My family and I went to the state capital. My daughter needs to renew her passport. The process is covered by Consulate-General of Japan for the Japanese people who live in America. My state is covered by their Los Angeles branch. The people who live far away from the branch like us are supposed to go to their branch, but our branch people come to our state twice a year to support us. I feel we are luckily to have their support. My friend who lives in other state does not have such a service so that they need to drive 10 hours to their closest branch.

The venue was a luxurious hotel. We came here 5 years ago. My parents-in-law wanted to have a family vacation with us and they joined us. We stayed at the same hotel. My late-dad-in-law was still alive at that time. My husband and his dad had some alcohol beverage at the hotel bar on that night and shared a good time together. I am happy for my husband to still have the good memory with his dad.

The hotel is located close to the IKEA store and we all visited the store. I still have the memory of my late dad-in-law enjoying the time with us during our vacation. I miss him very much even though I know he is doing fine in the other dimension.

Recently I spotted a cricket in the backyard while I was hanging laundry on the drying poles. And today, I spotted a cricket inside the house. I didn’t want to keep it inside the house of course. I didn’t want to kill it neither. So, I approached to the cricket and talked to it. I told the cricket like this.

“Hi. You are not welcomed to stay inside our house. I promise you that I am not going to hurt you. I am going to spare your life. I am going to grab a plastic bag from the kitchen and catch you in the bag and escort you to the backyard, okay. So, don’t go anywhere. Stay right there, okay?”   

I quickly run to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic bag. The cricket was still right there.

Then I talked to the cricket again.

“Okay, I am back. I am going to catch you with this plastic bag and escorted you to the backyard. Please don’t get panic because I am not a big fan of catching an insect. I don’t want to get panic neither. I need your cooperation, okay?”

Then I reached my arm to the cricket. It was cooperative enough so that I could catch it. As I promised to it, I caught the cricket and escorted to the backyard, then released it.

This is a true story, but one thing you would not know. While I was doing the process of catching, escorting, and releasing it, I was screaming all the time. I am happy now that the cricket was safely caught and released.

***

After this incident, I saw some internet articles about finding a cricket in the house. Some people say that a cricket can stay only in the high vibration area and that finding a cricket in the house is a lucky thing. I am flattered and honored. But I hope I won’t need to deal with it anymore.

Today I worked on the assignment for the therapy course. The topic given was what I could not speak up in younger days. One event popped up in my mind.

My first visit to America was that I participated a packed tour when I was 20 years old. The tour company arranged a host family for each participant and we stayed with them for one month. There was one white man who was our guide and English teacher. I got along with him. He was a retired military in his late 60s. After the tour, he and I continued keeping in touch via an airmail.

When I was 27 years old, I went to America to visit him. He purchased a new house and was living with his daughter and her husband.

At the first impression, I could tell the teacher was happy to see me again. His daughter didn’t express any of her feeling to me. She was not interested in me. As for her husband, I could instantly tell that he didn’t like me staying at their house. This man didn’t have a joy and stayed at home all the time. All he did was just drinking beers all day every day. He looked like depressed.  

I tried to avoid him as much as I could. But one afternoon, while the old man was taking a nap, he approached me and yelled at me. He mentioned about the Attack on Pearl Harbor and insisted that I should apologize him on behalf of my ancestors. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t believe what I was taught in the social studies class at school. I told him I cannot do so because I don’t know the truth. My apology without knowing the truth will be discourteous for my ancestors. The man got furious. Then the old man, the English teacher, woke up from his nap and joined our conversation. His daughter came back from work and joined our conversation too. To my surprise, the two people took the drunken guy’s side and begged me to apologize on behalf of Japanese. So, I decided to leave their house on the next morning. Their house was in Idaho. I reserved a domestic airline ticket to Los Angeles. I didn’t have any friends or acquaintances there, but I wanted to leave from them as soon as possible.

When I arrived at the Los Angeles airport, I went to the pay phone booth and looked for a reasonable hotel and reserved it over the phone. I also reserved the hotel’s shuttle bus service to pick me up at the airport. The driver of the shuttle bus was a Japanese boy who was around my age. We became friends, and later he became my boyfriend.  He told me the truth about the WW2 including the true reasons why Japan needed to start a war and that Japan did send a declaration of war before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He praised me of my reaction at the teacher’s house. I was lucky to have met the boy who knew the truth. At that time there were not many people who knew the truth, because it was well hidden.  

Now the great news is that 25 years later, people started knowing the truth. The other day my daughter told me about the discussion at the social study class. I was happy to know that there were some students who mentioned about the truth that was hidden at that time. We are on the right track to know the truth and take the right actions.  

It was a busy Tuesday for my daughter as usual. She had a Live Lesson in the morning and a coding club at the library. I engaged my majority time in studying about podcast and how to speak clearly.

It was one of the very col days. My daughter and I could hardly sleep last night. It was due to the dry air coming from the heater. I personally cannot understand that my husband kept complaining the coldness but he dresses a T-shirt and shorts just like summer.

Recently my husband talks about his hometown frequently. I understand his feeling because I also miss being at Navajoland. However, I personally feel it is not the right timing for us to visit there. There are some reasons. The first reason lays in the midst of flu season. I heard that the chances are high to catch flu or cold virus through a public bathroom. In this long hour drive, we have to use a public restroom several times. The second reason lays in the hectic months. I guess it is same everywhere in Japan and America that the first three months of the year were the busiest months of the year. I have so many things in my to-do list and barely catching up the items in the list every day.

For the above reasons I asked my husband to give me some more days for me to confirm the trip days. He said okay, but he was so excited to go back to his hometown and forgot what I asked. He came back happily this evening and told me his supervisor approved his day-offs for our trip. Then I asked my husband to call his mom and let her know our visit plan. So, he did. He hung up the phone sadly. His mom told him to postpone our visit plan for now due to the weather. They are having a severe snow at this moment and expect to have another cold front coming in next week. She suggested him to wait until it gets warmer. When I heard this, I got relieved. Our next visit might be in March or April.

The tire air pressure light of my husband’s car has been constantly turned ON for these several days. All the 4 tires seem to be fine. So, he brought his car into the local tire store. The worker confirmed that everything was fine. I felt relieved that his car got back to its healthy state. It has been very cold. Even in my hometown they had snowy days, which was very rare. Maybe the tire air pressure got confused of the drastic temperature ups and downs in the recent weather.

My family and I attended the school in-person event at the zoo. We met the group of teachers at the entrance area. one of them were the assistant principal whom I talked a couple of times over the phone. I was happy to meet each other in person. She was much shorter and skinner than I thought. The picture really doesn’t tell the real person’s figure. It is always fun to meet somebody in-person, after we have gotten to know each other for a while.

Recently I have gotten to know several fellow students through the palmists’ class. We had no option to talk through zoom. We never met each other face to face yet. I am looking forward to meeting them in person in the near future when I visit Japan next time.

My family and I went to bowling. It has been almost one month brank. I felt the bowling ball heavier than before, even though it was the one that I usually use. I felt it too heavy to hold and throw properly, so that I needed to downgrade the ball’s weight by 2 pounds down. Toward the end I started feeling comfortable in holding the bowling ball and getting my good score back gradually.

***

In the evening I received a message from family spirits during the meditation. they encouraged me to pay attention to the visions that will pop up in my mind. Hold the visions and believe in myself that I can make them happen in the real life for sure.

I watched one of the YouTube videos that was posted by one of my fortune tellers group members. Podcast. Instantly I liked her voice and want to support her works. This year I want to change my pattern toward my personal work and want to start something to share my ideas and messages from spirits. I made my mind to start my expression through Podcast this year. First off, I will need to gather information on how to start and how to continue.