November 6, 2024

Wednesday - Sunny in the am, rainy later on

I woke up early again this morning, later than yesterday and F had turned off his alarm so that was good! I made a trip downstairs and then went back to bed. I got up a few hours later!

I dressed and grabbed my breakfast and came upstairs to eat. I had a fairly quiet day and didn’t do any laundry as I had nowhere to put it! I did put away some of the dry towels, but noticed that some were still a bit damp. I left them up!

I had lunch later in the day and since the election results in the US were pretty depressing, decided to watch something a little lighter during lunch. I watched So Help Me Todd and it was fine. It’s only the second episode so it hasn’t quite gelled yet. 

F called me after 5 pm and said he was on his way. I went downstairs and got started on dinner. Tonight I made Gapao Rice and I made the mistake of asking F to come down and help me. Of course he didn’t and then got mad at me for calling him on it. He threatened to leave the table and not eat, but I asked him not to do that. It’s honestly one of the more horrible things he does.

We all ate and watched the results come in on the TV. It was so depressing. 

I did the dishes after dinner and then I did up the garbage in the kitchen. It took a while and K had so many bags of her stuff, it was disgusting. I put the bag in the genkan for F to take out later.

I went upstairs to change, F followed a few minutes later to grab a jacket and we went off to Mina. F parked at the wrong door again so I went in and went over to the other side of the shop! I got things for dinner for the next two nights and things for breakfast for F and K. I got her some lunch stuff for tomorrow since there are never any leftovers with Gapao rice.

After the grocery store we made a quick trip to a drugstore where I went in and picked up stuff for myself. 

We came back to the house. I put the food away and F set up the rice for tomorrow. I asked him to make some rice for tomorrow’s dinner. 

I came upstairs and relaxed. I started my water pot and at 11 pm watched Grey’s Anatomy. It was all about the interns today, and Bailey. She’s going to train the interns. I’m glad she’ll be doing more on the show.

Anyway, that’s about it for my day. I am in a state of disbelief about the US Election. I’m not sure if it was that they REALLY don’t want a female president or that they think it is a big joke to have the worst guy back again. And I can’t even think that if something happens to him, the VP will take over as the VP is a huge worry too. 

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

November 5, 2024

 Tuesday - Sunny and warmish

I woke up this morning before my alarm, somewhere in the area of 6:30. F had already left for work, that early I assume he was going to an onsen first. I went downstairs and then came back upstairs and went back to bed. It was pretty darn early still! I watched a couple of videos and then at 7:00am F’s alarm went off. I didn’t know it was on! I turned it off and then went back to sleep. 

Of course I ended up oversleeping, but I did wake up before the morning was completely over! I got up, dressed and sorted out my laundry. I took a load downstairs and put it in the washing machine, grabbing my breakfast afterwards. I brought breakfast upstairs to eat. 

I had a busy-ish morning. After I did the first load of laundry I did a load of towels. When I was done that, I changed our bed sheet. It’s kind of difficult because F has so much stuff on his side of the bed. 

I grabbed my lunch soon after this. I came back to our room and watched an episode of Major Crimes. After that, it was the news on NHK. 

F phoned me a bit after 5 pm to say that he was on his way. I went downstairs a bit later and got started on dinner. Tonight I did Toaster oven chicken, roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, kabocha salad and salad. Dinner was good, but neither F nor K ate very much. The good thing is that I have leftovers for tomorrow for my lunch. Woot!

I did the dishes and then came upstairs and relaxed for an hour or so, and then went to take a shower. After that, I came back upstairs and watched FBI: International. It was fine. F went to bed and I think he fell asleep. 

Anyway, that’s about it for today. I’m not sure what I’m going to get up to tomorrow. I should do more laundry, but I’m not sure that I’ll have anywhere to hang it up! There’s only so much room in our bedroom.

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

November 4, 2024

Monday - Warm and sunny

Before I went to bed last night I started coughing and I couldn’t stop. There seemed to be something in my throat just irritating it. I ended up taking 3 cough candies before bed to try to soothe my throat.

I did manage to sleep and woke up this morning around 10ish. F was already up. I had the taste of those cough candies in my mouth and it was horrible. I went downstairs and then came back to bed. I slept a bit longer and then around 11:30 or so F came in the room and asked about lunch. 

I suggested yakiniku since F picked the restaurants for lunch this weekend. F was okay with that, so we got in the car and drove over to the restaurant, Togashi. We got a table and ordered. F did that weird thing that he does where he wanted to order a couple of different meals and then share them. I didn’t want to do that. I was all about ordering a separate add-on dish to share. He got a bit insisty but I said that “I” was going to eat all of my set meal! I did point out a smaller side dish on the menu that we could order so he wouldn’t have to order an expensive one. Anyway, we ended up having a really nice meal, but I started to feel quite bad near the end. I asked F if we could go back to the house and he said it was okay.

When we got back to the house, I used the washroom, went upstairs and went back to bed. I ended up sleeping for a couple of hours and did feel much better when I woke up. I got redressed and spent a bit of time on my computer and then realized that the social worker was supposed to be at the house then. I masked up and went downstairs but she was nearly done. K had gone to bed too, so I didn’t feel too bad. I did ask about their overnight stay service cost in case we want to take a holiday or need a night or two away. We could arrange to have K taken care of for a short term. The only problem is we have to book it three months in advance. I had hoped that we could use it for my birthday, but it’s in the middle of the week and I don’t know if F wants to take time off. 

After the social worker left we went upstairs again. I think F went down and fed his mother and then we started talking about our dinner. I wasn’t too hungry, but on a national holiday it can be hard to find a good place to eat. F, bless him, did actually call a couple of places to see if we could get in. The first place didn’t answer, the second did and only had course meals available for 3000 yen each person. It was a bit above our budget. 

We decided that we’d try a local Chinese restaurant but they were closed when we got there. Next up, we decided we’d go for sushi. F insisted on our favourite keiten sushi place. I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to go there, but…we could. 

We found that Kintaro Sushi has raised their prices again and our favourites were quite a bit more expensive. Oh dear. Sadly, they were also out of a lot of our favourite types of sushi too. We ate a few dishes and then left. Honestly, we were still a little hungry so we went for another type of dish!

We went to Aki for Okonomiyaki. It was near their closing time, but we got in. We only ordered one, but it was very nice and just enough.

After our second dinner, we went to the grocery store where I did the shopping and F got in my way! Honestly, I find him so annoying when he comes with me. He bought himself some snacks and some alcohol…no big deal really, but at no point did he ever ask me if I wanted anything! 

We came back to the house and F put the groceries away and did a fairly decent job of it. I was pleasantly surprised! I took the stuff for our room upstairs and then relaxed for a bit.

I decided to watch something on the Fire Stick so I started with Gotham. When it was over, I watched The Big Door Prize, the first episode of the second season. It was good.

And that’s about it. F went to bed a bit earlier, he’s tired and sleeping away. I’m tired too and need to get my beauty sleep!

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

November 3, 2024

Sunday - Warm and Sunny

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. It was around 10 am. I got up a little later to get dressed. F went downstairs and made his mother breakfast. I think he cooked fish because the house reeked for a while. 

We left just after 11 and drove to the Kamo Aquarium. It was very busy of course and we weren’t able to get a parking spot anywhere near the building. We decided to go somewhere else and have lunch there. We tried at Yunohama 100 Years restaurant but they were a bit busy. F put his name in and they said that they’d phone him. 

We went for a drive and I actually got rather worried because he went really far away. I got him to turn the car around and we got back to the restaurant, only to find that they had tried to call him. He called back and we were able to go in. 

Today, I had their mushroom and tuna pasta in a cream sauce. It was gorgeous. F had their meat plate which was a chicken stew with gnocchi on the side. He didn’t like it very much. Sigh. I would have liked it but the sauce on the stew looked suspiciously tomatoey. 

After our meal was over we drove back to the Kamo Aquarium and were able to get a closer parking spot. We went in. We were able to get in fairly soon, but the aquarium was really busy. It wasn't much fun. We couldn't see the fish for the people! Some people just stayed in front of the tanks for ages and wouldn't move. F and I did a bit of skipping areas and waiting reasonably patiently. We did enjoy our time at the aquarium overall. The jellyfish were really cool as usual. 

We decided to go and have a drink at a cafe that we’ve been to a couple of times. I used my phone to give us directions. We went and had a nice time at the cafe, except F knocked over his water glass and got water everywhere. 

When we finished our drinks we paid. I also bought some popcorn and brought that back to the house. We picked up a few groceries and came back to the house. F gave his mother her dinner and then came upstairs where I was. 

We relaxed for a while. We weren’t too hungry so we waited for a while. Around 8 pm I told F that we really should go and have dinner as places would be closing soon!  We decided to go to Coco Ichibanya but in the car F made another suggestion. He asked about going for okonomiyaki. I thought that was a great idea, but I thought the restaurant might be closed. We drove over there but it was closed. The lights were still on, so we probably just missed it. We ended up at Coco Ichibanya and got a table right away.

I tried their new Kashmir curry with tandori chicken and F had their curry with shabu-shabu. He liked his, I didn’t really like mine. It was spicy which was fine, but they put spices on the top of the curry and I didn’t like them. 

We came back to the house and relaxed again. I decided to watch a movie from the Fire Disk and chose Spaceballs. I saw it years ago when it came out. It was silly and dumb. I didn’t hate it, but I don’t need to see it again!

And that…was my day. I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. We have a meeting with K’s social worker in the afternoon and I’m going to have to buy groceries tomorrow too. 

Come back later if you are interested and find out what I get up to. Until tomorrow….

November 2, 2024

Saturday - Rainy and cooler

I did make a brief trip downstairs around 8 am this morning, but came back to bed and fell asleep again. F came in around 11 and asked if I’d like to go for lunch to one of a couple of places. One of his ideas was a place I didn’t want to go again, and the other was a place we’d never been. I picked that one. 

Honestly, I wasn’t too excited about going to this place, F tends to pick horrible places for me to eat when I let him. We went and were able to get in. It was busy, so that was a good thing. If a place is busy, it is generally good. At least, that’s what I think! I ordered a katsu-don and F ordered niku-don and we decided that we’d share a little bit of each other’s meal. I liked mine, F thought his was too sauce-y and salty. The store did have a picture up of the shop’s outside from 100 or so years ago. That was cool. Not sure if we’ll go again, but you never know.

After lunch, we made a quick stop at K’s Denki. I tried to get F to buy a disk drive for his computer but he wasn’t really into it. After buying ourselves a bottled drink at the store, we headed over to Shimamura. We went in and I started looking for nice things for my friends and family. F went back to the car as he was feeling a bit dizzy. It took a while, but I finally found a couple of things that I liked so bought them. I went back to the car.

F started driving back to the house and then asked if I wanted to go to the newish bakery we have found. It was fine. I did say to him that if we buy stuff there, we should actually eat it the same day. He laughed, but we have NEVER done that! It took a long time before we could go in as they have such a tiny space they only allow one group at a time. They didn’t have too much on offer, but we bought a walnut bread and half a fruit loaf. 

We came back to the house. I wasn’t best pleased if I’m honest. I was hoping we’d spend more time outside, but if F wasn’t feeling that great it wasn’t fair of me I suppose.

We stayed at the house for a while. K came back and a little later F made her dinner. We decided that we’d go out to Mikawa to see a movie and would eat at the mall. 

We left the house around 6:30 and got to the mall a bit before 7. We bought our movie tickets and then I went to the bibinba place and placed my order. I tried a new one, miso bibinba or something. It was very nice. F went to the place next to it and got himself some premade yakisoba and okonomiyaki. We ate and enjoyed our meal. 

We had a little bit of time before our movie so we walked down the length of the mall. I suggested going for a massage. They have space age massage chairs, only ¥300 for 12 minutes, and they have two of them in the mall. We paid our money and then had 12 minutes of being pummelled. It was mostly good, but for me, being short, my feet didn’t fit firmly in the bottom of the chair. Instead of massaging my feet, the chair tickled my feet. I spent a lot of the 12 minutes laughing!

We went back to the cinema and went to see Venom: The Last Dance. It had got terrible reviews, but we both enjoyed it and laughed a lot at it. It wasn’t the best film, but it was fun.

After the movie, we came back to Tsuruoka and back to the house. We both came upstairs. I brought in the baked goods and left them in F’s care. As expected, we did not eat any of them. Why does he do that? We could have eaten some of the goods in the afternoon. I don’t get it, I really don’t!

At the house, I watched the last episode of CSI: Las Vegas. It is sad that it ended. I quite enjoyed the programme, but I guess the CSI programmes aren’t as popular anymore. 

At midnight I turned off the TV. F has been asleep for a while, but he did wake up for a few minutes. 

I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. I hope that things will go well. Come back later and read about our Sunday. Until tomorrow….

November 1, 2024

Friday - Sunny and warm in the daytime, rainy at night

I had myself an adventure today, which was very nice! I woke up when my alarm went off this morning. I got up, went downstairs and then came back to bed and had a mini-snooze for about 20 minutes. After that, I got up, dressed and had a quick breakfast of a couple of sandwiches. I went downstairs just after 10 am and ended up leaving the house a bit too early! I had to wait at the bus stop for about 10 minutes. I got on the bus and got off at my stop, the one just outside the main post office.

I decided I’d try and make my coin deposit at the post office. I was able to do that…when I went in the post office, there weren’t any customers at the bank section. That done, I went off to Machinaka Kinema.

When I arrived, I bought a bottle of water and then went in and bought a ticket for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. While I was waiting, I checked out the walls and noticed something cool. Last week I had filled out a request for a movie in English and they had posted it, along with a reply in English underneath! Woot. I had used Google Translate last week to read the replies and basically, they just said the same in English as they did in Japanese but that was still cool. I feel seen!!

The movie was fine. The performances were the best part, Jim Broadbent is a great actor and he was well matched with Penelope Wilton. I enjoyed the film a lot.

I left the cinema and caught a bus from the stop where I got off. I went to S-Mall and decided I’d have lunch first. The hotel’s lunch didn’t appeal, so I went upstairs to a Japanese restaurant and had Chicken Namban. It wasn’t great, but it was okay. I was really hungry so a teishoku (set) meal was what I needed. 

I did a little shopping in Daiso and the grocery store, then bought myself an ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. It was good, but the store became really busy and it took forever to get my ice cream. I finished the ice cream and then went over to the bus station and a few minutes later, caught my bus.

I was back at the house by 4pm so I watched the news. I sent F a text that I was back. I had told him I might stay at the mall if I missed the bus or was busy shopping. He told me that he had been by the house earlier. I thought he was because the mail I had left for him at the door was gone. These days K doesn’t touch the mail. She used to grab it all for us. It’s sad really. 

When F called to say he was on his way, I went downstairs and started on dinner. Tonight’s dinner was a fairly easy one, just pasta with pesto sauce, salad and bacon. I was surprised how much F liked it. He even had seconds of the pasta, and he rarely does. 

I did the dishes afterwards and then came upstairs with a can of root beer and some ice. I enjoyed my drink! It just hit the spot tonight. F came upstairs and relaxed.

I took a shower a bit after 10:30 and then came back upstairs. I had decided to watch something on the Fire Disk. It was late, so I went with a half hour comedy rather than an hour drama. I watched Loot and thought it was hilarious.

F has been up and down a bit tonight. He was complaining about his back, then he had a nap, and then he got up for a while. He seems to be sleeping again. 

This is a long weekend and I’m not sure what we’ll get up to. I’ve asked F if we can go to a movie at the mall and maybe do some shopping. I need to get some stuff for my friends and my sister for Christmas and birthdays. 

Wish us luck!

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

October 31, 2024

Thursday - Sunny but cool

Last night, F was complaining about my late bedtime and how he couldn’t sleep because I stay up late. I happened to finish my blogging early so I decided to go to bed about an hour early. Well, that was a mistake. I went to bed. At first, I sat on the side of the bed and read a book on my phone, then I got into bed and tried to go to sleep. I turned off the room light on my side of the room too. 

I read for a while until I thought I could sleep and then put my phone away. Unfortunately, that was when F started moaning and moving around. He sat up in bed, and then went looking for medicine, turning on the light above the bed. Even though I was wearing an eye mask, the light was blinding. I couldn’t sleep and I was getting kind of angry with him. This was exactly why I don’t go to bed with him at the same time. 

This morning when I woke up I was still a bit annoyed. F had already left for work, so I went downstairs and then came back to the bed. I watched a few videos before going back to sleep. F texted me to say his sister was coming over to do some yardwork. I asked him if I had to help but he said I didn’t. Yay. 

I got up later and dressed. I went downstairs and grabbed my breakfast and as usual, came upstairs to eat. I had a quiet afternoon. I watched the news at 12:30 and then decided that I might as well start working on my cards. I got quite a few done. I won’t take them to the post office quite yet though. These are the “Please don’t send me nengajo” cards. 

I went to grab my lunch and brought it upstairs. I watched another episode of Bones while I did that. It was a good episode and when it was over, it was time for the other news programme!

F called a bit after 5 and said he was on his way. I went downstairs to get started on dinner. Tonight I did chicken wings and served them with salad, macaroni salad, and cucumber sticks. F had made rice last night, so K and F had rice too. I didn’t want any.  Dinner was very nice and most of it disappeared. Hurray.

I did the dishes and then went upstairs to change. I made sure that F knew we needed to go out before I went upstairs. I got dressed to go out and then waited for F to come upstairs. He didn’t come up so I finally texted him and asked him if he was ready to go. He came upstairs to get ready!

We left soon after and went to Mina. F came in with me today and it was as annoying as usual! He has this tendency to go off on his own while I’m looking for food for the family, meaning I have to carry the food in my arms until I find him. Or, he buys himself beer which to me is something I don’t need! I don’t really begrudge him beer, but tonight he bought the small cans and he meant to get the large cans. I thought it was very funny! 

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. We came upstairs and relaxed for a bit. I watched Yellowjackets at 11:00 and F ended up asleep. He was so tired tonight that he has fallen asleep and has been asleep for at least 3 hours!

Anyway, tomorrow I plan to go to a movie in the morning, if I can get up in time to catch the bus! If I don’t, I’ll stay here and do laundry. This is a long weekend but we have the social worker coming on Monday which is rather annoying. Japan is such a nanny state. 

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