A day of good things.

Well, maybe a 4.30 am start is NOT a "good thing" as such - but I signed on for those kind of mornings when I fell for a ski instructor.

Anyway National Holiday in Japan so a day of pleasure:
First digging out the snow from the carpark where the not-so-helpful local snow plow had scraped up big blocks of ice from the road and tastefully rearranged it around our entrance area in a kind of Escape from Ice art form.

Then took myself off downtown to the cinema for the 10 am showing of Gone with the Wind! All 4 hours of it - thankfully with a 6 minute toilet break. (Thankgoodness a student saw the movie earlier in the week and had warned me about the 6-minute break - so I was vaulting over startled moviegoers and made it to the head of the toilet queue).

Wonderful. Just wonderful.
The movie. Not the toilet.
Vivien Leigh so, so beautiful. Clark Gable all smarmy...wimpy Ashley, saintly Melanie....Mammy, Prissy....oh the whole lot of them!
Ahh.......
Unfortunately didn't get there quite early enough to get a back area seat, so I sat 4 rows from the screen and craned my neck upwards for 4 hours while Atlanta appeared to burn in my lap.
But I'm prepared for the next one: already got my reserved seat for Sunday morning when Doctor Zhivago is showing.
As if I don't have enough snow, I have to go and see a film with more snow. :-)

Mid-afternoon home via a coffee shop for a browse thru the newspapers.
Okaasan hadn't burned the kitchen down with the lunch I'd left her.
She was just heading out.
I watched her turn the far corner two streets away, then locked the front door and set to cleaning her room: took out piles of old newspapers and supermarket flyers. Took out about 30 pairs of pants. Took out the rotting New Year flowers. Vacumned the whole place.

It's been hard to get into her room recently. She didn't go out so much, and if she did she came home quickly. So it was good to get in there and make a difference.
She has 2 years-worth of magazines there too - I think I'll give her a bookcase and see if she'll agree to use it.

I even cooked a nice dinner - lotus roots with crab paste and ginger filling, wrapped in seaweed. Stewed daikon radish. Roast potatoes in the oven I got from Heather.

Okaasan came home just on 7 pm: "Oh I'm sorry! I ate something in the Snow Festival! I don't need dinner!"

No problem at all. I could escape the boring dinner conversation...so happy to have dinner on my own.

Until...Okaasan came into the kitchen to make herself some tea and SAT DOWN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE TO CHAT WITH OYOMESAN!!!!!!!

WOW!

It's almost like a cozy little Tv drama! Two women sitting and chatting at the table!

Amazing that she chose to sit down and tell me all about the performers she'd seen on stage at the Snow Festival.
Amazing that she'd remembered where she'd been and what she'd seen (but not what she'd eaten...).

Well, fiddlydee!!