Rub-a-Dub, Dub . . . Dub, Dub, Dub, Dub

• The proprietor of Tanemura Antique Store is wrapping up Mary Jo's purchases, including a surprisingly charming carved wooden set of the Seven Gods of Fortune. She borrowed $50 to buy these guys and we hiked more than a mile uphill to get to the antique store, not to mention (oops, I just did) the hours of research and distillation I've devoted to sparing Mary Jo the anguish of confusing the Seven Gods of Fortune with the Chinese Kitchen Gods. This is what it must feel like to be a partial owner of an NFL team.
  
  (NOTE TO EMMA: Copy and paste the next couple of paragraphs to Microsoft Word, print, and submit to your Religion teacher for extra credit. Not that you would ever need extra credit, but it never hurts to have some in the bank.)
  
  Dante gave us the expression "in seventh heaven," my Catholic ancestors invented the seven deadly sins, the Brothers Grimm created the Seven Dwarfs, and we have Stephen Vincent Benet to thank for "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." In Japan, a debt of gratitude is owed to the 17th Century monk Tenkai who created the Seven Gods of Fortune. Tenkai used one indigenous Japanese god, Ebisu, and imported three gods each from China and India to show the Shogun seven virtues Tenkai deemed essential.

• Candor - Ebisu ("She exuded candor after swilling down four cans of Yebisu beer.")
• Wealth - Daikokuten (many shrines with Daikokuten statues encourage visitors to rub the head or shoulders to gain wealth)
• Amiability - Benzaiten
• Magnanimity - Hotei (people rub his big tummy for good luck)
• Popularity - Fukurokuju (my mother would have a problem with this virtue; maybe this is a case of "lost in translation")
• Longevity - Juroujin
• Dignity - Bishamonten

Here comes my favorite part. The Seven Gods of Fortune (often referred to in English as the Seven Lucky Gods) are said to sail into Japan every New Year's Eve on their treasure ship to bring happiness to everyone. If you put a picture of the seven gods in their treasure ship under your pillow on the night of January 2nd and happen to have a lucky dream that night, you will be lucky for the rest of the year.

I take that back. This is my favorite part: the Seven Gods of Fortune cell phone charm. Now this is something I can fit into the Norfolk house and, more importantly, our budget.

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.

What They're Wearing

The young mothers at the Anpanman Museum were as entertaining as their offspring. The thermostat was flirting with 90 the day Jen F, Amanda, and I went to Yokohama but the heat and humidity did not stop most of the Japanese mothers from showing up in black leggings.

Black leggings seem to be a staple in the wardrobe of every Japanese female between the ages of 15 and 35 (although the upper range could be closer to 45 since Japanese women are blessed with a certain timelessness I can only envy).

They wear black leggings under shorts of every length, dresses, and diaphanous thigh-length tunics. This style looks especially fetching on women who weigh less than 90 pounds soaking wet.

Okay, not everyone wears leggings. But more wear leggings than don't and more wear hats than don't. And I think the latter is a key factor in that "timelessness" thing.

Messages from Misawa

Sent: Fri Sep 04 19:45:01 2009
Subject: After 1 Quarter . . .
Edgren 19, Kinnick 0

Sent: Fri Sep 04 20:14:25 2009
Subject: Re: After 1 Half . . .
32 - 0 :-(

Sent: Fri Sep 04 20:57:15 2009
Subject: Re: After 3 Quarters . . .
45 - 0

Sent: Fri Sep 04 later
Subject: Re: Final Score
51 - 0
Matt played well on KO team.

(Editor's Note: There is always a silver lining. Pat Conroy managed to support his family for a few years by writing the book My Losing Season about his senior year on the Citadel basketball team.)

Morticia's Magical Mystery Tour

It would be such a shame to let my Smithsonian training go to waste so this week I introduced my new tour, "Let's Explore a Japanese Grocery Store!" My hairstylist, Kumi, earned a big tip for helping me weigh the relative merits of the grocery store in the Daiei Mall and the one in the basement of Seiyu Department Store. From now on, though, I'm not going to raise any thorny questions until AFTER Kumi rinses out the color, at least from my eyebrows.

The first tour was for two hospital spouses who arrived in Japan this summer just a few weeks before the Navy moved their sponsor to another country. "I need something called mirin for a recipe I want to try," one of them said as she glanced at a list in her leatherbound organizer. "There are several ways to find what you need in a Japanese grocery store," explained the tour guide. "Allow me to demonstrate my two favorite methods."

• Tour guide positions herself in the center of an aisle, gazes steadily at the fourth shelf, furrows brow, and scratches head. Tour guide expects a nice Japanese lady to ask if she needs help but they all trip over each other to vacate the aisle, murmuring something that sounds a lot like "Why is Morticia Addams staring at the soba noodles?"
• Tour guide approaches a clerk stocking nearby shelves. "Sumimasen, mirin? Mee-ren? Mere-en? My-reen?" The clerk leads tour guide and hospital spouses to another aisle and points out 17 different varieties of mirin which comes in a bottle and looks an awful lot like urine.

Having instilled confidence in her charges, tour guide wanders around the store looking for something to buy because the final module of her tour, the Grand Finale if you will, is "Paying for Your Purchases" which requires a prop or two. What better prop than a box of mushroom-shaped cookies? Back home, without an audience, she takes another look at the cookies she bought.

Hmmm. This box seems a little larger than the ones I usually buy. It IS larger!
Why are these pictures posted sideways? I have no idea. I also don't know why I can't type next to the pictures today. Just touch your left ear to your left shoulder and keep looking. Did you notice that the mushroom caps are both brown and white on the box above?

There sure are a lot of little pictures on the side of the box.

I think I bought a Make Your Own Mushroom-Shaped Cookie Kit! Those look like little vials of white and regular chocolate, a mold, a bag of cookie stems, and a box.

It looks like all I need to do is heat water to 50 degrees Centigrade. How hot is that? How would I know? I'm a Fahrenheit person. But there's a little cloud over the spout so let's assume we're supposed to boil some water. And we need a bowl and crayons. Why do we need crayons?

Elementary, my dear Watson. According to the directions on the back of the box, we need the crayons to color the little box that's inside this box.

This is really cool. When's your next tour?

Sorry, you missed it. I took two line spouses (line means regular Navy as opposed to doctors, dentists, lawyers, chaplains, and supply officers) on a tour Friday afternoon. One has lived in Japan for two years but (a) did not know there is a grocery store under Seiyu and (b) had never heard of mushroom-shaped cookies.

Un-be-lievable.

Ancient Mariner's Port Visit

Mike will only be home for a week so we are focusing on quality time. My definition of quality time is "Mike fills the gas tank" and "Mike and Matt mow the lawn." Mike is so desperate to avoid these chores he's re-invented himself as a Party Animal. Who says a leopard can't change his spots?

Last night we had dinner with Yumiko and Jackie who will soon be moving to Spain for their next big Navy adventure. They took us to a wonderful Japanese restaurant in Kanondai near Yokohama, the sort of place I especially enjoy visiting with a Japanese native like Yumiko. We pigged out on tempura, sushi, and lemon pudding before I started launching into my usual sushi plate lecture - "Mike, you need to stack those plates in color order to make it easier for the waiter to total our bill!" - which Jackie politely interrupted with a reminder that we are in Japan where the waiters gracefully wave clever electronic gadgets along the side of the stack of plates and some mysterious computer eye differentiates between the various colors and prices. Jackie, by the way, is a native Oklahoman and has no idea why his Taiwanese parents chose to settle there. He and Yumiko met when he visited Japan as a student.

After we put Matt on the team bus for Misawa this afternoon, there's a 7th Fleet hail & farewell party on our agenda. Matt and his teammates will spend 12 hours on the road, sleep until noon, play Friday night football, and get back to Yokosuka early Saturday afternoon. Mike and one of his co-workers will catch a bullet train to Misawa right after their Friday morning briefing and should arrive in Misawa just in time for the opening kick-off. This will be their only opportunity to see their boys play all season so I hope it's a good game - or at least one with lots and lots of kick-offs.

I'm skipping the Misawa game. I need a little alone time to come up with a new wifely lecture now that the sushi plate stacking one is outdated.

The Price of Freedom

The USS Blue Ridge docked in Yokosuka shortly before noon yesterday. For the Seventh Fleet Staff, people like Mike, it was a normal working day so I didn't stroll over to the pier to watch the ship come in this time. For those of you who might wonder about such things, Mike's normal work week includes a briefing every Saturday morning but he and the other senior officers are allowed to skip the Sunday morning briefings.

By way of contrast, this sign shows the typical work week of a shore command here and back home.

The disparity in working hours might strike you as a bit unfair but the Navy is aware of this inequality and provides extra compensation for sailors assigned to sea duty. Mike's "sea pay" amounts to a whopping $100/month.

Just as I was skipping out the door to squander that bonus on mushroom-shaped cookies for you, Mike asked me for the checkbook. "I need to pay my monthly mess bill." "What's that?" "The Navy charges me $200/month for meals on the ship." Math wizard that I am, it took me less than a millisecond to calculate that this job is costing us $100/month. (One of us, of course, is delighted to be getting three square meals a day for the first time in years.)

If you happen to overhear someone questioning the price of freedom, you can tell them from me that it's $1,200/year.