A Christmas Miracle, part 2

When we left off, I was secure in my conviction that I was a much more interesting person than any of the Christmas Judgers could ever hope to be.  I was correct, and things were about to get a lot more interesting.

Upon arriving home, I heaed straight out again to take Ricky for his nightly walk.  We returned and, I thought, settled in for the night.  It was about 11pm, and I was getting set-up for a Christmas Skype date with The Fam.  Ricky, who had other ideas, got it into his head that he needed to go out one last time.  Not only was his insistent pawing at the back door going to distract from my skyping-ing, but he was looking at me with those big googly eyes...

And how can you be expected to resist big googly eyes on Christmas?  So I caved.  I opened the door.  He looked at me with googly eyes again.  Talking to myself as much as Ricky, I mumbled, "Fiiiiiiine, I'll throw something for you, but I'm only throwing it once, and then I am going straight back to that warm couch, and you are going to stop looking at my with those googly eyes.  My Christmas cheer only extends so far."

So as not to waste the house's precious heat, I stepped out.  And pulled the door shut.

I quickly located a half-chewed dog treat and gave it a toss down the home-made mini golf course.  Shivering, I quickly turned to avoid potential googly eyes.  I grabbed the door handle.

It wouldn't budge.

"DO. NOT. PANIC."  flashed like lightening, illuminating the worst-case-scenarios lurking in the corners of my head.  I took a deep breath.  I pointedly ignored visions of cold hours spent waiting for daybreak.  Heading straight for the warm-embrace of  Denial, I reached for the door again, willing it to be open.

It was not.

Okay.  Okay.  Deep breath.

I didn't even see The Panic coming.  It hit me hard and fast with the undeniable reality of the situation:  I didn't have shoes.  I didn't have a coat.  It was cold.  I didn't have a phone.  I didn't have ID or even a 1yen coin in a pocket somewhere.  It was 11:30 on Christmas night.

Fending off the impending breakdown, I started to move.  I circle the house checking every first floor window and anything I could climb to reach the second floor.  Ricky was barking like I had done this on purpose.  There was nothing.  The house was sealed.  I stood for a moment on the sidewalk, looking at the house.  The lights were on inside.  It looked so cozy.

I turned and walked toward the train station, the only place I had any hope of finding people awake.

About three blocks from the house, I noticed that the mechanic shop was open.  A small shop, the front parking area was crowded with bits and pieces of various automobiles.  I considered my options: Mystery Mechanics vs. Convenience Store Zombies... I picked the mechanics and picked my way to the open door.

I can only imagine what they must have been thinking when I walked through the door, a shoeless foreigner apologizing in broken Japanese.  The whole family, in the process of dismantling a shelving system, stopped in their tracks.  I asked if there was a police station nearby.  Having previously been locked out of my own apartment after dropping my keys between the apartment stairs and a wall, I knew some key vocabulary.  "Ehhhhh, the keys, inside the house..."  I mimed the unforgiving door handle.  Dad was on his cellphone before I finished my pantomime.  Everyone else was still staring at me.  "What's your address miss?"  "Oh, well, it's a friend's house.  I don't know the address.  They went on vacation.  The dog... ummm.... sorry... I'm alone."  

 I couldn't help it.  I started to cry.  I asked for a tissue, and Mom snapped into action procuring tissues and insisting I come in and sit by the heater.  What is it about the universal look of concern mothers get that just makes me crumble?  As she sat me in the chair and settled a coat around my shoulders I lost it.  Thankfully, everyone else had returned their attention to the partly dismantled shelves.  Dad said the police were on their way, and Mom brought out a hot towel and a cup of hot coffee before they, too, went back to business.

When the police arrived 5 minutes later, my breathing had mostly returned to normal, and I smiled a watery thanks at the strangers who had rescued me without hesitation.

The policeman did not look nearly as pleased to see me as I was to see him.  He asked where the house was.  About five minutes, I said, gesturing up the street.  And so we walked as his partner in the cruiser drove at a crawl about 10 feet behind us, lights flashing the whole time.  It was the single, strangest 5 minute walk I have ever taken.

Whether the policeman walking with me actually couldn't speak a single word of English or just didn't want to, I am not sure, but whatever the reason, we communicated about as well as North and South Korea.  I tried to answer his questions, but to his great frustration, I could only understand about 10% of what he was saying.  When we got to the house, his frustration became more and more apparent as he sucked every breath through his teeth.  I worried he might end up inhaling a few.

As his partner tried to get someone on the phone who could speak English, I formulated a plan.  The Rogers had given me the phone number of nearby friends to call if I needed anything.  I just needed to get to a computer and find that email.  Though I wasn't looking forward to waking a stranger up at midnight to come rescue me, it was the only option.  I had a plan.  It was going to suck.  But I had a plan.

Just then, the neighbors front door opened, and out walked a man embodying everything that was familiar and comforting.  He was white, middle-aged, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and when he spoke, I lost it for the second time that night.   

"Hey, is everything alright?"
"Oh my God, yeah, I'm f-fine, oh, I'm gonna cry ag-gain, but really, I'm fine,"  I managed between sobs.  "Um, my name is M-Maggie.  I know the R-Rogers from Minnesota and, I'm locked, locked out of the house."  More sobs.  "I'm w-watching Ricky, and just, just let him out the back door and closed it, and, and, it was l-locked."  

Eventually I managed to somewhat coherently get out that I was a friend from Minnesota, living in Kanazawa, and staying in Tokyo for Christmas.  My New Favorite Person On The Planet explained that the school would have a set of spare keys, but that it would be difficult to get them tonight and did I want to just sleep on his couch and get the keys in the morning?  Yes.  Yes yes yes.  Uh huh.  That's exactly what I wanted to do.

About this time the police got someone on the phone who spoke English. "Thank you, but it's okay.  I am okay.  The neighbor will help me get keys tomorrow.  I will stay with him tonight.  Oh, well, my name is Margaret McCarron, but it's okay.  I'm okay.  The neighbor will help me get keys tomorrow.  Okay, yes, well, my birthday is December 27th, 1986.  But really, it's okay.  I'm fine."  After about 5 minutes I could no longer deal with any of it, handed the phone back to the cop, mumbled some Japanese about being fine and thank you thank you, sorry, thank you, sorry.  And I turned around and walked into the house.

I was indoor again.  There was a fluffy comforter on the couch.  "I turned the heat on, so it should warm up in a few minutes."  Tears threatened again.   

"Do you want something to drink?"
"Y-yeah, th-thanks.  Can I have a glass of w-water?"
"No, I mean, do you want a beer or a glass of wine or something?"
"Oh.  Yes.  Yeah.  Thanks."

We sat at the kitchen table.  It turned out his wife and kids were back home in the States, but he had stuck around out of some sort of good luck conspiracy.  He asked all the right questions you ask people who need an easy distraction.  We talked about where I live and what I do and Japanese junior high schools and weather.  And I finally got it together.  And when I went to sleep, I was on a couch not a dog bed, in a warm room not a cold backyard, under a comforter.

In the morning, he made coffee, called the necessary people, got the keys, and then Ricky and I stayed inside alllll day.

THE END

 yes, that is Mt. Fuji in the background - I saw it from the train and had to duck down a few alleys and scramble up a couple private stairways to get to the top of a building, but it was worth it

AFTERWORD

I later made cookies for the pleasantly surprised mechanic family and saw my rescuer (Mark) and kids again when they came for dinner at the Rogers', and I got to hear his side of the story: first being woken up by Ricky's barking, then seeing police lights flashing, and  then coming out to find a shoeless, sobbing stranger from Minnesota who initially appeared to be alone in Tokyo on Christmas for no apparent reason.  It was certainly a Christmas to remember for everyone involved.

A Christmas Miracle

The thunder is rattling my walls.  The snow/sleet is piling up outside.  I am lying prostrate in an envelope of blissful heat, sandwiched between my heated carpet and a quilt from Gramma H, and Picasso, cozy in her fur coat, has declared war on the closed sliding door that is the only thing separating me from The Arctic Tundra, otherwise known as my kitchen.  It's good to be home.

I spent the first week back reestablishing a routine, remembering what's it's like to have to go to work every day, and swapping stories with friends, many of whom sensibly headed south to warmer (and cheaper) countries.  I, opting for the road less traveled and determined to tackle my uneasiness about Tokyo (I mean, where do you even begin in a city like Tokyo?), arranged to dog-sit for the Rogers, family friends and international teachers from Minnesota.

It was bliss.  Pure.  Bliss.  Not only did this house come complete with double-paned windows, insulation, and a Western-sized oven... it also had a cable package featuring such delights as Fox Crime and CNN International.  It's really quite a miracle I made it out of the house at all.

But make it out I did, for better and for oh-so-much worse.  And since it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a story in possession of a good catastrophe, must be in want of a retelling (or several), let me tell you about my Christmas in Tokyo.

The day started innocuously enough.  I woke up, walked Ricky, opened my Halbur Family Secret Santa present, met Creighton who was on his way home for the holidays.  (He left Christmas afternoon, flew for countless hours, and arrived home in time for Christmas dinner.  A little Christmas magic courtesy of the international date line.)  We brunched in Roppongi before parting ways.  He headed to the airport.  I headed home for a nap before setting to the serious business of Christmas dinner.

I had made a reservation for a traditional Christmas dinner, buffet-style, also in Roppongi.  What I had failed to consider was that "reservations required"  restaurants are less for the homeless-at-the-holidays crowd than for too-trendy-to-cook crowd.  I made a mental note to head straight for the nearest British pub should I ever find myself alone in Tokyo on Christmas.  That said, the food was straight up Christmas on a plate, the wine glasses were generous, and Javier, the middle-aged Colombian bartender, was so charming I forgave his initial, "You're alone?  On Christmas?"

Thus far, Christmas had been pretty okay.  As I was unwilling to face the sea of people queuing to get in and out of the Roppongi Metro Station quite yet (not to mention my hopes for a Christmas miracle in the form of the Spanish-speaking waiter with the nice smile magically appearing before me), I went for a wander.


Mental Note #2 re: Christmas alone - do not wander around "festive" places.  If the commercial cheer itself doesn't get to you, the looks of pity from your fellow passersby most certainly will.  I mean, excuuuuuuse me for people watching on Christmas.  After the third smugly WASPy family passed me squeezing hands and exchanging "Isn't it nice that we're together on Christmas?" looks, I actually had a glimpse into the Depths of Christmas Bitterness.  It was terrifying.

Then I realized that I was (clearly) a more interesting person than any of them.  And I got on the metro.



...to be continued another night when it is not 11:20 p.m...

an appetizer

I've spent the last week and a half dog-sitting for the Rogers (Minnesotan friends that the Hoiseths met in Malaysia) and generally bumming around Tokyo.  It has been great, and aside from my Christmas night run-in with Tokyo's Finest, extremely relaxing.  The Rogers came back on the 1st from their trip to Kenya, and though I was worried that it was going to be awkward having me staying around as they settled back in, it has been wonderful.  In fact, I'm not sure why I expected anything else.  Hanging around the house with a Minnesotan family, even though they aren't mine, has felt like home, and I'm a little sad to go to my hostel tomorrow.  That said, my hostel looks gorgeous, and it will be nice to be in the historical area of town for some temple and museum haunting before The Inevitable Return.  Though I don't have time to get into any stories yet (Aaron is letting me tag along to Costco tomorrow morning!), here are a few pictures of my trip thus far.

Reminder: you can click on them to make them bigger

 

 

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