April 22, 2026

Wednesday - Windy and cooler

I woke up before my first alarm and made a trip downstairs. I came back upstairs to the room and didn’t sort out my clothes like usual. I just went back to bed and slept and watched videos. I got up a bit later and was in the midst of getting dressed when I heard K yelling for me. There was mail for me. I threw on the rest of my clothes and went downstairs. I got two postcards in the mail today. Woot.

I had a quiet day at the house today. I had my breakfast and registered my cards. I just had a lovely quiet afternoon that I really needed.

F had texted me that he is going to take off another day in a couple of weeks to get the results of the MRI that he booked a couple of days. 

I had lunch around 3 and today watched another episode of Lie To Me. It was quite good. I wanted something a bit lighter than the airplane drama. 

I went downstairs around 5:45 and got started on dinner. Really, I just did the dishes at first. F came back a bit after 6 pm and then I took a break and finished the book I was reading. 

Tonight’s meal was salt lemon chicken done in the toaster oven, frozen vegetables, salad, potato salad and some flavoured rice that F made. It was quite good and I got it on the table very close to 7pm so yay me. 

After dinner, I cleared the table, and then did the dishes. I got them all done and then started on the garbage. I did the stuff in the kitchen and the bathroom, then went into the living room. F helped me by gathering some of his mother’s garbage, but I did some of it too. He seemed a bit testy with me. 

After I finished the garbage downstairs I went upstairs to change. I got ready and then I went downstairs. F and I got in the car and drove to Mina Shopping Area. 

I went into the building and did the shopping for the next couple of days. I’m glad about that. I picked up something for F’s and K’s breakfasts and then I checked out and gave F his change.

We came back to the house via the Post Office for a minute to drop off my postcards that I wrote today. Back at the house I unpacked the groceries and F set up the rice cooker. 

I came upstairs, put on my pjs and then relaxed with a bit of YouTube. At 11pm I turned on the TV and watched The Irrational again tonight. It was about a horse that killed someone. 

I watched the Music Break and then turned off the TV. I got stuck into more YouTube and doing my end of day things. I’m about done now and I should try to get myself off to bed. 

I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. Come back later if you like and hear about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 21, 2026

Tuesday - Colder and rainy early on, sunny but cool in the afternoon.

Oh, I forgot to say that yesterday F and I went to the Police Station and checked if the money I found in December was claimed or not. It hadn’t been, so we were able to get it. It isn’t much, but I can put that thousand yen (roughly 10 dollars) to good use!

I woke up a bit late this morning. My alarm went off, but I didn’t really wake up. I finally dragged myself out of bed and downstairs. 

I did do my usual snooze and videofest, and then got up later and dressed. I took my laundry downstairs and started the first load of two. I also brought my breakfast upstairs and had that.

I really had a quiet day today. I received a couple of postcards today from Indonesia and the US, both were quite cool.

Lunch was around 3 pm and I watched another episode of Departure while I ate. It’s a cool show and I’m enjoying it.

F called after 5 pm to say he was on his way back to the house so a bit later I went downstairs and got started on dinner. Tonight it was hamburgers and fries with salad and potato salad. I thought they were good, but K thought her burger was bigger than the one I gave F so she tried to swap burgers with him. If she’d waited until I was out of the room and just switched plates with him, she might have got away with it, but she didn’t. I told F when he came in the room and he made her swap it back!

I did the dishes after dinner as usual and then sat in the kitchen for a couple of minutes until my podcast ended. I went upstairs and relaxed with some YouTube until the new Law & Order show started. It was okay. I haven’t really watched a lot of Law & Order so I’m not sure which version this is. 

Since midnight I’ve been working on my end of day things and blogging. F is still up quite late and he snidely told me he’d be up until 3 as he couldn’t sleep until then. I think he’s hinting that I wake him up when I go to bed. I try not to, but he won’t do any of the things I do to stay asleep. I wear an eye mask and earplugs and I sleep quite well. I’m not sure why he won’t do that. I hope this isn’t going to start a new round of him whining about me going to bed late. 

Anyway, I had better end this here or I’ll be the one whining. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day….until tomorrow….

April 20, 2026

Monday - Warm and sunny

I woke up after my alarm went off this morning. I snoozed until a bit late and then went downstairs. I came back up to the room and then went back to bed for a bit. I watched a few videos, maybe slept a little and then dragged myself out of bed and into some clothes!

F came back from his doctor’s office. He’s going to have an MRI in a couple of weeks. We chatted about where to go for lunch and I suggested going to his favourite place, the Eel place. They have a good lunch special and I know that F likes that place. 

We drove over to the restaurant and got seated at the counter. We had fish! There was sashimi, some fried fish, and a bit of grilled mackerel. We also had miso soup and rice. It was huge, but really good. 

After lunch, we decided to go to the newly renovated Kamo Aquarium. It was a good call as it wasn’t too busy today. They’ve changed a few things and they have more tanks. It looks great really. 

When we left the aquarium we came back into Tsuruoka and went to Gyomu Supa. We picked up quite a few things. F picked up some stuff that he wanted and I picked up some too. I didn’t have as much as I hoped as they were out of some of my favourite things. 

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries I had bought. I went upstairs for a while and relaxed. I think F was a bit upset with me because I told him I had no intention of making dinner. If he springs dinner cooking on me two hours before dinner time on a day when I’ve been walking all over the city and getting tired…it isn’t going to happen. If we’d talked about it in the morning or early afternoon I might have been okay with it. Don’t spring last minute cooking on me darling!

Just before 5 pm we had an earthquake. I was sitting in my room upstairs when the room started to move. There was a big jolt and then some movement of the room. I was sitting up here with my shirt off as I was hot, so I put my shirt back on in case I had to make a run for it! Fortunately, we didn't have any damage here. The earthquake was in the ocean outside Iwate. I've heard from a couple of friends that live there that they are okay. Whew!

F made his mother dinner and then a bit later we went out for our. I suggested a couple of places that I like and F picked one of them. We went to Misono. I had the kara-age platter…I didn’t get rice or miso soup so I was quite happy with that. 

After our dinner, F and I went over to PAL grocery store and did our shopping. I think we did fairly well, we got quite a lot of stuff for our next couple of days of groceries. 

We came back to the house and I put the groceries away. I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit, I put on my pyjamas. After 10:30 I went downstairs and I took a shower. Before the shower though, I did a bit of cleaning in the shower room. It needs more work, but it got started at least. 

I came up to the room and watched a bit of TV. I put on the first episode of the third season of Loot. It was really funny…Henry Winkler was in it too.

F went to bed around midnight and I am still up, but I hope to go to bed soon. Tomorrow I’ll probably do some laundry and of course I’ll be making dinner. Come back later if you like and hear all about my Tuesday. Until tomorrow….

April 19, 2026

 Sunday - Warm & Sunny

I slept in a bit today. I first woke up around 10 I think. I went downstairs then came back to bed for a bit of a longer snooze. I did get a bit of company after a while. F came in the room and we had some snuggle time until I overheated. 

F suggested going to Sakata to a restaurant we like but later on I checked and I discovered it was closed. His second choice was closed too. I suggested that we go to one of the keiten sushi places in Sakata that we don’t have in Tsuruoka, so that’s what we did. 

We drove to Sakata, had to wait about 15 minutes to be seated. After that, we ordered a few types of sushi, some fries (excellent btw) and some other things like duck breast on rice. We both had drinks there, I had an iced cafe latte, F had a yuzu juice. 

When we finished and paid, we left and drove back towards Tsuruoka. I had asked F to stop in at Uniqlo so that I could check if they had the one thing I buy there. They only sell the Mens Tank Tops in summer so I wanted to check. Yattah! They had them in. I had to search for them and there they were. I picked up a few for me and a friend. They are excellent. Cotton, comfortable and nice colours. Today I found light gray, dark gray and navy blue. I bought them and came back to the car. F had stayed in the car as his back was really bad again.

We came back to Tsuruoka and the house. I came upstairs and spent time on my computer. After a bit, F came upstairs and had a nap. He slept rather late.  Around 7pm I suggested he make something for his mother’s dinner, which he did. 

F came upstairs finally and I was wondering if he’d even want to go out as it was rather late in the evening. He said he did, so we ended up at Cocos.

I had the double hamburg plate with a bun and F had the Japanese style kara-age set meal. Mine was fine, he said his was salty. We had a couple of nice drinks from the drink bar. They have decaf coffee so I had a decaf cafe latte that was lovely. 

We finished up around 10 pm so it was too late to go to a grocery store. I suggested checking out a drugstore as they sometimes sell food and have a mini-grocery store there. We found a few things, he got himself some allergy medicine, I got some bran cereal and we found a sandwich for K’s breakfast. She doesn’t know that F is off work tomorrow. He’s going off to the doctor so he won’t have to cook her breakfast. He’s under strict instructions to bring something back for K’s lunch though. 

Back at the house I relaxed with a spot of YouTube before deciding to watch an episode of Cardinal. It was good. It’s a Canadian detective show, albeit one with an American star (but I like him so am not too upset over it). The plot thickened today!

Since midnight I’ve been watching YouTube and getting on with my usual end of day things. I’ll hopefully get to bed soon enough. 

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

April 18, 2026

Saturday - Cloudy and rainy, cooler

I woke up this morning earlier than I planned! I went downstairs and then came back up to the bedroom. I went back to sleep and slept a little longer. 

I got up around 10:30, dressed and got ready for my trip to the doctor’s office. I had had the strangest dream during my snooze that I was back at Le Banc and was trying to sell a customer a big package of nuts for some promotion. I couldn’t ring it in as I couldn’t sign into my till and none of my co-workers would tell me how much the nuts cost so I could just take the guy’s money. It was bizarre. I haven’t thought about the bank in ages!

 F and I left a bit after 11 and made our way to the office. It was the usual hurry up and wait thing, but it wasn’t bad overall. F has been under the weather so he was able to get a CT scan and a blood test and the results today so that was great. 

After the doctor’s visit we decided to go to the Taiwan restaurant for lunch. We drove over and it wasn’t too busy. We went in and ordered fairly quickly. I had the kimchi fried rice which came with two pieces of karage and some egg soup. I liked my lunch, but poor F didn’t like his. He had yakisoba with karage and soup. 

When we finished eating, F said he’d like some coffee so we went to Komeda and after a short wait were seated. I had a decaf coffee, F had real coffee. 

When we finished, we visited the nearby hardware store for some house necessities. I got some liquid hand soap, we got some drain cleaner and some mould killer. We also got some tissues for K.

We came back to the house and I went upstairs and relaxed. F stayed downstairs to wait for his mother. He went off to the grocery store to get some food for his mother and I got ready for going out. I wasn’t sure if F would still be okay with going out and he was. Whew!

We left the house around 5:45 and got to the cinema in time for a change. Yay. I bought a drink and then we bought our tickets. Well, F bought his. I had a free ticket so I used that. We went to see Marty Supreme. It was surprisingly funny but Marty was not the kind of person that I’d consider a hero. The last bit of the film was set in Japan in the 50s so it was cool to see the difference between then and now. Chalamet was good, I see why he was in the running for best actor but the character was horrible. And it was all about Table Tennis. I had a private student who was a table tennis coach at the place he worked and he talked about table tennis non-stop for the 7 years that I taught him. I don’t play table tennis and have even less desire to start now!

After the movie we went to Tsukiya for dinner. It wasn’t the nicest dinner obviously, but it was fine. I had the gyudon with tender crisp vegetables and I enjoyed those. I would have liked more meat though.

We came back to the house and relaxed. F isn’t feeling that great still so he has been sleeping a bit. I watched FBI at 11pm and then YouTube before and after that.

We tried to come up with a few ideas for tomorrow. I’m not sure what we’re going to do. F had Monday off to go and see a doctor. We have a few things planned to do on Monday, but not much for tomorrow!

Come back later if you like and hear all about our Sunday. Until tomorrow….

April 17, 2026

 Friday - Warm and Sunny

Today had a rather sad start. F got up early this morning and forgot to turn off his alarm. I got to do that for him. He came back into the room a few minutes later and didn’t seem very sorry about it. I wasn’t happy!

I did manage to fall back asleep and even overslept through my first couple of alarms. I got up, went downstairs and then came back up to the room and sorted some laundry. Then, it was back to bed for me and I dozed and watched some videos on my phone too.

I dragged myself out of bed rather late today. I think I was a tad tired from yesterday so needed the extra sleep. That’s my excuse anyway!

I got up, dressed and started some laundry. I came upstairs to eat my breakfast. I was able to bring up my laundry and hung it up. I washed my handmade hot mat from the kitchen by hand. I made it a few years ago out of tarn. It’s so thick it will take forever to dry!

I received 3 postcards in the mail today so I had to register them and later on I scanned them and uploaded them to the Postcrossing site. 

I got my lunch today and it was fairly big as I had leftovers from Wednesday and Thursday night. They were good though. During my lunch I watched a detective show that I’m still not sure about! It’s called The Box and it is a bit odd. 

F was late tonight so he didn’t call before I went downstairs. I went down around 6 pm and did dishes and then started putting dinner together.

F called around 6:45 or so and said that he was finished work. He came back to the house and then I kicked things into high gear. Tonight I did garlic toast, sliced chicken breast, salad and pasta with an eggy-creamy peperoncino. It was good, but a little spicier than I had anticipated. I liked it, but I’m not sure that K or F did. 

I did the dishes and listened to part of Kermode and Mayo’s Take. When I was finished I went upstairs and relaxed with a bit of YouTube. 

After 10pm I went downstairs to take a shower. F had planned to take one too, but changed his mind, so I did a bit of cleaning of the sink in the bathroom. When I got that done, I took my shower. I should start cleaning in the shower too. Maybe next time!

I came upstairs and watched another episode of Evil. It was a bit spooky too as it was about Zombies! They weren’t real zombies but I got a bit jumpy.

I watched some YouTube again and worked on my end of day things.

Tomorrow F and I are off to the doctor and then I’m not sure what else. F has to feed his mother in the morning and take her to the Day Service. I’m hoping that he’ll be up to going to see a movie at Machi-kine tomorrow night. If not, I might ask him to drop me off as I’d really like to see a movie.

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

April 16, 2026

Thursday - Warm and Sunny

I woke up early this morning, around 7 am. F had already left which was a bit surprising. He usually doesn’t leave that early for work.

I went downstairs and then came back upstairs. I searched out my clothes for the day and then went back to bed for a bit. I turned off my early alarms and watched a couple of videos before falling asleep again. When my alarm went off later I did get up. I started to dress and went downstairs for a minute or two. 

I came back upstairs, finished getting ready to go out and then left the house. I did see K before I left, but I was running late and I didn’t have time to let her know that I was going out for the day because it takes ages before she understands!

I fast-walked to the bus stop and then had to wait a few minutes for the bus. I got on when it arrived and had a quiet ride down to S-Mall. I got off, mailed my letter and then went into the hotel. I checked that the hotel still had their lunch special and went in. I had the special, it was chicken fricassee with a cream sauce and it was very nice. I had it with bread and a cup of tea with milk. The poor waitress did not seem to understand that I didn’t want lemon in my tea, I just wanted to be able to have milk in it! It worked out so that was great. 

I paid and left when I was finished. I spent a bit of time in the mall and bought a few things both in Daiso and the grocery store before going over to the bus station and waiting for my bus. I wasn’t quite sure that the bus would go where I wanted it too, but a couple of minutes later I saw my destination on the route stops and knew I was okay. 

I went over to the Post Office when I got off my bus and made a deposit into my savings account. I got rid of more coins. Yay.

After that, I walked over to the cinema and had a seat in the lobby for a while. I sent F a text reminding him that he had to pick me up tonight and checking on him. He said he was okay and that it was okay to pick me up.

I went to see Blue Moon, the story about Lorenz Hart of Rodgers and Hart fame. He wrote the words for My Funny Valentine and Blue Moon amongst other songs. Ethan Hawke played Hart and he was good. I can see why he was nominated for an Academy Award. He did a good job. The dialogue of the film, and the music were great, although it was a bit of a downer really. 

After the film, I wrote up a quick review of the film and then had a seat in the lobby for a while. F called me and I told him I’d be in the nearby drugstore when he arrived. 

I walked to the drugstore and had a look around. I started putting things in my basket. I grabbed a new toothbrush and some pasta sauce. I got a message from F that he was in the parking lot so I asked if he wanted to come in. He did and we went around together. He bought a few things and I got a couple more and then we checked out. 

F drove us back to the house. I went upstairs quickly to change so I could get started on dinner. I went down to the kitchen again and got started. Today I did chicken drumsticks, spicy steamed cabbage, mushrooms, and salad. It was nice. We used the rest of the rice from yesterday but it wasn’t very nice. Sigh. 

After dinner I did the dishes and it took a while. It was after 9pm before I finished. I changed again and a few minutes later F and I drove over to the grocery store and I went in. I did some shopping and got food for tomorrow for F and K’s breakfast and for my lunch. I also got something for dinner as well. I checked out and then came back to the car.

F drove us back to the house and he picked his breakfast for tomorrow. After I put away the groceries I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit. 

At 11 I watched The Rainmaker on WOWOW and then turned off the TV. F was asleep for a while and then got up for a bit. I think he’s sleeping again. His back is really bothering him right now and there isn’t much I can do about it. 

I had a really good time going out today. While the movie wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen, it was good and it was just nice to go out and walk around the mall and catch buses!

I’m back to my usual staying at the house personality again tomorrow. I might do some exciting laundry or I might find something else exciting to do. Come back later if you like and find out!

Until tomorrow….