We are not translators, not by a long shot!

I have found myself in a position where I am having to attempt to translate some of the photo captions from my picasa site. It is inordinately difficult. My mom and I struggled through a few, agreeing and disagreeing on the Japanese or the English or both. Talk about vexation! We were not even speaking a language by the time we took a break. These words actually passed my mom's lips: "Like I’m always looking for a new word kind of way." Wha? Meaning is completely up for grabs. I'm sure that's not English either, but I'm beyond caring right now.
We arrived at the photo of the girl with her cell phone down the back of her pants. The caption, "From this girl, I learned the best place to store your cell phone is your butt-crack," seemed straight forward enough, so I was typing the Japanese as my mom quickly and easily dictated her translation because she, too, thought it should be a breeze. Oh, how wrong we were.

Here is her Japanese translation retranslated back into English:
"From this girl, I learned the best place to store your cell phone is your butt-hole."

I almost laughed out my lung.

Never as bad as it sounds

We are going to my grandparents' grave tomorrow. This morning I was informed that today was the anniversary of my grandmother's death. Here are some possible ways my mother could have told me, followed by my translation of what she actually said:
Casual - "Did you know today was the day that Baba died?"
Proper - "Did you know Baba passed away on this very day three years ago?"
Traditional - "Did you know that today is the anniversary of Baba's death?"
Yoko - "Did you know today was the day Baba croaked?"

Okay, maybe the Japanese didn't quite translate as 'croak' but it was definitely beneath casual in how she said it. The thing is, I know nobody rolled over in their grave because we all know and love her for exactly the fact that she says things like this. After all, she did call her mother (though I guess this term really exists in Japan) 'Honorable bag lady' instead of 'Mom.' I guess it never is as bad as it sounds.

Head of the Crass

It was a good way to start the day.

I went down for a quick bite before heading off to work this morning. As usual, my mom was already downstairs and was reading her email. I got my breakfast and sat down at the table, sipping coffee and trying to get ungroggy, when my mom turns to me and says, "Seizo's assistant."
I sat, eating, drinking, waiting for more, but nothing was forthcoming.
"You know that's not enough information," I told her.
"Well," she said, "I was gonna say 'fucked up' but I didn't think it was very nice."
It was a proverbial 'milk-out-my-nose' moment, though coffee and toast was decidedly more painful.

Event two happened just moments after this one, when the cat was whining and meowed his super high and lady like meow even though he's really an old-man kitty. "It's because he has no balls," my mom informed me, "Like the castrati, you know?" This I knew, but still it seems remarkable that his voice is so clear and high. To me, he'll always just be the Gramps, the Queen.

Technology 7, or, Laptop Viagra

My mom's old student/IT man came over last night to finish setting up her new computer, transferring data and things. This morning, encountering a problem, we clicked 'restart' and waited. "It's taking so long to shut down," my mom commented, so a few seconds later I asked if it was still trying to shut down.

She replied, "It shut down and now it's trying to get it up."

I started laughing immediately, and she said, "It's not funny..."
"It is," I insisted, tears welling up in my eyes. "Do you even know what that phrase is usually used for?!"
"Yes."

A side story about her student (whom I call "The Professor" since he knows random facts about just about anything) is that last night my mom was telling him about my blog and he asked me what the URL was. As I said it, he typed it in to the computer. A moment later I got a blank stare from him and he said that it pulled up an error screen. What?! I thought, but as soon as I saw the address bar, it all made sense. Here is what it said: www.myclazytokyomother.blogspot.com. So close, and yet, so far...

subtle is her middle name

They were showing this really ornate kimono on TV just now, with amazing gold thread embroidery in patterns reflecting the spring, like cherry-blossoms. "It's something that would be worn by a hight-class..." my mom pauses, looking for the right word.
"Courtesan," I offer.
Evidently she didn't hear me, because she's still searching her brain, looking up toward the ceiling, eyes a little squintier than normal.

"A high-class..." As her gaze falls back toward earth, I try again. "Courtesan?"
"...whore."

This is my mother.

Even if the damage is permanent, it was worth it

We were talking about this little farmers' market type place where my mom had gotten hand-made donuts and possibly the aforementioned cookies. But she said it wasn't quite the same as a farmers' market. The next thing I'm aware of is that she's looking something up in the Japanese-English dictionary. She finds whatever word she's looking for then looks at me with the most puzzled and confused expression, and asks me, "What's 'corneous'?" I'm busy eating my tangerine, but I take the dictionary from her and look to where she's pointing.

"It says 'horny'," is the next sentence out of her mouth.

At this point, I literally inhaled about a quarter of my tangerine and started alternately choking and laughing. Luckily I didn't die - I coughed most of it out (though I'm still hacking up bits of pulp and juice) but my voice got all deep and now I'm wondering if citric acid can seriously scar lung tissue. But still it might have been worth it. Maybe I'll even sound like Tone Loc - Steve, remind me to see if they have Funky Cold Medina when we go Karaokeing. The PS to this whole thing is that the word she was looking up had nothing whatever to do with markets or farmers but was about an exfoliant she bought and thus the whole 'corneous' whathaveyou. I can't follow her train of thought no matter how hard I try. And I'm trying. Hard.

...that's what she said...

We were on our way home and we passed by this building that had an office on the first floor. It was very nondescript and small, but there was a man in a police uniform pacing in front of the building, so I asked my mom if that was a police station, and she said, "Yes, it's a police station, not a whore-house."

As you can imagine, I started laughing immediately. Obviously, I was only paying attention to the man in uniform out front, but apparently all police stations (even if it's just a little office like this one) are marked with a red light out front and Europeans who've visited my mom thought that it meant they were in a red-light district. So that's what she assumed I was talking about. Confirms the old adage of what happens when you assume.

Some things you just can't leave out

I was asking my mom about this area called Ebisu and she said that I'd been there before.

"You know that place where Baba (my grandma) used to go? Where they lay you?"

Before you start thinking things about my grandma, you must know that when my mom said that, she also made a horizontal motion with her hands. I knew where she meant - it was like a physical therapy place for your spine... anyway I was laughing so hard, obviously she knew that she had said something funny.

"Lay you down?" she added.

"You HAVE to say 'down'," I told her. "Have to!" It was too weird to talk about the implied meaning of the partial phrase, but in any case we both had a big laugh.

Clarifications

Last night my mom's friend came over for dinner and during dessert we were talking about my various plans and schemes for while I'm here. My mom's friend was saying that it might not work so cleanly to leave after 1 year, that I might have to be more flexible. I agreed, but said that I'm sure it will work out somehow. At this point my mom looks at me and says that she won't be my something-in-Japanese. I assumed it meant that she wouldn't clean up my mess if I left one. But just to be sure, I asked what that phrase meant. She looked at me with her crazy eye and said, "CLEAN YOUR ASS." Once the meaning was clear, I was able to deduce that what she'd said literally translated as 'she won't be my butt wiper.'

Nice.