BBQ Day plan

Another year - another massive BBQ party in our garden and the ...err...appropriated open space over the fence...

Okaasan's major stress day.

This year plan: on BBQ day - make an appointment for her at the hair salon for a cut and perm. Then hope she goes from the salon door, across the road and onto the subway and downtown for a walk and coffee - before coming home late afternoon. Leaving only an hour or two of her being in the house while drunken merriment happens within earshot.

A bit of a hassle for me to give her lunch and take her to the salon just as the party is getting underway. But worth it to get Okaasan away from the house for her own relaxing time.

In the past she has got very stressed and angry at us and our guests. Escaping thru the window, going out and staying out until late - watching the house from afar and complaining about it all.

So. This year.

She can't have failed to notice the growing mountain of BBQ stuff in the hall and kitchen.
On Sunday morning I gave her a schedule paper:

11.30   Lunch
12.45   Go by car to the hair salon
1 pm    Hair appointment.

I gave it to her about 10 am.....and reminded her (although this was actually the first time she knew about it), that she had a hair appointment at 1 pm. This is the plan..

She kept putting the note in her handbag though.
So over the next hour she was endlessly confused. Came and asked me about it. I'd go into her room and find the note again - show her.
BIG discussion about "where is the salon?"...with her mixing up station names and locations.
Hopeless. She has never gone on her own to this salon. I always take her by car.

Served lunch at 11.30, while I cut up a mango plantation for fruit salad.
Guests started arriving and DS was firing up the BBQ outside. Beer and laughter.

Inside Okaasan was dressed. And picking up and putting down many of the clothes she has all over her room.
Came and said to me endlessly:"I can go by myself by subway...where is the salon?"

I tried to deflect that plan. But she was getting tense...and trying to leave at 12 o'clock.....tried telling her to wait...failed....she could hear the party and wanted to leave.

So I went with her. While she was fussing with shoes I put the car across the entrance area...and as she came out of the house bowing nervously to people I steered her into the car...as we drove to the salon she kept saying " I can get out here..." but I drove on...to the salon doors for 12.30 pm. 

Half an hour early. I work for myself and if students come early they may find me stuffing a sandwich in my face, or vacuming. Probably the former. I wondered if we'd cut into the hair stylist's lunchtime.
But he was friendly about it and let Okaasan in....so I could escape to the party and join the fun.

Massive BBQ......................

Those are the polite pictures. Lawyers will be in contact if I post any others...

Late afternoon I checked the GPS. YAY!! Okaasan was downtown.

About 5 pm I saw she was back at our local station..I walked down and met her...carrying a cup of coffee from the 7-11 and clutching her bag. Great new hair do. Looked much better.

I walked home with her chatting, and carrying the coffee.

Guided her thru the pile of drunks outside the front door (nothing sobers you up more than having the care of an elderly in mind) and installed her back in her room with the TV set loud.

Fed her at 7 pm with a simple food box. One guest managed to ignore the "Don't enter the kitchen" sign and get in and chat to her for few minutes...but basically she could escape it all.

And interesting. This year she didn't get angry. Didn't whinge at us. 
Instead, she sat on her sofa with the Tv blaring...looking a bit tense. Glancing at the window a bit. But not the pacing of past. Happily ate dinner at 7 pm and retired to the Tv again while we sat out in mosquito heaven with the last of the guests.

BBQ success.
For us
And Okaasan.
We are learning.....?

BBQ Police

Okaasan was on patrol to stop any bad behaviour yesterday.
Our bad behaviour!!!

At 7 pm she was telling off her 53 year old son for bring the house into disrepute and causing hatred among the neighbors.
He stood before her - wearing a black lingerie joke apron and a grin - rolling his eyes heavenwards and saying "Haiiiiiiii (Yeeeeeeessss)" helplessly.

Oh yes. BBQ day at our house. Whole bundle of fun.

At 11 am Okaasan left abruptly. Luckily this time we hadn't got a lunch delivery coming, but I was cooking up a delicious salmon and potato soup (a BBQ guest had sent us a whole salmon in advance).
Lunch? Salmon soup? No, don't want that. I'm going out, Amanda hasn't invited me, she doesn't want me here. I am going out. 

You get the picture. Dear Son tried to coax her back into the house. They stood in the street talking. I hid in the garden.

But no. Okaasan had decided to leave.

So, we enjoyed our BBQ with luckily a much smaller group of friends this time. Only 10 people. More relaxing for us, I actually had time to chat to people instead of running around with plates and drink requests.

.....

At 4.15 pm we saw Okaasan coming home.
Being BROUGHT home hand in hand by a middle aged woman!

It was the woman who owns the Korean restaurant by the subway station. Bringing Okaasan home. And checking on the bad family who had forced this poor old lady out into the streets on a hot day to eat alone, while they ate and drank with their friends at a BBQ party that didn't include the aforementioned poor old lady.....

Pretty sure THAT was the impression the woman had, from what Okaasan had been telling her!

Apparently Okaasan had gone there for lunch - at 11.30? and stayed and stayed and stayed...chatting and chatting...I can't go home yet, there are people there, can I stay longer, chatting and chatting....over 4 hours!!!
Finally the woman (who maybe wanted to close up the restaurant and have a rest before the evening work ), offered to bring Okaasan home. Only 10 mins walk. But still. Even in amazingly over-kind Japan, this is service beyond service to a customer.

Dear Son (wearing the black lingerie sexy apron) apologised a lot.
I took Okaasan inside and get her settled down with the TV and a drink and some chat.
We shook our heads in disbelief.

............................

At 6.30 pm I was making my rounds in the garden saying "bye, I have to go cook dinner now" to friends.
Okaasan appears on the doorstep and starts telling Mother of Cutest Baby in the World and another guest: I have to be strong and tell Yujiro that this is too late for guests (YOU!) to be here, it is getting dark and this noise is disturbing the neighbors, and my husband always had people to the house and I had to be patient, but eventually I had to tell him - I have to tell Dear Son too. It is TOO LATE! You should all go HOME!


Aghhhh!!!
6.30 pm. Saturday. Summer holidays. BBQ-crazed Hokkaido.
8 people!
Agggggggggghhh.

I aplogised to the guests, got Okaasan inside with lots of reassurances that now it was her dinner time, and everyone was leaving soon, etc etc The neighbors are ok. It isn't that late. Nobody is worried about 6.30 pm on a saturday evening in summer.
This isn't the Fuji Rock Festival. It's 8 people standing at the side of the house in the garden.
etc etc etc

Okaasan went on and on about it. Get stroppy with me in the kitchen.
I got stroppy too. Broke all of those dementia care rules.....
"You've said this 20 times now in 30 minutes, enough already, it IS ok. In Hokkaido this is ok. Maybe 50 years ago in Saitama this was rude to the neighbors. Here in 2013 in Hokkaido, it is only 6.45 pm in school summer holidays on a Saturday. It IS OK! The guests are going soon, don't worry".

Okaasan very stony face at me.
Yujiro came into the kitchen with dirty plates - wearing the apron with lingerie design - and got a dressing down by his mother...

I heated up the soup, made other food, rice and salad and sat her down. Sat down with her to pretend eat stuff opposite her. Chatted on and on sweetly about all sorts of positive stuff - the salmon present - the cute design on a candy box - the flowers - the salmon - the weather - on and on...finally Okaasan was less tense and actually talked normally.

Finally.
I sat with her a bit and then left her with the TV and a cup of tea. Pulled her curtains closed so she couldn't see the furtive BBQ guests huddled in the twilight round the BBQ coals...

agggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And that was our day.

* We have to go today and take a thankyou gift to the Korean restaurant woman. Apologise and convince her we aren't bad people to this old lady. That it is HER choice to out and stay out, etc.

And I feel sad that my name is being used by Okaasan as the bad person who isn't inviting her to the BBQ. She is putting the bad feeling on me, not Dear Son.

And really - telling our guests that it is time they went home - that was a bit of a shock. Telling us is one thing, but going out and telling guests off, even in a nice way, for still being at a party at 6.30 pm. I'm amazed she did that. Of course our friends know what's up here, and don't mind...but imagine if it was someone we didn't know so well.

I guess the whole focus is on self and self feeling. Appropriate behaviour goes out the window.

;-) Tomorrow is Okaasan's birthday. We are taking her out for sushi tonight, and I have made an appointment for her to have 40 mins of foot care/massage at a place nearby. We'll tell her it is a birthday gift, but I've asked the staff to check Okaasan's feet and see if there are any problems.

aghh.....work starts tomorrow. That will be nice a restful.

BBQ Day dawneth...

...and Okaasan is ready to leave the house.
At 7 am.

Every year we have a big BBQ with 30-40 people and 3 days of prepping/having/cleaning up.

Okaasan gets stressed about it. Strangers coming to the house - and she prefers to go out walking downtown. The worst times were when she didn't want to come home and hovered down the street in the evening, peering at the house and garden and waiting for it all to be finished.
Even yesterday she knew something was up.
"Is there some schedule today? Can I go out?" she asked.

This morning at 7 am she was already half dressed and sorting thru her handbag. Usually at 7 am she is in her pajamas, stretched out on the carpet and watching TV. And will stay like that until lunchtime.

But today she tuned into us in the kitchen prepping stuff and obviously noticed the mountain of BBQ stuff in the hallway....

 

We talked to her several times AND gave her a large note for her table: there IS a BBQ today, but you don't have to change your routine. Lunch is ordered for you, dinner will be made for you. The guests won't come into the kitchen or your room. Relaaaaaaxxx!!!

 

Hmm... she is still sitting there with her handbag, ready to take flight.

JOY to my world :-)

Hula dance class III - success!
Yippeeee!
Something for Okaasan to do, physical and mental activity, interaction with other people.
Yippppeeee!!


Got her all primed by about 9.20 am and took her one subway station away to the area where my classroom is located.
On the way she showed me (she remembers!) where she fell recently. In fact, not the station entrance area - but a sloped, rough ground pathway under the subway line...now she uses the handrails eachside. I wonder how long she lay there before someone helped her?


At the station it is agony to watch her fumble ever so carefully - somehow those contradictory ideas ARE possible - through her handbag as she searched for money to buy gum, and then put the gum in the bag, and then look again for the subway card, and then look for the gum, and then the card...and...and..
Like a small child who has to fasten her little purse just so, and then look up and focus on the next thing..Okaasan and her bag is a whole performace. There are three pockets in the bag and she hunts thru all of them eachtime.


At Hiragishi subway station I steered her to the closest exit to the community center, and then pointed out to Okaasan loudly and clearly the landmarks - BEHIND the supermarket, PAST my classroom, IN FRONT of the hospital. I hope some of this information will sink in and help her in future.


Because YES - there WILL be a future to this class. :-)
It was perfect.
Only 7 students, mostly middle aged, one friendly teacher. A nice clean, new community center room with toilets handy and a service kitchen area for drinks. I'd forgotten to check that she'd brought a bottle of water, and an umbrella...but I stayed for the first few minutes of the class and came back when they'd finished.
Okaasan became lively and happy. I saw her standing with a classmate at the sink area chatting, standing right next to the woman, elbow to elbow, all animated about weather and stuff. She sometimes stands behind Yujiro at the sink like this, standing closer than is natural, almost joined at the hip to him. She was doing it with the classmate. Good sign.
All excellent.


It fits my schedule too - just before I have a class downtown, so I can take her for the next few weeks, and in winter I could even take her by car.


Of course, the great unknown is how many stressy performance days they have. I recognised one of the classmates from somewhere - so I think there will be some as Japanese groups love to display talent at events. But we'll climb that problem when it comes.


Okaasan seemed to enjoy it and was all enthusiastic.


From my classroom window I saw her heading home later. I followed her as far as the corner, to check if she would locate the subway entrance alone and saw her heading into the supermarket. She ate something there, and bought more food at a convenience store and got home mid-afternoon. Quite a long day for her. But she was happy and wants to go again.


VICTORY!!!




...and...yesterday the local newspaper featured me, yet again, this time as a local Brit who has tickets for the Olympics etc. My double-chin is in glorious techni-color for all of Hokkaido to see. 

and then I got home after evening class to find...MY OLYMPIC TICKETS HAD ARRIVED!!!!

I am really going. Really. Going. Soon.  JOYYYYYYYYY!

Tea and sympathy

THIS is a Victoria Sponge cake with Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee awesome decorations!
Look! Liz and Phil and the corgis, standing amid the icing sugar, backed by guardsmen and Buck House and even a carriage and some bunting.
Excellent. Many, many thanks to the UK friend who found this piece of royalist frippery. Here is the website that makes them.


It was the centerpiece in my English school Garden Party yesterday - students and friends came to sit in the garden and enjoy a riot of roses, tea, cake, chat and a lot of loud laughter. It was a lot of hard work to prepare, but so worth it to see the smiles and hear the boisterous happiness.
Essential questions included: Why is Shortbread called that? and Prince Philip, who is he? and What is it with the Queen, and corgis?


Okaasanin all this jollity? Exited sharply. As soon as she heard there were guests coming she was out the door. She remembered the time (3 pm) for party start, and 10 minutes later...she was out of her pajamas and into clothes and OUT the door. Gone. No - the idea of chat in Japanese to friendly, mainly middle aged people, with darling son and me, and cake and tea? No. Gone.
Actually easier without her really. But...


Sympathy. For me. The husband of one of my students is a psychiatrist.. and he is offering to help get Okaasan assessed for day care etc - if ONLY I can get Yujiro onto this topic. They came to the tea party with lots of useful leaflets about city services and assessment. Being Japan, there are lots of cute cartoons of confused old people wondering whether they've eaten a meal or why everyone is celebrating on their birthday..

Ahhhh. Sympathy for my plight. People are kind. I know. But the nitty-gritty is that YES, there are all sorts of wonderful, helpful things out there in the community which would make Okaasan and our lives much better...but first, first...I have to get him to want any of that...and take steps to shake up Okaasan's life by getting her accepting of help.

I am going to leave this topic till after I go to London for the Olympics later THIS MONTH = YIPPPPEEE ! - and then, when I come back I will try to choose the best moment and talk to him about this: this winter, Okaasan MUST go to daycare at least once a week. You MUST get the application process for this started, even if we have to get some nice social worker type to come and help us persuade Okaasan on the subject.

It. Will. Happen.

Cheer me on please!

* and in other news...being a sucker for stress I have found a hula dance class near my English classroom. The new community center has a class on Wednesdays at 2 pm for elderly ladies. I even know the teacher, because when I went to find out she recognised me as the kind foreigner who'd helped her a few years ago trying to decipher the lyrics of a hula dance song a friend in Hawaii had given her on CD.

So. Am I brave enough to try yet again to get Okaasan into another dance class?

It's right behind my classroom. 2 pm is a good time for her in the day, after a light lunch. It's near the subway station....the teacher is a friendly woman.

All sounds good. Do I have the energy to try?

Finally...roses. So beautiful this year.

* I may disappear for a while off-blog...my log in details seem to have been bamboozled...is it in connection with the Japanese government websites that are being attacked by anonymous hacker-types protesting about new downloading laws? Not sure why..but I'm worried I won't be able to log in again after this...so there may be a pause in ramblings..

Reality check

Had dinner with Okaasan last night.
Just the two of us, cos he was working late.
Ahhh....it made me realize: Okaasan really DOES have dementia.
The conversation circles within circles within circles...on and on and on and on...


It's pure dementia in action. A story from the distant, personal past, told with the same words and phrases in 1-2 minute loops.
Dinner was potato and cabbage, one of Okaasan's favorites, and I got her onto the topic: "you like potatoes because your mother came from Hokkaido, didn't she?".
So her chat was: wartime we didn't have food in the Tokyo area, if you had relatives in the country they could send you food maybe, but the local police opened up the packages and stole the food...and I didn't go to school, I worked in a factory making military underwear, I didn't have lessons, classmates who hated English were happy to miss school, the underwear sewing machines were noisy....
Repeat till dinner is finished. 8 times? No, more....my own mind kind of blanked out.


In summer it is kind of easy to forget quite how bad Okaasan's dementia is, because she slips from day to day ok. watches TV, eats the lunch we put out for her, takes a bath when we tell her to, washes a few of her own clothes, goes for an afternoon walk and shop, comes home and sort of joins in dinner time conversation with family....washes dinner plates occasionally, takes in laundry, goes to the toilet herself etc All positive things that she CAN still do.
Yes, the dirty underwear is in layers of twos/threes in the laundry basket; yes, there are rotting Taiwan banana skins by the sofa; yes, there are confusions about folk dance vs. hula dance classes - but generally she is ok.


However, that hamster wheel conversation. Oh :-(
Yujiro says it is good for her: it shows she is relaxed and lets her chat on and on about her memories. I guess so. My Japanese language skills isn't good enough to fill out a whole dinner time with conversation (like him!!), so Okaasan fills it out. And how!


Sigh. Exhausting to give the same, interested responses.
Really? no food? How hard! Really? no school? You worked? Underwear for soldiers? Really?


Sigh.


Finish with a food picture. I have the tea party for my students coming this weekend. So I am practicing my cake making skills. I made sponge cake and carrot cake at the weekend. The carrot cakes were a success - yum!

For some reason, I chose Saturday as the party day this year. So, Yujiro will be home..and Okaasan? She panics if we say someone is coming to the house. I won't tell her this time. And then, about an hour before the party I will casually mention that there is tea and cake in the garden at 3 pm if she would like to join us - so she at least gets out of her pajamas and into clothes. All my students are, of course, wonderful friendly, Japanese people. Most of them middle aged and older. Okaasan would enjoy meeting them I think. But the whole meeting-strangers thing usually spins her world off its orbit a little.

Excuse hunting........

Nope.
Didn't go!
Okaasan 1/The Rest of the Confusing World 0.


I came back with shopping early afternoon to find Okaasan reluctantly getting ready to go.
Yujiro had just called her to make sure she was coming to meet him.
I unpacked shopping in the kitchen and made supportive noises.
But she was pretty negative: I don't want to go, Yujiro says I should go, I don't like Folk dance, it's boring, I want to do a different class, why do you think I want to do this, I found another class I want to do, I don't like folk dance, Yujiro says I should go...on and on and on.
It was also starting to rain lightly, so I drove her to the subway station and cheerfully waved her off with her dancing shoes and a hula dance skirt in a bag.
I returned to work.


Came home at 4.30 pm to prep her dinner (we are going out tonight...couple date nite :-))
Okaasan came home at 5 pm.
The folk dance had been from 3.30 to 5.15 pm.
Obviously...something fishy.


She looked tired and old and confused. So different from the lady who came home from the hair salon on Tuesday with her nice new perm.
No, I didn't go. Downtown? Um...maybe, I went. Met Yujiro at the coffee shop? Um.....not sure. It was raining, nobody came. I didn't go to folk dance......um.................don't know...can't remember.....


She's flopped by the Tv now.
He says she came to meet him, obviously didn't want to go to the class. So he didn't force it. Instead he went back to work and  left her go off to a coffee shop for coffee and cake......but she didn't have enough money for the coffee shop...they called him...he went back and paid for her...and went back to work...and ...and...and...


Exhausting. All of it. We've all been thinking about this folk dance class all day...with various degrees of stress....


But no, she DIDN'T really want to go. And so, she didn't.
Guess we'll learn from that experience then. Not sure what yet. To let Dreaming Okaasans Dream On? Let her study leaflets about dance classes, but just let it stay at that stage and not set it up for her to go?
Probably.


I need a drink. 
Friday night. Loong week. Loong day.
I am heading out to meet my man and his Groupon vouchers.
I need alcohol.

Let the panic begin...

Folk dance class try-out day has dawned.


And Okaasan is getting nervous.


Doesn't want to go.


Large clouds of deja-vu are fighting for air space above us. ;-(


SHE came home weeks ago with the Folk Dance class leaflet.
She had asked someone at the culture school what time the try out class started.
She had looked all enthusiastic about going along to it.
She had said how friendly the people in the picture looked.
She has sat for weeks, looking at the class leaflet and the culture school booklet for that group.


But, when we have mentioned it this week she has appeared surprised...


Then this morning Yujiro typed up a sheet of paper to tell her: a) the class is today, b) you should leave the house by 2.30 pm and c) you should meet me at your usual coffee bar downtown and we'll go together.
He gave it to her.
She spent 5 minutes reading it, and reading the leaflet and booklet again...and again.


And then she called him downstairs....


Why did you book this class for me? I don't want to go, folk dance is boring, I prefer Latin dance...this isn't any good, I never said I wanted to go to this, why do you think so....on and on and on.


He's now had about 4 conversations about this in the space of an hour, and he's gone to work. I am leaving soon. We HOPE she'll go downtown this afternoon and at least try the class...and then decide whether to go or not. Cos it's a TRY-OUT class!!!!


But, what is happening here? Why is she doing this?
Joining a class was a nice idea, but only that? The reality is scary for her? Meeting new people, doing something new....all very scary?
Recently she has got out all her hula dance skirts and accessories, and hung them up in her room - so it seemed she was getting interested in the idea of dance again.
But maybe it was only that - the idea of something. Not the reality.
He says he begin to have doubts this week when she appeared surprised to hear the class date was approaching, because he thinks she would remember something that she really wanted to go to - like the Mambo Concert recently.
And so ....we'll see.


Seems Okaasan going to an activity class gives us all stress...

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 :-)

Memories. September 11th.

The world remembers 9/11 today.


My 9/11 memory is waking up in Japan and hearing Yujiro say from the living room: "Come and look at the Tv, maybe you can't go to Hawaii next week, there are plane crashes in New York...look!".
And we watched, and watched and watched.
And 5 days later I climbed on a nearly empty plane from Nagoya to Hawaii. Dad and Jane's plane was one of the first Europe-U.S. planes to fly, and they managed to fly London to L.A. to Hawaii.
The three of us had a very surreal family holiday in Hawaii - deserted holiday resorts, while the aftermath of the horror of it all unfolded on the hotel TV.


9/11.2010.
This is also the day I heard a year ago that Jane, my step-mum had died peacefully at her home in the UK, after 2 years of dramas and sadness.

Jane, my step-mum.

I was sitting outside on the doorstep pulling weeds from the flowerbed - nursing my huge stomach with the multiplying ovaries and 2 days away from entering hospital - when Yujiro called me into the house to read the just arrived e mail from my step-aunt.....


Memories.


So. Today is a day to do something nice. I should do weeding - which Jane would probably feel an appropriate activity in fact! - but maybe I'll go off and do something better...


Last night we had a successful Guests Coming to Dinner evening with Okaasan. She didn't climb out the living room window and head for the hills in terror at all.
This week's Couch Surfer is Tom, a 23 year old British university student who is about to do a year of study at a university in Sapporo. He's waiting for his university room to be available and staying in my English classroom for a week.
So he came to dinner with his Japanese uni friend Ayaka - so two nice, young, Japanese speaking people....I decided to risk it with Okaasan and invited them to come for Family Dinner.
Actually a success: Ayaka was a very polite young woman and OMG!!! - she came from Saitama!!! = so she and Okaasan had something in common :-)) Saitama! Train stations! Shop names! Oh joy.


Okaasan slipped into hostess-mode - chatting brightly ( a little repetition), fighting Ayaka away from the dish washing and making Japanese tea for everyone, and doing the dishes while the young people talked...she spent years hosting people like this and you can see what she once was - Yujiro's Dad was an accountant and then senior manager in some kind of company....and they hosted the staff to parties at their home (in the days when Japanese bosses paternally invited staff to abandon their own families and come watch his wife work hard).


So. That was a success. Okaasan enjoyed that visitors coming experience.


Other stuff?
Well, tired really.
I haven't had a full night's sleep all week.
Popo has made a big recovery with the infected wound. He is fighting to get the bandage off and I am seeing a lot of the young vet as we try to fashion enough bandages to cover the operation wound. Mid-week Popo switched from looking like a Sumo Cat to Egyptian Mummy mode.
The main problem? Night time. Of course we don't want the cats to be out at night and meet the stray-with-fangs again. So we are locking them inside.
Oh......the miowing! scratching...catterwauling.............feline whinging....YOWL!!! YOWL! 


TWO cats get up about 2 am or 3 am and try to open all the windows, fight with the gate at the bottom of the stairs, yowl mournfully, pace up and down the bedroom....yowl some more.
Yujiro sleeps through it all.
I don't. I hurl cushions, bottles of moisturiser from the bedside table, socks....
And finally at 5 am I get up.


I love the two cats. But. Once Tom has gone off to his university room next week I will probably go to my classroom and try and get a good night's sleep....I'm just about functioning every day...


At this rate I will get to Australia IN TWO WEEKS TIME!!!!! and sleep. Great Barrier Reef tour ??? Nah...just sleep.


And talking of which.....Australia that is.
My friend in Melbourne has just realized that my last day is Australian Football Finals day! She and husband are planning a barbie at home with a big screen TV and friends, MeatLoaf is the pre-game entertainment, and two teams I've never heard of, in a sport I have no idea about will be battling it out with a whole country going crazy...


I can't wait. Sounds like a wonderful last-day-in-Australia. A real cultural eye-opener :-)


Oh - but sorry, yes, nobody will be in any shape to take me to the airport early on the Sunday morning!!!!! Well, of course. No problem. I've booked myself an airport hotel, where drink footy fans will probably be rampaging up and down the corridors.


So the cats are only getting me in training for all of that....

There are PEOPLE in my home :-(

FORTY people (more?) came to lunch yesterday in our garden....in the grassy space under the subway line...in the street outside the house....

My god....it was a large BBQ. First guest arrived at 11 am and I think everyone left by 8 pm.

Yujiro seemed to have invited anyone he has ever met, while I limited myself to English teacher friends (including Vicky and her family and friends of Hyotenka), and students-I-don't-mind-getting-drunk-in-front-of, Couch Surfing friends and actual...well FRIENDS.

Lots of meat and fish, and great salads brought by guests, and CARROT CAKE, and snacks and cheese and fruit...and..and...

Okaasan - who is after all, supposedly, meant to be half this blog?

She went out about 12.30 - with Yujiro's encouragement. Enough money to lunch and shop...and off she trotted. She made sure several times that nobody was going to use her room or its TV...and then threw a blanket all over her sofa to cover the jumble of underwear all over it - because from the kitchen you can see all of this.

I find this reaction interesting - she KNOWS its messy and shouldn't be seen by guests...but doesn't do anything, ever, to clean it up.

Anyway.

Great BBQ...(thanks to Akira-san for these pix...no guest pix cos I guess should preserve people's privacy...)

By 6.30 pm I was so knackered. Felt I'd spent all day going in and out of the house carrying stuff, prepping food, washing dishes, sorting trash....

Yujiro was starting cooking even more food for the 10 or so guests who were still there - I made my excuses and "went home" by coming back up to our second floor apartment. Found one cat bug-eyed and nervous in the closet. The other was nowhere to be seen. Collapsed in front of the TV.

About 7.15 pm I looked out the window for the missing cat...no cat...but I suddenly saw Okaasan...way out across the carparking area the other side of the subway line. Standing there, holding her shopping bag. Looking at the house.

Can I come home? There are still people in my house/garden?

She could of course see and hear the BBQ Hold Outs gathered round the grill.

I didn't go downstairs...let Yujiro welcome his own mother back and see to her dinner needs. I'd switched off for the day.

About 7.45 pm I looked out the window again for the still missing cat.

Okaasan was STILL there in the parking lot across the subway line.

Standing.

Waiting.

Looking at the house.

She hadn't come back. People in the house. So she stood there for half an hour in the dark in a construction company parking lot.

Oyomesan Confession: I did nothing. I went back to watching TV. Yes, I felt bad for her. Yes, an 80 year old lady shouldn't be standing in the dusk waiting to be allowed home. Yes, I am entirely selfish. I was knackered and zoned out of Yujiro and his BBQ and his mother and ...and ...and...

If it had actually been minus 5 and snowing I think I might have gone and fetched her in.

But it was a balmy evening. And I didn't want to have to start thinking about what to cook for her dinner. I wanted her to come back home past Yujiro so that HE would have to put his brain in gear and look after his mother. And hopefully the Hold Out Guests would finally take the hint and go home...

So I went back to watching TV........

I am entirely selfish.

I think Okaasan did come home shortly after - and the Hold Out Guests left by 8 pm, Yujiro attended to Okaasan's needs and cleared the last of the garden stuff. 

The missing cat came home.

We stumbled around in exhaustion for a bit.

Fell into bed by 8.45 pm.

...at 9.15 pm an invited guest called my cell phone..."I'm just outside your house! I just came for the BBQ...but I guess it's finished? ok..bye!"..........................

What are we to do with Okaasan and this Guests in the House situation? Being a bit shy and not wanting to join in parties is understandable. But surely she can come home and just say "hello" to people as she is walking to the front door and heading into her room etc?

WHY this over-reaction of waiting in the street near the house until the coast is clear before coming home? She did this at least twice last year too. Or coming home and then entering the house through the living room door windows? It's so....what?...childish????

Of course we say to Okaasan many times - you don't HAVE to go out, but if you do...just come home any time and you don't have to join the party...just greetings and go inside...of course...

But.....

We don't have a lot of people at the house. Well, okay - today was 40 plus, and last weekend was 15. But that is probably it for this month. After that it'll be one or two friends at most. We need our social life. 

I hate to think of the huge negative thoughts building in Okaasan's brain after the stress of I Can't Go Home to My Home Because There Are People There.

I should have gone out and been all welcoming to her and brought her home....

I didn't.

Oyomesan minus points. A whole bunch of them.

To hula or no?

Hula....here we go again.


Should Okaasan go or not? Hula Performance Day is tomorrow.
This time her hula class performance day starts at 11 am and goes on ALL day until 8 pm! Hours and hours of practice and lunch and chat and make up and hairstyling and performance and chat at one of the civic centres on Sapporo.


Yujiro's decided that it would be too long for Okaasan and that he won't talk about it and hope she had forgotten. Just let her stay home and have an ordinary day.
He argues that she would worry about toilet control, so she wouldn't eat all day...and just get tired and confused with the new dance steps etc etc.


So. I am under orders to Not Talk About Hula.
Easy enough, cos I am GOING AWAY FOR A WEEKEND!!!!!


But I do wonder...when Okaasan goes to hula class next week and all her classmates are talking excitedly about their performance day...how will SHE feel when she realizes she didn't go to it?
Probably come home and kill her Oyomesan on the kitchen floor with a Japanese tea whisk thingy.


Oh well - his decision about his mum. Out of my hands.


I am off meanwhile on a train tomorrow a few hours south to Hakodate to get a rental car and drive to the historic town of Esashi, stay at a lake resort in a cheapo guest house and then drive to Esan on the coast to see the wild azalea...


so I am OUTTA here!

Day 4

Yiiikes.................................

A bit of One of Those Days.

The beer I am drinking now has never tasted so good.

Weather looked ok, so I left the "We are Out, so you should go and have lunch out" laminated sign on the kitchen table with Y1,000. Briefly chatted to Okaasan in the kitchen as she was heading to the loo while I was heading to the shower.

A busy day at work, with new students and a returning student.
I got back early afternoon - mainly to keep the cats company because I knew I'd be a bit late.
Recently a large, menacing local stray has been hanging around - and even daring to peer round the open window/door - scaring Popo and Chichi badly. So we can't leave windows open so much. It's interesting that even though there are two of them and one of him - he knows they are youngsters and no match at all.

Anyway. Came home about 1.30 pm.
Okaasan was here. Watching Tv. She'd eaten pickled bits of fish and a yogurt.
I offered to make her lunch (not too enthusiastically I must admit) , but she stirred herself to going out and about 2 pm she finally got out.

I kept the cats company. Put on the rice for dinner. Grabbed a pile of dirty underwear out of Okaasan's smelly room...a few plastic bags etc. Waited till the washing machine finished and then put the clean, damp pants in a bowl on the carpet just inside her room: with any luck she'll think she washed them herself and will take them to the next stage of hanging them up.
I think that recently she hasn't been doing the hand-washing for the endless pants so much.
She always used to be doing it constantly - and leaving bowls of damp pants here and there in the bathroom, kitchen and her room.
Recently - really nothing.
I know she bought yet more pants yesterday because I found the bag and receipt.

So the PILE of pants in her room.....I don't think she notices it, or has the get-up-and-go to start washing by hand such a mountain of underwear.
So - maybe we need to do more of her washing - either secretly as up till now, taking them quietly while she is out and returning them to her room likewise...or more openly by going and asking her to put things in a laundry bag for the machine.


At 3 pm. Back to work.
New students stayed late.
I finally got home at 7.15 pm, with supermarket sashimi and salad. And cake from students.
Okaasan not bothered, no problem.

At dinner I turned on the full charm and chatted her up about all sorts of topics: cake and Christmas, and wartime and food, and wartime work and heating and children, and wartime food etc etc.

Then I mentioned the hula dance event next week.
"There's an event? Nobody told me! Really? What are we dancing? I don't know about this!"
????????????????????????????????
Two days ago she knew about this.
Monday and Tuesday she went off to the rehearsals. Talked about it later etc.
Today - a complete blank on the subject.
Just nothing.
She was surprised to hear. Wondered what they would be dancing. Wondered when the practice would be. etc etc etc.

It's going to be a bit hard on Monday because I'll be at work and Yujiro isn't back from Tokyo till evening. I'll be booking a taxi to come and take Okaasan to the hotel in the afternoon with a bag of stuff I have to prepare for her.
But I'd like to her to at least REALIZE there is an event!!!
I can see the taxi driver coming at 1.30 pm and Okaasan still being in her pyjamas in front of the TV. i'd better get Yujiro to call her from Tokyo several times that morning to make sure she is getting ready.

THIS is the mad life we are leading!!!!

This beer is so good.

Okaasan returneth

She's back.
And not so happy.
Which doesn't look good.
But she had a haircut in her old hometown.
Which IS good.

Yujiro finally brought Okaasan home after 6 pm. Her flight arrived at Chitose at 2 pm, but of course she hadn't eaten any lunch so they had to sit and eat lunch at the airport and then come into town by train and finally get home.
She scurried into the kitchen and her room, darting around like a stressy fly.
Not warm friendly, excited, happy at all.
How was the wedding?....... Eh? So so I guess.
Was it good food? French? Japanese? .......Food? Well, French I suppose.

Yujiro said the surface complaint about it all was that Okaasan felt her brother and his wife were not so friendly to her, maybe because they thought our family money gift was too small.
Sounds familiar?!!! (yup! paranoia central first stop again).
That old "these people don't like me, for some reason which I've just concocted in my mind".
This brother is Okaasan's favorite, nice younger brother and his wife. They are actually good people.
But of course - it WAS their son's wedding day. I am guessing they were a bit preoccupied!
And we are sure the Y100,000 money gift was enough. It wasn't that at all. Of course.

But somehow Okaasan has felt slighted.
Maybe it's because the whole thing was a confusing, tiring experience. A big hotel in Tokyo. Crowds of people she didn't know. Distant relatives who maybe SHE didn't recognise. People rushing around. Two nights in a hotel bedroom. Rushing to catch planes and trains. NO time to visit her old house (Yujiro and his brother really cocked up on that one I feel, but maybe it was best).

Anyway. She sat down on the carept to open the suitcase and spread some stuff around.
I took the opportunity to say: "Oh, while you were away, there was some of your laundry still in the machine, I put it all in this drawer for you. Is that ok?" and I opened the drawer and showed her the neatly stacked piles of pants. Maybe there were 40 pairs of clean pants.
"Ahh, thankyou, thankyou. Hmm, so many?"
(Yup...you've maybe never seen them all gathered together in one place like this, but you DO have an awful lot of pants!!).

And I retreated to start dinner preparations.
We ate together as 3 again.
But I could cash in my I Have A Sore Stomach And Can't Sit Down Too Long card...and escape upstairs after 30 mins.
And Yujiro said soon after Okaasan was safely asleep on her sofa.

Mission Accomplished.
I'm guessing more things about this trip to Tokyo will emerge over the next few days.
But for now it's done.

and me? My body?
I spent a quieter day. But I think my "quiet" was maybe too much sitting on the sofa or sitting in the computer chair. My stomach muscles ached in the evening.
Today I am going to lay down more.

And Yujiro - sweet, sweet man that he is - has done battle with the ANA website and has MAYBE got me an airticket to London late October for Y72,000 using airmiles.

Time to lay down.

YES! She went!

Yup...Okaasan overcome all the silliness (for this week anyway) and went to hula dance class.
Yujiro's letter worked...she ate the bits of lunch on the kitchen table, got washed and dressed and WENT to the class.

Great. She enjoys it. She needs the exercise. She needs the social interaction with classmates.

In fact she then stayed out for hours and ate something downtown. Came home about 6.30 pm.
Ate dinner with Yujiro, and was pretty tired after a big day out.

Yujiro didn't ask her directly about hula and later he called the friendly classmate to check that she had actually gone.
Not only had she gone. But she'd been ther first to arrive and greeted everyone!

So that's alright then. For now.

Chatty happy

At this rate of improvement we'll have to send Okaasan back to Saitama to live in the family house and care for the sick older brother!

Last night as I was cooking Okaasan came into the kitchen to jokily tell me that I keep using the masculine word for "dinner" - "ban-meishi", which of course Yujiro always uses with her. As a gentle, polite lady I should be saying "ban-gohan"....she and I had a good laugh about that one and THEN she sat down at the kitchen table while I was cooking and chatted on to me for about 15 minutes....not drinking milk/wartime food/Japanese is hard/wartime food/didn't drink milk/etc etc.

It was surprising: when we cook dinner she is either a) still out eating MacNuggets or b) sitting in her room in front of the Tv seemingly oblivious to what we are doing 3 meters away in the kitchen.
When dinner is ready we call her - several times - and she gets up to wash her hands/visit the toilet and come to the table.

So. For her to come into the kitchen and initiate a conversation with me. And then stay and chat was very unusual.

Older brother is maybe having his eye operation this week and moving into the Saitama house a year early on forced early-retirement. I reckon he needs a mother's TLC.
She can go back there and look after him and Yujiro and I can get back to OUR lives of cheese fondue, meat dinners and dinner when we feel like it...

NOT gonna happen. Dream on.

Dodging fire...

Dodging fire....the wrapping paper round my birthday present last month said something about women-in-unhappy-homes-may-be-too-busy-dodging-fire-to-find-themselves etc...
This week we've been firefighting I guess: for the kittens and Okaasan.

Yujiro's home. Okaasan still hasn't been out. I've had the new term of classes start. Sapporo had rain. A crocus came up.

* The kittens have suddenly started scaling the ceiling-to-floor net that is meant to stop them falling into the stairwell and down into the kitchen and Okaasan's life. They scramble up it every 3 minutes when the hormones are particularly racing. * And Chichi managed to jump from the printer TO the top of the bookcase finally and attack all the wintering houseplants. * And they've been waking up at 4.30 am......

So we've been trying to dodge the fires - working out a new barrier system on the stairs/removing all the houseplants/going to bed ourselves early so we get some sleep in before the kitten alarm.

Okaasan still has an ugly yellow bruise on her face from the fall, and she hasn't been out since Friday. I understand she doesn't want to go to Hula dance and have everyone see her face and ask endless questions. But I think we should get her out of the house today for something. Otherwise she is just sitting watching TV.

So, dodging Okaasan "fires" - * Yujiro sat down with all her stuff and tried to find the concert ticket she thinks she already bought. No luck. * The hula dance friend called to check Okaasan is ok and said she'd ordered a video of the hula dance event...Okaasan has never mentioned this, and we don't have a video machine anymore - so more wasted money....ho hum...

And we went across the road to Hoshiba-san to apologise formally for Okaasan borrowing taxi money and forgetting to return it.
Hoshiba-san invited us in and gave us beers to drink.
Such a nice woman - she is in her mid-80s, but compared to Okaasan all there mentally - her home was neat and clean. Loads of family pics, wintering plants and knick-knacks.
We gave her some flowers and asked her to tell us directly if Okaasan borrows any more money etc.
She chatted about the neighborhood because she's lived here 50 years. She urged us to get Okaasan doing stuff around the home and bring Okaasan over for tea etc...

We should try to get Okaasan more connected to the neighbourhood for some social connections. We checked with Hoshiba-san about the Neighborhood Association - that would be one way for Okaasan to get information about events locally and get her more connected.

But I came away a little sad because Hoshiba-san's life is so much better than Okaasan's....she loves gardening, she has family visiting, she has a nice, organised home - Okaasan in contrast sits and watches TV, goes once a week to hula dance, has no family contact apart from us and sits amid piles of clothes, newspapers and old food wrappings...

* I'm getting more into dementia research. I just ordered 2 books  from the UK and they arrived this week. When I get a moment I will read more.
I think we are doing ok for Okaaasan. Basically. But she would be so much better with more social connections - more activity. She IS good at talking to strangers - staff in shops/women on the train - but apart from the hula dance women and us she has no on-going relationships with people. No friends/family from Saitama telephone her.

I wish we could do more for her.