I Wish I had Sound Effects

Now that all my littl'uns are in elementary school and I can drink a whole cup of coffee while it's still hot, I can laugh about this stuff now.  Like the first day I got everybody off to school/kindergarten, and I excitedly showed another mom my shoes.  With ties.  Shoes with ties! Woo! No slip-ons!  I hadn't worn shoes with laces in well over half a decade, so it was understandably exciting for me.  Of course, I was still wearing jeans with holes in the knees, and did for some years after, because I still spent at least a third of my life crawling around on hands and knees wiping stuff up off the floor.

But even when my younger two were in Yochien, mornings were hectic.  Afternoons were hectic.  Evenings were hectic.  Weekends were hectic--and half the time, somebody had a cold.  Mornings, I used to get everybody off and then walk back upstairs wondering whether everybody was wearing underwear.  Including me.  That, however, was easily discernible if I pretended to tuck or untuck my shirt.  Oh shut up--untuck is too a word--sorry, just yelling at the automatic spell checker.

The worst mornings were the ones when somebody forgot something--hat, gym clothes, wrong outfit on, obento (lunch box) or some such.  Since we live on the fourth floor, dashing back in the house for something entails running at top speed (because the bus is waiting), round-and-round, up four flights of concrete stairs with no handrails.  I have no desire to own a Stairmaster machine.  Ever.

And running downstairs is worse than running up--here I am running downstairs!




That was on a day that I took a shower and put on makeup...

Still, running downstairs is so dangerous.  It's so easy to trip, especially in high-heeled boots.  And occasionally the lasso gets in the way.  If I could just jump downstairs...



Mothers of the world, Unite!  We want sound effects!

A Sense of Perspective

Again, just a brief note, because sometimes it's a good thing to sit back and adjust your sense of perspective.  Carl Sagen did that so beautifully in Pale Blue Dot--the only science book that made me cry.  The title describes what the Earth looks like from the perspective of Voyager I at the edge of the solar system.  We live, in Dr. Sagan's unforgettable words, on "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

The link below (and down in the links column) will give you some nice, shivery, perspective on the size of our Sun:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

Scroll down slowly, so's to get the full effect:))

Friday Field Notes--Summer is Vorbei

  The cicadas are gone; there remains naught but decaying corpses, and the occasional unnoticed empty pupal skin, still clinging to the back of a leaf , not having made it's way into anybody's pocket during the summer.  Their loud "Mi--mi-mi-miiiiii" that makes you feel hotter just to hear it, is silent, replaced now by the cool evening song of the crickets.

The last defiant morning glories creep up netting draped over a second story window....

 ...while another twists its way up the first purple aster of fall, which is itself an intruder in the carefully planted border along the road.  A seed blown over by the wind, or dropped, maybe, by a bird.  Nevertheless, a welcome, familiar sight--asters grew all over the Field at the end of the road I grew up on.


The pink morning glories are still blooming fitfully all along the fence here, and but for the incongruous splash of pink blaring out from the middle, a passer-by wouldn't know the aster was under attack.

 The spiders have appeared, seemingly from nowhere, suspended in midair between branches and wires and buildings. (more about them later...:))

At the temple where I pick up the keys to the nearby community center, the Higanbana are up, bereft of leaves, which came up and died back last June.  These are white, but more often they're brilliant red.  This is Lycoris Radiata, probably a native of China imported to Japan.  In English it goes variously by Surprise Lily, Resurrection Lily, Magic Lily, or Naked Ladies, although those are actually Lycoris Squamigera, a related species lacking the lovely spidery stamens  that surround Higanbana like the afterglow of fireworks.

 
The Japanese name is "Equinox Flower" since it blooms very nearly right on the equinox.  As they say, "Atsusa mo, samusa mo Higan made!"--neither heat nor cold lasts beyond the equinox.  Which was just last week, and it has cooled off considerably, so score one for the old saws:))  It's a flower people expect to see in the fall--in fields, on hillsides, along roads, in gardens.  Children draw pictures of it at school; grandmas do watercolors of it on postcards.

And though the Itchou (Ginko) trees are green yet for a while, the edible nuts are already clustering.  Those Ginan (ginko nuts) look cute now, but come November when they are all over the ground in the park up the road--mercy, the smell is almost overpowering.  Fortunately all the Obaasans (grandmas) around here like to collect them to cook into Chawanmushi (savory steamed egg custard).  Given the smell in the park, I haven't been able to bring myself to eat them yet...
And that butterfly up there?  You have no idea how long I chased him today waiting for him to sit still.  He was *supposed* to sit drinking nectar from the vine I always see him on (the subject of next week's field notes), but today, apparently, the ginko tree was the place to be.

Mata asobou, ne!

"Summer Was Over *Last* Week, Honey"

If you've been following along here, you know that my genkan turns into a zoo come summer, and also that my oldest will pick up virtually *any* bug, amphibian, reptile, or crustacean and let it crawl all over him. 

However, this past summer was so hot, all the fish died (papa performed burial rites).  The Kabutomushi have all gone to that great jelly-cup in the sky, and my genkan is clean.  Shoes put away, counter wiped and *visible*, and no bug boxes.    If it weren't midnight, I'd take a picture and post it. 


You know where I'm going with this.  Exactly--I looked out the window today to see him awkwardly trying to carry two bug boxes home from school.  His teacher must have lent him the boxes, I think, since he certainly didn't take any with him to school in the morning.  Teachers in Japan do that sort of thing.

  Since bugs freak Aun' Bef' out, here's a nice big photo of what he brought home:

I know that photo overruns the sidebar, but it's for a good cause:))  Be sure to click on that, so's to see our Kamakiri (preying mantis) in all her glory.  I think she's mugging for the camera, don't you?  I'd post the video I took of it crawling all over his arm, but you probably don't want to see closeups of my husband's underwear...


The other box had a lone male cricket--no spouse yet, which means he won't sing for us.  Tomorrow's homework for Koshi:  go catch some female crickets!  If I have to have crickets in the house, they can at least be singing.


Mata asobou, ne!

Monday Manglish

More from tshirts--or, in this case, a sweatshirt.  Specifically, one of my daughter's sweatshirts.  She was in her "no pink!" phase, so I took her to Daiei so she could pick out her own sweatshirt (with the corollary assumption that she would wear it if she picked it out).  So she picked out a nice, black sweatshirt.  With an enormous pink sparkle heart and gold sparkly letters (Mommy was all...??!!??...whatever, honey, *you* wear it!).  "Sunshine Beauty Girl" in big, sparkly gold letters. 

(...early signs of Goth?  Or she just wants whatever she sees her brothers with?  Yeah, probably that:))






But the heart...

ATTACK HEART!  Whoa--my daughter  is Buffy the Vampire Slayer!  I don't think American (or British, or Australian, or Canadian, for that matter)  parents have to restrain themselves from snickering every time they look at their children's clothing....but that's what I do every time I see my Baby Cici with "ATTACK HEART" emblazoned across her chest.  This is how I use up all my self-control...

New Link--Go Clicky!

Just a note, because this is too cool to let anyone wallow in ignorance any longer!  Commenter Daz has put me onto what may be the coolest, yet most unheralded, website ever:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

It's down in the Links section under Astronomy Picture of the Day--prepare yourself for some seriously mind-blowing photos!  I'm willing to let my legs get bit by a hundred mosquitos to get good shots of spiders, but there's no way I can get shots like NASA.  So, bowing to their superior technology, go have a look at *their* shots!  Thanks, Daz!

update:
...and another link, seriously wacky, I found clicking around over at the NASA site--

http://www.uky.edu/Projects/Chemcomics/index.html

For all those who love a little chemistry in their comics:)) Dozo!
Mata asobou, ne!

Friday Field Notes--Hechima vs. Gouya

Walking the kids to school last week I noticed  a big vine with bright yellow flowers.  Hmmm--what's that?  So I walked home on the other side of the river to have a look.  When what to my wandering eyes should appear...

Hechima!  Ooooh--first time to actually see this...this...vegetable?  Gourd?  I knocked on it (because, well, you would, too, wouldn't you?), and it had that hollow, gourdy sound.  I asked a passing mom (who confirmed that it was, indeed, Hechima) how you were supposed to eat it.  No idea.  Does anybody actually eat this?  Is it used for anything?  Just decorative?  Well, the flowers are bright and pretty and attracted a number of moths and butterflies (and also a good-sized preying mantis):

The lovely flower above, the start of a Hechima below

Oh!  Just went to Wiki.  This is Luffa Cylindrica, aka Loofa.  You know, that thing you can use to scrub with in the shower!  Ah ha!  I probably should have looked it up first.  Consider this liveblogging, then--those oohs and Ah Ha's are real (meaning, I really do get all excited about stuff like this.  As does my mom:))

Later that day...  my oldest comes home from school, see these photos and insists that his class (4th grade) is growing this stuff at school.  Really?  Are you sure, honey?  Usually you guys grow some kind of flower or vegetable (last year was okra), and I'm not so sure you can eat this...this...thingumbob.  He insisted that the flower was the same.  Hmmm--I was pretty sure they weren't growing Hechima at school.  But what exactly were they growing?  What else could they grow that Koshi would mix it up with Hechima?  Ahhhh--honey, is the vegetable you're growing at school green and bumpy?  Yes!  Got it--it's Goya.  The bitter-but-edible cucumber-like vegetable, not the spanish artist.  But, well, here's why he was confused:

...very similar-looking flower and leaf.  Well, similar to a 10-year-old, anyway.  The Hechima flower is quite a bit bigger, Goya's is quarter-sized.  But both are, indeed, cheery yellow flowers.  The vegetable, though, is quite a bit different, and as soon as I showed Koshi a photo of this...

...he immediately said, "Yeah!! That's it!"  Thank you, thank you very much.  I expect he'll bring one home one of these days, which means I'd better start hunting up recipies now.  It's most commonly cooked in Okinawa in "champuru" (sounds like "jumble"), a kind of eggy stir-fry.  But Momordica charantia, or Bitter Gourd/Melon, actually grows all over Southeast Asia, China, and the tropics.

See the bumpies?  I've never seen this for sale in a US supermarket, but this time of year in Japan, it's everywhere.  They look like they're related to cucumbers, albeit big, bumpy mutant cucumbers that look like a lab experiment gone wrong.

If I end up cooking with it, I'll post the recipie:))



In Addition:

I stopped by school the other morning to see how the 4th graders' Goya was coming along--

Nicely, nicely:))  No veggies yet, but some flowers on a good-sized, healthy-looking vine!  The vine has male and female flowers, and I'm guessing the flower above is female.  The Wiki page on Bitter Melon has some interesting info on medicinal uses for Goya, and several pics of other phenotypes. I picked up some sauce at the store to cook it with pork, onion and shimeji.  Maybe I'll use egg, too, like they do in Okinawa, where it is said that eating Goya increases lifespan (even longer, it seems, than the Japanese generally).

Mata asobou, ne!

O-Tsuki-sama! (Mr. Moon!)

Riding east on my bicycle, I glanced up at the horizon and thought, "That's a funny...looking...NOT a cloud!  Ooooh!  The moon!"

I managed not to fall off my bike.

The moon was faintly visible just above the rooftops in the distance--if it had been dark, it would have been the biggest harvest moon I'd ever seen.  But even a ghostly outline of the moon that big is impressive against the pink of twilight.

It's moon-viewing month in Japan.  Round, white sweet dango, one of them yellow like the moon.  You're supposed to sit outside, or on the veranda, eating dango while gazing at the moon.  I actually did that with my husband at the beautiful Sangendo Garden in Yokohama while we were still dating.  Best. Date. Ever!

The moon from our back porch.  Since we're on the fourth floor, we actually have a pretty good view, all things considered.  This means it's time to sing the Rabbit Song:

O Rabbit

Rabbit hop

Look, he's hopping in the moon

In the great round of the full moon

Look, he's ho--o-o-o-pping

(Usagi, Usagi

Nani o mite, haneru

Juu-goya O-tsukisama

Mite, ha-ne-ru)

That's my *favorite* children's song in japanese.  It's stately and slow, almost like a Gregorian chant.  It's positively haunting.  They see a rabbit in the moon in Japan.  So, I think, do the French.  At least, they have a children's rhyme about the three little rabbits in the moon, who eat prunes while drinking wine ("Il y a dans la lune, trois petits lapins...").  In Japan, it's actually two rabbits making mochi, or so I've been told.  I've been here long enough that I'm pretty sure I can see at least one rabbit, and sometimes I think I can see two.  But...shhhh....i don't think there's really any mochi up there...

Can you see the rabbit?  No?  Maybe a little closer look...

If you tilt your head alllllll the way to the right, you can see the rabbit... really.  (Above photos also taken of this evening's moon off our back porch.  I managed not to fall off the fourth floor balcony.)

p.s.--  my daughter just came to look at the pictures of the moon that mommy took.  She insists that she can see the rabbit...:))

p.p.s.--alert reader Daz was smart enough to put Moon Rabbit into Wiki where there is a lovely diagram, just in case the rabbit proves elusive:))  A little history from Wiki:

"The Moon rabbit, also called the Jade Rabbit, is a rabbit that lives on the moon in folklore, based on pareidolia that identifies the markings of the moon as a rabbit. The story exists in many cultures, particularly in East Asian folklore, where it is seen pounding in a mortar and pestle.^[1][2] In Chinese folklore, it is often portrayed as a companion of the moon goddess Chang'e, constantly pounding the elixir of life for her; but in Japanese and Korean versions it is just pounding the ingredients for rice cake."

comedy of Hair--ors

 

This piece is actually for my dad because I realized I never told him about it.  And when I thought of the title, it was such an awful pun, I knew this must be for him.  I mention this lest my other readers think I go around on *purpose* thinking of puns like that.  Let me hasten to assure you that it's congential...

When Cici was 4ish, she refused--foot down, lip out, squirmingly refused to let a stranger cut her hair.  Even if I sat in the chair with her.  Even if the stylist put the big smock around both of us.  No. Way. Jose. 

Well, not completely no way.  *One* time she did allow the barber who cut her brothers' hair to trim her bangs, too.  "Great!"  I thought, "Cute, too!  (followed by a big sigh of relief)." 

Short-lived relief as it turned out.  The next time I tried to take her to the same stylist/barber--by the time her bangs were in the vicinity of her lower lip and she was starting to develop an odd tic, well, it was do or die.  So--off to the 100Yen shop to get scissors and a smock(see--no expensive scissors, 'cause I'm only going to do this ONCE, I tell myself subconsciously).

OK.  So.  OK.  So...where's Aun'Bef when you need her?!!?  Aunt Bef, of course, inherited all the hair-cutting genes (on Chromosome 17, next to the stapler/tape/glue genes), leaving me with the need to cut hair, but no actual skill.  Of course, I could have practiced at some point in my life.  My sister did--all her dolls looked like Yul Brynner auditioning for a horror flick, whereas mine sport to this day the same coif they came out of the box with.  I knew, you see,  that if I took her hair out of the carefully arranged bun-with-ribbon that I'd  never get it back that way again.  So, I left it.  This attitude toward hair-styling is readily apparent in most of my school photos.

Darling Cici--you have no ideawhat you're getting yourself into.  Why...oh why...do you want Mommy to cut your hair?  Sweetie--the last time Mommy tried to cut your bangs, they came out looking like the Dow Jones Industrial Average after Black Monday (see photo above).

This time, weeeeell... :

I know.  It looks like I used Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as a cutting guide.

Ok, so I stink at math--cut me some slack!  I tried using Feynman's sum-over-histories, but I couldn't get everything to cancel out...

Poor kid.

Sweetie, I promise I will *not* show this to your first boyfriend...:))

 

Monday Manglish

As I've noted before, tshirts are the other rich source of Manglish.  I've purchased tshirts for myself before simply because I liked the idea of walking around with something that wacky emblazoned across my chest, knowing all the while that nobody else would get it.

I saw the tshirt above on an elementary school girl in front of me on her bike and thought, "wow--all those words are spelled right!  Surely they must *mean* something...."  But, try as I might, I could make neither head nor tails of it.  Like one of those pentamino puzzles, just when you think you've got it--but, no, there's a piece left over.

From wave

your

message

there is hot

we feel

dream

that wild

It does have a haiku feel to it though, don't you think?  Any and all interpretations welcome:))