I am honored when people ask me to do their hair. I have been doing this for 20 years and I still love it. I learn something new every day and I get to touch people, share their lives and make them look their best. Mike said he is resigned to the fact that wherever we go people ask me to do their hair. I hope they never stop asking.
At the urging of his wife, whose battle cry has always been "experience before things" , Capt. Mike McCarten was the high bidder in a silent auction to benefit the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. What caused him to circle that table for an hour? Being a guest at a live broadcast of Face The Nation from the control booth. We are Sunday news morning junkies; it's the only real news these days. Today's show focused on the oil spill. The guests were Sen.Barbara Boxer, Sen. Richard Shelby, Rep Joseph Goa and Sen. Bill Nelson. There was discussion about Rep. Joe Barton's apology to BP for the government shakedown of the company and then his apology for the apology. Bob Schieffer, the moderator, also commented on the head of BP's decision to sail in a yacht race this weekend.
Tim McCarten and Lisa Perez, our nephew and his wife, came with us.
Get out of my way at the Navy Marine Corps Ball next year, I'm bidding for this again and after all, my husband is in Afghanistan (a card I will use).
And I got to see him for the first time last week. Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes gave a flawless concert at the Warner Theater. He did a reworked version of "I Write The Book" that had us all spellbound. Jessica Zamora, my co worker, her sister Juli and Mike came with me, Jessica and I were in heaven. Mike and Juli not so much.
We attended the 2010 Navy Marine Corps Relief Society Ball and danced all night.
My 1980's life flashed before my eyes last night at the High Heel Drag Race. I was lucky enough to have a great perch at Leah's apartment. And guess what? They were doing the Thriller dance, it took all my self restraint (like I have ever had any) not to join in, the only thing that stopped me was I lacked a fabulous dress.
I am very sorry she is not Madame President. Ms. Rodham Clinton heard Mike McCarten was working in town and ran right across the street to say hello. I thought I might try, that day, in true Lucy and Ethel fashion, to impersonate someone who worked at BUMED but where do you put a woman of a certain age not in uniform when there is no cafeteria line?
In an attempt to break the world record for simultaneous dancing, a record currently held by 'The Hokey Pokey', I convinced Mike and Leah to join me at Joe's Movement Emporium to learn Michael Jackson's Thriller Dance. We had a few hours of lessons, then off to the makeup room if you wanted blood and guts and then at 8:30 we joined the rest of the world in doing the dance. What could be bad about this? It was free, we were dancing and meeting lots of new people. At the next family gathering we will teach it to all the McCartens. Stand by for THAT photo. In anticipation of my next visit you should go to www.thrilltheworld.org, watch the videos and learn the dance so we can get started right away.
I arranged for Lucky and Pepper to go to day care on the day our furniture arrived here in Old Town. It was a great place, they were among hundreds of dogs and placed in a room called 'the lounge' for older dogs. At the end of the day they came home with report cards. Pepper had reclined on the futon all day but I was happy to read that Lucky made a friend named Homer. Well, it seems Lucky may have picked up a little something life threatening from Homer. Lucky spent a restless night and when we woke to the morning light our room looked like a scene from 'The Shining', there was blood everywhere. Lucky spent a few days in the ICU and was diagnosed with Canine HGE which led to a cascade of things culminating in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He still isn't quite healthy but he's not trying to die anymore. In the midst of all this a local church had a blessing of the pets on the Feast Day of St. Francis Assisi so we put on our best leashes and hedged our bets.
On our way out of Japan we got another dog. Pepper is an 11 year old Husky- Schnauzer mix ( Schnusky). We are her eighth owners, she has been passed around Camp Zama in Japan the way cars are passed from one family to another and never leave the military base. Her last family had her the longest, three years. For some reason could not get her on the flight back to the States with them so they had someone pick her up at the airport and take her to the shelter on the Yokosuka base. I was keeping tabs on her, no one was interested in adopting an 11 year old dog so they were going to give her a permanent home at a no kill shelter as a last resort. Mike and I took her on a trial basis and one day as we were walking her someone stopped us and said she was thinking of taking Pepper home for her children as they had left their dog behind in the States. Mike turned to me and said "lets go sign her adoption papers right now". As I write this I realize that's exactly the way he married me.
The major difference between Pepper and Lucky is that Pepper is a dog.
.....my hosts said to our Nakai-san at the Ryokan, nodding in my direction. That's because I bring gifts and thank people profusely. Mayummi-san, Chizuru-san, Motoyo-san and Chizuru-san's husband treated me to a night at a very nice Ryokan with an Onsen that is 100% volcanic water. We had our own Nakai-san (a hostes who wears a kimono) who served our 18 course kaiseki meal in our room and even though she finished with us at 9:00 PM she was back to wake us up at 8:00 AM to then serve our 5 course breakfast consisting of many kinds of fish, three soups and four kinds of pickles. In between all this food we soaked in the Onsen. After spending hours in showers and baths the night before I thought I would wait until I got home to shower again. I could see my friends were quietly horrified so I told them I would take a shower. "Oh no. Ka-chan. Take a shower just to get clean, then you must take a bath, the water is 100% onsen water and the tiles are special Izu tiles."
Question: What do you get when you cross Margaret Meade with a geisha?
Sayuki is the first foreign geisha in Japan. I know I have always called myself the "Gai-jin Geisha" but I apparently have no rightful claim to the title. Sayuki is a British woman with an MBA from Oxford who studied in Japan off and on for 15 years. She is currently persuing a degree in Social Anthropology, that is the form of Anthropology where you have to live among your subject of study. So Sayuki applied to be the first foreign geisha and was accepted on account of the fact that she is fluent in Japanese, has lived within the culture and plays the flute. All Geisha must be experienced in some kind of performing art. Sayuki is not ready to give up the Geisha life, she is quite liking it and asks that we all be on the lookout for the book she is writing.
I have been working almost full time in the hair salon here so the only trip I took this winter was to the States. I did my niece Allegra's hair for the Winter Ball. A near disaster, how could I know that Winter Ball hair is not like prom hair?
Mike and I hosted a Christmas party for the salon. On Christmas day we served dinner on the ship. Mike's apron says "Wash your damn hands". We hoped to do some good but I felt as though we were harassing people who just wanted to be left alone to eat lunch.
Yabusame (horseback archery) is a Shinto ritual that dates back to 794. A mounted archer must hit three targets while galloping full speed. Yoritomo Minamoto the first (and my favorite) shogun of Kamakura made his warriors train in this ritual and they began performing the rite at the Hachimangu shrine in 1186. It was the proudest thing in a warrior's life to be selected as an archer in Yabusame. Mike and I had ringside seats as guests of JANAFA (Japanese American Naval Friendship Association)
Poodle Rescue of New England has recently taken in 24 poodles from a puppy mill. Many of the rescues are blind, deaf, toothless and infected. The cost of veterinary care for each dog has been about $800. For the first time ever Poodle Rescue has had to put a freeze on medical care except for emergencies. Poodle Rescue is an all volunteer agency that gave us Lucky. The website is linked on this blog. If you can spare any amount of money or you can be a foster home for these poodles please contact them via the website.
.............is one of the addresses that Evil uses. This street name is interesting; Hoa Lo means "Hell Hole" or "Fiery Furnace" in Vietnamese because it is the street where stoves were sold. I am sure I have never visited any of the other truly evil spots in the world because the feeling when you are in one is unmistakable.
The French built "Maison Centrale" in the 1880's during the French occupation of Indochina. It was used for political prisoners who were freedom fighters for Viet Nam, many were women and they were forced to bring their children into the jail with them. They were able to communicate with each other and it is said that this is where the Vietnamese communist party was born. Conditions are as bad as you are able to imagine. A well used guillotine is a centerpiece, prisoners were shackled to benches at an angle that force blood into their heads. Rooms are dark and narrow. But really, nothing I can write can describe the atmosphere of this evil, sinister place.
In 1964 the first American POW's were interred there, nicknamed it the "Hanoi Hilton" and that's when things got really bad. A woman missionary named Monika Schwinn was a prisoner and on display is a letter from her to Ho Chi Min asking to please release her cat from the prison and send it home. We were told that prisoners could hear the city noises right outside the prison, a brutal reminder that life went on. John McCain was shot down in a very small lake right in the middle of the city and brought to Maison Centrale. There is a statue of his capture at the site on which it occurred and we were told that the North Vietnamese erected this as a symbol of their victory.
Our niece,Leah, accompanied me on a trip to Hanoi. We stepped off the plane and into a world that I would describe as 'third'. Water buffalo compete with trucks for space on the highway. Viet Nam is an agricultural society and people are cultivating rice everywhere. Hanoi is a crowded, noisy city. There are few traffic signals and even when they are present they are ignored by the tens of thousands of motor bikes. Crossing the street is an art we mastered. The French occupied Viet Nam for about 100 years and that is evident in the architecture and the food. We bought french bread on the highway.
