Thursday I didn't even see Okaasan. I was out at 10 am and back home at 8 pm to eat heated up pizza. All I did was bring in the supermarket bag of food for him to cook. Our roles are SO reversed these days!
Friday too I had a busy day out. He was home cooking and trying to persuade the cat that a kidney-flushing fluid shot was a good idea.
I came home at 5.30 pm to find Yujiro a bit fraught. Okaasan had cried in frustration at lunchtime over her short term memory loss. Poor lady. She's bad, but not so bad that she doesn't know she has a problem. Sometimes.
Apparently it all blew up over the topic of makeup. She wanted money to buy some foundation. He gave it to her, but gently (he says!) reminded her that this was the third time since October she'd bought something that usually lasts a year. No. 1 she'd broken, No.2 she'd lost...and now she was buying it again.
Okaasan was upset and cried a bit, saying how disappointed she was in herself to be like this etc. Then she disappeared shopping and he stayed home fretting about whether she would try to go back to Saitama.
I breezed in at the end of a busy, but good, working day. I can identify now with men who come home to domestic crisis as wives want to dump all the day's woes. I calmed HIM down, and then scooped up the cat to take HIM off to the vets for the much needed shots.
Okaasan didn't come home until 7.30 pm again. We sat waiting for her and looking at real estate agents info about apartments. I don't know: there are some great, spacious apartments. But I really love having a bit of garden to escape into. As we look for a new home we start to appreciate what we already have.
Finally at nearly 8 pm we sat down to dinner. Okaasan seemed perky. The makeup topic returned, he gently told her that many people have short term memory problems and that these days doctors can ease it with medicine etc...but as expected she was adamant: "I'm not THAT bad, I don't need medicine, I'm healthy etc etc".
Meanwhile....abroad. In England.
MY parents are having their own little crisis. They went on holiday to Madeira last week. But my step-mum fell on an escalator and badly cut her arms and legs. Ambulance to hospital. Early flight home and now recuperating at her sister's home because she needs helping getting up out of chairs and bed.
There is nothing I can do. Just phone calls. But...but...I wonder how long my dad and step-mum can continue living independently as they do out in the middle of the countryside. Her sister is really a 2 hour drive away and is already juggling many family commitments of children and grandchildren and dogs.
Haa. Today I have some classes. But he and I are going to have some couple time this afternoon, maybe lunch out and a bit of home hunting. While I come and go into this drama - he stays home day in, day out. I'm amazed how patient he is about it. Stuck home with the leg, cooking for his mother.
Anyway. I got to go off to work now. Ironically - my working life is rosy at the moment. I have a small English school business and I am picking up extra students left and right. Strange how life throws positive and negative all at the same time.
The other night we watched a Nicolas Cage movie called Family Man, about a Wall Street trader who wakes up on Xmas morning to find he's married with kids and living in New Jersey. Oh yes! I SO identified with that! I was an ex-pat English teacher in Japan with a cool Japanese boyfriend....I woke up as an Oyomesan!
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