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The Last Time

I pulled the cover off my motorcycle this morning and this little green guy was waiting to greet me.

The boys were already off to kindergarten after being sick for five days. Kenzo had a field trip to pick potatoes and was super excited. Osamu told me he didn't need his security towel anymore but right as I was shutting the car door and fixin' to marshal Eri and the car out onto the road, he mumbles "towel".

He four. I gave him the stink eye and marched into the house, grabbed a towel, marched back out, handed it to him, and said, "This is the last time." He's done this before and I've said that before and it isn't the last time.

I had kinda planned it, but kinda not. Today was gonna be a day off. The thing is, I'm not good at taking days off. I used to be.

First things first, though. I grabbed Kenzo's bug catching net and got that nice grasshopper in the bug box. He didn't resist. I set the box on the porch, not knowing what time I'd be home but sure that the boys would be pretty excited by the acquisition of a new friend.

I spent the early part of the morning riding through some back roads and ended up back in town at a McDonald's drinking coffee with my laptop open, pecking away at emails and such. I guess it was worth it. It seems like the best time to catch up on work is by taking time off.

When the boys got home our neighbor gave them a praying mantis that their 9-year-old son caught. He's already got one of his own so he gave our boys his spare. I transferred that thing from the neighbor kid's bug box to ours, and let me tell you he was not happy like the grasshopper was. 

Actually I put the mantis in a separate box at Kenzo's request. He recently saw a mantis eat a dragonfly at another neighbor's house and figured that grasshopper was a goner so he made an executive decision to separate them. We're gonna be catching dragonflies this weekend for the mantis, and I have already Googled what grasshoppers eat. Thankfully it seems to be basically what we already put in his box: leaves and grass. If that guy's lucky he'll get some persimmon tossed his way soon.

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