Executive Decision

I was embarking on my workday, which ended up being meetings straight through from 9am to 2pm, and then a series of challenging situations from there on out. Eri told me good luck and have a great day and be happy because it's Friday.

I do love Fridays, but it's different than it used to be. The weekend in no way means rest and relaxation. It means trading in the mental labor of my daily work for the intense physical labor of raising two incredibly energetic boys. It also means I need to carve out a little more time for self-reflection and self-care.

Thanks to the team I manage, all of whom I can honestly call friends I respect immensely, a bullet was dodged with a human resources move that came across my desk. My boss called an emergency managerial meeting yesterday about a situation with a person in our department, and I can't really explain it and it's neither here nor there anyway in the grand scheme of things, but there was a proposal that came my way that would have had serious, likely negative, implications for my team. So I sought their advice, and they saved me from making a terrible decision.

There was follow-up today of course, and some drama. I do everything I can to steer clear of drama, but sometimes it just lands on you like a meteor.

Eri proposed dinner out, and that was music to my ears. I made an executive decision and said we're going to the Steak Palace. I love their salad bar. That might be the most middle-aged guy thing I've said all week. And there's a lot to choose from. The runner up is probably when I grabbed my tool box and announced, "Let me fix that!" regarding a McDonald's happy meal toy.

The salad bar at the Steak Palace comes with VIP access to the soup bar as well, so I helped myself to a hot bowl of corn potage.

They have that robot waiter there and Kenzo was biding his time and assessing his chances of messing with it. When that robot brought us our water and utensils he tried reaching his hands out from our booth to throw it off, but this robot is smart. It might even be programmed to deal with mischievous boys.

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