Blood Sugar Level

 

A few years ago, I passed out at home. My wife called an ambulance, and I was admitted to a hospital. I was in the intensive care unit and was completely unconscious for a week.

The reason was acute diabetes. I drank too much soda at the time.

Have you thought about your blood sugar level? Healthy people usually never care about that. Their blood sugar level might be around 80–99 mg/dl. A patient with a serious diabetic condition might have a level of around 800 mg/dl.

When I had arrived at the hospital, a doctor checked my blood sugar level. I was passed out, so I listened to the doctor later. My record was 2,154 mg/dl.

The doctor was surprised and said, “I have never seen such a figure!” The doctor then said to my wife, “Tonight would be the most critical stage of his illness.”

I survived, but I was completely unconscious for a week. The doctors and nurses worked hard to make me feel better, and then sometime the next week, I regained consciousness. I had had a narrow escape. After a few weeks, I was almost fine. I would leave the hospital before long.

The doctor came to my sickroom and said, “Your case is really rare. I want to write a treatise about you and publish it at a conference. Could you give me your signature on the document and permission to use your data?”

I wanted to contribute to medical science. I happily signed. Maybe at some medical conference, my data might surprise many doctors.

Don’t drink too much soda.

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Tasty Dramas

 

My wife loves TV dramas. I also love them, but my wife is always influenced by them.

Once, we watched a drama about the person who made Japanese whisky. My wife usually drank beer, but she started to drink whisky.

Once, we watched a drama about the person who invented instant ramen noodles. She started eating instant ramen noodles.

If we love dramas, we should be influenced in this way. We should watch and sample. I guess this is a good way to enjoy dramas.

I will follow her example and allow dramas to influence me.

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Light-Emitting Clock

 

I took care of my mother who had Alzheimer’s disease for fourteen years, during which we lived in the same house.  One of the most difficult aspects of living with an Alzheimer’s patient is that the caregiver can’t sleep well. My mother often woke up in the middle of night and caused trouble. In those days, my wife and I never got enough sleep.

Whenever we woke up, we would look at the clock as soon as possible. We were afraid that, because we’d slept at an unusual time, we had overslept and might be late for an important engagement. Oversleeping was the worst excuse for being late. It could harm our reputation.

In those days, I was always searching for a light-emitting clock. If our clock emitted light in the dark, we could know what time it was. I looked for that kind of clock in many shops and online. But I couldn’t find one.

We finally found a solution. We bought a digital photo frame that had a clock mode. It emitted light. We hung the frame on the wall in our bedroom. We could tell what time it was even in the middle of the night.

Now that we have put my mother in a nursing home, we sleep well every night. But we still use the digital photo frame/clock. We recommend it to you…

I have just checked on the internet. They’re selling light-emitting clocks at low prices. Inventions always come too late.

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Front Page Replaced

 My father worked for a newspaper company. When I was a university student, he brought me a unique newspaper. On this newspaper, there was different news on front-page than there was on the newspaper that actually got delivered that morning. The front-page had been replaced. After the company started printing the newspaper, they received more important news. Therefore, they needed to change the front-page.

             What surprised me was that the change gave a totally different impression about a particular country. The former front-page contained  negative news about the country, while the latter front-page contained positive news about that country.

             I suspected that the country accidentally let out the negative news, then intentionally leaked the positive news to cover up the negative news,

Let’s read today’s front-page! My father has passed away, so I don’t have a way to know if it was replaced or not.

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Traditional Sports

 

 

When an elderly person falls down, it can be a tragedy. Elderly people easily break their bones. My mother had Alzheimer’s disease. She fell down many times, and she broke her bones many times. I experienced a great deal of hardship taking care of her.

             On the other hand, my father, my grandmother and my great aunt have never had any serious falls. I wonder what is the different between them. We should not jump to conclusions, but I guess it could be the sports they did when they were young.

My mother did not play any sports, while my father was a kendo player. Kendo is a Japanese traditional martial art of swordsmanship. My grandmother and my great aunt played kyudo, which is Japanese traditional archery. I studied kendo a little. The foot movements in kendo are unusual. I have never played kyudo, but I have heard it requires good posture. I suspect these traditional sports include techniques to avoid falling down in their training procedures.

I was a member of a drama club when I was young. I bet that when I am older, I will fall down easily like my mother. I wish that I had studied traditional sports when I was young.

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People Who Hate Curry and Rice

 

 

 I love curry and rice very much. I couldn’t even imagine there are people who hate them. I have met two persons who do.

 The first one lived in a university dormitory that served dinners. Every Friday, they served curry and rice.

 The second person was Korean. He was drafted into the army. In the military, they served curry and rice for dinner every Friday.

 I love curry and rice. But I think every week is too much. If you continue to eat the same food every week, you will start to hate it.

 Curry and rice are innocent! The managers in the dormitory and the military need to change the rule!

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Tubby Doctor

 

 I undergo a medical checkup once a year.

 For a long time, I had my medical checkups in a small hospital near my home. Why did I choose this hospital? Because the doctor in the hospital was really tubby.

 I know medical checkups are important. But in most cases, doctors blame me by saying things such as “You should quit smoking,” “You have to lose your weight,” and “Do more exercise.”

 Shut up! If I could, I had already done it before you mentioned it.

 But the doctor never said those things because he is tubby. He recommended that I quit smoking, but he added, “You don’t need to hurry.” I liked that hospital.

 Now I take my medical checkups in another hospital because my old buddy started working as a clerk at the hospital. The new doctors also blamed my weight and smoking habit.

Shut up! I come here not for you but for my old buddy!

I miss my tubby doctor.

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Picture by Itagaki Masaya

Green Onion and Dishwashing Liquid

 

 When I was in my twenties, I lived alone. I used to cook by myself.

One problem in single life is wasting food. I bought vegetables but I couldn’t eat them all. I would put them in the refrigerator, but they would easily go bad. I didn’t want to waste food.

 I was most concerned with green onions. I loved miso soup, but it only needed a few pieces of them. I needed to throw away most of them.

 A TV program informed me that if I wanted green onions to last long, I should not keep them in the refrigerator. Instead, I should arrange them in a vase. It would make them live and keep them longer. I started to arrange green onions in my vase.

 Another TV program told me other information. If you want to keep the flowers long, you should add dishwashing liquid to the water in the vase.

I adopted both ideas. I kept my green onions in my vase. In the vase, there was dishwashing liquid mixed with water. I believed I could keep my green onions very long.

Then dinnertime came. I made miso soup. I pulled a green onion from the vase. I chopped it and put it in the pan. It caused a surprising phenomenon. My miso soup made tons of bubbles. They overflowed from the pan.

It was natural. Mixing dishwashing liquid in water is for ornamental plants, not for food. The green onions contained dishwashing liquid. If you boiled it, it would make many bubbles.

I didn’t want to waste my miso soup, so I ate it. It tasted like dishwashing liquid. More precisely, the taste was artificially bitter. I don’t recommend it. It made me sick.

I always made these kinds of mistakes when I was in my twenties.

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Secret Place

 

 

 My grand-aunt, my grandmother’s sister, didn’t have a child. She lived alone. She had Alzheimer’s disease. I commuted to her house to care for her every week.

 Taking care of an aged relative is natural. I started it easily. But I faced a difficult problem. She started to have problems managing money. Who should manage her money?

 I really didn’t want to do it. Finally, I started to do it. I am a relative but a distant one. I needed to manage her money very carefully. Because some other relatives could blame me after she passes. When I visited her, I checked her wallet and carefully recorded how much she had. If she didn’t enough money, I added. She should keep some money at her home. I wrote down the date and how much money she had.

 First of all, I needed the courage to ask her how much she had and in which bank.

“Please let me see your bankbook.”

 This sentence is difficult to say to anyone.

 Fortunately, I commuted to her house for several months. She trusted me, and she taught me the place where she kept the bankbook.

 When I found out where she hid her bankbook, I was surprised. It looked like ordinary furniture, but an unassuming part of it opened unexpectedly. There was a small space to hide bankbooks and stamps. In Japan, you need a stamp to withdraw money from a bank, so the stamp is also important. That place was opened without a key, but no one can find it without being informed beforehand. Where did she buy the furniture? How did they sell it to her? They can’t tell the secret in their advertisement.

 If I hadn’t asked her about the bankbook, she might have forgotten the secret. In that case, I would need to take care of her without money. The bankbook and the stamp might be dumped with no one realizing it.

 But Grand-aunt! Surely you had a nice place to hide important things. But you should not hide the bankbook and the stamp in the same place! Japanese insurance companies would never compensate for theft if someone kept a bankbook and stamp in the same location!

 Where should we hide our important items? All of us will get older and die. To whom should we tell the secret? This is a difficult problem.

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Driving school for the aged

 

 It is a serious problem. Old people cause traffic accidents.

 In Japan, people over 70 years old who have driver’s licenses need to attend elderly training. I am not 70 years old, but I have already taken elderly training twice. I took them with my parents.

 My mother did not drive a car, but she had a license. I did not plan to renew her license because she had Alzheimer’s disease. I was personally interested in the elderly training system. At the beginning of the training, the trainer showed 10 pictures. Then he let the people memorize those pictures. They had to write them down on their papers without seeing the pictures. This was a test for Alzheimer’s disease. Of course, my mother could never remember even one of the pictures. The results of the other tests were worse.

 I assumed the trainer would take away her license, but they simply recommended that she go to a hospital. She already commuted to a hospital. So nothing had happened.

 My father’s case was a little bit different. While I was waiting for the training in the room, a trainer said, “We can’t accept any attendant in this training.” Then he let me out of the room. So I waited outside. Ten minutes later, the trainer came out from the room and asked me. “Your father is angry for some reason. Please handle it.” I entered the room. It was the middle of the 10-picture memorization test. My father was hard of hearing; he could not hear what the trainer said, and he did not know what he should write down. I knew the test very well because I already took it with my mother. So I explained what he should do with a loud voice. Talking to a person who is hard of hearing requires some training. My father’s results were also bad, but they could not take his license away. Nothing happened.

 My father passed away when he was 80 years old. He kept on driving until two days before he died. He caused many small accidents. The doctors, policemen, and our family all tried to stop him from driving. He refused. He died of a heart attack. When I found out he passed away, I breathed a sigh of relief that he finally will not cause serious accidents.

 We really need self-driving cars.

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Abdominal vocalization

 

　My father was hard of hearing. He started to wear a hearing aid when he was in his forties. Without the hearing aid, he could not talk to anyone except me. I could talk with my father without the help of the hearing aid because I was a member of my high school drama club.

 In most cases, if you join a Japanese drama club, you will be taught abdominal vocalization, a technique of making loud sounds using your abdominals. High school drama clubs basically perform in big gymnasiums. We needed this technique to convey lines to the audience. This is not so difficult. A sophomore could teach a freshman.

 This technique was useful to me as a caregiver for my father.

 Ironically, this technique is not so important at other theatrical stages. In a minitheater, it even disturbs one’s performance. It is too loud. In most big theaters, they use wireless microphones. Furthermore, this technique tends to reduce the uniqueness of an actor’s voice. Uniqueness of voice includes how to breathe.

 So abdominal vocalization is useless. But when you talk to a person who is hard of hearing, it is extremely useful.

 One day, my father and I visited a hospital to meet a doctor. I repeated what the doctor said to my father with a loud voice. The doctor heard our conversation. He tried to talk loudly like I did. Abdominal vocalization is not a difficult technique, but it is also not something you can do immediately. The doctor choked while talking. I figured abdominal vocalization was a fundamental technique. At least, it seems doctors do not study this technique in medical schools.

 We should study as many skills as possible. A skill could be useful in some unexpected situations. 

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Curtain

 

 

              When I lived with my mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, I served her dinner at 6:00 p.m. In the winter, it was dark. I had to close the curtains, but I intentionally opened the curtains and helped my mother eat because I wanted to avoid abusing my mother.

              Caregivers tend to abuse patients who have Alzheimer’s disease, especially at home. In most cases, their sons do. Blaming the sons is easy, but I really understand why they do it. Men in my generation don’t expect to be caregivers at home and at school. Generally, they are not good at caregiving. The period when parents need caregiving usually overlaps with the period when their son is at his most blessed.

              Also, Alzheimer’s patients often disturb their caregivers’ sleep. The lack of sleep causes mental and physical disorders. I always thought, This is not my life. I was not raised so nicely by my mother that I need to do this. I was always worried that I could start abusing my mother.

              This was why I took care of my mother with the curtains open. It kept me reasonable. If I abused my mother in this situation, someone might inform the police. I didn’t abuse my mother to protect myself.

              In the end, I never abused my mother. I sent her to a nursery home. It took fourteen years. If a person who is not familiar with Alzheimer’s disease listens to this story, they might feel nothing about it. Not abusing one’s own mother is natural, but I think I made a great achievement.

              In the evening, if you find a house with curtains open, they might have some problems.

Picture by Toranosuke

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The Site Foreman

 

   

           The house we are living in now was built by a trustworthy carpenter. He was the best man at the wedding of my parents-in-law. While he built our house, I sometimes visited the site.

              One day a man who wore work clothes came to the site.

              He asked me, “I am an electrical engineer. Where is the site foreman?”

              The site foreman was the carpenter. I answered, “He must be in the garage now.”

              Then he went to the garage, but he returned soon and said to me, “He is not there.”

              It was strange. I had seen him there a few minutes ago. We went to the garage together. I found the carpenter, who was mixing concrete. I couldn’t understand the situation immediately.

              The electrical engineer hadn’t realized that the carpenter was the site foreman. In those days, we were suffering from a carpenter shortage. Many carpenters were needed for recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake. So our carpenter couldn’t hire enough craftsmen. He had to do various work jobs by himself. Generally speaking, mixing concrete is not a job for a site foreman. The electrical engineer assumed he have might been one of the craftsmen.

              I pointed at the carpenter who was mixing concrete and said, “He is the site foreman.”

              The electrical engineer was surprised.

              Our house was built with the concrete mixed by the site foreman and the best man at the wedding of my parents-in-law. It must be the best house.

Picture by freehand

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I Was Scolded

 

 

 When I was in a hospital as a patient, I had recovered to a condition in which I could go to the restroom by myself. A nurse told me, “When you go to the restroom, push the nurse call button and let us know. Even at midnight.”

 By the way, once I worked for a school for nurses as a teacher. My students were working for a hospital. They were also studying in the school. Some of my students complained to me, “I really hate the nurse call button, especially at midnight.”

 I remembered those words. Then I went to the restroom at midnight. But I did not press the nurse call button.

 The next morning, the nurse scolded me angrily. I thought, Why are you mad at me? I was on your side.

 Actually, my medical condition and my toilet activities had a strong connection. It included important information. That was why the nurse was irritated.

 I was not a strict teacher. I should have scolded my students like this when I was a teacher.

“You have to have dignity as a nurse. You should not hate the nurse call button at midnight!”

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The Best Joke

 

 

 A few years ago, I was riding an ambulance as a patient. I was brought to the ICU of a hospital. I lost consciousness for a week. I had a narrow escape. The following week, sometimes I recovered consciousness, sometimes I lost it. I experienced a strange world where reality and dreams mixed.

 At that time, I finally thought up the best joke. The joke might make all the people in this world laugh.

 As you know, jokes are effective in a narrow scope. A joke could make young people laugh. But the same joke might make old people angry. A joke could make men laugh. But the same joke may be offensive to women. The reverse is also true. Exporting and importing a joke is also difficult. I sometimes worked as a translator. I found it difficult to translate jokes. It was difficult to find a joke that made everyone all over the world laugh.

 At that time, I finally found the best joke at the risk of my life. I thought, I have to get out of the hospital and make everyone laugh as soon as possible. Then I lost consciousness.

 The next time I recovered consciousness, I had forgotten the joke. I remembered that I had thought up a joke, and then I tried to remember it. Then I lost my consciousness again.

 This is bad news to you. I am leaving the hospital now. I had completely forgotten the joke.

 I think I will remember the joke when I have to face death in the future again.

Picture by freehand

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Help with Meals

  My mother had Alzheimer’s disease. The caregiving a caregiver gives to an Alzheimer’s disease patient who is on the beginning stage doesn’t look like the typical one. Listening to the repeated stories of the patient is one example. People who are not familiar with Alzheimer’s disease tend to assume that the caregiver is doing nothing. This is a misunderstanding. Staying with a person who has trouble communicating for long time is difficult. I had lived with my mother for 14 years. I love my mother, but I felt it was torture. I took care of my mother with the help of my father and wife. We needed more people to take care of her. I didn’t have enough personal time. I had to give up many things I wanted to do. It was difficult to travel. I was almost a prisoner. But most people couldn’t understand what I was doing.

 One day, the change happened. I set food on the table, but she didn’t eat. Before that, she could eat a meal by herself. She forgot how to eat. I put food to her mouth with a spoon, and she started to eat.

Helping with meals had started.

When I was a child, I loved watching TV. In those days, this kind of plots was very popular in Japan: a good son or daughter taking care of a sick, aging parent; they help with meals. The patient might say, “Thank you for helping me every day.” Then the son or daughter might say, “We promised you would never say that again.”

On TV, caregiving was always obvious. It was easily understood. I had continued to take care of my mother for 12 years. Finally, I reached the “obvious” caregiving. If a bystander watched us through our window, the person might easily know that I was a caregiver! I felt happy that I finally got a clear position.

On TV dramas, it was always like this: a superhero shows up and saves all people who have problems and then a happy ending. I haven’t met a superhero, but my wife, care managers, and helpers have helped me. I wish my happiness.

Picture by Kyoko

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Which one needs care?

 

 I listened to this story from my wife.

 It happened when my wife, my parents, and I lived together. We needed to temporarily leave my mother to a nursery home. She had Alzheimer’s disease.

 Meanwhile, my father needed kidney dialysis. It is said that if a person starts kidney dialysis, they might die in about 10 years. At that time, my father had been doing kidney dialysis for more than 10 years. He was lucky. But he was sickly thin. His blood veins were already bulging. He didn’t use a wheelchair, but he walked very slow. He was hard of hearing, so we needed to speak loudly when we talked to him. But his brain was still healthy. He could do all things in daily life.

 My wife and my parents visited the nursery home to temporarily leave my mother. But the caregivers in the nursery home went to my father instead and almost started caregiving for my father. They assumed that the person who would stay in the nursery home was my father. It made sense. My father looked like a sick person who needed care.

 My mother had Alzheimer’s disease, but she was on the middle stage of the disease, and she looked very healthy on the outside. But she needed 24/7 care at that time.

 Don’t judge people by their appearance.

 Don’t judge people’s health condition by their appearance. Some people look very healthy but might have a serious illness. Some people look very sick but might be very healthy.

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Life Sentence

 

 

When I was in my forties, a friend of mine who had been nice to me in our twenties passed away. I was shocked I had lost a friend who was the same age.

I planned a farewell party with the people who were my good friends twenty years ago, but I found it difficult to gather all those old friends. Basically, our forties were busy. Furthermore, some people insisted on this idea: “If he comes, I can’t participate.” I don’t know what their problem was, but it was almost twenty years ago!

I told this story to an old lady who was eighty years old. I expected a mature adult laugh at the story, but she answered seriously, “The same things are happening among us.”

The problems that arise in a person’s twenties could be a lifetime sentence. I myself also have some old acquaintances I don’t want to meet, though we were good friends in our twenties.

Our twenties can be the most difficult time in our life.

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Superstar

 

 

A few years ago, I passed out at home. My wife called an ambulance, and I was admitted to a hospital. I was in the intensive care unit. I was completely unconscious for a week. Sometime the next week, I regained consciousness. I had a narrow escape.

The doctors and nurses had called me. I had heard them calling my name in my dim consciousness. People really paid attention to me. When I was young, I had been a part-time actor and a part-time teacher. I had never been given attention by audiences and students like that. It was as if I was a superstar.

I gradually recovered. I became able to sit up; I became able to stand up. Everyone cheered me on. But when I recovered and I could walk around, I felt kind of lonesome. No one cheered me on. No one paid attention to me anymore. I was not a superstar anymore.

When I was a child, I wanted to become a superstar. At least, I can think my dream came true in a way. Even real superstars are treated as superstars for only a short period. A superstar might feel as lonesome as I did when they are no longer a superstar.

Dear friends, be healthy. Don’t become a superstar like me.

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Full Metal Condor Heroes

 

 In 2017, I met a student from Hong Kong at a theatrical event.

 There was a magical topic whenever we talked with Chinese people: the novelist Jing Yong. His masterpiece The Legend of the Condor Heroes was very popular. There are many films based on it. It is said that all Chinese people know about it. I have read the Japanese version and watched the films.

I assumed I could talk to her about it, but she said, “Oh! I have heard the title. But I haven’t read the book and haven’t seen the films.”

I was shocked.

She said, “My favorite product is Japanese Full Metal Alchemist. Let’s talk about it.”

I was even more shocked. I have actually heard the title, but I haven’t read the comics and haven’t seen the animations. I assumed that it might be for younger generations.

 Then I read the comics. It was very interesting. A masterpiece is attractive for any generation.

 When I was a student, my professor told me, “If you want to work for an international project, first of all, you need to know your own country.”

 He was right.

 I will study new Japanese manga, games, and animations for international projects.

 It will be fun!

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Toddler Program

 

 When I was a university student, I had a part-time job as an actor for a TV program for toddlers. But I was in a costume. My face was covered. The program was made in Nagoya.

 The film production had not experienced making a program for toddlers. We had to discuss and find a better way to create the program. There were many problems in the studio every day. It was a great experience to be there from the very first day of shooting.

 One day, I was relaxing at home. I turned on the TV. I was fixated on the TV. A toddler program was on the air. It was a long-lived program made in Tokyo.

 I was shocked because the quality of the program was very high. It had sophisticated content as well. I could see that the crew members were very experienced. The actors were also very attractive and had great chemistry. They were on a different level compared with us. We were doing our best, but I realized that the differences between us were so obvious.

 Suddenly, my mother, who was in the kitchen, screamed at me.

“What are you watching seriously? You are already a university student!”

I didn’t tell her I worked for a program for toddlers. If you have a son who is a university student but seriously watches a toddler program, you might worry about him.

 We watch TV. That might be a part of our life. But these programs are great works by great people.

 I once worked for a TV program. That experience gave me a different point of view regarding TV. I think the same things could happen in any field. If you participate, it gives you a new perspective.

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Bingo

 

 

 Before the pandemic, every week, I visited the nursing home where my mother lived. My mother has Alzheimer’s disease.

 One day, when I visited the nursing home, they were playing bingo, but I was surprised to find that the atmosphere was totally different from that of the usual bingo game. No one was greedy.

 At that time, it was already difficult to communicate with my mother. She put the bingo sheet on her table. Even though her number had been called, she didn’t react. I checked her sheet. She had won bingo, but she was not interested in it. Half of the participants were almost the same as my mother.

 The caregivers supported them every time a new number was picked up. I was filled with gratitude for the caregivers. They were busy just taking care of the patients. Even more, they were trying to amuse the patients.

 I just want to find a simple game that even Alzheimer’s disease patients can enjoy.

Picture by RetroClipArt

Liu Bei

 

 Liu Bei is an ancient Chinese hero. He was a smart person who lived in a very competitive world. His rival was a cruel person who suspected that Liu Bei would be his biggest enemy in the future. He started to think about killing Liu Bei. Liu Bei realized this and started to act like a stupid person. He intentionally showed and grew out his nose hair every day. The rival changed his mind, and Liu Bei survived.

When I was in my thirties, I was a part-time actor. I participated in a performance wherein the other actors were younger than me. They showed respect to me as an experienced actor. I was impressed that the younger actors were very polite.

One day, during rehearsal break, I looked into the mirror in the restroom and found a shocking fact: my nose hair was fully out. This meant that I had recited my cool and beautiful lines with my nose hair fully out during the rehearsal.

I returned to the rehearsal room and said to my co-actors, “Hey, guys! How could you? If you saw my nose hair out, please inform me!”

 One of the co-actors answered, “Oh! We assumed you intentionally did that.”

 I said, “Am I Liu Bei?”

 They hadn’t meant it. If an elder person has his nose hair showing, I would hesitate to point it out.

 Dear friends, if you meet me and find my nose hair showing, please let me know secretly. I am not a great person who might be killed because of my own intelligence.

 I experienced an anecdote of the ancient hero. I can’t live with having my nose hair out every day.

 Kudos to Liu Bei, and kudos again!

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Just Two of Us on the Poolside

 

 

 In my city, there are many indoor heated swimming pools. Some of them are run by the city government. I used to swim in one of the pools for exercise.

 There was a rule in the pool. Once an hour, we had to get out of the water. The sound of radio gymnastics started. The lifeguards started their exercise. We couldn’t swim during the radio gymnastics. There was no rule that all swimmers needed to exercise together, but the children exercised and were obedient. Most adults, including me, sat down on a bench and relaxed. In my days, Japanese schools really let children participate in radio gymnastics many times. We were tired of it.

 But I experienced occasions where I needed to exercise with radio gymnastics.

 The pool was open until 8:30 p.m. I sometimes swam in the nighttime during winter. It was an indoor heated pool. But a few people were there on winter nights. Sometimes I was the only swimmer in the pool. Only two of us were on the poolside: a lifeguard and me. Maybe they had a strict rule. They had to perform radio gymnastics once an hour. Even if I was the only one there.

 If there were many swimmers, I could ignore the lifeguards. But I couldn’t ignore them because we were alone. So I did radio gymnastics with a lifeguard when there were a few swimmers.

 One winter night, when a lifeguard and I were alone, radio gymnastics began. I felt the need to urinate and went to the restroom. When I returned from the restroom, I witnessed a shocking scene: The sound of the radio gymnastics was on, but the lifeguard didn’t exercise. He was sitting on a bench and relaxing. When he saw me, he hastily started the radio gymnastics. Maybe he assumed I had gone home. He recognized I returned. He needed to perform radio gymnastics.

 I did the radio gymnastics because I cared for the lifeguards. The lifeguards did it because I was there.

 What kind of charade is this?

Picture by nora

Grim Face

 

 I was a part-time actor. I know some professional actors, but most of my friends are part-time actors. They had to have other actual jobs for a living.

 I know an actress who was working for a first-class company as a full-time worker. In my impression, she was always smiling. She was a mild-mannered person.

 One weekday afternoon, I saw her in a subway car. She was reading some documents. I approached her to say hello but decided against it, as she looked really focused on the documents. Her face was so grim as if I couldn’t recognize the same person.

 I thought being an actress and being a full-time worker for a first-class company were very hard. During work time, she needed to really concentrate on her job.

 Afterward, I met her at a theater. She was the smiling person I knew. I realized the smiling face was really valuable. I didn’t mention that I had seen her in the subway.

 To be a smiling person, we sometimes need to have a grim face.

Picture by a.otsuka

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Stupid people don't catch colds?

 

 

This is a Japanese saying. It is a classic joke. We say this when someone catches a cold to comfort them:  “You have caught a cold. It proves you are not stupid.”

 

However, I recently started taking this saying seriously. I suspect clever people are more likely to catch colds.

 

Stupid people don’t think about complex things. They always listen to the voices in their body. Is it cold or hot? Am I hungry or not? Am I tired or not? Am I sleepy or not? Listening to these voices from own body might be an important ability to avoid catching a cold.

 

Clever people have to think about many things. Will this cause trouble or not? Do people hate me or not? Will the boss scold me or not? Does it make me a loser or not? Will I make or lose profit? Do I look stupid or not? They need to think too much. It causes them to overwork.

 

Even in a situation like this: “If I don’t finish this work till the next morning, it will destroy the human race,” a stupid person will sleep when the person feels sleepy.  The stupid person never thinks about complex things.

 

This thinking style might be a stupidness we should learn. We don’t want to be destroyed by a stupid person. But does any work, even if we realize it is serious, have enough value to justify ignoring the voices from our body?  

 

If you see a person who catches a cold, please take good care of that person. The person might think too much. The person might ignore the voice from their own body. The person might overwork. You should pray for the person secretly: “be stupider!”

Picture by Toshiro Kiritani

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