November 20, 2024

Wednesday - Colder but sunny

I did manage to get to bed a bit early last night. I fell asleep soon afterwards and slept well until 5:30 when F woke me up. He’d made a trip downstairs but is quite noisy. I had to make a trip downstairs too and then when I came out, K was waiting! It was a family affair at 5:30 in the morning.

I went back to sleep and honestly slept very deeply. I didn’t hear F leave and I almost didn’t hear my alarm go off. I went downstairs again and then came back and went to bed.  Before I did that, I sorted my laundry. I’ve realized that if I wait, I’ll talk myself out of doing laundry. 

I went back to bed for a bit of a snooze and got up a bit later. I fixed myself breakfast and brought it upstairs and turned on the heater as it was really cold this morning. There was snow on Mt. Chokai too. 

I had a fairly quiet afternoon. I did two loads of laundry and didn’t see much of K at all. I brought my lunch up around 3 pm and also watched an episode of Elspeth. I enjoyed that one as usual. 

F didn’t call for a while. In fact, I was getting ready to go downstairs to start dinner when he called me to say he was on his way. 

Tonight I heated up the leftover stew and served that with rice again, also with salad, steamed broccoli and a little bit of tonkatsu. F and K demolished some mini-tomatoes I bought last night and everything disappeared in short order. I did the dishes afterwards and then as it is Wednesday, I sorted out the burnable garbage and got it ready to go out. I put it in the genkan for F to take out later.

I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit at my computer. When F came up he sorted out his garbage in the room and took it all out to the corner. When he came back I told him that he owed me a hug because he hasn’t given me one when he came back from work for the last two days! He obliged.

I took a shower and then came upstairs again and watched Grey’s Anatomy. It was an okay episode. They brought back Arizona Robbins to do a surgery. It was nice to see her, but I’m wondering if it’ll be a one-off or if she’ll be back for more.

That’s about it for my day again. It was okay. It was a bit lonely and quiet. 

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

November 19, 2024

Tuesday - Cold and rainy. And Cold.

I went to bed fairly early last night. I was in bed a little after 2 and asleep before 2:30 I think. I did wake up sometime around 4:30 but I heard that F woke up around then too.

When I woke up next time, it was a little bit before my alarm went off. I got up and went downstairs and did my usual thing of coming back upstairs and watching videos on my phone for a few minutes. 

I went back to sleep and woke up later. I got up, dressed and went downstairs. I made my breakfast and I brought it upstairs to eat. I watched some YouTube and then the news. 

Around 1pm I went downstairs to get a start on dinner. I got out my slow cooker, gave it a wash since I haven’t used it in a bit and then got stuck in on making dinner. I made a minced pork stew but I put a lot of vegetables in it. It had onion, potatoes, a carrot and some winter kabocha. Soon, I had it in the slow cooker and I left it alone. Since I had brought down part of my lunch, I made my lunch and then took it upstairs to eat.

Today I watched Major Crimes while I was eating. It was a decent episode, it had echoes to the film I watched recently, May December. 

F called to say that he was back on his way to the house. He also told me that he was expecting a delivery and he asked me if I would receive it for him. I said I would, but hopefully F would be back when it arrived. 

I went downstairs and started to prepare for dinner. There wasn’t too much that I had to do as I was keeping things simple today. We were going to have stew, rice and salad. I had some time, so I relaxed and had a root beer in the kitchen. It was nice!

I got dinner on the table around 7pm. It wasn’t much later. I served K and F first with rice and stew, then myself. Both F and I had seconds on the stew and rice. The stew was good! I really enjoyed it. 

I cleaned off the table and then I did the dishes. Because I’d done a lot of dishes earlier when I made the stew, I didn’t have to do that much this evening. Yay for that! I got finished fairly early and reminded F that we had to go out today.

I went upstairs and changed my clothes. F drove us over to Mina and I went into the store and bought some stuff. I got things for the next couple of nights for dinner, and for F and K’s breakfasts. 

We came back to the house and I put the groceries away. I took the things for us upstairs and changed into my pyjamas. I just wanted to relax. 

Around 11pm I watched FBI: International and it was fine. Then, I turned off the TV and went back to my computer.

And that’s it. I did start on my column today, I wrote about one film, so that was good. However, I’m not sure what I’m going to write about from here on out. I’ll figure it out, hopefully. 

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

November 18, 2024

Monday - Cold and rainy

I had my usual sort of morning. I did oversleep a little, but I almost deserved it! I was tired. 

I got up eventually, grabbed my breakfast and brought it upstairs to eat. I had a mostly quiet afternoon. I did take fresh towels down to the kitchen and bathroom, and I even used my new duster and dusted my heater in the kitchen and then I cleaned up a few cobwebs around the kitchen and hallway. 

I went down and made my lunch and then brought it up to eat. I watched FBI, the show I missed on Saturday and it was fine. I like FBI, I’m just not sure that it is a favourite!

Just before 5 pm F texted me to say that he’s taken Friday off work. He hasn’t made many plans, but may go and see his doctor or something. Around 5:30 he phoned me to say that he was having car trouble and was hoping to be able to come back. He’d phoned the car’s emergency system or something and they said to try to restart the car. He did, and it seemed to work. Yay.

He came back to the house and we had a nice reunion until I asked him to move the crap on the kitchen table. I swear, every Monday I have to deal with the results of his cooking over the weekend. It didn’t get moved because he was going to put stuff on the steps instead of the table. That made no sense to me. 

Tonight I did a simple dinner. We had toaster oven chicken with a sesame oil flavouring, salad, steamed veggies and F and K had rice too. I didn’t have rice, I probably should have.

After dinner, I did the dishes and was finished at a goodly time. I told F I was going upstairs and I did. I watched a bit of YouTube and then at 10:30 went downstairs and took a shower.

When I came back upstairs I decided to watch another episode of The Devil’s Hour. It’s getting more and more involved and rather intriguing. I’m halfway through and I don’t know where it’s going!

That’s about it. I turned off the TV and got stuck in on my other stuff. I wrote my blog and in a few minutes I’ll post it. I might even get to bed early for a change. That would be a surprise!

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

November 17, 2024

Sunday - Rainy and gloomy

I got up this morning and F talked to me. I ignored him and went downstairs. When I came back to the room he asked me if I’d like to have lunch at a soba place. I said no thank you. He pouted and left the room for a while. 

I got dressed and used my computer for a while. F came back and went back to bed. I was still quite angry with F from last night so I didn’t want to do anything with him. I thought about going out to the little mall in Tsuruoka, but decided not to as I don’t have a lot of cash on me at the moment. 

Around 2 F asked if I’d like to go and have brunch and I said yes. He went back to bed and slept for another hour! He asked again when I woke up and I again said yes. He asked me where and I suggested Gusto. We went to the one near MaxValu.

I had a nice meal there. I had grilled chicken with a baguette. It also came with a side of mushrooms and spinach. I ordered a plate of fries for F and I to share. At the end, F gave me money to pay the bill and I did. 

We drove over to the grocery store and he wanted to give me only 2000 yen to go with the change I had from the restaurant. That would have given me only 4000 yen to buy food with. I told him candidly that it wasn’t enough. Maybe if it wasn’t Sunday and I was starting the week it would have been okay, but it wasn’t today.

I went in the shop and bought groceries. I’m going to cook chicken tomorrow night and probably do a stew for Tuesday and hopefully Wednesday night. 

The total came to over 6000 yen, so I’m glad I asked him for more money! We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. K had got up when we arrived so I heated up her bento and gave it to her. It was a nice one and I would have happily eaten it, so I didn’t feel bad about it.

I went upstairs when I was finished. F came up a few minutes later. He rested for a while. He went downstairs again and brought a beer with him. I kind of called him on it and said that we might need dinner in a little while. If he drank that we couldn’t go out. He didn’t drink it. 

We went out around 8 pm and had dinner at Matsuya. I was going to have a spicy nabe but decided that I didn’t know how spicy it was so had better not. I had a kind of bibinba again. It was actually quite nice. I had it with a side salad and some miso soup. F had a donburi with beef I think. He didn’t like it much. Sigh. 

We came back to the house after a long weird drive where we were looking at pachinko parlours. I’m not sure why. I had mentioned that another one near my first Japan apartment had closed. He drove around looking for open pachinko parlours! It was really coming down outside too. I just wanted to get back to the house and get off the road!

We came back to the house. I went in and filled up my water bottles for my water pot upstairs. 

I decided to watch a movie tonight so I watched My Old Ass which sounds terrible, but was actually rather cool. It was set in Canada too, which I appreciated. 

When I started the movie I got a text from my sister asking if I was alive. It was her birthday yesterday and I didn’t text her. There was a reason. I often post a birthday greeting on FB when it becomes the 16th here. That means that all her friends wish her a happy birthday on the wrong day. She gets quite upset about it and last year made it so I couldn’t post on her Facebook wall. This year I didn’t even bother to try. I mean, why? So, she texted me to see if I was alive and to vent her annoyance at me. I apologized and we seemed a little friendlier at the end. 

I liked the movie. It was possibly the best part of my day. 

Anyway, F is off to work tomorrow and I’m looking forward to having the room to myself. I have to catch up on a few things. 

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

November 16, 2024

Saturday - Sunny and warm

I woke up fairly early this morning. F forgot to turn off his alarm again. That’s so annoying. I went back to sleep for a while but woke up again around 9 am. I went downstairs and it was a little odd because F and K were just leaving. F was shouting at K so that she could hear him, but of course she couldn’t. It’s rather funny, but it isn’t.  

I went back upstairs and slept on for a bit. Or, tried to. I got up a bit later and started to get dressed. F came upstairs and asked about going out for lunch. He suggested an eel restaurant, I countered with an Indian restaurant. That’s where we ended up going. Yay.

We went to the newest Indian place in the old Jiro restaurant. It was busy!  I had chicken curry today and F had the saag keema curry. We both liked ours but wished we’d asked for them to be spicier. We had a nice cup of marsala tea afterwards.  We left and paid. 

We went to Yamaya after our meal and bought a few things at the store. I got some tea and snacks, F bought a few things that I’m not really sure why! F wanted to go back to the house after we finished in the store but I wasn’t sure why that was. He drove all the way back to the house and then when he asked me if I wanted to go somewhere else I said yes! 

We ended up going for a drive in the mountains to see the autumn leaves. It was lovely to be honest. It did take a bit of a weird turn though when F decided to follow a road on Yudono-san. It was narrow but paved. It was on our GPS as well, so that was good. However, he decided to keep going on the road. We ran out of pavement and according to the GPS we weren’t anywhere. We were climbing the mountain and the road was getting very bad. I basically asked F to turn back as soon as possible as I was getting scared about what could happen if the car got stuck or something. He had to keep going until there was a place to turn around. We did turn around finally and started down the road again…and met a car with two people in it on the way up. I wonder if they were just like us, sightseeing.

We got back down the mountain and drove back to Tsuruoka. We stopped in Kushibiki at a Michi No Eki and F bought his mother a snack and then we got an ice cream each. That was quite nice.

We went back to the house and went in. F waited downstairs for his mother, I went upstairs to the room and spent time with my computer. I watched a bit of YouTube and caught up with some of my favourite sites. 

We decided to leave for the mall around 6:30. K was happy with her snack tonight and didn’t want dinner. We left for the mall.

We bought our movie tickets first and then went to the food court. I ordered a bibinba and F picked up some yakisoba for himself. We had a drink with our meal. I really liked my bibinba, it was good. F said he liked his noodles, but I didn’t think they looked very nice. 

We went to see Gladiator 2 tonight. It was okay. I think the original Gladiator was better, but tonight’s movie was enjoyable somewhat. I didn’t love it, but I did like it. F was about the same I think, except he hasn’t seen the original Gladiator.

On the way back to the house, I joked to F that it felt like a lot of popcorn was in my bra. I expected him to make a joke about it as usual. Instead he said it was embarrassing that there was so much popcorn on the floor when we left. It was a dig at me because I’m the one who eats most of the popcorn. I don’t actually get to hold the popcorn though. It’s on the arm of the seat between us, so it is quite easy to drop the popcorn. Besides, their staff doesn’t have much to do, just a bit of sweeping. We aren’t talking about buckets of popcorn, just a bit. 

I was really hurt to hear that I embarrass him. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. I tried to see if I could find a nice place out of town for next weekend but I couldn’t. Sigh. Next weekend is a big family thing that I no longer wish to attend since I’m such an embarrassment, and his birthday which I don’t feel like celebrating anymore. I’ll probably be fine, but he really is a bonehead sometime. 

We came back to the house and I went on my computer and ignored him for the rest of the night. He’s snoring away now. I should head to bed soon. 

That’s it for me. Until the ride back to the house, it was a good day. Come back later if you like and hear all about Sunday. Until tomorrow….

November 15, 2024

Friday - A bit overcast

I woke up before my alarm and went downstairs. I came back upstairs and then got back into bed and tried to go back to sleep, but wasn’t able to. I ended up getting up after a while. 

I brought my breakfast up from the kitchen and ate it in my room. I watched some YouTube and then some of the news. I was enjoying my YouTube so much that I forgot to turn on the news until it was too late!

I had a very quiet day. I probably should have done a bit more, but I did make a small start on my column. It’s also a little sad, my women’s group is having their big convention this weekend, but I wasn’t able to go. The hotel looked lovely, but the travel costs were crazy and super expensive. So far, there aren’t any plans to have a convention next year. Oh dear.

I made my lunch. Today I had a bagel for lunch and that was lovely. It was a fruity one. I usually don’t buy them, but this was nice. I watched another episode of So Help Me Todd. It’s a cute show, I wonder how much of it we’ll get.

I expected to hear from F around 5:30 but he was a little late tonight. I was on my way downstairs when he called me. He’d had to work a little late.

Tonight for dinner I made pasta with a garlic soy sauce. It was really nice. We had it with salad, duck breast, and potato salad. It was quite nice to be honest. 

I did the dishes afterwards and came upstairs with a can of root beer and enjoyed that. I haven’t had one for a few weeks so it was a nice treat. I took a shower around 10:30 and when I came back to the room F was sleeping. 

I watched another episode of Gotham and quite liked it. I’m not a huge DC fan, but I do like Batman so it is rather fun to see “how it began”!

Well, that’s about it for today. We might go and see a movie tomorrow night or not. It depends if F is up for it or not. He’s often fine until two or three hours beforehand then he gets sick or tired or  something. I shouldn’t be mean about it, but our weekends we have two different goals. I want to get out of the house, he wants to be in the house! It’s annoying. 

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

November 14, 2024

Thursday - Sunny but cooler

I woke up this morning before my alarm. I went downstairs and then went back to bed. I watched a few videos on my phone and then fell asleep again. I did wake up before I did yesterday, so I got up and stayed up. Yay me.

I had breakfast and watched the news. I did a load of laundry in the morning too. I only did one. I could have done more, but one was fine. 

I went downstairs and got my lunch later on. I brought it back upstairs to eat. I noticed that K hadn’t eaten her lunch today. Sigh. I watched Elspeth while I ate today. It was fun again. It was about an internet app owner and the subplot has taken a bit of a turn where the subject talked to Elspeth about what she’s doing working in NYC. 

After the news at 4:30 or so, I went downstairs with the kerosene tank and filled it up. While I was down there, K came out of her room and wanted to use the toilet. The kerosene is kept in a cupboard just outside the toilet so it is a little inconvenient. She was fine, she just basically wanted me to turn off the light switch which she couldn’t do as the cupboard door was covering it. 

She disappeared again and I took the kerosene upstairs. I spent a bit of time with YouTube and then after F called I went downstairs. I must have taken a bit longer today as F was back by the time I got downstairs.

Tonight’s dinner was fairly good. I did toaster oven chicken. The store had pre-marinated it, it was supposed to be garlic pepper flavour, but it wasn’t very strong at all. I also made an onion pickle kind of thing, plus there was salad, rice and potato salad. Most of the food disappeared, so that was good.

We ate around 7pm and finished just after 7:30. I took everything back to the kitchen and began clean up. I got done a bit early tonight too. Woot. I listened to a few podcasts about movies and then I was done. I reminded F that we needed to go out tonight and that I would go up and change. 

We went to Mina again, and again, F parked at the wrong door for me. I pointedly walked to the other door, but I doubt that he noticed! He tends not to these days. I had told him on Tuesday that I prefer the other door. He doesn’t listen to me. 

I did the shopping and then got in line to pay for it. After I had paid, I saw F coming into the store. He picked up some alcohol and some snacks for himself and then went wandering all over the store. I knew he was probably looking for me! He just cannot see me when I’m out in public. Finally, he saw me and asked me for money back from what he’d given me for the groceries. He needed it to buy his saké! We walked back out to the car. 

Back at the house, F used the batteries that I had bought tonight for the motion sensor lights. K refuses to turn on lights at night, but I worry that she’ll fall over something that she can’t see. 

I watched Yellowjackets tonight and enjoyed it. The ladies are all at the “cult” place and things are interesting! I’m enjoying the whole thing.

Tonight F was a bit mopey and I tried talking to him. He’s worried about money for a bill that is basically his fault. I tried to give him some advice about it, but I don’t think he will take it. He’s been watching too many videos on his phone. Not bad ones…lest anyone think that, just using cellular too much. 

Anyway, that’s about it for today. I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow, so please come back and find out! Until tomorrow….