More beautiful scenery... and not so beautiful...

Last weekend Tetsu and I went on a drive to Fukushima. Supposedly the north of Japan isn't getting many tourists and so the tollways have been opened for free access hoping to get visitors. It seemed like a good time to go sightseeing so off we went.

The scenery was beautiful. Lots of lakes and the leaves were just beginning to change colors.

We ended up at the top of a mountain/volcano. Well! They don't have to worry about a lack of tourists! Just to get up the mountain to the parking lot we had to wait in line for an hour and a half!

And then there was a line to use the bathrooms and then there was a line to climb up the mountain!


I successfully made it up the line to the top of the volcano crater! Hard on the knees but they both work!


Windy at the top!


And then another long traffic jam on the expressway to get home...

Aside... When Tetsu and I drive we often spot things other than beautiful scenery. When I first came to Japan I was appalled that drivers would just get out of their cars and pee at the side of the road! They are not flashers... I guess they just have weak bladders. It has become an inside joke about how many "pee-ers" Tetsu and I see in one drive. Maybe less than years before but they are still there!

Usually I can't whip out my camera and take a picture of some man doing his business. What kind of a woman would do that?! But I have taken some great pictures in my mind. One time I saw a bus load of men lined up by the roadside... I guess the tourist bus driver just stopped and said "Go right ahead!"

And another time I was coming out of the City Hall in down town Nikko and a very distinguished businessman in a suit just turned to the bushes right by the steps and finished his business too! My goodness! The City Hall has bathrooms!

And I often see farmers step out of their houses and give their field a mini-watering! In front of your own house? I don't get it!


In the hour and a half wait to get up the Fukushima mountain, a man got out of his car a few cars ahead of us. Tetsu laughed and said, "You've got your picture... Take it!" So I did.

Men have the right to use the roadside. We women have to suffer...

A loaf of bread

Yesterday Tetsu went to a wedding and brought home gifts. In Japan, the guests bring money and the bride and groom give gifts to the guests. Recently the most popular gift is a catalog so that the guest can pick out what they want themselves and send in an order card. It used to be that the typical gift was a sauce pan or a set of dishes or vase or something so actually the catalog system is nice. Going for efficiency rather than personal I guess. I think I'll choose a towel rack...

Tetsu also brought home sticky red rice. One can't have a wedding in Japan without sticky red rice. And he brought home a loaf of bread. A loaf of bread? That's an unusual gift...

This morning we had toast for breakfast.

What a surprise! Hearts inside the bread!

Wishing the best for the new couple. The bread was delicious!

My mistake

Yesterday I was a ranting mad woman, coming undone at the edges! Oh my! What confusion! What blood rushing panic! I may have endangered my mother-daughter relationship with Leiya for life! After all the hub-bub she sent me an e-mail asking me to proof read something so at least I know she's still talking to me.

It started out with me being upset with Leiya.

"That girl! She hasn't contacted us in weeks! I specifically asked her to get in touch with me because I need to verify some bank stuff. She doesn't answer e-mails. She doesn't come on MSN. WHERE IS SHE?"

When Tetsu realized I hadn't talked to Leiya in awhile he became upset with me.

"For heaven's sake, call her! How can you just sit there and wonder if she's alright. And you sent her money and she doesn't respond? That's strange. You need to keep better track of her."

And when I explained that I didn't have her cell phone number anymore (she lost her old cell phone) Tetsu about blew his top. What kind of a mother was I that I couldn't get in contact with my children?! So of course I was upset with Leiya again because I was getting chewed out by her father!

I sent another e-mail. I sent an e-mail to Takumi asking him to get in touch with his sister immediately. I finally went on Facebook (I do not understand Facebook) and somehow found pictures of Leiya showing me that as of October 10 she was alive and kicking. So I sent her a sarcastic message on Facebook (I think I sent it to her... I might have sent it to her friend.)

At 10:00am, just as I was putting coffee in the coffee maker to serve to one of my adult students who was arriving in minutes, I hear a "BING" letting me know that someone was on MSN. Usually I only converse with Leiya by MSN so I rushed to the computer.

"Where have you been?! I'm upset with you! I asked you to let me know when you got the $3000 I sent you. I've been waiting and waiting. I need to get back to the bank and set up an automatic transfer. Why didn't you answer back?! This is not acceptable!!!"

And Leiya's answer was,

"I never got the money."

"WHAT!!!!!!!! My online banking says they sent you the money!!!!! That's a lot of money!!!! What do you mean you didn't get it?!"

"I sent you an MSN message once saying I didn't get it."

"But you sent that message the day after I transferred money. I wrote back that it would probably go through in a day or two and you never answered back! Go back and check you account! It MUST be there!"

But it wasn't. Panic! As my voice rose, my doorbell rang. My student had arrived.

"Leiya, you've got to figure this out yourself. Call your bank! Call my bank! I sent it to your new account number. It's number ********** right?"

"No, Mom. You've got the number wrong. It's one digit off."

I felt like I'd gotten hit in the head. I'd done it again. I'd mis-typed numbers sending $3000 to somewhere unknown in cyberspace. And I had a student standing in my entryway. And when I directed her to the dining room she pointed out that my floor was flooded with coffee... I'd turned on the coffee maker without putting the the pot under it... Coffee everywhere. Flustered is a mild word.

I could hear Leiya on the computer talking with her bank.

"Yes, my mom in Japan sent money to the wrong bank account. Can you help us find it?"

I threw towels and rags at my student and asked her to clean up the coffee. I ran back to the computer.

"Leiya, call MY bank! Find out WHERE they sent the money."

But my bank was already closed in California.

"Leiya, call YOUR bank again and give them the mistaken account number!"

My student watched me race from dining room to computer as I yelled out an explanation for not being ready for her.

"Oh dear. You have a very big problem. That is a lot of money."

Leiya handled the problem very well. She politely and confidently confirmed that her bank had returned the money to my bank when they found her name wasn't on the account. She thanked the bank for their help and calmly got back to me.

"Mom. You need to go online to your bank again. The money is probably there now."

And it was.

So I was fretting and fuming about not knowing if Leiya had received her money when I could have gone back and checked my own account again. I never thought to do that.

Stupid me cannot write numbers correctly. EVER. Stupid me was too busy blowing up at Leiya to think straight about my own bank.

I'm very sorry Leiya for getting angry at you. I could hear you calmly and maturely discussing this major problem with the banks. I am amazed at your poise and very proud of you. Please forgive me.

You still need to keep in better touch with your parents.

Tessellating Cats finished (sort of)

Well, finally! Something quilty! I finished quilting the Tessellating Cats quilt! Oh dear... I don't want to know when I started this... At least a year and a half ago!


I had found a picture of this quilt on the Internet and tracked the source down to a magazine but discovered that I could no longer purchase the magazine. Mona who visited my blog sent me her magazine sheets last summer and from there I started plugging away with whatever bright fabric I could find in my stash. I wasn't too pleased with the background fabric but that was all I could find that was whimsical in the Japanese fabric store. (There are minuscule mice and cheese in the yellow. You need a magnifying glass to see them.) Although machine pieced, there were some TINY triangles in those cats so I was very happy when I got to the flimsy stage on this.

This summer I found some wonderful backing! (I wish I'd been able to use this on top!) Rainbow colored paw prints! So now I can enjoy the back of my quilt as much as the front... (And I have a little leftover backing that I can use for some other front someday.)

I agonized awhile about hand or machine quilting this but Marie pointed out that cats are fluffy so I went with hand quilting. I am SOOOO glad I did! The grid is nothing to cheer about but it didn't get too crooked.

I put the binding on last night but actually this is still not finished. Those cats are all supposed to have collars on them!!! So next I'll be going through my ribbon drawer and sewing collars on all 23 cats. (I put one collar on one black cat last night just to see if I could.) Maybe this season the Tessellating Cats will go up on the wall as is...

Should I start with colorful cats right side up?

Or black cats?

Quilt distribution update

I received an e-mail the other day asking if I knew whether quilts that had been made for Japan (especially through Quilter's Newsletter) ever arrived and if they were distributed. Actually, I have no first hand knowledge but I went to the website of Patchwork Quilt Tsushin, the Japanese quilt magazine that headed the quilt distribution, to see if there were updates. And there were! (I just hadn't gone looking. And it was a bit difficult to find the updates in the large website...)

Gifts of Quilts from All Over the World

The latest on the Japanese website says to go to Facebook. Facebook and I are not well acquainted and I rarely make an appearance there. But I figured out how to get to Facebook and checked the latest message. There have been 13 updates since the request for quilts was first made. I'm sorry, I didn't go back and read all the updates (that would take my poor Japanese reading ability much too long!) There were lots of pictures for each update about where the quilts have been distributed and how they were received. If you can figure out how to get to Patchwork Quilt Tsushin's Facebook site then the pictures will be very uplifting.

But I did read and translate the last update made on September 28th.

8,566 quilts have been received from Japan as well as from overseas since the earthquake and tsunami, 8,300 of those have been distributed to evacuees in the Tohoku region. On August 30, the Sendai organization Rosy Bell invited actress, Kazuko Kato and the children’s author, Yoko Yamazaki, to help hand out quilts to evacuees in Miyagi prefecture’s Yamamoto-cho.

Rosy Bell works mainly with helping delinquent youths regain a place in society. Since the earthquake they have been focusing on distributing goods to victims in the Miyagi area. As well as food items, quilts have been especially welcome.

First the organization visited the children of Yamamoto Kindergarten and amongst the 350 quilts that were set out, a presentation ceremony was conducted. Ms. Kato read a story to the children and also led a rhythmic session. Ms. Yamazaki spoke with the parents. They talked about how the children were just being taken home by kindergarten bus when the earthquake occurred. Fighting fear and confusion, the bus managed to return to the kindergarten. The kindergarten staff spoke of the relief of being able to report that everyone was safe. Even now, the childrens' smiles and trusting faces stay fixed in the staffs’ minds but while talking with Ms. Yamazaki, many mothers were moved to tears as they recalled the terrifying day.

The next place for the quilt distributers to visit was Niko Niko Teahouse. Here, 50 quilts were given to the residents and in return Ms. Kato was presented with a letter of gratitude and flowers.

The people viewing the quilts were continuously commenting, “How beautiful! Look at this cute one!” Although the rebuilding of the Miyagi area will take a long time, the quilts will serve to heal wounded hearts.

We wish to thank all the people who have sent quilts so far and who may still be planning to send quilts. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

The Facebook article and also the Patchwork Quilt Tsushin website announced that they will be accepting quilts for donation until the end of November. As for the original question as to whether the American quilt magazine, Quilter's Newsletter, ever sent their received quilts to Japan or not, I'm afraid I don't know. (But maybe a reference is hidden back in one of the updates...) I have a feeling that many of those 8,566 quilts were from overseas because most Japanese quilters do not do machine piecing and machine quilting so it takes awhile longer to get a quilt to completion. It may very well be that many of those quilts were sent through Quilter's Newsletter.

I donated two quilts myself. But somewhere along the line I decided that if I make quilts and give them ANYWHERE, that God will see that the quilts get into the hands that need them most. I may have meant a quilt to go to so-and-so but God may have detoured that quilt elsewhere. Someone, somewhere needed that quilt. And I also think that a drop of good ANYWHERE in the ocean will send ripples of good to other places in the world. After my first two quilts I'm trusting that God will send quilts through other people and now my donation quilts are going to a local hospital.

God HAS comforted many people (8,300 to date!) with the quilts that quilters from all over the world have made. I am trusting that my quilts were two of those.

(all pictures were downloaded from the Quilt Patchwork Tsushin website... Facebook)

A quicky post

This is Wordless Wednesday but I'm hardly ever wordless.

I fixed up a Styrofoam box for Patora and Toi out in the cat house. It was an expensive box ($15!) but it is quite large and both cats can snuggle inside together. My friend Mrs. Nakazawa once gave Mi a cat box that she made from a grocer's Styrofoam box. That would have cost less but I don't use that grocer and the boxes are smaller. Now, Patora and Toi at least have a place they can escape to as the days get colder. I have already started bringing them in at night (to the dislike of all the other cats.)

And just so that I know when I've started what I'm posting a picture of the vest that I started last night. This will hopefully turn into Tetsu's Christmas vest. I'm going to try using an afgan needle. Has anyone ever tried that? It looks like a long crochet hook but you knit forward and crochet back (and for this vest I'm doing a pattern of knit and pearl stitches). There is only one needle! This is the first time for me to use this technique and it so far seems to make a sturdier stitch. Unfortunately Tetsu is a big man and I can see a long, slow process ahead of me.

Off to the kindergarten in a few minutes.

Festival

Tetsu and I have been gallivanting about. Wow, since we got that GPS and a new car, hardly a weekend goes by that we don't GO somewhere! I sort of miss my quiet weekends quilting but I'm not complaining! (It also means that I am away from the computer from early morning so no blogging.)

So... here are some pictures of a festival we attended... Sorry, I don't know much about the festival (that doesn't sway Tetsu at all. We don't have to KNOW about the festival. Just go and enjoy!)

This is in the next city over and without knowing what we were looking for we parked the car and followed people into the center of town. As we got closer more and more stalls lined the streets.


Mostly food is sold... hot dogs, grilled squid, fried noodles, sweet bean paste buns, octopus balls, snow cones. A few stalls sold traditional festival odds and ends... water fill yo-yo balloons, plastic masks, goldfish that you catch with a paper scooper. Oops... Looks like the boy already has a hole in his paper scooper.


The highlight of the festival was the pulling of shrine floats through the streets. There were twenty of these heavy wooden floats (called dashi) that were gathered in a shrine yard before the music began.


From reading this poster I gathered that each district in the city has their own dashi, most of them hundreds of years old and preserved for annual festivals. The intricate carvings show the artists of the eras who also worked on the Nikko shrines and temples. Nikko wood carving is famous throughout Japan.


There was an interesting mixture of old and new at the festival. Little children dressed in festival wear, the elders of the district gathered and already quite exhilarated with celebration osake.

Girls were dressed colorfully in different costumes according to district and they later led their group pulling the dashi.


But then there was a lot of the new melting into the traditional. So many girls were really dolled up for the festival. Pouffy hairdos. Colorful hair extensions, hoopy earrings, silk flowers entwined in hairstyles, false eyelashes made of colorful feathers!


As evening approached the festival's hubbub increased and lights were lit. A few brave young men were chosen I suppose to ride on the tops of each dashi and keep their balance as they were jerked down the narrow streets.


Inside each dashi, musicians played pipes and flutes and drums and bells keeping rhythm to the forward motion and the sound crescendoed around the whole city. Supposedly the next night's festival doings were even more festive and noisy! A lot of fun!

Some people in Japan LIVE from one festival to the next, preparing costumes, practicing music, attending drinking meetings, distributing funds. Tetsu and I pop in for a little excitement and a lot of food.

Kindergarten Sports Day

My morning started out at the kindergarten for Sports Day. A little more than 100 children and their families were all gathered in the small kindergarten yard to enjoy 5 hours of games and dances and events. A lot of preparations have gone into Sports Day... the children painted their own T-shirts and flags, mothers have made costumes for dances and all free time has been devoted to practice, practice, practice. Climbing walls, jumping from ladders, crawling under nets etc.

My contribution to this year's Sports Day was a T-shirt design for the staff. (Design is too strong a word. The principle gave me a Japanese phrase and asked me to translate it... I'd have done a better job if I'd known my English was going to sporting some 40 people's chests!)

The past couple weeks in English we have been singing a song "I can run! I can jump! I can climb! I'm a Superhero!" and we decided to sing that for Sports Day. Mrs. Furui captured me doing "I can fly!"

I came home with a yummy boxed lunch that Tetsu and I shared!

Hearts

Tetsu and I are not so good at using our cell phones. Mainly we communicate using the text messaging feature but neither of us gets more in than,

"I will be home late. Go ahead and eat."

or

"You forgot your wallet. Do you want me to bring it to you?"

Yesterday Tetsu text messaged me from the train on his way home from his business trip.

"I'm coming in on the 5:48 train. Can you pick me up at the station?"

I get a few hearts whenever Tetsu messages me. When I picked him up though, he was grumbling about the big mistake he'd made.

"That text message I sent you... I accidentally sent it to Mr. Takahashi first."

And Mr. Takahashi had sent Tetsu back a message...

"I think you've got the wrong person..."

I laughed my head off. Tetsu had better practice using the text messaging feature a bit more.

Chairs

A few weeks ago I was waxing my dining room floors. (I have never gotten back to that project and the living room floors still look scruffy.) As I moved the dining room table and chairs, I decided I was fed up with the chairs. Nearly twenty years ago some foreign friends returned to America and left us with most of their furniture. (Closets, refrigerator, sofa set, bookshelves, curtains and dining room set.) We had just moved into this house and had spent our savings. It looked like we were going to live furniture-less until these generous friends relocated their furniture to us. But after twenty years, the dining room chairs have seen better days.

Years of cat wear have taken their toll. The cats found the cushioned part of the chair very nice as scratching posts. And twenty years of sitting had flattened the cushions down to the springs and was very uncomfortable to rear ends. I blame Takumi for the creaking and definite rocking motion of the chairs because he used to lean back on the back legs. My dining room chairs were dangerous and ugly and uncomfortable! Every week I had ladies coming to English and I was punishing them with my treacherous chairs.

I have talked about the need for new chairs with Tetsu numerous times. Unfortunately, Tetsu rarely sits in the dining room. He eats alone most nights (10:00) in front of the TV. He didn't notice ugly chairs nor feel springs sticking into his behind. Buying new chairs was not high on his priority list. And wonky carpenter that he is, he claimed that he could fix and recover the chairs. Yeah! Let's see you do it! But Tetsu doesn't have much free time and that priority list didn't have "chair repair" on it.

While waiting for the waxed floors to dry, I grabbed an Exacto knife and ATTACKED one of the chairs! Let's see what is in this cushion! Is this going to be repairable? As disintegrating foam clouded the air I determined that these chairs were not salvageable! The springs were rusty, the fabric was embedded in the wood, I couldn't even figure out what joints made the chair shake and creak. That's when I decided I'd had it with the chairs.

So after my dining room floor was dry I went off to the furniture store and BOUGHT new chairs! ALL BY MYSELF! Tetsu was so shocked when I told him. Usually I am the quiet wife that lets him make major purchases. The dining room is MY territory and I want NEW CHAIRS!

My chairs were delivered last week and they look very, very nice in the dining room. Even Tetsu admitted that I'd made a good choice. And I think Tuesday ladies were happy to sit back without fear of a chair collapsing under them. I kept one old chair for memories' sake. It is serving as a bedside table and the cats are welcome to sit there!

Business and school trips

I've got the house to myself for a couple of days. Tetsu is on a business trip to somewhere in Japan (now that we have cell phones I don't need to know where he is going...) Of course "alone" is relative since the cats and Choco are here to keep me company. I also have a very small English class tonight because three of 5 boys are off on a school trip. Maybe I'll make cookies with the other two boys.

Japanese schools do a lot of school trips. There is a whole, huge business dealing with school trips! Tourist buses run... Guides are provided... accommodations for hundreds of children are ready and waiting.

Let's see... There are always field trips away from the schools... the children learn things like "how to go shopping." I guess they don't learn that when they go out with their mothers?

At around fourth grade my kids went on a field trip to visit a soy sauce factory. I still have the soy sauce container that the factory gave the children. Also in fourth grade is the first overnight stay. I don't remember where they go but 35 students board a tourist bus and off they go.

In fifth grade (the three boys who will be absent tonight are fifth graders) the school takes the class to the seaside for three days and they learn to make salt among other things.

In sixth grade all schools take the children off to places of cultural importance. I think Leiya's class spent 4 nights in the Tokyo area and visited the Diet building, a Buddhist temple and Disneyland. (very culturally important that Disneyland!)

Once the children get to jr. high school, the school trip quality improves and the students have a chance to go south and spend time in the historic cities of Kyoto and Nara. I thought it interesting that most of the transportation around the cities was by private taxi. Four of five children to a taxi! Think how crazy the teachers and chaperones must get with a couple hundred students (in jr. high more classes) let loose in an unfamiliar city! I've never heard of any school losing a child so I guess all the rules are obeyed and the students get back to their hotel at night!

When the student gets to high school the trips get even more extensive and some classes go overseas to Europe or China or something for 10 days. And yes, parents pay for all of this! We start saving money for the mandatory school trip early! (But Takumi's high school wasn't interested in taking the students to a foreign country and thought a trip to Nikko was enough. Takumi was disgusted. He did manage to convince the bus driver to let him off at a corner so that he could walk home instead of going back to the school in the next city over.)

Oh well, this is a rambling post that has nothing to do with anything. I'll be sitting in my chair surrounded by cats waiting for Tetsu to get back tomorrow night. A little extra time in the sewing room?