Blood pressure

I have a question.

How many of you have a blood pressure monitor in your home?  And how many of you take blood pressure readings yourself?

The reason I'm asking is because Tetsu's doctor recommended he buy a blood pressure monitor and check his blood pressure daily (or maybe it was twice a day.)

I think this is excessive... but I have little patience with medical issues...  I think Tetsu should watch his diet and take his blood pressure medication and seeing those little numbers is just obsessing.  But I'm in the minority here as I've asked Japanese friends too about their blood pressure monitoring and most of them have a machine in their home and occasionally use it or encourage their spouses to use it daily.

Tetsu's mother checks her blood pressure every time she stirs and that is definitely obsessive behavior!  I shudder to think of Tetsu overlapping his mother's preoccupation.

"Well, the doctor told me to."

I know that my mother at 92 has never owned a blood pressure monitor... even though she too has high blood pressure.

I will probably buy Tetsu a machine.... just because his doctor told him that it might be a good idea...  And because I love him and want to keep him healthy...


But I'd still be interested to know if this is a more regular activity than I thought it was...

Y-kun in 6th grade

Let's see... 

Y-kun is still coming weekly for English.  He still brings me vegetables each time he comes.  Sometimes I don't know what to do with them (like two or three stalks of bamboo shoots. They hardly fit in my pot!)  Y-kun and I still have a weekly routine of cooking up whatever vegetable he has brought me.  Both of us trying to figure out what we might add, whether something should be boiled or fried or mixed up with something else.  Y-kun says he doesn't cook at home but he sure looks like a pro to me.  I think he finds it humorous that his mature, female English teacher has no idea how to cook some things.  He takes his role as official "taster" very seriously.  Weekly he acts like he's king of my kitchen!

As we cook I ask Y-kun about his grandfather...  The grandfather is still in the hospital, probably a rehabilitation center.  He recognizes people but can't sit up alone and can't talk.  Y-kun doesn't have much to say on the subject unless to mention that the grandfather is battling pneumonia or has had convulsions.  I can't read how this affects him... Y-kun always seems cheerful.  I don't think I've ever seen him sad.

Y-kun is in sixth grade this year so I probably have only one more year with him.  Despite his "enthusiasm" for things (he sends the cats into typhoon formation) I still insist that he is a bright boy trying to overcome his disadvantages.  Though he probably doesn't get good grades in school he just seems clever to me...  able to work out problems, not just in English, but normal puzzles of life, like how to get a drawer unstuck, how to make Choco be quiet.  So many kids just sit and don't try to use their brains but Y-kun always is wildly figuring, planning, trying things out. I wonder what will happen to him when he hits his rebellious years...  I wonder if he'll just get pushed aside in the competitiveness of Japanese education. 

I wonder if he'll disappear from my life like most of my students.
 

Obento lunch boxes

Yesterday morning (after spotting the pheasants), Tetsu suggested we go off hiking.  (It was a nice idea but we ended up NOT going as we could still see snow on the mountaintop.)  BEFORE we gave up on the hiking idea I decided I'd MAKE a picnic lunch.  Ah... memories of my obento making days!!

When my children were in kindergarten, everyday I sent them off with a little obento (lunch) box.  Even now at the kindergarten, the children bring their own lunches packed in little aluminum boxes that can be heated as is in a steamer...  The kindergarten feels that the lunch "connection" between mother and child makes the daily separation easier.  Anyway.. I began my many years' long routine of making obentos.  I bought books showing how to make the cutest, the healthiest, the most beautiful obentos that a child would gobble up joyfully.

I'm pretty sure my children have good memories of their obento years.  I decorated their rice with cut out cheese flowers and seaweed animal faces.  I cut up wieners so that they looked like miniature octopi.  Obentos, mine and Japanese mothers, were a work of art!!!  It was easy to get carried away in the early years!

(By the way, I sent Takumi to kindergarten a couple of times with sandwiches, a whole apple, a bag of rice crackers and Oreo cookies and he came home upset because his friends teased him and said he'd just brought snacks that day for lunch.  I went back to making him a rice obento.)

My obento making mornings stopped when the kids were in elementary school.  Good!  I was tired of getting up early and making a full meal before 7:00.  The education policy was no longer keeping a connection between mother and child, it was now, "train these students to appreciate all types of foods, not just what mom caters to".  Students were required (and probably still are) to eat everything on their tray, though some teachers allowed them to leave ONE thing untouched.  Leiya had trouble with school lunches because there were many things she didn't like.

When Takumi went to high school, he was back to obento lunches again.  Grrr.

"He eats a lot more than he did in kindergarten!"

So I was back to making grilled fish, simmered meat and vegetables, wrapped rice balls and macaroni salad before 6:30 in the morning.  And while I was at it, I decided to make Tetsu a lunch too.  Might as make two if I'm going to all that work in the morning.  And I had my ulterior motives.

I made Tetsu pay me $3 a lunch!!!  Such a conniving woman this foreign wife is!!!

I figured Tetsu was paying twice as much for a bowl of noodles everyday at lunchtime.  If I was going to daily do something that I wasn't thrilled about, then I might not mind as much if I had a little play money coming in (and Tetsu'd be saving money too).  I gave thought to making Takumi pay me $3 also but Tetsu said that was taking it too far.  It was my duty as a mother to supply Takumi with a free lunch...  true...

Oh well, this started out as a tale of Tetsu and my outing yesterday... 

We finally took our lunch to a hot spa place and after enjoying an outdoor bath we sat at a picnic bench in a nearby park. That's why there are pictures of the interesting tree with a "hole" in the middle of it...  Two trees had grown together.  And the daffodils were surrounding the picnic bench.

My hastily put together obento was a slice of salty salmon, salad, chicken and bamboo shoots and a sweet omelet.

The omelet was made by rolling it with seaweed strips as I cooked it.

Tetsu laughed when he saw the aluminum lunch boxes the obentos were packed in.

"You must have pulled these out of the depths of the cupboard!   These aluminum boxes look like something from the war years.  How long has it been since you made obento?"

I didn't make him pay me $3. But I did let him buy me bottled tea.

Pheasants

On our morning walk today I spent some time stalking a pair of pheasants.  We can hear pheasants squawking in the forest and occasionally one will dash along the rice fields.  The males are noisy and quite flashy but if I have seen a female I've probably mistaken it for a quail (we have those too.)

I took my camera a telephoto lens with me this morning and with Tetsu holding on to Choco went out to see what we could see.

"A pheasant!  Hang on to Choco.  I'm going to see if I can photograph it."

"Hold still pheasant.  Show me your handsome red head."

Ah.  There is a female camoflagued in the field.  She certainly isn't as pretty as her husband.

Yeah!  Look at the feather markings on his back.  Just beautiful.  I hope this pheasant couple will soon have little pheasants running around after them.
 

Mom thoughts

Let's see.... A little frustration today.  I spent some time talking on chat with Leiya yesterday.  She is supposedly graduating from college next month but she doesn't have much information at hand.

"Are you really graduating?"

"I think so...  I just have to pass my classes..."

Well, I should hope so!

And the reason I don't know much more (I don't know what her excuse is) is because I am not going to her college graduation...  Hmmm...  I'm not sure that was a good decision or not...  It is hard for me to get away at any time other than summer... May wasn't a great time especially because flights out of Japan are expensive during Golden Week.  But BOTH my children have graduation ceremonies in May...  Takumi from graduate school, Leiya from college.  I really had planned to go to Ohio to hers...

"Don't come, Mom.  It isn't that important to me.  I don't have a car to take you places or time to do things with you while I'm trying to move.  I need to go to job interviews.  I need money anyway if I'm going to try and buy a car or put down payments on a new apartment.  Let's spend the money that way."

My daughter, like me, is so practical. 

So I decided not to go to Ohio... and not to go to the States until July as usual.

With my children on the other side of the Pacific, they have gotten used to making their own decisions and I have gotten used to doling out very little advice...  I'm sure if we all lived closer I would be making a lot of Mom noises and Leiya would be irritated and annoyed.

Leiya is trying to buy a car.  I'm not really happy that my daughter will be out on the roads but she is 23.

"Find some guy who knows cars to go with you!"  (She interprets this as I don't trust her judgement about cars.  Maybe true.)

Leiya is looking for a new apartment.  She talks of house sharing with strangers.

"I don't want you sharing an apartment with boys you don't know.  Find an apartment that has only girls."

"Mom, it's not like I'd be sleeping in the same room with them.  We'd just be sharing the kitchen and living room."

Still....  I hold to not sharing an apartment with boys...  Whether Leiya will take my advice or not is another thing.

It is hard not to worry and not to conjure up worst-case scenarios.

Always a mother...

Salmon and vegetables

Another food post. Another simple recipe.

Tetsu and I eat rice at least 5 times a week.  Everything goes with rice!  Japanese like white rice (and so do I) but I try to put a little brown rice in the pot just to get more fiber in our diet.

And with rice, the most typical meal will be some kind of fish and miso soup.  I'm not much good at cooking fish but with a couple of slices of salted salmon, I almost can't go wrong.

Okay... I could just toss this in the griller and grill it plain (that is how salmon will be served at breakfast). 

Or I could add a few vegetables to out diet.  I decided to add sliced onions, sliced potato strips and maetake, a type of leafy mushroom.  I "wrapped" it all in foil and added a dab of butter and a little sake (the sake steams it all a bit.)

As an aside... I can use the same ingredients and instead of butter and sake I'll mix up a tablespoon of miso with  a tablespoon of mayonnaise and then wrap it all up.  Just a different flavor but very good.

And this is my fish griller.  Almost all Japanese kitchens will grill fish (and other things) with a griller like this.  My kitchen is equipped with gas (and yes, I try to remember to turn the gas off at the valve there every night) and it has two burners and the griller.  If you recall, I bought this new stove appliance last year after my old one gave out.  Most stoves are of a standard size and will just fit into the standard space left in the kitchen cooking area.

My griller is modernized just because it doesn't need water in the drip tray.  With my old griller I'd have to put water in there to keep splatters from crusting on the bottom.  What a mess to clean up!  My new griller is Teflon coated...  Just big enough for two slices of fish... but that is pretty normal too.  I guess big families have to eat in turns...

Ta-da.  I'm not sure how appetizing that looks but I served the fish in its foil wrapping and we added a bit of soy sauce before eating.

Along with the salmon I served a salad, cold tofu (Tetsu absolutely has to eat a block of cold tofu every night) and fermented soy beans called natto.  It's a pretty healthy meal if I do say so myself.

Wednesday with cats

It is Wednesday and that means I have to be out of the house in 20 minutes...

How about more cat pictures that I didn't get included in the "Cat Helpers" post?

Here is Mi on Tetsu's lap.  Mi is just cute.  She doesn't need to be doing anything.  (So Tetsu takes a lot of pictures of Mi.)

I've been letting Velvet sit outside on warm days.  He is connected to a leash so he can't go far but until he gets tangled in the lawn chair legs he is enjoying spring weather.  Velvet is so skinny and getting white and I want to make his old age as pleasant as possible.  He gets more treats and more extras than the other cats.  ("UNFAIR!" they cry.)

And here are Patora and Toi in the cat house.  They spy Velvet on the other side of their screen and are wondering why they aren't allowed in the yard too.

"But you've got the nice outdoor sunlight!"