Values at the Max Valu

I'm still buying the bruised produce in the discount bin at Max Valu Supermarket, but the vegetables and fruits have changed with the season. These days, I score Chinese cabbage, carrots, potatoes, long onions, tangerines, and strawberries.

Strawberries? Yes! The winter strawberry season is in full swing, since all the greenhouses start growing berries for the Christmas cake rush and it continues on until April or so. The varieties are amazing. I'm used to the hard, tart berries that came from California when we were in Seattle. These berries are fab. Especially when I buy them at half price because they've been sitting for a day.

I'm now one of the regular's scavenging for values at my supermarket. There's Skunk Woman, a portly woman with a head of short black hair except for the white landing strip down the center. I think she runs a savory pancake shop since she hoards cabbage if it shows up in the bin. There's also Crow Woman, a short, frail, elderly lady dressed all in black. She looks malnourished and I hesitate to buy something that she might want. I figure she needs the cheap vegetables more than I do.

There are others, but none that have earned a nickname. I call them the shark pack. At 11:30, we start circling the produce, tofu, refrigerated noodle section waiting for the produce person to wheel out the blue bins. Some of us go as far as the sashimi and seafood section before we turn back looking to make the kill. My mother-in-law might laugh at my hunting instincts, but she is the beneficiary when I buy cheap lettuce and turnips. A gal's got to get her thrills where she can...

The winds they are a-blowin'

I'm at my desk after frantically securing everything not tied down on my balcony. To understand this, you have to realize that my balcony is where I hang the laundry, store the 4+ trash cans needed for sorting garbage, grow a few scraggly plants, and let my boys play when the weather is nice. We are having gale force winds and the infamous "kousa" or yellow sands of China blow through. The air is gray and I used my dryer today to avoid polluted clothes. Just as well, since any clothes on the line would have blown off by now and some perv would be fondling my underpants.

The weather matches my mood. Blustery, gray and irritated. Wednesday was a national holiday, Constitution Memorial Day, but I had the same stomach bug that my boys had last week. Hubby was in a foul mood and not very helpful. Grandma also caught the bug at the exact same time, so I was getting no help from my usual sources. It was a very long day and by the end of it, I just wanted to crawl in my bed and never come out. Of course, hubby catches it the next day and I'm all sympathetic, but what I really wanted to do was ignore him and make him figure out meals for small hungry children.

I'm still in a foul mood and I know that I will get nothing for Valentine's day since this is Japan and women give the chocolate to the men here. That's another post. I did remind the master of my house, that I am American and he better produce something. Not exactly romantic, but at least he can't claim that he forgot.

And now I must end this here and get some lunch. I also need to plan my Friday English class for the preschool set. Yippee. At least they can practice, "It's windy!"

Max 9 kg

My 2yo has had a stomach bug since Tuesday evening. While we should have been celebrating Setsubun (a midwinter festival) and throwing beans at ogres, we were throwing sheets and towels and pajamas in the washer. Which brings me to my favorite topic of late: Japanese appliances.

My combo washer/dryer is the latest high tech appliance in Japan. It's a front loader with more functions and buttons than a 1990s VCR. I have the ability to siphon my bath water and use it for the first wash. (Which I don't do, because that kind of eeks me out.) I have the ability to "hot mist" my clothes. I have the ability to wash and dry all in one extremely long cycle. What it doesn't have is capacity. It's the largest washer on the market, but it freaks out if I put in two bath towels at the same time. It weighs the laundry in the drum and tells me how much detergent to put in, so I know if I've hit max weight of 9 kgs or 20 lbs.

9 kgs is not a lot when your 2 yo has gone through 3 sets of PJs, two comforter covers, two sheets, 4 pillowcases, numerous towels and also got Mom's polarfleece and Dad's sweatshirt. I spent Wednesday doing 4 loads of laundry and hanging them on my laundry pole. Fortunately, it was a nice day. Why didn't I use the dryer? Well, another fabulous Japanese design feature. Since my combo W/D runs on 100 volts, it takes over two hours to dry a 6 kg load. Yes, you can wash 9 kgs, but it can only dry 6 kgs at a time. And while this tiny load is drying, the rest of the stinky laundry is piled high waiting for a turn.

Lest you think I am ungrateful, I do appreciate that I have a washer and it is a fully automatic one. My first washer in Japan was a pink twin drum outside on my balcony. You had to load the washer and turn on the tap to get the water in the wash drum. When it was done, you had to transfer the wash to the spinner drum and turn on the tap to rinse and spin it. This was fabulous in February when it was snowing. Of course, at that time I was single, so I could avoid laundry for several days.

So, instead of "Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi" (Ogres out, Happiness in), I am "Sentakumono wa soto, Fuku wa uchi" (Laundry out, Happiness in). Happy Belated Setsubun.