December 24, 2025

 Wednesday - Sunny and clear

Today was a pretty good day, all told. I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I got up, went downstairs and then I came back upstairs to the room. I sorted my laundry and then I went back to bed. I ended up oversleeping but I didn’t mind too much. I didn’t have too many plans. 

I got up, dressed and then took my laundry downstairs. I ended up doing two loads of laundry today and hung them up in the room. I wrote a couple more nengajo but didn’t finish them yet. Sigh. I had wanted to get them done before Christmas day but I didn’t.

I had lunch a little late, somewhere after 3 pm. I went downstairs to make it and then brought it back to the room to eat. I thought about watching the news and decided I really didn’t care about that. I watched another episode of Lie To Me. I think I like the show, but I’m not sure yet!

F called a bit after 5 and said he was on his way to the house. I went downstairs and then I got started on dinner before he arrived. Tonight I made coro-coro steak, I air fried half an onion that was leftover in the fridge, we had potato salad and regular salad, plus some steamed broccoli. Dinner got pretty good reviews and was nice, even if I say that myself. Oh, and we had dessert too. I had bought some Orange Cake when I was in Tendo and we had that with a bit of ice cream. It was a good end to the meal.

I did the dishes afterwards and it took longer than I would have thought. Between the dishes and then the garbage, it was 9:30 when I finished. Sigh. Rather than go to Mina which closes at 10pm, I suggested that we go to MaxValu.

I changed my clothes and we went out, F and I. We drove with a bit of a detour to MaxValu and bought some groceries for lunches and dinners. F wanted to buy some snacks so we got something for each of us, then for his mother. After that, we went to the check out. On the way, F picked up a big bag of potato chips. I was a tad surprised. 

He rang up the groceries (in the evening it is self-checkout) and when he got to the big bag of chips I was rather surprised. It was over ¥400 yen! F didn’t think it was that expensive or he wouldn’t have picked up the bag. F paid and we came back to the car and went to the house.

At the house we unpacked the groceries and then came upstairs. F opened his big bag of chips and split them with me. There weren’t that many chips really. Also, they were supposed to taste like dadacha-mame but I didn’t think they did. F did however. 

I watched today’s episode of Wild Cards and it was cute. It was about a reality TV show where there was a murder. The actors are quite good looking and it’s a Canadian show, although in this second series they don’t really talk about being in Canada or Vancouver anymore. Bit sad that.

And that’s about it for my day. It’s Christmas Eve so I’d like to wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas if you celebrate or a Happy Holiday to you if you don’t. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

December 23, 2025

Tuesday - Warmish and sunny

Today turned out rather well, so that’s good isn’t it?

I got up this morning before my alarm. I went downstairs and then came back upstairs. I set my alarm for not the usual times and went back to bed for a snooze. I did slightly oversleep, but I had already set out my clothes for the day, so I got dressed quickly. I went downstairs and made my breakfast and brought it up to the room to eat.

I left the house a little late so I did a fast-walk to the bus stop. I still had to wait a couple of minutes but that was fine. I rode the little local bus to S-Mall. I had debated getting out at the Train Station stop, to have a meal there, but decided not to do that.

At the mall, I got off the bus and went in. I did a little shopping in the Daiso and picked up some “stocking stuffer” type things for F. After that, I went downstairs and got him a few things in the grocery store. I should say that I also got myself a few things in both places too!

I decided to have lunch next so I looked at the Pizza Hut menu and decided that I could probably have their carbonara pizza as it didn’t appear to have tomato sauce on it. I ordered it and when it arrived it didn’t have tomato. Yay. It was quite nice but didn’t really seem as filling as the other dish I usually get. Still, it was fine. I haven’t had a regular pizza in ages.

Carbonara pizza...no tomato sauce. Yay.

Since I had a little bit of time before my bus I decided I’d have an ice cream so I went to the Baskin-Robbins and ordered. I had the Mariage de Chocolat and Jamoca Almond Fudge, just a small double. I ate it quickly and then headed to the bus station.

I had a couple of minutes in the station, but then my bus came and I got on. The bus was quiet and there were only a few people on it. I got off at my stop and walked back to the house. I was back around 3 pm. 

I saw K when I arrived and said hello but it was a bit like she didn’t see me or know who I was. I knew she couldn’t hear me, but I thought she might say hello or something. Nope. 

I went upstairs after I set the heater to come on at 5 pm. I spent the next couple of hours relaxing on my computer. I also watched an episode of The Good Fight. I rather enjoyed it. Michael Sheen is just enjoying himself in his role. He’s so opposite the character he was in Good Omens.

F didn’t call me until I was downstairs tonight. He’d forgotten he said. I went into the kitchen and started to make things ready for dinner. F arrived a little bit after that. We had a good reunion and then he turned on the heater in the living room and then went upstairs to change. 

Tonight I made a stir-fry but with chicken instead of pork. It was quite nice, but the chicken wasn’t sliced the way I thought it was. I think they’d tried to slice it, but hadn’t gone all the way through. I had to try and slice it while it was in the frypan!

Dinner tonight got good reviews. F liked the chicken stir-fry so yay. I liked it too. We all had seconds of it. We also had salad and potato salad. K and F had rice. I didn’t fancy second day rice and honestly, I can live quite nicely without rice! 

I did the dishes and afterwards I headed upstairs and relaxed. I watched some YouTube and wrote a couple of nengajo. I’d like to get them in the mail soon so I need to finish right away. 

At 11 pm I watched FBI: Most Wanted and it was an interesting episode. The guy that they were chasing was innocent of the crime he was accused of committing. Also, one of the FBI members is thinking about leaving so that’s news.

F headed off to bed and I went back to my computer. I’m about done for now. 

Tomorrow I have to do some laundry and we’ll hopefully got out after dinner and pick up a few little things for Christmas dinner and then Boxing Day’s dinner. I’m hoping it’ll be leftovers but who knows?

So, that’s it for me. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

December 22, 2025

Monday - Clear with some sleet in the afternoon

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I didn’t know where I was for a minute! I think I was deep in a dream at the time. I went downstairs and then came back upstairs and went back to bed for a bit. I intended to watch a few videos as normal but I must have fallen asleep quickly and only woke up when my alarm blared for a few minutes. 

I dragged myself out of bed, dressed and went downstairs. I made my breakfast and brought it upstairs to eat. I made sure that K had eaten her breakfast…she had….

I had a quiet morning and afternoon. I wrote a few nengajo and when it was time I went downstairs and made my lunch. I brought it back up to the room and today watched another episode of Lie to Me. I thought it was good, but I’m not sure if I’ll keep watching. 

F called after 5:15 and I asked him if he’d made rice. He hadn’t. We got into a bit of a fight about rice making on the phone. It is silly really. I don’t make rice because I don’t want to eat it. I only eat it to be polite, but I dislike plain white rice. I really miss western style rice. It tastes so much better to me. 

Anyway, I went downstairs and got started on the dishes. When F came back he did set up the rice cooker and then sat in the living room and did nothing as usual. I got stuck into dinner. Tonight I did Toaster Oven chicken, with a hot cabbage dish, and salad. I decided to make another dish and checked out Google for ideas. I ended up making a scrambled eggs with onions and tuna and cheese. F  liked it and actually said so! That’s unusual. 

I did the dishes after dinner and listened to my podcasts. When I was finished I went upstairs to change. 

F and I went to the grocery store and cashed in some of his points from his point card. Then, we went shopping. We got a lot of nice cold meat for our Christmas meal and some pate, a few veggies and a little bit of cheese. We also got stuff for the next two day’s dinners.

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. I went upstairs and F stayed downstairs to do something with his fishes. Upstairs, I relaxed for a couple of minutes and then went downstairs to take a shower. 

After the shower I went upstairs and decided to watch another episode of Lazarus. I think it was the last episode of the season. I hope there’s more, but who knows. 

F came upstairs and went to bed after a while. I had a quiet evening after I turned off the TV, but remembered around 1 am that I forgot to do up the plastic garbage for tomorrow. Oops. I went downstairs and put a few things in the bag and put it in the genkan. I hope F will take it with him when he leaves in the morning.

And that’s it. Tomorrow I’m thinking I might go downtown for a little while. It depends if I can drag myself out of the house in time to catch a bus. 

That’s about it for me. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

December 21, 2025

Sunday - Cloudy and then rainy

Well, I did it folks. I got up before 8:00am this morning ( a SUNDAY!) I got dressed, and had a quick breakfast. After that, F and I left the house, very close to our scheduled time of 9:00 am.  We did make a quick stop at a convenience store to get drinks and something else to eat. We both got an onigiri. 

Then, we were off! We drove to Tendo and made really good time. We stopped on the way near Tendo and then got to the mall. We parked outside Aeon and then walked through the mall. I had wanted to have steak at Pepper Lunch and F said it sounded good. Of course, the restaurant was in the Food Court which was at the far end of the mall from Aeon! We both had the same main dish, but I added on a salad and a drink, F added on rice and a drink. The steak wasn’t fabulous, but it was decent and the price was right so that was good!

Then, it was time for F to leave the mall. I walked him back to Aeon and said goodbye at the door. Then, I went shopping. I went over to the Kaldi to look for my Christmas Pudding and mincemeat tarts but I didn’t find any. I bought some cookies, tea and an orange cake. 

I headed into Aeon and went shopping. I looked for things for F and I found a couple of things. I bought them later.  I picked out some socks for myself and then went over to the ladies clothing. I looked at stuff for myself and even tried some on. I decided to get myself a pyjama top. It’s much warmer than any of the ones I have now and it would be nice for me staying up late blogging. They had a couple of tops, I tried them both and decided on the over the head one, as it looked and felt more comfortable. 

Then, I went down the mall and did a bit of shopping. I found some half-price Christmas ornaments so I got myself another Saint Nicholas ornament and a couple of cute gnome ornaments. Of course, the next shop had even cuter ornaments, but they also looked more delicate so probably a good thing I didn’t buy them. 

I was getting thirsty but Doutor was really busy. I decided that I’d go back to the Aeon area and try Mr. Donuts. I got there and while it was lined up, I could see tables available. I bought a doughnut and ordered a cup of decaf cafe latte. I took a seat and ate and drank and saved my poor feet!

F called me all of a sudden to say that he was finished so I told him where I was and suggested that he join me. He did, after 20 minutes or so. He didn’t want any food or drink, but sat with me for a few minutes while we made plans. 

I strongly suggested to him that he buy me a present for Christmas! We went back into Aeon and looked at the ladies clothing. I found a couple of things that I liked so I tried them on. One wasn’t great, but two things worked well, so F got them for me. I won’t “get” them until Christmas so that’s good. 

After that, we headed out of the city. We did stop at Nishikawa for a restroom break and a little bit of leg stretching. We listened to some good tunes on my iPod and when we were getting near Tsuruoka we talked about dinner ideas. I came up with a few and I told F to pick the one he wanted. 

We ended up at the Udon chain restaurant, the one that does Tempura on the side. I never can remember the name of it! I had their new special, a duck/negi onion bowl. F had his usual plainish one. We both added on some tempura. I had a chicken tender and a piece of kabocha, F had a mixed veggie and a pork cutlet tempura. We enjoyed our meal.

We came back to the house and it was dark! We brought in the shopping, F woke his mother up and made sure she had eaten in the day. I went upstairs and turned on our heater.

We had a quiet evening in. I decided to fill up the heater’s tank with kerosene, but F nicely volunteered to do it. Unfortunately, the pump didn’t stop when it was supposed to and some of the kerosene spilled on the floor. F cleaned most of it up. I gave him some paper towels. Kerosene isn’t something that you want to wash in your machine. I took the tank upstairs and discovered that the kerosene was all over the tank. I wiped it off as best as I could and then went back downstairs to dispose of the tissues and to wash my hands. 

When I came back upstairs I decided to watch a movie or something. At first, I decided on A Quiet Place: Day One, but then F said he’d like to watch it sometime, but not tonight. Okay then. 

I put on the first episode of Lie to Me and enjoyed it. I’ve never seen it before. Then, I followed that up with Apple TV’s The Big Door Prize. It was a good episode and I enjoyed it. 

F went to bed fairly early tonight. He was up earlier than me today and he couldn’t snooze in the car. He also has to go to work tomorrow.

I’m going to go to bed in a bit. It was a good day and it was really nice to get out of Tsuruoka for a few hours. I like my city, but I like travelling more. F and I didn’t fight and we enjoyed our time together and apart, so that made it an enjoyable day.

So, that’s it for me. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

December 20, 2025

Saturday - Warm and Sunny

Today was a pretty good day. I slept in, F and I had lunch at the newish Taiwanese restaurant that we like and it was nice.  We did some shopping at Yamaya for Christmas and New Years, then went back to the house. 

K fell at the Day Service today but seems to be fine. The workers kept an eye on her and F said she seemed okay tonight too.

F made her dinner and then we went out to the place in Kushibiki for dinner. 

After dinner, we went to the grocery store. On the way in, F went in before me and I noticed that there was a large coin on the floor just inside the door. I thought maybe F had dropped it, so I asked him. He hadn’t. We decided to turn it in to Customer Service in case someone comes back for it. They took it, made a note of it and then we went off and did our shopping. We paid and went out of the store…but I saw yet another coin! It was the same denomination, a 500 yen coin. I picked it up and looked at F. We took it back into the store and gave it to Customer Service.

The clerk that was taking care of us seemed a little new so she called their head office or something and asked what to do. They suggested that we take the money to the nearest police station. 

So, that’s what we did! We drove to the nearest Koban and turned in the money. For some reason, F’s name was put on it, but I don’t really care too much. If no-one claims it in a few months I should get the money back. Yay for me!

The rest of the evening was quiet. We came back to the house, put away the groceries and took showers. At 11pm I watched Criminal Minds: Evolution and it was quite good.

And that’s about it. Tomorrow morning early we’re off to Tendo so F can renew his license. I’ll spend some time in the mall so I’m looking forward to that. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

December 19, 2025

Friday - Sunny and warm

I woke up this morning around 8:30. I went downstairs and as soon as I left the room nearly gagged on the stench of the fish that F was cooking for his mother. It was horrible!

I came back upstairs and went to bed for a little. I had many alarms set and didn’t really sleep anymore. I got up around 10 and got dressed. I had set out my clothes last night so I didn’t have to think about anything! I had a quick breakfast of F’s uneaten sandwiches from yesterday and then it was about time to leave. 

We left to go to City Hall. We went in and F went up to the counter but couldn’t find the stupid card that was the whole reason we were at City Hall in the first place! He had to go out to the car, but did find his card! We spent a bit of time in the building. F got his new card and set it up with the clerk. For my turn, I had my cards handy and the clerk took my picture and now I have to wait for the card in the mail that tells me my actual card is ready. Yay. F also had to ask the clerk about how to get his mother a card as she’ll need it for medical stuff.

After we left City Hall F suggested going to his eel restaurant for lunch. I like the food, it’s just there is too much of it. We drove over and parked. We crossed the street but halfway over F had to go back to the car. He forgot his wallet. We were seated in the restaurant and F ordered. Then, he went back to his car to get his phone. Eye Roll! He forgets everything. 

Lunch was good, but as I said, huge. There was a sautéd pork chop, some bean sprouts and salad, plus a fried egg, rice, sashimi, and miso soup. F ate his really fast, I took a little longer.

After lunch, we had to go back to City Hall as the clerk had called F. We went in and talked to her, then went on our way.

We went to a drugstore to pick up a few things and then picked up some kerosene and gasoline. We were down to being able to drive 28km and F was going to leave the gas station after buying the kerosene! I made him buy gas!

We went back to the house and unloaded the car. I went upstairs, F stayed downstairs. I reminded him that I needed to be downtown by 3pm. I spent a bit of time on my computer then went downstairs around 2:45. F was making his mother some cup ramen. I’m not sure why. Then, I saw him eating ramen. I was disgusted. I was still stuffed from lunch and he was eating ramen. I went outside and waited for him. He did come out right away…he said he’d just been tasting his mother’s noodles to make sure they were okay. I don’t know if I believe him!

He drove me to my hairdresser and to do him credit, we did get there 2 minutes before my appointment! He said he’d come and pick me up afterwards and I went in. 

I got my usual excellent hair cut from my stylist. She’s really cool and we chatted a little bit. She asked about my Christmas plans, I asked about her New Years plans.  I heard F’s car as it backed into the parking place. (It’s a hybrid, but it makes a funny noise when it backs up, quiet but I recognize it). She said that she should hurry up, but I told her not to! I said it is my time and he knows that I could be up to an hour, so she could relax a bit!

When we finished, she gave me a new calendar and some fruitcake that her husband’s relative sent from Alaska! That was funny. I gave her some money too!

She walked me out to the car and F and I said goodbye. We drove away.

We ended up going to S-Mall and having a cup of coffee (decaf for me) at Doutor. We had a quiet time and just relaxed for a bit. 

After an hour or so we drove over to Mina and went in. F did his shopping for dinner and then we went back to the house. F went into the kitchen and I went upstairs. What a treat to not have to make dinner tonight!

F called me down around 6:45. Of course, he hadn’t put out the drinks on the table and of course the little conro didn’t have any gas in it and we had to search for the spares. Dinner was okay. As usual, the nabe was good, but not great. F doesn’t put any flavouring in it. I find that his soup is just boring. I added some sriracha and it was a bit better. 

After dinner I watched TV with the others for a few minutes and then I went upstairs. For the record, I did ask F if he wanted any help so at least I asked!

I watched some YouTube and had a cup of pistachio latte. Yum. F came upstairs around 9:30 and said he had been watching skating on TV. He was excited to tell me that there was a new skater called Mao. I didn’t know if he meant Mao Asada or Chairman Mao, but he said he had no idea who Chairman Mao was. I even showed him a picture but he didn’t get it. I was laughing really hard at the “mix-up”. 

I decided I’d watch a movie tonight since I had some time. I found a movie I’d recorded on my DVR and played that. It was called Censor and was quite a movie. It was about a woman who worked for the British censors in the 80’s. She had to decide where to make cuts in video nasties…the schlocky films of the time. Over time, I can imagine it would have an effect on a person. It certainly had an effect on her! I’m not a horror movie person usually so I wouldn’t watch it again, but I’m not sad that I did watch it once.

And…that’s about it. I’m not sure what we’re going to get up to tomorrow…. K has her Day Service so F and I may be out by ourselves for the day. Oh, we’re going on a road trip on Sunday and leaving early so I may not update tomorrow night. I’ll try, but it could be brief!

Come back later if you like and hear all about my days. Until tomorrow….