I have my apron on. It is blue and if I only had on a head scarf, I would be complete. In the last week, I have learned to shop for groceries (thankfully not everyday), how to cook rice (timer function makes this a breeze), do laundry (well, it seems to be getting clean), take out the correct kind of garbage on the correct day (complex year long calendar/chart for this, plus method of separating recycling that boggles), and how to get the kids up and off to school each day (OK, for the last 2 days). Getting them back again has been more problematic, but we are working on it. I have even managed to have dinner ready for my husband when he came home (once- but he had to do the dishes.)
I have no idea what a real Japanese housewife does all day. Shopping seems to be part of it, as does child care. I’m guessing cleaning since I keep seeing women all over town during the day wearing their aprons over their clothing. There are plenty of women working at out-of –the-home jobs, too, and many of them seem to wear aprons. All those aprons at the grocery might not belong to housewives after all.
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| Our living room |
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| In the kitchen, making pancakes |
My next endeavour will be to give this place a level 3 deep clean. Our apartment is a fairly well used dorm room. It is very tired looking and in some areas, filthy and resistant to mild cleaning. I’m spending a lot of time trying to ignore it, but now that I have my apron, and a new bucket and scrub brush from the 100 Yen store, I will have to get down to tackling it. But that is tomorrow’s project.
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| Our entryway |
Also tomorrow, I will find out what goes on in a Real Japanese Home. One of Katy’s classmates was born in California and lived there for 5 years. She sits next to Katy and helps her out during the day. Her mother met me after school today and asked if Katy and I and Jane could come over for a playdate. Yes, she used that word, one than never fails to crack me up since when I was a kid, we just played. No dating involved.
This should be very interesting, I’m looking forward to making new friends, and especially to learning how people live. I’m not sure what impression someone would get of America from coming over to my house. I’ll try to observe, but not draw conclusions. And I wlll try and remember to bring a gift, and will work on polite phrases. Wish me luck.
Sayonara!
