被害届け： a visit from Jack Sprat and his wife

Life is filled with first's.
First crush.
First kiss.
First baby...

This was a first I could do without.

I made my first call to the Japanese Police this past Monday! (The 13th, incidentally.)
There were obvious signs that someone had been in my apartment while I was away at work. In other words, my very first actual case of breaking and entering. Not a very competent job fortunately as nothing was missing, only messed and.. increased? (They didn't take things, but they left things. ) However, I called the police anyway since if they entered once, they could do it again. And it was too freaky to think what they might be handling while I am not there. And what might happen to Ranmaru?!?

They took their time getting here, or at least it felt like it, but when they got here...
It was like a bizzare bridal procession for Jack Sprat and his wife. Officer "J", we will call him, was not tall like in the story but just as skinny and uninspiring. I am quite sure he was wiry-strong, but I am just as sure the gear he was wearing weighed more than him.
And his pledged partner Officer "W" was a retired sumo wrestler?
There are no really overweight people in Japan beyond the sumo wrestlers and comedians.
However, he seemed to have found the situation inappropriately amusing so maybe he fancied himself a comedian on the side. (All I could think as we approached my door was how is he going to get through the foyer to the back of the apartment??)

I filed an official police report.
They advised that since nothing was missing this time, that would be best course of action. If it happened again (and it does.), then they would call the detective in and it would be officially investigated whether or not anything was taken . They asked me about calling a detective this time too, but that was kind of unsettling so I went with their suggestion of just filing a report for now.

Oh, and like I mentioned above, the a$$h01e$ invaded again.

This time we were waiting for them though.
They triggered my door "alarm" and Ranmaru's very own ferret "alarm" - jerk stepped in a ferret landmine waiting by the front door.

That was the situation when I returned from work on Friday.
Once is more than enough.
But MORE THAN TWO TIMES!?! And in the same week?!
Camera came out for evidence pictures and I went to talk to the landlord who was actually in for once.
They immediately called in a locksmith...
Who then, as an apology of sorts for not being able to come immediately on Friday, arrived Saturday 30 minutes EARLIER than planned and before I had even gotten dried off from my shower.
... ...
At least it got done.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Eternal 1984

I live in the Village of the DAMNED.

Or maybe time has never passed beyond the eighties?
Like 1984?
An eternal Orwellian 1984.

No, really, very creepy here.
As in Big BROTHER is Watching creepy.

As a non-Asian in Asia you live in the perpetual fish bowl. You get everything ranging from the outright GAWKING to most common yet only mildly offensive "Oh, look at the white person." "Oh, a foreigner." to the native language equivalent of "GO THE FUCK HOME!"
After more than five years, yeah, I am tired of it, but I am also thoroughly used to it, completely non-responsive in any case. (Actually, I have been practicing Korean lately so I can mess with them back. It's the little amusements that get you by here.)

But here.... This place is truly creepy with its monitoring and watching and veiled digs for information.
It's subtle too, until the pattern gets repeated so many times so can't NOT notice it.

I got a very large package one day. At my APARTMENT.
The following day at work, I was on duty with someone I normally NEVER see. They were very chatty with me which NO ONE EVER is. In the conversation it came up out of no where, "Do you ever buy things online?"
This suddenly coming from a person at work who can barely turn on a computer.

?

Obsessed with TV much?
Really, how many times can anyone ask me " Do you watch the TV?" before it gets odd? And how weird is it that when the final time it's asked I mention that I remember that I did watch this one program only to then have the TV Collection service suddenly show up out of nowhere the next day after I answer yes??

??

The weirdly distorted ones are almost the creepiest for me though. The one that stands out (and yes there has been MORE than one instance.) is the night I heard a kitten crying outside. I am on the third floor. It was a dark NIGHT. And yet the crying was so loudly insistent that even though I am deathly allergic to felines, I couldn't ignore it. It was obviously a kitten and s/he sounded stuck or lost or hurt or hungry. Whatever was the problem I went to look for the wayward critter.

Now, behind the apartment building is a school surrounded by one of Japan's famous cement block prison-like school fences. So I am looking all over the back, where the school fence and the apartment parking lot meet. That's where the sound is coming from. Over, around, along the Twiggy-thin intervals between houses. Peered into the school ground by the apartment once or twice - cats do sleep there I had noticed before from my balcony. ZIP. NADA.

Give up and go to bed.

So, another morning, another day in hell house (work).
I arrived at my post when curiously out of no where, the person I am on duty with mentions, oh so casually, "You live next to a school, don't you? Isn't that inconvient?! Don't you worry about them peering over the fence into your room??"
Without missing a beat, I blandly responded, "I live on the third floor."

Oh, and did I mention it was DARK out that night?

I don't need to spell out how fu)(&&d-up creepy this is, do I?
who the f%#$ reported what to whom who then passed the message to work and then that message was passed to the VP (most likely) who then assigned the person on duty with me to deliver not just a "warning", but a weirdly distorted allegory of a warning ?!

・・・
・・・

Cheers!
and SMILE!!
remember, we're watching u 2 (^_-)-☆


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Hits, Misses, and in betweens

Back to something less heavy yet infinitely more caloric.

Tirol is a traditional, much beloved chocolate in Japan. Often found in the convinence stores, it's not known so much for quality, but for it's compact size, quaint designs, and variety of unimaginable flavors. (Yes, it even puts Kit Kat to shame in this respect.)

Allow me to introduce a few of the recent flavors.
We'll start with the 'hits'.


Milk one was a super-creamy milk chocolate and the one in black was an espresso flavored Tirol. Both definite redoables.

You don't need to read to know what this one is.


I must say the Japanese have done quite an excellent job of squeezing in all the deliciousness of a tiramisu into such a tiny chocolate. Of course, they do have a lot of practice in this area.

NOW, on to uncharted frontiers of in-betweens and outright misses...


Yes, that is a pancake not an illusion and they are serious about it, complete with butter and maple syrup.
And yet, it wasn't a miss, but one of the fence-sitters. Packed inside that teeny chocolate was a dime-sized dot of maple syrup(ish liquid) on top of a heavily butter-flavored cookie. (I had been seriously questioning the proposed butteriness of the "pancakes" until I bit into the Tirol.)

The one to the right is Kinako Mochi, which is good if you like kinako and mochi. The sweet, chewy rice cake (mochi) is inside a kinako flavored coating. It only made it to the in-betweens though because although I like both main ingredients, it had as much as chocolate in it as white chocolate does. (The kinako was mixed in white chocolate then used to encase the mochi filling.)

Now on to the final two. Can you guess which will be the miss and which will be a fence-sitter??




The one up top is a Matcha Soy Latte.
On the bottom....



Yes, that does say Gouda cheese.
If the smell doesn't knock you out upon unwrapping it, you could probably convince yourself to eat it, but a cup of coffee later and I still can't get rid of the taste.
It was not chocolate.
In no way, shape, or form was that chocolate.
That is what is known as congealed cheese `food` with a cracker on the inside.

Not much to say about that.
I was once again blinded, deafened and lead astray with the sweet, deceptive promises of chocolate.

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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radioactive Reporting (2)

Just so no one feels bad, here's a curious(?) followup to this previous article.

This article about the evac zoning was published in the Japanese equivalent to the Wall Street Journal. I posted it back on March 30 on my other major site, (Don't worry no one reads that either.) but as it has been brought up again, I will repost it here.

I know most can't read this, but it said at the time that the British are recommending an EVAC zone around the reactors of 50 K and the Americans up to 80 K. The Japanese government were still holding to their measly 30 K radius.

Interestingly enough there is actually an English "version" of the article; however, only paying members can read the likely propag#==% can read IT.

I would like to have read the English version for comparison particularly now that the evac zone has come back under discussion in the news. Last night's news was broken into with a live announcement from the Japanese government officials we've all grown to love and anticipate. The "emergency" in this case was that IAEA had sent their own people in to test for radiation levels around the site and found the Japanese evac recommendations WAY below what they should be. (NHK TV news. Reuters Online News. Also reference 03/20 article above.)

Naturally, the Japanese officials have since been repeating constantly that the IAEA measurements are done differently from the way the Japanese do their measurements for radiation levels. As a result, the recommended evac zones were different. And, as an additional result of their differences in measurement, the Japanese way of doing it is a more accurate to measure of the effects of radiation.
It naturally came with pretty graphics and charts and a pointy stick.

I can more or less go along with that. Think of it like measuring in meters compared to measuring in feet. Neither is necessarily more right than the other, just one is much more wide spread and far easier to manipulate.

What I would really like to know is what kind of proof the Japanese can stand on allowing them to say their way of measurement is a far more accurate measure of the effect of radiation on the human body leading to their recommended evac zones being perfectly within the safety zone. (NHK TV news. Also, Yomiuri Shimbun. )

If someone has a link to an actual scientific paper or non-government agency research, please do share it.

It's not impossible that this could be true. But given that it is government officials trying to sell another of their ideas ....

Like we've never seen that before.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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radioactive Reporting

I am rather tired of hearing about the latest American sensationalist news.

Radiation over 100,000 times the normal limit?!?!

When did minuscule become synomynous with 100,000?
Or NINE even?

Being very very distant from the site, I find the rampant fear-mongering and exaggeration to be far more frightening than the actual radiation itself. Did CNN or FOX bother to mention how much radiation you get just passing through La Guardia security these days? Or how much you are exposed to every time you get a CAT scan?

Incidentally, compliments of Reuters, FACTBOX: Japan's nuclear crisis and radioactive half-lives.

That aside, there are other things to consider.

As much as people urge me to leave, in the first place, we are NO where near the site. In the second place, it's "radioactive material".
"radioactive iodine has been detected in a milk sample from the U.S. state of Washington"(Reuters)
"extremely small amount of radioactive iodine was found in the air samples taken from 12 regions across the nation, including Seoul and Daegu."(KBS, Korean Broadcasting)

There is no escaping radiation.

And what is this about Japanese news isn't reporting the truth?
Remember those Cold War safety films compliments of the U.S. Government?
It's radiation.
DUCK and COVER was never going to help anyone and they sure as hell knew that much about nuclear reactions, but that didn't stop the U.S. Government from selling that lie to the masses.

Or if you would prefer something more recent...
Remember the intense reporting of fearful massive stockpiles of WMD in Iraq??

Maybe too political for some.
How about non-political and even MORE recent?

Remember the whole TOYOTA cars are dangerous and wildly accelerate out of control insanity? I believe there were two weeks when it was almost nothing but that news.
And yet, how much coverage was given on the final testing results conducted in joint by NASA and NHTSA confirming there was NO electronic errors or malfunctions?

Having lived - not merely visited - but LIVED in three different countries in three differing cultures, there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty:

There is no chosen people.
There is no chosen religion.
There is no chosen country.

Humans are the same everywhere.

For every non-truth in the Japanese news or propagated by the Japanese government itself, I can find you just as many perpetrated from the American side.

Be selective. Be doubtful. And most importantly, please be educated in your choices.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Flowering Friday

Forget TGIF, it's HANAKIN!

花金

Or "Flower Friday" if you prefer, the most blessed day of the week in any culture. Hanakin is also the day, for me in particular, to partake in 鯨飲馬食。

Working at a Japanese preschool and kindergarten, you barely have time to have a decent meal yourself at any point during the day much less at lunch time. Morning is time to quickly wolf something down (usually while in the shower because that's the only room above 70 F at any time), matched by an equally hastily made dinner, only this time it's out of exhaustion. Forget lunch. Sure you'll eat it but you won't remember eating it as you spend most of the time monitoring for spills, doing refills, and shoveling food into the mouths of slow or outright resistant eaters.

So Hanakin has come to be synomonous with another Japanese classic, 鯨飲馬食 (GeiInBaShoku) - drink like a whale, eat like a horse.

I apparently lean more to the horsey-side of the phenomena though judging from the mountainous pile of "white balloon" brand cookie wrappers siting on top two chocolate bar wrappers. (All the cookies amounted to the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk so it wasn't a total "loss".)

So Noms and Cheers to you and yours on your upcoming Friday.



(^_-)-☆

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Happiness is....

getting a paycheck ON TIME
and in the PROPER AMOUNT.

(The way this place is I was naturally suspecting some funny business in this department too.)

Of course, nothing but NOTHING beats a warm fuzzy tunneling through the covers to sleep on your feet at night, but a paycheck is not so bad either. Particularly when you had been balancing how to spend the last 500 yen (about 5 USD) for the past 2 weeks.

In this case, I immediately went out and bought myself a rainbow of happiness.


And there were even more soy milk flavors not shown that I haven't tried yet!!
New ones included oshiruko (sweet red bean soup) and sweet potato flavor in addition to my old favs Vanilla, Chocolate, and the #1, Black Sesame Seed.

If one rainbow is good, surely two must be better.


Yes, a rainbow of sake you could never find anywhere else but in a Japanese supermarket. My old faithful companion, straight up sake by Gekkeikan is on the far right in a double size bottle this time thanks to the spiffy paycheck, but then I added some new friends to the gathering. I had been feeling it was long due time to venture into new frontiers..

On the far left is traditional sweet Umeshu made from local ume fruits (this area is either the top ume producing area in all of Japan or the second one down.), next a blend of sake known as Nigori-zake as it is nigotteiru or "muddied" by the rice, followed by a bottle of gently sweet sake as stated by the cute bunny on front. (Yeah, it was the bunny that ultimately sold me. Also, it added confidence knowning that it too is made by Gekkeikan.)

I shall report my taste findings in the future, if only for my own record.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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a Non-nuclear winter continues

Maybe not exactly sunny skies lately, but no rain, no radiation warnings and temps above 10C.

As a result, we're already in FULL BLOOM.
(I'd love to know what these are.)





And in the school yard, Shinsei's Flower.




Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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East meets West: Miso Pizza!

What could be better on a cold winter night than a union of two greats - Miso and Pizza!

Mix miso sauce and set aside.
[合わせみそ]
2 TB White Miso
2 TB Red Miso
1 TB Sake
1 TB Mirin (real not the imitation mirin-flavoring)
2 TSP Sugar
1 TSP Tamari


Version 1:
Spread the above miso sauce on a rice-based pizza shell.
Sprinkle with red pepper flakes!

Top with the following cheeses:
1 layer provolone, 1 layer mozzerella.

* Baking time dependent on pizza shell. For Udi's which I recommend, 7-10 minutes @ 350F.


Version 2:
Spread the above miso sauce on a rice-based pizza shell.
Sprinkle with one drained mini can of water-packed tuna (about 80g)
Use lots Habenero White cheese!

* Baking time dependent on pizza shell. For Udi's which I recommend, 7-10 minutes @ 350F.



Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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... and Fauna of the sub-tropics

There's always Bupo Beach if you are feeling to lazy to make the 2 hour trip to Busan.
(I love the cliff-like crevice dug out by the waves. I have never seen that phenomena at any other beach.)



But this will surely forever sum up the image of Korea for me.





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Flora of the sub-tropics

Around the neighborhood:


And around my doctor's office:
(In addition to the color, I love the puffy, fan-like shape, how they seem almost furry.)


One thing I absolutely LOVE about Asia is the abundance of these flowers which I only know as 蓮の花 and 木蓮.

蓮の花 in clay water pots are all over, particularly around hospitals.


And 木蓮 flowers are giant and have the most amazing smell:



Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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New? Year

We start off the New Year (寅年) with the realization that we have reached the age level described as 'mature'.

How can you yourself gauge if you have reached that esteemed level yet?

Simple physically painless, possibility emotionally devastating Test:

1. You sit amoungst your stash of Christmas gifts and gazing about a thought flits across your mind -
Wait. No toothbrush?
I didn't get a toothbrush?
damn.

2. You set your alarm for 8AM Sunday mornings because you really, really don't want to miss that Economics Round Table discussion. Matter of fact, you feel a sense of disappointment and loss when it gets cut for some golf or other inconsequential 'special'. The week simply does not start without it.

3. You find yourself all excited to have a 3-day weekend because that means you can really clean things up to be all sparkly-shiny.

4. After accomplishing your various cleaning duties you feel deeply satisfied with yourself and a sense of relaxation. As far as you are concerned, at this very moment in this very place, all is at peace.
=====

Should you have happened to answer yes to any other these questions, CONGRATS!! you are on the road to MaTuRiTy!

Should you have happened to answer yes to all of these questions...


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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You speak Korean (?)

Last day of class this semester before Winter vacation was a designated movie day. Anything else would be beyond impossible into the utterly unthinkable range.

However, one enterprising table of girls in one class asked if they could play a game.
～　There's actually two broken down board games from the 1980's - CLUE and SCRABBLE. Upon asking I was told there wasn't enough 'budget' to get another game. What? Can't spare the 30 dollars on a learning game? No Budget? Why don't we start by NOT buying boxes of paper coffee cups and use only the ceramic ones that are already available?? hmmm..... -_- ～

To my surprise they grabbed CLUE and asked me to teach them how to play it. I was more than happy to. Taken aback in shock even.

In direct violation of Universal Laws, I am not a rabid fan of the TWILIGHT saga and having already seen the first 40 minutes six times this week... Well, any excuse was a good excuse as far as I was concerned. On top of which they would be using more English in this one class than the accumulated classes of the whole semester!! (Somehow that makes me want to cry.)

One girl was apparently appointed translator for my simplified explanation, cards were dealt, set and game.

Knowing better - not to mention not having anything better to do - I stayed and waited for the inevitable question from some unforeseen quarter to pop out and bring everything to a screeching halt.

Took longer than usual to come out of hiding, but there it was. I closely observed the appointed-translator and the dice-roller in heated exchange in Korean then helpfully jumped in:
"You can ask anybody the question. If you 'think it is Mrs. White', you don't have to ask Mrs. White player. You can ask anyone."

Appointed-translator quickly gave the resolution to the exact problem they had been wrestling over, but not before she quipped off, "You speak Korean (?)"
There really wasn't enough raise in her voice to qualify it as a question, but fortunately even if it was a question, I didn't have to answer as the game quickly got back on track again.

Halleluyah!
I am miraculously fluent in Korean!

Alas, NO.
The reality is I am extremely, painfully skilled at reading people and situations. It's something I have always been able to do and comes as both a gift and curse. Humans don't like being seen-through. They like to think that all their secrets are snuggly tucked away. The reality is though, it's all bleeding through. Everything below the surface. T_T T_T

When you are young people dismiss you as being over-sensitive or even making things up?! o.0
But when you are older...

Here, these many years in foreign lands, my 'skill' has been honed as it is basic to my very survival.
Yet at the same time, because I can read a situation so well I have all sorts of people chattering at me thinking I understand what they are saying. Hell, I've had whole conversations without really knowing what the other person was talking about although they certainly left satisfied.

Oddly enough, that doesn't create as many problems as one might think. On the other hand it creates tremendous stress to read and react to things on a spilt-second basis. And when the conversation, albiet one-sided, goes on for several minutes...
I leave completely exhausted.

It's not that I ever wanted this 'skill' or even wanted to know these things. (Some things really are better left NOT KNOWN. 知らぬが仏。) But neither is it anything I can change.

The good news is I no longer let people demean or dismiss me. I know better.

The bad news is I am still reading people like an open book.

...and that is precisely why to this day I still only wear glasses. -_-;;



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why do you steal?!

heh??
was the only logical response to my landlord's paniced accusation.

I was pretty much on a roll today compared to the disaster of yesterday. (I didn't even get lunch I was striking out that badly.) Already I had found a random 10 won in the school parking lot only to follow it up with a whopping 20 won in the classroom! The kids always have money on hand. Maybe no pens or notebooks, but be damned if they aren't armed with money for the snack bar. Because you know we never feed them or anything. So apparently someone finally took me up on my grinning request for a tip - "Gee, is that for me? Like a tip? Thank You~~ ♡♡ (WTH are you doing here? ).
Into the purse it went and into the apartment I went.

It took only an hour for the knocking at the door to start - at least the landlord was back and my washer might finally get fixed. But the first thing out of his mouth was just that - "Why do you steal?!"
"heh?"
"Coin. You steal!"
I stupidly didn't connect my actions of picking up a coin the valued equivalency of LESS then 1 cent to be stealing so all I could do was continue to stare dumbly at him.

"It's for steelman. If you have it I need it back!"
Even if you were blind you couldn't miss his skyrocketing panic. I didn't get the steelman reference or how it was in any way connected with a random worthless coin, but in a desperate effort to clear my name as fast as possible I hurriedly pointed down to the clothing bag at my feet atop of which the coin was resting innocently.
"Sure! Fine. It's right there!" o.0
(Look, nothing to hide! Just take it and go. Have you been drinking, sir?)

I'm not sure if he was miffed at the whole inconvience of it all or still feeling accusatory, but then he demanded an explanation of me -"Why did you take it?"
I in turn was pressed to think of something on the spot that he could understand in his current agitated state of mind while retaining as much meaning as possible only to come up with, "It was on the ground. Like trash." o.0

That actually seemed to satisfy him and the matter was put to rest.

And we finally got around to figuring out what the steelman was after he demonstrated by grabbing a CD off my shelf and shiftily hiding it behind his back.
"Oh! A burglar!!" (STEAL-man)
Yes, finally the light flashed on!
Or the sugar kicked in.

I guess someone had been robbed in the apartment building while they were gone for Korean Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving.

And apparently the coin on the window sill was his current idea for an alarm system in lieu of a door lock for the building.

Doesn't matter though.
Not only did I get to pet me a dragonfly ♡ today, but even his little friend flitted down to watch from the edge of my shoulder! ♡

Cheers! (^_-)-☆
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I take it all back.

Surely it's a fleeting thing, but aside from the monster mosquitos and around 50% of the population being grotesquely unmannered, pompous, ignorant, over-sexed... I'll leave off there.

I am NOT saying that I like it, but maybe Korea is not all bad? o.0

☆ I have access to really great cosmetics lines - Tony Moly, DHC, the domestic brands SkinFood and Innis Free. They would be the best ever if they weren't surely tested on helpless, suffering animals, but I don't have much choice in a country that eats dog meat.

☆ I have an endless supply of 'happy cake' in near endless varieties.
(I know the location of all the closest eight shops and they know me too.)

☆ I have three TV channels in Japanese one of which shows each of the major 2 week long sumo bashos and another on now which is showing American football!
Hakuhou~! ♡ Kotomitsuki~!♡ Balto! ♡♡ !
Oh, and BS2 (Japanese) will now be showing COLUMBO regularly on Thursday evenings. ♡ヨッシャー！！

☆ The white rice is still no comparison to Japan's, but the black, wild, red and about 5 varieties of brown are plentiful and cheap.

☆ Unlike in America, I have medical coverage.
For EVERYTHING. Even pre-existing injuries. The fact that I wouldn't be just shocks everyone into speechlessness. Much less when I tell them it was the charming US government itself that cut off my health insurance right in the middle of my physical therapy.

☆ The have these really cool item of clothing I've never seen elsewhere. Once I realized their potential I cornered a student on where to get them. (Apparently NOT where the sell clothes.)
ARM WARMERS.
Like leg warmers, but obviously not for your legs.
Within one week I managed to hunt down and acquire 7 pairs.

Or just maybe it's that I like being able to say "I need to make a quick jump over to Japan for some shopping this weekend."


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Angels on High

Being too brain-dead to do anything else, I am actively avoiding all pressing and necessary labor by uploading pictures from my soon to be vacated apartment. (good riddance.)

ROOFTOP pictures because you wouldn't want to see the inside of it anyway.
Besides I know you people are tired of hearing me babble on and are just waiting to see the "goods"(^_~)






Notice the mountains faintly in the background?
Korea is apparently nothing BUT mountains.
Mountains and STAIRS.

endless
lengths
of
stairs
.

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Weather Obsessions

If you live in Japan or Korea you are obsessed with the weather. I have never paid so much attention to the weather in my whole life previous to living in these countries.

I mark it up to reliance on public transportation - whether it's on foot, by bus or subway nothing like standing around at the office looking like a drenched rat.

Japan was different though. I just flipped on a channel and listened to the weather girl/eye-candy cheerfully explain what miserable weather I could look forward to today. BUT if you don't happen to understand what our fashion statement is chatting on about, there are two sites I've found very reliable over the long run:

Weather Channel: SEOUL
Weather Channel: PUSAN/BUSAN
Weather Network: SEOUL
Weather Network: PUSAN/BUSAN

Oddly enough, as much respect as I have for the BBC, I have found their weather forecasting way off - lacking even the marginal bit of accuracy you can expect from your average forecast. They will show up in your goggle search but make sure you stay clear of them.

Happy Travelling~
Cheers! (^_-)-☆


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If this were only the least of my problems

Ok, now I'm mad.
Really irked.

I'm finally about to escape this trashy shopping mecca and the local Dunkin Donuts {current haunt of choice} finally starts selling the original brew again!?

I walk in Wednesday morning and there are boxes, nay CRATES, stacked high in the entranceway mostly blocking it, all snuggly stuffed with the ambrosia of modern man.

WHAT THE HELL!?!

This whole time I was being generous thinking the coffee machine was broken or something when the reality was they were just sitting around waiting for the next shipment!?

I see them deliver fresh donuts there EVERY day. They couldn't have thrown a box or two of coffee in with them? Considering there's some kind of coffee shop every block and sometimes even several in one block, I find it unfathomable that Dunkin D's only ships its coffee once a month, but there you have it.

It goes without saying:
Even aside from the current economic conditions, you might want to fire the logistics guy if you want to compete with the Krispy Kreme and Starbucks next door because he's obviously not examing his spreadsheets very closely.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Payday Priorities

QUICK!
What do you do one week before payday with only one dollar sixty in change?

Run out to the local grocery and buy the highest volume + cheapest chocolate available.
Or that's what I do.

It's all about priorities.

Yes, I shouldn't have bought that twenty dollar imported magazine last week but I was irritated and really mad. And like most frustrated women in that state, I SHOP.
I just don't buy CLOTHES or makeup like most women.
It's books and chocolate or fruffy coffees for me.

So when I was forced to pay cash instead of paying by credit card last week, I was stuck with the reality that I had only ten dollars left. And ten more days to go. After dolling out money for a few absolute necessities like veggies and a last carton of heavenly sweet black bean soy milk, I coasted into this work week with only $1.60 to my name.

And as of Monday night, it is now 0.20 to my name – thanks to being able to find a cheap chocolate bar and a mini bag of chocolates which I promptly ripped open and dumped on the living room floor. After hastily unwrapping and popping three pieces in my mouth, I divvied up the rest of the week's chocolate allocation. Satisfied with my successful acquisition, I tucked my goodies into their respective bags and rolled out my bed for a cozy nights sleep.

Yes, most satisfied.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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One last fling!

As the North Korean missles move into place - Japanese TBS news reports "Obviously preparing for countdown" - the US army moves into position in the Japan Sea and the Japanese are moving warships and army towards Northern Japan where I used to live and several of my friends STILL live.

So what are the South Koreans doing?

Apparently on vacation.
I see one or two military personal every day as I walk the streets but TODAY, this Friday, I'm seeing them in groups of three and four, or pairs.

I'm guessing it's one last 'short leave' before they buckle down. :P

I know I'm having a drink tonight.
But then I"m ready to drink by every Firday night.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

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