I'm not getting any tomatoes!

Tomato ga zenzen torenai!

It's supposedly the hottest summer ever. I believe it.

Last year, I had so many tomatoes from the garden, I didn't know what to do. This year, the tomatoes somehow get eaten by some insect or other before they ripen. It wasn't so bad until August, but I haven't had a single tomato from the garden in over 3 weeks. Supermarket produce is a lot more expensive than it is most years, too. It's nice to know that the pros have it hard and that it's no fault of mine..



That's a photo from last year, a memory of better days...

You don't have to do that anymore!

Mou sou iu koto ha shinakute ii n dayo!

So Cinderella went to the royal ball in the enchanted dress. The Prince took one look at the beautiful Cinderella and would dance with no other the rest of the evening.



He loved her Swiffer too much to let it go.

Please don't do that anymore!

Mou shinai de ne!

The previously described kid in the Pumpkin Day Care with anime red hair is showing a good inch or two of dark roots. I'm hoping his mom won't do that to his hair again, ever.

I love checking the "feedjit" bar. I can tell who some of the visitors are, but others I have no clue, so they must have found me without me telling them about this blog myself. And what is interesting is that some of these visitors I don't know apparently come back every so often to check on me. Which is cool, but I don't know who they are and what they are looking for.

So if I don't know your name, and you are checking this blog, and if you feel like it, please leave a comment and tell me what you were looking for when you got here and whether you found it. This is a blog about the Pumpkin Mommy and her brood, and the Japanese phrases only serve as a minor accessory to what I really want to share. If the phrases are important to lots of people, I might consider being more detailed about them, like how formal they are and whether you can use them on people other than immediate family and friends your own age.

What are they made of?

Nani de dekite iru no?

The Pumpkin Clan went to a very, very old fashioned cafe. It was so old fashioned, it didn't serve coffee!

Outside, there was a play area.


Choose your desired caliber, cut, dry, cut, hammer, and tie.


We offer a wide selection of heights as a service to our customers.


That's OK, I think I'll stick to these for now.

Of course, it was way too hot to stay very long (for the Pumpkin Parents, anyway).

Without a doubt!

Machigai nai!

You know what I said about possibly being a geek? I take it back. I am a geek. I am watching my Big Bang Theory 2nd season DVDs in little detached installments. Today I watched 2 episodes while painting my toenails (bright red, of course!) In one, the geek squad was discussing the care and maintenance of Superman's suit, and how it would be cleaned, and how flying close enough to the sun ought to incinerate anything on it that was not Kryptonian in origin, except wouldn't Superman's sweat be Kryptonian in origin and therefore impervious to the heat of the sun, yadda yadda yadda, and I was thinking how I pretty much had the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION in high school except it was about a Japanese comic (Captain Tsubasa, if you must know).

And I wonder why I had trouble getting dates.

Well, then again, there was that whole "girls' school" thing.

Might be!

Kamo shirenai!

You might be a geek if you are watching a "geek squad" scene in "The Big Bang Theory" and you don't find what is going on strange or funny as much as you would really like to join Leonard, Sheldon, Raj and Howard.

The other day, I logged on to Amazon Japan to buy a work-related publication. When I finalized the purchase, however, I had Alison Arngrim's "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated" and the 2nd season of "The Big Bang Theory" in my shopping basket.

Surely I am not the only person who does this, am I?

Let me try!

Boku ni mo yarasete!

It was so hot today, the Pumpkin Daddy started washing the cars with the kids. The Pumpkin Prince wants to do everything his big sister does.

"Hey, that looks like fun! I want to try!"

"All right!"

"Gotta make sure I don't miss any spots on the Pumpkin Prius!"

"Water is so much fun!"