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!

Slight MIL tiff or maybe just my bad mood

Thank you for all the get well wishes! They worked, or at least the antibiotics did! My tonsils are about half the size they were and only the bottom of them are covered in white muck, they still hurt a bit but nothing compared to what they were. As I type I am actually patiently waiting for little Ash to wake up so I can dump him drop him off at the in-laws and go for a run!

Yesterday was not the best day. It started by the big glass framed picture of Ash that I have been asking Ryota to put on the wall for at least 3 weeks smashing because it was resting against the wall. It really freaked me out because the night before, MIL dropped her mobile phone smashing the screen, so now we have her phone with a picture of Ash as her background all smashed and his little face behind the smashed glass frame, freaky!

Anyway, after the glass incident I accidentally fucked up SIL's camera somehow, not deleting the photos when I copied them to my computer, but for some reason they don't appear on her camera anymore when she switches it on. Then it all went downhill because we went to SSOK, or ソック　in Japanese.

Has anyone been there?? It's in Mino, which I guess is about half an hour, 40 minutes from Osaka. There are lots of warehouse type shops but they are all waayyyy too swanky to get any real warehouse shopping bargains. I should have known.

5 reasons I don't like SSOK:

1) It looks exactly like a department store
2) It's really not that cheap
3) They don't allow bags of any kind or strollers, it's wallet only.
4) They don't allow strollers and I happen to have an incredibly heavy 4 month old
5) The name SSOK annoys me and sounds like sock

WTF is with the no stroller rule?! Discrimination much?? I wonder if they allow wheelchairs? I'm guessing not. Is it to reduce shoplifting??? Because if it is, they are sooooo silly, they have double the staff at the registers so they can seal your bags up with 400 meters of tape. The money they save on shrinkage from shoplifting is nothing compared to the overheads from staff salaries they must be paying.
You also need a card to get in and the lady informed us that only 2 people could enter on one card, so MIL went to register for another card but the lady got distracted and about 20 people strolled in without being checked if they had a card. Not. Happy. Jan.

On to the 'I was annoyed with MIL to the point my face flushed red.' Note that because I'd taken a disliking to SSOK I was probably cranky already.
Luckily for us, we have one of those BabyBjorn holdy thingies that we could have shoved Ash in. But nooooo that would be way too easy, becasue my family-in-law like to show off with Ash, BIL decided he would hold him. I grumbled that the baby sling had no meaning, but whatever, if he wants to get a backache from holding him on one side that's his choice.
After BIL complained about said backache (try doing it everyday wimpy!) MIL took over with holding him. when MIL's back got sore she said she would hold him in the sling. This is when I got peeved.
The sling is pretty annoying actually, it's not one of those nice, hippy, one piece of material ones, it's one with all kinds of hooks and belts on it, and me being a big boobed giant, it's set just right for me. I explained this to MIL and said I was fine to hold him, as the sling was already on my back and ready for him just to slide in.

MIL protested. I said I'd hold him. She said she would hold him. This went on for I swear about 5 minutes until I said strongly and with my flushed face that it was easier if I held him. Put. Him. In. Now.

There was no argument and it is a tiny thing, but sometimes I feel like my voice is lost in translation somewhere, I shouldn't have to say something a million times before I'm heard.
I appreciate all MIL's help, I really do, and I need it living here. But they sometimes forget that lived in Japan for 3 years by myself and did just fine. If I can do something, I want to try and do it myself.

I overreacted a bit to the holder thing but I really think it was a build up of a lot of things lately where I'm starting to feel like a baby who can't do anything by herself.

Anyway, Ashton boy is hollerin' so I'm off for a run! That 10km isn't going to run itself in November!