The intruder

With some dementia fun and renovation sagas

November/December 2024

Opening the front door, I stepped inside the Prayer House and headed straight to the bathroom. The scent in the air was a mix of fresh cement, raw timber and damp dirt. We were really in the thick of our renovation!

The toilet and bathroom had both been completely guttered and, save for the 1.5m brick walls, the wooden top half of the walls had been pulled down, along with the ceiling and roof, due to termite damage.

We had no car garage, no work shed, barn or any other storage place, so the living room had become the place to store the timber and it lay across the living room in, what was once, a neat pile.

We had many tools and supplies and it made sense why my husband would want to lock the house. It was highly amusing to me though, because anyone could just jump over the bathroom wall and enter at their free will!

We lived in such a safe neighbourhood though, in one of, if not the, safest country in the world. I felt very much at ease that we wouldn’t have any intruders.

Now, as I came into the house, I embarked on the obstacle course to get from the front door to the bathroom: over the neat pile of timer, then down onto bare dirt, watching my step due to new piping and other such things lying around and finally to the bathroom.

My husband, Shujin, looked up as I approached and he then moaned, “Look!”

And there I saw them. Paw prints. Cat paw prints on our freshly poured cement from the night before!

AN INTRUDER!!!

The cat had jumped from the top of the 1.5m brick wall, down into the cement and clearly not liked it! Not wanting to escape by going across the wet cement and over to the bare dirt floor, it had turned around and jumped back up and over the brick wall!

Shujin was most displeased, marking our precious work! He tried to smooth it over with a wire brush, wanting to make a good presentation of our workmanship to the builders. But alas, the cement was too set to smooth it out with a wire brush and so the cat paw prints stayed. I was confident they wouldn’t ruin the installation of our unit bath, but they certainly ruined Shujin’s day!

A few days later Shujin started his new job, and within two weeks of starting, he flew to The States with Okasan to attend his brother, Hiroki’s wedding.

I had been anticipating this time. It had been really hectic with renovations and I was looking forward to a break. But not just a break from the physical labour, I was also looking forward to a break from being a carer to Okasan, and a break from sticking to a rigid diabetes diet that also needed to be mindful of her high cholesterol!

I’d started writing a list, not wanting to forget any of the great ideas I had for what we could eat while Shujin and Okasan were away!

It’s great that Okasan’s diet keeps all of us eating healthy! I do wish though, that I could relax when I needed to and just eat pizza! Or just eat pancakes for Saturday night dinner! But if we were eating it, she wanted it too, and I’ve learnt that eating in front of her is not worth the pain!

So, on a very early morning in late November, before the sun had risen, it wasn’t with a sad heart that I dropped Shujin and Okasan at the station. Their trip was for an exciting and joyous occasion after all, and I was happy for them. After waving them off, I would have been dancing with freedom all the way home if it weren’t for my overwhelming tiredness as a result of the rude hour I had had to rise!

A nap that afternoon helped to boost my energy to kick the party off with tacos for dinner. Oh how I loved eating tacos! The crisp and crunchy corn shell. The spicy beans, loaded with flavour. The tasty cheese. The fresh and colorful salads. All loaded in the taco shell and topped with salsa and yoghurt (yeah, couldn’t get sour cream!!). YUM!!!

Each night was a party and we made sure we made the most of our opportunity to eat foods that we didn’t get to freely eat.

Meanwhile, a few days into their trip, Okasan was up early one morning and, with tears in her eyes, she was packing her suitcase.

“Mum, what are you doing?” asked Hiroki, “and why are you crying?”

“I’m packing my suitcase because we are leaving today,” she explained, a little embarrassed for the tears, “I had such a good time, I don’t want to go home!”

“Mum! You aren’t going home today!” Hiroki was laughing, “We haven’t even had the wedding yet!”

Okasan was a continual source of entertainment for us all!

The day of the wedding came. It was Sunday in the States, Monday in Japan. Happy to just watch the videos later, I didn’t bother waking at 2am Japanese time in order to watch it live. So after my breakfast, and feeling like it might be towards the end of the wedding reception, I video called Shujin.

“Hey babe, how was the wedding?” all excited, I couldn’t wait to find out!

“Sorry, I’m busy at the minute, here, talk to mum,” and he shoved the phone into his mum’s hand.

“How was the wedding?” I asked with excitement.

“Oh, it’s tomorrow!” she replied.

Huh?! If I my excitement was a ballon, she had just popped it.

No, wait. I’M in your tomorrow! You’re in your today, which is my yesterday, which means the wedding was today!!! Wasn’t it?! (Clear as mud?! Time-zones are trippy!)

There she was, not in the dress that had been bought for the wedding, but in a nice dress she’d wear to church¹. And that made me doubly confused.

I could see she was at the church so I pressed on.

“Didn’t you have the wedding today?”

Thankfully she was still close enough to Shujin who happened to hear the conversation.

“Kaa-chan, don’t you remember we had the wedding this morning?!”

“Oh, did we?”

He gave a few prompts and finally Okasan’s memory kicked into gear, “Oh, souka (that’s right)!” before laughing at herself.

I breathed a sigh of relief, so grateful that I wasn’t going crazy!

A week or so after returning back to Japan, Shujin got notice that our replacement glass door had been shipped and would soon be arriving.

The next day the truck pulled up outside the Prayer House and there was no surprise this time. I expected the same courier to be arriving with our replacement glass door, replacing the one that had broken on the previous delivery. I was right, it was the same courier. No A-frame glass delivery truck. Just a standard courier. Maybe with more bubble wrap in the box this time!

The delivery man jumped down from the cab and opened up the back of the truck. The door lay flat in the back. Shujin helped him slide out the box with our glass door in it. With both men holding the box, they turned it on its side to carry it.

clink-clank-jingle-jangle-CRASH!

No extra bubble wrap.

The door was broken. All the broken glass slid in the box and hit the bottom.

Shujin’s heart soared. Thank you God!

He phoned the glass shop. It had been a few extra weeks now that our renovations had been held up waiting for that glass door, and now it had once again arrived broken. He put in his complaint. Rejected the order. Asked for a refund.

They conceded.

As the truck drove away with all four glass doors, we praised God for rescuing us from our dodgy mistake. Now, I had a little guilt that someone else had to pay (the glass shop) for our mistake. But in reality, they were also paying for their own mistakes.

We were helping their company make better decisions. Yes, the glass shop stopped offering shipping on glass doors after our incidents. And even though we received a refund, we still paid the price of time. We were able to focus on other areas of our renovation, but not having those doors had cost us several weeks of waiting and holding back on what we had intended to do.

We were now back to square one: where to buy glass doors? With the need for getting the bathroom ready in time for the installation of the unit bath, the glass doors got put on the back burner and all focus turned to the bathroom.

Not only did we need to build the walls and roof, but we also needed to install the window and put cladding on the outside of the bathroom as they would be needing to cut through it for the exhaust fan.

We also needed to remove the trip hazard—the timber lying across the living room, and build a floor for the kitchen and bathroom so that the builders who came to install the bathroom had a decent work environment. They needed to not only be able to have a clear space for walking, they also needed floorspace to place the unit bath items, such as the bath tub!

It was now winter. The air was very dry and rain very scarce. The weather was in our favour. Shujin piled up the timber outside and covered it with a blue tarp. Now, not even under a roof, and freely visible and accessible from the street, there was no way of putting it under lock and key.

But we lived in Japan. In rural Japan, where even taking fruit from the neighbour’s tree that lands on your side of the fence, was seen as stealing and was punishable by law. It’s just not a done thing here!

Yes, if Shujin did need to be concerned, the biggest concern would be a cat!

And this, dear friends, is one of the things I absolutely love about Japan.

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G’day! I’m Debbie, so glad you’re here! I’m an Aussie experiencing what it’s like to live in Japan. I started writing to share my experiences with family and friends and am delighted that Substack makes it possible to extend those friendships!

If you enjoy learning about living in a foreign country—the frustrations, laughs and wonder—you’ll enjoy being here.

If you have any interest in dementia and dementia caregiving, I see you, I feel you.

If you are curious about Japan, you’ll get to know about this beautiful country through the eyes of a foreigner.

If following renovation journeys is your thing, you’re in the right place! You’ll hear our stories about renovating our house, the Prayer House, and see the before and after pics—when we finally get there!

To all, welcome. So glad you’re here.

1. Photos from the wedding later confirmed that Okasan had worn the dress that was bought for the wedding. Phew! She’d clearly made herself comfortable and had changed afterwards!