Shopping therapy day

Yesterday I was in need of some shopping therapy. This week I marked a milestone, a really rotten millstone that caused my life and dreams to spin into a horrible tumbling fall. I've probably needed the full 10 years to be able to really stand up and dust myself off.

In April of 2003, I went to the Dr. with an index finger swollen out like a big fat sausage.  I was still in my 40s. While I was there, I mentioned some other aches and pains all over my body, not thinking there was any connection at all. After telling me about some scary diseases, like the possibility of the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis, and after doing some initial tests, he fluffed it all off.  He told me that I just needed to accept the fact that I was getting older. Yeah, right, I was only about 10 years older than him! Just to show how unconcerned he was, he asked the nurse to jot down my home phone number so his wife might call me to ask about teaching his 2 kindergarten aged children English. Excuse me here, but WTF?! I could see the nurse nervously titter and probably couldn't wait until break time to share this next bizarre story about that Dr. with the other nurses on staff! Me, well... I certainly wasn't feeling like he was taking me seriously...  A month later, I wound up in the hospital with a totally unrelated emergency surgery and he just happened to have a patient in the next bed. So, he stopped by my bed to ask what had happened as he'd remembered me -- not that I would be easy to forget as I'm not Japanese. A few weeks later, my random aches and pains, that felt like someone had a voodoo doll out on me, ratcheted up quite a few notches. So I was soon back in the office of that first Dr. to plead my case yet again. At some point, I even drew a diagram to carry along with me to show just which joints had swollen and were now in pain. Looking at the pattern that was developing in that drawing, the fact that I had a low grade fever each afternoon that lasted until morning, pains in my feet each morning that made it difficult for me to walk and lasted for a couple of hours before they eased off, and so on and so forth, he finally picked up and started to listen to me.

 

 

He started to tell me that the likelihood of me having rheumatoid arthritis was increasing and started scheduling appointments closer and closer together to follow me. Then, one day, with his eyes staring at the wall as he couldn't bare to look me in the eye, he said that given the pattern of my signs and symptoms there was just only one disease that I could have and it was rheumatoid arthritis. He sent me off into another room to get my first of bi-weekly gold injections that I was to start with, wrote out a whole slew of prescriptions for me including steroids that he said I'd be on for 6 months as a bridge until stronger disease modifying anti-rheumatic medications (DMARDS) took effect. Ha, the 6 months on steroids turned into 6 years before I was finally able to be weaned from them! The body isn't designed to have metal injected into it, let me assure you. I woke up the next morning with the worst metallic taste in my mouth and barely able to stagger down the hall from that first rubbery legged action the steroids gave me!

 

My files show that first heavy duty date of the prescription meds when the diagnosis was finally made that would become a part of my new definitely unimproved life-style!

 
 

 

I was issued a booklet, in Japanese, that explained about the illness.

 

 

Don't let that cheery pink cover fool you, though! It's a book of horrors!!! Looking at it now, it doesn't upset me as much as it did then. But, really, who thought it would be a good idea to start off with showing you how your joints would disintegrate like rat bites so show you pictures and diagrams of joint replacement surgeries as an introduction to your disease; or how to remodel your home for your new handicapped condition; or tell you about all the blood tests you'll be needing now that your new medications will destroy every thing in your body that the disease doesn't?! Page upon page of insensitive horrors!  

 

Really, I shouldn't have been sent off from the Dr. that day alone as I might have just as easily walked in front of a bus or driven into a wall just to get the whole horrific ordeal over with at once! Eight years later, when I got a diagnosis of cancer it didn't even phase me! Everyone knows cancer and many mistakenly still think it is a death sentence at any stage but almost nobody really knows much about autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. No, it's probably not the same disease as your grandma has. She more than likely as good old fashioned osteoarthritis and I probably have both.

 

Well, anyway, yesterday I had a standard follow up appointment. I hobbled in with a sore heel. I've been in really good shape over the past couple of years so it is a bit depressing to have my toes start aching again and my heel start throbbing. Dang, exact same places as in that drawing I made 10 years ago! As much as things change, they stay the same... It was the final visit with Young Dr. #6. He's leaving the hospital or maybe he's quitting now that he's discovered that all those years of study have resulted into a job he really doesn't like and isn't suited to. Next appointment, I'll be meeting Dr. #7.

 

I did some shopping afterwards before going home. Retail therapy just isn't the same when the only shoes you get to gaze at are the few hideous selections on the orthopedic granny shoes shelf. But, I did buy some new socks. What the heck, I even got some glittery ones!

 

Japan still has wonderful stationary stores. Loft is big chain and found all over Japan. Scrap booking hasn't taken on the level of popularity here as it has in the USA. However, I have been seeing more signs that it is becoming more mainstream. I indulged in some rolls of fun and colorful masking tape to try out in some future craft projects. My hands and fingers still work. Use them while I can!

 

 

I've started collecting cool 3-D postcards for sending off to my little granddaughters when the mood strikes. So, here's another one for them to enjoy at some point down the line. Anything Disney sells well in Japan, especially the classics like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I know someone with a birthday coming up so got a card too.



 

Every now and then, I remind myself that I really need to be collecting more Japanese things. (Japanese people themselves prefer Western-style things!) Some day someone in my family will be thankful I did, I tell myself. They won't appreciate it if the things are too big and bulky and take up too much space, though. But, they probably won't mind inheriting some beautiful and useful uchiwa-style fans. So, here's another to add to the assortment I already own. This mini-sized one is a first. The stickers might come in handy if I ever do an album on Buddhist temples I've visited.

 

I was hoping to browse women's magazines in English yesterday. I know a bookshop that has a very, very, very meager selection of fairly current English language magazines that are ridiculously overpriced. I'd buy if they weren't page after page of advertising and fewer and fewer meatier articles of interest. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way as the last few times I've stopped by there are no magazines geared at women past the age of about 20.

 

I moved on to browse Japanese magazines. I'm sure somewhere online there must be information about just how many magazines Japan puts out in a week, or a month, and probably I'll find the data that says no other country in the world puts out so many. Here you can buy a magazine devoted to absolutely any subject you can think of! Off the top of my head, I recall seeing magazines yesterday on the subject of pets, not just pets in general but each kind of pet has many selections of magazine the owner can chose from, gardening and just just generalized gardening but for vegetable gardens, rose gardens, and on and on, weddings, fashion both Western-style and for kimonos, magazines about designer brands, airplanes, self-defense, cars, motorcycles, trains, travel, racks, and racks, and racks of magazines that hold as many as bookstores generally hold books in the US. That doesn't even begin to address the manga section!

 

The magazines don't even seem to heavily rely on page after page of advertising. I once found a really nice magazine in that store -- "Kateigaho -- International Edition -- Japan's Arts & Culture". I was hoping to spot another issue to buy but with so many magazines the search seemed hopeless and I gave up after awhile. I looked at the patchwork magazines but nothing really caught my fancy. With so many magazines on the shelves, many distributors have taken to including a freebie affixed inside the magazine and held in place with a specialized rubber band sort of thingy covering the whole works. You can't buy the freebie anywhere else and little carry-all bags seem to be a popular item given out as the freebie. Many of these types were downright heavy! One patchwork magazine was offering 1 piece of a specially printed cotton fabric inside the cover as their freebie and words on the cover stated that a certain number of issues offered a coupon to win more fabric inside.

 

Finally, moving on to the arts and design section of the bookstore, I found 2 issues of a new series on old classic woodblock prints. Oh gosh, something more to start collecting! I don't need the cheap looking trading cards inside and probably won't be hanging the posters they've included of some well-known classics. They are educational in nature and even with my spotty kanji reading ability (or lack of) I'll learn some new things from them. But, they aren't something to be shared with young readers as they have a few pages for mature viewing only. Oh, my!

Humble beginnings

I remember one day an American friend, here in Japan, mused that it sure would be cool if we could see how our grandparents or great-grandparents had lived their everyday lives. Gee... I certainly had never wondered about that!  My paternal great-grandparents and maternal great-grandparents had lived on adjoining  farmsteads, and one was the same farm where where I grew up and the other was a place of many a childhood adventurous trek across borders. It wasn't until I went away to college that I even realized that for many Americans their roots on the ole home turf are still very shallow. My family, and just about everyone I knew in my youth, had roots in the U.S. dating back to around the time the Mayflower touched land.  

 

My maternal great-grandparents bought an established farm, complete with barns, and with an older farmhouse, as newlyweds. There, they started their family. My grandmother was born there. My mother was born there. I was born in the nearest hospital and arrived there about a week later to continue the tradition of growing up on the family farm.

 

My great-grandparents, grandmother, and my great-aunt around 1900~1910.

 

Look below: Hey, it's the exact same house as I grew up in and almost exactly the same as I remember it about 75 years later! The only difference besides some new shingles was that at some point they enclosed the porch against those frigid Midwestern winters! Boy, oh boy, I'll bet that kitchen had been cold on a January morning without any buffer against the wind! Same old cellar door is open, though. (We kept it closed so a kid wouldn't fall down the rickety wooden steps.) Many a time did I take shelter down in that same dark, dank, musty dirt basement though and look at all the ancient preserves sitting on the shelves down there as we waited out a storm. I can still recall the dank dirt smell under the porch steps where I'd crawl under to play as a kid, too!

The house in 1977. Notice that cool blue pedal car I got to play with as a kid that's sitting at the old hand-pump well.

  Around 100 years ago, they used sheep to trim the grass while we'd advanced to a lawn mower in my childhood. But, boy, do I remember that shed behind them. One side was called the "cob house" and the other the "coal house" and many a morning I was sent out to fetch a pail of corn cobs and coal chunks so that Grandpa could light the fire in the cast iron stove in the kitchen!











Take a look at it in 1972!

Once the fire got going, Grandpa set his tin cup on top of it to warm his morning cup of milk. He didn't drink coffee or tea nor did any of the "old folks" I knew in childhood as apparently they kicked that habit during the Great Depression. It was the only heat source in that room -- even if it got to be -20 below Fahrenheit or Centigrade! The house was just too old for converting to central heat or to install any sort of more modern furnace.

Lucky for me, my parents had "modernized" the house when they married so the 2 outhouses outdoors were mostly just being used to store garden tools as a make-do shed in the vegetable patch. I used one as a funky playhouse in my youth after it toppled over in a storm, though. But, with a houseful of people, they were still good for an emergency!  Anyway, there was a "his" and a "hers" and they sat on opposite sides of the garden. Bet you can't imagine venturing outside in the dead of night for a bit of nocturnal relief can you? Well, back in the day, people didn't! My grandfather and father both still kept a chamber pot under their beds into the mid-1970s when I left home. Ewww... Carrying those down to the toilet, to empty in the morning, was another nasty chore I had to do as a little kid! Gee.... and my kids complained about their chores!

I have to admit that I'm a bit bemused about the fad of "shabby chic" home interior. As a kid, I knew shabby and it sure wasn't chic! Nope, no crackly lead-based painted doors or the like in my home now that I have some say in things! No mystery for me about how my grandparents or great-grandparents had lived their lives either in earlier days. I could dig dirt to make a mud pie and find an Indian head coin they'd dropped in the yard (and more than likely frantically searched for at the time) or a china head doll that had broken while my grandmother or her sister played in the garden. I knew and smelled the same flowers they loved. I knew the same chill to the bone cold they endured during winter and the same humid summers in the same sea of corn fields. I played in the same creek and picked the same apples and pears. I played in the same barn where they milked their cows and pitched hay to our generation of bovines. I knew their childhood dolls and all the cool dresses they had hand stitched for them. I pounded the same piano keys although it was certainly in need of a good tune up by the time my day came around so I never really learned how to play. But their music scores still sat there waiting for me to learn. My sisters slept in the same bed where they were born but there wasn't enough room for me there too. The rooms in the house still went by the old names of "the dining room", "the parlor", and so on, even though no formal dining table sat in the one room and "the parlor" had long since lost any refined appeal for awaiting guests. I even knew the things they packed away in the attic... But, what I didn't know was the firsthand personalities of my ancestors as they had passed on before my day. Only Grandpa, the guy who came at the time of the marriage to my grandmother, was left from the older generation.

As a teenager, I spent many a moody hour sitting propped against that old wagon wheel below, with cows milling about, dreaming of getting away. I had a fascination with Asia and by sheer grit and will power I knew that someday, somehow I'd be able to leave, and see something of the world beyond.

 

My mother used to say to me, "You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl." Yeah, I guess she was right. That old farmhouse is long since gone and grown over into a jungle of weeds. But, it lives on in my mind.

Here I was, still a couple of years away from realizing my dream.

Diary of a Nobody

Well, I've been at this blogging business for a week now and I still have no comments, no followers, no feedback of any sort... Ho hum... I guess I'm too boring...  Oh, nobody loves what I'm doing here....  It sure is sucking up lots of time and I'm feeling a bit like I'm tossing my best efforts into a big black hole, though. Maybe I need to toot my horn a bit more, eh? But, I guess for now it is for my own pleasure. A lack of pressure is probably a good thing though, especially as I get the feel for my own personal style; contemplate why I actually decided to dust off my first effort of 2 ho hum posts written more than 2 years ago; and figure out how I want things to look.

I have thousands and thousands of photos sitting around in digital format and probably as many on old fashioned print form... I was really enjoying time on Flickr as Pine57 until Flickr did a major overhaul in their web design and caused me to flee. I just don't find it as user friendly as it was before, even though it is certainly flashier looking. But, I enjoyed the chit chat of finding others with similar interests via our photography and somehow the new design just isn't as appealing to me as before. So, I've been mulling over branching out a bit and adding more context to my photos by blogging.

I have many hobbies and passions. So, I'll introduce a few here to help myself with some future topics to delve into a bit deeper later on.

First off, I was born on a farm and remain a country girl at heart. I just don't like the big city and apparently the big city knows me for what I am!

Apologies to that shop as I did have to tweak the photo a bit to show the store's name as it truly is. My original photo had a bit of glare on it so it just wasn't as easy to read as it is now. But, no lie, this truly is a shop and brand in Japan! 

 

 

Instead of the fast pace of the city, I prefer to explore the quiet side of Japan. Shizuoka Prefecture is a great place for that as it is home to "quiet hills" as the name means in English and, of course, green tea.

 

 

I love the beautiful fine chinaware that is a part of everyday life in Japan. How about a cup of local green tea at home?

 

 

 

Or, maybe some English tea with a beautiful Noritake cup that mirrors flowers clipped from my own garden?

 

 

 

 

Yes, gardening is another of my pleasures. I started on this little backyard of rocks and rubble 25 years ago and now it has matured enough, with the survival of the fittest plants for this climate, to give me a lot of joy at certain times of the year. At other times of the year, like mid-winter, it is very drab and bleak looking...

 

 

Ok, maybe I exaggerated a bit! We don't get a snowy winter and my maple turns brilliant in December! But, once it's dropped it's leaves, which times quite badly against a Christmas tree, things do get a bit drab.

 

 

 

 

 

I fell in love with David Austin's English roses and planted several varieties. Some have done better in my region of Japan than others did (i.e. they quickly died off).

 

 

Ah, I just love my garden in May when so many things bloom!

 

I love nature, too!

 

I especially love irises in all their various forms. The violet-shaded Chinese orchids go so nice together with them, too!

 

 

June brings the hydrangeas in to bloom in the garden. The wonderful thing about them is that they are native to Japan so really need no special care at all to thrive. I actually have 3 more cuttings that I grew from this deep blue hydrangea.

 

 

I've also got this pinkish hydrangea too.

 

 

 

Well, if you looked closely at the size of my garden in one of the photos above, you'll see that maintaining it is a bit different than an American sized backyard.

 

I have no need for a big noisy lawn mower here! Just push this toy-like mower around and then get on hands and knees and trim the rest with scissors!

 

 

When I was much younger, living in a cramped Japanese apartment, and with small children, I dreamed of having my own home. On the wish list, besides the backyard that could supply beautiful flowers for arranging, I also envisioned having a cat, a sofa, and enough free time to do something homey like quilting. Lucky me, eventually I got it all!

 

 

 

Yes, home is where the heart is.

 

 

 

 

I've never gotten a dryer, though. But, I've lived so many years now without one that I don't miss it at all. Back in the day, I had to hang a lot of cloth diapers on the line no matter what the weather was though.

 

 

 

I am a self taught quilter. I took up the hobby in part to get back to my roots but also to add some homeyness to the sterile white walls in what was then my new home. We didn't have the money to indulge in works of art so I set about creating something to make our new house a home. You'll probably be seeing lots of my handmade quilts in my photos. I use them for accents and change them according to season. I've made way too many Halloween quilts and will write about them one of these days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love decorating for the season. It started off as a way to teach my children about the culture I grew up in and then just sort of took off from there as they have long since grown and flown the coop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love decorating and creating the mood for Christmas too.

 

 

Looking at this, I'll bet you imagine that I have lots of nice presents under the tree. Nope, I don't think anyone in my family has remembered to give me a gift in at least the last 3 Christmases. Maybe it's been longer. Oh, it's just toooooo depressing to think about.... So, moving on....

 

 

I love nature, mountains, forests, backwoods, camping, hiking....

 

Set the mood...

 

 

And eventually, it happens that I get to go out, out, out, into the big beyond where few venture to go.

 

...And, the Mr. gets to enjoy playing with a campfire and cooking rice over the open flame of a charcoal fire!

...And, I get to sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee. Don't worry, I make one for him too!

 

 

 

So, my life here in Japan is lived between two cultures.

 

 I, also, collect a variety of knick-knacks, postcards, stamps... I grew up in a multi-generational home, with lots of family history, so most of the little vintage and antique things that I have here come from my childhood home. They have lots of emotional memories tied to them. But, I keep my eyes open to add a bit of this and that which strikes my fancy too.

 

 

Besides the beauty of nature, I love visiting Japanese temples and shrines. As my husband has said, the people who envisioned them and carried through with the idea were the "rocket scientists of their day".

I hope you enjoy getting to know me. Please, don't hesitate to leave me a comment or become a fan of my new blog!

 

 

Yoroshiku!

Fuji-mania

 It's been a month now since Mt. Fuji acquired UNESCO World Heritage status. It's certainly not hard to be overly enchanted when you see something so sublime as to pop right out of an ancient wood block print. I am so very very lucky to live in Shizuoka Prefecture, home of Mt. Fuji! But, I have to state for the record that in Shizuoka Prefecture, we (and I'll have to include myself in that very Japanese feeling of "watashi takushi" we) lay claim to it. No, Yamanashi Prefecture it's not yours to share! Well, Ok...  Yamanashi Prefecture does have some nice scenic views of the mountain and gets some national parks with lakes spanned by Fuji, and even has a gateway climbing route... But, boy oh boy, you should have heard locals fume about the positioning on NHK TV announcing the big news that it finally got UNESCO status with "Yamanashi and Shizuoka" as the home of Mt. Fuji! One young Japanese lady I know claimed those are fighting words! Why does Yamanashi get first billing for something that isn't even theirs, they say!

I wasn't even aware of such a tug of war of feelings until I saw a program on Japanese TV some years back that showed various aspects of foods, fashions, culture, etc. around Japan that people in one region of the country feel as normal and which comes as a surprise to the locals that nobody else in the country is even aware of it and finds downright quirky. So for this region of Japan, they showed how people in Shizuoka take for granted that Mt. Fuji is theirs and people in Yamanashi feel that instead it is theirs. Thanks to that tidbit of information, we had a good laugh as an ice breaker of the first meeting of families when my daughter was engaged to be married as one father was born in Shizuoka and the other in Yamanashi and neither had realized how perceptions were so different until watching the same show! Whew... Saved from a faux pas by either side grandly making claim to it!

Actually, I didn't think that Mt. Fuji would ever be able to gain status as a World Heritage site. I know it was a shock to me the first time that I laid eyes on it back in 1980. In jr. high school, in the States, I'd had a teacher who had a calendar featuring Mt. Fuji hanging on her wall the entire school year. I can still remember it to this day. A perfectly snow capped Mt. Fuji, a long bridge spanning across a river, cherry trees in bloom... Quintessentially Japan...

So picture me on my first drive to Mt. Fuji with my then boyfriend (now husband of more than 3 decades) with high hopes of seeing the mountain that day. We made a pit stop at a rest area along the Tomei Highway toll road at Fujikawa. After a quick trip to the ladies room, I walked out of the rest room and there it was smack in my face, the exact same view I'd stared at all during the jr. high year! What???!!! Taken from the view coming out of a smelly squat toilet along a major highway?! Noooooooo..... That was just sooooo wrong! Maybe you can't see the mountain in the background of this photo as it is very faint, but it's there. But, where were the cherry blossoms? Wrong season. They only bloom for about the first 10 days of April, but indeed that same cherry tree that graced my jr. high teacher's calendar so many years before is off to my right in the photo. That young sapling to my left is probably a mature cherry now, so many years later.

 

 

We continued on our drive and up the mountain as far as one can go by car. More surprises were in store for me. As you can see in the photo below, there was just a sprinkling of snow at the peak on November 1, 1980.

 

Unlike many of the glaciated mountains that I was familiar with in North America, which have permanent snowy peaks until global warming revs up even more and melts them all off, Mt. Fuji is a dormant volcano that only has snow part of the year. Also, unlike many of the mountainous areas I've been to in North America, the forest growth is quite low and rather unimpressive.

But, why did I think it could never achieve World Heritage status? It's just not very pristine. It has too much of a foot print left by mankind. I was astounded in 1980 to see the bullet train (shinkansen) zipping by at the base, as well as, a local train line and a major highway. The city of Fuji, which also sits at the base of the mountain, has an estimated population of over 250,000 and one of its main industries happens to be smelly pulp-paper factories. People who aren't eco-friendly dump trash on the mountain in secluded areas. When climbing season opens in the summer, it is an endless line of people, like an army of ants, trudging to the summit until climbing season closes in the autumn.

Part of the mystic of Mt. Fuji is that it all but disappears for about 6 months of the year! Right after the cherries bloom, the sky becomes hazy. It's called "hana gumori" (the words for flower and hazy combined) in Japanese. So, except for rare windy days or immediately after a typhoon, the mountain is invisible from early April until October or so. You can drive right past it and never know it is there! I've often thought about how the mountain must have had the status of the gods for earlier people. Well, actually, it still does. That's where its status as a World Cultural Heritage Site comes into play because it has deeply influenced the heart of the Japanese soul.

On clear days it pops in and out of view according to various factors such as the elevation one is at. At lower elevations, such as river beds and sea level, it is very easy to spot.

From Yaizu, showing Shizuoka city in the background and the Pacific Ocean.

From the port of Shimizu.

 

 

Green tea fields of Makinohara, the Oi River with Shimada and Mt. Fuji in the background.

 

 

 

Just because it's so beautiful, here's another view of the Oi River with Shimada, and Mt. Fuji in the background.

 

 

From the Makinohara Plateau with green tea in the foreground.

 

 

 

Just for some variety, I'll show you one of my best secret spots to gaze endlessly at the splendor which is Mt. Fuji.

The Mr. and I sat on a log after a long hard climb to eat our o-bento with this magical view.

 

But, we risked running into the owner of these bear claws markings along the hiking trail! Yes, Japan actually does have more wildlife than just crows and alley cats!

 

 

For the less hardy when it comes to trekking, a drive on the Tomei Highway can give you a splendid view on select days of the year.

 

 

Soon enough you'll come to Fuji city. But watch out for cars with drivers from prefectures further afield as they weave back and forth staring in amazement. Better yet, just take a trip on the bullet train (shinkansen) and enjoy the passing scenery!

 

 

 

 

Oh, and just for the heck of it I'll show you some stamps that commemorate Mt. Fuji.

 

 

 

 

 

In these parts, everything is Mt. Fuji related, even the tofu!