Changes

 Every ones schedule has changed!

Hannah is back at university after a long summer break!  She is excited about her study this semester, early childhood education and special needs education.  Most of her lessons are still online plus she is still working part time.

Christopher is working for the same company but is being trained as an early morning shift manager.  Early morning means early, 4am start.  Fortunately his work is just down the street at the local supermarket.  Last week he had a health check, he is healthy enough!

David has changed his job, he has worked for about 18 months at a local convenience store.  The new job is at an internet cafe, working nights, midnight to 9am.  Hard but good money!

Mikey has also started a part time job at a local restaurant, 10pm until it closes.  He wants to buy some magic goods so needs some extra cash.

All of these changes have happened in the last couple of weeks and has left my head spinning.  I honestly don't know who is in the house, who is coming or going and what to do about meals.  They all tell me their schedules but it's difficult to remember.  I'm going to put a calendar on the fridge and they can fill out their schedules!

The weather is kind of cooling down.  Nights are cool enough that I don't need the air conditioner on, good!  Sunday I decided to make a roast dinner, even made Yorkshire Puds to go with it!

Nice roast dinner

Also some of the autumn wild flowers are out.  These are growing along side the road.

They are more orange in real life.

Cook Books and Cooking Apps

 I love cooking!  Not in the summer but now the weather is cooling down I want to get back into the kitchen.  My problem is I get bored with the same meals, I figure there are so many different dishes to try and I love to experiment.  I have a book case full of cook books,  most in English some in Japanese.  I also have thousands of cook books on my kindle.  Then I have apps, a couple of Japanese ones and a couple of English ones.  The biggest problem is finding ingredients in Japan for English recipes.  Somethings are okay but many times I have to figure out substitutes for things, so I often wonder how close to the real taste am I getting!

Then there is baking.  I'm fascinated by the fact that the same four ingredients, butter, sugar, eggs and flour can be made into so many different things.  Just changing the ratios one can make cakes or cookies, add some flavor, chocolate or fruits and the result is so different.  I haven't baked for a while, it's been too hot but I'm hoping to start again, I have a craving for scones so I might make some this week.

My cook books

with a cat on top

Typhoon and Cats

 Typhoon 14 roared through here yesterday.  This typhoon had been dancing around the ocean just west of Kyushu for about a week.  The first forecasts had it going through South Korea but it dropped south came through northern Kyushu. The central pressure was 990hpa, so kind of strong.  My house has large metal shutters on the big windows which stops the windows being shattered by flying debris. They also cut the noise from outside, I actually opened the front door to see if the typhoon had passed, it hadn't but in the living room it was so quiet I thought it had finished.  All of my students called and canceled, which I'm fine with, it would of been dangerous to drive. I had a free evening so turned to Youtube for entertainment, I found an interesting documentary on tornadoes.  David couldn't figure out why I wanted to watch about tornadoes while in a typhoon.  What can I say?  I find these things interesting!

And cats!  They are driving me crazy.  Yes they are cute and very entertaining but the constant fighting is too  much.  It's worse than kids, at least they understand that fighting is not on and they grow out of it!  I'm not sure why they fight so much, there is enough food and water for all of them.  I have 10 litter boxes for nine cats so that shouldn't be a problem!  The worse ones are the oldest cats, 3 brothers (all the cats are fixed) they fight almost all the time.  One of the younger cats is trying to dominate the others but he gets put in his place.  We have to separate them at night otherwise we wouldn't be able to sleep!

lined up being quiet for a change

Alfie and Fred looking for lizards 

Alfie took Mamas place, she wasn't having it!

Looking cute!

A Murder In My City

 Japan has a very low crime rate. The city we live is safe enough for Hannah to walk back from her part time job at 10 o'clock at night.  In the 13 years we have lived here I've only heard of a few crimes near here, one was when a woman was attacked, another was some guy flashing girls near the library.  But murder, not unheard off but very rare.  It seems to me that murder in Japan seems to be very extreme, either a massacre such as the fire at the anime study that killed 33 people or very brutal, the beheading of a 11 year old, the head was then placed on the school gate are two incidents that come to mind.  But a cold blooded murder in my small city has really shocked me.  Apparently a university student traveled 120kms (about 74 miles) and killed an elderly woman who was in her garden weeding.  He had a steel hammer with him and hit her repeatedly around the head.  He then traveled 130kms (about 80 miles) and to another prefecture where he walked into a police station and confessed his crime.  He had no relation with this woman, never met her, she was just a random victim.  As much as I feel sorry for the ladies family I also feel sorry for this young man.  According to one article he had tried to set fire to his house before.  I think he has some serious mental health problem but that is not talked about in Japan.  Mental health is brushed under the carpet, people are expected to just get on regardless of how depressed they feel or how strong their stress is.  I know that in public schools the counselor has at least five schools to deal with, they don't have the chance to really see what the kids school life is like.  One of our students spent weeks talking to Mikey about her fears when her classmate tried to commit suicide, she had nobody else to talk to.  I'm sure over the next week or so this murder will be talked about on news programs with all the hand wringing and wishing it wasn't so but I doubt anything will change.  

On A Lighter Note

 Yesterdays post was a bit heavy.  I wasn't going to write about 9/11 but it is a significant thing that I felt I had to address it!

Todays post is just a run down of the daftness that is my life!  Four adult kids and nine cats make my interesting to put it mildly.

Mikey's latest thing is memorizing these awful jokes!  He then waits until we are in car to tell them.  Captive audience!  They are really awful groan out loud jokes!  I beg him to stop but he says just one more and as he goes on they seem to get worse and worse! He is hoping that he can get some magic shows this winter.  I feel very sorry for him as he planned to make his professional debut last summer.  But of covid put paid to that!

David is still as crazy as ever.  He put the cat tunnel on his head the other day and scared Toast, the small black cat.

Toast is freaked out!

Christopher and Hannah are doing okay.  Christopher is hoping to get another job. His manager has said he could change to the early shift and become a manager.  Early shift starts at 4am.  He's thinking about it!  The company he is working is seems to be good.  He will get 2 hours salary for getting his vaccine. 

Hannah is still on holiday from university but working her part time job 3 or 4 evenings a week.  She is saving to take driving lessons next year.  

And of course the cats are up to their usual antics.  I know cats are more nocturnal but why is 3am the favorite time to zoom around?  I get mad at them but then they just look at me with such innocent faces that I can't really yell!

In a bow tie

Rabbit Cat?

Steve was crying because he didn't have a box

.

Look the tunnel grew a tail!

9/11 Twenty Years

 There are some events in our lives that are etched into our memories.  Growing up I never understood what people meant when they said they remember what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated.  With the tragic death of Princess Diana I got to understand!

The 9/11 terror attack took that to a whole new level for me.  I remember clearly my feelings of that time.  Because of the time difference it was night time in Japan.  I had gone to bed early but my husband woke me up saying I had to see something on TV.  I went into the living room just as the news was showing the second plane hitting the building. I honestly thought it was a movie trailer, I mean these things don't happen, it couldn't be real.  I started flipping through channels with the realization that this was indeed happening.  I watched in horror as the story unfolded, The Twin Towers collapsing, part of the Pentagon destroyed and the brave souls that stopped the last plane from hitting it's target.  I was dazed.  I'm not American but I think on that day nationality didn't matter. I grieved for the families whose lives were destroyed, that had loved ones ripped from them in such a despicable act.  I've never been one to hate but at that moment I hated those terrorist.  What right had they to destroy innocents lives?  What right had they to plunge all of humanity into grief and desperation?  What right had they to rob my kids of their innocence?  I was so angry that a religion had been used to justify the attacks.  I grew up with Muslim friends and always found them to be kind, caring people.  What these terrorists did was twist their religion to fit their hate.

Here we are 20 years on.  I don't feel things are any better since that time.  The war on terror is on going.  The attacks over the past 20 years show that these terrorists will stop at nothing to prove a point.  I'm amazed at the resilience of people who refuse to be brought down by the terror attacks.  Through out Europe there have been a number of tragedies but as always we mourn, pick ourselves up and carry on.

My thoughts and prayers are for the families who have lost loved ones 20 years ago.  I hear stories of the fire fighters and police that rushed in to save people, they are heroes and deserve praise.  But I think that all those who lost their lives on that awful day are heroes!

Our Rescue Kitten

 As I said on Friday David found a kitten, dumped by the local supermarket.  He bought it home and we took care of it for a couple of days.  It was a lot harder to take care than I thought it would be.  I thought that because he gets hungry that he would take to the bottle easily but that was not the case.  In the end to get some milk into him Hannah or I would let him suckle our fingers and drip milk into his mouth. Some went in, some went down him, most dribbled down our fingers!  Getting pee out was easier, just gently rubbing him help him to go toilet, again I got covered in kitten pee a few times.

David managed to contact a local NPO group that fosters kittens until they are ready to go to their forever homes.  Yesterday we could take him and hand him over to a really nice lady.  I'm glad he is in good hands but of course I shed a tear or two, so did Hannah.  Hannah was very good, she stayed up for two nights, dozing on the sofa so she could take care if he woke up.

Our little rescue kitten

The older cats were very good.  They were curious but not aggressive.  Every time they came into the living room they would have a look, then walk off.

I bought a new cat tunnel for them.  They love it. Hannah managed to get a great photo. 

Look a tail is growing out of the tunnel!

Plans vs Reality

 Tuesday and Thursday I don't have regular work, so on those days I do extra cleaning or jobs that take too long. Thursday's plan was to clean out the fridge and wipe down the front of the kitchen cabinets.  I woke up at 4am with a raging headache and realized that maybe my plans would be put on hold.  From 5am a thunderstorm started, very close.  Christopher had to leave for work at 5:40 but he couldn't walk, the lightening was too close for comfort.  David had to drive him!  I ended up spending time in bed, my headache was so bad it was making me feel sick.  The storm passed in the afternoon so I went shopping. Big mistake, everything in the store made me feel sick. 

So today I figured in between teaching I can get some jobs done.  David went to the supermarket to get something for lunch, came back with a tiny kitten.  Hannah and Christopher went to the drug store for kitten milk.  David took the kitten to the vets, it's about  10 days old, we have to keep it away from the older cats because  it's too young to have blood tests!  We have contacted a couple of NPO groups to see if we can fins a good forever home for it!  Until then we will foster it!

Poor little thing

So I still haven't cleaned the fridge or wiped the cabinets, always tomorrow!