The fastest in history

Kako saisoku

OK, this is the 3rd of 5 days in a row that we have off. So far, I've altered the jeans (I'd post pictures, but I'm wearing them now and you'd get pictures of my rear), planted annuals in flower pots and the flower bed and basil and rosemary in the garden, planted cilantro seeds in empty yogurt containers, and this morning I ran 5km. 

The last one was interesting. Up until now, I'd only encountered runners who were much much faster than me, and older walkers who were slower than me (but not by much). This morning, there was a woman about my age, size and shape running ahead of me. Make no mistake about it, she was faster, but not terribly so. I felt that if I put in some more miles, I could probably be about that fast. So I tried to  see if I could keep her within my sight, which had me running a little faster than I'd been running before. She and I went different directions after about 10 minutes, but I tried to see if I could keep the same pace. I could't, but it was still much faster than I'd ever run my 5 km course. 

I am really surprised and pleased at what I did, but my body hates me right now, especially my right knee. I keep telling my body that it'll thank me later, but I don't think it understands...

Longer

Motto nagaku

The Pumpkin Daddy showed me how to map my distance on Google Map, and I figured out that I was running something like 3.4 km in 30 minutes. I mapped out a 5 km run and tried it on Sunday morning.  It took about 50 minutes and wore me out quite a bit, but I thought it was easier than expected.

The pain hit me Monday afternoon, and it took until Tuesday evening for my body to completely forgive me.

I did the 3.4 km run on Wednesday morning, and that didn't hurt me at all. This is of note because when I first started running at the beginning of the year, I was in constant pain. This was when the runs consisted of something like 12 minutes of running with 12 minutes of walking, so I'm definitely getting stronger.

I made out a Golden Week "to do" list that includes gardening (buying and planting annuals in our flower bed), sewing (I found jeans at a budget clothing store, and I really like the fabric. They're better than my beloved Uniqlo! I want to take them in at the waist and add an embroidered patch to a back pocket. Customized jeans, just like the Hollywood celebs have!), and also some running (5 km at least twice) and reading (working through the book that I started during…the New Year Holiday I think ^^;)

That reminds me...

Sou ieba…

It took four months, but I finished Couch to 5k. Actually, what I did was the time-based menu of Couch to 5k, so I'm running something like 3.5k two or three times a week. Which means I'm running 7 to 10 km more per week than I used to. That's major self improvement.

I don't have any races planned, because my motivation is better health. I do want to see if I can increase my speed, since that's the only way to challenge myself if I don't want to run for a longer time.

So anyway, yay me! And I'm going to take a bath and go to bed because the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow morning and I can run for the first time in about a week.

Not in this house

Kono ie de ha dame

The Pumpkin Princess decided she wanted a takopa. That's short for takoyaki party. Takoyaki are fried balls of batter containing bits of octopus (tako) and veggies (usually cabbage and scallions). They're a standard issue festival stall food, but homemade are always better (but isn't that always the case for all foods?)

So after the 6 nine-year-olds had had their fill of takoyaki and veggie sticks and musubi, they decided to have an impromptu fashion show. The "contestants" dressed up in the Pumpkin Princess's piano recital dresses.

Except, one of the girls was much bigger across than the others. And she said she couldn't be in the fashion show because she was too fat.

A beautiful little girl is not going to be left out of a fun game because she's not the right size and shape. No. Not in this house. Not on my watch.

"Do you want to try on one of my dresses?"

I dressed her in a kurti (Indian style tunic) gifted to me a while back. It has beads and rhinestones that keep falling off, which means it's a tween's pipe dream. She was so happy and beautiful and she kept twirling around and around in it. She kept it on until her mom came to pick her up so that she could show it to her, and excitedly told her mom that she won second place in the fashion show.

"Is that an ao dai?"

Wrong tropical country, mom. Ao dai is a Vietnamese dress.

I'll dress your daughter in one the next time she comes over to play.

Someone who looks like Father

Otousan ni nita hito

I've never met the Pumpkin Daddy's grandfather. He'd passed away a few years before I even met the Pumpkin Daddy. In pictures, he's tall and handsome. The Pumpkin Daddy looks a bit like his mother, and looks a lot like his uncle, so I always thought that the height and chiseled features came from his mother's side of the family.

Yesterday, we went to his mom's house, and the Pumpkin Daddy started going through some old pictures, sorting the ones of himself from the rest of the photos (I think the plan is to scan . His mom abruptly grabbed one of the pictures and handed it to me, saying it was the Pumpkin Daddy's dad. The man in the picture looked exactly like the Pumpkin Daddy, tall and handsome. His mom married him when she was something like 20 years old. She probably fell for his looks…because he reminded her of her own father, perhaps? 

And then, the man treated her and their children badly, and eventually left them. So what is it like to love her sons more than anything in the entire world, and yet be reminded of all the bad stuff that happened every time she looked at them? 

Those who chase two rabbits

Nito wo ou mono

(The above is an old saying "Those who chase two rabbits will catch none" (Ni to wo ou mono ha itto wo mo ezu 二兎を追う者は一兎をも得ず which means the same thing as "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.")

So I want to sew and exercise more.

I'm doing Couch to 5K, and I finished week 3 today. I'm achy and tired but I have a sense of accomplishment.

Sewing, not so much. After I altered the navy blue Zara blazer, nothing (unless you count sewing buttons back on). Part of it is that I haven't bought anything new, and part of it is that I haven't really been in the mood. I lapse back into my old habits of binging on chips and fooling around on the internet. (This situation would be marginally better if I were reading something more interesting or practical while binging on chips.)

Which brings me to this: What you need is discipline 

Me feeling the extra roll of fat on my torso when I sit, or noticing that my pants don't fit anymore, or realizing during a conversation with my co-workers that I'm not quite fully keeping up with latest developments of work stuff is motivation.

Me getting out of bed at 5:45 when it's still dark and cold and pulling on my windbreaker pants and Gore-tex jacket and venturing outside, or picking up a work-related book instead of checking Facebook and blogs and Wikipedia entries about old movies is discipline.

(No sewing examples, because that's a weird combination of hobby, thrift and vanity and doesn't really fall within the realm of discipline!)

On a completely different topic, the Pumpkin Princess will be starting juku in April. Juku is private (as in the opposite of paid by the government) after-school academic classes. I've always wondered if the Japanese public education system is all it's cracked up to be. The kids learn to read and write fairly well, and they learn basic concepts like photosynthesis and gravity and democracy and commerce, but there's not very much emphasis on organizing information and expressing opinions. The Pumpkin Princess's juku will teach critical thinking and essay writing (to express the critical thinking process). I think this is an important part of anyone's education.

The problem is, teaching this within the public school system is probably (for now, anyway) pretty much near impossible. So the Pumpkin Princess will have to go to juku. Which I am totally OK with. The Pumpkin Daddy is available to give rides. We can afford the juku fee.

There is a small annoyance, though. What about the kids whose parents can't drive them to juku? What about the kids whose parents can't afford to send them to juku? I wonder how much more (tax) money it would take to let ALL kids get this kind of education? After all, they are the ones who are are going to be running the country in a few more years. I would rather have a large pool of creative, independent, critical thinkers calling the shots.

Oops, I did it again!

Mata yatchatta!

I didn't think I would be, but I'm on Week 3 of Couch to 5k. I downloaded a 100 yen app for it (because I couldn't find a decent multi-set interval timer that ran on the old version of iOS I have on my old iPod) but it crashed during the run, and I ended up just running to the timer function of my iPod. Still, I ran, and I've been running 3 times a week for 2 whole weeks, so it's all good, I think.

Anyway, I was listening to a podcast by two doctors, and one said to the other, "marathons are bad for you." And shortly after, the app crashed.

I'm trying to figure out what to make of this.

I'm continuing to purge my house of unwanted/ unused/ unloved items. I hauled the Pumpkin Prince and Princess's old clothes to work, and gave them to younger colleagues with small children. My friends get extra clothes (because everyone knows daycare babies need about 3 times as many clothes as non-daycare babies), and my house gets cleaner. If that's not a win-win, I don't know what is. While going through clothes, I've come to the following conclusions

1)  Just because you paid 5 times more for it than you usually do, doesn't mean it is going to last 5 times longer. (I am looking at you, high(er) end knits that hold their shape exactly as long as my Uniqlo pullovers.)

2) Woven fabrics hold their shape better than knits.

I tossed one of the first pairs of pants I altered because they were too tight. I'm very slowly gaining weight, and I'm OK with this in and of itself, but I really hate that the items I worked so hard to alter don't fit anymore!