Forgetting, seems to be a problem for me. Some people have told me that my mind must be overloaded with so many things to remember, and some say whatever that I've forgotten was not so important a matter to be remembered. But still, I'd like to keep me aware of the things I decided to do myself. As a matter of fact, I've read in the papers a couple of days ago, that there was going to be a partial lunar eclipse from the night of December 31st to the dawn of New Year's Day, and I've reminded myself over and over to bring home my digital camera from my office, only to find myself standing feeling miserable in the cold under a beautifully eclipsed moon.

So this year, I've decided, to set a single modest goal.
Stop careless forgetting!

The End

Caterpillar

Although I've set myself a new target for this year, "Stop careless forgetting!" I've just come to realize that I actually don't have any specific ideas on how to achieve it... I'd most certainly appreciate it very much, if the smart viewers of this site would kindly drop me a line on the message board suggesting any ideas.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll have to stick to the old-fashioned style; jot things down on paper (though the paper usually get lost somehow), making use of Post-Its as reminders (though I usually forget to remind myself to check them), making lists of things-to-do sorting out my priorities (though I usually get fed up by the time I finish making the list and decide or better yet, to forget them all).

The End

Caterpillar

I went to Tomioka Hachimangu at Monzen-naka-cho for Hatsumoude (New Year's visit to the shrines). I had been there before and if my memory was correct, I was asked to pay 5,000 yen for a Yaku-yoke Fuda (talismans to wade off evil spirits) which in other shrines and temples such as Kawasaki Daishi or Kameido Tenjin, costed only 3,000 yen. I remeber giving up the idea of getting myself the talisman that year, not being able to afford that much.

As I was waiting in line to buy Omikuji (fortune lot), all these memories came rushing back having been told the price of the Omikuji was 200 yen, twice as much as the average. What a commercial shrine! I thought this shrine was famous for bringing luck for prosperous business. I didn't know they practice it by sucking up money from a harmless low-wage earner like me. Needless to say, I stepped out of the line refusing to pay 200 yen. I'd rather bet it on the Kinpai (first grade race held at the beginning of each year).

The End

Caterpillar

The Quadrantids meteor shower was said to be at its peak somewhere between January 3rd to 5th, though I wasn't sure about the exact date and time. A short while ago, I cursed myself to find out that it was early in the morning of 4th, resulting in a fact that I had missed my first chance to see this year's first meteor shower.

Things have seemed to turn out bad since the end of last year, and apparently it looks like it's still staying. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next chance, the Perseids, coming up in August. And while I wait, I shall remind myself from time to time, that my target for this year was to "stop careless forgetting."

The End

Caterpillar

I turned on the TV to watch this year's first grade race, the Nakayama Kinpai and the Kyoto Kinpai. It was about time Cow had called me on Skype as he usually did, but somehow he wasn't logged in. Today, of all days... I was ready to tell him the horses to bet on, but in vain. Eventually, I've lost the Nakayama Kinpai and was looking forward to the Kyoto Kinpai, when the TV started to replay the Arimakinen. Aren't they going to broadcast Kyoto? The program finished, wrapping up with the winning jockey's interview...Hey! I should've known it was TV Tokyo, channel 12 and not Fuji Television, channel 8.

I rushed to click open a window on my computer, to view the JRA website. Unfortunately, the results of Kyoto Kinpai was not yet modified. I had a bad feeling that I might win the race, especially when I had failed to put my bet on it. About ten minutes later, I crumbled to find that I had called a trio of the Kyoto Kinpai that payed off 31,060 yen! Oh, God...

The End

Caterpillar

That's how life is... Let's be happy that at least my call was right on the spot. But my bad luck seems endless...

As I was checking my schedule at the end of the day, I found a meeting set up for next Monday, which is a public holiday. Apparently, Cow seems to have made the appointment, forgetting that it was actually a day-off... It's true, that I didn't cross the day out on the calendar to indicate that it was a holiday, and I admit that I had forgotten, too. But don't you ever check, Cow? Hello! Are you awake? Now I have to call up the client to rearrange the schedule though I know, damn well, that she barely has time to spare.

The End

Caterpillar

I dropped by a post office on my way to work. I wrote a Nengajou (New Year greeting card) to my friend living in Switzerland however, I needed an additional posting fee to send it via air mail. I stepped up to the counter and asked how much it was, but the woman in charge frowned looking at the addresses I had hand-written on the card and said, "This card would probably be sent back. You've written the address on the wrong spot. It should've been reversed with your address."

What?! I've been sending air mails hand-addressed just like this since you were wearing diapers, lady. And I'm sure they either reached the addressed person or got lost on the way, except a few that was returned due to "address unknown" as far as I can remember. As I told her my air mails have had no troubles so far, she accepted the card reluctantly, almost as if to say "if you say so." What's the problem with you!

The End

Caterpillar

Pretty annoyed with the attitude of the post office clerk, I checked out how to address a Nengajou (New Year greeting card) via air mail. It said that the sender's address should be written on the top left corner, using the postcard's longer sides as top and bottom like envelopes, while the receiver's address should be written in the middle with an additional title of Mr., Ms. or Miss. Oh, yes. This was the world-wide standard to address a card or an envelope, though it had been burried deep down in my memory. I'm afraid I had become too familiar with addressing Japanese style.

My Nengajou was printed using the card lengthwise, which convinced me that it would be natural to write my address on the bottom of the other side of the card, with the receiver's address, right in the middle. So I DID get the positions all wrong... But I'm sure I've put a title to the receiver's name. That should indicate the name as a receiver's. So I must have no trouble, no trouble at all.. I hope...

The End

Caterpillar

I've always thought that Japanese, especially girls, generally seem to be fond of horoscope, fortune-telling or behavior analysis, based on either blood types or psychology. Some time ago, they were doing a simple psychological test on the radio. You're in a situation with your own baby just gone off like a fire alarm. There are four choices of your next actions;

A.Get the door which someone has been ringing the bell like crazy.
B.Get the phone which has also been ringing like crazy.
C.Run to the bathroom to be released from your urge to pee (Oops, sorry.)
D.Attend to the baby to comfort him/her.
Depending on your choice, this test is supposed to reveal what you value most in your life... Uh-oh. It seems that Cow has just got his online game ID stolen...!

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Caterpillar

Your choices reveal that you value the following things most in your life;
A.>>>Your boyfriend / girlfriend
B.>>>Your friends
C.>>>Yourself
D.>>>Your family

My choice was D, so that's supposed to reveal that I value my family more than anything in my life... Well, I am not valuing my present family more than anything, as a matter of fact, it's rather the opposite. So, I decided that it must mean I would value my family most, if I ever will have a new and a better family, say, like by getting married or having children of my own.

The End

Caterpillar

Dear sister Hime, seems to have went to Nagano for a trip with her husband and her kids last year, and brought the old folks two packets of cheese, though no one here eats cheese except me. Not to mention, I eneded up eating them as to save the food from being wasted. One of the packets contained blue cheese which I didn't like much, leave out Cambozola and Gorgonzola. I couldn't come up with a better idea, so I used half of the chunk that must've been nearly 3 ounces to cook myself a spaghetti cheese-cream sauce, yesterday.

By the time I put the clump of spaghetti on a plate, I was having a terrible thought that there was too little moisture, meaning I've put in too much cheese. Apparently, I was right and it tasted only of... blue mold. It's good I got tomatoes today (phew). And I'm very very glad that I didn't throw away my backpack on the way home Saturday, giving up on its weight, carrying books, 6 mini bottles of lactobacillus drink, and two tomatoes.

The End

Caterpillar

Related to the date January 10th (110), the TV news has announced yesterday, that there were numerous nonemergency calls for the 110 police emergency number during 2009. According to the mews, there were calls such as;
"I can't hail a taxi. Can you send me a police car instead?"
"Can you tell me the number for XXX, because the directory assintance would charge me?quot;
"Can you get me some compresses because my leg hurts?"

Within the Tokyo area, there were also calls such as;
"There's a roach in the house. Please come and get rid of it!"
"Please help! My six-year-old child is acting up!"
"Can you come and open my storm sash?" etc., etc....
It seems to me that these are none other than prank calls.

The End

Caterpillar

As I was reading "Angels and Demons" during my New Year vacation, JoOusama brought me a copy of "The Historian" and said, "This one's more enjoyable." Oh, really? So I started reading it from last week, though after reading 50 or so pages, I'm already getting bored. Nothing much has happened in the past 50 pages...

Then, JoOusama tells me to hang on for the first hundred pages. What do you mean, hang on for the first hundred pages? To me, it only sounds like I've got a distastefully long way to go, which is making my heart sink. The book consists of voluminous eight hundred and sixteen pages, according to the numbers printed on the top of every page. I wonder why they didn't cut out the first hundred and, make it seven hundred and sixteen.

The End

Caterpillar

I'm on page 131. Still can not find a glint of excitement, although three of the characters appearing in this book have already been either murdered or vanished, related to Dracula in some way.

I've got more than 600 pages to go before I finish this book, which is starting to look like a daunting task. I've got "Bridget Jones' Diary" (not the "Edge Of Reason," I've already finished that) waiting ahead, but I just can't seem to move on to the next without finishing what I'm doing now. By the way, the iTunes ad has turned into a horrifying graphic design with two parallel rainbows beamed out from a girl's eyes...

The End

Caterpillar

I've been busy all day today. I haven't had time to actually think of what to write here, I haven't finished my preparations for tomorrow which was supposed to be done by this time. And I got another session in... who knows how many minutes??

Oh no, my client's here already! It's thirty minutes earlier than planned! GAAAAAAAHHHH!(Not to mention, influenced by "Bridget Jones")

The End

Caterpillar

It's coming. The story of "The Historian" finally seems to be unfolding, though gradually, still... I'm on page two hundred and thirty-two. So supprisingly, I've struggled for an additional one hundred and thirty-two more pages up to now, after I've passed the page one hundred which JoOusama had told me earlier as a rough guide to where the dull part ends, which is excellent.

Now that I've come to enjoy the story, I'm getting too absorbed in reading it that ironic enough, I'm having a hard time taking my eyes off the book to do something else.

The End

Caterpillar

The remaining half chunk of blue cheese still seemed to be in the fridge this morning, zipped up in a Zip-Loc, just as I had left it. Yes, yes, no one else in this house ate cheese but me. The other pack of cheese however, was not blue cheese, it was Gouda, Mmmm.. one of my favorite. I've been enjoying it little by little, melting the small chunks on my morning toast, letting out a sigh of content in the savory aroma coming up from the toaster. How nice to have such a wonderful moment especially at the beginning of a day, even if it lasted only for a few minutes! I can't tell you how much it has cheered me up on a gloomy morning.

This morning, I had to wake up earlier than a usual Sunday to finish up some leftover work, and I had saved the last little piece of Gouda for breakfast. I opened the fridge in anticipation. Where was it? I'm sure I had put the pack in the fridge door pocket, but I couldn't find it. It was gone! I thought no one else in this house ate cheese but me....

The End

Caterpillar

I nibbled on a toast with a tiny piece of blue cheese and a slice of bacon to accompany it, rather reluctantly this morning. The bacon had to be there, you see, to help me swallow that toast without letting only the mold taste spread in my mouth. The blue cheese, had to be consumed somehow for it would expire on January 29th, though there's still a chunk of more than two and a half ounces left in our fridge, and I don't like to waste food.

Well, maybe I'll come to like it by the time I finish it. After all, you never know what's going to happen in the future. I never thought that I would be reading a book with more than 200 pages when I was a child.

The End

Caterpillar

I am exhausted... Fortunately, I've survived a four-hour meeting, but I'm so worn out I can't think of anything to say. Four consecutive hours.... Why do they like meetings so much? What are we doing sitting around frivoling around for four hours doing nothing much but talking?? I thought we had a good reason to be here, now.

And how could these people (clients) come in without doing any preparations that was supposed to be done by today's meeting? Isn't it plain common sense to have things ready by agreed date in order to get on with business smoothly? Why haven't they done it then? I can not help them in any way otherwise. Hasn't it ever occured to them that we cannot go another inch if not for their cooperation? God, this Senbei (rice cracker) tastes so gooooood! Cow's dad has just thre them in for a snack. Great job, old man. I'm grateful.

The End

Caterpillar

As I was exhausted yesterday, I decided to buy a ready-made tomato sauce to use it on my Obento for today, instead of making it myself. It's become impressively convenient these days, and you can get a boil-in-bag for just 100 yen which I gratefully took off the shelf and brought it to the checker. But when I drew out the pack from the fridge to prepare today's lunch past midnight, I realized it said "Meat Sauce," not tomato... I was going to pour it over a bunch of leftover Gyouza (Chinese dumplings) to make a hasty ravioli. I wasn't quite intending to make it "meat dumplings a la meat sauce."

Though in fact, it didn't matter since the 100 yen boil-in-bag meat sauce did not contain much meat after all.

The End

Caterpillar

Got up late. Apparently, I fell asleep on the eletric heating carpet again, woke up once around 5:00 A.M. only to find out that I have. Turned the carpet off and went back to sleep until I realized I was getting late for work. As I reached the office, I was informed by Cow that my first meeting has been cancelled.

Maybe today's my lucky day, leaving out the fact that I had to eat Tsumire (sardine fish balls) for lunch, after having found out JoOusama had made Tsumire-jiru (sardine fish ball miso soup) for supper yesterday, when I had already bought Tsumire for my lunch today assuming that I won't have to eat them for at least another week or so, since we've had it just a couple of days ago...

The End

Caterpillar

Took Obaba for her first visit to the clinic this year. She had a simple medical check, had her blood pressure measured and her heartbeat checked as usual. The doctor said there was nothing wrong with her as usual, so she's healthy as can be. I bet she's even healthier than me. I've been suffering migraine headaches, gastric pain from time to time, while my knee joints and my back hurt almost every day.

The doctor has assured us that she might even live up to one hundred, when she's still eighty-nine... No kidding, doc. Don't even say it as a joke. The old lady was happy enough as we dropped by the usual supermarket to buy her a small pack of Sushi as usual, saying that she can't pay for either the Sushi or her medical bills, until my aunt who takes care of her money comes to pay her monthly visit, because she's run out of money for this month. Great.

The End

Caterpillar

There was a slight change in my schedule and I had a whole morning of free time. I appreciated it and started preparing for my next meeting, collecting carefully, what I thought would be important and useful information to refer to, arranging them neatly in the form of some documents. As a matter of fact, I did have some papers ready before them but I thought some new information, could kind of, blow in a fresh breeze into the meeting, which often tends to be a terribly dull, pointless, never-ending meanderings.

However, although I worked so hard on those new documents, I've somehow suddenly changed my mind at the last tick of the clock, that I shouldn't go so far off the subject. So now, I feel like I've wasted my precious time of all this morning. I feel so guilty and also utterly confused not knowing what to do, though Cow who is a smooth operator himself, don't seem to either understand or is willing to understand my grief...

The End

Caterpillar

Sundays are the only days of the week when I can give myself a small reward of spaghetti with tomato sauce. I'm a tomatian and also a spaghettian, and I get all cranky through the week without them. So Saturday is the day when I buy a tomato for my personal feast day to come, though I'm trying my best to spend the least for a tomato, checking out the prices in several different supermarkets before I actually buy one.

Yesterday, large-sized tomatoes were priced 98 yen each at the supermarket where I buy Kare-pan on Saturday mornings. It couldn't have been a mistake, since I double-checked the price when I bought Kare-pan, and decided the supermarket-for-the-day at that very moment I saw it. But as I came back later to buy my tomato, the price tag displayed an impossible figure of 158 yen. What the... How could they raise the price more than sixty percent within just 9 hours and 28 minutes? I can't believe this.

The End

Caterpillar

I had another four-session-meeting day. I didn't even have time to go to the bathroom. (And I'm not earning much money.) What is this? Some kind of a torture?

I'm beginning to feel like having meetings were my job... My job was supposed to be a, a... well, a sort of adviser, I guess.

The End

Caterpillar

I've finished reading "The Historian" at last. Honestly speaking, my impression for the book was... LONG. It took me about a month and I almost gave up reading.

The accurate and exquisite depiction of historical buildings, interiors, outfits of characters, expressions on their faces, were minute and remarkable in a sense that you could almost see them in front of your eyes, and the historical background that lay behind the world-famous Dracula story was pretty interesting. Still, I wonder if the first 200 pages were really necessary, thinking that it could have been better left out or at least, cut down to about one tenth in pages.

The End

Caterpillar

There seems to be a lot of last-minute cancellation going on these days. One of my clients has told me that she had seen a notice posted on the wall of her gym restroom saying, "No Last-minute Cancellation." That means not few people cancell at the last minute, I suppose. It wasn't like this when I was a child.

As a matter of fact, I've been facing the same problem myself, having my clients cancell their meetings with me in the last minute. What's worse, some people don't even take the trouble to call me for the cancellation of their meeting until I catch them on their cell phones, while some of them comes in more than 30 minutes late for a one-hour session. Unbelievable people.

The End

Caterpillar

Strange weather today. Exceptionally warm, with partly rainshowers and occasional sunshine. I've heard on the news that people have got left behind near Machu Picchu due to heavy rain. Abnormal weather must surely be one of the signs our planet gives out, alarming us that her life time clock is ticking away.

Oh my god, I've just realized that I've written a pretentious comment on the book, "The Historian." Who in the world do I think I am to criticize the work of a best-selling author when I don't know anything about writing? I must have been tired or depressed or both, from the rebellious attitude of my self-indulgent grandmother who bellowed at me and took it out on slamming her door shut after banging her pans down on the burner, at my reminding her to fetch and wear something before she catches a cold in her thin muumuu which she wears inside the house all year round.

The End

Caterpillar

I think it was 27th, Wednesday, when I saw a program on NHK featuring Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace). And in that one-hour-program, they on-aired Michael's speech when he was presented the Grammy by his sister, Jannet in 1993. In this speech his childhood days were described as follows. "My childhood was completely taken away from me. There was no Christmas, there was no birthdays, and it was not a normal childhood. No normal pleasures of childhood, those were exchanged for hard work, struggle and pain in eventual material of professional success, but as an awful price."

Oh, dear. I'm not a great fan of his, but I can imagine how hurt he must have been. Children can be very keen when it comes to sensing their parents' love for them through behavior, quickly connecting to a conclusion that their parents have tipped toward work, money, etc., rather than looking into their children's eyes to find pain or sorrow in them.

The End

Caterpillar

I was actually pretty surprised to find how well I can imagine the young Michael must have felt. I didn't expect to share the same problems with "the King of Pop" however, now I've come to realize the reason why. I've been through it myself, not to say that I was a young idol-of-the-world. My parents, apparently Tono and JoOusama, always left me alone in the house since when I was old enough to look after myself, check if the burners are safely turned off, pull out all the plugs, lock the front door before going to Obaba's to ask her to take me to the kindergarten every morning, which was at the age of five. Sometimes I even took phone messages while my parents were out.

Sure I had Christmases and birthdays though it was not for the sake of celeberating, merely held to satisfy my parents' desires for vanity and to release them from the guiltiness of not doing anything of the sort, as father and mother of a child. Appearing to be a normal "mom and dad" seemed to be their greatest concerns.

The End

Caterpillar

In the same speech, Michael had also said, "I realize that many of our world's problems today, from the inner city crimes to large scale wars and terrorism, and our over-crowded prisosns, are a result of the fact that children have had their childhood stolen from them." Exactly, exactly! That's what I think, too! And his words followed, "The magic, the wonder, the mystery, and the innocence of a child's heart are the seeds of creativity that will heal the world. I really believe that."

It almost gave me the creeps to see how someone else, someone I've never even met or exchanged words with, someone in a different time, far away in a different place, living in a completely different world, could speak that way revealing exactly what I thought. It was a weird experience.

The End

Caterpillar