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Awoken By a Ghost

Mama's onigiris in the park are the best. Seaweed-wrapped and filled with salmon.



A ghost woke me up this morning. Turns out it was just Kenzo with a blanket over him. He was very pleased with the fact that my reaction was actually genuine surprise.

When I made my way downstairs the boys had already gotten their soccer uniforms on and eaten pancakes. I got them set up with their toothbrushes and did face washing and thermos filling and final departure check.


Kenzo and Osamu love soccer Saturday. I know part of why they love it is because the coaches are great. Osamu especially loves Coach Ono. He's such a good guy, and always humors the kids when they ask him to kick the ball so it bounces off the roof of the dome. He might be a show-off, but he's forgiven. He just likes playing soccer and teaching kids to play. Coach Hama is a super big guy that commands a serious presence. The main dude, Coach Ike, told me today that Osamu seems to be showing serious improvement. When I asked for details he said Osamu now seems to get that the ball should go into the goal. That made sense to me. The boys just love kicking the ball around without any sense of purpose. Which I'm not against.


Months ago I marked on my calendar that the Rifu park playground remodel would be done on March 24th. So today after soccer we had to head over there.


The new playground did not disappoint.


The boys made a friend of course, so I chatted up the mom. She asked me the usual questions about where I'm from and the boys being half Japanese and how I teach the boys English. I ended up talking this poor woman's head off for nearly 45 minutes. She must've been so tired. I even went into how much plane tickets cost these days and she told me she's never been outside of Japan so I said hey Korea is so close and such a good place. She said she was nervous about overseas travel but that talking with me gave her courage.

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