This Week of Adventure

This week was full of adventure for us.

Monday was Christmas morning, in which we woke up before dawn and drove for 4 hours south and west to find Edo Wonderland in Tochigi prefecture. It's essentially a samurai amusement park, which was more fun than it probably sounds to anyone not that enthusiastic about Japanese history. I was thrilled that they offered a female sword-master dress up option, as I would much rather carry a sword than deal with everything that goes with trying to look like a small Japanese woman.
And wearing the male-style kimono (with fake hakama pants) was SOOOOOO comfortable. Instead of covering my entire waist and bulking it out to match the rest of my curves then trying to force a flatness upon a rounded shape, they wrapped my lower waist and left it at that, essentially giving me a back brace for the day. It wasn't bad.
Also, my daughter is the cutest ninja ever.
And other tourists took pictures of my husband, believing him to be part of the entertainment. He blends in that way. I mean, it makes sense for a Japanese guy to look kinda normal in a kimono. This doesn't explain why he also looks normal in a cowboy hat, nor why I always look like a tourist in my hometown or anywhere else. Meh.

We planned to spend half a day running around the old-style fake-town but wound up only getting back to the costume place 15 minutes before it closed, so it was a pretty full day. Then we drove to our hotel, which was nice and comfortable near a farm in the countryside. Then came the onsen, which I didn't have energy for but made happen anyway. They had a small sauna room, so Julia tried the sauna for the first time ever. She has a natural fear of the glowing hot stones. If only she were so naturally wary of drinking onsen water.

The next day, boxing day, we enjoyed the hotel's morning breakfast buffet, which I would call continental but I don't know if that applies on this continent. They offered a small assortment of Japanese and western food options, and it was pretty delicious. We bought cheese at their farm shop, even though we were warned that the cheese would be bad before we could ship it home "to Tokyo" the woman suggested, and when we corrected, a short conversation about sushi restaurants in Shiogama ensued, which was relatively surprising.

Then came the alpaca farm, which I demanded and enjoyed. I even stood up to Trump, who happened to be a fluffy and aggressive brown alpaca in the alpaca petting pen. Then came the monkey park, where menstruation, the resilient tail-end of a migraine, and crazy monkey noises combined to make me more stressed out than necessary. Julia enjoyed it though. She got to hold a bottle to feed a tiny monkey, as well as feeding veggies to rabbits and guinea pigs. We watched the monkey show and had a good time overall.

Next we tried to make a run for Lake View, a board-walk amusement park built alongside a municipal overflow pond. We were out of the car, walking between shops near the entrance ticket booth when we realized the paddle boats Tomo had so wanted to share with our daughter were land bound. We weren't looking at Lakeview after all. The lake had been drained during winter for whatever reason. This was Swamp View, and we were not paying to ride a carousel next to a mud pit.

Instead we ran off to the Teddy Bear Museum, which had a huge Ghibli section, with a neko-bus mock up so kids could climb aboard for a photo op and a practically life-sized Totoro as well. There were also vignettes from the movie done up with dolls, some of which moved at the press of a button. It was lovely. Then we headed home.

The next day, Julia and I took it easy and spent some time at home before running up to Sendai to enjoy the Pageant of Lights or whatever they call the fairy-lights adorning all the trees on Jozenji Street. This time, Julia could shate a baked sweet potato with me while we walked. It was lovely.

Yesterday came next, and we woke early for a run toward toe cat island with a friend from Sendai. We got there, and I learned what I had done wrong before. I know where the cats of cat island hide when construction takes over the port side. We ran around, fed and took pictures of many cats, and enjoyed the lot of it. It was exhausting but good. Julia was so tired by the time we got on the ferry that she fell asleep on me and would not walk off of the ferry, meaning I had to carry the 4 year old off of the boat, meaning I could not see my feet nor the position of the board connecting the boat to land.

So I tripped, and smashed my kid into the metal slats of the board, and bruised myself most terribly. Julia appears to be fine, but I'll have background fear of a subdural hematoma for the next few days. I now also have scabs in unfortunate places on my palms and fingers, limiting my manual ability for the time being. I cannot even uncork my wine, but we're making things work. We even went shopping today, not that I wanted to but that we needed to.

Today, we slept and talked to family in Michigan. If we can get through a week without another reminder that I am a terrible failure as a parent, I'll probably find a way to forgive myself for dropping her.
I mean logically, I can't fault myself for not seeing something I could not see, and not predicting the placement nor height of the thing I tripped over/onto. Still, none of it matters if Julia is hurt. If she died of a brain bruise I had a part in causing, even by accident, I do not know how I could survive that.

So now, to rapid GISHMAS and running about like mad, changing what we can of the world for the better if we can manage it.
In the meantime, relax. Count down to the end of 2017. Try to find a way to overthrow the godawful in power in 2018.
And sleep.

Things and Happenings

Things are looking up, overall.
I did get to 50,000 words in my NaNoWriMo manuscript, though around 5,000 of that is blog posts. Still, spending more than 40,000 words with Turing and Tesla was kind of awesome. There are some great scenes in there I think, though I am entirely unsure about my characterizations right now.
Also, I would like to further condemn my high school physics teacher for being slightly pervy and scaring me away from physics as a subject. Now I feel really stupid trying to write about two geniuses explaining the mechanics of time travel to each other when I barely have a grasp of a lot of the basics there, but I think it's okay. I did NOT do the stupid make-a-loop-with-paper-to-show-overlapping-timelines thing, which has just been overused in scifi. None of that crap at least.

Honestly, I am kind of proud of it, and I think it is the most editable of my manuscripts.
That also means that I need to get on that soon if I am going to and turn it around while I still care.

I might do it that way-- work backward from this year, doing each NaNo novel until I get back to Occupational Hazard and finally get it sorted. Next November, that unedited manuscript will be a decade old.

I made a self-promotion post in a facebook group and wanted to share it here, in case anyone is asking themselves what I am up to when I am not teaching.

Want a care package of weirdness from Japan on a monthly basis? I've got a Patreon for that, starting from just $10, shipping included: 
https://www.patreon.com/JapanBox

Want the chance to win a creature-of-the-month that I make myself? Check out my other Patreon! One patron a couple months back won a sock-cloth-geisha. I'm actually super proud of that one.
https://www.patreon.com/geekcraftsjapan

My mom has some cool Stranger-Things themed Christmas things, as a printable from her patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/user/posts?u=2832535
They are also available on some website, but I forgot the address. Message me or her for details.

Also, I blog about my life in Japan here:
https://www.city-cost.com/blogs/JTsuzuki
And my normal whine-of-the-month posts wind up here:
http://jessicatsuzuki.blogspot.jp/

Follow me wherever! And if things are sucking for you right now and you would like a holiday card from a random stranger abroad (me),PM me an address and I will make it happen.
The card offer stands for anyone who wants one, not just the random people I don't know in that Facebook group. Anyway, in other excitement, each of my patreons gained at least one patron last month, which is nice after I had lost a few and was starting to feel like I wasn't doing anything too productive.

This month's goals include getting all the holiday stuff for people outside of Japan done and sent before the 14th, taking out the fake tree on the 10th, taking a holiday trip with husband and child at some point when each of them have a 2 day vacay (which happens twice but we lack the funds for 2 trips, and honestly the energy), getting ready for Julia's 2 week holiday from school, writing around 14 blog posts on my other blog, and figuring out what to get my husband. Also figuring out one of a number of fairly complex card games that I am excited to play and finding a way onto one of Tohoku's Joyful Trains. Alas, my husband and I still have to go and get our anniversary present, which may well wait for the New Year's Sales.
What is it supposed to be, for your 6th wedding anniversary and your 9th year together? I don't care. We're buying a washing machine and going halfsies.

I might have married a man who went to boarding school in England, but his wife and budget are firmly middle class or below, so we're sticking with the basics this year.

But we are making it work.
And I am writing.
But for now I am watching old episodes of QI. Old for anyone in the UK. New to me as I only discovered the quiz show a few weeks ago. Sometimes, one needs the joy of randomness and comedy presented in a quiz-style series.

Also, FIGHT THE FCC! Net Neutrality must be a thing! I need to call my senators and everyone I am supposed to call, like the chairman of the FCC. Also, if you're out there and reading this and can find a way to do it, lodge complaints with your congress people over the ridiculous budget they concocted. Somehow in the year since the election, I have managed to stop fighting fascism and started instead to just get by. I also had a tough couple of months in there, so it is what it is. Now it's winter, and I am going to fight my hatred of everything due to cold by actively fighting the crap going down in Washington and sending out holiday cards and packages.

Whatever you are out there doing, do it well.
Adios Muchachos.
(my daughter thinks muchacho = "cho cho s" with chocho being the Japanese word for butterfly, with English pluralization rules.)