Power ups

Now, I am and Aussie girl, married with kids to a Japanese man.
It always amazes me, when I cook dinner, that I will go to the knife block, ready to chop something into little pieces for the fried rice, om-rice, or Okonomiaki, only to find all the bloody knives blunt.  Drives me nuts.

This is because my Mr. is a QUALIFIED SUSHI CHEF, and his livelihood and quality of his work depend on how sharp his knives are.

Not so at home. 

Last week, I was just getting ready to make dinner.  The Boys (two that are mine, and several who frequent my house) were in the living room, squabbling like angry monkeys over who's turn it was on "Densha De GO!"  (It's a game where YOU get to be the train driver. Sounds as exciting as watcing paint dry, I know, but my house is completely full to the goog with train fanatics, including all the little kids that come over every day, and The Daddy.  We have EVERY version, as well as a conductors hat to wear and authentic Japanese train controls)

So, I am in the kitchen, planning to skillfully hide several types of vegetables in the rissoles, by chopping them finely, and whacking them into the minced meat.  All the boys hate veges in our house, so I have to find more cunning ways to slip vegetables into the food every day.  I can even make vegetable ice cream, and have made orange, carrot and tomato jellies that were eaten before they even set properly.  I am the Vegetable Cloaking Master of this tiny little island.  No one rivals my skill at making other people eat their greens without them being aware.
I fight this battle every day, as I have a husband who thinks Vitamins are for women and salad should only really consist of lettuce, some ham, and enough Kewpie Mayonnaise to sink a Japanese whaling ship.  He actually told me once, when I added tomato and cucumber to his salad, that I had "wrecked the taste" 

Just a side note to all the single ladies, don't marry a chef.  They are fussy beyond belief, and mine won't let me near the AUTOMATIC rice cooker, because he says "You just won't get the rice right",  Seriously.

Anyway, so I am in the kitchen, and I select a knife, and go to town on some red capsicum.  But it won't cut.  No matter how I hack at it, it just kind of smushes and bruises, because the bloody knives are all blunt AGAIN.  Gah!!
Really, what does my husband do with them when I am at work?  Chop wood?  Practice his Samurai moves on the walls?  Go next door and prune trees with them?  I just dunno, because I have to sharpen them all the time.

So I have to bend down so low to even see in our cupboards, that I actually have to put my head between my knees,( Japan is a hard core earthquake zone, and cupboards that are more than a few centimeters off the ground are very rare in old houses.  Most furniture is only about waist height, and that is the waist of a Japanese persons , so if you are over about 150 cm tall, then you will spend your life stooping and kneeling and bending down here.  Don't get me started about the tiny chairs and tables....)

I finally retrieve the knife sharpener, after rummaging around in the dark cupboard, and I decide, well, if I have to sharpen one, I may as well sharpen them all (fat lot of good it will do if The Daddy goes out wood chopping with them, but one may survive, un-blunted, eh?)
So with much muttering and swearing under my breath, I start using the wet stone to sharpen our blades.  Screeeeeeeeeaaaach, schreeeeeeaaaaach, schcrrreeeeaaaacccccccccccccccccccch, Mutter, mutter mutter.

I turn around, scowling from my bad mood, to the sound of complete silence, and the sight of seven little faces, staring at me open mouthed.

A little voice from the back row asks Number One Son, in Japanese  "What's that terrible sound!?  What is she saying?  Is it a spell!?" and Number One Son  says very casually  "Oh she always makes that face and says bad things when she has to power up the knives"

The Roach.

Ladies, (and Gentlemen of a squirelly nature about bugs), I have made a startling discovery!! Dish washing liquid (of the extremely cheap variety) kills cockroaches stone dead.

We have had one foul roach, terrorizing us for almost two weeks now, and every time we go to the sink, and push the button for the Rinnai, it leaps out, like the neighbors angry dog, defending it's territory. This means Duck and Boy run squealing from the room, too afraid to wash their hands, or put the dishes in the sink, because this thing lurks in the hot water heater, and when you hit the button to turn on the tap, it rushes you.
You can almost hear the barking and gnashing of teeth (do they have teeth?).

Now, as you may or may not know, my house has become a lost beetle sanctuary (three homeless Rhinoceros beetles at last count, more on this later), and I don't really agree with using pesticides. I get eaten alive by mosquitoes and just about anything that bites or stings, and I have a husband who is immune to insect bites (Duck believes that The Daddy tastes yukky.  I can't really argue, my Mr. dosen't take a bath everyday, the dirty bastard)

Usually we use sticky roach motels, and for the mozzies, I burn mosquito coils, making everything smell like a bonfire.  Lately,  I am afraid the rhinoceros beetles will be made sick by mozzie coils, and that bloody giant roach lurking near the sink is not fooled by roach motels, even with the happy pictures of smiling bugs on the side, and a piece of ham placed squarely in the middle.  Other bugs have been lured to their doom, never reaching the fabled ham.  This giant cocky is not easily tricked, and has NO FEAR I SWEAR.

This morning, I approached the scuzzy washing up (I hate the washing up, almost as much as cleaning the dunny, we have three boys in the house, and it's foul) and the bastard leaped  out at me, buzzing it's wings and waving it's antennae threateningly.  I did my nana and hit it with 88yen environmentally friendly, palm oil free dish washing liquid.  It is no more.  It's body has been viewed by all it terrorized.  The Daddy ceremoniously flushed it down the dunny, and it left a nice sudsy lime scent after it :)