Peek-a-boo

Boy, am I tired.  Jet lag persists.

Today annual check ups for Sag and me.  Picked up a box of lovely cards for the numerous thank yous and other words-thoughts-feelings I'd like to express.  Paid a bunch of bills.  Wrote checks for the veggie CSA, the fruit CSA and the March and April eggs.  Started an expenses (outgoing money) document and have it right on the computer desktop.  Registered Sag for an art class.  Renewed our art museum membership before registering for said art class.  Planned dinner.  Preparing dinner now (turkey meatloaf, peas and salad).  Checked out TLo's Oscars bitchery.  Fed children and myself.  Signed up for Weight Watchers.  Figured out how I can get to Vinny's and the kids could get to Pokemon tomorrow afternoon (Cap will do a conference call standing outside Time Warp...now that is love and cooperation).

I leave you with some pics of the Bay area sky during our trip.  It was a pretty dramatic time of year weather-wise...

Oatmeal

Something I enjoy about staying with friends is the inspiration I often find in their homes. While staying with Erika, Jerry and Malachi, I was thoroughly nourished by a wonderful bowl of oatmeal that Erika fed me.

This morning, well, afternoon, really (the kids and I woke up around noon), I made oatmeal.  Inspiration incarnate.  Love transported.  A bowlful of soul.

McCann's quick oats, filtered water, raisins, unsweetened coconut, toasted walnuts, toasted sunflower seeds and maple syrup.  (All ingredients found in the fridge and pantry...waiting patiently, to simply be put together.)

Easing

Sag has been spending time putting his London Bridge Lego set together (he cobbled together a lot of birthday and special occasion money for that one!)  It arrived the day after we left...not good timing on my part (as the adult I do bear the responsibility for such things), but it did give him something to look forward to after the trip.  He has also been thoroughly enjoying the Neko Ramen manga he picked up (at my suggestion---Gem has never taken a suggestion of mine, incidentally) in Oakland.

Gem has been sleeping a lot.  Our first night back he slept for 15 hours straight, waking at 2pm.  He's been reading and enjoying his home food.  He requested Cap's tortillas for his first dinner and enjoyed leftover tortillas the next day for every single meal and snack.  He also requested a play date and yesterday we went over to Danielle's for a few hours.  The kids went back there for more play today.

I've been eating.  Chinese take-out last night, Japanese chocolate, leftover Berkeley burrito, and my must-have pastured eggs :-)  I slept well the first night, but last night had trouble falling asleep and once I did, around 3am, I had wacky, wacky dreams.  This afternoon I had alone time for the first time since before we left for Japan.  It was very nice to listen to music, unpack, and catch up with some of my "stories".

Oh, super wonderful news: dear friend of the family (and one of Cap's oldest friends) Uncle Mike sent me his gently used iPhone having heard of my interest in Apple gadgetry.  I've been having some fun with my new toy.  Especially, Angry Birds :-)

I will be organizing my photos over the next couple of weeks and posting more here.  Tonight, I leave you with a shot that looked good every time I saw it on my camera screen.  Uploaded into iPhoto, I was delighted to see it came out really well.  The kids with my Dad at Narita on the day we left Japan.

Home

It feels great to be home.  Will reflect and report in the next few days.  For now, I leave you with this hilarity:

Live and learn

#1: Next time I travel, I will bring a flash drive into which I can upload my photos...ooh, unless I have my very own laptop by then (I have serious laptop envy after hanging out with Barbra and Erika's laptops).  I thought I had things sussed out, but couldn't upload into Picasa using my Dad's PC laptop and fell behind.  Once I was in Cali and back on Apple laptops, I could use Picasa, but, man, it takes a long time to upload photos this way.  I haven't had the time to get them all uploaded.

Here are a few uploaded tonight, mostly from Sacramento, the last one is back in Oakland taken today at the comic book store where we returned to pick up plane reading.

I'm off to bed, I actually feel sleepy at bedtime!  (Tomorrow we head to Mary's in Berkeley, Thursday she will drive us to SFO at 6:30am...)

Back in the fold

The kids and I had a lovely day in Sacramento, they are feeling much better, and we took the train back to Oakland late this afternoon.  Erika almost made it through saying good-bye without crying and for a startled moment I thought: she doesn't feel the same way anymore...  Silly me.  Waterworks ensued.

The train ride was lovely as ever.  The scenery is really varied and soothing on the stretch between the Bay area and Sacramento.  I love the ride.

We had a cozy dinner of leftovers plus a bacon and broccoli frittata.  The kids enjoyed some episodes of Pokemon on Barbra's laptop and Barbra and I caught up.  Then the kids read in bed and B and I watched Community and Parks and Rec on Hulu.  *Big smile*

It feels good to be home having returned from a new home away from home (we'd never been to Malachi's new house) and our thoughts are slowly turning to heading back to NJ on Thursday.

But, tomorrow we'll have our last day with Barbra before she goes back to work on Wednesday.  We will go back to the wonderful comic book store for airplane reading material, meet up with Mary and her kids, and enjoy the predicted near 60º temps.

Peace and love.  And to subsiding coughs and viruses.

Still

...as in quiet.

Gem's immune system has kicked into fighting mode.  He's running hot and is exhausted, sleeping a lot, waking mostly to take sips of water.  I'm making some chicken broth for him as I type and will toss in some garlic and ginger when Jerry gets back from the market.

Sag is in bed napping.  He has been having jet lag the worst of all.  He is so tired at night but his system is set to "go".  Lying awake in the dark unable to fall asleep?  Not fun.  He has also become quite constipated and last night we were up every 30-60 minutes between 1:30-5:30 because his gut hurt and he needed to poop (with little to no "result").  I will dose him with some more olive oil when I wake him up.

Malachi, Erika and Jerry have been amazing.  Generous, loving and flexible.  They are all out now enjoying the sun and going about their days for a bit.

...as in unchanging despite shifting.

We became friends with this family when we moved to Sacramento and the kids were in preschool together.  Since we moved five years ago, the kids had not seen each other in person until yesterday.  I saw them when I visited a couple of years ago on my own.  But, they came down to Oakland and so this is the first time, for all three of us, to spend time in their home, which they moved into a few years ago.

Though time has passed, time is a funny thing sometimes.  Because, really, nothing seems different between us.  The energy is the same.  The connection is the same.  The feeling is the same.  Call it clichéd, but I'll take it.  It is as if no time has passed and I appreciate it and feel so grateful.

P.S.  Jerry recently returned from a trip to India.  He makes chai at home now.  So very, very restorative and yummy.  (I came at a good time ;-)

Blur

I guess it comes with the jet lag territory.  Last night was brutal.  The kids could not fall asleep and it was upsetting for them.  We finally fell asleep past 2am.

Today, we met Mary and her family for lunch at Picante where Sag declared his burrito the best he's ever eaten.  We met S for the first time and he's a sweet baby-toddler.  Big sister S is blossoming beautifully.

From there we went to the Lawrence Hall of Science and had a blast.  It's a really great space for kids of all ages.  Even in the dismal wet and cold weather we've been having.

From there we went to dinner in Oakland's Chinatown.  Lana came across the Bay from San Francisco and we had a "small world" gathering.  I know Lana from Hunter and we have reconnected via Facebook.  She is close friends with Elena who is good friends with Audrey, who is Barbra's wife.  Barbra, is a BFF of mine from college.  Lana and I had no idea we had this friends connection until we started planning to get together while I was in town.  But, we did find out with enough time to allow for all of us to get together :-)

And now, Barbra sits next to me, the kids are playing Pokemon on DS and we are sipping our tea.  Hopefully, sleep will not elude us till 2am again.  Tomorrow I have a massage in the morning (yay!) and Rachael is coming over for brunch.  Then the kids and I head up to Sacramento in the afternoon for the long weekend with Malachi, Erika and Jerry.

Phew.  So, it is a blur when I think on it, but each moment is being lived and savored.  We are lucky to be here and are really enjoying ourselves.

Back on native soil

The light hit my brain and I knew the definitive answer to a question Gem had asked me the day before in Japan: do I have a home away from home?  I do.  It's northern California.  Especially the Bay area.  I feel it every single time the light hits me.

We are here in Oakland at Auntie Barbra and Audrey's house where the dogs have greeted us with love and taken us in stride.  The flight was smooth for the most part (the kids slept through the turbulence) and they slept for between 2-3 hours.  I got about 2 hours of on and off dozing in.

I crashed for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, the kids impressed me with their wakefulness as they powered through the day without napping.  We hit a great comic book store, Sag and I had doughnuts (his request for lunch and once I saw how good they looked, I had to have one) and dinner was sushi on the water where Gem, finally, sated his salmon sushi jones which had been sorely unmet while in Japan.

Sorry no pics, the camera cord is buried in my suitcase and the kids are still, blissfully, sleeping.  I was ecstatic to wake and find that I'd slept eight hours straight.  They are now into hour eleven.

It is raining here this morning and so cozy.

Peace and love, people.

Yawn

Toasty from the last ofuro, about to snuggle into the futon for our last night.  I'm not sure I'll post from my first tomorrow, so thanks for reading these posts from Japan.  I will try to post from my second tomorrow, once we're settled in Oakland.

(We leave Narita at 5pm on 2/16 and arrive at SFO at 9am on 2/16...two tomorrows :-)

Peace and love.

The big event

We were invited to Japan to attend a service and reception in honor of the 7th year mark since the passing of my paternal grandfather.  My dad put a lot of thought and work into this occasion and included my grandmother's memory into the event.  It was a full and long day that went off without a hitch.

We rode a microbus out to Chiba prefecture with two of my aunts, an uncle and a cousin.  There, a second cousin of mine (who I may or may not have ever met) performed the Buddhist service in an incredibly intimate setting.

We then hopped back onto the bus and enjoyed a wonderful reception at the historic Hotel New Grand (in Yokohama) where my grandparents held their wedding reception over 70 years ago.  There were relatives in attendance who vividly remembered sending my grandparents off to their honeymoon from outside the hotel.

The food was amazing and decadent (after the relative simplicity of the food and smaller portions I've been eating, naturally, since arriving here, my digestive system has been struggling a bit today, the day after) and it was wonderful to see my cousins and their children.

Afterward, we took the train home and, crazily, enjoyed a dinner of sushi and pizza take-out.  The pizza was Domino's (Japanese style) and Sag loved it.  The sushi was delicious, but Gem was very disappointed that they had run out of salmon for the night.  To add insult to injury, the tekka maki he ordered without wasabi came with wasabi and he had to wait a long time for the correct order to be delivered.

Today has been a post-adrenaline day off for me.  I didn't get enough sleep.  By the time Cap left the apartment to head back to NJ, shortly after noon, I knew I wouldn't be joining the rest of the family on the planned afternoon outing to visit my maternal grandparents' grave and the Motomachi-Chukagai (China Town) area of Yokohama.  My nerves were fraying and my GI system felt...delicate.

The quiet of an afternoon home has been restorative.  The kids have decorated wrapping paper for Ellie's birthday present, a card has been picked up (Hello Kitty), the kids have watched some Pokemon episodes online, and I've been catching up on blogging.  (Not so much reflecting, but at least the archiving is happening.)  Gem and I went to the market and dinner ingredients were bought.

Tomorrow, my aunts will come over for a visit.  Tuesday I will pack and we'll pick up any last minute souvenirs.  Wednesday we leave the apartment around noon and head to Oakland.  What a time we've had...and will continue to have in California!

(Listening to The Decemberists and sitting up front meant no motion sickness for Sag...yay!)

(The highway took us over and under and over Tokyo Bay---this was one long tunnel--- as went from Yokohama to Chiba.)

(Multiple altars...  The one in the foreground had my grandparents' photo, some orange offerings, incense---Sag opted to make his own incense offering while Gem chose to observe---, other offerings in those boxes, and in the lower left hand corner, a copy of one of my grandfather's self-published books.  The priest made some lovely and insightful comments about the day and my grandfather, inspired by the books he remembered having of my grandfather's.  During the service, the priest sat in between these two altar spaces with his back to us/facing the main altar.  He often gonged the metal bell-like bowl to his left and hit the wooden bell-like drum on his right.  Very rhythmic, lots of chanting.  At one point he waved incense around using a big brush in the air which reminded me of seeing a priest wave a metal box full of burning incense in a Catholic service once.  Interesting stuff!)

(Before the service started we were offered tea and rice crackers to warm up and settle down after our long bus ride.)

(The bookshelves lining one wall of the temple space made me feel instantly connected to my grandfather who loved books.)

(The priest and his mother.  The priest's father was a first cousin of my dad's.  The priest's paternal grandmother was a sister of my paternal grandmother.)

(An incense burning pot outside a smaller temple space on the grounds of the temple.)

(The temple grounds held so much that caught my eye!  A truly eclectic assortment of statuary and design elements.  I was walking briskly back to the microbus and kept getting pulled here and there to take "one more shot".)

(The microbus.)

(Sag having fun with a bottle of beer at the reception.)

(Gem at the reception.  The wife of one of my cousin's remarked that Gem resembled me!  I don't hear that very often...a treasure I tuck away when I do :-)

                                     
(I was too busy making sure Gem had food and was eating---white rice and smoked salmon and fresh fruit , all from the buffet, kept him happy---and then thoroughly enjoying my own food that I didn't take any photos!  Here is one of the desserts I ate.  A chocolate mousse-y chiffon-y kind of layer cake with this chocolate lattice decoration.  Yum.)

(I just love this photo of them.  They get along so well and occupy the same space so peacefully.)

(It truly was a wonderful spread of hot and cold buffet.  This hotel is renowned for its food and you could just feel the crowd feeling such pleasure from the culinary experience.  Here most of the guests have dispersed.  We had the room till 3.)

 

(Ellie did me the honor of holding one of the plates.  An old hotel pattern that I found pretty and pleasing.)

(Here the kids are discussing parts of the landscape vis-a-vis Pokemon cosmology.)

(Mom, brother and my two aunts.  They are my dad's sisters and I am very close with both of them.  Oh, there's my dad in the background :-)

(In the elevator.)

(Gem in the hotel lobby.  I wanted to show how they have original, formerly exterior, stonework incorporated into the renovated, now interior part of the, building.)

(A staircase leading up from the lobby to a section of the hotel I did not see.)



(My Xmas shoes, oh how I love them so, and my new tights bought for the occasion in a Japanese department store.)

Night out: Yokohama Eki

Yokohama eki (the train station) is a huge hub with trains coming and going in from and out to many directions.  In addition to the trains, there are hundreds (several hundreds) of shops and stores underground on two subterranean levels, as well as, next to and surrounding the station.  This is where Cap and I headed a few nights ago for a night out.

We had Japanese curry for dinner and then we walked around shops looking for goodies and just enjoying each other's company, the night air, and the "scene".

(My dinner: "classic" beef curry over yellow rice with a poached egg...yum!)

(Rows and rows of taxis waiting to pick up passengers.)

(Pre-Valentine's Day mania right inside the front doors of Takashimaya.  The tradition in Japan is that women give men gifts on St. V's day and the men get to return the favor on White Day.)

(My favorite of the chocolate I saw.  But, it was about 3 inches long from snout to curly tail for $20.)

(Acorns in the Totoro shop!)

(An enclosed smoking area outside.)

(An egg restaurant I'll have to try some day.)

("Comic Heaven" :-)

(On the train heading home.)