January 7, 2007 - Sunday

Windy and rainy.

The first thing I remember this morning was getting a cuddle from my husband. I woke up an hour later and it was around 12. The next time I woke up it was 1 pm. Since we'd planned to go to the hotel for their lunch buffet I got up and made my side of the bed.

Fumihiko was sitting in the cold and dark again, so I turned on the heater and the lights. I don't know why he does that! I'm much more likely to get up if I'm warm. If I get too cold I just go into hibernation mode and sleep more. He'd switched on the bath for himself and was doing laundry. He said something to me about if I wanted to I could take my shower first, but I said I wasn't going to.

After his laundry and his bath he got dressed and got ready to go out. I was a bit surprised because it was quite a bit after 3. We missed the buffet at the hotel. Fumihiko suggested one restaurant that we've never tried...I said I thought it would be closed because lunch was over, but whatever. We drove there and could see that it was closed. There were no lights on inside. We drove out to the Mikawa shopping mall instead. The wind was really strong on the way. Whenever the wind shutters at the side of the road had a gap, the gusts of wind coming out really hit the car.

The mall was busy, but not as bad as last week. We'd actually planned where to eat this time, so we went to the little restaurant and had some food. I had a mixed grill that was...okay. Not great. Fumihiko had fish on rice. We both had drink bar. During the meal I suggested that he might want to get a massage to help his back. The bad weather wasn't helping. He thought that was a good idea. After the meal he paid and we walked through the mall. We saw one of my ex-students on an escalator too and said "Hi!".

Fumihiko went to the massage place and luckily they were able to take him right away. I made plans with him to come back in 30 minutes and made ready to go and shop up a storm. I was looking at ladies lingerie (looking at all those warm undershirts I've written about before) when the lights went out. There were a few gasps from people around me, and then the emergency lights came on. I had no idea what to do. The emergency lights made it easy to not bump into anything, but not easy enough to shop by! I expected the lights would come back on any second, but they didn't! I could hear some kind of messages being announced and Jusco staff were starting to get calls on their cellphones. I made my way back to the massage area. On the way, I saw that the staff were checking the elevators. There were some people in one of them, and I heard them talking to the people and saying to please wait. I was outside the massage place, wondering if I should go in and call for Fumihiko when I saw him through the frosted glass. He saw me too and waved, then came out. He had been phoning me to check if I was okay. He went back in for his glasses and his keys, then we walked down the stairs. That was my idea. At first dear hubby was going to go UPSTAIRS. Why??? Our car was at ground level. This next part didn't endear him to me either. He walked down the stairs very fast and when he got to the bottom he was at least 20 feet in front of me. Now, if there had been a panic or lots of people on the stairs we would have been separated, and I wouldn't know what on earth was going on...sort of like now! He also went out the door on the wrong side of the building. People were still coming into Jusco, so I suggested that we go through the store and out the other side. If there had been a fire or any danger I'm sure they wouldn't have let people go in, right?

We waited at the other side for a few minutes for the power to come back on, but it didn't. The hardware store that shares the parking area had lights on, so it seemed to be just the Mall. I asked Fumihiko if the mall had forgotten to pay it's electricity bill? Finally we gave up. We drove off to Toda Books.

I hacked around the bookstore, but I have so many books at home already that I haven't read that I didn't want to buy any more. Fumihiko didn't buy anything either. He was wondering about the mall, but the outside lights were still off.

We decided to go to the amusement center that we went to last month to use up his coins. Well, for all of their high-tech security system, you have to know that the human component isn't always going to work! Fumihiko couldn't remember his PIN number. The fingerprint he could do, but the number, nope. Argh! Whatever. We gave up and drove back to Tsuruoka. The lights in the mall were still off when we went by. It gave me a bit of a funny feeling.

In Tsuruoka we had dinner at the Evil Place. It was okay. They had lamb tonight, which I've never seen there before. I had some but didn't like it. Later, I tried some of their genghis khan, which was better, but not by a lot. I had some dessert tonight too, I had some fruit. It was quite nice. I'm not a big fruit eater usually.

After a quick trip to the grocery store to buy kerosene tickets and coffee creamers, we came home and watched The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Fumihiko made the popcorn tonight. He made it curry too, but he does it differently than I do. He puts the curry powder in the oil at the beginning, I put it in margarine after and pour it on. They're both good. Probably his is healthier as we aren't adding extra fat, but mine tastes better! Should I mention that he mixed up the tins of mustard and curry at the beginning too and was going to put mustard powder on our popcorn? That would be the really hot kind too.

Fumihiko went to bed a bit after the movie was over. He's sleeping now. I spent a bunch of time trying to Google what happened at the mall, but I couldn't find anything about it. I'm not sure if it wasn't reported yet or if it's not news-worthy. I'm sure if there was a kitten trapped in the mall it would have made the National News!

So that was my day! Interesting middle! My theory, and at the moment that's all it is, is that the wind knocked out the power at the mall. Still, it's funny the the other building in the area still had power. Hmm.

Got to go. Night night.