Soon after we arrived in Japan, I learned of the Mister Donut point card and the merchandise you could get with with it. And for only 150 points, I could get an official Mister Donut coffee mug. The kind they actually use at the store! I made Aya ask if we could just buy one, but they said no. Politely of course. So, I set out on a mission to eat as many donuts as it took to reach my goal. And eat donuts I did. I love their custard and creme donuts here. But I even tried the soy sauce flavor donut to make me feel like I would actually deserve the mug. I’m happy to say after many donuts and coffee consumed, I did it!
MY KUKI FRIENDS: PART TWO
Knowing what happened after the last time I met my friends, the pressure was on. Aya’s parents had moved away from Kuki since then, and what made this visit a little more stressful is that I couldn’t walk home after going to the bar. I had to take the train back home an hour away. So the trick would be to not miss the last train for the night. If I missed the last train for the night, well, let’s just say that wouldn’t be a good thing. Aya’s mom gave me a curfew of 12:30am and said if I missed it, she wouldn’t let me in, and Aya wouldn’t be allowed to let me in either. She was joking of course… I think.
MY KUKI FRIENDS: PART ONE
Every trip to Japan we take, I always try to give Aya some time with just her parents where she doesn’t have to worry about translating things to me. Where they can all speak openly and freely without me dragging the conversation down to a third grade level. “What is that? How do you spell that? Where does that come from? What’s your favorite Japanese fruit?” So after a few trips to Japan I felt confident to go out to dinner by myself to give them some space. Each trip, I try to push the boundaries of my comfort level and that’s how I met my friends. My friends from Kuki, Japan.
MANLY THYME
With my house being in total chaos now, my main goal is to get it back to normalcy as soon as possible. Having a blow-up mattress in the middle of the living room (actually, the mattress is the living room) is starting to cramp my style. And it’s making me very lazy. The other day Ellie and I spent the entire afternoon in “bed” watching TV. I even fed her dinner in bed. I ate mine there as well. A bite for you, a bite for me. My cooking situation has been pretty minimal, too. And then there’s the laundry. We’vebeen living out of a laundry basket in the dining room for two weeks. I wore mismatched socks the other day because I couldn’t find a pair that matched.
All of my “domestic” chores were piling up, but I really couldn’t do them because of the renovation project. And I couldn’t really work on the renovation project until the weekend. So I decided it was time to send Ellie to grandma’s house so I could get a start on my “manly” chores by working on the house.
TRASH TO CASH
I’ve never had my own garage sale before. I’ve only helped out my folks a little bit when they had one. The thought of having a garage sale made me want to puke. It sounded like a big hassle and way too much work. I’d rather just donate the things that had some value and pitch the rest. And with Aya being Japanese, the whole garage sale concept was completely foreign to her. “People sell their old junk? And there’s people who pay money for it!?” But last fall my parents held a garage sale and we included a few items of our’s after we cleaned the basement, and we made forty bucks! Feeling that cash in my hands felt great and I wanted more. If we made forty bucks just selling that small amount of junk, how much could we make if we cleaned out the garage, the basement, and the kitchen!? We decided then that we would hold our own garage sale in the spring.