Apple bunnies

When I first came to Japan I lived in apple country and I was amazed at how easily everyone could peel an apple. I had never been handy in the kitchen but my experience til then with peeling apples had been to slash away at a whole apple with a potato peeler. I hated peeling apples! But I found that Japanese women could cut an apple into 1/4ths and daintily peel each quarter without ever touching the meat of the apple. It seemed that all households had a bowl of apples on the table and a small kitchen knife complete with a cover, ready to peel apples for family and guests. I remember being so proud when I learned how to peel an apple without the end result looking like it had already been gnawed over.

Raw apple pieces decorate cakes and children's platters and lunches. In Japan, mothers do NOT put a whole, unpeeled apple in their children's lunchbox. Instead apples are cut into interesting shapes and are dipped in salt water (which was often a surprise to my tongue) to prevent discoloring when eaten later. The most common cut apple shape is the bunny. It takes a little imagination but this is what this is supposed to be.

Cut an apple into 1/8ths. Remove the core part and seeds. Deeply score the peel from the bottom to the center to make a long V cut. Remove the peeling (in one sweep) up to the tip of the V. Soaking the piece in slightly salted water will make the ears of the bunny "stand up" (some). Voila! Apple bunnies.

The other day Tetsu and I went down the street (I still live in apple country, just in another part of Japan) and bought a few bags of apples. Today I'm making apple sauce. No problem now that apple peeling is a breeze!

*****

1996 and yes, that is us as a Japanese family! In Japan we celebrate 7-5-3 day during November and little girls will get dressed up in kimono when they become 3 or 7. Little boys dress up when they are 5. Traditionally when children often did not live til their adult years, when each milestone was met there was a big celebration and the family visited the shrine to give thanks for the child. Nowadays most families will celebrate by taking pictures, going out to a fancy dinner with family and of course visiting the shrine.

In our case Leiya was 6 (but in Japan it is considered 7. One year in the womb.) and I wanted to dress her up in kimono just so that I could take pictures and show family and friends in America. Let me tell you, this one day was COSTLY! Renting the kimono. Having Leiya's hair and make-up fixed. Taking studio pictures. We visited church rather than the shrine.

Tetsu couldn't understand why I wanted to wear a kimono myself on this day. "You're a foreigner. Why wear a kimono?" But a friend offered to loan me her kimono and even dress me in it and when would I ever have another chance? I'm glad I did because that was the last time I ever wore a kimono...

You can see more about that day here.

And can you see the little sticker at the bottom? That is Lemi the kitty and she was a new addition to our family. She LOVED Shoko the dog and would often nurse! Shoko seemed happy enough being a pacifier and the two were good friends for all the years we had them.

A "simple" lunch

Earlier this week one of my former students called and asked if I could stop by for a few minutes. I suggested that since I had an hour for lunch on Wednesdays that I pick her up and we go to Starbucks for a quick sandwich. Yesterday when I got to her house I found that her mother had made lunch for the three of us.

Look at this lunch!!! True, Mrs. Inoue was once a nutritionist and has experience in planning and making meals. But lunch was amazing! A far cry from Starbucks sandwiches!

"Oh, this is nothing... Most of this stuff is made before hand anyway. It's not difficult to make."

That obviously depends on the person. My poor husband doesn't get a dinner like this from me EVER.

Starting at the front, going around clockwise. Broth soup with tofu and greens. Rice with healthy millet grains. Simmer dried tofu and stuffed deep fried tofu pouches (stuffed with vegetables and ground chicken). Simmered icicle radish with miso-meat sauce. Simmered mushrooms (three or four kinds). Pickled radishes (she had radishes drying in her yard to later be made into pickles). Pickled cauliflower. Sweet and sour green onions. How's that for a "simple" meal?!

Mrs. Inoue has always enjoyed collecting little pieces of special pottery and she shows them all off in her beautiful meals. Lunch was a delight!

*****

We must have taken the 1995 New Year's picture right before the deadline to make cards. The house was filled with Christmas things. I don't see Lammy in the picture so she may have already disappeared into the forest. She wasn't with us for more than a year or so. Shoko the dog had begun to have camera phobia and we were always wrestling with her to stay still for a picture. She HID whenever she saw a camera!

That tiny Christmas tree is all my kids have ever had. My mother had sent it to me when Tetsu and I were first married and it was just the right size for a small apartment. Nowadays we can buy larger artificial Christmas trees but I no longer put up a tree at all anymore. SHOCK! I learned the hard way a couple of years ago that the cats enjoyed knocking the ornaments off of the tree and using anything red, white or green as cat toys. A lot of smashed ornaments! Though Christmas (material Christmas) has been adopted in Japan I've never seen a cut Christmas tree... if Japanese families put up a tree at all (and most don't) they are artificial trees sometimes with the tinsel and plastic balls already attached!

Wild Wednesday

It's Wednesday. Running around like a mad woman! I'm SO sorry that I'm not working in time to go blog visiting when so many of you come each day. Please forgive me. That Google Reader list of blog friends every day tells me that there are more posts to be read but I'm just not getting to it. I WILL! (but definitely not today!)

*****

1994's New Year card! The previous year was another biggie for us because we bought a house out in the countryside of Nikko! We also acquired a cat from some American friends who were returning to the States. We named the cat Lammy (after a Sunday school magazine) and my mother often said we had the perfect home, one son, one daughter, one dog and ONE cat. What more does one need?

The house we had seen two years earlier when we'd been thinking we'd like to settle down. My mother had been visiting and together we went out and looked at this house. I loved the wooden walls and odd floor plan but didn't really want to live out in the boonies. And with NO MONEY, we scrapped the plans to buy a house. My mother noted in her diary that we had seen "Tanya's dream house. Too bad they can't afford it." Two years later Tetsu noticed in the newspaper that the same house was for sale and the price had drastically dropped so out we went again and within a day signed papers! Though I was hesitant about moving out of the friendly neighborhood where our apartment had been, my mother could show me her diary entry and assure me that THIS WAS THE HOUSE for us.

Tetsu was so thrilled at being a home owner that he bought a swing and put it together in our living room where it resided for awhile since we couldn't afford furniture. A couple of months later though our good American friends gave us ALL their furniture (as well as their kitty) when they moved back to the States, so you can see how we had real proof that God provides!

What is kindness?

Yesterday something happened that made me think a bit. I was driving to the next city over when I noticed a person lying on the sidewalk. The other cars on the street weren't stopping but I did. Now, what did I think I could do? I called out to the man (it was a man) as I got out of the car and he mumbled an answer. I asked if he was okay and helped him since he was struggling to sit up. He didn't look hurt and he was talking to me so I helped him stand. He wasn't very steady on his feet so I took him over to a stone wall and helped him sit there while I gathered up the plastic bags that seemed to have fallen out of his jacket pocket. I asked him where he was going and he said to the train station. Well, the train station is on the other side of town and he sure didn't look like he was going to be able to make it on foot. I said I didn't know where there was a bus stop in this area so he'd do best to wave down a taxi. By that time I sort of figured that he might be homeless... he didn't seem drunk. I asked if he had any money and he said no and asked me to take him to the train station. Well, no. I couldn't do that (I couldn't see being late to work and driving around with a stranger.) I left him by the roadside with the equivalent to $10. He asked if I had more spare change but I said no and wished him well and waved goodbye.

I really didn't think he'd get far since he could hardly stand and it was beginning to rain, so I made a stop at a police box along the way and reported where the man was and how I'd come across him. The policeman seemed to think I shouldn't have given him money but after pulling out maps he said he'd drive out and see. That's the end of my story.

Tetsu thinks I should have immediately called an ambulance or the police and not tried to help the man stand. It looked like he was really in need but he could have just been panhandling for money because he asked for more after I'd given him some. Maybe I was just alleviating my own feelings of not wanting to get more involved.

Many years ago Leiya and I came across a man who was lying in the middle of the street and we helped him to the side of the road. He was bleeding though and I flagged down the next car and asked them to call an ambulance. We wrapped the man in a picnic quilt that I keep in back of the car and waited with him until the ambulance came. He wasn't making any sense so I thought he'd hurt his head. When he was transported to the ambulance I asked for my quilt back... For some reason I could be kind enough to help someone in need but not kind enough to lose my quilt! Later the hospital called to say the man had dementia and had wandered away from his home. He hadn't been hit by a car or hit his head etc. I sometimes look at my old quilt (still in the back of the car) and wonder why I couldn't let it go...

*****

1993 and our New Year's card was of us in my mother's swimming pool! This had been taken 6 months earlier when we visited California that summer and it was always a big thrill for the kids to take two weeks of swimming lessons at the local community college and then swim all summer. I think Takumi got a waterproof watch for his birthday a couple weeks earlier which he was very proud of, thus the pose. Leiya, on the other side, was trying to be like big brother. And Shoko, the dog, (who of course didn't go to California) joined the picture by way of sticker applied later.

Chirstmas cake

I suppose all over the world people are getting ready for Christmas. I do wish I was just sitting and knitting Christmas presents about now instead of worrying about schedules, squeezing in last minute errands and practicing Christmas program songs and skits. Not that I don't LIKE being busy, it's just that it does seem that my Christmas cheer is getting lost in the busyness.

I have ordered a Christmas cake. SHOCK! One of Japan's Christmas traditions is the Christmas cake. Not fruit cake, not a Yule log cake, a white sponge cake with lots of whipped cream frosting (not butter cream... Too sweet for Japanese) and 5 or 6 whole strawberries plopped on top. AND at an exorbitant price!!! This is a tradition I have avoided. My kids never had a Christmas cake. I made cookies, I decorated the house, I bought presents for each child, but no Christmas cake. My neighbors sometimes felt sorry for my kids and would bring over half their left-over cake just so that Takumi and Leiya could experience a "real" Christmas.

So why this year? Because I stand in front of the Japanese sweet shop every morning and at Christmas time they deliver Christmas cakes from their son's bakery in another city. (No not made of Japanese sweet beans!) I STRONGLY believe that we should support the local merchants rather than save a few dollars and buy the same thing at a large store. I know the super-stores provide lots of people with jobs and salaries and I am all for people shopping there (I do too!). But the small stores are struggling and the main streets in town are turning into ghost towns. "Shutter Street" as it is called here because so many shops have gone out of business.

When I go to my crosswalk every morning, I am met by open shutters, lighted display cases, grandma and grandpa washing windows and putting out banners and flags. They greet me with smiles. On Tuesday however, the sweet shop takes its regular day off and I come to the crosswalk to a dark shuttered store with a closed sign on it. What a letdown! My energy goes down a notch right then! How much more for the children coming to school every morning! We NEED that Japanese sweet shop on the corner!!! It is boosting morale and helping raise bright and happy children!!! Give them all the business we can!!!! So I happily paid out the normal $35 dollars and ordered a minuscule Christmas cake. On December 24th Tetsu and I will partake and give thanks for our friendly little corner sweet shop!

*****

Another park. Yes, parks abound in Japan. I think it must be because there is so little private space and even if you own your own home the yards are tiny. Because we live in the country we have a fair plot of land but still... the width of the yard is only about a car wide and we can't park our two cars side by side. One car goes in, and the other comes in behind it. If the first car wants out then both Tetsu and I need to help shuffle cars. The rest of the small yard holds a picnic table and the dog house. That's it. So there you have the reason for all the park pictures.


Boy, Leiya sure doesn't look happy does she! I think she wanted to play on the slide and we had dragged her away to sit while Daddy fiddled with the tripod. And you know that means we took at least 12 pictures in different poses etc. "I wanna play!!!" Actually I don't think she could talk yet. In 1992 Takumi was 6 and Leiya 2.

A good friend

I'm sleepy today. My friend, Chiyo-san, arrived in our town a little after 8:00 a.m. yesterday morning and the two of us talked and talked and talked for the next 17 hours straight with little space for anyone else to get in a word otherwise. Talk over coffee, over lunch, during shopping, over snacks, while swimming and while taking a bath. Tetsu joined us over dinner but fell asleep on the floor while Chiyo-san and I talked on into the morning.

At 6:00 this morning we talked as we walked the dog and on and on it went until we met up with Chiyo-san's husband (coming from somewhere) and the four of us chatted again over coffee. What a lot of subjects we discussed. Solving the world's problems, confirming parent-child relationships, comparing teaching techniques, addressing middle age grievances, reminiscing about 30 years history. Right now my head is full but my eyes are closing!

Chiyo-san used to make an appearance at our house once a year on her way from America to her home town in Japan (she lived 14 years in California). Now that she's back living in Japan I don't see so much of her as the last time she came was two years ago. A very good friend and every time Chiyo-san comes I learn a lot about life, about her outlook on things and about myself. She needs to come more often so that we don't try to jam all our ideas into one trip...

*****

1991 and we got to a different park. Shoko (the dog, remember) looks like she's part of the family doesn't she? I think I was playing around with fabric by this time and had made friends with Mrs. Furui but still didn't consider myself a quilter... Still mainly a knitter by the looks of the sweaters Tetsu and I are wearing.

New Year's picture 1990

I have an overnight guest coming in an hour so this has to be short today.

*****

Lots of changes in our lives by the time we sent out our 1990 New Year's card. First Tetsu changed jobs and started working in convalescent care. A month or two after moving to a new city and a new apartment TETSU picked up a stray dog (see, it's not just me!), Leiya was born a couple months after that and Takumi started kindergarten!

This picture was taken in the convalescent home's yard. Yes, we are wearing the convalescent home's slippers in the yard. We named the dog Shoko, which is a typical girl's name in Japan. Leiya, on the other hand is a completely made up name that no one has ever heard of. For all the years that we had this dog people would get very confused and wonder if our daughter's name was Shoko rather than the dog.

Thursday patchwork

Yesterday was patchwork day and we 5 ladies had such fun. I can't tell you how we laughed at Mrs. Furui's organizational skills. Every time someone mentioned a pattern that they would like to make or some fabric that we had past used or some tool that had come in handy, Mrs. Furui was able to pull it out! Including templates, including Xeroxed patterns, including left over fabric, including measurements, dates comments etc! She's like a fairy godmother! Bibbity Bobbity Boo!

And we started on NEXT YEAR'S Bazaar quilt. No matter that THIS year's quilt was just raffled off in November, we already feel that we're a bit behind schedule. (How could that be?) We had previously decided to do a tree quilt this year so after perusing different books and Internet sites we came up approximate sizes and got a tree trunk drawn, cut out and basted to the back ground fabric. Mrs. Harada took that home to needle turn applique this month and the rest of us are going to go about preparing leaves to be appliqued later... Here is our start!

Yes, we are down on the floor ironing. A few reasons for this. Mrs. Furui's standing ironing board (from Germany) broke (months ago!) and so she irons on the floor. This is not so strange since most people iron while sitting on the floor anyway. Yesterday we wanted to lay out the whole background flat so we were ironing off of an old tablecloth. Nice for the quilt. Bad for the knees.

Mrs. Furui's house is ready for Christmas. She has so many nice little European Christmas ornaments spread out around her house. Here are just a couple of her little wooden ornaments that she bought while she lived in Europe.

*****

1989. Same park. Are you getting tired of the same park, same people? Have no fear! Tomorrow Leiya makes an appearance! I remember trying to pull myself together for this picture because I had morning sickness! Such funny memories old pictures bring up.

Udon noodles

The other day I showed you pictures of different Ramen noodles that we can get in Japan. I don't know how Ramen noodles are made but I think they must have egg and oil or something in them. They are usually thin noodles that slurp up easily. (Did you know that proper manners require noisy slurping when eating noodles in Japan? Yep! Splash noodle soup all around you!)

Another type of noodle in Japan is Udon noodles. These are much thicker and have a different texture. I think (but am not sure) that these are traditionally Japanese noodles. I once went to a Udon noodle making class where we kneaded noodle dough and let it set for an hour or so and kneaded it again and then walked up and down for ten minutes on the noodle dough which was inside a plastic bag. The stomping of the noodle dough was supposed to make it strong and chewy. All I remember is that it was a lot of work and that I will probably never make Udon noodles from scratch again. I'd prefer to eat my Udon here!

This is a Udon shop near us where you can get steaming bowls of noodles (or cold if you prefer) and either eat them direct in soup or dip them into your own dipping sauce.

At the first counter the customers order what type of noodles they want and as you go down the line you can pick up tempura of your choice for about a dollar a piece. I had cold noodles in sesame sauce and a tempura pumpkin slice and squid tempura. Tetsu had direct from the pot Udon with dipping sauce and mixed tempura and also chicken tempura (and also a rice ball). (Tempura picture from the Internet.)

*****

This was our 1988 New year's card. Same park. Tetsu's wearing another hand made sweater. I guess we were late that year getting a photo taken and it had already snowed. For a few years I went back to glasses after years of contacts but somewhere along the line (the next year?) vanity won out and I returned to contact usage...


The little illustration in the corner is depicting a traditional bamboo New Year's ornament.

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday so this is supposed to be wordless but I'm hardly ever wordless...

My life consists of small spaces. I don't get too far from anywhere. Every morning I stand at the crosswalk. What can be at the crosswalk that is different from any other morning? It seems that I always find something.

The Japanese sweet shop is taking advantage of the cold weather and has put out persimmons to dry. Persimmons do best in dry, icy air and all over northern Japan the farmers hang strings and strings of persimmons that have been peeled. In about a month these will be soft and sweet and ready to eat.

Another shot just in front of the school (next to the persimmons). On this day the school was having a marathon. This is an annual event (every elementary school that I have ever heard of has a marathon but maybe that is only in the countryside. I would suppose Tokyo kids can't do marathons). For a month or so the kids practice running laps and sometimes I have found children and parents running around the rice fields on the weekend training for the big day. For all that I have a feeling that most kids don't like this event. The kids run by class, shorter distances for the younger classes. Parents will attend to cheer the kids on.

The white lines there are written in powdered chalk and they extend around the school grounds, out into the neighborhood area and around more rice fields. Even though the teachers stand at the corners, they don't want any kids to get lost! And right at the school gate someone had written "FIGHT!" as a last push for the goal.

*****

Yes, in yesterday's picture Tetsu was wearing a hand made vest. That has also been a tradition that got started in our early years of marriage. Knit Tetsu a sweater or vest every Christmas. Beware of traditions! You can't stop even if you want to!


Here we are again when Takumi was one year old. Same park. We were spending more time at the play area! And yes, that year's sweater that Tetsu was wearing was another off of Tanya's needles.

A lot of words for a wordless Wednesday!

New Year picture

Thank you for the nice compliments to Leiya yesterday. Tetsu came home last night and said that when he opened my blog (on his lunch break) he didn't even recognize Leiya. "Who is THAT?" He liked the picture of Leiya brushing her teeth the most.

The other day in the supermarket I found some Coca Cola that I wanted to buy. I don't drink Coca Cola! (but Tetsu does). I like the Christmasy bottles. Maybe they are trying to be snowballs... or tree ornaments. They look cute together sitting in my refrigerator.

****

Yesterday I made our 2011 New Year's card. Instead of Christmas cards, Japanese send out New Year's post cards and somewhere along the line our family has made it a tradition to send out a family picture. Not so unusual in the States, but not that common in Japan. The past few years we are spread out around the world so it takes some doing to get us all together! Anyway... I'm going to try to share our old New Year's cards with you starting from today.

Here is our first card as a family that we sent out in 1986. (Tetsu and I had been married for 5 years already but this was the first photo card we sent out.) Takumi must have been about 6 months old and we lived in Sendai, a northern city in Japan. I think we took the picture in a large park near our apartment where Tetsu would walk the crying baby sometimes in the middle of the night. All that Japanese on the right are best wishes and the date, 61st year of the Showa Emperor. That was 25 years ago. Who ARE those people?!

Before and after!

I'm on the run this morning so this will be short. This post is for Tetsu anyway.

Leiya was on chat this morning and she forwarded me some pictures of herself that she and her friends took on their way to another friend's wedding. I don't have the other girls' permissions to show their pictures but Leiya said she didn't mind. Let me tell you, three spiffy looking girls! I don't know when I've ever seen my daughter in high heels and a mini skirt! Wow! All three girls could pose for a cosmetic advertisement or something. What eye contact with the camera!


But this is the morning of the wedding and what at least Leiya normally starts out looking like. What a laugh!!! Now, that's the girl I know! She cleans up real good doesn't she?


Tetsu always said that women and makeup together are scary. He doesn't trust what might be hidden behind all that.

His little girl has sure grown up!

City event

Although my normal crosswalk duty is from 7:30 to 8:00 weekday mornings, I was asked to join a city wide event promoting city safety. Yesterday I spent from 12:00 to 6:00 at the city culture center along with nearly 30 other crosswalk guards. I'm still not sure what it was all about.

Instructions were to come fully uniformed about two hours before the event for instructions. Since I am new to the organization I don't know anyone, so I just followed along and copied what everyone else was doing. (More of Tetsu's term... goldfish poop.)

All the of the men guards and a few veteran women guards were given parking lot and roadside duty. I have a feeling the top people had a time figuring out what job to give me.

"Let's see... Tanya has never done this before so we don't want to put her outside directing traffic. She's not so great at formal Japanese so we don't want to leave her in charge of ushering important guests. We can put her at the registration desk but she isn't going to be able to handle all the paperwork. I guess she can hand out fliers."

So I smiled a lot and handed out fliers.

What I thought was a public event (it was) turned out to be attended by the heads of all the neighborhood committees throughout the city and by school principals and PTA presidents. And roll was taken! This means that probably everyone was obligated to attend but not too many were happy about it... I think we had 8 people out of 400 who just walked in off of the street. And when they saw roll being taken they would take a step back and say

"Maybe I'm not supposed to be here?"

The first hour of the event was devoted to speeches by different politicians. The mayor was there, a city council member or two... I don't know who else but I have seen their posters up along the streets during election time. And the chief of police gave a speech for public awareness of mafia doings... I didn't know we had a mafia. And another police man gave a speech about the number of traffic accidents just in our prefecture. My prefecture rates second worse in the country... Each of those persons up on the stage, would stand up and bow to the people they were sitting next to and across from (it means "Pardon me for taking my turn."), and then bow to the flag ("I am honored to be Japanese.") and then bow to the audience. After the speech the whole bowing routine again.

It made me think about whether as Americans we do all this acknowledging of others and the flag. Japan doesn't have a pledge of allegiance as America does, but Americans don't go saluting the flag every time they see it either. Japanese will usually bow if they enter a room with a Japanese flag displayed. Even when my kids were doing Judo and Kendo, they were required to bow to the flag every time they entered or left the gymnasium. I got into the habit too whenever I'd go to their meets...

Back to the event... Finally a Japanese comedian gave a 30 minute spiel with safety as his theme. This is called Rakugo and is considered an art. The Rakugo teller can keep an audience laughing just by many play on words and stories using double nuances of Japanese terms and phrases. I have a hard time following all of it but Rakugo masters are considered to be brilliant and are revered. A very "Japanese" form of entertainment with little movement nor props.

As the program wore down we crosswalk people went back out of the auditorium and took up our posts again. A final assembly with words of gratitude for "helping" that day and we were all handed $13 for our time... and three boxes of body warmers for the upcoming cold winter crosswalk duty.

Interesting day from an outsider's point of view. Much too formal for my tastes. Not sure how "necessary" all that time and effort was but the city officials were satisfied.

Getting ready for winter

It is Saturday morning and Tetsu is outside changing the tires of my car. Snow tires for the winter. I am not a great driver to begin with and when it snows or is icy I stay home! Some winters the streets will freeze over during the night but by the time I get out and around everything will have thawed. This year I realize that I will need to be at the crosswalk by 7:30 every morning while the roads are still frozen. Gulp. Even with snow tires this may prove to be a challenge but if I should get caught WITHOUT snow tires I will slide off into the forest. Thus I asked Tetsu to change my tires early. The weather isn't forecast for snow yet (usually in January) but I want to make sure!

Winter is not my favorite time of year. I'm going to grumble today and winter has barely started! For one, I HATE our kerosene heater! The whole process of pumping kerosene into the tank from the outside tanks is messy, smelly and cold. It seems like every other year we have to buy another heater because the old one doesn't work for some reason. I'm sure it must be something like it needs to be dismantled and cleaned or something but when one is talking about flammables and explosives I sure don't want to take chances. So we buy heaters. Sometimes ones with large tanks which means that they are hard on the back when you have to carry the full tanks back in the house. Sometimes heaters with small tanks and that means that the dang things need to be refilled about once a day. What a bore! I also don't think breathing in all this kerosene burned air can be good for you but I've lived with it for more than 30 years so I guess it isn't THAT bad. And buying the dumb kerosene to begin with is a chore because I have to lug 20 liter tanks (two or three at a time) to the gasoline station or the home goods store and get them filled. Talk about being bad on the back!!! (Yes, it is possible to have kerosene delivered but that costs quite a bit more...)

Okay. That's why I don't like kerosene heaters. Another reason is because, of course, you have to turn the heaters off during the night or when we go out. In emergencies (earthquakes) they need to be turned off fast. So at night we sleep in icy rooms! Every winter I complain to Tetsu that I don't think our house has insulation. A room COULDN'T be this cold if the walls were insulated. His comment is "Well, what do you want to do? Tear down the wall to find out? Put out more quilts."

So we snuggle deep in long underwear, fleece pajamas, socks, neck warmers, flannel sheets, down comforters, boa blankets, and hand made quilts. I usually have a cat or two under the covers too and one or two on top of all that (they have their preferences). Either I'm freezing or feel like I'm suffocating!

And watch me race downstairs and change clothes in front of our one heater in the living room. The cats and I vie for heat space! Chip beat me to it this morning and she has taken up residence on the electric carpet too.