rejoining society

This has been an amazingly productive week. With naught but an expired license, and dubious insurance to boot, each day I've had to pester some poor family member or friend (thanks, guys) to drive me to the DMV, mobile phone store, electronics store, post office, grocery store, or bank for random errands. Random errands essential for reestablishing me as a real card-carrying American, that is. (And let's not forget the occasional pizza-and-gelato run!) I've probably gotten more done than if it had just been me hauling my lazy ass into the driver's seat. And I finally feel like I've got all my little life details back in control, which is a really nice feeling.

And yet, I also feel like I'm now a guest in my own home. My sister and I are sequestered in the loft while some friends of my father live in our room. I think I'll be living out of my luggage from Japan far into the foreseeable future. With much less space and the same number of responsibilities and expectations, family-home-life can be kind of rocky (only occasionally). I worry, because after our last move, the two of us had our rooms combined. If we move again to Colorado, I'll probably be thrown in a spare suitcase and left there.

pretty lame mind powers

I saw the new Miyazaki movie - Ponyo on a Cliff / 崖の上のポニョ - yesterday. It was, as you might expect, extremely adorable and heartwarming! Sigh, awww, too cute.

Thankfully, we have Miyazaki Hayao back working on this one, despite his previous hints at retirement and the last Ghibli film put forth by his son (Tale of Ged / ゲッド戦記 - definitely lacking, IMHO).

Also thankfully, it was extremely easy to understand in Japanese. There's something giddy-exciting about seeing a Ghibli movie debut in its home country...even if that means being surrounded by 5 year olds and their parents and extended families who reserve whole rows of seats such that you and your friends threaten to be separated to far reaches of the theater.

Good movie, but definitely aimed at the under-10-or-rabid-Ghibli-fan set.

So, a strange thing happened to me this morning. I was having a rather adventurous dream about being held hostage and then setting a huge fire to thwart my captives. As the fire in my dreams was blazing, I was woken up in real life by the blaring alarm of my smoke detector. It was signaling fire, but groggy inspection revealed no smoke, flames, or even high heat around my apartment, much less the detector. It persisted even after I tried the disabling switch, and I ended up having to take the batteries out to stop the grating noise.

It seems fine now, but here's hoping I don't dream about The Big One tonight.

moving on up

My mom just sent me the best eco-alarmist e-mail about moving to higher altitudes - STAT. This is how it begins:

Wow, you are going to be back soon!

You know, I started to think about our future today. I am a bit scared about global warming. Perhaps California is going to be flooded in a few years time.

While environmental conscience isn't really a big part of my mom's day, sudden fad obsessions are definitely her cup of (vitamin-laced, new-agey, diet) tea. I worry about global warming and flooding too, but I can't foresee more than a few meters of flooding in the next couple decades. We're a good 25m above sea level, so it's not quite time for me to flip out yet.

She says, hilariously, that she's been looking at housing foreclosures in Colorado, specifically noting, "the city of Denver (5000 ft above sea level) and Colorado Springs (2500 ft above sea level)."

Sounds...cold and lonely?

Asians are incredibly prescient when it comes to real estate decisions, but when it comes down to it, I don't wanna live in Colorado. HOWEVER, I can't deny that all those snowy mountains are very, very enticing.

We really need to e-mail more often, if only so that I can submit her best material.

exotics

What with shiso (fancy mint!) and soba noodles (fancy pasta!) and konbu (let's freak out about umami!) being big gastronomical hits these days, I thought I'd post a few of my own Japanese market findings to the interwubs. These are two Japanese foods for which I cannot find any common English name, or any English presence on the web (it was hard enough finding the scientific names!).

Really, I don't even know why I'm posting this. Perhaps just for my own reference. I suppose I could always add to the list...or you can post your own quandaries in the comments.

コリンキー南瓜 (korinkii kabocha)
- Lies somewhere within Cucurbita Maxima (western pumpkins)
OR Cucurbita Moschata (Japanese kabocha pumpkins)
- Korinki's appeal is that it can be easily peeled, sliced, and subsequently eaten raw. This is pretty novel in the Japanese squash department. The skin peels like a butternut squash, no hard rind like a green kabocha. The taste is not incredibly striking, but squash-y and slightly sweet. The texture also sets it apart - where raw green kabocha is dry, a bit grainy, and quite firm (almost like a potato?), the korinki is much moister and has more give (like a cross between a potato and a canteloupe?). Disclaimer: I am not a food writer.



ソルダム　(sorudamu)
Prunus salicina Lindl. cv. Sordum
- This may be a fairly common type of plum in Japan, but it only seems to exist on the web in scientific articles and breeding experiments. This worries me because they're popping up in all my supermarkets and I want to try them. Hard to choose a good bunch because they don't really give off any aroma compared to the other kinda of plums. I guess they can range from deep yellow-green to red to purple, but the ones I've seen have all been greenish purple. The one defining characteristic seems to be a really significant wax bloom obscuring most of the vividness of color (that whitish haze that appears on the outside of plums and some other fruit). I'll update on the taste and texture later, maybe.

free rice and GRE training

So, this is totally old news but free rice is really addictive and also an OK means of studying for GRE vocabulary.

I just wanted to blog it now because palaver came up, and it's a word that's been seared into my brain by none other than The Dark Tower. I smiled a bit as I answered that one.

the beginning of the end

...and it couldn't have come any sooner. Not much blogging these days because I'm moving back to the states in LESS THAN THREE WEEKS (holla). Being swamped with errands and busywork has me thrumming with nervous energy - in a good way. Me being the freak that I am, I find that I totally get off on secretarial shit like preparing maps, information, pictures, etc. for my successors. God...I'd be perfect as the spinster event planner, blind to my own path in life and my own desire to love, waiting for someone else to plan my life, in the ubiquitous rom-com of the 90s. And so it goes.

That reminds me! Something interesting - I've been listening to Slaughterhouse Five as read by Ethan Hawke (yes that Ethan Hawke). Unfortunately, the dulcet tones of his voice are a bit too sultry...and it all ends up powerfully soporific. I really can't listen through a chapter without nodding off. This, however, has its own advantages! Thank you, Ethan Hawke - my personal Ambien substitute! (Vonnegut, please don't roll over in your grave like that...) It's funny how listening to audiobooks gives you this weird appreciation for the qualities of voice that really keep you engaged. Let me just say - A Scanner Darkly, as read by Paul Giamatti? Totally weird but totally engaging. The Game, read by some British dude with an abominable American accent? Complete boner-killer.

(You know, I think I would make a fantastic audiobook reader - I'm adding this to my list of possible careers.)

Okay, anyway, back to the moving. I'd be a little sadder about leaving, but right now any sentimentality is tempered by pretty intense job-loathing. Maybe it's just an angsty phase, but I can't tell if the timing is unfortunate or terribly convenient.

How is it possible that the days are both crawling and flying by? Why do I get the sense that I'm leaving Japan with very, very few things of worth? Why do life changes make you feel like you need to write profound things as acknowledgement? MAKE IT STOP.