May 15, 2026

Friday - Warm and Sunny, muggy in the am

I woke up before F left this morning. He was in the room dressing when I woke up. I’m not sure why I woke up, but I did. I went downstairs and then came back to the room. F left and I went back to bed!

I got up a few hours later and dressed. I went downstairs and then came back up to the room. I sorted out my laundry and then took it downstairs and started the washing machine. I grabbed my breakfast and brought it back upstairs.

I ate my breakfast, hung up my laundry and then decided that I’d write a couple of postcards for Postcrossing. I got them ready before lunch.

I went downstairs to make my lunch and brought that upstairs. I watched an episode of Elsbeth while I ate, it was the episode with Stephen Colbert in it and it was rather funny. 

I watched a bit of the news and then waited for F to call. He called after 5 and said he’d stop at a store to get some food for his mother’s breakfast. 

I went downstairs to start on dinner. It was a simple dinner tonight and everything went well. When F arrived I asked him to pick the pasta sauce and he chose carbonara. No worries. He went upstairs to relax and I got into the cooking thing. Tonight we had pasta with carbonara sauce, ham, salad and after F’s ice cream that he bought for us.  It was all good.

I did the dishes after dinner and then went upstairs.  I watched a bit of YouTube and then decided I’d watch something on streaming. I watched an episode of The Boys and after that the last episode of The Big Door Prize. I’m sad that it was the last episode as I feel there should have been more story. I liked the characters and want to know what else happened to them!

I turned off the TV after midnight and then started doing my end of day things. I’m going to head to bed soon. It wasn’t a terribly long day, but I’m a bit tired and need some sleep!

I hope that we’ll have a good day tomorrow but I can’t be sure. Come back later and find out. Until tomorrow….

May 14, 2026

Thursday - Cloudy and cooler

I woke up after F left this morning, but quite a while before my alarm was due to go off. I came back upstairs and went back to bed and had a snooze. I did get up a bit earlier than yesterday. Yay. 

I went downstairs after dressing and checked the mail. After that, I measured out my yogurt and brought it upstairs. I had breakfast and while I was watching YouTube I got a reminder that there was a book club meeting online later in the afternoon. Ooh. I’d forgotten!

I was expecting a delivery today and I kept hearing the van outside. It was never there!

I joined my Book Club and it was nice. There weren’t too many people there, so it was a nice size. I talked about what I am reading now, what I just finished and got a talking to by the lead for putting myself down for reading a couple of romances! I know she’s right, but I still feel that I’m wasting my degree by not reading classics and good stuff.  However, to be fair to myself, I have read 1984 this year and I’m also reading an Ondaatje when I go to the doctor’s office. And, if the books I read annoy me too much, I stop reading them! 

I had to leave Book Club a bit early as I needed to eat lunch! I went downstairs and made my lunch, then brought it back to the room to eat. I watched an episode of Matlock and enjoyed that too. 

During my lunch time the delivery did arrive so I made a mad dash downstairs and actually received my box. Yay. I brought it upstairs and continued with my lunch!

F called after 5 and said he was on his way back. I went downstairs a bit later but he was here before I got started on the dishes! The thing was, during washing the dishes, I realized that there was no more hot water. I texted him and asked if he’d refilled the tank’s kerosene in a while. He hadn’t. He came back downstairs and filled up the tank for me. Yay. 

Tonight I made chicken drumsticks in the air fryer, cucumber pickle stuff and I also made some mushroom fried rice. That meant that dinner was rather late tonight. Oh dear. F came downstairs before I called him, probably wondering what was wrong. I asked him to take the plates out to the table and he didn’t understand me. Did he really not understand or was he trying to get out of doing anything to help? I haven’t figured it out yet.

We also had regular rice and some salad. Dinner was quite good and we all ate quite a bit.

I did the dishes afterwards. There were quite a lot so it took me ages tonight. I finally got it done and it was around 9 pm.  I talked to F and told him that I thought we would have to go to MaxValu as I wouldn’t be able to go to Mina in time to do a proper shop. He didn’t understand at first. I think he wasn’t really listening. He also wasn’t feeling that great.

I got changed and then F had to run upstairs and get his wallet! We finally left for MaxValu and I went inside and did the shopping. F stayed in the car, as I said, he didn’t feel that well tonight. Poor thing.

We came back to the house when I finished and I put away the groceries. I headed upstairs and at 11pm I watched The Rainmaker. I quite like this show. I think it might be ending next week though. Or soon. 

That’s about it for me for today. Tomorrow I’ll be doing some laundry and we’ll see what else I can get up to. 

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

May 13, 2026

Wednesday - Hot and Sunny

I woke up before my alarm this morning, F had already left for work. I went downstairs, and then came back upstairs to the room. I basically went back to sleep and slept for a lot longer. I was able to get up yesterday quite early, but today I did not!

I got up finally, dressed, and went downstairs. I grabbed my breakfast and then took it upstairs to eat. I had a quiet morning and afternoon. I didn’t get any of the things I was hoping to do today, but I didn’t expect to really.

I went downstairs early to get my lunch. I had most of my usual things, but I didn’t eat my lunch. I also didn’t watch anything on TV during my lunch. I was doing something on my computer and didn’t want to split my focus!

F phoned after 5 to say he was on his way back and then a bit later I made my way downstairs to the kitchen. Tonight I was quite busy in the kitchen. I made the cucumber pickle, first time in ages, then I worked on the main dish. I couldn’t get my favourite stir-fry mix last night so F and I picked out another one. We got one that said to use hacksai and pork. Anyway, that’s what I made tonight. It was okay. I didn’t think it had a lot of flavour. It was nice and easy to make, but honestly, I probably wouldn’t make it again unless I can’t get the good mix. We also had some steamed broccoli and salad and rice. It was a decent dinner.

I did the dishes and listened to my podcasts. When I finished with the dishes I did up the garbage. It was a bit annoying when I got to K’s stuff…she doesn’t sort it out and she doesn’t bag up her tissues. Yuck. F gave me a hand with her stuff from the bedroom so that was good of him. 

I headed upstairs and watched a bit of YouTube while I relaxed. After 10 I went downstairs and took a shower. I forgot to turn up the water heater in the kitchen, so the shower I took wasn’t very warm at all. It wasn’t freezing and I’m glad it wasn’t winter, but it wasn’t the warmest one I’ve ever taken! It was a bit funny really.

I went back upstairs and watched The Irrational. Tonight’s mystery was about astronauts. It was fine really. After midnight, the TV went off and I went back to YouTube and my end of day stuff.

I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. I should write some postcards, a letter to my bestie and more importantly, my column. Yikes. Come back later if you like and hear if I get any of it done! Until tomorrow….

May 12, 2026

Tuesday - Hot and sunny

Today was a day. I’m tired as heck, the sun, heat and the walking that I did, plus the slightly less amount of sleep from last night means that I’m a bit tired. 

I woke up around 5:30 or so. F was sitting at the bottom of the bed, playing with his phone. I don’t know why. I went back to sleep. 

I had set my alarm for 7:15 but in all honesty, I woke up before that. I stayed in bed until my alarm went off and got up and said goodbye to F. He left before 7:30. I got dressed, checked my email quickly and then went downstairs. I was in the genkan about to put on my shoes when I noticed the time. It was 8:17 and my bus was at 8:20. Yikes. I put on my shoes, locked the door behind me and then did a fast-walk to the bus stop. I got there, but the bus didn’t come. I thought that I might have missed it, but I hadn’t seen the bus go by. I decided that maybe I’d catch the bus going in the other way…I might be late for my train, but there would be one a bit later. I was about to cross the road to the other stop when I saw my bus coming towards me. It was about 12 minutes late. The norm is about 5-7 minutes so 12 seemed a bit much.

I rode the bus to the station. Since the bus was late, I had less time in the station. I bought my ticket then went into the convenience store and bought a sandwich, water and an onigiri. After that, I made my way over to the platform and got on the train a couple of minutes later.

I had a lovely ride over to Sakata. I haven’t been on this train in years, and I missed it. I used to ride the train to Sakata twice a week for work and I always enjoyed the scenery. In Sakata, I got off the train and had a washroom break. I ended up missing the bus that I planned to catch, but Google Maps told me that I could catch the next one in about 10 minutes. It worked out for me as the bus deposited me in a place I knew, so it was easy to make my way over to the Immigration Office.

When I arrived, I freshened up as I was a tad sweaty, then went into the office. I was the only person there and was basically done in about 25 minutes or less. I have my new Zairyu card. Yay! Unfortunately the picture is horrible but I refused to try and have my picture taken again so I’ll deal with it!

I texted my Sakata friend to let her know that I was finished and she texted me to say that she was really busy for a while. I let her know that I would walk back to the City Hall and if there was a coffee shop along the way I’d chill out for a while. Well, there wasn’t, but there was a nice chill out space in the city hall, so I grabbed a table and an iced cocoa and relaxed and read a bit on my phone. There was a cafe section and I got myself an iced tea and a couple of sweet treats. 

My friend let me know that she was free for a bit, so she picked me up at the parking lot and we went to a bakery near the big park. The bakery is next to the building that was used in the movie Departures (Okuribito). I grabbed some bready things and then ordered myself a katsu sand, a tonkatsu sandwich. It was big! I ate too much, even though things were amazing. I actually had to have the waitress wrap one of my goodies as I couldn’t eat anymore!

My friend had to leave as she had to go back to work. She did offer to drive me to Mikawa later in the day, but we discovered that there would be a bus in about 45 minutes so I told her I’d take that instead. She dropped me back at City Hall. I stayed inside for a few minutes before making my way over to the bus stop. The bus was on time and I boarded and rode it all the way to the Mikawa Mall.

At the mall, I didn’t do too much. I was tired so decided to have another drink. I went to the Food Boat Cafe (mall kiosk) and had an iced tea with boba. I nursed that for a while and it was very nice. 

I did a very little shopping after that. I got a few things from the grocery store and then went over to Seria, a one hundred yen shop. I got another eye mask for myself. I really like the one I’m using now, but it lets the light in. I’m not sure what the point of that it. I like the style and I like the feel of it, it goes down quite low on my cheeks, but it isn’t light blocking at all. 

I decided I’d go to Doutor and have a drink and relax more. I did that. I didn’t feel too bad about taking up a nice table as they weren’t busy. I drank my iced rooibos and surfed Facebook on my phone. F phoned me after he finished work and I invited him for a drink. When he arrived about 15 minutes later he didn’t want a drink. He wanted an ice cream! I bought him one and I got another drink, this one a decaf latte. It was very nice. He did ask if I wanted to go out for dinner, but I reminded him that I had bought food for dinner tonight. It was only store pizzas and salad, but it wouldn’t take too long to get on the table. 

We drove back to Tsuruoka and went in the house. I changed my clothes and then went downstairs to get dinner on the table. It didn’t take too long. We had a smallish teriyaki chicken pizza and a quatre fromage pizza, plus salad and some kabocha salad. Dinner was good, but F was still hungry afterwards. He had some noodles later!

After I finished the dishes, F and I left the house and went to the grocery store. I had decided I’d do my stir-fry with seaweed but they didn’t have any of the seasoning packets left. NO! I was so sad. I got another packet and I’m going to try that instead. We got our food for the next couple of days and paid and left. 

We hit up a drugstore on the way back to the house. We were running low on toilet paper [I NEVER want to get too low on TP since it is one of the first things that disappears from the stores in the event of an earthquake!] and dishwashing liquid. We got a few things and then checked out.

We came back to the house and F made some rice for tomorrow night. I put the groceries away and then went upstairs. I watched Law & Order at 11pm and then turned off the TV. I’ve watched a little bit of YouTube and I’m just winding down so I can get to bed soon. I probably won’t be getting up early tomorrow. I’m quite tired. I walked about 8 times the amount I usually do and I feel good…but my feet are a tad sore!

Anyway, that was my day. It was good. I got to see my friend, renew my Alien Registration Card, and ride buses and trains and walk in the sunshine. 

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

May 11, 2026

Monday - Cloudy then sunny and warm

I woke up for the first time before my alarm and made a trip downstairs. I came back up to the room and went back to sleep after I watched a couple of videos. I woke up quite late, having slept through most of my alarms. Oops.

I got up, dressed and went downstairs. I sorted out my laundry and then did a couple of loads, and hung them up in my room to dry. I did the normal Monday things that I usually do like changing the towels in the kitchen and bathroom, backing up my computer and I also restocked the toilet room’s TP. 

I had lunch a bit after 3 pm. Today I watched an episode of One Mississippi. I quite like that show. 

F called after 5:25 or so and said he was on his way back. I went downstairs to start dinner around 6 pm. Today I did Toaster Oven Chicken, but I used my air fryer! I liked it much better this way. We had it with salad and a spinach/corn/bacon mix that I bought at a drugstore a few weeks ago. I liked it. Neither K nor F had much food today, I was a bit sad. Oh well. 

After dinner, I did the dishes and then went upstairs and got ready for tomorrow. I put my clothes together and packed my back pack too. 

I went downstairs after 10 pm and took a shower. When I came back upstairs I watched an episode of Evil. It was a very weird one, but when aren’t they? I also noticed that WOWOW on Demand has more episodes of Elsbeth and Matlock available so I’ll have to check them out. Woot. 

F is mostly sleeping and I’m off to bed right away too. I have to get up around 7:30 tomorrow morning to catch my bus at 8:20. I’m off to Sakata tomorrow to hopefully renew my registration card at the Immigration Office. 

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

May 10, 2026

Sunday - Warm and Sunny

I woke up late today, but it is Sunday! I got up a lot later than I planned and had to scramble a bit. I got dressed and then I had some breakfast. I made myself my yogurt and cereal and then the sandwiches I bought yesterday. 

At one pm, F and I and K assembled in the living room, but the social worker didn’t come! At 10 past F called her to see where she was and she thought the meeting was at 1:30 Oh dear. F told me that it was 1pm, but he may have made a mistake. Nonetheless, she showed up a few minutes later and we had the meeting. F discussed a few things with the social worker about his mother and made a bit of a game plan. We made arrangements for next month’s visit and off she went. 

F and I went out to the Chido Museum and renewed my membership. After that, we went into the exhibit room and had a look. It was all about Geta, the old style Japanese sandal usually made of wood. I had no idea there was so much variation of geta. We had a good look at the exhibit and really enjoyed it. 

This was a replica of a geta shop set up.

One group of fancy geta in the shop.

My favourite garden.

After we left, we decided to go and have something to drink. I suggested Doutor and F was okay with that, but when he turned into the Starbucks parking area I was a little annoyed!He said Doutor and thought Starbucks. Oh well. We went in and F had his usual frappucino and I had something new, and iced passion tea. It didn’t have caffeine. It was nice, but a bit sour. It dried out the back of my throat.

Once we left the coffee shop, I asked F if he wanted to take his mother out for dinner, seeing as how it is Mother’s Day today. He thought it was a good idea, except he wanted to take her for soba. He makes soba and other noodles for her all the time so I thought he was nuts, but whatever. We went back to the house and he cleaned out the back of the car, with my help! 

He told his mother we were going to take her out so she got dressed. F even called the restaurant to make a reservation. We arrived and went in. At first, F was planning a lower cost meal for himself and his mother, so I decided I’d have a cheaper dish than the one I wanted. Then, he changed his mind and ordered a set for both of them, and I got a dish that was good, but not what I really wanted. Sigh. 

F asked me if I wanted to take his mother out to the grocery store with us but the answer was no! Besides, I had left our meat trays back at the house to take to the grocery store’s recycling. We took K back to the house and then we went to the store.

F didn’t feel great so he stayed in the car and I went inside. I did the shopping and it was so nice to have some time alone! I’m going to do chicken for dinner tomorrow night and then pizza from the store on Tuesday.

I came back from the store, put away the groceries and then watched a bit of YouTube. Finally I decided that I wanted to watch a movie. I put on Flora and Son from Apple TV and really enjoyed it. It was directed and written I think by John Carney who did a few of my favourite movies with music (like Sing Street, Begin Again and Once). I liked it a lot.

This could be a busy week ahead as I have to go to Sakata on Tuesday. I need to go to the Immigration Office and renew one of the cards I have to have in Japan. Sigh. If she’s able to meet, I’ll see one of my friends too so I’ll look forward to that. 

Come back later and hear all about my Monday. Until tomorrow….

May 9, 2026

Saturday - Sunny but cooler and very windy

I went downstairs and then went back to bed as usual this morning. After that, I snoozed for a couple of hours. When I got up, I took care of a personal chore that I put off for far too long, then F was all about “Can we go for lunch now?!” Yes, we can. 

I dressed and then we went out to Tenkane again. This morning, we both had sashimi which came on a bowl of rice and had some bamboo miso soup. It was pretty good. The sashimi was nice too.

After lunch, I asked that we go to a clothing store as I was hoping to buy new socks. My feet are hard on socks and I’ve been making big holes in them lately. F needed some stuff too, he needed a new belt and a pair of suspenders! I also got a new chair cushion for my desk chair. It’s so uncomfortable at times. 

When we finished in the shop we went to the nearby hardware store. F got a plant pot of carnations for his mother for tomorrow (mother’s day) and looked at fish. From there, we decided to have a drink.

We headed to Cafe B-Flat for a drink. F did one of his weird things where he just took every wrong turn that he could! I was giving him directions at the end to get him back on track. We had a drink each and also a piece of mango shortcake. That was very nice. My drink was an iced cafe latte. It wasn’t decaf but it was good. F just had blend coffee. 

Although time was getting a bit short, F and I headed over to DCM so he could get some car shampoo. While he was there, he also picked up some tomato plants. K is so in love with mini-tomatoes and they cost more than you’d expect in summer.

Finally, we went back to the house. I went upstairs and F waited downstairs for his mother. Around 6 pm F made dinner for her and then we talked about where to go. I came up with the idea of going to Foodever again. We haven’t been there in ages and I was hoping that the newish Indonesian restaurant would be open. 

We drove to Marica and F parked the car. We went downstairs to the restaurants  and there was really only one open, so we went there. I had promised F that if the prices were too high we could leave, but honestly, they weren’t bad. F had a ginger pork steak which came with rice, salad and soup…I had pork and mixed herbs pasta in an oil sauce. It was very nice, but I did feel that F got a lot more food than I did!

Next up for us, we went to a drugstore to use the washrooms…for some reason, the washrooms at Foodever aren’t open and they were directing people to another building! Say what?! F bought some tape at the drugstore, then we went on to the grocery store.

We bought a few things at the grocery store and then came back to the house. I unpacked the groceries and I went upstairs. I got ready to take a shower and then went back downstairs with my towel. 

I came back to the room and then watched tonight’s episode of FBI. I thought it was a good one, but a bit sad. It was about a clinic which stole people’s babies and adopted them out for a fee. They told the people the babies died. Sad as I said.

Since midnight I’ve been doing my end of day computer things and getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow we have the social worker in charge of K in the early afternoon, then F and I will have to get in our groceries for the coming week. I’m hoping that we will be able to do something else fun but we’ll see. 

That’s about it for me for today. I’m really tired now so I’m off. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….