=January 9.=--The New Year decorations are beginning to be pulled down from the streets, but a little tuft of pine is left in the place of each, and sometimes surrounded with a garland of rope.
As I was at home this afternoon, I had long talks with my landlady, to whom I seem to afford a great amount of interest. The clothes of a Japanese woman are really very cold and draughty for winter, because of the way the skimpy skirt opens in front (there is no front seam, it is only folded and confined by the broad _obi_ or belt), though they may have as many as half a dozen padded garments on at once. She sees me, of course, in all stages of dress and undress, and greatly admires my warm spun knickers and stockings!
=January 10.=--I have been in this house now nearly two and a half months--except, of course, when I have been away--and _every night_ I have had _identically the same things for dinner_. Dreadful! Not at all--I have come to the conclusion that it is a most excellent plan. How many men and women are worried and bored by the never-ending question, “What can we have for dinner?” If you always have the same things this most troublesome of all domestic problems disappears. No one wants anything but water to bathe in, unless they be fairy princesses or Queens of Scots, and yet the delight of a bath never palls: in these months I have had the same things to eat daily and relished them hugely. Consciously or unconsciously, we are so much the creatures of habit that if we are led to expect variety in our dinners, the same menu repeated twice becomes tiring and three times insufferable. We even remember what we had last week--but if we have daily food always the same, we judge only its quality, and if it is well cooked, relish it. Of course the menu must be wide and well chosen. I, for example, have the same five kinds of vegetables always served with my small piece of steak, and the frying of the fish is superb. From this peace I am now driven out by my landlady, who has at last realised that some variety would be, to say the least of it, usual. She consulted me about it, and has bought a cookery book of “sea food,” as foreign cookery is called, so I gave her a lesson in soups for a beginning, that being the part of the menu she managed least well. Oh me!--those dear peaceful dinners--I recommend every one to try the plan; it is philosophically sound and practically excellent.