Japan got struck by a massive earthquake Friday afternoon.
Here in Sapporo 3 huge shakes in 40 minutes, but nothing fell or damaged here in the city. On the coast at Hakodate, Kushiro etc there were 2 meter high tsunamis.
We are all ok.
I was in the classroom - with a student from Miyage - when our coffe cups started shaking, coats started swinging and everything rattled...and rattled and rattled. We wedged open the door. Then she went home to check that her sister and mother were ok. They were.
Yujiro and Okaasan ok. Cats too - a bit over-excited.
Our home computer has lots its internet connection - so we are using the classroom computer once a day. Hence no blogging.
(strangely SKYPE is ok). Cell phones and landlines are only working for local calls.
Okaasan is fine...but..of course...she sits there watching the endless earthquake and tsunami coverage on TV and thinks that IT JUST HAPPENED. Constantly! Saturday lunchtime she said to us: "there's been an earthquake hasn't there?.
I was worried that she would get depressed with the constant news instead of her usual diet of mindlessly happy Tv shows. But now I realize she is thinking it's just happened a lot of the time....so we give her cheerful chat about how lucky Hokkaido is to escape the horrors down south.
AND.
I am 50!
So strange to celebrate this while on TV are terrible scenes.....but I opened great presents of drink and chocolate and magazines from friends and students. In the middle of it of course I realized that this year there is nothing from Dad or Jane. This is sad and strange. My first birthday with nothing from them.
But the earthquake and tsunamis are taking our attention constaantly.
Everyone I know...I think...is ok....but I fear hearing of someone a few days later...
So. 50th birthday. No photographs yet cos I can't upload them onto this laptop.
But.
We skied in the morning.
Late afternoon Yujiro told me to come with him, ordinary clothes ok....bring your camera.
We walked from the house...strangely NOT in the direction of the subway station and downtown restaurants.
We walked.
Parked between the taxi company and the bike shop...was...a beautiful WHITE LIMOUSINE!!!!
The driver stepped out and bowed. It was my birthday surprise!!!
Got whisked away in its padded comfort with rose petals on the floor, Moet and Chandon on ice, jazz video, eats, 50 red roses.......to Otaru for nightviews, a ski teachers' party to give everyone rides in the limo, to Susukino where I stood up thru the sunroof and screamed "Happy Birthday to ME!!" at everyone on the pavements, and finally home...where I had to decide exactly how to find enough pots for 50 roses.
An amazing, stupid, wonderful birthdy present.
3 years ago I took him to India. And he planned this for me: limo/dinner/champagne/roses.
It just about makes up for looking after his mother! ;->>>
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Ara-fi......
Readers in Japan will get it: "Ara-fi" means "Around Fifty"......which I guess with two days to go until the big FIVE OH - I am becoming minute by minute!
(There was a TV drama I think recently here which coined the phrase Ara-fo...for a woman who is "around forty").
Busy week as I head into it : busy but good. I am just thankful I can physically/emotionally BE busy and do things I wants to/need to. Illness and domestic dramas do that to you - make your appreciate being able to put one foot in front of the other.
So not much Okaasan news really. Bit hard for a blog entitled Okaasan and Me.
But lucky for me that Yujiro has been home, alternating between watching TV/internet porn(!!!!!! who forgot to close a window eh????!!) and shopping/feeding mother/doing the housetasks I ask him to...spring holidays start soon in Japan and he'll be back out on the ski slopes shortly.
In the meantime I am enjoying letting him take over all the housetasks, while I enjoy work and life beyond the kitchen.
I suggested he tried to interest Okaasan in the hotel hair salon by showing her the leaflet I'd brought home. Her hair is long and straggly, and often dirty and smelly.
He tried. But she said hotel salons are expensive and that she wants to try out a place near the local station..which will be great if she really does...last year she opined that the local hair salons in our neighborhood were no good...downtown salons are higher standard etc.
We don't care either way, but a haircut would be a good idea.
The hula dance class have a performance in June and she needs a haircut before then.Anyway we'll leave the topic again for a while and try again in a few weeks, or try and steer her into a salon if we are walking with her near the station.
Apart from that I've been busy with guests. We had Couch Surfers staying - two friendly, Czech ski instructors; then I took two American women out for tourist sightseeing as a friend's husband has brought them and their 10 year-old sons to Hokkaido for homestays with local Japanese families; then there is work, snow, cats - and STILL trying to get the English School website up and running.
Oh - and a local government video narration about tourists and manners....trying to politely remind Chinese tourists NOT to take the whole platter from a hotel buffet etc.....
Lots of life. That's fine.
I've watched two programs on TV about dementia, and heard from two students that their parents have had bad falls in the home....so I feel we are VERY lucky with Okaasan at the moment.
She may smell and contribute very little to dinner conversations - but she doesn't take up much of our time!!!!
How's THAT for selfishness!
Onwards to 50. I can be even more selfish then...I think it's allowed.
(There was a TV drama I think recently here which coined the phrase Ara-fo...for a woman who is "around forty").
Busy week as I head into it : busy but good. I am just thankful I can physically/emotionally BE busy and do things I wants to/need to. Illness and domestic dramas do that to you - make your appreciate being able to put one foot in front of the other.
So not much Okaasan news really. Bit hard for a blog entitled Okaasan and Me.
But lucky for me that Yujiro has been home, alternating between watching TV/internet porn(!!!!!! who forgot to close a window eh????!!) and shopping/feeding mother/doing the housetasks I ask him to...spring holidays start soon in Japan and he'll be back out on the ski slopes shortly.
In the meantime I am enjoying letting him take over all the housetasks, while I enjoy work and life beyond the kitchen.
I suggested he tried to interest Okaasan in the hotel hair salon by showing her the leaflet I'd brought home. Her hair is long and straggly, and often dirty and smelly.
He tried. But she said hotel salons are expensive and that she wants to try out a place near the local station..which will be great if she really does...last year she opined that the local hair salons in our neighborhood were no good...downtown salons are higher standard etc.
We don't care either way, but a haircut would be a good idea.
The hula dance class have a performance in June and she needs a haircut before then.Anyway we'll leave the topic again for a while and try again in a few weeks, or try and steer her into a salon if we are walking with her near the station.
Apart from that I've been busy with guests. We had Couch Surfers staying - two friendly, Czech ski instructors; then I took two American women out for tourist sightseeing as a friend's husband has brought them and their 10 year-old sons to Hokkaido for homestays with local Japanese families; then there is work, snow, cats - and STILL trying to get the English School website up and running.
Oh - and a local government video narration about tourists and manners....trying to politely remind Chinese tourists NOT to take the whole platter from a hotel buffet etc.....
Lots of life. That's fine.
I've watched two programs on TV about dementia, and heard from two students that their parents have had bad falls in the home....so I feel we are VERY lucky with Okaasan at the moment.
She may smell and contribute very little to dinner conversations - but she doesn't take up much of our time!!!!
How's THAT for selfishness!
Onwards to 50. I can be even more selfish then...I think it's allowed.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Whooo Hooo!
Still here! Ok! Haven't sunk without trace under a sea of dirty underwear.
Just being a bad blogger.
Too much busy life. And Yujiro's home between ski season busy times - so he is cooking and caring and I am working and socializing. So all is well. :-)
I've had accountant and tax return - (Y32,000 refund, account fees...Y30,000); and dinner with friends, Yujiro and I did the CM Festival and a friend's party, lots of American Idol on TV, snow clearing, work, stuff ...stuff...stuff. And the English school website design is almost done and ready to be connected with the domain name and launched onto the world.
Okaasan stayed home during the heavy snow, but then got out again and used an ikebana show ticket I'd been given - took herself off to the ikebana show in a department store (we think!). So that is good. Despite sometimes doing odd things or thinking odd things, she is still able to get a ticket for something and go along and find it and enjoy it.
Her hair is getting very long and straggly. This week's task for Yujiro is to introduce the idea of How About a Hair Cut? to Okaasan and persuade her to try the Grand Hotel salon I located. She hasn't had a hair cut since she went to the family wedding in Tokyo in ...what..September? Time to go.
Anyway. Life ongoing. Bit busy really. But good because my knee is strong enough to do it all.
This is my last week of being 40-something. The big 50 is looming....
Just being a bad blogger.
Too much busy life. And Yujiro's home between ski season busy times - so he is cooking and caring and I am working and socializing. So all is well. :-)
I've had accountant and tax return - (Y32,000 refund, account fees...Y30,000); and dinner with friends, Yujiro and I did the CM Festival and a friend's party, lots of American Idol on TV, snow clearing, work, stuff ...stuff...stuff. And the English school website design is almost done and ready to be connected with the domain name and launched onto the world.
Okaasan stayed home during the heavy snow, but then got out again and used an ikebana show ticket I'd been given - took herself off to the ikebana show in a department store (we think!). So that is good. Despite sometimes doing odd things or thinking odd things, she is still able to get a ticket for something and go along and find it and enjoy it.
Her hair is getting very long and straggly. This week's task for Yujiro is to introduce the idea of How About a Hair Cut? to Okaasan and persuade her to try the Grand Hotel salon I located. She hasn't had a hair cut since she went to the family wedding in Tokyo in ...what..September? Time to go.
Anyway. Life ongoing. Bit busy really. But good because my knee is strong enough to do it all.
This is my last week of being 40-something. The big 50 is looming....
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Small confusions
Nothing dramatic...just our week going as normal really.
Heavy snow yesterday, so Okaasan stayed home.
We ate lunch and dinner all together. She seemed okay-ish. Kind of passive really and a bit confused in some conversations - latching onto a word and saying something vaguely connected to it sometimes. Other times being on-the-ball.
When we called her to the dinner table last night she started talking about making tea and looked for the teapot and tealeaves - she always, ALWAYS makes and drinks green tea at the end of the meal - so we were surprised....and after Yujiro reminded her that we hadn't eaten yet she settled down in her chair ready for the the food.
It's small things like this we notice: dementia at this stage doesn't seem to be raving craziness (although we've had our share of aggression and odd behavior), but as we know Okaasan's daily routines we do notice the small confusions.
And the repeats: I showed Okaasan the pretty flower picture on the kitchen calender and we went round and round for about 5 times in 3 minutes - "Is this cherry blossom?/No, it's a magnolia tree I think".....round and round, "Is this a cherry? No, It's magnolia".
Today is Doll's Festival in Japan, when families with daughters display dolls and eat rice mixed with lots of pink things to hope for their happiness. I've put two dolls that my student made in our entrance hall just to give Okaasan the feel of the season. Outside it's snowing - spring hasn't come to Sapporo yet.
March 3: 19 years ago today I came to Japan. Arrived at Narita airport for a planned 3 week stay as a backpacker. And stayed. Developed a whole life here I never could have imagined!
Heavy snow yesterday, so Okaasan stayed home.
We ate lunch and dinner all together. She seemed okay-ish. Kind of passive really and a bit confused in some conversations - latching onto a word and saying something vaguely connected to it sometimes. Other times being on-the-ball.
When we called her to the dinner table last night she started talking about making tea and looked for the teapot and tealeaves - she always, ALWAYS makes and drinks green tea at the end of the meal - so we were surprised....and after Yujiro reminded her that we hadn't eaten yet she settled down in her chair ready for the the food.
It's small things like this we notice: dementia at this stage doesn't seem to be raving craziness (although we've had our share of aggression and odd behavior), but as we know Okaasan's daily routines we do notice the small confusions.
And the repeats: I showed Okaasan the pretty flower picture on the kitchen calender and we went round and round for about 5 times in 3 minutes - "Is this cherry blossom?/No, it's a magnolia tree I think".....round and round, "Is this a cherry? No, It's magnolia".
Today is Doll's Festival in Japan, when families with daughters display dolls and eat rice mixed with lots of pink things to hope for their happiness. I've put two dolls that my student made in our entrance hall just to give Okaasan the feel of the season. Outside it's snowing - spring hasn't come to Sapporo yet.
March 3: 19 years ago today I came to Japan. Arrived at Narita airport for a planned 3 week stay as a backpacker. And stayed. Developed a whole life here I never could have imagined!
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