May 2, 2025

Friday - Rainy and cloudy

I went to bed at my usual time last night and unfortunately woke F up. Sigh. I don’t know if he went back to sleep or not.

This morning F woke me up when he got up this morning. He tried to talk to me but I wasn’t having it! I managed to sleep for a bit longer, but ended up waking up before my first alarm went off.

I went back for a second snooze after my trip downstairs. I got up a little after 10. I dressed myself and did a few things in the room. I got my stuff ready to go out and checked that I had everything. I ate my breakfast and a little after 11:20, I headed downstairs. 

I went to the bus stop, I left the house about 11:30 and walked to the bus stop. I checked the app and it said the bus was on time. Sure enough, I looked down the road, and there it was! I boarded and found a seat. At first I was the only person on the bus, but over the route, a few more people boarded. I was surprised that two people got on with suitcases! I got off at the stop near the main post office. 

I decided I did have time to go to the post office before the movie, so I went in and deposited 50 yen in one yen coins. I chose the one yen coins in case I didn’t have time to go to the post office. They are very light coins. That done, I headed over to the cinema.

I went to Tsuruoka Machinaka-Kinema and went to see a film called Drive in Manhattan. That was the Japanese title. In the US it was called Daddio! It was a bit meh. It was basically a two-hander with Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn. He’s a taxi driver who is taking Johnson from the airport to her apartment. It was okay but had a few things that I didn’t like much. 

After the movie, I made a quick trip to the nearby drugstore and got myself a new pair of chopsticks and a few other things. I also picked up a couple of things for my lunch. I checked out and then I went back to the bus stop. Again, my timing was great and I only had to wait a couple of minutes in the rain for my bus. 

The bus was empty when I got on but a woman got on at the next stop. She got off before I did, but there was no one else on the bus when I got off. I walked back to the house and came upstairs. 

I ate the stuff I bought and decided that I might as well get it over. I watched the last episode of The Walking Dead. It was both good and sad. I probably won’t have the chance to watch the spin off shows. I did see a bit of the Daryl Dixon one when I was in Canada a couple of years ago and I liked what I saw. 

A bit after 5 F called me to say he was on his way back from work. He was going to stop in at a grocery store so that he could get a nice bento for K. He arrived a bit later and heated up the bento for her, and he gave her that and some miso soup. I gave her a drink and then we left her!

We walked to a yakitori shop near the hospital near our house. It took 15-20 minutes and it was raining and a bit miserable. We arrived and went in. I knew that we were sitting on stools, so I hung up my coat by the door and left my umbrella there. I really had to grab F to make him do the same! He gets so distracted!

We had a lovely and expensive meal of mostly yakitori. F and I had a few drinks, mine were mostly oolong tea, although I did have a drink. We had both pork and chicken skewers and some side dishes. They were good. We did find some of the food to be a bit salty, but it was good.

We took a taxi back to the house. We could have walked, but honestly, I was a little afraid that F had drunk a bit too much and might fall or something. He said he wouldn’t have, and he probably wouldn’t have, but I thought why risk it?

Back at the house we came upstairs. I decided that I would take a shower, so I did. I was a bit late going downstairs to do that, but I got it done. 

When I came back to the room, I decided to watch something short so I watched the second episode of The Studio. It was funny and cool to see so many Canadians on the screen at once!

The rest of the time I’ve been working on this blog or doing my end of day things. It’s been a nice quiet evening. 

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

April 30, 2025

Wednesday - Sunny but cool, some cloud too. 

I woke up this morning around 6:30 and had to make a trip downstairs. F was awake and I’m not completely sure that he didn’t have something to do with my waking up. I came back to bed and he got up to get ready for work. I told him to put his light on in the room as he was looking for something for himself that he couldn’t see in the dark. 

He left and I went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later and managed to drag myself out of bed. I dressed and went downstairs, then prepared my breakfast and brought it back upstairs. I watched a bit of YouTube while I did that.

I had a quiet afternoon and didn’t do too much. Around 2:45 I went downstairs and made my lunch. I brought it back to the room and watched another episode of Matlock while I ate my lunch. I’ve been enjoying it. I like Kathy Bates a lot of course.

F called me around 5:30 and asked if I wanted some ice cream. I thought it might be a good idea to have some for dessert at dinner. We haven’t had a dessert for a few weeks. F was going shopping anyway.

I went downstairs a bit later and got started on dinner. I had to do my day’s dishes first. One sad thing, I can’t find my chopstick yet. I’ve looked everywhere, except where it actually is!  

Tonight I made another pork stir-fry with cabbage and nira. It was good, but I didn’t get things done until quite late. Dinner was good, but no one wanted seconds. I liked it a lot and I’ll have some leftovers tomorrow, probably! We had salad, the stir-fry, potato salad and rice.

I did the dishes and then I did the garbage up in the kitchen. F helped me with K’s garbage in the living room, so that was good. 

I went upstairs and then prepared the garbage upstairs. I gave F my bag and he filled it up with his stuff. He took it downstairs and probably outside too. 

I went downstairs and took a shower a little later and then came back to the room and watched The Irrational again. I enjoyed it today as it was set in Vegas! I don’t think it really was somehow, but I did see a few places I had seen before.

I turned off the TV near midnight and then got to work on my internet stuff. I watched a few YouTube videos and a few minutes ago got an SOS from F. His computer is doing something really strange. He’s been trying to sign in, but it won’t let him. I suggested that he shouldn’t try and do much tonight, leave it for a time when he isn’t tired, but of course, he didn’t listen! I think he finally did call it quits, but he didn’t want to. I’ll do some research tomorrow if I can for him.

And that’s about it for me. Tomorrow I should do some laundry and maybe start on my column. Maybe! Come back later if you like and read all about my day. Until tomorrow…. 

April 29, 2025

Tuesday - Cloudy and rainy

I woke up a bit late this morning. F went downstairs to make breakfast for his mother. I stayed in bed for a while, but went downstairs. I came back up to the room and had a longer snooze, but did get myself up and dressed.

F came upstairs and asked where I wanted to go for lunch. He was a bit annoying about it again. I asked what he wanted and he told me not to ask him so I listed off three restaurants that I’d be happy to have lunch at. He picked one and a few minutes later, we set off. Unfortunately, it was really busy today and we couldn’t get a table at all. It would have been at least a 30 minute wait they said. We left.

I suggested another nearby place, but it was closed today, so we couldn’t go there. We ended up at one of the Indian places in town. We parked and went in. F ordered the daily special curry which was a chicken curry in a tomato sauce. It had red kidney beans in it too. That was interesting. I had the keema curry with spinach sauce. I liked it but it was nothing special. We had our curry medium heat, F said his was a bit too hot, mine wasn’t hot enough! We also ordered samosas today as I was wanting F to try them. They were very nice and F did enjoy his. Lunch was quite nice. We got one extra naan and shared it as we weren’t quite done with our curries. 

After lunch, we drove over to Daiya 8 (I think!) the newish hardware store in town. F wanted to get some new plants. He had bought a few on Monday too. He got some seeds too and I got some toilet paper for the house!

We went back to the house and spent some time there. F planted the plants and the seeds outside. It was a rainy day so it was a good start to most of them. 

After he was done and he had a short rest, we drove over to Komeda Coffee. On the way, F asked if we could go to a convenience store to get an adapter for his phone. We popped in and also picked up a few things for the house. I got some more cereal and some pasta sauce. We then headed over the street to Komeda Coffee. We got in and ordered our decaf coffee. We had a nice quiet time in the restaurant. The coffee was good, the wifi was just okay today, and we got to relax.

Soon enough we had to leave and do our shopping. We drove over to Mina and I went in. I got food for the next couple of days. I’m going to be making something with Nira again tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be good! 

We came back to the house and I put away my groceries. I asked F if he needed help for dinner and he said he didn’t. I went upstairs and watched a little YouTube and enjoyed myself! F called me downstairs and as usual, I helped him a little by bringing out the drinks. Somehow one of my chopsticks has disappeared, which is really sad. They were special souvenirs which I spent a bit too much money on when I was away with friends a few years ago. I still have one, but until the other shows up, I can’t use it. Sigh.

F’s nabe today was pretty good. I still had to add some Worchestershire sauce to mine, but I did enjoy it. There was even enough leftover for K to have some for lunch tomorrow. I helped clear the table after dinner, but I left the dishes to F. He he he. I went upstairs and relaxed with more YouTube!

F came up a bit later and he relaxed. I watched YouTube up until 11pm when I watched FBI: International. It was a pretty good episode. 

After midnight I turned off the TV of course and watched a bunch more YouTube and got started on my blogging. I’m done now!

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

April 28, 2025

Monday - Cloudy, sunny and warmish

When I went to bed last night, F woke up. Sigh. I don’t think he went back to sleep at all. I woke up around 7 am this morning and F was gone.

I went downstairs and then came back to bed. I watched videos on my phone for a while and fell asleep too. My alarms started going off around 9:30 but I was still half asleep. My 10 am alarm went off and then F came in the room. He was just on a flying visit and left a couple of minutes later. I got up and dressed myself. 

I went downstairs to pick up my breakfast and brought it back to the room. I ate it and watched some YouTube videos too. I was basically relaxing.

I remembered I wanted to do some laundry, so I took a load downstairs and threw it in the washing machine. When it was done I brought it upstairs and hung it up.

I went downstairs and got my lunch stuff and came up to the room to eat. I watched an episode of Major Crimes too. It was quite a good one.  

F texted me around 5 pm and asked if I’d like to go for yakitori tonight. I wouldn’t mind but we’d already bought food for dinner and I was on my way downstairs to cook it. We’ve sort of decided to try on Friday night if the place is open!

I went downstairs a bit before 6 and got a start on dinner. F came back during the time I was doing dishes and said that he’d plant some pansies that he had just bought. So, he did that!

I got dinner on the table a little after 7pm. We had chicken wings, roasted asparagus, salad and potato salad. Things were mostly good. The chicken wings were a little salty unfortunately. The recipe I used called for salt and lemon pepper. Unfortunately, the lemon pepper I used had salt in it as the first ingredient. Darn! The roasted asparagus was good and I wished that I had bought more of it. 

I did the dishes after dinner and listened to my podcasts. I got everything washed and put away then went upstairs. I got set to relax, but realized I’d left my cup downstairs so I couldn’t have my tea that I wanted. I started the waterpot and then went downstairs to get my cup. I found F in the kitchen making himself yakisoba. Sigh. Like he didn’t just have a nice meal already. Hmm. 

I watched a bit of YouTube and then went downstairs to take a shower. 

When I came back upstairs I wanted to watch something on the Fire Stick and tonight chose Gotham. It was a good episode with a lot of interesting characters. This was the second episode (and likely the last) with Julian Sands. It was a little bittersweet. I always liked him, even when he played the baddie. I also finished the row I was working on my sweater. I think I just have a few more to go. 

I turned off the TV and got started with my blogging and internet stuff. And here you are!

I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. It’s a national holiday and F is going to make dinner in the evening! Yay for that. 

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

April 27, 2025

Sunday - Warm and sunny, then cloudy

I slept in quite late this morning. It was very nice. I went downstairs early, then came back upstairs and went to bed again. F came up later and we talked about lunch. Today he suggested going for yakiniku and that is something that I like, so we did it!

We went to Togashi and had one of their lunch sets. We got rice, soup, salad and meat. We added on a drink each and also our favourite condiments and the free dessert!  When we left, we made a quick pitstop into the electric shop and then drove to Atsumi Onsen. F wanted to see about taking my sister and her hubby to the footbaths in the town. We drove and went through some mammoth tunnels…honestly, one was over 6km long! I am not sure if it is worth going all the way there. I think that we could possibly find a closer footbath that is better!

We came back to Tsuruoka and to the house. We had a meeting with K’s social worker. We cleared off the table and tidied up…the kinds of things we do when company is coming! She arrived and we had a good discussion. We asked her to email something to me later as I am the person here with the printer. (She did!)

A little later, F and I went out for ice cream! There’s a place on the other side of the park that sells ice cream and we’ve never been. Today we went over there and had some. It was very nice. The inside of the place is very cool. It’s part shop, part bar and part ice cream parlour!  I’m not sure if we’ll be back, but it was fun to visit.

After this, we went grocery shopping. I asked F to make dinner on Tuesday since it is a national holiday, and he said he will. Yay. He got stuff for his dinner, I got stuff for Monday night which I’m cooking. It should go well I hope. 

We came back to the house and unpacked the groceries. After we finished we came upstairs and relaxed for a bit. Around 6 F went downstairs to give his mother her bento, only to find that she had already helped herself to it. That’s fine!

A little later, we decided that we would go out for our dinner. We talked about a couple of ideas and decided we’d try driving to the restaurant in Kushibiki first. It was closed when we got there, as I suspected it would be. (I was hoping it would still be open!) Instead, we went to Misono, a family run restaurant and had dinner there. They were very busy tonight. I had chicken curry and F had pork cutlet on rice. I really liked mine, F liked his a bit. He didn’t have ramen which I’m happy about as he would have complained about it. 

We came back to the house and relaxed for a bit. I watched YouTube for a bit and then decided that I really should watch an episode of Severance. I did that, and it was great. I was a bit surprised by this episode. 

I turned off the TV when it was over and went back to my computer to blog and do a few computer things. 

Tomorrow I might do some laundry if I’m up to it and I have to cook dinner. I want to work on my next column and there’s that hexagon sweater I’m working on too!

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

April 26, 2025

Saturday - Sunny and very warm

I went to bed rather late last night. No worries. I got up at a reasonable time this morning and then went back for another nap. I finally dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. I went downstairs and was surprised to see F in the living room. I thought he was off at the doctor’s office.

We talked about going for lunch. F suggested a really nice, fairly expensive place. I was surprised but said yes. I did ask him if he was sure it was open. He said the internet said it was. (Is it just me, or is this a common thread with our weekends?) We got in the car and drove off to the place. It was closed. I knew it would be, hoped F was right. 

I suggested a Chinese place near the park near our house and F was okay with that. We got in right away and checked that lunch wouldn’t take too long. My dental appointment was at 2 pm and sometimes this restaurant takes a long time. The waitress said it would be fast. And, it was. F got his ramen first and…HATED it. My Mapo-dofu arrived and it was good. I really enjoyed it. Why does F order ramen in a non-ramen restaurant? Honestly. 

We finished up in lots of time and went back to the house. I brushed my teeth and then went upstairs to charge my phone and relax a bit. F said he wanted to leave at 1:45 but I was ready earlier. I actually had to call F to see when he’d be ready!

We got to the dentist on time and I went in almost right away. I was supposed to get a permanent crown today but…I didn’t. I don’t know why. They took my temporary crown off, did some drilling, which despite the anaesthetic, hurt like hell. Then, they made a new temporary crown and put that back on. I was in quite a bit of pain and ticked off. I had decided that today was my final visit to this dentist for another reason and I have to go back. However, I think that this gives me good reason to find a new dentist. I liked her, but I’m having trouble understanding why my new crown wasn’t ready. If it hadn’t arrived yet, why didn’t they phone us and ask us to reschedule? I feel like I went through a lot of pain today for no reason. 

We paid and left. We headed to a grocery store to pick up a bento for K and something for breakfast for F and her. On the way back to the house, F decided he needed to go to the hardware/pet store. He drove over there. I stayed in the car while he bought his stuff. He needed fish food and stuff for the washing machine I think. Then, on the way back he wanted to go to a little bakery we like. We stopped in and there was very little left on the shelf! We got one savory pastry and a half loaf of a fruit and nut loaf. We brought it back to the house. 

I went upstairs and after a quick search for my tylenol, took a couple. My jaw was painful. 

After a while F came upstairs and said that K had eaten the bread that I had left on the table…that was leftover from last night’s garlic toast! I had expected F to give it to her for breakfast so I wasn’t upset. She ate other things and I just laughed. At the grocery store, F had wanted to get her a small bento, but I suggested a larger one. She eats a lot!

We decided to leave for the mall. F had wanted to see A Minecraft Movie, at least he had said he did. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about seeing it as I don’t like Jack Black as an actor. (Or a singer.) In fact, I told F that I didn’t need to see it, but he said he’d like to. So, we got ourselves over to the mall and bought our tickets, popcorn and drinks. We went in and….F promptly fell asleep! He was tired and had a headache so it wasn’t hard to forgive him. At least he didn’t snore! There were only three of us in the theater as we were watching the English version. It was okay. I laughed a lot more than I expected to. Unfortunately for me, Jack Black was Jack Blacking as much as usual and he even sang so I didn’t enjoy that part of the film, but Jason Momoa was cool as ever. It was very silly. I have never played Minecraft so I didn’t get the in-jokes, but that’s okay. I laughed a lot!

After the movie we came back to Tsuruoka and went for dinner. I had suggested going to Gusto since we haven’t been there in ages and I wanted to do some research on their food. F agreed. He had a kara-age set meal, I had pasta. I loved my pasta, it was very nice…lemon-cream-avocado-shrimp and a little ham. Yum. 

We came back to the house around 10:30 and at 11pm I watched the last episode of The Day of the Jackal. Holy cow! I was not expecting that! And yet, it made sense in a way. 

F went to sleep fairly early but I had to wake him up to ask him about the washing machine. He’d set it, but it wasn’t working. It turns out that he’d turned off the water taps to the machine and forgotten to turn them back on. I did that for him!

And honestly…that was my day. It wasn’t bad, except for the visit to my dentist. That was really strange and I don’t know what happened. My mouth does feel a bit better now, I’m not in pain, but the new temporary crown feels “not me”. I won’t be able to go back for about a month what with Golden Week and my sister’s visit so I’ll have to get used to it. 

I’m not sure what we’ll get up to on Sunday. I think the usual things like grocery shopping and such. We also have a meeting with K’s social worker in the middle of the afternoon. It’s annoying really! But, whatever.

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