Surface normality...

All seems well...but who knows?

We've had a busy week - with the football at semi-final stage, a friend's birthday, a Couch Surf guest, news  from England getting a bit better (moved to a hospital near home now) and planning for a BBQ we are having on Sunday.

Okaasan seems ok. Seems though. Who really knows?

She didn't go to hula on Monday. She said something about "that stupid/bad person...so I went downtown and drank a tea".
It's hard to get details with this kind of comment, because she doesn't give them and if we press with questions it all gets confusing and stressy. Best to leave it alone.
So we don't know what happenend between 9 am when I saw her at home and 1 pm when the class started. The classmate called and said Okaasan didn't come to class etc. So we don't think she even GOT to the class place, maybe the "stupid/bad" person was somebody at the station or on the train? Or a neighbor who talked to Okaasan for a long time and made her late?

We have no idea.

Apart from that, I've thrown away some dirty underwear left in the bathroom - not heavily soiled, but stained beyond niceness..I can't be bothered to start soaking stained underpants. Okaasan already has about 60 pairs of pants.There are enough! Her room smells pretty bad at the moment, I must get in there and do some basic cleaning and underwear hunting...

And Okaasan noticed all the BBQ boxes and bags in the kitchen yesterday and said to me worriedly: "Where is Yujiro? Is someone going away? There was luggage here!"
I reassured her that it's just Yujiro getting all BBQ-prepping happy. She looked a bit worried...

Mind you: we ARE planning a trip to Tokyo in October. Both of us. Because...WE GOT TICKETS TO GO AND SEE ADAM LAMBERT IN CONCERT!!!!!!One of my students sent me info about tickets going on sale and we got some!!! YEAH!!!!!!!I have no idea what we'll do with kittens and Okaasan that night....maybe put them all in a pet hotel together...

Found the cure for dementia?

"Is this the mountain potato I bought yesterday? It's delicious isn't it?!"

Amazing.

Okaasan remembered shopping. Remembered what she bought.

I think we may have discovered a cure for dementia.
Only trouble is: we don't know what it is!

Less soy sauce on the food cooked by a British woman?
The fumes of newsprint off all the old newspapers on the carpet?
Cat hair wafting around the house?

Scientists should study us and find out how Okaasan seems to be going against all trends and improving!

Gone shopping.

Okaasan bought a BOX of groceries yesterday.
Not just the usual random bits and bobs: a whole box of groceries: raw squid, vegetables, canned food, Japanese style-cakes, vinegared seaweed...and one ice cream cone.

I found the box when I came home from work. It was sitting inside the (thankfully) cool entrance hallway. The ice cream was melting, but still in its packaging.
And Okaasan? Asleep in her room on the sofa, first upright and then sprawled on the carpet for several hours.

??????? HOW much money did Yujiro give her yesterday? Did she carry it all back herself or get it delivered. And why suddenly a bout of almost normal shopping?
I decided the entrance hall had maybe been cool enough for a few hours for the raw squid to be edible, so threw it all in the fridge and tiptoed out to the garden with the cats.

We had a Couch Surfing guest for dinner and Okaasan actually came out normally onto the front doorstep (rather than a living room window exit) at 6.30 pm, all washed and brushed and normal looking. She chatted to our guest and came home just about 8 pm in time to join us and the guest for a delivery sushi dinner. I think she enjoyed meeting Mei-san from Taiwan and there was lots of chat about the similarities of Chinese and Japanese kanji and how delicious Taiwanese bananas are.....a successful evening. Times like this you can see the lady Okaasan once was - which makes the anger and crazies so much stranger.

Okaasan didn't ask about all the shopping. We didn't mention it. I expect she has already forgotten it anyway. I haven't: I have to do battle with raw squid preparation tonight...oh the eyes! the eyes!! Nothing in my English upbringing prepared me for raw squid, although once in Hakodate doing guidebook research I managed to eat a squid eye - it was like a rubber dog chew and then POPPED in my mouth.....not an experience I will ever repeat unless forced to in some Reality Show multi-million yen face-off challenge.

England: My step-mother had a very bad 48 hours. Complications made the doctors think they'd have to open her up again for a second operation - which nobody thought she was strong enough for - Lots of phonecalls and worry. The latest is that she seems - again amazingly - to have pulled thru the  worst and actually sat up out of bed a bit yesterday.
Last summer my days were dominated with day-by-day hospital reports from England...I feel deja vu and hope that this time it all ends better. Mei says Taiwan in autumn is ok between the typhoons and has got me thinking about using my airmiles for a Taiwanese beach...

The Good, the Bad...

Okaasan having a good spell - but the very fact that we notice it shows that "good" is unusual.

She did morning stretch exercises in her room yesterday. She wiped the dinner plates dry and set them on the table. She got all feisty with Yujiro about the Saitama house - "I want to sell it!"..."No, you said you were happy for older brother to live there from next year!"..."I said that? No, I think I should sell it...." etc etc

She's gone walking at 6.15 pm and we telephoned her to get her back to the dinner table on time, where eventually she has eaten some food.
Yesterday I even managed to lightheartedly remind her: "Don't eat McNuggets at McDonalds because dinner is in less than an hour...." and she actually came home having only drunk a coffee.
It's strange to be giving an adult these kind of reminders: like mothers who say to kids: "If you eat that now you won't have space for dinner later will you?"...but here we are doing the same with an adult.

England News: My step-mum has had low blood pressure and not great after her operation. She had a blood transfusion and everyone is waiting to see if the good effects of that will kick in. Waiting.
I have all my air miles from last year's flights and I am on the verge of booking a flight to a beach  for September or October. But I keep hanging on - in case Jane's condition worsens and I need to book the ticket to England instead and use the  air miles for an upgrade. Hoping NOT to go to England again this year....hoping to selfishly enjoy some "me" time on a beach with a book.

*  Older brother must have felt his ears burning because yesterday he called Yujiro and said his diabetes is now so bad he has had to quit work (aged 55) and will have an eye operation and move into the Saitama house this year.