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?