February 29, 2024

Thursday - Cloudy and cool

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I had received a message from my sister too and I tried to read it without my glasses on. It sort of worked! I went downstairs, and then came back and got dressed. Yes, I did the usual thing of going back to bed afterwards. 

I got up later, went downstairs and grabbed my breakfast. I checked to see if K had eaten her breakfast and she hadn’t. I went upstairs to eat and watch some news and YouTube. 

I watched the news from my bed. I don’t know why I was cold and tired. I was there for a while but got up and went downstairs. After this, I did work on my column for a few minutes. I stopped to have lunch and watch Fringe again!

After lunch, I got stuck into my column and basically finished it. I did do a bit more editing tonight, but I will be able to send it to the editor tomorrow. Whew. 

F called me to say he was on his way back so I got changed into my cooking shirt and went downstairs. K had left the kitchen door open again, so it wasn’t as warm as I hoped. She doesn’t notice that the room is getting warm or just doesn’t care!

I made macaroni and cheese as a side dish tonight and did a veggie bake with sausages for the main. We also had salad and egg/vegetable soup. It turned out quite well and most things disappeared afterwards. 

I did the dishes afterwards and then asked F to take me to the grocery store. Tonight we went over to MaxValu and I went in by myself. I picked up a few things for tomorrow’s dinner and for Saturday morning. It was nice to be able to go through the store by myself. 

We came back to the house and I put the groceries away and then went upstairs. At 11pm I watched The Rookie. It was quite an exciting episode, all about the big baddie and how they were trying to catch him. They didn’t though. Not yet anyway. 

And that’s about it. Tomorrow my big thing will be to send in my column, after that, it is all gravy. Come back later if you like and hear how my day goes. Until tomorrow…. 

February 28, 2024

Wednesday - Cloudy and cool

I woke up fairly early this morning and made a trip downstairs. I came back upstairs, got dressed and then tried to go back to sleep since it was still quite early. It took ages and honestly, I didn’t fall asleep. I got up around 10 and watched the news from the bed under the covers. It was cold! I had to bring up kerosene this morning as the tank ran out last night. It took a while to get the room warm.

I went downstairs and grabbed breakfast, then brought it upstairs again to eat. 

I had a quiet afternoon. I did work on my column and I think I have it mostly done. I need to work up a conclusion, proof it a couple more times and then I hopefully can send it in. I think it’ll be on time. Friday is the due date. 

I had lunch and again watched another episode of Fringe. Today it was a building from the other reality appeared in ours, and then the good gang realized that one building from our reality would go to the other reality. It was interesting and sort of cool. 

F called me at a bit after 5:20 and I went down a little early to start dinner. Tonight’s dinner was good, and not too stressful. It was mostly stuff from the store reheated or heated. Still, the timing was a tad stressful. 

Everyone seemed to enjoy dinner, I know I did. There was even a bit of salad left over so that I can have it tomorrow at lunchtime. I couldn’t find one yesterday at the store. 

I did the dishes afterwards and then did up the burnable garbage to go out. I tossed some flowers that were left from F’s uncle’s funeral. They lasted a long time, but it was time to get rid of them. 

I went upstairs before 9 pm which was great. I changed into my PJs and watched some YouTube. I went downstairs to shower after 10pm and returned to the room. I watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory and then watched a few previews of movies on Prime!

Since midnight I’ve been watching a bit of YouTube and working on this blog. It’s now about time to get to bed again. 

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

February 27, 2024

Tuesday - Clear in the morning, Rainy and colder in the evening

I woke up at 8:30 this morning when my alarm went off. About a minute later, my phone buzzed that I was getting a text. I checked it out and it was my sister. She told me that my nephew in Canada had had an accident, his truck rolled but happily he was okay. Whew. His truck is a write-off, but he seems to be fine.  I saw a bunch of pictures on Facebook and the truck was badly damaged. 

I went downstairs, came back up again and got dressed. I tried to go back to bed, but I got on Facebook and looked at the pictures, read a few other people’s postings and then tried to go back to sleep. I didn’t manage. I heard the doorbell ring around 9:30 so I sprang up, ran downstairs, and missed the delivery. There was a note in the mail slot that said that they’d tried to deliver something. I photographed the note and sent it to F. 

I watched the morning news from the bed. I was under the covers, but wasn’t trying to sleep anymore. There didn’t seem a point and the room was still cold, even though the heater had been on for a while.

Today I went downstairs and grabbed breakfast. Actually, it wasn’t a grabbing today, it was a making. I had porridge again and it was good. This time I put in a spoonful of sugar and a little cinnamon. It was delicious. 

I had a quiet afternoon today. I watched a bit of YouTube, I spent time on Facebook, and I emailed a friend back. 

After lunch, which I ate while watching another Fringe episode. This was about a Nazi who created a toxin that would be very targeted. Walter’s father helped to create it. It was quite a good episode. 

I worked on my column today and got quite a bit written. I have to write about some comedies tomorrow and it’ll be close to being done. F called and said he was on his way back, so I went downstairs and got started on dinner.

Tonight I was quite busy. I made two dishes from scratch. One was my spicy air-fried tofu and the other one was a pork/cabbage stirfry from a packet in the store. I went a little over time, but generally things were nice.  

K had a bit of a mishap. She’d filled up her own kerosene tank, and gave it to F to carry back to the living room. However, she hadn’t fixed the lid on properly and when F upended it to put it in the heater, a lot of kerosene came out. Oh no! F didn’t check first. I can’t say I blame him too much. He had to clean it up and the living room smelled so bad during dinner.

Dinner was okay. F actually had a lot today which really surprised me. He took seconds, which he hasn’t done in ages. K didn’t have as much, but she did say it was good, so that was nice.

I did the dishes afterwards. It wasn’t too bad. I’d done a few earlier on and I tried to be careful and not use too many plates and pots and such. 

I came upstairs to change and a few minutes later, F and I went to the grocery store. We just went to Mina. He stayed in the car, I went inside. I picked up a few staples and something for dinner tomorrow night. 

We came back to the house and I put things away. I came upstairs again and relaxed for a while. I watched FBI: Most Wanted at 11 pm and then turned off the TV. I watched YouTube after that and stopped when our heater up here ran out of kerosene. I don’t want to fill up the tank now, so I have to blog quickly so I don’t freeze!

That’s it for me. Tomorrow I have to finish my column or write more of it, and then do the whole dinner thing again. I’m planning something simpler for a change, so that’s good. 

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

February 26, 2024

Monday - Sunny, rainy and cloudy

I woke up this morning, got up, went downstairs and then came back up and went back to bed for a bit. I did get dressed first too. 

I got up later, and did a load of laundry today too. Yay for me. I took down my old laundry and then put up the new load too. I had my breakfast, watched some news and generally had a good but quiet morning.

I had a quiet afternoon, but I got a few things done. I did manage to write quite a lot of my column today and I think it is getting better. 

F called and said he was on his way. I took a bit too long to get ready to go downstairs and he was coming in the door while I was going down the stairs!

I went into the kitchen and got ready for making dinner. It took a bit too long as well. I made chicken wings in the air fryer and curried potatoes on the stove. I tried to microwave the potatoes so that they wouldn’t take too long to cook, but they took a really long time to cook anyway. And, the onions burned so I had to throw most of them out. Ack. They tasted okay, but they really weren’t completely cooked so I was a little disappointed. And I probably overcooked the chicken wings! 

I did the dishes afterwards and listened to a podcast. I put out the plastic bottles for F to take to the gomi station in the morning too. 

I came upstairs to relax and then I took a shower. It was cold downstairs in that room. I really wish we would put a heater in that room. 

I watched Project Runway and thought it was good. The right person won and the right person went home as well. 

Anyway, that’s about it for today. It was an okay day, but not a great one. Tomorrow I have to work on my column again and hopefully make a better dinner!

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

February 25, 2024

Sunday - Rainy and cold

I decided to sleep in today. Yes, if you were reading along, you’d know that I slept in yesterday and the day before too!  However, F came back to the room a little after 11:30 and suggested going out for lunch. He had a great suggestion, but I know they get very busy, so I suggested calling to see if we can get in. He called and they were too busy. Oh dear. 

I countered by suggesting my favourite place, Bistrot des Pointes in Mikawa. He called and they were open and would be happy to see us. Yay! (F and the chef were in the same school for a while, so they know each other a tad.) 

We drove out to Mikawa after I got dressed and got to the restaurant on time. We went in and got our table. Today F and I had almost the same thing. We had the lunch course and it came with kabocha soup (so yum!) and for our main dish we both had deer…Shika in Japanese. I thought I’d like to try it since I have had venison before in Canada. Honestly, I didn’t love it. It was well cooked, very tender, but I didn’t get much taste to it. I thought it might be gamey, but it wasn’t to me. I had my main with bread, F had his with rice. We plumped for dessert too. I had chocolate cake with tea, F had apple tart with coffee. We really enjoyed that part of the meal too!

The waitress/wife of the chef brought our bill to the table but I looked at it and thought something was odd. I’d promised F that I wouldn’t have the most expensive meal today, but the bill for the two of us was ¥8800. Huh?  We realized that we’d got the wrong bill, since the one we got was for 4 people and we were only 2. F called the waitress over and she changed the bills for us. The other table laughed about it, so that was good. 

We paid and left. It was a nice meal, even though I didn’t love the meat. 

I asked if we could go over to the Mall area and go to Don Qihote today since we were in the neighbourhood. F said it was an okay idea, so off we went. We found a parking space and toured the building. They’ve moved everything around again so it was hard to find things. F picked up some instant ramen/noodle things from the door area, and carried them through the store. We didn’t buy too much. We picked up some low cost drinks, F got himself some saké. I found a pasta sauce too. Yay us. 

We came back to Tsuruoka and F took us to a second hand shop. I was looking for a new pan, but I didn’t find one. I did find a handbag that I was mildly interested in. It had maps on the outside and one was of South Africa, one was of North America, and one was of Scandinavia, all places that I have lived. It wasn’t a fancy purse, and the long strap was missing so I decided that for the money it wasn’t exactly worth it for me. 

We zoomed over to Musashi. He wanted to get something for his fish tank again. Eye roll! I decided to look for pans there too. They had some, but I didn’t like them as much as the one that broke. 

We went back to the house where we unpacked the things we bought. F played with his fish, I went upstairs with some of our stuff.

We went out again to get the groceries. We just went to Mina and I went in and bought stuff. I’m going to make chicken wings for dinner tomorrow night. I hope it goes well.

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. I had got K a bento so F gave it to her I think. I went upstairs, retrieved the kerosene tank and filled it up. I went upstairs and turned on the heater. It was darn cold in our room. 

We left for dinner a bit after 7 pm. Since we had a little bit expensive lunch, I suggested a cheaper dinner. We went to the newest gyudon shop. I just wanted some kara-age. I ordered some with a salad for me and one for F. I also ordered some fries. I was surprised to see that they had some. 

We ate and had an okay time. F didn’t really need his salad as he had some with his meal! F didn’t seem to want to leave afterwards, so we sat there for a while. I used my phone, he used his.

Finally, we left. F zoomed off ahead to the car and as I left the store, I almost bumped into someone. It was the chef from today’s restaurant! Then, I saw his wife, our waitress from today. F heard me talking to someone and came back to see what was going on.  We chatted for a second and then went our separate ways. F told me the chef said he was too tired to cook tonight, so they went to the gyudon place!

On the way back to the house, F remembered something he wanted to buy, so we popped into the grocery store near his house. We got a few things and then came back to the house.

Upstairs, we tried to warm up the room and then I decided to watch some TV. I watched a couple of things off the Fire Stick. I watched an episode of Fringe with a mystery virus, then the second episode of Slow Horses. It was good. 

F has gone to bed and I should get to bed soon too. It was a good day, on a day that is normally really sad for me. This was the anniversary of my mother’s death. It’s a sobering one for me this year too. I’m now older than my mother was when she died. I always think of her as the smartest, most knowledgeable person I ever knew…and now I’m older. 

Anyway, I’m off to bed. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

February 24, 2024

Saturday - Cloudy and cold

I woke up early this morning, got up and then came back to bed and slept on! I dragged myself out of bed around noon and got dressed. 

F came upstairs and wanted to go out for lunch. He wanted to try his eel restaurant again as they have a cheap lunch. We got there and it looked like they were already closed, so we kept going. We ended up at a new to us place, a little Korean spot across town that I’ve wanted to go to for ages. We were the only customers there for a while and looked over the menu. I picked what I wanted to have, but F was a bit strange I think. He wanted to buy two or three main dishes and swap them. The thing was, they were all set meals so we’d get too many extra things. And, I didn’t want some of the dishes anyway. I finally had to say to him that I just wanted what I wanted and that was it. He seemed taken aback. I had bibinba, yes, the same sort of thing as I had last night, but quite different in actuality. The bibinba was great and here it came with soup, kimchi, and a few other side dishes. F had yakiniku, which looked nice, but he didn’t seem too impressed really. 

After our meal, we tried to go to S-Mall for coffee, but we couldn’t get a good parking space and I didn’t want F to park on the roof. I suggested going over to Komeda instead. That’s what we did.

Komeda was busy and we couldn’t see a parking space, so we went to Daiso first. F had to leave while I was shopping, so he left and I shopped. I got my stuff and went through the self checkout . When I got outside, he wasn’t in the car! He did come back soon though. 

We went to Komeda and had a cup of coffee each. I had decaf, F had regular. As often happens when we’re relaxing together, F started to feel unwell and wanted to leave and go back to the house.

That’s what we did. We went back to the house and F spent time with his sister and mother. I think he did something with his fish too. I went upstairs and spent time with my lovely computer.

F came upstairs around 7 pm and wanted to talk about dinner. I wasn’t sure what to have, I suggested Keiten sushi and after a bit F decided to go there with me. I asked him to make a reservation, which he did. Our time was 7:50-8:00pm, so we had a bit of relaxation time. 

We drove over to Kura-Sushi and had an okay meal. I liked it more than F did. F ate quite a bit which surprised me!

We came back to the house afterwards, via the grocery store. I had suggested to F that he get something for his mother’s breakfast that she could just grab if he wanted to sleep in. He bought fish to cook. That he is going to cook. Huh?He’s a good son, but I was hoping he’d relax a bit more this weekend. 

At the house, F did stuff downstairs, I went upstairs to warm up the room etc. F came back to the room after 10 pm, I went downstairs and took a shower and then came upstairs to warm up and watch FBI. F went to bed fairly soon after midnight and I do not want to stay up as late tonight as I did last night!

I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. I have to get in some groceries for the coming week, but I also would like to get a new pot for cooking. If we have time I wouldn’t mind visiting a second hand shop for the pan, but we’ll see how it goes.

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

February 23, 2024

 Friday - Snowy and cool

I woke up this morning without my alarm. F was sitting on the bottom of the bed. He was debating what to do with himself. He decided to take himself off to make his mother’s breakfast and then he went out a bit later to get his hair cut. 

I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. We’d decided that we would take K out for lunch with us today since it is a holiday and on Saturday she has her daycare thing to go to. 

We all piled in the car and did the usual drive around the area to find a good place to go. Every place that we thought would suit was busy as heck. Finally, F suggested a good soba place, so we went there and managed to get the last three seats. We had to share a table with a couple of men, but at least we got in somewhere. 

The soba was delicious and the tempura we had with it was even better. Yum. K gave some of her stuff to F, he wasn’t too happy about it.

We brought her back to the house and then we went out. First up, I needed a washroom, so we ended up at a drugstore where we also bought a few things for the house. They have good prices on things like washing up liquid. I need the one for sensitive skin because most Japanese soap for dishes is too harsh for me. 

Then, we did the weird thing where we went to Musashi looking for a new uniform for F to wear to work. They didn’t have what he wanted so I suggested looking on line for it. We didn’t buy anything there…oops, tell a lie. F got himself a thermometer for his fish tank. I suggested getting a digital one with a big dial so that it would be easy to read. 

After that, we drove to Kamo. Not to the aquarium, but to the restaurant in search of coffee. I had looked it up online and it was supposed to be open today. Open it was, but not when we got there! Lunch was over. They don’t have coffee time. Instead, we drove back to Yunohama and went to the Hyyakken restaurant. They do have coffee time. We sneaked in just before last order and had tea or coffee and cake. The cake was nice, so was the tea.

We drove back into Tsuruoka and went to a grocery store to get something for K’s dinner. Well, F went in the store. I didn’t want to. We came back to the house and F gave his mother her food. I headed upstairs and F followed a bit later. 

Around 6:45 we left for Mikawa mall. It was snowing at the time, lots of little ice balls were coming down. We made good time and found a decent parking space. We went into the mall, bought our tickets and then bought our dinners. F had ramen which he hated as usual, I had bibinba and it was great! 

We went to see Madame Web tonight. I had heard it was terrible but in all honesty, I kind of liked it. It wasn’t as bad as Morbius at all. I guess I just wanted to have fun tonight and the movie did it for me!

After the movie, we came back to the car and then drove back to Tsuruoka. I had suggested going to Don Quixote, but F seemed a bit tired so I didn’t push it. We did make a stop at the 7-11 on the corner and got a few munchies. 

We came back to the house and just relaxed. I’ve been on my computer for hours. Now it is time for bed!

Come back later if you want and hear all about my Saturday. Until tomorrow….