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Uneventful Days

"Papa! Mama! I got a match!"

Osamu was so proud. Kenzo helped him get a match. That made me proud. And I told him.

Tonight I wrapped up work at 6:07 p.m. I'm officially off at 6:00, but I have this bad habit of telling myself, "Just a little more and then I'll close it up and go downstairs and join Eri and the boys for dinner and do family time." It gets past 6:30 sometimes.

That's a really bad habit. That's me taking my good fortune for granted, the amazing fortune that I work from home and don't have to commute or abide by in-person company culture. It's also me taking my family life for granted.

This evening I ended my work day with a walk. I was at my desk for an extended period. Since lunchtime I think. It's terrible that I forget. I forget to step away and get fresh air more and more. Today was such a gorgeous late-summer day. I've got the windows open and as I stare at my tasks on my computer I can kinda convince myself I'm enjoying the season, but in reality I'm lacking balance. Sometimes I'm good at taking appropriate breaks and going outside to refresh and sometimes I'm not. Recently it's been not great.

I still get my ten-thousand steps in. Somehow. More and more it's during my lunch break or late at night. I know I should and can take spaced out breaks throughout my work day.

It frightens me to think (and I do think about this) that a year from now, five years from now, or on my deathbed, that someone (maybe even myself) will ask, "Can you tell me about September 12, 2022?" Because I won't remember it. Sure, I'll have memories about today. Maybe. But I won't be able to access the specific memories that made today special, and there are so many.

I deeply fear the uneventful day. What is that? As I live my life each day is full of events, events that I cherish. And yet, days and weeks go by and I can barely describe one thing that made any of it eventful.

No more uneventful days. That's the reason for this blog. For most of my life I've kept journals of one form or another. This blog is the current form. If a day is uneventful, if I can't think of even one tiny thing that happened or a thought that I had that could capture the moment, slow down time, and help me share with myself and whoever happens to be listening, that this life is happening, then what is this all for?

Monday, September 12, 2022 was eventful. I worked hard at the job I love, from my desk in my home that I love, talking with the people I work with that I love, upstairs from the wife and boys that I love, in the neighborhood I love. There's a longer version of this love train but I'll digress here.

At 6:07 p.m. I closed my laptop, spun my desk chair around, and opened the lid on my "special box". That's where I keep special things; passports, my father's watch, official seals for stamping documents, foreign currency, and a few other special items. One of those items is the pack of playing cards from Caesar's Tahoe that I got in 1987. I use them to play Match Game with the boys, but I keep them in the special box because, well, they're special.

When Osamu, who's not great at playing games yet, exclaimed, "Papa, mama! I got a match!" and Kenzo looked at me with his knowing eye because he knows I helped, it made the day eventful.


Also, tonight's dessert was grapes. Osamu likes to eat the skins off the grapes first, save them in his bowl, and eat the skinless grapes last. I love it and tried to take a picture. For some reason he didn't want that documented.

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