Gone shopping.

Okaasan bought a BOX of groceries yesterday.
Not just the usual random bits and bobs: a whole box of groceries: raw squid, vegetables, canned food, Japanese style-cakes, vinegared seaweed...and one ice cream cone.

I found the box when I came home from work. It was sitting inside the (thankfully) cool entrance hallway. The ice cream was melting, but still in its packaging.
And Okaasan? Asleep in her room on the sofa, first upright and then sprawled on the carpet for several hours.

??????? HOW much money did Yujiro give her yesterday? Did she carry it all back herself or get it delivered. And why suddenly a bout of almost normal shopping?
I decided the entrance hall had maybe been cool enough for a few hours for the raw squid to be edible, so threw it all in the fridge and tiptoed out to the garden with the cats.

We had a Couch Surfing guest for dinner and Okaasan actually came out normally onto the front doorstep (rather than a living room window exit) at 6.30 pm, all washed and brushed and normal looking. She chatted to our guest and came home just about 8 pm in time to join us and the guest for a delivery sushi dinner. I think she enjoyed meeting Mei-san from Taiwan and there was lots of chat about the similarities of Chinese and Japanese kanji and how delicious Taiwanese bananas are.....a successful evening. Times like this you can see the lady Okaasan once was - which makes the anger and crazies so much stranger.

Okaasan didn't ask about all the shopping. We didn't mention it. I expect she has already forgotten it anyway. I haven't: I have to do battle with raw squid preparation tonight...oh the eyes! the eyes!! Nothing in my English upbringing prepared me for raw squid, although once in Hakodate doing guidebook research I managed to eat a squid eye - it was like a rubber dog chew and then POPPED in my mouth.....not an experience I will ever repeat unless forced to in some Reality Show multi-million yen face-off challenge.

England: My step-mother had a very bad 48 hours. Complications made the doctors think they'd have to open her up again for a second operation - which nobody thought she was strong enough for - Lots of phonecalls and worry. The latest is that she seems - again amazingly - to have pulled thru the  worst and actually sat up out of bed a bit yesterday.
Last summer my days were dominated with day-by-day hospital reports from England...I feel deja vu and hope that this time it all ends better. Mei says Taiwan in autumn is ok between the typhoons and has got me thinking about using my airmiles for a Taiwanese beach...