Opposite Trajectory

I was looking forward to meeting up with my friend Adam for delicious craft beers downtown, but I wasn't looking forward to the walk down to the Izumi Chuo subway station.

There's always the bus, of course. And Eri always offers to drop me off in the car. I need my steps, though. And usually I love that walk.

But this evening I suited up for a 25-minute jaunt down the hill in 1 °C sleet.

And the effort was worth it. Adam and I had a grand feast of craft beers and truffle pizza and bagna càuda. The best part was I am certain everyone in that joint thought we were a happily married gay couple enjoying a holiday season date.

The beer was magnificent. I think we may have overindulged, but since I hardly ever do I was able to easily rationalize it to myself and feel good again almost instantly.

As I was getting ready to leave the house Kenzo was watching one of his Netflix shows and writing in his English book. He had the hot carpet on and a thick, furry blanket was draped all around him. One of his nicknames is Cozy Ken. He loves being cozy. He's like a housecat.

The boys were both pretty busy throughout the afternoon.

It's officially cold now. This morning's soccer club was decidedly a chilly experience. At first Kenzo was reluctant to participate, but once he did he was fine. Cozy Ken found out that by running around and having fun kicking the ball he can get naturally warm. It took some serious cajoling on my part, and even the head coach noted that it was rare for Kenzo to be like that.

Osamu had an opposite trajectory. He started out great.

And in the last half he kinda fell apart. He was just sobbing and mumbling, "Mama, maaaamaaaaa."

While they were playing I ran across the parking lot to Seria and got the boys some special stickers as a reward for sticking it out in the cold. Kenzo got dinosaurs and Osamu got trains. I try to avoid using extrinsic motivation whenever possible. Eri, too. But I think since the boys didn't know they were getting a reward it kinda qualifies as intrinsic motivation. At any rate, the morning was salvaged and we went on to have a comfy day indoors watching the snow and coloring and doing stickers in the living room on the hot carpet.

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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