Friday, January 31, 2014

They can tell (even if you don't want them to)

Bareteiru

The other day, I realized I'd left the house without…um, feminine hygiene products. So I stopped at a 7-eleven on the way to work and bought a pack.

The nice young male clerk put the pack in a brown paper bag, and put the brown paper bag in a plastic bag. He did this before I had the chance to say "I'll just toss that in my big work bag beside my laptop, I'm an old married lady and I don't care that people know it's my time of month, in fact, maybe it'll warn them to stay out of my way and the world will be a better place for it!"


This is over-packaging is fairly common in Japan for condoms and feminine hygiene products. And the thing is, it just screams horny or bleeding because nobody packages anything else this way anymore.

So, non-Japanese friends, is this environmentally unfriendly nod toward discretion common outside Japan? 

Sunday, January 26, 2014

(misguided) Parental Pride

Oyabaka

Me: If there were 40 Pumpkin Princes and 40 Pumpkin Princesses, I would have someone to cuddle all day.

Pumpkin Prince: But then you would have to cook dinner for 40 people. Wait, it would be 40 of me and 40 of Pumpkin Princess, so that would be 80 people. And you and Daddy, so that's 82 people. That's going to be hard work!

My almost 5 year-old is a mathematical genius!

Now if I could get him to stop kicking my friends…um, between the, um, legs, we'd be good.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

New Year's Money Gift!

Otoshidama!

I haven't made New Year's resolutions in quite some time now. If I did, they would be

1. Do everything in my job description

2. Be more patient with the Pumpkin Prince and Princess

But 1. since my job involves a lot more than my job description, obviously some things that are IN the description are going to suffer, and 2. I think I am more patient than I used to be, but no way am I ever going to hit 100%.

So there.

But I do try to get things done during my New Year's holiday. This year, it was 9 days long, which is probably some kind of record since I started getting paid to show up every morning. I set goals, and I usually meet them about half-way.

This year's holiday goals:

1. Read 3 books about work. Not done. Got about 1/3 through the first book.

2. Watch Season 4 of Big Bang Theory. Not done. Almost done with the first disc (of 3).

3. Exercise at least 4 times. Not done. Did Ripped in 30 twice, and went skating with the Pumpkin Prince and Princess. The latter involved a lot of pull-ups, as in "pulling up a 16 kg child when he falls on the ice."

4. Take the Pumpkin Princess skating. Done. See 3.

5. Sew something. Not done. At all.

6. Self-color hair. Not done, but I guess I still have tonight to do it.

7. Cut Pumpkin Princess's hair. Done.

8. Do a bit of work e-mailing. Done.

So that's it for my 9 days. The Pumpkin Daddy took the Prince and Princess to Toys 'R Us to spend their otoshidama (New Year's gift money from friends and relatives), so I had a few moments to write. They're still not back, so maybe I should see how far I can get through the book in 1…

(Update: I colored my hair and read an additional 20 pages of my book during the wait time. And my arms are very sore. The Pumpkin Prince is to blame, not Jillian Michaels.)