Skip to main content

Mogi-san

At the end of my morning walk I was walking down the steps from the main road to our street and I ran into Mogi-san and his wife. They're long-time residents of this neighborhood. I need to make time to ask them how they've seen it change over the years. Even in our short five years since moving here we've seen some curious changes. For the better, luckily. Mostly just old and vacant houses being torn down and brand new houses replacing them, with more and more younger families with kids breathing new life into each street.

Mogi-san is always very friendly. He's a quiet retired guy, but busy. He loves wrenching in his garage. This morning he and his wife greeted me warmly as always and then he told me he's worried about something. 

I was thinking, "Oh boy, what could this be?"

He said he knows I'm the vice-chairperson and in charge of the neighborhood care division and told me it can be hard. I said I'm learning about all the duties little by little and even though it's busy I love doing things with the good people of our neighborhood. 

He must've been thinking, "Man how is this guy middle-aged still an optimistic dumbbell?"

He looked at me very seriously and offered his support if I ever need help with neighborhood association activities. I told him I really appreciate that, which I do. Even though I think I'll be fine, I appreciate that Mogi-san took the time to even say that to me.

Osamu was already hopping on me before six in the morning. Kenzo came down soon after and mama, who was already dressed, was having a serious conversation with Kenzo and called for me to hurry and get up and join the discussion.

It’s about Kenzo and his fibbing.

He’s been using a magic marker to color on his pencil box and erasers and other things that shouldn't be marked up with permanent black ink. When Eri asked him about it, he said somebody else did it. This was a continuation of an issue that's been brewing for the last couple of days, but this morning Eri got down to brass tacks with Kenzo.

Then she handed it over to me. I told him that if he does something bad or if he makes a mistake the best thing to do is to say you did it and own it. Everyone goofs it, especially little boys. I also told him mama and papa are not going to get angry about his mistakes or even his naughty behavior, but that lying about it is way worse and that will land him in hot water.

He gets it. But he's gonna fib again. I can kinda feel it.

We finally got the pro photos from Kenzo's elementary school entrance ceremony.



Osamu loves writing letters. He writes letters to different people almost every day. The other day he wrote a letter to Rinka-chan, the 6th grade girl next door. This morning she gave him a letter she wrote in return.


She even drew original pictures of bugs that she knows Osamu likes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...