Find My Gingerbread Man: A Holiday Contest

The Americans hosted the final JAW event for 2010, a genteel tea party at Mindy's house overlooking the Navy base and Tokyo Bay.

The party was an oasis in the midst of the usual holiday frenzy overseas military bases cram into the first two weeks of December, before school lets out and nearly a third of the personnel depart for home or exotic vacation destinations. But an anti-holiday party did not mean we completely turned our backs on Christmas. Heavens no. We played Christmas bingo and decorated gingerbread men.

The first person who correctly guesses the cookie I created wins a 60th anniversary Peko-chan Christmas treat box adorned with a combination cell phone charm/finger puppet. Anonymous submissions will not be considered.

Cookie #1

Cookie #2

Cookie #3

Cookie #4

One of the party hostesses, a modern day Grandma Crippen, whipped up 45 reversible bags that were filled with treats and passed out as bingo prizes. Everyone eventually won a bag. I plan to admire mine for a few weeks and then pass it along to one of you as soon as I dream up another contest.

"Guess the year Kathy will finish Ulysses" has strong potential as the clock winds down on 2010.

Dyed and Gone to Yokosuka

A Shibori workshop came to my house today and I have a purple tie-dyed scarf to show for it. Or I will as soon as I finish swishing all the excess dye from the scarf and hang it to dry.

Creative Explorer was a Shibori artist at the Hermitage Museum near our Norfolk house before she moved to Japan last summer. Now she takes a Shibori class in Tokyo every month. When we were looking for ways to repay the Japanese quilters for taking us to the fabric store and money-washing shrine in Kamakura, Creative offered to share her expertise with us. Weather Explorer and I thought that was a great idea. (Weather Explorer and I are both praying to be struck by a bolt of expertise-in-something lightning before it is our turn to plan an activity for Hiroko, Hisayo, and Kayoko.)

Before we got our hands dirty, Creative Explorer showed us some examples of her incredible work. The flowers and leaves on one quilt (above) were fashioned from her children's handprints. You can see I was not exaggerating when I gave her that nickname.


We ran thread across our scarves in the places Creative had marked with colorful pins, gathered the stitches, and wrapped the thread around the fabric as tightly as we could. You want to wrap the thread tightly so the fabric in that area will resist the dye. I mention this to prove I was paying attention.
After we posed with our virgin bundles, Creative soaked the scarves in soda ash to make the fabric more receptive to dye and then she mixed eight or nine batches of dye in various shades of purple, blue, and green.

We applied the dye of our choice with sponge brushes, rolled the scarves in plastic sheets so they looked like sausages, squeezed out the excess dye, and let our projects rest while we ate lunch. Creative, however, did not get to eat lunch because I forgot she is a vegetarian until I was placing the fruity chicken curry salad in front of her. I will not sleep until I come up with a way to atone for this faux pas.

The Japanese quilters were thrilled to learn a traditional Japanese craft from a passionate young American artist. They want to return the favor by taking us to Kamakura next month to see the hydrangeas in bloom. Weather Explorer will be in New York then so Kate might have to fill in for her. This will require an appropriate nickname. Junior Explorer? Ignoring-her-thesis Explorer? This has all the earmarks of a contest.

Lincoln's Four-Score Olive and Seven Bean Salad

Reiko and I were cooling our heels in the base pass office this afternoon, wondering how it could possibly take someone more than 72 hours to substitute one teacher's name (Kathryn) for another's (Margaret), when I started giggling. This had been happening off and on all day, thanks to the first comment Diane left on yesterday's post, the one where she suggested adding four-score olives to a tossed salad.

I was launching into a rather pedantic explication of "score" when Reiko -- no doubt recalling my 45-minute synopsis of Guns, Germs, and Steel just last Friday -- cut right to the chase. "Isn't a score twenty years? Like in 'four score and seven years'?" "Exactly! Or maybe like in 'four score and seven bean salad.' Or how about 'four-score olive and seven bean salad'?"

Voila! West meets East and explosive synergy results! The package already enroute to Norfolk has been hastily re-imagined as a prize rather than a surprise. It's a Japanese cookbook published by our mutual friend/photographer extraordinaire Kim Jordan.

Erin and Geraldine will both be rewarded for providing presidential trivia questions, although I'm a bit tempted to deduct cookies from Erin for sending me cherry trifle recipes peppered with heinous adjectives like sugar-free and low-fat.

As for Reiko, she's going to be my Ikebana guest next week. We're going to make kimekomi balls at Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura. It looks like quilting minus the threading a needle part. Christmas ornaments, perhaps?

Okay, I'm off to track down seven different kinds of beans.

When the Saints Came Marching In

The good times rolled, skipped, and sprang a few cartwheels in Yokosuka today when the Japanese and American Wives celebrated Mardi Gras. Valerie's jester's cap identifies her as one of the four party coordinators. Matt was very excited when he found out I get to keep my cap. He was less excited when I mentioned wearing it to his graduation come June.


Strings of beads were presented to each guest as she arrived. The guests were assigned to teams according to bead color (and there you have fifty percent of my contribution to the party planning effort).



We sipped chickory coffee from Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. It tasted better than I remembered but that might have more to do with youthful indiscretion (ie, hangovers) than the coffee itself.



We gorged on beignets Valerie baked from a mix provided by -- you guessed it -- Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. "How are they eaten, Kathy-san?" "Oh, let me show you. Mmmmm. Did I eat that one too fast? Allow me to illustrate the beignet-eating procedure for you a second time."



"Let's decorate masks for our Mardi Gras parade." The Japanese ladies take these craft assignments very, very seriously. If you enjoy planning birthday parties for five-year olds, planning a JAW party could be your nirvana.




The completed masks were positioned on a radiator to hasten the glue-drying process. Please place your right ear on your right shoulder to see this lovely work of art. Can you scroll down a little without moving your head?



The pompoms add a note of frivolity, n'est-ce pas?

Okay, you can straighten your neck now.



This is my other contribution to the party, the Pass the Beads Without Using Your Hands Relay.

Japanese women get pretty darn competitive when they hear the magic words, "Prizes will be awarded to the winning team." You can see why I like them much.

There were one or two other games but I didn't get to see how they played out because I had to slip over to my house and add shrimp to the jambalaya, ice to the non-alcoholic hurricanes, and rice to the gumbo bowls. Gosh, I was acting so mature I barely recognized myself.




I was frantically searching for one more tablecloth when I spotted the Mardi Gras parade marching up my front sidewalk. Eek! Naturally, I popped a couple of mushroom-shaped cookies into my mouth and calmed down immediately.


Look who's bringing up the rear! Hi, Mimi! Thanks for loaning me your rice cooker.










Aren't Yuko and Anne cute? The person who comes closest to guessing the ages of Yuko's three children on or before February 1 will win a prize. This is a hidden puzzle, a reward for loyal family members and friends (the contest is also open to total strangers) who have endured this monologue thus far.


After a leisurely lunch, we sent our guests on their way with gold doubloons, moon pies, and a description of Mardi Gras traditions.
And their masks, of course.

The hugs were unexpected, effusive, unrelated to nationality (American women I barely know were clinging to me like Matt on his first day of kindergarten), and I must confess I gulped down 10 ounces of punch the minute the last guest departed because it crossed my mind someone might have spiked the hurricanes.

No such luck.

The Six-Word Biography Contest

One of my book clubs wants me to submit a six-word memoir and, frankly, I'm a little stressed for time this week. Mike is hosting a fleet medical thingy and they're all coming over to our house Tuesday night. Besides, brevity is not exactly one of my claims to fame.

I thought maybe you'd see fit to lend me your prodigious wit while I'm busy assembling ham bites and tearing romaine lettuce. I'll make it worth your while. (One nice thing about hosting a party is it's forcing me to mail all the previous contest prizes that are covering my dining room table.)

Here are some examples:

They said it would not last.

Stroke or colon cancer? Tough choice.

There's a vacuum around here somewhere.

Seriously introverted according to Myers Briggs.

Oldest American woman living in Japan.

You have a week. January 17 is the deadline. The clock is ticking.

Another Holiday Contest!

The Japanese & American Wives previewed the Festival of Trees this morning then marched down Command Hill to the Officers' Club for an "Iron Chef" Gingerbread House competition and gift exchange.

The first reader (Mike is excluded) to correctly guess which gingerbread house was created by my team will win a half dozen boxes of mushroom-shaped cookies.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

Sandy and James

Sandy is, indeed, my most organized sister-in-law but all of them share one or two glaring personality traits with my mother. Boys really do marry their mothers apparently.

It was James who forgot to take his coat on a seventh grade ski trip. He remembered his gloves all right, but gave them to a girl whose fingers were turning blue. To the best of my knowledge, James has not flirted with snow sports since that day but still enjoys rescuing the occasional damsel in distress. Or flirting with them.

So Deuce wins the Grand Prize which - soft touch that I am - will be whatever amount of Kirin Autumn brew (or nearest equivalent) I can cram legally into my suitcase next month.

A consolation prize has been created for the girl who nailed the aunt question but flunked the brother half of the test. And it's not like she was away at college when the incident took place, just totally wrapped up in tenth grade stuff, homework no doubt. We'll be giving her a roundtrip ticket to Japan so she can spend some quality time with her youngest brother, the one who spent his middle school years deploying computer soldiers over pixelated terrain that looked a lot like the Ardennes Forest. Too bad he wasn't into famous naval engagements like the Battle of the Coral Sea . . .

If It's Thursday, It Must Be Ikebana

Hangers are jangling in Yokosuka closets this morning. It's the third week of the month, wild and crazy times from September until May with YOSC (Yokosuka Officer Spouses' Club) on Wednesdays, Ikebana on Thursdays, and Shonan Ladies on Fridays. This year I'll also be part of the Japanese and American Wives group. JAW meets twice a month, usually on Tuesdays, which was too much of a commitment during my late and lamented CO spouse days.

Since the very nature of jangling supposes more than one hanger, there's no chance of hearing that happy sound at #13 Gridley Lane. But I've made the pleasant discovery that the one dress in my wardrobe drips dry overnight if I hang it in front of the air conditioning vent in the dining room. (The HHG shipment sailed into Yokohama two days ago and they tell me it will clear customs in about a week. I wish someone would explain what "clearing customs" entails when the crates were sealed on G Street and will not be unsealed until they reach #13 Gridley Lane.)

In any event, the social season started with a bang yesterday with the YOSC coffee at CNFJ (Commander Naval Forces Japan) house on top of Halsey Hill. Diane graciously opened her home to YOSC and representatives of Ikebana and JAW (she's pictured here with the Ikebana board). Usually I walk up Halsey Hill but with two newcomers in tow I opted to charge up the steep incline in the Toyota ED which would still be parked up there, taxing the limits of Diane's hospitality, if one of my guests had not shown me how to release the parking brake.

Introducing potentially like-minded people to each other continues to thrill me. It reminds me of watching my children interact with other children for the first time, and I get the good kind of shivers imagining the lifelong friendships that will sprout from these initial encounters. At the very least, I know my charges were more enthusiastic about spending the next three years in Japan when they came down the hill than they were the day before.

I'm off to Ikebana this morning and then I'll start announcing contest winners.

Organization & Lack Thereof Contest(s)

Aren't organized people fascinating? My mother was organized, I have a sister-in-law who could give Mom a run for her money, and here in Japan there's Mimi.

I nearly tore a muscle congratulating myself when I woke up at 3:00 am Friday morning. Patting myself on the back as I skipped down the stairs to start the coffee, I chortled "Way to go, Self! Great job! You have altered your sleep cycle without even trying so it will be easy-breezy to catch that bus to the Seto Pottery Fair at 5:00 am tomorrow morning." Yes, three days into Southern Swing, I was already talking out loud to myself. Sometimes I pretend I'm conversing with Matt but he hasn't removed that headset in three years.

When the caffeine kicked in six hours later (that would be 9:00 am), I remembered I was going to Seto on Sunday rather than Saturday. Sticking with this topsy-turvy schedule for 48 more hours would be a challenge. Sticking with anything for 48 hours is not exactly how I define myself. What could get me to fall asleep by 9:00 pm on a Saturday night? Which book should I take to read on the bus, five hours each way? Working through thorny problems like these depletes all the organizational fuel in my tiny tank.

Fortunately, the 7-11 store just outside the base is carrying the jumbo-size Kirin autumn brew. Say goodnight, Kathy, but put the Evanovich book next to the front door first.

One of my children forgot to take a coat on a middle school ski trip some years ago. In the middle of January. Something like this would never happen to one of Mimi's kids.Five days before the pottery fair she was making detailed plans, free associating the advantages and disadvantages of wheeled suitcases versus backpacks to tote our potential purchases. Snacks for the bus! Plenty of water! Pillow? Blanket? Don't forget bubblewrap and old towels to protect our treasures during their bumpy ride home in the bowels of the bus.

Neither our old towels nor any of our blankets have caught up with us yet. I considered borrowing Matt's quilt but, well, he was wrapped up so tightly at 4:45 am that I couldn't figure out how to quickly unroll the quilt without sending him flying into the closet or out the window.

While I'm deciding which Seto pottery pictures I can post without ruining any/someone's Christmas, you can duke it out for a taste of those choco-bana cookies featured the day before last. You get two shots at the cookies:

1) Name the sister-in-law mentioned in the first paragraph (voting for yourself is always appropriate per my mother).
2) Identify the offspring who went skiing without outerwear

Our First Winner

And you didn't even know there was a contest, did you?

Catherine Lefere Sykes should start checking her mailbox for 10 boxes of mushroom-shaped cookies when the weather cools down, probably early October. We don't want those little mushroom caps to melt in transit. Cathy was the first - and, so far, only - relative/friend to request our stateside/Skype telephone number.

In other breaking news, Mike cut short his leave (vacation) by two weeks because the housing office can't let us have a house until he reports for duty. He donned his uniform this afternoon and caught a bus to the USS Blue Ridge to check a bureaucratic box then immediately went back on leave (vacation), carefully hanging that uniform back in the closet under close supervision.

Tomorrow we'll complete the paperwork (including a checklist of loaner furniture we'll need until our stuff gets here in late September) and Friday we'll move out of the Lodge and into #13 Gridley. We'll either be rolling 12 pieces of luggage across the base, crossing our fingers that the Base Taxi dispatcher learns how to answer the telephone between now and Friday, or tossing broad hints at the Brenyos when they get back from Nikko Thursday night.

We waited two weeks for a house the last time we came to Japan. This time we expected to wait up to a year for base housing and landed a place in less than a week. Life is full of so many interesting plot twists, isn't it?

P.S. Have you noticed how upbeat and uncomplaining I've been so far?