Too Busy

But not in a bad way. It seems I have been too busy living and enjoying my life lately to spend time writing about it -- a process made all the more difficult when you consider that I exist without internet at home. So what's been up lately? My days have been filled with curry parties, mexican food, tequila, skiing, badminton, volleyball, leisurely breakfasts with friends, The Wyrd sisters, dinner with Hiro, quality time with Cian and Pete, Pete's birthday/sayonara party, 英会話, school, sunshine, car washing, speeding tickets, good books, a little bit of study, jogging, phone calls, flirtations and useless conversations, pick-ups in front of local grocery stores, magic card tricks, dice tricks, and lots of laughter. Sorry to keep anyone in suspense over that, but should I ever hook up, I'll try and do better to keep up.

Mumpalicious

Mumps-a-lot. Mumparooney. Mumps away. Mumples.

Laid down by the mumps for the last week and a half, I spent a lot of quality time being bored off my rocker. Other than the first day or two when I had a fever, it wasn't a particular bad experience. Sure, it hurt and I couldn't eat solid food for quite a while, and I have to admit the mumps definitely didn't suit my haircut, what with becoming quite the Heian beauty (the bottom half of your face is wider than the top), and I was constantly sucking back the ibuprofen for the pain, as well as trying to spend as much time as possible sleeping in the hopes that time would pass faster, but hey, other than that, I was in fine fettle. Hell, I even went to a couple of parties the day after my fever broke (and despite the schools' paranoia that kept me out of the classrooms all last week) nobody I was in contact with caught them from me.

Where did I get them? Ah, lucky me picked them up at work. One of my local schools has had the mumps running through it for a couple of weeks now, and lucky me got to take part. I think I am the only adult in the bunch to come down with it too. I've always been a very lucky girl, what can I say...

They are gone now, and I am back to solid foods, however my appetite is still missing -- crying shame when you consider the luscious feast that was laid out at Diane's yesterday. Curry, turkey, stuffed gyoza that wasn't gyoza, some fabulous melt in your mouth pork roast, gravy, potato salad, pasta salad, veggie and fruit salad, and even more all laid out for the taking, followed up by some chocolate cakes, brownies, doughnuts, and creme-filled pastries. Well, I have a week now to work myself up to a home cooked Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, so here's hoping I find my appetite in the midst of all those culinary delights.

Nabe Party Extraordinaire

Yes, Friday night, I had a nabe party for 6 in my lovely little living room. Elly and Noriyuki made the trek from Tottori City, and Datte, Kishi and Kuma made up the local colour.

It all started 3 weeks ago at the takoyaki party when a consensus of drunkards decided that I should hostess the next party, and it would be nabe. I foolishly said yes, or some slurred version of yes, forgetting that despite the delicious simplicity of nabe, I don't really remember or know what it takes to make nabe. Recall my first ever nabe party in J-land...

Having invited over all the kids in my county, and a little farther down the train line, I purchased a wide assortment of veggies and meat, the required burner and pot and got sorted to have a party. Only to have Henley ask, where's the sauce or flavouring. With a blank stare, I asked, what on earth are you on about. Apparently it takes more than just plain water to successfully navigate the world of nabe.

And so, Friday afternoon I called Elly from the supermarket, saying that although I know nabe is a very random and easy meal, I am not entirely sure what I should be doing or buying or trying not to poison people with. And Elly, well, Elly nodded and smiled -- rather, did the verbal equivalent of it -- and hung up on me. I get that a lot, both in person and on the phone.

I managed to buy a variety of foods, which ended being too much in the end, but was certainly better than running short in the middle of the feast. And I got the beer right. The beer was no problem, but the wine did turn out to be one. Definitely unwise to play a drinking game with wine. But that's for later.

Guests arrived and assessed that I was in a weirder and giddier mood than normal, which lead to much laughter and an agreement amongst everyone that the craziness runs through the women in my family. Sorry mom, but Elly saw the canned ham and when I told her where it came from she cried from laughing so hard. Which lead to me having to explain it again later after everyone had arrived, and minor convulsions from Elly again.

Datte and Kishi were both partaking of the beerage, whilst Kuma chan stuck to tea -- which I have no doubt ended up working out in his favour come Saturday morning as he kept losing in the card games, while I was hungover as all get out from chugging wine. Second time I have done this, and have yet to achieve favourable results. The beer probably helped Kishi and Datte not go into shock when Elly got going. Invariably the conversation turned to sex, which is entertaining but shocking for a bunch of boys who have never met her before. Me, well I have had 5 years plus to adjust. And they have no idea how restrained Elly really was, which made it so much more entertaining for me. Conversation delved into love hotels, homosexuality, marriage, finding poor Kuma-chan a wife (I swear, everytime I have been out with Datte and Kishi the conversation has turned to poor Kuma-chan's inability to find a wife, regardless of whether or not he is there. You have to wonder what they are going to do for conversation should he ever marry.), and other reasonably tame, although still nonetheless shocking to the unindoctrinated.

Devolving into drinking games at Elly's suggestion, we taught everyone how to play shithead, and much like in August when Elly suggested it then, Elly proceeded to lose. And I, I once again won without having to take a single sip. However this was before we ventured on to daifugou, which is a lot like Big 2. Shit. Never again. And poor Kuma-chan who, in lieu of drinking, was made to perform a variety of songs, dances and stripteases, all the while wearing my leopard print cowboy hat. I have some very charming photos.

Fortunately the boys all took pity on me and went home around one, as there was no way I was going to last longer than that, or it could have been due to them all having to work Saturday morning at 8:30. Either way, definitely a good thing they left when they did as all that wine -- once again, I chugged nearly an entire bottle in the space of an hour -- hit very quickly after that. Fortunately nothing was going to dampen my mood; or at least not until I tried to get up Saturday morning and I deperately wished my head and I could experience a temporary separation...

I am still alive though, and with plenty of laughing memories and blurry photos of Friday to last to the next party.

Cooking Craziness

Friday night, after a brief stop Manabi Niimi to make use of free computers and internet, I went grocery shopping. At the first grocery store, I bought some veggies and meat, but what with the prices being too high on various items, I stopped at one a little closer to home to pick up my missing supplies. And during the jaunt about the second, I saw other things the first didn't have, or that were cheaper than the first, and again stocked up. Which led to me having too many groceries -- it really is true; you shouldn't go grocery shopping when you are hungry (by the by, I think I ended up having leftovers for dinner on Friday night). Which led to me having a very small fridge stuffed to the brim with all kinds of fresh groceries which I realized as I unpacked them that I would never be able to eat all of before they went off. Which led to last nights frenzy of fantastic foods.

No, I didn't eat them all, but I did cook them all in a 3 hour culinary coup. I was very impressed to discover that I do in fact have enough pots, and merely confirmed my awareness that I don't have enough counter space. After poring through both my English and Japanese cookbooks (I do love my English cookbooks, but sometimes the ingredients are impossible or prohibitively expensive to buy, which leads to my salivary glands being taunted, and thus I went out and purchased 4 or 5 J-go cookbooks, and spent an afternoon going through kanji and words I didn't already know), I settled on my menu. I ended up with 2 kinds of curry, ratatouille, my very own Chinese stir-fry, and the insides for some fajitas. Spread out over my counter in a variety of pots, bowls and fry-pans, I then proceeded to bag or package it all up to shove in the freezer for consumption at a later date. At least 19 meals... And it leaves me with a couple of meals to be consumed in the fridge, as well as a bunch of displaced chocolate -- ah, poor chocolate.

Feeling very satisfied with myself, and a little curried as every time my hands come near my nose, I catch whiffs of curries and garlic and other delicious ingredients.

Yum. Damn, I am pretty good at this whole cooking thing sometimes...

Failing Lunch

Eating lunch with one of the 4th year classes today, it was 2 boys, their teacher, and I making up the lunch group. And it was the first time I found out that lunch is actually a study period. It is structured similiarly to a class and as such, is considered 勉強. I didn't actually ask what would be required to fail lunch, but I am thinking I probably would as I always leave food behind, I am constantly playing with or talking to the kids, and I don't really help with the clean-up.

Could you imagine? "Yes, Mrs. Morita. We are very sorry but we are going to have to hold Wataru back a year. You see, he just isn't doing very well at lunch. We really don't feel that he understands the concept."

Prima Donna Demands

When asking me if I would be willing to DJ at the next Hi!High? event way back in April, Cian asked if I had any unreasonable demands I wanted to make. I said, yes, I require 50 green peanut M&Ms. Time is getting down to the wire, and Wednesday night I got a phone call from Cian.

"Not a single green M&M. I bought and opened 23 packets -- nope, 22-- 22 packets of M&Ms and there's not a single green one. I thought you might be putting me on, but there is a picture of the green one on the package. "

I couldn' stop laughing. I told him I would willingly accept red or something, but he said no, he was determined to succeed, and was going off hunting again last night in search of more. I have yet to hear how that turned out.