Saturday, June 21, 2008

Confounder confounded by confoundee

On Tuesday morning, my mom was multi-tasking, talking on the phone and surfing the net simultaneously. I learned later that she was trying to look up directions to a museum on the impossible-to-navigate Japanese internet. I don't know who they've all hired as their UI advisors, but they should all be killed. Or failing that, at least fired. I know that this entry took a harsh turn right away..... (hello dad....).

Anyway, something was evidently not going right, so she turned to me and wrote me a note on a piece of paper then pushed it toward me. It said, "map." I had no idea what that meant. I was completely confounded. So, I decided to confound her back, by using some of my recently acquired KY-style Japanese. Underneath her words I wrote, "I.W." (which, if you're too lazy to look at the link, means "Don't understand a thing"). But, unfazed, she continued chatting on the phone and turned back to the computer. She then typed the letters "I.W." on her key-board and waited patiently. Of course nothing happened, at which point she turned to me with a half-scowl, like I'd purposefully deceived her or something. It was around this time I was able to piece together what was actually going on. Once I did, you know I laughed like mad.

It's like 'ding-dong-ditch' cellular style

I've been lazy, so this actually happened several days ago. I did write in on paper, so I'll just transpose:

This morning, my mom asked me if I'd heard the phone ring at about 1am. I had not; it must have been her cell phone. "It only rang once," she told me. Was it a text message?
Was it a wrong number? "I don't think so. I think it was a weird one." Silence. Silence continues and then we turned to each other and said, "Huh?" at the same exact moment. What were the chances. Anyway, she went to see who had called. "It was definitely a weird one." (I knew, of course, that she meant a prank call, in case 'a weird one' wasn't ringing a bell for you regular people out there).

But, my logical self kicked in. If someone was calling to harass you, wouldn't they let it ring more than once? "I don't know, but the number was hidden. I'm sure they called just to annoy me. They've done it before. It's why I usually leave my cell in the kitchen at night."

I can't really believe that someone would call and let it ring once then hang up, even if it had happened on a few occasions. It brings back memories of sleep-overs in my younger days, calling up random numbers and someone saying in a thick Persian accent, "Hello? Your dog is in my backyard." It's only funny if you hear the right accent. But, even we pre-adolescent girls knew it wasn't fulfilling unless the prankee answered. I mean, I know that Japan is über well-mannered, but this is ridiculous. It seems somehow wrong that even prank callers are polite in Japan.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

obviously!

I was going to a party at place called "Terakoya" and asked my mom if she knew about it. "Well," she began, "Terakoya is an old word for 'school,' like from the Edo period, so it's probably a restaurant."

The cadence of her sentence reminded me of a time when I was younger, hanging out pool side with my dad and some friends, drinking my preferred beverage at the time, a Schweppes Bitter Lemon. I noticed something cloudy floating around at the bottom of the bottle and asked my dad what it was. He said, "Well, since it's bitter lemon, it's probably made out of mostly bananas." I totally believed him for a moment there, too. But, the point of this story is not that I'm super gullible, but that he was joking whilst my mom was absolutely serious in her deduction. And, once again couldn't understand what I was kept chuckling to myself about for the rest of breakfast. If only things were as clear to me as they apparently are to her, I'd be set!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

PS no fatties

I'm sick as a dog today and thanking god for the invention of audio books and iTunes. I'm about to sink into a blissful reverie of listening to tragic mystery as written by Truman Capote for what will most likely be the rest of the day, but needed to note these few occurrences.
1 - my mom tried to get me to take ルル. Again. And after having just read 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' by Ms. Agatha Christie, I'm convinced that she has it out for me.
2 - the house keeper came today and this time straight up told me that I was getting fat. WTF? She still said it smiling so I still think it was not meant to be derogatory at all, but jeez. Luckily I'm on that new fangled diet called the flu. I hear you can drop pounds like mad on it.

Friday, June 6, 2008

I still have no idea; it is still hilarious. Barbara.

We all hate spam so when my mom created a new email account I advised her to use her old one for on-line purchases etc as an attempt to avoid future spam. Apparently she forgot to use the old address when she bought that sheet music recently, and so is receiving ads from that company at her new email. Not spam yet. Just junk mail. So, I told her that usually those kinds of emails are easy to stop. "Scroll down to the bottom, there will probably be something that says 'click to unsubscribe.' "

So, I watched her scroll and I watched her face as it inched closer and closer to the screen, searching, before turning back toward me with that blank expression. I knew something good was afoot. I waited. The blank expression continued and then finally, in that perplexed voice, she said, "Barbara?"

I have no idea but it was hilarious. I'm sure she scowled not that I could tell through my tears of joy. Then the cat meowed, and she said to him, "It's not funny, is it," but I think his meow was in solidarity with me. He knows. My mom believes cats have the mental capacity of a 10-year-old because she saw it on TV one time (I'm not sold), so I also know she knows he knows - it was hilarious.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Wishful thinking

It's a given that the streets in Tokyo are notoriously narrow and that the phone poles often jut out into the street making the already difficult task of driving in a metropolis all the more complex. All this notwithstanding, sometimes my mother's driving gives me a heart-attack. It seems to me when there is ample room on one side, she crowds the other with many near misses (in mah humble yet co-rrect o-pinion, as my "Texan" father might say) of, say, parked cars, phone poles, center dividers, people on bikes and sometimes, yes, pedestrians. I swear that when she sees a pedestrian about to cross, she'll hit the gas first before hitting the brake. She claims to not notice doing this, but I can't help but think that maybe she gets some sick thrill out of watching me clutch my chest in panic and horror. Personally, I think it's payback for her experience of my drivers'-permit-driving when I was 15, but I digress. I realized early on in my stay that I wasn't going to be able to change how she drove and, as evidenced by the lack of dents in her car, my mom's driving couldn't be all that dangerous so I should just trust in her ability and let her be. I've felt relatively safe under this assumption until now.

On Sunday my mom took some visiting friends and myself out to lunch, just a short drive away. On the way back, there were several near misses of large objects, but I kept my cool, chanting to myself "She knows what she's doing; we're all perfectly safe in here." That is until we came really too close to a pole and I nearly popped both eyeballs from my skull. "YOU REALLY ALMOST HIT THAT POLE" I close to screamed. "It was less than an inch from your mirror!"
I was hoping for something soothing from her, like, "Oh, don't worry - it's fine." But, when have I ever gotten what I was hoping for in these situations. Her response? "There was a pole?"

Of course.

My nerves are shot for good.