Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog

February 12, 2025: Final Day in Tokyo!

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Today, I feasted on a third of this plain white rice onigiri along with a couple of bottles of Pocari Sweat.  After a terrible night, I woke up feeling marginally better this morning.  Akemi who was feeling a little off, is feeling fine now – fine enough to eat a curry pan and a croissant for lunch.  Also fine enough to go out and stock up on some meds for the flight home.  I usually sleep through most of the 14 hour flight back but I’m not so sure I’ll be doing any sleeping on this one.

Got an update from Air Canada, informing me that Toronto was being hit by a huge snowstorm but, as of now, our flight is scheduled to depart on time.  Hope there are no delays as we would really love to pick up Sharky when we get back.  I’ll have two days with him and then I’m off to Montreal to take care of mom for a week.  Hopefully, I’ll be 100% by then.

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11 responses

  1. Gildermcc Avatar
    Gildermcc

    Safe and comfortable travels, Joe and Akemi!

    Reply
  2. ronin012 Avatar
    ronin012

    I read Pocari Sweat, Peccary Sweat.

    Reply
  3. Tam Dixon Avatar
    Tam Dixon

    Glad you’re feeling better and Akemi didn’t get terribly sick. It must have been bad to get your iron clad stomach in an uproar.

    I hope the flight is on time and please film the Sharky reunion. It’s going to be epic!

    Good luck with your mom!

    My mom was released yesterday. I’m running over there today to do some cleaning. We got a plumber to update her bathroom to make it elderly friendly. (Just in time for her release)

    I wish she’d let me do something about her hoard but every time I mention culling out her three bedrooms worth of clothes, she starts getting upset. It’s not a terrible hoarding problem, like on that TV show. The clothes are all in closets or dressers but who really needs three bedrooms worth of clothing? She’s 89 and wears the same three or four outfits through the week. There’s no reasoning with crazy. My hubby also asks me how I got to be OCD and I point to my mom’s hoard.

    Anyhoo, thanks for sharing all the wonderful vacation pictures! I’d love to see those places but I’d be a fish out of water with the language barrier. You are so lucky to have Akemi!!!

    Reply
    1. Joseph Mallozzi Avatar
      Joseph Mallozzi

      Glad to hear your mom is on the mend. I had to laugh when you mentioned the hoarding situation. Mom’s downstairs basement is filled with old unusable pans, myriad plastic containers, and just endless nick-nacks. She also protests wildly if my sister suggests throwing something away: “I may need that!”

      Reply
      1. gforce Avatar
        gforce

        I’ve already started doing “Swedish Death Cleaning” in my house. Not just to make it easier for someone in case something happens to me, but to remove a bunch of clutter to make my house more usable or if I want to downsize. It already feels kind of liberating.

        Reply
      2. dasndanger Avatar
        dasndanger

        It’s a Depression Era thing. My grandmother used to save the waxy cereal bags, wash them, and reuse them, same with plastic storage bags. And, of course, every plastic or glass container that came into the house. Everything had a use, and she saved loads of money that way. My mom (your mother’s generation) was a saver, too – but not plastic bags. Mom did save jars, many used as urine specimen jars before labs gave out collection cups…nothing like a little pickle scented pee for the tech to analyze! Mom’s saving leaned more towards knick-knacks and clothes – she still has the dress she wore on her honeymoon, for instance. We did give a lot of vintage clothing away to a local stage company, so that helped us unload some stuff, and each time mom goes in hospital we get rid of things she won’t miss at all. Shoes she can’t wear anymore, suit sets, and impractical coats. Things like that.

        I, too, have inherited the saver gene. Mine leans towards tiny jars and Mason jars (I reuse them for all sorts of things), Oui and La Fermiere yogurt jars (you can buy wooden lids for them on Amazon!), pottery/wood/primative/antique decorative items that I keep in my in-house “antiquities shop” for changing things up once in a while (nothing cheaper than shopping in your own home!), and paperwork (includes office stuff, paid bills, receipts, printed info on stuff I might want in the future, business cards, and anything else that is on paper). I have things fairly well organized and in file boxes, most stored in the attic. After 7 years I do throw out old paid bills and tax stuff and insurance policies – it is a habit from the days before computerized everything when you had to keep physical copies of money transactions in case of an audit. Still, it is a lot of unnecessary ‘clutter’ even when it is neatly organized. I am trying to do get rid of stuff now in case we ever move again.

        das

        Reply
        1. Joseph Mallozzi Avatar
          Joseph Mallozzi

          That’s a fair point. A lot of older people I know who do tend to hold on to things came from a generation that experienced financial hardship or war.
          P.S. I had you pegged for a jar collector!

          Reply
    2. dasndanger Avatar
      dasndanger

      Perhaps just thin out clothes your mom won’t notice are gone. What I do with my mom (also 89 and dealing with mild dementia) is this: When she’s in hospital or rehab, I take out things she just will never wear again. I’ve noticed she’s starting to forget some of her clothes, so It isn’t too hard for me to do. If there is an item that she asks for or mentions often, I keep it. But I’ve noticed ‘out of sight, out of mind’ seems to be increasingly normal for her. I do, however, keep some things that she will probably never wear, but that she’s especially fond of. I pack them up and stow them away, and if she asks about her I tell her they’re in storage. She’s satisfied with that.

      das

      Reply
  4. gforce Avatar
    gforce

    I hope you have a safe and comfortable flight! Keep us posted on how things go!

    Reply
  5. starlightloving041cb7a430 Avatar
    starlightloving041cb7a430

    Hope you are feeling much better now! Safe travels. About not wanting to get rid of stuff; I plead guilty!! Must be a late 80’s thing. LOL. Hope you will find your mother doing well.
    Dorothy

    Reply
    1. Joseph Mallozzi Avatar
      Joseph Mallozzi

      Thanks, Dorthy! Always great to hear from my former Vancouver neighbor!

      Reply

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