Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

lookin tired/feelin good

I can't even read the clock right. Eri: "You're going to soccer, right? Aren't you a bit early?" Me: "Yeah! We usually leave at this time and get there right on time. We gotta go! Let's go guys!" Soccer club starts at 10 a.m. The boys know that when the long hand on the clock gets to the 8 (9:40) it's time to go to the bathroom and get our socks and shoes on and head down to the car. The big hand was on 8. The problem that Eri saw was the short hand. It was 8:40, not 9:40. I'm going nuts. Slowly . Rapidly. An hour later, after I slowly enjoyed my coffee and disposed of the last beetle (yes, all four beetles have now gone back to the earth) and cleaned his bug box to make room for new bug acquisitions and the boys chilled out on the sofa watching TV, we set off. While the boys played soccer I headed across the parking lot to grab them some juice boxes for a job well done. This is not standard procedure, but Kenzo made his comeback today after ...
1 comment
Read more

Experiences I Will Never Know About

Eri and I were checking out one of Kenzo's school notebooks tonight. This page has so much going on, and I love all of it. It made me realize something that I can easily forget - he's a person. He has a life separate from mine, lives each day having experiences that I will never know about, and has thoughts and ideas that I can't nor should get in the way of. "Thank you for doing everything," she said. Eri walked with me this morning as I went around the neighborhood and delivered planter box maintenance information and schedules to various folks.  We stopped at the first house and I rang the doorbell and handed the old lady the three-page information sheet I had made and copied and we exchanged greetings and then I realized this is going to take forever if I ring every single person’s doorbell and chit-chat with them. I’ve got 20+ more of these to hand out.  So we started just sticking them in people's mailboxes and made better time. Most folks aren’t home an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hug, Kiss, Comfort, and Joke

I clicked Osamu into his five-point harness child seat and gave him a kiss.  "Have a great day, dude." "Have a good day, papa!" Kenzo does his own child seat seat belt clicking, but he still gets a kiss and a high-five. "Have a good day, papa!" Kisses all around. Eri comes racing down the steps and gets in the car, which I have already started. I stand watch at the foot of the driveway and check for cars and college kids on bicycles racing by and give her the all-clear signal and she's off. Then I race back inside, fix up my coffee, dump the filter and grinds into the trash and since it's Monday take the trash out. Eri takes the boys to the kindergarten bus stop. She'll be back in about twenty minutes. I gotta get ready for work and get my morning walk in. This morning it was misty rain. Not really rain, mostly mist. I took my umbrella with me, but I didn't use it. It doesn't help. The moisture is in the air. It comes at you from all ...
1 comment
Read more