Monkeys

We went to Arashiyama Monkey Jungle. Oh yes we did.

It cost about $5.00 to get in, and there are monkeys. What more could you ask?

We paid our money and we took our chances. You can't take any paper bags or food into Monkey Jungle because the monkeys (who are free to roam) will think it's food and get all up in your face. There are also instructions not to stare at the monkeys as they will interpret this as a sign of aggression.

We walked up a steep hill and after about 10 minutes....Look! Up there! A monkey! In a tree!

I feared that this might be the only monkey we would see, so i took a picture.

Here's a few questions about monkeys to keep you entertained on the long walk up the hill:
And here's the answer to the first question:
Got that?

In a few minutes we came upon many, many monkeys. Here's the Mister getting a shot of a monkey with his really big lens. This shows how close we were able to get to the monkeys.
This little guy was doing some sightseeing of his own:

Awwww, just awww:
While we were there, a man came out and gave a talk about the monkeys. I didn't understand a word he said, but it looks like the monkeys were very interested.
On the path on the way down, we encountered a different sort of primate playing:

Potty Talk

I am home. All went very well, thanks to the compulsive planning of the Mister. We had a wonderful time.

However, i am feeling about as bright as a 15 watt light bulb, as my body doesn't know what the hell is going on, time-wise. Plus i managed to catch a little cold the day before we left.

So today we are going to talk about Japanese toilets.

This is the B534S model. The first time i sat down upon it i screamed because the toilet seat was hot and i was not expecting that.


Here are the controls along the side:
The picture is pretty dark, but you can still see all the buttons. I love the little graphic of the butt. And yes, i tried all the buttons. Butt (heh) i still don't know what the "Stand By" button does. The toilet pictured above is from our hotel room. This one:
is in a public place. Thus the button with the musical note, which turns on and off a fake flushing noise. There is also a volume control for the flushing noise, in case you need more camouflage.

I KNOW! Brilliant! I apologize for the terrible photo, but i was worried about the other bathroom users calling the police because i was flashing photos and giggling.

Here your intrepid reporter from the east is standing over a "traditional" Japanese toilet:

It is flush (heh) with the ground and you crouch over it and hope for the best. That's why it's wet all around the toilet, because most women's best isn't very accurate.
Note that there is no toilet paper. I was prepared for this and so i carried a little pack of tissues in my purse.

In addition, many public toilets have no soap, no hot water and no way to dry your hands. Most women carry little tiny towels around with them for this purpose. (I used my jeans.)

Here is a sign directing you to the toilet:

Note that the only way to tell the difference between the male and the female is that the man has a V neck, and the female has a crew neck (at least i think that's right.) Em ended up using the men's room at least twice.
I will have more to tell you when i am more alert, and now that we have the toilets out of the way, we can move on to monkeys, deer, trains and umbrellas.

It's good to be home.

Anxiety and Meme from ETK

I have mentioned before that i am an anxious pre-traveler. I am running around like a chicken sans head getting ready to leave for Japan tomorrow morning and worrying about what i may have forgotten.

What if Grey Cat disappears like he did for 24 hours earlier in the week and i can't find his fuzzy ass to take to the cat boarder? I'm not letting him out tonight.

I went to the money place yesterday and got 430,000 yen. Sounds like a boat load of money doesn't it? It's about $4,300. Which is a boat load of money. All they had was 1000 yen notes, so i literally have a pile of money about 4 inches high. How will i fit that into my wallet?

I haven't had a period since January (TMI, i know.) But what if i get one in Japan. Should i take supplies or buy them there?

And so on.

**********************************************

I was tagged by ETK over at I'm Just Sayin'.

She thought maybe i was too cool for memes. Baby, i am too cool for everything.

Here are the "rules";

List one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name.
At the end of your blog post, tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (I am not too cool for memes, but i am waaaaaay too cool to tag anyone.)

As it happens, my middle name is really long. Sigh.


E - is for the Elephant that i will feel like in Japan.


L - is for Lugubrious. I am often ridiculously sad. For no reason. It's absurd. I want to slap myself just to give me something to be sad about. (Wow, i just heard my mother there.)


I - Irritating and Inert.


Z - Zounds! This will have to be for Zoo. In the 5th grade, my best friend and i made an elaborate plan to run away from home and live in the bird house at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC. We plagiarized this brilliant idea from the brilliant book From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. We saved up almost twenty dollars towards this goal, and then got bored and spent it all on candy and comic books.


A - Couldn't be anything other than Anxious right now.


B - Ha ha, what else could B be but BITCH? As in Bitch is the new black.


E - is for Edamame, which i love. I especially like the sensory experience of eating them. Popping those little beans out of the pod, licking the salt off my lips, tossing the shell into the discard bowl. Mmmmmm.


T - is for Turtle. I hope to take a trip to the Galapagos with my friend Kim next year and see some turtles. Plus some Blue Footed Boobies.


H - is for Hairy, but i plan to take care of this little problem post haste.

******************************************

I'm off tomorrow morning for almost two weeks. I am not taking my laptop (gasp) but the Mister will be taking his. Mayhap he will let me use it to check in with y'all.

Hacked Off

Way back when, like 6 years ago, when Em was into it, i had an account on Neopets.

I had a little virtual pet Aisha named Alavans. I liked to feed Alavans and buy books for her to read so she would be smart. I would feel badly when Alavans got hungry even though i knew it was only some bits and bytes fer cryin' out loud. Such is the power of guilt motherhood.

One day i was doing something or other on Neopets when i was asked to sign in in the middle of the activity. It asked me to sign in twice, which i did.

Then all the neocash in my neoaccount disappeared. I had been hacked! My husband and child both helpfully pointed out that i shouldn't have done that. I was so annoyed that i put Alavans up for adoption and closed my account.

Yesterday i tried to leave a comment for Gordo. I was signed into Google as me, but after i clicked to submit the comment, it wanted me to sign into my Google account again.

Sorry Gordo, the memory of Alavans haunts me still.

Customs

I've never seen anyone do this before.

We had a house guest last week. That was fine and dandy, but look how she scraped butter off the top of the stick every time she used it.

I hack pieces off the end of the stick when i get butter. I was secretly amazed while watching her, but i didn't say anything.

Of course i went and snuck pictures of it so i could show y'all.

I wonder if this is just a different way to use butter, one that i have been ignorant of all these years.

It's amazing how many different ways there are to do things, things i had never thought of there being more than one way to do.

She also took her bath towels and spread them all over the floor of the guest room to dry, rather than hanging them back up on the rack to dry.

How are you odd in ways i hadn't suspected?

Pecking order

I noticed something a few days ago. It was when i was with someone who i perceive as being higher on the pecking order than i am. She is a busy and important woman, on the boards of many charitable organizations, a former executive in a major corporation. Blah blah blah.

What i noticed is that when i listen to her, i am really just waiting for an opportunity to tell her a story about me, or my daughter. I want to tell her my story so she will know that i am important too.

Not very pretty is it?

This is am old habit with me, one about which i am not pleased.

Why should i care if she thinks i am important? If i allow myself to relax for a moment, i realize that i don't really care very much. So why am i acting this way?

Now that i have caught myself doing this, it will be easier for me to shut up and listen instead of trying to tell stories that i think will enhance my status in the herd.

Travel alert

I am, uh, going to Japan. In less that two weeks. For 11 days. With two teenaged girls and The Mister.

We will fly into Tokyo, stay there for 3 days, then travel to Kobe to drop the girls off for a 5 night home stay with their former Japanese exchange student's families, then travel to Kyoto with just The Mister, pick the girls back up, go back to Tokyo, and then fly home.

I am nervous. I do NOT speak Japanese, at all, other than Please, Thank You and You're Welcome.

Is it true that i won't need any kind of adaptor for my toothbrush charger? And my ipod charger? And my camera charger? These things are vital to my happiness, especially the toothbrush.

I have read that the three things i must NEVER do in Japan are:
1) Leave my shoes on when entering a home or temple.
2) Stick my chopsticks upright into my rice.
3) Blow my nose in public.

I wonder what they will make of a six foot woman with huge feet in their midst. I expect to feel like Godzilla tramping through the city.

Check-out line

Since i am a daily grocery shopper, i was in the grocery store today. As i was waiting in line i did what i cannot avoid, peruse the tabloids.

Three-headed baby born to alien love child of Elvis (or whatever.)
Britney blah blah blah (whatever.)
Angelina and Brad blah blah blah (yawn. whatever.)
Patrick Swayze's Brave Fight Against Cancer.

Huh?

I wonder, has anyone ever fought a cowardly fight against cancer? (I also wonder why he, who is older than i am, has a face that looks like plastic. But whatever.)

Are we automatically brave when we get cancer? Or any other horrible hideous fatal awful disease?

Does anyone just give up and lie on the front lawn and say "Take me, i am not fighting?"

(Because i just might. Depending on my age at the time of the news.)

Or does merely coping with what life gives us make us brave?

If it does, we are all brave. We cope with depression, diabetes, handicapped children, cancer, aging parents, PTSD, sexual assault, young children, autism, abandonment, alcoholism, anxiety, poverty, homelessness, neglect, custody fights, divorce... the list goes on.

No one gets out alive.

Just thinking about how brave i think y'all are.

Stuck

This morning as i was leaving my car in a parking lot, i heard some growling and yipping from a weed-infested corner of the lot. Of course i went over to investigate.

I found a small spotted dog backed against the fence by a larger dog. The larger dog had a doggie hard-on and the spotted dog was trying to protect her backside by keeping it towards the fence.

Knowing better than to insert myself into this disagreement, i clapped my hands and shouted. The larger dog ran past me and the spotted dog, sadly, disappeared through a hole in the fence. I wanted to collect her and save her from certain ruin, but she was too scared.

When i was about 9 years old, we had a female beagle who my mother had hopes of breeding. I have no idea why. Of course this means putting up with having a dog in heat dripping blood all over the house.

She chewed off her doggie maxi-pad. She tried to climb the chain link fence surrounding her dog area. I remember opening our front door and finding four doggie gentleman callers waiting around outside for a visit with our dog. It was an exciting time.

We weren't supposed to let her out without watching her during her first heat because she was too young to get knocked up. Plus my mom wanted to pay to get our dog laid by an expert. Oh, and probably by a purebred too.

Of course the one time that i went out with her, i didn't pay enough attention and the next thing i knew there was another dog stuck to her. Literally stuck. I know this because i tried to pull her away from Romeo. Alas, they were well and truly stuck, and Romeo took a snap at me for my troubles.

So i got in trouble. (Although my adult self wants to go back and slap my parents for expecting a 9 year old to protect a dog in heat from ravishment. )

Our dog ended up getting a doggie abortion and a hysterectomy post-haste, and that was the last of the dog breeding ambitions of my mom.

Book group update

Last night was my third book group meeting. We read a book by a local author. It was Some Things Are Unbreakable by Kate Willette. I highly recommend it. I even have a copy if one of you wants me to mail it to you.

When i say this book is local, i mean really, really local, as in one of the people mentioned in the book lives next door to me.

The library arranged to have the author present at our book group. How cool is that? It was interesting to meet her after reading this book about her family. Although she was comfortable in front of our little group, she seemed like a private person not quite sure what to do with the familiarity that her book engenders in the reader.

I just realized that i like what i call Real Life Medical Drama or Doctor Books. In the New York Times Magazine every week the first thing i read is the Diagnosis feature. In Discover Magazine (back when my parents loved me enough to buy me a subscription every year) i always turned first to the Vital Signs column.

Some favorite books:

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese (i LOVE this book)
The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Sick Girl by Amy Silverstein (I somehow ended up with two copies of this one, if anyone wants one of them let me know.)
Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life by Samantha Dunn
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison
Just Checking by Emily Colas
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman (Another favorite)

And stuff like that. Know any good books for me?

Get your own damn fan.

Here is a link to the website that sells the fans, in case you need one, and i think you do.

**********************************************************

The Mister's birthday was this past week. Around our house we refer not to a single day of celebration, but to "The Birthday, Day X," or "The Birthday Festival" in stentorian tones.

So tonight is The Birthday, Day 6. The Mister and i are heading off to downtown Seattle to spend a night of debauchery in a hotel down at the Market. We will be dining at a fancy restaurant and paying far too much for a bottle of wine and a meal.

It'll be great.

We are leaving Em home alone for the first time ever overnight. She declared that she was fine with that, and so am i. Hope the house is still standing when we return.

Cheers!

a fan, i haz one.

Somebody sent me this:

It's a USB port fan. I have been complaining recently about a natural phenomenon common to women of a certain age.

It was sent in secret, but i think i have been able to decode from clues the person who sent it to me. It has little led lights that activate when it is on into lovely little patterns.

I am in love with it. Here are some of the patterns:

I feel loved. Thank you Kim.

Tell me you are jealous.

Household tips*

*second in a rare but informative series.

(Plus a gratutious picture of my cat.)

****************************************************************************
Today's tip: Do not microwave liver.
****************************************************************************

I roasted a whole chicken last night (yes, with a lemon up its ass.) The chicken came with the usual disgusting extra bits.

I thought the cats might appreciate a little treat, so i put the liver into a little pyrex bowl and threw it into the microwave for 30 seconds.

Within 15 seconds, the liver EXPLODED. There is gore everywhere. The inside of my microwave looks like someone tried to dry off a poodle. There are grisly bits of flesh stuck, nay, cooked onto the walls. Maybe they can film Saw V in there.

Pate anyone?


Considering his role in the event, Grey Cat shows a lack of concern about "the microwave incident."

aye i eye I

I woke up this morning bleary-eyed and exhausted from another night of not enough sleep. This e-mail awaited me in my inbox, a comment from anonymous:

I think its really stupid on your blog how you use the lowercase "I". It is really pretentious and self absorbed. Who do you think you are? e.e. cummings?

Oh ha ha ha ha ha. *gasp* *snort* Seriously cracked me up. I scared the cats off the bed with my laughing.

This is a blog, of COURSE it's self-absorbed.

In case anyone cares, i started using the lowercase "i" when i was a pretentious, self-absorbed pre-teen with the logic that none of the other pronouns get the honor of capitalization, so why should i? I continue using it because; 1) my typing is slow, painful and full of errors, one less keystroke matters to this impatient person, and 2) it's a habit.

Thanks for the laugh anon, i needed that.

And just because bitch is the new black, who can spot the grammar error in anon's comment?

Overheard

I was waiting in front of the movie theater for Em. A white mini-van driven by a woman is stopped in front of the box office with the driver's door open so the woman can talk to a young man standing next to the car. I can clearly hear the woman, but not the young man.

"It's not that i don't like you, but my daughter is 15. It's ILLEGAL for you to date her!"

mumble mumble

"You are 20, she is 15. She's still in school. She needs to grow and learn."

mumble rumble

"You are ready to settle down and start a family, you should find someone your own age for that. She needs to stay in school."

I walk away to give them some privacy, although that was clearly for my comfort as they didn't seem to care.

A minute later the car door slams and the mini-van drives away.

It would be too much to hope for that he might listen to her.

I see Em walking up to the theater. We buy our tickets and go see a dumb romantic comedy together.

Eighteen forever

Everything is fine. i was just saving you all from a major bitch fest with that last post.

I will just say that there are a few teeny tiny design flaws with the female body. Those of you who believe in a supreme being, please address this oversight with your maker and get back to me when it's fixed.

Onward....


When the going gets tough, the tough do a meme.

This one is from WNG, i think.

I am to list six things that i think everyone should accomplish before they are 18. But i have, as is my nature, changed it into advice i would give to an 18 year old from my perspective of thousands of years later.

1.) Learn math. Don't give me that whiny-ass shit about how you are not good at math. That's what i used to say, and i was WRONG. I am good at math. Math is interesting, and useful and it will change the way you think forever. So get over yourself and get into it. Don't stop there either, get some basic chemistry and go on to calculus. I don't want to see your face again until you can do a line integral on a plane.

2.) There's no need to head straight for college after high school, despite what everyone tells you. Go out and get a crappy job for a few years and see how that works. It will motivate you more than anything else to be serious when/if you do go to college. This advice would have saved me the thousands of dollars that were wasted on my first college degree.

3.) Take the stairs. I want you off that elevator unless you are handicapped or it's more than 10 floors.

4.) Don't be mean to the people who are "beneath" you. (Minds out of the gutter people.) Oh how fast that situation can change, and they will remember.

5.) Embrace new technology, but not indiscriminately. Try that button. What does undo do? Be curious. It might cause a few sad situations, but you will learn much from it, grasshopper. This will make people think you are smart when you can answer random questions about Excel or the data base or your ipod or whatever. Conversely, you don't need every new gadget that comes along. Wait until all your friends have wasted their money and then decide if you must have _________.

6.) Listen with scepticism, including to advice, especially from older people. Although i have to say that most 18 year old people have this one down.

If you can't say anything nice.....

Three things.

Mish mash i was takin' a bath.

1) Thank you all for your warm thoughts for Em, and me. And thank you so much for going to visit Anne. Her situation makes me realize what a whiner i am.

2) I have been enjoying playing mommy the last few days. The house is a wreck, but so what? I have been keeping my chipmunk-cheeked Em company. Last night we had a mini John Cusack movie festival. We watched "Say Anything" (Best monologue about future prospects EVER) and "Grosse Pointe Blank" (one of the BEST movies ever.)

This morning Em thanked me by saying, "You've been taking really good care of me mommy."

It's an honor to be able to do this mommy thing one last time.

3) I spent a few hours at the Flower and Garden show. I am always on the lookout for cool things i can turn into Christmas ornaments.

Yep, it's a bat. Made out of recycled chrome. It's supposed to be something you hang on your fence or in a tree in your yard. But i had to get one for my Christmas tree, because the thought of a bat hanging in my Christmas tree makes me smile.

it's done

Em is fine. Bruised and swollen, but okay. She's so brave it brings tears to my eyes.

Capacious needs your love even more than i do, so go give her some. Please.

I'm sitting here looking at two prescriptions, one for antibiotics and one for pain relief.

Neither one is for me. They are for Em, who will be having oral surgery on Wednesday.

She has one tooth that is refusing to come down and that is holding up progress with her braces. So the doctor dude will cut (*shudder*) into her gums (*shudder*) and maybe through some bone (*shudder*) and attach a chain to the tooth (*shudder*) that the orthodontist will use to pull (*shudder*) the tooth down. Ick!

I am a dent-o-phobe. When i was little and my dad was in the military we had some barbaric dental care. What does one do when one graduates last in one's class in dental school? One joins the military. I can barely stand to have my teeth cleaned. It's all i can do not to slap the hygenist.

So who is the idiot that opened her mouth at the ortho dentist dude's office and asked if maybe Em should have her wisdom teeth out while she's under?

That would be me.

She is having the tooth chain thing AND all four of her wisdom teeth out on Wednesday. It's a good idea because....there's no room for them in her mouth....she's young and will heal fast....they haven't developed roots yet.....blah blah blah.

I can barely stand the idea of my baby in surgery. At the appointment Em says, "Mommy you are more nervous than i am." True.

So i will be on milkshake duty Wednesday.

I wonder if the doctor would prescribe pain killers for me.