Trivial conversation (09/04/2024)

I spent the morning watching Udemy videos and pedaling my aerobike to prepare for the certification exam. After lunch I rearranged my bookshelves, stationery cabinets, wardrobe, hanger rack, PC desk, and aerobike.

My mother came to check on me in the late afternoon.

She called me just before because she didn't know when she could come depending on the weather and her condition. 

Then we talked about the family news for a while.

Last week my brother's first child was hospitalized with a bacterial disease. My mother helped to escort him to the hospital.

She told me that my brother's house is supposed to be dirt-floored, messy, and unsanitary.

My brother's wife does not like to eat various Japanese foods including sashimi. She is not very happy when my mother treats her to a feast.

When my brother's second child was born, she spent some time at my mother's house after leaving the hospital, and then quickly returned to my brother's house in Adachi Ward.

In short, my mother did not like the fact that my brother's wife did not make an effort to adapt to my mother's culture.

I brought up the topic of the (petit) panic buying of rice, which had been a hot topic since the end of August. However, I ended up concluding that it was just a minor incident.

When we had a cool summer in 1993, it was said that new rice was not available in the market and people could not buy rice, but this year, there was only hoarding in a small part of the city center, and new rice (harvested, milled, and bagged) has recently started to appear in the market.

It seems that my mother had bought 15 kg of rice in time for my brother and his wife to come to Iruma, Saitama. There was also some rice left over from my grandmother's house in Kagoshima.

Contrary to my mother's expectations, my brother and his wife left immediately, and my mother did not have to worry about rice until the new rice season.

On the other hand, I did not have a rice cooker and when I cooked at home I ate pasta. I sometimes do chores these days while waiting for the spaghetti to boil in the microwave.

(My mother then continued to talk about my younger sister, my uncle, my dead grandfather, etc.)