Note

 After a play rehearsal, a director provides directions to the actors. Theater people call this “note.”

 In Japan, we call this dame dashi. A direct translation is “bad putting out”—a very negative word.

In 2005, I talked to a famous Japanese director about this topic. He was impressed with the English word “note.”

 He said, “I hated the word dame dashi. It is a negative term. We say positive things during dame dashi. From now on, I will use the English word ‘note.’”

　Some Japanese directors started to use “note” instead of dame dashi. I think it is a good change. The word “note” itself is neither negative nor positive.

 Recently I told this story to an actor whose mother language is English. He said, “After all, in most cases, directors say negative things after rehearsals.”

 Actors and directors are usually very busy before a show. There is no time to say positive things.

 “Note” and dame dashi might have the same essence.

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My Mother and Crab

 

 I had lived with my mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, for fourteen years.

 One day, my wife and her parents, my mother, and I traveled to Fukui Prefecture.

 Traveling with my mother was already hard for us, but we thought it might be our final trip with her. At that time, if we take her to the entrance of a restroom, she had the ability to take care of herself, and she could come back to the entrance. If she lost that ability, traveling with her might be very difficult.

 The specialty of Fukui Prefecture is crab. One popular way to eat crab in Japan is whole-boiled. We break the crab shells by ourselves and eat. The travel agency produced tons of whole-boiled crab for us as all-you-can-eat.

 My mother couldn’t break crab shells by herself, so I broke them for her. But there was a problem.

 Her eating speed was faster than my breaking speed. As a result, I kept breaking shells for a half-hour, but I couldn’t eat even one bite of meat. What kind of punishment was that! Is this exploitation?

 My wife noticed that. She started to break the shells instead of me. I finally could eat crab.

 Once, at a very early stage of her Alzheimer’s, my mother had a nickname in day service: Ms. Consideration. But the disease reduced her consideration.

 This was our final travel to another prefecture with my mother.

 I strongly remember breaking crab shells for a half hour. It was hard but it’s a good memory.

 If you are traveling with an Alzheimer’s patient, I recommend you choose a meal that is easy to eat.

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My Mother and Butter

 

My mother was a child during World War Ⅱ. In Japan, people were short of everything. Food was rationed.

One day there was butter in the rations. I heard it was unusual at the time. That was the first time my mother saw butter. She had heard of butter. She was interested in it.

She told my grandmother, “I want to lick the butter!”

My grandmother might have thought she should not give a precious food ingredient to a child as a snack. She was angry and refused this. “I will use this for cooking.”

They left the butter in the kitchen and moved to another room for a while. A stray cat snuck into the kitchen and ate up the butter. Oh, my poor mother and grandmother!

My grandmother said, “If I knew this, I should have let her lick the butter.”

Some people say it’s for nutrition. Some people say it’s for a healthy diet. However, I say, “Let’s always eat our favorite food in our favorite way. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

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Detective and Policeman

 

In June 2019, my wife and I had a traffic accident. My wife stopped our car in front of a red light. A small truck bumped us from behind without braking.

We were somewhat lucky to come out of it with only slight injuries. The other party in the accident were unhurt, but our precious car, which had been bought to commemorate our marriage, became scrap.

We weren’t responsible for this accident, but we needed to talk to the policemen for a long time. A policeman asked me to visit the police station for procedure the next day.

The next day, I visited the police station. A man in a suit handled the procedure, but I recognized him. He was one of the policemen who had come to the site. I was surprised.

I watch detective dramas on TV. I assumed that policemen always wear their uniforms and that detectives wear suits. However, it doesn’t seem to be as simple as that.

I checked the internet, but I couldn’t get enough information about it. I guess a policeman wears his uniform when he needs to work as a policeman. When the policeman does desk work inside a police station, he may wear a suit. It is also possible that a detective was disguised as a policeman to handle our accident.

Dear friends, drive safe!

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