1. On July 12^th,Clara stayed alone at home. My son, his fiancé Miku and I went to the café Couwa and I liked one dish called “oso-zai(small dishes or side dishes) plate ” (cold cream soup of edamame, brown rice). Carrot fry, Japanese omlet with grated radish, seasoned winter water melon and molokheia, something like a Ratatouille and so on.

2. Before Sunset - 'A Waltz for a Night' by Julie Delphy

Coactor ; Ethan Hawk

I like her singing and guitar-playing so much. I would like to play the guitar as beautifully and impressively as she. My dream. The performance doesn’t have to be well or perfect.

3. The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde in English. I enjoy reading it lying on the sofa. There are Japanese annotations(explanations) at the end of the book and they are very helpful.

happy things

Happy things I have experienced in the recent weeks. 2016

1. On the 21th and 22th of May(which were Saturday and Sunday), we stayed at the HaroHaro-Inn in Nasu. This is the second stay. The food in the restaurant is delicious and the rooms are clean and comfortable. The staffs of the Inn are gentle and kind.

However, there was a problem. At midnight, when my husband and I were trying to cover the futon with a sheet, Clara came and wet it. She was very happily excited. She seldom has such accidents at home. We had to pay 4200 yen for its cleaning muatsu- futon.

2. On the next day, we happened to go to the bakery café; Penny Lane.

The patio (terrace) was spacious, covered with young leaves, without mosquitoes. It was still not at all too warm. We could enjoy the lunch in a miraculously ideal condition. Very different from Iris, Clara was waiting, lying on the floor like a clever seeing-eye-dog(guide dog).

3. We rode a gondola to the gondora mount top station and enjoyed the fresh cool air, the view of the mountains and beautiful white goyo-tsutsuji(azalea əz éɪljə).

Happy things I have experienced in the recent weeks. 2016

1.　April 27^th was our young guitar teacher’s birthday.　I baked chocolate cupcakes for the members(4, including me) and the teacher and brought them with the green tea pot and paper cups to the class.

We celebrated his birthday, singing the familiar song;”Happy Birthday to you! ”He was very glad about that and two elderly men and Mrs. S(with whom I went to the café after the lesson several times) were also eating them with big smiles.

2. We could remove the most part of the roots of the vine of the planting area in front of the door. I am very sorry and sad that the google map photo shows the front part of our house surrounded with tangling vines.

3. I finished reading two books. “Delicassy”(In Japanese:”ナタリー”)by David Foenkinos and ”Eugine Onegin”(エフゲニー・オネーギン) by Alexander Pushkin. I sensed the delicate sense of French people which I admire and someday I’d like to watch the DVD-film, which David Foenkinos himself produced. Mrs.C(one of the students in the German class) introduced a TV program of the Hamburger Ballet dance in NHK BS. It was Tatiana(the original work is Alexander Pushkin’s “Eugine Onegine”)directed by John Neumeier(He won the Kyoto-Prize last year. Mr.C was a member of the KyotoPrize selection committee).I was not that interested in it at first, but I was fascinated by the dancer playing Onegin and stopped watching the program. I wanted to see it after reading the original story. Now I am ready to watch the ballet dance. 

Natalie *Delicassy*

Delicacy by  David  Foenkinos 2016/0510

Natalie is a  graceful and  young  beautiful  woman. Some  day François  asks her to  go to a cafe  together,  which was the  first time  for him to do  that. He had  never  inclined to  do that. But  Natalie  walking on  the street  fascinated  him to do  so...

Natalie is a  kind of  a woman, who  lives her  life without  unuseful  attention(distraction).  But she said  "oui" .

Natalie's and  her friend's  delicassy is  the beautiful  and important  theme.

Willpower Instinct

I tend to procrastinate often what to do.

I tend to fail very often to do what to do. I know that it is one of my many weak points.

I read "The Willpower Instinct" by Kelly McGonigal for the second time. In this book, I found something encouraging to me. She says, "many people treat themselves as they are still small children. You criticize and scold yourselves whenever you procrastinate something. " You are so lazy! ... You cannot be reliable, trustworthy…”

If you think that the key to have more willpower is that you should be more strict and harder on yourself, you're wrong ... The Study after study shows that self-criticism is combined with less motivation and poorer self-discipline. It (self-criticism) also leads to depression ....

Being hard on yourself leads  you to the self-abandonment. (If you are on a diet, and eat randomly or accidentally too much, you will probably be disappointed and have the feeling of self-abandonment and you will eat more and more ...) In contrast, compassion - supportive and friendly - with more motivation and better self-discipline combined. "

I think that I'll forgive myself, and I’ll give myself more encouraging words.

We can get a nap together on the sofa.

We  can　get a nap together on the sofa. It was one of my dreams.
Clara was today very interested in playing the trash of the dust box.
Clara was absorbed in biting my reading glasses.

20150708 Wednesday

Clara has been with us for a week.

Clara uses her toilet in a right way almost perfectly in a small area limited with metal fences.
Today, we expanded the limited area. She can come to the leathered sofa. How she feels and how she will spend in this new circumstance, new condition, we are thrilled to know.
Two days ago, I began to crochet my small blouse again. Until then, I just kept watching Clara play with the toy without doing anything or at most reading "Eva Luna", holding the heavy book high. Crocheting is a pleasure. I hope that I can resume playing the guitar this week.