Party!
...written on 06.23.04, @ 1:02 a.m.
Ok, I'm still playing catch-up. I have internet in the new apartment now and I am uploading a few entries I've had stashed away.
Mon June 14, 2004
Yesterday I had my first party in my new apartment. Sorry there are no pictures because I was busy being the hostess with the mostest. Next time I will assign an official party photographer.
Anyway, eleven people were in my apartment (and Minderella was talking about apartments in NYC that could hold 40 people!)! Four people didn't show up and it was a good thing. My tatami room, where the main festivities were held, was filled to the max. Once you got seated on the floor, there wasn't much moving you could do.
Min took me shopping earlier in the day and I bought a mitsubishi-load of food (sounds more Japanese than a boatload, even though they were mostly American snacks).
I fretted briefly over possible party mishaps on the tatami. My tatami (straw mat floor) is new and green with a brown trim and just beautiful and I have to live with it for at least another year and a half, so I'd like it to stay as pristine as possible, but hey, it is a party after all, so I loosened up.
We had Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, chips, pies, cakes and drinks. About two weeks ago, I told everyone that it was an apartment-warming party, then, I told everyone but Damian, that it was a surprise birthday party for Damian.
You see, last year we missed Damian's birthday by two months. When we realized it, I threw a surprise party for him in October, two months later. Needless to say, he was surprised. This year, we decided to do it two months EARLY! Hee! And again, he was surprised!
Everyone loved the new apartment. It looked really nice. Min has done a lot with it over the five years that he lived here. That was one of the reasons I wanted to move, all of his warm, personal touches.
For example, a few years ago, Min built his own house next to his parents' house. Basically, just to see if he could do it. He used a lot of natural materials because he doesn't like concrete , metal and such.
So the first thing he changed here was the front door. Everyone else in the building has a metal door. This one is wood with a big pane of frosty swirls in glass. Then when you step into the genkan (the "taking off your shoes" place) you step on a wood plank floor that he put in over the concrete. He also put in some other wooden doors to hide the water heater. Even the slippers in the toilet were made of wood.
He built the studio outside as well. It is a small room with big windows. It would be the hallway, but Min enclosed it. I can open the kitchen window and look out the studio windows onto some of the buildings of downtown Ogaki. Not the most beautiful sight, but it gives the kitchen a bigger feeling.
Currently Min is living with me for a couple of months. He has helped me make many changes of my own around here. For example, he was using two separate rooms, one for a bedroom, the other as a living room. I took down the sliding fusuma doors that separated the two rooms and we stored them under the studio. So I have one big room that you can look into from the door way.
Every now and then we have butted heads over some things. For example, Min is ever the romantic and he had his kitchen set up as his main entertainment room. Before the move, we had many meals on a table in there under a low hanging lamp. He was very careful to create just the right ambience for that purpose.
Me on the other hand, I had a washing machine I had to put somewhere, and when it comes to weighing romance over having to run 5 miles to a coin laundry every week, by bicycle, bus or taxi, well, reality won out on that one. The washing machine is in the corner of the kitchen, and the refrigerator is next to that, so right now there isn't a place for two people to eat there. Alone, I eat on top of the refrigerator (it's a half-size one) and I can peer out onto the street and catch a good breeze by the window. Dinner for two is held in the tatami room on the kotatsu table.
Min however constantly grumbles that this is "mendokusai" or bothersome, and often he'll grimace at the refrigerator and washing machine and say lamentfully, "This is a reality room, neh?" Sometimes I just laugh it off, but other times I run after him wiggling my fingers and in my most monster like voice scream, "Plastic! Plastic! Plastic!" It always sends him shrieking for cover.
So it was a very nice party and it all cleaned up well. I'm getting into some good habits here. The kitchen layout isn't as spacious as the last apartment, so I find it more convenient to wash and immediately dry the dishes instead of leaving them in a dish drainer. Min and I have taken to doing this together. One of us will cook and then we'll both clean up.
We've had some excellent sunny weather in between the starting days of rainy season. The sun was streaming in my eyes at five this morning! In my other apartment I closed the curtains and blocked all that out til I woke up at 9:30 or so to start my day, but here I get up with the sun and get a lot of work done before I have to go in at 2pm. Makes for a long day sometimes, but I love to listen to the birds begin their chatter without a lot of car noise to interfere and the apartment always looks GREAT!
The phone guy was supposed to come today, but didn't. I plugged in my phone anyway and found a dial tone, but I don't know my new number and I don't have internet yet. Yahoo Japan is doing my internet and has a service promise of 8 days I think. Beats the six months it took them to hook me up three years ago!
I'm typing this up in the new place and will go upload it in the old place. Soon everything will be set up and ready in the new place and I will quit running back and forth. A new teacher is moving into my old apartment, so I have to get things ship shape soon.
Today after I waited the obligatory three hours (9-12) for the no-show phone guy, I took off on my bicycle to some home center shops. I bought nothing. Go ahead, take my temperature. Nothing!
I did stop by a bike shop however and had them replace a tire. Some how my light had scraped the tire through the rubber down to the threads and I plan on riding my bike a lot soon, so I took it in. Very expensive, $40, half the price of a new bike and this is the second tire I've bought for it, but I like my bike.
I went to the Denny's restaurant next door while I waited for the work to be done and I remembered what happened to me almost 20 years ago in Okayama, Japan when I took my bike to a gas service station to get my bike tire filled with air.
All three of the attendants in their crisp uniforms with white gloves came out and crowded around my bike. I gestured what I wanted done and they got the idea and put the air hose on the innertube thingee. All was going well until they began to overfill the tire and it swelled like a balloon and I frantically yelled "Stop! Stop! Stop!" (in English), but it was too late, "Ker---pow--ie!" went the bike tire.
I was astounded by their faces. Very little reaction of surprise or wrongdoing or anything, but I was doubled over in laughter. Learned my lesson too, which may have been their point, to take my bike to a bike repair shop whenever the tires needed air.
Okay, off to upload!