In Need of a Recharge

I have a small plastic bag, sometimes several, on me at all times. You never know. Usually it's to pick up trash I find on the street when I'm walking. I've become obsessed with litter around the neighborhood. Actually anywhere. And with the boys I find having extra bags to stash trash after snacks and nose blowing and wiping off faces and hands with wet tissues is always good in a country that has relatively few public trash bins and where people are generally expected to take their trash home with them.

You never know.

On my morning walk today I was going up the steps from my street to Higashi Park and there was this perfectly green, plump little grasshopper sitting there. He was lovely. I gazed at him for a moment in the cool morning air that was starting to heat up with the bright sunlight.

Then I grabbed one of my spare little trash bags and scooped him up to take home and stick in Kenzo's lizard box. As lovely as he was, he was also a feast for a growing reptile.

Today, being June 1st, was Kenzo's first day of "full elementary school schedule." Five periods. For the last two months since he started he's been getting out of school at 13:30, but starting today he gets done around 14:30 and gets home close to 15:00.

It didn't seem to phase him. He was just as energetic as ever when he got home. When I asked him if he was tired at all he didn't even seem to notice the different schedule.

It was Osamu who was in need of a major recharge.

He settled in for his afternoon nap at 15:00, and at the time I'm writing this, after 11 p.m., he's still out.

Not even close to waking up. Just little boy snoring and the occasional sleep talk. I would love to see what his dreams are.

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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