8:52 p.m. I am very disappointed. It was the last Japan Cup Dirt. It was also the last race for Espoir City who had won this very race in 2009.

I am very disappointed not because I lost another race, but because the jockey had held back Espoir City at a slow pace, perhaps too keen on somehow remaining in the top three at the wire. That is not like Espoir City at all. It was not appropriate as the last race for a race horse that had fought so well for 39 races, including 7 local grade one wins and 2 JRA grade one wins.

Instead, the jockey should have ridden the horse more agressively, even if its speed waned before the homestretch. That would have been a much more likely race for Espoir City, and we'd all been able to appreciate his last run.

The End

Caterpillar

3:51 p.m. Before I know it, it's December. It'll be Christmas in what, 3 weeks?

Despite the decorations and the Christmas songs emerging from shops and restaurants, it doesn't feel like Christmas at all.

Why do they do this anyway when we didn't even know what Christmas was until only thirty or forty years ago? In fact, I doubt most Japanese don't know what the spirit of Christmas is. However well we mimic western culture, it's still not even close to the Christmas I had in the States as a child. What do we want to do? Where are we going?

The End

Caterpillar

4:04 p.m. As we've entered December, the annual Buzzword of the Year has been aanounced. This year we seem to have had four winners, which is exceptional as we usually have only one or two at most.

And the winners were: "Je je je!" from Ama-chan, the morning drama series on NHK, "O-Mo-Te-Na-Shi" from Crystel Takigawa's Olympic bidding speech, "Bai-gaeshi" another line from probably the most watched drama, Hanzawa Naoki, and "Ima desho!" from a TV ad of a cram school.

I'm not much interested in this event, but I thought some of you might want to know how these words would be translated into English. So here's my attempt at a personal interpretation: "O-Mo-Te-Na-Shi" - respecatble hospitality, "Bai-gaeshi" - pay back double, "Ima desho!" - It's now or never!, "Je je je!" - there's no way to put this into English, as it is a mimetic phrase used to express surprise.

The End

Caterpillar

3:04 p.m. I've put a link to some photos for dog lovers the other day. Here's a tip for both dog and cat lovers, on which part of their body they liked to be touched. Cat Petting vs. Dog Petting: And the Winner Is... (2 pics)

I think it pretty much explains their difference.

The End

Caterpillar

2:05 p.m. Many of you might remember that there had been a volcanic eruption about 500 meters south-southeast off the coast of Nishi-no-shima, one of the islands among Ogasawara Islands, and that this eruption has unexpectedly given birth to a new island.

The news was reported on November 20th, though many researchers and experts were still not sure about calling it an island at the time, since there were some cases in the past when the seemingly new island had been washed away by waves and disappeared.

However, according to the recent news, this new island seems to be growing instead of shrinking. Amazing: World's youngest island continues to grow in Japan. So, when are we going to take votes for its name?

The End

Caterpillar

3:36 p.m. There's the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies this weekend. And I've been eyeing a filly from a couple of months ago, that might (or might not) perform well in this race. Her name is Hourai Akiko.

Today, I discovered that Hourai Akiko's owner was Akiko Wada. No wonder the horse's name is Akiko.

The End

Caterpillar

1:14 p.m. So Hourai Akiko is the singer, Akiko Wada's horse. But there's more. The jockey who is going to ride the horse in tomorrow's Hanhin Juvenile Fillies is Wada. I mean, his last name is Wada.

Wada's Hourai Akiko, Wada's Akiko, Wada Akiko. I wonder if she asked him to ride the horse, to deliberately lay out this situation.

The End

Caterpillar

5:04 p.m. I'd narrowed down the horses to six, and was going to buy a wheel from Harp Star. However, I cut out Forevermore and Red Reveur at the last minute to cut down cost. Red Reveur won the race, Harp Star came in second, and Forevermore, third.

More bad news followed, that Kizuna was going to scratch off from Arima Kinen. I had been looking forward to the year-end Grand Prix with a full cast, but after Epifaneia, Gentil Donna, and Kizuna gone, it will not come true.

Some time after the race, Yusaku Miyazato has won his first tour tournament in his 11 years of career as a professional golfer. It must have been a long road, and I feel very happy for him.

It's been a roller coaster day going up and down, up and down. But as they say, all goes well that ends well. I hope it ends with a good news.

The End

Caterpillar

3:41 p.m. Sunday went without so much of an incident.

But I cannot recover from the shock of Kizuna scratching off from Arima Kinen. That would surely make a huge dent in JRA's profit, I'm afraid. On the other hand, it might offer chances to the horses besides Orfevre and Gold Ship, who both seems to have problems of their own.

Still, that isn't enough to bring up my spirit.

The End

Caterpillar

2:53 p.m. Have been searching a while about cleaning suede shoes. My black suede boots have gone untouched for some time, and I thought I might as well clean them before I wear them.

Whoa. I didn't know you were supposed to use special brushes and cleaners. It says you should use foamed rubber to scrape out the dirt or scrub off marks in many articles. It seems I have to get a set of these cleaning items specialized for cleaning suede goods. Foamed rubber, wire brush, ink eraser, coating spray, but am afraid these might cost too much.

Let's drop by the home center on the way home, and first see if I can find any all-in-one cleaning kits. Then, if that turns out to be too costly, I see if I can find things to replace these items, but for cheaper prices.

The End

Caterpillar

1:56 p.m. There were no cleaning kit available, and each item costs 700 yen or more. I found some door stoppers and corner covers made of foamed rubber, though, for less than half the price of the formal cleaning sponge.

However, I discovered today, that foamed rubber have contradicting characteristics according its foam formation. That means, I might get myself into trouble if I chose the rubber sponge that originally doesn't have the cleaning effect.

Hmm... I'm torn between taking the risk for cheaper prices, and spending twice the money for things I might or might not use once a year. It's a tough decision.

The End

Caterpillar

3:50 p.m. Waiting for the barrier draw for Asahi-hai Futurity Stakes.

I decided that it'd be best to wait till the barrier draw, since there were more than thirty horses entered for the race as of Tuesday this week. At least, the contestants will be narrowed down to 16 by the barrier draw. So I figured it better to wait than waste my time on crossing them out.

The End

Caterpillar

2:40 p.m. Can't believe it took me nearly two and a half hours to get to work. I usually ride two trains and a subway to get here, but today, all of these railways have been delayed due to strong wind.

I've been forced to wait for thirty minutes on the platform of the first train, while they let expresses and special expresses pass, and then I had to wait twelve minutes for the next train. I was getting weary by the time I reached the subway platform, but there, I had to wait another thirteen minutes for the sub to come. That's a total of fifty-five minutes these railway companies had ripped off of me, and the never pay you back.

I was so infuriated that I almost forgot to write about the Geminids meteor shower. It's going to reach the peak from late tonight to early morning of the 15th, that's Sunday. The weather seems to be fine in Tokyo, so I hope you'll enjoy it.

The End

Caterpillar

3:08 p.m. I was thinking of crossing out the horses that haven't come in 1st or 2nd place in their last two races for the Asahi-hai Futurity Stakes, just like I did with the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies.

To my dismay, there was only one such horse in all 16 contestants. So I've narrowed my options down to 15. Great.

The End

Caterpillar

9:24 p.m. Had to attend a Buddhist memorial service for my late grandmother, so I couldn't spend enough time to call the Asahi-hai Futurity Stakes. Not that I'd win if I had abundant time.

I've seen a shooting star twice in the past three days, probably both part of the Geminids meteor shower, however, it seems that all my luck has been spent on that, leaving nothing for the race.

The End

Caterpillar

2:46 p.m. The members registered for Arima Kinen is casting a damper on the excitement I should feel for the annual, year-end Grand Prix race. It's almost a G2 race.

However, I've received an e-mail from my friend which cheered me up greatly. She hadn't replied for nearly a month, so I was getting worried that perhaps I might have said something wrong in the last e-mail I'd sent her. I do that sometimes, often without realizing. I even thought I could have some developmental problems, saying wrong things at the wrong time or occasion, or to the wrong person.

It turned out that she's moved into a new place, and wasn't able to get a proper environment to go online until recently. I'm relieved to know it wasn't me again. I can't tell you how happy I was to see her reply in my mail box!

The End

Caterpillar

3:54 p.m. Cow has gone out to his client's. He said he'll return in about an hour which actually means, he won't be back for an hour and a half or two.

So I'm enjoying the warm blast from the heater all by myself. Mmm... It would have been even better if I had a wireless bluetooth keyboard, because then I wouldn't have to turn away from the heater, or fumble with only my right hand to tap this in. But that might be asking too much.

Oh god, it feel so good I'm getting sleepy (- -)zzz

The End

Caterpillar

2:26 p.m. Although I was overwhelmed with joy by the e-mail that my friend has sent me, I haven't had time to compose and send back a reply.

Therefore, am using this time to complete this mission. Sorry folks, hopefully I'll be back with something nice to say tomorrow.

The End

Caterpillar

3:48 p.m. Oh, brother. Eishin Flash has scratched off feom Arima Kinen. What? Why? Wasn't it going to be his last race?

There seems to be something wrong in the way he walks. The year-end Grand Prix is getting more and more unexciting every day. What kind of rendering is this?

The End

Caterpillar

1:09 p.m. I was met with a surprise as I got home yesterday. JoOusama launched into a long story of her taking an overseas call from my friend in Germany. She went on rambling to the pot in the kitchen, while I was washing my hands in the bathroom so I didn't hear everything, but to cut the long story short, it seemed to be an urgent call.

As I was expecting my friend to come back for the vacation, I thought there might have been a change in plans and decided to call her back via Skype. I realized too late about the time difference, though. I stayed up till three in the morning to catch her at home, but in vain. I gave up as I had to get up early today, wondering what the urgent message was.

I was able to get through to her this morning, and it turned out that it wasn't such an emergency. It seems that she just got worried about the wheres and whens about our meeting, especially because we were planning to go to the Arima Kinen together, and she had to come straight from Narita. I'm sleep-deprived, but oh well, am relieved that she didn't have any terrible news after all.

The End

Caterpillar

2:52 p.m. Unbelievable. It's Arima Kinen tomorrow and I haven't done a thing.

Things just popped up one after another in the past two weeks that I hadn't been able to spare the time to even look at the barrier draw. I barely learned from sports news that Orfevre had drawn post nunmber 6.

That's why I don't like it when they hold Arima Kinen in the third week of December. They should have it in the last week, or at worst, the fourth week, so we all have enough time to contemplate to our hearts' content.

I just realized that it was another one of JRA's conspiracy to rob of us our money.

The End

Caterpillar

10:30 p.m. I was going to go to the off-track betting with my friend who was to arrive at Narita at 11 o' clock, but it seems her plane had been delayed.

She came directly from the airport but we didn't have much time left before the race. And although I had dutifully called the last grade one race of this season until early this morning, and decided to key Win Variation, somehow I have keyed Gold Ship instead in my haste. Oh, please.

The End

Caterpillar

11:21 a.m. Got a call from a friend asking if I'd like to join her for lunch, so went out to join her and her kids.

11:51 p.m. Got home before three, and have been designing New Year's card since then. Have finally finished, and sending it off by e-mail. Tomorrow I'll have to layout the letters, print them on post cards, write messages on them and drop them in the post box.

The End

Caterpillar

3:10 p.m. I've replaced the month of the date in a file with the year by mistake. Now all the date say 2013 / 2013 / DAY. No, no, nooooo.

Since it's Christmas, think I'll put a link to a video clip that demonstrates how to decorate a sponge cake, offered by the sponge cake manufacturer. How to Decorate a Sponge Cake

By the way, Cow is now busy decorating a sponge cake made by this manufactirer.

The End

Caterpillar

2:40 p.m. He must've been really frustrated. Mr. N-jima came and told us that he'd been to buy betting tickets yesterday and won the last races both in Nakayama and Hanshin.

It seems that he was still frustrated because the payout wasn't as high as he'd expected. It's good we'd finished the year-end cleaning in a zip. I was just finishing up wiping the windows clean, when he crept up from behind and gave me a start.

What a Christmas Day.

The End

Caterpillar

6:25 p.m. As I stepped on the edge of my heating carpet, I felt something cold and wet under my left foot. Something had been obviously spilt, something like Tsumire-jiru (miso soup with sardine dumplings) with flecks of red pepper.

It's JoOusama. She must have spilt what was left in her bowl, when she peered in to check my New Year greeting cards on her way downstairs to the kitchen with the remains of her lunch. I noticed at the time, that she was unconsideringly stepping on my heating carpet with her dirty slippers, although mine were neatly left by the door, but I didn't think such a tragedy was going on at that very moment.

How could someone, anyone spill miso soup on my heating carpet which I try so hard to keep clean? And the most annoying thing is that the person who's done such a terrible thing hasn't even noticed what she'd done, let alone apologize.

The End

Caterpillar

9:39 p.m. Some of you might remember the new island born near Nishi-no-shima, Ogasawara, due to volcanic eruption around November 20th. Some of you might also remember that I've written about it here, that the new island was growing larger. Well, the island has expanded rapidly, so rapidly in the past month or so that it's now united to Nishi-no-shima. Researchers say that the seafloor volcanic activity will go on for another year or two, so it is very likely for the now enlarged Nishi-no-shima to keep growing.

Hmmm..., wonder how large it will get? Who knows? The isalnd might actually become habitable some day.

The End

Caterpillar

10:10 p.m. I've checked out the barrier draw for tomorrow's Tokyo Dai Shouten, just in case it might interest me enough to buy some. To be honest, it was a let down as there were only 10 horses running, with 5 JRA horses. That almost automatically means, the chance for winning is 1 out of 5.

I've called the race just in case I might dig out some long shot in the process, but the unbelievably low pyaout odds have casted a damper. Might as well save my money until the New Year Kinpai.

The End

Caterpillar

1:08p.m. Am on my way to pick up Oji smoked salmon filet. It's been a family ritual since I was a child, to have Oji smoked salmon for New Year meals. Thus, I've be en given this errand by JoOusama.

1:56 p.m. Crazy. The floor of the department store where the Oji antenna shop is supposed to be is packed.

5:43 p.m. I got home around three, cooked myself a late lunch, then watched Tokyo Dai Shouten, after I put the curtains in laundry nets started the washing machine. The result was unexciting as can be. One horse has been scratched off today, and Romad Legend has panicked inside the barrier. And as everyone had expected, Hokko Tarumae came in first, followed by Wonder Acute in second, and Nihonpiro Awards in third. The unappetizing payout of trifecta was 560 yen, while trio was as low as win, a remarkable 160 yen. It's good I didn't buy any.

The End

Caterpillar

11:20 a.m. Resumed washing and fixing curtain. There were parts coming apart but that will have to wait. I've got a lot of work to do.

12:05 p.m. Cleaning windows. The annoying typhoons have left blotches of rain and dust.

2:40 p.m. Windows are sparkling. Going out on errand of JoOusama.

4:00 p.m. Start renewing torn screen windows. It's already getting dark. Wonder if I'll finish before it gets too dark.

7:40 p.m. Have finished renewing 2 screens. One small screen left for tomorrow. Am aching all over from crowching while putting new screens on the frames. Argh. My fingers are chapped. Why are they always chapped under my nails where it hurts most? I thought I was off work, but year-end cleaning never allows me to rest.

The End

Caterpillar

10:30 p.m. Am exausted and aching but finished what I'd planned for today; washed cushions, cleaned ventilating fan, finished renewing screen for the remaining screen window, cleaned 16 books and carried them all to BookOff. Think I've had enough cleaning for one day, no, one year.

There was one good thing, though. I've discovered that additive-free soap is very effective to remove smeared oil from ventilating fan. Perhaps some of you might like to try it next year-end, so I'll give you the how-tos. Dip a two-sided sponge in hot water, and rub soap on the rough side. Scrub the fan and the oil would come off. You might need to repeat this procedure depending on how thick the oil smear is. And the best part is, it gives far less damage to your skin than using chemical detergents!

11:49 p.m. 2013 is nearly gone, so let me just remind you that the Quadrantids meteor shower is having its peak fron around midnight of January 4th. It seems we're having the best condition we could hope for in a while. Hope you enjoy it!

The End

Caterpillar