Valentine's Day

Hmmm... Today is Valentine’s Day but Tetsu hateｓ Valentine’s Day.

In the 1970s somewhere, Japan adopted the custom of celebrating Valentines Day with chocolate. The first year it didn't make much of an impression but the next year some clever person in advertising promoted Valentine's Day as the day women can confess their secret affection to the man they love by giving him CHOCOLATE. Valentine's Day took over the country!

Then somewhere in the 1980s, the idea of "Obligation chocolate" caught on. All those men in the office that the female clerk has to contend with daily? One might as well try to make extra points by giving them a piddling amount of chocolate. They'll feel honored and with Japanese culture so entrenched with giving return gifts, the clerk girl will surely come out ahead. (She's also obligated to give the chocolate because everyone else is doing the same thing.) So obligation chocolate took hold and women all over Japan were buying $2 or $3 boxes of chocolates, 10 or 20 at a time to give to any male that they happened to come across on Valentine's Day.

And the obligation extends to March 14th which is a completely original Japanese holiday called White Day when the men who received chocolates on February 14th are OBLIGATED to return the gift by presenting cookies or handkerchiefs or some small present. A lot of men have their wives go out and buy a ton of obligations gifts for White Day.

Nowadays I hear the phrase "Friend chocolate" and this means that women and girls will give chocolates (often hand made) to each other and ignore the men completely! It is a shock to the father in the family when he gets a $2 box of chocolate from the office girl but his wife is handing out chocolates to the meter man and his daughter is wrapping chocolates for her friends. "Forget Dad! Why would I give chocolates to him?"

So Tetsu isn't happy when the ladies in the office ignore him on Valentines Day and he isn't happy if someone leaves an obligation box of chocolate on his desk either.

And from me? I suppose just to cheer him up I should make some heart shaped cookies or something. I'm sure he'd rather have pork cutlets for dinner though.

Wishy washy

Nothing going on at the Watanabe house. Sunday was quiet with church and meetings, a visit to Tetsu's mother and then a trip to the electronics store.

A Bible verse that I like is 2 Corinthans 3:12 "Therefore since we have such a hope, we are very bold." In fact I get annoyed with hesitant, fearful people always worrying about what will happen if they do such-and-such. But I onetime read that the things that annoy us most in others are probably attributes of our own that we either haven't worked through or feel proud about overcoming. Somewhere in the back of my head I think this is true.

Meetings at church... We always have a "wait and see" attitude. Church participation isn't great but asking for more, expecting others to place their faith into an active mode might backfire. "God will work in people's hearts as He sees fit so let's just wait and see."

Tetsu's mother becomes weaker and more unhappy. Her complaints abound and her dissatisfaction with her health, her life, her living situation, her family is high. But she DOESN'T want to leave her apartment, she DOESN'T want to move in with us or her other children, (I don't think that is really an option). And so we visit, we listen, we leave, we don't change her situation and another week goes by with her alone and unhappy.

I am still fiddle-faddling about buying a camera or not. And I've been pushing Tetsu to think about buying an i-pad or one of the tablet thingies. He likes to use my computer to play games but since it is all in English he needs "help". But Tetsu tiptoes around decisions as much as I do and though we play around with the ipads, tablets, iphones etc, we leave the store saying... "Let's give it more thought."

I know that being prudent and cautious might be considered wise, but it sure feels like we're just being wishy-washy.

Snow areas

The plan yesterday was to go for a drive and stay til evening at at hot spa. We are getting so brave with the GPS in Tetsu's car!

Years ago I read on someone's blog that she was scared of bridges and went out of her way to avoid driving over them. Getting to the spa I thought of her as the new road pierced the mountains and spanned gorges. I also thought of my mother who is claustrophobic. She absolutely hates tunnels but in Japan they are unavoidable because the terrain is so mountainous. The road yesterday was so new it didn't even register on our used GPS!

"Tetsu, according to the GPS we just disappeared into blackness."

It made it all more of an adventure.

Once at the spa town we found it much snowier than we had expected. The community had set up snowmen in front of their shops and the Japanese inns had ice "stone" lanterns in front of their gates.






A favorite with the many tourists were the "Kamakura" which are Japanese snow houses, and children (and yours truly) ran in and out of them. Some were even equipped with specially made tatami mats and rigged for a barbecue lunch right inside! There were areas for sledding and outdoor booths served steamed potatoes drenched in butter and skewered chicken pieces. Yum!

Tetsu and I decided not to stay until evening because the roads were already icy and cars were slipping. Going back through the mountains on icy roads did not sound like fun! (But probably better with the tunnels and bridges than going around twisty mountainous curves...)





We made a long stop at a hot spa so that Tetsu could get his hot spa fix, and I enjoyed reading my Kindle and looking at the beautiful scenery.

More animal pictures

My muse flew yesterday and I didn't get any farther on Mrs. Kaneko's quilt. As someone said, it has enough interest on its own and doesn't need a busy border. If I'd had more of the stash fabric I could have made the outer edges wider... but that was all I had. I tried auditioning a white along the edge but it really moved the eye away from the blocks. So I've folded Mrs. Kaneko's quilt up and it is again draped over the back of a chair... looking lonely.

So another cat picture. Cat and dog! With Choco in the house more this winter she becomes a new subject for photography. I know... You are getting tired of seeing the same cats on the same sofa! If I'd known I was going to take so many pictures of my 20 year old-stuffing-coming-out-of-the-arms-broken-springs-sofa, I would have bought a new sofa! But if I'd bought a new sofa then I wouldn't be letting the cats and dog sit on it!

Yes, that is one, two, three, four cats and a dog!

Choco: "Don't pay any attention to me. I'll just take this corner over here..."

Mrs. Kaneko's quilt

Although it seems that I have been quiet on the sewing front, I have been diligently working on projects.

More stars for the Star Within a Star quilt. I think I need to make four more.

Mrs. Furui has us working on house blocks for the bazaar quilt this month.

The priority right now is to get Mrs. Kaneko's Bible quilt finished. I've been slowly putting it back together after getting all the blocks quilted. Oh my, such a mess was that quilt! I ended up taking out a lot of the sashing, shortening the strips and re-sewing them, otherwise I had PLEATS at the edges of the sashing! I couldn't get all the wrinkles sewn out but this is as good as it is going to get!

Mrs. Furui had fabric in her stash that just matched the soft colors of the original quilt so I cut that up and used it as a joining sash. Right now the back is a gridwork of piecing so I'll have to add some thin strips of batting to the back side of the sashing before closing this all up.

The assignment today is to think up a border for this quilt. Unfortunately there is only about an eighth of a yard left of Mrs. Furui's stash fabric so I don't think I have enough for a pieced border. I've also been considering applique but introducing new colors to this quilt may kill it...

Patora and Toi are happy to have me visiting them in the sewing room!

A conversation

Mi: "Great afternoon for a nap."

Choco: "Oh good. Maybe the cat won't notice if I take a nap here too."

Mi: "Dog? Did someone say there is a dog here?"

Choco: "Don't look at me! Don't look at me!"

Mi: "There IS a dog here!"

Choco: "Ahhgh! I'm trapped!"


Mi: "And what is this?"

Choco: "Just ignore me. Pretend that I'm not here."

Mi: "This is a dog paw?

Choco: "Oh no. That cat is coming closer! What'll I do? What'll I do?"

Mi: "Can this dog paw play games?"

Choco: "The cat touched me! Oh my gosh! This is bad!"

Mi: "Your paw is boring. I'm going back to sleep.

Choco: "That's a great idea."

Weekend activities

Tetsu and I are still making the rounds of recycle shops. Tetsu absolutely hates shopping BUT he loves recycle shops. Maybe even more than I do! He says he feels like he is on a treasure hunt and never knows what may be hidden away on the shelves and racks. In the department stores he knows to go to his size rack and that is that...BORING!! Everything is right there and everything is expensive. But in the recycle shop he has to LOOK and occasionally he finds something in his size that only costs a piddling amount.

While Tetsu went through the racks of men's clothing I stayed in the kimono section. There is almost NOTHING that I can wear in the women's section of a recycle shop. Everything is too small! (Or I am too big....) So it is a waste of my time to look at clothing. But since I've been helping a blog friend look for a kimono I've been in seventh heaven. Look what I found the other day and bought for my friend!

This is a little boy's ceremonial kimono. I just love the castle and samurai helmets on the kimono back. It has a couple inner kimonos too so at whatever price I bought it, I thought it a real bargain. (and even contemplated keeping it around for someday grandchildren of my own... but since neither of my children are married I'd really be jumping the gun!)

And this weekend was Setsubun, a holiday associated with the beginning of spring. I have no reason why but these beautiful little Japanese sweets were being sold in the supermarket in honor of Setsubun so I bought a set for Tetsu's mother. Let's see... a treasure boat on the left, a spinning top in the center and a nightingale in a plum tree on the right. Tetsu' mother decided not to eat them (they are made of candied jellies) and will leave them on her table as a decoration...

Running?

Tetsu and I went to an interesting convalescent care lecture this weekend. We know the man who was speaking and so went to say hello and hear what he had to say.

At one point in the lecture, the speaker had us (about 100 people) imagine that we are at our former elementary school getting ready to run a 60 meter race.

"Run as fast as you can! Put all you have into it! Don't lose sight of your goal! Ready? Get set. Go!"

And we all sat in our seats imagining the race we were taking part in.

"You're almost at the finish line! You're doing great. 20 more meters. Only 10 more! Here comes the finish line tape.... You're about to cross it... Oops. I made a mistake. This is a 100 meter race! Don't let up steam now! You've got 40 more meters to go!"

And most of the people at the lecture "stumbled" or "gave up" and collapsed in their seats.

"Did you manage to go the extra 40 meters? Did you lose your momentum and think 'what the heck!'?

This is what people in society are facing today. 70 years ago the average lifespan was 50 or 60 years of age. We were told to work hard throughout life and if you even managed to MAKE 60 years you were doing good. But now, reaching the centenarian mark isn't unheard of. In 2010 there were nearly 50,000 centenarians in Japan.

So if you are planning to retire at age 60 it is very likely that you've got more time ahead of you... Now what are you going to do with that extra time?"

In the past few months this has been a running conversation between Tetsu and me. I tell him that he needs to start thinking about what he'd like to do after retirement but he always retorts that he won't be able to afford to retire. Tetsu's whole life has been devoted to working long and hard in a company or organization and it is only in the past two years that he has made it a habit to come home before 9:00 at night. He has no hobbies, and doesn't seem to want to expand any of his flitting interests (like wonky carpentry).

"Cooking? Wouldn't you like to take up cooking as a hobby?" (You can see my brain working here... I'll let Tetsu take over the kitchen in our old age.)

"How about photography? Wouldn't that be fun?" (And then I could buy a professional style camera without any guilt feelings.)

"Heaven forbid that you suggest we do golf together and by the way, no one says we have to have a JOINT hobby. I am perfectly happy doing patchwork and blogging until I'm 100 so you can think about something that YOU'D like to do."

So far Tetsu has come up with Visiting Hot Spas.

Anyway food for thought.

Choco time

I decided that I should be fair and give Choco some blog time.

Because it is so cold outside I've been feeling sorry for Choco out in the yard. When I'm not home during the day she just has to bear with the cold and sleep on the blankets we've left out for her (that she has ripped to shreds.) But this week I decided to let her in the house when I didn't have children around. Choco can hold it together when the ladies come for English (if she is in her kennel) but she comes completely undone when children enter the house!

Okay, lock the door to make sure nobody steps into the house unannounced (that has happened! A child came for English on a no-English day an met Choco head on. No blood but a very scared child!)

Slip Choco's leash under an armchair leg otherwise Choco will wander around the house staring at cats and getting into their litter box and waste baskets. Such a nosy dog.

"Now, SIT quietly and be grateful that you are not out in the cold and not shut in your kennel."

A few jumps and starts at passing cats (the cats know they have the upper hand over Choco) and finally quiet. Too quiet.

Ah ha! An interloper! She knows that she is not supposed to be up on the chair.

"Maybe Mom won't notice..."

Ah well. An old armchair, a fraying chair cover. Why not?... If Choco doesn't claim the chair then the cats will.

"Inconsistency on the part of the dog trainer will only lead to an untrained dog"

I know... There are times when Choco drives me crazy and times when I want her to have the same privileges as the cats...

Despite her many behavior issues, we do love her.

Kitty pictures

Do you think Mi likes being Tetsu's toy?

Mi usually sits on Tetsu's chest while he drinks his morning coffee. I wonder if the warm coffee cup was soothing or if Mi was just bearing through Tetsu's silliness...

Here is Mi considering being a Maneki Neko. She hasn't got the paw position right yet... Maybe her paw is just cold and she is holding it off of the chilly floor.

And here is Vel making the most of a warm lap. I love quiet Vel, always taking a back seat to the other pushy cats.

Kitty paws. (Vel's and Mi's.) Warm, soft and cuddly.

I'm cold

Japan has been hit by a cold front. It is probably not very serious and where I live we get very little snow but still, I am freezing!!! My complaints annoy Tetsu to no end.

This is what I wake up to in the morning. Do these photos even capture what I see?

This LOOKS like a lovely impressionist painting. No. That is my bedroom window. It is the view of the forest looking through the window AND ALL THE FROZEN CONDENSATION ON THE WINDOW!!!

A few of our windows and doors have been frozen this week and we have to bang and thump at the frame in order to even get out the back door.

When I grumble that I don't think our house has insulation, Tetsu retorts that there's nothing that can be done about it now. When I suggest that there is such a thing as putting in double windows, he just shakes his head and tells me to think of the cost. And besides there doesn't seem to be insulation under the floors either so not a lot of good new windows would do.

"Isn't this the 21st Century? There is such a thing as central heating in America."

This is hitting below the belt on my part. We are not in America and Tetsu tells me to count my blessings; a lot of people in the world live in worse conditions.

And so we let the water run all night so that the pipes don't freeze. We bang windows to open them in the morning. We move our little space heaters from room to room. By the way, we aren't poverty stricken. Many of my friends are in the same boat. The advice from them is:

"Use a squeegee every morning to catch the condensation."

"Keep a towel along the window sill to sop up the moisture."

"Spray the area with alcohol to keep the mold at bay."

Japan has the technology to make refrigerators that will talk to you! Why don't they just construct a warm house for the normal resident.

If I had one of those refrigerators that talked to me, it would probably say,

"Close the door. You're letting all the cold air IN!"

Crazy Goose Chase quilt border

The Crazy Goose Chase quilt (Buggy Barn design) is a flimsy! (Again.)

After consulting with Mrs. Furui I put together a thin border on only one side of the quilt making it into a rectangle. The original pattern had resulted in 5 left over stars and so I made one more and with 6 stars the pattern stayed symmetrical. I suppose I might have given more thought to color placement or even made more stars and added another border on the bottom of the quilt, but this is enough.

There aren't many places in my house to lay out this flimsy to take a picture and obviously this isn't one of one. That lump in the middle is Chip playing hide-and-seek.

Now to making backing and sandwich the flimsy for quilting.

Kimono quest

Recently I've been visiting recycle shops to look at old kimonos and obis. Someone has asked me to find them a nice used kimono and I am on a quest. While kimonos are unaffordable at regular price, in the recycle shops one can find nice kimonos for about a 10th (or more!) of the original cost. But so many different kinds!













And the glittering obis are amazing too, but what is a Westerner going to do with an obi? They make nice table runners... or wall hangings... Though many of you who have been following my blog since last year and have seen obis, (remember? Mrs. Kaneko's mother-in-law's obis fell into my hands) I'm showing pictures of a couple that I have found recently at about $50 an obi.



And would you look at this picture I found on the Internet. It is a picture of all the accessories and things one needs to wear a kimono! No wonder there aren't many people who don't dress traditionally anymore. I may have a kimono (Tetsu's mother's) but I don't have the proper under kimonos for the type of kimono. Nor the proper obi, nor the proper slippers, nor all the ties, nor the matching handbag etc. etc. Just keeping all that straight deters young women from wanting to wear kimono. (Not to mention the cost!)

And when I say proper I mean that if one is of a certain age then you can only wear certain kimonos. Or depending on whether you are married or single, or depending on the season, or depending on whether you are going to a wedding or a school observation day or a funeral. It would be a major faux pas to wear the wrong kimono to an event in the wrong season!

In the kimono advertisement next to the picture of a kimono set, the shop was offering 14 pieces (bags, socks, ties, kimono, obi, slippers etc. etc. etc.) for a special price of about $5000. Regular asking price for all that was $15,000!

No thank you. I'll stick with Tetsu's mother's kimonos or the recycle shops.