snowy dayz

The snow has finally come with a bang, Lindsay said that Kanazawa is all over the news because of this huge storm. It usually doesn't come until January, so I guess it was very unexpected. We went out to get Alex's Christmas present on probably the worst day. As you probably tell, Nate wasn't amused by my picture taking while we were waiting for the bus, but that's mainly because he had been walking around in wet shoes and socks for about 3 hours. The solution to winter driving here is that there are mini sprinkler systems placed in the center of all the main roads. This is a bitch for pedestrians (especially if they don't have knee high rubber boots) since there can be up to a foot of water and slush to wade through when crossing streets. Also the bonus of getting constantly splashed by cars. There are also crazy thunder and lightning storms constantly, the thunder is so loud it rattles the house. I have always like thunder storms, but it is scary for Alex. I told him it was the clouds talking because they are so cold.


Now we are more or less confined to the house, which I also kind of enjoy for the time being, at least until we run out of food and Christmas cookies, so most likey until tomorrow. The house is cold, but outside looks freezing. I made Alex his first Christmas stocking. I also knit a scarf which looks terrible and I think I hate knitting. We have been cleaning and organizing , and hoping that my dad and Barbara will make it here with no weather delays. It still doesn't seem like Christmas to me, but I am not down about it. Japanese style Christmas is kind of annoying to me because it seems especially materialistic, even worse the in the U.S., not so surprising since as one teacher told Nate "we don't give a shit about jesus". For me, it is mainly that the selection of Christmas novelty items here are so tacky that I almost want to vomit. They make those fuzzy cheap Christmas stockings you can buy at Walmart look classy. And I really just want some eggnog.

Nate is so sweet that he takes over my most detested chore on his days off, which is wiping bucketfuls of freezing cold water off the "sunroom" windows. There is so much water condensation that occurs, and from what I can tell, no one else has this problem. The best solution would be to get a dehumidifier, but they are expensive and we have already sunk enough money into stuff that we are just going to lose in the end. It is a ridiculous amount of water, and when I wipe them down, after only an hour I come back to find it looking totally like it did before. It drives me nuts. The only solution so far is to keep the windows slightly opened all the time, which sucks when you have paper screens as barriers. Funny, too, is that this is where we are supposed to hang our clothes to dry.

So, I know I don't paint Japan as a great place, but I just love to complain about it. The thing is, the things I like about it are impossible to describe. Like the way the string of lights glow at dusk when I ride my bike home from the grocery store, or how I have to stop and make myself hear the 1000 crickets chirping because I have become so used to them that my mind tricks me into thinking they've stopped. And most of all, the way people have gone out of their way, even running a whole block and back, to give Alex a small toy or something to eat. And I really don't know what else to say, except sometimes I am of the opinion that this place is o.k.