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? 

(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.

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.)

Just like Sponge Bob!

Sponge Bob mitai!

I've wished for long, lush, curly eyelashes for most of my post-pubertal life. I bought a Shiseido eyelash curler sometime during my first year out of university, and I still use it on a daily basis. I think I have left the house with uncurled, mascara-free lashes about once this past year. But I'd never crossed over to the dark side of falsies. They seemed so…false. Plus, I was too cheap to shell out the money for the high-end ones, while I was wary of the Chinese and Korean imports. Then, a domestic cosmetic company came out with a line of inexpensive falsies, so I had to give it a try. Today, I bought a pair that promised "natural, feminine lashes" and came with a small tube of eyelash glue.

After much trial and error (including the conclusion that I was never going to get them on right without putting my contacts in), I managed to get them on, and well, I finally had the long, lush, curly eyelashes I'd dreamed of for so long.

Except.

The Pumpkin Princess walked in on me while I was doing all this and said, "You're wearing falsies! I don't like them on you. They make your eyes look too big, like you're not Mommy."

As I was marveling at how she did not want a pretty mommy but HER mommy, the Pumpkin Prince came to see what the fuss was about. He smiled and said, "wow, you look cool!"

I was of course delighted with this statement of approval. "Really?"

"Yeah! You look just like Sponge Bob!"

He left for a moment and brought back this old Happy Meal toy.

"See? Just like Sponge Bob! Now all you have to do is paint yourself yellow and draw circles on your cheeks!"

Talk about burst bubbles...

It's bleeding!

Chi ga dete iru!
The Pumpkin Prince has outgrown his full function car seat and is ready to progress to a booster seat. On the other hand, my friend N's son is growing out of his infant size car seat and is ready for a regular car seat. She is also in the planning phase of building a new house. So I planned a nice little Sunday tea where N and her family could come check out our house for ideas (she was especially interested in our kitchen) and she could pick up the Pumpkin Prince's old car seat. N's two-year old is allergic to eggs and wheat flour, so I bought locally grown apples and grapes for him. N brought an assortment of items from her local pastry shop.
I was getting ready to make coffee when I heard a loud cry. And the Pumpkin Daddy yell, "he's bleeding!"
The Pumpkin Prince had fallen and cut his forehead and was bleeding like…like…I don't know, livestock?
Facial wounds are notorious for bleeding more than their size. Fortunately, N was a quick thinker and shoved the Pumpkin Daddy aside, grabbed a handful of Kleenex and pressed firmly on the cut. The bleeding stopped pretty quickly. We apologized to N and her family and asked them to go home (with the car seat, of course), and I took the Pumpkin Prince to the duty clinic, which was a dermatologist's.
(As I've previously mentioned, in most Japanese communities, there is a "duty doctor" who covers the entire city on Sundays and national holidays. Of course, the emergency department in large hospitals is open all day every day, but for small things like colds and cuts, you are supposed to go to the duty doctor.)
As it turned out, the dermatologist was of the cosmetic surgery kind (he was the former chief of reconstructive surgery in the biggest reconstructive surgery department in town). He stitched up the cut very quickly. That was 2 weeks ago, and there's hardly even a trace of a scar left.
So…we were lucky that N's head is screwed on straight (much straighter than mine or the Pumpkin Daddy's) and the duty clinic doctor was so skillful. So we got treated by a plastic surgeon on a Sunday for free (medical care for children under 15 is free in this city.) Another episode that makes me thankful for Japanese medical care…(your milage may vary according to your age, location, nationality and ailment…)

Egg yolk is yellow

Tamago no kimi ha kiiroi Apparently, my favorite fashion blogger paid this blog a visit. So, yay! Thanks so much for dropping by! The Pumpkin Prince had his class trip to the local zoo. He asked for either a Doraemon lunch or a Pokemon lunch. Since my last attempt at blue characters fared badly, I decided to stick to colors found in natural foods.

Pikachu is rice colored/ flavored with boiled egg yolk, salt, and curry powder, with sliced cheese and nori features. The mouth is imitation crab. The Pokemon ball is a hamburger covered with sliced cheese, imitation crab, and nori. I always show the kids the lunches before I pack them in their bags so that they know that the lunch started out as a reasonable likeness. When the Pumpkin Prince saw the lunch, he said, "I wanted Doraemon!" I think 4 1/2 years old is old enough to give the "you're supposed to say thank you before you ask for better/ different/ more" talk, isn't it?

expands at the bottom

susohirogari
Yesterday the Pumpkin Princess had a make-up swimming lesson. Between Facetime-ing the lesson to the Pumpkin Daddy (who FaceTime'ed the Pumpkin Prince playing in the park) I ripped out the stitches in my 5 year-old white Uniqlo jeans. I wanted to slim the boot-cut legs so that they would be a pair of classic straight-leg white jeans that I could wear to work pretending they were white dress pants.

I ripped out the hem and the topstitching on the inseam.

When I got home, I traced the line of the back and front panels of my "gosh-why-didn't-I-buy-two-pairs-of-every-color" classic cut gray Uniqlo jeans on to the white jeans using chalk. The white jeans were cut almost exactly like the gray jeans up to the knee.

Then I sewed along the line, zig-zag stitched and trimmed the raw edges, and re-hemmed the cuff. I decided not to re-do the topstitching on the inseam because it wouldn't really change the look of the jeans that much and it would be pretty much near impossible anyway (I think the topstitching was originally done before sewing the side seam) . I think the whole procedure took about 3 hours. I now have classic straight cut white jeans that fit perfectly at the waist and hip.