The Real American Deal

Hey, all you bloggers. If you do not live in Chicago, you need to count yourself lucky. It is REALLY cold here. I went to a meeting last night, and when I came out two hours later my locks were frozen. I was finally able to get the passenger door open and managed to crawl to the driver’s seat. It reminded me of another journal entry Randy and I read the other night. It was written October 25, 1981. We had two little Japanese girls and a Suzuki instructor stay with us for several days. Basically, I just about killed myself preparing and entertaining them while they were here. As I re-read about all the cooking, cleaning, transporting our guests to rehearsals and performances, taking them to the mall for shopping, meals consisting of appetizers, full ham dinners with potatoes, veggies, salad, dessert and homemade muffins, lunches of sandwiches made on homemade bread with cookies fresh from the oven, craft activities for the girls, taking them to the ward Halloween carnival, midnight snacks and airport runs, I wondered how we ever did it with six kids of our own to take care of and busy schedules that had to continue for us. After dropping our guests at the airport I recorded these thoughts.

“I have enjoyed this experience, but at the same time I have had some really strange feelings. I must be an insecure person to always have such feelings of inadequacy in situations like this. I wanted to be a really good hostess and do everything possible to make them feel at home and comfortable. I made so many plans and certainly expended a lot of energy getting ready and tried to have everything just right, but after it’s all over I often feel very foolish – like how could I have possibly thought I could do such a good job and it was actually so inadequate. I looked around at all the host families and felt certain that their preparations had not been so humble as homemade bread and cookies. They took their guests to Japanese restaurants and had nicer home, smaller families, fewer children crying and quarreling. They have cars that you don’t have to crawl through the hatch and open the doors because your key only fits the back. They have piano pedals that don’t squeak. They took stacks of Polaroid pictures – not colored prints with their little instamatic camera held together with rubber bands. They didn’t have to run into the bathroom each time someone came out and jiggle the handle to make the toilet stop running. I saw Nora Borso at the store the other day and she said, ‘You’re hosting some of the Suzuki children. Gee, your house must be huge. We would love to do that, but we only have three bedrooms’ (with 2 children). I didn’t tell her that with our six children we only have four bedrooms, but where there’s a will there’s a way. As we could not communicate, I guess I will never know how our guests felt. I hope that I only feel like a fool – that others don’t think I am, or most of all that I’m really not.”

I guess I’m a more secure person now. I think, “Who wants to come all the way to America to eat in a Japanese restaurant? I think our guests probably got the best taste of real Americana—life in the burbs, real American food, a big and active family, Halloween, the art of crafting, and a shopping mall. They probably had plenty of things to tell the others about as they flew back to Japan, and I’ll bet they have never forgotten it!