Blue and Green

I seldom stay outside for a rather clinical reason than out of preference. (You can find it out in my entry if you are interested: http://diaryofajapanadian.blogspot.com/2009/07/sun-and-me.html. ) But last Sunday, I joined a BBQ that took place under the late summer sun for 6 hours or so. I hadn't been out for that long in a long, long time. I was perfectly fine, though, since the leaves of trees provided really nice shade the whole time we were there, despite the otherwise scorching sun.

Anyway, to get to the point, I can't get over how magical the place was. It was a camping site up on a mountain and quite secluded, yet close enough from the civilization that it only took us a mere 10-minute drive to get. The cloudless blue above us gave a really nice contrast to the green that was around us.



I had forgotten how nice it feels to be in woods. The air feels nice and clean in your lungs. You feel like you have a better eye sight. I wish I could have had a nap there.

Until next time,

Sak

The Power of Blueberries II

Mom made a bunch of jars of blueberry preservative this weekend with the berries that were harvested from her little garden, one of which I hawked from the kitchen counter when I had the chance. Duh! As if I would walk bloody past by jars of freshly-made jam!


I am a huge fan of jam of all sorts, but blueberry tops it all, I think, especially the one mom makes. The health freak that she is, mom makes it with sugar to the minimum. Did you know that a regular jam recipe will tell you to use the same weight of sugar as whatever fruit you are using? And did you also know that, a cup of, say, strawberries, would need, like, three cups of sugar if you follow the recipe? And did you know that that's utterly gross?

To hell with recipes, mom says. And so her preservatives taste actually like the fruit themselves: sometimes tart, even sour-ish, just the way I love them.

Anyway, the best possible way to enjoy mom's jam is with lightly toasted English muffins. They are a tad on the pricey side of bread isle here in Japan, but I'm not going to skimp on enjoying mom's heavenly creation to the fullest.

Bon appetit!!


Thank you, mom!

Until next time,

Sak

The Power of Blueberries I

As hard as they are to come by in the land of Japan, especially good ones, when you are lucky enough to have one, your morning never gets better... or so it seems. At least while you are at it...


Is it me, or the blueberry bagel looks like it's smiling at me on the plate?

Until next time,

Sak

My Ordinary Everyday

My parents and sister just came back from a week trip to Egypt. I got a text message from mom who had just arrived at Narita Airport, which read, simply, "we are back."

For the past one week, I was more worried for them than I wanted to allow myself, which I didn't realize until I got that message on my cell phone. I was at work. I was about to head out to get my lunch. I saw "mom" in the sender's box, and I wanted to cry.

When I made the decision to return to Japan two and a half years ago, my prominent reason was my family; for dad who had fallen ill. He had a cerebral hemorrhage two years prior. He was a vegetable for a half year, every day of which the rest of us was prepared for the worst. I made 4 trips a year to my home land to be a support for not just dad, but for mom, bro, and sis who had to live their everyday life with him as a center of their attention. He got better and moved from a hospital to another, and eventually came back home. But he became a completely new person.

My return to Japan was probably the first choice I have made in my life that was not for myself. It hurt me to think that I would have to leave all that I had and to stop what I had been working for. But it hurt me more to think of not choosing to.

I knew it would be a challenge for me to be living in Japan after 12 years of being away from it; it would take a bit of adjustment and I would miss the life I led in the northern America. But I really wasn't ready for feeling so completely lost. Everything I did and had in my new life seemed too surreal to conceive of for a long, long time. Work. Friends. Even family. At first it was OK. It felt like an extended summer break in a foreign land. But after about a half year, when the idea that I was here for good at least for the foreseeable future sank in, I started having problems. Problems with sense of self. Or absence of it.

I moved out of my parents' house a year ago. I do go back there on my day off, though, twice a week. I am saner around my family that way. I needed the loophole to stay as nice to them as I wanted and intended to be. Sometimes, the closeness between you and the people you care so much for can bring many uninvited conflicts and it can hurt both parties, let alone wear them out.

When mom decided she is taking dad to Egypt this summer, I flipped and told her off for being crazy. He is much, much better compared to two years ago, yes, but the former mathematician can't even speak in a language any of us understands. But mom thought, since Egypt was the only place he had ever told her he wanted to go in his life time, - and he never requested anything else in his life, really, she should take him while he still has the chance. "He isn't getting any better than he is now," she told me before she left. "Anything happens to him, at least he has seen what he had wanted to for the past 60 years of his life." My sister, a doctor, decided to tag along, which made me feel a bit better. They left last Saturday. I felt OK. I was happy for dad.

I went back to the empty house on Tuesday to feed the koi in the front yard pond and water mom's garden. I found a note left on the kitchen counter. It wasn't even a letter or a message. Mom had left bro and me where to find the documents of her bank accounts and insurance and everything that might be required in case...

In case...

I stood by the pond and fed the fish. Looking at their eager mouths on the surface of the water, I started feeling like running, like I couldn't stay there still. Like I had to be doing something productive. Something meaningful. Something worthy. Anything. Anything that would magically make dad be safe in the Egyptian desert of sand and heat. In a place without me being fucking there to render my shoulder for him as he walked limping.

Sometimes, it takes being away from your beloveds to realize the value of having an ordinary everyday, even if that ordinary everyday is something you gave so much up for in the first place to have. And it scares you shitless when the beloveds leave you right where you are and go out of your reach. Because that's when you realize the impact that will be dropped on you if you lose that ordinary everyday that you take for granted.

And today, I feel like I have regained at least a part of sense of my self that I thought I had lost.

By the way, sis brought back a chart for the Hieroglyphic alphabet, which I found very intriguing.


Until next time,

Sak

Greeting from Britania

And, another one from London arrives today! Quite a lovely picture of the bridge, really.


(K seems to have a night-view fetish when it comes to postcards. I will confirm with him on that.)

By the way, it so happens that I plan on visiting the UK next year; a few days in London, and hopefully more days in the country side of the kingdom from which a lot of my beloved literature works come.

Until next time,

Sak

p.s. Yet another very special thanks to K who has made my day again.

Une Poste Aérienne de Paris

I have always been a huge fan of postcards, but getting one has never gotten better until today. A post card from Paris! I mean, can a girl ask for something better to find in her mailbox? I think not!

My friend K in Toronto was over in Paris and London the past week, and a postcard he picked for me in la ville j'aime made its way half around the world to my mailbox this evening. If I hadn't known it was coming, which I did, I might have passed out with joy when I found it along with the usual ads and a local news. He promised he would send one for me before he left for Paris, and I was checking the mailbox everyday after work in a heart-jumping anticipation. Et, ici il est dans ma main, finalement!

I think this is my second time mentioning this, but I just love, love, love hand-written anything, letters or postcards. And I consider whoever came up with the idea of sending someone a postcard from a traveling destination as a genius. From the receiving end, it makes you feel warm at heart to know that you were thought of in a foreign land; that someone thought of you special enough to spare some time out of his vacationing moments to choose a card, sit down with a pen and write you something.

Another thing I love about receiving a postcard is that it feels like I'm being shared the air the sender's inhaling in a place far from me when I look at the picture. It makes me feel jealous in a bitter sweet way, like I could be there and not here. And, since Paris is ma ville préférée dans le monde, the postcard made me feel more that way than it would, had it been from another place.

K wrote how he didn't quite know what to write in the postcard since we talk on MSN often enough; even while he was in Paris we got to talk on line, where he gave me his updates of his vacation. But that did not belittle the value of his card or lessen my joy of receiving it in any way possible. Besides, I never knew how his hand writing looked until now: matriculate and almost delicate.

Lost art, indeed! There is just so much one can learn and feel from one hand-written postcard! I sincerely hope, no matter how advanced the technology becomes in the next century or however long the time remains for our good planet earth, that hand-written cards and letters never will die. If ever the time comes when traveling to the moon and the mars becomes available for us, they darn better make sure they make and sell postcards in those places!

Until next time,

Sak

My special and warm thanks to K. Merci beaucoup de me donner le moment le plus heureux!

A Return of Sweet Sorrow

I am a big bookworm, if that word still exists. One of many daily habbits that I have is that I read before I sleep. I had been reading a book of short stories by Henry James, but last night I felt like reading something different.

But before I get into that, let me talk about something else.

When I moved back to Japan two and a half years ago, I had to bid my tearful farewell to virtually the two thirds or more of what I owned. Just to clear out of my flat to move to another country after 12 years of material accumulation came with quite a bit of a cost. It hurts to think back on just how much I had to leave behind.

The hardest thing that I had to let go of was my books. I had about 300 books in my flat, including the textbooks for my Eng Lit. courses. Sadly, books weigh hell of A LOT when you have a whole bunch. I had a moving company come over to my flat and estimate the cost of the total shipment to Japan, and I was told it would be close to, I kid you not, 2 grands on books alone. It didn't help that I had always preferred the hard cover editions. I still do. It might have been one of the hardest decisions I had to make in my life, but I finally decided to let go of about 70 % of my books. I actually regret having done it (and I rarely regret anything). I wish I used the money I got from selling my car on a voyage ticket for all my dear books, every single one of them. 2 grands or not, it would have been worth it in a long run, because the emotion that I shared with each and every page of the books is simply too priceless to make it happen again the same way.

Swallowing the sorrow, let me move forth for now.

One of the precious survivors is the complete works of William Shakespeare, the textbook they used for Shakespeare I and II in Eng Lit.

This gigantic item, with its hard board cover-box, weighs what seems like 10 lbs. It comprises of 3450 very, very, very thin, almost transparent, leaves. When a book is too heavy to hold with just one hand, it's just too big-fat-assed for its own good. Yet, despite the completely unpractical size and weight of it, I just love this holly grail of all books on earth.

From time to time, whenever my spirit moves, I read this - bits and pieces of it at least, and I am always reminded of what I was feeling when I was a college student: the genuine hope, fear of not knowing, wanting and willing, openness to possibilities and love... the whole complexity of it all. And last night was one of these times when I felt quite nostalgic of that particular time period of my life, and I started reading his sonnets in bed.

My favorite has always been 116, which I'm sure anyone who shares its love for Shakespeare or English literature is familiar with. I hadn't read this in a long while. Before I began reading, I admit, I was half afraid it may not seem as good as it used to because, I don't know, it might be too purely idealistic for my 1-decade-older idea of love and hope, to which I'm afraid but might have to call cynicism. Yet...

...thank you, Bill!

Allow me to quote that which never fails to shine a light of hope in my heart after all these years.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

To read is to escape. But to escape, there has to be hope. In the end of the day, as I turn the pages of yet another story, I am a hopeful person.

And as a prince of Denmark once said dying, "the rest is silence."

Until next time.

Sak

Vanilla Smile

Call me a weirdo, but I never really eat ice cream in summer. When it's hot, my cravings are more toward water-based food (or non-food), like watermelon and Coca Cola since I'm not a Pepsi girl. Ice cream seems too sticky and too sweet.

Not that I am not a fan of ice cream. I mean, how can anyone not like the melt-y dessert that is just heaven, provided a lactose intolerance is not a factor? Well, actually, I happen to know how one can NOT like ice cream. I know a guy who would frown at the very mention of the word (or words?). Apparently when he was little, he had a surgery done in his throat and all he was allowed to eat afterwards was ice cream for a month since nothing in a solid form would go down his pipe. Combined with a fear of operation and the depression of being in the hospital, his hatered for ice cream is quite understandable, I would say. I sincerely hope the hospitals now would feed the children with the same throat problem something, anything! other than ice cream just to save them from a life-time glacephobia. Life is just too sad without a joy of it, don't you agree?

About two weeks ago, at my parents house (I come here on my days off) mom stocked up the freezer with a bunch of Donatello's ice cream cups. Sipping coke beside her, I never even looked at them...

...until today.

Like I said, I don't like ice cream in the heat. But today, the summer weather turned quite windy and wet, it actually felt cool enough. After lunch with dad, I got curious and opened the freezer drawer...

...I swear to God I had seen more than 20 cups in there the last time I was here!! They were down to 2: vanilla and strawberry.

I love it when a choice is easy to make. I am a vanilla fan all the way, especially the kind that has the tiny dots of vanilla beans and the color is not so white but more ivory. Besides, Donatello's are not too sweet and it's perfect for those who don't have the sweet tooth, like me.

The happiest moment of the day: when I opened the rid and saw what I saw there. Better seen than described, so here it is.


When was the lat time ice cream actually smiled at you?

Until next time,

Sak

The Sun and Me

The third Monday of July is Ocean Day, or umi-no-hi, in Japan. It's a holiday to celebrate the beginning of summer time and the ending of the rainy season where a lot of people go to a beach: thus the name ocean.

Ever since I started doing what I do, I haven't had the usual, two-days-in-a-row weekend on a regular basis. And I miss it so much. Especially lately, I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with the energy and the time I spend at work or for work, that I need a serious time, consequtive days, away from it. So, whatever the holiday means to the the nation, I get to have a 3-day weekend since my days off are Sundays and Tuesdays. So, yay for me! Ocean Day rocks!

Yet there is nothing "rocking" about going to a beach as far as I am concerned. Let me tell you just how little the meaning of ocean in the Ocean Day bears to me.

I have so-called sun allergy. I found that out when, in my first summer in southern California, I came out in hives and had a hard time breathing with a fever of what felt like 150 degrees after a couple of hours of being out in the sun, and was carried to the ER by a roommate. I remember the conversation I had with the doctor who looked like an Asian version of Steve Buschemi.

"You have a sun allergy."
"............"
"You are allergic to the sun."
"..........ok."
"You might also have the solar urticaria."
".........(wtf is a solar Antarctica?)"
"Stay out of the sun."

Then he went on explaining how I shouldn't get the direct California sun on my skin, and that I might have developed the skin sensitivity while I was in Canada during my high school years (I was perfectly fine with the sun when I was little).

In my medicine-kicking, IV-fed, distorted mind, I'm thinking, " Oh my god, I'm gonna be an Asian albino kid!" (note: I was still 18 back then, and the way I perceived myself had still remained "a kid" at the time). I had seen a documentary on children who can NEVER be exposed to the sun, period. Not even to the moon light. I freaked out.

And, stay the hell out of the sun, I did. For the next 9 years of my life living in one of the sunniest places in northern America, I wore a long-sleeved shirt whenever I walked outside, politely turned down numerous invitations to day-time pool parties and beach parties , and never during the day time went to the beach 15-minute away from where I lived. Especially right after the session in ER, I was freaked out enough that I changed all my classes to evening classes the next term. I did find out later I needed not go that extreme, but I was always very careful. I still am.

I did make a poor judgment once, though. I was visiting a friend in San Diego. It was winter and the sky was hazy. It wasn't even that hot. I had sunscreen on. I felt safe enough to be outside for a walk around a nice, historical beach town with her after a lunch on a patio. And I shouldn't have. I felt a bit iffy after about a half hour, but brushed the fear off. When we decided to head back to the car, it was too late:

My friend freaking out. People looking at me concerned. Followed by another visit to an ER. A shame coming over me.

My family's visiting Egypt this summer. I will be in charge of watering the veggies and flowers in my mother's little garden. I can't help but hold a bit of resentment, I admit, but oh well. I'd rather be jealous of my family than curious enough about what an Egyptian ER looks like in Cairo.

Happy Ocean Day!

Until next time,

Sak

It's No Coincidence

I started wearing glasses in 12th grade, which is actually not that early considering I had been reading books in bed under a night lamp my whole literate life. But I never realized how bad my eye sights have gotten until this morning.

I started mopping the kitchen floor, and saw something about the up-coming eclipse on TV in the living room, and picked up my glasses and wore them to see the news from 13 feet away as I continued mopping (I don't wear them at home ordinarily). Then, my eyes caught something on the white wall behind the fridge. Something black. Moving.

...Holy mother of God!!!!

I don't care how tiny they are. When ants get together (and when are they never together?) they are just as gross as one moderate-sized roach. I like to keep my kitchen spic-and-span clean, and most definitely do not harbor an inviting environment for these hobbits of insects to make themselves feel at home. But it had been raining quite a bit, a reason for them ants to invade houses, as my land lord later told me as he sprinkled a bunch of pesticide power thingy all over my kitchen .

Incidents like this always reassure me with my belief that things happen for a reason. Had I not been mopping in the kitchen? Had I not had the TV on? (I'm not very big on TV). Had I not caught the word "eclipse" on the news? (It's a phenomenon happening once in every 40 somethings years). Had I not wore my glasses that moment? My flat as I know it may have turned into an ant colony by the time I came back from work tonight. The notion alone is a little too scary for me to take.

The happiest moment of my day: that I was able to let the invasion not exacerbate, and I was able to save myself from having a heart attack.


And it's also incidents like this when I can't help but feel the need for help from an individual with more testosterone in my life. I think it would spare me from at least several strokes. But other than times like this, I do handle things pretty well on my own. I'm a tough girl. I tie my own shoe lace and everything.

I think I'll start wearing my glasses more often. In my flat or out.

Until next time,

Sak