October starts

From tomorrow October starts. It means -- "winter" comes.

Now I've already had a slight cold, I'm easily effective by cold, on the other hand my husband still wears short-sleeved polo shirt. So, most people say " it is a nice weather".

It cant' be helped, it is what I am.

What event comes to mind immediately from October? Falling leaves? Halloween? Halloween is getting familiar in Japan. Here and there we can see pumpkin ornaments. At some cities they hold an event "making Jack-o'-lanterns" using American pumpkins. ( It means not Japanese pumpkins, usually Japanese pumpkins are hard and the outside is green. These days some farmers grow American pumpkins for Halloween.)

So I also put some ornaments on the entrance hall. Now my daughters are not with us, but students comes to my house, so I'm able to enjoy Halloween with them.

Can you see the net bag? It is a work. You put into the bag and make any shape as you like.

I call it "a ghost bag", though the artist doesn't agree with this name.

I put some books in my classroom. What books do you recommend on Halloween?

table topic -2- my memorial thing in autumn about spots

A member talked about SYOUSENKYO, where it was the first place to visit with her husband (she married this spring.)
Well, for me where's the memorial spot in autumn?
Probably it is NIKKO. As I wrote, NIKKO is the famous place for the beautiful colorful leaves. There is a famous steep hill, it is called "IROHA-ZAKA".

There are two hills, one is up-hill, and the other is down-hill. All up there is 46 or so corners that are named after the Japanese characters of the language ; I, Ro, Ha, Ni--(46 hiragana) - kind of ABC(26 letters). Now we use A,I, U, E, O (36 hiragana?)-- but until MEIJI area we used I, Ro, Ha,---.)

IROHA-ZAKA is the first place I went to drive by myself. I got my driver license when I was in the college. Autumn is the best season to drive, and NIKKO is the enough distance to drive from TOKYO. So I drove there and next to me my husband was sitting holding a hand side brake.

Now we are alive, so we got home safely. Since then more than 20 years passed. At that time we couldn't image we would live in TOCHIGI, and driving car is necessary to our life. (In Tokyo driving car is not a necessary thing.) I commuted to the company by car, I pick up my daughters by car. Fortunately I have a gold license even though I'm short-tempered.

table topic -1- my memorial thing in autumn with children

Last weekend I attended at a meeting of Toastmasters Club. A few months have passed since I attended last time. So I was really nervous to tell something in English. But unfortunately or fortunately I was asked to make a short speech about "my memorial thing in autumn with children".

I know, my speech was really bad, so to make my speech better, let me make(write) a speech(diary) here.

As you know, now my daughters are independent of us though not economically. So for me everything that we had in autumn when my daughters lived together is memorial thing.

The word of autumn reminds me colorful leaves at first. To collect colorful leaves in NIKKO was a kind of job in autumn. Correctly we went to pick clear and perfect colorful leaves to NIKKO. NIKKO is really famous for its autumn view with colorful leaves.
Why? It must be your question. They enjoyed making something with them -- drawing pictures with the leaves, making bookmakers, or just watching them as decorations.
I think whey they were in the kindergarten, they drew pictures with colorful leaves. Since then they were interested in making something with colorful leaves. So we went to NIKKO not to see colorful leaves but also collect them.
During the season there is an enormous traffic man in NIKKO. So to escape from it we used to leave home at 4 or 4:30. It means we could get home at 8. So since we got home we used to go to bed again.
Now I seldom get up before five, or I can say I don't need to get up such an early hour in the morning.

So I can say, getting up before dawn in autumn is my memorial thing in autumn.

Additionally this summer my husband got up before dawn on weekends to start golf at the break of day. (The fee of dawn hours is really inexpensive, and unfortunately they have such an inexpensive plan only in the summer season.)

fighting with a big pumpkin

A friend brought this big pumpkin to me. Though in your country it is a normal size, in Japan it is huge. It was too big to cut with a knife. So I cut it with a saw. Next I cut the hard skin (not peel), and put them into a big pot. Put some water, SAKE, and sugar and turn on the stove. A few minutes later it was soft and made paste.

Two- thirds of it, I put into some small prastic bags subdividedly. Using the rest of it I cooked soft pumpkin cookies and fried pumpkin daughnuts.

Now I'm planing that I let my students to make pumpkin dumplings at Halloween day's lesson.

ripe Goya

I waited for Goya in my garden to get ripe on purpose. Usually we eat green and hard Goya, the taste is really bitter (and the bitter taste is "Goya" itself).
The taste of ripe Goya gets milder. And it gets soft. So I touch it carefully.
And tempura of ripe Goya is really delicious.

If you have Goya in the garden, please wait for it to get ripe.

This weekend my mother-in-law came here, it was Respect-for-the-Aged Day, though on the other hand my daughters were treated by my mother in TOKYO.

Last Saturday, she came. And yesterday morning her son took her to play golf, and at night I took her to a concert.
She is really active and in good condition, though she often doze off.
We are glad for her to enjoy her life (now she lives in a nursery or senior home)

P.S I don't know how I correct the yellow part.

Fathers in their late 40's

Last Sunday I attended a party: thanks for your teaching for long years. My professor retired this spring.
At the party members separated into two groups naturally, one is "syouwa"group and the other is "heisei" group.
Do you know we have names of an era. Now it is "heisai". My elder daughter was born in the last "syouwa" era, and my younger daughter was born in the "heisei" era.
Though I don't have enough knowledge, in the syouwa era there were many changes in Japan, wars (well, in my generation the first half of syowa era is "unfamiliar" world.), the bubble economy, and the appearance of the computer. (The appearance of the car and appliances are in the first half of syowa era, and the appearance of the cellphone is in the heisei era.)

And I was one of two women who graduated in the syouwa era.
So I was talking with "men" in their late 40's at the party.
(Usually people I talk are kids, students, women and a few men in their 60's(neighbors), and my husband.)

Half of them are fathers (it means the half of are single).
They seemed to be---- really ----"tired" from working and daily life.
And probably everybody has something trouble about work, children, and their parents.
So they don't talk about current work, their children, though we talked about our parents because everybody was interested in nursery homes for senior people.

Last year I attended an alumni& alumnae meeting of my high school. There I was talking with talkative women with full of pep. They talked about their hobby, work (half of women were shingle) , children (even though they have troubles.)

So what were we talking about?
memorial happenings at the laboratory at that time, computers, deg ital cameras,--- and so on.
Everybody seemed to miss that good old days.

Fall comes

A few days ago I wrote --"fall is just around the corner." And now, fall has started. Because early mornings and nights are really "cold". So everybody seems to be difficult to adjust to the temperature. All of my adult students (only 4) have caught a cold, so they don't come this week. To be honest, I've have a slight colt. So fortunately I have enough time to take a nap in the day.

Fall is called like that it is for eating, it is for reading, it is for art&music, it is for sports.

For y husband and me every season is for enjoy eating.

I don't like doing sports (I know I have to do).So today I tried to be a artist, I made some props for my students.I made toadstools and a rafflesia; can you recognize them as toadstools and a rafflesia?Today I showed the rafflesia to some students.

They understood "Oh, that's something stinky"

I'm going to use these props in falls lessons.

My garden

Yesterday, I weeded a little. These days we had lots of rain, thunder and lightning. So it was a good reason for escaping weeding (and I often went out almost all day long.)
Anyway we feel fall is coming.Wild lilies are blooming, SYUKAIDOU (small pink flowers) are also blooming.
I cut (or pulled out) lots of SHISO leaves (they are a kind of weeds), and make SHISO juice.
Though fall is just around the corner, we have some GOYAs still now. This year, it seemed to be "GOYA's summer". I got "many" GOYA

s from here and there. To be honest, that's enough.But MOTTAINAI (I can't throw them away, What a waste!)So this morning I made Goya spaghetti with tomato sauce.

August has gone and Sepetember has started

August has gone but we are still in the "humid" summer. Fortunately it is not so hot today.

Last week end, or the day before yesterday "the concert" was finished with success.

What is "the concert"?

Our concert; my friends and my husband&Mieko held a concert.

The title was "a collaboration between Jazz & English picture books".

English teller; Mayuka Habbick (She is a little bit famous English trainer in Japan)

singer; Naomi Iwamoto

bass & piano & MC ; Mieko & her husband ( He doesn't like to put his name on this blog)

The tea room was filled. After the concert everyone looked satisfied.

Now, the lilies' scent permeated our living room.

Yesterday I was in TOKYO and participated in a debating session for junior high school students.

The theme was "did ants evolved into bees? or did bees evolved into ants?"

It has another meaning "do you want to be an ant? or do you want to be a bee?"

My first answer or wish was "I want to be a bee, because if I were a bee, I could fly, I could see all around the world".

But listening to the session, my thinking way was changed little by little.

Bees use their stings to protect themselves, and after they sting someone they also die.

Ants can live steadily.

The MC said, women tend to want to be a bee, they often said "the life is once", on the other hand men tend to want be an ant "steady life is important. Adventures are not all of the life".

What do you think of it?

(Sorr, there were (are) too many mistakes)