Nothing in particular...

I don't really have anything to write about. It's late, I'm tired. There's a sink full of dirty dishes and writing is more avoidance than anything else. I've already checked the yahoo group I belong to for foreign women married to Japanese men. Nothing new, just a discussion of favorite TV shows and which hospitals allow pain relief while giving birth. (Note to self: do not give birth in Japan. No wonder the birthrate is so low. Pain makes you bond with your baby? Puh-leeze!)

I could clean off my desk since it is piled high with crayons, cellphone bills, teaching materials, glue sticks and preschool info (all in Japanese, argh, where is my kanji dictionary? what the hell does that character mean?) We are having house guests next week and my house looks like the rubbish monster urped all over it. (See the previous post about my built-in babysitter being gone all this week. No babysitter=Hellhole of a condo)

So tomorrow I'm planning more avoidance. I'm going to a flea market and an arts and crafts fair in the same morning. Because nothing cleans your house like bringing in a load of more crap.

All right, I'm going to wash dishes and go to bed.

The importance of having an 'out'

I realized as I was washing dishes just now, how important it is to always have an "out." Kind of like the first year of my marriage. I think K and I joked about divorce pretty much every week or so. It wasn't that we were unhappy, it was just that we needed to know we could still return to our single lives even if that wasn't really the case.

The last 9 months have been weird. We sold off our possessions, rented out our house, committed to a new life and, for my husband, a new job. When things have been at their worst, we have joked that we can kick out our tenants and K could get a new job back in the U.S. The truth is, we have so deeply entrenched ourselves here, that it seems highly unlikely that we'd do that now. How deeply, you ask? Gee, we now have two Japanese mortgages, one of which is for my in-laws who live next door. My kids are so bonded with their grandparents that my mother-in-law doesn't want to go away next week because she'd miss her youngest grandson too much. Mind you, she's only going away for 5 days to Fukuoka which is less than 3 hours away. I have two aunts-in-law who have no grandkids of their own and view my kids as their own grandkids. For mother's day, I bought 3 presents, and my mother isn't even alive.

So, for my mental health, I believe that I could pick up and move on at any moment. It's the escape valve of my ego-driven, angst-ridden pressure cooker of a mind. And while I'm plotting all of my life scenarios in my pink rubber gloves, I realize that all I really want these days is a dishwasher. And maybe now I should go get the littlest one from Grandma's condo, since I let him fall asleep there tonight.

The in-laws next door...

My in-laws moved into the condo next door to us this past weekend. Actually, they only moved their futons, the dialysis machine and a couple of pots and pans. The rest is waiting until 4/15 when Sakai movers (the ones with the panda logo, as opposed to the kangaroo, black cat, or pelican logo) will move them.

At 7:45 this morning, a cheery hello rang out in the hallway as MIL unlocked the door and carried a pot of coffee in. (Ah yes, she also brought a kettle and a drip filter to the new place.) This was not entirely unexpected. Fortunately, my in-laws and I have a close relationship, which is about to be even closer. It was lovely having a built-in babysitter as I drove the big one to preschool and left the little one with Grandma.

Time to wake up the little one from his really late nap and go pick up the big one from school. Unfortunately, neither grandparent is around at the moment or I would leave him sleeping.

Taxes

Today I decided to do the double whammy of Japanese and U.S. taxes. Actually, Japanese taxes are done by your employer, so all I had to do was file some forms for Kazuya so that we can get our mortgage interest deduction next year. All in all, it was fairly painless, but it did require a trip to the city hall for a family register and a trip to the tax office to hand off the paperwork.

I wish I could say that our U.S. taxes will be so easy. I installed TurboTax today and was shocked to find out that I can't e-file our taxes if our address is overseas. Bummer. I started reading the foreign earned income credit and my first response was, "What a colossal pain in the ass." But, at least, I don't have to file out the forms in Kanji...

I decided to close TurboTax and blog instead. After all, I get an automatic two-month extension for living overseas, so why should I rush? I think I'll go clean my kitchen and eat my sandwich instead. De-nial, it's not just a river in Africa.

8:35 p.m.

The husband called to let me know that he would be very late tonight as opposed to "normal" late. I appreciated the call and I hurried the kids home from Grandma and Grandpa's just in time to watch the last two episodes of Anpanman (Bean Paste Bun Man). I fed them a delicious meal of leftover rice, nori, apple, kiwi, Grandma's fried chicken. I watched the four year-old melt down from sheer exhaustion. I scrubbed the bath tub and hit the auto-fill button. I listened to the cheery chime telling me the bath tub was filled and took stock of my children.

Oldest one is passed out in his preschool uniform on the couch. Youngest one is lining up every train, truck, automobile, etc. on the hot carpet. I asked him if he wanted to take a bath. He said no. I didn't argue, I just put the cover on the tub and I figure I'll ask again in another 10 minutes. I looked at the clock, 8:35. The little one took a late nap and will probably resist sleep for at least another hour. The big one is still passed out in spite of the fact that Tak keeps hitting the sound buttons on the trains and fire truck.

Cell phone rings at 8:45. Husband on the way home, only late, not very late. Tak now wants to take a bath. And I've successfully added to my blog. Not bad for a Tuesday evening in our happy home.

Smog

After my whirlwind tour of all shopping spots in Seattle, I'm back home in Hikari. I'm proud to say that my two bags were just under the 50 lb per piece limit. This is an accomplishment since I bought books, clothes, honey, candy, Emer-gen-c, decaf tea, etc.

Why honey? Because, in Japan, most honey comes from China, and therefore must be avoided. Yes, I have adopted the Japanese dislike for all Chinese food items. Maybe I do this because of the recent potsticker/pesticide scandal that sickened over 100 people. Maybe I do this because I look out my window and can't see the islands one mile away because of the smog from China. I could blame the local factories, but even they can't be responsible for a haze that thick.

So, I lugged back two bottles of 100% American honey. Along with half-price Valentine's candy to rot the teeth of my son's preschool classmates. Long live American capitalism.

Hi Jack...

Okay, I'm a slacker writer. Now that I've confessed, this particular blog is for Jack. Blogging is not writing practice. It does not go deep or go quick. It is too easy to delete and edit and patch over the ugly imperfections of my thoughts and actions. It's too easy to spend five minutes fretting over a word and in the end still hating the word you chose.

So without backing up or fixing my typing mistakes here is five minutes of going deep while typing: I'm not sure I like my lifew right now. I feel like some sort of exotic lollipop that stays in a candy shop waiting for someone to buy her. I'm sure there is something freudian in that. The image of meing licked and all that. I 'm just so frustrated and i can't even begin to put into sords all of my frustrations. My husband's work hours, my gaijinity my becoming the local ambassador for all things foreihn in this city. The fact that I like the attention of being different but I hate all the kids at my sons preschool who yell at me to speak english to them like some kind of trained monkey. I 'm also worried that Tak is becoming more attached to grandma than me. On tht eother hand, i'm worried that this doesn't bother me all that much which mieans that I'm a bad mother? I really do want someone to tell me what i'm supposed to be when I grow up and it's already 2008. Whree the hell did 2000- 2007 go? I'm turning 40 this month and i have nothing to show for it. Times' up.

Thanks Jack for all the encouragement. It means a lot.