Americans and Japanese Unite for Charity Quilting Bee

Big Bird invited some of her friends to make a quilt for a family victimized by the March 11 tsunami. Big Bird has a lot of experience when it comes to organizing charity quilting bees. When she and her husband were stationed in Okinawa a few years ago, Big Bird and her friends (left) made twenty-two quilts that were sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda for distribution to the wounded warriors there.

Today eight ladies - four Japanese quilters, two American quilters, Weather Explorer, and Bossy - cut fabric scraps into strips and sewed them onto squares of muslin.  Big Bird says we'll need about 120 of those squares to make our quilt.  We didn't meet that goal today since one of the seamstresses spent more time threading her sewing machine and winding bobbins than actually sewing, but we're well on our way. 

Big Bird zipped through a complete square at intervals so quick and regular Henry Ford must have been smiling in his grave. Ouizer is also a snappy seamstress when she isn't breaking out in song, invariably a peppy pop tune from the 1960s. A seasoned Catholic nun would never in a million years put Ouizer and Bossy within twenty feet of each other.

Weather Explorer, manning the ironing board, got quite a workout returning mis-sewn squares to Bossy who spent half the day picking out stitches while helping Ouizer remember the lyrics to "Build Me Up, Buttercup" and the other half of the day plotting embezzlement.  She wanted to smuggle half the donated fabric home in her tote bag.

Hiroki (not pictured) was the photographer for this group shot.  Standing:  Bossy, Weather, Reiko.  Seated: Hisayo, Big Bird, Ouizer, and Miki.  That perky blue ascot around Bossy's neck is a nifty tubular towel filled with ice.  She found it at the 100 Yen store and it did the trick in making her feel cool on a scorchingly hot day.  She needs to get more of these.

Machida Shrine Sale: The Rewards of Sucking It Up

Truth be told, I didn't much feel like going to Machida this morning to explore the shrine sale and five-story 100 Yen store. Three Explorers cancelled out of the trip Sunday evening and spending the day with a recent acquaintance and two complete strangers was not appealing. With the Ancient Mariner packing his gear for a 12-day "quality of life" deployment and the temperature dropping by the minute, I was tempted to crawl back under that warm comforter, wallow in self-pity, and savor another chapter or two of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

But, promises being promises, I sucked it up and marched out the door at the ungodly-to-me hour of 7:20 am.

So. The two complete strangers turned out to be a married couple who arrived in Japan a few days ahead of us this past July, shortly after he completed nurse practitioner training. Six days from now he will be enroute to Afghanistan as an Individual Augmentee. His wife and youngest son will remain in Japan, awaiting his return a half year from now.

His mission this week is to connect his wife with people who will support her and distract her during his absence. She'd like to spend some time exploring since, with three small boys underfoot, she didn't have many opportunities to do that the last time they were stationed here. He pulled me aside to confide that she's not comfortable with computers. "I am deafer than a rock," I whispered (I think) back, "and avoid the phone like the plague but I'm willing to make an exception in her case."

They met when he was a 21-year old sailor stationed in San Diego and she was a 16-year old student at a boarding school in Tijuana. They started dating when she turned 18. During his entire Navy career, they have only spent three months apart. Until next week, that is.

As if spending the day with such a remarkable couple was not reward enough for dragging myself out of bed this morning, the shrine sale blessed me with a bobble-head Kimono Peko-chan and two old Fujiya lunch boxes. The five-story 100 Yen store did not disappoint either.

Somewhere around here there's a moral to this story, but I'm going to crawl under that comforter now and wallow for a while.

Southern Swing

Mike was home long enough to show me how to wind the plastic cord on the weed eater spool before embarking on 'Southern Swing' with the 7th Fleet. I'd love to meet the person who dreams up these deployment names. Southern Swing sounds like a dance my nephew Jeremy might have invented during his college days.

His travels this time will take him to several interesting countries, including one that neither of knew existed. Maybe it went by a different name the last time I crammed for a geography test. At any rate, I'll keep you posted on those port visits as they occur. I think we all have a general idea of the direction in which they're heading.

The Navy encourages families to "not just survive but THRIVE!" during deployments, a mantra no doubt coined by that clever person who names deployments. My plan for thriving includes exploring as many gardens as I can using "The Flower Lover's Guide to Tokyo" as inspiration, learning how to play Taiko drums so I can rationalize buying one at a shrine sale, visiting lots of shrine sales so I can find an old Taiko drum to practice on between lessons (it's a vicious circle), and poking my nose in every convenience store and 100 yen shop on the Miura Peninsula. Oh, and Tara's going to teach me how to knit so I probably need to check out all the yarn shops.

But don't worry. I am not going to let THRIVING get between me and making ice. All hobbies have their accoutrements, don't they? You give a kid a putter and the next thing you know he needs irons, woods, a golf bag, special shoes, tees, a gadget for replacing divots, one glove, lots of balls, etc. So it is with Ice Making: The Hobby. The ice schop I found at the 100 yen store last week will certainly make transferring cubes from the automatic ice-maker bin to ziploc bags faster and more efficient. And while I was there I picked up some more of those nifty plastic zippered cases. We thrive best when we're organized.

This Week at the 100 Yen Store

Matt's busy with football, Mike's bobbing around in the water somewhere off the coast of Mumble Grumble Mumble, and there are actually limits to the number of lunch outings I can rationalize. I stupidly forgot to put my sewing machine in the Unaccompanied Baggage. I don't remember how to cast yarn on a knitting needle. There are 30 books loaded on my Kindle but I'm trying to pace my reading just in case a maritime mishap sends all my other books to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Since an idle mind is reportedly the devil's playground and mine can barely contain my thoughts let alone a slimy red creature, I've invented a new hobby. My dad would appreciate this one. I call it making ice.

It started when I had four minutes to kill waiting for the coffee in the French press to steep. I grabbed a ziploc bag, emptied four ice cube trays into it, then refilled the trays with water. With 10 more seconds to endure, I wandered over to the front refrigerator, opened the freezer door, and - Eureka! - found an automatic ice maker (Note to Chip: That scratchy noise in the middle of the night is not a rodent in the walls after all. Whew.) The automatic cubes went into the bag with their homespun cousins and the bag was stowed on a shelf in the empty freezer. Filling bags with ice soon became part of my daily routine, like brushing my teeth and taking a St. Joseph's aspirin.

While wandering around Daiso, a 100 Yen store, with Margaret the other day, I spotted these nifty Ice Block Bags. They come in 2 liter and 3 liter sizes. I bought both.



Between bagging cubes and filling bags with water, I am now too busy to go out to lunch most days. I'm thinking of expanding into crushed ice as soon as the blender catches up with us. With three varieties of ice on offer, I'm sure to be swamped with invitations from just about every hostess in Japan.

I feel a contest coming on . . .