Better Than Expected

Everyone was suitably pooped after yesterday's adventure, so we layed low today and hung out with grandma eating pizza and enjoying sangria.

A major goal of the day was laundry, the least exciting yet most satisfying part of traveling, and I had a look at some old boxes in grandma's closet that contain old albums and books and journals and letters. I'm gonna need at least a week to properly go through those things. And a tad more bourbon. Some of those letters I saw through the neatly sealed ziplock bags are from over 20 years ago and from people who write sensational letters. It's gonna be better than any Netflix series I could imagine.

Grandma caught up on some business with the boys.

Ollie dog got so much attention and tons of treats from the boys.

He's such a good dog.

Eri and the boys love grandma's house because it's so cozy and charmingly decorated. Everything on the walls, all the little curious items on the shelves, even the chairs, they all have a story. And the boys love the stories.

Kenzo and Osamu love going shopping with grandma, too. The stores here are different than in Sendai and there are so many curious things for sale. Kenzo found the Halloween decorations especially interesting. There was a weird Halloween wreath with creepy skulls on which I commented, "Our neighbors would stop talking to us if we put that up!"

All this after a sorta lazy morning where Kenzo and I made a quick trip to the pool. He loves the jacuzzi.

He made the rounds of all the pools around our sunbathing home base, and when he would come back and check in he took a quick break to lay down. I was finishing up a cold brew coffee and people watching when Kenzo said, "Papa, I like this place. I think we should stay." I know he meant the hotel, not the country.

Osamu ate an apple the "real" way for the first time ever, and he did a pretty good job. Better than expected.

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...

This'll Just Take a Minute

Search This Blog