This'll Just Take a Minute

I waltzed into the elementary school a little after 5 p.m. along with some 5th grader who had stopped by to grab something he forgot. The P.E. teacher who greeted us at the entrance gave the kid a slightly stern warning about forgetting things and told him to grab his stuff and scram, but then he turned to me and when I told him I was there to pick up some stuff Kenzo forgot he ushered me in like royalty. I walked down the hallway, past the bustling teacher's office, and found Kenzo's classroom. He's going to be absent tomorrow, and tomorrow is Friday, so there were a few things he forgot to bring home for the weekend, like his school shoes for washing. Ayana-sensei came running down the hallway. Someone told her I was there. She's a prototypical first-grade elementary school teacher. Energetic, nervous, and young. Eri told me she's 23 years old. I've been living in Japan for 23 years. We exchanged pleasantries and she helped me gather the things I was there to ...

Kenzo got very upset this morning because he didn’t want to wear shorts even though I showed him on my weather app that it was going to be 30° today. He asks every morning, "What degrees is it today?" After some drama he agreed to shorts and brushed his teeth and got out the door to meet the other boys and girls and walked to school. Apparently yesterday Kenzo got into an altercation with the girl down the street about who found a particular bottle cap first. Chiyo-chan punched Kenzo in the shoulder, and he restrained himself from hitting back. When I talked to him about it he was upset and I praised him for his restraint.  However the plot thickens because the only reason we know about this incident is because Eri happened to be driving by on the way home from picking up Osamu and saw what was happening. It was right on the street corner, like gangsters. Eri and I both concluded that if she had not happened by Kenzo may have punched Chiyo-chan. Either way, I'm glad he di...

Eri waited for my afternoon meeting to wrap up and then she came into my office and told me that Kenzo and his friend Hidekazu had gone to 5-Chome Park. On their own. And apparently one more first grade boy with a crazy hairdo and a kirakira name had come over to play as well, but now they were all off to the park. 5-Chome Park is about a six minute walk from our house, and to get there you have cross two streets that have a decent amount of cars zipping by most of the day. Eri was worried, but she let him go because she didn't want to make it into a scene that Kenzo will remember under hypnosis when he's in his 30s and having issues with his social skills. She didn't say it like that, though. I'm paraphrasing.  I said I'll go for a quick walk and check out the park. I needed a break anyway and even though I wasn't particularly worried, I was curious what was going on. Eri and I are brand new to the world of having a son in elementary school. Six minutes later ...

Kenzo got home from school and upon entering the front door announced that his friend Hidekazu was coming to play. Obviously we need to set some expectations and rules. Even though Eri and I are of differing opinions and levels of excitement about the boys' friends coming over, them making plans without checking with mama and papa is not kosher. Within minutes Hidekazu rang the doorbell. I opened the front door and he stepped in with his umbrella and asked where to put it, and when I took it and leaned it against the other umbrellas he politely announced a Japanese salutation that means please excuse me for entering and Kenzo came in and the play time began. The rest of the afternoon is a blur with work and the boys and pick-ups and drop-offs. At some point Eri and Osamu went to Costco to get gas and do a little shopping and they came home with four boxes of boxed pinot noir. I noticed them stacked in the front hall and I gotta admit I was more than pleased. While everyone was out ...

I walked into the community center and there were a bunch of old people playing some sort of a shuffleboard game in the hall. Some of them noticed me waiting in the front entranceway but none of them cared. I find that refreshing these days. There was a time many years ago when I would walk into places and people would either freak out or welcome me in a weird sort of Fantasy Island Mr. Roarke kind of way, or else they would stare at me in awe like the awkward caucasian deity that I am because they had never seen a white dude before. Thank goodness those days are over. It's why I love my therapist, too. My non-Japanese-ness has never come up even once, except in the context of my family history as it relates to our conversations. Not one Japanese person has praised me for my Japanese language ability after saying konnichiwa or my chopstick use for many years, and I think that is social progress. It was getting close to time so I went outside and looked through my pictures on my pho...

There was a little bit of time before we had to leave for soccer so I took a brisk 15 minute papa walk and Eri took the boys on a leisurely little boy walk. When I got back I noticed that the bug catching net and box were gone so it seems the boys parlayed going for a walk with mama into more than just a morning stroll. Right then Eri called me and said they were at the community center looking for lizards and could you come and pick us up? Saturday mornings. We were about to take off for soccer but Kenzo got really upset because he didn’t have his jacket so we went back to the house to get it, even though it wasn't cold so he didn't really need it, and dropped off Eri and off we went. He calmed down pretty fast when I said we would look for lizards and bugs while Osamu played soccer. And we did. I told Osamu that Kenzo and I were gonna go "for a walk" so don't be worried if you don't see us for a little bit. He said he was fine. When we got back to soccer clu...

Eri had to go downtown in the afternoon for some bureaucracy involving employment insurance, so I did some creative scheduling and managed to get Kenzo to his Friends Club bus pick-up, kept Osamu relatively occupied, and somehow stayed productive in my last few hours of work for the week. I've started using Chat GPT to help with my work. It's weird and amazing. I feel like I have a personal assistant who can research topics and flesh out ideas that would normally take me hours of Googling, writing, procrastination, and re-writing.  In spite of my double-duty this afternoon I was able to write up a comprehensive summary for a company podcast I'm recording on Monday. Normally this would take a few hours, and with Osamu hanging out with me the task would have spilled into my weekend. I got it done before quitting time, sent it off to the podcast interlocutors, and had a little time left over to devote to Osamu. I'm still getting used to using this rudimentary artificial in...