Pillow Talk

     Go-ju kata ("50 year old shoulder" aka frozen shoulder) is plaguing my lovely ladies who buzz the Manor doorbell promptly at 11 AM every Wednesday for English conversation group. While I suffered the pummelings of good old-fashioned physical therapy during my bout with frozen shoulder, these women opt for acupuncture and herbal remedies. The cooking sensei enrolled in a ballet stretch class to keep her spine supple. "I am the youngest one in the class, " she confided, "and I am 52." To sleep with or without a pillow? Without (or with a thin one) seemed to be most popular. Discussion turned to a magical item that Uniqlo sells for the very purpose of keeping shoulder blades together."But it is difficult to find one,"  the world traveler complained. Each of us self-consciously pulled our shoulders back.

    "Shall we read a book on feng shui next month?" I asked. My limited grasp of kanji (Chinese characters) includes these two, literally "wind" and "water." No offense intended, Mr. A.A. Milne: Although the group has been politely ploughing through the adventures of Pooh san, the time has come for a new subject. "May I tell you something?" the cooking sensei asked the group rhetorically. "My son decided to stop going to university last year. I was so worried that I went to a feng shui expert. He advised me to place my son's bed in the North side of the room!"  A shudder swept through the group: In Japan only the dead lie with the head to the North. She tried it, and her son returned to university. Next, the expert advised bowls of salt by the sink in her kitchen. "It is expensive to buy so much salt, but we are all doing well in the family," she concluded with an apology for taking so much class time. Across the road in the Juban restaurants keep bowls of salt at the threshold, perhaps for this reason.

     Our tea master, also a proud grandmother, revealed that the walls of her home contain blessings on washi paper that her mother wrote and inserted before they were covered up with plaster. (New buildings, skyscrapers included, are routinely blessed upon completion.)  Beverage of choice before bed seems to be camomille tea, although the world traveler admitted to the occasional cup of hot milk as it is "good for health." Milk is sold in quarts and pints, in this country that acquired a taste for dairy in the second half of the 20th century.

      A little camomille tea might work for me as I fret about my ticket for the Bob Dylan, which has yet to arrive for Monday's concert.