Skip to main content

A Feast I Tell You!

I don't know if this is normal in other places outside Japan, and I suspect it's not based on my casual observations because most of the world is depressingly filthy, but this morning was our kindergarten bus stop appreciation and cleaning day.


The other moms and I brought out brooms and dustpans and trash bags (well actually Eri prepped for me) and cleaned that section of sidewalk we use daily for the kindergarten bus, and that little guy Atsuki-kun who's the younger brother of Yumi-chan, one of the kindergarten kids, was delighted beyond belief. He has a laugh, no actually a chortle, that makes me smile to my core.


The part I love is that every bus stop for our kindergarten, and there are dozens around Sendai, as well as the bus stops for other schools, all engage in this erratic behavior of physically showing gratitude for using a public space to send our kids off to school even though junior high kids and old people walking their dogs might sometimes be inconvenienced by having to walk around us.


Eri made a feast for dinner. I even said that when I sat down, "This is a feast!" Seriously though it might not look like much from the photo I took but man... a feast. Green salad with the most amazing balsamic vinegar dressing, roasted chicken, tonjiru (uhhhggg Eri's tonjiru is beyond words), and that curious combo of cheese and tomatoes with olive oil that I can never figure out if it's actually Italian or just some thing a stoner thought of and it caught on. I'm fine with either of those scenarios.

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