Obasan Drops By For a Visit

Note: This blog was written as a draft before we got the news of Azuki's medical condition.

In our building there are many, many people with dogs. You would think that Azuki should have lots of doggie friends right in our building--except that our dogggie neighbors don't seem particularly friendly. I always thought this was perhaps a big city thing--where city people are always a little wary of people the don't know, even their neighbors.

However, I recently met a grandma who just got a young soft-coated wheaton terrier named Chocolate-chan (yes, it is a white dog, and yes, chocolate is brown...whatevers). Obasan (the polite way of referring to grandma-aged women in Japanese), actually lives in Osaka, a part of Japan known for its friendly people and the birthplace of most of Japan's top comedians. Because of her husband's work, they live in our building on weekdays and then commute back to Osaka to their house every weekend.

On a walk one day, I encountered the obasan sipping coffee outside of a cafe near our apartment. I stopped to make small talk, and she seemed really excited to have someone to chat with. I guess despite our obvious differences, like a 40 year age gap and language barriers, we found out that we were actually in similar situations in that we are both in Tokyo for our husbands work and don't know many people. We also both have puppies around the same age.

So of course, before parting, we invited each other politely to our homes:

"Oh, please drop by and have some tea at my place sometimes!"
"Oh yes, that would be wonderful, please also come by our place and play!"

This is a rather typical thing to say in any culture--except instead of having "ocha", you would probably have coffee. But most people say things like this and don't really mean it, and even though I did mean it, because she was a really pleasant lay, I didn't exactly expect her to really take up my offer because it should have been bvious to her that WE DON'T SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE.

Well, she did take up on my offer, and she took it up right away! The next morning, at 10am, I heard my door bell ring and Azuki barking franktically. I thought perhaps it was the mailman dropping off something, so I rolled out of bed in my pajamas, hair still standing up in mid-air, foul-breathed and greasy-faced. And as I opened the door, guess what? It was Obasan and Chocolate, coming over to play!

Okay, I realize that 10am is very late for most people, but hey, I am an expat wife in Tokyo, and shouldn't the one priviledge that I be able to sleep in a little (or a lot)? But for Obasan, she was probably up at 5am, and maybe she even controlled her urge to come over at like, 8am, but thought it might be better to wait another whole 2 hours for my sake.

So I very quickly changed, and put on a headband. But it's not like I really had time to brush my teeth and wash my face since she was already SITTING IN MY LIVINGROOM. So there I was, entertaining my human and canine guests, all naturel. No, I was more than nature, I was RAW, and stinking from a bad case of morning breath. The only other people that have seen me like that would be my immediate family, my husband, and perhaps the mailman that delivers things in the morning. And trust me, I am not one of those people who can just roll out of bed and look presentable. A lot of work goes into making me look half-way human, and my mother is still complains that my hair is messy and my make-up always look aweful (thanks mom!)

Well, Obasan and Chocolate-chan didn't seem to mind because they ended up staying for a full hour!

However, despite being supremely uncomfortable about the smell of my breath, I must say, it was really cute. I could probably only understand 50% of what she was saying, so I was guessing a lot, but she was truly a friendly, lovely, and genuinely nice person--like a really cute old lady.

We commiserated on how hard it is to raise a young puppy. Her dog is a very friendly dog, but has one big problem--she cannot be alone by herself, and will cry/bark the entire time that she is alone. This is of course a major, major issue because it basically makes obasan a prisoner in her home, unless she takes her dog everywhere she goes, and of course, dogs are not allowed everywhere. Obasan tried taking her dog to the same puppy kindergarden that Azuki attends, having heard about it through our building's caretaker downstairs--but Chocolate got REJECTED from the school because she suffered from severe separation anxiety, and the school told the obasan that this problem cannot be solved. And because the dog is also very active, being a young puppy, it is hard for two older people to keep up with so much energy. They took the dog to the vet, who told her that this breed of dogs is one of the most difficult to train, as it was a hunting dog bred to be independent, and has a strong stubbron streak. To control the dog's anxiety and its hyper energy, they now give her daily anti-anxiety medication to calm her down. Kind of like prosac for dogs.

I don't necessarily agree with medicating a dog in the long term when it is not a medical condition--since the dog is still young, and probably can be trained with a lot of patience and persistence, but I do totally sympathize with obasan's dilemma. Having a young puppy is really very much like having a needy child, and it certainly does restrict much of your personal freedom.

Anyways, above are some photos of Azuki and Chocolate, looking at each other. They played together for a little bit, and poor Azuki got trampled twice by Chocolate's powerful body and let out a few high-pitched screams (don't worry, she gets stepped on all the time by us, and is still very much okay. She even got hit full force by a bicycle once coming out of an alley--and thanks to the fact that she is all muscles, she was okay! EDIT: WE NOW KNOW THAT AZUKI WAS NOT OKAY. SHE WAS PROBABLY SCREAMING BECAUSE OF HER BAD HIP. POOR THING. I FEEL SO BAD JUST THINKING ABOUT ALL THE TIMES THAT WE DIDN'T NOTICE HER PAIN) Then, Chocolate found Azuki's chew sticks, and started to munch with full force. She litearlly devoured one of Azuki's rawhides in 20 minutes what usually takes Azuki like 3 months to finish. Then she gobbled up a greenie within 3 minutes. The funniest thing was watching the two battle for the food. Azuki always wants what the other dog has in her mouth, even when I give her the exact same thing. Especially, now Chocolate is chewing HER STICKS in HER HOME, Azuki wanted them back. However, Chocolate is obvious the bigger, stronger, and more dominant dog, and as soon as Azuki comes close to the food, she would lounge forward to scare her off.

Azuki is no dumb pup. Knowing that she cannot retrieve her sticks by force, she decided to steal them. So Azuki would sit quietly by my foot, something that she NEVER does, just watching serenely as Chocolate munches away. You can almost see her plotting her move. And then, as soon as Chocolate lets down her guard, Azuki would appear out of nowhere, snatch the stick, and then scuttle away quickly and hide behind a chair or my leg. It's kind of like her way of saying, "hey, I might be smaller than you, but I am sooooo much sneakier! hahaha!"


The whole experience with the Obasan dropping by unexpectedly is so surreal...that I am still not sure if it really happened, if I didn't have the pictures to prove it. The next morning, at around 8am, I woke up in a state of panick--is Obasan coming again today? Should I get up now and get ready just in case??

But actually, both Azuki and I enjoyed her visit very much. I hope she comes by again...but this time, in the afternoon, and perhaps she can call ahead?

Spoiled Rotten

I know every dog lover thinks that their own dog is the most pampered dog in the world. And they would be wrong. Because there can be no doubt that Azuki is the luckiest, most spoiled brat with a furry head in the whole wide world.

Last night Matt got down from our comfy leather sofa to get on the floor so he can cuddle with our pup. We were watching Spider Man II (by the way, why is Spider Man III already full on being advertised on TV here in Japan, but will not be out for another NINE months?? That is like, so mean--I want to see it now!). Azuki has been relatively tame lately since the heat set in full force in August. The heat is making her lethargic, so instead of running at full speed ALL THE TIME in the house, she really only does it once or twice a day, and the energy bursts doesn't last as long as before.

So Matt was cuddling Azuki like a human baby, trying to explain to her the plot of the movie, while the pup just kind of dozed in and out of sleep, with her tongue sticking out like she is making a face. An hour later after the movie is over, Matt tried to get up, but instead made a face as if he was in pain, and then cried out for me to help him:

"Help Help! I think I have a cramp."
"Oh, in your leg?"
"No, in my butt."

Hmmm...let's take a moment to digest that line for a sec. Cramp in the butt. Okay, moving on.

Apparently, in attempting to ensure the maximum comfort for the dog, he sat on only one butt cheek for about one hour, so she would be tilted in just the way that shes likes it, causing his left butt cheek to sustain the weight of his entire body (plus the 3 kilos that Azuki weighs!).

Now, if that's not sacrifice for a dog, I don't know what is. Matt had to not only endure the physical pain, but also the embarassement of me taunting him, grabbing his ass while asking, "So does it hurt when I do this [poke poke]? What about when I squeeze like this [squeeze squeeze]??"

heh heh.

Evidence That Azuki Indeed Comes From Outerspace

I have said before that Matt is usually in charge of giving Azuki baths, because the sight of her scrawny, skinny legs makes me kind of queasy. Here I finally have some evidence to prove that she indeed hails from the planet Mars.

Matt actually enjoys giving the pup a bath every weekend, and finds Azuki's alien looks amusing, because he is sick like that. This is also the same guy whose favorite picture of me from our trip to Phuket, Thailand, is one which I had just ran out of the pool after a storm had set in, with wet, knotted, stringy hair, and large water droplets dripping down every direction forming murky white solids as the liquid collides with over-zealously applied sunblock. I also had massive indents the shape of large circles around my eyes from my too-tight swimming goggles. What can I say, the man likes his females ugly.

Azuki also doesn't like the blow dryer, I think mainly because of the noise that it makes. So, after each baths, Matt has to hold her down while she flips, darts, and rolls around. Usually at the end she gives up the struggle and then just sits there, as if resigned to her fate. This is what she looks like when she is getting a blow-out:


What the heck is that thing?

Azuki the Destroyer

Here is Azuki trying to dig something out of the holes of our bathroom mat. By her sheer enthusiasm, we suspected that she must have found a morsel of food stuck in those holes:



Here is a picture of the gnawed corners of my make-up basket:

I actually let her chew on the corner while I get ready every morning: with her sitting in my lap, crunching away, while I put on eyeliner. Hey, the pup is going to be chewing on something and I figure the Muji wicker basket is cheaper than my lipstick.


Here is Azuki trying to destroy her doggie bed. She does it as if it is her life mission to dig all the cotton out from the inside. Does she not realize that once she digs them all out, her bed will no longer be soft and cushy?? If she would only listen to reason....

We can no longer use this bed because she cannot control her urge to dig. I always know what she has done when she comes to me and there are pieces of cotton stuck to her mouth.


DO YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE?

Puppy No Name Has a Name

Travis named him Chase. Now, that is not one of the 50 names that we came up with during the doggie naming contest. It is also neither Japanese anime character, or Japanese at all. It is, however, the name of the tough guy who was able to wishstand torture in the drama 24. Maybe that is where it came from? Hopefully, Chase will not have to endure any dubious methods of interrogation from Latino organized crime families named the Salazars, although he will have to learn to spend a lot of time on his own. It is a good thing, however, that he is a Japanese breed dog born in Japan, and "Gon-Mon" or "endure", must have been bred into his doggie identity. I am actually only half-joking about that.

I think this photo is funny because he looks like he is smoking a cigar. Actually, he is chewing a bully stick which was later stolen by Azuki.

Rock on, Chasu-chan!

Azuki Contemplates What to Write for Her Next Blog

Waiting for the divine inspiration...

What Happened to My Connections?

I forgot to mention in my last post that despite Azuki's bout with a sudden and mysterious illness the other day, she still managed to create some havoc in my life. While I was in the midst of a yahoo messenger chat with my best friend from California about life, love, and relationships, all of a sudden my connections went haywire. This is not unusual, but usually my lan connection only takes a few seconds to re-establish itself, but this time, all I was starring at was blankness. Now, this might not be such a dire situation for most people, as you can just PICK UP THE PHONE and call your best friend. Or see her next weekend. But hey, I live in another continent from most of my close friends, in the land of the Rising Sun and in a region that is still referred to by some as the Far East, an expression coined by Europeans probably during their imperialistic era, because, to them, Asia was far, and it was to the east of them. Due to such structural difficulties, I have mostly maintained my relationships through emails and messengers, and conduct most of my conversations in cyberspace. Unless you count the conversations that I have with my dog. Which, for some reason, although I try to ask her about her opinions on important matters, she has never replied with anything more than a WOLF, or a WON WON if you want the Chinese/Japanese way of dog speak. And for those of you wondering why I don't confide in my husband--well, you can't really do that if you want to complain ABOUT HIM, now can you? That is why every girl needs other girl-friends (I can also make some below-the-belt comment about how Matt is only at home half-time anyways because he travels so much--just this year so far already 9 times to Hong Kong, 3 times to Korea, and once to New York and London--but I am soooo above that kind of childish behavior so I will just leave this run-on-sentence in parenthesis to diminish its importance).

Anyways, back to my original point--so I looked down and saw the pup looking oh-so-innocently back up at me, and then I saw....my lan cable being chewed wide open. She must have been working on it for awhile because there were at least three places that had discernible holes, with one that exposed the inside mini-wires in green, red, blue, and yellow. And this whole time I thought she was sleeping underneath my desk because she was sick!

Usually, such grave transgression would warrent a firm scolding and perhaps even a light tap on the rear. But because I knew she wasn't feeling well that day, I didn't have the heart to punish her. Instead, I managed to find a back up cable that was way too short to reach my desk, so I spent the next 20 minutes or so typing on the floor, crounching over my computer like an old lady.

It's a very good thing that the pup is cute. Well, to us anyways.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Matt would like to point out that he has only been to Korea 2 times this year, not the 3 times as stated by the author above. This blog therebye issues a formal apology to Matt or to anyone that might be offended by such an outrageous contortion of facts. Furthermore, the views of the author does not necessarily reflect the views of this blog (or does it?). People, events, and facts might be slightly exaggerated or entirely made-up, for that matter, for comical effects. And no, mother, we are NOT having marriage problems.