My Mother’s Dresses

 

 My mother had many kinds of jobs. Giving lectures was one. She had many topics such as feminism, international corporations, aging society, and so on. She was famous. She gave lectures all over Japan. Sometimes she was on TV.

 My mother said the contents of the lectures were extremely important to a speaker. But the attire is also important. She said, “I can’t wear the same dress at the same place.”

 So she had many dresses. All of them were original-designed, hand-made-to-orders. There was no ready-made product. One of my mother’s friends was a dressmaker. I heard she worked very economically for my mother.

 My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She lost her lecture jobs. We had many dresses in our house.

 I didn’t know what to do with those dresses.

 I decided to give the dresses to someone. I started bringing them to a laundry shop because they were extremely dusty.

 I could not bring them all at once. I brought some of them every week to the laundry shop. It took about half a year.

 One day, a clerk of the laundry shop cautiously asked me, “Don’t take this wrong. But may I ask you your occupation?”

 She suspected me! Yes! I was a suspicious customer: a middle-aged man bringing many custom-made dresses for a lady every week. It must be very unnatural.

 I told the story about my mother. The clerk listened with tears in her eyes.

 My mother had a successful life. I don’t want to be successful like her. But I want just one original-designed hand-made-to-order suit.

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Morning Cat

 

 

I have spent most of my life with cats. I love all the cats. Most of them are dead now. I especially remember one cat. She was extremely smart. Her name was Usami. Sometimes the memories of her make me feel a little spooked.

One morning I woke up at a good time to go to work, but I made a mistake. I slept again on my reclining chair. I was lacking sleep.

Suddenly, I felt a strong impact on my belly. I woke up and saw Usami on my belly. Apparently, she had jumped down from the top of the bookshelf to my belly. I was surprised because she had never shown that kind of behavior before. She was a gentle cat.

I looked at the clock. I was surprised again. It was almost past the time to go to work. I hastily went to work. Thanks to Usami, I was not late, but I had forgotten to say thank you to Usami.

I wonder if it was just a coincidence or not. Did she have special powers and save me? I will never know.

I live with three cats now. All of them are ordinary cats. When I oversleep, they would also oversleep. They are useless, but I love them.

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Call from the Mafia

 

 

My wife and I have been married for ten years. We have a good relationship. We share each other’s smartphones sometimes. I have nothing to hide from her. When one of us is taking a bath, the other would answer their smartphone.

One day, while my wife was taking a bath, her smartphone rang. I tried to answer the phone, but I stopped because the smartphone displayed that the call was from the “Mafia.”

I was worried. Did my wife have a connection with an illegal organization? What should I do? I didn’t answer the call. I waited for my wife to come back from the bath. I fearfully asked her about the call.

It was nothing. The person who had tried to call my wife was one of her coworkers. His working style was like that of the Mafia. So my wife had secretly given him the nickname, and she registered “Mafia” on her smartphone instead of his name.

Some people have this nickname in our society. A friend of mine works for the Japanese government as a public servant, but he said his coworkers call him the “Mafia.” I know he is a nice person, but his working style may be a little wild.

We make phone calls every day, but we will never know our secret nicknames.

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Plosive

 

 My father was a hearing-impaired person.

 I was a stage actor.

 Chemistry between us was good. My father couldn’t talk to people without hearing aids. But I was the only person who could talk without hearing aids because I was a stage actor. Stage actors have trained their voices.

 But even I couldn’t make him hear some sounds. These are plosives like the letters “b” and “p.” If the conversation includes those sounds, our communication becomes very difficult. The letters “f” and “d” were also difficult.

 I don’t know if all hearing-impaired persons have the same problem or not.

 In our case, we partially communicate by writing. When I needed to use a plosive, I would write down the word and point out the letter. Then we would continue to communicate verbally.

 I am worried about my old age. Perhaps, I wouldn’t be able to hear plosives too.

 If my dream future, the Star Wars world, comes true, I won’t be able to talk with R2-D2. I think he always talks using plosives.

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Aid Station

 Our city has the Nagoya Women’s Marathon. My wife takes part in the marathon every year. She always runs the whole distance and makes the finish line. She is so great. I always rush to support her every year. I am also great.

 The aid stations are wonderful places for the runners. The Nagoya Women’s Marathon serves unique local foods. I checked them on the Internet. They look so delicious. Running long distances must be so hard. But if you can eat these wonderful foods, you want to take part in the Nagoya Women’s Marathon. I recommend that you participate.

 However, I have some sad information for you.

 My wife has run the whole distance many times. But she has never eaten these foods.

 It is on a first-come-first-served basis.

 They don’t have enough food for all runners.

 My wife can run the whole distance, but there are many faster runners. Whenever my wife would arrive at an aid station, there would be no food except bananas. The faster runners had already eaten the other foods.

 But this might be a great motivation for her training. If she wants to eat the delicious foods, she needs to run faster.

 I wish someday my wife can eat the delicious local foods in the aid stations.

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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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