Popcorn and Sushi

Reminders Amid the Bamboo

Sometimes we pause to remember the best things about where we live.  Husband spent part of last week at a conference near Tokyo.  Tokyo has many charms, but an abundance of natural beauty isn't generally considered to be among them.  And where Husband was, outside the city--well, there was neither natural beauty nor the benefits of urbanity.  So he was glad to return to our humble city, which may not have much in the way of shopping or fine dining, but which has places like this,

where a couple of families can swim in the river (our kids are the ones sitting on the big rock)

and have a picnic dinner together at dusk, with no one else around. 

As our dear friend, whose legs made it into this photo, likes to say--it's all good.

Death by Beethoven

This five-inch guy may not look like much, but he's actually a vicious killing machine. Recently he made quick (well, not that quick; in fact, it was pretty prolonged) work of bludgeoning a fast-moving centipede on the floor next to the computer.

A plastic (not plasTER, mind you) 1980s mini-bust of a composer might seem an odd choice of murder weapon.  But a gal's gotta use whatever's at hand.  Don't ask what he and his posse of five other famous composers were doing lurking on the floor under the bookcase, next to the trash can (which was woefully inadequate in its own efforts at centipedicide).  Suffice it to say that I have children, and they put things in strange, inconvenient places where they are often doomed to remain for time immemorial unless a higher power chooses to whisk them away eventually.

So whose latent murderous tendencies will show themselves next?  Chopin?  Debussy?  I'm putting my money on Brahms.

P.S.  Anyone jealous of the lovely green carpet?  Or of someone who lives in a Japanese house that has become a centipede haven?  Let's see a show of hands!

Twice Bitten

I've written here about dealing with giant spiders and have ranted verbally about persistent food moths, but now this.  These things, these Japanese centipedes, or mukade, are storming the Mini-Castle.

We've lived in our house for over three years.  Up until this August, we saw no more than, I'd say, eight or so mukade indoors.  Now in the past three weeks, we've found ten!

The siege started shortly after our return from the States.  Husband killed a small invader on the floor of our bedroom one morning.  Only several days later, after I was bitten on the face in our bed in the middle of the night, did I remember that these delightful creatures travel in pairs.

Actually, I wasn't initially sure what had bitten me, since mukade and I had never gotten this personal before.  But the searing pain that occurred over the next ten or fifteen minutes alerted me that this was no bedbug bite.  To my credit (?), I let Husband, who hates being awakened for almost any reason, continue sleeping.  I bravely stayed up alone for an hour or so, just to rule out the possibility of keeling over from anaphylactic shock.  After treating the bite with lavender essential oil (excellent for use right after various stings and bites, by the way), I went back to sleep--on the couch.

There are at least three different sizes and types of mukade, with only one technically bearing that name (I can't remember the other names--I have very little desire to compare and contrast).  We just basically call them all mukade (wondering how to say it?  Moo-kah-day).  I suppose I should be glad that we've had only the smallest ones in the house, not the middle-sized guys who are supposedly the most poisonous.

But why are we having to deal with them at all?  Can't someone just come out and blast our house with unpronounceable chemicals and we can call it a day? The answer is twofold.  Number One, I don't like toxic junk.  I really, really try to keep it away from my family--I am Supercrunchy Greenmama, hear me roar!  But I also don't like the thought of my kids getting bitten by centipedes, which leads to my puzzlement about Number Two: apparently the Japanese don't have pest control companies.  That's what the Housing people told us, anyway, and a Japanese friend confirmed this.  People just handle all their own insect issues.

Huh?  I'm all for DIY, but what do I look like, the Terminix guy?  Am I to understand that no one in this capitalist, second-in-the-world-economy country wants me to pay them to take care of a bug problem?  I just don't believe it.  And the recommendation to treat the issue ourselves by sprinkling around a Borax powder is all well and good, but since it rains often, plus our house is basically a bunch of big windows and glass doors held up by bits of wall in between, this idea seems daunting and possibly pointless. 

But we have tried a couple of things.  Husband (did I mention he got bitten on the back the night after my bite?) set off bug bombs while we were gone for a day and a half last weekend (he sold that idea to me by saying that they are Japanese bug bombs so are likely less-toxic than American ones--right).  Anyway, that didn't work; it probably didn't help that he left windows cracked everywhere, possibly defeating the purpose.

Then last week, I saw another invader on the wall in our bedroom and tried to kill it, only to watch it drop down, as luck would have it, into a crack in our tatami matting.  I'd bought some "80% Effective" centipede repellent tablets at the 100-yen store, so I tried breaking some and setting them around where the mukade dropped.  I gave up and cleared away the tablet pieces later in the day after getting woozy from inhaling the scent of the "all-natural" wood vinegar, which smelled like a slab of bacon left in a woodshop on a hot day.

Last night, after a second bite in bed (on my right side this time), and the subsequent displacement from sleeping quarters for both Husband and me, we decided it's Go-Time.  Does a case or two of Raid sound like enough ammo? 

Lotus Ride 2008

It's become a tradition for our family to ride our bikes through some of the nearby lotus fields in late-August, before all the stalks are pulled up or cut down, and the roots are harvested. 

Many of the plants are about as tall as we are by this time of the year. 

Crawfish, tiny frogs, and the cranes and herons hoping to devour them abound in the swampy fields.  Normally, it's advisable to keep one's mouth closed while bike-riding in this area in the late-afternoon--but this year, loads of dragonflies and quite a few bats were on hand to manage the potential mosquito problem.  The bats sometimes swoop a bit low for my comfort, but they certainly do their job.

 

At summer's end in rural Western Japan, acres of lotus plants are a beautiful sight to see.