Monthly Archives: July 2011

Roving Report

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We arrived in Kumamoto in one piece and has great views
of the lush greens lands from the plane.
We are on a bumpitty bus now.
Almost missed our flight after a leisurely
cup of coffee in Starbucks.
I had strictly observed the one lighter rule
in my little bag but unbeknownst to me there
were three rogue ones hiding out in my
backpack. Had to unpack everything.
Thought we still had a few minutes to
spare but was having a pre flight
pee when I heard our names on the tannoy.
Flight was only an hour and we played uno.
Jim’s ears didn’t hurt until I mentioned
I had forgotten gum of course
then they appeared to start causing him pain.
Now rolling through some lovely countryside.
Looks like another country.
More soon. xxx

Into the Hinterland.

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Adventures in the wilderness begin.
Forgot to mention due to current infrequent
blogging situation, but Jim and I are off on a mini
trip. We are going way down somewhere. I can’t really be more
specific, not so much for national security, but
because I’ve spent the last 3 days trying to find it
on a map, without much luck. That said
I couldn’t find
a map if it was in my pocket so….
My dear friend, who is so kindly putting us up, claims her town
exists, claims to live in it, claims
buses run from the airport to her thriving metropolis.
The Man dropped us at the station at 5.30 we are now on the train to
Osaka. Excitedly lugging our suitcase
full of campbell’s soup.
Yeehaw, LOST remote, unknown destination
here we come.
I heard they have courgettes in the super market
fancy that !!!

( PS first time I’ve tried doing this from my
phone, no idea what it’s going to come out like.
Bear with……)
We shall see.

Full of Optimism

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Bit of a spring in my step today, no idea why.
I’m raking around in my drawers for my Optimistic Hat.
I’m going to a PTA meeting where we will spend quite sometime deciding what colour paper to print the Bunkasai tickets on.
Then we’ll print them and cut them up.
I will go and remain optimistic that;
No one calls me by my first name.
no one declares that despite their regrettable ineptitude, they have a deep love of English.
No one uses hand gestures to ask simple questions.
e.g. Did you drive here? ( hands on steering wheel gesture)
Did you walk? ( elbows bent at 90 degrees, pump back and forth)
Can you cut? ( two fingered scissor gesture, possibly reinforced with a verbal ‘choki choki”)
Can you stay till 4? ( tap imaginary watch on wrist with fore and middle fingers.

And off I go….

Pet Sematary

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So, it’s been all heat and sweat here, remembering to water the tomatoes and constant vigilance to win the war against the fleas. I think we are winning, but maybe a couple more weeks of frantic thrice daily hovering.

Cat Chronicles continue, shoot me now, I’m a cat blogger.
Almost home from work the other night, as I’m rounding the final bending I see what appears to be an inert animal in the middle of the right lane.
Mistakenly, I say, ‘oh no, there’s a cat in the road, looks like it’s been hit by a car.’
Barely waiting for me to finish parking, the kids leapt out the car and were on the case, because now, they are the fountains of all knowledge on the subject of dead cats.
Risking their own young lives on the dark road, they dashed in and swooped it up. It too had passed.
So, loving little tykes that they are they gave it to me.
I wasn’t overly keen on holding deceased cat, so another box was procured and I kept them away from my IKEA towels.
So for the second time in a month I have a dead cat in a box in my garden. They wanted to dig up Pet Sematary where Tora is buried but I can barely manage dead cat, I can’t go for decomposing cat.

To be honest it freaks me out a little because Pet Semetary by Stephen King is the scariest book I have ever ever read in my life, it kept me up nights for weeks. Scarier even than all that horror stuff that I read in my early teens. Scarier than ‘The Devil Rides Out’, when a live human child, the devil’s spawn I believe it was, was ripped from the womb.
Even scarier than ‘Audrey Rose’, which held ‘scariest damn book ever’ title for years until Pet Sematary reared it’s freaky head in my house. I can still remember crapping myself when they found George Spalding’s watch at the bottom of the lake with Audrey Rose’s hair tangled in it.Suffice to say I feel a bit strange looking out the kitchen window at night.

Thus, this morning has been eventful. Doris has had a swelling on her mouth for a couple of days that suddenly exploded off her face, I’ve heard of ‘bee-stung’ lips, this is attacked by a nest of hornets, looks like a really bad cold sore. So at 8.30 I called the city office to ask them to come
and remove the dead cat box, then took Doris to the doc where indeed HERPES, was confirmed, I know it’s a cold sore and that chicken pox, shingles etc are all part of the herpes family, but I’m not comfortable with hearing herpes in connection to my teen gal. So to be clear she has the non STD type herpes. Aka. A cold sore, actually as of typing 2 massive cold sores. I think she is really run-down post exams, and training for the inter-prefectural softball tournament and the ending of her softball career at JHS. So I got a load of multi-vitamins and these pick-me-up, 15 green veggies in one capsule type supplements. Hopefully they’ll pick her up as promised.

There has been a little trouble with young Kevvers at school. I got a call from the head of first years, I thought maybe he had won loads of prizes and they wanted me to help him carry them all home, but I was wrong. So had to head off to school with my head down and my big bag full of apologies.

I’m contemplating Plan B: run away and join the circus.

In other news, despite early confidence, Sunshine’s plan to get a job at one of the chocolate shops did not come to pass, but she got a job, three nights a week at the Italian restaurant just down the road, that should keep her busy and solvent.
Stay tuned for nothing happening again in the near future.

Welcome to The House of Hell!

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Welcome to The House of Hell.
Nasty things have been afoot here at the House of Hell.
So sad sad sad a cat was lost, gone to kitty heaven, up there with Jellicle cats and cats who leapt from hot tin roofs. But one survived, Ryu survived.
And Ryu frolicked outside and enjoyed fresh air and sunshine, occasionally pausing to take a crap on his brother’s grave, and while outside something became attached to him , much like my children are, something nasty from the woodshed. FLEAS.
I’ve heard of cats fleas before, we have to take him every so often, part with hard earned cash to keep him free of the mites. Something didn’t work.FLEAS came, they liked it here, they stayed. They reveled in our warm hospitality and they friggin infested our house.
We are all bitten, bitten, chewed up, spat out. I had more than 100 bites last count and damn they are itchy. Poor Kev I had to take him to the dermatologist, he scratches in the night, wakes up his legs are a bloody streaky mess.
T’would appear, eggs were laid, I had to throw out every futon, blanket, pillow, ( yes even those $150 each *Tempur* pillows, anything that can’t be washed was bagged up and taken to the city dump in 3 separate trips, ( oh my beloved MPV where are you when I need you).
I poison bombed the whole house twice, everything washable is in plastic bags, waiting to be washed, waiting to be dried, or the final prize *CLEAN*.
I feel sick sick sick because I breathed in too much poison.
We have to do it again in two weeks, make sure we got all the eggs. The cupboards are empty, bye bye IKEA 5 toggle duvets.
My week off work, where I’ll relax, catch up on TV, blog a bit, spent cleaning, trying to spot black specks jumping like a mad woman with flies on her peripheral vision.
And whose cat is it? Oh yes, it’s Doris’ cat, how is she?
Turns out, young Doris is immune to flea bites, not a mark on her.
Kev is in such a bad way the dermatologist phoned the house to see how he is.
Not best pleased with the cat.
Cat has actually been AWOL all day, and to be honest I’m not that bothered, I hope nothing nasty has befallen him, I’m not cruel, but I am sick of being itchy and I am pretty well out of pocket.
Welcome to my House of Hell.

Kitty Chronicles Catch-Up

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The Saga of the Cats. (1)
“A Sudden Loss”.
Catching up here, a couple of weeks ago Sunshine went off to school but came home an hour later with a mirgraine, she’d been sick on the train.
I picked her up, she came home, threw up a while then fell asleep.
This is always the pattern with her migraines.
Later that day I had an appointment in Osaka, so off I went. The meeting was just getting started when I get a phone call from an hysterical Sunshine.
“Whaaaahhhh can’t move, Waaahhhh doesn’t move, whaaah”
I was rather concerned to say the least. It took a while to calm her down enough to get the fact that she herself had not woken up with her legs paralysed, Tora, one of the cats had been spotted by our neighbor in the monny drain, not moving, they didn’t know if he was alive or not, they were going to the vet.
So off they went. I headed back home and got a call from Sunshine to say the vet had pronounced Tora dead, so now I was in a race against time to get back before Doris came home because she was going to be gutted.
By the time I got back, everyone was home and they were all in Doris’ room, sobbing, crying, hugging each other, and previously mentioned dead Tora.
I instantly realized that the okayu I had made for dinner wasn’t going to cut it, and I made a radical financial decision and phoned for pizzas.
Kev had a piano lesson so I arranged to pick up the pizzas when I picked him up, (thus saving myself 30%), off we went to piano, but then Kev was crying his heart out and we decided having arrived at the teachers house that we would just go home again.
Get home, dead Tora is still being passed around and quite frankly getting stiffer by the minute.
Get pizzas, eat outside while kids, all still crying, take it in turns to dig a grave for Tora. Tora is now really too stiff to be hugged any more, so he was wrapped in a towel and put in the box the vet had sent him home in.
I very gently and delicately asked if he really needed to be buried in a brand new IKEA towel, but seems he did, he ‘liked orange’.
Okay, but then an executive decision was made to nix the towel and the box and let Tora return to the earth au naturel, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, funky Major Tom etc.
So they put Tora into the hole, they actually dug a very deep hole, and then with their hands they gently placed the earth around him.
This took quite a long time, little child-sized handful by handful.
They put candles around the grave, lit some incense, and we each laid a flower on his grave, it was 11pm before the rituals were over.!!
Yes, I am ever-so-slightly mocking, but actually the kids were crushed, and even though it was a sad thing for them, it was an experience and quite honestly I was moved at the sight of them all comforting each other, being there for each other, I thought that, despite the fighting and bickering, that actually if I die, they will support and care for one
another, I just hope they don’t pass me around like a parcel till I’m stiff.