Checkers
July 22, 2008
Me (age 8) and Cha-Pa
Special treatment
May 31, 2008
There aren’t that many restaurants around where we live, so we go to one that I like pretty often. It’s an okonomiyaki restaurant. We went last night, and I ordered my usual menu item. Without asking, the waitress brought ketchup. Most Japanese people eat their okonomiyaki with a special sauce, but I prefer ketchup. I used to have to ask for it, but apparently they know me now, so I don’t even have to ask.
Just call me Spider-Man
May 22, 2008
When we lived in Nagano, we had different tires for the summer and winter. Our winter tires are still sitting outside our apartment under the balcony. I’ve been meaning to get rid of them, but I just never got around to it. How fortunate that turned out to be…
Today Kaori had a headache, so I offered to drive her to the station so that she could go to work. I went out and got the car started and she followed, locking the door for me. So I drove her to the station, but when I got back I took out my keys and realized I didn’t have the key to the apartment. I had figured I’d just run her to the station real quick, so I didn’t have my cell phone, and I was wearing a white undershirt and pajama shorts. Needless to say, I wasn’t going anywhwere.
I stuck the car key in the door just to check, but it didn’t work, of course. So then I went around to all the windows, but none of them were open. I remembered, however, that the sliding door on the balcony was open. So I leaned against the fence and just stared up for a while thinking about what a predicament I had gotten myself in.
I stacked the tires up next to the gutter and attempted to climb up…I couldn’t reach. So I went back to the front of the apartment and got one of the crates that our grocery delivery service left. With that I was able to grab onto the balcony railing, but not being a rock climber, I could not pull my feet up. It was at this point that I began to panic, because Kaori wasn’t going to be home for another 7 hours, and I had a translation that was due in 4. So I went back to the car and just looked in the trunk for ideas.
And there it was…a rope! So I went back to the balcony and tied the rope (you might even call it a string) to the railing and then made two loops at the bottom for a place to step. I prayed that the rope and the railing would hold (I could just see in my mind the rope breaking and my foot getting stuck in one of the loops while I fell to the ground hanging upside down), and up I went. It was a success, and I delivered my translation on time…Just call me Spider-Man.
I don’t guess any of the neighbors saw me, because no cops came to check on the caucasian burglar.
Noh!
May 12, 2008
This weekend Kaori and I went to see a Noh play with Assis and Makie. It was a sort of recital by people studying the art, but afterwards there were performances by the teachers who are professional actors. Normally, tickets to these plays are extremely expensive and probably out of our reach, but Kaori has some connections thanks to her kimono work, so we were able to go to this recital for free.
Assis was mesmerized, but I was put to sleep. Not only can I not understand what’s being said because of the way they talk, but their movements are extremely slow and few. Basically they just sit there having some kind of conversation. Some of it is more fast-paced, but the one we saw shot sleep signals to my brain (Assis caught me with his camera).
The highlight of the day was Assis being told by one of the ushers that if he wanted to take pictures he could get a cameraman badge to wear on his sleeve. (Normally photographs are not allowed, either.) So anyway, we have pictures to remind me of the…ahem…excitement. Click here.
Golden Week in Chiba
May 6, 2008
Kaori and I went to Chiba for Golden Week (May 2-5) to visit her parents. Her brother had to work this year, so it was just us. We usually pick him up on the way. On Sunday I went fishing with Kaori’s dad. It was my first time to ever go out to sea on such a small boat. We were fishing for Japanese whiting.
Some of you probably know that I am terrified of the ocean. Kaori’s father assured me that there were no sharks in the water and that the water where we were was only 50 feet deep or so, but since you can’t see the bottom, the only thoughts that go through my mind are of giant sharks, whales and other marine creatures just waiting to catch me and ensure that I die a slow, horrifying death.
He told me that I might get sea sick since we were on such a small boat, but I said I was more afraid of the ocean than I was of sea sickness. I was sure that would not be a problem, since I never get sick riding things. While we were talking a stingray came up to the surface and started splashing around. I immediately thought, “Steve Irwin.” Kaori’s dad said, “It’s rare for stingrays to come to the surface like that.” So I said to myself, “Yeah, it must be getting chased by something even scarier.”
Call it beginner’s luck, but I caught one of those Japanese whitings the first time I threw out the line. Here he is:
Shortly after I caught this guy I got sea sick and we had to go back to dry land. Sorry, no pictures of the boat or of the fishing expedition. I was too worried the camera would get thrown overboard.
Foot’s getting better
April 21, 2008
In case anybody out there is worried, my foot is getting better now that the problem has been correctly diagnosed. At one point the allergy spread to my other foot and both my hands, but it has since disappeared from my hands. Boy, was that itchy! I have to keep taking the anti-allergy medicine for 2 weeks and putting the cream on my feet, but it should clear up after that. So many people have been curious as to what my foot looked like, so I’m going to include the picture this time. If you want to see it, click on the thumbnail. Don’t worry, though, it doesn’t look anything like that anymore. It actually looks like a human foot again.
More health problems
April 12, 2008
Well, my eye is getting better, but now I’ve got a new problem. I cut my toe at Taekwondo practice about a month ago. It’s been infected ever since, and I’ve been putting medicine on it. The medicine didn’t work, so I got some different medicine from Kaori’s mom (a nurse).
It seemed to work, but after a few days I developed a rash on my toe and the top of my foot. It kept spreading, so I finally went to the dermatologist. A really nice old lady, she said it was athlete’s foot and gave me some new medicine. It continued to spread, however, so I went back 4 days later. She then prescribed a different medicine to put on it. Within a few hours, my foot was in almost unbearable pain with several huge blisters all over the top of my foot and at the end of the toe.
I managed to make it through the night, but the next day I went to a different doctor. Apparently the first diagnosis was wrong. It was never athlete’s foot but an allergic reaction to the medicine. The first dermatologist’s medicine only made it worse. He’s given me some different medicine (both oral and topical), and the swelling has gone down. The pain has also subsided. I won’t include a picture, because it’s nasty. 
Somebody want to send me some Neosporin so this doesn’t happen again? 
Eye doctor
April 8, 2008
I woke up this morning to find the right side of my right eye filled with blood. Actually, since I work from home, I’m not concerned with my appearance, and I don’t even look in the mirror except to brush my teeth, so Kaori was the one who noticed. I kind of panicked, since I’ve never seen that before, so I immediately went to the eye doctor.
After doing a series of tests, the doc told me I must’ve rubbed it too hard. He said it would clear up after a few days…unless I rubbed it again, in which case the whole eye could fill with blood. I have a habit of rubbing my eyes, so it’s going to be hard not to (I’ve already rubbed them 3 times since coming back home). It won’t affect my vision, however, so he said I didn’t need to come back unless it got worse or didn’t clear up after two weeks. I’m including a picture so that my family can worry. 
The tests did prove a suspicion I’ve had for a while now, though: my eyesight is better in the morning. The test today showed that my vision was better than when I first got glasses. (So good, in fact, that my vision was higher than the legal limit required to drive without glasses.) That’s not possible, though, since I’m not doing anything different. If anything, I’m spending more time on the computer now that I’m working from home.
They had this one really cool machine that had a photograph or 3D image or something that was out of focus but would scan my eyes and focus itself for me. Has anybody ever seen one of those before? They also had this machine that blew spurts of air into my eyes, I think to test the “hardness” of my eyes…
I’m now a Japanese citizen
April 1, 2008
Now that I’ve lived here in Japan for going on 8 years, I felt it was time to actually get involved in the community and start participating in various activities such as voting. The only way I could vote, however, was to become a citizen, so I have become a naturalized citizen of Japan as of today. It was a long and grueling process, but it didn’t cost nearly as much as it would for Kaori to have become an American citizen. Unfortunately, in order to do that I had to renounce my American citizenship, because the United States will not allow its citizens to have two passports. The US embassy here confiscated my passport as soon as I informed them that I had taken steps to become a Japanese citizen. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, but as my friend Assis said, no matter what my passport says I’ll always be an American (or Brazilian in his case).
Jeb gets a friend
March 28, 2008
This is our new pet rabbit, Sammy. The pictures were taken when he was just one month old. He’s about two months old now.
He and Jeb get along fairly well. Sammy is a Mini Rex rabbit. The sign at the pet shop said that they are friendly and will sit on your lap. I nudged him through the cage at the pet store, and to my surprise he didn’t run away. I kept poking him, but he kept sitting there. That was the first time I had ever seen a rabbit in a pet store that didn’t run off after being touched. Plus, he was so cute, we just couldn’t resist.
