In theory I can wheel the stand the oven is on over to the area of the kitchen with the outlet. In practice, it is proving easier to just pick up the oven and move it by itself, which means it's right down on the floor. Which sort of adds to the whole "easy bake oven" vibe it gives off. I'm sure eventually I'll come up with a better arrangement, but for now, watching me bake is probably fairly amusing.

I made chocolate chip cookies the other day and did not burn them. Yay! The first one I had nearly brought tears to my eyes...I'd forgotten how much better homemade cookies are than storebought ones. Then I promptly brought the rest to work, because while I love to bake, I really don't need to eat two dozen cookies by myself.

I've actually been cleaning/re-organizing my kitchen. It's kind of scary. Like I've been taken over by another lifeform or something. Hopefully this will pass soon, although not before tomorrow...Liz and Pauline are coming over and I should probably do something with my living room. Like take a shovel to it.

I feel like I've wandered into a Lilliputian's kitchen.



Please note the miniature bottle of vanilla essence and the tiny tin of baking powder. The jar of toothpicks is there as a reference.

narf

Note the awesomosity of that roll of bubble wrap. I covet it. If I had it, I wouldn't wrap stuff with it. I'd find a hallway, unroll it, and then roll down the hallway.



Perhaps not quite as cute as Liam, but close.

Three Cute Presents I Received

This is a bracelet made for me by a five year old. How can it not be cute?



Next up is a flower given to me by one of my three year olds. Again, cuteness!



And this last one is a tiny bottle of champagne given to me by one of Cat's roommates. I don't know if you can see the straw very well, but it's the straw that pushes this one over the edge into cute. I'm not sure if I should drink it, or just display it and giggle everytime I see it.



It was a lovely birthday weekend, complete with fresh baked muffins and breakfast pudding and much wine. Much fun was had, right up until the end when I had to say goodbye to Cat, who is moving back to Canada on Friday. I think I'm going to be in denial about that. LA LA LA LA, what's that? Someone's moving back to Canada? Certainly nobody I know. I have no idea what you're talking about, LA LA LA LA.

She, for reasons which certainly have nothing to do with moving back to Canada, has given me her old oven, and it will be delivered tomorrow morning. I'm so excited. After a six year hiatus, I'm gonna start baking again! I have spent the last day and a half running around buying baking apparatus...spatulas! Mixing bowls! Teeny tiny packages of baking soda and powder! Oddly, it appears that there are no muffin tins in Japan.

All this oven-related-frenzy has also motivated me to reorganize my kitchen, which really shouldn't be as much fun as it is. And yet, there you go.

Masami brought Liam to work this morning. Oh. My. Goodness. He just keeps getting cuter. And bigger. I sort of hoisted him about in the air for a bit ("Look! The amazing flying baby!" and then he'd laugh, and did I mention about the cute?), and I think I don't need to workout this week, because dang. That is one heavy child.

Huh. I've never gotten spam for my birthday before. How fun!

My mother informs me that she doesn't stay up until midnight for anything, even to give birth, and that I was born at 9pm. Oh well, I will continue to celebrate from midnight onwards, and as long as I'm in Japan, it's my birthday in two time zones, which means a longer period for consuming cake and demanding presents from people.

It's my birthday! So far, the first hour and 12 minutes of being 29 are much like being 28. (Please note that I have no idea what time I was actually born, so for my purposes, my birthday begins from midnight.) Hurrah for me!

Trees? Who needs 'em?

Here is a picture of my new iPod and the box it came in.

Well, I feel like an idiot. Albiet an idiot with working internet.

So Michiko called YahooBB today on my behalf. They suggested turning my modem off. And then back on, obviously. I hope this works. Although I will feel like a bit of an idiot if it does.

No iPod yet, although I did get an email assuring me it's been shipped. So I will sit at home tomorrow, willing it to arrive before I leave for work. I'll let you know how that works out.

Andrew told me yesterday that I will have to name it! Well, register it, anyway. However, simply calling it "Alisa's iPod" does a whole world of nothing for me, so I need to think up some names.

Poddy?

Poddu-chan?

Poddington Podsworth II?

Cap'n McPod?

Hee. And then I could refer to it as "the Cap'n". "Just let me grab the keys and the Cap'n and I'll be right there!"

Any ideas offered will be gratefully received.

Anybody who complains about people forgetting their birthday are obviously not doing enough advertising. I've been reminding my kids about it for the past month, and it's actually paying off. (Typical example...me: "So, when's your birthday?" *listen to all the answers, nod seriously* "Uh huh, that's great. Mine is....*dramatic gesture towards the calendar* SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH!") I have been very careful not to demand presents from the younger and more impressionable children. Instead, we just do the Eeeee! It's Almost My Birthday! happy dance, because really, is there anything cooler than birthdays and getting older? I didn't think so. With the elementary school kids, though, I demand presents. Large, extravagant presents. Like a car. Or a helicopter. Or Hawaii.

Although I'm not exactly sure where I'd keep Hawaii. In the laundry room?

And today one of my five year olds handed me an envelope with a very anime-style drawing of me, a misspelled (in Japanese, yet) note wishing me happy birthday, and a handmade bracelet that is just about the cutest thing ever.

Oh, and I called YahooBB to ask what the heck is up with my internet, but the English speaking people can't help me, so I have to wait until tomorrow to ask Michiko to call the Japanese people (who, apparently, are actually useful). In the meantime, I have my computer at work, where it actually, well, works. Masami looked into getting the fiber optic Hikari for me, and the price isn't that much more than what I'm paying now. So we'll see what happens with the Yahoo people first.

Still no iPod in the mail.

In honour of Talk Like A Pirate Day (h'yarrr, me maties), I give you this.

A pirate walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him for a minute and then says, "I gotta ask. What's with the steering wheel on your penis?"

And the pirate replies "Aarrrgh...drives me nuts."

I am beginning to suspect a collusion between the internet companies that offer ADSL and cable connection. The ADSL people swoop in and get people with the lure of relatively low costs and no construction fees. Everything goes swimmingly the first few months. Pages upload and show pictures. MSN works just fine. Then, one day, it all stops. You spend 10 minutes just trying to access your email. Any graphics show up simply as a small blue box with a question mark in it. And don't even get me started on the MSN. I miss my MSN. And so you fling up your hands and scream "I don't care what it costs, get me an internet connection that WORKS!" And then the cable companies do an eeeeeviiiilllll chuckle and rub their hands together. Mwahahahaha.

I'm pretty sure it didn't use to be this bad. It's only recently that things have slowed down. I thought it might be my computer, preparing to eat another hard drive, but no. I did the diagnostics check, and tried it out at school, and everything is fine. GAH!

In other news, I really like this shirt. The only problem with wearing Glarkware stuff is that people are then constantly asking you to explain what your shirt means.

Lately I've been thinking about getting a haircut, but I've just realized that I don't really want one. What I want is to go to the salon and have someone shampoo my head (mmm) and then massage it (mmm) and have Lincoln do that magic thing where he barely touches scissors to my head and it immediately looks exactly the same but better. However, now that I've found a place nearby that will do a trim for 980 yen (no shampoo, no massage, no nothing, although the looks of terror on the faces of the stylists when I walk in surely counts as entertainment), I'm not sure that I can really justify spending over 6000 on essentially the same thing. But I don't really want to get a proper haircut. I mean, I kind of do, as my hair is now so long that even ponytails do nothing to keep it out of my face (and on a related note, how do the female characters on tv and in the movies do what they do with their hair unbound? Sydney Bristow takes down eeeeeviiiiiiiilllllll cabals with her hair all everywhere. I can't even eat a salad without employing a ponytail holder.) and when I sit down, my hair inevetably gets caught between my back and the back of the chair. I even have to braid it to sleep, otherwise I wake up with a mouthful of hair.

But it's so pretty. And I've been growing it out for six years, it seems unnatural to stop now.

It's official. My internet connection sucks. It's not just that I can't download anything in under a week, or that I can play an entire game of computer solitaire while waiting for a page to open (although half the time I am met with the message "Safari cannot open this page as the connection was lost")...now it's affecting my MSN, too. Lately messenger will barely open...it takes five minutes to sign in, only to tell me that the connection failed, so I try again, and finally get connected, and start a conversation, only to be booted off in two minutes. So, having nothing better to do today (stupid cold prevents me from going to visit Masami, and stupid incoming typhoon prevents me from riding my bike out to the mall), I brought my computer to school and am trying it out with the cable connection here. No problems whatsoever signing in to MSN, so I'm guessing the problem lies with my connection. Bah humbug.

Oh, I made my decision about the iPods, and ordered the black one with all the memory the other night. The whole process took about 40 minutes, partly because my computer is really, really, REALLY slow, but also because the whole page was in Japanese. I'm pretty sure I filled everything in correctly. I guess I'll find out next week when I receive (or don't, as the case may be) my iPod! Wheee! And then I get to figure out how to use it with only a Japanese manual for guidance.

What's better than Vietnamese food twice in one week? Not having to pay either time!

Well, technically I had to pay on Tuesday, but I was conducting a lesson, and she paid me 2500 yen at the end of the evening, and that more than covered the meal. And then tonight Jon and Ai somewhat inexplicably (but yay!) decided to treat me to dinner. Perhaps it was because I spent two hours acting as a sort of pre-tour guide for their upcoming trip to Cambodia? ("Oooh, you have to go here, and this is a good restaurant, and ooooh, shopping!") They are, literally, going for a weekend. Leaving on the Friday and return on Sunday. I...wow. They jokingly suggested I should join them. Which is actually quite feasible, as it wouldn't be hard to get someone to cover for me for a Friday. But no. That would be silly.

Anyhow, they now have several guidebooks and the email address of a good guide and a Mission. Not the religious kind, but rather the kind where they stop by my favourite restaurant in Siem Reap and give a photo to one of the waiters there. Hee. My very own courier service.

It was so lovely today, and tonight is deliciously cool. I have taken to sleeping with blankets again. I do love snuggling under blankets. In fact, I should go snuggle under a blanket on the couch now. Mmm. Snuggling.

See, the green iPod is about 673% cuter than the black one. But the black one has so much more memory. Bigger is better, right? And black is all sleek and cool and classic, right? And I can always buy a cute case for it, right?

But, dang, the green is so cute. And if I could just make up my mind, I could order one online rightnow (hello, instant gratification!) and have it by next week. Or maybe even sooner. Do they ship within 24 hours? I think they might.

I think summer is over! Which does not mean that fall has begun...Japanese people are fond of telling each other that Japan has four seasons. This makes me laugh. They've got at least 6. Right now we are in the bit between summer and fall...the air is still warm and there is no fall crispness to it, but neither is there the overwhelming suffocation of summer.

I am feeling slightly guilty and lazy because I didn't go swimming today. I meant to, but I was all sleepy (stupid cold) and then, oops, it was too late. I think my guilt has not so much to do with "oh, crap, I failed to workout" as it has to do with "gah, I pay a LOT for my gym membership and I can only go three days a week and if I miss one, it's like throwing money away", and we all know how much I hate throwing money away. However, I have not been entirely unproductive. I have been to the post office and the grocery store, and I have compiled all my handy Cambodian books and maps into one easy grab pile so that I can give them to Jon and Ai tonight. They have decided to go to Cambodia next month....I'd like to take credit for that, but I'll have to wait and ask them what drove them to it.

Speaking of Cambodia, I should run out to the photo shop before work and see if my pictures are ready yet.

I have a new purpose in life. Laminating things.

It's not very noble, but it sure is fun. Whee!

Ok, now here's a dilemma. I want to get an iPod. Yes, I am finally joining the 21st century. I hear it's nice. So, the dilemma is, do I go for a 4gb player (holds up to 1000 songs, which is, let's face it, a lot of songs) and get one in a cute colour, or do I go for the 8gb player (up to 2000 songs) in basic black?

Hmmm.

It has been wet and cool for a little over 24 hours now, and I've already managed to catch a cold. Bah humbug. At least the weather is conducive to curling up on the couch in comfy pjs with a glass of tea.

I have so got to get a new type of internet connection. I brought my (non-flaming) computer to work today to facilitate filling in the online form for a battery replacement (it's hard to hold your computer upside down and try to figure out which one is the serial number while simultaneously typing), and I've been using the school's cable connection for the past few hours. Damn. Did you know it's not supposed to take your email five minutes just to load?

Masami has been telling me to get something called Hikari. I'm assuming she doesn't mean that I should actually purchase a shinkansen (where would I park it?), but rather the high-speed internet connection of the same name. I think it requires some sort of construction, but is definitely worth looking into.

And now, I must pack up my computer (which still doesn't have a name. Unless Piece o' Crap counts? Hmm. Komputah-chan? Compy? Alice?) and bring it home to my crappy ADSL.

It turns out that the battery in my computer is the kind that may, without warning, burst into flame. How dramatic. So now I have to write to Apple and request a replacement, although I'm having trouble figuring out which one of the many strings of numbers written on my computer is the serial number.

I think I lack moral fiber. I was reading The Red Shoes with my adult class this morning. At the end, my thoughts were not so much "Ah, vanity is a sin" as they were "Hmm, I could really use some red shoes."

Last year I saw a girl with red leather boots, and the only reason I didn't rip them from her legs was because there was no way they'd fit me.

Oops. I forgot to mention the bagpipers. Yes, in addition to the more usual drummers and acoustic-guitar players and people dancing about with ribbons, there were also bagpipers hanging about the park. I think I have some pictures, but I'm not sure how clear they'll be...let's find out!

I ended up taking the local train home yesterday. It wasn't all bad...I only had to change trains twice and it was quite a bit cheaper than the shinkansen, but it took five hours. I was really looking forward to unkinking today in yoga class, so, really, it's a shame I forgot all about it this morning.

Oops.

Had a wonderful weekend. On Sunday we went for a picnic in Yoyogi park in Harajuku and acted like tourists, by which I mean we took pictures of all the cosplay kids. (Excitingly, a google search of "cosplay" turns up a site called "Alisa's Cosplay". I swear I know nothing about this.)









These are mostly teenagers who dress up on the weekends and go hang out in Harajuku. They happily pose for pictures. It's kind of like going to the zoo, but less depressing.

And then, of course, there are the dancing Elvii! When we first got there, it was apparantly too hot, and so the Elvii were taking a break.



Happily, though, by the time we left, they were back at it.





I took a video, too, but it is mysteriously refusing to upload to the computer. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Thursday morning I made a special trip downtown. I wanted to buy a shinkansen ticket to Tokyo for Friday night after work, and I wanted to see if I could get one of the special, "economy plan" tickets that I am so fond of. The usual trip to Tokyo costs 8070 yen, but the economy tickets are only 6300, and you get a reserved seat AND a free drink, so it's worth it. The only caveat is that these tickets are completely non-transferable and non-refundable.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I wanted to catch the 726, but it was all full. I was given the choice of catching the 653 or the 753. Well, I didn't want to be mucking about in the station for over an hour, and poor Cat being sick and all tends to go to bed early, so I thought, "aha, I will catch the 653. That will not be a problem, because the bus I catch after work gets me downtown around 630."

Well.

Apparantly everyone in Hamamtsu who owns a car decided to go somewhere right around 615, because traffic was unbelievably bad. As someone who has never owned a car, I view traffic in a dim light at the best of times...stupid cars, clogging up my bus lane. But this? This was beyond bad. We spend 10 minutes idling at every single stoplight. Guess what time we got downtown? (Mom, I'm about to use an expletive. You might want to avert your eyes.)

Six. Fifty. Fucking. Three.

Remember the non-refundable, non-transferable part? Yeah, they weren't joking. In order to get to Tokyo, I had to pay out another 8070, and I now am the proud owner of a completely useless, yet unused shinkansen ticket.

Of course, when I say "proud", I mean "very, very pissed off".

I elected to come out anyway. After all, I just bought a new small suitcase suitable for weekend trips (my previous one having met with an unfortunate incident involving a cat.)

To make things worse, my seat neighbour was suffering from some sort of horrifingly debiltating sinus condition. Every time he took a breath (through his nose. Is he unfamiliar with the whole mouth-breathing option??) it sounded like he was moving, forgive me for the image, buckets of phglem. Rationally I understand that probably he was suffering more than I was, but realistically, he's just lucky I didn't reach over and remove his sinuses via his ears.

I seem to remember a time when the advent of September meant fall. Today, however, it is still 30 degrees and so humid that I have been forced to turn on the AC already. I'm not really looking forward to work...today I go to the kindergarten, where the only thing we have to combat the heat and humidity and small, grubby, sweaty hands of small children is a fan. It's not the most effective of systems.

I'm off to Tokyo tonight. Poor Cat is still mute (laryngitus) and off work, so I've decided to go visit and make her some dinner. (And also take advantage of the fact that she runs her AC 24/7, but shhhh. That doesn't sound quite so altruistic.)

Picture, if you will, the locker room at my gym. Specifically, the gleaming row of white countertops and mirrors where the women sit and prepare themselves to re-enter the outside world. It is filled with Japanese women of all ages, fresh from the shower, smelling cleanly of soap and shampoo. They are meticulously styling their hair and applying makeup with the kind of precision normally reserved for surgeons. Then there is me. I plop down in the nearest chair and run a comb through my roughly-towel-dried-but-still-dripping-and-saturated-with-chlorine hair. I then pull my hair into a pony tail and leave, bothering not at all with makeup or, indeed, moisturizer, my forehead and eyes still marked with the lines left by my swimcap and goggles.

And people wonder why I'm not constantly surrounded by hordes of young Japanese men.

Ok, that entire last post was A LIE! We didn't go on safari (2700 yen? No thanks), and there were no tents. There was merely the possibility of tents, and instead we ended up in cabins. No complaints here!

After setting up, we proceeded to start the BBQ. And then we ate. Satoro was in charge of the meat, which we had purchased from a Brazilian store. (When we walked in, there was a man there who was, and I'm not making this up, buying ALL the meat. He allowed us to have a few pounds, though.) You know how men, in general, take their barbecuing seriously? Brazilian men, it appears, are even more intense about the whole process. Fortunately, it turned out pretty damn good.



The campsite has a good view of Fuji-san, and the sunset was beautiful.







The man who owns the campsite also runs a dairy farm, a combination that really shouldn't work. Luckily, the smell of cow isn't overwhelming, and you end up with fresh milk and the best ice cream on the planet. (You can see the ice cream sign in the distance.)



Oh, how we ate. And ate and ate and ate. I think I ate my body weight in steak and ice cream. Oof.

The next day we packed up and then wandered aimlessly. We ended up in an honest-to-God tourist trap...a lava cave. Which, despite the name, was not filled with boiling lava, but was rather really, really cold. Hey, winter? Yeah, don't miss you. Then we went to a park and had a nap. I really didn't think I was ever going to be able to eat anything ever again, but I managed to force down some potato chips for lunch. (I needed SOMETHING to offset the wine, right?)



And then we drove all the way back to Shizuoka and I came home.

The end.

Tomorrow, I camp! Ok, first I go on safari, then I camp. In a tent. I'm hoping that this time, the person who is supposed to be supplying me with a sleeping bag will actually remember to bring the damn sleeping bag. Have you ever tried camping without a sleeping bag? It is rather cold and unpleasant.

HIIIIIIII-YAAAAAARRRGGHHHH!

Super Pirate-Ninja
You are 12% Pure Ninja, 68% Pure Pirate, and 74% Hybrid!
You are skilled in both Ninja and Pirate training, but you are slightly more of a pirate. You don't like to work alone, and your favorite weapons include pistols, swords, and cannons. You are pretty lazy, and have a lust for money. Weapons: Pistols, Swords, Cannons, Hooks, Ninja Stars (occasionaly). Special Moves: Dissapearing, getting drunk so you can't feel pain, or getting really drunk so you go berserk and slaughter things. Your fear factor: 85%/B