May 31, 2022

Tuesday - Hot and sunny, rain at night

The first thing I remember this morning was F sitting up in bed saying that his back hurt and he wasn’t going to go to work. I went back to sleep.

I got up at my regular time, watched the news from the bed. F was around sometimes, not always, but some of the time. He went to his eye doctor. I watched the morning news and then had a bit of a snooze.

I grabbed breakfast a little earlier than normal and came upstairs to eat it. F asked me fairly soon after I finished if I’d like to go for lunch, but of course, I said no. It was too soon. He said he really didn’t need to go either so we relaxed for a bit. I even took a short nap.

Around 2 pm I suggested going for keiten sushi and F agreed. We went over to Kappa Sushi and had a little lunch. When we were ready to leave, F reached for his wallet, and didn’t find it! Luckily, I had mine and was able to pay. We zoomed back to the house to get F’s wallet, and then we went to Komeda’s Coffee for a while. I had an iced decaf, F had a hot blend coffee.

We came back to the house and I tried to relax for a few minutes. I watched a little bit of the news and then went downstairs to make dinner. I was busy. I made Rosemary Chicken, air-fried baby potatoes, eggplant and mushroom stir-fry and of course salad. It was a lot of work but was quite nice. I had the table set and called F down. He took forever to come down. 

The first thing he did when he went to sit down was say that he was going to get rice. I said to him that he didn’t have to have rice because there were potatoes. He stormed off. I don’t understand personally. 

K and I finished our meal and I got to do all the clean-up as usual. I listened to my podcasts and then went upstairs. I ignored F and went into my part of the room. I closed the door to the other side. F didn’t talk to me for ages and then he asked if I was ready to go out. I told him that I wasn’t going out and I wasn’t going to cook tomorrow. He is going to have to cook for his mother. I am not going to do it.

I took a shower then came back to the room and watched my FBI show and then turned off the TV. I watched some YouTube and looked up local hotels in case I could get a good deal for tomorrow night. I probably can’t, sad to say. I feel like I need another break. 

So, today was good until F decided not to eat my lovely dinner. Well, that’s his decision. I wish I could say I didn’t care, but he’s been pulling this stuff for a while now and I’m so tired of it. Let him work a full day and then come back to the house and cook for his mother. I hope he has fun. 

That’s it for me for now. I’ll probably be here tomorrow, but if I’m not, don’t worry about it. Until tomorrow…. 

May 30, 2022

Monday - Hot and Sunny

I slept in a little this morning. My alarm had woken me, I just didn’t want to get out of bed yet. I dragged myself out of bed and went downstairs, came back upstairs and heated up my hot water. I watched the news and I also got dressed. After that, I watched the news from the bed and also had a little snooze too. 

I had breakfast around 11 and spent a quiet day mostly upstairs. I didn’t run into K at all during the day, and only sometimes was it on purpose!

I caught up with some of the TV that I had recorded over the weekend. I had planned to watch something on the Fire Stick but decided to try and watch something tonight.

F was in touch a couple of times today. He has to meet up with his insurance lady on Saturday and was asking me when would be a good time. I was still a bit mad at him, but I got over it.  After our texting, he called just to check he understood I think. 

F called again after 5:30 pm so I went downstairs and worked on dinner. I did a few things. I made some cucumber pickle thing, I took the leftover pasta from Friday’s dinner and fried it and added a few things, plus we had salad and some sautéed pork. Dinner was fine, but F was still a bit under the weather and didn’t eat too much. I had put some rice on F’s plate and also on K’s. I left the room and F caught K putting some of her rice on his plate. That’s fairly normal for her, but she also licked her fingers and then touched his plate. He was quite upset with her, so I think he took his plate to the kitchen, washed it, and got more rice.

After dinner, I cleared the table and then washed the dishes. I listened to some of my podcasts and when I was finished, I went upstairs. 

F was hungry when I came back up, so we had cake and ice cream and then he made himself some noodles! I watched an episode of Bake-Off and then an episode of Ted Lasso on Apple+ TV. I think it was the last one of the season. I also did some work on my basket and got a couple of rounds done. Yay!

I turned off the TV and started to do my end-of-day thing.  

I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. I might do laundry, or I might not. The weather is supposed to change overnight, so you never know. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

May 29, 2022

Sunday - Hot and sunny

I went to bed quite late last night and I planned to sleep in this morning. Unfortunately, F had set his alarm for 7:45 in the morning and then got up before that. I had to turn off his alarm. I was annoyed to say the least. I went downstairs and then came back and tried to go back to sleep. I did for a bit but F kept coming in and making noise.

I didn’t feel all that well when I got up and I just didn’t want to fight about lunch or anything like that. We didn’t really talk about where to go until we got in the car. I told F truthfully that I wanted someplace with a drink bar because I was so thirsty. He started out going to Gusto but when we were on the way I suggested going to Nagomi, the Japanese soba place I like. F was happier about that idea, so we went.

We arrived just as another couple was leaving, so for a little while, we had the restaurant to ourselves. I had my favourite, duck soba and F had tempura donburi. He didn’t like it too much as he didn’t like the sauce on the tempura. 

After lunch, we decided to go to the museum.  We spent a little time going through the exhibit and then visited the garden afterwards. 

I asked for a drink after the museum, so we went to Starbucks and were lucky enough to get in at a good time. We got seats! F grabbed them and I ordered and picked up the drinks. I had a decaf iced latte which was very nice, and F had his usual Frappucino.

F wanted to come back to the house for a while after Starbucks, so we did. I was on my computer for a while but eventually went for a nap. I was tired today.

Between 6:30 and 7 we talked about dinner. We decided to take K out with us and thought we’d try the Kushibiki restaurant. While F got his mother ready and got ready himself, I asked him to open the car so that I could clean that side of the car for his mother. I threw out a bunch of stuff from the car and made a yucky discovery. In the garage, there were bags of garbage waiting to go out and very improperly sorted. At the time, I figured that it was probably K who had done it.

We went to the restaurant. All of the tables were full, but we were able to get seats at the counter. K had ramen, F had yakisoba with starchy sauce and I had mabo-dofu on yakisoba. I enjoyed mine.  We brought K back to the house and then F and I went on to the grocery store. We went to MaxValu again and I grabbed a few things for dinner for tomorrow and Tuesday. I have no idea what I’m going to make if I’m honest!

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. F disappeared again. I went upstairs and put on less nice clothes and then went downstairs and did up the garbage. Some I grabbed from up here, I did all the kitchen stuff too and then I took it out. After that, I went into the garage and started sorting the garbage out. It took a long time, but I got most of the bottles squashed and bagged, I started a bag for aluminum cans and filled up a bag of burnable garbage. I took that to the station. Tomorrow I’ll have to make sure that the plastic bags get taken out too. I also realized that most of the garbage wasn’t K’s. It was F’s. She doesn’t drink all of the types of drinks that I found. I wasn’t too pleased with F after that.

I took a shower tonight and I really needed one, then came back upstairs. F was already in bed so I basically ignored him. 

I have no idea what I’m going to get up to tomorrow. I’ll probably have to cook dinner…oh yay. 

Come back later if you like and find out about my day. Hopefully, it’ll be an okay one! Until tomorrow….

May 28, 2022

 Saturday - Sunny and warm but rainy early on

I woke up this morning and F was gone. I went downstairs and then went back to bed for a bit of a snooze. I did have a bit of texting with my friends because of a group situation.

F came back and we had a bit of a snooze for a bit and then he suggested going for lunch to one of the places that I suggested last week. I was happy to agree to it. 

We went down the road to Kitchen Futaba and had a very nice meal. I had the quiche plate. Today’s quiche was baby shrimp and bamboo, with salad and soup and it was nice to relax and enjoy the food. F had the ginger pork donburi. I think he liked it, but it is hard to say!

After lunch we went suit shopping for F. He really needs a new suit for work and just important events that come up. We had to go to a couple of places and at the second one, F ended up ordering a new suit. He wouldn’t take some advice, but he did take it in other places. It’ll be interesting to see how the suit turns out when it is made.

We went to have a drink after buying the suit. We went to Mosburgers again and spent a bit of time there. We went to the grocery store across the street from Mosburgers and bought K a nice bento for dinner. 

We went back to the house and I gave K her sushi. We headed out again soon afterwards and drove to Mikawa.

F parked the car and we went into the mall. I bought the tickets at the machine. We were both surprised that a big section of the cinema was already full!  We had to sit on the far side of the cinema instead. 

We took our tickets and then went to the food court. I wanted bibinba as usual, and F had it too. We ordered and got free drinks because of our movie tickets. I picked up our food when the buzzer let us know it was ready. I had to do it in two trips because the bibinba is heavy!

We ate and then I had to drag F into the cinema line. We got some popcorn and drinks and then joined one of the longest lines to get into the cinema that I’ve ever seen there. The cinema wasn’t full, but it was the fullest I think I’ve ever seen, including before Covid! There were a lot of people who wanted to see Top Gun: Maverick. How was it? Well, it was okay. I liked it but I didn’t love it. I did enjoy myself at the cinema though. I think F liked it too.

We came back to Tsuruoka and went to MaxValu to pick up a few things for a late dinner. We were both a bit peckish. F also got some things for his mother. 

We got back to the house and I opened the door. We’d forgotten to leave the light on when we left so I had to open the door using only the light from the motion sensor light on the garage. F told me off again for not standing on the right side of the door. It’s an old argument but it still annoys me. He tried to tell me that everyone would stand on the right side. Well, obviously not, since I stand on the left. I think he should just shut up about it.

I put away the groceries or arranged them to go upstairs and then I went upstairs. I changed into my pyjamas and then went online and caught up with friends and even wrote an email. Yay me.

So that’s about it for me. Not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. I hope that it’ll be fun. Come back later and find out. Until tomorrow…

May 27, 2022

Friday - Rainy and cooler, sunny later on

I managed to get myself to bed before 3 last night, so you’d think I’d be able to get up this morning. Nope. I slept a bit late but dragged myself off downstairs and then came back to watch the news and have some late snoozing. I did that a bit late too. It was really dark outside today, so it felt like it was much earlier in the day. 

F called me and woke me up which was a good thing…we chatted a bit and then I went downstairs and did a load of laundry. Yay me. 

I had breakfast, hung up my laundry and checked out my Fire Stick over the day. We are getting a free month of Amazon Prime so I watched quite a few things today! I started off with Picard season one, episode one and it was great. I need to watch more! Over the day I also watched a couple of Bake-offs and an episode of Making the Cut…Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum’s version of Project Runway. I didn’t like it that much, sad to say. Exploring is fun!

I watched the 4pm news and a little while afterwards, F called to say that he was on the way back. I went down to the kitchen to get started on dinner. F came back but spent most of his time in the washroom. Oh, dear. 

One minute he said he couldn’t eat dinner, the next he said he could, and I was a little confused! I tried to make things easy for him…he didn’t have to eat meat if he didn’t want to.  I opened a can of tuna for him to have with the pasta if he wanted. 

I got dinner on the table quickly once I knew that F was going to come for it. We had a pretty nice meal I thought. It was pasta with pesto, plus corocoro steak bites and leftover taco mix, and salad. 

I got the dishes done after dinner and then went upstairs. I watched a few things on Amazon and then turned off the TV and started blogging. 

I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. The new Top Gun is in the cinema now so if F feels up to it, we might go and see it. 

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

May 26, 2022

Thursday - Hot and Sunny

I got up this morning a little bit after my alarm went off. I was tired from yesterday.

I watched the news and the early on news too and then took a bit of a nap. I had a really hard time staying awake, so I overslept a bit. I did a couple of loads of laundry when I got up. The spot on my shirt is better, but I think I’ll have to run it through one more time. 

In the afternoon I did a few things and then I decided that I would clear out the corner of my room and hopefully get F to help me set up the Fire Stick tonight. It took ages! I filled a garbage bag with plastic bags and stuff I don’t need anymore. I got the stuff moved over to other parts of the room, which is pretty hard.  I stopped when I cleared the room down to the extension cords. I replaced them with our new cords and replugged things in. 

I stopped because F called finally to say he was coming back to the house. I was a sweaty, dusty mess. I had to change my undershirt as it was so wet!

I took my dishes down to the kitchen and washed them. F came back a few minutes later but didn’t really come in to say hi.   I followed him upstairs and asked him about dinner. He said he didn’t want any. Oh, dear. Oh well.

I tried to ask K if she’d like to serve some of her bamboo stuff, but I think she thought I wanted her to move her stuff off the stove. Whatever!

I made a quick dinner for us tonight. It was Orange Chicken, salad, beets, and rice for K. It didn’t take a long time, so I was quite happy about that, and it didn’t take all that long to clean up afterwards, which is what I was really happy about. 

I came upstairs and F was almost asleep. He was a good egg tonight though and did help me set it up. It took a bit of time and I got bogged down in places…the internet isn’t great in that corner, but finally, it all seemed to work out. Woot. So…that means that I can watch my Apple TV + on the big screen instead of my computer. Yay for that!

After I got things set up, F went downstairs and made himself some ramen (of course) and brought it upstairs to eat.  I got ready and took a shower. It was desperately needed!

I came back upstairs to the room and watched The Rookie which was quite good tonight. After that, I turned off the TV. F took his shower during the show I think. 

So that’s about it for my day. Tomorrow I have to do a little more laundry and maybe cook dinner. I just hope that it isn’t so darn hot again. It got up to 30 degrees Celsius in the room up here today… which was hot. And it’s only May!  What is it going to be like in July or August? I don’t want to think about it. 

Come back later if you like to hear all about my day and if I survive in the heat up here. Until tomorrow….

May 25, 2022

Wednesday - Hot and sunny

I managed to get myself to bed before 2 last night, so wasn’t too angry at F when I woke up at 6 when he left! I got up, went to the ‘loo, and then went back to sleep for a couple more hours. When my alarm went off, I snoozed a little but did get up. I watched the last bit of the news and some of the early morning news. 

I had to get dressed and leave just after 10 am. When I went downstairs, K was nowhere to be seen, but she had been busy. She had prepared the bamboo stew. Unfortunately, she’d left it on the stove without a lid. Sigh. 

I left the house and went on my way. I did yell goodbye, but I’m sure she didn’t hear me. I made good time to the bus stop and was there about 5 minutes early. It was really sunny so I was glad that I had my hat on.

The bus came and at first, I was the only passenger. It gradually picked up people along the way of course. I had a good trip out to the mall and enjoyed myself by reading a book. It’s one that I started ages ago and didn’t get into it. Today I did. 

At the mall, I paid the driver as someone else needed the change, and went into the mall. I had an okay time. I checked out the craft corner (meh), looked at clothing and picked out a few things I might like to try later, and then went to the post office. I made a deposit inside the branch. The Japanese post office has started to charge for coin deposits now. If you use the machine, you automatically get charged about 110 yen, but if you do it in the branch and deposit 50 or fewer coins, it is free. So, last time I was in the mall, I deposited some ten yen coins, today I deposited one hundred yen and fifty yen coins. Yay me. 

I decided to have lunch next and went to the pasta place. I haven’t been there in ages and I quite like it. I had one of the lunch specials, so I got drink bar plus salad and pasta for a little over a thousand yen. It was pretty good too. The only downside was that I dropped a piece of bacon on my shirt and it got a huge oil stain on the front. I hope it comes out. 

F and I texted a bit. He was in Sendai having a nice lunch and I was in Mikawa having a nice lunch too. 

After lunch, I went back to the department store and tried on a few shirts. I thought I might try and get a new one because the stain on my shirt was right in front and very noticeable! I tried on a few but none of them were right for me. Some were too tight in odd places, others just didn’t look that great. I found one that I bought to wear around the house, so that was good, but I decided not to change into it.

I bought a few things from the grocery store and then went down the hall to wait for my friend. I was tired, so I grabbed a seat and read some of my book while I was waiting.

My friend arrived on time and then we spent a couple of enjoyable hours together. We went to Doutor for a while and had something to drink and then she had to run an errand. We also decided to have a cup of coffee at the kiosk at the corner. They have Costa coffee and it was my first time having it. I liked it a lot. 

She had to leave so we hugged goodbye and then she left. I relaxed on a bench for a while, and then went to the mall entrance to meet F. He called and I told him I’d meet him at the usual place. When will I learn? I texted him a few minutes later and said that I was waiting in Aeon, but if he was somewhere else he should call me and I’d go to him. He called me. I meant that he should meet me at the usual place that we meet when he picks me up at the mall, he thought I meant the door we usually use when we go to the movies. Sigh. Still, at least he let me know.  

We decided we’d go and have ice cream, so went upstairs. I looked at the flavours, as did F and I made my choice. Then, F decided that he’d get some ramen for “a snack”. That’s what the ice cream was for! So, he had his ramen and I had some ice cream. I asked him if this was dinner but he said it wasn’t.

We ate our food…the ice cream was very nice and refreshing….and then left the mall. On the way into Tsuruoka, I suggested going to Kintaro Sushi and F was okay with that. When we got closer, I remembered that our usual branch is closed on Wednesday, but the one near F’s house would be open. We drove over, parked the car, and tried to go in. Apparently, they were out of fish! We had to go somewhere else. 

I said to F that I knew he didn’t like it, but I was suggesting Gusto. I really needed drink bar and thought we both could find something to eat. 

He agreed. We were able to get right in and between our phone apps and the menu were able to order a few dishes. We had a good meal actually. I had a stroganoff burger, and F had fried chicken. He grudgingly said it was okay. I kept him supplied with drinks too.

After dinner, we did a grocery store round and then came back to the house. I put away the groceries and then came upstairs to change. I gathered the garbage from upstairs and took it downstairs. I did up the kitchen garbage too and even took it out to the gomi station. There were three bags this time, so I thought it was too much for F to do tomorrow morning. If he wasn’t on crutches it would be fine, but….

After that, I came back its the house and watched the 4:00pm news followed by the first episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Yes, it’s back. Apparently, they are pretending that they are in a post-pandemic world. How do I get there? It was an okay episode. 

And that’s about that. Tomorrow I have to try and wash some clothes and I’d really like to try and clean out my corner so that I can get everything set up for watching my streaming service. I hope it goes well. I’m a bit sore from all the walking I did. I almost made it to 10,000 steps today, and my hip is protesting rather vigorously. Oh, dear.

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

May 24, 2022

 Tuesday - Hot and Sunny

I woke up with my alarm this morning. I did snooze for a minute or two longer but got up. I watched the rest of the news from the bed, and when it was over I took a nap too. I was just going to go and get my breakfast when F called. He didn’t have anything exciting to say really!

I had a fairly quiet morning. I had breakfast and then F called again to say that a cousin or something like that had dropped off some bamboo shoots for us, probably in the garage. Could I get them and give them to his mother. Well, yes, I could. 

I went downstairs and found the bamboo just outside the door. I gave it to K.  She can deal with them, I’ve no idea what to do with bamboo shoots!

A little later, F called again. He was coming back to the house and did I want anything. I said no, but when he arrived, he had brought some ice cream (yay!) and some roasted green tea for me. That was nice of him.  I was having lunch at the time so I had to have my dessert first! Oh darn.

He left after a few minutes and I got on with my stuff. I didn’t work on the room today, I should have but didn’t.

Around 5:30 F called again to say he was on his way back to the house and had to stop at a grocery store for his mother. Did I want anything? I suggested getting her a couple of bentos for tomorrow. I’ll be out from 10 am on and won’t come back until late with F. This way, she’ll have some food at the house. I also texted him later and asked for yellow garbage bags (for plastic bottles) but he forgot.

In the kitchen, I looked for my taco seasoning packets but couldn’t find them, so I looked up an easy recipe on the net. I found one at Betty Crocker. Basically, I didn’t need any special spices, I just needed to add salsa to the ground meat and cook it a little longer. That was simple. Of course, I ended up finding the spice packets a little later but decided I’d try the recipe in case it was a winner. You know, it wasn’t bad! The salsa we have is a Japanese brand, not too spicy, but for K, that isn’t a bad thing. 

F did a lot of shopping and got K the ingredients she needed for the bamboo stew/dish that she wants to make. We don’t keep some of the stuff needed on hand, at least I don’t. I took a few minutes to make the taco meat and plate the cheese and lettuce, but really, dinner was super fast tonight. I set the table, called F who said he’d come down, and then waited a minute for him. He didn’t come. Ack. Again?  

I went upstairs to see if he was awake. He was on his computer again. Sigh. I asked if he wanted tortilla chips with dinner, but he said no. He came down a few minutes later.

Dinner was pretty good. K got into the whole tortilla thing tonight. She copied me a bit, but finally started putting extra sauce on as she liked! We used to just give her taco rice, but I’m glad that she’s trying the tacos! We had dessert tonight too, we finished up the Bocca puddings from Costco. 

I did the dishes and then came upstairs. F came up a bit later. We both wanted to take showers tonight. F said that he’d go between 9:00 and 9:30, but at 9:45 he still hadn’t gone. He told me I could go. I don’t usually go that early, but I decided why not do it. 

I took my shower and then came back upstairs. At 11:00 I watched FBI: Most Wanted and then turned off the TV. F has an early morning tomorrow and I didn’t want to be the reason he stayed up and awake. He’s snoozing now, but it took a while before he turned off his computer.

So that’s about it for me. Tomorrow I’m off to the mall in Mikawa to meet up with a friend. I’m hoping that the buses will be running in the morning. There are some schedule changes as tomorrow is the Tenjin Matsuri in Tsuruoka, but I should be in Mikawa before anything gets too messed up. 

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

May 23, 2022

Monday - Sunny and warm

I went to bed a bit late last night and then my alarm seemed to go off a bit too early for me. I got up, went downstairs and came back and watched the news. I took a little snooze too, but got up and grabbed breakfast.

I had a quiet morning and then I tried to do a little bit of a clean-up so that F can set up our TV thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that much done. Around 1:30 or so I went downstairs to grab lunch. I was going to have the leftover pasta from Friday, but K came out of her room so I asked her if she’d like it. She said yes, so I heated it up and gave it to her. I also tried to remind her that her daughter was going to take her out today. I think she got it, but I’m not sure. 

I ate lunch and afterwards got some of the plastic bottles in the corner squashed and prepared to go out for pick up tomorrow. K and F’s sister went out, so I took the bottles downstairs and squished them and rinsed a few that needed it. 

I also grabbed K’s vacuum and did a little bit of spot/guerrilla cleaning. There were a bunch of cobwebs that needed cleaning up, so I got them with the vacuum. I also vacuumed some of the fans to take off the dust. I put the vacuum away afterwards. 

I went back upstairs but remembered to give F’s sister back some of her food containers. I think she was glad about that!

I watched the news and waited for F to call. I had given up when he called to say he was on the way and had already picked up my pants. Wow. I went downstairs and got busy in the kitchen.

Today I was making Gapao rice. F had already made rice for it in the rice cooker so I didn’t have quite as much to do. I thought I’d serve dessert tonight too. 

F came back to the house and after talking to me and then his mother, went upstairs to change. 

I got dinner well underway and it was nearly ready. I had made the meat mixture, I’d put the salad out, I’d even fried the eggs. I texted F and asked him to come down. No answer. While setting the table, I yelled a couple of times but didn’t hear any answer.

I finally got a bit impatient and called him one more time. I heard him say something, but nothing I could understand. 

All the food was on the table, and the drinks were all poured, but F didn’t come down. I got K to just start eating. I decided that F must have smelled the spices and decided not to eat. K and I ate and had a nice meal. I quite enjoyed it, except I was a bit annoyed at F for not coming down. He’s done it fairly often so I didn’t want to go upstairs and nag him to come down. 

I put his dinner in the fridge. I thought that K and I could split it for our lunch tomorrow.

I got started on the dishes and was about halfway done when F appeared in the kitchen. I asked him what had happened. Apparently, he’d fallen asleep! He got a phone call from his sister, which is what had woken him up. He was really surprised that K and I had eaten without him. He still wanted his dinner, so I had to get it out of the fridge, re-plate it, and then heat it up for him. Of course, I got to do those dishes too. 

When I finished the dishes I bagged the regular plastic garbage in the kitchen and left it in the genkan. 

I went upstairs and relaxed for most of the evening. I could have watched Mamma Mia, but I wasn’t in the right mood. 

I watched some YouTube and I didn’t take a shower tonight. I’m going out on Wednesday, so I’ll take one tomorrow night, promise! I did do a bit of mending tonight and a tiny bit of crochet, so that was good.

The thing is, that even though F wasn’t “angry” with me for calling him too much, I thought he might be. It’s crazy. I’m glad he ate his dinner, but I wasn’t too happy with him not eating with me!

Anyway, today was okay. Tomorrow I’ll have to get ready for my outing and I’m going to make tacos for dinner. Wish me luck with that!

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

May 22, 2022

Sunday - Sunny and warm, still a bit muggy

Today was a good day! I wasn’t sure that it would be, but it turned out to be.

I went to bed very, very late last night, and so I wasn’t too happy when my husband woke me up at 10 am this morning. However, I knew that he was planning to go out this morning as he’d booked a massage for himself. I decided that I’d get up and go out with him.

I got F to drop me off at S-Mall.  He did!  I went in and decided to have breakfast right away. I went to the bakery and had a couple of bready things plus a canned tea. It was quite nice. After that, I did a little shopping. I visited the grocery store and then the hundred yen shop. I went to the music/DVD shop after that and just looked at stuff. When I finished in the store, I had a seat on a bench in the mall and then felt the floor move. Apparently, we had an earthquake while I was there. It wasn’t very big over here as it was on the other side of Japan.

Soon after that, I got a call from F and I went to the door to meet him. He parked the car and I went out to meet him. We talked about where to go or what to do and F suggested going to a restaurant that serves both ramen and curry. I was fine with that and off we went. 

We went into the restaurant and were greeted by a sign saying that it would take 30 minutes to be seated. Yikes. We decided to stay. A family came in just after us and decided to leave. Sorry. See ya again.

We actually were seated fairly quickly and ordered after a few minutes. I had their curry special for the month, a hamburger curry with red wine sauce. F ordered ramen with gyoza.  Then we waited. And waited. They really didn’t seem that busy and honestly, our food didn’t seem like it would take that much time, but it did. It took about an hour before we got food. It was okay. My curry was fine. It wasn’t spectacular though. F said his ramen was terrible though. Oh, dear. 

After lunch, we just went driving. F pulled into a clothing shop that caters to larger people and asked if I’d like to go shopping. I would as it happened. We went in and after trying on a lot of pants, I ended up getting two pairs. They were on sale, the first pair was full price, the second (and cheaper one of course) was half price. I’m having the pants hemmed so F will pick them up after work tomorrow if all goes well.

When we left the shop I was sweating! Trying on clothes is hard work.  I suggested going for a drink and said that Mosburger was close by, so we could go there. 

We went in. I had an oolong tea and F had an orangey shake. It was the special of the month. We spent a bit of time there and just relaxed. 

When we finished we talked about our next idea. We had talked about going for dinner in Sakata. I wanted to drop something off at my friend’s house and F suggested going for dinner at a swanky restaurant there. I wouldn’t mind that!

I suggested getting our groceries for the next couple of days, so we went to the grocery store. I’ve decided to do Gapao rice tomorrow and then some tacos on Tuesday. F said it was okay! I got the ingredients and then a few other necessary things. We also picked up a bento for K, we got her a nice one. 

We came back to the house and unpacked the groceries. I took some of my stuff upstairs and then we headed out again.

We drove to Sakata and went by my friend’s house. I gave her the maple syrup that we picked up for her at Costco. I told her that it was a bit cliche, a Canadian carrying maple syrup! I left her and her daughter with much waving and promises to get together soon. 

F took me to Minosuke in Sakata. It’s a very cool French-style restaurant with a huge koi pond in the middle of the floor. I think this was our third time going there. We could have had their usual set which is really nice, but they had a Japanese beef stew available which is what he talked me into! He had a more expensive fish set than normal and it looked really good too.

Small scallops and shrimp in the glass, a mountain vegetable rolled in prosciutto below. 

Lovely crusty bun and shrimp bisque.

 

Japanese beef cheek stew.
This was amazingly tender. 

Dessert and coffee. I had a chocolate cake with blueberry ice cream.

Some of the fish and a little part of the pond. Yes, this is indoors and yes, the fish are huge!

A hanging decoration. I believe this is a traditional one from Sakata.

After we finished our meal, F asked if I needed to do anything else in Sakata. I asked if we could go to the mall. Their craft department is better than the one in the Mikawa mall and I wanted to check it out. 

While I looked at yarn and other yummy stuff, F wandered around and looked at things. I met up with him after I was done looking. He was in front of some extension cords with many outlets and suggested that we get some. I’m a bit nervous about one cord I’m using at the moment and we might need more outlets for the TV one too. We bought a couple of cords. 

On the way to the car, F said he needed to go to a drugstore, so we drove over to the closest one. We went in and bought a few things. We actually ended up with a lot of things!

After that, we drove back to Tsuruoka. F had hoped to buy gas on the way, but the station was closed. We made it back to Tsuruoka and the first thing we did was buy gas. F always runs it too close in my opinion.

We came back to the house and put some of the shopping away. F set up the rice cooker for tomorrow’s dinner. 

We came upstairs and just had a quiet evening in. It was an exciting day and a much better day than yesterday. I’m almost sad that the weekend is over. 

Tomorrow I might see if I can find the outlet in the room so that I can put my stuff out of the way. I also have to look for my usual “out of the house” glasses as they’ve fallen out of my purse and I don’t know where they are. Oh no! Luckily, I have other pairs. 

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

May 21, 2022

Saturday - Warm and muggy, rain later on

I woke up early this morning and it’s probably a good thing that I did because 2 seconds later, F’s alarm went off. He was gone, but he’d left his alarm on. Sigh. I went downstairs and then came back and went back to bed. I next woke up a little after 10pm when F came back to the house. 

I got up, dressed and heated up my kettle. I had a cup of tea and offered something to F. He had some coffee. After that, F started to ask about lunch. I wasn’t too fussy today and asked what he wanted. He didn’t know. I suggested rather a lot of restaurants and he basically turned his nose up at all of them while proclaiming that “anything will do.”

I finally suggested the actual restaurant in Foodever and he said it was okay. We drove downtown and went in. We were able to have a decent meal there. He said he liked it…honestly, I don’t care that much now. I had a pork cutlet set meal and it was very nice, F had keisen donburi. 

After lunch, we were busy. We went to the hardware store and picked up a few things. We got some hooks for me and some soda for F and his mother. After we finished in the store, we headed over across the street and went to K’s Denki, the electric shop. We got F a new mouse for his computer and I got a Fire Stick so I can hopefully watch Apple TV on our TV! We haven’t set it up yet though.

I wasn’t ready to go back to the house yet, but F headed in that direction. I was surprised when we kept going. We ended up at Komeda Coffee and spent about an hour there. I had an iced decaf and F had a hot coffee. It was nice to spend some time out of the house.

It was nearly dinner time after we had our coffee, but F had read that there was a Royce truck selling chocolate near a farmer’s market.  Royce, for those of you who don’t know, is a famous chocolate company from Hokkaido. Before we got married, I used to always bring F some chocolate for his omiyagi from Hokkaido when I came down to visit. We drove over to the place and had to get into line!  Because it was closing at 6:00pm and we got there about 5:40, we were finally let in just before 6.  We got a little bit of chocolate and then left.

It was time to think about dinner and F wanted to get bentos from his new favourite fish place. I was less enthusiastic. I don’t like the place as much as he does. Nevertheless, I picked the lunch place, so whatever. We drove over to the restaurant and ordered our bentos. We brought them back to the house.  I chose a tuna and salmon bento, F had tuna with a sauce and he picked a small keisen don for his mother.

We came back to the house and unloaded the car. F got the kettle on and I went upstairs to change and take our shopping up. After that, I went downstairs and got dinner on the table. I’m the one who put out the pickles and put the bowls on the table and got out the drinks…you know. Dinner was fine. I got gifted with the clean-up as usual. It really ticks me off. They always wonder why don’t I want to eat at the house on the weekend…it’s because I have to do all the clean-up afterwards. 

After I finished cleaning up I just came straight upstairs. I didn’t want to talk to either of them. I spent time on my computer for a bit. F came up after a while and I took a nap. I was so tired. F turned on the light on his side of the room and I slept on. Admittedly I had my sleeping mask on, but still!  I got up just before 10 pm. 

I took a shower and then came upstairs and watched FBI. The TV went off after that. 

I’ve had an okay day. I do wish that F wouldn’t be so annoying about lunch. I really like some of our local restaurants but he doesn’t. For me, I spent a lot of today wondering if I have Long Covid taste problems, but then I realized that I live in Japan where food is pretty tasteless anyway. Well, at least the stuff my husband likes is.

Anyway, one more day of this weekend is left. Come back later if you feel up to it and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

May 20, 2022

Friday - Sunny and warm, muggy again

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off and I got up right away. I went downstairs and then watched the news. I tried to take a mini-nap, but F called again and said he was coming by the house.  I got up! He didn’t stay too long. 

I did a couple of loads of laundry today and even folded my clean laundry in the afternoon rather than before I went down to the kitchen to make dinner.

I had a quiet afternoon, but it was fine. I watched a little bit of stuff off the DVR, I had my lunch and I just relaxed a bit. I was getting ready to watch the news when I heard K sweeping outside the door. Gah. She hasn’t done that in ages…and it wasn’t missed at all. Our steps actually looked fairly decent, F had done them last week!

F called to say he was on his way so I went downstairs and started getting ready for dinner. Tonight’s dinner was a bit simple, I did pasta with a bought sauce, sausages and salad, plus yogurt and frozen blueberries for dessert. 

It went over fairly well, except I’m the only one that had seconds. I thought the pasta was great and I wanted more!

I did the dishes and listened to my movie podcast. It was good so I was happy. I got done fairly early and then I said goodnight to K, who was still up!

F said that he’d go out if I wanted, but I knew he didn’t mean it and I wasn’t sure where we’d go anyway! We stayed in tonight. I watched some Apple TV+ (Is anyone else watching Severance?) and then a movie on WOWOW. The movie wasn’t great, which is sad as I had wanted to watch it for a while. 

I did a bit of crafting during my TV, I’m back to working on my yarn basket. I did a round, which is more than it sounds. I’m using four strands of yarn which is a bit hard on my wrists. 

F went to bed a while ago. He’s planning to go to an onsen in the morning if he gets up early enough, and then to his doctor. I’ve asked that we go shopping, I’m hoping to get a couple of hooks to hang things up around the room. I want to hang my jackets and the hooks I have now don’t work that well.

So that’s about it for me. It was a quiet day. I’m hoping that this will be a good weekend. Come back later and find out if it is. Until tomorrow….

May 19, 2022

Thursday - Warm and sunny, bit muggy

F did wake me up a bit this morning. He was looking for something but found it himself before I truly woke up. I woke up when my alarm went off and got up. I came back to the room and watched the news. After that, I’m afraid I had a bit of a nap. 

Today was a very quiet day here, but it was nice. I had a lovely breakfast and later on my lunch was good too. I had lunch and watched the last episode from the third season of Yellowstone. Oh my gosh! What a lot of goings-on and it’s going to be off for a while. Ahhhhhh!

F texted me to say he was still in Yamagata and that he would likely be late. Oh, dear. I went downstairs around 6 pm and started on dinner. I did some cucumber pickle and worked on my stir fry. I had bought two bags of prepared veggies which made things nice and easy for me. Except I had other veggies in the fridge that needed using up, so I had to prep them. No big deal.

F called me after 6:30 or so to say that he was coming back to the house. When he got back to the house, I started cooking. Tonight we had a pork stir fry, salad, and cucumber pickle. F and K both had rice too. Dinner actually got great reviews, so that was good!

I did the dishes and listened to some podcasts too. I was a little disappointed in some of the podcasts. I tuned into one I haven’t heard for a few months and it…wasn’t funny. Boo. It took a while to get the dishes done, and I thought I didn’t use that many today. Sigh. 

After I finished I told F that I was done and then I went upstairs. We had a quiet evening in. I took a shower and watched my show, The Rookie. It was quite cool tonight as it dealt with a racist cop. The bad cop was played by Brandon Routh who played Superman a few years ago. I knew I had seen him before, but I couldn’t figure out who he was at first. I also worked a little on a dormant craft project, my basket. I got about a round done before I stopped.

And that basically was my day. It was quiet but good, so that was nice. My hip hasn’t hurt as much today either, which is a big relief. 

Tomorrow I should do some laundry and after that, who knows? I’m going to make dinner again, pasta I think and hopefully, things will go well. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

May 18, 2022

Wednesday - Sunny and warm, slight rain at night

I woke up quite early this morning, that was strange. I woke up around 6:30, went downstairs and then went back to bed. F was still at the house and in bed then. I’m not sure if I heard him leave today. 

I had a hard time getting up when my alarm went off but finally managed. I came back upstairs, watched the early morning news and then snoozed a little. 

I did a load of towels today laundry-wise and while it was washing I got a call from F. He had some free time while he waited for the person he drove for and he wanted to come back to the house to relax. I had no objections.  When he arrived I noticed that I had received a delivery notice. Aha.  

Upstairs, I made F some coffee and I had some tea. He relaxed and even sewed his pants. His belt loop had come loose and today he sewed it back on. I did volunteer to do it for him, but he said he would try it. 

Around 1:30 or so I went downstairs and grabbed my lunch. I came back up to eat, but before I had finished, F had to leave.  It was actually nice to see him in the afternoon!

I had a quiet afternoon after F left. I watched an episode of Yellowstone…sometimes I can’t believe the things that happen on that show….and later I watched the news.

F came back from work around 6 pm. I had a busy time in the kitchen. I did a stirfry from the grocery store, but I had to defrost it. I also prepared some eggplant fries in my air fryer.

Dinner was a little smaller than usual but went over well. Almost everything got eaten, but I do have some of my bean salad left. Yay. I love it. 

I did the dishes and got them done, I also did up the garbage as it really needed to go out today. I washed my hands and went upstairs to change and get the gomi from upstairs. F did up his garbage and we took all the bags out on the way to the grocery store.

We went to MaxValu and did a bit of shopping. I got some food for the next couple of nights. I’m doing a stir-fry tomorrow night, but it’ll be a pork one, not a fish one like tonight. I think it’ll be good.

We came back to the house via a convenience store to pay a bill and then I unpacked the groceries as F did a bunk. I asked him about it later and he said he couldn’t stand up anymore. Okay. Poor thing. 

We had a quiet evening in. I watched This is Going to Hurt. It finished tonight…I liked it, even though it was a bit sad. I wonder if they’ll make more of it?

And that’s about it for my day. It was okay. 

Come back later if you like and find out about my Thursday. Until tomorrow….

May 17, 2022

Tuesday - Muggy and a little cloudy

I heard F leave this morning, but I managed to stay asleep for the most part. When my first alarm went off I felt cold and searched around on the bed for my blanket. It was over on F’s side. Hmm.  Did he accidentally pull my blanket off, or did I kick it off and he moved it? I don’t know.

I finally dragged myself out of bed and then got dressed. I watched the end of Demolition Man which as always, was fun. I got moving and grabbed my breakfast and brought it upstairs. 

I had a very quiet afternoon. I finished my dishcloth and even took a picture of it. Woot me! After a while, I had lunch and watched some of the programmes that I had recorded over the weekend. I even turned off the TV for a while. 

My latest dishcloth. I have to wash it before I use it. 

F called when he finished work and I told him my menu plan and asked him if he’d like to have it. He said he would, so I went ahead and went to the kitchen. 

Tonight I made a lemony bean salad, some fried cabbage, salad and we also had orange chicken from Costco. That was nice. F and K had rice too. I even served dessert as well. We had some Bocca puddings from Hokkaido. We got them at Costco. They come in little balloons that you pop, it’s rather fun! 

I did the dishes afterwards and even though I didn’t think there were that many, it took ages! Of course, I had to do things like clean the stove because no one had done it over the weekend. Sigh. 

I went upstairs when I finished and spent a bit of time with F. He was cuddled up in bed with his computer. He’s enjoying it so that is a good thing. 

I took a shower and then came back upstairs to watch my FBI show. It was pretty good and I enjoyed it. After that, I turned off the TV and went to a few YouTube videos. 

I started blogging a bit later than I did last night, but I think I’m done now. 

Tomorrow I’m cooking dinner, but it should be interesting I think. I have to make some vegetables, which could take a bit of time of course.  Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….