*Insert crickets chirping here*

It's been very quiet on the old bloggerino lately, and the reason is a good one. Family. Stay. Ya' get it.

Or maybe you don't...

I can't remember if my family was this... draining...? before but I highly suspect not.

The top 5 things that blow about family visiting you in Japan...

1) They ask you questions about EVERYTHING! Yes, I live in Japan, but no, I'm not an expert on the far end of a Japanese fart. I know they're curious but it gets very very tiring answering questions all day when half the time you're talking out your arsehole. I also cannot read 500 million kanji, I wish I could, but I can't.

2) You feel pressure from all sides. I'm feelin' it at the moment. Got to keep the fam happy. Got to keep anal Japanese husband happy. Got to make sure baby isn't sticking hands in electrical sockets. Got to keep students happy at work. Got to keep my sanity. Got to keep SIL happy, oh no, wait that's right. FUCK SIL!

3) They won't try anything new. Maybe this is my picky family, but they refuse to try new stuff that isn't steak and chips. Well not quite that bad, but after they have asked you to explain every mother fucking thing on the menu (that has flipping pictures!!) at a restaurant and then said they don't like: fish, tofu, chewy chicken, chewy beef, rice etc etc. The options get to be a little limited, as does my patience.

4) They're on holiday but you're not. My mum and sister have been having gin and tonics at lunch time, which is great, but makes me a teeny bit jealous when I still have a full work schedule, house to run and all the other boring crap that life brings.

5) You get bitched at by every mother fucker for not taking them to enough places. Honestly, my mum doesn't really want to go anywhere special I think, she just wants to chill and spend time with Ash, she's not much of a sightseeing type of gal anyway. (the best kind of guest- give her gin and tonic and she's sweet!) Now my world travelled sister however, is another story. I feel bad because I know she wants to go explore all the innards of the Japanese cultural guts but I just don't have time this trip, plus with whinging small child on my hip it makes it a bit harder to climb mountains to find a Japanese monkey while swigging sake.

Now these are the top 5 downers but despite the stress factor being a little raised, I must say, the last week I've laughed very very hard and communicated in English and used sarcasm and reminisced and got jokes and taken the piss without "saying too much" (FUCK YOU SIL!!!) and generally had a fucking awesome time. I love my family no matter how much they piss me off and will be so sad when they leave. Ashton has had such fun, I think he senses they're suckers that will push him anywhere he wants to go on his little red trike and has been taking full advantage of this. He gives them cuddles before bed and just loves them to death.

I will definitely be sad next Tuesday.

Stay tuned for a fucking awesome story about an old holy man grabbing my sister's tits!

So proud!

As I may have mentioned on this blog before, I am NOT a maternal person, I don't tear up when Ash does something cute, I didn't 'bond' with him when he was breastfed (how much bonding can go on when there's a mini-human sucking your tit?!), I don't have a desire to have 6 more kids, I'd rather work all day than stay home and look after ankle-biters,. I'm just not a lovey- dovey mummy. Which is funny, because I always thought I would be! But my cynical skewed view just gets in the way.

Meh, what can you do, I don't starve the kid or anything!

In saying all this, today was the proudest moment of my whole mummy career, I was so fucking proud I did almost cry.

Today was the undokai (sports day) at Ash's kindy. And despite my proud moment, it wasn't for the usual undokai shenannigans. The usual proud moment comes as little Tommy-hiro takes the baton and does his relay run, or as little Sarah-ko does her practiced dance steps perfectly. To be quite honest, all that contrived crap doesn't interest me at all. Yeah, I take the pictures and I clap, but on the inside I'm thinking about what to have for lunch or saying to myself in my head 'Fuck me, how much longer do I have to stay!?'
Sports festivals in Japan are so rehearsed, and practiced every day for months, it's like all the fun is sucked out of it, and the opening dance was a perfect example, kids doing pre-learned, "cute" dance moves, all moving in perfect lines, all with shoulders slumped. OK, wasn't quite that dramatic, kids were actually happy that their parents were there watching them, but still, there was no spontaneity or creativity going on.

As Ash's class trotted out holding hands with everyone 'Ooooo-ing' and 'Ahh-ing' at how cute they were, they all had the precision walking going on too. Even at a year old, these kids can be programmed to be little lemmings! After a little dance, it was time for them to get on little toy cars and ride over to a jungle gym course that they were going to do little displays on. They all rode over on the cars, then like good little lemmings, they all got off and lined up to do the jungle gym course. All perfect. All as rehearsed.

All except one...

Yes, my son parked his little bum on that toy car and refused to get off for the lame jungle gym course, there was no lemming style shit going on for him. The teachers let him ride around on the little car for a while but when ALL the other little cars had been safely tucked away in their spots and ALL the other kids were on to the ball bit rotation, a teacher went over and tried to get Ash off his little car, and do you know what he did? I couldn't hear him but I could definitely see him, shake his head, clamp on to the bike and say "NOOO!!!!" God bless him, the only thing that would have made me prouder is if he had told her to shove off and given her the finger.

All the other mums were laughing at his defiance and the other kids were calling him over to the ball pit, and of course I played the embarrassed mother role, but inside I really was cheering that my strong-willed kid was not just following suit and doing as everyone else did. Of course when this behaviour shines through in his rebellious teenage years I'm sure I won't be quite as happy...
But for now, thank you son, for making me the proudest mummy at the undokai, I'm glad I actually went now!

The only thing that got him off the car in the end was the promise ofchocolate if he got off...

Again, you've done me proud son.

Cute sells!

As opposed to sex, like what I'm used to...

I always knew this I guess, living in the land of cute and all, but not until my livelihood depended on the business I created did I really get to what extent 'cute' plays such a big role in Japan.

You want to get a rich boyfriend? Be cute. (Good in bed is a plus...)

You want to get a good-looking boyfriend? Be cute.

You want to get a rich, good looking boyfriend with a heart of gold. Sorry, fuck that, not happening.

You want to get your way? Be cute.

You want to swindle an old granny out of her life savings? Being cute and pathetic is the key my friend.

You want to get out of an awkward social situation? You can umm and ahh all you want but as soon as you mention the word "kawaiiiiii" in a high-pitched tone, you're in!

It's like a secret club, if you can't recognise the cuteness, you're banished.

A prime example has been the last few days, now usually, I'm pretty minimal with the things hanging on the walls and stuff at the school. I have the ABC posters, the basic learning shite, but apart from that, white walls. Simple. Plain. Nice. BUT... NOT KAWAII, NOT KAWAII ENOUGH!!! I should have heard the 'non-kawaii' alarm bells ringing sooner!

So in the last few days I've been stocking up on decorations for Halloween. In actual fact I fucking hate Halloween, in my opinion it's a pointless holiday that I've never celebrated until I came to Japan where I now have to wear a wanky hat every year and be the princess of fucking genkiness, but besides the point really.
I got loads of pumpkins and bats and all that shite and went to town on the school, outside and in. Now, I feel a bit ridiculous surrounded by all this crap but I can not even remember the number of kids (and adults) who have walked past the school since the decorations have been up and squealed "kaaaaaawwwwaaaaaiiii!!!" in giddy delight. This conversation even went down the other night outside the school door:

Small child (AKA my cash cow)- Mummy mummy, look a the cute decorations, they're so, so... cute!!

Mummy- (Obviously thinking, 'Fuck me, if I go in there that money sucking gaijin is going to take me for all I've got for speaking her native language to my child!) Yeah, they're cute aren't they! OK, let's go!

Small child- I want to go in, it looks like fun!! The teacher is smiling at me!! I'm going in!

Mummy- No, not now!! I'll call tomorrow I promise!

Small child- Awwww, but I want to go in now! Promise you'll call OK!!

So this got me thinking, when it isn't Christmas or Halloween or Easter should I just plaster the whole school in hearts and clovers?? Will it be like bees to honey, getting sucked in by all the extreme cuteness...??

Another key to a good business in Japan is a small face too, well duh! Obviously!

I suspect this is closely related to the cute factor though. For example, I had two little 6 year old girls come in for a trial lesson, after the lesson was over the mother asked her daughter if she had fun and did she want to take lessons. The little girl said: "Yes I had fun!! And that teacher has yellow hair and a small face!!" The mothers laughed and agreed with her that, yes, the teacher did in fact have a small face, and yellow hair for that matter. Errrr, what the fuck? Since when does small face and yellow hair have anything to do with learning English?? I mean I wasn't offended or anything but... huh?!

I was contemplating dying my hair black for winter but decided it would be bad for business, I always put on weight in winter from all the comfort food and imagine, a teacher with black hair and a big face!!! Shock horror!!!

My mum and sister arrive tonight, so excited and dreading it all at the same time. I know we'll have fun but the logistics of our rat hole of a house are a bit of a worry... We'll see anyway!

Annnnnnnd, Grandma is back.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Grandma has been a bit under the weather this week, sleeping all day, not eating much and getting dizzy if she stood up. Bit of a worry for an 80- something Granny who is usually up at sparrow's fart bitching about futons or rubbish or the fact that nobody will trim her trees for her or what have you. When she was sick I actually got all soft and thought about how much we will miss her when she finally kicks the bucket.

Yeah, not so much today.
She finally went to the doctor, after much nagging from MIL, me, Ryota and random Obachans on the dirt path who had heard of her 'shindoi-ness' through the dirt path grapevine AKA tactless gaijin who yells "ばああちゃん大丈夫の？？まだしんどい？？(Oi Granny!! You OK love? Still feelin' like shite??)" from her veranda to the in-laws open window...
The doctor claimed she was run-down (don't all doctors in Japan use that when the haven't a fucking clue??) and needed a tenteki. What the fuck is a tenteki in English?? IV?? Drip?? Anyway, she got the tenteki and came back with a new lease on life. I swear to god that little bag of vitamins dripping into her veins must have had some psychological effect, it couldn't have just cured her like magic. Or maybe I'm too cynical, maybe tentekis are the miracle cure for 'shindoi-ness'?? But whatever it was, she was totally fine, wolfed down her dinner and woke up this morning way before anyone else to creep in to our genkan to put our rubbish out.

Which brings me to the point of why I kinda liked it when she was bed-ridden... Fucking rubbish. For me, separating rubbish is the very definition of 'medokusai' (fiddly as fuck). I do the basics, separate the pet bottles and cans and shit, but when it comes to burnable and plastics, if it's stinky, I'm sorry, I'm just going to put it in the garbage bag that goes out first. I know I know, I'm a bad girl, but seriously, if mother nature could smell my rubbish bin after a few days worth of cat food, shitty nappies and rotten food has built up then she would understand my need to cheat the rubbish system and sneak smelly burnable things in with my clean plastics.
Mother nature would understand, but Grandma sooo won't accept that excuse. Basically, on Wednesday I put a bag of plastics out with a few naughties in it and it was slapped with a rejection sticker, I wanted to ignore it and plead rubbish ignorance but it was spied and brought back to our house by possibly MIL but probably a nosey dirt path Obachan. But I thought, 'Meh, no worries, I'll just dump it on Friday with the burnables.' I planned to do this today but Grandma had already slapped her rubbish nazi cap and was going through the offending bag when I left for kindy with Ash. I got a 10 minute lecture on separating the rubbish and what was burnable or not. I wanted to tell her I knew what was burnable, I just chose to be a rubbish rebel but the woman was elbow deep in our shit (quite literally) so thought best to keep my gob shut.

It won't matter as much now as weather is getting cooler and the rubbish won't smell like in in summer, but still, what if there were private things in our rubbish, wouldn't want Grandma finding a sex toy box or something! Not that there is anything like that in out house, Ashton would probably sneak it into his Anpanman car seat where every other important thing seems to end up these days.

Everything else is pretty boring here, still no contact with dog fucker, she's cramming driving lessons in for her driving test in a few weeks. Until our tiff I was taking her out in our car to deserted car parks and shopping centres but she can get bent now, I might fucking offend her if I 'say too much' and tell her what a shit driver she is...
Getting the house sorted for Mum and sister's arrival next week, dreading sorting the spare room but must be done so best get to it. Also thinking what I'm going to cook, I've enver cooked for a family of, fuck me 5! Considering Mum refuses to try anything slightly exotic, sister hates seafood, Ashton still needs slightly modified baby-ish type food, and Ryota will no doubt have a whinge about watever is cooked every night I may have to look into hiring a personal chef for 2 weeks, any volunteers....?

Runnin

Away from it all! Ahhhhhh I wish!

No, actually running every morning for about a week now! Quite proud of my lazy self, I find running the best form of exercise for a few reasons: 1- You can't get out of it, once you've run somewhere you HAVE to run back, or at least walk to where you started from. 2- If you keep going and don't be lazy and stop (like I often do) you get a warm tingly glow and your pudgy bits go all red and glowy-like meaning blood is pumping to all sorts of cellulite ridden areas! and 3- runner's high. Best feeling in the world (after all illegal activities in a public place have been eliminated of course).

I usually go to my local pond and run around a few times like a big lumbering, sweaty gaijin giant from a story book, but in preparation for the 10km run in November I'm going to have to get my arse into gear and start running to the pond instead of cycling and then add in some runs up and down the hills that keep the lovely eye candy-ish army base boys in such fine shape. Am dreading the run a bit as just don't have that much time to run anymore and my mum and sister are coming to Japan next week which will mean my beer consumption will go up by about 400% and we'll be eating all sorts of goodies to the tune of yakiniku and kushi-katsu and lots of other bad crap that my family crave from Japan!

Not sure how the visit will go, I've never had them come stay and not had some kind of argument with them, but this time they're coming together, not sure how that will work... Although I think it will be a good thing, they can at least keep each other (and Ash) entertained so I don't feel so guilty about working. Plus I'm going to make my job a bit easier by putting them to work by chatting with my adult students over tea or some shit. Students will get natives that speak 0 Japanese and I can sit back, translate where neccessary and nurse my inevitable hang over from too much beer and yakiniku.

Ryota is being kicked out and will sleep at the in-laws place for the 2 weeks that they're here which is a big relief, my sister and mum are total night owls where as we're generally in bed by 9:30pm so this will eliminate the sleeping/noise issues, I hope. Although due to dirt path situation Ryota will probably still be able to hear them nattering from Grandma's house! And totally not kidding...
I've warned mum about the dog fucker fight, she told me to make up with her before she gets here as she wants her nails done. Thanks for your support there Ma!

Right, off to fill a small child's mind with English words, topic this week. Veggies! Really, how can I make a cucumber that exciting though...?

IthinkI'mturningJapaneseIthinkI'mturningJapanese...

No, I actually really do think so...

Top 5 reasons why I'm slowly but surely turning Japanese...

1) I have an appetite for rice.

I came home last night and swore I could smell fresh, hot, buttery, salty popcorn. I was in drooly, Homer-Simpson-like heaven until I realised it was the smell of the rice I'd put on earlier. Rice!? It's bland, gloopy and ...it's just rice!

2) I've given in to my fashion instincts and just buy Japanese clothes now.

Considering Japanese clothes fall into three categories for me this is a pretty big step. There's the cutesy, gypsy look that young skinny Japanese girls do so well, the slutty short skirt-boots combo which looks hot on J-girls but seems to just make gaijin girls look slutty, and finally the 'Obachan' look that makes a 20-something gaijin girl look like a 40-something Japanese housewife. I seem to be able to mix these looks and find some things that appeal to me, although I'm leaning towards the gypsy look as it covers my wobbly bits pretty well...

3) I worry about my husband.

As in, I get his coffee for him as soon as he gets home, I lay out his clothes and towel for his shower, I see him off in the morning with his packed lunch. Since when did I become a concerned wife!? Ash is next, before long I'll be running to his school because he forgot his umbrella or something. This is another post in itself lurking...

4) I'm starting to believe that covering your shoulders may have something to do with catching a cold.

I never believed this one, I'm a tank top girl, even in winter, I rarely wear anything other than a tank top with a jacket over the top. (Errrr hello, Japanese trains/building/anywhere inside= fucking sauna!) But I have now had two colds in the space of about two weeks. The Japanese angel on my shoulder keeps whispering "Put a jumper on...." in my ear, while the gaijin devil on the other side is saying "Fuck that J-angel! Bastard shoulders having nothing to do with having a cold you big twat!"

5) I speak Japanese in my sleep.

I should be happy about this one, language may finally be filtering through all the dead brain cells and alcohol haze and be sinking in! Apparently the last few nights I've been laughing in my sleep and saying totally fucking random things in Japanese like, "かぼちゃちょうだい！(Give me the pumpkin)" and "やっぱりな！(Like I thought!)"

It's now been a week since the great dog fucker battle of 2010 and the icy awkwardness is not going away, but not getting any worse either. I've been too busy to really care anyway which is nice. Even though the air was supposed to have been cleared I fear another battle will be on the cards some time in the future. I don't have a lesson with nosey boss until next Monday too so hopefully she won't say anything. This whole episode is convincing me more and more to buy FIL's house if he gets transferred for his job, I really want to get away from the dirt path politics...

Grandma has been in bed for the last two days, I hope she's OK, poor old duck has a dodgy ticker and as much as she can be annoying, wouldn't want her to cark it or anything, who would remind me what rubbish day it was!? But really, I'd be really upset if anything was to happen to her, she's the backbone of Ryota's dysfunctional, unstable little family, it would really suck if she died...
I hope her 'shindoi-ness' wasn't my fault, I may have shocked her by leaving my washing out in the rain the other day, if it was the futons she definitely would have had a heart attack though!

The battle story!

First of all, thanks for all the lurker comments, who knew I could have lurkers!? Perhaps I should watch my mouth a bit now I know other people are reading... Nah, never going to happen. And sorry for the delay, this will be disjointed and not a good account of what happened I feel!

OK. Where do I start...

Tuesday night at the school-
Nosey fucker (AKA SIL's boss) had a lesson booked in at 5pm. I knew SIL would probably come with her as she had worked that day and boss tries to work her lessons in the same day so she can give SIL a lift home. So they rocked up at about 5 and boss says, "コリイイイイン！！！ るるとケンカしてるの？？　(Corrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnneeeeee! Are you fighting with the dog fucker??)" She literally said this when they were still outside the school, she opened the door and went straight into it. My first reaction was shock, then embarrassment. We had to get through a whole lesson and I really did not want to talk about it, especially with SIL's boss of all people! I honestly had no idea what to do so I just laughed and tried to make light of the situation. SIL would later bring this up and grill me as to why I thought the whole situation was funny! Silly bitch.


Anyway, after I laughed and played dumb on the fight interrogation questions, SIL had a stormy look on her face and didn't say much at all. Boss then decided that we definitely needed to talk about it all and asked if we had plans at 6pm when the lesson was done. I said I didn't have plans but actually I had to make dinner, give Ash a bath, and all the other madness that goes on around 6pm, but as I was backed into a corner like a rat I couldn't really get out of it. SIL also agreed and said she would come to the school at 6. Which was just shit because I was dreading the confrontation the whole lesson and not really listening to the boss.


So the lesson finished, nosey fucker boss looked up and down the road as she was leaving to try and see SIL, I think she actually wanted to be there for some of the proceedings, and you know, since she knew anyway, I would have actually liked someone else there!
A few minutes later, SIL rocks up and sits down and I had noooooo fucking clue how it was going to go, I'm really not big on the confrontational fights, especially not with someone as childish as her and definitely not in a language other than my own! But... I decided that I should give it a crack anyway, just to see if I could do it. So she started with the whole "You insulted Kimutaku, you shouldn't say bad things about people that other people like!" thing and I seriously just let fly then, I told her to listen to how stupid she sounded that she was STILL going on bout fucking Kimutaku. She said that she would use a different example and gave insulting family, which was bullshit because that wasn't what the fight was about in the first place! But she said for 2 years she'd always thought I'd always said too much about everything. Well fuck me with a feather, she's been bottling these feelings for 2 years!? This is the girl who will go on racist rants about Chinese and Korean and Indian people with not a care in the world that it offends me. The girl who insults her own father and then says I say too much if i make a joke about him looking like an alien in a photo (he fucking did look like an alien as well!). I was bemused... bewildered... shocked... fucking pissed by this point and knew there was not going to be any easy end to the argument because we were never going to agree.
I didn't get that pissed until she started being condescending though. When I was getting towards the end of my rope with all the arguing and about to leave the school, she got panicky and pissed because she knew if we went home Ryota would totally stand up for me and be able to tell her what an absolute fucking mental case she was. She also got condescending saying things like "例えばわかる？？(Do you know what 'example' means??)" So it was at that point that I literally threw her out of the school, she didn't want to leave but I fucking got pissed that she was arguing while I had the door open to my business so I hissed (literally) in English to "get the fuck out. NOW!" I then slammed the shutter down and got on my bike as she was calling her Mum from outside the school...

Tuesday night at home-
Poor Ryota was totally caught unawares when I got home, I didn't know how far behind me SIL was so I rushed into the house and told him we'd just had a big argument and he would need to translate/mediate for us because it was nowhere near done. He sighed and braced himself as she came into our house clutching the fucking dog. I then told him to tell her to start from the beginning so I totally understood. (but really I wanted Ryota to hear the whole story and give her a piece of his mind) And a piece (a few pieces actually!) he gave her indeed. He stopped translating half way through to say this to her (in Japanese but I think this is a pretty good translation):

"What the fuck are you going on about, seriously?? Are you mentally ill?? Can you hear yourself?? Why are you causing shit about nothing?? You need to get a job, a life, some friends who will call you out for being such a twat. Yo need some life experience. Get out of the house or you'll never know how the real world works. Go to another country. You have the life experience of a 4 year old."

There were other bits and pieces but this was the gist of it. She started crying at this point, probably because she knew it was all true. It was so much better having Ryota there, he could say everything I couldn't in Japanese. He asked her if it wasn't just the Kimutaku thing then what was it? and she answered that she doesn't think I should make jokes/comments about their family. She gave an example of MIL falling over, (she does it quite frequently) that I shouldn't laugh or say she's a dickhead or anything like that. Ryota gave the best response, he asked her if it was strange if he or BIL made comments like that and she said "no, of course not." This is where Ryota got really fucking angry and told her that I was family too, I wasn't to be treated any differently. If she couldn't accept me as part of their family (as everyone else has) then it was her problem, not ours.
I got pretty fired up (and a little bit upset) at that point then, possibly jumping to conclusions but wanted to get my racism protest in anyway so I asked her if it was because I was foreign, she hated other foreigners, maybe she was racist towards me? She denied, but I'm glad I got it in anyway. I have to wonder how different the situation would be if I was Japanese...

It then got down to the nitty gritty, that she didn't see me as an 'onechan' (big sister). I still think this is her problem not mine and sorry but I'll be fucked if I'm going to try and change the way I am for her, she's really just not worth it. I'd rather fucking pay for my nails. She brought the nails up as well, and also that she looks after Ash a lot, and it's true, I told her I really appreciate it but if it's a chore then I'll no longer ask her for favours. Damn I just remembered that we used to pay her to babysit, should have brought that up!! I will DEFINITELY NOT be asking her to do my nails anymore, I'd rather pay than sit with an hour with her. And Ash, well it's inevitable as long as I'm working and we're living so close that she will end up looking after him but I want to limit that to as little as possible too.

This 'translation/ Ryota getting angry/translation response' pattern went on for at least 2 and a half hours with us really not getting anywhere because I could just not see her point or any solution to the whole situation. The best I could do was tell her I will try to hold my tongue from now on, but for me, this means I won't say anything at all, I'd rather keep my fat foreign mouth shut than think about what I'm saying for every word.
I'm still avoiding the in-laws house as much as possible, definitely not keen on going for dinners or whatever anymore. I managed to keep the tears back right until the very end but she started saying that MIL had agreed with her that I always 'say too much' and also slipped a comment in that MIL's sister had also agreed with her. This is when I really felt ganged up on, thank god Ryota was on my side (for the most part). I honestly think she was lying but that little seed of doubt was planted and I won't be able to get it out of my head that the whole family thinks I'm an obnoxious foreigner who doesn't know when to hold her tongue. MIL sent me a mail apologising for SIL and saying that I should feel free to say anything I want but still... Fuck me, imagine if Ryota had married an outspoken American or something!! (hehe sorry my beautiful American friends...) But do you know what I mean?? As far as gaijin go, I'm seriously tame!

Things are supposed to be normal again, but they're not. I just don't want anything to do with her. I feel sorry for Ryota, I know how hard it is to be torn between your own family and your partner, but I feel like he really was fair during the whole thing. He called me out when I got all dramatic and started crying and saying "everyone hates me!!!!" And fair play, no need for girly drama on top of everything else.

I know there is going to be more to this, it was far too big of an episode to be all Mary fucking sunshine from now on. Sorry, reading over this I haven't explained it very well, but it was like this times about 50 with the anger and screaming and shouting.

I'll keep you posted!