And I did some Amazon-ing and found Tiny
Vader. And I squealed some more.
And I just could not get him out of my
head, just like I couldn’t get that boy I used to like out of my head. And unlike
the boy, whose heart I couldn’t have no matter how hard I tried, I could have Tiny Vader if I used my
credit card.
So Tiny Vader is here. And he’s mine. The
Pumpkin Prince is forbidden to touch him.
A 40something woman playing with a Star Wars
toy, fighting off a six-year-old who wants to play with it, too.
(No book spoilers, just a lot of details about stuff that happened in the 20th century)
The four we used that year was a wood kikakutei (規格艇), or standard boat. The other two coxed fours in our boathouse were
made-to-order carbon fiber boats (I think they were Kuwano boats, but I’m not
sure). They were both sternloaders, that is, yours truly sitting in the back of
the boat, facing the four rowers. Bowloader fours, as in, the coxswain lying
down at the front of the boat, facing away from the rowers, had yet to become a
thing. Plus, we never could afford new boats anyway. Bowloaders had the
advantage of increased stability (the cox lies down, lowering the center of
gravity) and decreased wind resistance. They were also a new development, which
meant if you saw one in the mid 90s it was lighter and sturdier due to
innovations in construction. We drooled when one of the three schools got one
from Filippi. Rumor had it they’d sold their blood.
The first varsity four was your garden
variety late 80’s carbon fiber sternloader coxed four. There were probably
minor adjustments in seat rail length and cox seat size, but they were well
within what would be considered realistic in Japan. The second varsity four was
an interesting creature. For starters, it was built for a coxswain that was
about 5’11”. I coxed in it a few times in fall when we did mixed lineups, and I’d
slosh around in the seat at anything above 24 strokes per minute because my
legs were too short to brace against anything. I am not sure that is the reason
I never coxed the second varsity boat for a full season. Another thing about
that boat was that it was very flexible. If the boat weren’t set (moving nicely
balanced without tipping to one side or the other), which happened quite
frequently in fall, you could actually tell that the boat was twisting.
The two varsity fours and the varsity
knuckle had carbon fiber Concept tulip blade oars. (Tulip blade: oars with
blades shaped like, well, what you think of when you think of an oar:
symmetric, spoon shaped, like a tulip petal. Modern competitive rowing oars
have blades shaped like hatchets. Cue “10 miles in the snow barefoot, uphill
both ways” jokes.) The novices used wood tulip blades. We’d switch to hatchet
blades within the next couple of years. When we got new oars, we’d file down
the handles until they were narrow enough for our rowers to get their hands
around them.
One tool we had that was a sign of the
times was what we called “バック台 (bakkudai).” This translates into “back
boards.” I’ve never seen any reference to them in English rowing web pages, but
they figure in the rowing themed novel that best reflects my rowing experience,
頑張っていきまっしょい (Ganbatte ikimassyoi. Never translated to English, but it should be!
There was also a movie and a TV series. Cutest girl stroke ever, both versions! In the movie, the actresses had zero rowing experience, which means the rowing scenes are
actual novice rowers on knuckles handling wood tulip blades, so it’s dually
realistic.)
(The girls’ school uniforms look a little
like the ones for my HS in Japan. They are so unflattering, but Stroke looks
cute in hers. The only thing wrong with the movie is that Stroke is Just. So.
Cute. In the book, she’s minimal crewcest risk.)
“Bakkudai” were a staple of Japanese rowing
until at least the early ‘90s. They were seat rails and foot stretchers fixed
to a wooden frame, with a sliding seat. It was basically an erg without the
resistance. You held a stick about the width of an oar handle in your hands,
and went through the motions of a rowing stroke. Sometimes you’d line up with
the rest of your boat, and try to get the motions to match. The trouble was
that there was no resistance, so it didn’t really simulate the work involved in
rowing. The other problem was that unlike ergs, back boards were light, and if
you kicked at the foot stretchers with any sort of force, the whole board would
start sliding back and forth. We partially solved this problem by having
someone else step on one end of it, but if the rower was tall and/ or had a
really good forward reach, they’d whack you in the knee, boy/ girl parts, or
(in my case) face. (We had ergs, but we kept them in the campus gym for
afternoon practice.)
According to my calendar, it’s been a whole
year since I started running. Actually, I’m not sure I can call what I did back
then “running.” I did Couch to 5k, except I did it with time and not distance,
so it was probably more like Couch to 3k. Still, it got me started, and I’ve
been running fairly consistently (about 6k twice a week or thereabouts) for a
whole year.
I started doing this because (confession
mode) last year, for the first time in my life, I gained holiday pounds. Well,
I’m in Japan, so holiday kilos. One kilo, to be precise. I’ve run for a whole
year, and that kilo is still there, but I guess I could argue that there’d be
more than that amount if I hadn’t been running. I don’t think my body has
changed very much visibly, either. I fantasized that I’d have to re-alter my
pants, but that hasn’t been necessary. I measure my waist fairly regularly, and
the number is the same.
But there are other benefits. Moving around has become easier. I can climb the stairs to the 5th floor without much
trouble. I feel really confident that I’m more fit than most of my
co-workers in my age group. When I run, I feel like I’m putting my time to good
use, as opposed to just fooling around on social media.
Right now, I’m running in a windproof
jacket and pants that I bought at a Nike outlet about 10 years ago, with Uniqlo
Heat Tech underneath. I thought I’d get new cold weather running gear over the
holidays, but that didn’t happen. The jacket and pants set are a medium gray
color, which probably isn’t very visible in the morning darkness. I was wearing
my summer running hat because it was white and it had a little bit of
reflective material, but lately that’s much too cold, so I’m wearing a Uniqlo
knit cap I found in my closet. I think I bought it something like six years ago
to take with me to Chicago. (Then, I didn’t take it to Chicago so I wrapped a
scarf around my head while I was there. I have a hysterically funny but
fortunately fuzzy picture of me in that state.) It’s dark purple, so, again,
it’s not very visible in the semi-darkness. And it’s really dark out there this
time of year. When I left this morning, the sky was full of stars. I got back
at around 6:20 this morning, and the eastern sky was only starting to turn
orange.
So. Anyway. I’ve been at it for a whole
year, so I think this makes me a runner (albeit a low-level one). So I should
get new running gear!
In Japan, New Year decorations are traditionally
burned in a ritual bonfire. It’s called Dondoyaki. Burning is a sign of respect,
because smoke goes to the heavens.
The smoke is supposed to have cleansing and protective
properties, so you cook food over the flames
Cooking mochi (rice cakes) here is traditional.
Cooking dried squid here is traditional. Cooking marshmallows here is NOT traditional.
Cooking marshmallows isn’t traditional, period, but we’ve done it here the past
couple of years because marshmallows are easier to stab on the tree branches.
So of course if we roast marshmallows, we
must have s’mores. But to have s’mores, we must have graham crackers. And they
are hard to come by in backwoods Japan. I expect they are available in upscale
grocery stores near the US Embassy in Tokyo. I found them on Amazon, but they
were 5,680 yen (plus 500 yen for shipping) for four boxes.
We made do with thin cookies I got from the
local grocery store. Add chocolate and freshly toasted marshmallows, and you
can’t go wrong…
but it wasn’t the same.
The Pumpkin Princess and I gave them out to
anyone who looked interested, including her friends from school and their
grandparents. Most people loved them. But I still felt like someone who was
serving pizza with mayonnaise or sushi with soggy rice. This was their first encounter with s'mores, and I wanted it to be right for them.
(Contains insignificant reference to the
book “Flat Water Tuesday”)
In my second year, I was on a varsity
knuckle again, but with an almost completely different lineup. My old number
two seat was now my stroke. I
was finally on a boat with someone in my year. One extra cool thing was that
the first varsity cox from the year before decided he wanted to row again, and
he was on our boat. Any time I needed to know something, I could ask him. I
think having him on my boat for a season is the reason I’m not afraid of stake
boat starts.
(Stake boat starts: A race official sitting
in a fixed boat holds your stern until the start. The race official might be an
older friend of a local chapter chairman of the Japan Rowing Association who
rowed when he was in college, or a first year high school student who didn’t
make the third boat this year. Pro: you don’t drift away from the start line
even if there’s a current. Con: you have to back
the boat into the official’s hands. Keep in mind your boat is about 12
meters long and your steering mechanism is a rudder the size of a credit card.
Solution? Use your rowers. Tell them to row harder or lighter depending on
which way you want to go. And never use more than one rower on each side.)
We held a boat meeting immediately after
the lineup for the season was announced, and the ex-cox, our de facto boat
captain, suggested we practice on a shell until around June. No one protested.
Like I said before, a four is much more technically demanding than a knuckle, and
we were up for the challenge. It was also lighter to carry from the boathouse.
Launches presented a new problem, but only
for me. When we launched knuckles, we set it down on the beach, with the stern
sticking out into the water. We didn’t worry about scratching or putting a foot
through the hull, because it was quite sturdy. I just stepped into it from the
beach, walked to the coxswain’s seat, then stroke, three and two followed with
their oars while I put the rudder in its place. Then bow pushed the boat all
the way into the water and climbed in, I’d make the call for stroke pair to
back row, and we’d be on our way.
The shell reminded me I had short legs
every time we launched (as if I didn’t know already). We
didn’t have a dock, so every day was a beach launch, which was a lot of fun
because to get the boat far enough out into the water not to scratch the hull,
the water had to be deeper than (my) mid-thigh level. I’d roll my pant legs as
far up my thighs as I could, but it was a good day when I got into that
coxswain’s seat with dry pants. It didn’t help that my thighs were (are) heavy
and I couldn’t get the cuffs all the way up my thighs the way the others could.
The other day, I watched YouTube video of a
beach launch. If you watch the video, at around 0:25 or thereabouts, one of the
rowers picks up the cox and carries her to her seat.
I was almost as shocked as when I realized
Ruth Anderson in the book Flat Water Tuesday used a microphone to cox a
sternloader four. Almost. Wusses. Here, take my wet pants. Don’t worry, it’s
just lake water. On second thought, I need them back. I’m not wearing (knee-length)
leggings underneath today.
