Teenage Angst

• Dinner last night was a success, I think.  I made beer stew, and after Mayu tasted it she got up, went to her room to get her camera and then came back and took a picture of her plate.  We didn't talk about it, but I'm choosing to take that as a compliment.

• I do have to watch myself, because I think our culture tends to keep ourselves busier than the Japanese do.  It's quite common for Mayu to just sit quietly and stare ahead at nothing.  My instinct when I see her do that is to assume that she's bored and give her something to do; but I'm starting to suspect that quiet time to sit and think is what she needs.  (It makes me glad that I also put a chair in the spare room before she arrived, so that she has a chance to get away from all my hustle and bustle.)

• Yesterday was a bit upsetting.  Nanako, who is the girl staying with my friend Jen, and who we spent the weekend with, planned an impromptu party last night and didn't invite Mayu.  Jen and I  had planned for me to take both girls last night, so that Jen could go to a meeting.  However, when Mayu came home, she said that Nanako had made other plans.  I soon got a call from Jen, who said that her husband was inundated with a gaggle of girls in his living room and didn't know what to do.  I asked around covertly and confirmed that Mayu had not just chosen not to join them but was in fact not invited.    We couldn't force Nanako to invite Mayu (nobody wants to be that girl who is only there because the adults say she has to be invited), but it didn't seem right.  While it may be different in their culture, the general consensus around here is that if you are part of a group or small class, and some of that groups makes plans without you, then it feels like you have been deliberately excluded.  I got all mama bear and set about making sure that Mayu had a great night without the other girls.  We didn't have a lot of luck with our plans, but I think she had fun.

• We tried to go paint pottery, but that store is closed on Mondays.  Then we decided to go out to a par 3 and introduce Mayu to golf - a storm blew in and there was lightening, thunder and funnel clouds.  Golfing wasn't meant to be, so we ended up shopping.  We went to Chapters so that I could get a Japanese/English dictionary and we could look through some books on Japan.  Then we wandered around a pet store, where Mayu seemed to fall in love with guinea pigs.  Finally, we set off to Michaels, so that she could pick out beads.  The next time we have a slow night, I told her that we would make jewelry together.

• With the long weekend coming up, I wasn't sure what we'd do.  I was waffling between the Calgary zoo and Lake Louise.  My mom suggested that I take her out to Drumheller to see the dinosaur museum.  Honestly, she's such a girly-girl that I ruled it out right away.  However, when I asked her about the weekend and gave her the three choices, she jumped on the dinosaurs.  I've come back to it a few times to make sure that she understands what she's picking (I can't imagine picking bones over mountains), but she seems adamant.   I've shown her pictures, and she wants to see the "Die-no-soars".  So, I guess we're heading to Drumheller for a day on the weekend.