Hidemi's Rambling No.387

This year has been full of big events for me. What I had never experienced before happened one after another throughout the year. The biggest earthquake in my life, an indescribable fear of radiation, daily blackouts, a shortage of food, and a move to a rural small town enclosed by high mountains. I had sensed strongly a change and a beginning of my new life. I’ve gotten accustomed to living in this small town that I had felt anxious about, and liked rural life more than I had expected. When I gaze up at the innumerable stars in the sky or snow-covered mountains from the window, I can’t help feeling a presence of something larger than life. I’ve been able to be more relaxed than before, as I got away from the stress of city life with too many people around. One thing to regret for this year is that I hardly worked for my music. Turmoil in moving to a new place and setting up my home studio all over again ate up my time. Now that I’m already used to rural life where time passes slowly, I’m almost terrified at the thought of how long it will take to complete my next song…

Sunrise / 88th Planet [001]

Hidemi's Rambling No.386

My late grandfather liked to go out and often wanted to take me with him when I was little. Although I didn’t like to go out with him, I couldn’t say so because he was a tycoon in my family. There were two reasons why going out with him wasn’t fun. One was because I was tense all the time being with him who used to be very strict. The other was because he sometimes took me to weird places such as the porn movies or a betting ticket office. So, when he said to me “Let’s go to a Christmas party together!” one day before Christmas, I sighed and felt dismal. It wasn’t common in Japan to have a Christmas party back then and I couldn’t imagine what it was like. It sounded shady enough since the offer came out from my grandfather. Of course I didn’t say no and left for the party with him. The site was a small place looking like a community center. Several men were busy working in and out of the place. One of them spotted my grandfather in front of the building and greeted joyfully. He seemed so happy to have us. My grandfather was a head of a local senior citizen club and it turned out to be the club party. We arrived before the party officially started, but he led us inside. We were handed party hats and told to put on. The small hall was dark and had pretty Christmas decorations and music. There were a few snack stands and we were given tickets for the snack. Just for two of us, they worked in a hurry and let us know when the snack was ready one by one. While people working there and my grandfather were all cheerful, I was cautious and sit tight because everything was totally new for me. I had never seen grown-ups having a Christmas party, had never put on a party hat, had never been suggested dancing, and had never seen my strict grandfather in such a good mood. We left when other guests began to show up. It was a sort of handmade party and not a gorgeous one. But unexpectedly, it was the best Christmas party I could remember…

Hidemi's Rambling No.385

When I was in college and still lived with my family, my younger sister rose to the holder of a diploma in Japanese dancing, which meant she obtained a license to teach it. A celebratory public performance by her was going to be held at a big hall. And again, my mother demanded me to come. Her demand escalated this time and she ordered me to hand a bouquet to my sister when her dance was over. My mother’s intention was to show everyone she knew that all the family had supported my sister and were happy for her success. The fact was I hadn’t supported her and was never happy for her at all. My mother had known it for years and that was why she decided to make me hand a bouquet. She wanted to give an illusion to everyone including my sister that I was pleased. While I refused repeatedly, my mother looked at me as if I had been a cold-blooded monster. I gave in to her persistent attacks. On the day of my sister’s performance, I visited her dressing room and my mother waited with a huge gorgeous bouquet that she had bought and I was supposed to give to my sister. The plan of a farce was like this; when she finished dancing, she would walk on the runway in applause, and receive the bouquet from me who would stretch out beneath the stage. As I was told, I was standing beneath the runway with the bouquet when it happened. Her dance was over, but the curtain fell and she didn’t appear on the runway because of a mix-up. I was left standing like a fool, holding a ridiculously large bouquet. The audience was staring at me curiously and whispering. I laid the bouquet on the runway and left the hall instead of returning to my seat. I was walking along the street and tears were rolling down on my cheeks. I had never been humiliated this much before. For her Japanese dancing, I had suffered alienation, loneliness and disregard all those years. It culminated in huge humiliation…

Hidemi's Rambling No.384

My hometown is in Kyoto, which is a popular tourist destination in Japan. There is a big historic festival called Gion Festival in summer. Because it attracts visitors all over the world and the venue is too crowded, my family had never gone out to see it. When I was in high school, my friend suggested hanging around the venue on the eve the festival. The evening of the eve is also a popular attraction with the parade floats parked on the street. To go there, it was common to wear a yukata, which is a casual kimono for the summer season. I didn’t have one of those and asked my mother to get one. Before the festival, she bought a yukata for me so that I could go. I liked its design very much. Usually, a yukata had a pattern of morning glories or goldfish, but mine was unique and fancy with a fireworks pattern. It became my treasure as I wore it again a couple of years later for the festival with my first boy friend. Meanwhile, after my younger sister failed the TV talent show audition, she hadn’t stopped learning Japanese dancing against my wish. My mother convinced her that she failed because we were late for the audition that day. According to my mother, the judges weren’t taking enough time to see how talented my sister was. So, she had still taken lessons in Japanese dancing. It’s danced with wearing a kimono and for practice, with a yukata. My sister had some yukatas as her casual practice wear for the lesson. One evening, when I was left at home as usual, my sister came home with my parents from a lesson. She was wearing my yukata. She used my treasured fireworks yukata as her casual practice wear. I cried, “It’s mine!” My mother explained she was out of fresh yukatas and made her borrow mine for that evening only. They were too insensitive to care about my feelings toward her Japanese dancing lessons and my yukata. I’ve never worn it since then…

Hidemi's Rambling No.383

When my younger sister had learned Japanese dancing for a couple of years, my mother decided to get her on a local TV talent show. Unlike me, my sister was always my mother’s pride for her prettiness. To be on the show, there was an audition in a city, about 20 miles away from our home. My father was going to drive them there. I assumed they would go with just three of them, leaving me behind as usual. For this particular occasion though, I felt rather happy not to join them because I had borne a grudge against Japanese dancing since my mother let my sister take lessons not me. But my mother had the nerve to demand me to come with them to the audition, saying that it was a huge event for my sister and I should show support for her. I got in the car, not for her audition but for a possibility to eat out at a restaurant on our way back, which we hardly did and the three of them might do without me. My mother was never punctual and we were already late by the time we left home. From then, things were just like the movie, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. When we got there, the registration was closing and the judges were leaving. My mother desperately begged for the audition. They reluctantly allowed it with the obvious intention of making it finish quickly. After my sister danced for a few seconds, they stopped the music and said thank-you. I kept asking my mother if it meant she passed or not while my sister gloomily undressed. When my mother admitted my sister failed, I felt over the moon. I thought justice had been served. I was in an utterly good mood and was saying, “Let’s eat out! Which restaurant shall we go?” all the way in the dismal car. My parents and my sister were too depressed to respond to me and we ended up going straight home. I couldn’t get to eat out after all…

Hidemi's Rambling No.382

My mother used to take lessons in Japanese dancing. A woman in the neighborhood taught it in the evening to the neighbor housewives at her house. They held an annual public performance and my mother would practice earnestly at home when it came closer. My sister and I used to imitate her and dance alongside her. I liked it and danced quite well. I was in junior high school and my sister was still in elementary school. Since my sister came home from school much earlier than I did, my mother would take her to the lessons and let her wait and watch there. My father gave my mother a ride for every lesson. So, my parents and my sister would go out together once a week while I was left in the house with my strict grandparents. Soon, my sister began to take lessons as well. I felt it extremely unfair because it was I who danced well and should take lessons. I complained to my mother as hard as I could, but she never paid attention. The junior high I attended was so far from my home and I couldn’t come home by the time they left for lessons. My mother made no effort for me to ask for a late lesson to the teacher. It seemed she simply wanted to go out with just three of them once a week. Even in an instance of Japanese dancing, I was again an outcast in my family. I wonder why it kept happening to me all the time…

Hidemi's Rambling No.381

Lately, relaxing at the communal spa in my apartment building has been the biggest pleasure for me. I take a hot bath, a Jacuzzi and a sauna first thing in the morning and also in the evening. But as usual, it’s housewives with kids that spoil my pleasure. Especially the one with a baby is the worst. I strongly disagree to bring a baby into the spa since it still relies on a diaper and the spa has a stone floor. I’ve often seen a baby slip and fall on the floor, bumping its head. It’s a dreadful sight to me but a mother is usually just laughing at it while the baby is bawling for pain. It even seems a mother tries to make an ear-piercing noise with a baby in the spa on purpose. They let babies shriek and cry all the time in the spa, and crawl around on the locker room floor while they’re drying their hair. It’s sheer madness. Some mother leisurely washes her body by leaving her baby to its five or six-year-old sister. In my opinion, it’s negligence of parental responsibilities and child abuse. Sadly, few feel angry with those senseless mothers. Other residents show great pleasure to see a baby and laugh happily while it’s crying. They look at mothers’ negligence as if it were heartwarming or something. They flock around a baby, laughing frivolously and babbling foolishly. Even a usually grumpy woman with a sullen face who returns hello very unwillingly to me is remarkably amiable to a baby and smiles at it with all her force. To me, a baby is a grotesque alien or a hairless monkey at best. I’m again in the minority here…

Hidemi's Rambling No.380

I was walking along the main street of this small town yesterday and saw a neighbor who lives two doors down from my apartment walking toward me. We’ve exchanged greetings for several times at the communal spa or in the hallway of my apartment building, but we’d never bumped into each other outside. When I said hello to her on the street, she didn’t recognize me at first. She gave me a puzzled expression for a brief moment and then seemed to recognize me. She returned hello with a friendly smile. After I walked on away from her for a while, I began to feel doubtful. Was it really she? She somehow looked different on the street and may have been a total stranger who just looked like her. Did she pretend to know me to be courteous although she had no idea who I was? I had an urge to ask the neighbor if it was herself. But, suppose I mistook a stranger for her, and ask her, “Did we meet on the street the other day?” What kind of a creepy question would it be? She must think I’m weird. And if we did meet, it would be even creepier to be asked whether we met or not from someone she actually met. She must think I’m crazy. There’s no means of finding out if that was she or not. Distinguishing people’s faces is so difficult for me and it often causes inconveniences…

Hidemi's Rambling No.379

The house where I spent my childhood was very old. Half the floor in it was bare earth and my family lived like in the way of the Wild West. With our shoes on, we walked around the house and ate meals. It was all right to throw away the rest of a drink from a cup directly onto the floor. My father used to smoke. When he smoked, he would light a cigarette with a match and toss the match to the dirt floor. It burned itself out. That is probably my earliest memory. I remember a thrown match was burning out on the floor and I said “Ah…” According to my parents, I uttered “Ah…” every time my father threw away a match as if I didn’t approve it. And my tone was always tinged with disappointment. I guess I was already cheap as a child and couldn’t bear a thing to be thrown away after just one-time use. I was nagging at my parents about everything all my childhood, and even my earliest memory is something critical about my parents. No wonder we’ve been on bad terms for such a long time…

Hidemi's Rambling No.378

In my childhood, I lived with my grandmother who inevitably said, “There’s no place like home” when she got back from her rare traveling. I used to think that meant a huge waste of time, money and effort considering that she judged home was best after the trip. But when I came back from my trip this time, I thought, “There’s no place like home” by myself. Does it mean I’ve already felt at home in my new apartment in this new town? Or, am I just simply getting old? It snowed in this region yesterday for the first time in this winter and the ground was thinly covered with snow. The region is famous as a heavy snowfall area. As I had lived for a long time in the urban area where it seldom snowed, I’m exhilarated when it snows. But local people here feel depressed about snow since it’s too much. I’m having my first winter here and not sure how long and severe it will be. So far, I’ve been still fond of winter and snow. When I live here long enough, will I get tired of snow and hate winter? Maybe that’s when this place really becomes my home…

Hidemi's Rambling No.377

The hotel that I stayed at for the night of my trip was a brand-new one and included an all-you-can-eat breakfast although I had found it online at the lowest price. The cool lobby sparkled with cleanliness and high-tech gadgets were here and there like the card key that called the elevator or opened the room with electronic sounds by just being held over the small panel. But stepping into the room, I was taken aback at its small space. It had two small double windows designed not to open since the hotel stood right above the train station. I was afraid that I couldn’t breathe and sleep because I have claustrophobia. Thankfully, I did both, as it seemed I’ve been overcoming claustrophobia since I moved in a town surrounded by the mountains. Next morning, I went down to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet I’d looked forward to. Although the place was quite big and had many tables, only few tables were left empty. Along the buffet was a dire long line of guests to get food. There were too many people everywhere! I began to find it luxurious that I now lived in a sparsely populated town with plentiful vacant lots. I think nature is astonishingly beautiful, far more so than neat shops. Few people agree with me and that’s why the city is packed with so many people…

Hidemi's Rambling No.376

I visited the Tokyo metropolitan area for the first time in six months since I moved out there. After getting off the bullet train, I walked to the faraway platform to transfer the train. Because Tokyo Station is too big and so many different train lines come in, it took fifteen minutes to get to the platform even by using the moving-walk. The whole station was filled with an enormous number of people even though it was midday of a weekday. It reminded me of a news image of a department’s floor in US on Black Friday. I assume the total number of people walking in a long tunnel between the platforms for one day exceeds the number of shoppers for one year at the busiest shopping area in the town where I currently live. On both sides of the tunnel were cool shops that glowed in the dazzling light. After a 40-minute train ride, I arrived at the nearest station to Costco, which was my first destination for this two-day trip. This station was also crammed with passengers all the way to the ticket gate. To descend from the platform to the ticket gate, the long lines were formed in front of the huge stairways. It took a good ten minutes to exit the station and I missed the bus to Costco. It was raining with bitter wind, as the weather forecast had said. The thing that has been almost always wrong proved right on the particular day of my trip…

Hidemi's Rambling No.375

My weekend trip to the city approaches. I basically like to travel, but it’s a time-consuming process to make a plan, to check the train schedules and the transfers, and to make reservations for the bullet trains and a hotel at the lowest prices. I’ve been still unpacking after moving in here and setting for my home studio is unfinished which means my music work has been suspended. Added to that is packing for the trip and setting the timer of an HDD recorder for TV programs while I’m away. Since it’s the first time to go down to the city from the secluded, highland town in six months, my schedule of the trip is quite tight with lots of things to do. I wonder I can really enjoy this trip. If a trip begins when it’s planned, so far it’s a tie between excitement and stress. Because I’m spending a lot of money for a cheap person, I’ve been under tremendous pressure to make the trip worthwhile and to keep a good condition without catching a cold. In the meantime, the weather forecast for the first day of the trip is for rain…

Hidemi's Rambling No.374

Each of us has a must-have item for our dream home. For some, it’s a walk-in closet, and for others, it’s a Lazy Boy. For me, it’s a bagel guillotine. I’d always dreamed about life with a bagel guillotine on a breakfast bar. Actually, the final push to decide on my new apartment was its online picture showing the breakfast bar opposite to the kitchen. But I’d never seen a bagel guillotine on the market in Japan. To begin with, Japanese people hardly eat bagels. They like soft, tender food and tough food like bagels doesn’t appeal to them. A few days ago, I happened to go in a small cafe in town for the first time and they carried a bagel guillotine at 80% off in the obscure corner. It was an odd appearance since the cafe didn’t carry bagels nor any merchandise except for the bagel guillotine. The only merchandise they carried there and the only one who had wanted one of those in this small town encountered miraculously. I got it and put it on the breakfast bar in my apartment. I was so satisfied and felt moving in here was a right decision. But to get bagels themselves, I have to go down to the city on a long train ride because I haven't seen a store carry bagels here…

Hidemi's Rambling No.373

Since I moved in this small town, I’ve noticed two peculiarities that I didn’t experience when I lived in a suburb of Tokyo. One: no coins are found on the street. Two: the odds of getting a wrong total when shopping are more than 50 percent. Because of the latter, I check a receipt thoroughly here every time I shop. At a home furnishings store I often shop, at least one item among what I buy has a different bar code from its price tag on the shelf. I’m surprised if they don’t make a mistake for a total at the checkout counter. When I shopped at a grocery store the other day and carefully checked the receipt as usual, I found a mistake, as I’d expected. I complained to the cashier and she paid me back the difference. But the refund was still one yen short on my calculation. As a super cheap person, it’s out of the question for me to give up one yen, and I claimed again. She gave me one yen back. Walking toward the bus stop to go home, I made sure the total again in my head and realized I had miscalculated and my second claim had been false. I got extra one yen wrongly. I didn’t want to steal from the store but didn’t want to turn back either. I got on the bus feeling guilty, and on the floor, I found a one yen coin. That was the first money I’d picked up in six months since I moved in this town. Peculiar…

Hidemi's Rambling No.372

Three months ago, I wrote here about a middle-aged woman who told me to take off my slippers in the locker room at the communal spa of my apartment. Her reason for the strange demand was because everyone except for me was barefooted inside the locker room as an implicit rule and I should have followed suit. I feel wearing slippers is more hygienic than barefooted on a shared floor and still have kept wearing them there to date no matter how many puzzled stares I received from other residents. And at last, it happened yesterday. After taking a bath, I came in front of the washstand in the locker room to dry my hair as usual, with my slippers on. Then, lo and behold, on the feet of a woman sitting next to me was a pair of slippers! The second example has emerged, and I’m no longer the only resident that isn’t barefooted. She must have seen me wearing slippers and thought it was a good idea. I’m glad to have had the courage to keep wearing them. I struck a blow at Japanese bad habit of being the same as others. With a small step like this, the world can be changed. I was greatly encouraged by such a petty incident concerning just a pair of slippers…

Hidemi's Rambling No.371

Right before I moved in this small town, a cool Western style restaurant had opened near my new apartment. It has become my favorite place right away, as there are only few Western style restaurants around the town. Until this summer, it offered an all-you-can-eat buffet. But now it has been ordered a la carte and closed between lunchtime and dinnertime. Because I have a jinx that my favorite place is almost always destined to close down, I’ve been feeling anxious about the future of that restaurant. I went there for lunch yesterday and found they had replaced the menu book with a printed sheet of paper. A list of the menu had decreased to a quarter of the previous one. The number of the employees had been also drastically reduced and a chef was bringing the food to the tables and clearing them. The showcase that used to have lots of pieces of a variety of cakes was empty. Since I really like this restaurant, I do hope it will survive. But an ominous sign is that it’s already my favorite place. As long as I like that restaurant, there is a high probability that it will also close down like many other favorite places of mine…

Hidemi's Rambling No.370

The other day, I happened to have an unpleasant need to call my parents. Since we don’t get along well, the last time we spoke was when my mother called me to see if I was all right after the Japan’s earthquake in March. Whenever she speaks with me, she brags about my younger sister at great length. My sister has drifted from one job to another all her life while I’m a musician all my life. Even so, my mother is extremely proud of my sister who she considers a member of society, whereas she considers me an outsider and has kept denying my way of life. In our latest telephone conversation, she mentioned that my sister had moved out my parents’ house for her new job and lived near my place when the earthquake occurred. According to her, my sister got injured and stayed at a shelter. I had thought I was the only one in the family who suffered from the earthquake because my parents’ house was far from the seismic center and I didn’t know my sister had moved to the region where I lived. My astonishment was, that my mother hadn’t told me all about this until now although we spoke right after the earthquake. For some reason, she had kept it in secret for her benefit. Whatever the benefit might be, she kept me from helping my sister on purpose by concealing that my sister lived close to me. I’ve known her useless secrets and schemes, but this time I was amazed what a monster she had become…

Hidemi's Rambling No.369

Until I moved in this small highland town in the mountains, I'd forgotten about enjoying beautiful colors of autumn leaves. The leaves of trees around my apartment have been turning yellow and orange. As its peak seemed near, I decided to go up to a mountain park nearby. It took me too long to prepare to go out and I consequently missed the bus. The next available transportation was a train. When I went outside of the building, it was chillier than I'd expected, and I went back in to change my jacket to a heavier one. By the time I went out again, there was little time to catch the train, and I had to scurry to the station. It made me sweat and changing a jacket futile. I was already hungry when I got off the train and walked to one of my favorite restaurants for lunch. From the outside, I saw a kid in the restaurant, which meant I couldn't go in as I have kid-phobia. I changed my plan to have lunch at the restaurant inside the mountain park. Because I was starving, I wanted to get there as soon as possible and scurried again to the cable car station to catch the earliest available cable car. It had just departed when I arrived at the station sweating all over. To the next departure, I was eating free samples of food and sweets at the shop in the station. I finally had lunch at the park and the view from the restaurant was absolutely breathtaking. Autumn leaves were woven through the mountains, from the front of the window into the distance. Beneath the window was a blanket of cosmos flowers. My hectic chases of a bus, a train and a cable car seemed to pay off. When I was leaving, the cashier couldn't handle the cash register well and started to grapple with it. During her repeated unsuccessful attempts, the departure time of a cable car to go down the mountain was getting closer. I handed the exact amount of money not to receive the change and asked her to let me leave. I barely made it. Even on a day off, I was pushed for time all day...

Hidemi's Rambling No.368

For the first time in six months since I moved in a new town surrounded by the mountains, I’m going to get out of the town by going down the mountains to the city. I’m going on a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort and my hometown next month. After precise planning, I made a reservation for a hotel and trains online yesterday. I found myself lucky when I saw some online special discount packages just released on the same day. The package included a hotel stay and a round-trip train ticket, which was cheaper than the list price of the train ticket. That meant a high-class hotel stay would be completely free. I jumped to the offer, filled out the application form and clicked a submit button. The web site showed an error message saying it was already sold out. When I got back to the package list page, the one I had chosen turned into an unavailable sign. It seemed sold out while I was filling out the form. I chose the second-cheapest package among the available ones, filled out the form and submitted. The result was again that it had been sold out. I repeated this for five or six times and still couldn’t make it. Each time, by the time I clicked a submit button, the item had been snatched. Was everyone online all at once making a reservation at this particular web site, for the same destination and date? Could it be possible? Or, was the application system simply gone down? While suspicion took hold of me, my online reservation had become a fierce battle of speed. Finally, I successfully made it with a less discounted package. Although it was still a great discount, I felt like I made a loss after seeing the bigger discount items…

Hidemi's Rambling No.367

The high school I attended held a team event competition on a field day. Ten students from each class formed a team and put together an event. The team that won the competition would get a trophy. When I was a sophomore, I was a team leader of a costume dance parade on a field day. I planned and directed the show of 50 students, which featured music and characters from foreign movies. For two months, I’d prepared the costumes, choreographed the dance, and practiced with other members. In hindsight, it was a puerile silly show, but our team won the competition that year. As a team leader, I couldn’t help anticipating great gratitude from the team members. A trophy was to be handed after all events of a field day were over. I did some small after-event work in a tent beside the field when a teacher handed a trophy to our team. Although it had been always handed to a team leader in school history, one of our team members received it in place of me and the commemorative photo of the whole team was taken without me. Everything happened in mere five minutes while I was inside a tent. When I was back in the field, the team had been dismissed and the trophy had been moved to a school building. I got furious. I shouted at the team members ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ over and over. They seemed to realize my absence right then and made lame excuses such as they looked for me but couldn’t find me, and so on. I received great contempt instead of gratitude. None of them had an ounce of respect for me. I didn’t even touch or see the trophy. In the yearbook, I wasn’t in the picture of the glorious team as if I weren’t in the team let alone the team leader. I still can’t breathe for fury remembering that field day…

Hidemi's Rambling No.366

Throughout my schooldays, a field day was a nightmare for me. I was poor at gymnastic and a slow runner. I always swaggered as the smartest kid at school, but a field day was the annual event that I was humiliated as a laughingstock in front of all students and their parents. The team events like tug-of-war did less damage because my poor performance was covered up among other students. But individual competitions like a hundred-meter dash were such dreadful events. It was raced in groups of six and I was always last. I don't know how it's felt to breast the tape. My parents came to cheer and bring lunch on a field day every year and always felt embarrassed in the stands. When I was little, I had been extremely introverted and hardly spoken to anyone except for my family members. But with a lot of effort, I had become sociable by the time I was in the fourth grade. And on a field day of that year, a strange thing happened. I came in third in the hundred-meter dash. I never thought sociability affected ability to run. I assumed my long spell of a humiliating field day was over. Unfortunately though, it wasn't. I had been skinny but as I got sociable, I gained an appetite and got fat. I soon returned to be a back marker in the race on a field day. I became more unsightly as a slow fat runner and drew more laughter than before. Humiliation added up to a field day...

Hidemi's Rambling No.365

It’s a season for a field day at school in Japan. Students have rehearsed the various events for a month or more. Parents are invited to a field day to cheer and bring lunch for their kids. Popular events are the 100-meter dash, an obstacle race, a tug-of-war, and a relay race. Among them, there is one weird competition. Students play on opposite sides of a red team and a white team, to throw small balls into a basket. Parents are required to sew the ball out of cloth beforehand and the school collects them for the event. In the competition, the handmade balls get scattered around a pole at the top of which has a wooden basket. With a signal, students dash to the balls all at once, pick them up and shoot them at the basket. Then teachers count the balls inside the baskets of both teams out loud, and the team with more balls in the basket wins. Besides this, there are other strange team events. A mock cavalry battle that a student wearing a cap is carried by two students who run around to get opponents’ caps, a composition exercise that students form certain shapes with their bodies as a group, and a dance by the whole classes. They need a lot of rehearsals because of those team events. All students must participate in a field day that comes every year until they graduate from high school…

Hidemi's Rambling No.364

One of what I hate most in this world is a kid. I rarely see a quiet child and most of them are ill-behaved, noise making, violently romping monsters. I can’t stand their high-pitched voice and way of laughing. All my life I’ve tried to avoid them, even when I myself was a child. Ironically, almost all my favorite places are also kids’ favorites. Kids encroach on theme parks, restaurants and stores that I happen to like and I eventually can’t go in. The mystery is, the same thing happens to an area where I decide to live. When I lived in downtown Tokyo, I had chosen an apartment in a quiet area, but families with kids had moved in the neighborhood constantly. Soon, I was besieged by kids and had to move out. After I moved in a suburb, the quiet neighborhood had rapidly gathered families with kids and I again had to escape. Now I’ve moved in a sparsely populated town surrounded by the mountains. I’d seen few people around me and been confident to have finally found a kids-free environment. Five months have passed since I moved in and I noticed an ominous change around me. There used to be only few elderly residents in my apartment building, but I’ve seen more and more kids lately. They are jumping into a Jacuzzi in the communal spa and running around the locker room. A baby is crawling the dirty floor there. Kids have been moving in since I did. Am I a magnet for kids or something? Do they inevitably gather around me? I’m afraid that the town also might have many kids soon…

Hidemi's Rambling No.363

Basically, there’s no custom in Japan to celebrate Halloween. But as a retail scheme, it has become a popular event. More and more stores and restaurants have had Halloween decorations in recent years. I had thought it happened only in urban areas and I wouldn’t see them in a rural area I newly moved in. On the contrary, people here celebrate Halloween zealously, with much more passion than in the city. Although there are only a small number of stores on the main street, they started the decorations in early September, which was as early as in Tokyo Disneyland. In some shops, they have more decorations than their merchandise. I wonder why they like Halloween so much. Come to think of it, I find too many spider webs across the town. Because the town is small and sparsely populated, it’s sometimes spooky and looks like a ghost town. Also, it has so many graves for its population. Maybe it was easy for people living here to adapt themselves to an event like Halloween. Walking around the town, I feel as if I was in a Halloween town with natural decorations…

Hidemi's Rambling No.362

As it’s near to my birthday, I remembered my sixteenth birthday. I had been trying to be popular all the years in junior high and high school, which was excruciating because I had been acting someone totally different from me. By the time I became sixteen, I had been the class clown. On my birthday, a lot of friends brought their presents to school for me and I received them even from the girls in other classes that I didn’t know so well. I got the biggest number of presents of my life that year. I came home with full of bags and opened them with my mother. When we were done and looking at all the gifts, my mother made an unreasonable suggestion. She said that I should give one of them to my younger sister. Since they were my birthday gifts, I said no. Her suggestion grew into an order. I didn’t understand why my sister could have one of them on my birthday. My mother explained it was because she felt pity for my sister who didn’t have any while I had plenty. To me who kept insisting it was my birthday, my mother began to threaten that there would be a punishment from God for this. I gave in and my sister took a present away from me. In Japan, if someone gives you something, you must give something back to him or her later as a courtesy. In my case, a record amount of presents meant a record amount of requital. For the following year, I’d had to give a birthday gift to each one of them who gave me one. My monthly allowance wasn’t enough because I had a few or more birthdays in a month. It was a horrible aftermath with struggling to raise money. Being the class clown never paid…

Hidemi's Rambling No.361

Since the earthquake in Japan, the power companies had requested their customers to save on electricity, as the supply was short. Companies, offices and homes alike had been willing to comply with the request for half a year. It had been a stressful time for me because I had never had any intention of complying with such a ridiculous request. Before the earthquake, the power companies had repeated the nuclear power plant would never fail no matter what happened, which I'd never believed. And after the earthquake, they made their customers pay the price for their own debacle. I had no idea why people and stores obediently turned off the lights at nighttime although saving the power was meaningless except for the peak hours of demand. In my apartment building, one of two elevators, a Jacuzzi and a sauna in the spa had been stopped, and the lights in and outside the building had been limited. Other residents had voluntarily turned off the lights in the communal spaces such as the spa. I'd been fed up with a dark, gloomy atmosphere created by unnecessary effort. Two weeks ago, that annoying request from the power companies finally got lifted. The elevator, the Jacuzzi, the sauna and the lights all came back on. The spa resumed being operated in the morning hours as well. I was so glad everything got back to normal. But I noticed that not everybody felt that way. In the lobby, one of the residents was asking to turn off some of the lights. In the spa, some residents still turned off the lights eagerly. On TV, people were talking how united they had felt while saving on electricity as if they wanted to do that again. Now I found out what all the fuss was about. Japanese people were saving the power not because the power companies asked them to. It was because they liked to do the same thing at the same time all together, and, simply liked to turn off the lights...

Hidemi's Rambling No.360

Until I moved into my new apartment, one day had had 25 hours for me. For instance, I got up at 7 a.m. in the morning and went to sleep at 11 p.m. one day, I got up at 8 a.m. and went to sleep at 12 a.m. the next day, and did 9 a.m. and 1 a.m. the day after. It was a 25-hour cycle. What started me living on the odd cycle was that I used to fly back and forth between Japan and North America frequently. The time difference would hinder me from keep regular hours and disrupt my health. When I decided to let my body clock control, it found a 25-hour cycle as a perfect solution for me. I’d lived that way more than 10 years and been remarkably healthy without even having a cold. That the hours of rising and bedtime shifted one hour a day every day meant I spent the whole daytime sleeping and the nighttime working at some point. Or, I walked in the dark, sleeping town to have a morning special at a 24-hour-open restaurant as my lunch and enjoyed a beautiful morning glow before dinner. It had fitted me so well. But, on the day I moved here, my body clock somehow adjusted to a normal 24-hour cycle for a day all of a sudden. Since then, I’ve gotten up and gone to sleep at the fixed times every day, and still stayed healthy. I can’t figure out what happened to me but my day is one hour shorter than before for sure. I feel like I’m losing one hour steadily each day…

Hidemi's Rambling No.359

A relaxing way for me is being in a quiet place, alone. When I use the spa in my apartment building, I aim at a quiet time. There seems to be a certain wave of people somehow. While nobody had been in the spa until a little while ago, a few residents rush in and leave all at once and the place returns to be empty again. When there are other residents in the spa, I try to get in the hot tub or the Jacuzzi or the sauna alone because I don’t like to make conversation. I wait in a shower for people to get out, and take a bath alone. If someone comes in the tub while I’m there, I get out as soon as possible. On the contrary, some people don’t like to be alone in the spa. They wait for someone to get in the tub and join her. The other day, I inadvertently stepped in the sauna when someone was there. From the sauna’s small window I couldn’t see her who was lying on the blind corner. She leaped at conversation from the moment I entered and kept talking to me vigorously. I was watching an ever-slower-moving hand of the wall sauna clock, with occasional ‘uh-huh’s and ‘really’s for her. I gradually admired her stamina to be able to keep chattering away in such a hot, humid condition like a sauna. When I stepped out there, she followed right after me, still talking. It’s not so easy to relax in the spa either…

Hidemi's Rambling No.358

Nearly four months have passed since I moved in my new apartment. While I’m still unpacking countless cardboard boxes, I’d been working for handmade soundproof walls in my bedroom/studio that borders on the neighboring apartment with my partner’s help. Since I overestimated reinforced concrete of which my apartment building was made, my life in a quiet environment solely depends on our handmade walls of flattened cardboard boxes, soundproof polyurethane and soundproof vinyl sheets. We’ve finished the whole four walls and the floor. To my disappointment, our soundproofing couldn’t resolve the clanging noise that came from some pipe. The source is still unknown but it’s a weekly thing that wakes me up every Thursday. Also the footsteps and other noises form the room above easily disturb my sleep. And a new comer has arrived. A flush noise in a drainpipe has begun to be heard since mid-August. Those seem to come from the ceiling of my room that is a week spot for handmade soundproofing. Now I have to resort to the last measure. Putting my bed into a big container made of many drapes and boards and sleeping in it, which I used to do in my old apartment before I moved out. It’s like Dracula sleeping in a little larger coffin. Although to sleep out of that coffin-like thing in a quiet room was one of my main purposes of moving in here, I’m about to end up being no better than before. All my enormous amount of effort and time to move didn’t pay to get a quiet life. It’s so hard to secure a good night’s sleep…

Hidemi's Rambling No.357

Here, I make an embarrassing confession. I hadn’t been able to ride a bicycle without training wheels until the fifth grade. I always believe that riding a bicycle successfully for the first time should be like the one in the movie ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ where a father played by Dustin Hoffman jumps for joy and takes a picture of his son’s first ride. Sadly, parents in real life are too defective. My parents used to be farmers who worked out on the field from dawn to night. They hardly took a day off and when they did, it was a rainy day. During winter when their work was a little less hectic, they would bring crops from the field to a communal wash place by the small park near our home. They spent the rest of the day washing the crops by hand with their long booted feet soaked in freezing water. My father used a short interval between the field and the wash place to teach me to ride a bicycle. He couldn’t spare more time and I wasn’t a fast learner. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I became the only one among the kids of around the same age in the neighborhood who couldn’t ride a bike. One day, my mother took me to the park with my sister on her way to work. Because she told us to bring our bicycles, I thought she would teach me this time. But she spotted a couple of older kids in the park, asked them to teach me and rushed into the wash place. With the kids’ help, my younger sister by four years got to ride a bike without training wheels, while I couldn’t. The kids laughed at me. When my mother poked her head around the door of the wash place and asked them how it went, they said, “She’s no good! Her sister rode it first!” Much later, I was already close to my then-best friend Junko and took courage to ask her to teach me. She helped me in the park earnestly until it went dark. As it was time to go home, I tried one last time under the dim light of a mercury lamp. And I finally made it. Behind me, I heard Junko shouting for joy, “She’s riding! She made it! Hooray!” When I stopped and looked back, I saw her face flush with happiness. I miss her. More than I miss my parents...

Hidemi's Rambling No.356

My once archrival at the private abacus school, Junko, was from outside the old families that dominated the neighborhood. Although we started the school at the same time and practiced an abacus sitting on the floor side by side sharing one long low wooden desk twice a week, I had never talked with her. I ignored her because I was a detestable brat from one of the ruling old families and looked down on her. Also that the neighbors always talked about how pretty she was contributed to my hostility toward her, since I was ugly. One evening at the abacus school, I had a nosebleed during a timed session preparing for a certificate examination. As an exam simulation, the timed sessions were serious battles with time, and of course, with other students. I couldn’t afford the time to treat my nosebleed but it was impossible to continue the session. I had to withdraw the session and was in trouble finding neither tissues nor a handkerchief in my bag. While I was in the mess, I felt sure that Junko must have been so happy to see me like this and to beat me on this session. But suddenly, I heard her abacus reset abruptly next to me. She put her abacus aside and began to rummage through her bag. She gave up a sure win on the session by withdrawing for me, and handed me tissues gently. I couldn’t believe how she could be this kind to someone constantly evil. Shortly after that, I began to talk to her and we became best friends. In her notebook, I often found a date written in the margin, which she said was the day I first spoke to her. She had cherished the day as one of her happiest moments. At elementary school, she would rush to me as soon as she saw me arrive at the school and help me carry my bag. We were so close. But because I went on to a private junior high school while she did to a public one, and I quit the abacus school, we drifted apart. Then I heard her family had moved out. I don’t know where she went and haven’t heard anything of her...

Hidemi's Rambling No.355

At the private abacus school I attended in my childhood, my archrival was a girl named Junko. She was one of five other third-graders that joined the school with me. The abacus calculation association held a certificate examination three times a year and the official grade was given on passing. The smaller the class number, the higher the grade. After we learned basic skills for half a year, we started to practice timed sessions to simulate a certificate examination. Our first examination was for the sixth class that was the lowest grade. Out of six newcomers, only Junko and I passed. While other kids usually passed the exam after a few trials, both of us passed each exam easily on our first trial and attained the third class exceptionally fast. It was believed that someone who had reached the third class without a single failure would fail to get the second class for many trials. I was conceited enough to be confident to pass for the second class on my first trial. But the belief was true and both Junko and I failed the exam for the first time. Then, the struggle began. The second class was an impregnable fortress. We kept failing together exam after exam. Other kids had started whispering which one of us could pass first. Since no student of the school held the second class, I really got into it to prove that I was the best. On my fourth trial, I was warming up at home with my father’s help guiltily while keeping Junko waiting, who kindly dropped by my house to go to the exam together. The sly attempt worked and only I passed. For the first time, I held the higher class than Junko. With the whole school shouting in surprise on the announcement, Junko gave me a forced smile and said, “Congratulations.” I can’t forget that smile. I was burned out completely and quit the school. Junko continued, passed for the second class on the next exam, and achieved the first class eventually. It seemed I won one time, but after all, it was Junko who won…

Hidemi's Rambling No.354

When I was a child, learning to use an abacus was common practice for kids nationwide in Japan. An abacus is a wooden calculator with many beads inside a rectangular frame. We used to attend a small private school twice a week in the evening. The teacher was a next-door neighbor who happened to be skillful with his abacus and live in a house my family rented. He ran the private abacus school at his home that was actually located inside our front yard. Although the house was small, learning an abacus was so popular that it was packed with students. Almost all the kids in the neighborhood practiced there. It was like the norm for a child who began the third grade to learn it. Even an elementary school officially spent some classes to teach an abacus for the fourth-graders. As an inevitable custom, I began to learn it at the next-door neighbor’s house when I was in the third grade. Six third-graders including me joined the school that year. Everyone touched an abacus for the first time but for some reason, I was very good at it from the word go. Practicing there twice a week with other kids, I had gotten cleverer and cleverer with my abacus and became the best student in less than two years. I was able to move the beads on the abacus with my fingertips faster than any other kids and count on the abacus most accurately in the school. Unfortunately, the world had been already in the electronic calculator age. Even in a rural area like my hometown, people seldom used an abacus anymore. My talent was obviously obsolete. It’s a mystery why I’m always good at something totally useless or decisively unprofitable…

Hidemi's Rambling No.353

In my hometown, the hamlet where I grew up mainly consists of old families of the place. Since each family has lived there generation after generation, my childhood friend’s father is my father’s childhood friend, my childhood friend’s grandfather is my grandfather’s childhood friend, and on and on. My closest childhood friend lived four houses away from us. We were both of an age and played together every day. Her mother and my father were both of an age too, and they had known each other since they were little. When her mother was a child, her grandfather had a boy outside marriage. He took the little boy over and began to raise him in his family. Because he had three daughters, it can easily be imagined that he wanted the boy to be a successor of the family. Of course, his wife, my friend’s grandmother, wasn’t happy about it at all. She was cruel to the boy and treated him harshly all the time. In the height of summer, she ignored the boy’s constant begging for water. He was too little and thirsty to distinguish between water and benzine. He died from drinking the latter. My friend’s grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s in her later years and often ran barefoot around the neighborhood. She sometimes came into our house and begged for water, saying she was extremely thirsty. In other cases, she claimed she was chased by the little boy and asked for help. She was running from him until the end…

Hidemi's Rambling No.352

I was born at the small hospital in a rural area. Although not many expectant mothers checked in there, two baby girls were born on the same day, one of whom was I. We shared the newborn room, sleeping in a bed side by side. Before the birth, I’d had a possibility to have severe jaundice of the newborn. My mother was told it would have either left a brain defect if I’d had it, or made me extremely intelligent if I hadn’t. Instead of jaundice, I was born with a hip joint dislocation. My right leg had been regularly dislocated and hung loosely until I was one or two years old and my mother had taken me to the hospital each time. About the time when my leg finally stopped getting dislocated, there was a piece of news in a local newspaper that a little girl was thrown into the river and killed by her parent. The victim was the baby who was born on the same day as I was and slept in the next bed to me at the hospital. Since both the town and the hospital were small, my mother and my grandmother remembered the name of the baby and the area she lived in. I was luckier and I outlived her without any more dislocation or jaundice. The latter should have resulted in me being extremely intelligent but my parents consider me simply crazy…

Hidemi's Rambling No.351

The elders of old families in the hamlet where I grew up had regularly practiced a Buddhist chant when I was little. My grandfather was one of them. He didn’t come home from the practice one night by the time he was supposed to. When we were worried and about to go look for him, he turned up at our doorstep sweating and getting muddy. He was shaken by fear and said, “It was a fox! A fox got me!” Usually, he would come home by passing through the narrow unpaved alley that led to a wider street near our house. According to him, he was walking home on the familiar dirt alley as usual after he left the elder’s house where the chanting practice was held. But on that particular night, the alley he had walked a thousand times didn’t come to the wider street. It didn’t end. When he reached the end of the alley, the entrance of the same alley started again instead of the street. The alley continued endlessly and he couldn’t get out of it. He began to panic, ran, tumbled, repeated countless trips through the alley and finally landed onto the street. In my hometown, people believed that an inexplicable incident like this was caused by a fox that bewitched them. A fox sometimes pulled mischief around us, and my mother had a similar experience. Because it had been a common knowledge throughout the neighborhood, everybody in my family was fully convinced that my grandfather’s story was true - except I inwardly suspected that a fox might mean drunkenness. By the way, we call a shower when the sun is shining a fox’s wedding…

Hidemi's Rambling No.350

The time for scary tales and ghosts is Halloween in the U.S. but in Japan, it’s summer. In my hometown, there used to be a night for a test of courage for kids in summer when I was a child. It was a small neighborhood event that an adult volunteer set up a sign saying ‘A Test of Courage’ at the entrance to a narrow lane between the neighbor houses. Except for the entrance, the rest of the lane was left as it was, without any special scary decorations or surprising effects. Enough nature still remained in my neighborhood back then though, and a ditch, bushes and shrubs along the lane had sufficient effects in darkness to scare kids. One summer dusk, I heard my grandmother call me urgently when I was playing in the yard. She grabbed me and ran into the house, escaping from something. It was a ball of fire drifting above us. That was the first time I’d ever seen a will-o'-the-wisp, and I haven’t seen one since. But to my family, seeing a will-o'-the-wisp wasn’t so rare. My grandmother once saw it perch on a side mirror of a parked car in front of our house. Scientifically, it’s said that a will-o'-the-wisp is some phosphorus-related phenomenon. Near our house, there was a graveyard where we had buried the deceased from generation to generation, which is now banned by law requiring cremation, and we believed it had to do with a will-o'-the-wisp. I had plenty of natural scary materials in my childhood…

Hidemi's Rambling No.349

The biggest holidays next to New Year’s have started in Japan. In mid-August, Japanese people get a few days’ holiday for the ‘Bon’ Festival that is a Buddhist event to ease the suffering of their ancestors in the life after death. It’s believed that their ancestors’ spirits return to their home during ‘Bon’ and the family and relatives get together to hold a memorial service and have a feast. When I was little, I used to go to pick up my family’s ancestors with my grandmother at the beginning of the ‘Bon’ period. The pick-up spot was a small, ordinary vacant lot on the edge of the hamlet. Our neighbors would also pick up their ancestors there. At dusk, we lit incense sticks there and carried them home, on which smoke our ancestors were supposed to ride to our house. Once we arrived home, the incense sticks were put on the Buddhist altar, and that meant our ancestors came in there. We welcomed them with many plates of food on the altar. Although it had been an annual sacred event for my grandmother and me, it was stopped abruptly one year for good. When I asked what happened to the pick-up, my grandmother said that our ancestors had decided to come home by themselves from now on. In hindsight, I assume the real reason was because my grandmother’s bad leg had gotten worse and she became unwilling to walk to the pick-up spot, or simply the vacant lot was replaced with a new house and there was no pick-up spot available. But back then, it didn’t make sense even to a child that our ancestors suddenly considered their descendants’ convenience and stopped requiring a pick-up. What about an old custom we had observed for a long time…?

Hidemi's Rambling No.348

As the summer holidays began in Japan, an old vintage bus has been running for sightseeing spots in the area I moved in. Its one-day pass is $3 and I tried it for the first time the other day. What appeared at the bus stop was a cool hooded bus with the ‘50s or ‘60s style. A conductor was aboard, who collected money for the ticket and announced each stop. The bus’s interior remained of its old one and the unfamiliar cab and the dashboard excited me immensely. But once it got going, it jolted violently for old suspension and made my body jump in the seat up and down, right and left, although it was running on asphalt. The heat was also unbearable since the bus wasn’t equipped with air conditioning. I glimpsed how hard traveling was in the past. While I appreciated authenticity of the bus, I was tired from the uncomfortable ride. Maybe there are some kinds of vehicles that are suitable not to be gotten in, but to be looked at, like this bus or a Formula One car. Watching the quaint bus going through my new neighborhood, I couldn’t help feeling a little sad because it matched well with the town, which meant my new town looked as old as the bus itself…

Hidemi's Rambling No.347

I had never been an early riser. I liked to sleep so much and it wasn’t unusual for me to sleep for 10 to 12 hours. Sometimes I despised myself for that. But, since I moved in my new place, I’ve gotten up quite early in the morning. Especially this summer, I’ve slept for moderate hours and woken up early every day. The reason is obvious. The apartment building where I live now has a spa for the residents and it’s open in the morning for the summertime. Because I pay the monthly service charge for my apartment that includes the spa fee, I can’t afford the luxury not to use it. The sense of a possible loss wakes me up every day just before the morning spa hours are up. It’s like I gain an enormous appetite whenever I eat at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The fear I may lose money if I don’t eat as much as possible makes me eat over my limit. My stinginess has finally gone over my mentality and started controlling my physical state. As I haven’t accustomed myself to my new habit of rising early, my condition hasn’t been so good, though. While a spa is supposed to be good for health, it can have a reverse effect to me…

Hidemi's Rambling No.346

I found a steel shelf on sale at an online store for $10 off, for which I had been looking for some time. Its physical store was near my home and I had gift certificates that would give me 30% off to shop there. Adding up the discounts, the shelf would be the lowest price of the market. My strategy to get it for that price was ordering it online and paying with the gift certificates at the physical store. The middle-aged clerk who took care of my payment at the store wore a name tag that said he was a store manager. But he didn’t know the way to take the gift certificates for the online order and began to grapple with a cash register. He was trying hard for 15 minutes but just couldn’t do it. I gave up too, and decided unwillingly to pay with my credit card instead of the gift certificates since the $10-off for an online order still stood. Then, much to my surprise, he now couldn’t find the way to handle a credit card for the online order. He called a young salesclerk who immediately logged in the computer, retrieved some sort of a code number and nimbly made it available on a cash register to be paid with not only a credit card but also the gift certificates. While we have many choices for our actions as technology advances, it’s not easy to keep up with it. The store manager would be in a mess again if he didn’t learn from the young clerk how to handle a computer and a cash register for an online order. Because now that I know how to get the lowest price, I will shop in the same way soon…

Hidemi's Rambling No.345

Last Sunday, a gunning engine noise from the parking lot beneath my apartment woke my partner up early in the morning. It was loud enough to be mistaken for a construction noise, but the culprit was a middle-aged man who was gunning his standing minibike. He seemed to enjoy the noise immensely and kept on the disturbance for a good fifteen minutes. Then, there approached a car from which a man said something to him. Considering the time and the noisiness, my partner reckoned that should be a complaint. To his surprise though, it was a compliment on the minibike and the middle-aged man elatedly showed it off. Not everybody takes that loud noise as a disturbance. Such situations have constantly fallen on to me. When I’m tormented with shrieking kids at a restaurant, other customers often seem pleasant for it. I like to shop at a quiet, empty place while others purposely choose a crowded, thronged place. Is it some kind of a punishment to coexist with humans who have totally opposite values? Or, is it for learning anything from it? Although I hate noisy people and I always make noise as little as possible, I may offend someone with something other than noise. That would explain why people don’t like me so much…

Hidemi's Rambling No.344

My sister always wanted to be a writer but she has settled for being a local government employee. In a dream I had the other night, my sister said, “I haven’t written anything because I dread that my work won’t sell.” And I replied, “Even if it sold, you would dread that your next work wouldn’t sell while people around you expect a great deal. So, you dread anyway whether it sells or not.” I woke up and was marveled at what I said in there. In my real life, I’ve never thought that way while I’m craving success in my music career where nothing has sold. I heard my subconscious talk in the dream. That made me think. If I dread either way, it’s meaningless to be disappointed at myself who is still an unknown or to be impatient to make a hit. In fact, too many artists with a big hit got caught by alcohol or drugs and died young. As an artist, it’s ideal to create music at my own pace without any pressure and hold on. Having said that, I can’t shake off a stupid desire to make a big hit and show off at a high school reunion in front of my old friends who ended up housewives…

Hidemi's Rambling No.343

This summer, people in Japan are fussing about saving on electricity because the accident of the nuclear power plant after the earthquake triggered a nationwide shortage of electricity. Japanese people love to endure something together with everybody in unity and they seem willing to cooperate with the request of the government and the power company to save on electricity. They voluntarily switch to appliances that consume less electricity or fix a thermostat temperature for air conditioning higher. I hate doing something together and have no intention of reaping the harvest of the power plant’s fiasco. But since I moved out my old apartment where the electricity charge was included in the rent and started to pay the charge for my new apartment, I have coincidentally saved on electricity purely to reduce the bill. I replaced all light bulbs in my apartment with LED bulbs and use electric fans instead of an air conditioner that I don’t have. It’s ironic that I’ve joined the electricity-saving frenzy just because I’m cheap. By the way, I’ve looking for a solar-powered lamp at online stores lately. There hasn’t been the one practical enough at a reasonable price on the market yet. If I got one, my electricity usage for lighting could be close to zero. I’m fascinated by the idea not for saving on electricity but for saving my money…

Hidemi's Rambling No.342

The region I newly moved in is situated at comparatively high altitudes. Therefore, it’s a little cooler than a suburb of Tokyo where I used to live. There has been no need to use air conditioning at night so far. The problem is the daytime. Although it’s obviously hot since it’s the summertime, making do with an electric fan isn’t impossible. Because I’m having my first summer here, everything is new to me like how hot it’ll get or how many rainy days we’ll have. I had been undecided about buying an air conditioner and went take a look at it at a nearby home improvement store. For my apartment, an air conditioner can be put in only on the window frame not on the wall, but all the air conditioners of a window-frame type had been sold out. I looked it up on the Internet, and they had been also sold out at discount appliance stores. Now that it’s not available, I feel like I should have bought it earlier. Some online appliance stores still have them at the list prices, but getting one without a discount means for me to admit I failed to seize the opportunity. Now I fully intend to persuade myself that air conditioning is not necessary in this summer no matter how hot it is…

Hidemi's Rambling No.341

The building of my new apartment has a spa for the residents. As a common practice in Japan, we must take off our shoes to get in the spa’s locker room. I hate taking off my shoes at a public place, but I go there every day to take a bath and a shower because the service charge that I pay every month includes the spa fee. Of course, I can’t walk barefoot around the floor that other people step on with their socks or bare feet since I have germ-phobia, so I have my own solution. I bring slippers and wear them when I take off my shoes to enter the locker room. This way, my feet never touch the public floor. One day, a middle-aged woman approached me and told me to take off my slippers and stay barefoot inside the locker room. Listening to her reason for a weird demand, I realized that she thought I had used the slippers as my shoes and therefore I had entered with my shoes on. I explained to her that I did take off my shoes and wore the slippers instead of being barefoot, which was as clean as barefooted. Actually, wearing slippers is cleaner than barefooted, for that matter. But she still insisted that I should be barefoot. While I had no idea why she wanted me to take off my slippers so badly and I kept telling her how clean my slippers were, she finally made her hidden point clear. She said, ‘Because nobody is wearing slippers here!’ Her point wasn’t about hygiene. She didn’t like to see someone different. Like a typical Japanese, she wants everyone to live in the same way and feels secure by that. She’s the exact opposite to me. I feel secure when I’m different. I’m confident other residents will follow and apply my way in time, and after a few years, everyone including that woman will wear slippers in the locker room. I walked there with my slippers on as usual, a little proudly today…

Hidemi's Rambling No.340

When getting into a Japanese house, you must take off your shoes. It’s more than a natural rule to Japanese people and if anyone entered with their shoes on, it would mean not only uncleanness but also an insult. When an English tourist once visited my apartment and started to get in without taking off her shoes, my Japanese friends there all at once shouted to warn. While it was just an ‘oops’ thing to her, it was a shockingly offensive gesture to them. Even some restaurants and bars in Japan make customers take off their shoes. For some reason, the area I have just moved in has many places with that rule. I loathe taking off my shoes at a restaurant. When I was a child, half of my house was in Western style, where we came in the hall, walked around the hallway and had meals at the dining room all with our shoes on. Although I was not so much used to eating with my shoes off, now it’s perfectly all right at home because I've developed sort of germ-phobia. But, sharing the floor with other people is a completely different matter. I can’t possibly step on the floor where people touched with their dirty socks or bare feet. Whenever I open the door of a restaurant and see the floor for shoes to be taken off, I leave the place right away and try somewhere else. Consequently, there are too many restaurants in this area that I can’t enter…

Hidemi's Rambling No.339

The area that my new apartment is located in is regarded as a sightseeing spot. I visited one of the tourist attractions nearby. It was a small theme park situated at an altitude of 3,000 feet in the mountains and the aerial rope way transported the visitors. Attractions of the park were a garden with alpine plants, go-carts, miniature golf, petting goats, restaurants and that was pretty much it. It had much less attractions in much smaller space than I had expected. There was intermittent rain during my visit and the low cloud hung over the park. It grew even lower and white cloud slowly covered me. Along with sparse visitors and unfamiliar flowers and trees, I had a weird sensation of being in the hereafter. When I came home, I saw a gigantic, perfect rainbow in an orange twilight sky from the window. Since I moved in here, I’ve encountered strange things that had never happened to me before. Life has been so different from the one I led at my old apartment in the Tokyo area that I can’t think I live in the same world. Perhaps, I might have died from Japan’s earthquake in March and wandered into another world since, like the characters in ‘LOST’. Seeing nature all around me everyday makes me feel that I’m a trivial entity, and that the high mountains, rivers and woods have a will to make unusual things happen…

Hidemi's Rambling No.338

I’m an avid shopper at Costco, but since I moved in my new place, it has become too far to visit readily. The other day, I was astonished to find that a tiny local general store on the forlorn street near my apartment carried some Costco’s merchandise. Indirect stores for the Costco’s merchandise usually add big profit margins to it, so that it costs less to shop at Costco directly even with the membership fee and the transportation expenses to get there. But this local shop’s margins are trifling so much so that the prices are almost the same as at Costco. Although the shop has only few selected goods, among them are what I regularly buy, such as salsa, tortilla chips and mixed nuts. It’s a totally unexpected reunion with Costco for me. The shop hands out a stamp card for the customers and gives them stamps according to the sum of purchase. The accumulated stamps are exchanged for freebies. I’ve gotten a small bag of Lay’s, cookies, and a jar of salsa for free so far. With the scant profit margin and the generous freebies, I can’t possibly believe that this shop is profitable. It’s a wonder the owner manages the business, as I seldom see other customers and there is too little merchandise in the shop. Is he working as charity for me by going to Costco, paying the membership fee, getting exactly what I need, and selling without profit? It’s a magical shop rather than my favorite shop. I have a strange rule that my favorite place is almost certainly to be out of business. Does it work this time too, and will the shop inevitably close down soon…?

Hidemi's Rambling No.337

I don’t have an air conditioner in my new apartment. Looking at other rooms of the building from the outside, I see quite a few rooms without an air conditioner. Does that mean I can make do without it for the whole summer, I wonder? Surely a cool breeze often comes in from the window as the mountains and the woods surround the building. But it’s getting hotter day by day and I’ve wavered between whether I should get an air conditioner or not. When I lived in my old apartment near Tokyo, the air conditioner was already constantly on at this time of year. I would have died from a heat attack if the room hadn’t been air-conditioned in high summer there. An air conditioner has been a must-have item for me, but then again the temperature here is generally lower than the one in the Tokyo area. While air conditioning in my old place didn’t cost me a penny since the room originally equipped with it and the rent included the electricity bill, I need to buy it and pay for the bill here. This building is air-conditioned in the hall and the lobby and there’s a draft when I leave the door slightly open with the bolt on. Because I’m cheap, I’m still seeking the way to use the draft instead of installing an air conditioner…

Hidemi's Rambling No.336

Beside my new apartment is a mountain which sloping side has a fancy Italian restaurant. Normally it’s beyond my price range but I had an opportunity to eat there at 30% off. The website said it took 15 minutes from the foot of the mountain and I started to walk up a steep slope. At first I enjoyed a fine view of flowers on the roadside and the town stretching below, but 20 minutes later, I was sweating all over without any sign of the restaurant. The steep road quietly continued to twist back and forth up the side of the mountain. When my feet became close to the end of their strength and I sweated for three saunas, I finally arrived at the restaurant. Sweat spoiled my dress, makeup and hairdo and I entered the place looking like I had been caught in a downpour. The restaurant was perfect with an exquisite atmosphere and delicious meals, except for the whacking prices. By the time I came down the mountain from there and reached my apartment, I was totally exhausted and even began to have a headache. It was so strong that a painkiller couldn’t ease. Since I moved in, I’ve been walking so much wherever I go, but I feel I’ve weakened rather than strengthened. Because my walking destinations are mostly restaurants, I haven’t thinned either…

Hidemi's Rambling No.335

My mother and I don’t have much contact with each other. But after Japan’s earthquake, I’ve heard from my mother sometimes, which is quite unusual. A couple of months ago, she sent me a postcard that said she was worried about me for frequent aftershocks. The other day, her thank-you card for my Mother’s Day gift was forwarded to my new place although she had completely ignored my gift the year before. She doesn’t know my new address because I haven’t told her that I moved. Every single action I take makes her resent for some reason, and I conceal things around myself from her as much as possible. On that forwarded postcard, she wrote that she’s been worried about me this time for radiation from the crippled nuclear power plant. Each time, I noticed her firm intention not to use a specific sentence. It’s ‘Why don’t you come home to stay with us for a while?’ When people leave the Tokyo metropolitan area for the safer western part of Japan, where she lives, it’s so unnatural that she hasn’t suggested it. Of course, as a mother who has told me not to come home ever again, I understand that is the last suggestion she would make for me. I can even read between the lines, that she is overflowing with joy, because she believes I’ve suffered the earthquake's aftermath as a punishment I’ve opposed everything she told me to do. Possibly, I’m twisted to think this way and she may be really worried about me. But ever since I left home, I’ve lived easily and cheerfully and that has been intolerant to her. The fact I’ve already left and moved for a safe area would infuriate her if she knew. It’s human nature to gloat over someone’s misfortune and begrudge someone’s happiness, I guess…

Hidemi's Rambling No.334

A month has passed since I moved in my new apartment. Although I’ve been vigorously unpacking, cardboard boxes have still occupied more than half the living room. My handmade soundproof wall has been completed only on one side of the walls in my bedroom/studio that borders on the next door. The positions of my furniture and instruments have been roughly decided for my studio. My old apartment was built on a light steel framework and had very thin walls. I was disturbed by all kinds of noise - rain, wind, cars, kids, neighbors, crows, helicopters - you name it. As my new apartment is built with reinforced concrete, it was supposed to be a lot quieter. It actually was, but wasn’t as much as I had expected. Unknown clanging noise coming from some pipe woke me up for several times, or I heard footsteps form the room above or below. I had probably overestimated reinforced concrete. I know I should be content with much quieter surroundings here, but thinking about having gone through that hard and long process of the move, I want the kind of silence that I had imagined as a reward. I’ve been telling myself that it may get better when the whole soundproofing is done. Also, I shouldn’t forget that there’s no such thing as 100% satisfaction in this world after all…

Hidemi's Rambling No.333

There is a lake a few miles away from my new apartment and I decided to go there for the first time. The local bus to the lake was surprisingly old-fashioned and worn-out. It jolted along a mountain road, ascending higher and higher. The lake lay at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by the fresh green woods. Although I had expected it to be a popular recreation place for locals, it was quite lonely and quiet with only a couple of small spots to eat and shop. One of them was an Italian restaurant and I had an expensive lunch there as a sole customer. The directory showed that there was a walk around the lake and I tried it. It got steeper and rougher as I walked on, as if I was climbing a mountain. The walk looked exactly like the one in my recurring nightmare in which I walked along an ever-steepening path and ended up tumbling down the slope every time. I crawled along the walk on all fours so as not to tumble down. Fighting off a fear of heights, I finally got to a suspension bridge over the lake, and the view of the lake from there was breathtaking. On my way home, I mistook the road for the bus stop, and walked all the way home. It took 90 minutes and I was dead on my feet…

Hidemi's Rambling No.332

Formula One’s GP of Canada is one of my biggest pleasures. I look forward to watching it on TV every year because it is a precious and rare race that is aired live in Japan for the time difference. The race is special to me also because it is held in Montreal where I used to live and I adore the city. The live broadcast started at 2 a.m. in Japan and I stayed up, all excited. It rained heavily in Montreal and the race was suspended when a third of the laps were run. By then, a Japanese racing driver Kobayashi was in the second, which meant he would restart the race from the second position. There have been many Japanese Formula One drivers, but the best result has been third. With Kobayashi on the second, I might witness a historic moment live on TV. The heavy rain persisted for two hours and finally the skies began to clear. When the drivers were getting back into their cars for the restart, the TV commentator of the Japanese broadcast suddenly said, ‘I’m sorry that we have no air time left.’ And the live coverage was replaced with an infomercial at 4:30 a.m. They were insane. According to the post-race report on the Internet, the race after the restart was totally action-packed, to the climax that Button overtook Vettel who was leading the race on the final lap. Kobayashi didn’t make the podium but crossed the finish line side by side with Massa almost at the same time. It sounded like a great race that I had hardly seen in 22 years as an avid Formula One fan. That particular race I missed…

Hidemi's Rambling No.331

I’d like to get down to working on our next song soon, but before that, I need to set up my studio all over again in my new apartment. So far, piles of cardboard boxes have occupied my new place. To make space for a studio, I should unpack those cardboard boxes and sort out their contents. Then, I’ll take measures to soundproof by myself. As I did to the walls of my old apartment, I’ll fix folded cardboard boxes to all over the wall, cover them with soundproof polyurethane, put more cardboard boxes on it as a sandwich, and add soundproof sheets over it. Done with only one side of the wall. I should repeat this for other sides of the wall and the ceiling. I’m a little frustrated at this cumbersome process to start arranging our new song. The melody and the words of the new song have been completed, so that makes me want to start working on the arrangement soon all the more. I know it will only take a long, long time to finish the song once I get down to it after all…

Hidemi's Rambling No.330

A new restaurant opened one train station away from my new place according to the Internet. It seemed an American cuisine restaurant which specialty were a cheeseburger and a waffle, which is rare in this area. There are many other restaurants on the street where the new restaurant opened and I’d wanted to stroll along it sometime. Most restaurants there were introduced with the pictures on the Internet and looked neat enough. I was pretty sure that they wouldn’t disappoint me this time around, and went there for lunch. But, sadly, my jaw dropped yet again. It was as if the pictures I’d seen on the Internet had been taken 30 years before or something. All the restaurants were rusty and shabby. The street looked deserted with nobody strolling along. I spotted the new American restaurant among them and a man dressed in a white cook uniform was sitting in a chair in front of the place looking at his cell phone. The door was left open and I glanced at the inside. There was no customer in a cramped restaurant. The online photo of the place was far better than the actual one. Whoever took the online photos of the restaurants on this street must have a genius for making dreadful sights look beautiful. As I was starving, I entered the least unsightly restaurant where some customers had just come out. They served the meal twice as much as an ordinary restaurant and it was so delicious. Unexpectedly, It was a pleasant eating experience. I went home feeling like trying other restaurants on that street as well. As for the American restaurant, I’m still not sure if I have the courage to go in…

Hidemi's Rambling No.329

I found out that there was a downtown area in the region of my new place and went to look around. It was a twenty-minute train ride from my apartment. According to an online map, a shopping mall building was right next to the train station, but further information wasn’t available anywhere on the Internet. When I actually got off the train and stood at the station, my jaw dropped. A shopping space that had been called a mall on a map was a one-story shabby building with few stores. It was like a swap meet, rather than a mall. The main street in front of the station seemed to be caught in a time warp. I felt back in time walking through the old, forlorn shops. Murmuring ‘Downtown? Can’t be!’ I decided to try another shopping mall about a mile off. After I walked for 25 minutes through rice paddies and vacant lots, a huge suburban shopping center appeared. It was what we called a mall. I felt greatly relieved that I found a place to shop for my life in a new town. The shopping center had the free shuttle from the station. My long walk was totally lost labor…

Hidemi's Rambling No.328

Moving to a new place reminds me about the time when I first left home. I had always longed to live in Tokyo since childhood, watching modern high-rises or cool apartments in TV dramas. I knew that would never happen to me because I was a firstborn in a family succeeded from generation to generation and was destined to finish my life in the country family house. But music provoked me to throw away everything-my family, friends, college life and, above all, secure life-and to move to Tokyo. As almost all Japanese record companies were in Tokyo and there were many musicians as well, I thought it would be easy to promote my music and find good band members. In actual fact, I only found bad musicians in an unsightly city with too many people, and the record companies picked trashy songs by ignoring mine. Except that I was so happy to have left the place where I was born, things in Tokyo weren't as good as I had expected...

Hidemi's Rambling No.327

Since I moved in my new apartment, I've occasionally felt a sense of homesick. Only I've seldom felt it for my old apartment. What I miss are shops and restaurants that I often visited, characters and mascots that were standing by the roadside or painted on signboards, and the memories associated with them. In my case, homesick isn't for home to be exact. I've moved for six times in all both domestically and internationally in my life, and the first one was when I left home where I was born and raised, and started to live on my own for the first time in Tokyo. Although it seemed like a perfect occasion to feel homesick, I was too happy to feel any. To date, I've never missed my hometown nor wanted to visit the house. Recently, I've seen many people on TV who live in the shelters after the earthquake eager to return their hometowns instead of moving to new places. For most people, home is such an important place. I wonder if my new place here can become my home...

Hidemi's Rambling No.326

My moving day had finally arrived. I got up only with a three-hour sleep. There was little time before moving out. Although a mover would come a few hours later, unpacked things were still littered all over the floor. My hands were trembling with a panic. Just as I managed to pack everything, the moving van pulled up. The problem was a huge amount of trash. We must use the municipal specified bags to throw away trash, but I used them up and had no time to go and buy more. I ended up shipping trash to my new place. While the mover was loading up a truck with my furniture, boxes and the trash, the real estate agent came up to check the apartment. He was examining the place closely to see if there was any damage. As a matter of fact, I had been dreading this moment for months. I was afraid that he was going to charge me an outrageous price for repairs. Since I didn't have enough time to clean up the place, a possible cover-up wouldn't work. When I was braced for a high price, he said that the room cleaning was included in the security deposit I had put down and I would receive the most of it back. I didn't have to clean the place in the first place or pay for the damage. On the contrary, I got money back. After both the agent and the mover left, I said goodbye to the empty apartment I had lived for nine years, locked the door for the last time, and headed for the bus stop. I would never been in this neighborhood again. An end leads to another beginning...

Hidemi's Rambling No.325

It was the day before my move. Time for packing everything including basic necessities. I unscrewed the table legs and removed the drapes and the venetian blind from the windows. After packing the stereo, inside the apartment was weirdly quiet and I heard my own voice reverberate. When I had the last dinner at this apartment with my partner on a small folding table and remembered many good things that had happened or come in here, tears suddenly rolled down my face and I couldn't stop crying owing to the beer and a spell of lack of sleep. But I knew I couldn't afford to be sentimental. I had to evacuate this apartment by noon the next day. It seemed undoubtedly impossible to finish packing and cleaning the place by then. A hectic, sleepless night awaited me...

Hidemi's Rambling No.324

I have only three days to go before I move to my new apartment. I’m already exhausted from packing. Once furniture is moved, the dirty wall or mold appears and the thorough cleaning is also necessary. A mover came today to pick up some pieces of my furniture. To me, they looked like supermen. They carried heavy objects down the stairs so easily. One of them had been even determined to carry down my electric piano by himself until I begged him to do it with his co-worker. Compared to them, I’m nothing. Moving just a few things tires me out and makes my muscles stiff. I don’t know how unstably I’m moving, but I have bruises all over. After I settle in my new place, I’ll exercise and strengthen my body ? that is, when I finish all the packing and cleaning and move out here in time for the deadline…

Hidemi's Rambling No.323

About two months have passed since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan. Finally, aftershocks have dwindled. Those atrocious scheduled blackouts have stopped being carried out so far. Food shortages were resolved. Nevertheless, life is totally different from the one before the earthquake. Radiation has been leaked from the crippled nuclear power plants everyday and I can’t go outside as much as I like. At nighttime, stores and restaurants hold their signboard lights off and the streets have become dim. I don’t understand why they turn the lights off since the electricity consumption is low at night and electricity can’t be stored up for later use. As there’s no rational reason for that, I suspect they’re just promoting their gestures of trying to save on electricity. Their baseless savings of electricity make the whole town stale and depressed. In Japan, people have consecutive holidays from the end of April to the first week of May, which is usually the lively, noisy and annoying time of year for me. But this year, the holidays were gone quietly. When I decided to move to the countryside, my biggest concern was if I adapt to living in a small town with sparse shops. But after the earthquake, ironically, the city I currently live in is as dark as the small town I’m moving to, and because my going out is limited due to radiation, the shopping experience here is nothing less than in a small town…

Hidemi's Rambling No.322

I removed all the magnets from the fridge to pack for my new apartment. Moving those magnets is tricky because they must be separated from my wristwatches by at least 3 feet. It’s the rule for the wristwatch’s well-being that I was taught by an old watchmaker. His shop was run by him and his wife and I used to visit it very often when I lived downtown Tokyo. My friend once gave me a wristwatch as a gift and she wore the one of the same design. The back of hers was taped up unsightly and she warned me that once I had its cover taken off for a battery change, it wouldn’t be closed again because the watch had a peculiar shape. When the battery was dead, I brought the watch to the old watchmaker’s shop. Although I had thought he would tape up the cover, he grappled with the cover for as long as 10 minutes with sweating and closed it beautifully. Since then, the shop has become my favorite. Some watches didn’t start ticking even with a fresh battery and in that case, he took time and mustered various old tools from his tattered box and his unique skills to fix them perfectly. I liked to see him working on watches. I can’t count how many times he saved my watches in bad condition. Years later, I moved to the suburbs and became unable to visit his shop. When the battery change was needed for the peculiar-shaped watch, which had been the old watchmaker’s specialty for me, I brought it to a clock store chain in a nearby shopping mall. I thought they would tape up the cover this time around, but they closed it with a special gadget right away. I wonder if my favorite watchmaker has already retired while I religiously obey his law to separate magnets from watches…

Hidemi's Rambling No.321

When I was little and took a bath with my mother, she said in the bathtub, ‘Never marry someone with whom you fall in love.’ In her theory, marriage for love is a ticket to unhappiness because love burns out quickly. She insisted that I should have an arranged marriage as she did. She and my father would find a man for me and do all the necessary background checks so that I’d be better off. She also once said to me in the bathtub, ‘I married your father because he was wealthy. Do you think I would choose such an ugly man like him if he didn’t have money?’ When I grew up, I learned that she had been seeing someone before she met my father at an arranged meeting, but she chose my father because he was richer and had better lineage. I think she dealt with the devil and sold herself at that moment. Since then, she has been unhappy and that made her a being filled with vanity and malice. When it comes to decision making, I always imagine what my mother would do and do the exact opposite. Since I adapted this rule, my life has been easier and better…

Hidemi's Rambling No.320

I received an unusually nice postcard from my mother, which said she was worried about me because aftershocks of the Japan’s earthquake had still continued to come almost every day in this area. She had also called me right after the earthquake and when the phone service was restored, she asked me if I was all right. Both gestures of hers were so unlike her usual attitude toward me. When she called, she asked me what my apartment was like and where it was located, too. I’ve lived here for nine years and have told her about my apartment many times over the years. I don’t know if she’s not listening to what I’m saying or she simply doesn’t care about me, but either way, she doesn’t remember things around me at all. Considering that many people in Japan have felt helpless and faint-hearted since the earthquake, her true concern might be just for her future as an old woman, not for me. I found a wrap with a markdown of 75% that had left unsold for winter and bought it as a Mother’s Day gift to send to my mother. When it arrives, I’m sure she will glance at it, tuck it away in her drawers, and forget about it quickly. I know this much because a few years before, she has told me not to come home again, and yet, she has acted as if nothing had happened between us…

Hidemi's Rambling No.319

There is a mysterious pattern that my favorite place is destined to be unpopular and eventually closed down. Shops, restaurants, theme parks and even attractions in popular theme parks have closed down once they became my favorite. My favorite restaurant in this area used to be Red Lobster because of its chic interior and westernized menu, but as I feared, it fell into the cursed pattern and closed. The TV said Pizza Hut opened where Red Lobster had been, and people have flooded for all-you-can-eat pizzas baked with a stone oven. Months later, I happened to have an errand near the restaurant and tried in. While the building remained the same as Red Lobster’s, the interior was remodeled into a casual style. The place was empty, except for a few servers having time on their hands. I had a wonderful time with delicious pizza and pasta, the reasonable price, and the quiet atmosphere above all. Soon, I started to be worried about the place. The fact that it was about to become my favorite and that my partner and I were the only customers in this large restaurant might mean the place wouldn’t last long. I was thinking about the fate of this restaurant when families with small children came in one after another. The place was quickly filled with clamor and we had to flee. A restaurant with families is all but closed down to me…

Hidemi's Rambling No.318

Now that I have already submitted a month’s notice to move out this apartment in mid-May, it’s less than a month for me to leave. Through my vigorous packing after the earthquake, my apartment is quite empty. I realized how spacious it was and how neat it looked without things. On the other hand, ironically, the destination of my things, which is my new apartment, has had less space and looked more and more like a storage room with numerous cardboard boxes towering to the ceiling. I’ve often heard on TV that there is a strong possibility this 9.0-magnitude earthquake will trigger an earthquake which epicenter is the metropolitan area. That plausible story combined with daily fears of aftershocks and radiation makes my resolution to move out of the Tokyo area firm no matter how attractive my current apartment has become once again. While I want to move to my new place as soon as possible, thinking about those towering boxes there, I have no idea how many months it will take to unpack all of them. The completion of the move won’t come so easily…

Hidemi's Rambling No.317

The region where my new apartment is located is famous for hot springs and my apartment building has its spa for the residents. For this trip there, I had looked forward to easing my stress from the earthquake’s aftermath in a hot spa by feeling relaxed and rich. But when I went there, I found out that the operating hours were cut short due to shortages of electricity and oil because the nuclear power plants and some of the thermal power stations for this region had been damaged too and remained to stop after the earthquake. Also, to save on electricity, most lights in the spa were off and the Jacuzzi and the sauna were closed. All I could enjoy was to sit in the hot tub in a weirdly dark, silent spa. That easily made me downhearted. To make things even worse, a mother with a shrieking child came in and destroyed the remnants of peace. There is no way to avoid the aftermath, and a noisy kid, in Japan…

Hidemi's Rambling No.316

Aftershocks persist day and night although it is more than a month since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan. I often wake up in the middle of the night by a jolt and brace myself for a possible big one. As a result, I get up every morning tired. To escape form those stressful days and also move my furniture and boxes, I took a trip to my new place for a couple of days. About 70 percent of the move was completed by this trip. The goal is near. The region of my new apartment was still covered with snow and looked like a different world. I was able to be absorbed in cleaning the apartment without thinking about aftershocks, radiation and a shortage of food for a while. It was when I began to feel unwilling to go back to the Tokyo area that I jumped out of bed at night with a big jolt. I turned on my new TV which I had just set up that evening and found out the seismic center was right under the area of my new apartment. There is no way to avoid an earthquake in Japan…

Hidemi's Rambling No.315

I've written a note about how disturbing the loud noise that a neighbor kid made by shooting hoops on the street was, and dropped the note to the kid's crazy family for four times. Nevertheless, he started it again and this time I consulted my partner as to what to do. He said he would visit the family to complain face to face and went out in the evening. I began to be worried when he hadn't come back after a while. I went out to see what happened but a hush fell over the crazy family's house and there was no sign of my partner. An ominous feeling seized me. Did they come to blows and was he killed? Is he lying dead inside the house? Or, is he being carried away by the family's car to be buried? I came back to my apartment after searching for him in the neighborhood and thought I could save him if I called the police right now. When I was about to make the call, he returned, safe and sound. According to him, the crazy family told him that they didn't care that they let their kid play on a public road as if in their own yard, or that the noise annoyed the neighborhood. Because they had no concept of morality or legality, he left. Then, the kid's father followed him cursing out loud. As the man acted like a crazy animal, my partner ignored him and detoured back after losing him. My partner could have been killed or imprisoned for assault by countering, for such a frivolous matter like this. The noise of a bouncing ball stopped the next day, the day after and the day following. Did our risk-taking pay off? I have the feeling that the noise will return sooner or later...