First of all, Hello, I am a Jidonhonbaiki addict. That certainly is a mouthful for “vending Machine” but I think I’ve spent roughly around, oh, I don’t know, at least 20-30 alone on “Fire” coffee or “Milk tea” or “Rainbow Boss”, anything caffeinated and surprising to get me through Japanese class. The reason why this comes up is during my day in Nagatoro (where we went to Iwadatami) I ran into a random vending machine and whipped out my wallet to pay…host dad stopped me halfway through that process and bought my drink for me. Aww…my family is really sweet.
Besides paying for my food and snacks, they took me to Iwadatami which is this hidden valley of tatami mat type rocks. They paid 1550en (about $15 american) for this 20 minute boat ride through a shallow watered valley and it was…amazing. I didn’t realize how much I missed being on the water until our large boat was gliding through the canyon, the occasional kayaker swish swashing their little plastic paddles besides us. I miss hearing the water, I miss being surrounded by pools of rippling blue, more importantly, I miss rowing a boat. I was a MAN woman in high school (okay, I kind of am still one now but that’s entirely moot) because of that, damn it! Maybe someday…
Anywho, we landed and host dad led the family through a Japanese market filled with wooden shoes, 2000en gentleman parasols, cone shaped wooden hats, salted fish on a stick, roasted chestnuts, key chains, and Japanese candies by the bucket load. I wanted everything (even the fish on a stick). But sadly, though I told myself I would “budget” (such a foreign word) it has been almost impossible doing so and it doesn’t help that I somehow need to get a new charger. UGH. So I did cave and buy an item or two…but I love Roofie to death (my pet toy snake) and that’s all that matters! And if it were a REAL snake the name would be justified. God forbid she bit someone; they’d wake up 12hours later in a hospital bed and I’d be there with my snake around my neck like, “Yeah, you totally got Roofied.”
It would be awesome.
*ahem* Loser moment aside (haha) we marched uphill by a crazed shouting Nihonjin and to this Great White Shrine where I presume you either make wishes or say your prayers after tossing in tribute coins. In the back of my mind I had a snarky prayer and I watched as my host family paid their respects. My host dad threw in coins for me and told me how to do the Japanese prayer thing. I clapped twice, bowed my head, and instead of wishing for good fortune or a peaceful semester I basically wished for a shit show without meaning to. It was the first thing that came to mind, “I want THAT”. Not even fucking “Pray for the Infidels” (which was the back of my mind thought). Pray for the infidels would basically mean if I were a hardcore religious nut that I’m praying for everyone else to get a clue and jump on the faith bandwagon…it’s a pretentious as hell wish but it would’ve been said in COMPLETE sarcasm. And it would’ve been better than THAT bullshit prayer.
I hoped that Japanese curses didn’t arrive from spontaneous bullshit whims and turned on my heel after my host family, desperately taking back that wish. I don’t want anything, that’s hardly the case. But my hangover does, my hangover wants everything, it’s in cohorts with my lower half (I swears).
We eventually returned home and a few hours later I’m called down for dinner. My host mom puts out (what I presumed) were three hard boiled eggs, a bowl of rice, and three empty bowls. Interesting. Host dad takes an egg and cracks it into the empty bowl. Okay, they’re not boiled? Host mom does the same. Where is this going? She motions for ME to crack an egg into a bowl while host dad is putting soy sauce in his raw egg. Oh…we’re eating raw eggs tonight? Is that what we’re doing?
Fuck that.
Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to immerse myself into the culture and my parents are in the 60s range so god knows they’ve been doing this for years, yaddi yadda. But America corrupted me and I have a stigma against eating an uncooked egg, nonetheless, mixing it with my rice, which I LOVE to death. For the first time since I’ve been in Japan I declined a dish. I could try Natou, sure (which is…imagine someone soaked beans in sake for a month and then someone You HATE jizzed into the dish twice and topped it off with Elmer’s glue…that’s exactly what that is, enjoy) but I reach my limit with raw eggs and BBQed Testicle. Those are just…kind of hell no’s. Host mom was fine with that and made me egg and sausage instead and after dinner I thought I would eat my fruits, shower, and then bed.
Until I got that text message.
It wasn’t even a TEXT message because my phone can’t get with the Japanese email system yet but luckily Swiss put the subject matter of “Abandoned cats?” Naturally I responded, “I don’t know what the fuck that said, what are you talking about dear?” (without the fuck of course) and she explained to me in text I could read that there were baby kittens outside of her window crying for days and she wanted to play Rescue Rangers. I had a towel I conveniently brought from America and figured I could do something to help.
And so it began…
I got dressed quickly and even though we’re not supposed to leave the house after dinner, I said many apologies as I explained in broken Japanenglish that I was going to “save” the koneko (baby kittens) and I would hopefully be back shortly. Shortly translates to 2hours in CP Time in case you were wondering but I don’t think host parents knew that at the time. I borrowed the bike and raced down to the train tracks and started cursing a storm because I left those bloody blue contacts in and god knows I wasn’t used to them yet (but I paid enough that I force those motherfuckers in every day regardless of how I’m feeling).
I meet up with Swiss and she shows me the box…and I swear, if I had a heart, it would’ve started to beat. There were three palm sized baby kittens who immediately started mewing a shit ton once they realized someone was there to listen. It was…incredibly precious. We transferred them to a bigger box and gave them my towel for warmth. We then called catman (classmate of ours obsessed with cats, among other things) for further instruction on how to feed/care for these kitties while we sped to the supermarket.
Objective One: Find fatty milk!
Easier said than done considering I don’t really read Japanese and though its not that hard to spot a cow on a carton of white liquid, it had to be fatty (read: whole). Luckily enough, I was obsessive compulsive enough to learn which one of the weird symbols meant “weight gain” and once Swiss ID’ed a carton, I was able to determine how useful it would be for the cause. Turns out, none of them would’ve been particularly helpful because baby kittens shouldn’t be fed cow milk (which makes sense on retrospect). Upon our hopes getting dashed we DASHED to the pet aisle and found milk with animals on it.
So…one could presume it was either painstakingly taken from a dog or cat’s nipples or its meant to be fed to dogs or cats. We hoped the latter and picked up a few cartons.
Objective Two: Locate Cleaning Cloth!
Again, you THINK this would be an easy task but again, I’m Japanese illiterate and though Swiss can definitely get by, she didn’t know much about the layout of the store. We swept up and down those aisles like crazy determined foreigners and eventually found ourselves by the baby aisle. I made that speculation because there were images of babies on big plastic packages and I don’t care what kind of odd fetishes there are in Japan, there was NO WAY I could misinterpret that aisle to be a lifestyle choice.
*isignoringthatdiaperfetishesexist*
No way. We head down that aisle and find the cheapest wipes available. Because what we would be doing is cleaning the kittens up…and then wiping their assholes to encourage them to (hopefully) take a dump after we (somehow) fed them. Which made me feel kind of bad. I mean, to go from poor and starving to having some human rub a cold cloth against my ass until I use the bathroom? Way to shit on my life. Mental discomfort aside, we bought the clothes and figured those bishes would have to man the hell up….
Objective Three: Feed the Pussies!
(Oh, who didn’t see that title coming? I’m too predictable for that to have been anything else.) We return to the kitties prepared to feed them with Swiss’s great idea. She bought a pair of gloves and figured if we cut a hole in each fingertip, we could feed them all at once. I thought it was brilliant…and then I opened the gloves…the cloth gloves.
Huh. Swiss and I were suddenly extremely skeptical of her amazing idea but we (stupidly) tried to fill the glove with milk. I mean, just because its cloth, it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work, right? No, that’s EXACTLY what it means because it’s FUCKING CLOTH. Kitten Milk goes everywhere and this poor little pussy is whining like hell because now, not only is it cold and hungry, but it’s covered in milk.
Dilemma. Swiss and I stand there, tapping our feet in the twilight wondering what our best course of action would be. We decide one of us should ride to
Which left me with the kittens. Mewing loudly. In a sketchy Japanese parking lot. Oh dear. I made myself comfortable by the crying little bastards and then a curious teenager stuck her head out and came over. I’m guessing she asked what was up and I explained as best as I could they were “tree in a box” in trouble. Then an older Japanese lady comes over to ask me what’s up. Along with another woman. Of course all speaking Japanese and probably wondering what my foreign ass was doing in a parking lot with baby kittens…I said what I could:
“Matsumoto de tomodachi ni ikimasu…ano” *My friend went to matsumoto…uh*
“Koneko wa…mono wa…taberu…sashirimasu? Can never remember that verb…” *She’s looking for a thing to EAT the kittens.*
Excuse the HELL out of me but I never learned how to say “to feed” so I had to settle with the closest thing. I’m hoping they didn’t interpret me literally and presumed we were going to feast on the flesh of the innocent tonight. If they DID interpret it that way it must be nothing new of foreigner behavior because they all kind of nodded their head and smiled. Okay…
Several awkward minutes later, Swiss FINALLY returns with Tracy (from the Tray-J coupling) in tow. Tracy lives in the neighborhood and decided she’d lend a hand in kitty cat care. Amazing. Swiss pulls out a bottle with a weird baby bottle top and after wrapping a cloth around it to make it more…cloth nipple like, we decide to try and feed kitten number one.
Kitten number one wouldn’t shut the fuck up and kept on meowing in protest. This made it easier for Tracy to shove the bottle opening into its mouth. Its survival instinct kicked in and it began sucking for a few seconds before moving the bottle from its mouth. I was impressed/pleased with this kitten and bestowed the title of “Darwin” upon it.
Next came “Darkie” or “Blackie” as I so lovingly called it. No, I’m not being ironic and yes, it is a black kitten. We tried feeding this meowing bastard but it fought like HELL before finally getting a mouthful of milk. Thus it received the nickname “Negrito Ceasar”. Ceasar, because he didn’t listen to the warning he got and ended up getting killed. Negrito clearly wants to die because it keeps on bitching despite us doing our best to be sweethearts. Whatever.
Finally, we reach for the quiet kitten with the broken tail. Instead of meowing in protest like its brethren, with its opening eyes it shied the bottle away, keeping its mouth shut oh so tightly. Smart bastard. Or stupid as hell depending on how you want to look at it. We had to settle for smearing milk across its mouth and once it took a lick, we rammed that mother in. But Shizuka (quiet) wasn’t down for that shit and clawed us immediately. WHY do they have claws at birth again? It’s like they’re born to be evil…
Commentary aside, we clean up the kittens and the spilled milk everywhere and we come up with a feeding schedule for our little babies. Swiss takes them inside her house for the night and Tracy and I head home. Which would have been fine except I can’t ride my bike and talk to another person. Tracy discovered this the amusing way when I was turning my head to talk to her and rode into a bush…just slowly but surely crashed into a bush. She laughed for a minute and change and the moment warranted it.
Because who the fuck rides into a bush T_T?
And I’m ending this long entry on that note. Cause clearly I made it home (I AM typing this entry and all)…
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