I love this time of year.

This year in particular is bringing me joy as summer – which I never enjoy – was especially unpleasant. Overly hot, overly humid, less wind than is the norm for this area, etc. Calling it merely “uncomfortable” would be insanely generous. It was awful.

Then, almost overnight, the seasons changed. We went from having 38C days and 30C nights… To 24C days and 15C nights. We were able to turn the air conditioner off one day, and (other than a short stint as a dehumidifier during a few days of nonstop rain) it has been off since.
A few nights ago it was even cool enough in the evening to consider bringing the kotatsu out.

I love the autumn.

It arrived today.

I wasn`t expecting anything even close to what could be vaguely called “quality”. But… This is something entirely in it`s own category of awfulness. I had hoped for something along the lines of the first cell phone camera I had almost 10 years ago. This thing is a step below it.

Curse the “lo-fi toy camera” boom. All you weird people who want crappy digital cameras have made it impossible to find anything of just normal crappiness at a decent price. (6000yen for one small step above this?!? Just because it`s “retro styled” and looks kind of like a Holga? You have to be kidding me.)

Motoki is thrilled with it, crappiness and all, but will definitely be getting this for Christmas.

And then it started getting cooler… And the morning glory started dying. The bugs stopped coming. All the other little frogs had left – but two stuck around. Two tiny, thin, frogs.
I considered putting them out in the back yard, where lots of other frogs have taken up residence. But they were tiny and weak. When I watered the morning glory, they would creep out and sit in the tiny puddles… And do nothing else. I wondered if they would survive being released in the back yard. They`d been on our vines since they still had tiny tails.

So I went with the most obvious solution. I bought a large tank, made it into a little frog habitat, caught a bunch of tiny crickets and grasshoppers – and brought the frogs inside.

Yes, we`re still alive.

I doubt there is anyone out there who cares about this as much as we do, but more fun car info after the break!

Two weeks until the new car arrives. We have been preparing things bit by bit. The official floor mats are far far too expensive for being, well, pieces of carpet with plastic spikes on the back. In USD, around $300. We opted to have custom ones made to order – for around $80.
The same is true for the navigation system. The best official one is around $4000… *choke* And it`s only alright in features – nothing amazing or special. So we bought a third party navigation system for about $1700. In terms of features, it is about twice as nice as the dealer one. We`re having it installed at the dealer before we receive the car, so actual installation costs are the same as the dealer version. Yay.

Last June, we decided we wanted a new car. While we love and adore our car, it`s getting old (by Japanese standards). And, just about that time our air conditioning pump developed a problem. All repaired under warranty, but we figured that it was as good a time as ever. Our car`s shaken expires in March, so it seemed a good idea to buy a car before we would have to pay those fees again. On July 1st, we put in an order for the 2010 Prius.

I have never bought a car in the US – but I understand that the whole purchase process is quite a bit different there. (Please correct me if I`m wrong…) Apparently you go to a lot and look at the available cars, usually choosing one of the many on the lot or ask the dealer to have one delivered from another lot somewhere. If you`re unlucky, you may have to wait a bit until another shipment comes in and the model/color you want is available.
In Japan, when you order your car – they make the car for you. You choose your options, your color, etc – and they actually send an order to the factory. Dealers only have display models, nothing you can drive home. Normally this doesn`t take all that much time. When we ordered our current car, it was made and at the dealer to pick up in a week or two. However, when there are a lot of orders you have to wait your turn. You get your car pretty much as soon as it is made, but there is still a wait.
With the 2010 Prius, the number of orders was (and still is) much higher than the actual manufacturing speed. We placed our order on July 1st, and have finally received news that it will begin on the production line the 17th. The car will be delivered to the dealer the week of the 25th, and we will be able to pick it up on the 27th or 28th. We will have been waiting for 8 months.

The dreaded business trip was finalized and my husband left yesterday. It is only supposed to be for a month or two… But that`s exactly how last year`s 6 month trip started. I can`t say I have high hopes this time around either.  Back to being a pretend single mother…

Today was migraine day. I knew from last night before going to bed that it would be – I can just tell that I`m going waste the following day due to head pain. Excedrin sometimes helps, sometimes not. But it could be much worse – I`m still functional… Just in enough pain that I feel nauseous. (Although I can`t say that I`d actually want to do anything that requires me to test that.) The migraine just finished it`s course about 30 minutes ago.

One interesting thing I have noticed about my migraines is that once they are over, there is an extended period of near euphoria. I used to think this was just my body and mind rejoicing over the sheer lack of pain – but apparently it`s a common feature of migraines. So in return for suffering through around 24 hours of agony, my body gives me the closest thing I can imagine to being “high”. (I don`t have any drug usage experience to make a true comparison to. Which is a good thing, I think.) Right now I`m sort of enveloped in a floaty cloud of relief that it`s over, and incredibly tired from the whole thing. But it would be hard to call it an unpleasant sensation.

The kindergarten offers an optional after school athletics club/class. A teacher comes from a local sports gym and there is an hour long class once every week after kindergarten ends. So far, Motoki has expressed absolutely NO interest in joining it. He would dodge the suggestion or straight out say no… But this month a pamphlet came again and I brought the subject up. One of his best friends is in the club, so apparently things are different this time around – he really wanted to go. So we signed up for the free demo class and went today. I went too so I could watch.

Motoki was good through the class, did his best… And the teacher was good with all the kids. So I decided to sign him up and picked up all the forms – then noticed… It is way way too expensive for what it is. Seriously. I was half gawking at the price. A group class, once a week, should not be around $75/month.  Or at least it doesn`t seem like it should. But we`ll just have to cough that up somehow.

Yesterday was our anniversary. Thank you to all who wished us the best both here and elsewhere.
But once the day passed, life resumed as normal – and the business trip joy kicked in. The above photo was taken at 6 something, just after dropping my husband off for a trip to Tokyo for business. Today will be filled with lots of crossing fingers and hoping that they`ll let him make it home tonight and that he won`t be stuck there for days.

On of the big reasons I took so long to get back to blogging was just this – business trips. For most of last year my husband was gone. Off in Tokyo or Yokohama, working like crazy. It comes with the territory, and I am thankful he is in demand… But seriously, single-mother-life really is not fun at all. Even if it`s temporary and not “real”, it`s hard to keep everything together.
And now, the same time of year as things became busy last year has rolled around again and he is being called to Tokyo more and more.
やっぱり嫌な予感・・・

I have to smile a bit, as everyone was quite certain that it wouldn`t last at all. No one opposed our marriage, and family was supportive, but…
When we filed the papers, my husband was still in school – and on top of that, I am not Japanese. He insisted that if we were old enough to get married that we should no longer remain in debt to his parents for schooling and housing – so I worked full time paying the rent and his university fees.

Despite his parents being supportive, I think that they doubted us deep down. It took until I got pregnant for mother-in-law to want to announce that we`d gotten married, and she then pushed us into a huge way too elaborate and expensive wedding… (Father-in-law runs a company that employs a fair sized chunk of the town they live in so it was a big show for business benefit, really.)
And then, the baby that came along had medical issue after medical issue. Apparently that destroys marriages.

I sort of feel like we`re beating the odds by still being happy.

2010 has made me give a lot of things thought.
Inevitably – “Where I am” versus “Where I wanted to be” versus “Where I want to be”.

I`ll be 30 this year.
To be honest, it doesn`t really matter all that much to me – I don`t dwell on age. It does, however, mark that 10 years have passed since I decided to pursue life on this path. Ten years and two months ago I made the choice to give up the life I had and pursue the one I have now. I gave up family, friends, and a person I loved very much. I burnt my bridges as the only other road was one to a place I could not be. Then simply ran away.

In a world free of preconceptions about me based on family or the past, I was able to make the life I have. And I am happy now. I`m happy with who I am, happy with the life I lead, happy with where I am. But it isn`t where I wanted to be. And I`m not really sure if it`s quite where I want to be. Life has reached that point where it moves along on it`s own without much input from me.

And really, it`s only selfishness that makes me ponder these things. I know that… For some reason I am reminded of a supposed “curse” I read somewhere a long long time ago. “May your wishes come true”… As if they do there is little left.
I have a wonderful husband and son, own a nice home and car, have enough money to live comfortably. What more is there to want?

Stability is a strange thing.

If virtually no one is around, I suppose I`ll have to look into contacting people to let them know I`m still alive and have started blogging again.

Most recently, we have moved Motoki into his own room. That is material for another post of it`s own… But the move sparked a number of small household improvements outside of that corner of the house. I suppose making a room into a bedroom sort of puts you in the mood to do all those little improvement projects that build up over the years.

Today, we tackled the laundry room curtains.

We have a dedicated laundry room. This may seem to be quite normal and not at all special – unless you happen to live in Japan. Then I think you will see the joy and coolness. People don`t usually have laundry rooms. Maybe laundry corners, or a little closet looking space to hide the washing machine – but not a room by any stretch. The washer is usually next to or in the direct vicinity of the bathroom (as in bath, not toilet) sink.

Anyway, our laundry room has a large window. The room itself sort of protrudes from the building, so the window is actually the corner of the room. This has made it impossible for us to install curtains for the longest time. We`d planned to install blinds but the special curtain rod, it`s installation, and the fancy blinds were quite expensive (Quote of 80,000yen – think $800). When Motoki was born we were in the process of signing for this place, so cut all the corners to save money for whatever may have been waiting.  Laundry room blinds were very very low on the priority list. We thought countless times about putting in a curtain rail ourselves, but the window isn`t straight nor is it an equal corner. We would have had to order a rail.

While hunting for things needed in converting a room to Motoki`s room, we stumbled upon a flexible plastic curtain rail! And on top of that, it was a normal price! So we bought it, and today – finally, finally I was able to install proper curtains. Five years of poorly hung cafe curtains or none at all over.

Ah, weekend household projects.

If he stays as small as he is compared to his peers, we may just be able to get through the rest of the time until adulthood (or rather, until age starts showing) with people just thinking he is younger than he really is. At this point there are no abnormal behaviors – nothing other than being younger in development than reality.

We have another year and 2 months until elementary school…

So finally, finally, after a year of procrastination filled with lots of time consuming events… I have gotten around to freeing myself from the confines of a blog named after my son. Hopefully things will me much more fun this way.