I am currently insano at present. The last time I had more than four hours of sleep at night was Thursday…or was it Wedsnesday? Anyway, my friend was talking to me this morning, and she asked if I heard what she had said.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m too busy watching your head morph.” One of THOSE days.

So today I fidgeted like a Ritalin Tot, and couldn’t even sit still when Professor Hottie (of Future Thesis Advisor Fame) came into my class to introduce a guest lecture. Looked right at me and there I was, twiddling my hair and jiggling my leg and crunching on seaweed to counteract a noontime sodium freakout. Oh well.

I have been goofy in general for the past few days.

I’m not sure how I was behaving yesterday, either. I took Mamiko out to sign up for ESL classes at Seattle Central. Her English is at the survival skills level and pretty good, but I can tell she’s frustrated by how limited her thoughts are when we speak.

Just before Mr. Husband quit the taxi job, he met a newly-arrived Japanese couple while he was driving. They became friends and now we’re all spending time together.

I pointed out the Aurora Bridge to her while we were driving around.

“That’s the Aurora Bridge. Lots of people jump off it.” I made my hand dive and crash into my lap. We use a lot of hand motions and little drawings.

“Jump off?” Mamiko said. I could tell she was stuck there.

“Yes, Jump off. Uhh….” I tried to think of a useful synonym. “Ah! Seppuku!”

“Oh,” she said. “Seppuku? Jump off bridge? Oh.” She said she had heard that about the Golden Gate Bridge when they were in California. I wondered how many Americans have discussions about the suicide rate with recent immigrants.

Later we were at a cafe and I was pouring Franny a juice with soy protein in it. Mamiko has been seeing the word “soy” a lot–when they first moved here, they found a Japanese-language newspaper called “Soy Source” that was helpful to them.

“What is soy?” she asked. I thought again.

“Soy…it’s a bean. I know you know it. Aha…edamame.”

While we waited for our food we talked about kanji writing and what her name means.

“Ma-Mi-Ko.” She wrote her name in crayon, breaking up the syllables into kanji. “Means, ‘very-pretty-girl.’ What does ‘Franny’ mean?”

“Do you know ‘fen?” I asked. “Swamp? Bog?” She shook her head, and I picked up the crayon.

“See, here’s a frog, on a lily pad. And here’s some water, and some reeds and trees.” She nodded. “Swamp. Bog. And a church.” She knows “church” but I drew it anyway. “A church in the middle of a swamp. Franny.” We laughed at my drawing.

Sadly, “seppuku” and “edamame” are about the extent of my Japanese skills. But we’re getting along okay. Sometimes you don’t have to understand a person a hundred percent of the time to have fun.