The Poetist

I love Grape Nuts! I mean, I love all cereal, but grape nuts in particular. Like, if way in the future there were an anthropologist or historian for some reason examining my life/eating habits they might speak of me as such people now speak of people way back when saying,

The staple food of her diet appeared to be cereal, most notably Grape Nuts, bowls of which, on particularly rushed or extremely lazy days, were a substitute for meals. Said food was often accompanied with edamame (soy beans), apples, and a cultural phenomenon called PB & J, which means peanut butter and jelly, which our subject preferred to eat with crunchy peanut butter.
Our records show that the subject spent a year outside of her native habitat, where Grape Nuts were not a naturally occuring substance. She didn’t show any particular signs of withdrawal, but rather adjusted well to the local staples of raw fish, marinated grilled meat and a phenomenon called Freshness Burger. After 8 months of relocation, however, a box of the cereal found its way to our subject’s adopted habitat in the hands of two visitors and our subject once again became dependent on her former staple food, however small and dwindling its reserves were. At the present time our team is unable to determine the fate of our subject after she exhausted her supply of Grape Nuts.

*I will be making a real post soon – i’m working on an epic that should be up in a few days

This whole ‘holiday season’ thing over here in the East is pretty interesting. Thanksgiving was the first of holidays not shared by the people around me – not the Gaijin, and certainly not the Japanese. In America Thanksgiving more or less officially kicks off the holiday season, and everybody knows about Black Friday. At work today my co-workers were comparing notes on when their families put up Christmas trees, and for Dan (from England) Christmas preparation was totally unrelated to Thanksgiving. I mean, obviously, but I certainly paused for a minute to think – here is someone speaking English, but November 23^rd is a complete non-issue for him. I wonder if Great Britain has a holiday kick-off.

The vacation is of course, different too. I got Thanksgiving and the day after off from work only because I always have Thursday and Fridays off. I’m working on Christmas day. Christmas is not really a big deal here. The major stores have light displays and play Christmas music, but nobody knows what it’s about or celebrates it. Christmas Eve is a big night for couples (think Valentines Day), but the real celebration happens around New Year’s. This is when everybody goes home to their family, makes special food, and exchanges gifts. This is also when Nova closes for 8 days!

Even though the holidays are going down really differently over here, I am getting the most important stuff. I could not find brownie mix (much less the ingredients to make it from scratch), but I am getting one thing that the holidays are really all about – family and friends! I feel really lucky and blessed in this respect: I live halfway across the world, and yet I’m able to be with family and friends for the holidays. Rob, a friend of mine from college, works for Nova near Nagoya (a few prefectures away) and came up for Thanksgiving! It was great to see him and to be able to spend time with somebody from my previous life. A couple of days after Christmas my sister arrives in Tokyo (!!!) and she will be here for almost 2 weeks! Tokyo better get ready for two McElveens… In the extended holiday season (the time from New Year’s to my birthday at the end of January) I’m getting another visitor – Sarah Doe (!!!) the week before my birthday. I’m already pumped.

Per a conversation with a friend tonight, here is what I miss about the U.S.

Question: “what do you miss about the US? shopping? tokyo must have good shopping”
Answer: actually – yes and no. it does, but i can’t fit into anything
(brief discussion about online shopping)

Question: “so what do you really miss about the US?”

cereal
tv
options
good beer
parks
brownie mix
bisquick
hair products
hair dressers
house parties
but i do love karaoke…

*Bonus points if you can name the song title, artist, and album this is in reference to. Post a comment!

It’s Thursday morning and I’m really excited, because it’s Thanksgiving and I love Thanksgiving. I’m also having a party later tonight – this is my first time truly hosting anything for the holidays! I’m having a drinks + dessert party, so I suppose I should cook something. I’ve been searching import stores for the past few days – I wanted to find brownie mix/cookie dough to supplement a pie or two, but I haven’t been able to find much so now I’m just going to go with any dessert that I can find the ingredients for.

Most of the people I’ve invited aren’t American – they’re English, Japanese, Canadian, etc – and many of them have told me that they’re looking forward to seeing how Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. I feel I should give them a disclaimer because this is certainly not a typical or traditional way to do Thanksgiving. We have 2 of the 4 F’s – friends and football (on DVD), but not really family or food. And of course, I will be asking people what they’re thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving! What are YOU Thankful for?