Take the Apple......bite the Apple......

A SIMPLE STORY ABOUT AN APPLE Hunter: Mommy...Noook, NOOK! MOOOOMMY! Appos, nots & NOTS of APPOS! Daddy (mumble mumble) APPOS!

Mommy: (delinquently trying to get some me time on the computer, at the end of the day) Really Hunter, cool!

Hunter: NOTS & NOTS!!!

Mommy: Yes, maybe we can have some later....(continued delinquency on the computer)

Hunter: (long suspicious pause of silence)

Mommy: BAAAAAN?

Hunter: (running over & talking with a stuffed mouthful) num num nummy...

Mommy: (Dashing over to the apples & observing) BAAAAANTANMommy: (grabbing camera & trying to look disapproving) Baaan, what do you have to say for yourself???

Hunter: (obviously not sorry in the slightest bit) Sooorryyyyyyy! (Snicker Snicker)

THE END!!

Playdough Dinner with LOVE!

Don'tcha just miss playdough? The smell the feel & the way it would linger under your fingernails for weeks esp if you came from a large family & didn't get your nails cut that often.

I was deeply impressed by the imagination of my not terribly artistic 5 year old man. This is no ordinary pile of play dough. This is a full course dinner he made for me choosing what he thought was my favorite foods. And he took time explaining each thing to me in GREAT detail. And I will in turn explain to you in great detail because apparently that's what mothers do at times. So that is what I shall do. READY?

(Snail looking thingie) Cinnamon Bread roll, (flat thingies, riddled with holes) sourdough flatbread, (pile of business) mashed potatoes with butter, (long skinny thingies) lady finger biscuits, (little marble thinga-ma-bobs) cucumber/tomato salad, (balls in crumpled up tissue) apple cinnamon raisin muffins.

Ain't that just the sweetest thing? If I coulda eaten it I woulda!

Exploding Carrot Surprise!

No, this is not a new recipe for you. To be honest if a recipe has the word "surprise" in it, you should do two things:

1) laugh sadly, with one hand pointing to the offensive recipe & the other covering your brow, as you shake your head sadly in, shame.

2) Make a special "note-to-self" to NEVER make it.

I vote that the word "surprise" be stricken forever from recipes. If there is one thing you do NOT need in your meal it's a "surprise"! Believe me!

I have digressed quickly.

So one evening I'm patting myself on the back feeling like a real pro whipping up this yummy whiskey glazed carrots recipe. I made it once following the recipe & this time I decided to just wing it. Of course everything was going great guns until I got to the whiskey part. The truth is I have a tendency to use " too much of a good thing" when it comes to alcohol in the cooking, if you know what I mean. And in my vigor to quickly whip up the final touches on this meal I liberally doused my butter/brown sugar mix with whiskey and gave the frying pan a massive shake. (anyone who has the tendancy to act like their frying pan is a Chinese wok will know what I mean)

I know what you're thinking, "I can tell you what's going to happen next". I'm betting somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it was going to happen too. But I was expecting a sort of cute little blue flame. You know the kind you get when you light the Absinthe soaked sugar cube on fire. "Awww, look it's a fire." But I ended up with something a bit bigger.

A burst of flame shot up all the way up into the exhaust & ignited the already greased soak exhaust cover. Thankfully it only consumed the cover & put itself out in a few seconds. I swear.......someone should have taken a picture of me at that very moment, it would have been classic.

You know how my hair looks when I wake up in the morning? Or when I'm standing there at a soccer game trying to look cool but my hair has an agenda of it's own (to make me looks like I was electrocuted) or when I'm trying to talk to you about something really dear to my heart & your trying to not notice the aura/fuzz of life bursting forth from my brow. Well, not my brow, but near my brow? Come one you know what I'm talking about? I'm sure there's a name for it and I'm sure it's not complementary. Well, anyway, for once my hair matched the scenario perfectly. For 2 seconds I was the cover girl for Kitchen Hazard Magazine, AGAIN!. My exhaust ended up looking like this.

It was actually quite interesting. BUT........instead of snickering about it like a pubescent pyro, I shall do the mature thing & tell you to BEWARE! Yes, beware of the use of whiskey or other alcohol in your cooking! AMEN?

As for the carrots themselves, they were unharmed and were quickly devoured by my 6 hungry munchers. And that's pretty much the end of the story.


PS. On a totally different note. I'd like to give a shout out for variations/suggestions & "pssssh....I could do better than that" comments on my recipes. There are two readers who often give me suggestions or other recipes to try. One is Aussie, the other is in Aussie. (could this be a pattern?) I LOVE THIS BEHAVIOR!! If you do it different, lemmie know please. I am a vacuum for cooking knowledge from which there is no escape. This is not a blog to celebrate culinary sucess (quite obviously) but to share what I've tried & how it went). So hope to see you round!


Thank you!!

Helping Hands!

So my 2 yr old January girl was crouched down in front of the tupperware cupboard with the rice cooker. My instinct was to get grouched out with her getting into things but I tried to muster my last smidgen of patience & ask her nicely:

"What are you doing, Miss?"
"I'm doing the left-overs".
"That's really nice of you"
"I'm finding a lid now"
"Good idea!"

she then gets a stool to reach the fridge door & put it away, & continues her "play by play" on her helpfulness.

"OK, I'm putting it in the fridge now, Mommy"
"Mmmm-hmmm!" (Notice I'm real big on communicating w/ my kids after a loooong day)

So after finishing up on the rest of the dishes I look in the fridge & find this on the bottom shelf nice & neat..... Yes, that's a total of 37 grains of rice in a tupperware.

I know this is one of silly posts that has absolutely no meaning but I just thought it was the funniest thing at the time.

Post 100!! A Noisy Story!

Hey there citizens!

I’ve tried to keep this blog a happy place, a nice & neat rational place with lots of happy-making food with only the occasional splat here & there. I try to be positive & impartial to all food groups, even mayonnaise. I don’t particularly care for blog ranting and don’t think I’d be good at it anyway.

The other day something rather unexpected happened to me & I felt immediately compelled to rant, rave, draw a huge cyber-crowd & grab my handy dandy megaphone & “flip out” good & proper! But of course….first I had to shower a certain individual who pooped an alarming colored poop (but we won’t talk about that) and somehow I lost the immediate incentive, so now that I’m all good & calm I figure I’ll just tell you all about it.

Pull up a chair, tune up the violins & cellos. Cuz’ you’re about to hear the tale of Lawyer boy.

So there’s this neighbor (yeah, you know where this is going)…actually there’s this family of neighbors. We like to refer to them as: the Father, Son & Holy something or the other. They are an elderly retired couple with their 30 something yr old son. We live roughly about 5 feet away from them.

After about a year of living here, one day they rang the door bell, DH was greeted with the whole group of them in a nice neat row. (excusing themselves for living….yada yada yaaa….this is Japan, remember?) and the point is…our kids are very loud. And they have been being bugged for one year and can’t stand it any longer, they must complain! Of course we reciprocate sorry-ness, “you should have come sooner. We’ll try harder, if there’s ever a problem please do come & let us know. Etc etc..” (bad move)

(A few days later DING DONG!!) All 3 come in a nice neat row: “Late last night (10:00) some large kid (a 1 year old girl) was doing jump-rope (walking around)…..Much too late, please try harder…” They go on to explain that their son (standing in the front, & looking as solemn as ever) is studying to be a lawyer & goes to bed at 9:00 so could we please be more quiet? Of course, we are again deeply sorry and say we will try to be quite from 9:00 on.

I must add here that it’s not the fact that they come over that is disturbing, it’s just the nature in which they do it. All three…always either the father or son heading up the attack standing nearest to our door with the other two in the rear for support, (always somewhat nervous & awkward in their delivery) each chiming in additions to the others commentary, till you’re not sure who to aim your responses toward. And at times reaching a rather confusing crescendo of all three talking at once in the hopes of making it VERY clear that our house echoes terribly & our children are the loudest children in the entire prefecture. Do you get the picture? They’ve even called the Landlord who lives in Canada over it…..oh, brother!

NOTE: Our house is (unlike most Japanese houses) mostly wooden flooring & somehow from the outside it seems very hollow & you can hear the low sounds pretty good. (running, chairs skidding etc..) We are at a disadvantage in that….we have children, & as anyone who has children knows they have the shock absorbers of an elephant. And one happy 4 year old boy can sound like the equivalent of 5 angry men charging down the stairs.

Each time this happens, DH & I search our souls & try with all our might to transform each child’s shlumpy footstep a princess tip-toe walk. We bar running, jumping, and being happy in general. We try to explain that there are some neighbors who should have chosen to live on an island off of Hokkaido but instead live next door. We even give the son a cute, happy sounding name. “Lawyer-boy” we call him. We even try to remind the kids at 8:30 (which is un-officially “silent-mode” time) that Lawyer boy is also getting into his possibly poka dot PJ’s, slipping into his Doraimon night slippers & brushing his teeth with his Anpan-man toothbrush. But for all our heart felt attempts, eventually time dims the seriousness of the situation & our children AGAIN….behave as children.

The other day it was the 3rd rainy day in a row & the 2nd day I was home alone w/ the kids trying to keep them from bunge jumping off the balcony in an explosion of energy. Ryan & Travis started a game of indoor basket ball with a little mini hoop & a couple of soft balls and Lani joined in. I was having too much fun watching them get happy, sweaty & crazy to stop them so I let them duke it out for about 20 min or so. After that all except Travis died of exhaustion and they all sat down to watch a documentary. And what do you know while I’m trying to put down Mr. Bunter. for a nappy nap….DING DONG! DING DONG! DING DONG! (and just in case I was trying to ignore them) DING DONG!!!

Lawyer boy in the lead (& his mother taking up the rear) has a pen & paper & has a rather strange look on his face which after much thought I have concluded was from an excessive amount of repressed anger. And here’s how it went

“Are you the wife?”
“Yes”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeeees”
“How many kids do you have”
“6”
“6? Really? That’s all?”
“That’s all” (isn’t that enough?)
“How old are they?”
“Why is that?”
“I just want to know”
“Well, they are from ages 10 to this guy” (I was holding the baby)
“Are you sure there aren’t a whole lot more LITTLE kids?”
(Attempting not to loose too much of my non-existent cool)”No, they’re really ten down to zero”
“Hmmm…..”
”Would you like to see their birth certificates?”
“No, that’s fine. But there were 8 kids here this month, I counted.”
“Yes, friends came to visit for 2 days”
“And you only have 6?”
“………………….(wondering where this is REALLY going)

I do feel a certain amount of empathy, after all he IS wanting to be a lawyer. He probably was really excited about this great opportunity to practice gathering evidence to prosecute the noisy children next door.

I tried to explain that they were playing rowdy for a little while cuz’ it was raining. I was told that NORMAL Japanese children know that rainy days are for sitting & reading & being quiet. (I wanted to bring out Travis…..) And further more if we were normal we’d have our children in school & they wouldn’t be in the house.

Well, I won’t bother with the rest of it but there was one main theme & that was that he was NOT happy. And he repeated again & again that if we didn’t get our kids to be quiet that “there would be trouble”. He said this as his “closing line” two times in a row while staring blankly at me and pausing a few seconds each time for effect (or perhaps it was some other lawyer tactic I’m unaware of). I’m not sure what he was expecting me to say cuz’ all I could muster was a sort of “teeth-gritting” “Wakarimashta!”. (I take it back, I DO know what he expected me to say but it involves something similar to a scene in a Samurai Movie) And Lawyer boy’s mommy even had to tug on his shirt to get him to back off & go home.

Of course that was disturbing for us to realize that we had upset them all so greatly so later dear brave husband who was a few levels calmer than I was went over (with his own notebook & pen) to talk to them & find out what he meant by “trouble”. Were we in danger having a couple of his lawyer buddies come and beat us with their notebooks? He begrudgingly admitted that he may have spoken too strongly as he was very “emotional”. (You think?) Knight in shining armor husband, was able to talk with the happy family & hopefully we’ll get on their better side. (by gluing all our kids to their chairs)

I’m better now & though I was thoroughly livid & insulted on so many levels. On the subject of large families, on the subject of choosing home schooling, etc etc… I do have to admit that we are rather unusual bunch of gaijins living next door. And if nothing else when we move from this place (sooner rather than later) we hope to live further from our neighbors. Since then I’ve seen Lawyer boy walking along with his back pack tightly strapped on his back & I admit I didn’t smile at him per se. But he couldn’t even bring himself to look at me & all my little hooligans in the eye. I almost wanted to stop the kids & line them up in front of him & say. “Dozo, goran kudai sai…..yappari rokunin imasu ne?”

Thus ends my tale of Lawyer boy and his happy house hold next door. And pray in earnest (as I do) that he will find a hobby/girlfriend/happy place & move out from his mommy & daddy’s house. Till then, we will think happy thoughts towards him & tread softly!

The Donuts of My Life & The Little Hole that Needed Two Staples!

Ashley says things just “keep happening” here these days. Thank God, most of them have been donuts & even the hole was a fairly small one.

Let’s start with the donuts of the week, shall we?:

Josh & I got to go take a peek at Uncle STEM’s new MV production down at the dock with some Fast & Furious cars. Here’s Hunter REALLY drolling over one! It was jolly fun to see friendly faces & shiny cars doing fun things. This donut was one of those really fat puffy donuts with artificial colored “happy” sprinkles.

The next donut was one for Travis, Ryan & Ashley. They got to model kimono’s & tux’s/gowns for “Shichi-go-san” day. There were some great pictures taken that I shall get ahold of soon. Till then Aich & Ambie can snicker at Dear Husband’s pics. Awww…but don’t they look cute! This donut I believe was one of those sort of twisty ones with a honey glaze.

There was a fancy dancy donut also where mommy spent all day preparing the donut & gathering ingredients for the donut whilst giving the kids school & mopping up Hunter-bunter’s drool trail. She put much love & effort into making a list of gourmet donuts for her dad to choose from so that he might have a nice Birthday dinner, and he did indeed choose the most difficult to make donut. The one that was stuffed with butter & chives, rolled, battered & deep fried. (I must clarify to you that I am talking about a metaphorical donut, in reality the meal I prepared for my dad was “Chicken Kiev”). In the end the only people who enjoyed the metaphorical donut was my Dad & the rest of the adults. The children do what they normally do to donuts, woof them down & ask for seconds, except they couldn’t ask for seconds because of my devious plan to heap their plates to overflowing & then give them extra soup & focaccia on top of it. Nya ha!!! (was that one sentence?)

But I’m forgetting the point. And that is that there was a hole. A rather small hole I admit but it did get us to be concerned & focus on the donut of our life. This hole took place when by the account of Travis, (who is both a bold & brave 4 year old) he decided to walk the cement wall in the middle of “Mark’s Discovery” Park with his eyes shut. He fell & it his temple & the back of his head, & though we got the bleeding to stop & initially it looked like with some pressure & keeping it wrapped up it might be OK, after about 1 hour (I imagine as the skin began to stretch & dry, we did indeed discover that he did have a small hole in his big head. After some prayer & thought (AKA. Squimish-to-holes-in-the-head husband taking a look) decided that we didn’t want to “keep our eye upon that hole” & promptly took him to the Doctor to get two staples in the head! Travster thankfully was happy about the whole affair. And even had to be repeatedly reminded of why he was going to the doctor because he just seemed a little too thrilled. From the lovely nurses washing his hair (don’t ask me why), to the nice English speaking doctors question of “Is it OK if it hurts?” he enjoyed his first major doctor’s visit. Daddy was with him & they prayed & as simple as that it was done.

Well, all’s well now. And we are milking it for all it’s worth. Our older ones have had a much needed sober moment. Our adventurous little man has something that we can remind him of if he’s feeling to adventuresome. And we parents through trying to forget all about that hole, have remembered all the many donuts the Lord has given us in our lives. And we are convicted that if we are faithful to praying over & for our 6 little donuts that we will not need to have any more holes.

The Last Birthday Cake of the Year

Here's Travis' 4th B'day cake. It was the 2nd Lightning McQueen cake I had to make. Although I abhor encouraging the whole obsession with one particular animation character I couldn't help it with this cake. I've only had to make 2 "decorated" cakes this "birthday season". So I was willing to take it on. The two girls opted for pies for their birthday. Lani, raspberry cheesecake & Ashley, Lemon Meringue. So that made my job a lot easier this year.

I'm really not one for originality when it comes to cakes. Take for example this one, c/o Fay (I'm assuming) look at it. It's a virtual movie set. Check out the car wreck, in the middle. Pure genius. Well, in any case.. Hat's off to all mommies who juggle Birthday hysteria & cake decorating too.
All I can do is the-color-by-number-type cake. Well, in any case, he liked it. Thank God I have black food coloring from the US.

Note to all concerned mothers: Don't ever let your little 3 year old hyperactive boys watch a movie that says "I AM SPEED" for it's opening line. You & everyone else you live with will regret it.

Flo, look what your comment made me do!

As I was making dinner today I was listening to Steve’s new album & rather than getting into the grove of it like I should have been, I found myself (motherly person that I am) previewing, (is that “pre-listening”) to it for Travis. Flojo-Mojo did just pose the question to me, “ Has Trav has heard Steve’s new album yet”. You see, birds of the same zodiac sign….fly in a……. shape resembling a pair of weight scales?? (Hmm…Bygones) OK, what I mean is, I have been giving that topic some thought all afternoon. Is Steve really good for my son? Well, as I type, my deluded son at this moment indeed banging on two pink containers & using two pink plastic ice-cream scoopers as drum sticks & he is carrying on a conversation with me that goes something like this:

Travis: (sings in a soft sweet voice with concerned eyebrows) “Do or dieeeeee, that’s our cryyyyyyyy aiiiiiiii” Mommy, who sings “Do or Die”? Is it Steve?
Mommy: (typing) No, Travster that’s Chesco
Trav: Oh, Chesco, the one that sings BOB?
Mommy: No, he produced BOB, but Abe sang it
Trav: Who’s Abe?
Mommy: You don’t know him he’s Iven’s brother
Trav: Does Iven sing a song?
Mommy: (clickty click, sigh) Maybe Trav
Trav: You know mommy, I did use to be a niddle tiny baby, so tiny I was dis tiny, dat I was not a big man. But now I am big because I wear sweaters nike Steve & play guitar nike Jesse, right?
Mom: (No answer)
Trav: Mommy, Steve’s drummer is Momo, right?
Mommy: SIGH!!! No, Trav, TOMO, not Momo, momo is a peach.
Trav: Mom, dats funny, Tomo is not a peach.
Trav: (Screaming) DO OR DIEEEEEE, THAT’S OUR CRYYYYYYYYYY. You set us FREEEEEEEEEEE. (glasses on top of stereo break)

I try to stay away from using the really low propaganda tactics like: “Steve can sing really well because he eats his ingen” or, “Steve goes to sleep at night so that he can have enough energy to scream”. But I do like the thought that unlike secular stars of the music world, my son gets to meet & hang out with his role models and will quickly see that Steve neither eats his ingen nor does he go to sleep at night, in fact, he probobly only screams because he doesn't go to bed at night.

To wrap this up here’s a wonderful “Etch & Sketch” masterpiece that I drew for Trav. It is obviously, none other than Steve. I personally think it would have made a lovely CD cover for Heavenly Music, Right? Note the attractive goatee & stratigically messy hair? Come on, do you know how hard, it is to draw on one of those things?
Poor Steve, I know he’d cringe if he saw this post. Well, that’s not my fault he’s the one who decided make music that 3 year old Travsters like.

Numbers of the day

- 10 mouths fed
- 9 year old girls with convincing arguments of why they shouldn’t have to…..
- 8 braids I fixed on my daughters braided head
- 7 is what time I almost started my Word time
- 6 6 & 6 is the song Travis has been singing all day
- 5 children were just put in bed.
- 4 hugs I’ve gotten today
- 3 loads of laundry, which I did with inspiration.
- 2 meals that I did with mediocrity, & not deciding till the last minute Libra style
- 1 letter of apology that I wrote today to a friend that was way way overdue
- 0 kids with broken bones

Thing I’ve done today that I hope I won’t have to do again tomorrow (WARNING: excriment story follows):

Today Travis stepped in what had to be the biggest pile of poo on this side of Chiba. No doubt by a champion Great Dane with a healthy digestive system and his consciousless master. Did you know that there is a 50,000Y max fine that you can receive for leaving your pet-poo around? At least here in Chiba! Maybe a better incentive like having the owner wear special shoes with poo smell imbedded would motivate. Apparently he stepped in it just because “I could not see if dat was poo, so I did step in it to check & it was really poo…..waaa…..I have poo on my shoes…Unco Mark!!” I took care of the unpleasentries & oh how I wished shoes were disposable along with his socks & pants (I kid you not) or that I could say his shoes were falling apart anyway, but NO they weren’t falling apart in fact they are fairly nice, or – er, were fairly nice. Yes, if you need your shoes covered in something, anything, ask my son. I guarantee a stellar performance. I hope to God he doesn't have this same attitude about other things in life, "But Mommy, I just wanted to see if dat was really a cliff & so I did fall down du cliff". Sigh!!

Close Encounter of the Childbearing Kind. (AKA: how close can you get to seeing a baby be born)

I’ve always lamented that I’ve never been to a birth…well, besides my own. Now I can keep lamenting. Yesterday, was the closest I’ve ever gotten. My brand new nephew was born yesterday (Nov 17th, 10:37am, 3.7kg) I dove out of the van & walked into the midwife’s house, knocked on the birthing room door & what do I see but my sister looking all smiley & particularly un rumpled or phased other than a euphoric smile, sitting there with a brand new squishy baby. I came in literally 1 minute after he was born. Shucks! I missed it! But I sure am thrilled it was that quick. Here’s a description of their labor. I called on the way there & talk to Mark.

Me: Mark, how’s it going? We’ll be there in 15.
Mark: (Sounding like he’d gotten less sleep than normal) She’s OK, she’s doing good.
Me: Is she in transition yet?
Mark: I dunno, just a sec. Honey, are you in transition yet? (Pause) She said she needs to push, yeah, I think she’s in transition.

What a swell guy! Well, I’m an auntie twice over. And pictures will be forthcoming. As is traditional the pictures directly following the birth should be taken from odd angles & of useless objects like the zabuton, an elbow of the baby, or the midwifes left foot, something about the excitement of the moment seem to produce the worst pictures imaginable, or none at all.
As for me, I was just thrilled to be at my favorite midwife NOT having a baby for once. All the kids are excited & all the parents are drinking extra coffee of tea or what have you. Thank you everyone for your prayers, they worked wonders. And thank you so much Nina for coming over in our hour of need, which sadly was 3 in the morning. Travis asked me this morning if "Nina, my friend" was going to be with him today. Thanks Dad for driving us all around. It did give me the good old cozy feeling of having you there for us when we need you. Thanks Grandma Merry, for coming over. The kids are really thrilled to have you here. Pictures of Mr. Mark Jr. coming soon.

A sweet note!

Ashley lead me to my room after dinner & I found this note on the wall along with a spotless room that had been vacuumed & the laundry folded. (Thanks Mark, for helping them)

I don't think my kids will ever understand how much little things like that mean to me till they're parents. Sweetnesses!

In case you didn't get it, this note was written after an obiviously trying school day for all parties involved.