A New Family Member

6:00am. Something really heavy comes up on my belly and passes over, and comes back up again. I try to go back to sleep, but it wouldn't let me; my chin touches something textured and this "textured" thing starts to go around all over my face.

"Meow (Wake up!)"

OK, get up me, time to feed him.

Our "little" guy was arrived on October 10, which was also our 4 years marriage anniversary. He is 4 years and a half old male cat (same old as me if he were human), and has been called by this name "Romeo," since the original owner had him. Plus, he is a chubby heavy little boy. Well, "little boy"? No, no, no, he is CHUBBY boy as 8 kg = 17.5 lb weight ..very chubby as a cat; therefore, he has been on diet by having diet cat food.

A week ago, we went Markham (suburb) for this blind date to Yasuko's house, who is his temporary foster mother and volunteering for Animal Service at the town of Markham. She owns 5 cats including the 18 years old one who came from Japan with her and her husband. (The house they live now is the 9th house for this cat. Her husband's business made them move often.) I don't know how other 4 cats got her place; however, what surprised me was that 2 of them (brothers) understand Russian language, and Yasuko sometimes talks to them in Russian.

There were 7 cats including Romeo in her house. 6th one was a little, "actually little" male kitten "Red," who is looking for foster family. Many people prefer baby one than adult animal; however, it would be good for me as a newbie to own a cat, since we don't have to teach where they have to have their businesses or sleep. I've heard those disciplines are sometimes hard to teach, even if the owner had some experience. Romeo is well trained and mature so we did not have to do anything to teach him. In addition, his front claws were removed by the original owner (he got a surgery for it) which one thing we would never do though, so we didn't have to worry about him clime up everywhere and drop anything off or make scratch on some furniture, for good or bad.

But, those "easy to care" parts are not the only the reasons we adopted Romeo. He is, as you see, very chubby. He needs being on diet and exercise, but he is also super lazy and does not want to move his bum even an inch. When Yasuko threw his favorite toy ball to him which makes some crinkle noise, he tried to catch it with the posture lying on tummy at the stairs, and failed. I made more crinkle noise by crashing and touching the ball to encourage him to get it, but he did not move his bum from that step. The only one thing he did was to extend his left forefoot to one step down, moreover, he stopped trying as soon as he understood that his left forefoot can not reach the ball from the position he was. I see that he cares about this ball, really does. But he looks at me and expect me to bring it just in front of his face, so he can chew. What a lazy cat!!!

His chubbiness is also very obvious from his figure which Yasuko calls "seal." Not only when he sleeps, he stomps; walks with heavy steps (or pound) to get food (only for food). Moreover, his figure especially when he eats, reminds me "Tsuchinoko," legendary snake-like cryptid animal (Wikipedia, "Tsuchinoko").
Compare Romeo with Tsuchinoko!!


Tsuchinoko


Romeo / Egg Plant

Also, when he sits, his fatty part hides his hind legs. It probably makes his legs tired and numb, he usually can not keep this posture long. Few minutes after he sits, his body would be dropped on his belly. Then the heaviest part of him lands on the floor peacefully.

Anyway, once we saw Romeo, we just instantly fell in love with his those unique atmosphere. Fortunately, our decision of adoption made Yasuko very happy too. (She also thinks that Romeo and Luke are very alike, not only the attitudes, their looks and faces are similar. I strongly agree!) Finally he moved us with many "trousseau" : his bed, his mat for a nap, his litter box with sand and a scoop, his toys, his food bowl, and diet food which other cats hate and wouldn't even go near.. he loves them.

Adopting him made our anniversary and Thanksgiving holiday really happier. We hope that he finds comfort in his new home here and recognizes us as his family.

TIFF - Achilles and the Tortoise

What if the person who you really love can not give up following his or her dream and makes your life really hard? Would you give up on him/her? Or you would be willing to support him/her by sacrificing your time, energy, and maybe love? Well, some people might not want to call it "sacrifice" though..



The movie "Achilles and the Tortoise" became my first experience of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) , finally after three years of life in Toronto. Directed by Takeshi Kitano, a.k.a. Beat Takeshi as a Japanese actor and a comedian, who is also a Golden Lion winner of the Venice Film Festival in 1997 with "HANA-BI." I grew up with watching him on TV as a comedian, and his way of humor including lots of bad words entertained kids so much, like some schools and PTA had banned their students and kids watching his shows. Many kids were against it and therefore it became a kind of social issue at that time in 80's.

* One of his comedy shows was broad casted in U.S. in 2003 with its English title "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC)," and "Takeshi's Castle" in U.K., Germany, and Philippine, "Humor Amarillo" in Spain. So you can probably watch some of them on YouTube. This show made almost every family in Japan laugh so much and his image better.

The title of this movie comes from the one of Zeno's paradoxes, "When the tortoise starts running one interval ahead than Achilles who is an immortal and able to run really fast, the tortoise would never be caught up by him." In the reality, he would, eventually, but in the world of the consciousness of sub-one which is infinity, he would never. This is the paradox.

* * Zeno : An ancient Greek natural philosopher of the Eleatics, born in Elea, South Italy (around BC 490 - 430).

[ About the movie ]




The story is about a man, Machisu, (named after a famous French painter "Henri Matisse") who loves drawing and painting, and wants to be a famous as an painter, and his wife, Sachiko, who understands and supports him devotedly. Even though his life as a son of a rich guy and could anything that little boy wanted was totally changed to the opposite, when he had to go through his parents' death. Since then, only he has focused was to become a famous painter, as his parents were dreaming of with him.

The movie is divided into three parts; his childhood, adolescent years, and adulthood, and each of them have some paradoxes (I'm not going to spoil those juicy parts Pepe, like I almost did to Ruben last time about "Kite Runner"!!). What interests me is, that you might be able to guess that Achilles could be Machisu, but the tortoise can be anything, depending on how you feel about these paradoxes. There are plenty of elements that you can think of as the tortoise; moreover, those the tortoises-to-be can give you each different themes what this movie tried to tell you.

OK, I will give you only one sentence that you might will miss from one scene. When you watch this movie, this sentence probably will not have its subtitle since this is not a spoken line. One of Machisu's painting has a caption says "Belief brings possibility." To me, this can be both, true and false. If you don't believe what you can, you will never achieve the point you were dreaming of; however, you might not achieve ever or you can not know when you will achieve. Possibility is only possibility forever when the percentage is less than 100. You are not sure if possibility turns out to be fulfillment, other than you strongly "believe"the possibility of fulfillment.

I heard some applauses when the movie started to show the end roll; moreover, I heard some people (both in Japanese and English) said that they did not understand at all. This kind of style can create mixed reputations or reviews, because of the answer or theme of the movie is not crystal clear, like his other movie Dolls(1987). It is not like Hollywood blockbuster movie which tells you easily what is good and what is bad so you have to think about it or just push away to think.

Anyway, only one thing I am sure is, that I can not be like Sachiko, the wife of Machisu. I probably would feel that I can not help Machisu like she did, if I were her. I would understand what he loves and wish I could help him using all of the things and emotions I have. But I would get scared of the reality. I can not even imagine how deep Sachiko loved him..

I liked this movie. This could not be my favorite of Takeshi Kitano's work unfortunately; however, the style of using children brilliantly in his movies has still remained and the music is also very, very beautiful and matches the atmosphere. I was relieved that Kitano did not use his favorite (so as mine!!) composer Joe Hisaishi who has also created Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli world with his beautiful, nostalgic aria and harmony. The new composer Kitano chose for this movie is Yuki Kajiura who works for many TV advertisements, game softwares, and some animation films, I think she succeeded to make fans of Hisaishi's music in Kitano's movie satisfied as keeping Hisaishi world by using the same style of harmony he uses (mix uses of the 6th, 7th, and 9th cords with the basic triad, and uses of the Musical mode). I'm going to buy this soundtrack CD for sure!!

Let me know when you watch this movie, so we can discuss about it!!

The poster of Achilles and the Tortoise

Fan Expo '08

There is a word "Otaku" in Japan.
As our teacher Don mentioned about "nerds" in the class, "Otaku" is similar word of nerd with a little more positive image. And today, I had been surrounded by LOTS of OTAKUs at the event "Fan Expo CANADA 2008."
Oh my god, this is quite an event.. unique, different world, and.. LOTS OF OTAKUs!!!
..including my husband Luke :-/

* * *

Do you know what the cosplay (= costume play) means? Some people wear things the characters in movies or TV shows (or magazines) wear. Take a look at pictures below, you might recognize some characters.


Left : Darth Vader & General Grievous from Star Wars
Right : Lara Croft from Tomb Raider & Catwoman
Superman, taking a picture of Wonder Woman and Something I don't know.. (Our friend Derek taught us later that it is "Namor" from the comic the Sub-Mariner.)
Looked like Superman and Namor are friends and Wonder Woman had a partner who looked like an usual civilian.
Anyway, all three comes from American Comics.


Left : Storm Troopers from Star Wars in wedding style..
Right : Mommy's trying to pull back a Little Yoda(!?) waking away.


Left : Awesome-o (Cartman was wearing in South Park to fool Butters)
Right : Ghost Busters
So, how many of them did you know?

For the science fiction fans, meeting the actors of SF movies/shows seems to be a huge treasure. This year, many actors were at their booths with their pictures. People were lining up to wait for their turn, and paid them to get their autographs on their photos. As you imagine, Luke and I got pictures with 2 actors and autographs of them. Both of them are famous in the SF TV show "Battlestar Galactica."


"William Adama"


"Chief, Galen Tyrol"

BUT, of course it is NOT FREE.
There were at least 10 actors sitting and responding crowds. These people spend hundreds of dollars happily for taking pictures with them.. which we can not afford. We had to choose carefully with asking our wallet, because costs are different depending on actors.

For the picture with "Chief," the donation to the Canadian Cancer Society was required, instead of paying to his management company or whatever. Isn't it nice of him?

For the pictures of other actors, we had to do some sneaky job. You know you can not walk into them and ask them if you can take pictures of them, of course the answers would be NO. So we tried to get closer as possible, and took the pictures below without flashes.


A.I. Data from Star Trek TNG
* TNG = The Next Generation


Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager


He's gained weight... or aged?
Sam the Hobbit from Lord of the Rings

Last time when we went to the similar event two years ago which was only for SF fans, we saw Gorge Takei from Star Trek and got his autograph. He is a Japanese American and told me in Japanese that his root is in Yamagata prefecture (very countryside), Japan. Some of you may know, he came out from his closet as a gay few years ago, and he uses this fact as joke sometimes on some shows. Humorous and funny guy.
* You want to see? Click HERE to my Japanese blog!

The event "Fan Expo" has several categories , such as horror, comic books (manga), TV games, and animations in addition to the science fiction. Many booths are there in the convention centre, and you could see those things..

Horror Section;

You can actually buy those special effect parts.
F.Y.I., "the brain hat" is $250 though..


Left : Life-size figure of dead body.. wwww
Right : Look at his eyes!! All black!!


The mask of Joker from Batman the Dark Night)
You may recognize some other masks..

Comic Section;

The mask of V for Vendetta


Left : the figure of Hellboy from HellboyⅡ
Right : You also can be a life-size figure!!
(This is Jason, our friend)

Now, are you interested in this world?
Or you want to keep staying away? ;-)
Or maybe you can't wait to expose yourself in there?
Wait for next year and keep checking their website!!

( <-- I don't even know who they are imitating.. probably some characters from manga (comic), animation, or game.)

Cafe Crepe

On Queen Street West, in front of the City TV building.
Enter and get one step ahead, the mood of 50's atmosphere surrounds with big old movie posters on walls and well-polished geometric patterned floor, and appeals to the senses if you tripped to some cafe in Europe. At the same time, the fresh-baked sweet aroma cocoons everybody in floaty bliss -- this is a cafe, "Cafe Crepe."

Some reviews says that "Cafe Crepe had brought everything Parisian from France into Toronto." Mmm, the word "Parisian" itself, sounds very soothing, even though I have never been to France.

You may imagine that their specialty is crepes, but also their espresso is very good. I love espresso-based drink such as cappuccino, mochaccino, or latte, and they use illy coffee beans (Italian coffee brand, uses Arabica beans - "considered to have a richer taste and lower caffeine content than Rubusta beans," Wikipedia).

Look at this cappuccino!!
To get to its liquid part, you have to use a spoon and dig in this huge amount of form milk, which has 5cm thick and 3cm higher than the edge of the cup, tastes even sweet without adding any sugar -- if you want this, order "large size." ;-) You'd better be sure that you are extremely hungry.

This is their mochaccino. The difference between cappuccino and mochaccino is chocolate syrup, and whipping cream on top (you can order with no whipping cream - who would?). My husband loves this mocchachino because it's much sweeter than other mocchachino he has ever had. Oh, the mochaccino in this picture is "regular size," F.Y.I.

My recommendation for the crepe here are the savory crepes. Crepe probably sounds like a sweet dessert for you, but cheese and vegetables (of course meat too - sorry, Leo) make crepe beautiful meal. The crepe dough(?) itself is moist in center part and crispy at its edge. Especially in this picture, I know it may look too simple or boring, but it would blow you away to the heaven.
Try it anyway! You'll thank me.

And here you go, for SWEETS LOVER!



Dark Chocolate & Banana
(whipping cream -$0.50, vanilla ice cream -$1.00)

They also have some sandwiches and grilled sandwiches (Panini). I am not a big fan of big amount of bread and buns usually; however, I accidentally ordered grilled Panini instead of crepe with Swiss cheese, ham, and tomato because all ingredients look alike, only differences are skins, outside. But -- oh, my gosh, it was an amazing mistake. Sooooo good. The cheese was melted nice and hot enough and it was a gorgeous combination with the ham and tomato, pressed between fresh baguette sliced in half with buttered around.
It is reasonable, fills your tummy with happiness!!

Order their outside counter and take it with you. I would be great spice for your explore on Queen Street West Village which has bunch of artistic shops like pop-culture shops, antique shops, furniture shops, and galleries!!

Cafe Crepe (Map)
238 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 1Z7
Tell : 416-260-1611
Sun-Thu 9am-10pm
Fry-Sat 9am - midnight