Posted by Drittens.
Pinky, Kim, and I are going to Japan from October 31-November 13, so we won’t be able to reply to emails or run the Pinky Show Store during that time. I’ll be back in the “U.S.A.” on the 14th; Pinky and Kim will stay in Japan a little longer. We are going to learn a little bit about Japanese forests while we’re there.
Take care,
Drittens
Posted by Pinky.
This is another diary entry that I wrote in January or February but didn't post until now. I apologize for the delay... :
I had a kind of sad conversation the last day I was in Japan.
One of Mugi’s human friends - Ogawa-san - dropped by the house to say “hi” and to bring some sticky rice (sekihan) that she had made for Mugi and me. (Delicious! Thank you Ogawa-san!)
Sekihan & fancy Japanese sweets.
Ogawa-san is an older woman, maybe around 80 years old (human years), who lives nearby with her daughter and grandchildren, and somehow we started talking about how crazy everyone seems to be for “technology” in Japan. I mentioned to her that when I ride Japanese trains or buses, no one seems to talk to anybody and instead they spend their time staring into the tiny screens of their mobile phones - playing games, reading comics, or who knows what else. I think it’s becoming more like this in the United States too, but it’s not as much as what I saw in Japan.
Mrs. Ogawa agreed - she told me that many Japanese parents really want their children to “succeed” in life so they make computers available to their children as early as possible. She said it’s even common nowadays for babies to know how to control a computer (using graphical interfaces and hand gestures) before they’ve even learned to walk or talk. Just the day before, she had seen her youngest grandchild, who is isn’t even a year old yet, crawl to the TV in their living room and start swiping at the screen with her tiny hands in an attempt to control it like it’s a big tablet computer.
At first I thought this was just a cute baby story until Mrs. Ogawa became very serious and said to me that while the baby already wants to use computers, she herself doesn’t know how to use one at all. Of course all her other grandchildren already know how to use computers and so she feels bad that she can’t help them with computers. She even told me that her grandchildren think that Grandma is worthless because they know how to use computers and she doesn’t.
To be honest, this really shocked me, and I could see that Ogawa-san felt sad and hurt by this.
Isn’t it strange how when you meet someone and you don’t know something they know, sometimes they’ll start treating you as if you’re a newbie, ignorant, clueless, a lower intellectual being? Why wouldn’t they assume that you just know many other things instead? Because really, in your whole life, have you ever met anyone that didn’t know an infinite number of important things that you don’t?
~ pinky
Posted by Pinky.
When I was flying to Japan this last time the flight was sooo long I had time to watch quite a few movies (or just parts of the really horrible ones). I wanted something funny so I watched Bridesmaids (Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, the guy from IT crowd) and The Hangover (unfunny people except for Zach Galifianakis), but... mieh. Can't recommend those. But I did watch Louis C.K. doing standup - I'd never really seen him before, but wow, he is an amazingly good performer, and some of his jokes (do people call these things jokes?) are just brilliant. People around me must have been wondering, "Why is that cat laughing? What's she watching?"
The most interesting movie I saw on the airplane ride was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith). If you're like me and you've been thinking a lot about aging and death recently, watch this movie. It will make you cringe (brace yourself - Indian people not portrayed nicely in this movie) but there’s also some very nice writing going on. Somehow I like this quote:
"Everything will be alright in the end... and if it is not alright then it is not yet the end."
Nice.
For most of this trip I was staying with Mugi (I like to call her Mugiko) and she loves Hollywood action movies.
Mugi: "American movies look so expensive. How do they pay for so many explosions???"
We watched - together - all the something-something Bourne movies (spoiler alert: Matt Damon kills many, many people) and all the Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movies. They were SO BAD! It's fascinating to me how these movies with all their fake politics and gallons of special effects blood can be so popular when the real world - which happens to be a thousand times more interesting and a million times more savage - tends to creep by largely unnoticed... ~pinky
Posted by Pinky.
I never thought I would write a diary entry about rubbish collection but here it is.
Here in my friend’s neighborhood, when you get this plastic pouch (below) in your mailbox, it means it’s your turn to clean up the community trash collection area. Every house in the neighborhood takes turns cleaning up and today it was our turn. The yellow armband thing is to wear so that you can feel like you are doing official business while you sweep up.
This is where everybody in the neighborhood puts their trash. You write your family's name on each of your trashbags.
The (tiny) rubbish truck shows up promptly at 8am and two (friendly) rubbish guys get out of the truck and start throwing the bags of garbage into the back of their truck. They’re super fast - the whole thing takes less than a minute.
The bags are literally _flying_ into the truck!
They’re also super neat - here Rubbish Man #2 notices a small, stray piece of rubbish on the ground...
...and then he reaches down to pick it up?!? Wowwow! This really is not the U.S.!
After they drive away Mugi and I sweep up, although in reality there wasn’t much rubbish around so basically we just collected a bunch of leaves and put it in a tiny bag. Not hard work.
Done!
The whole experience reminded me a little of how when I was in kitten school we had to clean up the cafeteria after lunch, clean our own classrooms & bathrooms, and so on. I wonder how come in the U.S. this kind of shared-cleaning duties stops when we become adults?
Anyway, I kind of enjoyed rubbish day.
Take care,
pinky
Posted by Pinky.
Hi. I want to wish everyone reading this a Happy New Year.
Right now I am in a small town just outside Nagoya (Japan) staying with a friend while I make plans for the future. I have had some time to visit old bookstores, go vegetable shopping, and learn how to do some Japanese cooking and so on, but mostly I have been reading, walking, and thinking about the past and the future. When I look back at our previous blog entries it's easy to see that the past two or three years have been not so productive in terms of making new Pinky Show things. But that same period of time has been a period of tremendous growth for me. Not just because of difficulties associated with caregiving (Wheelchair Lady) or Bunny's death, but because I have had a lot of time to think carefully about many things that I was probably too busy to think about before, or maybe because I was depending on Bunny too much to take care of so many things. I have thought a lot about what I would like to do with the last part of my life, and after much crying, depression, false starts, self-doubting, and wandering around, I've decided that am truly wanting and ready to focus all my energies on Pinky Show things again. I don't want to do things the same way we used to do things before - that wouldn't make sense since I'm different now and everything around me is also different - so with the help of Kim, Mimi, and Daisy, I have been working very hard to shape a new, more appropriate vision of work for where I am in my life right now.
Finally, I wanted to say: yes, Bunny does visit me and sends me messages and information all the time. Maybe some people will think I'm crazy for saying this but I don't think I am.
Much love to you,
pinky