My father in-law lent me his Canon New EOS Kiss, known as the Rebel G in North America, so I can learn how to use an SLR and take some black and white photos. I took my first roll in on Sunday and will see the results tomorrow. That is one thing lost with digital, the anticipation.

In Japan blue means green, well not everything but when talking about traffic lights and young fruits green (midori) becomes blue (ao). Even after five years I still have a hard time when someone says "oh, the light turned blue" or "better run or we will miss the blue light" when referring to the green traffic light. I always ask family and friends why this is but all I ever get is "well, we know it's really green but we just call it blue, no reason." Recently I learned that fresh green bananas, tomatoes etc. are called blue. I could not make the connection until the other day when a colleague (non-Japanese) gave me his theory.

In English when we refer to someone or something as new or fresh we use the word green, but in Japanese blue is used to describe new and fresh. Why is that? Because, as the theory goes, when babies of asian decent are born they almost always have a large blue bruise-like birthmark on their behinds or lower backs. Even though I am caucasian my daughter Frances has a light blue birthmark or "mongolian bruise" on her bum. The mongolian bruise or spot as they are called are sometimes confused with bruises caused by child abuse. Blue=Young. This explains the fruits but what about the traffic light? Like I said, this is just a theory. What do you think?

It has been a long weekend full of visitors cooing over Frances, pooping, changing, feeding, sleeping, sleeping, feeding, pooping, changing... opps pooping again, then changing, and it's time for feeding again.

*some photos taken around june in Shinjuku and girl in Bush "Not my President" T-shirt at noborito sta. can be purchased from Fat Wreck Chords

I'm back to work and Okasan is back for another week helping Masako with the house work. It seems common for most new Japanese mothers to stay at their parents home for up to a month after giving birth. I try my best to accept the customs here but that was one was too much for me. Masako's parents live an hour by train from us away from the city and there was no way I was either going to commute an extra 2 hours (already close to 3 hours) a day to see Frankie or just not see her until the weekends. Her parents understood my problem with that so Okasan (Masako's mother) has come to stay with us.

Frances is getting sweeter by the day. Her eyes wide open when I come home from work ready for papa to bathe and play with her.

On a side note it was my friend and coworker's birthday today, so we checked to see what other famous people share his birthday. No big names for him but for mine there was Pat Buchanan, Burt Lancaster, k.d. lang and rapper Nelly who shares not only the same birth day as me but the same year as well. Well gotta go, it's getting hot in herre

I've enjoyed my week off with Masako and Frances immensely to say the least, and now it's back to the office starting tomorrow. Okasan has been staying with us since Masako and Frances came home, doing most if not all the cooking and cleaning. It's great seeing that she has to be one of the best cooks I know and not having to worry about the dishes or laundry all week has given mamma and papa time to bond with Frankie.

I don't normally recommend movies via my blog but Dinner Rush is one of the best films I have seen recently. I see it came out in 2000 but my local video store stocked it as a new release, were a little bit behind out here.

Yesterday Masako and I went to our city hall to apply for the Certificate of Acceptance of Registration of Birth (Shussei todoke). We need this document from our city as one piece of ID to apply for the Certificate of Canadian Citizenship (CCC). We figured there would be no problem, and boy were we wrong. When Masako and I got married I encouraged her to use her maiden name Kubota as a middle name, but since the Japanese government does not recognize middle names she had to appear in front of a judge and change her last name to Kubota Hegge to give the feeling of a middle name but would officially be a last name on Japanese documents. While filling out the documents yesterday we had to state Frances's full name, Frances Shiori Hegge. When our case worker got to the name he let out a big sucking noise from between his teeth and an "eeeee kono myoji deha dame desu" (sorry but she can not have this last name). Turns out that since Japanese documents list Masako's last name as Kubota Hegge our daughter has to have the same last name. Well of course being her father my last name would naturally be used right? Wrong.

Japan has two systems of paper chase, the "Family Registry" (koseki touhon), and the "Residence Form" ( juuminhyou), which establish and clarify a Japanese's status re citizenship and domicile. When two Japanese marry, they alter their koseki . When they move, they register at their new address, and get a juuminhyou locally. With me so far?

However, if you are not a citizen, by law you are not accorded the right to have a koseki . This may sound like par for the course, but keep in mind that as a foreigner, you are put down on your spouse's koseki not as a married couple, under the heading "wife" or "husband" like any Japanese, but as a "remark" ( bikou) on the form. The marriage is treated differently--as a footnote--which is by definition discriminatory. debito.org

Since Masako's name is at the top of the Koseki her last name is used and mine is not even considered seeing that her Koseki reads as if she were single and my daughter fatherless. To have our daughter's last name change back to its proper form Masako needs to go back to the courts to have her name changed yet again to Hegge and drop the Kubota, and this may take up to 3 months for a decision. To add to the list of pointless paperwork we, or shall I say my wife needs to complete is a form that, get this, proves Frances is spelled F-R-A-N-C-E-S, because when writing Japanese in Roman characters everything is phonetic, so Frances would then be spelled Furanshisu... We need to show ID for her that shows the correct spelling or the Japanese government will not accept Frances and make us use Furanshisu.

Which brings us back to our original objective, which was to obtain the Certificate of Canadian Citizenship, (this can be used as proof of her names spelling). Hope you can see the catch 22 here.

I feel like locking the Canadian and Japanese governments in a room and telling them that they can not come out until they decide on a solution to the problem they created. To me it feels like all this is set up to keep Japanese Japanese and Foreign Foreign. For example while filling out one of the 30 forms yesterday Masako entered her birthday and mine using the standard Emperor year format (the Emperor year format is used for all official government documents, 1978=53 in Emperor year format) As he crossed out my birth year our case worker told us that because I am not Japanese I have to use 1978 for my birth year and not the Emperor year of 53. Now who makes up a rule like that? Some 90 year old official with a bit of an agenda I think.

With Masako, Frances and I planning to visit my Family in Canada sometime in October or November we hope we can get everything in order and we all have names that are acceptable to the Japanese government, just wait till they find out I have 2 middle names! I might be deported for that.

I always get a odd reaction when people ask me what my daughters name is. "Frances?" they say waiting for some kind of explanation. Frances is the name of my grandmother on my mother's side or Nana as I have always called her. I also like the classic feel of Frances and names that can be used for a boy or girl . We tossed around a few names but Frances was always at the top of the list. One important thing for me in choosing a name were the nick names she would get. Here is what family and friends have been calling her so far, Frances, Fran, Franny, Fran-chan, Franny-chan, Frankie (my favourite), Francine, and yes even Franco (not a fan of that one). There is not much of a story behind the name Shiori, just sounds cute.

In an effort to not let this turn into a dedicated baby site I have set up an album of baby photos. Those needing their daily fix of Frankie can check it out.

*above photos taken while playing around with DSC-F707 and of course slipped in a photo of our little sweetheart.

I miscalculated and thought Masako and Frances were coming home on Monday but actually they are coming home tomorrow. To say that I will be happy to have them at home would be a huge understatement. Like I said before I only got to spend 2 hours with Frances when she was born and since then the closest I could get to her was from behind an inch of foggy glass, hence the soft photos. I still have many things to get ready before tomorrow morning so I will leave you with a few of my favourite photos from the past few days.

Our daughter Frances Shiori Hegge was born today at 6:52pm and weighing in at 3,100g or 6.8 lbs. Masako is recovering quickly and most of all Frances is healthy, full of energy and really, really cute. I am very tired so I will just let the photos speak for themselves.

We've waited 9 months, bought crib, stroller, and tiny little cloths. Cameras are charged with plenty of memory and video tape. Made room in our home, our lives and hearts. Now all we can do is wait. The first chance I get I will post a photo of our newborn baby in my moblog side panel and some shots before that in the moblog and mobile shots gallery as well.

bye for now.