October 17, 2026

Saturday - Warm and sunny, coolish at night

I  woke up around 9am this morning when I thought that F had left with K. However, about two minutes later, he came in the room to get his wallet and car keys. He hadn’t left yet. I went downstairs a couple of minutes after they left.  I came back to bed and watched a few minutes of videos before going back to sleep. 

I dragged myself out of bed a lot later and got dressed. I went downstairs to see F and we talked about lunch. I suggested going to have banh mi again, but he wanted a Japanese place in Tsuruoka. I agreed to his place. I don’t like it much, but it’s okay. 

We went to Ten-ka-ne and got in right away. F had the sashimi donburi, I had the chicken nanbam. It wasn’t great. They’d used a ton of pepper or something on it and I didn’t like it at all. The only thing I liked about my meal was dessert! It was good. 

I wanted to buy a new lock for my suitcase. For some reason, I couldn’t get the old one to work. The first place we tried didn’t have one that I wanted. Although I don’t plan to go back to the USA, I thought it would make sense to get one that is TSA approved. We then went over to Musashi and I got one there. It was a bit expensive, but we also bought some more tissues for K.

We decided to go and have a drink at Komeda coffee and on the way I asked F if we could make a quick stop at the Yamaya near that. He said yes. When we went in, I got a box of rooibos tea. I drink it every day and I really go through it. He got himself some saké and while he was looking at that, I saw some sherry on the shelf. I haven’t seen any sherry here for years. I didn’t buy it, but I’ll keep it in mind for another time. I rarely drink alcohol, but I did quite like a little sherry on special occasions, plus I can also cook with it!

We spent about an hour at Komeda Coffee. I had a decaf iced coffee and F had his usual blend coffee. Over the time we spent there I read a bit of a book written by another AFWJ member. It’s her second one I think and I’m really enjoying it. 

We had about an hour left when I reminded F that maybe we had to get going. I asked if he wanted to do shopping for his mother’s dinner. Anyway, we decided to get bentos for dinner, so we went in and got bentos for all of us. I also got myself a nice crusty baguette sandwich for later. We paid after self-checking our groceries and then we drove back to the house. We just made it I think.

I put away some things and then went upstairs. I was surprised when F came up 5 minutes later and his mother hadn’t returned yet. I sent him back downstairs when I heard a vehicle outside. 

Around 7pm I went downstairs and suggested we have dinner. F heated up the bentos and I put out some salad. I turned down the miso soup F was making and got out the tea for the table. 

We ate while we watched the news. After we finished eating I did the dishes and then went back upstairs. I came downstairs again slightly after 10pm so I could take a shower. 

Back in the room, I watched The Hunting Party at 11pm and liked that. It was a bit creepy though. 

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow I am off to Yamagata city for a few days. I may not post every day, so please don’t miss me too much! I’m planning to take my computer with me, but hope to be quite busy during the day. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until next time!

October 16, 2026

 Friday - Cloudy in the morning, sunnier later on

Today was an okay day. It was a bit odd at parts. 

I did my usual thing of getting up early, then coming back to bed and snoozing and watching videos for a while. I finally got up and dressed, then went downstairs and did a small load of laundry. 

The washing machine wasn’t filling very quickly, so I helped it out with some water from the sink. I did a small load, with only one rinse and I only used about half of my usual amount of detergent. I did have to stay by the machine and ended up running the spin cycle twice so it took a while. I even went and sat on the stairs for a while. 

I took my laundry and my very late breakfast upstairs and hung up my clothes. After that, I ate! So late. 

I had a quiet afternoon after that. I watched some YouTube and then I didn’t have much time before I had to have my lunch. I went downstairs to get my lunch and at the same time I noticed that K was doing a load of laundry. Yikes. I wrote her a note with the translation app on my phone and let her know that the washing machine wasn’t working too well. She came over to the machine and we had a look. She was doing a very small load, but she’d told the machine to use 50 litres of water…it would take forever to do that, and 3 rinses and oh my. I stopped the machine while she was there and reset it so that less water was needed. She did ask if she could use the bath hose, but when I tried it this morning, it didn’t work. We were able to leave the bathroom and I think I left the machine so it worked okay as later in the day it was empty! Yay.

I made my lunch and then took it upstairs and ate. I watched The Great British Sewing Bee and enjoyed that. It was all about Summer clothing. 

I decided that I really should start my packing, so I opened up my suitcase and then put some stuff in. I think the undies part is done, but not the actual clothes part! I did put my winter coat in. I’m wondering if I should wear that on the bus though. It does take up a bit of room. It’s not a thick one, but…I’ll think about it. Hopefully my tops will dry before I have to pack them!

F called a bit after 5 pm and a while later I went downstairs and started washing my day’s dishes. When F came back to the house, he looked at the washing machine again. Today he asked me for my pinchie but I wasn’t sure what he meant. He looked up the word on Google and it meant my needle-nosed pliers. I have a pair from when I tried to do some beadwork at Christmas. I had to stop what I was doing and go upstairs and look for them. 

They were in the first place I looked, the second time. I tore a few boxes apart and I had given up, when I decided to pull out my drawer and there it was, right at the very back. I took them downstairs to F and then I went back to the kitchen. 

Unfortunately, F wasn’t able to fix the machine tonight. He’s ordered a part that he hopes will help. I tried to give him some advice about how to use the machine until he gets the part. We can use it with small loads and one rinse. Anything more than one rinse takes too long. I suggested that he use less detergent too unless his clothes are really dirty. He wants to go to a laundromat which is another option of course!

Dinner was a few minutes late tonight, because I was upstairs for a while. It was quite simple, but very nice. We had pasta with garlic mayo sauce (yum!), sliced ham, salad and cucumber pickle. Dinner was good. 

I did the dishes and listened to my podcasts. I did finish fairly early and then went upstairs. F was upstairs already. He’s a bit sniffy. He thinks that he is getting a cold and I told him to stay away from me! I’m leaving on Sunday and I do not want to get sick. I can’t believe that he is sick again. 

I decided that I’d watch a movie tonight and I picked Homefront, a Jason Statham movie I’ve had on the DVR for a couple of weeks. It had an interesting cast, but it wasn’t a great movie. I’m not sure what was wrong but I didn’t love it the way I usually do. I deleted it from my DVR afterwards. 

And that’s about it for my day. I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. It might depend on how F feels tomorrow and if I ever finish getting my suitcase packed.

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

October 15, 2026

Thursday - Sunny and warm, rain at night

I went to bed a little late last night, but managed to wake up when my alarm went off. I went downstairs and then came back to the room for a quick and not so long snooze.  I dragged myself out of bed a bit later and got dressed.

I left the house around 11:35 and walked to the bus stop. The bus was almost on time today and I got on. The bus was quite busy, about 6 people got on at City Hall. That almost never happens! I got off at the station and walked up to the post office.

The Post Office’s ATM was really busy and I had to wait about 10 minutes first. From there, I walked over towards S-Mall. I stopped and looked at the Pizza restaurant. The specials looked good, but all of the pizzas had tomatoes as either sauce or topping, so I decided not to go today. I probably should have, but didn’t. 

I went into the mall, checked the hotel’s lunch and decided against it. I’m not an omurice fan really. I went to the grocery store and bought my tea and then a few snacks for the next few days. It’s a good thing I went there first as the grocery store was very busy. I had to wait in line for a good 15 minutes I’d say to pay for my goods.

I went over to the Pizza Hut Express and ordered a 4 cheese pizza box set and then grabbed a table. I started my drink and read some of a book while I waited. My pizza, when it arrived, was really nice. 

After lunch, I went upstairs and checked out Daiso. I bought a few things and then came back downstairs. I decided that I’d take a bus back to the house. So I went over to the bus station and waited a few minutes. 

The bus back to the house wasn’t too busy today. I had a good and quiet ride back and got off at my stop. I walked back to the house, checked things out downstairs and then went upstairs.

I sorted out some laundry and decided I’d do a load of my shirts. Last night F said that he had fixed the machine. Sigh. I went downstairs and put everything in the machine and…the water trickled into the machine. There was no way to make it go faster. I decided to try using the bathtub hose but in the bathroom sink. Many people in Japan reuse their bathwater to do laundry, so our washing machine has a built in hose to run water from the bath. I stuck the end in the bathroom sink instead. It worked, but I had to cut down the number of rinses as I didn’t have that much time to wait. 

It took almost an hour to get my clothes washed and I had to put on the spin cycle a couple of times to get the clothes anywhere near ready to hang up.  I took them upstairs and then watched the news while I hung them up.

I rested for a while and had a couple of cups of tea, which I feel I really deserved! I was tired. 

A bit after 5:30, F called and said he was on his way. I went downstairs to get ready to cook dinner.

When F arrived, I let him know about my problems with the washing machine. He tried to fill it both from the tap and also the hose way. It didn’t really work unfortunately. He couldn’t get the hose to work. I will probably give it a try again tomorrow, but will try filling the machine BEFORE I put my clothes in!

I went back to dinner. Tonight I served hamburgers (from the store) with some rice, potato salad, salad, cucumber pickles and some kimchi. It turned out to be okay. We had dessert too. I was planning to prepare it, but F ended up doing it! He didn’t read all the package instructions, so possibly didn’t do as good a job of heating them up as he could have done! We had some taiyaki from Gyomu Super. They were okay. I’d like to try microwaving them and then toasting them for a minute or two. 

I did the dishes when we finished and listened to some podcasts. I went upstairs when I finished and relaxed for a while until F came upstairs. A little after 10pm I went downstairs and took a shower, then came back upstairs. F had planned to take one too, but changed his mind. 

I watched an episode of DOC and thought it was okay. The plot is thickening I think!

And that’s about it. I’ve watched a lot of YouTube since midnight and I’m just about ready to go to bed. I did quite a lot of walking today so I’m a bit tired.

Oh, before I go. I told F that I’d like him to drive me to the bus station on Sunday and then he asked me if I was coming back the next day! Er, no. 4 nights later. I don’t know why he didn’t ask me any earlier. I’ve told him about this trip ever since I booked it!

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

October 14, 2026

Wednesday - Rainy and cooler

I went to bed a little early last night and then woke up around 5 am and had to go downstairs. I came back upstairs and went back to sleep. When I woke up again, F was gone and I made another trip downstairs!

I snoozed again and watched videos. I got up later and went downstairs with my winter jacket. I was going to wash it. Well, I did, but for some reason, the water didn’t want to come into the washing machine. I ended up having to add water from the sink manually. I finally got the coat washed, but it took ages. 

I took my breakfast upstairs and ate, I relaxed for a while and then I wrote a postcard for Postcrossing. I wrote another one later in the afternoon too. I grabbed my lunch, brought it upstairs to eat. I watched another episode of Modern Love and it was really sweet. It hit home a bit too. It was all about an older woman who met a nice Japanese man and got married and then he died. I was very verklempt at the end. And… we got to see other people from the other stories, just for a few scenes but it was lovely to see them again!

F called after 5:30 and said he was on his way back. I went downstairs later and he came back around then too. He checked on the washing machine and did a whole bunch of things to it. He announced that he fixed it later! Yay. The hose might have been blocked or something.

Dinner tonight was good. We had ginger pork with rice, salad, cucumber pickle, mini-tomatoes, okra and potato salad. 

I did the dishes and then did up the garbage. F did help me a bit. I put the bag in the genkan. I had done mine earlier in the day. As I had tidied up last week, my bag was nearly full, so there was no room for his stuff.

We went off to the grocery store and I bought food for the next couple of days. I got F his canned coffee and K some breakfast sandwiches.

After the grocery store we went to the drugstore and I went in and got some things for the kitchen that we needed. I dumped my stuff in the car and then walked across the street to the post office and mailed off my postcards. I’m hoping they’ll arrive soon. 

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. K was up when we came back. She was using the washroom but had turned on all the lights  in the living room and her bedroom. It was odd. She’s odd!

I went upstairs when I was done and watched a bit of YouTube. At 11 I put on Grey’s Anatomy and watched that. It was a pretty good episode but what the heck are Owen and that (ex)wife of his doing? Harrumph!

And…that was my day. Tomorrow, if I can get myself up and out in time, I’m going to go downtown and do a bit of banking and maybe have lunch out. I need to get myself ready to go away on Sunday and I haven’t done very much at all yet. Sigh. 

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

October 13, 2026

Tuesday - Hot and sunny

I woke up this morning after F had left for work and made a quick trip downstairs. I came back to the room and sorted my laundry before going back to bed with some videos. I snoozed and then got up later.

I took my laundry downstairs and started one load. I grabbed my breakfast after that and took it upstairs to eat. I hung up my laundry in the room and got the second load underway. 

I had a quiet afternoon. I had the window open for a while and then it got really hot in my room. It was up to 28 degrees again. Yikes. I went downstairs to get my lunch and then turned on the AC as I was so warm up here.

Today during my lunch I watched an episode of Matlock. It was quite good, it didn’t annoy me that much!

F called around 5:30 to say he was on his way back. I changed my clothes and went downstairs to get started in the kitchen. I had to do a bit of clean up before I started the dishes. F came back around then and we had a nice reunion.

Tonight I was busy. I made cucumber pickle, washed some mini-tomatoes, and prepped and cooked some chicken drumsticks in the air fryer. We also had salad and rice and steamed broccoli. Dinner was a little late, but nice.

I did the dishes afterwards and then headed upstairs. I relaxed for a while then at 11 watched Law & Order. F came upstairs a bit before that and went to bed. 

After midnight I just relaxed with some YouTube and did my end of day things. One weird thing though was that I had about 4 tiny spiders just appear in front of my eyes. There must be some coming down from the ceiling. I grabbed a duster and moved it around up there, but I’m not sure if it is going to work or not. Yikes.

And that’s about it. I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. I had originally planned to go to the mall and see a movie, but with my trip coming up, I’ve decided not to do that. I’ll miss the Endgame: Encore as it finishes here this week, but I think I’ll be okay. F refused to see it again on Sunday. Oh well. 

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

October 12, 2026

Monday - Warm and Sunny

Today was another lovely day. I woke up around 10 this morning, made a trip downstairs and then came back to bed for a bit of video and snoozing. F came back upstairs and said that he’d like to leave soon to do his driving and checking. I was okay with that. 

I got up and dressed and a few minutes later we left the house. We drove off towards F’s first place. I had asked that we stop and get drinks somewhere but it took ages before we did. We talked about lunch and F came up with an idea and I did too. They were different, but that’s okay. F’s place was closed today, and on the way to wherever we were going we passed another restaurant that F suggested going to. I was fine with that.

We went in and had a really nice meal in Amarume. We both had the same thing but had different sauces with it. We had pork sauté and it came with potato salad, salad, soup and rice. I had gravy with mine, F had wafu sauce. We paid and left, I think we were the last customers there at lunch. Oops.

We drove around and found most of F’s places. There was one place that he wasn’t sure about. We stopped at a Michi-no-Eki and got ice cream. We came back to Tsuruoka and visited a new Farmer’s market place. I got some mini-tomatoes for K and F, then we went to the grocery store.

I bought groceries for the next couple of days and I think I got enough stuff. I came in under budget which pleased me too.

We came back to the house. I put things away and then came upstairs. F and I had talked about taking his mother out for dinner tonight. She’d been alone at the house for the last couple of days and I thought she might like to get out of the house again. F however, didn’t tell her that!

We went out around 7pm and drove to the Gusto near MaxValu. We were able to get seated right away and ordered. I had pasta, F had a Japanese style meal of pork steak on rice and K had a kara-age meal. I ordered a plate of fries for the three of us to share and mayonnaise all around. The waitress even came out to check that we actually did want three containers of mayo, but yes, yes we did! K double dips, so we don’t want to share with her, F probably didn’t need one, but I finished mine too!

After we finished eating we came back to the house and I came upstairs. A little after 10pm I went downstairs and took a shower. When I came back upstairs to the room I watched an episode of Carnival Row. It’s been ages since I watched it and I decided that I really should try to finish it. 

And that’s it. I had a very good weekend which really surprises me. After September when we were all sick and tired of being together, it was actually nice to be together and going out and doing things in such nice weather. 

Tomorrow I’m back to my normal life. I’ll probably do some laundry and I’m cooking dinner again too. I have to start getting ready for my trip too. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

 

October 11, 2026

Sunday - Warm & Sunny

I woke up quite early again this morning. I went downstairs before 7 am, but came back upstairs and went back to bed. I fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until my alarm went off around 10 am. I turned off my other alarms and tried snoozing. F came back to bed after making K’s breakfast and we had a little snuggle and snooze time. 

Finally, we got up. He wanted to go fishing today. I wasn’t too excited because I have to be careful about the sun. I get sunburnt really easily. I do have sunscreen, but I hate wearing it.

First up we had to have lunch. F suggested the new Chinese (Taiwanese?) restaurant in the city and I was okay with that. I put on some clothes that I was okay going fishing in and then we went over to the restaurant. We were able to go in and decided that we wouldn’t order set menus, but three different dishes and share them. So, we had some kara-age (fried chicken), gyoza and fried rice. It was all quite nice. F kept us there until quite late. He was playing on his phone and just spent some time there. 

We went over to the drugstore at PAL across the road and used the washroom and then bought a few things. I got some more tea for the trip, some detergent for laundry and we picked up another pack of tissues for K. F did that weird thing in the store where he looked at me, but didn’t actually see me. He was looking for me, and was halfway down the store before he turned around and noticed me waving at him! It happens often. I’m a short, fat, grey old lady…why can’t he see me? I stick out a lot!

We set out towards Kamo. We stopped for F to get us some bait and then drove out. We ended up parking near a restaurant we’ve gone to a few times and then going over to the edge of the port. F prepared my fishing rod for me and I dropped it in. A few minutes later I actually caught a fish, an aji or horse mackerel. F took it off the hook for me and put it in the cooler. I caught a little fugu (pufferfish) but I snagged it more than it biting my hook. I took it off the hook and threw it back in the water. 

F did a silly thing and dropped his rod into the water. He rescued it after a bit of hard work on his part. He didn’t say much, but he caught quite a few fish too. I caught a saba or blue mackerel too, and about 3 more aji. However, the last one I caught, I brought over to F to take it off my hook and he left his fishing rod unattended. He must have caught a fish as the next thing we knew…his rod was back in the ocean. We weren’t able to rescue it this time. I’m sorry thinking about the fish being tied down with the rod and I also worry about a boat or something getting snagged on it. 

F needed to use a washroom around now and he didn’t have a fishing rod anymore, so we packed it in. He made a pit stop and then we drove back to Tsuruoka. We went to a bento shop and got three bentos, then while they were being made, went to the nearby electric shop to use their loo!

We went back to the house and F spent a bit of time preparing the fish. He made some of it into sashimi and mixed it with miso and negi. We had that with our bentos.

I did the dishes afterwards, then went upstairs to change my clothes again. 

F and I got back in the car and drove over to Mikawa and went to see Disclosure Day at the mall. It was….okay. I liked the actors but I thought the story let them down a bit. 

We drove back into Tsuruoka after the movie but didn’t come back to the house at first. We went to MaxValu to pick up something for K’s breakfast. I got a few things for myself on my own dime as well. I got some snacks and a big bagette sandwich for breakfast or lunch. 

We came back to the house and F went to bed fairly soon and as usual I’m up quite late. I’ll be going off to bed soon as I am tired. 

It was a surprisingly nice day. By the time we got to the fishing place, the sun wasn’t that strong and I wore a big hat so I think I avoided most sun damage. Hurray. It’s just too bad that F lost his fishing rod. I’m thinking it might make a good birthday/Christmas present…I could get him a gift certificate or something so he could pick one he’d like. I’ll think about it!

That’s it for me for today. Tomorrow we’re supposed to go driving to do research for F’s job, so I might have to get up early. Wish me luck!

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