Daaaaammmmnnnnn!!!

Jobless Woman Arrested for Setting Hello Work Adviser Ablaze on Street

I understand hating Hello Work (kind of reminds me of Hello Kitty), but daaaaamnnnnn, girl!

The Growing Years

Scene: The local children's center

Actors: Pinglet and her Frenemy, M

Audience: Kuri and K

Act I, Scene 1:

The Pinglet appropriated her new best friend's doll today, which she consulted when deciding if she wanted to go down the slide one more time (cue the Pinglet, looking the doll in the eye and asking, "More?") She was apparently satisfied with the answer because she continued her trips up and down the slide until it was time to leave.

The Pinglet has a new BFF. Well, sometimes it's her BFF and sometimes the Pinglet decides that the friendly overtures by M must be dealt with quickly and decisively with a not-so-friendly push and warning growl (and no, I'm not kidding about the growl. Where does she get these things from?) Thus evolved the term "frenemy" (friend-slash-enemy), courtesy of K who definitely summed their relationship up perfectly.

However, the two are mostly more friends than enemies (at the moment) and can be found throughout the day yelling each other's names across rooms, large halls, and when they are riding side-by-side in their strollers. Perhaps they haven't yet developed their peripheral vision and don't realize their close proximity. The jury's still out on this one.

Today's day-long playdate, which included trips to the local city hall and the gynecologist because the best place to bring two toddlers is your local doctor's office where you can wait for hours in a small waiting room, was punctuated by crying jags and tantrums of your's truly (both Mommy and Pinglet). The only downtime was a nap towards the end of the day, although the peace was shattered when the Pinglet woke up and discovered that her Frenemy No. 1 was nowhere in the vicinity. She must have been in a friendly mood and wanted someone to boss around, so was sorely disappointed when her Frenemy did not make an immediate appearance. She made this known to one and all with a Level 4 tantrum, which luckily didn't escalate to Level 5. But I think that was only because she was strapped into her stroller and was unable to eject herself from the seat. This is called "contingency planning."

It was a trying day with all of Pinglet's whining and crying, so I decided that we needed to stray from the nightly routine a bit. Ping has tennis classes on Friday, so that left me and the Pinglet to our own devices, which meant that an evening outing was called for. The Pinglet and I went out for a little stroll in the dark, with her pointing out the moon and the stars and repeating everything I said. She also was doing this strange dance thing where she would suddenly stop, wrap her arms around her body, and say "top!" I had no idea what she was doing until I realized that she was doing it every time a car drove by. Translation? She was stopping ("top!") and standing still until the car passed so she could continue on her way.

I feel sort of like Voldemort using the Imperius curse to make someone do my bidding. Oh my goddess, the POWER...mwah, ha, ha, ha....

Jammin'

Nao jammin' with Tao. She "played the drums" for 30 minutes without a break. Tao will be contacting her soon to sign her on as their main drummer. Can you see the feverish light in her eyes?

Deal with the Devil

I've started something I always swore I would never do.

I'm going to driving school in Japan. One of the biggest wastes of money on planet earth, yet here I am sitting in an ancient classroom with a bunch of college students who can barely answer the instructors when they ask them a question. I've gone three times so far and were it not for having to take the exam in Japanese for my permit, I would have graduated by now.* Considering that my driving instructor and I talk about international travel, movies, and who the hottest actor is WHILE I'M DRIVING, I don't think that I'll have any trouble on the practical driving exam. I'll pass eventually since paying JPN 350,000 (about USD 3,500) pretty much guarantees that I will hold an official laminated permit to drive on the wrong side of the road, but holy God, I haven't had to study for an exam in about 15 years so this should be an interesting experiment.

Why, after 15 years in Japan, are you getting your license? is probably a question on your mind (after putting your eyes back in your head after seeing the price). That reason, of course, would be your friendly neighborhood Pinglet, who has decided to sabatoge my eco-friendly form of transportation, otherwise known as public transport. My little lover of buses and trains has turned into an unpredictable wild child, one that can turn at the slightest change in the air into a screaming, whirling dervish, shattering the eardrums of all within earshot with her piercing screams. People always say that a child's screams/cries are loudest to their mothers, but I have independent corroboration that the Pinglet does indeed have a set of lungs on her. So I am left with no recourse but to sell my soul to the devil, otherwise known as the Japanese driving school.

I actually love driving so getting my license is long overdue. It will be interesting trying to drive when I don't actually know the rules of the road with a toddler throwing tantrums in the backseat. Where's the volume for the radio again?

*There's an English version available at the main exam center where I have to take the final exam, but the school only has Japanese versions for the permit test (To get your permit, you need to take 12 hours of driving and 10 hours of instruction. Then to get your real license, you need to take 19 hours of driving and 12 hours of instruction, followed by taking the written exam at the main driving center.) When I compare it to my USD 30 New York State license, I feel like I've fallen into the rabbit's hole in Alice in Wonderland. Now I just need to find that pesky rabbit. Maybe he can take the exam for me.

From The Management

Dear Ms. Pinglet,

Before we proceed any further with our business relationship, I would like to bring something to your attention.

Throwing a fit on the train on the way home because you wanted to go on the RED train heading in the completely opposite direction does not endear you to other passengers who have the misfortune of sitting in the same car as you.

Nor does it give your Mommy sweet, little fuzzies when she is forced to carry you, kicking and screaming, off the train and pay Mr. Taximan an additional 3,000 yen to ensure that you were delivered to your doorstep in one piece. Let me not forget to add that your shrieking did not vary in either volume or intensity during the entire trip.

Please note that you are always welcome to voice your grievances to the management in writing. Responses to complaints will be made within 90 days.

Your prompt attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
The Management

Potty Mouth

Ohhh, I am so in for it. For the past few days, the Pinglet has been a virtual parrot, repeating whatever she hears, although I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand most of what she's saying.

I love watching her verbal skills grow. She'll sit down and have an actual "conversation" with you, although most of it's gibberish to the untrained ear. Ping and I, however, can identify certain words within her non-stop monologue and by repeating what we think she's saying, can continue talking with her for up to 30 minutes or more.

Since the arrival of the Pinglet, I've tried very hard not to use bad language in the house. When I was working at Dante's Inferno my previous job, however, there were no such restrictions and my co-workers got free English lessons each day...although they probably couldn't repeat what they learned anywhere.

I've been very good, but I do have a habit of saying, Daaaammmmnnnn! (said very drawn out, in awe of what you just heard), when I hear something that just strikes me as wrong, totally insane or when no other explicitive will suffice.

Normally, after I make this comment, the conversation just continues along. However, the Pinglet, with her current penchant for repeating everything we're saying, looks up from her dinner with such an innocent expression on her face and says, "Dammmmmm, Mommy, Dammmmm."

This pales in comparison to a shirt that I saw a mother of a one-year-old wearing at one of the city centers the other day. T-shirts with nonsensical English words are a dime a dozen in Japan. Most are spelling or grammatical mistakes (spring has came, bidets (Don't drink anything when you read this particular stellar example), pay tv, feedings at the zoo, hotel service, and examples of the totally incomprehensible)

This mother, however, was sporting a black t-shirt with the words f**k, c**t, and s**t on it and talking to me about which kindergarten she wanted to put her daughter in. I figure Pinglet's new word-of-the-day is a drop in the bucket.

This Old House

Now that my translation season is sort of winding down (by which I mean that I can get more than 3 hours of sleep a night without having to worry to much about deadline), I've decided it's time to get a start on getting our house together. We've lived here for nine months and in that time, I've managed to leave my walls in the pristine condition that they were in when we moved in (My floors, on the other hand, look like they've been waxed with a lawnmower, by which I am referring to the Pinglet.)

To rectify this situation, I decided that I needed to jazz up my office a bit, since that is where I spend most of my "off" time, hard(ly) at work.

That's when I spotted this:

It's a throw pillow covered with Swarvosky crystals on top of my white couch. White on white, with a toddler in the house? is what I am sure you are thinking to yourselves. Ah, but no need to fret, my little worrywarts. This room is ALL MINE and is off-limits to those under 4 feet tall.

Of course, that's what we said about our tatami room on the first floor, which now sports chocolate stains in the floor mats.

Chatty Cathy

The Pinglet is a chatterbox. She talks morning, noon and night, although it is mostly in a language unknown to the world at large. Ping and I have gotten good at deciphering what she is trying to tell us, but for the most part we are clueless, a view the Pinglet will definitely share when she is a teenager.

She's made up a language all her own, which she peppers with real words in English and sometimes Japanese. She can say "book," "bike," "river," "moon," "Mommy," and "Daddy," for example, but she's decided that planes, trains, buses, and trucks should all be referred to as "gaika," which sometimes can be confusing to the average listener.

Today, she said her own name, followed by a full sentence in Japanese: あっちに行く (Pinglet's going over there.) I was practically jumping up and down with excitement, while she looked at me blandly wondering why I wasn't immediately following her directive. It's hard being at the beck-and-call of a short (and short-tempered) dictator, who can turn from a smiling, beatific baby, into a swirling mass of windmilling arms and legs as she goes into a full meltdown when her wishes aren't immediately understood and followed precisely.

We visited Harmony Land in Beppu over Golden Week. The Pinglet spent most of the afternoon on those coin-operated cars/rides that I remember being outside of our local supermarket. We pretty much could have saved on the entrance fees and gas and just taken her to one of the amusement centers at the local Aeon mall instead. She did enjoy the parade of Sanrio characters (Hello Kitty, Cinnamon, and other strange figures that I've never seen before, but am sure I will be VERY familiar with by the time the Pinglet graduates college) right before the park closed at 5PM(!?!). She sat with her Daddy in her prime location right at the front, and proceeded to dance her heart out when the music started.
We ended the day with a visit to the infirmary because she is now a full-fledged toddler and has scrapes on her elbows and both knees. She's tripped and fallen before but these injuries have occurred over a period of 4 days--one scrape per day. Oh the drama, the crying, the carrying on that happens after these episodes. I believe the Pinglet is vying for my position as drama queen in the family. We'll just see about that.

Embracing her "other" culture

mmmm, Mmmmmm, MMMMMMMM...god, I LOVE spaghetti. I would eat it all day, every day if I could. Could there be any better invention than spaghetti? I think not!

Why do Mommy and Daddy even bother with forks and spoons? It's easier to eat it like this. Pick up a clump of spaghetti with one or two hands, lean very far forward to make sure you don't drop any of it on the floor, and shovel it into your mouth, like so. I've included a visual just in case you're not clear on the process. Everything tastes better when you use your hands. No need to bother with utensils. They're just more things to wash later.

Wait, Daddy looks like he's getting to the bottom of his plate. Um, Dad? Yeah, the rest of that is for me. Don't eat it all because I'll be working on your plate when I'm finished with this here. Great, glad we're on the same page.

I heard Mommy and Daddy discussing a place they want to visit again someday where apparently I can eat spaghetti every.single.day. Where, oh where, is this magical land of which you speak? When can we go?

Until that day, I shall have dreams of spaghetti (and tortellini and fettucini and angel hair pasta) twirling and spinning their way from the pot to my plate, and wait for that moment when we step off the plane in that magical land. Til then, I'll just have to deal with the poor excuse for Italian food that my Mom makes, and hope for better times ahead.

The things they never tell you

This weekend, I crawled out of my cave (where I've exiled myself in order to finish a translation that was a week late due to a stomach virus that destroyed everything in its path) to go to dinner with Ping and the Pinglet.

Pre-Pinglet would find Ping and I dining elegantly at one of our many haunts: French cuisine, top-quality Japanese restaurants, you name it. What they don't tell you after you have a child is that those days are over/finite/fini/owari unless you're "lucky" enough to have a Granny K in the vicinity (right gaijinwife? :)

So, the escape from my cell on Monday found us at a local cafeteria, which was actually pretty good. Apparently, Ping had brought the Pinglet there three days in a row for lunch, which probably had the women working there thinking to themselves that this little foreign wife needed a little kick in the pants to get her cooking.

The restaurant had all types of homestyle Japanese cooking, which you most definitely wouldn't have found in any of the places Ping and I used to frequent before the Pinglet came along. Nor would you have been witness to another child vomiting numerous times in a row as you just finished up your meal.

I know that it will be a few years before I'll be able to go visit one of those restaurants again (or ride in business class for that matter), but with a face like this, what can you do?

Dawn of a new day

I lived every mom's dream today...a lie in until 11:30AM! (I know...put your eyeballs back into your head.) Ping decided to give me a break from the past week of wiping up vomit and diarrhea (the Pinglet's and my own) and took her out to play all morning. I emerged from my bedroom blinking in shock when I saw that it was almost time for lunch and the two of them were nowhere in sight. They returned in the early afternoon, when I was in for more of a treat...the Pinglet was already asleep and off to her bedroom for a 2 hour nap!

I had just whiled away the morning doing a bit (a very little bit) of spring cleaning upstairs, going online, and reading a book, so I decided to use the afternoon to trim the bushes around our yard. It went nicely until I almost sliced off my little finger. A few Bandaids did the trick, although it was touch and go there for a minute when I thought I might need stitches because of the bleeding. But I taped all my limbs back together and all was fine, thank the goddess, because I certainly didn't want to have to go wake up the kidlet(s) and drag them off to the emergency room on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going to the park to see the last of the cherry blossoms (photos up at Flickr!) and ended the day with a fantastic dinner at a great seaside Italian restaurant. Ping and I felt like we were back in Venice again, albeit surrounded by Japanese people and with the Pinglet in tow. She chowed down on minestrone soup, foccachia, grilled tuna, and spaghetti and ate more than Ping and I combined. She was only missing a wine glass and she would have been right at home with her caro amici in Italy (BTW, don't forget to check out the spaghetti video during Nana's visit to see what you've been missing out on not dining with our family. You'll be clamoring for an invite to our next dinner party.)

Wishing all who celebrate Easter a wonderful day tomorrow!

All's Quiet on the Western Front

We had a wonderful visit with Nana, who came all the way to visit the Pinglet from New York. I know she doesn't come to visit Ping or I anymore. Your position starts slipping the moment you have a little one around for the grandparents to dote upon.

The Pinglet remembered Nana from her visit to New York in December and didn't blink an eye when she saw a strange, jet-lagged woman sleeping on the couch in Mommy's office. She just climbed into bed with her and smiled and smiled. And then proceeded to start her non-stop talking jag that she's been on for the past couple of months. She NEVER stops talking. The fact that most of the time, no one understands a word she's saying hasn't stopped her. I guess she figures that eventually someone will figure it out.

Nana left today and the Pinglet is bereft. She's been looking around the house for her Nana and when told that Nana's left (don't you remember going to the airport to see the "flying shinkansens" (as she thinks of them because all trains and airplanes are shinkansens to the Pinglet) and watching Nana go bye-bye?), turns on the waterworks. It's definitely one of the hardest part of being overseas.

New photos and videos up on Flickr! Email me or leave a comment if you want to check them out!

Just fooling around with my blog design!

UPDATED to say:

This is the new design! Will be working on getting links, etc. back in this week. :)

Photos and videos

I've started putting up photos and videos of the Pinglet's antics on Flickr. They're not public so if you'd like to see them, drop me a comment here and I'll email you the information. I think you'll need to have a Flickr account to see them.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

'Tis a puzzlement

You have to wonder...

Why don't they just sit inside?