Cabin Fever II

Rie is still sick everyday, all day. The sickness intensifies and abates throughout the day so we never know how sick she is going to be from one minute to the next. Because of this, we have been forced to remain locked up inside our apartment for the past three weeks. My only reprieve comes in the form of going to work, but as of next week I’ll be on vacation until April. Rie, however, has opted to keep working even though she feels so bad. We’re hoping that there will be only a couple of more weeks of this before her hormones level out and she starts feeling better.

The doctor set our due date for August 12. That also happens to be Rie’s brother’s birthday. He said that he hopes the baby is late, because if they both have the same birthday, then nobody will remember his. I told him that he should be glad to have the same birthday, because before the baby, I never knew when his birthday was. Now I’ll never forget. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to be buying him anything though because, well, I’ve got a baby to buy presents for at that time of year. Too bad for him, I guess.

Yesterday was a national holiday, “Seijin no hi“. This is the day that they celebrate all Japanese who turn twenty years old this year. Twenty is the legal age of adulthood here. They have big ceremonies throughout the country and all the “new” adults attend wearing kimonos and register themselves at city hall. Since it was a holiday, I wasn’t sure if the garbage was going to be collected (Mondays and Thursdays are our pick-up days). I took the garbage down, and about an hour later, heard the truck go by. Japanese garbage trucks play little songs like an ice cream truck to let people know to get their garbage ready.

Later, I went down and noticed that there were four or five bags of garbage that had not been collected. There were bright yellow labels on them. Anyway, this morning after Rie left for work, I got a call from her saying that our garbage was one of the ones that didn’t get picked up, so I had to go down and bring it back up until Thursday. Apparently, they are no longer collecting garbage in brown or black bags. From now on, we have to use clear bags so they can see what it is we’re throwing away. Whatever, just another red-tape problem to deal with.

Note: A friend commented that when the guy got out of the truck, the truck pulled away and kept going without a driver. This is because they drive on the other side here. No runaway tragedies here.

Proof of Life

Went back to the doctor last night, and had to spend three hours in the lobby waiting to see the doctor. Things were moving really slow. We went in at 5:00 and grabbed our ticket out of the machine (like at a deli). We were number 13 (great) and they were serving number 4. I didn’t think it would be too long, but an hour later, I noticed that they were only on number 8.

I had brought my ipod, so I was able to listen to one of my audiobooks. Rie has still been really sick, so she was just sort of sitting there, not really sharing my reality. On the front wall, They have a wide-screen television that replays some nature DVD. We went through that about four times before being called in.

The doctor finally accepted the fact that she was pregnant, and set our due date for August 10. My original calculation was August 5, and I still stand by it. Rie’s convinced it’s going to be about a week later.

We went through the usual routine where the doctor delivered information at breakneck speed, making it impossible for me to understand a large portion of what what was being said. I did have some questions that I wanted him to answer, so I had Rie translate them for me. Here they are in no particular order of importance:

Q: Does she need to be taking vitamins?
A: She hasn’t lost a lot of weight, so taking vitamin supplements isn’t necessary. Also, multi-vitamins contain some vitamins which are not good for pregnant women (Vitamin A??).

Q: Should she stop eating sushi?
A: Prepared correctly, sushi doesn’t pose a threat.
Q: What about Mercury? Isn’t that bad?
A: Sushi is okay as long as it’s prepared correctly.

Q: How much water should she drink each day?
A: If she feels thirsty, she should drink, but if she doesn’t feel the need to drink, there is no harm not drinking water.

So, a few of my concerns were shot down, but I’m still going to push for abstaining from certain types of fish. I just don’t want to take a chance of Mercury poisoning.

New Year’s Un”EVE”ntful

Since moving to Osaka in 2001, this New Year’s was only the second time we had spent it here in Japan. In the past we had either gone back to the States or other countries. The first year, 2001, was because we didn’t have enough money. This year was because Rie was too sick to go anywhere (and we didn’t have enough money). New Year’s Eve in Japan is very quiet compared to other parts of the world. Almost everyone spends it at home with their families, often going to a temple at midnight (hatsumode) to offer prayers and wishes for the coming year.

The New Year’s holiday is quickly becoming my favorite time in Japan for one reason: the television. Japanese television is famous around the world for its strangeness and outrageousness, but on the last day and first day of the year, they go all out. In the afternoon, we watched a four-hour show where they place different teams of people on deserted islands and force them to fend for themselves (ala “Survivor”). This really wasn’t my favorite show because:

1). I didn’t understand most of what they said, although the hunting and fishing for food was pretty cool

2). The Japanese humor is still lost on me, even after living here for so long. I understand why Japanese think it’s funny, but I just don’t get it.

3). I doubt the reliability of many of the shows here. I’m not sure how much of the show is influenced by the production team.

Even so, it still made for some passable viewing. My personal favorite came on at 9:00. “Downtown” is comedy duo from here in Kansai (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) who, besides having a regular television show, do a special every New Year’s Eve where they and some other members go to a Japanese resort and spend 24 hours there. The only catch is, if they laugh even a little, then guys dressed as ninjas come in and whack them on the ass with a leather strap…hard. The production team sets up situations where other comedians enter and do something that will make them laugh. It is incredible, and anyone back home who I’ve shown it to loves it. So that went until midnight and Rie went to bed. I stayed up drinking my nihon-shu (sake) and surfing the web, then went to bed around 2:00.

This morning, she was feeling better, so we went to the temple for hatsumode and then to a supermarket to buy something for dinner. It was nice to see her feeling better. The past few days have been rough, and she was hardly able to stand up without getting sick. I have decided to augment my blog title to include references to Japanese life, since the pregnancy has yet to offer up much news.

Note: I had taken some pictures at the temple, but am having difficulty cropping them to look good, so I will post them here later.