Coincidence!

Guuzen!

Today was kind of surreal. I chatted online with someone I hadn't spoken to for over two decades. We were friends in junior high. Not best friends (my best friends at the time were the Pea Mommy and another girl who, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't really do computers), but we were most certainly friends, and I have only fond memories of her.

What was really neat was that she'd sent me part of a Facebook message in simple but grammatically correct Japanese, and I sent a message back to her in what I hope is comprehensible Mandarin, even though I don't know how to do the little accent marks for proper pinyin (alphabet notation for Mandarin, my friend is of Chinese descent). Apparently she'd started studying Japanese by listening to Podcasts in her car. I started doing something similar with Mandarin to put the time I spent driving around the prefecture for work stuff to good use. I thought it was interesting that we did the same thing with each other's mother tongues before we got back in touch with each other.

Let's play!

Asobo!

Japanese kids get Christmas presents, but they also get money on New Year's (otoshidama) from relatives. The Pumpkin Princess got about 5000 yen (60 USD or thereabouts?), and the Pumpkin Mommy and Daddy decided she'd like Legos and took her to ToysRUs.

After buying her a box, the Pumpkin Daddy decided he liked Legos, too. He wanted to buy more and suggested making another trip to ToysRUs the next day. But I remembered my parents had mentioned my younger brother's Legos and how he hadn't really seemed very interested in reclaiming them. My mother had thrown them all in a random old box (I think it was the box my old tape player/ radio came in, I'm not really sure). Based upon my hazy memory, there were no fewer than five good sized sets. I clearly remember a Castle set, a Space Station set, and at least three sets that made cars or helicopters that ran on electric motors or some kind of keywinding mechanism (I think they might have been part of a series called "Technic" but I am not sure. They had a zillion little gears and shafts and pistons each which I could never figure out but my brother put together effortlessly. This is might be part of why my brother is currently an engineer and I am not.)

The Pumpkin Daddy sorted through them and we found some things in there that weren't Legos, including but not limited to a Connect Four piece, two Barbie shoes (unmatched. Probably belonged to me), a couple pencils, a wax cast Donkey Kong figure, address labels printed with our old address in the US, two Matchbox cars (one made in Japan, the other made in, get this, England!) and a molar (eeew? It was filled, and I think I might have had a molar with a filling in that shape, but I'm not sure).

He tossed the non-Lego objects (including the tooth but not the instruction booklets) in the trash and the Legos in a large plastic tub and hauled them to the bath area, and washed them with hot water and dishwashing detergent to remove the 20+ years worth of dust on them. The Pumpkin Daddy asked if it was American dust that was coating them, but I assured him that it was Pumpkin City dust, as my brother had played with the Legos well after our move to my parents' current house.

Then they were laid out in the sun to dry. It'll be interesting to see how much the Pumpkin Daddy gets into the gears and shafts and pistons, being an engineer type himself.

What would you like to see?

Nani ga mitai?

I started Facebook a few months ago so that I could keep in touch with the Pea Mommy (ex Peapod, who gave birth to the Pea Prince a couple months ago). Until quite recently, all of my Facebook friends (other than the Pea Mommy) have been my imaginary internet friends. Now that I have a few Facebook friends who knew me around when I left the US (circa 1986) and haven't really heard from me since, I am trying to post pictures that show the life that I'm leading now. Easier said than done. When you become a parent, you take lots of pictures of your child and almost no pictures of yourself. The few pictures you do have of yourself are usually of you and your child and perhaps your spouse. You will have very few pictures of yourself enjoying your hobby (probably because you have limited time to enjoy your hobby to begin with and probably won't spend said time taking pictures of yourself), and almost no pictures of yourself at work. I'm wondering how many pictures of the Pumpkin Princess my long lost friends need to see before they decide I have turned into a boring suburban mother. 

Actually, maybe I am a boring suburban mother, but please keep it a secret and help me let my friends think I am a successful professional, too.

I don't mind

Watashi ha kamaimasen.

Today, I came home from work and heard the humming noise of the vacuum cleaner. The Pumpkin Daddy had come home from work early (as usual, due to the economic downturn), and was vacuuming the living room.

The economic downturn has, I think, improved life in the Pumpkin Palace.

Compromise

Dakyou

What the Pumpkin Daddy had with his sake on New Year's Day. From left to right, an omelet containing scallops, fish cake with ikura, anchovies cooked in a sweet sauce (the Pumpkin Granny made this one) and pickled octopus. The only thing I actually cooked was the omelet. Reasonable.

No.

Dame.

A Brief List of Things the Pumpkin Princess May Not Do During the New Year Holidays

Eat ikura with her fingers.

Play her toy piano after eating ikura with her fingers before washing her hands.

Stomp on the toy piano with her feet because she has been forbidden to play her toy piano after eating ikura with her fingers before washing her hands.

Cry because she has been reprimanded for the above.

Say she is thirsty and refuse to drink water and milk and demand juice.

Say she is hungry and refuse to eat things like bread and rice and vegetables and demand cookies or chocolate.

Cry because she has been reprimanded for the above.

Unlock the toilet door with the Pumpkin Mommy's house key while the Pumpkin Mommy is using the toilet, come in, then leave, lock the door with the same key, toss the keys into the toy box where it ends up at the very bottom, and not be able to tell the Pumpkin Mommy where the key has gone when it is time to leave for her Granny's. (Non-italicized portion is not encouraged but acceptable.)

Cry because she has been reprimanded for the above.

Please look out for us this year as well.

Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu

The Pumpkin Daddy is big on holidays and traditions. One of his traditions that I don't like is that we must houseclean at the end of the year. It's a tradition like spring/ fall housecleaning, only it's done at the busiest and coldest time of year, and it just doesn't make sense to me, but it doesn't seem quite right for me to be checking blogs working on the computer while he scrubs dust and mold, so I usually help him or clean somewhere else. Today, I scrubbed the kitchen fan grates and the counters. Since I don't do much frying at home, the grease and dust coating the grates weren't too bad. I managed to get the worst of the mess off, and decided that it didn't have to be absolutely perfect. The kitchen counters look whiter than they've looked in ages. I'm glad I went through with it. The Pumpkin Daddy did a few windows with the Pumpkin Princess, and cleaned the ventilation fans in the 1st floor toilet and the bathroom (note to my American friends: it's a Japanese house, so the toilet and the bathtub are in different rooms).

Another one of his traditions that I don't like is his insistence that New Year's Day must be spent well saturated in alcohol. He's bought a special bottle of sake (rice wine) for the occasion (he hardly ever drinks sake the rest of the year) in addition to his usual beer, and expects certain munchies hors d'ouvres to be prepared by yours truly. I guess if you spent $50+ on a bottle of alcohol, you'd want good food to go with it. If it were just the alcohol, I would grit my teeth and pretend I were a single parent for just one day, but I have to fix food. He doesn't ask much of me the rest of the year, so I guess I will humor him one day out of 356.

Well, the date has changed here. Since I don't think any of you are traditional Japanese, Happy New Year (I am not supposed to say that to you if you are Japanese, because we're in mourning since my grandmother died a while back).