Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Wednesday December 15, 4:33 p.m.

Well, I guess it had to be my turn in the Airport of Fate. It happens to all air travelers once in a while. I got delayed. I arrived at Narita in plenty of time to find out that my flight will be 2 hours late getting underway. And then, the lady who took care of my booking sheepishly told me that the reservation computers crashed. Not sure how the other passengers took the news but I know a bit about these things can happen so I didn't give her any hassle. In return, I got a food voucher for 1,000 yen so I took advantage and enjoyed lunch at the Fujiya's in the mall. I kinda wonder if this is a prelude to a bad flight. Glad I brought the meds with me.

Still after I returned to the counter, the ladies there very cheerfully escorted me over to the young lady who had taken good care of me and finally got me squared away. And I've just told my brother that I'll be a couple of hours late arriving at Pearson. But you never know, the plane might just catch a good tailwind.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Tuesday December 14, 4:28 p.m.

Had my last lessons at the old Speedy's last night....yup, old Speedy's. When I next set foot in my Nakano-Sakaue school in January, it'll be in the new school around the corner...and next door to a very appealing bakery; that should really screw up any attempts to start losing that Holiday flab. Had my trio of Miss Genki, Kirk and The Medicine Man. All of them went smoothly although I was feeling pretty tired by the end. I'd been up since 5 a.m. Monday morning. Miss Genki told me in her lesson that she'd treated herself to a luxurious trip to a hot spring in Hakone over the weekend thanks to her semi-annual bonus. Must be nice to be able to do that. Unfortunately, Speedy's is nowhere near that sort of profitability, and I think the bossman would have to think very long and hard before instituting that policy.

This morning was my last session with The Beehive for 2010 in Tsudanuma. It was the gathering of all of the vets who had first met me all the way back in 1998: Travel, Tee, Jade, Alp and Buckingham. Of course, being the final one before The Holidays meant that there was a small lunch in store. Unfortunately, Jade had to pull out at the last minute since she was suffering from dental problems. We walked all the way down to what used to be our old haunt at the Ace Lanes Bowling Alley and beyond until we reached Chez Como, a French restaurant that we'd visited once before several years ago at Ms. Tulip's suggestion. The food there was indeed excellent although I will definitely be grabbing something for dinner between Mr. White and The Milds later on.

I've pretty much finished my Xmas shopping and just have to start packing the suitcase when I get home tonight. I'm fairly confident that I will get things done before I hit the hay at about 1 a.m. And then I just have to have breakfast, clean things up in the apartment and do a final check of luggage before heading on out to Narita.

I do have to say that I did finally catch the pilot episode of "NCIS: LA" over the weekend. Yep, it is quite different in tone from its parent show, "NCIS", much in the same way that "NCIS" was different from its parent show, "JAG". As Chris O'Donnell points out, there are no clones of any of the "NCIS" characters within the LA characters. And it doesn't hurt when you have an Oscar winner in the form of Linda Hunt as the operations manager.