how you can help

I have had quite a few e-mails from various people from, literally, all over the world, asking how they can help the people of Japan, in this most horrific of disasters.

I want to share with you a few places that I think are great places to donate goods and money.

Second Harvest

This organization has been wonderful in getting supplies out to the areas that need them the most.  Their trucks go out every other day and they have all of their staff working hard to make sure the right stuff is getting out to the people who need it the most.

If you click on that link, you can find a place where you can donate directly to their cause.  The money you give will help pay for the gas used in the delivery trucks, maintenance fees, drivers, etc. 

There is also a place on their site where you can pay for specific items (such as water and diapers).

Here is a list of the things that they are collecting:

* Food & Beverage (MUST be unexpired): rice, canned items, retort-pouch food, food for elderly people, baby formula and baby food

* Items for Baby & Elderly People (MUST be unopened): baby diapers and adult diapers

* Items for Soup Kitchen(MUST be unused): paper plates, paper cups, plastic spoons, plastic forks, chopsticks and saran wraps

* Other (MUST be unused): brand-new underwear, wet wipes, masks, shampoo that does not require water, towel, portable gas stove and portable gas

Socks For Japan

Jason Kelly (a fellow Coloradoan) and his organization are gathering and delivering new socks to the people living in the shelters, especially those nearest the nuclear power plant.  They have delivered hundreds of socks and letters of encouragement from all over the world!!!

  Think about a time when you were cold or tired....just putting on a pair of new, warm socks helps keep not only the body warm, but they help warm the soul and help you feel safe.

If you go to his site, you can read all about what these wonderful people are doing....

maybe they will inspire you to gather up some socks and send them this way.

Yoyo Market

There are seven CostCo warehouses here in Japan, but for many of us, it is too far and too expensive (gas + road tolls add up quickly) and trips to go shopping are few and far between.

Which is why Yoyo Market is a great company.

They, basically, go shopping for us.  Though not everything in the warehouse is available, the main items that most of us expats want are on their site....and we can buy from them, on-line.

Now....Yoyo Market is taking special orders to be delivered to the devastated areas.

But wait....that's not all they are doing....

Yoyo Market will match 10% to any order shipped directly to active relief groups.

Isn't that great??

If you know of a specific relief group (like Second Harvest, for example...and hey...doesn't CostoCo

carry socks?? (^-^)), you can purchase a case of something and have it shipped to them.

Or....if you want another group, the good people at Yoyo will help you find an organization to ship to.

(You can find the details in the Order and Delivery Updates link on their site!!)

Oh! and don't worry about that whole yen/dollar thing...there are many places out there in the wide world of Internet that will very quickly figure that up for you!

Easy peasy.

So.....if you want to help, you can.

If you belong to an organization that donates to good causes, I, personally, cannot think of a better one.

feeling helpless.....not hopeless

so much has happened this past week.

so much sadness and devastation.

so much confusion.

it's hard to know who to listen to....who to believe.

which news to follow.

and, no.
it's not even a possibility that i would come "home" because of this.

it's hard for many to understand, but really....i am home.

plus....we are so far away from tokyo....it would be like...

someone from my hometown... in south-eastern colorado....

hearing of a tornado watch in wyoming....

and going to the basement for protection.

really.

we're that far away.

but that doesn't make us any more detached.

we feel helpless...and a bit guilty that we are so safe and not suffering.

weird, huh?

one of my students came to class the other night and told us of her daughter and her family's plight..
they are in one of the worst hit places.

though they were spared by the tsunami, the earthquake has caused so much trouble for them.

no water.

food is running out.

no gas to cook.

they have rice, but...with no water, they can't cook it.

the husband is so nervous, he's having stomach trouble.

the girls can't sleep.

feeling helpless.

 

 

and yet...the reports of how people are acting...how they are still so kind...and respectful of

everyone else.  no looting. no fighting.

and no...that's not a case of "oh, they just aren't showing us pictures of that".

really.  that doesn't happen here.

a grandma and her grandson were found after over a week.
a mother was found in a shelter.
a baby was born.
my friend's daughter and her family are alive.

***********
*****

  

in a word:      life

**************

"moon over the japanese garden"

by my friend, karen

in another word:      hope

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;

the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

                                             ~~~Kahlil Gibran

we....here in Nagasaki...are okay!!!

oh, my dear friends, i'm so sorry for taking so long getting a message to you from here.

the last few days have been crazy, but....

we.

are.

okay.

nagasaki city is actually so far away from the areas hardest hit by the earthquake and tsunami that most people didn't even know about what happened until they got home from work on friday night.

if you look on a map, tokyo and sendai and fukushima are on the island of honshu...we are on kyushu, in the southern part of the main islands.  i asked my students yesterday and they said that nagasaki city is about 1500 kilometers from tokyo and sendai is another 800 kilometers or so from there.

your concern for our safety has been almost overwhelming.

i'm trying to get back to people who sent messages but it's taking me time...but, please know, that your thoughts have been like {{hugs}} in this most darkest of times here in japan.

if you would like to help the efforts here and you don't know where to go, you can click on this link and get some sites to go to.
 my friend, tommy, (yet another friend that i've never actually met!!) at a san diego radio station posted this over on that "social network" site....click on this link for a list of places accepting donations.
go....click here.

another place would be  the american red cross.  they actually give 91cents to every dollar donated to the targeted area.

another most excellent site would be the second harvest group....

if you are here in japan,click on the link, they have a list of non-food items that they desperately need.

thank you, my friends.
i'll try to post again soon...the latest nuclear power plant explosions are causing some concern, but we are trying to keep it all calm and as normal as possible.

please keep this beautiful country that i have called "home" for the last 20 years in your thoughts and prayers...and really...go and click on one of those links...help if you can.

*hug picture from google images*

ohhhhhh.....Japan......

If someone were to say "Japan" to you right now (like I just did),

what images would come to you?

Mt. Fuji?

Perhaps Mt. Fuji in the spring and and some sakura (cherry blossoms)?

Geisha?

How about station officials smooshing people into the trains of Tokyo?

Maybe you are more sports minded and Sumo came to mind.

*This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of the great Konnishiki.

Or maybe, your mind went another direction *thank you, Hollywood* and you had this lovely image...




Or....hey...did you imagine this?

Yeah.

Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?

Which seems to make the Japanese kancho even funnier to those doing it....

the surprise attack.

The kancho.

According to the good people over at kancho.org :
(yes, strangely enough, there IS a website!!)

Kancho is the ancient art of clasping your hands together and poking someone... in the rear. Kancho is not meant to be vulgar or mean, in fact it is rarely used in an antagonistic way, like a nipple twister, or a head noogie, but rather as a kind of affection, similar to athletes patting each other's butts. Foreign teachers in Japan are often the target of Kancho. This is partly due to their celebrity status in schools, as many kids want to be the one who Kanchoed the English teacher.

(Go ahead, when you're done here, click on the link

and learn more about this than what you will probably ever need .)

By the way, the boys told me that you really need to say "Kancho!!" in a loud voice when you are doing it to make it, I guess, the perfect kancho.
~~sigh~~

I guess, if you think about it, boys and men in the western world are forever punching each other, wrestling around, giving snuggies/wedgies to each other, or goosing someone...come to think of it, one of my brothers has a habit of pulling me in for a hug and then sticking my nose in his armpit.

Yeah.

Kancho fits right in.

Now...just to make this word just a liiiiiiiittle bit funnier....

the word kancho, in the dictionary has a few meanings:

1: (giving an) enema;

2: (Slang) prank where the anal region of another person is poked with index fingers

3: government office; authorities ; superintendent priest; chief abbot; superintendent; director;

curator; chief librarian

Seriously....can you think of any English word that is funnier than this???

At the community centers, when a class starts for the first time, the head of the

community center (the kancho) usually comes into the class to welcome the students and give information to them about the center.

I remember as if it were yesterday the first time this happened....first day of class, new students, the center officials came into the room and the kancho was introduced.

"Eh?  What the hell??"

I'm a pretty smart cookie so, it didn't take long to put 2 and 2 together to figure out that the kancho I knew, was not the same kind of kancho giving a speech to all my students.

That was almost 7 years ago, but even today, when I hear this word?

Oh, yeah....the 10-year-old boy in my psyche

has a very hard time keeping a straight face.

One more thing....for Issei's birthday, he got a t-shirt from some

good friends of ours that used to live here.

On the front was this:

Lock and load, baby.  We're ready.

In case you are wondering....

yes....we all want one of these t-shirts and will probably order them soon.

****************

*Thanks GoogleImages for all the pictures, except that last one.

~~~~~~aaaahhhhh~~~~~~

look what i noticed in our garden today...

the weeping willow-esque ume (plum) tree that is in the corner of our garden 

is blooming.

though there are only a few blossoms now, 

the promise of the sweet aroma to come is definitely

something to look forward to. 

spring is by far, my favorite time of year, i think.

*******

look...look..at what i bought at the fabric store the other day.....



flamingo fabric?   check.

sewing machine?   check.

an idea for something for that niece of mine?   oh yeah....check..

teehee.....

i'd love to tell you, but....i want this to be a secret...just in case it doesn't turn out like i'm imagining it to be...

i have classes and whatnot tomorrow so will have

to wait until sunday to do this.

wish me luck.

*what do you think i'm thinking of making? can you imagine?*

happy friday, everyone.

may you have something to look forward to this weekend!!

of weddings...birthdays...birth days....and hopes and prayers

in the last fourteen days, we have had a rush of events and occasions here at kamp kuroiwa.

one wonderful....one pretty good and another?

absolutely freakin' awesome.
****************

on saturday, i attended the wedding of one of my students.

actually.....she was my student when she was in high school.  she graduated 13 years ago and for the last three years, has been my student, again, in one of my smaller classes.

when she was in high school, she was in a group of five friends that hung together in the class....when the k-man and i were about to get married and were moving into our first apartment together, they came and joined the many other friends that helped us move.

in the 5 years at that high school, i taught so many students and i pretty much just fell in love with almost all of them.  they were all such really great kids.

when i think of my time at that school.....

i smile.

the teachers...the students...it was all just a wonderful package.

but these five girls....

i have watched them grow and become the most incredible of young ladies.

one of them is in australia, where, i'm thinking, she will probably live forever....the last time i saw her, i realized that she was actually more 'foreign' than she was japanese.

another is happily married and has a little gorgeous little girl....

one spent a year in canada on a working holiday visa and is now back working in a research lab at the university hospital doing the office work and helping in the lab,

another one also works at the university hospital, but in the office of one of the big departments,

and then....there is shiori.

she was working at the city library, but has moved since her husband was transferred to another city.

and it was her wedding we attended...well, everyone but the one in australia...we missed her.

the wedding was beautiful....they had a western-style ceremony in the chapel, performed by a foreign man (most of the ceremony was in japanese, but the prayers and blessings were in english...

it's very trendy now).

the reception was small and very elegant. shiori wore two dresses....a white wedding dress and then she changed into a fabulous evening gown.

the food was delicious.

the cakes were yummilious....there was a 'cake buffet'.

we may or may not have over-indulged....just a little.

our friend, tomomi, got the bouquet and was very, very happy.

so even though i woke up early on a saturday morning, had on pantyhose before 8:00 in the morning, had to ride a bus for 2 hours.....it was still a pretty good day.

Oh...and..in case you're wondering....the black dress from my christmas part rocked another party!!

i wish only the best of everything to

shiori and kenji....congratulations.

and thank you for letting me share in your very special day.

*************

on sunday.....my baby....my first baby...

....the one that makes me smile sometimes....just by looking at him.....

.....the one who sometimes likes to go on adventures.....

the one who was really happy when his little brother was born....

 the kid who loves a good costume...

and though it's not as evident these days so very often, he really does love his momma....
(oh yes he does....i promise)

he's the kid that looks cool...no matter how old he is or where he is...

and he's the one who also loves a good cake...

fyi...carrot cake with real carrots on it. yeah. we're all cool like that 

yeah....he really likes a good cake....
.....this "baby" turned 13 on sunday....

happy birthday, issei!

you're a nutter sometimes, but...we love ya!!

*************

i have 6 nephews that range from 8 to 18 years old.

i have 2 sons that are 8 and 13.

i love "my boys"...all of them...almost more than life itself.

in my mom's family, technically, i'm the only girl

(i'm thinking "princess aunt debbie" sounds good, don't you?)

in my father's family, there are three girls.

and now....

one more.

yes, my friends.....

i have a niece.

she was born on valentine's day and she's. just. precious.

it's a girl!!

i'm so excited to be able to go into certain stores and actually look for stuff to buy...you know..for other

than myself!!!

Congratulations to my sister and her husband.....

aunt debbie is oh so very happy.

but tell me, honestly....

do you think it's too early to buy her a bento box? or a back pack?

or a really cute little thermos?

 

*************

 

from me and those around me...

we are sending hopes and prayers for those in new zealand.

what a tragedy this is to happen.

we are eternally gratefully that those we know personally there are safe

 and hope that others will be found soon.

may those who have lost loved ones or who are still searching

find comfort in those around them.

...when a nostalgic memory almost brought it all to a standstill...

yesterday....i was on my way home from a doctor's appointment.

i had rushed from my morning class to the clinic to get there before the "last call of the morning", which was at 12:30.  i hadn't been able to stop for lunch so i was pretty hungry.

i had bought a Pepsi Nex (not sure what it's called in the States, but...it's a pretty good diet cola) and was stopped at a light.

remembering the peanuts (omiyage {souvenir}brought to the class by a student),  i dug in my bag to find one i had saved for something to snack on until i made it home.

the light turned green and as i drove off, i popped a few peanuts in my mouth and took a quick drink of the soda.

at that moment,

a nostalgic feeling of tsunami proportions washed over me.

i almost had to stop the car the feeling was so strong.

somewhere in my memory, i am with  (and here is where i'm a bit fuzzy)

my Granddad Vess...or maybe even Daddy Charles...

i'm standing in the the old Jett Hardware Store (a store long gone from my hometown),

the doors are open (as they sometimes were during the summer), the wooden floors polished and shining.

the sounds of the men talking over the day.

the smell of cigarettes in the air.

the feeling started as soon as i took a drink of soda to wash down the peanuts.

somewhere in that memory

someone put some of these...

in one of these...

for a cool afternoon snack on a hot summer day.

and at that time and place, oh so long ago,

it was just delicious.

and many years later...a half a world away...

i was that little girl again, spending the afternoon--or at least, a few seconds--

 with a grandad (or daddy!) that she dearly loved.

************

MRI update:  the examination went okay.  i'm still curious as to why the one on my back took almost 20 minutes, but the one i had on my knee? oh yeah...30 minutes!!  wild.

i go next thursday (or friday) to get the results.  until then...i'm to take it easy, don't do anything that will cause  pain ("Duh!!") and continue wearing the brace".

done. done. and done (or at least, most of the day!).

thanks for your good thoughts.

sure do appreciate them!!

********

a last note:

how silly is it when the spell checker recognizes "Duh" as a real word!?

(^-^)/*

**Thanks Google for the Images**

this post is brought to you by the letters L, W, M-R-and-I, of course....F

**I started this particular post a couple of weeks few days ago....got sidetracked by life and now, I'm back, thinking that I need to get this finished or it'll be lost forever.**

Happy Valentine's Day!!

If you celebrate it, I hope it is a wonderful one for you.

Here in Japan, we do things a bit wonky.

To make a long story short:

girls give boys chocolates;

if a boy likes you, he'll give you something white a month later;

sometimes girls give chocolates because they are obligated to...they don't mean anything, really.

No flowers.

No heart shaped boxes of chocolates for girls.

No balloons declaring feelings of love.

Pretty much sucks.

But...in my one-person crusade to change all that, I made some Valentines for the little girls I teach.

They weren't anything too terribly whoop-de-doo, but....

I put them in really cute envelopes.

I delivered them to their mailboxes.

Nine little girls love me.

(And one little boy...I gave him a small box of chocolate...he said "This is cool."

I know.  I rock.)

And yes....I did give chocolates to the hub and sons.  Of course, I did.

I know I'll get something really nice on March 14 (White Day).

I also threw together a spongecake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries....

Oh! and  I bought myself some flowers.

Happy Valentine's Day, Debbie.

And to you, too, of course!!!

....and now...back to our regularly scheduled blog post.....

is for....

LILA.

i'm thinking of heR so often....she had heR suRgeRy on thuRsday (last week)...and the message fRom heR dad lateR in the day was that she had come thRough the suRgeRy and was sleeping.

**update....she is home, resting, hanging out with her mom and some very good meds....she is in a bit more pain that what she expected and is taking advantage of the pain relief she was given.

Rest my fRiend.

let youR otheR fRiends and family take caRe of you.

heal, my fRiend.

be stRong.

And on a related note...

is for

WTH?

Lila had her surgery on Thursday....a double mastectomy, my friends...and by Saturday evening....she was home.

Now....I know a hospital is noisy and the food is terrible and Lila laughed at me and said "oh Deb, you've been in Japan too long."

But, really?

Two...2 days???

Here.  In Japan....that surgery would require, at least, a 3-week hospital stay.
(I asked many students and "3 weeks" was pretty much the minimum they came up with.)

Maybe, doctors here do tend to keep patients a bit longer than what is truly necessary...but as the K-Man said, "What happens if a patient goes home too early and something bad happens?"

Well...there is that.

But....2 days???

~~sigh~~

A long time ago, there was a list of "You know you've been in Japan too long when......"'s going around...some were really funny, and yes, I've been in Japan too long.

  I think this would have been a good one:

You know you've been in Japan too long when you think nothing of going into the hospital to have a baby and not being able to leave for 6 days.

But, that's how we do it here.

**********

So, last Wednesday,

 I'm wearing my very cool American-made shoes...

...minding my own business, on my way to hula class, when suddenly....

unbenownst to me, there was some water on the sidewalk on which I was walking...

and in what I'm sure took only a few seconds, but seemed much longer since I was doing that whole slow-motion kind of thing....

my left foot?

went

My right knee went

It was not pretty.

It was, though, pretty damn painful.

Also...a bit embarrassing as it happened in the afternoon at a place where many people are milling about.

Again with the long story short---

Big swelling...went to doctor...doctor drained said knee

(ew. That was  totally gross.)

Doctor gave me a knee brace that, when I put it on, I'm referred to by the men in the house as

"Bionic Debbie".

Tomorrow,

I have a date

with this bad boy

Yes....

Some other letters, having to do with my knee, were tossed around by the doctor, but until we get the results back, I'm not going to say them.  I believe that we sometimes tempt the Gods and this is something I don't wanna mess with!

Okay...I just realized that most of my post today has dealt with medical stuff and complaining about aches, pains and medical procedures.

I apologize.

I'm obviously channeling my grandmother at the moment and this will pass soon....really, it will.

*********

Finally....

is for...

Have a great Valentine's Day, my friends!!!

*************

Dear friends,

I want to say an extra special "thank you"  for all your kind words in your comments from my last post.

No, I haven't found my R, but....

it's in my heaRt....Lila knows it.  I know it.

I'll find it someday...hopefully, I won't need it then.

Much to YOU, my fRiends.