November 10, 2021

Wednesday - Rainy, very rainy

I managed to get to bed a little early again last night…not most people early, but ME early, so that was good. I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I was rather surprised that it had gone off. 

I did get up, but then spent the next hour or so on/in bed watching the news and relaxing. It was rather nice. What wasn't so nice was reading on one of my groups that Dean Stockwell had died. He played one of the two characters on Quantum Leap, and I always liked him after that. He was also in one of F's favourite shows, The Langoliers. I'm rather sad about losing him.

 Around 9 I got up and started to get ready to go out. I dressed and then just before 10 went downstairs and grabbed an umbrella. I put on my shoes and got underway. I had worn layers today, but sadly, my shoes weren’t waterproof. I walked carefully and managed to avoid most puddles, but did get a few drops from above. On the way over the bridge, I saw a heron and stopped to take a picture.

The actual picture.

Picture cropped to show heron better.

I got to the bus stop about 10 minutes early, still, I’d rather be there 10 minutes early than 10 minutes late. I got on the bus when it arrived and relaxed for the next while. The bus was rather busy for a change. I’m not sure if it was the weather or what, but there were about 10 or 15 people on the bus.  They all seemed to get off at the mall, and they were all in front of me!

At the mall, I did a little shopping, I went to the post office and checked to see if I’d been paid (I had!) and then I went for lunch. I didn’t have anything too exciting. I chose to have 3 small dishes rather than a “lunch set”. It was nice. 

After lunch, I did a little shopping. I went to Aeon and bought a lot of Christmas cards. In Japan, it is almost impossible to find a box of Christmas cards like we do in Canada. We have to buy the cards individually. So, when you have to send as many cards as I do, it gets expensive. Sadly, I don’t have to send as many cards as I did when I first came over here, but I still send quite a few.

I tried to find something for myself in the ladies section, but I didn’t find anything I really liked today. It’s a bit sad. There wasn’t that much on sale today either. 

I had a bit of a frustrating day as far as shopping went, apart from the Christmas cards. Oh well. No big deal. I’m not really doing a lot of Christmas stuff this year, sad to say.

I met up with my friend around 3 and we spent an hour and a half together.  We went for some coffee and ice cream and a lot of good conversation. After that, she bought a few cards too as she realized that she needed some cards to send too. Then, she had to leave. 

I spent the next 45 minutes to an hour doing a little bit of window shopping. I got a few things in the store for myself, and then I waited for F to finish work. He called to say he was on his way. As usual, he didn’t park in the right area, but it didn’t matter that much!

We found each other and then F wanted to eat in the mall. We went to our usual food court and had bibinba. I had the kimchi pork one I normally have, F had a Taiwanese style one. Mine was great, his was spicy!

We left the mall after our dinner and drove back to Tsuruoka. We bought some groceries in the store. F decided that he’s going to cook tomorrow, he’ll make nabe. I’m quite happy to let him do that. I’m going to do my usual pasta on Friday and hopefully, that will be good too. 

We came back to the house and discovered that K was still up and needed her dinner. Now, lest you think we left her without food, we didn’t. There was a plate of yummy food from Monday in the fridge that she’s been ignoring, leftovers from yesterday, and F even brought her food yesterday from the store so she’d have something she liked on hand. She had eaten a bit of the store food, but not mine. Sigh. 

F made/heated up some of the food for her while I came upstairs. I unpacked some of my bags and relaxed a bit.

Around 9 I put my garbage together up here and gave the bag to F to put his stuff in. Then, I went downstairs to do up the kitchen garbage. When I first went down, K was still up, but she went to bed soon afterwards. Tonight I tossed a couple of jars of food from the fridge that I should have sent packing ages ago and put out a new sponge as well. 

A little while later I took a shower and then came upstairs and watched Grey’s Anatomy. It’s a little odd watching it this year because we are at least a year behind. The hospital is in the middle of the Covid Crisis of course, but one of the subjects tonight was the protests over the murder of George Floyd. I don’t believe they mentioned him by name, but it was obvious who and what they were discussing/protesting. I think they did it rather well.

And, that’s about it for me. It was a good day, all told and it was so nice for me to get out of the house and over to the mall under my own steam. It was lovely to see my friend and spend a little time with someone who actually wanted to talk to me, not watch YouTube all the time!

That’s it for me for tonight. Come back later if you like and hear if the nabe was a good one or not! Until tomorrow….