No Greater Authority

I took a day off work, but still started my day by spending an hour on Microsoft Teams attending to various tasks. It actually allows me to relax for the rest of the day knowing I got certain things done. However, I think I should really just be off when I am off.

Eri went downtown to look at some stuff so I hung around the house enjoying the quiet before heading out for some autumn refreshment. Dounji Temple was especially colorful this morning.

Eri picked up some random flowers. Just because.

She was also super excited to go downtown with nothing really that important to do except walk around with her new handbag.

I had grand plans of an all-day or maybe even an overnight motorcycle trip, but I didn't make any plans so I spent the afternoon tooling around my favorite back roads - the air and the sun with a just a little hint of coolness and that fall time scent everywhere.

I was back in time to welcome the boys home from kindergarten and immediately got them all riled up for a trip to the park.

The problem is always that even as it gets dark they don't want to go home.

Luckily the street lights started coming on right as the coolness of the afternoon turned into just plain cold. The boys always abide by the streetlight rule. When they come on it means it's time to go home. There is no greater authority to them than the streetlights.

Friday morning photo shoot before heading off for school - when they are still relatively calm.

Comments

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...

Overpriced Highball for the Big Guy

I keep falling asleep at my desk and waking up all groggy and surly in the middle of night, stumbling downstairs to brush my teeth without waking anyone, and slinking back up the steps and into bed. So I was the last one up again this morning, but I made up for it by quickly getting ready and taking the boys out on a Sunday morning walk to look for bugs. Kenzo has been particularly keen on capturing another lizard. He doesn't understand that lizard season is ending and those guys are becoming more and more rare. He got his hopes up when we came across a little one walking up some woodsy steps. After that we took a break. Eri's sister and her husband stopped by to grab the car seats that the boys just graduated from. Their little girl Emika is just now big enough to start using one and next spring she's gonna have a brand new baby brother or sister who will also need a car seat, so the timing worked out nice for all of us. Emika apparently loves Thomas the Tank Engine (who d...

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...

This'll Just Take a Minute

Search This Blog