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Opposite Trajectory

I was looking forward to meeting up with my friend Adam for delicious craft beers downtown, but I wasn't looking forward to the walk down to the Izumi Chuo subway station.

There's always the bus, of course. And Eri always offers to drop me off in the car. I need my steps, though. And usually I love that walk.

But this evening I suited up for a 25-minute jaunt down the hill in 1 °C sleet. 

And the effort was worth it. Adam and I had a grand feast of craft beers and truffle pizza and bagna càuda. The best part was I am certain everyone in that joint thought we were a happily married gay couple enjoying a holiday season date.


The beer was magnificent. I think we may have overindulged, but since I hardly ever do I was able to easily rationalize it to myself and feel good again almost instantly.


As I was getting ready to leave the house Kenzo was watching one of his Netflix shows and writing in his English book. He had the hot carpet on and a thick, furry blanket was draped all around him. One of his nicknames is Cozy Ken. He loves being cozy. He's like a housecat.


The boys were both pretty busy throughout the afternoon.


It's officially cold now. This morning's soccer club was decidedly a chilly experience. At first Kenzo was reluctant to participate, but once he did he was fine. Cozy Ken found out that by running around and having fun kicking the ball he can get naturally warm. It took some serious cajoling on my part, and even the head coach noted that it was rare for Kenzo to be like that.

Osamu had an opposite trajectory. He started out great.


And in the last half he kinda fell apart. He was just sobbing and mumbling, "Mama, maaaamaaaaa."


While they were playing I ran across the parking lot to Seria and got the boys some special stickers as a reward for sticking it out in the cold. Kenzo got dinosaurs and Osamu got trains. I try to avoid using extrinsic motivation whenever possible. Eri, too. But I think since the boys didn't know they were getting a reward it kinda qualifies as intrinsic motivation. At any rate, the morning was salvaged and we went on to have a comfy day indoors watching the snow and coloring and doing stickers in the living room on the hot carpet.

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