Monday 28 September 2009

Welcome... TO FUTON WARS!

Anyone else seen phoenix nights??? No? Righto.

So there is a bastard big family argument going on at the moment, and I was relieved for about 2 seconds because I thought I wasn't actually involved, but noooo, of course I was!

Yesterday I went to MIL's house, (she is still in Thailand, so it's Obaachan, BIl and SIL) where Ryota and Ash were while I was getting some housey shite done, and as I walked in the door, all I heard was Ryo-chan's angry voice growling "Kaero!" (We're going!) and then shoving me back out the door. BIL and SIL were silent and Obaachan was chuntering something in the background so I had no idea what the fuck was going on.

2 cigarettes later Ryota finally told me what happened, but men are quite unreliable when it comes to relaying arguments, they either a) forget important details, b) twist the story so it's not their fault at all, or c) can't be arsed telling you the whole or even half of the story so grunt instead when questioned. I think Ryo-chan managed to combine all 3 of those when he was telling me what happened...

OK I'll back up a bit, I went to the park with SIL on Saturday (great pictures, will post soon!) and when we came back there was a massive futon set dumped in our genkan. My first reaction was, 'fuck me, not another cunting futon, where am I going to put this bastard?!' And then Obaachan came over and informed me that this was for Ashton to sleep on.
I gave in on the futon vs cot debate so Ash now sleeps on the floor NEXT TO his perfectly good, safe, expensive cot. Although I must admit, I do like just rolling over half asleep to pat him back to sleep or whip out some tit without standing up.
So Ash sleeps on a normal mattress with a baby sized futon on top, which he often rolls off but he also rolls off the adult sized mattress, so unless they start making futons as big as our whole entire room, he's gunna roll off the fucker.

I think Obaachan may have still been pissed that I was dissing the whole futon gig and this new futon was an attempt to stop the rolling off issue that I like to bitch about. I got what she said when she said "This is for Ash to sleep on" but I didn't really get the meaning, like we didn't really need the thing. When Ryota got home Saturday and tripped over the futon on the way in I said, "Oh yeh, Obaachan brought it over, I think it's for Ash but I have no idea..."
Ryota then went and asked Obaachan and she said "I fucking told your stupid gaijin wife already!" (well not really, but along those lines in more grandma-like speak).

Ash is pretty sick with a cold so on Saturday night we were busy and both couldn't be arsed taking the fated futon upstairs but when Obaachan came in on Sunday and saw it she gave a little miffed mumbling rant on the fact that we hadn't used the futon. I explained that we were just tired the night before and we'd give it a crack from tonight.
When Ryota went over there apparently (and this is where the details are based purely on Ryota's sketchy account of things!) they got into the conversation again and Ryota said that I couldn't understand Obaachan's Japanese! Which is true a lot of the time, hell I have trouble understanding old people in English, add in the Japanese factor, a sprinkling of Tottori-ben, lots of gutter Osaka-ben and sometimes I just guess a response. I did actually understand the futon conversation, I just didn't get why he needed it... Ya get me...?

Obaachan got pissed then and was all like 'well has she understood anything I've said in the last 2 years!?' and Ryota went into a 'if she speaks to you in English will you understand!?' and it went on from there....
I live in Japan, nobody should have to speak English to me, but I was touched that Ryo-chan would jump to my defence. He also told Obaachan she couldn't just dump things in our house, she should ask first, and that I definitely agree with.

Anyway, Ryota told me he wasn't going to go to the in-laws house ever again , which is a joke because as soon as Ash starts crying when he's looking after him he'll soooo be over there! He told me not to go either but I told him to shove it, it's his beef not mine. Kinda regretted that though when I went over last night and got into a tiff myself with Obaachan over Ashton taking a bath. He had quite a high fever and was all snotty, apparently in Japan a bath is a no-no when there's a fever involved, which I think is bollocks, the fever is taken wayyyy too seriously here in my opinion. Whenever I'd had too much to drink and called in a sickie to work, all I had to do was say I had a fever and any boss/ co-worker would be worried about me, but when I was in Australia I don't think we even had a thermometer in our house!
I knew Ash would feel better after a warm bath so I could get all the snot and muck off his face but Obaachan was all "Fine, ask the doctor when you go tomorrow, he'll tell you!!"
I basically told her straight then that in Australia, it's fine to take a bath, and he was having one.

Ryota still hasn't talked to her but I'm sure he will soon enough. OK, my snot monster just woke up so must go tend to the poor little bugger!

9 comments:

  1. Totally agree with you on the fever thing..taken waaay to seriously here. A bath never hurt anyone, and getting all that nose gunk off his face would def make him (and you) feel a lot better :)
    Nice to get a new futon even tho you prob don`t need another one..but yeah, having relatives make decisions that should be yours and Ryota`s really sucks.

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  2. yay for different cultural parenting mishaps wooo hooooo

    i would just be roooooling my eyes at obaachan and then doing my own thing - which it seems you are doing. that being said i think the whole "have to do it this way" mentality is sooo silly. people all over the world raise their kids with different customs and i don't know of a single nation made up of f-ed up adults. i doubt that many of the old folks think of that tho.

    i had the whole weekend being told my baby was too cold and was she seeing yet... again?! stupid stupid inaka people.

    anyways sakura sleeps on a futon next to our matress as well which works out great like you said for rolling over in the middle of the night and popping out the boob

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  3. I just wanted to say your "post" is funny as hell, as well as the title, although I am sure it wasn't funny at the time = )

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  4. In the UK a lukewarm bath is one method of lowering a fever. I used to butt heads with everyone about this one as well. I have never really understood how people can differ so much as you would think that medical common sense would be the same in all countries!!
    As for the futon thing, I think Joey developed very bad habits through sleeping on a futon and being able to roll around wherever he wanted to. It has taken a long time to get him sleeping on his own as a result but we have finally gotten there!

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  5. The fever thing here pisses me off- Shun goes to bed and wraps himself in blankets and warm clothes and sweats it out- seriously that can`t be good can it? Chances of overheating I am sure. I think a bath and rest (without piling on the blankets) is the best way to go. Of course kids with fevers often want to run around so rest might not be an option (although I guess Ashton is not off running anywhere just yet!)

    The futon wars sound funny. Look forward to the update.

    Shame you had to give in on the futon vs cot thing. My MIL will freak I am sure once she comes and sees the cot- she was here the other day but those rooms were closed off (with good reason!).

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  6. Very funny post though perhaps not for you at the time! The obsession with fevers - we never had a thermometre in the house either when I was growing up. If your forehead feels exceptionally hot then you probably have a fever. A nice bath and a good night's sleep should set you right.

    Good luck with the futon wars. Must be hard having in laws so close that they can pop round willy nilly and try to dictate how you live your life/raise your children etc...

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  7. good post.

    when i took the kids back home over chrissy and marina got a temp i went looking for a thermometre - none at our hour or my sisters and she has three kids, or her best friends house - and they have four kids!!

    We now have three in our house here! Blimey. Temperature definately OTT here - especially the kindy teachers. We only have so many because I kept losing them and when Marina had kidney troubles we HAD to take her in if she got an unexplained temp over 38.5. Thank god that larks all over with.

    Futon - wars. Good luck with that. But ditto on just being able to roll over and get your tit out in the middle of the night!

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  8. Do you know what gets me is the opinion of Japanese that if you have a headache it must be the start of a cold!! And yeah, the whole fever thing is seriously blown out of proportion over here I think...

    I hope the futon thing works for you - it sounds nice and handy and may allow you to have a more restful sleep. It's not something I will be doing though - only because we don't sleep on futons and I wouldn't want the baby falling off the bed!!

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  9. I find the fact that you tolerate even two seconds of such interference very inspiring.

    I'm so territorial about my home and life in general that I live in fear of the day I actually have a baby and my MIL storms over to "help". Hopefully I'll still be blogging and I'll be able to share the crunchy details.

    BTW, I do love your blog, there is never anything good on the telly so it's the next best thing along with a few other blogs.

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