How's the weather? It's sunny!

I can feel the cold in my bones. I'm sick - can you believe, still sick from my last post, the germs here in Japan are racist I tell my friends, never have I been so consistently under the weather before my tozai (stay) here in Agematsu. What I wouldn't give for central heating, the boon of living in America I have come to realize. Don't get me wrong, the team of heated toilet seats, heated blankets, and heated tables (kotatsu - look it up), and lets not forget, individual heaters; is quite an arsenal at facing the bitter cold of winter - but wait, wouldn't central heating save all those concerns?

I'm facing this battle with creative psychological deceptions - such as pictures of Doraemon surfing under the sun wallpapering my desktop. It works, though sometimes it just makes me angry and jealous of Doraemon's priviliged life. Why does this cartoon character always seem to be smiling, happy, and akarui, while I have to deal with the realities of mountain life? Sure, my kids walk to school everyday while I can drive and turn on the heating, sure, but who cares? They're kids, they're supposed to suffer. That's the definition of being a kid.

It's worse to face this cold with no snow. It's like cake without the frosting, or maybe I should say salad without the salad dressing, cause we all know that salad sucks - but at least the dressing makes it bearable. Where's my snow? Where's my winter wonderland that can bring memories of hot chocolate and Christmas stories by the fire...ok, so I didn't have a fireplace, nor did I ever really have Christmas ("thanks older brothers for leaving the house so early that mom and dad decided that they didn't really need to do Christmas anymore!") - but still, the psychological deceptions work, and all I'm trying to do here is escape, who said escape needs to be based in anything real? A little bit longer, a little bit more. I should have taken all my cold medicine, I still have green phlegm. I can't afford to skip medicine here in biologically diabolical countryside of Japan. I love you - oh inaka! But living 700 meters above sea level is just a tad bit too cool.