Popcorn and Sushi

I've Moved Haus

 

Despite my lack of presence here for (yikes!) half a year, I have not vanished, but have, in fact, actually moved to Germany.  The transition has been greater and taken longer than any of us would have thought (frankly, I'm not quite sure we would have done it at all had we know how hard it would be).  But now that we are finally getting settled in, I have started a new blog.  It's called Fairytale Hausfrau, and it's hosted at Blogger--due to some design issues here at Typepad.  My current plan is to keep this blog up and running, though it may lie dormant.  I am considering adding Asia-related content here from time to time.  For now, I hope you'll join me at Fairytale Hausfrau!

Destination Procrastination

Our home will be packed up a month from today.  Oh, thankfully not by me (what were you thinking?), but by a group of industrious, polite, slip-on-shoes-wearing, cigarette-smoke-drenched Japanese movers who will surprise us with their wiry strength, stamina, and ability to wrap absolutely everything carefully and properly.  Unlike the dolt U.S. movers six years ago, one of whom lovingly triple-wrapped a light bulb from an antique lamp (bought several years before off a down-on-his-luck raggle-taggle guy in an El Camino heading through California to visit his aunt, no lie).  The light bulb arrived in Japan in pristine condition, while the (antique) lamp, loaded diagonally into a flimsy box--crunch!--did not.

But I digress.  Which is not surprising, in light of the fact that I am doing just a tiny bit of procrastinating, and I am very, very good at it.  Husband thinks I should take great interest in sorting through our craft-room/computer room/"green" room (lovely carpet)/equivalent-of-a-junk-drawer room.  Someone has to do it, and I'm the only one home at present.  

But who in her right mind would want to take a stab at weeding through piles of stuff like this?

And can't it be done later, maybe 29 days from now?  Because I am busy eating chocolate and drinking multiple cups of Tulsi tea while reading blogs, like this beautiful/hilarious one about small-town Germany, this American crafter-in-Germany one, and this super-informative one about being an expat in Germany.  All in the name of research, of course.

My Husband, the Bachelor

I have just arrived back in Japan after three weeks in the States with First Child and Second Child.  We were on our annual homeland pilgrimage without Husband (someone in this family has to work!).  Every year, Husband becomes increasingly morose in the days leading up to our departure.  He envisions afternoons, evenings, and weekends spent alone, talking to no one but the neighborhood feral cats who occasionally peer in windows, and anyone who will answer when he Skypes them. He pictures days upon days with no home-cooked meals nor their resulting lunch-bound leftovers.  He imagines our cold Japanese house as much more frigid than it usually is in reality.

He knows he and his social, family-loving self will become, for a few weeks, a bachelor.

This year, he found a new way to occupy his time and avoid the kitchen: he spent his evenings sorting through mounds of loose change (a great many five-and ten-yen coins!) and presenting said change as payment for convenience-store dinners.  Never the slacker, he did photo-document his convenience-meals (so much better than they sound!) on his Facebook page, to the amusement of various friends and family members.  And I am happy to report that he has not been banned forever from Family Mart (the checkers quickly wised up and began pulling out a change-counter when they saw him come through the door, though one of them wasn't too happy about it).

One night, he actually entertained: he invited over a handful of friends who all contributed to a Breakfast-for-Dinner meal.  But he confessed to me that, true to his bachelor existence, he found someone's tub of butter sitting on our dining table--a week and a half later.  Funny, because I'm guessing the table was less-cluttered than usual, when it's laden with the books, pens, candy wrappers, and miscellaneous papers of four individuals instead of one.  But whatever--the butter tub was somehow mislaid.

He had a few meals with friends who took pity on him, in their homes or in restaurants.  And he got to be the center of attention at dinner out with a group of teachers he calls the Golden Girls (though in reality none of them are senior citizens).  

He disposed of trash, um--improperly, and I'm betting he didn't make the bed.  But before we got home, he changed the sheets on our bed and vaccuumed.  And bless his heart, he stopped by the grocery store and after our arrival insisted there was "plenty to eat" (carrots, yogurt, kimchi, and potatoes, anyone?).

Now that we're back together, all is right with the world.  The bachelor is no more--at least until next year.

17 Random Things About Me

1. I can spot misspellings on signs at fifty paces.

2. I was once indoctrinated against wearing black, and it kind of stuck.

3. I could never belong to a nudist colony (yes, I know they aren't called that anymore, but I prefer the old name!).  It's not that I'm against nudity, it's more that I can't stand the thought of naked people sitting on furniture.  This just isn't right.

4. I was a headbanger in college, but I was never big on Ozzy.

5. I hate "The Wizard of Oz"--there, I've said it!

6. I think noodles are gross if they aren't precisely al dente.

7. I shushed Husband on our first date because he was talking too much during a football game.  He thought I was a stone cold maniac.

8. I hardly ever traveled before college; since college, I've hardly ever stopped.

9. I've been accused of being too nice but also too sarcastic.

10. I am afraid of being afraid, but I don't know the name of this phobia.

11. It completely cracks me up when people fall down, so it's too bad I hate icy weather.

12. I will naturally avoid a "real tear-jerker" like the plague.

13. I respond violently to the song "Wind Beneath My Wings."  It's unfortunate since I think Bette Midler seems like a really interesting person.

14. I'm a pretty good decorator, if you go in for the "crazy aunt who's traveled the world" kind of look.

15. I love books too much to play favorites. 

16. I do not have a friendly relationship with numbers, which makes it all the more hilarious that my parents tried to groom me into a stockbroker or accountant.

17. Every Fall I buy caramels to make caramel apples and then don't make them.  It's a tradition!

What I Accomplished

I have been tagged by Karen at Leaping from the Box for a meme on the following topic:
What I Accomplished Last Week.

Oh dear.  The problem here is that not only do I not remember a great deal about last week, but by the time I'm writing this, it's almost next week already.  Ho hum.

But here goes nothin':

1. What did you accomplish?  Apparently not much, as I can't seem to remember any of it.  Or maybe that means I got so much done that my brain is crammed full of all the details and I can't call up any particular one of them, because there are just so many.  Whatever.

2. Did anything not go as expected?  Well, I'm always expecting to do some writing, but not much of that happened last week.  Oh, and I somehow forgot to get out the once-monthly metal-fragmental trash last Wednesday.  That's a bigger deal than you can possibly realize.

3. What was the highlight of your week?  Book club meeting was pretty fun.  I know, I'm such a wildcat.

4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?  I suppose this depends on one's definition of "exciting."  But regardless, no.

My last week: your sure cure for insomnia.  Nighty-night.

This is Not a Post About How Busy I Am

We are selling our house here--as in, it's time to move out all the junk we'd stored there for the past four years and completely forgotten about.  Right after flying in from Japan, we spent about a week reversing our collective amnesia.  What fun.  You can sense my excitement, can't you?

We had a gas leak in said house.  Never have a gas leak.  I mean, of course it would be bad to blow up, but I mean don't have one because it's h-e-double-hockey-sticks to get the Gas People to come out when you want them to, like in this lifetime. 

Apparently our popularity as a family endures, because people still want to see us, goodness knows why, and we've already spent lots of time with our adoring public.  Could the appeal be our witty repartee and dazzling tales of Life Abroad, which so many no people are interested in hearing?

As a slight amendment/correction to that last question, I should mention that we spent four days with former Japan-ite friends who are now back to livin' it up in their home (Beehive State) of Utah, and who now unintentionally but proudly sport on their minivan two lovely bumper stickers which read, "Don't Mess with Texas" and "Someone in Texas Loves Me." They like to hear our stories.

We have already driven in six states, out West--but it has seemed like many more, because we all know that Texas itself is really a whole 'nother country.

By some stroke of my usual genius at timing, I signed up for a June 21 postcard swap over at the delightful Hula Seventy.  We arrived in the States on June 15.  Ever heard of a fun little entity called jet lag?  Mix it around and shake it up with trying to visit just about every person in North-Central Texas and see where that gets you when you're attempting to do a Craft Project.  I mailed my thirteen cards exactly thirteen days late.  But the cards were well-traveled before leaving my possession, as I worked on them in a hotel room in Dumas, Texas, a cabin in New Mexico, and our friends' house in the Beehive State of Utah, finally pulling off the highway to mail them in Wild Horse, Colorado, population 11. 

I haven't been thrifting yet since we've been here (oops! once, but that was a quick one), and I've been to only two bookstores thus far, where I bought 4 or 5 books and one magazine, because it's never too soon to start hoarding books to take back with me mail back to Japan, after I've spent a couple of months attempting to read the truckload of books I put on hold at the branch library down the street here in Tejas.

I spent too much time doing laundry yesterday.  At least it seemed that way, because I had to keep pulling myself away from back-to-back episodes of the reality show Sunset Tan (sure to be an Emmy winner, is that one!) to grab mountains of warm clothing from the dryer.  It was a grueling day, I tell you.

But this is not a post about how busy I am, because that would be pretentious and boring.  Gee, I wish I had more stuff to say.  I'm sure I must be forgetting something.  Hello?  Hellooooooo out there????

Labeling Schmabeling

I was reading a couple of posts over at Learning as we go... about the labels we place on ourselves and others.  I find it interesting that labeling can be somewhat useful, while at the very same time completely useless. 

Let me explain.  The use of a label such as "artist" or "writer" can be helpful in identifying someone by their occupation, but how much does the label actually say about the person or even their work?  To further define the person as a "cartoonist" or "author of children's books" can be clarifying but also limiting.

If I say I'm a "homeschooler," I'm sure an immediate image comes to mind (Bible-thumpers and denim jumpers, anyone?) for some of you who know a little, but not a lot, about homeschooling.  If I define myself further as an "unschooler" or a "Charlotte Mason homeschooler," further images appear--for those of you who do know a lot about homeschooling.  But if I label myself in such a way, and then I choose to do something that perhaps doesn't jibe with the tenets of that particular methodology, I can find myself quickly ostracized.  I'm not saying this has happened to me, and I'm not pointing a finger at homeschoolers, not at all--it's just that we all like to put people in boxes, and we find it unsettling when someone tries to chisel a hole or two in their respective box.

I guess this is why I take refuge in the word "eclectic."  It really does seem to apply to me and to my family.  But again, how useful is such a term?  It means something, yet it means nothing.  It simply means that I don't decorate in one style, teach my children just one way, or eat just one type of food.

Labels are convenient, no doubt about it, and I find myself searching for them when I read a blog or when I meet someone.  We all do this.  But I need to remind myself to look further, to go beyond my own frame of reference and my initial assumptions.

I'm not trying to make a grand statement, or anything.  And don't worry--I'm not heading out to buy business cards with my name and then the words "human being" on them.   That's just silly.  But I do hope to be more mindful in the future of how I label myself and others.  Maybe you'll join me.

Overheard During a Massage

If someone had telepathically honed in on my inner monologue during a recent massage at my mother-in-law's house in Texas, here's what they might have heard:

Okay, I'm so happy to be here.  Happy happy happy.  This is a comfy massage table.  It's lovely and warm under this sheet.  It's been too long since I had a massage.

Wow, she's got a firm touch.  I like a firm touch.  I was told about her firm touch.

Wonder if she'll comment on my tight upper-back muscles (I get that all the time)--wait for it in 3, 2, 1...

Bingo!  She's said it.  Now we can move on.

She's really digging into that muscle, bless her.  That's a deltoid, right?  I need an anatomy review...I think the kids and I will be studying the human body soon for science.

Ouch!  Now that hurt!  I said I like a firm touch, but that was then, this is now!  No wait, I'm okay...

Aaaagh!  You're KILLING ME butI'mnotgoingtosayanythingbecausethat'slikeadmittingdefeatandIwon'tdoit!

I'm glad I turned the heat up in here.  Otherwise I would be shivering on top of being in complete pain.

No flinching.  Deep breaths...Remember, this is the tickle of a feather compared to our old Chinese acupuncturist.

What's this in mother-in-law's cd changer?  Something Celtic...I expect a leprechaun to jump out and startle us at any moment.  I'm not sure "Riverdance" qualifies as "relaxing."

My feet always get so cold during a massage, then the therapist touches them, which makes her hands cold, and she moves on to another part of my body and makes that cold, too.  Happens every time.  There has to be some way around that.

I wonder what's on TV.  Maybe I'll watch something on HGTV--no, Comedy Central--no, E.  I think I'm up for something junky.  That shouldn't be too hard to find.  I have been watching waaaay too much TV here...

Oh great, she's flipped me over so that I'm face-up.  Now she'll be able to see my agony-grimaces and then I'll have lost my deep-tissue-cred.  Then she and her massage-therapist friends can all have a good laugh about it later.

Who came up with the saying "Never let you see them sweat?"  Wasn't that in a commercial back in the 70's?  What made me think of that?

Boy, am I going to be sore tomorrow...

I wonder if she'll tell me to drink a lot of water tonight.  Massage therapists always like to say that.

Oh, no!  She's "effleuraging" my back (I think that's the term, but I'm not so sure it should be used as a verb...).  I know what this means--it means the beating massage is almost over.  I will live!

But wait.  Surely an hour and a half hasn't flown by that fast!  You aren't really done, are you?  Shoot, woman!  You say I can get up when I'm ready?  Okay...but when can you come again?

100 HappyHappy Things

Inspired by Alison's "Things That Make Me Happy" post at the most-excellent Brocante Home Chronicles, I've compiled my own list. Below, my 100 HappyHappy Things: 1. a window seat, though I don't have one 2. my home as mainstream-pop-free zone 3. cookbooks, even if I don't use them 4. brightly-colored rag rugs 5. checking things off my ponderous "to-do" list 6. proudly being both a Homemaker and a Thinker 7. Second Child's growing collection of Japanese poop toys (don't ask) 8. crafty blogs 9. sushi 10. the scent of hinoki (Japanese cypress) 11. good pens 12. my stash of essential oils 13. small Japanese kokeshi dolls 14. breakfast in bed every day (don't get jealous--I make it myself) 15. aprons 16. my new John Coltrane cd 17. being able to homeschool my kids 18. writing--though I don't do it enough 19. old "A Common Reader" catalogs (RIP) 20. the scent of sauteeing garlic and onions 21. leftovers for lunch, when last night's dinner was good 22. magazines--and I get loads of them 23. good tea, and plenty of it 24. quality Pu-Erh from Hong Kong, in particular 25. Daedalus Books 26. my house right after I clean it 27. my orange Japanese bike, dubbed "Mikan" 28. eating actual mikans (Japanese seedless tangerines) by the gross in November 29. vintage dishtowels 30. laundry on the line 31. yoga, when I take the time to do it 32. commas, which are underrated and underused 33. museums, especially small ones 34. all-natural candles and incense 35. teapots 36. Waldorf-style toys and nature tables 37. clogs--heck, just shoes in general! 38. big pots of steaming soup in autumn 39. vintage kimono fabric 40. old French enamelware 41. finishing the ironing 42. bad "Engrish" 43. laughing with Husband 44. packages in the mail (for me) 45. Indian food 46. my Mom's emails 47. my Dad's chicken and dressing 48. my grandmother's sweetness--it's unsurpassed 49. most sports (spectating, at least)--I'm surprisingly competitive 50. rain, when I don't have to go out 51. lazy Saturday mornings, with coffee and French toast 52. using "living" books for the bulk of my kids' education (a Charlotte Mason thing) 53. a down comforter in a cool room 54. reading in bed--duh! 55. British mysteries in winter 56. Second Child scoring a goal in soccer 57. Italic handwriting 58. Japanese zakka style 59. more bookshelves 60. Second Child's missing front teeth 61. thrift scores (all too rare in the here and now) 62. old Japanese furniture 63. the free cd inside each issue of Paste Magazine 64. lotus fields in August 65. "Inspector Morse" books and dvds 66. woodblock prints 67. pots of herbs 68. "Curb Your Enthusiasm"--we own them all 69. "The Office," British and American 70. chocolate-chip scones 71. real Japanese gardens, with lots of vegetables, flowers, and herbs 72. handmade jewelry 73. Chinese propaganda posters 74. Small Meadow Press 75. the safety of Japan 76. the thought of possibly living in England sometime 77. fancy rice cookers 78. traveling with my family 79. First Child's excellent Japanese accent 80. Sweetgrass Fibers clothing 81. kissing my kids whenever I want 82. the idea of a homestead 83. hot roasted chicken 84. Scrabble with Husband 85. decorating books 86. watching our dwarf hamster drink water 87. lamps instead of overhead lighting 88. Bonne Maman cherry jam 89. teatime 90. holding someone else's baby and then giving it back 91. M&Ms straight from the fridge 92. old movies, especially funny or suspenseful ones 93. potluck parties 94. the genius of "Arrested Development" 95. one-pot meals 96. hardwood floors 97. baskets 98. leaf-green (the color, not the Pokemon game, though that would make Second Child's list) 99. a sense of community 100. loving and feeling loved

On Notice

Because I'm still too tired/busy/lazy? to write a real post: 

Here, instead, is a nice little list of people and things I'm officially putting "on notice."  Thanks to Mr. Colbert, and to Sweetney for the link!

I'm going nighty-night now.  Back soon--pinkie-promise.