Lady (s) of the house.

So the painting work has started - and the cats spent the day in the bedroom closet, emerging after all the noise had stopped at 5 pm to gingerly sniff around the scaffolding and paint scrapings.


And Okaasan?


In her element as: Lady of the House.


We told her NOT to dole out cups of tea etc to the painters, because we planned to buy drinks etc for them and don't want her stressing about it all.
But.
That advice never lodged in her memory.


I came home at 3 pm with a bag of cold drinks for the painters and found them standing around drinking - WTF??? sake???? in little blue cups????


No. I soon realized it was the little blue tea cups from the kitchen and a bowl of....um...bean paste filled bread rolls!!!
Okaasan had come out and fed the workers, as a good Lady of the House should do.
In fact she'd gone OUT and bought a large bag of bread rolls, about 15 of them...
"I didn't know they were coming today! Did you know? I didn't know. I had nothing to give them!"


I think we'd told her, or discussed it when she was there...I can't remember actually...because we don't really include Okaasan in things about house management. She is just here amidst it all, like a child who doesn't know anything about gas deliveries, insurance or resident association fees.


But Okaasan saw all the coming and going of the painters outside the plastic-sealed up windows and decided she should take charge.


It all doesn't matter.
They are with us for 10 days, so the water I bought, and the tea Yujiro bought will all get used another day.


Okaasan was a bit over-excited by it all when I got home, and looked tired. I sent her out for a nice calm walk in the sunshine.


But it was sweet really: she leapt into Lady of the House role. A good housewife should dole out tea to the workers. She does so little in the house I hope this gives her something to do...some role to play.
Really this is our home: his and mine. We share the house/daily life management and always get foxed by the Head of Household question on Japanese government survey forms, because neither of us thinks of ourselves as "Head" or not.
But from our point of view Okaasan is living in our home and life. We decide and do 95% of life's thing for her...inevitably.
But this is her time to become Lady of the House :-)