Food, food, food

Okay, so this photo has nothing to do with food, but it's cute, don't you think? I snapped this when I came home briefly after teaching at the local elementary school. After I finish there, I usually come home, park the car, and walk across the street to my desk at the board of education for some prep-work. Aaron and they boys were apparently napping in the mid-day heat. It's been humid here. I'm not going to complain, though. We have been keeping up as much as possible with the events related to Katrina (online video and news stories). I'm so grateful that everyone near and dear to us is safe and nowhere in harm's way.


So - food. Well, we have more zucchini. I'm telling you, we are getting desperate. This makes the fourth enormous green squash we have been given since arriving! I don't know what kind of zucchini they grow here, but it's all huge! We had given the neighbors some cookies (my first attempt at baking in our microwave), and then they returned the favor (even though we were actually trying to even things up, since they have already given us so much produce from their garden). Ruya's mom (Ridge's little friend) came over today to return our plate. She brought with her a club-like zucchini, a head of cabbage, and three eggplants! Of course, they were all freshly picked.

Two days ago, while walking in the street, Aaron and I were admiring a huge Daikon radish that a woman had in her bicycle basket. Her grandson was with her, helping to carry a huge armload of corn. We wondered to ourselves where she had gone to get the produce (I had just seen her ride by a few minutes ago with an empty basket). Next thing I know, she was loading us up with fresh corn. When we got home and took stock of what we had, we counted nine ears! She's on my brownie list for sure. I've been baking a little, trying to repay some of the gifts of food that people have given us. Wednesday I took some with me to the Junior High. Even bringing brownies to work is different and has its own nuances. I came in with my plate and sat at my desk. Seconds later, the morning meeting began (I don't really know what they talk about every morning since it's all in Japanese. I think they talk about schedule changes a lot, since schedules seem to change daily here). After the meeting, I went around to everyone's desk and offered them a brownie, sometimes explaining what it was, and introducing the word "gooey". By the way, "gooey" doesn't wasn't in any Japanese/English dictionary we could find. They seemed to go over pretty well. It doesn't seem to be the thing to do to just set your plate out with a "help yourself" attitude. Everything here always seems to be more formal than that.

Last night we made a spur of the moment trip to Nayoro. We have been VERY short of cash, having neglected to bring enough with us to tide us over until my first paycheck (a tough lesson to learn). Mr. Kamaya, bless his heart, pushed some paperwork through pretty quickly, once he realized that we were nearly out of money, and got us our reimbursement for our plane tickets (he got brownies, too). So, within 24 hours of giving him my receipts, we found we had a huge chunk of money placed directly into our bank account. All on our own, we figured out the ATM (It was in English, I confess), drove to Nayoro (an hour away) and went SHOPPING! This was the first time we had done anything like this all on our own. We went to Nayoro last weekend, but with a friend who is Australian, so he showed us around. This time, we shopped at two stores and ate out all by ourselves. We were so pleased with ourselves. Talk about compulsive shopping! It was fun, and worth it, so it's okay. We had burgers at "Mos Burger", a burger joint with wonderfully gourmet burgers about the size of a McDonald's children's burger. No matter, the food tasted great, the fries were salty, and everyone was happy.

Here's a picture of Holt "swimming" on the floor while wearing some goggles left over from Aaron's eye surgery. They've become a popular toy.