November 18, 2015

Wednesday - Cloudy and rainy

An okay day.

I got up quite early again this morning and came through to the living room.  I filled up the kerosene tank because it was nearly empty and I had time just then. Yay me.  

I watched my shows, did some computer stuff, had breakfast, made the bed, got dressed and also did a little crochet.  My project is going quite well, but I have to get cracking on it!

Just a bit before 12 I started a workout and today for some reason, F came home in the middle of it.  Oh well.  I kept on with what I was doing, he had to go around me to get into the kitchen!  I think I like this workout a lot.  It’s divided into 10 minute segments, which is a lot easier to do than mile segments.  It doesn’t hurt that the dvd also has a programmable bit, so I can pick the areas I want to work on.  I can do the warm up, a couple of segments and the cool down and it takes 40 minutes.  Or, I can go for 30 minutes, or even 20 if I’m in a hurry, and still get some movement going. Today I worked quite hard and did an upper body and then a lower body segment.  That one was tough!

F left for work again after I finished and I relaxed for a bit.  I had an early lunch again.  Today I made some instant spaghetti and put the rest of the duck in it.  With an egg on top.  It was pretty good.

I took a shower in the afternoon.  Later on there was a delivery.  We got our “My Number” cards and have already had a fight about them.  Sigh.

When F phoned to say he was finished work, I asked him to get some salad for us.  I cleared the kitchen up again and started the stew re-heating.  Of course, when F came home we got into an argument about the stupid cards and he refused to eat with me.  Colour me so surprised.  Like that’s a punishment?  I got all the stew I wanted, didn’t have to wait for him to take a stupid picture of said meal and was able to sit down and eat while my food was still hot.  I’d call that a win!

We got on a bit better later on.  I asked him to help me with the DVR.  It’s been recording a bunch of weird stuff, turns out that it is because of my trip to Canada.  Either F or I set it up to record every night, but it should have only been once a week.  That’s fixed at least.  And, I deleted the programming for The Big C so that I could get all of Once Upon a Time recorded. So annoying to have the last 15 minutes of a show not recorded.  

Oh, I threw out a pair of trousers today.  When I was in Australia, I sat on some gum and was worried about how to get it off the pants.  I didn’t want to wash them without treating them first.  Today I realized that they’d be the wrong size for me anyway, and after 4 years in my laundry basket, I’m probably never going to get around to it.  I junked them.  Now I can look my laundry basket in the face again!

And that’s it for today.  All the news that is fit to print.  I might go out tomorrow if the weather is okay  Come back later and find out.  Until tomorrow….

January 31, 2008 - Thursday

It snowed for most of the morning, later there was some sun.

What a day. Fumihiko got up early to go to work, and to do a bit of snow shoveling outside. I didn't hear him until just before he left for work. I slept a bit more, then got up when my alarm went.

I did my usual morning stuff, and kept an anxious eye on the snow. I was worried about it. I did a bunch of things this morning, including a load of laundry. Yay me.

I decided to leave for the school earlier than I usually do, so I ate lunch early too, and left around 3:40. I made really good time and got to my school around 4. I grabbed my shovel and headed to the parking lot. I immediately wished that I hadn't. There was a good 20 cm of new snow there, plus the snow plough had been down the side road. It had completely blocked the entrance to the parking area. Completely. I shoveled out my parking space, which didn't take all that long, and then gathered my thoughts. What to do. I sent Fumihiko a couple of text messages, but knew he was at work and couldn't answer if he was busy. I went back into my school and got the two other things that I have for snow removal, my "dump" and an aluminum shovel. I wasn't sure if it was my responsibility to shovel the entranceway or not, and if I did, what was I supposed to do with the snow anyway?

I chose a corner near a wall and attacked the snow wall. It took forever. There were huge boulders of snow and ice there too. I moved the smaller ones by hand and broke up the bigger ones when I could. The other ones I rolled out of the way. I finally got the entryway clear. But, once the entry way was clear, there was still a 5 meter area inside that had at least 20 cm of snow on it. Ack. I took the dump and tried cleaning as much of it as I could out. I got the snow down a little bit on the way to my parking space. By now I'd been moving snow for 2 hours with no help from anyone. My neighbours appeared to be gone. Lovely. Finally, Fumihiko called me back. I explained the problem and told him that I thought I should cancel my class tonight as I wasn't sure that my student could get in and out of the lot safely. He told me that he was at home now and would come straight over.

I went into my school and took off all of the wintery outer clothes that I was wearing. I called my student and apologized profusely, and cancelled my class. All that work, and I didn't even make any money today. Five minutes later Fumihiko showed up. He'd parked in my space. Obviously, I'd managed to clear enough snow to let him get into the parking lot! I told him that I'd already cancelled my class, so I'd just like him to come back later and get me. I wanted to do my prep for Friday and Saturday. Instead, he asked if he could stay with me. It was okay, but I didn't get as much done as I wanted to. He wouldn't sit in a chair out of the way, but chose to sit next to my photocopier and my books.

Around 7:30 I reset the heater for tomorrow and then left the school with Fumihiko. We came home. He told me that the weather forecast for tomorrow is more snow. I told him I'd run away if it happened.

At home I cooked dinner. We had chicken stirfry and shu mei. It was very nice, but it didn't seem like there was enough. After we ate, Fumihiko offered to make some soba, so I accepted his offer. We had soba for dessert! Yum. He did the dishes and then we had a quiet evening.

We watched last night's Desperate Housewives and it was quite good. At the moment Susan is engaged to a doctor, but I'm sure that things aren't going to go smoothly. Bree didn't make an appearance at all today, but they pumped up Edie's storyline to compensate.

So, basically that was my day. I'm tired and sore all over. I really hope that it doesn't snow tomorrow because there is absolutely no place to put anymore snow but up...and when you're as short as I am, that isn't really an option!

Night night!

Snow?

Too Much Snow.

This is the view out my bedroom window as of 2:30 pm on Thursday. I've had two people today express surprise that Japan gets snow. This is for them!

January 30, 2008 - Wednesday

Rainy in the morning, lots of snow in the evening.

I got up quite early this morning, had a nice time watching the news and drinking my coffee. I had a very low key day today. I relaxed and didn't do a lot. I did go through a bag of old clothes that I was planning to junk and I removed all the buttons. I have plans for them!

I had a very late lunch of tuna salad and a tomato. It was a nice change. I like omelettes, but I need an occasional break from them.

Fumihiko came home around 6 tonight. We had a bit of coffee and then went out for dinner a bit later. As we went out, it started to snow. By the time we got to the restaurant the snow was coming down fast. We had a very nice meal of tonkatsu. I didn't have seconds like I usually do. What I did do was have a huge coughing fit. It was so bad that the waitress brought me water. A bit later I spilt miso soup all over myself. Luckily it wasn't too hot at that point!

When we finished our meal we decided to go to the mall and have a nice coffee. We got there, about 20 minutes before the mall closed and tried to have Cafe Mocha. However, their machine was broken and we couldn't have that drink. Instead, we tried the hot cocoa. It wasn't bad. We did a brief run though the hundred yen shop after the coffee shop. It wasn't my idea for a change though.

We drove over to my school. I set the heater for tomorrow and Fumihiko checked out the parking space...by parking in it. It was getting bigger, but I'm worrying that we'll have too much snow again by tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to clear the space easily. I have a great snow shovel now!

We came home via the grocery store. We got groceries for tomorrow's breakfast and dinner. There was one odd thing though. There was a young guy in the store that looked suspicious. If I was Spiderman, I'd say that my Spider-sense was tingling. He kept giving me funny looks and at one point he got a bit too close to us. He may just have wanted to hear what language me and the hub were speaking, but he gave me the willies. I admit that I grabbed my purse just a little bit tighter after that. I tried to point him out to Fumihiko, but by the time I let him know I was worried the guy was nowhere in sight. He kept looking at other men and asking, "Is he the one?" Nope! We paid for our groceries and came home.

We had a very quiet night at home and Fumihiko went to bed rather early. He has an early morning tomorrow. I'm hoping desperately that there won't be too much more snow. It makes walking to work a pain, plus then I have to shovel when I get there. Sigh.

Anyway, that's it for me for tonight. An okay day. Night night.

January 29, 2008 - Tuesday

Warmish, no snow.

Today was a good day, mostly. I got up early, as I'd gone to bed fairly early too. That was a nice change for me. I watched the news, drank coffee and surfed the web for a while.

I chatted with a friend on a messenger service and then made my lunch. It was ...yes, you guessed it, taco omelette, and it was goooood. I really enjoyed it. After I did the dishes I headed off to work.

Once I got past the driveway, I realized that I could have taken my bike today. There wasn't much snow left on the roads. Most of the sidewalks were clear, so if it doesn't snow/rain/freeze again before Thursday, I can maybe bike to work. Watch out, I've probably just jinxed myself!

I stopped at the drugstore near my school to buy some new socks, then got to the school in record time. I grabbed my shovel and did a little work with it, but really I didn't need to do that much. Hurray. My snowpile has really shrunk. What I'm trying to do now is enlarge the space for cars in my parking space by moving back some of the snow.

I got ready to teach my first student and we had a great class. He's a nice kid. Between my classes I did a bit of paperwork and a bit of planning too. My second class went fairly well, but it didn't start that way. One of my students came to class and was in tears. She's very sensitive and she had a quarrel with her parents. I wasn't sure how to handle it, so I tried going the kleenex and sympathy route. It seemed to work. Then I started class. I do have another student, so I couldn't coddle her. After a while she perked up, and things went well. We finished the lesson part fairly early and I gave them a vocabulary quiz that I'd put in the back of my folder. I thought that I should find the answers so I went looking for the book it came from. It was a level 4 book, for upper intermediate students. Yikes. I didn't mean to give them something so hard. I have no idea why I'd taken it out of that book. However, they actually did rather well. I encouraged the use of an English-English dictionary and they did a lot of good guessing, so at the end of class there were only about 5 answers that I had to help them with.

After class, I sat myself down to wait and relax. And wait some more. I did dishes, changed, and sent Fumihiko an email. He called me back after 10 pm. He'd told me that he'd be late, but I was hoping he wouldn't be that late. He went by our apartment first to change, then picked me up. We went to Cocos tonight for dinner. I had pepperoncino pasta and it was good, if a bit too hot.

We came home straight after dinner and had a quiet evening at home. I've been staying up too late reading blogs so I should really get myself off to bed. I'm finally getting tired!

Talk to you tomorrow no doubt. Bye for now.

January 28, 2008 - Monday

Warmer, no new snow.

Today was quiet but good. I didn't have a great waking up though. Fumihiko woke me up around 7:30, then a few minutes later when he got up, and then again when he actually left the apartment. Sigh.

I got up and watched Project Runway 2. Yes, I've already seen it, and no I don't care! It was fun. I'd set the vcr so after I watched the end, I rewound the tape and watched the beginning. Then, I re-watched Saturday's Project Runway 3. It was fun. I'm still not sure why they made Angela the bad person in the show. Her partner Vincent seemed to everything he could to push her out. After that, I watched Criminal Minds. It was a bit gruesome as always, but I guessed the ubervillain. Yay me.

I really had a quiet day at home. I thought about going out but didn't. I could have walked to the mall, but decided just to stay home. I had a lateish lunch and spent the rest of my time on my computer.

Fumihiko came home around 6 and after a while we went out. I wanted to make a stop at the drugstore, which we did, then we went by my school so I could set the heater in my classroom. I need to turn it on early to make the room warm enough. My heater is good, but it's slow.

After that, we came back home and I cooked dinner. Tonight we had tacos. I did all the work tonight. Usually Fumihiko helps out a bit, grating cheese, or cutting tomatoes, but tonight he didn't do anything. I wasn't too impressed. Still, it turns out that he was making a map for me of our apartment. If I have to take a taxi here it's a little complicated to get here. We had dinner and it was good. We each ate quite a bit, but I'll have leftovers for my world famous* taco omelette. Fumihiko did do the dishes, which went a long way in me forgiving him for not helping out!

We had a quiet evening at home. We watched Ugly Betty at 11. It was fun. Poor Betty. She likes a guy but he's got a girlfriend. It's terribly sad. One thing that I like about that show is seeing Judith Light again. I'm not sure how much she's done since Who's the Boss? but it's lovely to see her as a grand lady with serious problems.

Fumihiko is now watching something about Ichiro and eating ramen. Sigh. Honestly, he eats way too much ramen. I keep telling him he'll turn into noodle if he's not careful!

So that's it. My day. Quiet, but rather nice. Hurray for that. Tomorrow I'm back to work and we'll see how things go. When we were at the school, the parking space was fine, but more snow has been forecast for tonight. Sigh. Oh my.

Talk to you later. Night!

*At least in my mind! But people read this blog from all over so....

January 27, 2008 - Sunday

Cool, snow overnight, but not in the daytime.

Today didn't start that well. Fumihiko's alarm went off at 7:30...he'd forgotten to turn it off, then he got a call from his mother at 10 and then he went out. The next thing I remember is the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. He was watching Flags of Our Fathers. I was glad that he was watching it, because I talked him out of buying the dvd this month. I had told him it would be on WOWOW. I got up, made the bed and did computer stuff. As with most good movies, I found myself getting sucked in, but didn't pay close attention to it.

We had a later lunch at Bronco today. I didn't have steak, I had carbonara with hamburg. It was very nice. Fumihiko had steak curry and enjoyed it too.

After that, we went to karaoke. We usually go to a cheap place that's far from our apartment, but today we went to a much nicer place that's closer to us, in fact, it's right next to our grocery store. We went for 2 hours and had a lot of fun. I sang a lot of oldies, ELO, Supertramp, Sting, Corey Hart, but I also gave Lily Allen a try. That was fun. The karaoke box was nice, no smoky feeling inside and had a great drink bar. Our two hours with drink bar was still under 2000 yen, so really, a pretty good way to spend time together.

When we left the karaoke box we went to the grocery store and got a few things for dinner tomorrow night. Then we came home. Fumihiko watched a lot of TV that I wasn't interested in, and then I ended up climbing into bed for a while. I didn't really sleep, just took a short catnap.

We had dinner at Gusto tonight. Neither of us were hungry in a big way, so I suggested something simple. Gusto was fine. Hubby had Japanese food, I had chicken. It was nice.

We came home and watched 48 Hours on TV. I was really surprised at how racist it was. I know that part of it was to show the difference between Nolte's character and Murphy's, but I was a little shocked at the language used. Maybe I'm getting old! However, I did remember a lot of the taglines, which surprises me as it isn't one of my favourite movies.

The rest of the evening was just putzing around on my computer. I half watched Hollow Man 2, but it wasn't very good.

So, that was my day. It was nice. We stayed in our local area, no long trips to malls or restaurants across town. I think I really enjoyed that part of today most!

Night night.

January 26, 2008 - Saturday

Snowy and cold.

When I dragged myself out of bed this morning it was 9:30 and it had snowed overnight again. We had a fresh coat of snow, around 15cm deep. Sigh. I showered and we went out for our breakfast. We went to Gusto as usual.

Fumihiko dropped me off at my school then went back to our apartment to get his boots. While he was gone I grabbed my shovel and cleared the walkway along by my school, then I went over to the parking space and outlined the borders of my space a bit. Fumihiko had promised to clear it for me today, but I felt guilty letting him do all the work. He made short work of the space and then headed back home.

My class went very well today. My student was great as usual and we had fun. She picks up the concepts very easily. Pronunciation is a little tough, but really she's doing well. My second class today had had to cancel, which was disappointing as I enjoy teaching the students. In the time I had I prepared a worksheet for them when they come back, prepped a couple of classes for next week, and did up my financial records. I actually brought them up to date. Hurray.

Fumihiko showed up again around 4 pm. We were expecting a visitor tonight, so he parked in a drugstore parking lot and walked back to my school. Then he shoveled the parking space again for me. What a sweetheart! I got the school ready for my visitors. I put out books for the children to look at, got out some paper and crayons, washed glasses...tidied up... you name it, I did it.

The visitors came a little after 5. Everyone was running late today because of the traffic and the icy roads. There was one extra person who showed up today, but I didn't have a chair for him. Still, it worked out okay. He behaved well, and got to sit in the corner on the step. We discussed the possibility of the woman's daughters coming to my school. I'm not sure if they will or not as there are quite a few different factors involved, but we'll see how it goes.

After they left I did the dishes and a final clean up for the weekend. Fumihiko trundled off to get the car and I locked up the school. I turned off the water, because you just never know how cold it might get.

When he picked me up, we decided that since we hadn't eaten in 7 hours we should have dinner. We tossed around a few ideas but decided on Cafe Framboise. It's a very nice little restaurant. They serve western style food and Japanese style food. The place is small, only 3 tables and a counter, but the food is reasonably priced and usually great. So, that's where we went. I had chicken with herb bread crumbs and hubby had a mixed fry Japanese meal. Yum.

We talked about going to karaoke tonight because I'd made Fumihiko promise to take me this weekend, but we didn't go. By the time we left the restaurant he wasn't feeling that well. The weather (and maybe the snow shovelling) wasn't doing his back any favours. So, we just came home.

Tonight was my big TV night, so I watched my usual Saturday night shows. I checked out the two CSI's, then Grey's Anatomy. After that it was time for Project Runway. I enjoy the show, but tonight they made it look like one character was really terrible, but actually I think it was her partner that was bad. Whatever!

And that was my day. It wasn't bad. Tomorrow, I'm not sure what we'll do. The roads are bad and hubby isn't doing that well. I hope we'll get to enjoy ourselves, but I'm not holding my breath!

Night night.

January 25, 2008 - Friday

Happy Robert Burns Day!

Cold, snowy, with just a bit of sun in the afternoon to make it bearable.

It's late and I'm tired so I'll try to be brief...

Today was okay. I got up, watched the news, showered and ended up taking a nap on the couch!

I walked to the school, did a bit of snow shovelling, then taught my lesson. It went okay. I also went out again just before my next classes to shovel snow again. It had snowed that much! Classes went quite well tonight.

Fumihiko picked me up and we went to Cocos for dinner. I had macaroni, he had a hamburger. Decent. We came home via the grocery store. I wanted a few supplies for my school. I was out of coffee, and needed some drinks for children too.

We came home and had a quiet evening at home. We were glued to our individual computers.

That's it. Tomorrow I'll teach a couple of lessons and then have a meeting after my classes with a mother thinking to send her daughters to my school. Not sure if it'll work out or not.

And that's my day. I'm tired so I'm going off to bed soon. Night night!

January 24, 2008

Thursday

Cold. Snowy. Windy. Thunder. Lightning. Cold. Snowy. Windy.

What a day! I got up to watch the news, and then my Project Runway. I got an email telling me that a teacher-student matching site had given my name out, then a few minutes later I got a call from the person. Details are still being worked out. I'm honestly not sure if I want this position or not. It's quite complicated, would require me to take taxis, would really push my schedule, so we'll see.

During the afternoon I washed three loads of laundry and then had my lunch. I kept my eye on the weather and it seemed quite nice, until 3:30 ish. Then came the rumblings of thunder. Then wind, and a dusting of snow. I hoped that it would calm down before I had to leave for work.

I left for work a bit later than I wanted to, but as today wasn't a busy day, it wasn't bad at all. I packed up my backpack so that I could get wallets and keys easily and set off on my way. A few steps outside my apartment I thought about another thing in my backpack. I had a small plastic jar with a bit of baking soda in it. I started to worry about what a police officer might do if he saw the jar. Would I get arrested for drugs or for possible terrorism? How long would I be in jail before they realized that it was a substance used for cleaning? One month? Two? Ack.

Walking to work today was not fun. The wind was blowing full force, and visibility was awful. I detoured to a bank machine to make a deposit and almost decided to set up camp in the ATM room. I trudged on. I crossed the main road and things got better, until I had to turn right to go to my school. The side road hadn't been cleared and it was very narrow. I had to keep moving out of the way of cars. And then, there was a flash of bright light. Lightning. I got a bit nervous, but it was the only one.

When I did get to my school I grabbed my shovel and went to my parking space. The snow that we'd carefully put down to melt last night had instead frozen, and was now covered by more snow. Yay. I tried to clear it, but 2 minutes later it was covered up again. Since my student wouldn't be there for more than an hour I decided to stop for now, and then go out just before her class to try again.

In the school I took off my now soaking clothes and got ready for my class. I got a call from a colleague in the next town, same business, both of us used to work for the same Eikaiwa. He wanted a little help with his homework...he's working on a master's degree. We chatted a bit, and it turns out that he got a call this morning from the same person. Hmm. He's ambivalent about it too.

My class was great today and we chatted for a while after it. I did go out just before the class and clean the parking space and the passage to my school. It was not nice out there, but the wind had died down somewhat. My work wasn't covered over immediately.

After class I wanted to relax for a bit, so I did, then got changed and did my paperwork. I called Fumihiko just before I started washing the dishes. I told him that if he called me from outside my school, I'd come out. He didn't need to get out of the car. I washed the dishes, set the heater for the morning and turned off the water. It's the coldest I've felt this year today so I was worried that the pipes might freeze. I thought I heard him outside so I poked my head out the door and sure enough, there he was. He was in the midst of getting out of the car though. I waved and he got back in. I grabbed my keys, locked the door and ran for the car.

We came home and I made dinner almost immediately. We had spaghetti with carbonara sauce, spicy fried chicken wings and shizo-daikon salad. It was amazingly good! I think Fumihiko was impressed. I managed to get the chicken and the spaghetti done at the same time, so that was quite an awesome feat for me!

Fumihiko did the dishes for me, and then spent the night re-typing another one of my forms. He's such a dear. He's in bed now, and honestly, I'm pretty tired too, so I plan to go right away.

I hope it warms up soon! I don't like the cold and windy weather. Cold I can take, but the wind...no. Night night.

January 23, 2008 - Wednesday

Cool, bit sunny.

Today was a quiet day at home for me for the most part. I got up, watched news, Project Runway, the usual. One slightly unusual thing was that Fumihiko came home for lunch. He brought his own (Churl! Drunk all and left no friendly drop to help me after?) bento from his office. He had had to drop someone off at city hall and had some time before he needed to pick her up.

Really I just had a quiet day at home until Fumihiko came home for the night. We went out for dinner to M's Dining where we had a nice meal, then headed to the grocery store. I decided to make something not the norm for me tomorrow night, pasta. Although I'm not eating low carb anymore, I haven't cooked pasta in years. I've eaten it a bit, and I thought why not make it at home. So tomorrow night we'll have pasta with carbonara sauce (both bought...no idea how to make an actual sauce), spicy chicken and salad. Wish me luck!

We ran back to the school so that I could set the heater for tomorrow. I also brought out one of my school's info sheets so that I could get Fumihiko to re-do it for me. He did it the first time on his old "Word-Pro" but now we each have computers, he can input it and I'll print it out. I'll also keep it on file in my computer so if I need to change something I can.

We watched Monday's Ugly Betty which was a hoot. Then, at 11 tonight it was time for Desperate Housewives. Ooh, the things that go on in Wisteria Lane! Usually the show is voiced over by Mary Alice Young, the character who died in the first episode, but tonight it was voiced over by Rex Van de Kamp. I thought that was interesting.

That pretty much was my day. It was good...quiet, but good. Night night!

January 22, 2008 - Tuesday

Clear and cool.

Today was quite a good day. I got up early, watched the news, drank coffee and then the end of Project Runway. For a woman who never wears designer clothes, doesn't own anything by an important designer, and really doesn't care what she wears, I love that show! Maybe I was Coco Chanel in another life? Unlikely!

I had a good, if quiet day at home. I showered and somehow along the way ended up watching Marie Antoinette. I enjoyed what I saw, but when it got closer to the end of her life, I'm afraid I turned it off.

Today I left home a little after 3 to walk to the school. I made fairly good time, but I stopped in a drugstore for a few things. I got to the school just a bit before 4. I did go and check the parking space but it was still mostly cleared. I broke a bit of the pile down, so that if it's warm tomorrow it might melt.

I had two classes tonight and they both went well. The first one we finally finished the alphabet in our phonics book. We also started talking about size words. In the adult class we talked about cities in other countries, and finally talked about cities that we have visited. It was a little odd for me because the text suggested talking about the student's country's capital city. Well, I've been to Tokyo many times, but I've never been to my own country's capital. Ottawa is a long way from Edmonton! I had to talk about London instead.

After my classes I cleaned up and got Fumihiko to come and get me. He did, bless him, but he wasn't feeling too well. He had a headache. In Japan that can only mean one thing. He's really really sick! (Okay, I admit it, cheap shot. I had headaches for 2 weeks straight, and he was quite sympathetic.) When we came home, I cooked dinner and it was good. I made my pork-tofu-egg-kimchee stirfry, and had salad on the side. For a change, we watched a movie on the TV too. Evolution was on. We'd already seen it. In fact, it was the first movie we went to after we got married. I remember laughing quite hard at it and Fumihiko trying to shush me because I was the loudest person in the theater!

Anyway, not much else happened this evening. He had his bath and then went to bed. He isn't feeling well, and I hope he'll be okay. Usually a good night's sleep helps him.

Tomorrow I'm off work. Hurray for that! The only thing for me is that I'm not sure what I'll do. I might stay home, or if I get really ambitious, I could go out for a walk or something else. Only way to find out what I do is to show up back here tomorrow! I'll see you then.

Night night.

January 21, 2008 - Monday

Clear and mostly sunny. Little bit of snow at night.

Today was a nice quiet day for me. I needed one of those, so I enjoyed today a lot. I got up to try to watch the news, but it wasn't on. American Football was on instead. Bleck. I channel surfed and found old Project Runway on, so watched that for a bit, then took a nap. Yay me.

After my nap, I showered and started to watch some of the TV that I had on tape. I didn't feel guilty about watching it without Fumihiko, because he doesn't like police detective shows, and I do. I love them! So, I watched the CSI shows from the weekend, Criminal Minds and finished with Cold Case. Fun.

Around 5 I decided to get ready for my night out, so I changed my clothes. A bit after 5 I got a call from Fumihiko telling me that he would be home soon and could drive me to the restaurant. Five minutes later, my student called to ask if I needed a ride tonight. Good timing all around. Yay.

When Fumihiko came home we chatted for a bit, and after he changed we went to the car. I hadn't been out all day and was surprised to see how slippery it was outside. The snow had melted and refrozen so it was very glasslike. Fumihiko drove me to the restaurant and let me out. I went in.

My student was there already and soon we were joined by the other two people. We had lots of really nice Korean food. I liked most of it. We had a stirfry with seaweed noodles, chichimi (a sort of pancake), then something called Samu-samu set...basically a stirfry that we did ourselves then ate wrapped in lettuce leaves. The other dish was a spicy tofu stew....it was lovely. We ate and drank...just oolong tea for me, but alcohol for the others. We had a good time.

Around 10:30 I asked Fumihiko to come and get me. The party was winding down, and my friends were a little bit inebriated. That made it difficult to communicate. They were willing, just not able!

Fumihiko and I went first to the school, where I set the heater for tomorrow and he attacked the snow mound a bit for me. He broke up a bit of it so that if it's sunny/warm tomorrow, part of it will melt. After that, we hit the grocery store to buy fixings for tomorrow's dinner. It's going to be pork kimchee stirfry. I think it'll be good. I also got a few things for me to eat, because I didn't eat as much as I should at the party. I was a bit hungry still.

We came home and had some yakitori and shu-mei. Fumihiko went to bed a little bit ago, and I hope to get there soon myself.

So, that's it. It was a good day, and I enjoyed it. I'm back to work tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be a good day. Wish me luck! Night night.

January 20, 2008 - Sunday

Warmish day, not much snow...hurray!

I went to bed quite late last night, so I didn't get up early today. However, I did set my alarm for 11 and managed to drag myself out of bed just before noon. Fumihiko didn't go to his wrestling, he was sitting in the living room watching TV, playing computer games in the dark. Poor thing. He was still in his jammies, so the fact that I got up, got dressed and made the bed put me in good standing I think!

We decided to go to the Daiichi Hotel for lunch today. We had to wait a while, and in that time I saw two of my young students from my L'Eikaiwa days. Wow, they had grown. Fumihiko and I finally got a table and had a decent meal. They were even serving pancakes, which was unusual, and a big treat for me.

After lunch we hit the bus station to buy me a bus ticket for next month then the hundred yen shop. Last month I bought a case for my laptop, but when I tried to use it this month it was just too small. I got the bigger size today. It's not going to protect my computer if I drop it off a cliff, but it should help regular knocks and bangs.

We headed out to the mall then. We went to see Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. We were a bit early so did a bit of window shopping for new TVs before the show, but then went back for the movie. It was great. Terribly dark though, so if you're wanting a feel good movie, don't see this!

After the movie, we had coffee at Mr. Donuts. We skipped the meat pies, thank you very much! After that, Fumihiko offered to take me for dinner. However, I was still stuffed from lunch and all the popcorn I ate. So, we drove to Sakata to find a restaurant that he'd read about. We found it quickly and he pulled into the parking lot. I asked him if he was hungry now, because he hadn't been 15 minutes earlier! He said no, so I suggested going to Jusco for a quick tour. We did that.

I looked around the craft corner, but as I didn't see anything I was really interested in, didn't buy anything. Then, after traipsing around the store, looking for Fumihiko we went upstairs. I wanted to see if they had any ladies coats that I might like. They had some, but unfortunately, when I tried one on, it was just too tight. Guess I'll have to order from a catalogue. Sigh. I hung the coat back up and looked around for my husband. Gone again. Honestly! I went off in one direction looking for him, but when I got to the end of the store, saw him back in the middle. When we met up again, I asked him if he'd mind telling me where he plans on going next time. Of course, I don't mind (greatly encourage him) if he goes off on his own, but when I'm done, I'd like to know whereabouts he'll be. I didn't make a big deal about it, and I was quite nice I think. He said he'd try.

Now he was ready to go to the restaurant. It was an interesting Japanese /French style restaurant. We waited a few minutes while they prepared our table. We were then shown into a tatami room and had to sit on the tatami. We ordered the basic meal, and it was very nice. We had some appetizers, followed by soup and salad, then pork steak with cream cheese sauce. Our dessert was tiramisu and ice cream with espresso. Lovely! The only thing I would say is that the waitress lost points for not knowing what the main course's meat was. The menu said "meat" so we asked what it was. I was not really hungry so was trying to choose between meat and fish. She knew it was pork, but nothing else about it. Didn't think that was good waitressing. Still, the meal was nice. It's the kind of place that I'd take people who haven't been in Japan before. We shared a small room with another couple, but were separated from them by a screen.

We drove home after our meal and spent a quiet evening at home. I watched Good Night and Good Luck and thought it was very intelligent. I'd really like to see it again, when I could concentrate on it better. I was checking email and talking to Fumihiko when it was on.

And that was my day. It was really good. I haven't had such a nice, peaceful day with hubby for a while, so this was a treat.

Night!

January 19, 2008 - Saturday

Sunny, snowy, and not that cold.

Today was a good day. Hurray for that. We got up fairly early this morning. I had a shower and then we drove to the local hardware store. I got a couple of things to help me with snow-removal. I got a small snow scoop and a "dump". It's a larger shovel, a bit like a cross between a snow shovel and a toboggan. I can put a lot of snow in it to move elsewhere.

After we bought the stuff we went to Gusto for our usual breakfast. The food was nice, and the restaurant was quite busy.

We drove over to my school and Fumihiko went out to the parking space. He did quite a bit of work on it. The only thing is that he actually made the pile higher! He was trying to make the pile of snow narrower. I was starting to worry about it avalanching or something!

After my classes (fun by the way) we went to Doutors and had coffee. We had something to celebrate. We got some good news today, I can't share it, but just know that it's happy. At Doutor we tried the new maple walnut latte. It was very nice!

For dinner tonight we went to an izakaya. We had our oolong teas and a lot of interesting foods. We had pork kimchee stirfry, yakitori, eggplant and cheese, tofu and some squid.

We came home after dinner and somewhere in the evening we watched a dvd. Tonight we saw Men With Brooms. It's a Canadian movie about curling. It has Paul Gross and Leslie Nielsen. It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it's probably the best movie I've ever seen about curling! (It's the only one too.) Paul Gross is such a sweetie, it was fun just to watch him. I liked it, but don't really recommend it to people in general.

And that's about that for me for tonight. It was a good day. Tomorrow we're planning to go and see Sweeney Todd, but may have other things to do.

Got to go! Night night.

January 18, 2008 - Friday

Snowy and a bit cold.

Today was a pretty good day actually! I got up, watched the news and then the Sopranos at 10 am. I watched something else a bit later too, then finally took my shower.

I watched a couple of episodes of Cold Case, then had lunch. I was out the door of our apartment at 3:00 pm. It wasn't nice outside. It was snowing and the wind was blowing a bit. I walked to the school. I must have made fairly good time as I was there by 3:30. I dumped my stuff and then grabbed my cell phone and my shovel. I went out to the parking space and it was covered again. It wasn't as much today, about 10 cm I think, but there was almost nowhere to put the snow. I finally cleared the space, then took a picture of it, with my shovel in front of it to give perspective. I tried to make a vertical snow angel (2 different friends today talked about snow angels with me in emails) but I lost my footing and slid down my snow mountain onto my derriere. I took a picture of myself...think it looked fairly good actually. I was laughing at myself all the way and thinking that considering how old I am, I sure don't act it!

I went inside and went through my usual getting ready routine. I had to blow my hair dry as it was in really bad condition. My first student came and he was okay. He wasn't the best he's ever been, but certainly not the worst either. After his class I had a break. I did check my parking space and it had snowed a little bit more, but I decided not to shovel it. I could have, but I would have had to change all my clothes and it really wasn't very much snow anyway.

My last classes of the night went well. Both students drive big vehicles and my parking space is now quite small, but they managed. Whew. Fumihiko and I are discussing what to do about the snow. Of course, what we'd both like is the weather to warm up to 10 or 20 degrees and melt the darn stuff but that isn't likely to happen just yet!

Just after my last student left, I got a call from Fumihiko saying that he was done work. Oh my. He was actually later than me! Can you believe it? He started at 8:30 am and finished after 9:00pm. He said he'd come and get me, so I finished up my stuff. I had a lot to do. Putting out stuff for my first lesson tomorrow, washing dishes, my paperwork...changing. That kind of thing. He arrived finally and we left the school.

We went to Marumatsu for dinner tonight. It's a "Japanese" restaurant. It's usually not that good, but tonight it wasn't bad. I had French fries that were excellent, my shu-mei were nice, and I also had a decent tonkatsu. Fumihiko had tempura and soba. He said the soba wasn't great, but the tempura was okay. It wasn't an expensive meal...but quite decent.

We came home and spent a quiet evening here. I made some instant decafe coffee. It's good, but different from my drip coffee that I usually drink. That's about it really. I had a lot of email to read, and then this to write. That's it. I'm done now!

Night night!

Did you see....

Holes? A great little movie. This is the sequel-Piles.

January 17, 2008 - Thursday

A little snowy and a bit cold.

This morning I went to bed really late. How late? After 4 am. I woke up around 9, and got up a few minutes later. Fumihiko was off work today and got up a bit after me. I watched the news and then a documentary about Ethiopia. Very interesting. An African journalist was living the life of an Ethiopian for a month. He wasn't supposed to get any food or help from anyone else. Sadly, although the documentary was largely in English, when people spoke the native dialects the subtitles were only in Japanese.

Fumihiko left for his appointment and I finished watching the documentary I ate a bagel and felt guilty during the programme. I made the bed, showered, dressed and was doing some computer stuff when Fumihiko came back.

We spent a bit of time together and then went to Moku-Moku for a rather late lunch. Fumihiko had a mish-mash of stuff and I had pasta. I think I had the best deal! It was nice. Mine included salad, coffee and dessert.

We drove to my school via a drug store to get some oolong tea for me. I got a big bottle today. Since I was going by car, I didn't have to worry about carrying all that weight. Fumihiko dropped me off at my school. I dumped my stuff, grabbed the shovel and went out to face the snow.

Good gravy. There was a LOT of snow in my space. In fact, there was so much that I have a sneaking suspicion that the neighbours to my parking space dumped the snow from their cars onto my space. I realized that some of the ground is pretty open there so the wind may have blown it, but since my space had a lot of snow and my neighbours hardly any, I think I may be right. I shoveled the snow, but the problem was where to put the snow? I added it to the pile at the back of the space, but the snow jutted out from the wall a good metre. It was also more than a metre high I think. To make matters worse, I even had to shovel outside my space because the snow in front of my space was really deep. I know that I'm sort of supposed to stick the snow down one of the drains that run beside the road, but I didn't think I'd be able to lift a cement block cover and I'd have to shovel just to find one of those. Also, with only a shovel it'd take a long time. Sigh.

After 30 minutes I gave up finished and went into my school again. I was covered in snow so shed my outer clothing to hang in the shower and then changed and got to work. I had planned to do a lot of planning, but I was so tired I just didn't get around to it. Sigh.

My lesson today was quite good. The student was late and said that her vehicle just fit into the space. It may actually have stuck out a bit. Oh dear.

After she left I did my paper work and did do a bit of prep for tomorrow's classes. The last two were basically fine, but the first one I had to find cards for it. That can be a pain, but it wasn't too bad this time. Around 9 I called Fumihiko to say I was just starting the dishes and he could come and get me if he wanted. He took a long time to come, so I was finished the dishes. Hurray. He told me that he took a long time because he'd had to clear the car off. I wanted to cry when I heard that. I asked him to go and see the parking space with me, so he did. Sure enough, more snow was there. It wasn't too bad, though, certainly not as bad as what I found today. I just hope we don't get "gifted" with a lot more tonight.

At home, Fumihiko went into high gear. He was cooking dinner. Bless him! He made us a pork stirfry, chawanmushi and miso soup. He (over)cooked the chawanmushi in the microwave and covered the tops of the dishes with tin foil. That freaked me out! I've never used aluminum foil in the microwave, and thought you weren't supposed to. He said that if it wasn't tight against the dish it was okay. I'm still not sure. Things were quite good. It was really nice to have dinner cooked for me, and then he did the dishes too. I think he felt guilty about not helping me with the snow shovelling as he had promised to earlier.

Anyway, we had a quiet evening at home after that. I watched an episode from season four of The 4400. It was great, but I felt a bit lost in the story. They took some big leaps since the last episodes I saw. I think I must have missed one or two episodes.

And that's finally it. My day. It was long and now I'm really tired! I hope to get to bed soon. No 4 am for me tonight. I'll have to walk to the school tomorrow and may have to shovel again too. Wish me luck please!

Night.

January 16, 2008 - Wednesday

Lots of snow. Really!

I didn't sleep that well when I finally got to bed last night. The room seemed really light from the snow's glare, and then as soon as I put my head down on the pillow, I started coughing. Not a good sign. I got up and got a cough drop to suck on and it helped a lot. I still didn't sleep that well though.

This morning the doorbell bonged at 6:50 AM. What the heck? We were being summoned to go and shovel snow. Seriously. Cannot believe this flaming country. Anyway, Fumihiko dutifully went and did his bit, I stayed in bed for 10 more minutes, then decided that I'd do him a favour and clear off his car. I dressed and went out. There was at least 25 cm of snow on his car, and possibly more. However, by the time I got out there most of the shovelling was done and Fumihiko was just going to clean off his car. In any case, I helped him, but the snow was falling on it just as as soon as we took it off. I hopefully made big brownie points by going out there. Or not.

After he left for work, I checked email and then went back to bed until my normal getting up time. When I got up I filled the kerosene tank and then watched what was left of the news. I was going to take my shower early, but didn't. There was a good documentary on today about conflict diamonds and I was interested in it. I watched it and found it fascinating.

Finally showered and dressed, then waited for Fumihiko to come home. He got home a bit after 1. He said that the roads were bad and that his boss made him stay late to do paperwork. He changed quickly and we went out again.

We went somewhere to do something for Fumihiko. It didn't take too long, we were out of the place by 2:30 or so. We decided to have lunch, but where? We ran over the possibilities and I suggested Cocos. They have lunch until 3, so that's where we went. We got there and ordered fairly quickly. Fumihiko had the daily special, which he thought came with drink bar, and I had a beef teppan yaki thing that I ordered drink bar extra with. We also ordered ourselves the California salad...it's basically a taco salad, as it was on special right now. We had a nice meal. I found that if I put some of the beef in my bun and then dipped it in the sauce that came with it, it was almost as good as Boston Pizza's Beef Dip. Man, I used to love those. Anyway, when we got to the cash register it turned out that Fumihiko's meal didn't have drink bar included, it was a little bit extra. I had told him it wasn't included but he swore it was. I was right. Hah! We told the manager and he added it on to our bill. Are we just so honest, or what?

We came home for a bit in the afternoon and watched a video. Really, a video, not a dvd! I'd bought the film a couple of years ago and we've never gotten around to watching it. I'd seen it before, and loved it. It was Bowfinger. It stars Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy and Heather Graham. It's just so funny. It's about a film director (Martin) who tries to make a guerrilla science fiction/action movie with a major action star that doesn't know he's in the movie. It's so funny. Highly recommended. One of my favourite lines comes early in the film. Christine Baranski plays an actress and she says something to the effect of "I'm going up to Edmonton to do Cats." Edmonton being the hometown of yours truly.

After the movie we ended up watching Mars Attacks. I remember seeing in the theater and being horribly disappointed in it. It was just a mish-mash of ideas that never really gelled for me. I thought that it ripped off a major plot twist from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and that's just not good. I still didn't like it the second time. I laughed a little bit...Tom Jones flies a plane! but all in all, I still didn't like it!

We went out for dinner to Hana, Fumihiko's favourite Japanese style restaurant. It was quite nice. I had gindara, a very nice fish. Hubby wondered why I didn't eat the bits of tofu and wakame left in the bottom of my miso soup....is he really that dense? When he was reading me the menu he even said there was cod soup on the menu. Hello? Didn't we have a huge fight about that stuff 3 nights ago?

Anyway, we came home via the grocery store. Since Fumihiko is going to be off tomorrow he's going to cook dinner. I only have one class, so I could do it, but I think I'll let him!

At home we watched Desperate Housewives and it was great tonight. They've been doing this thing with Bree's husband Orson all along where they don't really explain if he's a good guy or a bad guy. They've made him look like a bad guy for so long that I was wondering what was going on. Well, tonight we find the truth. And there were two marriage proposals, but only one acceptance, as well as the new restaurant opening. Good times!

That's about it for my day. I've been checking blogs, email and what not for the last couple of hours. I really should go to bed. Fumihiko doesn't have to be up early, but he probably will get up due to force of habit anyway. I'm so not a morning person...so if I want to have any sleep I should go now.

Night night!

January 15, 2008 - Tuesday

Cold and snowy, snowy and cold. Did I mention snowy?

Today was okay. I didn't go to bed until 2:30 last night and I didn't sleep that well. I'm not sure why. Fumihiko had to be up early in the morning for work and I think I was worried he'd oversleep or something. He didn't though.

I got up a bit after 9 and watched the news. As I was watching the news the doorbell bonged, or whatever it does. There was a postal worker with one of my birthday presents. Yes, it's early, but it's a nice big box. :-) No, I didn't open it.

I did the computer and email thing for quite a while today before taking my shower. After the shower I did laundry, 3 loads worth. Sigh. I hate doing it. I had to redo a bunch because some of the stains in my shirts will NOT come out. I don't know what it is. I'm even using a pretreat spray. I think it's the useless cold water wash or something. Although hot water would probably set the stains.

I had my brunch around 2. As I cooked and ate, I re-watched last weeks Project Runway. I really am into that show. I'm wondering if this season has as many interesting characters as the last two seasons did.

I left the apartment just a little after 3:15. I walked first to the drugstore near my school to get a few supplies, and then on to my school. First thing I did at my school after dumping my backpack was to grab my shovel and go out to the parking space. I spent about 20 minutes shovelling snow. Ack. Oh well, just think of all the exercise I got today! Still, it wasn't heavy or terribly difficult.

When I went back into the school, I had to strip off my boots, and then my jacket. Most of my clothes got hung up in the shower to dry. I quickly changed into my work clothes and then got ready for today's classes. Luckily most of today's classes were already prepared, but I had to drag a broom over the floor, and put away the dishes, then prepare the hot water.

Classes were really good today. Both of them! I enjoyed them a lot. In the first one we covered much more than I expected to. The student is a kind of returnee, he had lived overseas when he was really young although he may not have been exposed to much English. Anyway, he's like a sponge and is a dream to teach. The second class was fun too. We talked about feelings and a little about intonation and pronunciation. I made the students write a short dialogue at the end of class, then they had to act it out! Fun.

After I cleaned up and did paperwork (actually it's usually the other way around), I called Fumihiko. He picked me up and we came home. Hubby had been busy in my absence. He'd made Ginger Pork for us, and daikon with miso paste. My contribution was opening the salad I'd bought yesterday and putting out the salad dressings! Oh, I did set the table too. Dinner was really nice. I should ask hubby to cook more often!

I did the dishes then got Fumihiko to help me with an email to a potential student. After that, we spent a quiet evening at home, but we did watch Monk at 11. I thought that Jamie Oliver would be on at 12, but he wasn't. It was tennis instead. I'm not a fan, so I turned off the TV.

That basically was my day. It was quiet, friendly, and for that I'm truly grateful. Tomorrow I'm off, and Fumihiko is off in the afternoon. Wonder what that will be like!

Anyway, I should go. I'll talk to you tomorrow night more than likely. Night night!