Sofa life

You're going to think that all my husband does is sleep on the sofa but he works hard and when he IS home he crashes on the sofa and is soon snoring. Our animal family love it!

Here is Mi perched on Tetsu's chest. I have COUNTLESS pictures like this because this is Mi's absolute favorite place in the world. The closer to Tetsu's face the better!


And sometimes Patora joins Mi and they make for a warm, fluffy, is somewhat heavy blanket. You can see Patora on Tetsu's lap, but if you look closely you can see Mi is there on Tetsu's stomach.

Chip is not a great fan of Tetsu but if one needs warmth I guess a big knee is as good a place as any to perch. Newspaper, a bowl of granola and a cat to balance.



Velvet is a GREAT fan of Tetsu's but is too polite to climb on a lap unless invited.

"Pretty please? I need some love right now."

Choco occasionally gets into the act too. Choco is NOT allowed up on the sofa. But if she quietly crawls up there (so different from her usual hyper personality) and sits very quietly, she is hoping that the humans in the family will feel so relieved from all the scolding they normally do that they will be forgiving. Which we are.

That's a very dirty dog up there on my white sofa cover but Choco's expressive eyes look so worried about being sent down or worse into her kennel that I can allow some infractions of the house rules...

That only leaves Cleo and Toi. Cleo can be friendly too but he doesn't stay long in one place. Toi will have absolutely nothing to do with Tetsu... and that cat once cuddled like Mi did!

I guess Tetsu has enough company up on the sofa as it is!

Confectionery shop

I linked my post to a friend's blog and she and her husband are having a SHOW ME JAPAN weekend. I'm participating but I forgot to put their widget (or whatever this is called) on my post yesterday so I'm adding it late. Sorry A and Y!

I decided to show you pictures of where I work every weekday morning from 7:30 to 8:00. At the crosswalk! This is where I stand in front of a Japanese sweet shop which is in front of the elementary school.

The Japanese sweet shop has been in this same place for 80 years! The owner's grandfather started it when the roads were still gravel but since the road was paved there is a lot of traffic and that means more business for the shop. Still... It is run by a grandma and grandpa and their son... They sell Japanese bean paste sweets.

Every morning when I come to the corner the grandpa has rolled up his shop's metal shutters and dressed in his white apron and hat he busily washes the windows. Every morning! And when the weather is nice his wife carries their potted flowers and plants out under the awnings (and brings them back inside at night).

A couple of times a week the grandpa will set an outdoor stove going by the roadside and simmer up a pot to sweet beans. Oh! The air is filled with the aroma of wood burning and sugar bubbling! Yum! And in the kitchen the grandma is cooking up pots of sticky rice and rice gruel to be used in the Japanese confectioneries.

Not a large display case, but manju (sweet dumplings) and tea cakes (the colorful ones also made of sweet beans) and the standard dorayaki which are sweets with bean paste sandwiched between some mini pancakes, satisfy the community's sweet tooth. A few western looking cakes can be found in the display case on some afternoons because the owner's younger son owns a french pastry shop.

Sometimes when I go past the shop on my way to open the school gate, I find the wife outside drying her beans on bamboo mats and in metal baskets. She says they grow some of their own beans but actually they like to buy very delicious beans from Hokkaido in Northern Japan.

It is true that many foreigners do not like the texture of sweet bean paste and some are disappointed when what they think is going to be chocolate turns out to be bean paste. But with a hot cup of bitter green tea, sweet bean cakes are wonderful!

Lemon Stars

Wednesday and I'm off and running. Between knitting I did get 7 Lemon Stars made for my patchwork group's block exchange game. Mrs. Takagishi chose Lemon Stars and sometime during this game each of us have to make her 7. I wanted to get all of mine done as soon as possible leaving me freed up to do other things (or make her more if I get inspired) so I am DONE.

Unfortunately or maybe I should say "happily" Tetsu is taking tomorrow off which means I'll miss our monthly patchwork meeting.

"Husbands come before patchwork".

I should stitch that and display it in my house... Anyway, we are going off tomorrow someplace, somewhere, getting lost as usual, enjoying the autumn scenery so I need to take these Lemon Stars to Mrs. Furui today for her to pass on.

Do I dare make it to the swimming pool tonight?

Knitting

Let's see. I'm perking again. NOT going to the swimming pool! During my confined evenings I've been knitting. I'd better watch out. I might decide never to go back to that swimming pool again. Winter evenings are definitely better spent knitting rather than swimming. (But swimming is supposed to be keeping me healthy. It's not doing a good job, cough, cough, sniffle. I can nibble while I knit so this is not good either...)

I changed directions after I made the Celtic design for Tetsu's sweater. Just too confusing and not very visible for all the work. I'll have to keep it in mind when I'm using less furry yarn. My friend Mrs. Ide offered to make up a pattern for me and after measuring one of Tetsu's favorite vests she went home and drew something up on graph paper. Supposedly this is Tetsu's basic size and I can make anything I want for him using this graph paper. Supposedly.

And then Mrs. Ide brought over her nifty knitting rulers and demonstrated how you use them to increase or decrease the right number of stitches. I've been knitting frantically (from base to armpit) so that I can show Mrs. Ide how I used her rulers. I hope I did it right...

I remember when I was young and newly married, hiding away in the freezing storage room knitting away at Tetsu's Christmas present so that it would be a surprise for him. I don't why he wasn't suspicious about his wife spending her evenings in the storage room. I thought it would be romantic to hand him a surprise hand made present on Christmas.

Nowadays I sit in the warm living room directly in front of him flourishing my needles and yarn.

"This is for you. Act surprised when you get it for Christmas."

So much for romance.

Copyright

While we're talking about computers (I was in the last post) I'd like your opinion about using pictures on your blog.

Usually I carry my digital camera around with me and I take a lot of pictures. Quite a lot of them get used on my blog. Scenery, food, cats, quilts, "oddities" of Japanese life. But you may have noticed that I don't show too many pictures of people... Somewhere in my blogging manners list (that I made up myself) was:

"Don't use pictures of people unless you get their permission."

This goes for friends and students and even for people on the street. I can ask friends if they mind if I use their pictures, and they usually say go ahead, but it is hard to go up to a perfect stranger on the street and say

"I just took your picture and I'd like to use it on my blog."

I'm thinking of a very tan, bent over, little old man who squats on the corner next to the trash pick-up area. I'd love to show you him but for some reason I feel sneaky trying to take his picture and then feel it would be wrong to show his picture on my blog just because he is quaint.

The kindergarten where I work has asked me NOT to post pictures of children. The pre-school however says it is okay. Tetsu has asked me to fuzz out the faces of residents at his convalescent home when I've posted about them. Some pictures of large groups are in my own grey zone of being so small that it would be hard to recognize people.... but of course anyone wise in computer photography would be able to blow up a picture if they really wanted to...

Some blogs show absolutely fantastic pictures of daily life in their area with children bouncing balls and teenagers clicking away at their cell phones. However, I can't get pass taking people's pictures and blogging about them without permission though I LOVE seeing such pictures on other blogs. My own quirk?

And just trying to explain what a blog is makes it all the more complicated. I have taken pictures of the locals and explained that I wanted to show my friends in America. This is true but doesn't go into the details of Internet and international... Is this a white lie?

So that's about the pictures I take myself.

Sometimes when I'm blogging I don't have a particular picture and I go searching on Google. Usually Google has something interesting. But wait. Some of those pictures, when you go to the website (usually the illustrations) say that they are copyrighted . Does that mean that it is stealing if you use the picture on your blog?

Sometimes I'll find a picture that doesn't say anything about copyright and will use it on my blog. Usually I try to say at the end of my post that I've taken the picture from the Internet, but from where I have no idea... Is that stealing? I know some people who have gotten very upset to find their pictures on other people's blogs... How you find that out I don't know.

A few weeks ago a magazine contacted me about a silly little picture I'd taken of Japanese beetles. The magazine very kindly explained that they would like to use my picture on their website for environmental consciousness. They probably found it on Google. They could have "taken" it without me ever knowing. I thought it was nice of them to ask but unnecessary.

Someone once contacted me about what my opinion was over a picture of their baby (taken 10 years before) that had found it's way to a Japanese website and was being used REPEATEDLY in cartoons and not so great publicity ads. They wanted to know what the Japanese said and I had to report that it was not very good. I would be VERY upset to find out my picture had been used that way!

Adding illustrations and pictures makes a blog interesting. But where does MY picture leave off? More importantly to me is can another blog or web site's picture become MY picture if they haven't specifically said "don't use"? I'd really like to continue using Google's images...What are your manners for illustrating your blog?

The yellow copyright symbol was "taken" from the Internet.

Saving your blog to a DVD

It's been awhile since I've been on the blog... I can hardly keep up with housework let alone with my blog while I've got this cold. Rats. I did decide to see how much of the blog I could back up (like Mrs. Ochiai showed me) before I forget it all again. Today's post if for future ME.

**********

Okay Tanya. Here's what you do. Hopefully you will do this at the end of every month but since you tend to procrastinate I won't expect that much...

First of all you have to go to your blog. For some reason you have to use Internet Explorer not Firefox which you usually use. I don't know why. I have a feeling you could do the same thing on Firefox but Mrs. Ochiai showed you how to do this on Internet Explorer so just take my word for it.

Also, remember to put in the disk you want to use for saving your blog posts. Mrs. Ochiai gave you two DVD disks (so that you can back up twice). She said to use DVDs but a blog friend suggested that you can back up on your hard drive too. I think you can but again... this is what Mrs. Ochiai taught you so just do it her way for now. When you have the basics down you can try new and different things.

Okay. You are on your blog... Go to the archives and pick out the month you want to save. Of course if you were really on the ball you could do this every time you write a post and then save it on the DVD. If you saved every post by day then all the comments could get saved too but I don't think you are going to do that... So let's say you want to save the month of March 2010. You go from archive to March 2010 and click. And that gets you to your March posts. BUT for some strange reason your blog only shows 14 posts at a time. I have no idea why, so this means you are going to have to do this twice... Oh well.


Go to the top of the screen and click on "FILE".

Go to "SAVE PAGE AS" and change the window box to "DESKTOP". This is where the files and folders will be saved. It makes it easier to find the dumb things later rather than have them sorted to some other folder inside a folder inside a folder etc.

If you are putting a name on this file, do it now. Your logic right now is that this is the Taniwa Blog files for March (last half) 2010. I know your logic changes as the days but try to be consistent.

Also in the window you need to say what files you are saving. In this case chose WEBPAGE COMPLETE.

Then click save.

If you have done that right there should now be TWO new icons on your desktop. One is a big bluish INTERNET EXPLORER file labled Taniwa March (last half) 2010. The other icon is of a folder with exactly the same name. Ignore the folder.


There is your very messy desktop (looks as messy as your real desktop) and see if you can hunt down those two new icons. (This is why it would be smart to keep the computer desktop more organized.)

When you find the FILE icon (See it? the big blue e) then right click on it and find the box with the line SEND TO. If you put your cursor on that another window will open and it says the file can be sent to various places. You want to send it to the DVD so put the cursor there. Supposedly at this point the computer will start making sounds and a window will pop on your screen and tell you that it is copying.

If you have done this all right, then the file AND the folder will be copied onto your DVD. I don't know why the folder goes too but it does. You can check and see if the file and folder are really there and if they are you can either remove the DVD and do the last few steps again to backup in the other DVD or you can throw away the file on your desktop. You don't want that desktop to get too cluttered right?!

Remember, that only gave the half of the month of March so you're going to have to go back to your blog and hunt down the other half. Do as above. Copy file to desktop. Send file (not folder) to the DVD.

**********

I sure hope that this will help me months down the line when I've forgotten how to do all this...

Visiting the doctor

Because I'm down and out again with a cold I thought I'd tell you about some of the every day things that go on with visiting a doctor in Japan. I've been to him twice in the past two weeks... Tetsu took his mother for a check-up at a major hospital last week... my friend was visiting the doctor this week and we have been talking about the pros and cons. A lot of different viewpoints.

When I went to the local doctor a couple of weeks ago I arrived at his parking lot at about 8:30 AM. Now I know he doesn't open until 9:00 but that was why I went early. With the local doctors you don't make an appointment and so I knew that unless I got there early, I'd be in for a long wait. I was the second one in the parking lot but the other man got out of his truck and went and stood in front of the hospital/clinic door. I decided I felt bad enough that I did NOT want to wait outside in the cold until the nurse unlocked the clinic.

By 9:00 a little group of people had gathered in front of the clinic... all patiently waiting in a line to get in. As soon as the nurse unlocked the door I joined the line... went inside... removed my shoes and put them in a cubby and then put on slippers and went to the registration desk. Since I rarely need to go to the doctor's, I hadn't been there for awhile and needed to fill out a registration form again. I also had to show them my insurance form card and give them the clinic's card that they'd made for me before with my number on it... (if I'd forgotten that the nurse would have to look up my history some other way... I just saved her time.)

While I was waiting I was handed a thermometer and told to take my temperature. This thermometer is to be placed in the armpit... not the mouth. I remember 35 years ago I stuck the thermometer in my mouth and the nurses got very excited about the stupid foreigner!

A short wait, not bad at all! and then I got to see the doctor. He looked in my throat, checked my heart, typed things onto his computer and sent me away. I saw him for about 1 minute if that. Back in the waiting room and I paid some minuscule amount (yesterday it was about $5) and was given a prescription that I took to the pharmacy next door. I paid another $5 for three types of medicine at the pharmacy and then I went home. Until recently, doctors doled out the medications. They had a pharmacist in their office I guess, and the receiving and paying for medication was all done at the receptionist's desk. Recently laws have changed and I have to go next door. (Which sort of seems like an extra step to me since somebody had to build a tiny pharmacy next to the doctor's office and no one but the doctor's patients go to get their prescriptions filled there.)

That's what visiting the local doctor is like.

Now for Tetsu's mother...

Tetsu left home at 6:00 AM to go pick up his mother who lives 30 minutes away. He got to her apartment at 7:00 and together they went to the major university hospital another 30 minutes away. Tetsu's mother had an appointment for between 9:00 and 12:00 that morning... Again, the doctors don't start seeing patients until 9:00 AM but Tetsu said that people were lined up in front of the computers (where you insert your appointment card) and waiting for the computer terminals to open (inside the lobby). He said at 7:30 they were the 47 person in line. Finally at 8:00, the computer terminals opened, they stuck in the card and were sent on over to the doctors window. This is a major hospital so there are walls of windows and rows and rows of benches to sit at. I think they had to register again at the window to let the nurse know that they were there but supposedly the order in which you arrive doesn't matter... at least that is what the nurses tell the pushing crowds trying to put their ticket in the box before everyone else.

Finally around 9:30 Tetsu's mother was called and she went in to see the doctor and tell him what all was wrong with her. She has an ongoing every three month appointment so she figures she needs to tell him everything that has gone wrong the past three months and ask all the questions she can because she won't see him for another three months. Tetsu said the doctor (often a new one each time you go...depending on the day, the doctor's schedules for surgery and such, transfers etc.) did not seem too sympathetic. In less than three minutes they were out of there and back in the waiting room this time to get medicines and pay. In the major hospitals I think this is all done in one whack. Tetsu and his mother were both very happy that they were out of the hospital by 10:30! Sometimes Tetsu's patience level explodes because there are blood tests or eye exams etc. and each involves another hour's wait and they don't get out of the hospital until 2:30 or 3:00. That is par for the course for major hospitals.

And then my friend who went to her local doctor said she evaded the waiting system by asking her husband to drop by the doctor's office on his way to work before 7:30 and place the little card in the box before everyone else. I guess at her doctors the waiting room isn't locked or something. This means that the card got in first and my friend didn't have to sit in the waiting room or the car (like me) or stand in the parking lot. My friend seems to think this is a good system.

Actually I don't like this system because I remember taking Takumi to the doctors when he was a baby and, seeing no one in the waiting room at 9:00, thinking that we would be out of there in a flash. But no... people had brought in their cards, left them and gone back home to do whatever and came back at the approximate time that they thought the doctor would see them. I've had nurses tell me to go ahead and deposit my card and come back in the afternoon since there were so many cards in the box already! With Takumi I remember always thinking that we were the next one up and not getting in to see the doctor until 11:00 or so. And with a crying, sick child, this was miserable!

Or there was the time when Leiya had the chicken pox or something and was feverish. The nurse (who didn't want to have the other patients contaminated) ASKED us to wait out in the car for an hour instead of sit in the waiting room passing our virus onto the others. She kindly came out to the car to let me know Leiya's turn was up.

So. I'm just as happy that I don't get sick very often. Yesterday I beat the system by going to the doctor's at 6:00 PM, just as the nurses were putting out the closed sign... I was in and out in a minute or two, the next door pharmacy people were just checking out the doctor's parking lot to see if they might expect any more patients. Too bad. They had to wait for me.

Back to bed.

Crunchy or sweet?

Do you like crunchy or sweet? There seems to be a time of day for both. I am partial to sweet, especially chocolate, but I find myself craving for crunchy things too. I love nuts and Japanese crackers that go "saku-saku" (the sound of crispy things being eaten). Chocolate makes me happy, the sound of crunch in my ears gives me satisfaction.

So... wouldn't you know that Japan has the answer for both cravings!

Royce Chocolate is an exclusive Hokkaido (northern Japan) chocolate maker. Let me tell you, in Japan this is known as GOOD chocolate! And Hokkaido is also known for its potato industry. Can you see where this is leading?

Yep. Chocolate Potato Chips!

Yummm. GOOD! SATISFYING! Do I dare open this box and serve these? Yes, I do and I hope everyone will eat a lot of the sinfully delicious chocolate potato chips because anything left will go directly into my mouth!

Frills

I am assuming that Leiya does not check my blog. (Remember when I asked Takumi ...via blog... if he wanted my beach scenery small quilt? No reply so I guess he didn't read that post... ) Anyway, I made up a muffler for Leiya (and Leiya if you see this post then you can still act surprised when you open the package). I wanted to show you the interesting way it turned out.

This is called Frill tape. I seems to be made out of cotton or silk or something (sorry, I threw away the packaging) and is extremely light and soft. There were quite a few colors one could chose from but I liked the way the stripes accented the finished product. The sample I saw was in black, and black and white tape. This is white, and black and white tape. The knitting was extremely simple. Thread 20 loops (they are already made on the tape) onto the knitting needle turn and knit back. Every two rows put the other color tape over the first. and when 4 rows have been knitted, change colors.

Knitting the fine thread part (loops) pulls the wider tape part into frills... thus the name. I think the weight of the end rows makes the center part narrower... I did not decrease any stitches. A fun, easy project done in a couple of hours. The "yarn" is a little pricey but for a one time project for a special daughter I think it is nice.

Now to remember to send this.

Saturday miscellaneous

I participated in the final role playing seminar for language interpreters again yesterday and learned a lot. Especially about the Japanese insurance system! I came away thinking that how the medical bills get paid seem to be of greater importance than what the money gets used for. Maybe that is true all over the world. At any rate... because of the greatly confusing insurance system almost anybody in Japan can afford medical care. Of course there are a lot of situations with illegal aliens who do no pay national insurance fees...

Here is a rare picture of me "working". I think I was playing a pregnant mother-to-be. (That's pushing it quite a bit!) We were also fed lunch! Yum! I love the fancy box lunches that Japanese restaurants will prepare and deliver for special occasions.



I'll have you know I have laid aside my patchwork (not completely) for awhile, and am now knitting! Tetsu's annual Christmas present from me is a sweater or vest and so I need to get started. I "saw" a vest pattern I liked but cannot get the book for... I "think" I can make my own pattern and come up with something similar. I bought yarn already and have knitted up a swatch to check my gauge but am sort of concerned that the pattern is going to get lost in the mohair... I lovingly thought mohair would keep Tetsu warmer... true but it doesn't do a lot for a cable pattern... My annual knitting is always such a hit and miss affair.

And I'm also working on a scarf for Leiya. I think I can show that tomorrow!

Char-rin!

Mrs. Ochiai came over yesterday and spent a couple hours showing me what my new cell phone can do. We also resolved a couple of my computer problems. It is so nice to have a computer and electronic literate friend.

落合さん！　ありがとう！

（I just said thank you to Mrs. Ochiai. She is one of my friends who just visits my blog for the pictures. ）

So... I have relearned how to back up my blog. Mrs. Ochiai has taught me how to do this before but I forgot. And I have checked my computer for a bluetooth device which we determined it doesn't have. Not that I've missed it in the past two years...

And I registered my cellphone on-line and now can use the cellphone-wallet application. Japan's stores abound with little disks at the cash registers where you place your compatible cell phone and can pay for purchases without opening your wallet. Whether this is necessary or not I don't know but I wanted to have fun with my cellphone right? So now I can do this.

After on-line registering, Mrs. Ochiai and I went down to the nearest convenience store and with her leading me by the hand (not really) she proceeded to direct me on how to "charge" my cellphone with money and buy something.

To the convenience store clerk,

"I want to charge 1000 yen (about $10) to my cellphone."

Place it on the disk and hand the clerk money. Push a couple buttons on the screen.

"Char-rin!" (the sound of coins "dropping" into your cell phone.)

Now what to buy... two soft drinks. One for Mrs. Ochiai, one for myself. Back to the same clerk.

"I want to pay for my purchases with my cellphone."

Place it on the disk and another "Char-rin!"

Purchase made. The clerk was laughing at me while I was anxiously checking my cell phone to see if I'd really used the money that I'd just put in. Sure enough... some 700 yen left!

Mrs. Ochiai warned me not to keep too much money in my cell phone just in case I lost it...

Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur in a digital world...

(picture from the Internet)

Curries and Chapatis!

Tuesday I got together with Bajiwa-san (from Pakistan) and his family and some pool friends. His daughter-in-law showed us how to make Pakistan curry. Oh~ so delicious! (She held down the spices for us wimps that can't take real Pakistan spicy... Even so we all warmed up quickly.

This is me after poking a hole in the chapati that I was trying to make. Lahira though it very funny the way we all gasped at the amount of red pepper she put in her curry and how our chapati kept flying off onto the counter (better than the floor).

We, in turn, were amazed that Lahira could cook in her garb... the tassels and head scarf seemed to come so close to the flames but Bajiwa explained that the women ALWAYS wear the traditional clothes (sorry, I can't remember the name) and that Lahira has been cooking since she was 10 or 11 so no need for us to worry.

We (actually Lahira,) made three types of curries and chapatis. And I came home with a whole set of spices so that I can do this again in my own home. Hah! I'm willing to try but I doubt after one lesson I can make authentic Pakistan curry again! I doubt that I'll ever attempt the chapatis. Especially as Lahira seemed to think it would be very difficult to make chapatis in a regular fry pan...



Good friends and good food again! Oh, and I finished the baby quilt in time to give it to Bajiwa-san's grandson.

Beauty parlors

Nothing much interesting going on here. I got my hair trimmed just because I was looking authentically witchy for Halloween and needed a simple beauty boost. I don't know if it worked.

All my life I had very long hair. As a child it was mousy brown and straight. I remember my mother using the word "witch" to describe my hair back then. In my teens my style could be called Joan Baez style...　 Long and parted down the middle. I don't think I have EVER been to the beauty parlor in the States.

For quite awhile in Japan I stayed with the long straight look but maybe because of the humidity my hair started to curl. And get darker. My mother has always wondered if this was due to eating Japanese food... For years, every summer she would finger my hair and say,

"My goodness Tani. Your hair is BLACK! It must be all the seaweed you're eating."

When the kids came along I started changing styles. Short bobs, sculptured necklines etc. Too much trouble to keep getting it cut. Too much fussing in front of the mirror every morning. Another term of short hair was when the white started coming in, Mother's comments in thirty years changed to,

"My goodness Tani. Your hair is WHITE! How old ARE you?"

For some unknown reason I'm growing it out again.

ANYWAY... I don't know American beauty parlors, only Japanese. I go to a nice older women who has a little shop off the side of her house next to forest... Only grandmas and me go to her.

I suppose in a lot of ways beauty parlors are all the same. Hair washing area, spinning chairs, lots of magazines. But how about this? In Japan when a beautician washes your hair she always places a small white handkerchief over your face? Is this common elsewhere? I suppose the white handkerchief keeps the customer from looking into the beautician's armpit as she scrubs the head but I'm always reminded that dead people get a handkerchief placed over their face too while they lie in state...

There was one beauty parlor that I patronized for awhile where the hair washing could be done in a machine. I'd get put into a chair with my head lying over a sink and a big dome would come down and water would spray from all sides, shampoo would dispense from somewhere and plastic automated fingers would do the scrubbing and rinsing etc. Not too bad... Sort of an experience... I never got wet anywhere else so I guess the machine was perfected...

In most Japanese beauty parlors and barber shops, at the end of the cutting and styling experience, the customer is given a simple head and neck massage as part of the shop's service. I'm not too fond of this myself... The beautician thumps her palms and wrists against the head in various places and on the shoulders... I have no idea what a head massage has to do with cutting hair.

And I've had beauticians offer to shave my face for me! "

"NO WAY!!! I do not have a beard (yet) thank you! Stay away from me with your razor!"

This isn't such an uncommon service and many of my friends like to have their faces shaved. (Strange tastes!)

Another service that Japanese beauticians are qualified in is the dressing of customers in kimono. Putting on a formal kimono is so complicated that most women when dressing for a special wedding or funeral or such situation where a kimono is appropriate, will have the beautician do all the dressing and obi tying etc. I suppose they have to get their hair styled anyway so Japanese beauticians train in both hair and dressing skills. This is another service I've never taken advantage of...

I'm not really looking too different from before I went to the beauty salon so no picture of me today...

Bazaar quilt

While I was at the interpreter seminar on Saturday, the kindergarten was having its annual bazaar. Unfortunately it was a rainy day so I guess the whole thing had to be done indoors (usually it is held on the playground). I can imagine what a circus that was! The main event at the bazaar is always the quilt raffle that Mrs. Furui and I started some 15 years ago...maybe more than that? Anyway for a long time a few of us spent the year making a quilt and other small items and then setting up a raffle booth and selling tickets. A few years ago we "retired" from actual raffle selling and have just donated the first prize quilt. Since I couldn't be present at the raffle I had Mrs. Furui buy me some tickets and asked her to report about the reaction to our Neenie's Garden quilt. Saturday was the first time the kindergarten mothers and staff saw it and I do wish I'd been their to see the reactions. This year's quilt was such a beauty!

When I got back home from Saturday's work, there was an e-mail from Mrs. Furui with pictures of the lucky raffle winner! One of the former kindergarten teachers!!! This is amazing because last year's quilt had gone to a different former kindergarten teacher (both are now mothers at the kindergarten). In fact of the past 15 quilts, twice the kindergarten principal has pulled the winning tickets, three former kindergarten teachers have won, one current teacher and one current office lady also have won a raffle quilt. You would think the raffle is rigged! But it is not. I suppose the staff end up buying more tickets (it is all in the name of fund raising) but even so... No one complains! The teachers and staff are of course the most well known at the kindergarten, and when the principal wins the quilt it even stays AT the kindergarten so that everyone can enjoy it and be inspired through the years. It is a great consolation to think that even if I didn't win it, I know the person who did! Everyone is over joyed when one of our quilts goes home with staff.

This year's quilt was made from a Block of the Month series that Lorraine sent our patchwork group from Australia. Actually more than a year went into this... and the fantastic machine quilting was done by our friend Mrs. Okutomi who lives in another prefecture. She quilted this huge quilt on her domestic sewing machine! (She is one of the few machine quilters in Japan and has been featured in Japanese patchwork magazines. To think she had her start with our little group some 20 years ago!!!)

Okay... we are ready to start next year's bazaar quilt!