LEGO - Cool For Cats

Nyantomo Happy House.

Okay... about a week ago TV Tokyo presented its results after putting forth a nationwide request for viewers to create toys for cats made from LEGO.

The challenge was just for simple folk like you and I, but rather for the advanced LEGO builder who has a lot of free-time on his or her hands, a plethora of hard-to-find bricks and a plethora of those bricks in the appropriate color scheme... not to mention they also needed to posses an incredible imagination and talent.

I am unsure why challenge was to create toys for cats, but what the heck? The results were awesome, and featured cat cars, cat houses (no, no THAT type), robotic cat toys, and more.

Watch the video HERE.

Wild cats secret hiding place.

And despite the fact that people everywhere are impressed by these LEGO creations, and Japanese cats  got to play with some real neat-o toys, it's obvious that the big winners are TV Tokyo for concocting this bizarre challenge and still providing us with a wow factor along with a television ratings bonanza!

Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife is actually blown away by this concept. I must have around 10,000 LEGO pieces, and I have a cat. Okay... the LEGO is actually my 5-1/2-year-old son's, and the cat came with my wife when we got married 10 years ago this month... but dammit, I play with both.

The shocking thing is, my cat shows absolutely zero interest in LEGO. She can't build anything owing to the absence of thumbs - though to be fair, thumbs are not a necessity to construct LEGO. But really, that darn cat doesn't even try batting around any fallen pieces that hit the wooden floor; she doesn't gnaw on any pieces; she doesn't even try and swat any pieces from my (I mean, my son's) constructs that litter the shelf space in the house (yes, the whole house).

Lego cat car - but does she have a license?

I am reminded of comedian Steve Martin talking about cat toys, and how you can never return them after they get cat spit all over them. Why won't my cat play with LEGO? Is she waiting for me to create something cool like in these photos et al? Until then, apparently I - with my allergies to cats - am her favourite toy.

I hope not. I'm not making any LEGO toys for cats. I'm making a LEGO diorama of old Japan. Or at least that is what I am telling myself I am going to do, which explains my strange purchases from the LEGO store and E-bay.

Somewhere with cat spit on myself,

Andrew Joseph 

PS: regular rife back tomorrow.  

Lego - fishing

Stray Cat Strut

Back in 1991, during my second year of life in Japan (though I would eventually get early parole thanks to my good behaviour), I was without a girlfriend or a "girlfriend" for a couple of days. I think it was May. Maybe not.
Regardless, it was a strange day, in that it wasn't cloudy or rainy - it was warm and sunny.
As such, I decided to leave the comforts of my third floor apartment in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken and venture out onto the streets of a bustling city. Don;t be alarmed - Ohtawara is busy, but I've never seen a traffic jam or more than 10 cars on the road on a major two-way street. It's nice, in other words.
As I opened my front door and was about o take a step out, I was startled from my dreams of having a women find me and want to "date" me, as everyone in the city seemed to know when I was lacking a girlfriend - and unlike Canada where I live now, the Japanese woman didn't seem to mind trying to get my attention.
Anyhow, back to my rude awakening.
MEOW!
There rubbing itself against my 30 centimetre shoes was an orange and white tabby cat.Not exactly what I was looking for... or was it?
My year in Japan was the longest I had ever gone without a four-legged pet. Yes, I had depressed gold fish (That story is here: KILLME), but I had always had dogs: three Cocker Spaniels and four Rottweilers. I also had a cat named Sam - a large tabby white who was in the 24 pound range and who took no guff from my Rottweilers.
Anyhow, much to my chagrin, this nakko (cat) purred some more and walked right into my apartment. Shocked, but not just a little stunned, I looked around to see if there were any Japanese folk on my floor (seven apartments per floor), who were looking about for a cat. As usual, I saw no one, but I'm pretty sure they saw me.
Still, I felt confident enough to step back inside with my new found purr pal and close the door.
I took my shoes off before entering the carpeted area - the cat came and sniffed my shoes. Because she didn't keep over. This was going to be a real friend.
She followed me into the living room and stopped in front of my tiny fridge and meowed loudly. Okay... so it knows what a fridge holds. I got a bowl out of a cabinet and some milk from the fridge and poured it for Scratchy. That's what I called her because she had a small scratch on her nose, as though she had been fighting.
She lapped it up quickly and began to nose around my apartment. I ignored her and sat on the couch watching TV. She came over and jumped up beside me and lay on a pillow as she purred and cleaned herself.
Okay... if she's staying, I need to run out and get some cat food and a litter box.
When she fell asleep - the poor thing - I snuck out on my bike and rode to the local pet shop about 7 minutes away, and loaded up on some cat gear: food, a litter box, a flea collar and some toys. I also bought what I thought was catnip, but may have just been a bag of marijuana.
I raced home and set things up - raced back to the pet shop and bought some cat litter. Just in time, I might add, as the little pisser raced in and did her business as soon as I filled up the box.

Happy, she buried her mess and jumped back up onto the couch - this time in m y lap and purred and purred and purred.
When I looked up, it was 6PM, and the one day a year when it's perfect in Japan was darn near over.
But that's okay. We watched TV, had some supper and amused each other with scratches and that funy green bag of dried weeds.
I looked up and it was 11PM, and I was exhausted, so I decided to go to bed. All of that playing sure tuckered me out!
Scratchy came and slept beside me.
When I awoke the next morning, I fed her and played with her - but I had to go out and get some food. Scratchy wanted to come too, so I opened the door. And, with nary a backwards glance, that was the last I ever saw of her.
I felt used.

Somewhere throwing away cat toys,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog title is by The Stray Cats, of course: CATSTYLE
PS: You can't return the cat toys to the store because they have cat spit all over them.
PPS: I am allergic to cats - but only the long-haired ones. Still, my wife's cat seems to like me best knowing that I can tolerate her the least. aaaaa-CHOOO! 

Lean On Me

One of the things I like to do while in Japan is visit antique shops. It's not because I want to maximize my investment or anything like that - at least not financially. I have my own reasons, and it's not some obsessive compulsive disorder. Is there something wrong with liking nice things, or having things you enjoy having?

My favourite place to visit is a small shop called T. Takemoto (after the proprietors) on the drag in Nikko, in Tochigi-ken.

After several visits with Ashley, I used to go there by myself taking the 40 minute JR (Japan Rail) train ride into the provincial capital of Utsunomiya to the south, and then another 40 minute train to the north west into Nikko.  

I used to go there and look for ukiyo-e (Japanese wood block prints) - not the type you can buy at a department store, but the ones that were made 150 years ago or more. You can visit here to see some of my collection - UKIYO-E. Others are framed and behind glass  - and really, they are too large to place in a conventional scanner. My friend Cordell at work was kind enough to scan the ones for me on a large work printer and scanner.

At Takemoto's after they realized I was always up for spending a Y20,000-50,000 ($200 - $500) on some of their ancient prints, they began letting me go up to their vault hidden away from the general public, where I would pore over literally hundreds of these fantastic items and determine what I liked (all of them) and then determine what I could afford that month.

But this blog isn't about ukiyo-e.

On my first trip into that shop, I saw under a glass table a komainu - which I understood to mean 'Korean lion dog - 'Koma' for Korean, and definitely 'inu' for dog). It was made from ivory and the sculpting was called netsuke, which is what the Japanese call small ivory (and bone) carvings and figurines.

The the shop owners - the Takemoto's (a husband and wife team who gave Ashley and I green tea (o-cha) to warm us up after walking through the rain), told me it was carved over 220 years ago (as of 1990). I fell in love with it immediately. (See photo above).

The Japanese, when they first saw these statues thought they were dogs, hence the name, but in reality it was the Korean version of a lion - hence the mane around the creature's head.

They taught me that the komainu (as pairs) were placed to the right and left of an entranceway to a shrine or temple to ward away evil spirits from entering. There are always supposed to be a pair - one with it's mouth closed (my carving), and one with its mouth open.

I bought it for about Y20,000 ($200) and kept it in my place for a few months. When December of 1990 came around, I remembered it would be my grandfather Tom's birthday in early January. I carefully wrapped up the komainu and mailed it off to my grandfather and told him to keep it at the base of his door to his bedroom - as it was there to lend protection to him and keep him safe until I got back.

He loved it. And was very happy with my gift.

Unfortunately, in February, he died--in the very room I sit now typing this story out. A week previous, my cat Sam died... I guess the two were intwined because he enjoyed talking to the cat - and when he went, my grandfather lost a good friend.

I was very saddened to hear first about my cat and then my grandfather passing away, and it wasn't for another year and half that I returned home to pay my physical respects. I'll tell you tomorrow how I paid my spiritual respects.

When I got home in the summer of 1992 for a brief respite and to buy new clothes that would fit me, I noticed my komiainu netsuke sitting in the living room on a shelf behind glass. I asked my mom about it. She explained that her dad (my grandfather), thought my gift was too valuable and too nice to sit on the floor beside his door, and asked that it be put someplace safe.

He wanted to protect it, and all I wanted it to do was to protect him. My komainu wasn't able to do its job... or maybe he needed his open mouthed partner to help him complete the job. I figured he could do it alone, as there was only one way a person can enter a bedroom in the West, thanks to a door hinge.

Somewhere you can't trust things to do what they are supposed to do,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is sung by Bill Withers: listen HERE.
PS: Today was the day back in 1990 that I mailed the komainu netsuke to my grandfather Tom (photo below).

 

Purple Haze

As regular readers are aware, I sometimes get a tad melodramatic--often it has everything to do with my frame of mind that day I write things down. Sometimes it's just because I feel like telling you a story I suddenly remember. 

Here's a story I wrote, but never showed anybody. It was entitled The Last Mile. It was written by myself as I rode home from Ohtawara Chu Gakko (Dai Chu aka Ohtawara Junior High School) on what I knew was my last ever day of teaching English in Japan.

Don't worry - I still have more stories to tell. I'm not going to do a M.A.S.H. (U.S. television show about the 3-year Korea war... but the show lasted 9 years!). There's way too much stuff about Japan that we haven't even touched on yet!

I am perfectly willing to listen to suggestions about topics you might want to hear about-- or even let the odd guest blog be written. The whole blog experience is about sharing after all. 

Let me share that story now.

As I rode home, the grey skies above Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken began to lightly piss on me. I hate the drizzle. If it's going to rain, then rain. If not, give me dryness. It's a sort of piss or get off the pot kind of mentality I have at the moment. 

I should note that on this particular occasion, the wet stuff wasn't bothering me, as I was too busy being nostalgic.

Some people don't like discussing the past. Too bad for them. By recalling the past and reveling in its glories and miseries, it can help us all grow in to better people. Those that fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. It's an old adage, but one I believe in - perhaps that's why I spend time writing this down for myself.

It had rained harder earlier that day--it had made the Dai Chu baseball field to wet to practice on. There was nobody there. This was the path I had always taken whenever I left the school grounds. I liked to watch the girls play softball and the boys play baseball--and no matter what, they always took the time to stop playing to bow and to wave and to say sayonora (good-bye) to me. 

This time there were no sayonara's or 'goo-bai's' to confront me. I'm still not sure if that's a blessing or what.  I began my ride home in reasonable solitude, almost oblivious to the few stares I received from yet another cab driver who had never seen me before.

As I picked up a bit more speed, the rain misted onto my face. It was refreshing, and reminded me to straighten up and throw back my shoulders so that if anyone looked, it would appear as though I was not sad and disappointed at having to leave this wonderful city, this country... my life.

The wind whistled light about my ears. It pushed every other sound away... except one. From out of the void that are the plethora of rice fields, a low moan quickly rose into a high-pitched bellow of pain.

It's weird how my mind immediately conjured up the image of a botched torch job. I could just see in my head a small cadre of evil four-year-olds pouring a small canister of gasoline onto a cornered cat and then giggling with anxiety as their leader struck a long wooden match. I could sense their laughter as the match was tossed forward towards the terror-stricken feline.

I closed my eyes for a second as the smell of burning fur reached my nostrils. Then I heard the boys scream in delight and fear as the cat made a flaming break for release underneath the farm house. There, with the fire out, and its skin a mess of bloody red pustules, it moaned. Moaned because it wasn't burnt badly enough to find release from this world. It moaned because its existence was worse than dying.

I opened my eyes and listened again. Yup. It's a cat all right. But there were no evil little boys and their can of petrol.

While I am sure such things have happened, and do occur here, nothing bad actually happened. 

And that's kind of the way I actually felt about my time in Japan. I was so distraught at having to leave. I have a woman I really care for, and who cares for me... but circumstances are pushing us apart. I'm going to never see this country again that helped shape who I am today. How fair is that? If I got to stay longer, could I have turned out better? Worse?  

Drama queen.

Back in 1993, continuing that ride... that cat and it's guttural growl... it was either getting boinked by another cat, or it was doing the boinking. 

The cat suddenly stopped moaning. The wind suddenly stopped whistling. And the rain suddenly stopped pissing in my face. I slammed on the brakes, slid and skidded on the wet road, but stopped. I shook my head. I raised the middle finger of my right hand (index and middle fingers for those so inclined), and jabbed it upwards into the air.

I was cut off by yet another car making a turn onto my street. 

Crazy Japanese drivers seem to think cyclists and pedestrians are beneath them--and often are. They always assume we will stop to let them go first regardless if WE have the right of way. 

Every single time I ride a bicycle in this bloody country, I end up flipping the finger to some driver--letting them know they are number one--and reminding them that they have no concept for traffic safety or basic knowledge of the rules of the road.

How can these Japanese kids do so much school and be so smart but never learn about street safety? 

I wish I could find a bunch of maniacal four-year-olds to torch a few stupid drivers. 

Somewhere never riding a bicycle again,

Andrew Joseph

Today's title is by Jimi Hendrix. Move over Rover and let Jimi take OVER

PS: Kindda sucky, huh? Sorry. Back to better stuff tomorrow. How about we talk about, oh I don't know... something about Japanese windows?