That Sleeping Guy

Kenzo and Osamu’s cousin Yuzuki told her mom that she thinks it would be good to give that sleeping guy a blanket. Apparently she either forgot or never knew my name. It’s not her fault. We don’t see her that often.

Today is Eri’s dad’s birthday and also the first day of a five day weekend, so we headed up to her hometown to have a celebratory lunch.

We figured every place would be jammed with people so we did a magnificent sushi lunch at grandpa’s house.

With fresh corn as appetizers of course.

After getting very full and catching butterflies in grandpa's garden with the boys and just being sort of generally exhausted I retreated to the back room of the house and laid down on the tatami to take a break and ended up napping for an hour.

It wasn’t until we got in the car to leave that I realized I missed birthday cake time.

Then it was off to baba's house, where we are staying the night.

Eri's mom lives in a very remote part of deep Miyagi Prefecture. There's a small park with tons of dandelions and bugs and even the occasional rare bird sighting. Today we saw a black cat and Osamu asked for his picture to be taken after getting upset that I wasn't pushing him high enough on the swing.

The boys settled in and played in grandma's living room while I went out to walk and grab a piece of the quiet countryside sunset.

I came across this old couple working in their garden and listening the baseball game on the radio.

When Kenzo was born and I stayed here for a couple of weeks I walked all over. This evening I found a new part of this little town. There's a walking path next to a creek with a gorgeous sunset view of Mt. Yakurai. Plus there's a public bathroom with a sign above the door that proclaims it is "everyone's toilet."

Then dinner.

The boys were fading out fast so Eri did their bath and they were conked by 8.

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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