He died?!!!!

Sorry for a silence. Been too busy living the life to blog about it.

**I worked. And shopped. And took out the trash. And checked Okaasan's hot carpets.

**He stayed home and made shopping lists. Cooked. Injected the cat. Home searched online.

**Okaasan threaded elastic bands into the waist of her hula skirt. Walked. Shopped. Ate.

Yesterday morning Okaasan suddenly came rushing into our hall waving her cell phone. She was confused because someone had called her on it and she doesn't know how to answer the phone. In fact nobody knows the phone number apart from us, we only gave it to her for the GPS function.
The house phone is her actual telephone.

"Ahh, I thought it was Toru-san calling about Satoshi. Maybe he's died"...
"Okaasan, Satoshi HAS died! We told you 3 days ago"
"Satoshi's died? Really? When?"
"3 days ago. We told you"
"Really???!!!"

Isn't that strange? She remembers that her brother was sick in hospital, but not the greater news: he'd then died. This short term memory loss is so strange. Anyway, she wasn't so shocked (yet again), they were a big family and she was older sister...younger brothers were troubles to take care of, not people you cared about...maybe!

I am learning more and more about Okaasan's life from her many stories.
Her mother was born in Sapporo, somewhere near a bridge on a road between Sapporo and Otaru. When she married she moved to Kawagoe in Saitama.
Okaasan's father may have been born in Fukui and moved to Tokyo. But after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 he was evacuated to Kawagoe.

When I first met Yujiro and he came to live in Sapporo with me he was amazed to hear local people saying "azumashkunai!" for "messy/untidy" because it was a word his Mum had used to him and his brother when they were kids. He suddenly realised it was a Hokkaido phrase.

Maybe these Hokkaido roots are why Okaasan is pretty good at walking on snow and ice.

Anyway: other things.
We did say "no" to the house in Minami Hiragishi. And the owners said "no" to reducing the price. We'll wait and see. We still talk about it as "our house". It's the best we've seen so far. But we've looked online at others. Every day there are new properties to see with Street View.

and today?
Okaasan will debut in her hula skirt.
He will watch TV.
I will go skiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally - we think/hope Okaasan willbe able to find her own way to the sports center and the hula dance class. I will get a day off.