Making it Up As I Go

At this moment it is 8:57 am, or 4:57 pm in California, as my laptop just told me. (Apparently I haven’t changed it’s clock.)

It is 75 degrees and quite lovely. The girls and I are all in our dining room downstairs, with the windows and sliding glass door open, and the fan blowing. The girls are playing doctor school with their My Little Ponys and Littlest Pet Shops. They had a brief disagreement earlier when Z wanted to continue doctor school and Tiny wanted the doctors to actually treat patients, so I introduced the concept of residents in medical school, and now the doctoring students are teaching patients under supervision. Ah, compromise.

I am attempting to get caught up on posts while waiting for delivery of some purchases we made the other day – garbage cans, clothes drying racks, scissors, towels, bath mat.  I’m also attempting to distract myself from a bunch of ferocious mosquito bites. I will just say this- mosquito bites are a lame thing to be allergic to.

A few cars have gone by this morning, but on the whole our street is very quiet. There are two guys down on the corner smoking. On Sunday, in the  midst of the heat, two neighborhood boys rode bikes and scooters outside- the younger one stark nakers. It made me laugh.

Upstairs, there are clothes spread out in the “office”. (There’s nothing in it to make it an office yet.) I’m in a power struggle with my washing machine/dryer, and we’re trying to come to an understanding.  Our negotiations consist of it telling me things in Japanese and not doing what I want it to (or wanting to take an insane amount of time to do things- like take 7 hours to dry a load of clothes) , and me turning it off and then turning it on again and pushing other buttons. So for now, the clothes will finish drying upstairs. Once the drying racks get here, they will get hung up outside.

Also upstairs, the new tatami mats in our bedroom are slowing airing out. Did you know that new tatami smells like a barn? Indeed it does. B jokes that we’re sleeping in the hayloft. But it’s a small price to pay for a gorgeous room.

Zoe is obsessed with the idea of checking the mail, and asks if every car going past is the mail truck. None of them have been.

Later today we are going into Harajuku, ostensibly to show Bruce’s co-worker’s wife around, but really to revel in the gloriousness.

I’m going to spend the rest of the morning finishing The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown. My friend was reading it and said it was quite good, and she’s right. I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been reading it and about 4 other books at the same time, which I don’t usually do, but a lot of the books were non fiction and required thinking and applying concepts before continuing reading, so it has worked out ok. I’m ready for a good, juicy novel now though. I’m intrigued by the mystery that it’s just been revealed as being written by J.K. Rowling.  I already have 5 billion books on the haunted Kindle that need to be read first, however.

But before any of that, some pictures of the cute girls playing at the park.

Z is queen of the jungle gym.

Tiny, attempting to look as grumpy as she possibly can. When I showed her the picture she said she looked like a witch.

And here’s our Tiny, back to normal.