This'll Just Take a Minute

Eri and I got married on Halloween seven years ago today. We're not obsessed with Halloween or anything. That was just the day that worked out at the venue we wanted. We celebrated tonight by opening some sparkling wine after the boys went to sleep and we sat at the kitchen table tiredly clinking glasses and talking about stuff we wanna do. This morning I rode my motorbike up to the company, where the autumn colors are even more vivid than in my neighborhood. A cool morning, a motorcycle ride, unlimited cafe lattes, a positive meeting with my boss.  When mama left for her class the boys were too hyper to take a nap. Working from home has its ups and downs, and today was a bit down due to the fact that the boys need a lot of attention sometimes. Other times they're perfectly independent, coloring or watching TV or building things with blocks and legos. They can work on their stuff for a few hours at a time when they have a mind to. Today they didn't have a mind to. It got a ...

The sign at the reception desk said "full". My dream of a whisky factory tour that ends with a complimentary sampler was abruptly shut down. If you want to take a tour of the Nikka Whisky Factory it's best to make reservations. Then we got in trouble. The boys love exploring, and there was a pond with ducks. After getting shut out of the factory tour we headed outside and started walking around. It's a beautiful place, nestled in the mountains between Sendai and Yamagata. And it's autumn so the brown, red, and yellow leaves create an astounding backdrop for some backwoods wandering. Just as the boys and I started to mosey on down a path behind the main building a lady came out and said, very politely of course, that we couldn't go that way. I had seen the sign, but I thought it was just for cars. It turned out there was very little wandering to be done at the Nikka factory.  We made the best of it. Upon further reflection, a 70-minute whisky factory tour that ...

Kenzo is getting better at soccer. Today he was controlling the ball a little more confidently. Instead of kicking and chasing it he's telling it where to go and making it go there. Osamu is... having fun. And that's really all that matters in the end anyway. Today was the day I got to prove the worth of the 40 dollar pumpkin I bought online, which I have to say every time had free shipping. After two weeks of staring at it, touching it, and imagining what the inside might look like, the boys and I did their very first pumpkin carving. Kenzo's first impression was that it's stinky. The plan was for me to cut and for them to clean out the inside, or at least separate the seeds. I did everything and they watched for a while in amazement and then went back to their activities and said call us when the jack-o-lantern is finished. I poured a glass of pinot noir and took my time. We saved a bunch of seeds to give to Eri's dad so he maybe he can start a little pumpkin patc...

Today the entire team was in the same room for the first time in almost three years. They came from Osaka, Tokyo, and even Pusan in Korea, and gathered at our company headquarters for a meeting that was quite a long time in the making. I have embraced working from home fully. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, the huge one for me being able to maximize my time with Eri and the boys. There's no commuting and barely any business trips any more. But I miss being around these people every day. In particular this little group that I lead/manage. We see each other almost every day online, but today, with the amazing weather and the deluxe beef tongue lunch boxes and the excitement in the air of all the announcements that were being made by the various teams, it was apparent to me and I think to everyone that we sorely need to meet in person as often as we can.  I have got to be one the luckiest people in the world to get to work with this special group of people. They are techn...

The other day the boys and I added a new clip to our carefully curated playlist. It's hard to make the cut. The boys are pretty selective. This time we are proud to announce that the new addition to our special funny movie clip collection is the staff interrogation scene from The Pink Panther Strikes Again , starting where Peter Sellers hops off the parallel bars and down a flight of stairs, only to step on the maid's foot and karate chop a suit of armor and hilarity ensues. I'm gonna be out tomorrow night with friends from work so I promised the boys we would do funny videos after story time for sure. Osamu always asks for it every night, and he cried the other night when I said no. I told them if we do it every day it won't be special. Kenzo sorta gets it. Osamu has a ways to go with patience and delayed gratification.  Eri came home from her class as we were settling in for funny videos on the top bunk, so she climbed up and enjoyed with the boys. She must be so con...

Eri is secretly entering me into a drawing to win beer. I was getting cans and bottles ready to put out for recycling tomorrow and I noticed this postcard in the front hall. What caught my eye was that it's addressed to someone named Brewdog. One of Eri's curious hobbies is entering mail-in drawings. She's actually won a lot of stuff over the years, though she's embarrassed to have people find out she does it. This time she wrote to this beer company. I guess they probably put an ad out somewhere saying they're accepting postcards for a big drawing to win beer so write in and say why you want to drink our beer. She even signed it from me. I feel loved. Eri also likes to quietly decorate the house in discreet ways. I was standing in the kitchen and noticed this little piece of Halloween flair. I don't even know when she did that. But I love it. The boys love it, too. I wonder sometimes what they're going to remember about their childhood when they're grow...

The crunch of the autumn leaves underfoot as I walk down these concrete steps is somehow pleasing and I don't know why. Maybe it's the crisp sound. Maybe it's the feeling that the seasons are changing and there's nothing we can do about it since we are insignificant in relation to the awesome power of nature and the universe. Or maybe it's just the crunchy sound. I've been experimenting with my daily routine to see if I can get better results, mostly mentally. This morning I started my work day right after Eri and the boys left at 8:10, and saved my morning walk for a little bit later, after 9:00. Then I've had my coffee, messaged my team, prioritized my tasks, looked over my calendar and gotten a good idea of what the day's flow is gonna be, and adjusted my head into a place where I can confidently say I have a vision for today's success and now I'm gonna go walk, think, and strategize.  It helps that no one was expecting me for meetings until 1...

Fake grass is underrated.  Our very modest garden area is carpeted with some fake grass that Eri and I hemmed and hawed over for weeks back in 2018 when we were finally settling into our very own house and getting down to business like the landscaping. In the end we got some great fake grass that looks real enough to satisfy that part of you that wants real grass but fake-looking enough to satisfy that part of us that wants everything, even nature, to be aesthetically pleasing. This was four years ago. I watched YouTube videos about how to do lay down fake grass, and I probably coulda done it. In the end we went with the pros, which probably saved us money as well as the sanctity of our marriage and family. After the guys made our garden green and grassy, there was a roll of leftover fake grass. It got put on the side of the house and it has been snowed on and rained on and baked by the summer sun for four years. This morning I resurrected that fake grass. The time to be of use had...

I'm not totally sure what a panic attack feels like or is officially defined as, but I had one, and it lasted for most of the morning. It happens sometimes. I remember the first one I ever had was in high school, after a cast party for a play I was in. It scared the heck out me. I had never heard of panic attacks. I went a long time without it happening again, but last year it started happening kinda regularly. I went to a doctor and he prescribed medicine, and it seemed to work, but I stopped taking it because I thought what I needed was professional counseling, which I've been doing for over a year now.  Maybe I'll try the medicine again. I think I just need to make some adjustments to my work habits. Yesterday's panic attack was caused by a combination of work and general life pressure. I think.  Eri and the boys and I were gonna go to grandpa's house to pick vegetables in his garden. The boys love grandpa's garden. In the end Eri and the boys went and I stay...

On special nights, after story time, the boys and I watch a short, curated playlist of movie clips I put together on YouTube. One of the clips is the last two minutes of the blind man scene from the movie Young Frankenstein , where the blind man lights the monster's thumb on fire when he thinks he's lighting his cigar. The boys howled with laughter again. That's their favorite. There's another scene from that movie in our playlist, too; the one where Igor tells Dr. Frankenstein that he got the wrong brain and the name on it was Abbey Normal. Osamu imitates Gene Wilder saying, "I will NOT be angry." When he chokes Marty Feldman the boys like to playfully imitate that as well. Even though the boys technically weren't 100% well-behaved tonight we still did special videos after story time. Sometimes I think I'm probably expecting too much. They're little boys and they're gonna fight with each other no matter what. I just need to deal with it. Lucki...

At 4:15 p.m. I was pretty much done, so I put a couple of high quality sausages in the frying pan, prepped some spicy mustard and even a little chunky wasabi, and poured a can of Ichiban Shibori into a tall pilsner glass and called it a day. The day was far from over, though. I was just mentally checking out. I should do what Kenzo does. He sits for long periods of time, working on coloring or writing or paper airplanes. Sometimes he faces out the window, and sometimes he faces the TV. Today it was the TV because he was coloring a Batman car so he needed to watch the movie Lego Batman again while he worked. Gotta that coloring accurate. The boys brought home their recent kindergarten curriculum books, both English and Japanese. Kenzo noticed his English writing book had some post-it notes stuck in it, so he opened it up and showed me. His teacher puts pink post-its where she recommends the kids try to finish at home. It's not homework. I love it. If I tried to force Kenzo to do wr...

"It wasn't me, it was Kenzo." "I didn't do it." Eri texted me last night that Osamu had gone into my office, grabbed a permanent marker off my desk, and drew on his face and hands. My first thought was, "Finally, we have arrived." He also apparently drew on some toys (sorry Lightning McQueen) and the bunk bed (which I haven't seen yet but have already expressed displeasure about to the boys). My other thought was that Eri's mom, who was watching the boys while I was away and while Eri was at school, must've had her hands seriously full.  I woke up early in Osaka this morning, had a coffee in the hotel lobby, walked across the boulevard to the airport, and hopped on the 9 a.m. flight back to Sendai. The ascent from Itami Airport heading north goes directly over the city, and it is glorious on a sunny morning. Osaka to Sendai is about 80 minutes and when the sky is clear and it's daylight the views are spectacular. I used to take it f...

As I was leaving the house yesterday my mother-in-law told me I should probably take a jacket. I was just sporting a polo shirt for traveling and I packed a short-sleeve dress shirt for my work day. I pointed to the sky and said it's fine. I even checked the weather report. A jacket will just be extra weight in my bag. This morning I walked from my Osaka Airport hotel to Shibahara-handaimae Station, and it was surprisingly delightful - hilly, scenic, quiet (with the passing sounds of old guys speaking in their Kansai dialect), and at two kilometers the perfect distance to get rolling with what was going to be a long and tiring day. A nice cool morning walk. No jacket needed. I even got a bit warm walking up those hills. A cool, cloudless morning walk through Osaka backstreets made it very hard for me to not be nostalgic about my time living here. It's a crazy city, but when it's at its best Osaka and the whole Kansai area is a wonderful place to live. Eri and I spent our fi...

I caught an evening flight to Osaka. I don't know if I've lost all sense of how to travel or if I've reset and more sensible now than ever, but I left the house for a two night business trip with my briefcase and my backpack. Eri asked me where my suitcase is and I said I don't need it. It got me thinking, though. Maybe I'm forgetting something. I'm so out of the business trip routine. So far so good though. I think it's fine.  If I've got my phone I have money and can technically get all of my work done. A number of years ago, when I was interviewing for the job I currently do, I flew up north from Kyushu and plumb forgot to pack underpants. I got into Sendai after most places had closed, but Japanese convenience stores always save the day. I still have those Family Mart underpants. I remember walking up to the counter with that, a steamed pork bun, and a tall can of Asahi Super Dry. I was wondering what that night shift clerk must've been thinking....

The red dragonfly finally met his fate. That mantis sitting in a box on our doorstep is well-nourished, and now I gotta find more bugs for him. The problem is I'm off on a business trip tomorrow for a couple of days. Maybe I'll get lucky and nab another lazy dragonfly when I take the trash out tomorrow. I walk this way every day, sometimes more than once, but today was the first time I thought to take a picture from this vantage point. This is the far side of the Dounji Temple site. I kind of take it for granted most days, but this is a ten minute walk from my house on the edge of Sendai and it is one of my favorite places.  I had a pretty busy meeting schedule today, including a lunch meeting with some teachers who made time to meet as they ate their lunch. So Eri set me up with an 11:30 bowl of champon.  I told her not to worry about me. I was gonna toss a frozen whatever in the microwave. Eri said settle down I got ya covered just come down at 11:30. The moyashi (beansprou...

That mantis chowed down on that grasshopper. When we left for the afternoon it was devouring the head and when we got back a few hours later there was just half a grasshopper and a satisfied mantis. I was hoping to ideally take it easy this morning because we were gonna spend the afternoon at a friend's house and the boys were not only not going to take a nap, they were gonna go crazy playing with my friend's corgi. We started out okay. The boys decided they wanted to do playdough, which seemed like the perfect low-impact activity before an exciting Sunday afternoon. I wish they would humor me a little with the picture-taking, though. They love purposefully making sour faces when the camera comes out. The only thing Osamu can make with playdough is a ball, so he lost interest and told mama he wanted to go to the park. I interjected because I also wanted to go to the park and get some steps in but Osamu made himself very clear. "I want to go with mama ." Kenzo worked...