Phiotoessay #1972 - Box to Japan

I sent a box to Japan today. Nobuko who is a bit stocky in build, really has trouble finding clothes to fit in Japan. In fact, when we went to visit in April 2010, at her request, I left most of my clothes there with her. They had all been bought at Penneys, most were new, inexpensive. So now, every once in a while, when I'm at Penneys I buy some things for her. Things she could wear to work, she is director of a center for autistic children and adults in Yamagata City. You may remember hearing about it a year ago. This city, across the mountains (and they are BIG mountains) from Sendai. Reporters broadcast from Yamagata City and I think refuges were sent there. There's no way to get directly from Yamagata to Sendai, you have to go around.

I really like the larger size department at Penneys (since I've lost some weight, I have made it down one department). So a few weeks ago, I was there and I picked out some clothes and finally got around to sending them this morning. I knew already that it almost costs as much to send the box as to buy the clothes. I knew it. Yup, I spent $73 on the clothes and $51 to send the box.

But it's something I do, it's ok. It's hard to communicate with Nobuko. She doesn't use her English. She can speak better than write. So Skype works better than email. But the time zones, yikes. Sometimes I can go through her daughter Natsuko. But last I heard, Natsuko was in Mongolia studying snow leopards. Readers of this blog may remember that Natsuko came to Seattle for two weeks to work with a group of Snow Leopard people right before we went to Japan. It worked out perfectly. She stayed here and took the bus to where she needed to go. Then, when she got ready to go, she said "This is not goodbye, this is see you in two weeks in Narita airport!"

So a picture of the box on the stairway with Teddy in the background. He's going through his abandonment thing that I'm going to leave him and he's afraid of the box. It looks like it's squirrel food but it's not.

Stay tuned, readers. I'm going to have an exciting announcement about a great job for Ilana just as soon as it's official to mention it. Turns out that my blog comes up quite high in Google. She says it's because I update every day.