Worthy of Emulating

Kenzo was still holding onto a solid 38.5 degree fever this morning, so kindergarten father's open house was out. We were both bummed out for kind of the same reason. Dads' open house day includes lunch; specifically, hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato chips. I was sad about missing out on overeating hamburgers and hot dogs and Kenzo was sad about missing potato chips.

We made the best of it. Kenzo got his potato chips at home for snack time. Papa had a frozen Thai noodle thing for lunch and is gonna have to wait until his next chance for hamburgers and hot dogs.

He spent the morning with me watching Netflix and playing halfheartedly in the living room with the energy he could muster up. We did a video call with grandma and Auntie Misty, and even though he wasn't his usual energetic self, he told me afterward that he was really happy to see them. It had been a while (too long a while) since we did family Facetime calls. We (I) have to be better about that.

Osamu, on the other hand, was out with mama having a tremendous Sunday. He got to play at the Izumi Chuo kids play room, go to the library and check out books, have a fancy lunch date, and go shopping.

Oh and Nanakita Park, too.

When they got back Eri somehow convinced both of them to head upstairs for a nap and I took the opportunity to head out and get my steps in. It sprinkled a bit ahead of bigger rain tonight, and it wasn't as cool as I thought it would be so I over-layered and got kinda sweaty, but it didn't matter because I was in awe over the return of autumn to Sendai.

Sendai is the city of trees. It really is a particularly lovely city, and the ward (borough) I live in is, in my biased opinion, the best.

Osamu picks up a lot of things from mama and papa. I do my best to try and only do and say things in the boys' presence that will be worthy of them emulating.

Comments

Mr. Blue Sky

Man, I conked out so hard on the living room floor tonight. Right after bath time, before story time. I barely remember. Completely exhausted. Big adventure day. Another in a long series I hope the boys will remember when they’re older... our first IMAX movie, a downtown city outing, and some life lessons in the game center. We left the house at 9:15 a.m. and didn’t get back until nearly 6 p.m., totally spent but full of pizza and memories. The Wild Robot in IMAX was totally stunning. The scale, the colors, the sound. We could feel every gust of wind and rustle of leaves. I made sure we had prime seats, row G, right in the center. Two big buckets of popcorn too, which, according to Kenzo and Osamu, I absolutely should not be sharing. “You should get your own!” they kept saying. I think a little bit of popcorn thievery is well within my rights as the papa. After the movie, we headed through the cold and wind across to the game center on the other side of Sendai Station. Being...

Not About Baseball

I stayed up past my bedtime again last night. I almost made it. I watched a couple of episodes of Ted Lasso and came to a good stopping point where I was satisfied with myself for enjoying some quiet TV time with my favorite show and even though it was after midnight, I was confident I could still get a pretty good night's sleep. But no. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to just lay on the living room carpet and put on a movie. I saw the first seven or eight minutes of Goodfellas and then I woke up when the end credits were rolling with Sid Vicious' is cover of My Way . I brush my teeth and I can see the light of day already shining in through the bathroom window. "It’s almost the longest day of the year," I told myself, to at least rationalize why I'm brushing my teeth and crawling into bed at this hour. I was trying to minimize the mental anguish I regularly put on myself for not just going to bed like I should. I told Eri that I was thinking a...

Sendai vs. Tokushima

Osamu said he had to go pee, and I make it a habit to believe him most of the time. Another habit I have is taking him to go pee, much of the time. When we came out of the restroom I decided it was time for a beer, so with Osamu holding my hand we waltzed over to the food concession and I was checking out the selection, and the prices. Seven hundred yen for a draft beer. I had a feeling. It was only 500 for a whiskey cocktail (whiskey with water on the rocks) but I wasn't about to be that much of a derelict this early with my four-year-old son in tow. The tickets were free, the seats aren't bad, might as well spend seven bucks on a beer. The problem was that the dude next to us with his little boy about the same age as Mumu-chan loudly and with braggadocio you don't often see in these parts ordered a Blue Hawaii snow cone for his kid. I heard this and panicked. Last weekend at Michinoku Park I got a Blue Hawaii snow cone for Osamu and he loved it. I looked down at my l...

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