Entry for April 06, 2007

"Sukoshi kawatta ne."

(You've) changed a bit.

We went to the funeral yesterday. There was a picture of Grandmother at the alter which must have been at least 10 years old, around when (at 82 years old) she was making a 4 km walk to the park wice a week to fulfill her obligations as Honorary President-for-Life of her Tai Chi club. There was a thin frail wrinkled little old lady in a casket which looked a little bit like the lovely woman in the picture, but I had serious trouble making a connection between the two. My aunt, who had lived with my grandmother all her life, probably felt the two were one and the same. She was crying as we covered Grandmother with white chrystanthemums and pink orchids and lay her favorite scarf, her comb, her chopsticks, and the bag she took her towel and wallet in to the Tai Chi club meetings in the casket to be cremated with her.

Today's phrase, however, isn't about Grandmother. It's about something that happened at work.

Our department has a "face sheet" which has all our pictures and names and cell phone numbers. Our secretary made the face sheet just a couple of months ago and we pinned them up on corkboards all over the workplace. The sheet is quite popular as it helps people put names with our faces, and is a handy reference when someone needs to get hold of one of us.

The other day, our secretary pointed a camera at me while I was doing paperwork. I asked her what the picture was for, and she replied it was for the new face sheet. And then she whispered, "I can't just re-take one picture, can I?"

I told her I had no idea what she meant, and she looked at me funny. "Are you sure?"

I was sure.

The secretary pointed at a picture on the old face sheet. "Don't you notice a difference?"

Oh.

My boss had less hair three months ago than he does now.

Well, the fact that I hadn't noticed until I'd had it pointed out to me means that it's high-quality work, doesn't it?