I made my homemade mirin. This is my first time to try making it.

The ingredients are as follows.

– 500 grams of steamed mochigome (sweet rice)

– 500 grams of dried komekouji (fermented rice)

– 2% of salt

– 960 ml of sky vodka.

I mixed all the ingredients in a hot boiling water sanitized glass bottle. I will need to wait at least six months to let it well fermented.

I look forward to tasting my homemade mirin six months later.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

During the last weekend, I happened to swing by the local Asian market. I seldom go there. In fact the last time I went there was four to five years ago. The reason is simple. They don’t care for the expiration date of all their merchandise. I saw their items that had already expired five to six years ago. I also had witnessed the store owner trying to make the expiration date invisible by scratching by his thumb finger. Another time I heard the store owner complained about the Japanese customers who always checked the expiration date of each of their merchandise.

Despite of my decision of not going to the store anymore, today I went to the store because I needed to buy a sweet rice in order to make a homemade mirin. When I went to the Asian market in the big city last weekend, I forgot buying it even it was written in my shopping list.

My going to the store turned out great, because I unexpectedly found kabocha squashes in the store. The regular grocery stores seldom carry kabocha squashes.

I was happy to get a kabocha. Now I can cook the sweet vegetable soup.

It is one of the macrobiotics recipes. The soup should be helpful for diabetes.

The soup needs four types of vegetables; onion, cabbage, kabocha, and carrot.

All the vegetables need to be diced into small pieces. This is a healing food, so I didn’t want to cheat by using a food processor. So, I carefully cut them by hand. It took me almost two hours to cut vegetables.

The soup turned out to be a pretty good amount for me to eat it every day for two weeks. I hope it will be beneficial for me to cleanse my blood stream.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I had a dream of my condominium in Japan. When I moved to America, my mom bought it from me. It now belongs to my mom. My parents never rented it out to anybody. It has been vacant for 11 years now. I have been asking my parents to sell it to somebody.

In my dream a mom and her daughter were in my condominium. I never met them in the real life. The mom seemed to be a single-mother. She looked like in her early 40s and her daughter looked like in her early 20s. I was there with them to help them to arrange the rooms to their preference. They kept on saying good things about my condominium. They liked it very much. We had a good time together in our conversation. I felt good in my dream.

When I woke up, I thought of my condominium. My parents didn’t mention about selling it to somebody, but I thought I might be happening right now. And the new owner might be a mother and her daughter.

I often received the right information through my dream. I hope this morning’s dream would actually happen in the real life.

My condominium has a high vibration. All the three rooms have a window or a balcony facing to the ocean. You can enjoy watching the calming ocean view and listening to the relaxing wave sounds. I really hope somebody who loves it will purchase it with a smooth purchasing procedure.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

We had a rainy/cloudy morning. We were planning to go to lake to swim this morning, but because of the weather, we changed our plan into going to the indoor pool instead.

When we arrived there, their spacious parking lot was almost full. We had a hard time to find a vacant spot.

We enjoyed swimming and soaking ourselves into their hot/Jacuzzi pool.

I miss going to the hot spring in Colorado. Depending on my husband’s work, if his job does not get too busy, I want to visit the hot spring during my daughter’s autumn break in October.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter is now the 4th grader. I still walk with her to the school bus stop. There are many other younger students who walk alone from their houses. There is one more grandfather who walk with his granddaughters to the bus stop. We are the only rare parents who walk with their children to the bus stop.

My daughter wanted to walk alone to the bus stop. My husband is reluctant about that, but I wanted to respect my daughter’s independency. So, my husband and I decided to allow my daughter to walk alone to the bus stop.

In Japan we all start walking alone to the elementary school. For some students it takes 20-30 minutes from their house to the school. It is common for even the first graders to walk alone to the school.

Considering about the Japanese culture, it might be pretty natural for my daughter to walk alone to the bus stop. We live in a safe neighborhood. Besides, it takes only 8 minutes from our house to the bus stop. I should not worry about my daughter too much.

Today was the first day for my daughter to start walking alone from/to the bus stop.

I had a complicated feeling. I was happy for her independency, but at the same time, I felt slightly lonely about her not needing me to escort her anymore.

It is one of the processes for both a young child and a parent when the child proceeds the steps to the adulthood.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I talked with my friend through Skype. It has been two months since I talked with her in person last time.

We have been friends since we were small. Our mental distance is like an ocean wave. Sometimes we feel each other very close, while sometimes we feel each other very far.

Right now is when I feel her far away from me mentally.

We never got argued nor fought. I don’t know exact reason why this mental gap happened between us.

Even though we chatted through Skype for more than two hours as usual, I kept feeling her far away from me.

For some reasons, every words she said today sounded to me very coldhearted. Of course I know she didn’t mean to be coldhearted or cruel.

She mentioned about her menopause symptom. She has been going through the menopause process ahead of me. She said the menopause symptom had started three years ago for her. During these three years, she had experienced a hot flash and a sudden sweating. The worst experience for her was the depression feeling. She had felt isolated and lonely and she believes it was one of the menopause symptoms.

While listening to her, I recall her often talking about the symptom some years ago. She also said she now feels much better than before. Now that she doesn’t have her monthly period for two years or so, she feels good about it. She described it as “finally got released from un-balancedness”

So, I guess it might be me who feels difference in her words tone in today’s conversation. I might be mentally depressed and started considering everything in negative way.

Or maybe she is still having a tough time during this transition years. We both are going through our physical transition, our daughter’s transition, and our parents’ transition. We both are running to the same direction and we both are equally exhausted with the transitions in daily life.

I should not take anything in personal. I believe our mental distance will get close again sometimes.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning my dad visited me in my dream.

In my dream I received a phone call from my dad. He said my mom and he could not go to Republic of Turkey because I wrongly typed the code to enter. Also he said he could not find a cicada.

After I woke up from the dream, I thought of my dad.

I didn’t know exactly what this dream means nor the message from this dream. But I did feel my dad’s sadness for being sick.

I keep praying for my parents. I keep sending my good thoughts to my parents.

I hope they will always receive whatever supports and help they need. They are very good people and they deserve to receive all the support and kindness from people.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I had my 9th treatment with my first acupuncturist. I had a treatment 7 times with my second acupuncturist.

Before I left to the acupuncturist’s office, I made my mind not to tell my acupuncturist about my private life, especially about my Japanese family.

Thus, when I entered her healing room, I sat down a different chair from usual. I usually sit down the chair right next to her, but today, I sat down the chair away from her.

Our session started as usual. My acupuncturist started asking me with many questions. Her routine questions are like this. How have I been doing? How is my recent life? How is my family? How is my parents in Japan? Is there anything that cause me stressed out?

I tried to calm myself. To all her questions I was planning to answer “everything is fine and everything stays the same.” I really didn’t want to mention about my Japanese parents. However, for some reasons, some words about my parents slipped out from my mouth. In that moment, I started shedding lots of tears. It was as if my own words got rid of the barrier of the tears.

While I was shedding tears, my acupuncturist came closer to me and gently stroked my back. I was surprised to see her also shedding tears with me. Maybe my crying about my parents triggered her remembering about her recently passed away mom.

She encouraged me to work on forgiving myself. She said nobody is blaming me but myself. I agree with her. Nobody is blaming me. I am the one who keeps blaming me for not going back to Japan and not supporting my parents for their painful and tough days.

***

Then she proceeded to her another routine. She checked my pulse and tongue. She said my lung pulse was very, very weak. It was due to my sadness. She also mentioned my kidney was very strong. I thought of my Kusurie (Japanese healing art) in my bedroom. It is for strengthen my kidney. It is for sure working for me. I appreciate for the Kusurie’s healing power.

Her acupuncture and tuina treatment was relaxing as usual.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

It was the new school start day for my daughter.

The bus was very late. It was supposed to come at 7:54 am, according to the time schedule. When it finally came, it was already past 8:15 am, which is the school start time.

***

It has been two months and half since I had my alone time during the day time. I have many items in my to-do-list. I started working on the items one by one. 

This summer break went by so quickly. The biggest reason is that my daughter didn’t attend the summer school as the previous three years. I spent all day long with her during the entire of her summer break. We had fun together, going to the outdoor pool and the indoor pool. We also went to a various types of trail waking.

I was planning to teach her Japanese language every day during the summer break, but my plan didn’t continue for long. I think it is okay. Since I always talk to her in Japanese, she has accumulated Japanese words in her. I believe eventually she will start speaking Japanese fluently.

Now I am missing the time with her. But at the same time, I am willing to enjoy my alone time. I hope she will have a great school year with her new teacher and old classmates. I know she will.

***

Every time when I see my daughter, I am filled with love. I am thankful to her for being born to be my daughter.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

When my friend came to visit us, she mentioned about two of our common acquaintances. Since I don’t get in touch with them, I didn’t know about their recent life.

One is my boss at the Lakota tour. He is now 60 years old. The other one is the Lakota man who hosted the tour. He is now 75 years old.

When I heard about their age, I was astonished. On my second thought though, it sounds about right. I am 49 years old. We all equally have aged. It is fair.

I also heard they are still offering a Lakota tour. The last information I heard from my friend was about the Lakota man and his wife. He married to a Japanese woman and they had hosted the tour for years. But now they were not together anymore.

I felt sorry for them. I don’t know what exactly happened to them. Last time I heard from my other friend that they were at that time in the marriage counseling and trying their best to recover their good relationship.

Because my situation is the same as theirs, in terms of the international marriage, we both are Japanese women married to a Native American man, I took it seriously. It was heartbreaking to me.

I hoped I could talk to my Lakota friend. However, I don’t know his email address nor phone number.

***

My wish came true in my dream.

My Lakota friend visited me in my dream. We haven’t seen each other for 12 years now. The last time I saw him was at the Lakota tour of the year of 2007.

We talked a lot about our past 12 years. We could catch up with each other. We hugged and thanked each other for our friendship and spiritual connection.

***

When I woke up, I had a feeling I might be able to see him again in person. I would be able to introduce my family to him. He would be happy for us.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪