The Misadvenures of Sara

It's really incredible the sort of mistakes I'm making here - all because I can't read anything! I don't remember making mistakes of this order in Kenya, but then again, I didn't have the resources in Kenya to make many mistakes!
I tried to make rice a few days ago. The rice here in Japan is very different than the rice at home, and of course I just grabbed a package off the grocery store shelf, with no real idea of what I was buying.
I made it the way I would make rice at home - throw it in the pot and add an equal amount of water. Well, it burned and still wasn't cooked through. Then I thought I had a rice cooker so I pulled it out this morning for another attempt at making rice. Well, it's not a rice cooker, it's a space heater (this was immediately apparent from the kerosene odor emitting from it). Scratch that! So I looked on-line and found some instructions on making Japanese rice. It's very complicated for plain ol' rice! First you rinse it, many many times until the water runs clear (my water never did, and I lost patience for the process after a bit). Then you add the water and let it soak for an hour! Good thing I didn't need this rice right away! Then you boil it for 15 - 20 minutes. Then you steam it for another 10 minutes! Wow, I would have starved to death had I been counting on this rice. But it turned out OK, just a little bit browned rice on the bottom. I put it in the fridge to make rice pudding out of later. I'll let you know how that turns out!
If I can't cook rice properly, it doesn't look good for the rest of my cooking skills here. The other day, I bought a noodle package (kind of like the ones you can get in America, where you add some butter and some milk and water and make it on the stove). So I thought I could handle that here, no problem. I even figured out the amounts of milk and water to use. Then I added the "seasoning" packet. Well, it wasn't seasoning; it was a serious thickening agent which immediately made the liquid so thick the pasta couldn't cook. Another failed meal.
On to housekeeping. I have lovely wood floors which demand a lot of sweeping. And I have a Swiffer like thing. Today though, I decided the floors needed a bit more attention, so I pulled out an Orange cleaning solution and sprayed that all over the floors. Apparently that was way too much, because now, while my floors are clean, they're also very soapy and dingy. Rinsing as best I could with water several times over was only a partial improvement.
But I did find a persimmon today at the grocery store! They're about a dollar apiece (seems to be the standard price for fruit in season. You don't want to know the cost out of season!). It may not have been quite ripe, but was tasty - maybe a bit like a peach...