The first year we were married (and that will be twenty-nine years ago this spring), my husband gave me a Seiko watch. I love that watch. It’s slim and elegant and I almost always wear it. So I was sad when it started to lose time this spring and several watch repair stores told me that it couldn’t be fixed. Even the Seiko dealer shook his head dubiously and said it needed new works and they probably couldn’t be found for such an old watch. But he agreed to send it on to Tokyo to see. We didn’t hear back for a couple of months, so yesterday we stopped by to check. He handed the watch over and said it was fixed. We expected to pay several hundreds of dollars. But when my husband asked, he said there was no charge. Why? Here is where it would help if my Chinese were better, but he turned red and struggled to make us understand. The watch is very old. They found the parts in Tokyo. They were happy to fix it. There is no charge. Wow! Happy Valentine’s Day to me.
————————————————–
When I got home, I noticed some orange flaky things lying all over the living room radiators. What’s this? I asked Wany ayi, our housekeeper.
Oh, those are carrots, she said.
Huh?
Carrots. For my daughter’s pet, you remember I told you about her new pet she got at the market? (Yes, I remembered. I had strenuously declined her offer to get me one of the pets, too, just as I have declined offers for turtles and frogs for the garden. We had struggled as she had tried to explain just what animal she was offering this time and had finally declared a draw.) Here. She took me into the kitchen. Yiyi wrote down the name of her pet.
And there it was, spelled out: chincilla. Of course, it makes sense now. We are drying chinchilla food in the living room.
I fled upstairs.