Bells, bells..

The Phantom Doorbell Ringer is getting braver.
According to Okaasan.
He came and rang the doorbell in broad day-light yesterday!


She says.
No - NOT the lunch delivery company, it was after that.
And before I came home at 3.30 pm.


Hmmm.....
I went and rang the neighbor's doorbell. Partially to see if that sound would get Okaasan scurrying to our front door, and also just to see if they'd had any similar problems.
She didn't. They hadn't. Nice couple. He walks his dog and coughs up his guts a few times a day, she delivers food plates to someone locally. She even came by later and gave me their phone number and said Okaasan should ring them anytime she is nervous and we aren't home. Nice neighbors.


But still. Okaasan believes someone rang the doorbell and then ran away by the time she got there. At this rate we'll have to disable the doorbell or reroute it only to the second floor.


I prepped her dinner late afternoon and went in at 5 pm to say I was "out to work this evening, but not home too late. Your dinner is all in the kitchen for you"....had to narrowly avoid Okaasan's kind offer to wait for me so we could have dinner together - Noooooooooooooo!!! I wanna escape! I wanna have dinner alone without you and boring conversations! Pleaseeeeee!!!


Actually an airy lie:"It's ok, sometimes my students at late, so I am late. I'll eat something later, don't worry!"


Unluckily, one of the cats escaped outside and hadn't returned by the time I left, so I had to leave the door a little open for him (and all the bad men of the area), after the class I got my curry as a take-out and came home to make sure the cat had returned (and that Okaasan  hadn't lost all her pants to an intruder)....but it was STILL nice to eat alone with the TV and a beer.


Talking of which: one of you kind readers asked me if it is possible to eat dinner and watch TV at the same time with Okaasan. To ease the conversation.
Well, not really - the TV is away in her room, and not actually in the kitchen. We have watched and ate together at important times (when that judo star had a tacky public wedding on TV or when there is all-important Japanese ice dancing), but generally the TV is turned off during dinner.
Also - although it's a big hassle for me to do these dinners, it IS Okaasan's only conversation of the day. So it is valuable for her. She talks to nobody else. So....hassle is ongoing.