Rainy days and Mondays.

Would summer just ARRIVE and get on with it?
PLEASE!
I'm sitting here with the HEATER on! In June!


Summer Festival season has started in Sapporo - the mass, amateur dance festival that is Yosakoi Soran, and then the Hokkaido Shrine Festival.
Just wish summer would show up too.


We got free tickets for the cheap seats at the Yosakoi on Sunday night - me and him that is. We didn't take Okaasan cos we are selfish. And cos a couple has to do some stuff together sometime.
But Okaasan was heading out for her late afternoon walk at 5 pm just as I got home with the takeout sushi tray from the good sushi place nearbye...and she looked a little sad when I said we were out and this would be her dinner.
"Sushi again?"
Oh no...she does remember that. When we go out we leave her sushi.


So now we feel guilty that we should take her out this week to something and do some family thing as a threesome. Festival or food or onsen. Something.
Actually I don't think Okaasan actually has a clear memory of how much (or little!) we do together, as long as she jogs along through days and weeks of basic happy life...but WE feel guilty. So.


And Mondays. She doesn't really know when it is Monday and hula.
This week was raining and Yujiro was home. He didn't talk about her hula class, and she didn't either....so she didn't go. And thus, luckily, didn't hear that all her classmates went to an event and danced without her.


But rainy days are bad for her, staying inside. Last night at dinner she just and ate and smiled at us across the table....gave a bit of reaction if we prodded enough. It is so unnerving to sit with someone who never EVER starts a conversation or tells you something about their day....only responds. I hunt around for funny stories from my students, stuff from TV, stuff about the cats and the garden....and Yujiro can fill out decades with chat about Not A Lot. We are becoming like a Japanese manzai (comedy) pair....filling out the 30 mins of dinner time with SOMETHING for Okaasan.


* Cat News: Chichi came home with a cut paw and left trails of blood. The vet said it is ok, but has wrapped it up and told us to "keep him inside for 3 days". Yeah. Right. A cat that loves outdoors. In fact TWO cats that love outdoors. We managed it for a day because of the rain. But this morning I cut up a plastic bag and bandaged it all round his foot...and he rustled his way out across the carpark.


* Scones. COSTCO have them don't they! I saw them yesterday. Look good. But I also bought butter and found my kitchen scales. I will try again. Maybe twice more. And then give up and just buy them and lie like that scene in Calender Girls when the W.I. woman enters a supermarket cake for the Cake Contest...and it wins.