Rain

I try not to complain too much about the weather, but today qualifies as a worthy candidate for a little complaining.
It's funny - on Wednesday we had gone about 40 hours w/o rain and I was feeling a little optimistic that the rain had stopped for a while, that maybe the rainy season was over. And I even wrote an email to Bryan including the phrase "2 days and counting w/o rain." Well done - I jinxed it! Since then it's become YET MORE STINKING HUMID than ever. I vacuumed the house very well Wednesday and by Thursday afternoon it is SO sticky and SO humid that our tatami grass mats (ie, carpet) are smelling pretty rank. And that's annoying. The Japanese say that tatami is much better suited to the Japanese climate than carpet, and they could be right. But dang, they stink when they're new and in the middle of 20 straight days of 80 degree, 80% humidity days!
Certain things have been sprouting lots of mold. Certain pairs of shoes. My toiletries bag. An insulated lunchbag. The wall. A wooden serving spoon. The tatami. So what do we do? Shoes - clean them carefully. Lunchbag and spoon - throw away. Wall - scrub w/ bleach-based "mold killer" product. Tatami - vacuum more often. Toiletries bag - clean twice and think it's probably doomed.
We finally, however, got the info that our wall A/C unit has a "dry" setting, so we got one of our friends to show us how to launch the Dry mode. Hopefully it'll actually do what it's supposed to, b/c tonight sleeping could be a tall order w/o it. It is THAT sticky. Houston's got nothing on this weather, man.
I'm slogging thru a period of not wanting to study Japanese. It's hard to overcome - I'm putting in a little time most days, but I quickly lose patience. I wonder if this funk won't last until we move out of Kikai. Thinking that's possible. Also, though I hate to admit it, my attitude could well improve when it stops raining every day.