'Za

While I like Japanese food and am particularly blessed to be smack in the middle of farm country,
I really miss US pizza. In all it's various glories. I was a bit sad there's no entry for "Buffalo-style" yet.

Masako-san and me

Masako-san and me
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

Working the Kimono Shop on 1/11/08.
It's always a blast.

Couscous for Dinner

Sometimes I suprise myself and produce something both interesting and edible:

Couscous with ginger, cherries, peppers and squash!

IZ RLY O RLY CHCLT!

IZ RLY O RLY CHCLT!
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

THIS sort of thing is what totally makes shopping in Japan worth it.
Y RLY!

Gantan

"Gantan" is the first day of the new year, which is today!
I fell asleep 15 minutes before the arrival of the new year, thusly sleeping through it. That's really not anything new.

I wish everyone the best for the new year, and hope 2008 is filled with "peace, love and good happiness stuff"for all of you.

Osoji

Most Japanese households perform a ritual cleaning called Osoji, in preparation for the new year. It's a pretty thorough cleaning and time-consuming enough that most Japanese now wait until a weekend to do it, making do with a symbolic cleaning of the family altar if New Year's Day falls on a weekday.

My mom always did a thorough house cleaning on New Year's day. I followed that tradition to some extent, but I do mine before now, a gaijin version of Osoji.

This year, my Osoji took approximately 28 hours (over two and a half-days). I have a three-bed room, one-and-a-half bath house. The cleaning takes so long because it's top-to-bottom and truly involved. Some of the things I do: I pull down the curtains to be laundered, I pull stuff out of drawers, closets, off of shelves, etc. I also pull up the area rugs and move the furniture and scrub and wax the floors. I usually pull a muscle or two as well. I clean the stove, the fridge, change out fire alarm batteries and stuff like that. Wax the woodwork, clean the ceiling fixtures (guess how many dead bugs in my living room light? Too many!) This year, I had the added fun of snaking our bathroom drains. There's some interesting um, stuff(?) that gets built up in those drains. Yuk. I put aside items to go to charity (clothes that don't fit or I don't wear). I take down the Christmas tree and all the other holiday decorations. I also put up our shiminawa and kadomatsu.

As I'm typing this, it's been snowing all morning and it's looking pretty and white outside. My house is sparkling clean and so cozy. Best wishes for the new year!

Christmas in Japan: Part III

Tree
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

Here's my Happy Holidays!
Hoping yours were wonderful, too!

Enuff Fluff

Enuff Fluff
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

The internet is a truck.
A wonderful, fluff-filled truck.
A wonderful fluff-filled truck that arrives via USPS to my mailbox.

Goldie, if you want some fudge, you need to email me your snail mail addy.

Christmas in Japan: Part II

Okay, so what kind of real fucking American grocery store runs out of MARSHMALLOW FLUFF DURING THE HOLIDAYS? The commissary here, that's who.

Today, I was picking up some baking supplies for this weekend, hoping that a massive dose of Christmas tunes, holiday baking of breads, cookies and making of candy as well as liberal applicatons of booze and putting up the tree would get me in the holiday spirits, because, for the first time in my life, I really don't give a shit about the holidays. I was actually kind of excited about baking/candymaking, so I got my chips and flour and sugar and sprinkles and stuff like that, but still needed to get Fluff for the fudge. So I push my cart over to where the Fluff normally is and IT IS SOLD OUT! IT'S ONLY THE FIRST WEEK OF DECEMBER. SWEET ZOMBIE BABBY FUCKING JEEBUS. THIS PLACE IS TEH SUX0R.

I was shaken right down to my blue-collar/white trash roots. NO FLUFF! Yeah, yeah, I know you candy snobs are like "Make fudge the proper way, luzr!" I honestly don't feel like dicking around with doing it from scratch. And ya know what? Fluff fudge is easy and the guys at the office like it. But it requires MARSHMALLOW FLUFF OF WHICH THERE IS NONE!

And there is no way I'll find it in the Japanese suupa. Or if I do it will beconsidered a "gourmet import" and will cost 2,000 yen (about 20 bucks).

My god. NO FLUFF. I had to console myself with a large whiskey with some eggnog in it.

Christmas in Japan: Part I

(clipped from Daily Mainichi's English Website, because they don't do permalinks)

Electric eel used to power Xmas lights

Aqua Toto Gifu's electric eel and the Christmas tree lights it powers. (Mainichi)

KAKAMIGAHARA, Gifu -- An aquarium filled with exotic fish here is using an electric eel to power lights on a Christmas tree.

Each time the electric eel at the Aqua Toto Gifu aquarium touches a copper wire in its tank, it sends power that lights up globes decking a Christmas tree.

Officials expect the "eel Christmas tree" to be a popular attraction for dating couples in the lead-up to Christmas Day, when the tree will be removed.

Electric eels are capable of generating electricity in their bodies. They have notoriously poor eyesight and use electric shocks to stun prey so they can catch and eat them.

Phew!

I am home once again. After 20 days stateside, I've decided if it takes me another three years to get home, it'll be too soon.

Pictures on my flickr photostream.

Big Bazaar Day Two

IMG_0127
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

Still working the bird motif, but this time, a more muted outfit.

Big Bazaar First Day

IMG_0124
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

Isn't this a great kimono? I hadn't a chance to wear it yet, so here it is!

Blogworthy

I haven't mentioned that we'll be stateside from the 8th to the 27th. As part of prepping for the trip, I've been cleaning like a lunatic, since we have the faboo Reginald taking care of our house (and cat) for the month. One thing I've been meaning to do is take the kitchen rugs to the laundromat and use the industrial washer to clean them.

So today I did it. There's a brand-new 'mat by my favorite 100 yen shop. It's called "Blue Skies", of all things. So I walked in with an armful of rugs and a confused look on my face because I couldn't tell the washers from the dryers. Luckily, the 'mat is also directly attached to a dry-cleaners, and the clerk was very helpful. She pointed me in the right direction, to a pretty serious-looking washing machine. It cost 500 yen (about 4.85) for a thirty-minute wash, soap included-and automatically dispensed. But wait, it gets even better. This particular washing machine had a ca-razy looking keypad on its front.

Luckily, at this point in my stay in Japan, I can follow along, otherwise I never would have understood it when the clerk told me to punch in my mobile phone number and hit the green button twice.

Oh, hells, yeah. The fucking washing machine CALLS your mobile five minutes before the wash is done. No more hanging around the 'mat, watchin' your dirty drawers go round and round 'till they are clean. THESE DRAWERS ARE CLEAN! Well, I can't ever remember my freaking mobile phone number because it's umpteen digits long AND I didn't have my mobile with me, because I had told Chris where I was going AND I had planned on doing some shopping at the 100 yen store during the wash cycle.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, so I plugged in the number for my Japanese land line. And then I went shopping and then I went home.

I came home and asked Chris "Did the washing machine call?" and bless his analytical brain, he replied "Is that what that was? It said something about preparing and five minutes, but that's all I caught." So I told him all about the very cool calling-your-mobile washer and then we went and got the wash and some groceries for dinner.

Blue Skies also has a special machine just for washing sneakers but that's a story for another time. And I want to get Crocker in on that one, to see if the Blue Skies clerk can get Crocker's size 15's (!) to fit in there.

Hee!

And So It Begins...

Well, this isn't a travel day, but it's the start of our home leave. I'm at the house, finishing up prepwork for the trip. Chris is doing a short day at work. We leave tomorrow for Narita and on Tuesday we fly out, making our way towards the East Coast.

I'm a bit concerned about how well I will hold up-I'm a terrible traveller. I'm also concerned about what it will be like to be back after three years of being away. I need to quit worrying about that, what's the point?

I'm very excited about seeing my family and friends, particularly my former coworkers at APL. Sounds like a few people are going to come out to lunch with me. I really do miss them now that I think about it, not dwelling on my friends and family back home has been a coping mechanism, albeit a dysfunctional one.

Chris' parents say Columbia has been built up a lot in the last three years. Not suprising, Rouse died shortly before we left and a lot of the restrictions on building in Columbia were lifted, pretty much ruining what I liked about it. Eh, you can't go home ever again AND I find myself referring to Japan as "home" which strikes me as pretty funny.

Let me get ready to leave "home" and go "home."

Nine Years

On October 7, 1998 at 1:04pm in the town of Brockport, county of Monroe, State of New York, my father dropped dead.

Nine years have passed. The details above are not etched in my brain, quite the opposite. I have a hard time remembering the date, let alone the time. To write this, I must refer to information printed on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. This paper, is sitting unfolded, three crease marks across its face, on my desk. The notary's seal is visible embossed into the fibers of the top third of the document. My desk, in my house, in the city of Misawa, prefecture of Aomori, the country of Japan. How far away I am from that day, from that world, even.

Not long after my father's death, as part of an art class, I did a project in the spirit of Joseph Cornell, consisting of Plexiglas boxes full of found and manipulated objects, literally trying to piece together an understanding of my father's death. I rummaged through the junk that accrues in the odd little drawers in one's house, went to flea markets, raided a then-boyfriends' (expensive) supplies for tying salmon and trout flies, scavenged wherever and whatever. I wasn't sure what I wanted to put in the boxes, but I knew what would go in when I saw it. But one thing I knew for certain, from the outset, was that most of all, I wanted to put copies (or pieces) of copies of my father's death certificate into these boxes.

So, breathless and heart-hammering, I called my mother on the phone, explained as much as I could and asked her to send me a copy of the official certificate. Imagine my surprise when the envelope from Florida arrived in the mail, containing not multiple xeroxed copies, but the original document, complete with notary seal. I had to sit down. My hands were shaking. It had all, suddenly become very real.

"Proof" was not only not what I expected, it was much less so. The paper hadn't the gravitas of my birth certificate. It lacked the heavy manila, ornate Gothic typeface and gold seal of my college diploma. It hardly even looked official, it was dumpy. Instead, the death certificate was bleary black ink on thin white office copy paper, the copy made slightly out of alignment, so that the edges weren't quite plumb. The form had been completed in a mixture of my brother's all-caps hand-printing and the straggly courier typeface of a government-office typewriter that had probably been in use since the Eisenhower administration. It was printed on the front only, 33 boxes to neatly categorize a messy, hard, funny, confused, under appreciated, drunken, stoned, angry, loving all-too-human life that had spanned 60 years.

It made me irate, all that flat black and white. It made me irate, those 33 little boxes that said everything about my father's death and nothing about his life. It made me irate to frightened and dismayed by a piece of paper.

My memory boxes were fairly large and deep, made of Plexiglas because it was cheaper and safer than glass. I filled my father's memory boxes with color: turquoise, crimson, ochre, silver, vermilion, saffron. I filled them with glass beads, river pebbles, little-girl glitter and puffy craft paint. I filled them with nuts, bolts, bits of fabric and duct-tape. A beer cap. Tobacco. I used fine silk thread, gossamer like spider webs and pieces of burlap and twine, shiny sheet metal, old skeleton keys and chicken bones. I used a copy of an article from my home-town paper, an article that made the front page--my father, lying unconscious next to a downed 1953 Harley Davidson--a wreck that almost killed him--almost made me never be.

I drank most of a very expensive bottle of whiskey while doing up the memory boxes (recalling my dad always drank cheap rotgut) and for the most part, I didn't even taste it. I got stoned off the epoxy used to fuse the edges of the Plexiglas into boxes. I glued my fingers together, got glue in my hair, I wrecked my favorite pair of jeans. In frustration, I smashed a box that wasn't working out the way I wanted to. I cut my hand doing so and I put the bloodied shards of Plexiglas back into another box. I took the finish off the varnished kitchen table, burnt a hole in the carpet. I fought with my boyfriend-at-the-time, who wouldn't, couldn't see the point of 120-pound watercolor paper smeared with glue, glitter, tears. I pulled twigs off of trees, I snipped off a chunk of my hair ( took three years to grow back in) and used that, too.

And I used copy after copy of the death certificate, enlarge, reduced, in its entirety, in torn and burnt bits and pieces. Hundred of copies of the certificate. I made a box, then another, then another. I wrapped each of the 12 boxes with black pieces of cloth, put them in an old chest and took them to my art class. I had my classmates pull the wrapped boxes out and reveal them. As they did, I so talked about the boxes, the keys, the bones, the glitter, the death certificate, and my father.

I left those boxes at the house when I left that particular boyfriend. I do not miss the boyfriend, I do not miss the boxes. Sometimes I miss my father. Not so much after nine years, but this is the way of things.

Seasons

As I have mentioned before in my blog, the Japanese are very proud of their four seasons and have elevated the appreciation of seasonal changes to an art form. There's seasonal food, drink, activities, clothing, holidays. I've come to love the way the culture appreciates nature's cycles, even if it means I can't always get a favorite food all year round.

If you can't see my Kanji characters, you may need to make adjustments to your browser's encoding.

秋

Aki
Autumn

By far the loveliest and longest season in Misawa. Among other things, Autumn brings typhoons, dragonflies, the rice harvest, oodles of chrysanthemums, and of course, brilliant fall foliage. Viewing leaves is almost as popular as Cherry Blossom viewing, but not quite. Kirin Breweries also releases a special fall lager that I adore, but I'm writing about Fall, not beer.

While I, as an American, tend to think of Autumn as one long continious season, I recently learned that traditionally, the Japanse break Autumn down into sub-seasons:

立秋
Risshuu
Establishment of Autumn
Happens around August 7 or 8th. In true deranged Japanese fashion, these dates are often the hottest of the year, particularly in Misawa. I hate this time of year. It's hot and humid and gross. I have yet to cultivate a love for this season.

処暑
Shosho
The limit of heat

About August 23 or 24. It gets really rainy/typhoony around this time. It's still kinda hot and humid. Bonus! There's suddenly shitloads of bugs, too.Thank God for Aki Beer, which starts showing up on the suupa shelves.

白露
Hakuro
White Dew

I've never seen any dew on September 8 or 9 when this occurs. Maybe because I'm not in the Kanto Plains? It's still pretty warm out.

秋分
Shubun
Autumnal Equinox

Also celebrated as a national holiday. The Japanese have at least two national holidays a month, don't be fooled by reports of sarimen working themselves to death, they're all at the mall on holidays. I think this day also falls in the middle of a Buddhist observation for the dead.

寒露
Kanro
Heavy Dew

October 8 or 9. This is what we are heading into right now, at Misawa. Haven't seen any cold dew, but we had a few chilly nights. The weather right now is amazing, the days are mild and the air is clear. They're harvesting rice now, too.

霜降
Soukou
First Frost

In the Kanto region , the first frost does arrive on October 23 or 24. Surprisingly, even though Misawa is about 8 hours north of Kanto, we don't get a frost until November. Around this time, the distant mountains, observable from my house and work, get snow on their tops. All the skiers/boarders get all excited.

Air Force Ball September 2007: Becca, Benri, Jodi

Air Force Ball September 2007: Becca, Benri, Jodi
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

We're silly!

Fitow

Typhoon Fitow has arrived in Japan. Down in Tokyo, airline flights have been cancelled and the Shinkansen (Bullet) Trains are delayed, if not already cancelled, there's been some flooding and there's been one death already.

Up here in Misawa, we're experiencing "brisk" winds, light misty rain, fog and a sky that looks like a concrete bunker.

Usually the typhoons peter out by the time they get up here and we just get lots of rain.

Black Joke!! F*** Captain

Black Joke!! F*** Captain
Originally uploaded by bakagaijiin

Usually buying clothing in Japan is depressing. Not this time. Best. Socks. Ever.