Birthday

So yesterday was my birthday.  I didn’t realize this before, but I was born on the same day as Truman Capote.  When I was in high school, especially, I was a huge Capote fan, so that’s kinda cool.

I was in a fog all day because I’d stayed up too late the night before.  I basically lounged around and let my kids watch as much TV as they wanted.  Yoshi rented “The Devil Wears Prada,” which I love, for after dinner entertainment.

My mother-in-law made a steak dinner for me, and there was chocolate cake.  (So much for the diet, huh?)  And then the presents, of course.  My husband gave me an electronic dictionary to replace my tattered Webster’s, which is actually in three pieces and missing C through E.  Among its many features, the electronic dictionary has a test for brain age.  In stage one, you have to solve math equations.  In stage two, you have two minutes to memorize a list of words in hiragana (Japanese), and then you are supposed to type them in.  According to the results of the test, my brain age is 55. 

Undokai

My son’s annual school sports festival was held a couple days ago.  This time I went alone, armed with the video recorder.  My husband had a tournament game (which his team won- yay!) and my sister-in-law had to work, so there was no one to chase after my daughter in her wheelchair.  It was also very, very hot.  Around 33 degrees centrigrade, I’d say. 

The poor children had to stand very still under the blazing sun for about 40 minutes during the interminable speeches that made up the opening ceremony.  The other foreign mothers and I kvetched about that, but the kids never complained.

I participated in the tug-of-war and folk dance, and also the second graders’ parent-child race.  It was a relay, in which the parent and child were supposed to run up to a hula hoop, loop it over the two of them, and run around some cones.  There were some dads in front of us who were literally dragging their children over the gravel in their mad dash to win.  Some parents really get into it.  I suppose they want to impress their kids, impress the spectators, and they want to win!  At the end, the race was neck and neck.  My son’s best friend and his dad were anchoring the other team.  They were just a little bit behind, and in a heroic effort, the kid’s dad lurched ahead, slipped on the gravel and fell on his shoulder.  As it turned out, he dislocated his shoulder and now he needs surgery.  To make matters worse (for him), our team won.

Father Knows Less

A year or more ago, NY Times reporter Wendell Jamieson solicited questions from kids for a book that he was writing.  My son Jio was at an inquistive age (he still is, actually) and wanted to know why clouds make shapes.  If you know the answer, don’t tell me.  We’re waiting to read the book.  Mr. Jamieson selected Jio’s question, and approached an expert to get the answer to this and others that have stumped parents.  His book, Father Knows Less,  is now in print.

Yesterday, Jio asked me why some dogs have pointy ears and some have floppy ones.  Ummm…evolution?

Guest blogging

Just so you know, I’m guest blogging at MotherVerse this week and next.

Dieting in Japan

Over the summer, I put on a couple of kilos since it was too hot to exercise and we ate ice cream to cool off.  So now I’m trying to get rid of the extra baggage.  You’d think that losing weight would be fairly easy in Japan, what with all the tofu and fish and miso soup.  And yet, there is a constant influx of sweets.  I know enough to avoid the cookies and cakes at the supermarket, but every time someone drops by, if only for a few minutes, they bring sweets.  And every time a relative or friend of the family takes a trip, they bring over a souvenir of sweets.  In the past week, here are some of the things that have been brought to our house:  an extremely delicious chocolate orange, four slices of sweet potato pie, a box of sesame cheesecakes, maple-leaf shaped bean jams buns, and  a box of donuts from Mr. Donut.  There was also that cake that I made for my husband’s birthday.

Meanwhile, my husband, wants me to do Billy’s Boot Camp.  He presented me with the DVDs last week.  My husband, who is a P.E. teacher, couldn’t get past the first ten minutes before giving up in exhaustion.  Common sense dictates that I embark on an exercise regime that I can stick to.  I’ll try walking.

Mi Narai

I just had an insight about homework.  Japanese kids are not supposed to be able to do their homework by themselves, and they are not necessarily supposed to be able to think for themselves.  Japanese education is based upon learning from watching, or mi narai.

Here’s proof:

My son has been agonizing over the 3 page book report he was supposed to write.  I tried to get him to think about the book and his experiences related to the book, but he just sat there with tears in his eyes, his pencil still.  I sympathized.   I thought the task was way too hard for a second grader.  I don’t remember writing 3 page essays when I was eight years old.  I dictated a few sentences, feeling guilty all the while, but then my sister-in-law dropped in.  She said she’d have a look at the book and come tomorrow (today) to help him with it.

Well, my sister-in-law, who is the mother of a high school student and a college student, came back to help this afternoon.  She whipped out an essay that she had written, and my son copied it.  That’s it.  She’s an upstanding kind of mom, and her younger daugther was at the top of her class in junior high school.  I guess she knows what she’s doing. 

Baseball Boot Camp

In theory, my husband had today and yesterday off because the high school Culture Festival took up most of the weekend.  But since this is Japan, and he is a Japanese baseball coach, he decided not to spend this time relaxing with his family, but instead to hold gasshuku - baseball camp.  He told me that batting practice would be held from 8pm till midnight.  Umm, sounds like fun.  Even better, it started raining at about 8:30PM.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they are hitting balls  in the rain.

Kaori Shoji writes about afterschool clubs and gasshuku in today’s Japan Times. 

Indigo

A long time ago, Tokushima was a big-time indigo producer.  Athough natural indigo dyes have largely been supplanted by synthetic dyes, there are a few diehard (pun intended) farmers growing the stuff, and indigo-dyed products are sold in every local souvenir shop.

This year, the students at my daughter’s school are involved in an indigo project.  They started in the spring, when they planted indigo seeds and tended the sprouts.  By summer, the leaves were big enough to harvest.  They were dried out on tarp.  Now the leaves are fermenting in water in a big vat.  The kids take turns stirring the stinky, goopy brew.  When the mixture is ready, they will dye handkerchiefs.

MotherTalk Book Tour: Maximum Ride

Until Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, I had never read a book by James Patterson.  Of course I’d heard of the man - he’s permamently camped out on the New York Times bestseller list - and I’d even seen a couple of movies based on his books.  But I’m the kind of person who can enjoy a book without any discernible plot, as long as the writing itself is captivating.  I tend to equate “bestseller” with “clunky prose.”  However, as an aspiring writer of kids’ fiction, I’ve come to realize that plot is indeed important.  My 8 year-old son, who has recently graduated from picture books to chapter books at bedtime, gets bored unless there’s a sufficient amound of action and forward movement.

 James Patterson, I’m happy to report, knows how to move a story forward, and there is plenty of action.  The very active heroine of this book is Max, whose gender-neutral name and fighting capabilities should make her tolerable for young male readers as well as girls. 

Max’s voice seems totally authentic.  Patterson must have teens in the house, or maybe he spent a lot of afternoons eavesdropping at Taco Bell.   The dialogue is snappy, and the teen-aged sarcasm struck me as spot on.  There’s plenty of humor mixed with zeit-geist-y references to global warming and the follies of adults.   Maximum Ride is a painless read.

Although this book is the third in a series, Patterson provides plenty of background and the novel stands alone .  Here’s the deal: Max, leader of a flock of genetically engineered hybrid flying kids, is out to save the world from mad scientists in Nazi-esque Germany.  The scientists are intending to reduce the population by half, starting with the weak and ill.  Max and her flying friends - Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel - are on the list of those to be eliminated.  Can they stay alive?  Can they save the world?  Readers will want to find out!

I have a few gripes.  The “it was a dream”/”no, it wasn’t” plot twist seemed a bit lame to me.  And occasionally, Patterson goes in direct violation of Creative Writing 101, as when he invites the reader to conjure up a cliched lab: “white walls, you get the picture.” 

Then again, two million plus readers can’t be wrong.  And if this keeps kids reading in the post-Harry Potter age, well,  there’s nothing more beautiful to me than seeing a kid with a book.  Added bonus:  the blog really exists.

Pink Garbage Bags

As of September 1, we now have to sort our garbage into clear color-coded garbage bags.  Pink is for burnables, yellow for aluminum cans (not sure about the steel), and blue is for plastic.  The garbage guidelines advise cutting open milk cartons and drying them on a clothesline.  Also, we now have to write our names on the garbage bags.  I wonder what happens if garbage is improperly sorted.  I suppose it’ll come back to our doorstep.