Testing Out the Video Machine

Yesterday Reiko and her mom and Mi-chan and I visited the fine people at the local shochu brewery, Kiri-no-Kura, for their annual Autumn Festival.

They had all sorts of meat on sticks and ramen and crazy rare foods like the Sasebo Burgers and even a gourmet coffee stand.

We headed straight for the fish market and the Kirishima microbrew stand.

I took this chance to test out the new video camera.

Unfortunately I'm not so good with it yet.

I took lots of great footage of some dudes chopping up a giant tuna and some of my nursery school students saying hi to us, but it turns out I got the buttons mixed up and was on "stand-by" when I thought I was filming and vice versa.

After we got home I fiddled about with the new video editing software I got last week and this is what came out...

Lori's Dramatic Exit

It's been a little over six weeks since Lori quit, and the dust is just now settling around the kindergarten.

Monday, September 1st, she waltzed into the front lobby and, even before taking her shoes off, announced her resignation. I had a little advance notice, but man oh man there was a lot of excrement hitting a lot of air conditioning devices when the word got out around our workplace.

Lots of drama ensued, but in the end Lori got back on the road she needs to be on: dancing professionally. If you hang around Fukuoka for more than a couple a days you're sure to bump into her.

Here's a drawing one of the girls we work with did right before she left. It was meant to be for the nursery school annual album, but now it's probably just going to be a collector's item.

People keep asking me how the new English teacher is working out, and I give cliched answers simply because I don't know how to answer.

Working with Lori was an adventure I'll never forget, and thankfully she's just a text message away when I need a dose of surliness only a New Yorker can offer.

But Bruno is the first non-Japanese guy co-worker I've had in over eight years and it makes going to work a different experience.

Not better. Not worse. Just different.

Folks Never Believe Me When I Tell Them

You really can see Mount Sakurajima from Mimata Town on a clear day.

And today wasn't even that clear a day, but the view was spectacular. So much so, in fact, that I was compelled to pull over on my way home from my mother-in-law's house to take this photo.

Click on the picture for the big version. Sakurajima is the craggy-looking one over the white car.

Sometimes. Not often, anymore, but sometimes... this thought bubbles to the surface:

"This is something I'm not gonna be able to un-get used to if we ever leave Japan."

Sitting down to bathe.

Bathing, like eating, should be done in a seated position. And, like properly chewing your food, a person's priorities should include proper scrubbing and rinsing. Whether you're filling the tub and tossing some citrus fruit rinds in or just makin' it a shower night, sit down and take a load off and savor the experience.

I've traveled abroad and back to the old country many times in the years since I've been here and, without a doubt, the main thing I love and appreciate about this country when I return is the water supply and the culture of its use.

Folks here never believe me when I tell them a long shower in LA is grounds for being arrested.

Long walks around town aside, it's in the bath when I have those thoughts I really wanna write down.

Tonight, again, I started thinkin' of all these things I wanted to say while I was in the middle of scrubbing behind my ears.

So I hurried up and turned the water off and grabbed my towel and I noticed Reiko and I have an odd assortment of towels. Some are her mom's and we somehow ended up with them. More than a couple are from hotels. The one I used tonight is actually from a love hotel (hey, they're cheap and spacious and always have cable) in Kumamoto we stayed at near Mount Aso years ago because all the rooms at the "regular" hotel were booked up.

Don't even get me started on hand towels. One has a propane company's phone number on it.

Reiko and Her Mom

Today while I did my English lessons for the neighborhood kids in the living room Reiko and her mom ate lunch in her mom's room.

Gettin' Ready To Roll Out the Red Carpet

In fifty-three days Reiko will be in the "red zone," within two weeks of her due date. For me, that means I'm on call 24 hours a day, which basically boils down to: lay off the Asahi Super Dry and don't wander too far from the house.

I'm hopin' for a slightly early birth myself. Reiko is, too. We're both goin' crazy with anticipation to meet our daughter.

Turns out, though, that half of all babies are born in the two weeks after the official due date, so I'm guessin' this is gonna be some New Year.

In preparation I bought a video camera last week. There's an incredibly boring seven-minute trial run of it here. Compared to the video cameras I remember growing up it's rather easy to use, and it has some fancy features like a touch screen and it even takes nice photographs.

So that's another check in the ol' "To Do" list before Reiko goes into labor.

Reiko and I sit at the kitchen table almost every night talking about the things we need to do before this event takes place, but eventually we always start into what sort of person she's going to be and what color her eyes might be and walking to the park on Sundays and trips to the zoo and to America.

I wonder every day what kind of world she's going to grow up in, and what the future holds for all of us.

For the time being I'm just happy to be right here at home in Mimata, takin' care of my wife and tryin' to keep out of trouble.

Have You Ever Noticed That Anyone Driving Slower Than You Is an Idiot, and Anyone Going Faster Than You Is a Maniac?

Folks have commented to me recently that I never answer my phone. I've been hearing that for a long time, actually. Years.

And while I in no way feel the need to answer such a statement with any sort of excuse or doctor's note, it is part of my persona and after perusing a few of the photos saved on the ol' digital camera from the past few weeks it crossed my mind that the reason I answer my phone a fraction of the times it rings is because I'm busy enjoying my life.

Well, that, and most times I just don't want to talk to you.

Once in a while I'll ring someone up and I get this: "Dude, I sooooo can't talk right now. Gotta go, bye!"

Why in great Zeus' name did you answer your phone then?!

So other than on those evenings when I'm out in front of the house in my lawn chair with a beer and the sunset, here's why I don't answer my phone...

Reiko turned twenty-nine last week so we spent a beautiful day taking the slow road down into Kagoshima City for lunch at that sushi place at the Dolphin Port. With me in the captain's seat we headed south from Miyakonojo, through Fukuyama Town, sneaking in behind Mt. Sakurajima and rode the ferry across the bay into the city.

Here are Mi-chan and I enjoying the humid breeze from some prime seats on the outdoor deck.

Reiko and her mom were already gettin' hungry by this point so they were yellin' at the ferry guys to hurry up and get the boat sailin'.

I like these seats because you have a prime view of the last cars bein' loaded on and the drawbridge being lifted.

Reiko's doin' her pregnant lady belly rub.

Along the way we stopped at a market to pick up some fish (of course... what else?) and they had this foot bath there, so we took a long coffee break and soaked a bit while enjoying the view of Kagoshima Bay.

Here's Reiko's mom spashing about in the hot water.

I love it when you see truckers at these places. You know they're lovin' life after haulin' eighteen wheels all the way down from Kitakyushu on the Route 10.

The sushi joint in Kagoshima was a little crowded. We managed to get there right at the lunch rush after spending too much time at the foot hot spring, but Reiko said it was worth the wait so we stuck it out for about thirty minutes and got a prime seat right by where the sushi comes out of the kitchen on the conveyor belt so we could grab the good stuff the moment it came out.

I took this picture on my cell phone from our table. It's a little hard to see, but that's a fish inside a tank that's situated right across the conveyor belt from where I was sitting. That fish has to spend his last days lookin' out the window at a sushi parade, like a cow who has to spend his last night at a Black Angus.

When I mentioned this fact to everyone at the table Reiko gave me her usual look, the one that says, "Just be quiet and eat your food."

This past Sunday we went and saw cousin Yuko's little boy's nursery school sports festval and afterward we drove up to the garden in the hills where Reiko's mom grows vegetables with her friends. Most of the greens I eat these days come from that field. We gathered up some eggplants and took them home for dinner. Tomio-san, a family friend, showed up for some potatoes to throw in his evening meal.

Cool mountain water was rushing down along the side of the road so Reiko decided to take her shoes off and put her feet in and relax a while. In the end we all did. Even Lili got her feet wet.

At one point this dude we know drove by in his pick-up and saw Reiko, her mom and I sittin' on the side of the road with our feet in the water and was laughin' hard when he got out to talk and scratchin' his head wonderin' what the heck we were doin'.