Kiwifruit Kit Kat

Japan is the land of crazy kit kat flavours! I wrote about this food trend a while back, featuring a sakura (cherry blossom) kit kat.

This summer, it's KIWI FRUIT! I like them a lot.

Kayaking!

We went kayaking today on the Takasegawa River.

Tanjoubi Omedeto Gozaimasu!

Happy Birthday Sylvia

Rainy Season?

Meanwhile at Misawa, it's mild, warn, and breezy. I hung up furin (windchimes) all over the yard. I love how they sound. The glass ones go tinktinktink, the iron one goes dingdingding and my bamboo ones go tonktonktonk, and they all set each other off very nicely.

I wonder if we're heading a hot, dry summer here. Usually Rainy season (Tsuyu) has not only started but would have been continuing unabated by now. We've had a few spots of rain here and there, but nothing like the 17-day streak of non-stop rain we had last year It rained other days, too, but intermittently. It was grey , it was damp, it was dreary, everything got moldy and musty and I was ready to shoot someone, myself, anyone. Seriously.

Weather reports say a pressure system is keeping the the rain away and that it is raining properly in the Kanto plains, but I still wonder. As much as I dislike the mold and the grey, the rain's necessary for good crops, on which Misawa depends, since this area is mostly farms.

Speaking of farms, summer produce is here. Asparagus is all over the place, as are eggplants, peaches and watermelons. I could live on asparagus and watermelon, except that I would be living in the bathroom. I rarely shop at the commissary for vegetables anymore, preferring to use the farmer's market (why didn't I work up the courage to go in there two years ago?) or local stands or the supermarket down the road from me.

I think I also mentioned way back that the area I live in is famous throughout Japan for its apples. You can't get a bad apple here. You can get 10 dollar ones, though. And yes, they are worth the price. I will let you know that a 10 dollar apple is about as big as my head and takes me two days to eat, unless I'm really hungry, then it only takes about 9 hours. Hugest apples I have ever seen, and so perfect and tasty.

Aomori's apple industry started back in 1875, with just three trees! Aomori apples are hugely popular throughout Japan, accounting for 50% of the nation's supply. They do well in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (as exports). They're a popular gift item, too. I think apples are often used in conjunction with funeral/memorial services, but as an offering rather than a snack.

There are three main types of apples: Sekaiichi (the meaning is number 1 in all over the world), Mutsu (an old name for Aomori and the area surrounding it , Fuji (the name is from Mt.Fuji) and Yellow apples (such as Orin and Kinsei ) . Fuji are the favorite among my friends, big, sweet and reminscent of the fragrance of roses and honey. Who woulda thunk an apple could smell so good and taste even better. They look really nice, too. Mmmm. I guess I'll pick some up today.

Hardware (Father's Day 2007)

Hardware
--Ronald Wallace

My father always knew the secret
name of everything --
stove bolt and wing nut,
setscrew and rasp, ratchet
wrench, band saw, and ball
peen hammer. He was my
tour guide and translator
through that foreign country
with its short-tempered natives
in their crewcuts and tattoos,
who suffered my incompetence
with gruffness and disgust.
Pay attention, he would say,
and you'll learn a thing or two.

Now it's forty years later,
and I'm packing up his tools
(If you know the proper
names of things you're never
at a loss), tongue-tied, incompetent,
my hands and heart full
of doohickeys and widgets,
watchamacallits, thingamabobs.

Phew

Between working, working out, working second part-time job, working on my computer, doing yardwork...I was too worked up to work on the blog. Phew.

I think I'm really tired because this past week I tried to look nicer than just jeans and a t-shirt and old snears all this week. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you can sometimes get a decent wallet from it.

Here's Masako-san and me at our part-time kimono-slinging jobs During the slower times, I was teaching her American slang phrases. Masako is drop-dead gorgeous, in addition to being funny sweet, and smart. These were taken using her cellphone camera, so they're not great, but you get the idea.

Hong Kong Phooey

Finally! Vacation pictures up on Flickr.

Three Year Mark

Today was our three-year mark for arriving in Japan. We've come a long, long way. Hard to believe I have not been in the continental United States in that long (we went to Hawaii last summer). Oddly,while I miss my family and my friends, I don't miss very much else, aside from decent pizza and the ability to run over to Target. My life here has a aura of "semi-vacation"--this is not a "real life" in Japan, by any means. It's really more of a fantasy of living in Japan and it's pretty enjoyable, but pretty atypical.

Where's Bakagaijiin?

I've gotten a few emails from folks asking about my Tokyo/Hong Kong trip. I'll try to get some stuff up shortly--I got back last week , the cat went in for another surgery (his fourth!) and then had a small emergency (bleeding from the suture) and suitcases needed unpacked and housework done and just when I thought everything was under control, I promptly got sick enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room! I'm feeling much better, but am a little behind on things. Bear with me.

It was a terrific trip and we had a blast.

Eki

Yesterday, I took Eiko-san to Misawa Eki (station) to catch a train back to Odate, where she lives. She had to be at her shop today to dress a bridal party. (It took a few tries to figure that out).

I understand a lot more Japanese than I let on, and can follow along pretty well in basic, nonurgent situations, if the person goes at a pace used to address brain-damaged dogs. However, I don't have the grammar infrastructure nor the vocabulary to flesh out my communications. Combine my already rotten Japanese with my American accent AND the Aomori accent that tinges it a further color of incomprehensible AND add one slightly hard-of-hearing Japanese oldster and you get conversations like this: (transcribed from the mangled Japanese)

Eiko-san: I need to go to the train station (talking to her son), so I am leaving.
Bakagaijiin: Please wait (grabs stuff and begins walking). We can go!

Luckily Eiko gets the hint!

ES: Really? We can go in your car? I'm sorry for being a bother.
BG: It's nothing. Really.
ES: Where is your car?
BG: Over there. (points)

I go around and open the door for her. I realize I forgot to take my library books back to the library. There's a two-foot stack of them on the passenger seat.

BG: Shit. Oh! Sorry! (flings books into back seat)
ES: That's alright. She throws her purse and tote onto the seat and hauls herself up in to my truck and then proceeds to sit on her bags.
BG: Oh, um... (grabs bags out from under ES's butt)

In the car, driving:

BG: It's raining. I don't like rain. (I can talk about the weather- it's nice or I don't like it, simple)
ES: We're going to the station, right?
BG: Yes, Misawa station

We drive for a bit.

ES: We're going to the station, right? Isn't it that way?
BG: Yes, we're going to the station. (here I attempt to ask where her TRAIN is going)
ES: Huh?
BG: Where are you going? Are you going to Odate?
ES: The train station. EKI. MISAWA EKI
BG: (in English) I know that! (in busted Japanese) You're going to Odate, right?
ES: No, I'm going to the station. GO LEFT HERE! (I go a different way than she is used to and it is making her nervous)
BG: (in a sudden flash of brilliance) Aha! is the TRAIN going to Odate?
ES: No! MISAWA STATION!
BG: Are you going to Odate today?
ES: No, I'm going to MISAWA EKI!
BG: Yes, yes. Fine. You're going to Misawa Station.

sudden shift in conversations, because now we're both annoyed about MISAWA EKI

ES: You [and Chris] have two cars?
BG: Yes.
ES: (I think she asks how old my truck is, not sure)
BG: Not new (because I can't drive, talk, and figure out Japanese numbers without killing both of us, she gets a two-word answer, which she understands is not meant to be rude, thank god).
ES: Oh, I see. It is used (the phrase is actually 'middle old'). It's a good car.
BG: I like it. It is cute.
ES: I don't have any English. I'm sorry. Where are we? Where is the station?
BG: The station is straight ahead. My house is over there (asoko "over there, a bit away).
ES: Really? Oh, look! There's the station (I'm sure she thinks this is a fucking miracle). That was much faster than I thought!
BG: The time is good? (implying we have enough time for her to catch her train)
ES: Yes, it is good. Thank you very much for taking me to MISAWA Eki.

(I hung around to see her off, because that is good Japanese manners, you just don't drop off and dash, plus I like spending time with her, even if it is at MISAWA EKI.)

nerdy

Last night, my 'net xtion croaked. Hard. Nothing would bring it back. Frustrated, I shut everything down and went to bed.

This morning, I restarted everything, performed a few tweaks and was good to go.

So this afternoon, at work, I "casually" mentioned "You know I had a problem with my connectivity last night...did anyone else?"

And everyone else in the office was like "ME! TOO!" The subtext being that we were all relieved that it wasn't just us individually having issues and that no one would come and revoke our Nerd licenses for losing connectivity.

Lee thought it was his router. I thought my slowly dying machine had finally shuffled off the Tesla Coil, Kotlarsic thought it was just his shitty, half-assed connection, and Kelly, well, bless Kelly, his first thought was he forgot to pay his bill and they shut him down. K's second thought was he paid his bill and they shut him down anyway (his ISP has made a hobby of randomly disabling his service).

Turns out there was a pretty major outage affecting all the ISP's. It had nothing to do with us.

Hee hee hee. Nerds.

Not Very Pheasant

We have this Japanese Green Pheasant living in the patch of woods behind our house. Wiki's not kidding about it living near human communities--this pheasant is in my backyard. This pheasant makes a noise like someone is trying to rape an innertube with a rusty bike horn while simultaneously raking their nails down a chalkboard. At 2 am. This noise wakes me up. Did I mention at 2 am? I am going to go kill that phucking pheasant. The one we had last year got eaten by something in early April, so I didn't have this problem. This year's model managed to survive. But not for long.

Cherimoya Et Cetera

I had a cherimoya as part of my lunch today. It was really good! Also, the cherry blossoms are waaaaaaay blooming but it is raining out, so no hanami (flower viewing) for me today. Maybe this weekend the weather will be nice again (ha ha ha) and I will pack a little picnic and go sit in Misawa Chuo Koen (Middle Park) under the Cherry Trees.

Mutsu Bay

This past Saturday, Chris and I went over to Mutsu Bay to have a look around. I got to see a giant wind farm, a nuclear plant, battleships, and dead starfish. Then we came home and had ice cream cones! All in all, a very good day. I'll have the pictures up on flickr in a bit.

Baaaaaaaad News About Your Doggie

Oh, I feel badly for the Japanese. I thought everyone could tell the difference between a sheep and a poodle:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=263297

One Hundred Haiku

Check out my latest endeavour! Writing bad haiku!

One Hundred Haiku

I'm hoping this will force me to sit down for an hour each day and try to write a haiku. I used to be pretty good about sitting and writing poems or working on short stories or just writing about stuff in general, but I've fallen away from that habit. Now that I am working on a bunch of IT certifications, I need something to balance out all that logical thinking.

Gubernatorial

My "Long-Distance Co-Worker", Dwayne, has decided to put things right in the fecked-up state of Maryland. Be sure to check in regularly for updates. He has an interesting platform.

BLANKENSHIP FOR GOVERNOR

Haiku

I entered the Base Haiku contest...and won first place for my age group!

Bits of sweet color
Tucked among bland winter weeks
Hanging Persimmons

Traditionally, persimmons (gaki) are peeled and hung up (usually under the eaves of houses) during fall and winter. The drying processes makes the hoshi gaki (hung persimmons) very sweet. The taste of the dried fruit is a bit like dates, with hints of honey and floral.

This is not the haiku I thought would win, if I won at all. However, this is the haiku that I struggled with and revised over and over, so I am very pleased it won. I would have been pleased if it had even placed.

Here are the other three haiku I submitted for the contest:

The Seventh Month starts
Swimming in a sea of clouds
Ends drowned in the heat

Flaming maple leaves
Drop away from black branches
Moments of our lives

Springtime fields beneath
The darkness of a new moon
A heart's deep secrets

Spring Things

Hina Matsuri was on March 3rd. I put a little decoration up in my house, too:
Takenoko Onigiri in the Lawsons! Takenoko is literally "bamboo child" The onigiri, shown here in its packaging, contains a shoot (actually a corm) from the bamboo. They're very good and you can only get them in the spring.
Fresh Flowers from the Misawa Farmer's Market (three big bouquets: 750 yen!):
Fresh eggs! Although these are available year round, I was particularly excited to find these at the Misawa Farmer's Market for several reasons:

• I love brown eggs
• These were the most humongous eggses I had ever seen
• All the eggs were weird shapes. Not a single properly egg-shaped egg amongst them.
  
• These were all DOUBLE YOLK eggses! My grandmaw always said that doubles were LUCKY!
• They're a Japanese dozen. That means there's TEN of them. Lee finds this observation hysterical.
• They had a picture of the CHICKEN that laid them! Seriously! A big old photo of the chicken that laid the eggs. She was a cute red hen.
  
• They were less than two dollars! For the equivalent of fifteen small eggs. Wow.
  

The little word balloon on the label lets you know that there are two yolks in each egg. It also lets you know that you should use the eggs before March 25. They're not kidding, either, as these eggywegs are not pasteurized (and thusly actually TASTE like eggs).


Also, in addition to 3/3 being Hina Matsuri, it was also Creepy Old Japanese Guy Day at the 100 Yen store. I swear, I have never seen so many creepy-ass old dudes as I did that day. Weird.

Lee Got Promoted!

And I got to pin him on (which means a good punch to the arm)! I was really, really flattered that Lee asked me to particpate.

My husband CANNOT take pictures, they're always out of focus or some weird thing. I think it's the camera's revenge for Chris throwing it out a few months back. The pictures I took were fine! So because of Chris, you can't see Lee looking awesome in his blues, my awesome outfit (which I agonized over for a full week) or my awesome punch or the awesome five pound hams that Crocker calls his hands. Jeebus.

Here's Lee, prior to the beginning of the ceremony. Slightly nervous, perhaps?
Maybe excited.
Chris' problem was he was focusing on some guy's head... There's the Lt. Col and Lee!
Here we go. Place the stripes on and...
WHAM!Aftwards they made the promotees sing The AirForce Song! (Off We Go...)Here's another shot of Lee singing his little SrA heart out! Congratulations!

BIG CHOCOLATE

"UFO Catchers" or "Claw Games" are very popular in Japan and you can find them anywhere.

Game prizes range from bite-size candy up to I-Pods. Seriously. The prizes here are much better than the ones that are offered in the States.

We rarely play the machines, since their odds aren't favorable AND it takes skill to win prizes from a catcher and that skill is something Chris and I both lack.

But every once-in-a-while my husband surprises me, like today when he won THIS:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a 15-inch ruler provided for scale.

I was too embarassed to carry the bar out of the arcade, I made Chris do it.

Later, I asked Chris "How am I supposed to eat this huge chocolate bar?"

To which he replied, "With malice of forethought."

This is why I love my husband.

Pantyhose

I was very flattered when Ben Lee asked me to participate in his promotion ceremony.

I want to look nice and that means getting dressed up more than my usual jeans-and-a-tee. It means a skirt or a dress, and either of those mean pantyhose.

I hate pantyhose.

I don't have any pantyhose.

If I hate them, why would I have pantyhose?

Unfortunately, pantyhose are sometimes a necessary evil and cannot be avoided.

Did I mention I didn't have any pantyhose?

Did I mention I hate pantyhose?

So I had to go buy some and it made me cranky.

I can never find pantyhose in flattering shade that's close to my skintone.

The BX has NO selection of pantyhoses.

I couldn't mail-order the pantyhose of my preference in time.

I looked all over for pantyhose, getting angrier and angrier all the while.

Eventually, though, I bought some f*ing pantyhose.

Seriously. See?

Hakodate Trip

Hi Everyone!

We're back from our long weekend in Hakodate.

You can view the pictures on flickr.

Be sure to go to the end to find out about our "really gross food" experience. It's funny now, but it was traumatic (for me, anyway) then.

It was such a great trip. I wish I could have taken you all along with us.

Engrish: Milk Bubble Maker!

Question: How good could a two dollar frother be?

Answer:

Pretty good.

It took me a while to buy the frother I had seen at the 100 yen store, mostly because they kept moving its location around and also a little bit of overload and I would get distracted by all the other crap in the store, all of which could be mine for a 100 yen or sometimes a little more...such was the case with the frother.

It took a bit to pry the frother from its blister pack, mostly because I was trying to be careful of not breaking the damn thing (it looks a little wimpy) as well as trying to preserve the hysterical packaging with its copy full of culinary brio and a shitload of Engrish. Perfect. I needed some content for the blog, anyway.

To my surprise, the extricated frother actually felt pretty sturdy. The stand was a nice touch. Even the whizzy bit on the shaft seemed well-made enough that it wouldn't fling high-speed metal shards directly into my beady green eyes.

I put the mixy bit into the motor housing then and installed two AA batteries. I made some hot cocoa. It was Swiss Miss Fat Free--it's crap but I wasn't about to fuck up my really good Williams-Sonoma stuff. I then stuck the frother in and let her rip. The frother went ZZZZRRRRRRRRRR and it very effectively foamed my hot cocoa, albeit all over me and all over my kitchen. I ended up only having half of a cup of cocoa, but I just made another (also frothed to half-a-cup, but between the two halves, I got a whole) and laughed my ass off the entire time. And BONUS! The frother absolutely scared the crap out of the cat. I chased him with it, just to make sure his terror was legitimate.

Buoyed by such resounding (and entertaining) success, I then tried to froth Chris' left ear. But even with a little tenacity source (as the package states) it went BRRRZZZKKKKKZPLFTH and stopped dead in its whirly, circular tracks. A quick reboot and it was as good as new. Should have seen that coming, since the back side of the package states:

When attached to a skin or a dress, please wash with water.

It obviously didn't work because my husband WASN'T wearing a dress AND he had dirty ears.

Enjoy the pictures, you can click to get a larger, legible size.

PS: Be Sure to wash a mixer after use.

Housekeeping

I removed the links to my kimono and triathlon pages--they weren't seeing much traffic and I was not doing a good job keeping them up-to-date. The kimono page was too much work for so little return and the triathlon stuff, well, the actual months where I was training were interesting, but then it just became a whine-fest. No point in lingering on that.

Spring is trying to come to Misawa, it was a gorgeous early-spring day yesteday, you could just feel the newness of the season in your soul. It was one of those day where I really like being in Misawa, being in Japan.

Speaking of which, unless a miracle (or a large cash incentive) occurs, we will be leaving Misawa in September. 8 months -- a relatively short time if you think about it. I am pretty ambivalent about the situation, as part of me is ready to leave NOW and part of me wants to stay indefinitely. If we're really going to leave, I'd like to be back in the states prior to the start of the fall semester at Loyola, so I can finish up my Masters degree.

And Sly passed her Red Head certifications. Actually, "passed" is an understatement, she CRUSHED. Yay, Sly!

Nico

The folks in the office are taking turns visiting Kelly's dog.
She is the spaz-o-matic 6000 deluxe model.
I was afraid to take her out running with me, for fear I would be dragged all over the place, including across the flightline, which would result in BOTH of us getting shot to death.


I took some pictures of our visit. Of the 10 or so I took, only three turned out:

I had to bribe her with a treat to get this pensive shot. I call it Emo Nico!
(she's sad because she doesn't have the treat yet)I got my face licked just before I snapped this. Urgh.It took a few tries, but INCOMING! Look at her floppy ears!

Asamushi Aquarium

We went to the aquarium in Asamushi on Wednesday, January 24.
We got to see fish, rays, eels, otters, dolphins and even some bonus ENGRISH!

Aquarium pictures on flickr!

Hakodate

Currently planning a long-weekend trip to Hakodate! We'll be going in February. We're planning to stay in a ryokan, or traditional Japanese inn. I'm really excited. At some point this winter/early spring, we also want to go to the OTHER end of Japan and visit Okinawa. There's a Club Med there, and maybe we'll try that, just to say we did. Of course, we just might stay at a ryokan there, too.

Rucky!

My husband owes the Japanese trash collector his life. Chris somehow managed to throw out our 500 dollar digital camera. The trash guy saw fit to leave it alone and Chris was able to retreive the camera from the bottom of the bin. The strap was a little wet, but the camera was undamaged.

For Susann--look! A knitting update! I finished a scarf and a hat. The hat only took me an hour and it came out very cute. Chris was supposed to bring the camera (before the whole trashbin fiasco) so I could take pictures of my kimono teacher wearing her hat, but after reading the above paragraph, you know what happened.

Knitting is not a fiber art that is native to Japan, however, like everything else, they improved and refined it and do it very well. I love Japanese yarn.

The hat is a fluffly, chunky yarn with some slubbing. I knit it on 15's, I think it would have been better on 13's. However, it made a darling hat that I completed in an HOUR! One ball made the hat and a monster pompom (not shown, I decided not to use it for this hat, I'll save it for something else). I have four balls of the yarn left. I may use it for the Around the World Scarf.
This is a scarf I made for Mr. Aizawa. It is burgundy with tweedy bits and is quite handsome. It's soft and warm, too. I made it a little bit too nagoi (long). Mr. Aizawa wrapped it around once and then said "Duburu Pray! (double play!) and wrapped it again. He wouldn't let Eiko help--Mr. Aizawa is very natty and he arranged the scarf just so. I hope he really likes it, and wasn't just being nice. I also ended up giving Eiko the hat and scarf (made from Artful Yarns) I was wearing, because she liked it so much. You can see the hat and scarf here.

What Happened to Winter?

There's no snow. Seriously. It's cold, but there's no snow. How can I snowshoe without snow?!

Engrish: Low Cost Rog House

more of my engrish sightings at flickr.

明けましておめでとうございます!

明けましておめでとうございます

akemashite omedeto gozaimasu!

Happy New Year!

2007 (or Heisei 19) is the year of the Boar. This happens to be my sign; in the European zodiac, I am Cancer. I can't win either way--either a pig or crab or an abnormal growth of cells which tend to proliferate in an uncontrolled way . Hardly glamorous.

Here in Japan, the days of January 1st to 3rd are called shougatsu. January 1st is called gantan and is a national holiday. Shogatsu is the most important holiday in Japan. Everything shuts down from the 29th of December to the 3rd of January. People stay at home with their families, and eat and eat and eat! They may watch holiday TV programs or play cards or go or chess.

Tradtionally, a fancy bento (box meal) is served. This is called Osechi and is very pretty and very symbolic. It used to be the mommies and grandmommies spent the days running up to Shogatsu making Osechi (so they wouldn't have to cook during the three days) but now it is more popular to order Osechi ready-made. This means that the supermarkets are BUSY. Usually, I see Japanese shopping with one basket. When I went to the suupa a few days ago, not only was it a mad house at 9am on a Saturday morning, Japanese ladies were pulling TWO carts with two baskets each full of stuff. Some husbands had even been roped into helping.

It is traditional for Japanese people to visit to a shrine or a temple during New Year's Days. People pray for safety, health and good fortune, buy charms or blessings and drop off old charms or talismans to be burned by the priests. The first visit to a temple or shrine in a year is called hatsumoude. It is not a very religious event but rather a custom. Many well-known temples and shrines are extremely crowded. Not a good idea to go sightseeing at this time!

End-of-year gifts are exchanged (usually food items) as a way to say "Thanks for your kindness in the old year, please treat me well in the new." Everyone looks to the new year for a fresh start.

Many people put up a shimenawa and/or kadomatsu. We do, too! See (gimme a minute to link to my flickr pages)

This year, I managed to stay up until midnight. I was listening for the temple bell, as Buddhist temples toll their Okane (bell) 108 times at midnight, one ring for each of the 108 evils man must overcome. I thought I heard bells, but I also heard drums, whistles, cheering, drunking singing/hollering, canned music, dogs howling and maybe a firecracker or two. It was a beautiful, clear, cold and starry night, with Orion shining through the branches of the trees in my little yard. A nice image with which to begin The Year of the Boar.

Slow Day at the Office

Which is good, the last thing I want is excitement--like a server crashing or something.
From December 18 to the 22nd, I was in Osaka and Kyoto, visiting with Chris' parents.

You can see our Osaka&Kyoto pictures on flickr.

There's also Christmas Pictures here.

Christmas Traditions: 25 (Christmas Day)

Open Stockings
Breakfast
Open Gifts
Phone calls throughout the day
Lazing around for the rest of the days.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Traditons: 24 (Christmas Eve)

On Christmas Eve, we always stayed home. There was tons of food (nibbles) and drinks (alcoholic and non-), music and just hanging around. My family never went out visiting, but plenty of people came to see us. Growing up in a small town, I never thought it was odd that people came and went, "dropping by" or "stopping in". Moving to Maryland made me realize how much I miss that socialibility, but I soon realized how nice it was not to have to be properly dressed by 7:30am on a Saturday, because you never knew who was downstairs having coffee.

We normally put the gifts under the tree on this day now that we are grown. Since we live overseas, we've changed that slightly. Gifts that arrive in the mail are unboxed (but not unwrapped) and placed under the tree right away. When we were small, they were put under the tree after we went to bed.

We'll probaby watch A Christmas Story (again)...Ooooh, Earthquake! I hope that doesn't become a traditon!

A quiet Christmas Eve at home, with it snowing outside and cozy inside.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Traditions: 23

At least one decoration gets broken every year, including last year:The end of an ornament which made me really upset was when the last (a fushica one!) ornament of a vintage mercury-glass set broke. It had been my maternal grandmother's very first set of Christmas ornaments, and it pre-dated WWII. I liked its look and its history and now I like its memory, so it's not really lost forever.

I've come to accept that a Christmas ornament always gets broken, damaged, or just falls apart from old age. Really it's suprising how well everything has lasted as many ornaments have survived three generations, being stored for over a year in a tractor trailer, a twice-flooded basement, various pets, a mouse infestation, drunken rages, the tree fallling over, moving to Maryland, the US Postal System, and various other calamities (like my brother taking a bite of the styrofoam gingerbread man--we hung it up anyway, that gingerbread man with a half-moon shape chomped out of his side). Lost ornaments are replaced with new ones, which have their own stories and become part of our traditions.

Christmas Traditions: 22

Pillsbury Orange Rolls for Breakfast Christmas Day!

Chris, as far as he can remember, always had the orange rolls for Christmas Day breakfast. When we got married, and were merging our traditions and making new ones, he asked if we could continue this one.

We were really relieved when we learned we could purchase the tubes of dough here at the comissary.

Christmas Traditions: 21

The call from Santa Claus.

When my cousins Matt and Em were very young, my father would pretend to be Santa (I mis-typed there, and got Satan--my father didn't have to pretend with that, sometimes the man WAS the devil).

He could get away with it because we didn't see Matt or Emily very often and his voice wasn't necessarily familar. This lasted until the kids were old enough to recognize his voice. It was a very sweet thing to do and my family, really not given over to sentimentality, held this little tradition in high enough regard to never mock it.

Once, I mentioned to my dad that he was beginning to look like Father Christmas, but before I could finish, my father grumpily retorted "Yeah, if Santa was a bald old fuck." and I never brought up the resemblance again.

Christmas Traditions: 20

Pets get a gift.

Santa "Claws" always left a small gift under the tree for our pets. One year, said gift was a humongous rawhide bone that gave our Great Dane something euphemestically known as "Gastrointestinal Distress" and she left a really big (and runny) gift in the middle of the living room for the whole family.

Christmas Traditions: 19

Nuts.

My grandmother always had a dish of assorted nuts out, complete with picks and a cracker. I ALWAYS pinched my fingers in the cracker, playing with it and my brother and I had sword fights with the picks. While I remember this,I really don't ever remember anyone ever eating them, but they looked pretty. Walnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, hazelnuts, all different shapes and sizes. My grandmother put the same dish of nuts out every year. Not just the dish, the same nuts. I shit you not. I learned this one Christmas while helping her put away the holiday decorations. I watched her carefully pack up the wooden dish with ALL the nuts still in it and stow it away.

I figured those nuts had to be about 15 years old by that point.

Christmas Traditions: 18

Never saw your fruitcake.

This must be proclaimed loudly in received pronounciation, and you must look very stern.

TIFKAS and I discovered a long time ago that we liked Giant Brand Fruitcake. On the fancy, shiny silver box were inscribed the legend: NEVER SAW YOUR FRUITCAKE. This struck as as ridiculously funny. "Have yooooooooou seen my fruitcake?" "Never saw your fruitcake!" and so on. In actuality, the instructions were trying to explain that in cutting the fruitcake, one is supposed to use a firm, downward slicing motion, and wipe the blade after each cut, vice sawing it back and forth. Oh, man, the joke is so much less funny when you have to explain it all. Trust me, after ten years, we still find it hysterical.

We also learned that the Holy Cross Abbey in Virgina that makes AMAZING delicous fruitcakes. AND THEY COME IN TINS. They are really good. Honest.

Tradition #18 also works on another level. If your great aunt asks you if you got the fruitcake she mailed you, well, NEVER SAW YOUR FRUITCAKE.

I have not seen Japanese fruitcakes, but given my experience here, they would most likely contain corn and/or squid. And instead of lasting forever, it turns into a miniature giant robot and flies off into the sun, sacrificing itself and thusly saving the world from funky squid and corn fruitcake.

Christmas Traditions: 17

Started by my godmother many years ago was our practice of putting an ornament on one of your gifts. She started doing this when I was about 10 or so. When Matt and Em (our cousins) came along, we started them from the beginning. What you end up with is an ever-growing and very eclectic collections of ornaments. When Matt and Em have their first Christmas in their own home, they'll have a collection of ornaments going back some twenty years.

Christmas Traditions: 16

A real Christmas Tree!

ALWAYS!

Except for the year we lived with my grandma, who refused to have a live tree because of the mess and the years (2 so far) we've spent overseas.
You just can't get the trees in Japan.

It's traditional to spend the next eight months vacuuming up all needles, too.

Christmas Traditions: 15

Staying home. This is the real, big tradition. Numero Uno!

My family really had no "real" traditions except for this one. We stayed home, together on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. No travel, no visiting, no errands, nothing but nesting. We even liked each other the whole time. It was the one time we would be guaranteed my dad would be home. There's no place like home for the holidays.

Christmas Traditions: 14

Stockings, and the stuff therein.

We would open the stockings first, while we waited for my grandmother and godmother to get to our house, for opening the gifts and eating breakfast.

Growing up in Buffalo, NY meant your lips were always dry and flaky and splitting to the point of resembling pink sandpaper. Hence, there was a always a Chapstick in your stocking. Trautman Family Holiday Protocol dictated you dug around for that Chapstick (generally it ended up in the toe section), found it, held it aloft in triumph (and no small amount of relief) said "OOOOOOOOoooh, CHAPSTICK!" and proceeded to slather it on your face, be you male or female and grinned a cherry-scented, wax-coated grin. Invariably within a week and in complete accordance with the rest of the tradition--you lost the Chapstick.

There was always a teeny "Whitman's Sampler" box of Candy (four pieces). In the classic yellow "needlepoint" box. When I was very little, the box was still actually a tin. I kept a bunch of those tins, due to some primordial hoarding urge or at the very least a bauxite fetish. To this day, I still adore anything that comes in tins (peppermint bark, Altoids, Dean and Deluca Licorice).

There was always a couple of McDonald's gift certificates, too.

My parents usually did not have stockings, but when my brother and I were in our early teens, we began to insist that the 'rents have stockings, too. Most of the time, we didn't put anything in them. However, one year, my brother and I managed to buy cigarrettes, despite being underage (back when you could still pull that off by saying "It's for my parents" ) and filled my parents stockings with those. I remember being suprised at how expensive a carton of cigarettes actually was. My parents, both smokers back then, were seriously thrilled.

Christmas Traditions: 13

Someone in the family is ALWAYS sick. Always. My grandmother did the best job with this tradition, she had pneumonia two Christmases in a row. I remember a picture of her in the family album, taken on Christmas morning. She's wearing a yellow chenille robe and looking like death warmed over. She HATED that picture.

Christmas Traditions: 12

Aunt Den's shortbread cat.
No pictures.
I ate the whole thing.
I am notorious for doing that.
I am also notorious for not being willing to share it, either.

Christmas Traditions: 11

Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark

is a tradition Chris and I created. We love the stuff, but limit ourselves to purchasing two tins, just after Thanksgiving. If we didn't we would go through four tins. We know this for a fact. And while there is other peppermint bark, WS is the best one, hands down.

Christmas Traditions: 10

The Louie Story has become a tradition our house.

Christmas Traditions: 9

The tree goes up on the second weekend in December.

My parents always had a fight about the lights. I managed to have a couple of fights, too, when I had my own house and own tree and own lights.

One year, my dad came home ready to have a fight and an complete turn of events, my mother (who had drank an entire bottle of Bailey's Irish Creme) was passed out on the sofa. No fight that year. At least about the lights, anyway. That bottle of Bailey's had been one of my dad's gifts for my mom, but he didn't hide it well enough and...well, that was a fight.

Chris and I usually have a funny tree topper (one year it was a stuffed toy chameleon. This year, it's a Japanese Space Robot).

I promise I'll put up a picture.

Christmas Traditions: 8

Our cut-out wooden Santa Claus. My mother and her mother and her father (my maternal grandparents, for those not able to follow that logic) made it, based on a poster my grandmother purchased at a Hallmark store. This Santa was pretty important to my mom, since her father died when she was 27 and that Santa represented time spent together.

Santa was life-sized, and carefully made and painted. He stood in front of my grandmother's house for years, until she gave him to my mother. Then he stood outside our house for years, braving the weather and vandals and my father's holiday benders.

It seemed like Santa always had thick, steel-plate feet attached via a pretty impressive weld job to a large, steel-plate stand. This was not always so. Apparently, my dad went out drinking with some buddies, beginning early afternoon. My mother didn't really think anything of it, and put up the household decorations, including standing Santa near our driveway. Well, my dad came home, lit up like a christmas tree and clipped Santa.

We heard the noise and everyone came running out to see my Dad stick his head out of his (newly painted) black pickup. Mom yelled at him for hitting Santa, but my dad was furious about the dings and scrapes on his truck.

"I'll show you about hitting that goddamned Santa!" yelled my father. He put the truck into reverse and RAN OVER SANTA, snapping him off at the legs!

I don't remember this, being that I most likely blocked the sight of my father going medieval on Kris Kringle's ass, but my mother claims I started screaming "DADDY IS KILLING SANTA! DADDY IS KILLING SANTA! KILLING SANTA! at which point she whisked me into the house, and locked my father out. I think he spent the night in the shed.

Anyway, we can laugh at it now. My remorseful father rebuilt Santa, bigger, better and stronger with steel plate feet attached to a steel plate base. That base alone weighed half a ton, and thereafter, my father had to set it up because my mother could no longer manage it.

The painted Santa finally succumbed to old age after moving to Maryland and living on apartment balconies for three years and in front of my first home for one. The paint, being well over 40 years old, just distingrated, despite my careful attempts to preserve it. The base was still going strong, though.

Christmas Traditions: 7

Be filled with the spirits of the Holiday.

In the Trautman household, that would be about 6 parts rum or whiskey (as long it was cheap) to 1 part eggnog.

Unless you're my brother, who up until his teens had a variant of this tradition: enough eggnog to make you sick. He finally got sick of getting sick from the crazily rich eggnog and learned moderation. Until he got old enough to get sick on the booze alone.

We bought Mesmer's Dairy brand eggnog, because MD was owned by my mother's family. It was fantastic. I don't buy eggnog anymore because nothing compares to it.

Christmas Traditions:6

You have to give/get one stupid gift. And the gift that you think is the stupidest is the one that will be the breakout hit of the holiday.

One year, for my stupid thing, I got a miniature shopping cart. I loved it. I still have it. Everyone who sees it loves it. If we get a suprise visit from someone with younger kids, I give to them to play with. They love it!

My brother got a weasel ball. It was a motorized, weighted ball with a fake-fur tail on the end of it. You put it in an empty chip bag and it looked like a critter was in there, rustling around. It freaked out our dog and made us laugh (even more after we had several drinks).

An ex-boyfriend got nerf guns. They were better than the expensive piece of jewelry and got more use, too.

I got Chris teeny sausages last year (in his stocking) and he loved those, despite my belief that they were not only stupid, they were disgusting.

Christmas Traditions: 5

As in 5am. This is the earliest I am allowed to get up. Up until my mid-20's, I was consistently up at 4am and pestering to get my gifts.

Christmas Traditions: 4

Christmas Music. The funnier, the better, but only if my mother is not around.

We got beat one time for singing "Hark! The harelip angels sing..."
(here, you grab your upper lip and twist it, so when you speak, you have an impediment)
"Gnory due na newborg keeg!" It wasn't our fault, our father taught (and encouraged) that one.

My father would also go around singing "Oh, come get a face full" (O Come All Ye Faithful) although when I was ten, I asked "A face full of what?" At which point, I was told "Don't be crazy" and the question was never answered.

"Silent Fart, Holy Fart" was also a big hit in our household, as was the infamous "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells..."

And as much as we loved silly stuff, we also loved the the classics, with my brother's favorite being "Little Drummer Boy"; my dad liking "O Little Town of Bethlehem", and mine being "We Three Kings". For the life of me, I can't remember what Mom liked, although I do think she changed her mind every year, anyway.

I also dig "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" by the Whirling Dervishes, but I can't find it anywhere.

Christmas Traditions: 3

Kelly's Country Store

We would visit Santa there and usually buy a couple of ornaments and some candy. We almost always got sponge candy or orange chocolate (both pretty much unique to Buffalo, something I had never before realized til I moved to Maryland and couldn't get any) and one year, I picked out little paper Victorian-style angels for my ornament. I still have a few, but they are in storage stateside.

They had a great holiday display, it took up the better part of the back of the store. It was great! At least, it was when I was a kid. Revisiting it as an adult, it was okay, but looking a little frayed around the edges. That holds true for all things you visited when you were a kid--the Country Store, the local amusement park, Casa Bonita (Chris). Still, it's all good.

They had the best candy, though and the clerks would always give you a free sample.

Christmas Traditions:2

The Red Teapot

Unfortunately, the red teapot is in storage stateside. Basically, when my parents got married, they were broke. Flat busted broke. But my mom dearly wanted decorations for Christmas, so they scraped together some change and went to the Salvation Army, where they bought a a very British-looking teapot that had seen better days and some fake holly. My dad took the remaining money, bought some red spray paint and painted the teapot red, leaving its chased sterling silver collar unpainted. And that was their first (and at the time, only) Christmas decoration.

I had a ex-boyfriend who hated that teapot.

Notice I said "ex."

Christmas Traditions:1

Putting up the household decorations on the first weekend of the month. My house decorations go up at this time, but not the tree.

I haven't taken pictures yet.

YUKI

Almost like clockwork =) as last year's first snow was December 3

Like Clockwork

In Misawa, like most Japanese towns, there are daily chimes. Not so much chimes as it is taped music played over a PA rather than a real carillion, but still, it serves the same purpose--to piss off the newly-arrived Americans to no end and then eventually be ignored as part of the noise of daily life. Actually, I joke about the ignored part. We have actually come to appreciate the daily chimes, even if we don't consciously hear them. We've internalized them and in doing so, have adjusted our daily rythyms to that of Misawa. There's a lot that goes like clockwork in our lives here.

At 6:00am, Eidelweiss plays. At 6:03, Shimoda's PA goes off, slightly behind schedule and plays Ode to Joy, but it gets all garbled up with Misawa's Edelweiss, so we just call it the morning cacophony and leave it at that. Most of the time I am up before that aural craziness, but sometimes it wakes me up. Although, having grown used to it after two years, I can and occasionally do, sleep right through it.

At 12 noon, the "lunch music" plays. Not sure what the tune is, but Chris and I made up words to go with it. We sang it once for Sly, who just about cried, she was laughing so hard:

"nooOOOOOoon o'clock, NOOOOooooon, o'clock! Time for runch in Meeee-saaaaw-wAHHH!
Will you eat runch with meeeeeeee? Will we have uuuuudon? Or will maybe sooooooooosheeee? Will you have runch with meeeeeeee? We can have keki* or we can have steak-y, will you eat runch with meeeeee?"

*Japanese pronounciation(and spelling) of "cake"

We live near a high school, so we sometimes hear their noon recess bell.

At 4:30pm, due to the proximity of the base, we can sometimes, but not always, hear "retreat" or "colors" (if you are Navy). It starts with the Japanese National Anthem and then goes into an abbreviated version of our National Anthem. They play it on Saturday and Sunday, too, which is weird. Sly said she was never stationed at a base where they did retreat on the weekend. This is not part of the Japanese daily chime tradition, but it fits in with the theme, so I've included it.

At 6pm, they play Eidelweiss again, but I usually don't hear Shimoda's tuneage. Maybe they subscribe to a cheaper plan, which excludes the dinner time announcement and which would also explain why their morning alarm goes off at 6:03 instead of 6:00 aye-em proper.

At 8pm, they play something else, and whatever it is, it sets the neighborhood dogs to piteously howling-- it must really hurt their ears. This is the time we start really winding down, we turn off our porch and yard lights, draw the curtains, run the bath, get things ready for the next day, especially if tomorrow is a work day.

In addition to the chimes, I also regularly hear:

A delivery guy at 4:30 in the morning, on his scooter.

Another delivery person, this time a lady, at 5:00am in her car. Actually, what I hear is the delivery lady doing a high-speed reverse wind out of our dead-end road. Having seen her do this (on my way to the gym for an early workout), I reckon her speed to be about 100 clicks. I'm suprised that the rubber band hat powers her ridiculously teeny white cube of a matchbox truck doesn't break from the strain.

I believe both of them deliver papers. Sometimes they wake me up, sometimes not. Sound carries oddly in our little neighborhood.

Sometimes, I can hear the trains crossing-kachunnga, kachunnga, kachunnga. This depends on the weather. I hear it more often on cold, clear nights or breezy, clear days. Japanese trains maintain their schedules flawlessly so i should hear them every day at the same time, but I don't. Same as the delivery people, sound carries oddly around here.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, at 7:30am the garbage truck comes. He's quiet and fast, and half the time,we don't realize he's come and gone, until we see a forgotten trash bag in the foyer and go to take it out and the bins are already empty. He never varies more than five minutes in his schedule, even with 158 inches of snow.

On a bigger time interval are the "shout trucks" which we hear twice a year when the elections are being held. It's a truck with a PA mounted on it and a nasally woman shrieking her support for whomever is trying to get elected. It is horrid, particularly at 7:00am on a Saturday, when you're trying to sleep off a big bottle of sake, three beers, two glasses of raspberry liquer, and a bit more than half of a cheese pizza.

A few times during the winter, the fella that sells steamed imo (a yammy sort of root veggie thing, quite filling in a marvelously starchy way) will come around, with the steam whistle on his truck going fwoooooooooo. It's a very distinctive and hair-raising sound. The first time I heard that whistle, about 8pm on a pitch-black steel-cold winter night, it scared me half-to-death and sent me running, full tilt and terrified into brightly-lit safety of my little Japanese house, where I peered out the window, watching for the end of the world to come around the corner, going "FWOOOOOOOOO!" All that came round the corner, however, was a diminutive white van swaying to and fro as it made the rounds. A little white van with a glowing red sign atop it, like a oversized nightlight, hardly as frightening as what I had imagined. While the imo are never a let-down, I was disappointed to learn our guy doesn't really have a steam whistle on his truck--it's a recording, meant to evoke the old days, when they really did have whistles powered by the selfsame steam used to cook the imo.

Every year, at midnight on New Year's eve, they purportedly toll the bell at the nearby Buddhist Temple. It is tolled 108 times, to represent the 108 evils a good Buddhist must overcome, but I have yet to stay awake to hear it. I fall asleep before midnight, almost every year, like clockwork.

Thanksgiving

Only ten people this year, which is NOTHING compared to last year, where there were 37!
Pictures on flickr.

Some Misawa Engrish for You!

I guess Sandra Bernhard is out of luck.

Hey! You Kids! Get offa my lawn! Go play on some scaffolding!

I needed to iron and starch my linens for Thanksgiving. But all I could find was "strach".
I hope it can make my linens "stfif"!

Anniversary Number Three

There may be lots of fish in the sea,
but there's only one fish for me.

We were meant for each other, obviously!

Snow!

Last night it started snowing. There was a little accumulation this morning. I attended the base winter brief. Winter is officially on the way. Woo!

Turning Japanese

Actually, it's not Japanese (the "fake" Engrish is dead on, though) at all, but rather the work of an American artist, going by the moniker of 14. Her website is "Gallery of the Absurd" and if you love celeb gossip (don't we all?) you'll love her illustrations, which are technically proficient, bitingly satrical and hysterically funny.

Day Tripper

Went up towards Aomori, with a stop at Moya Hills Ski Resort. Moya Hills will usually run a land luge during the off season, but it was closed during our visit, much to Chris' disappointment.

You can view (and control) a web cam at Moya Hills! Try it!

You can view (but not control) our Day Trip Pictures at Flickr! Try it!

Bunka no Hi

Japan has about 10 more National Holidays than the United States. Today (November 3) is a National Holiday, Bunka no Hi (Culture Day).

November 3 was originally the celebration of Emperor Meiji's birthday. After World War II, the name of the holiday was changed from "Emperor's Birthday" to "Culture Day" and the holiday was used promote culture and acknowledge the life and works of those who contribute to it, as well as time to celebrate peace and freedom.

Beginning in 1937, decorations for cultural achievements were established; they are awarded to individuals who have made important contributions to culture through science and the arts. Decorations are ranked (in ever the Japanese love for hierarchy) in 28 grades! On average, about four thousand awards are presented on Culture Day. Non-Japanese people can (and have) been presented medals. The ceremony takes place at the Imperial Palace.

Big Bazaar

I worked the Big Bazaar again! I had so much fun last year, I figured why not do it again?
As before, I worked with Ikeda-san , owner of Le Kimono Galerie, down in Yokohama. We had a lot of fun and we did a crazy amount of business-both of us didn't get any lunch, we zoomed right through the eight hours of the first day!

Ikeda-san, in typical Japanese understatement, said "Business was good." (I looked at the tally sheet. Business was REALLY good).

What sells is never consistent. In the spring, we sold a lot of yukata. Last fall, we sold a lot of obis and haori jackets. This fall, lots more kimono and obi sets were sold, along with a lot of wedding robes, which are fairly pricey. The haori didn't sell well at all.

I had a lot of fun wearing my kimono and telling people about kimono and kitsuke and dressing up a few people.

Pix are on flickr.

Morale

As a way to boost office morale, we went bowling.

Navy Day Ball

Got gussied up and went to the Navy Day Ball. Pictures on Flickr.

Snowing

My Aunt Den called to tell me it was snowing at her house. I don't think she realizes it, but ever since we came to Japan, she's called on the day of the first snow. It makes me happy.

Worm Farm

If I asked you to think of a farm, chances are you pictured a big, red barn situated on verdant, rolling pastures, with a proud silo silhouetted against a bright blue sky. There might be cows and chickens, or pigs or rows and rows of corn. You might even picture a farmer looking over it all, ensuring that the daily business runs smoothly.

If you were to ask my family to picture a farm, chances are they would envision my father’s infamous Worm Farm. In the course of a short, hot, summer, my father came up with this particular idea, wrestled with some interesting logistics, suffered several terrible setbacks and eventually gave up worm farming altogether.

My father loved to fish. He wasn’t a particularly gifted angler and this was because he was not particularly patient. He wasn’t particularly wealthy, either. Tackle costs money as does bait. But unlike tackle, bait has to be purchased constantly. Nightcrawlers made the best bait for my father’s type of fishing. For those of you who may not know, Nightcrawlers are big worms. BIG—we are talking huge, honkin’ worms, here. Worms the size of Cheez Doodles. Nightcrawlers were expensive, too. My father was not patient. My father was not rich. So he decided he would grow his own.

I recall my father sitting in the coffee-scented kitchen, gleefully scribbling away on a pad of graph paper.

“Whatchya doon, Daddy?”

“I’m building a worm farm!”

“A wo—a what farm?”

“A worm farm! See?” He held up a schematic of what looked like a large box without a top or bottom. “I’ll build it, then I’ll catch worms, and fill up the farm. Then I won’t have to pay for ‘em at the tackle shop!”

“Um, okay, Daddy.” I beat a hasty retreat, lest I get roped into helping (I would anyway, but hope springs eternal).

A few days later, my father appeared with the physical manifestation of his schematic.

He held a topless and bottomless wooden box. It was meticulously made; my father had even dovetailed the corners. I have to admit, the pine box was beautiful, almost a piece of artisan furniture, but I really didn’t understand the extent of his madness. Not at this early point, anyway.

Dad carried the box outside, placed it in my mother’s garden, filled it with dirt, and spent the next two hours rooting around the garden, looking for worms. He inadvertently uprooted most of Mom’s cucumbers, but eventually he got about a dozen worms, which were carefully placed in his “farm.”

Next, weekend, he decided to go fishing. He went to the worm farm, anticipating a bountiful harvest. No worms. He dumped the box out and flung clods of dirt everywhere. There were no worms. No worms. No worms!

As my father sat in the garden, shell-shocked, my mother appeared.

“Where are the worms?” she asked.

“They escaped!” said my incredulous father.

Mom noticed the worm farm. “What happened to the bottom?”

“What bottom? There wasn’t any bot—“

We went fishing that day, anyway, because Dad paid two bucks for a dozen night crawlers

My father was resilient. Worm Farm Phase II was put into action almost immediately. This time, my father put a fine mesh screen across the bottom. Mom refused to let him go tromping through her garden again, so The Bruce L. Trautman Development Company built Worm Farm Phase II on the compost heap in the back yard.

Dad didn’t feel like digging for worms again, so he “seeded” the farm with two dozen purchased crawlers, and hoped that they would reproduce at some ridiculous logarithmic rate. He even began to daydream about a Nightcrawler Empire, wherein he could corner the market and become the primary supplier to local marinas, tackle shops, roadside bait stands, you name it. His delusions of grandeur did not last long. Less than four days, as a matter of fact.

The mesh bottom of Worm Farm Phase II made the worms stay put. However, the top was exposed—to the rain, the sun, the wind…the crows. Having the mesh in place was a good thing for my dad, but a bad thing for the worms.

Restricted by the walls of the Worm Farm, and unable to escape by deeply burrowing, the worms were easy pickings for the crows. For two days, black-feathered, yellow-beaked death rained down on those poor worms. My father just happened to look outside in the middle of one Corvid sortie and rushed out the door, hollering and flailing his arms and acting crazy, even by our family’s generous standards. He eventually waved the voracious birds off, but it was too late. All two dozen worms, totaling a cost of four dollars, had been slurped up, spaghetti-style, by the local feathered gentry. But however put out he was, my father was not down and out.

In addition to being resilent, my father was stubborn. The crows had been just another minor setback. He picked up his worm farm, tucked it under his arm, and marched back to his shop. A few hours later, he emerged, looking triumphant. The worm farm still had its mesh bottom but it also now had a lovely hinged top made of lattice, which came complete with a little latch and a tiny suitcase lock. This was Worm Farm, Phase III.

Dad found a warm and damp but sheltered spot in the yard and placed the worm farm there. He even pulled some dirt up to the sides of the farm, securely anchoring it in a miniature berm. He stole my mother’s very expensive potting soil and lovingly poured it into Worm Farm Phase III, patting it down and making it all very nice. He then ran down to the tackle shop and in an expensive burst of optimism, purchased six Styrofoam containers (at two bucks a piece) of worms. He unloaded his new stock, latched and locked the lid and promptly forgot about the Worm Farm for a third of the summer.

One Saturday, my family was awakened by shouting. Stentorian arpeggios of profanity raked across the mild morning air. There was only one person we knew of who could cuss like that…we ran out to the back porch and there in the backyard, stood my father, holding up the Worm Farm and shaking it, as if he were trying to make a worm-and-mud martini.

As he shook the wooden box, we could see that the fine mesh bottom – the fine METAL mesh bottom had a large rusty hole in it, courtesy of the damp ground. The worms, being opportunists, hadn’t hesitated. They just beat feet or whatever it is that worms beat. At any rate, they were gone, leaving my father a wooden box without a bottom, plenty of wasted effort, and ultimately, some thirty-odd dollars in the hole. It was onto Worm Farm Phase IV. Or was it?

During this apoplectic outburst, my father had an epiphany: mainly that crows couldn’t get into the fridge at the local baitshop; stryofoam couldn’t be penetrated by worms nor would buying bait at the tackle shop cause him to feel like the butt of some cosmic joke…

…And a man had to retain some shred of dignity. Somehow.

My father never complained about buying worms after that.

I miss you, Dad.

Miyakin

Miyakin is a bakery/sweet shop here in Misawa. The shop is adorable and has traditional Japanese sweets or Wagashi. They also have European-style baked goods. I love Japanese sweets and Miyakin is one of the prettiest shops I've been in. It's my favorite place to get goodies here in Misawa.

I haven't been very well the last two weeks, and it's been wearing on me, physically and emotionally. After yet another trip to the doctor's, I was so upset I needed something to cheer me up, so I went to Miyakin. You can see what I bought at Flickr.