Tailor of a Cat Prin



I came across a Japanese website that sells accessories for cats (feline cos-play). The fact that these cats are able to convey a variety of emotions like fear, depression, annoyance and self-righteous indignation reminds me why I love cats so much in the first place. See below for some of the absolutely brilliant copy editing.


A spring admission season -- exactly . It is the uniform of "the school of a sacred cat"!

I congratulate you on the entrance of you to "the school of a sacred cat" which we want to tell to your cat. All the cats that can be stylishly dressed well in the "CAT PRIN sailor color" which is the uniform of this school are suitable to the student of "the school of a sacred cat." If a sailor color is worn, a cat will disguise itself wisely! Since it can equip on a piece of Velcro, attachment and detachment are easy!




A cat is gorgeous and wild Leopard which disguises itself! Dress a cat only with shawl. Shawl achieves the duty of a foppish muffler. Back cloth is a tartan check handle and a hat and shawl look dear. Moreover, since it can equip with both on a piece of Velcro, attachment and detachment are easy!




Anne of Green Gables appeared in popular costume play series!

The hair of the red hair of costume is coquettish and cute. The cat which became a hood figure is likely to have a broom at any moment, and is likely to begin cleaning. As for the blouse of the country tone made with the same cloth as a hood, the yellow flower arrangement of the center of a collar is impressive, and looks very prettily! Since it can equip with a hood and a blouse on a piece of Velcro, attachment and detachment are easy!



It is spring new work! They are frog transformation goods!

This is a dear frog transformation set. It is made from bright green felt cloth, and the big eye of a frog is attached. Even if it takes, it is finished to the pop impression. Please observe the leg fin wound around a head. Since it can equip also with a hat and head volume on a piece of Velcro, attachment and detachment are easy!

Dr. Strangelove Gives Me a Present

Last week, in an ultra-rare instance of failure on the part of my immune system, I was taken with an old-man cold that stubbornly planted camp in my lungs, making wet-leaf fires, keeping me up all night with his drunken tirades, and using my esophagus as his own personal latrine. I tolerated the intrusion for a while. With equal bullheadedness I burned through my days, refusing to acknowledge the wayward hitchhiker squatting on my inland empire. Then, on Monday, I nearly fainted in the shower, and by Thursday I was confined to bed, eating green tea ice cream and taking naps between watching four episode blocks of Lost. Juli pleaded with me to go to the doctor. She said, "You can go to the ENT behind Seiyu. He’s really old and gentle and speaks flawless English. Plus, you can get your ear checked out." For the past few months my ear has been beleaguered by a searing intermittent pain, purely external, which Juli had convinced me was a symptom of TMJ, otherwise known as "Tough-shit, Mandible Joint."
So with Juli in tow I went, trudged up the hill hacking and moaning and spitting out the mouthfuls of mustardy afterbirth that eked laboriously up from my throat. I checked in with the nurses, somehow making my symptoms understood with the universal sign-language for yes, my nose is running, and yes I sound like a tuberculosis patient in a Civil War-era hospice. In the waiting room, a doughy mother eyed me suspiciously and held back her literally snot-nosed children from entering the flight path of my fierce gaijin cough.
Eventually, I was ushered in to see the ENT, a turtle-ish Dr. Strangelove with small round maniac glasses above his white surgeon’s mask. My first thought, somewhat guiltily, was he’s old enough to be a war criminal. I remembered Shusaku Endo’s The Sea and Poison—grim vivisections, punctured lungs, and cold salt water drained into the blue veins of U.S. POWs. Here I am, the same age as the soldiers this mad doctor likely dismantled. I was conscious of my mind vaulting to ridiculous, arguably racist conclusions. The doctor was leaned over his desk, making notes with the kind of stubby pencil you get at miniature golf courses. It had been a minute since I had entered and he still hadn’t said anything.
"Hello," I said.
"Ah, hello." He kept on jotting. "What is the trouble?" His voice was papery and high and stretched.
"Well, I have a cough and a runny nose and…"
"Any fever?" He looked up and swiveled his chair to face me.
"No, not now. Earlier this week, Monday, I think I had a fever."
"What was your temperature?"
"I don’t know. I didn’t check. But it felt high."
"How long have you been coughing?"
"About three weeks, maybe a month."
"Since February 9?"
"Around then."
"Why didn’t you go to the doctor?"
"I guess I’m stubborn."
"Any trouble with inspiration?"
"I’m sorry?"
"With inspiration. Your breathing."
"No, no. Just coughing really. Also, the reason I came to you is my wife has been here before. Julianna Broadwater."
"She has?"
"Yes. And I’ve been having this burning pain in my left ear, just on the outside, and I’m not sure what’s causing it, maybe TMJ."
He let out a loud, singular laugh and rolled toward me in his chair. "I don’t think so." Without warning he pushed me sideways against the green leather headrest and held me there with a Vulcan telepathy grip on my temple. I could feel him put something in my ear and felt heat from a burst of light. He was probing close to my eardrum and I winced against the metallic cold.
"Do you feel an itching?"
"No. I just think…"
He loosened his grip and wiped a small hard ball of amber wax on my forearm.
"A present for you."
By this time I was nervous and thinking that at any moment he could produce a scalpel from inside of his sleeve and flay my cheeks open in a kuchisake-onna grin so that he might have a better view of my tonsils. I stared warily as he rolled to his instrument table and grabbed what I assume was a forked, metal tongue depressor. He grabbed my jaw as if to pry open my mouth and, when I fearfully complied, stuck the thing so far down my throat that I began gagging and tried to push him away. I caught my breath as he held the depressor above my face like a bayonet.
"I can’t, I’m going to throw up."
"One more time."
I reluctantly opened my mouth again and the depressor went in further this time, scraping up against my uvula, causing a wall of bile to rise in the back of my mouth.
"Stop," I gasped. He put down the depressor and motioned for the nurse.
"Go with the nurse. I will prescribe medicine for your cough and inspiration. Come back tomorrow at this time, good?"
As I was leaving I grabbed a tissue from off his desk so I could wipe away my present.

Needless to say, I didn’t go back the next day. When I got to the pharmacy, I found out that he had prescribed eight different medicines, including an inhaler for my inspiration. Juli was bewildered, as she had had a really great experience with the guy a few months ago. I’m not sure why he was so rough with me. Maybe I was giving him flashbacks?

Christmas Purikura 

Last December, we barged into a local arcade armed with a group of friends, a bag of 100 yen coins, three creepy ex-president masks and two Santa suits. The best part was that we had no idea what the screen behind us would show until two seconds before the flash went off. So inside the booth, our conversations would go something like this: "It's Buddha! Can we both fit on his lap?" "Oh this one's the North Pole! What should we do?" "Leap Frog!" "Ooh, what's next?! What's next?!" "Oh, it's an oil lamp in Egypt!" "Quick! Rub the lamp and I'll be the genie!"

My school is changing history

After operating for over a century as an exclusively girls-only school, they have responded to the government's arm twisting and are opening their doors to male applicants for the first time this spring.

The paint is still drying in the newly constructed and quite swanky boy's restrooms. The other day I witnessed news crews anxiously setting up cameras inside them under the watchful eye of a vice principal. All this celebratory attention lavished on the boy's restrooms is a dramatic contrast to the rest of the school's Chernobyl vibe. And no, inviting the comparison isn't much of an exaggeration, though instead of radiation, our chief environmental hazard stems from asbestos and paint made in China. Sort of like if 17 years ago, this school stopped running for whatever reason, everyone hastily evacuated and no one ever returned to collect their things. And I am not the sort of American who thinks "Oh, that distinctive Soviet charm!" everytime I see forbidding concrete structures, peeling paint, broken rotary telephones, dirty fans from the Eisenhower administration or creepy public service posters.

Besides, there is a Belarusian restaurant next door to our apartment where the proprieter's Stalin-inspired hospitality and attitude towards Americans make the Cold War seem as current and alive as the one in Iraq. And Casey refuses to go there again on account of "her vampire teeth."

But back to my ever-elusive point, there is something about the school that I can't adequately describe. "Neglect" isn't the right word, because that wouldn't fair to the janitorial staff. It just feels like Miss Havisham's mansion, ancient, vaguely female and deterioating. We even have an eroding bronze statue of a naked adolescent girl at the front of our school as a hallmark of feminine decay.

And for the record, Casey's school, formerly an all boy's school, is very different. A telling indication of how the Miyagi government prioritizes its spending.

Valentine

On Valentine's Day, 3 giggling girls came barreling into the teachers' room after the obligatory thursday morning meeting. Wearily, all the teachers looked up wearing exasperated expressions and I felt sorry for whoever was going to be the recipient of both the girls' attention and the wrath of the teachers who work here.

Then girls made a bee-line to me, scattered a few kitkats on my desk and boldly presented me with a polyester rose. "For you! Varentines plesent for you!" The staffroom fell dangerously silent, this sort of thing isn't done at my school. We take ourselves much too seriously.

Very much touched, and slightly concerned about the subsequent discussions about how I shouldn't socialize with students at my desk since it is a distraction for the 40 other teachers, I politely oohed and ahhed at the beauty of the rose. The girls started snickering wickedly, and then I noticed a tuft of red lace sticking out from the center of the rose. I curiously gave it a tug and the girls suddenly freaked out and started shrieking "NO! NO! Plesent for you and CASHEY! Open it with CASHEY at HOME! For your VARENTINES with CASHEY! LOVE-LOVE!" All the teachers in my vicinity instantly became enraptured with the nearest blackboard/screensaver/office memo to them. I could literally see their ears prick up as their faces grow ever more stoic. The girls collapsed over each other in a fit of giggles and I nervously stuffed the rose and chocolates into my purse. Later alone, after closer inspection, I found something that could be described as underwear. Though I don't know anyone who could call it that in good conscience.

(Side note: Two of these girls were trouble-makers in my class. Completely uninterested in English and resistant to participating in any activities. But having a snarky little brother who stubbornly refused to go along with my ideas has instilled a bossy big sister approach in my response to these students. So I always end up pulling up a chair next to them, pretend to be oblivious to how mortified they are, and start talking to them in English about their hair, boyfriends, eye-lash curlers, why Japanese people like white bread so much or the wierd "English" on their pencil cases. If they aren't going to do the work in class, they have to talk to me in English. After all, it is technically called "English Oral Communication" and they have clearly benefited more from the individual attention. Because after 11 months of this, we've become pretty well aquainted and their English has seriously improved. I haven't let their references to sex, hello kitty sex or obsession with Casey faze me, so they've been going through their mental rolodex for ways to shock me. I am wearily anticipating what they will come up with next.)