Kate’s Quests

I wanted to leave Japan with some unique Japanese furniture and last Thursday the opportunity presented itself at a Bazaar.  We bought a jewelry box, a tonsu and a bar.  The woman selling the furniture told us that the brass on the bar is over 100 years old, a lotus and promotes peace and harmony.  I figured that was the only way to get happy drunks in the house.

I ended up pushing the bookcase over and putting the cat tree in front of the window.  The next place we rent won’t be nearly as small (I’m crossing my fingers).

I put the Tonsu in the office.  Another guest bed will eventually go there, but until then, the boys have a new toy.

I took my Japanese friends on base the other day. It was very exciting for them. They couldn’t get over how cheap everything was. I’m just not a base kinda girl. Overseas and especially stateside, I would like to stay as far away from the base as possible. It’s just all concrete and barbed wire to me. It feels oppressive seeing as how you have to show ID just to go home. No thank you. I’d rather live in a normal neighborhood in any country than on a base.

Anyway, we all had a good time and afterwards we went to Starbuck’s to relax and one of the girls said that her opinion of Americans had changed dramatically since having met me. She explained that she had been to America once (I believe SanDiego) and was on the shuttle to a shopping mall from the hotel. An older American lady sidled up to her, got right in her face and said, “I HATE Japanese.” She was shocked and hurt and went she came back to Japan, she figured all Americans were aggressive, blunt, forceful, obnoxious and mean. This was why she hired a Canadian man as her daughter’s teacher and when he left, they hired me. He confirmed her idea of Americans by telling her that yes, all Americans are like that. Canadians, he said, were a much calmer and nicer lot. But, she said, I really changed her mind about Americans. That’s one down and only 127 million more to go.

Shara stays over at our house quite frequently and when she does she often has two kitties jumping on her.  They use other methods to wake D.J. and I, but when you’re sleeping in the guest room, there is no escaping it.  They use the ladder to get into the loft and then they leap down, usually landing on her legs.

I can’t imagine that she enjoys it all that much.  Leo is the usual culprit.  He seems to enjoy launching himself off of the top of the loft more so than Zorro.

It often starts when they know Shara is in the guest room.  She tries to keep them out by closing the door.  But that does no good in this house since Zorro has figured out how to open all of the doors in the place.  We once came home to our home in Seattle to find every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen wide open.

Anyway, Zorro will open the door and they’ll both go scurrying under the bed.  Shara will most likely turn over and they’ll run back into our room.  Leo will slowly decide to investigate Shara and jump up onto the bed.

Yes, I know that there is a bicycle in the bedroom.  There’s just no other place to keep it.  The Japanese aren’t real big into storage areas here.  Anyway, Zorro then gets curious.

And let the games begin!

We got a new channel the other day on JCom.  They did away with the Reality TV (we never watched it since they usually only played episodes of Cheaters and court room dramas..yikes).  So we got the SciFi channel, which would thrill my dad and my father in law if they were here.  And since it’s a brand new channel, they’re playing all pilots.  I’ve seen the pilot of both the X-Files and Quantum Leap.  I loved both shows as a kid, but my first love was Quantum Leap.  It’s highly embarrassing now, but as a 10 year old I loved Scott Bakula.  I thought he was dreamy.  OMG.

And now?  What a weird 10 year old I was!  Whose 10 year has a crush on this guy?  D.J. is laughing and pointing at me, saying, “I know!  This one, right here!” Must have been the streak of gray through the hair that dazzled me so.

You can get these free soft drinks for only 150yen.  You can also get free salad for 200yen.  I think they mean free refills, but it still caused me to ponder.

It says, “We’ll advise you about your ’stickiness’ about your daily life.”

Doesn’t everyone take their advice from a tea towel?

Friday night I got a call from D.J.  They were in port, but weren’t allowed to leave the ship because they were finishing up the exercise.  Shara got home that day as well and came to meet Michelle and I for dinner at the Daiei.  She stayed at our house that night and I had to be back near the base at 8am Saturday morning.  I have a lesson very early.  After the lesson I began heading back home and D.J. called to tell me that he was done and I could pick him up.  So, after I quick U-turn, I was back on base and waiting at the dock.  The weather was really nice so when we got home, I made a stir-fry for lunch and we ate out on the patio.  We broke out the hookah and tried apple and then grape tobacco.

I think Shara enjoyed the tobacco.

Zorro was jealous.  We took him out later on the leash.

Doesn’t D.J. look so cute?  He had been awake all night.

Then D.J. and I went to Kamakura on Sunday to view the cherry blossoms.  They’re a little past their peak,  but still beautiful.

And I can’t go anywhere without seeing him.

Ahhhhh….spring.  The weather was nice (it’s cloudy and sprinkling now) and warm with a slightly cool breeze that got cooler as the day went on.  I did enjoy it!

I don’t have any classes at school this week, so I’ve had a bit of extra free time. In that time I decided to do a bit of cooking. I’ve made a couple of recipes from Renee Loux’s book and they have been yummy. But, I also decided to make a big salad to last me a couple of days. And in this salad I decided to use my Japanese mandoline to cut the cucumber. Why has no one ever heard of this device? People keep thinking that I mauled my thumb with the musical instrument. Alas, no…I’m not quite that unlucky. It was this:

I took the picture from the Williams Sonoma website and mine doesn’t have any of the fancy safety features. Hence why my thumb hurts now. I cut quite a good chunk from the top and it bled profusely for a good two hours. I haven’t changed the bandage today, mostly because I’m afraid to, but it’ll get done eventually. I also got a tetanus shot at the doc’s yesterday. So now my left arm and my right thumb hurts. I guess this is what I get for having too much free time. Ouch!

The temperature has been hanging out in the upper 60’s and low 70’s. Although at the moment it’s chilly and clouds are moving out after the night rain, I have a feeling it’ll be another beautiful day. And I took some photos as I walked to the train station the other day, so I feel I must share.

I love the orange trees growing right next to the stained glass window.

But, my first sight of that day was the daisy. Perky and bright.

These little red flowers were sitting next to the path that leads down into the woods. The one that gets me to the train station.

These trees are new to me. I’ve never seen anything like them.

I liked this picture of the fence that I follow down the mountain.

And lastly, these trees are gorgeous and smell amazing. I felt like I was back in Hawaii for a moment as I walked past. <sigh>

Now that it’s finally in the news, I figured I’d blog quickly about this. A cab driver was murdered near Shiori station (across the street from the Daiei, which is right in front of the military base). So, this 22 year old guy went AWOL two weeks ago from the Cowpens and we can only hope that he’s not involved, although it seems unlikely. I’m glad NCIS tracked him down. Security on the base has been crazy. DJ and I came on base together Thursday and I had to get out and open the trunk of the Mini (what trunk?) for them to search. Then leaving we had to show our ID’s, which totally made me think of living in Rota, Spain. We always had to show our ID’s to get on and off base. If you didn’t show your ID, you couldn’t leave.

I came back on base on Friday for my dentist appt. and one woman scanned my ID, while another searched my purse and a guy wanded me down and asked whether I had anything to declare. I didn’t. This was still going on Saturday even after they’d caught the guy in Tokyo, so we’ll see what happens. The article says that he’s not a suspect and the officials made it clear that he was only a “person of interest,” but it sounded like they only didn’t have enough evidence to charge him.

It’s depressing to have it happen here. And I truly hope that this guy is not involved. We’ve barely recovered from the murder that happened three years ago. All of us that are associated with the military are seen as guilty by association. Like we don’t have enough people calling for us to leave Japan. I’m really afraid that they will enforce a curfew like they did in Okinawa after the alleged rape. Basically they restricted everyone on base to their homes. People who lived off base could go to work and then back home and that was it. I don’t know if they allowed dependents who worked off base to continue to work. Not being allowed to work scares me to death. It’s what keeps me sane and I know it would totally screw the school I work for. I don’t know if this is even in consideration, but I suppose anything can happen at this point.

This makes me want to go back to the states even more. Not because I’m afraid of anything. It just makes me so tired. I feel like I spend a ton of time with my students and Japanese friends being the “perfect American” that when something like this happens, I feel like I’m back to square one.