7 years an oyomesan at oshogatsu...

SEVEN Japanese New Years with Okaasan!!
SEVEN!

I just went back over this blog and looked. Cos I am a sad person with nothing better to do on December 31st at 8.30 pm.


Actually, I am knackered. Today I went with friends and covered about 7 km on cross country skis in a park near Sapporo. It was beautiful, hard work and fun.

And then I came home - scraped the burned pan that Okaasan had left from lunchtime heating up, had a long bath and opened the wine..

And cooked New Year dinner for Okaasan.

Again.

In 2008: Okaasan cooked New Year food in my tiny kitchen, and I assisted her. It was hard work because she kept forgetting what she's just done with seasoning and timeing.

In 2009: I bought stuff from the supermarket and heated it up.

In 2010: I took Okaasan shopping for all the ingredients and it took over five hours to help her cook all the stuff. A stressy experience for both of us.

In 2011: I bought ready made, I asked her about the taste just before serving.

In 2012: I had a Japanese cooking lesson in autumn and did an amazing spread! Okaasan was impressed.

In 2013: Instant noodles and shop stuff.

This year?

Instant noodles dressed up to make it interesting.

After I'd finished loading stuff in the bowls - and hiding the instant packaging...it looked like this:

And tomorrow we'll eat the things Okaasan bought the other day and some readymade I bought.

So, Okaasan and me sat at the dinner table to end another year of being forced to live together...

Not so much chat about New Years past this time. A little about cooking, then just chat about the cat and how pink his nose is.

As I was clearing the dishes Okaasan looked around the kitchen.

"What day is today then?"

"December 31st, that's why we just ate toshikoshi (longlife) noodles..."

"Oh? December 31st today? I forget many things now, it's strange..."

"Yes, we know. It's ok. You are still healthy in your body, and enjoy eating and drinking and laughing. Don't worry...."

And so we finished dinner and another year. I checked the heating in her room. Made sure the TV was switched to the channel with old fashioned singers on it...and left her to doze into 2015...

Thankyou all for reading this blog this year. I've been a bit patchy on the blogging. 

Time for wine and chocolate, and something on cable TV that has nothing to do with Japanese end of year!!

See you on the other side :-)

And...into Japanese New Year..

Here comes New Year! Japanese style.................
Suddenly, over one weekend, Japan changes all the decorations to do with the frivolity of a foreign festival - Christmas - and gets back to its roots with twisted straw, blossoms, cranes and little bits of colored paper - Oshogatsu, or New Year.

Dear Son continues to be home for a few evenings - just wonderful!

Yesterday I took Okaasan shopping to the local big shop. We both had a trolley and she followed me round the store...like a child given a trolley to push to help-mom-with-shopping.

But this "child" selected the usual: fish paste sausages, aloe yogurts and various New Year foods. She was easier to control than I expected because she kept asking me: "do we have this at home already?"....so I could say "yes" to things I could never see us wanting or eating.
She insisted we walked round a certain route in the supermarket - I always go here - and took ages packing the things she had bought into a bag. Good brain exercise.
She bought this stuff - brightly colored sweet bean paste animals, two kinds of fish paste and a small tray of 4 traditional foods. 

And a pine branch and flower display for the front hall.

So, SO luckily she didn't set off on buying the ingredients to make any traditional foods...as she did a few years ago. I have bought a pre-cooked dish, and that will all be enough for her and me for the holidays. DS leaves tomorrow.

After the shopping I suggested she have a coffee at MacDonalds, while I go to the classroom and do some cleaning. As she hadn't bought her handbag I gave her some money at the Macdonalds entrance door and left her for 30 mins...

Came back and found Okaasan sitting with an empty table. Looking slightly embarrassed.

?????????????

"I couldn't buy any coffee! I don't have any money!"

:-(

In the 10 steps between the door and the counter she'd forgotten that she had money...

So, I showed her the money that was in her coat pocket and let her buy me a coffee.

Interesting to watch Okaasan order: she stood right behind the customer in front, right up behind them in a unnatural invasion of personal space. She only wanted a coffee. But when she looked at the counter menu card with all its confusing options her eyes went straight to the top right (reading starting place for Japanese) - which was the Chicken McNuggets and Coffee set. And that is what she ordered...as always.

The sweet staff member offered Okaasan the choices of dips and smiled at me in a familiar way. People are kind - knowing the regular customer and acknowledging the family member.

So we sat in a noisy-for the-holidays Macdonalds and drank our coffees, shared the minced-in-China chicken nuggets and chatted about the weather, the coffee, the baby nearby...

And finally home.

Home for the holidays.

I have house cleaning and accounts to do. I have a book to edit. I have cats to play with. Chocolate to eat. And ski. And friend.

And Okaasan and Me.

2015. Bring it ON!

So that was Christmas...

...and another year almost gone.

I made it to the end of working. Well, classroom working. I still have a massive editing job to do over the holidays which I think I can do with cups of tea and regular supplies of Xmas chocolate..

Christmas came and went, without Okaasan noticing much.
It isn't a big thing for her generation of Japanese, so I didn't feel too guilty to be going out for fun with friends and students.
I decorated the bits of the house she sees - toilet and kitchen, entrance hall. And on Christmas Eve and Day I made her mealtime sitting place at the kitchen table look festive.

Dear Son got back late on Christmas night from work, so after a lot of eating and drinking with friends I cooked him a cheese and potato omelete and shared some TV time with him. He is home for 4 nights in a row, which is in itself a present to us as a couple at this time of year. Ski school schedule change brought him to a ski area nearer home. He'll be here till Tuesday, and then gone again.

Okaasan ok.

Went out with day care helper Christmas Eve and didn't buy up a ton of food. Only a huge cabbage.

She had another toilet accident that evening. I was making Christmas cup cakes for a class, humming carols etc Noticed that she'd been in the toilet ages....she came out looking a bit sheepish...I made gentle helpful noises: "upset stomach?" and she mentioned not quite getting to the toilet in time, but claimed to have cleaned it up.

She hadn't.

But I couldn't break my fruity Chrissmassy cup cake joy with carols to face that on Christmas Eve. I just bundled up the soiled mat (had only been newly cleaned and in place 5 hours!) and carpet tile - and put them in the bathroom to cope with the next day on my way to work.

Oh. And the chair standing and top cupboard exploring.

She's at it again today...

Got a bit testy with me when I said it was dangerous and that the only things up there were unwanted stuff. Told me: Japanese people don't fall off chairs (!!!!!) and that you should always sort through things in case you might need them now.

Aghhh....

I got her into a bath and then did a frantic 20 minutes clear out of the top closet. Put the bags into trash bags for protection and put six bags (each containing about 8 smaller bags!) into the shed in the garden. Left about 3 bags on the floor in her room for her to sort through. Took the closet doors out of their runners and hid them.

Now she can SEE there are no more things up there to reach for. She can sort through the stuff within reach. And hopefully be content enough. Because I really can't start hiding the kitchen chairs every time I go out :-)

I'm sure this sudden interest in the closet is a sudden burst of end of year cleaning thoughts. But she can't be standing on a chair like this as her age. Her balance on a flat shopping mall floor isn't great. A chair is an Everest.

But the dementia makes her aggressive to any suggestion of help: even when I showed her after the bath how I'd helped her - look I took the things down for you. Now you can sort them out safely. She was still testy with me. No gratitude for the help.

I got her all smiley and chatty at lunch: wartime food, New York, etc. The old tales. Maybe just averted a flareup.

Maybe.

I'm going to get DS to warn her about chair climbing though, she does listen to him and if he says something is dangerous she may take his advice. May.

I have to get rid of all these bags. Shall have to find someone who does flea markets in the spring and offload them all.

And so. Another New Year holidays of Okaasan and Me approaches.

Dear Son will be away. It'll be me and Okaasan for the festivities. I bought some frozen crab legs and readymade traditional food. I'll take her shopping tomorrow and try to control the amount she buys.

:-)

End of year Cleaning??? ;-(

Blood ran cold....heart stopped etc yesterday as I noticed several bags on the floor in Okaasan's 2nd room.
Bags? More bags? Why....and OH MY GOD! where is the chair that is always just standing inside the 1st room entrance?

When Okaasan was in the toilet I raced in to her rooms to find out.

She'd take the chair from the 1st room to the 2nd room and had climbed up to explore the top closet area - removing several of the bags within bags within bags within bags which I had sorted through and stashed a few months back.
Climbed on the chair. Aged 84. 
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Never mind dementia. This isn't great.

In the 2 minute window given to me by her being in the toilet: I grabbed the chair and some bags and ran with them to the washing machine area. Hid them all behind the door.

She came back. Settled by the TV again. Nothing said.

It's the dementia dance...how much do they ACTUALLY remember/realize? If I remove this (chair and bags), will she notice/remember? Will her lack of short term memory work to my advantage.
I'm sure it is something all carers do: remove something and hope, hope , hope that the cared-for doesn't remember it.

Okaasan did, this time.
At dinner time she was back in the 2nd room...looking through one of the bags within bags I'd failed to scoop.

"Oh, I was just checking this. I wondered what was up there in the closet. I think I had a chair? It isn't here now. ...."

Thinking quickly, I kept a casual voice: "Oh, that's old stuff you don't use now. You put it away up there I think. Shall I put it back up there? Standing on a chair is a bit dangerous, isn't it"

She let me put the bags back. No fuss. I feared she would want to get all the bags own and sort thru them...what were there - 70 bags or something??
But this time she accepted what I said and allowed me to close the closet door.

But I'm not sure this is the end of it. Maybe there was something on TV about end of year house cleaning and somebody sorting through their closets. So Okaasan felt inspired to check her closets.
So, if the idea is in her mind. I think she might try again.

What to do?
I've removed the chair from her room.
But there are kitchen chairs within sight. Should I hide them too? It is fairly easy to hide cooking pans and outside shoes. Not so with three kitchen chairs....

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....