Thursday, April 08, 2010

On duty

Yesterday I met police officers and city officials and bowed hundreds of times and said "Yoroshiku ongegai shimasu." "Please be so kind as to regard me favorably." (Take my word for it. That's what you say in any and all situations in Japan.) I am officially a crosswalk guard.

And this morning I finished my first hour of crosswalk duty. It takes me as long to get dressed as it does to do the duty (not true but it seems like it). I HOPE that this is the last picture of me dressed as a crosswalk guard for awhile on this blog. Tetsu seemed to think it necessary to record my leaving for the historic event.

The uniform is still too large and yes I called the city hall and asked if they could replace it with a smaller size but no, they can't. I've asked a seamstress friend to come and look at it today but she just laughed when she saw the pictures on my blog and told me to call the city hall. I may or may not be on the sewing machine this afternoon trying to take in a few seams...

And I've found another uniform glitch. You cat owners will probably sympathise with me when I say that I am somewhat limited when wearing clothes. (Now you know why I only wear jeans.) For one, I don't wear black. I would like to wear black because it is supposed to be slenderizing but I don't unless I want a cloud of cat hairs on my rear end. There are also some fabrics that catch the cat hair more than others so I go around in stores running my fingers over fabric trying to determine what is and is not cat proof.

My uniform is NOT cat proof. I have tried the uniform on twice. It has been hanging on a hanger in the corner of the room. Even so when I put it on this morning Tetsu had to go over me with the sticky roller. I doubt that he is going to do this for me every morning. And when I came back from duty I find cat hair "clouds" here and there UNDER the jacket. How did they get there? My crosswalk guard uniform ATTRACTS cat hair!

Still, all the children safely made it across the crosswalk this morning with me blowing my whistle and waving my flag. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

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