December 31, 2020

Thursday - Cold and snowy

We slept in this morning, although I did rustle myself out of bed around 10 to go downstairs. While I was there, I turned on the heater in the kitchen and set it to start working in an hour. I did go back to bed for a couple more hours, but actually got up and dressed then.

I went downstairs and made brunch for us all. It was just pancakes and bacon, made with lovely pancake mix from Costco, and a nice little salad of local baby leaf lettuces, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. I also made some coffee that wasn’t great, but also wasn’t terrible. I made all the mix into pancakes so we can even have some tomorrow if we like!

After the clean up, which I’m happy to say F helped with, we went out to pick up a few things. We first went to the liquor shop and got a bottle for my New Year, some snacks and also some alfredo sauce.  

We hit up the grocery store next for things for dinner. F was in charge of that, so he did most of the shopping. 

We came back to the house and F got into action immediately. I offered to help him, but he didn’t want me to, so I went upstairs and relaxed.  When he called me down, he was already at the table with his mother, but there were no drinks on the table, no cheese that he’d asked me to put out, and basically I had to do all that running around to put it out.

The first soba wasn’t great. Despite it being really expensive stuff, it had all broken and there were big knots of it in the bowl. F also served it with a cold dipping sauce which is not my favourite style. It was okay, but a bit meh. As usual, F had given me far too many noodles. The bowl was overflowing. I kept asking him about things that he’d bought so he had to run to the kitchen to put some of them out!

Next thing I knew, he presented us all with another type of soba with moroheya in it…it was green and hot, with chicken. Now we’re talking. I far preferred this stuff. 

When we finished, I did most of the table clearing. I was going to wash the dishes too, but F started. He got about half done and then disappeared. No word, nothing. He just left the kitchen. 

I finished drying the dishes that were already done and then tried to phone him to see where he was. No answer. I checked the toilet, but there was no light. I was quite ticked off at this stage. I thought he probably bugged off to bed because he had a stomach ache all day. I ended up doing the rest of the dishes and then cleaning the stove which was in a horrendous mess. I’d already cleaned it after I cooked this am, so wasn’t happy about having to do it again.

I finally finished and thought I’d say goodnight to K. I poked my head in the living room and there was F watching kickboxing or whatever martial art garbage was on TV. He’d all of a sudden decided to deliver a clipboard to the neighbour and then decided that he didn’t have to do anything else in the kitchen. I was royally annoyed. 

I went upstairs and spent some time amusing myself on my computer. F didn’t come back up so I decided I’d take a shower. I took my stuff down and told him that was what I was going to do. He asked me to leave on the water heater afterwards for him.

I showered and then went back upstairs. He was upstairs by now and asked if I’d like to go to the shrine. It wasn’t midnight yet and my hair was still wet, so the answer was not yet. He took his shower and he kept asking me. 

After midnight, I changed into going out in the snow clothes and we walked over to the shrine. There was nobody around and the streets were quiet. I don’t think one car even passed us and we were walking on a usually busy road. There was nobody at the shrine so we did our stuff and then left. As we were leaving, another couple came in and they were the only people we saw. Everyone was masked, so it wasn’t a scary thing!

We came back to the house and got our drinks out. I was rather annoyed because F kept telling me how to make my drink and I kept telling him that the bottle said I could drink it straight. I probably could, but I wanted to mix it. He was so annoying I almost gave him the bottle back to get it refunded, but I didn’t. 

We had a not very friendly drink and snack upstairs. F went to bed almost immediately afterwards and I am still up of course. We have no plans for tomorrow. Usually we go to Yamagata on the first and stay in a hotel, then go to Costco on the second, but F didn’t want to do that this year. It sucks to be honest, but it is really cold and it’s probably not a good idea to leave his mother alone right now.

So that was my very downbeat New Years Eve. I hope that 2021 will be better for everyone. Come back later if you want to, and hear all about the first day of the year. Until tomorrow….