November
Here is a year ago November 2022
11/30/2023.
Are you interested in Asian stuffs (foods, drinks, sweets, teas and more)? Since we are originally from Japan, we love Asian flavors. Recently we found something new. It says "Korean citron tea". We love it very much. I fell in love with this drink. I have to ask my Korean friend about it. Is this very popular in Korea?
Entry#185. 11/28/2023.
It's almost end of November and December 2023 is coming. The fall semester 2023 is almost over and the winter break will start. (This means my husband's Lab gathering will happen soon. It's our tradition!!) This reminds me of my husband's Official Lab website. I thought you might be interested in it if you haven't visited yet. Here is the top page.
https://sites.miamioh.edu/tomoyasulab/
You would not miss Photo gallery (2 pages).
https://sites.miamioh.edu/tomoyasulab/pictures/lab-gathering/
https://sites.miamioh.edu/tomoyasulab/pictures/lab-life/
"Lab life" is really fun and nice to watch.
Also my husband's old stories are really nice to read here.
https://sites.miamioh.edu/tomoyasulab/posts/
Numbers of Past members are impressive to me. Don't you think?
https://sites.miamioh.edu/tomoyasulab/members/past-members/
Entry#184. 11/28/2023.
When young scholar visited our house to discuss with my husband, it brightens my day very much. I'm not a real scientist nor educator at all, but I'm grateful for watching these kind of situations related with scientific knowledge.
P.S. Our boy-dog, Ranger is blind and deaf now. It's a bit hard to capture him in a photo with his humans. Because he cannot hear his name when we call him "Ranger, Ranger, this way!" Using a cookie would work, maybe.
Entry#183. 11/28/2023.
When your son shows you how he's doing one of his college assignments, you'd be pleased. Yes? Especially if it is for an entomology class. The assignment is "collecting insects and pinning them". The requirement number of insects seems huge (lots). I'd love to see the final product of him. Photos are some of them. You'd love seeing them with your own eyes. Pinning process is always interesting to me. Ask my son all about it when you see him next time. He has a bit advantage of it since he learned how to pin from his father when he was a tiny boy. Seems he has no problem doing it. That's great. Have you done it before?
11/28/2023.
Christmas cactus updates: They keep blooming strongly making me smile continuously. Pink one was full-bloomed when I brought it into my husband's office. Then it bloomed second-round right now. Amazing. Love it. They are really ready for Christmas for sure. Oops, I'm behind on the schedule for preparation of Christmas. I have to hustle. Oh, how is your Christmas cactus?
Entry#182. 11/24/2023.
Happy happy thanksgiving to everyone in the world (one day late, here). I used to enjoy mimicking Big Thanksgiving feast on the table in our household. In the past, I tried roasting whole turkey in my oven. I learned what stuffing is, what gravy is and so on. It’s obvious that Japan has no Thanksgiving holiday, no turkey tradition, no pumpkin pie (believe me they have a “totally different” pumpkin pie).
During my learning process about Thanksgiving tradition, I found my favorites. I love Pumpkin pie, sweet potato casserole and green beans casserole. I do repeat making them.
Funny facts are: I’ve not tried cooking “deep fried turkey”! Dipping it in deep deep hot oil, that kind one.
I’ve not tried making cranberry sauce.
I’d love to taste it if someone shared it with me someday in future?!
I have two special recipe-books. One is from Manhattan, KS. One is made by one of my husband’s apprentice (she is now a wonderful college professor in Asheville, wife and mother of a sweet boy). Those recipes were collected from wonderful biologists/their family in KSU and MU (my husband’s lab). So everything is meaningful to me. It would bring many good old memories back to me anytime anywhere.
I baked a pumpkin pie from one of these recipe-books. And it was so scrumptious!!! Made me so smile. I was smiling all day long.
And we did Thanksgiving cycling 17 mile! Now you are smiling? Maybe. Oh and yes, our boy-dog, Ranger is still doing well.
11/21/2023.
I put something new in front of my house this year. I love them. It's brighter than I expected.
11/19/2023.
When you found a snowman decor made by "wheels", you'd be so excited and buy it for your husband, because you and your husband are cyclists. You thought its height was about 5 feet. However it arrived with a shorter height. Well, it made you smile at least.
Entry#181. 11/18/2023.
My husband provided me bicycle tools including a flash-can and sealant with an injector. I’m in training for “replacing tubeless tires” for his handcycle. Yes, it’s a very important job and it’s very critical to maintain handcycle being ready anytime. Yes, I’m keeping that in my mind which sometimes makes me nervous (because I’m not good at it yet).
You might laugh, I know. I didn’t take tires from a rim and put tires into a rim before. I even didn’t know about “levers” much. It took me a while to do it, it still takes time to me. But at least I got used to it and at least I feel confident about it a little bit.
Do you know about a flash-can? Flash-charger floor pump? It’s a really good tool for mostly tubeless tires. It can hold high air pressure in it (about 150-160 PSI) and offers a quick blast of stored air to make set-up of tubeless tires a breeze. Only problem for me is that “it is hard to pump up to 150PSI”. It is really hard. It’s a good workout to me, you know? I attach videos about how to use it. The first video looks so “easy”. You see the second and third videos how hard gentlemen pushed it.
photo: my bike tools!! Levers!
11/18/2023.
I have a wonderful artist friend. She gave me her creation last year, it was a Christmas present!
December 2022. You can see her art works this link, on 12/22/2022. I loved them very much.
This year, she shared her latest creations with me, again. It's 2024 calendar! Yes, she drew each flowers. I need to ask her "how to draw them", it looks like "digitalized" to me. I can see her art each every months! Wonderful! It has my favorite flower "larkspur!" You'd love it. I am thankful for having her as a friend very much.
Entry#180. 11/15/2023.
Having handcycles is great to my husband. We love it and our life is good. So now you might wonder “A handcycle frees him from his limitations?”
The answer is “yes and no”.
Yes, I can tell he feels great during handcycling. He mentioned in the article:
“I love handcycling because it lets me forget about my disability. I can go as fast as able-body cyclists, I can ride many different places without troubling others, and I can ride together with my family and my friends.”
So, yes, a handcycle frees him very much. However there are still limitations which you might not noticed right away. (Some details are below.).
You might wonder “He could commute from home to his office by handcycle??”
Hmmmm, no, not really.
He can ride handcycle from home to the office building. But he cannot enter the building with handcycle. Can you imagine? He needs his daily wheelchair to move around/inside the building. That means his wheelchair has to be ready for him at the entrance of the building so that he can transfer himself from handcycle to wheelchair. (Wait. Where could wheelchair be stored? Who could set it up for a certain time?). Then how can he carry his handcycle to where (to store)?? Oh wait, he has only one daily wheelchair. He must carry his wheelchair during handcycle riding somehow? With an attachment device or a cart. Of course, there are paraplegic people who do handcycle carrying a wheelchair with in the world, yes, there are.
11/15/2023.
It's a holidays season. I need to put up some decorations which I'm so late for. I will. I thought back on last year, I visited theaters to watch some shows. I love seeing inside theaters and libraries, you know? Oh of course, museums, too.
Then I saw an information about the local high school "drama club". It seems they will perform the musical show in spring as long as they receive some funds somehow. That's good to hear and I do hope they can make it! Musical shows are always wonderful. The interesting part about it is the show title!! It says "A year with Frog and toad. The musical!" See? You'd be curious? I didn't know that these famous stories became the musical show. I loved this series in the past. I will send cheers to the production crews. Good luck!!!
11/14/2023.
I loved reading picture-books when my son was tiny. I had several favorite authors at that time. One of them is Holly Hobbie. I love "Toot and Puddle" series very much, I still love them now. Especially "Toot and Puddle: I'll be home for Christmas." I always feel that I'm not good enough at doing story-time for small kids because of my odd-accent. However I would love to read this story to kids showing my happy-excitement. I think I can do that. I love this that much. Do you have your very favorite picture-book?
Entry#179. 11/12/2023.
Sometimes I think about “what if” things. What if my husband became paraplegic at the earlier/younger age? What if we lived in Japan? What if we had more SCI people around us in our town or nearby areas? What if we lived around Detroit, MI area?
I found these video (below) and learned about wheelchair community in Netherland. The website is only in Dutch, but at least we can watch videos.
https://wheelchairskillsteam.nl/videos/
I’m really curious about their Wheelchair skills contest! If my husband could get trainings/programs from their group/instructors and if he could use their facilities, that’d be so helpful to him to live with wheelchair. I do believe so. Even I got feeling “I want him to do those movements. I want to take him there.” However, you know, it’s so difficult to make that happen. Not so easy.
https://www.vicair.com/sponsorship/wheelchairskillsteam/
The other website says:
The team is committed to teaching wheelchair users both mental and physical skills that they can use in everyday life. They also work to make non-wheelchair users aware of the limitations of wheelchair users, but they also want to show them (all) the possibilities.
It’s good to know their mission that I totally agree with them.
Cincinnati area has several great organizations related with disability communities/ disabled people. There are two sports teams. Have you heard about them? These young wheelchair athletes are very inspiration indeed. If he got injured at the younger age, these sports might have been the opportunity, maybe.
https://cincinnatidragons.com/
https://www.cincinnatispecialhockey.com/
It seems Detroit area has a big handcycle community (or I’d say “more handcycle athletes”). The handcycle race itself is established very well.
It says:
River Bank Run is the largest road race in the country, and the only race in the world to offer a 25K wheelchair racing division.
https://www.maryfreebed.com/wheelchair-and-handcycles-geared-up-for-amway-river-bank-run/
This one, this event made us wonder "okay, we would love to try to attend this in future!"
Entry#178. 11/11/2023.
I used to be a “heavy” Facebook user. (Sounds funny though.) At one point, I created Instagram account, as well. Because I wanted to “connect” with younger people and wanted to know what their life looked like. Younger people don’t use Facebook much. At that time, I was fascinated by young people how they show off their fashion senses, styles. Instagram is different medium than Facebook. There are not much “descriptions” “explanations” about photos. But it was fun to see colorful designs/portraits. In the past, I wanted to “mimic” their style badly. It was like creating some arts. So I did some. It was fun. To me, personally, IG is a time-consuming activity.
After my husband’s accident, I put aside both FB and IG. It was just fine. Then I started this my blog to “vent” my thoughts randomly. It is also good to myself to “keep basic English-skills running in my head”. Without a work outside house, I speak Japanese at home all the time all day long. So it’s a good practice definitely for me to write my blog.
Then Strava came up in my daily life. It is very useful and motivating medium for my cycling. I was able to connect with several cross country runners and young cyclists. The great part is the fact that I can see their comments/thoughts about their activities. What they feel, think, plan about their running/cycling. I haven’t seen/read any of them before through FB or IG. I want to thank them about that part because they give me more energy certainly. I think I’m very eager to keep that kind of connections with people mo matter what as long as they don’t mind. Yay for Strava.
11/10/2023.
I love using Strava in these days since I started my cycling journey with my husband. It's easy to track distances and records. Plus I connect with other cyclists and runners, I can see their activities (how much/far they run/pedal) which motivates me a lot. Bonus is "I can see photos of them" as well. One time, I saw one young great cyclist posed holding his bicycle above his head proudly. It looked as "celebratory pose" to me. Then I wanted to mimic it badly. But you know? I failed badly. You should laugh.
My husband told me "His bike is very lightweight and a very nice one. Yours is still heavy, you know." It was good laugh indeed.
Entry#177. 11/ 07/2023.
Our boy-dog, Ranger is 14 years old, blind and deaf. He is surely getting older and his daily activity time gets lesser. But he is still good and he is fine to go outside for peeing/pooping. He just needs to be on his leash (just in case). Oh his appetite is just great. That makes us smile everyday. I’m grateful to have him with us, we really need him with us.
I cannot rearrange furnitures much though, because of his blind/deaf condition. It’s amazing to see him finding his water bowl, his bed, back door and his favorite spots inside house without any problems.
He used to go upstairs with stairs when he takes a bath because we have a bathtub in the 2nd floor. He is about 70 lb, a big boy. It was my husband’s job to give him a bath since he was just good at handling Ranger’s size. Then nowadays it’s my job! I try to do my best anyway, although it’s impossible to “carry him” with my two arms. Because of his loss of sight, he has now phobia of stairs. No matter how I lead him with cookies/peanut butter, he gets so scared and runs away from stairs. I’d love to use “a bathtub” to wash him really, but I can’t. So we have to use my husband’s shower room downstairs instead. I needed a new strategy for Ranger’s shower time because of the bigger space than a bathtub. I spread peanut butter on one side of the wall, clipped his leash on a bar and we were ready. It all worked out great. You know, this peanut butter idea was coming up from YouTube (for dog nail cutting). See below.
Photos: After showering, Ranger was so exhausted and enjoyed the warm sunny spot.
11/07/2023.
I discovered this great paraplegic woman, Sophie Morgan, recently and I'm really into reading her stories very much. There are more and more amazing paraplegic people in the world, I can learn more and more.
Entry#176. 11/05/2023.
We’ve seen Recumbent bike (trike/tricycle style) riders very often on the bike trails in these days. Every time I see them, they brighten my face very much. I get feeling lucky seeing them because it’s kind of a special machine to me. I yell “woooo hooooo!” at them all the time. I’ve not known about this “recumbent bike” style before. When my husband discovered about Handcycles, I learned that handcycles are similar mechanical machines to recumbent bikes.
https://momentummag.com/recumbent-bike-and-benefits/
Since handcycles have 3 wheels, tricycles, my image of recumbent bikes was always “3 wheels”. Then I learned there was recumbent bicycle (2 wheels!), of course.
https://cruzbike.com/pages/how-to-choose-the-best-recumbent-road-bicycle
Next my image of 2 wheels recumbent bicycle was “how do you start pedaling??” I don’t think I can manage starting to ride it easily. Hmmm
I had a great chance to see the recumbent bicycle with my eyes! It was simply awesome to watch it really.
11/05/2023.
I caught up with a longtime friend in Japan recently. We used to meet up in Colorado in the winter to ski together. It was long time ago. He shared his daughters' stories as well. My eyes were wide open hearing about his oldest daughter who was in high school in Niigata, Japan. She is in the "Koto" team. Do you know about Koto, Japanese traditional instrument?
https://japanesegarden.org/2018/05/04/the-music-of-koto/
When I was in high school, I've not heard about this type of clubs much. It seems very popular now. I'm impressed and amazed. They compete just like band competitions in the States. I attach one video from YouTube. (It's not my friend's daughter's school, though.) It's so interesting to watch them play Koto. You like it?
11/04/2023.
I like a word "curious" and I am always curious about things around me. Miami University started using Starship Robots this semester and those robots make me smile almost everyday.
https://www.starship.xyz/the-starship-robot/
I borrowed a photo from this article.
It's amazing that this robot has 12 cameras! Since my husband is in a wheelchair, we talked about this robot wondering "Does it go over a curb?" It seems it does. Amazing. Once I tried to wait and wanted to let the robot cross at a zebra crossing. But, you know, it didn't work.
Official website says:
"Car drivers may encounter a Starship robot waiting at a zebra crossing. Whilst drivers are required to stop for pedestrians at these crossings, they do not need to stop for robots – in fact, even if they do, the robots will be unlikely to cross due to detecting the car(s). Equipped with a suite of sensors and cameras, the robots will wait patiently until the roads are clear before crossing."It sometimes makes me think "Wooooow, those robots are really patient." Funny?
11/04/2023.
I love Men's Glee Club very much. My sweet lovely writer-friend invited me to attend Miami University Men's Glee Club fall concert!! I was lucky. Her son is the same age as our son. They used to run cross country together when they were in high school. He has been a member of this glee club, plus he is now one of officers: PR director! When someone you know sings on the stage, the happiness in your heart grows more and more. I had a wonderful time with her looking at her son singing joyful. Oh and yes, I brought flowers there.
Here is a great page about them.
https://stories.miamioh.edu/nbsphome-concert-2023
In fact, the photographer is his father!!
I borrowed this YouTube link. It's not this time's performance but this song is my favorite! I'd love to learn "the hands-movement" very much!!
Entry#175. 11/02/2023.
We celebrated our 24th anniversary with our son with delicious Turkish dishes @my favorite restaurant. (In fact, we celebrated my 50th birthday as well.) Somehow Turkish meals attract us very much.
I always wonder and curious about anniversary dates. Is it a date you turn in a marriage license to a city hall? Or is it a date you have a wedding ceremony to make wedding vows? Our anniversary, October 2nd, was the date we had a ceremony. It was a traditional style wedding at a shrine. (This link below is only in Japanese.)
https://tatsuki-jinjya.sp-wedding.jp/
This shrine is in the Okazaki park next to the Okazaki Castle.
https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1220/
It was a nice day to celebrate with our relatives. I still remember it well. I haven’t told our son all about it. I’d love to share it with him sometime. Although I’m not sure if he gets interested in it. You might laugh if I say “I’m interested in which wedding styles our son chooses on his wedding day, Japanese traditional one or American ‘traditional’ one?” Funny?
Entry#174. 11/01/2023
Sometimes I realize that cultural differences would make people’s feeling uncomfortable. And I should know better about it now because I’ve learned both cultures, Japan and the States, good enough. (I’ve lived in the USA since 2001.)
However I learned from my mistakes and experience in the past. That is true.
One time around 2009, a speech therapy teacher asked me about Japanese folktales because she already knew Peach boy (Momo taro) and wanted to know more (wanted to read some more to her students.) At that time, coincidentally I found Kamishibai kits at Miami King library so I picked some titles for her. Have you heard of Kamishibai or have you seen it before? (You might be able to check it out from King library?)
https://fanningtheflames.hoover.org/shorthand-story/7
One of my choices for this teacher was "The Farting Bride". (!) In Japanese, Hekkoki yomesan or some other similar titles. It's a kind of popular story in Japan. I was excited to show "what a Kamishibai format is" to her more than a story itself.
Here is a full story. http://www10.plala.or.jp/mikio-michiyo/straw/straw.html
I didn't see any problems or how inappropriate for kindergarteners or youngsters in the classrooms in the States until this teacher told me "I cannot read this story to kids, you know that, don't you? It's about fart. I cannot believe it." Then I realized the cultural difference. Because, in Japan, this story is always FUN and everyone in a room can laugh and enjoy it all together. Do you think you would like it? I apologized to her with respect.
I still like this story though. I just need to be careful to use this topic thinking "whom I am talking to". See? It is very interesting to see some differences between Japan and the States.
I would love to share some info about Kamishibai here. 3 videos attached. I love seeing the part "how the page is pulled". You might feel "Aw, it's the same as Story time, nothing special at all." But you could demonstrate/perform it with your own creative ways and it would be efficient more than using a book. Maybe.
video#1: how to turn a page is a key. video#2: this lady is good at it. video#3: you could MAKE it like a DYI project.
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