Cookies and Carcasses

I was all set to have a good long paragraph's worth of a rant about how some people have less common sense than a slice of bread, and blah blah blah blah...

And then it snowed today.  And I am just not someone who can rant about useless things that I can't change (senseless slices of bread masquerading as people, for example) during the first snow of the season.  I'm certain that there are people who can rant about useless things they can't change (the snow itself, for example), but I just can't because, gosh darn it.... I just think it's so pretty.  Even though it's more like sleet than snow, it has still left a little bit of a greyish slush on the ground, which is more than enough for my imagination to turn everything into a Winter Wonderland.

It's probably for the best anyway.  I vaguely remember promising to my very wise brother that I would not turn my blog into another one of those blogs where people you don't care about explain their opinions on things about which you care even less.  So thanks to some snow and my brother Joe, let's head straight into last week.

warning: you can expect a lot of close-up faux-arty photos until I learn how to appropriately utilize options on my camera that involve more than just the zoom - just give me time, we'll get there... eventually

It started with some cookie baking with my base school's English Club.  The club consists of ten girls who really just want to hang out, which is fine with me, particularly when it involves cookie baking.  We made ginger-molasses cookies because 1) they are my favorite - and guess who was choosing the recipe? - and 2) I figured that this would be a new taste for the girls to try.  They were BIG fans, taking countless swipes at the batter before it reached the baking sheet.  Unfortunately, the cookies turned out flat, like whoa flat, and crispy, but they were still delicious, so all was not lost.  I thought it must have been the ovens we used at school until the same thing happened to me just last night with my oven.  The flat part, not the crispy part, I'm still blaming that on school ovens. 

A quick Google search revealed that melting your butter in order to get it to mix with the sugar is a no-no-no-no-no.    

"You must creeeeam it with the sugar," said Google. 
"But how, Google???"  
"Well, with your fancy-schmancy electric mixer....obviously." 
"But Google, I don't haaaaave a fancy-schmancy electric mixer.  In fact, I don't have a mixer at all."
"*shocked silence*  oh... well then I suppose you should just set it on your counter until it gets to room temperature, then make like Laura Ingalls and beat the crap out of it."
"....but Google?  The room temperature of my kitchen is 46 degrees Celsius...."



It was at this point that I stopped anthropomorphizing Google and resolved that next time I would give myself enough time to put my butter on a plate in front of my kerosene heater until it reached a reasonable semblance of "room temperature".  Now, if it hadn't snowed today I might be tempted to go on a rant about recipes that require things to be "room temperature" or "rise overnight in a warm place"?  Like where, dear recipe writer, where?  Under the electric blanket with me?  Your use of "a" instead of "the" is callous in it's assumption that I might have multiple places of warmth from which to choose.  Boo.  Good thing it snowed today.

Anyway, that was Wednesday afternoon.  On Thursday afternoon I went to a high school across the city and up a mountain to help my friend out with the annual Christmas party.  His school hosts exchange students for two week periods throughout the year, including a whole bunch around Christmastime.  Most of the students were from Australia or the Phillipines.  They made cards with me and Daniel, cookies with Kendall, and then did a Secret Santa.  The 6'3" Australian kid didn't look particularly excited about the unusual Japanese snacks he got, but about two seconds later he was tossing the offending snack foods to a crowd of shrieking Japanese girls.  'Twas a very merry Christmas party indeed.

On the way home, Daniel and I took the bus the wrong way.  When we arrived at the end of the line and didn't get off, the confused bus driver asked us where we were going.  Oops.  Getting on the wrong bus in Japan is particularly frustrating because you have to pay for every bus ride.  Nothing like having to literally pay for your mistakes.  Luckily for us, the bus driver kindly let us off scot-free.  However, because of the mix-up, I missed my kerosene delivery which I had to reschedule, in Japanese, for the next day.  It arrived Friday evening 5 minutes too late for me to walk the 20 minutes to the train station to catch the last train to Kanazawa station to catch the last bus to Wajima for Katy's English Club Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner the next day.  My life is a game of Cosmic Dominoes.

It turned out just fine though and gave me a quiet night at home which I was sorely in need of.  I arrived in Wajima the next morning having missed the stuffing of the turkeys, and the resulting looks of terror on Katy's students' faces, but in time to see the quartering of one bird in order to make sure it cooked through in the schools miniscule movens.  The other bird seemed to be a lost cause, and we took it back to Katy's that night to finish it off in her more-reasonably-sized moven.  I was reminded of a story Linda told me about trying to cook a turkey in pieces in a toaster oven in Kanazawa.

We had an adorable "cultural difference" moment when the girls flipped the pumpkin pie over onto a pot lid so they could serve it more easily.  Trying pretty unsuccessfully to rein in our smiles, Katy righted the pie and demonstrated the "fork under-finger on top" method of pie piece removal.  Perhaps not as classy as the girls were going for, but you can't mess with tradition.

After a lovely sleepover with Katy and Karen, I headed back down to Kanazawa with two turkey carcasses triple-bagged and stowed in my purse.  When I found out Katy was thinking about ordering two real, whole turkeys, my first question was "Can I have the carcasses?"  And oh my goodness, the awkwardness of toting said turkey carcasses on a 2-hour bus ride, to lunch in town with Anna and Loki, and then on another bus before finally arriving home was totally worth the result: Turkey Noodle Soup à la Halbur.  On Monday night, after a reassuring phone conversation with Mom, I had the basic recipe, the timing, and the secret key to not making a pot of Turkey Noodle Goop.

I was ready.  I opened the bags and surveyed the mess of bones, turkey bits, and gelatinous chunks, mixed in with a little stuffing and mashed potatoes.  Taking the bull by the horns, or rather... the turkey by the spine, I set to breaking the first carcass into smaller bits.  The second one had already been hacked to pieces on Saturday.  Did you know that breaking a turkey skeleton into pieces is not particularly easy? 

Actually, I just imagined a few of the women who make up about 97% of my readers, and I am guessing that a disproportionate number (if not all) of you do know exactly what I am talking about.  I am honored to finally join the generations of women who have, post-Thanksgiving, pulled a turkey to pieces, thrown it into a pot with assorted stock-making things, and boiled this Skeleton Soup into deliciousness before straining the whole thing and picking through the (literally) hot mess for all the delicious bits of meat. 

Did you realize how much meat is hanging out around a turkey's spine?  Yes, I suppose you probably did.

The resulting Turkey Noodle Soup is, in keeping with tradition, stored in tupperware of various sizes - enough to feed me well into January.  It tastes just like Mom's, which, incidentally, brings me to.... nostalgia!

Last and possibly least, the first (in what I imagine may be a series) New Camera Feature: Nostalgia.  This makes your photos look, can you guess?  Old!  What is even MORE fun is that, by turning the snazzy-wheel-thing on the front of the camera, you can seamlessly move along the Scale o' Nostalgia.  So here we go, back down memory lane...

 Can't you just hearing the time whooshing past?  Also, this is pretty much Picasso and my standard set-up at any given moment, like now, for example.

  

Oh wow, I am feeling nostalgic for last Sunday already.

Next up you can look forward to such wonders as: an elementary school Christmas party, drunken Christmas caroling for charity, an orphanage Christmas party (involving more caroling, minus the booze), and Karen and my departure for Tokyo by night bus!

Waiting for Christmas

I am waiting for Christmas.  To be fair, I am always waiting for Christmas.  I have spent most of my life waiting for Christmases, most of the time to great success.  Strangely enough, I would say that my most memorable Christmases also happen to be the ones that felt the least Christmasy of all.  There was swimming in an outdoor pool in Kuala Lumpur when I was 10.  Then there was Christmas mass in Thailand where I passed out down a couple of cement steps at age 18.  And then Christmas in Cuzco, Peru with the Nativity Market and small children with big fireworks at age 20.  Then there was the Big Buddha of Kamakura and a Tokyo dance-off last year, age 22.  As magical and memorable as all of those experiences were, I was waiting for Christmas, and it never came.

So this year I am waiting for a Christmas two years coming.  Add the fact that I will be family-less for the first Christmas of my entire life, and you can bet I am doing everything in my power to make sure it gets here as promised.

1. Christmas music?  Check.  I have replaced every single Sean Paul, techno, and ABBA song on my iPhone with 4.11 GB of Christmas music.  For your information, that is 2.6 DAYS of Christmas music.  Yep, definitely "check".
2. Baked goods?  Check.  I bought a real oven(!!!) and have been baking enough to feed a congregation and keep my apartment at a reasonable temperature.  (SmittenKitchen's Banana Bread and James Beard's Amazing Persimmon Bread are my two recent faves, the fact that I can top off my hot chocolate with the leftover bourbon notwithstanding.)
3. Christmas tree?  .....ummm, check?  My Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is standing proudly (as proudly as a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree can stand) in the center of my table giving my apartment a true Indie Christmas charm.
4. Christmas cheer?  Oh yeah, in spades.  I have always had more Christmas cheer than the average person, and this year I am sharing the wealth, whether they want it or not.  Aside from showing up to school every morning smiling at the Hanson Christmas song in my headphones, I made Christmas cards with the special ed class today, am making Christmas cookies with my English club tomorrow, am going to help run a high school Christmas party on Thursday, and will go up to Wajima this weekend to help Katy's HS English Club prepare a traditional Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner.  And that is just this week.  Next week is more cookies, two elementary school Christmas parties, caroling for charity, and an orphanage Christmas party.  I love it.
5. Christmas presents?  Check check check.  Katy, Karen, Creighton, and I went to Takayama, Gifu last Saturday for an afternoon of Christmas shopping for presents that are once again legal for me to mail to the United States.  Woooo!

Though I have yet to make a red and green paper chain, I would say that this year I am doing a fantastic job of waiting for Christmas.

And I even had the good sense to buy myself an early Christmas present with which to document all of this waiting.  ;)  That's right.  I, having lived camera-less since August, have finally gone out and gotten myself a camera.  And what a camera it is.  Oh boy.  It is a Canon G12, and by far the most beautiful piece of technology I have ever owned.   I am looking forward to some serious bonding time during my upcoming Tokyo vacation.  More on my grand plans for said vacay at a later date.  In the mean time, some documented Christmas cheer: photos from our Takayama excursion, with a brief stop at a charming cafe outside of Shirakawa-go.

 pretty mountains and trinkets from the charming cafe, including a pair of Maggie's socks - functional and organic

After a brief pause, we were off to Takayama again to enjoy (repeatedly) sampling the soy-sauced, grilled mochi kebabs, wander up and down a street of lovely traditional shop after lovely traditional shop, try my camera out on the scenery (wouldja look at that cloud definition?!), and generally have a lovely time.

After a hard day of shopping, we needed a little ramen to replenish our Christmas cheer before a little frolicking on Main Street.  The third photo is, apparently, three interpretations of the misheard instruction, "Pretend you're French." 

All in all it was a perfectly lovely day followed by a perfectly lovely evening full of snacks of every shape and size including a rather questionable looking paté, the requisite Christmas viewing of "Love Actually", just a little bourbon-laced hot chocolate, and Christmas cheer, in spades.

 

Biscuits, babies, and a potluck

A couple of weeks ago I went to my friend Reiko's house for an annual potluck dinner.  I went last year and had a great time despite not speaking any Japanese whatsoever, so I was excited that I might be able to do something more than smile a lot and gesture wildly this year.  I also had not seen Reiko since she had baby Lisa in August.  I had not realized that there had been a memo after last year's dinner.  This year was BYOB.  Yep, Bring Your Own Baby.  There were THREE.  I guess it's that decade in my life isn't it.  I'm not sure I am ready for that, cute as it may be.

Anyway, I met Reiko when she worked as the art teacher at my school.  She studied lacquerwear in university, and her husband, Michael, is half American, half Japanese.  He is a potter.  Karen and I went in for a lesson with him once, and despite his infinite patience, our mug/bowl/flowerpots look an awful lot like a mother's day present from a seven year old.  Oh well, they still let me hang around their house with all of their artist friends, so I don't mind.  That said, last year at dinner when we were doing the introduction game it went a little like this:

"I'm Machiko.  I make metal jewelery."

"I'm Mauricio, from Mexico.  And I've been doing pottery for 16 years."

"I'm Miki, and I am studying pottery."
"I'm Yoko, and I'm a painter."

"I'm Bastien, and I'm broody and French and studying lacquerwear in Japanese." (okay, okay, this may not be verbatim)

"Ummm, I'm Maggie, and... I teach English....."

Yeah, it's really hard to have a more cliche job than teaching English, but at least I teach at a public school with a bad reputation??  Still, how can that possibly compare to lacqerwear and Mexican potters?  It just can't.  Also, of the four foreigners there, two were fluent in Japanese.  And the third was Bastien.  And he is French.  I just could not win.  But everyone was wonderful, the food was delicious, and hanging around a Japanese house with a lot of Japanese people eating and drinking an evening away made me feel like maybe I wasn't a big scary foreigner.

So this year I went back armed with a little more Japanese.  And pepperjack cheese biscuits.  Because what more classic and delicious and easy American recipe can you imagine?  And who can resist butter and cheese laden  carbohydrates?  You'd think that in Japan, of all places, people would be able to turn away.  Not. A. Chance.  I saw women as big as my pinkie tuck away two BIG biscuits.  It was incredibly satisfying.

 Photo note: I had seen the white guy on the far right at the driving center and wondered who he was. Well, now have I met him, his lovely wife, and their adorable baby.  There is a very good reason some Japanese people think that all foreigners in Japan know each other.... one way or another, we kind of do.

Mao, the Mexican potter, and his Japanese-Mexican wife, and their adorable daughter all came this year, so I had a great chance to realize just how much Spanish I have lost.  I could understand everything we were talking about, but stringing together a sentences was like pulling teeth, and half the time they came out in Japanese, which is particularly ridiculous considering that I DO NOT SPEAK JAPANESE.  Fortunately, Mao and his wife both speak Japanese and somehow managed to understand what I was talking about.  Or maybe they didn't...  Dios mio.

This is me and Baby Lisa.  When Reiko passed her to me, she and couple women started laughing.  I panicked for a moment thinking I was doing something wrong, but I couldn't imagine what.  No, no, not to worry, this was not some big cultural faux pas, they had simply gotten the giggles because of how small Lisa looked with me compared to Reiko.  Then I reached out to get something while holding Lisa (very securely, I might add, there are no dropped babies in this story) in one arm.  Oh. My.

But I can see their point.  Though the photo looks pretty normal to me, Lisa looks an awful lot more like a toddler in Reiko's arms.

Yep, I may not be an artist, but I guess I am pretty darn good at holding babies.

Ummmm, cool?

Crunky Ball Nude

I think these photos all speak for themselves.  

All photos thanks to my fab iPhone, which, unlike my digital camera, has survived several near-fatal accidents with grace and determination.

 

drawn by students on the chalkboard outside the nurse's office

Let's just pretend that didn't happen

It's been months.  I know.  In fact, it has been 3 months almost exactly.  But let's just pretend that none of that happened and dive right on into the ALT Soccer Tournament on the island of Awaji, November 2010.

Only a week ago I was riding in a car with Yoko, Marc, and Creighton on our way home from a gorgeous weekend at the soccer tournament in Awaji.  As sore as we were when we got into the car, attempting to get out of the car for dinner at a rest stop was a significantly slower and more agonizing process than we had imagined.  Bracing myself on the car door in order to hoist myself out of the backseat, I had an awkward and painful preview of what old age might be like.  But sore muscles and bruises make you feel like you have accomplished something.  And what we accomplished was our best tournament to date, with the women taking 3rd and the men playing the best they ever have.

Perhaps you will recall this summer's tournament in Nagano where the women also took 3rd under the guidance of the phenomenal sisters, Stacy and Shaun.  Going into Awaji we were more than a little concerned about our missing sister safety net, but thanks to teamwork, sheer determination, and Coach Damo patiently explaining how to play the game (did you know that it's live play after a penalty kick?  well, we didn't), we pulled it together and took a satisfying third place.  And I think our men, having finally been able to play hard in a tournament of like-minded (re: serious about soccer and fun as opposed to some of the Nagano teams who were simply serious about being jerks) teams, had a great time and played better than ever.  We will definitely be heading back to Awaji come spring time.

All of the photos were stolen from Bill's facebook album of the tournament.  I would have taken my own except that 1) did I mention my camera broke in an unfortunate bike accident in Hokkaido in August?  and 2) it's hard to take photos while you are trying to defend a goal, and 3) Bill's photos are fabulous.

You can see two clips of our women's team at around 1:46 of this video from the tournament website.  Also, the human tunnel featured in the video is an Ishikawa FC tradition, win or lose.

June: yep, still working on June

 Where has the summer gone?

Between a visit from Heather and Sue, adopting a sick kitten, a Fire and Violence festival, Minnesota, and a road trip to Hokkaido, this summer has disappeared with alarming speed.  I'm one month into my second (and last) year in Japan and already struggling to silence the parenthetical (and last)'s that my brain is adding on to every moment.  My last rice harvest, my last Uchinada beach welcome party, my last "natsu yasumi" spent trying to look busy for days on end.  That said, all of this (and last)-ing is giving me the necessary motivation to get out and do things.  I'm making my Japan Bucket List, and it's fun.

Last week we checked Hokkaido off the list, and next weekend Katy and Karen and I are planning (well, "planning" may not be the most accurate verb) a trip to Metamorphose, a massive electronic music festival held somewhere near Mt. Fuji... we think.

Before I get caught up in planning future adventures (if I plan them all now, what will I do all day at school tomorrow?), let me try to catch up on the ones that already passed.

So remember the impossibly adorable orphans?  Yep?  Okay, that was Sunday, June 12th, and on our way home we had a little adventure and found a gorgeous campground nestled in the mountains down south.  The photos are from our afternoon.

But to continue on with the epic saga that was June 2010, let's go to Tuesday, June 15th: the arrival of Heather and Suzie.  They arrived having traveled more than halfway around the world for no apparent reason except that O'Hare Airport cannot be trusted.  After some trouble with their flight from Minnesota to Chicago, they eventually got there on a different flight, only to be sent to LA, then paris, and FINALLY to Tokyo where, having missed their night bus, they had to arrange alternate transportation having just arrived in Japan after, what I can only imagine, was precious little decent sleep.

Oy.

Though they were in remarkably high spirits, after showers and present-giving (Christmas in June, anyone?  Thank you, April and Chopper, for raising daughters who were willing to share the crazy-delicious cookies and jerky you sent with them!) they were asleep before their heads hit the pillows.

They spent Wednesday and Thursday exploring the city, and Friday they came to visit my school.  And the new reigning champions in the category of "Most Distracting Visitors" are Heather and Suzie!!!!  Good Lord, I mean, I thought my family with our combined height and Joe's "kakoi mufura" (cool muffler/scarf) was pretty distracting. 

Then Adriana and Evan came to visit.  I had clearly underestimated the distraction factor that a real live couple might have.

But that is all a distant memory as, even now, the H&S related shrieks echo in my ears.  It was all based on the sheer Kawaiiiiiii Factor... until they asked Suzie if she had a boyfriend.  She does.  And does she have a picture of said boyfriend on her uber-kawaii cell phone?  Yes, of course she does.

I still wince a little remembering how the screams bounced back and forth on the cement walls of the hallway.  As we continued to wander the hallways, I heard one girl walk past whining (in Japanese, of course) about how jealous she was of my cute friends.  As we rounded a corner a boy threw himself against a wall and exclaimed, "She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"  Suzie is, quite possibly, the picture of perfection in the eyes of Japanese teenagers.  Blonde hair, blue eyes, small face (a very good thing in Japan and a category in which I consistly fail to impress), ear piercings, and a cellphone with pictures of her boyfriend.  My students were talking about it for the next week.

My apologies to Heather and Sue for 1) not sufficiently warning you about the squeals ad shrieks and pointing, and 2) not sufficiently warning you about the intense awkwardness of standing and waiting for a group of Japanese students to work up the balls to ask you a question. (Dear readers, ask someone to stare silently and intently at your face as though trying to memorize it or convince themself that you aren't a figment of their imagination.  Ask them to do this for a minute or more and perhaps you will begin to understand my day to day existence.)  That has taken me months to get used to, though I credit Macalester College with giving me the skills to wait out even the most awkward of situations.  Bring it on kids.

 from front to back: Katy, Karen, and Adam