Christmas preparations

Christmas programs are winding down.

In my English classes we are making decorations, in the kindergarten and pre-school there are plays and songs.













At church I got to lead last Sunday's worship service. That is a mis-cast part if anything! I do not read Japanese well and stumble along like a child with a primer...

Today and tomorrow I'm knitting (got to the collar last night!) and making cookies for the Christmas Eve service. Non-Christians in Japan are sending out New Year's cards (mine are made, just not addressed) and doing major house cleaning. Maybe I'll skip house cleaning this year

*****

For our 2002 New Year's card I didn't have too much hope for our family picture. No one was cooperating with the idea of posing (make that Takumi...) and it seemed like we were destined for just animal pictures. Poor Shoko got the job of being festive (that dog NEVER looked festive. She always looked like Eeyore) and the cats got their picture taken while they plotted against birds on the other side of the window.

BUT a friend took this one and only picture of us in the yard one evening and it was either this picture or none. Look at the scull and crossbones on Takumi's chest! How Christmasy is that?!!!

"Tetsu, we CAN'T use this picture for our New Year's card!"

"This is what our family is like this year so no sense being embarrassed about it."

I compromised by using a smaller version of the picture and leaving lots of writing space below.

First aid knitting

Yesterday I got some first aid for Tetsu's vest. Mrs. Ide came over and helped me block it again and showed me how to make the most of the measurements. This is turning out smaller than I expected. Who knows it might become a new vest for me. (That happens a lot. Then I always wish I had been making a red vest for Tetsu instead of the inevitable grey or blue...) Will this get done before Christmas? Not with all I have to do today!

*****

2001 New Year's card and I don't know how we got Tetsu back to America in just two years. Maybe that was the year that my mother ended up in the hospital for quite a while and Tetsu convinced his office that he NEEDED to go because it might be the last time to see her. In Japan you need to have a reason to take time off from work. You can see that we weren't just standing by Mother's bedside though (she bounced back quickly). This has always been our least favorite picture... the teen years were wearing on me and Takumi refused to take off the dumb sunglasses if he had to pose at all. Even the animals didn't look happy about posing that year.

"Yeah, yeah. Let us get warm first."

They were all crowded around the heater that year. Shoko is decidedly trying to ignore the camera.

At least Leiya looked cheerful.

Christmas decorations

The other day I visited my favorite bread shop and found some workers making Christmas decorations. I frequent this shop a lot and they are used to me asking if I can take pictures of their bread but this was the first time I was so bold as to ask if I could step into their kitchen!

"Come on in!"

and a friend and I went into the warm, great smelling kitchen to take a couple of pictures. A few other ladies in the shop noticed our disappearance into the kitchen and trailed in after us. I don't know if the bakers wanted 5 coat clad ladies oohing and aahing over the baking process but we all took pictures!

One young man was making bread shoes (I think these are really salt flour but I'm not sure about that) and another girl was making wreaths.

The kindergarten was decorated for the Christmas program on Saturday and I was drawn to the beautiful Christmas tree on the wall. Have you ever made star pot-holders? I went through a phase early in my patchwork years when I made quite a few of these but never this many at one time!

Someone at the church had given the kindergarten principal a box of these "pot-holders" to sell at the church bazaar but the principal cleverly purchased all the stars herself and arranged them as a starry Christmas tree! Made me want to make a couple of these stars again... Not this year Tanya!

*****

Let's see... What year are we on here? 2000? This colorful picture was taken in my brother's California front yard on his kiddie play equipment. You can see that Tetsu got to America about once every 4 or 5 years. Take a good look at Takumi because this is the last you'll see him smiling for two years. Heading into the teenage years with him at age 14 and Leiya at 10. The animals were featured that year as a sticker again. Shoko on her favorite chair and Lemi, Zorro and Vel up on top.

Call me Mickey

I thought you might like a laugh today. Here I am coming back from cross walk duty. Remember when I was complaining that this dumb uniform was too big? Well, during this season I've got under that overcoat, a muffler, a uniform jacket, a uniform vest, uniform pants, a white shirt, a knitted vest, a tie, PAJAMAS, leg warmers, socks, boots and two pairs of gloves. (plus the cute hat.) I'm carrying a whistle, a badge, a cell phone and a crosswalk flag. With all these clothes I'm weighted down and ROLLING to the crosswalk! I guess I'm happy the uniform is still too big because it is REALLY cold and I need all the layers I can get. However, the huge gloves do remind me a bit of Mickey Mouse....

*****

1999 and our New Year's card featured two new members to our family. The black and white kitty was Zorro and he showed up in the empty lot next to us one night as a kitten that could hardly walk. I even tracked down the child who had picked him up at the school and left him near my house and I was so furious. I think the neighborhood kids think if there is a stray cat that they should take it to Tanya which is NOT in my plans. But giving the kitty back would just mean that it got thrown out somewhere else so we kept it.

Not more than a month later I spotted Velvet in the forest (along with an empty tuna fish can). Within a few hours Vel had sought warmth and shelter on our porch on top of garden slippers. I ran away from home and Tetsu had to meet me in the middle of the day to plan what to do.

"Okay. Stay away from the house all day and if the kitty is still there tonight then we'll take him in."

You know the rest of the story. Vel is still with us today!

So the Watanabe family each had an animal to love and carry around that year. Shoko looks very uncomfortable!

Some things work out, some things don't!

Yesterday was a big day at the kindergarten because they had their Christmas program. Such a mad house behind the stage but as usual everything went off well. People were relieved to see me there just because one year I came down with the flu and had to cancel out. I will never live that down.

The older class in the kindergarten puts on a "musical" pageant and all the costumes are so cute and the few solo singing parts are just adorable. The cow this year was played by a chubby little boy who is so shy but he really sang his part like a pro! I could envision him someday being an opera singer! (that's pushing it a bit but it brought tears to my eyes since I know he is hesitant even to speak up in class.)

So, one thing successfully completed in the Christmas countdown. A billion more things to go!

Tetsu's vest is not much further along than it was a week ago. maybe less! I made the back. I made the front. WHY doesn't the front fit the back?! I have no idea. I counted correctly, I decreased correctly. I think it must have something to do with more cables on the front than on the back. Tanya, you should stick to a book and not try to design your own pattern. Too late for that now. So I dettink (that's knitted backwards) quite a ways back and am trying to reknit the V-neck. Do you think this will get done before Christmas? Not if I run into more problems.

*****

1998 New Year's card. Takumi was 12 and Leiya 8. Yes, Lemi is sitting on Shoko. I told you they were very good friends!

I don't know if I ever mentioned that Tetsu used to teach judo. Well, he used to be pretty good in judo himself (before I came along) and his dream was to have his kids do judo too. Takumi started judo when he was about three and Leiya looked forward to joining when she entered 1st grade. (Sorry. I am a non-judo person.) Every week I would take my kids to the city gym and meet up with Tetsu and the three of them would do judo with other children and teachers. I usually sat in the bleachers and did hand piecing. Tetsu had big plans for our kids in judo!

BUT parents dreams are often different from their children's. Takumi decided in jr. high that judo was not for him and a year or so later Leiya dropped out too. Poor Tetsu! Nowadays we are all pretty far from the judo scene but this picture was taken at the gym when our family was keen!

Sewing lesson

Yesterday my friends Rumi-san and Mrs. Nakazawa came for their monthly patchwork lesson. They have done hand piecing (at their request) and made a couple of small quilts. They finished their Happy Village quilts and proudly brought those to show me and let me take pictures. Yeah! I love these village quilts. They turn out so nicely! And then.... I MADE them sit down at a sewing machine.

"You can do all the hand piecing you like. It is always nice to have a project by your chair. BUT, you have to TRY machine piecing just so you can decide if it is something you might be able to do. If I'm going to teach you, you HAVE to learn machine piecing."

Gulp. Neither of them really wanted to try it. Roller cutters look scary and difficult to maneuver. Neither of them have touched a sewing machine in 10's of years. But I am a strict teacher and together we bought fabric and prepared it for the cutting table. Beautiful fabric isn't it?!

"Okay, take a deep breath. Hang on to the wide ruler and CUT. Excuse me! Too many "oopses" going on here. You are wasting fabric! Be careful!"

I think after cutting 30 some strips they were getting the hang of it.

I brought down my sewing machine and an old one that I keep for emergencies (neither friend owns a sewing machine right now!) and pretty soon they were zipping away! Yeah! We managed to sew strips together but haven't cut those up yet to sew into blocks. Rumi-san and Mrs. Nakazawa still feel like they are wandering through a mystery land.

"What are we doing with all these strips? How is this going to turn into a quilt block?"

I remember the magic feel of a block suddenly coming together without me really understanding why. I hope my friends will feel the same sense of satisfaction!

Next step.... Next month.

******

1997 and we took our family to a nearby park with water wheels in it. I'm surprised we risked taking Lemi with us! I shudder to think she might have jumped out of my lap and disappeared into some unknown place! But all was well. For awhile I was trying to sew fleece shirts and this was one of my attempts at a mother daughter look. Shoko is still being held down for the picture isn't she?

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.