June 7, 2026

 Sunday - Warm and Sunny, a bit muggy at night

Today was another good day. Woot. I woke up around 9:30 and made a trip downstairs. I came back to the room and had a bit of a snooze. Before I woke up, I had the oddest dream that I was out with F somewhere and I ended up sitting next to Ethan Hawke. He was eating fries with maple bacon in them and I asked him how they were. He passed them over to me and invited me to grab a couple! Then, I introduced him to F and a couple of minutes later I woke up!

F and I talked about where to have lunch and then I suggested going to have yakiniku in Tsuruoka. F liked that idea, so few minutes later we left the house and went to the restaurant. It wasn’t too busy so we got in right away. We both ordered the same meal and a few minutes later we were grilling our meat and eating the rest of the included food. It was nice.

After lunch, F suggested going out of the city to the Aquarium. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea as weekends are busy there, but we could park fairly close today and went in. 

Assorted Jellyfish!

As always it was lovely seeing the beasties in the aquarium. We had a nice walk around. It was crowded today, but the people were mostly moving around and everyone was in a good mood. At the end, we just bought ourselves drinks at a vending machine and then headed back into Tsuruoka.

I asked F if he was interested in getting a kakigori and he said he was. We talked about where to go and came up with some ideas. One of the places didn’t sell them, another place was closed, so we ended up at Komeda and I had a kakigori. I tried the Acai-mix one and it was amazing. F had soft ice cream and it was huge, and looked good. 

Acai Mix Kakigori at Komeda Coffee

We left after a while and came back to the house so that F could make dinner for his mother. I came upstairs to rest for a while. When F finished, he came upstairs and we talked about where to eat or what to eat. I suggested a few places and F liked Coco Ichibanya, the curry place. We decided to go there.

We went to the curry place and got the last parking space in the main area. We went in and ordered. F got a seafood curry and I got the handmade chicken cutlet curry with vegetables. It was really nice. 

After our dinner, we headed to the grocery store and bought food for the next couple of days. F came in the store with me but he wasn’t annoying tonight! Maybe it was because I knew what I needed and picked it up. 

F paid and we drove back to the house. I put away the groceries and F made some rice for tomorrow I think. I went upstairs and relaxed for a while. I put on an episode of The Boys, I think the second last one, and then an episode of Eugene Levy’s The Reluctant Traveller on AppleTV. It was a bit meh but I wanted something chill for the end of the day.

I spent some time doing my end of day things and then started to write this. I’ll probably post this and get to bed really soon. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

May 23, 2026

 Saturday - Warmish in the daytime, cool at night

Well, today didn’t get off to a good stop. I woke up quite early, around 7:30. I went downstairs and then came back to bed. I didn’t feel well when I woke up, the room was spinning. I went back to bed and slept for much longer. When I woke up again I got up but the room, she was a spinning….

I went downstairs and went in to see F. I asked him how he was and he said he was okay. There was no reciprocal question and I was quite upset at that. There rarely is, come to think of it. He asked me about going out for lunch and I told him I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to eat yet. 

I went upstairs and honestly went back to bed again. I didn’t stay in bed long, but I did for a few minutes. I got up and went over to my computer. F came back in a few minutes and brought some baked goods from our favourite bakery. I offered to make hot water for tea or coffee and I set up the water pot. Then, he asked me about going to a ramen shop where I could have chahan instead of ramen. I just didn’t feel like a greasy chahan today. F got mad and stormed out. 

I was a bit sad and decided I’d eat my baked goodies. There was a lovely croissant and an olive/cheese bread thing. They were very nice. I wasn’t too hungry afterwards, but I did want something that wasn’t bread.

I went downstairs and F was there. It surprised me a lot. I thought he’d gone out. He went out to clean out the car, I offered to help him but he turned me down. 

A little later I suggested that we head over to MosBurger to have something for lunch. He was okay with that. I did say we could go somewhere else if he wanted, but he didn’t think of another place. 

We drove over to MosBurger and ordered. I had a teriyaki chicken burger, fries and an iced tea. The clerk that took my order seemed really distracted and I had to say it twice. F had a coffee milkshake. 

We ate, drank and then left to go back to the house. We got there about 3:30. I thought F would leave right away, but he changed his shirt and took a quick break. He left before 4 pm.

I was on K duty tonight so I tidied up the living room a little, I even washed the glasses left on the living room table. I waited for K to appear. She came back around 4:35. I greeted her at the door and waved and bowed off the care worker that walked her to the door. 

I left her alone in the living room and went upstairs and drank tea. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos too. 

F came back after 5 I think and made his mother’s dinner. He came upstairs to ask me about our dinner and I reminded him about the festival on Sanno-Machi. We decided to go! We didn’t know where to park but…

F found us a place to park, it was a paid parking place near a bank. We walked over to the park. I was really glad that I did wear a jacket tonight as it was windy and therefore a bit cold. Sad to say, there wasn’t a lot of food that we wanted to eat. The vendors had a lot of ice cream and kaki-gori, but it was too cold for that. We watched a little of the entertainment, walked to the end of the street and then came back to the other end. We did find a yakitori stand and had a skewer of pork tongue each. That was nice, and the price was reasonable. 

After we left the festival, we talked about where to go for dinner. I suggested the Taiwanese restaurant that is near the festival. F wasn’t too impressed, but didn’t have a better idea. We went there and the parking lot was busy. 

We went in and after a couple of minutes ordered our food. F ordered shrimp fried rice and fried chicken, I had a set menu with yurinchi chicken and spicy tofu, plain rice, soup and pickles. I got dessert too. F complained about his fried rice and said it was too salty. After a while, I suggested that I give him some of my plain rice to mix with his fried rice to hopefully tone down the saltiness. We exchanged some rice and I think it worked a bit. F was able to finish his rice so that was good. We paid for our meal and left. We came back to the house and then came upstairs.

I watched FBI at 11pm. F went to bed. 

I’m not sure exactly what we’ll get up to tomorrow. F might want to go and see some of the Tenjin Matsuri, I suggested going to see a movie tomorrow night. I have no idea if he’ll still be interested in that tomorrow. 

Anyway, it’s been a day and I’m tired. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

May 18, 2026

Monday - Hot and Sunny

I went to bed a little late and then stayed up even later doing my reading.  I did have a hard time getting to sleep…F had a restless legs thing going on. I grabbed his hand, hoping that would settle him, but it didn’t. 

I woke up quite early again this morning. F was awake too, playing games on his phone. I am not sure if he is making noise that wakes me up , or what is happening. I made a trip downstairs and then came back to bed. I fell asleep too and woke up again before 9 am. I got up and this time stayed up.

I got dressed and ate my sandwich. I packed my backpack and then a bit after 10 am I went downstairs. I used the ‘loo and then left the house. I walked to the bus stop and then waited a few minutes. It was a couple of minutes late today, nothing serious. 

I rode the bus to my stop and then got off. I walked to the drugstore and bought some rooibos tea for myself, an onigiri and a few things from the hundred yen section.

I walked back to the cinema, bought my ticket and went in. Today I saw Song Sung Blue and I really enjoyed it. I am a huge Neil Diamond fan and there was so much music in this film that was written by Neil. It was a bit sad in places and I did have tears all down my face at the end of the movie, but I did enjoy the movie and thought that Kate Hudson did an excellent job. 

After the movie I put on my sun hat and got out my parasol too. I walked over to the post office and bought some stamps for myself. After that, I decided to catch a bus to the mall. The bad thing was that my usual stop didn’t have buses coming for 40 minutes or more, so I walked to another bus stop and caught one in about 20 minutes. I rode the bus to the mall. The route was different than I was used to so that was cool as well.

At the mall I first had lunch. I went to Pizza Hut Express…where they told me it would be about 30 minutes for my order! How is that “express?” I had a mini pizza with cheese and potato and corn on it, fries and a couple of chicken nuggets with that. When I finished that I went over to Baskin Robbins and had a small double cup. Today’s flavours were caramel pretzel and Jamoca Almond Fudge. The caramel pretzel needed more pretzels and maybe some salt too.

I left the mall on the second last bus to our house. I went the long way, but got back about 20 minutes before the other one would have got me here, so no worries. I came into the house and went upstairs. I was so hot that I stripped off my outdoors stuff right away. 

F called after 5 pm and I went downstairs just before 6 pm. Tonight in the kitchen I was a bit busy. I made hamburgers from scratch, I used a spice packet on some broccoli and I also did fries in the air fryer. I actually had to turf F out of the kitchen at one point because he wanted to chat and I needed to prep!

We had dinner a few minutes after 7 pm and it was good. Most of the food disappeared. I reminded F that he’d bought some choco-buns on the weekend and their best before date was today. He decided to serve them for a dessert. It was a nice bite.

I did the dishes and listened to my podcasts. I enjoyed them a lot. I was a bit tired, but I got things done. I let F know I was done and was going upstairs, and then did. 

Around 10:30 I had a shower and this time it was warm, but it took a long time to get warm!

I came back upstairs and watched an episode of Dick Turpin from Apple TV and it was okay. I’ve never really vibed with that show but do laugh at it. 

Since midnight I’ve been working on my end of days things and half falling asleep. I’m really tired so I’m going to end this. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow…. 

April 9, 2026

Thursday - Sunny in the early part of day, cloudy later on

Today was a decent day. I woke up at my usual time and F was in bed next to me watching something on his phone. I turned off a lot of my alarms and went back to sleep. I woke up again a couple of hours later, went downstairs and then came back to the room and got dressed. F came in around that time and said that he was getting ready to leave to run his errands. 

I spent a bit of time on my computer, had my breakfast, and half a cup of tea. F got back while I was in the middle of my tea and invited me out for lunch. His idea was intriguing, so I was fine with it.

F suggested a place that I had suggested a couple of months ago. However, when we had tried it, the place was closed. Today, it was open. We went in, got a private dining room near the window and had a lovely lunch. We ordered a bento box type lunch and it was a mix of tempura, sashimi and a few other items. We both enjoyed it.

After lunch, we drove to City Hall and went in. Then we left right away and walked over to the Park. Hanami is at it’s peak and it was such a gorgeous day that it was lovely to see the park. I had asked F not to traipse all over the park today but of course, he tried to! He will never buy anything at the kiosks so in my opinion there is no point in walking in those areas…he took me through a bunch of them. We did go to the old Shrine that I loved to visit in days gone by and finally did our Hatsumode. Whew. It was long past the time. We walked over to the big temple and then back through the kiosk. 

One of the moats in Tsuruoka Park

Close up of blossoms

Inside the old shrine looking back at the park. 

We went back to the car finally and then decided to go for a drink somewhere. We were going to go to one place, but ended up at another. We went to Standard, the coffee and Jazz place and both had cocoa. Mine was cold, his was hot.  It was a nice break.

I had thought about staying downtown, but decided I’d probably better go back to the house as I was tired. We drove back to the house and relaxed for an hour. F had a meeting at 4 pm so he had it downstairs and I watched the US news and relaxed for a bit.

Around 6 pm, F made his mother’s dinner. I’m not sure what he made, it doesn’t matter really!

At a bit past 7 pm F and I went out to have dinner. We went over to Gusto and had a fairly decent dinner. I had the chicken with a mushroom sauce, salad and a bun, F had the mixed grill with a Japanese set. We shared some fries and both had drink bar. Dinner was good and I enjoyed it.

After dinner, we went over to the Mina Shopping Area and did some grocery shopping. I got stuff for dinner tomorrow night and F picked up a few things for Saturday morning.

We came back to the house and after putting away the groceries went upstairs. I watched another episode of Scarpetta and then tonight’s episode of The Rainmaker. Both were good, although Scarpetta went a bit out there with astronauts being murdered!

F went to bed a bit after midnight, I’m still up, but will go to bed fairly soon. I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, but it’ll probably start with a bit of laundry! Yay me!

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

PS…remember with my pictures you can click on them to see them bigger!

March 7, 2026

Saturday - Rainy, snowy, windy and generally yuck

I got up first time this morning around 8 am. I went downstairs and then came back upstairs and went back to bed. I snoozed then slept for a couple of hours. F came in the room and we had a nice snuggle for a few minutes. He suggested going to Atsumi Onsen for lunch. I was okay with it, but later I suggested going to the place in Oyama.  That’s what we ended up doing.

We had lunch at Saint Amour and today I just had their kara-age lunch. The chef did volunteer to make a non-tomato pasta for me if I wanted, but I just wanted the kara-age. It was really good if I’m honest. We got salad, a pickle, a bowl of rice and three things to season our chicken with. There was also a soup bar with lovely real soup. I had the French Onion soup and it was amazing. F had the same meal as I did. 

After lunch, we drove back into Tsuruoka proper and after a brief pitstop went shopping in Shimamura. It’s a decent clothes store and as I’m looking for something cool for my bestie in Canada’s birthday, we had a look around. I did find her something which F nicely bought for me. I got socks for me too. After our successful shopping, we drove over to S-Mall and took my handbag in to get fixed again. One of the tabs for the handles has broken again. I am kicking myself for not getting them both fixed last year when the other one broke. Anyway, they took my bag, hopefully I’ll get it back in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, I’m using a huge handbag my bestie sent me years ago. It isn’t a backpack style, but I can sling it over my shoulder so that’s good.

I took F to Doutor and bought us each a coffee. His was regular, mine was decaf. We sat and spent time on our phones for a while. We finally left when F complained he was sleepy!

We came back to the house and F stayed downstairs to welcome his mother back…in 45 minutes. I came upstairs to drink tea and relax. I think I had a snooze at my computer for a few minutes too. 

Our plan was to go to the 8:25 show of Wicked: For Good tonight and I was really looking forward to it. I loved Wicked and named it as my favourite film of last year. However, F did that thing where he said he was sick again and didn’t want to see it. He did offer to take me and let me go by myself. I almost took him up on that, but I didn’t know what he’d do with himself at that time of night as the mall is basically closed after 8pm. He’d have to just sit outside in the car for two and a half hours. That would be sad wouldn’t it? I suggested that we go tomorrow instead. There is either a show at 5 something and the one at 8 something again. 

F made dinner for his mother and then came upstairs and we rested for a bit. Finally I suggested that we go out. F said he didn’t want to eat so we went over to Gusto. 

At Gusto we had dinner. I had my favourite pasta with mushrooms and nama ham. I shared a plate of fries with F and we both had drink bar. It was a decent meal and I think we both enjoyed it.

After the meal F wanted to go to the grocery store so we did that. He picked up a few things and I got a couple of spice packets. After we left the store we drove over to the drugstore and went in. 

We bought a few things at the drugstore. I picked up some pasta and pasta sauces which were cheaper than at the grocery store. We came back to the house and put away the groceries.

I came upstairs and relaxed with a bit of YouTube. At 11pm I watched The Hunting Party which was quite good tonight. 

F and I had a bit of a cuddle time and then he went to bed a few minutes later. I’m up for now, but want to get to bed soon as it is really late. 

Well, that’s about it for me. I’m hoping that we do go and see Wicked: For Good. If not, I will be going by myself next week. I do wish that F wasn’t always “sick” or claiming to be sick on the weekends. It takes all the fun out of going to the movies with him. 

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

 

February 20, 2026

 Friday - Clear and sunny

I woke up early again today and I was a bit sad about it. I had half planned to get up at my usual time and go to the movie, but I needed more sleep. I didn’t go. I did find out today that the film has been held over, so I have another chance this weekend if I can get to the cinema. 

I went back to bed and slept quite late. I dragged myself out of bed later and went downstairs. I snagged food for my breakfast and brought it upstairs to eat.  After breakfast I did a load of laundry and when it finished, I hung it up in my room. 

K was up for most of the day today. It’s really unusual these days, so maybe the sunny weather woke her up or something? She even ate one of the lunch plates that I made for her…that’s fairly unusual these days.

I also wrote up another movie today for my column. I’m basically done except for the conclusion and checking grammar and such. Woot! I may have to shorten it which would make me sad, but it could happen. 

I had lunch and watched another episode of The Good Fight. I have now finished Season 5, so I have 10 more episodes to go. I should be okay I think, but I have other shows that I’d like to watch as well that are being taken off soon. Sigh.

Around 5 pm I went downstairs to wash my day’s dishes. I came back upstairs and started to get ready for going out. F said that he’d stop and get a bento for K and he showed up around 6 pm tonight. 

He gave K her bento and told her that we were going out. We did! In the car, I made F check that he had his Aquarium card handy. I had already done that in the house. 

We drove to Tacto, the concert hall in Tsuruoka and parked. We went in and were able to get seats near the back of the room. We weren’t in the big concert hall, we were in a little side area. It was a cool space. We were there to see a free concert by a local performer of the Bass and a guitar player as well. They were really good. We’ve seen the bass player before, she runs a restaurant we go to often, but the guitarist was new to us. F enjoyed it so much that he bought their CD afterwards. At first he wasn’t going to do that as he thought we didn’t have a way to play it, but I reminded him that I can play it on my computer. 

After the concert, he talked about going to a restaurant where the performers might show up later. I reminded him that the restaurant was rather expensive so we went somewhere else. 

We ended up at Cocos which was a nice surprise for me. We had a nice meal there too. I had pasta with a salad and drink bar, F had Caribbean chicken which he said was a bit too spicy. We shared an order of fries that weren’t my idea! 

We came back to the house after dinner and I ripped the cd to my computer. Then, we listened to it. It was very nice. 

F was really tired so he went to bed already. He has to get up early tomorrow to help K get ready for her Day Service. I’m going to take a shower in the morning. With K not being around, I won’t need to wait until night. 

So, that’s it for me. I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….