Ulterior Motives

Mr. Chihuahua stopped by. I had never seen him wear a necktie before.

Eri and I were talking about him recently. We were afraid maybe his health wasn’t good. He’s an old guy who lives a few blocks away and he walks his chihuahua Sakura-chan by our house every morning and every evening. But we haven’t seen him in a couple of months. 

I pass by his house sometimes on walks and was morbidly on the lookout for one of those signs that people put out here that somebody has passed away. 

Turns out he’s fine. Very fine. Thank goodness. But it also turns out that Sakura-chan might not be so fine. We told him we were worried about him, and he said that his chihuahua hasn’t felt like walking recently and her health may not be very good. 

I don’t know what his job is, but he wears a necktie for it. I thought he was retired. Whatever he does, he rides a scooter there and this morning he stopped in front of our house for the sole purpose of delivering snacks to the boys.

And then we proceeded to embark on a glorious Saturday. First day of July. Birthday month. No soccer. Just pure at-home, early summer, mid-rainy-season fun.

Kenzo goes through waves of being in need of mama and being in need of papa. This morning he was in need of papa. I don't begrudge it when he rejects me, but I absolutely soak it up when he needs me.

Eri was gonna serve up some avocados to the boys, but the avocados turned out to be not quite ripe yet. So she did her magic with a recipe for rescuing hard avocados and I was the beneficiary. It turned out to be one of the best breakfasts I have ever had.

Then came the main event.

For the third year in a row, and this time scheduled perfectly, we headed up the back road from our house to the Takahashi Blueberry Farm. 

Economic times are hard, so they raised their prices a little. So we in turn informed Kenzo on the way there that he was "in kindergarten." I did some quick rationalizing because I don't want the boys to get used to the idea that lying to save money is a virtue. In the car, as Eri was explaining the plan, I reinforced the idea that we are not going to lie, but we don't have to say everything.

I distracted the boys outside while Eri got the tickets and all was well. Since Kenzo is pretty scrawny and his little brother is clearly a kindergartener nobody was the wiser. 

Plus Kenzo had ulterior motives that didn't involve eating a ton of blueberries in 45 minutes.

He brought his bug box and from the moment we alighted from the car he was on a mission to catch frogs.

And caught frog after frog. They were everywhere.

You can tell Eri was super excited as well.

After dinner it was time to celebrate summer. Jinbei and fireworks.