend I moved out of his house and back into the city at end of November. Once all of my stuff was out of the house, I tried to break up with him in December. Did not work out as planned.

2001 - Start dating a whole slew of boys, all with their own dramas. Finally manage to break up with Tadashi. He stalks me for awhile. Waits outside my apartment, threatens guys coming over, calls me drunk, threatens suicide, etc. Total nightmare. Have lost a ton of weight due to stress. Quit the non-trading trading company in March. Go home for 2 weeks as Gran is very sick. Come back and start teaching company English classes in April. Get hired as an interptreter at the East Asian games. Meet Kohda-san who takes a liking to me and introduces me to his friend the director of a chain of a chain of private high schools. Start dating small time DJ Kiyo in September. Gran passes away on September 9, on a plane to Chicago on September 10, next day Twin Towers are attacked. Very scary! Mom and dad come to visit for the 2nd time in November. Appear on a local Kansai late-night TV show on a panel of foreign women mostly talking about dating Japanese men and sex.

2002 - Start working at one of the high schools managed by Kohda-san's friend in April. Had no idea it was the worst high school in the city. Kiyo starts DJing at bigger clubs and events. Lots of drinking and merry-making. Kiyo and I break up in August. Lose lots of weight again. Go to Tokyo to watch the National High School Drama club finals as I'm co-supporter of school's drama club and stay on a few more days to visit with Shun, who I met at East Asian games and fall totally and utterly in love with him. Stay with him until the day before I leave for England to visit friends. Go to France next for friend's wedding. Meet and start casually dating Hiro in October. Go to Tokyo again for filming of national TV show about dating and sex, "Koi no Kara Sawagi". Stay with Shun for the weekend I'm there, and ready to choose him over Hiro, but Shun decides he's not into it, so I go back to Osaka and Hiro. On the same local TV show again about dating and sex, though worried about how many of my students and other teachers will be watching the program over winter vacation. Go snowboarding in Hokkaido, and break my leg on December 31st.

2003 - Ring in the New Year in the hospital with a broken leg. Lots of hoopla about my TV appearances at school. On crutches for the next 6 weeks or so. Grandpa dies in April, 7 months to the day of Grams death. Go home for the funeral. Hiro is so busy I almost never see him. Meet and start dating Satoshi in May, break up with Hiro in July, when I finally have a chance to do it in person. Break up with Satoshi in August or September, and get back together with Hiro a few days after. Take 1st belly dance class in October. Appear on "Koi-no-Kara Sawagi" again. Mom and dad visit again in November. First public performance in December. Celebrate New Year's eve with friends as Hiro is unavailable, walk into a club and find him completely drunk and passed out with some cheap hostesses. Blow out fight. Break up.

2004 - Have slowly been gaining weight over the last few years, but totally into belly dancing, although it unfortunately seemed to have no effect on my weight. One of my best friends breaks up with her sugar daddy boyfriend and decides to move to Ishigaki-jima, Okinawa. Go to visit her for 2 weeks in March/April and another friend in Miyako-jima for a few days. Have a great time, despite typhoons. Place my profile on Yahoo Personals Japan, but take it down 2 days later as was scared off by 160 e-mails I received over 2 days. However amongst those was a message or 2 from Akinori. Start dating Darren, a friend of my friend, Rob, who has just arrived from Oz a few months earlier. Go to Okinawa again in August. Have completely life changing experience in a cave on Miyako-jima and decide to quit my job as I hate it with a passion. First solo belly dance performance at end of August. Break up with Darren in September. Appear on "Koi-no-Kara-Sawagi" again in October. Move into swanky downtown Osaka apartment with Rob in November.

2005 - Start dating Brazillian stallion Carlos, living in Mie prefecture, in February. Tell principal I'm quitting job in February. Hear through the grapevine USJ is looking for a foreigner to fill a position in the entertainment department. Interview and get the job. Go back to America for 2 weeks at end of March/beginning of April before starting. Big birthday party in May to celebrate age 30. The end of fun for awhile as work gets so busy I end up not being able to go out or see friends for months. Relationship with Carlos fizzles out. Living arrangements with Rob not working out for various reasons (would love to rant about that one day). He moves out in July, I move to swanky, older, cheaper apartment in August. Working an average of 14 hour days, with 1-2 days off a month until November. November comes and find myself without friends or lovers so once again put my profile up on Yahoo Personals Japan. Akinori writes me the next day saying he never looks at the site, but for some reason decided to that day, and there I was and he sent me messages last time but I never responded, and then just disappeared, and that he hoped I responded this time, and that he had seen me on TV before. Decide to write him back this time. Sent mail back and forth for nearly 2 months and spoke on the phone for the 1st time on Christmas. Spent 4 hours on the phone.

2006 - Went to Australia for 2 weeks mid-January to visit friend. Kept in touch with Akinori everyday via e-mail. He decided to meet me at the airport when I came back. Spent the weekend in Osaka with me and told me he wanted to marry me someday. Went to Tokyo for a week on a business trip in February and Akinori came and stayed with me in my little business hotel room. Went to meet his sister in Saitama before going back to Osaka and Nagano. My parents come to Japan in April and meet Akinori. Akinori sent 100 white roses to my home and a Tiffany ring to my desk at work on my birthday in May. Knew for sure I was keeping this one! Went to Nagano to meet the parents and family in July. Am once again hating work and ask to switch positions at beginning of November. Engaged in November at a lovely French restaurant in Karuizawa.

2007 - My wish is granted to switch positions at work at end of January. Go to Nagano in February, Akinori's grandmother dies while I'm there. Start attending interpreting school in April. Married on paper at Suzaka city hall in Nagano on 7/7/7. Go home in September with Akinori to introduce him to the family. Start planning wedding in Hawaii for January 08. Appear on a local late-night Kansai TV program, no sex talk.

2008 - Find out best friend at work has been trying to get me fired. Totally stressed from wedding planning and devastated from news. Off to Hawaii in January anyway for fabulous wedding and honeymoon. Huge wedding party in Osaka in February, but living a nightmare at work everyday. Regular spot on monthly local TV program. Wedding party in Nagano in March, get pregnant a few weeks later. Am finally found innocent of whatever former best friend had accused me of, and she is fired. Phew! Still miserable at work though as can no longer discern between friend and foe and looking forward to the move to Nagano. Quit work at end of September, moved to Nagano mid-October and 8 months pregnant. Sara Sylvie born December 18th.

2009 - Mom and dad come for a 2 week visit early in January. Find house available for rent in much better location than where living, and for much cheaper. Move end of May. Start teaching belly dance in June. Go home for entire month of September. Akinori comes for a few days in the middle. Hospitalized at end of October with severe mastitis, stop breastfeeding. First belly dance workshops and show in December. Sara turns 1. We start trying for number 2.

In that first 8 years there was copious amounts of alcohol consumed and many minor men not worth mentioning (whose names I probably couldn't remember anyway). But I can't believe how clearly I remember these last 10 years. Especially since the 10 before are such a blur and I don't think I could sum them up even if I tried. Well, brownies are a mess, but done and I need to get myself and Sara ready to go off to the in-laws for the evening. Happy New Year everyone!