Friday July 27, 12:01 p.m.

Summer has definitely arrived. Other than a brief downpour yesterday afternoon here at Speedy's, it's been blazing hot and humid...as a Tokyo summer would be. I was quite aware that I must've smelled like any other noxious salaryman covered in sweat and infused with copious amounts of caffeine. Friday nights coming home on the subway will be olfactory nightmares from now til October.

Yesterday, the reason for the caffeine coming out of my pores was that I met up with The Sisters of State at the same Tully's but at vastly different times of the day. The New Yorker I met at 1 while The Carolinan was a 6:15. In between was a quick trip over here to teach The Nurse. The Carolinan kept me informed about the spiritually ailing BC; it looks like my message to her didn't end in a resentful backlash against me. However, The Carolinan said that BC was feeling quite tired at the moment. BC had asked about a trip to The Maple Leaf sometime in August, so I figured that maybe we could pick one of the Sundays next month for a trip there.

I've got The Chef, the quietly mercurial student of ours here in less than an hour. After that meltdown last month because of her sudden request, all of us here (Speedy, The Admin and me) are being just as quietly wary of her. True to form, The Chef finally sent me her latest menus for me to proofread via my personal fax yesterday...a big sheaf of it and asked me to get it done by today. I was slightly put out....felt like one of those resentful corporate underlings after getting slapped with a Herculean task by an unreasonable boss. However, I sent my acknowledgement of receipt fax over to her and then later an e-mail politely asking her to send it earlier. She did say that she'd only received the menus herself just yesterday, so I'm taking that into consideration. As the bossman said, The Chef has that slight Drama Queen quality to her and I think she doesn't quite do what she does maliciously...she's just a bit high strung.

Later on, I've got The Ace for his 9:00. So, I'll probably have another several hours of downtime between lessons. I don't particularly want to go on home since that would mean turning on the air conditioner and wasting some more electricity and therefore paying TEPCO more money that they don't really deserve since they screwed up that news on the radiation leak at the Kashiwazaki Nuclear Facility after the big quake on Marine Day....that facility just happens to be the largest facility of its kind on the planet. So, I'll just head over to the friendlier I-cafe for a few hours before dinner.

Before heading out to work, I did run to Daiei and picked up that clone of the Brita filter. I had thought about actually buying the real McCoy. And as it was, the BRITA filter tap only cost from 3,150 yen; not bad considering its solid reputation, but however I saw the cost of those replacement filters and saw that they cost almost as much as the main unit itself. With a 5-month cycle between replacements, I would've been paying close to 5,000 yen per year as compared to paying just less than 2,000 yen to replace the 498 yen cheapo filter four times a year. All this just to plug up a leak. But I just stuck the sucker onto the tap and turned it on and off...sure enough, I've saved myself some water.

Now that the dog days of summer have arrived in earnest, I've been hitting the cold udon or hiyashi chuuka noodles at the convenience stores now. I don't think I could really eat a hot plate of deep-fried chicken at this time. And a further sign that the dog days are here is that at a lot of the vending machines, there are a lot of Sold Out signs.

Well, Election Day for the Upper House is just around the corner, and the pundits are screaming that Shinzo Abe and the LDP are in for a Humpty Dumpty Great Fall. Mind you, it was never going to be easy for any replacement Prime Minister to follow the flamboyant Junichiro Koizumi especially when most Japanese pols come off as about as exciting as drying paint. However, the scorecard for Japan's Cigarstore Indian is looking pretty bleak: Cabinet Ministers with a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease, a dead Minister of Agriculture from suicide due to some rather shady dealings, the new Minister of Agriculture having to hem and haw his way out of some potential tax evasion, and last but not least, half the population of the country finding out that their pension records may be unrecoverable. Yup, I could see some pretty tense dinners between Shinzo and Akie. You know, I may just be glued to my TV Sunday night.

But the woes of the Abe administration must mean nothing compared to the meltdowns in the United States. A President who seems to be begging to become the most reviled Commander-in-Chief in history, a Congress which seems to want the same status, a potentially corrupt Attorney-General, two Presidential aides who merely snub a Congressional subpoena....and I haven't even mentioned Iraq yet. Then, there is an NFL star who seems to have a fetish for seeing dogs tear each other apart, a baseball star ready to hit the record books while battling allegations of steroid use, two young stars who feel that getting charged for DUI is a rite of passage to be savored and a former pop star-turned-basketcase traumatizing a photo shoot. Wow! The United States is truly a country where even the worst things come out like a Hollywood epic. Go fig.

Wednesday July 25, 8:24 p.m.

Well, I'm feeling not unlike a heel right now. 001 was rather shellshocked today when she found out that I wouldn't be going to the semiregular Saturday dinner outing. Perhaps she thinks I may have betrayed her somewhat since I didn't say anything when Speedy came in a couple of weeks ago to put the spiel on her. I'd already made up my mind not to go by that point (for some financially psychotic reason, the bossman seems hellbent to have us pay 5,000 yen a shot for those dinners), but I couldn't say that in front of either of them for obvious reasons. And I hadn't thought that she would accept the invitation since she hadn't come to any of the other previous parties in the past so it was with some surprise to hear that she was planning to go. Now, she's not too sure. Knowing me, I'll probably be kicking myself all the way home tonight but I'll be OK in the morning.

Just have The Judge in less than an hour. Hopefully that class will go somewhat more swimmingly...

Wednesday July 25, 5:32 p.m.

Since I got that CNN/YouTube Debate rant off my chest, I forgot that I have some stuff locally here to relate. It looks like I've got another student to add onto my slate. She's one of Speedy's...one of the grandmothers that I'd taught during his absence. Apparently, she wants to have an hour of free talk with me first thing Friday morning while she does the technical stuff with the bossman on Wednesday. I guess I'll dub her Grandma Dynamite since she talks at about a parsec a minute...plus, it comes from that guest character on "The Flintstones" all those years ago.

The Upper House Election campaigning has been relentlessly going on for the past several days now. We've got the cars with the megaphones crying out their candidates' names all over the streets. Yesterday, I witnessed the candidate from the Japanese Communist Party exhorting her need of support from her Toyota. I could never imagine something like that happening in the States. If anyone even uttered a hint about his/her allegiance to Communism in the good ol' U.S. of A., the FBI would just come sweeping down on his/her neighbourhood like a squad of TIE fighters. Mind you, the Japanese version is about as harmless as kittens. The big day is Sunday. Man, Fuji-TV will be one busy station this weekend. Not only will have they have to cover the elections, but they're having their annual 24-hour TV marathon.
The Upper House Elections, like their equivalents anywhere else, don't mean too much in the grand scheme of politics, but everyone will be looking whether Shinzo Abe will be able to grab a majority of the seats. If he doesn't, what could that mean for his fortunes? The Class Act made a good observation of him when they remarked that unlike the maverick Koizumi, this current guy has come off as being the goody-goody Crown Prince. Very courtly and gentlemanly but not exactly the gung-ho type to engender leadership.

Wednesday July 25, 4:18 p.m.

I guess Tokyo is starting to approach a more desert-like climate. Burning hot and humid in the day, but (relatively) cool in the evening. Still, my shirts have become sponges soaking up the perspiration.

Yesterday, it was the combination goodbye party for Mrs. Perth and final lunch for the Beehive before the annual summer hiatus. We held it at the Funabashi TOBU department store branch of Ume no Hana, a famous chain of Tokyo restaurants specializing in tofu. Mrs. Jade was nice enough to handle all the arrangements, so we got our own private tatami room. All of the regulars were there: Perth, Jade, Mrs Alp, Mrs Tee and Mrs Travel was back from her latest sojourn to Turkey. So, some part of the lunch was spent exchanging stories on Turkey and Alp's recent vacation in Switzerland. Also heard that Mrs Tulip and her family are moving further up in the condo chain...they're now nicely esconced in some penthouse suite in Toronto.
As for the fare, it was all different types of tofu dishes...and also yuba, which is actually the thin skin taken from tofu during processing. So, we started off with a large bowl of tofu sitting in cold soy milk which we ate with all sorts of yakumi (garnishes) such as grated ginger, sliced onion and the like. We also had shrimp siu mai wrapped up in a yuba skin, mamedofu (tofu made with green beans), deep-fried tofu, etc. It was all very good, and surprisingly even I was quite filled by the end of lunch (although I have to admit that a few hours later, I had to take in a Big Mac set before seeing 002...I guess the fare at Ume no Hana is the Japanese illustration of a Chinese dinner).
It was the end of Mrs. Perth's time with The Beehive as I gave my good wishes to her, and it was also a new beginning. From September, we may have some new permanent digs for us on the Keisei Line...there's some sort of facility which rents out classrooms at cheap rates. It's a drag in that I'll have to change twice but at least we're no longer nomadic. Also, Travel and Tee will be searching for a new classmate or classmates.

002 was her usual giddy self...she told me about her trip to that relay race in the mountains near Mt. Fuji right on the weekend of Typhoon Man-Yi's near arrival in Tokyo. Luckily, the organizers had the good sense to shorten it to just 6 hours, but the group still manage to get drenched.

The session at the juku last night was a bit bizarre. Of course, there was the fact that it was the first time for me to be there since the boss' mother died last Monday. When I got there, though, the boss was pretty much back to her cheerful, up-with-people self. However, she invited me into the the living room where a large picture of her late mother was situated with bowls of oranges and other food sitting in front. As per Japanese tradition, I knelt in front of the picture, lit an incense stick, waved out the flame so that the ember at the tip emitted its characteristic aroma, stuck it in a bowl of white sand, quietly rang a bell with a metal wand before praying for a few seconds.
At this point, I would've said that it was then back to business. However, there was very little business last night. I only ended up having Chip the boy and a few hours later, it was The Siberian. What happened? Well, Dale just plain didn't show up, Seven was off doing a concert for piano and Jolly did one of his occasional cancellations. However, the big surprise was that The Milds also no-showed. This struck both me and the boss as being rather strange for my oldest and most loyal students since I started at the juku 3 years ago. When the boss called their house up, their adult son informed her that apparently the couple is out of the country on vacation. I don't recall ever being told about that. The boss profusely apologized for the lack of students for which I reassured her. Sho ga nai.
Another interesting thing was that the juku boss actually went off to The Matron's husband's law office by herself on Monday to start the ball rolling on her mother's estate. She'd been asking me if I could accompany her, but it looks like she got the gumption to go on her own. Everything went well, apparently. I also got the customary O-chugen gift from The Matron today, so I killed two birds with one stone and sent a fax to her husband thanking both of them for the package of sweets and their assistance to the boss.

I just have 001 and The Judge tonight so the morning was spent doing household stuff. For one thing, I have a leaky faucet. For the 13 years I've been in my apartment, I'd had no problems with the kitchen tap until a few weeks ago when a persistent drip started. I finally unhoused what must've been the BRITA filter's prehistoric ancestor from the main tap, and the leak got worse. I headed out to Daiei...there were some cheap possibilities to stop it; BRITA was indeed well represented but the system looked tres cher so I decided to go for a cheaper alternative. But I haven't bought it just yet...I needed to check the dimensions of the tap before plunking down the yen. Also, I searched for a toilet seat. My current one has a rather nasty crack in it which, you could imagine, can wake me up better than a tall glass of OJ (mind you, I've got it taped up like Bobby Orr's knee). Nada on that front, but Yamada Denki had those newfangled seats with the bidet-like attachments....for the price of at least 40,000 yen. Ahhh...I'll stick with toilet paper (oooh, that was a nasty pun), thank you very much. As for the ongoing battle with the roaches, some new hotels are out there and the infestation has been brought down to a few stragglers. Still, I'll have to make sure that all of the bugs are out of here by the time MB comes on by on the 4th.

I watched CNN's much-anticipated (at least to the producers there) YouTube debates with the Democratic Presidential Nominees yesterday...or at least bits and pieces of it. The way Anderson Cooper and the other folks were flogging it for the past several weeks (months?), I'd thought the cable network had been promoting its own Deathly Hallows (complete with countdown clock).
And true to overhyped media events, the sizzle far outweighed the steak. Mind you, Cooper was savvy enough to verbalize some wiggle room at the beginning of the debate by saying that none of them really knew what the night was gonna be like. Well, the new format came off as being gimmicky with everyone in the audience and on the stage looking at the screen as various YouTubers did their own "Tiny Talent Time" while posing questions; the answers were all the same. This whole premise that the nominees wouldn't be able to roll off some heavily practiced spin response was pretty much nothing....I couldn't imagine that any of the pols' staffs didn't have Internet-savvy geeks doing their own screening of the 3,000+ videos from the completely open site. And if the pols didn't want to answer any particular question, neither Anderson nor a video could stop them...case in point, John Edwards when asked by AC about Liz Edwards' verbal sparring with Hillary Clinton. Edwards just swatted that question like a Carolinan fly in summer. Basically, it was the usual thing that we've come to expect from the debates....Gravel was pissed, Biden was snarky, Richardson was earnest and Obama was noble. The only big difference was that we got to see the candidates get neck strain looking at the big screen.
Still, it was a laudable effort by the good folks at CNN and YouTube. They tried to bring a bit more immediacy and intimacy between the nominees and aw-shucks regular folk. And more importantly, perhaps the two media giants may have accomplished something that even MTV hasn't been able to do....draw in the 18-34 demographic.

Well, before I log off, I toast Paula Zahn...the bell has finally tolled. She just resigned.

Monday July 23, 7:34 p.m.

Just had The Full-Timer. Looks like she had another good time in Thailand. She tried a bit of the Muy Thai kickboxing style. She usually comes off as a rather unassuming young lady but she does like to try the martial arts. With her brother doing Tae Kwon Do, her house ought to be the safest one in the neighbourhood. I got a box of spicy Pritz as a souvenir.

I've got Mr. TOEIC and that'll be my Monday. It looks like this week will be a busier, more normal type. I had my usual Monday classes with The Class Act and SIL. The Lady and her hubby had just come back from Singapore...first-class, all the way of course. Then, I've got The Beehive for the final class before the usual summer hiatus. It'll also be a goodbye party of sorts as well for Mrs. Perth, so we're gonna hold it at Ume no Hana, a restaurant that specializes in tofu. The juku classes are back in session as of tomorrow after last week's period of mourning for the boss' mother.

The Harry Potter mania has also struck Japan, albeit to a far less manic degree than it has in New York or London. Japan has its Pottermaniacs but when the book came out a couple of days ago, there weren't the huge lineups that Krispy Kreme gathers every single day. In fact, when I went to Tower yesterday, I just nonchalantly ambled up to the display on the 7th floor and picked one book up...and of course, read the ending immediately. Glad to see that all of the main characters live well into parenthood (I think it was a foregone conclusion that Ron and Hermione would shack up). A pity about Dumbledore and Snape, though. In any case, the main reason that there hasn't been the crazed run for the books is that with the book being written in English, I don't think there are too many folks here who would be willing to survive the 800-page challenge. Most of the locals will wait the 12-14 months to get the Japanese translation.

I should be expecting Mr. TOEIC very soon...

Monday July 23, 5:37 p.m.

Well, it certainly feels like the Rainy Season has come to an end. It has felt like an ocean of sweat out there for the past couple of days.

I had the day off yesterday so the only thing I did was head over to Tower Records to ostensibly just browse around, but I ended up picking up one more book on the ancient game of I-go. It's another book by American specialist Shotwell; my first book was also by him but yesterday's purchase seems to be the more comprehensive of the two.

Then I met up with The Bohemian for the first time in a few months. He was looking somewhat paunchier than the last time I'd seen him...which was drunk as a skunk trying to cross the street in Shibuya. He luckily survived. I met him in front of Hachiko, the first time in a number of months I'd done that. Yep, it was pretty darn humid there with all of those other folks piling in front of the famed meeting place. The usual colourful types were there....Shibuya ko-gals, regular folk and one crazed homeless man screaming obscenities to anyone who dared to make eye contact.
As usual, the two of us ended up at En, our usual haunt. The Bohemian was quite happy to find out that there was a half-price campaign on beer. And getting there at 4 always guaranteed us the first table; the place really didn't start to fill up until about 6. The conversation didn't touch back on that rather awkward meeting a few months ago...it was just as if nothing had happened. Mind you, it helped that we were served mostly by male wait staff and one somewhat older woman so there was none of that embarrasingly bad flirting that I berated him on last time.
However, also as usual and true to The Bohemian's nature, some of the talk necessitated me tellling to keep the volume down since he liked to talk about his trips to the fuzoku houses (fuzoku, by the way, basically means sexhouses like the ones in Kabukicho)....of course, I'm apparently the only one who knows about this. He says that he only goes for 20-30 minutes....I won't imagine too long what he accomplishes in that short period of time. He also referred back to his perverted acquaintance who has a rather unhealthy interest in S&M and scatology. I was doing quite a bit of verbal misdirection to get him back to more acceptable conversation.
Luckily, when I showed him my I-go book, his curiosity perked up and we ended up heading back to Towers so that he could pick up a book of his own. Yep, in English, since he figured it would be good language practice for him.

Will continue later but I gotta head out for The Full-Timer...

Saturday July 21, 1:34 p.m.

Met up with The Madame for the first time in a few months in Shibuya yesterday. No particular change...still struggling to earn the yen in her teaching jobs, although she's fortunate enough to have her safety net of her well-to-do parents' house. She took me to this Chinese tea house just next to the Dogenzaka end of Mark City, the big mall abutting the station. Yup, the place had all the trimmings which would designate it as a place of imbibing tea in Yokohama Chinatown: a lot of bamboo, brown teapots and cane furniture. Actually, we didn't spend the 90 minutes there just taste testing the leaves but eating their dim sum. It was quite good and since the dumplings had already been seasoned, there was no need for soy sauce. But I think the big winner there was the very first entry of pickles with rice congee. Very delicious.
Afterwards, since The Madame was still on her Asian tea kick, we ended up going inside Mark City and having some more tea in a somewhat hipper place where we had matcha latte. Basically, it was that really strong tea that is served during tea ceremonies with a bit of milk. Not exactly a winning combination but I guess it could grow on me slowly. We didn't stay there too long since we were sandwiched between two pairs of noisy, gabby women (it is Shibuya, after all).
Finally, we waded into the hordes of Shibuya folk and went up Spain zaka to Cafe De Copain, a place that I've been to over the years. It is the closest to a Western pub but since it was still before 5, the cafe rule was still in effect. Just ended up having tapioca coconut milk there.

With the Madame back, I can probably look forward to another intense spate of weekly meetings with her and then perhaps a long period of no contact. However, later that evening, I heard back from a guy I hadn't heard from in a few weeks, MB. He was looking for some movie buddies for "Die Hard 4.0" for Thursday, but I had to decline since I've got a few students on that day. However, we've got the 4th marked off for the next DVD night. It'll just be MB and me since The Satyr will be off doing some volunteering work in Nagasaki.

Larry King has certainly had some rather powerful appearances over the last couple of days. First, he had Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker). King, who must've realized the effect that her appearance could've had on viewers, gave a sneak preview just before his interview with one of the Baldwin Bros. Well, I have to admit that my breath was taken away. That inoperable cancer has wreaked some major havoc to her body. I was never a fan of her and her ex-husband, but even I felt a lot of sympathy for her as her disease literally ate her out from the inside. Everyone and his brother were fully aware that she was not long for this Earth but still, I thought some of the e-mail questions to her were approaching ghoulishness in content.

Then, there was today's little intense segment with Jon Lovitz....something about an altercation with Andy Dick. It was basically Jon, a microphone and some major venting while Larry kept back...way back.

Friday July 20, 9:06 a.m.

Back for my second time at the new I-cafe. Yep, this one's a keeper. The staff has a bit more professional courtesy in them.

My war with the bugs continues. Saw a few more of the critters yesterday but there were some more who've "checked into" the various motels I've set out on the kitchen floor. Back at Speedy's on Wednesday, I looked up "cockroaches" on Wiki and found out some tips. For one thing, I have to be a bit more anal about the cleanliness of my kitchen so I wiped down the entire place during most of my day off yesterday. It also advised to stop up any leaky faucets. Well, lo and behold, I've had one in my kitchen for several weeks now which I cannot seem to stop, so I may have to replace it. I saw some Brita-like filters at the local Daiei which aren't too expensive. Still, it looks like I've been countering the infestation fairly well.

I saw B2 for her monthly lesson last night. Looks like she's been doing well. She's still planning to get back to her old airline company, and she's more confident about living in London again, if she has to.

Meeting up with The Madame for the first time in a few months later today in Shibuya...a place I haven't seen in a couple of weeks due to the holiday Monday and the sudden cancellation last week. She said that she would be taking me to a tea room nearby...not sure if that means it'll just be tea. I hadn't planned on having lunch before meeting her.

Just found out on SkyPerfect's Super Drama TV channel that the TV's flavour-of-the-year, "Heroes" will be hitting these shores...soon. So, it may be possible that Daniel Radcliffe may have a new rival for the affections of the millions of teenyboppers in the form of Masi Oka. Oka might be twice as old as Harry Potter, and have much more of the geek factor but then again, "Densha Otoko" was the huge hit last summer here. It legitimized all of the otaku and made Akihabara a welcome part of the Japanese tourism scene.

I sent a fax over to the juku boss confirming that The Ace's class will also be cancelled due to the passing of the boss' mother earlier this week. I figure that this was indeed the case but I'm pretty paranoid about making scheduling mistakes. I'm just kinda wondering how next week is gonna turn out.

After several days of unseasonably cool weather, I think today will be back to the scorching temps and humidity I've come to expect and gripe about in The Big Sushi.

Wednesday July 18, 5:29 p.m.

Well, Speedy is back...he came in a couple of hours ago into the office after his trip to Dubai. He actually can appreciate the coolness of Tokyo now. He and his wife did the usual thing...go camel riding, sleep under a Bedouin tent and go through the markets.

As for me, the grandmothers were fine although it's never all that easy to do free talking with the elderly. I was surprised to find out that one of the two is 82 years old! She's even older than that other grandma who had attended The Tokyo War Crimes Trials as a girl. Since then, my idle hours have been spent getting some knickknacks done. I prepped for 001 and The Judge, checked over the curricula, and sent an e-card of condolence to the juku boss. Also dusted off the DVD class files on "Friends" and copied them out for that potential new student on Saturday. Since then, it's been going through the Net...found out what I needed to know about roaches considering my current household problem; I'm gonna have to fix that leaky faucet. And I even checked out international TV. It's a little difficult to do on this rickety old computer but next time I head over to the I-cafe, I'll have to see what's playing in Poland or Mauritius.
Spent some nice chat time with The Admin over lunch. The oldest grandma was kind enough to bring in some frozen pizzas (really) which we ate with some Thai bi-fun salad and inarizushi; it was a real multicultural meal. Apparently, her family takes care of some temple in the Izu Peninsula so it's possible within a few years that The Admin may have to take over as high priestess. Hopefully, she won't have to go bald.

As for dinner, well, it was The Golden Arches. Speedy decided to go decidedly lowbrow for his first major meal since coming back from the exotic Middle East. He was dismayed to find out that all meals at McDonalds went up some 70 yen. Unfortunately, with the yen depreciating and fuel costs, I gather that importing is not exactly all that cheap anymore.

Tuesday July 17, 8:19 a.m.

Well, I know corporate presidents, lawyers and even got to meet the current Emperor decades ago. However, I've just read my monthly University of Toronto Alumni Newsletter and found out that an acquaintance of mine got into The Order of Canada. Gonna have to update my list.

However, despite my brushes with royalty, my rare free Tuesday night was partially spent fighting the bugs. Yes, right out of "Starship Troopers", my war continued with the cockroaches. I'd come across eight of the vanguard last week after coming home late at midnight, and though I blasted them into roach heaven with the remaining insecticide, the invasion continued. The next day, I decided to not only get a new can of critter whup ass but a bunch of gokiburi hoi hoi, otherwise known in North America as Roach Motels (y'know...the catchphrase "Roaches check in, but they don't check out"). I bought ten of the insect version of the Hyatt chain and set half of them up in the kitchen. The package was cheap (only 298 yen) and just consisted of an origami-type motel frame with a layer of sticky paper inside on which I put on a single tablet of stuff that smelled like an especially treacly piece of butterscotch...manna from heaven for the roaches, apparently.
Well, after having left the five motels for a couple of days, I decided to see if there were any check-ins. I put one in the bottom cabinet since roaches love the dark, three on the kitchen floor by the sink and fridge, and even one on the shelf where I place all of the spices and condiments. I had only been expecting a few unlucky bugs to get trapped. And sure enough, when I looked inside three of them (including, disturbingly enough, the condiment area), there were a few forlorn guests of sorts just waving their antennae and waiting to die, immobile on the sticky paper. The one I'd left in the bottom cabinet had no takers, however. But, and I do mean this with a capital B, the Grand Hyatt that I'd left in the sticky alley between the oven range and the shelves got a full booking. When I peered in that one, I was rather disgusted to see that at least a score of roaches decided to make their reservations there. It was like looking at a car lot of a shopping mall on Xmas Eve. Antennae were just poking out like chest hairs from a hirsute disco guy's shirt. Gahhh...I'm pretty calm with critters, usually, but this sight even had me gagging somewhat. Plus, the combination of that treacly butterscotch smell with the stench of mass roach infestation had me throwing out the motel a little prematurely (the label said that it would stay effective for up to a month....I'd say that it was a little too effective). I could imagine any of the local population would have run screaming in terror if they had come across my little Hyatt at that moment.
However, I was convinced that I did the right thing by buying the Roach ryokan. I'll see how filled the other traps get.

Well, I've opened up the school today since I've got the keys. The Admin is probably one happy lady that she doesn't have to open up early. Speedy and his wife are supposedly back in town now but they'll probably need the extra day to recover from their honeymoon. Despite the more leisurely round of sleep I got last night and a proper breakfast, I was still feeling out of sorts so I just got a couple of pastries and a carton of veggie juice from the local "La Vie Du France" bakery/cafe and am now feeling a bit better.

I had another cancellation today. The Admin informed me that Mr. TOEIC has decided to kill his class tonight which will leave with a 90-minute gap between 001 and The Judge. Still, I'll have another long Wednesday here.

Michael Moore is mellowing. He has to be....I checked TVNewser right now, and apparently, the maverick director has indicated some remorse at beating up Wolf Blitzer last week. Before you know it, he may even admit that George W. Bush is a pretty nice guy.

Over here, the big news is about the quake of course. I think Prime Minister Abe's fortunes may either go up or down depending how the response to this disaster goes. Right now, talk on the pension scandal has decreased although not disappeared. But there is that nuclear reactor in Niigata which spewed smoke and fire. Apparently, TEPCO is slowly letting out that some radioactive steam and water may have been released. I believe that Shinzo needs news about another Chernobyl like he needs another ulcer.
And speaking of besieged politicians, the media was scratching its collective head when the current embattled Minister of Agriculture did a press conference looking like he lost a couple of rounds to Mike Tyson. He had already earned a few scars, figuratively, when it was found out that his koenkai may have been a little naughty by claiming his parents' house as a tax-deductible business expense last week. Well, it looks like he earned a few physical ones as well under the couple of bandages on his face. He was pretty mum on the subject, just saying that "...his skin is pretty delicate." Methinks that his wife had some powerful opinions.

Still, some good news abounds. The Japanese soccer team beat Vietnam to advance further into The Asian Cup. And Ichiro not only got the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history last week, but he didn't show any ill effects whatsoever in his first game since he his knee got beaned by an errant pitch the other night. I'd say he could probably be the MVP of the entire year. Certainly, the press here thinks so.

Tuesday July 17, 3:15 p.m.

It's been a sad start to this week. First, Typhoon Man-Yi took its share of lives, and then yesterday's earthquake in Niigata Prefecture has left at least 7 families in grief. And now, something a bit more personal has hit home. This morning, I got a call from the juku boss who informed me that her mother had just passed away within the last few hours. She sounded somewhat shellshocked which was somewhat worrying to me since she's usually one of the most cheerful people I see regularly. It wasn't a total surprise concerning her mother since the boss continued to tell me that her mother had been deteriorating gradually, but when the moment finally arrived, it still must've been a terrible one.
In any case, classes have been cancelled for this week. So, not only did I get a rare Monday night off but I'm apparently gonna get an even rarer Tuesday and Friday nights off, too. Not sure what's gonna happen in terms of funeral arrangements but the boss'll let me know in time.

So, it was just The Beehive and The Nurse today. Yup, I'm all done except for this blog. The Beehive met for the very last time at Mrs. Perth's apartment this morning. And in fact, it was the last official class for Mrs. Perth, who'll be joining her husband shortly for their new life in Hokkaido. Double in fact, it was the last official class for the Beehive before Summer Break. Next week, we'll all be getting together at this famous restaurant chain in Funabashi called Ume No Hana (Plum Blossoms) for a little lunch party. Actually, today, Mrs. Travel was true to her name and absent since she's off in Turkey, just a couple of weeks after her trip through India. However, Mrs. Alp was back from her own trip in Switzerland with lots of photos and a souvenir cake.

The Nurse was in pretty fine fettle although some of her insecurities crept in when tackling Possessives today. Luckily, she has enough confidence in me that she can still continue on. Actually, The Admin informed me that one of the grandmothers would like to have my services in addition to her regular lessons with Speedy. It would seem that she likes the free chatter with little ol' me. Nice to be loved.

Movie Buddy sent out the word about catching "Die Hard 4.0" this weekend. Well, The Satyr has already seen it. I'm good for it but it won't be this weekend since I've got those classes at Speedy's on Saturday, and then there is that get-together with The Bohemian on Sunday. Yep, I'm meeting him again a few months after that little mistake of matching him with MB and The Satyr.

So, this week will be quite an empty one, although it'll be another whole day at Speedy's tomorrow since I still gotta teach a couple of the grandmothers in the morning followed by 001, Mr. TOEIC and The Judge in the evening. I've only got B2 for her monthly on Thursday and then I just meet The Madame for our first lunch in several months. Not sure what she's been up to. However, Saturday will have The Manhattanite (hopefully) and The Dentist before I do my first "Friends" DVD lesson in what seems to be years. I'll have to devote some of my free time tomorrow trying to get that hoary project going again.

I may have wrongfully given the impression yesterday that Japan was a technological paradise when it came to earthquakes. Well, the fact that Japan is one of the most quake-prone areas in the world has kicked the scientific intelligentsia into producing some of the most advanced ideas on how to cope with unstable geologies. However, Japan has still suffered some pretty bad casualty rates over the decades. Of course, there was The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 which killed hundreds of thousands of people in Tokyo (we're 20 years overdue for the next big temblor). And then there was The Great Hanshin Earth-quake of 1995 which killed over 5,000. So far, the big quake in Niigata has claimed 7 lives but hundreds have been injured and/or left homeless. No small sense of loss here. The sad thing is that this is the second quake in a little less than 3 years to hit the area. I remember the last one since Tokyo also got rocked in that one. I was in an Indian restaurant with The Coffeemaker and several of her classmates after shopping for the Halloween party when the shaking began.

Monday July 16, 1:52 p.m.

What a long weekend! If some of those ancient deities that used to lead Japanese religion wanted to give us a roller coaster adventure, they certainly gave us an Indiana Jones-like ride. First, there was Typhoon Man-Yi (known locally as No. 4...no, not exactly too big on fancy nomenclature over here) for the first two days which just skirted a hair's-width of striking Tokyo...all we got was a lot of heavy rain sans the gale-force winds. And then this morning, I and millions of others got a Shindo 3 jolt when a Shindo 6+ earthquake shook the hell out of Niigata Prefecture some 250 km away on the other side of Honshu. I was just watching TV when my lamp above started weaving and I started getting slightly queasy. I could only imagine how nauseous the Niigata residents got. Of course, NHK started throwing out the bulletins for potential tsunami (there weren't any) before all of the commercial stations followed suit. As usual, the cameras were trained on the various newsrooms when the quake hit; it was the customary crew running around while the department signs swung away; then there were the security cams outside which started getting epileptic fits. Next, the news crews were out on the road searching for damage in the Niigata/Nagano area. It didn't take too long...a number of houses have collapsed, a train has fallen onto its side and various roads have inherited some rather king-sized cracks. As for casualties, this is where Japan gets its reputation as being one of the most quake-prepared nations on Earth...of course, there are injuries...a little over 100 so far, but nothing compared to some of the horrendous fatalities that occur in other countries.
I guess later this week, we can expect Mount Fuji to explode...

In any case, it's been a number of days since my last entry on Thursday. I saw The Carolinan for the first time since she got back from Hawaii. Not surprisingly, it was a relaxing trip for her, her mother, and The New Yorker. It was a judgement call but I also decided to tell her about the drama with BC a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if BC would appreciate what I did, but I think her former colleague would probably be better able to help her than I could.

Next day, I saw her sister, The New Yorker. Another sigh as I found out that she tried her best not to have any communication in the language I've been trying to imbue within her for the past couple of years. But The Carolinan and I can only admit that's the way she is. Still, The New Yorker enjoyed herself and got a nice tan out of the experience. Got the usual omiyage in the form of chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies and some mints (nice change from the usual macadamia nuts).

On Saturday, I had my last meeting with The Dancer and her family. This time, the target was Ikebukuro...Sunshine City, to be exact. The Dancer wryly remarked that the famous building was built not too far away from where Prime Minister Tojo and his compatriots had been hanged for war crimes back in the 40s. I guess Sunshine City is a most apt moniker. Sunshine City is also a most appropriate place for kids since it's got Namjatown with all of the food emporia such as Gyoza Hakubutsukan (the dumpling museum) and Ice Cream City, and a huge aquarium.
Unfortunately, at that point, Typhoon Man-Yi was making its presence known on that day so umbrellas were mandatory issue for us. Plus, before Sunshine City, The Dancer wanted to stop off at the Traditional Crafts Centre at the West Side of Ikebukuro Station and then to a soccer goods shop for further souvenirs.
Unsurprisingly, Gyoza Hakubutsukan and the rest of Namjatown was packed to the gills with folks, being a Saturday and all, but somehow all of us managed to grab a goodly amount of gyoza to feast upon and even grab a table. I treated for the dumplings while The Dancer's husband picked up the tab on the ice cream across the floor. Of course, the kids were desperate to try out the game centre with all of its UFO Catchers. This time, even the boy was happy since this time Daddy did grab some prizes including a giant box of Kit Kats.
I'd been worried about how the kids would be after that Sunday of occasional temper tantrums. But I guess I was either accustomed to the inevitable scoldings or the kids were better behaved, but Saturday was a lot less arduous. It also helped that I'd brought my I Spy book along with crayons & paper to keep them occupied in the restaurant, although Hubby got tense at moments.
Although I'd been to Namjatown a number of times, I'd never been to the Sunshine City Aquarium on the top floor, some 60 floors up. I'm glad that I finally got the opportunity. Got to see a couple of manta rays, a huge sunfish and even a shark's egg. There were even some other animals one wouldn't really associate with an aquarium such as a couple of squirrels, armadillos and even a fennec fox.
Well, today The Dancer and her family should be well on their way to Narita right now. Hopefully, this morning's tremor didn't scare the kids too much. Actually, it'll probably be their father who will probably scare them more.

Anyways, I'm typing this from another new Internet-and-manga cafe that popped up a few months ago. I've just gotten a bit tired of the sullenness at that other place. Mind you, although the guy here wasn't exactly welcoming me like he were the doorman at the Ritz-Carlton, he was more human. The place reminds me a bit more of the relatively expensive I-cafe in Akiba but the 3-hour package here is even cheaper than it is at the sullen cafe down the street. Plus, things seem a bit more classier.

Ahhh....I did forget. Before I saw The Carolinan on Thursday, I had caught "The Prestige" (finally) at The Wald 9 in Shinjuku. The Wald 9 is the newest movie theatre on the scene with all reserved seats. Nice, but they sure could use some more work on the concession stands. My hot dog was perhaps just a molecule or two removed from being misidentified as Kappabashi plastic food.
Anyways, I'm glad that I saw "The Prestige". It was indeed a movie that kept me glued to my seat and my eyes glued to the screen (and not to my watch). At first, I thought it would be something like a "What If?" flick with Batman, Wolverine, Alfred The Butler and Aladdin Insane put into the late 19th-century. But much to the credit of the performances, this was a totally different animal. Although David Bowie kept pretty much the same expression on his face for his extended cameo, it was interesting to see this fellow who pretty much scared the hell out of every prude in England in the 70s (that is, before The Sex Pistols came to be) act as the constipated Nikola Tesla. As for the big whammo ending...the prestige of the title...it was a bit of a sci-fi/"Twilight Zone" cheat but I have to admit that I was kept surprised right to the very end. I will follow Chris Nolan's entreaty not to reveal the ending but let's say if Tesla hadn't been so unlucky, I think a lot of office executives would be telling their gofers today to "Tesla off some copies".

Thursday July 12, 8:35 a.m.

I had a rather grotty homecoming last night. After a full day at Speedy's, what did I come home to find in my kitchen? Eight...count'em, eight....small cockroaches making a party hall out of my kitchen and garbage bag. Well, I've always been tolerant of lesser lifeforms...even cockroaches, but 8 is far into the freeloading zone. So, I got my green can of whup-ass and blew them all away. Even so, one of them lasted a good long half-hour before finally heading off to roach heaven. I pretty much depleted my insecticide....the kitchen was fairly dripping of the stuff by the time I got through with the pests...it was pretty much an re-enactment of Chernobyl. No living thing will touch my kitchen for the next several hours.

So, it was just a mere 10 hours away and back I am over here. But it'll be a relatively short stay since I've only got Speedy's grandmothers for a bit of chit-chat. After that, I may take in a movie before I see The Carolinan. She may be a bit surprised that BC won't be showing up; perhaps that'll be my in to ask for some advice about her since she and her are somewhere between acquaintances and friends.

I got the call from The Dancer. The clan will be saving Saturday for me for Sunshine City in Ikebukuro. So, it'll definitely be Ice Cream City and perhaps Gyoza City although I'm not sure if the kids would be able to handle the garlic...and of course, there is the aquarium. The timing is good since there may be a typhoon flying in from the south overnight on Sunday. I'm just hoping that the adults won't be swept up by the kids' typhoon again. I was just darn exhausted by the time I finished up with the family last Sunday.

Wednesday July 11, 8:21 p.m.

Finished up with 001 tonight. Not exactly her most proficient lesson since she was stumbling through her Present Perfect like a relative neophyte but we managed to salvage things with a stroll down Memory Lane. Memory Lane is always the go-to hook for speeding or brightening up things with folks over 30...well, even the twenties, since I still have a lot of knowledge for J-Pop and anime in the 90s and actually like them.

I've just got the one student left, The Judge. The nighttime assistant will be leaving halfway through the lesson so I'll be closing down the shop....only to come back less than 10 hours later. Mind you, it'll only be for 2 hours. Still, it's a bit of a drag to make that long haul commute between here and Ichikawa.

Wednesday July 11, 5:45 p.m.

I did omit one thing....I found out from The Admin that that former SDF soldier I'd taught before she headed to her 1-year homestay got "Student of the Month" honours at her school. Good for her....nice to hear that one of my own has done good.

Wednesday July 11, 5:08 p.m.

I guess I'm halfway through my marathon session here at Speedy's. The bossman left less than half an hour ago for his honeymoon. As usual, he was running late, rueing half-jokingly that his wife would be berating him again for tardiness. Not sure where he and his missus will be going but I hope he gets some sleep on the plane; he said he only got 1 hour of shuteye last night. So, along with being thin and married as being on the NOT list, I can probably add CEO as well.

So, it's just The Admin and me right now until 001 shows up. I saved myself some money and added variety to my lunch as Mr. Influence had some leftover lasagna in the fridge and some of that veggie soup. Yup, that stuff will keep me satisfied for the rest of the evening. Found out a bit more about The Admin during a chat over lunch. Apparently, a score ago, she had been studying for several months in San Jose (I gracefully refrained from asking if she knew the way there) before getting involved in a number of projects back here before her current stint as the day staff here.

I've read on TVNewser that Part 2 of the Michael Moore vs. CNN prizefight has been fought with apparently no decision although according to the blog, there was plenty of arguing and yelling which I couldn't really imagine from straight-out-of-GQ-and-the-operating-room Sanjay Gupta. Not sure if Wolf Blitzer, Gupta's tag-team partner, was there this time as a referee. But hopefully, that will mean that we won't have to witness any more nastiness on the cable screens anymore. We've got Lou Dobbs for that....although according to the transcripts, his interview with liberal basher Ann Coulter could've also been a script for a "Murphy Brown" ep. Apparently, both Dobbs and fellow curmudgeon Jack Cafferty are no big fans of Moore's either. I would just love the three of them to be in a room together. I'd think that the teams would be evenly matched...physically, at least.

Wednesday July 11, 9:08 p.m.

I saw just a small part of that Michael Moore diatribe/rant/berating/non-interview on "The Situation Room". I can see that during those 10 minutes (from what I read on TVNewser, it was about that long....although for Wolf Blitzer, it probably felt far longer), it truly was a situation room...yes, even more so than the newsroom at CBS after Katie Couric slapped her editor for a word faux pas.
As I said, I only saw about a tenth of the attack before deciding it wasn't worth it anymore and switched over to urbane BBC. I haven't seen too much reaction to the scene so far. There has only been one thumb up for Wolf for parrying and defending the CNN realm. However, as much as Moore didn't do himself any favours by just devouring CNN and every other so-called mainstream media outlet without really defending his stats in "Sicko", I can admire his intent and bravery for tilting the windmills of mainstream anything although I probably will never willingly share an airplane seat with him. He is pretty nigh indestructible....happily taking the lusty round of boos and catcalls at the Republican National Convention in 2004.
And perhaps CNN could use a bit of deflating. Ever since Hurricane Katrina, the epiphany of Anderson Cooper and therefore the catalyst for everyone else in the network, the various folks there seem to have become glib to a nearly snarky degree. Do I really need to see Cooper barely grumbling his distate for Paris Hilton on air or various anchors cheerfully whining about some sort of thing during the "happy talk" sessions between features?


Well, yesterday was a pretty quiet day with just The Beehive and the regular juku classes. Just by luck in the morning just before all of us showed up at her apartment, Mrs. Perth came across an advertisement in the community newspaper about a building which is renting classrooms out. So, hopefully by Fall, we'll have a new permanent home.

My Thursday got a whole lot less demanding, though. Not only did The Manhattanite cancel her lesson for 9:30 that night but BC has also canned her upcoming lesson. The latter student was no real surprise. It'll take a while before she gets out of her funk....if she ever does. However, she did hold out hope that perhaps August will be possible to resume her lessons.

However, today will be one of those spread-out affairs with The Nurse in the morning, 001 in the evening and The Judge to finish up late at night. Then I gotta head back early next morning to take care of Speedy's grandmother students while he's off on his long-awaited honeymoon. At least, once I finish with the ladies in the morning, I can take off and breathe.

Monday July 9, 6:47 p.m.

Well, I'm ready for Mr. TOEIC and I even got some curricula done....so, some more blogging to get out of my system.

On the weird and wacky front of Japanese pop culture:

For the past week or so, we've been hearing about this tarento, Kenji Haga, who's gotten himself into heaps of trouble for intimidating and perhaps extorting money out of someone by threatening to sic a former pro boxer on him. Not surprisingly, he and the boxer were nabbed, and thus another amorphous TV personality has fallen by the wayside. What a way down for a guy who was one of the very first dancers on Tamori's "Waratte Ii Tomo" noontime variety show all the way back in 1982. Since then, the half-American/half-Japanese beefcake's only other notable achievement was as boyfriend to fellow half-American/half-Japanese actress/tarento Anna Umemiya for several years until their breakup nearly a decade ago. Her father, tough guy actor Tatsuo Umemiya, minced no words when he held a sudden news conference outside of the family home a few days ago. He called Haga kidai no waru or "the worst scum ever". Apparently, during the breakup, Haga allegedly tried to blackmail Anna and family for some copious amounts of yen or he would release some rather juicy details to the tabloids. In any case, Haga and company are now resting comfortably on ice and will probably join comedians Masashi Tashiro (drug use and general lechery) and Gokuraku Tombo's Yamamoto (rape of a minor) in that hellish limbo of being well-known ex-celebs afraid to show their faces.

Then, there is the news that another one of the original Morning Musume is gonna have a musume of her own. Kaori "Johnson" Iida, all of 25, is 10 weeks preggers and will be getting married with the father, a former idol singer-turned-regular salaryman. The news is actually over 2 days old so the forums have already had several pages devoted to the story. Well, y'know when idols no longer dance or sing, they gotta put their energies somewhere... I guess Morning Mago is just around the corner with all of the former MM'ers breeding like tribbles.

Did catch some of that Live Earth on SkyPerfect back on Saturday night. They were going back and forth between Sydney and Tokyo with Sarah Brightman finishing off everything in Shanghai. But just when Wembley was about to present those prog rock-turned-80s pop dinosaurs, Genesis, the signal promptly cut off saying that would be all that would be shown unpaid. Mind you, some wags would probably have said thank you. Linkin Park and slinky Rihanna were the folks shown at Makuhari Messe...didn't see any of the J-Pop acts (perhaps a blessing). Some of the guys on the forums were complaining that their idols such as Ai Otsuka and Rihanna herself got as much response from the audience as if they were singing in front of the Easter Island statues. Well, as one guy sagely put it, despite the structure and the intentions of the concert, the audience there probably wasn't there for them. They were more for the rock rappers of Linkin Park. I think the two types of fans would be like oil and water. That would be more the fault of the organizers for putting such diverse acts so close together.
Now, whether Live Earth actually achieved anything....well, as I'd mentioned before, there were quite a lot of folks including Bob Geldof who stated that Live Earth was a colossal waste of time, and more importantly, carbon footprints and CO2. I can understand....having tens of thousands of dancing (well, perhaps not at Makuhari Messe) young folk can probably lead to a footprint the size of Paul Bunyan himself. But practically speaking, how else can one person bring the issue to a huge audience at one time....sorry, but the concerts are the way to go since everyone likes music. Plus, the issue was indeed brought...between acts, I was inundated by black-&-white ads showing everyone from Josh Lucas to Cameron Diaz giving their tips on how to fight global warming. So, one cannot say that the message was buried underneath the music. And considering that Geldof's legendary Live Aid in 1985 really didn't bring about any major or permanent changes in the famine situation in Africa, I don't think The Boomtown Rats' leader ought to be tsk-tsking too loudly.

Monday July 9, 4:51 p.m.

Now, I know why I'll never willingly have kids. I met up with The Dancer's clan again yesterday for that day-long trip through Tokyo. Actually, we just traipsed through the trendy areas of Harajuku, Omotesando and Shibuya. The day was relatively cool and partially cloudy and sunny...which would work out well for our tempers. Actually, it was more for The Dancer's hubby's temper. The hubby's temper was tested last week at that game centre in Fujisawa when his young son pulled off a nasty temper tantrum. Yesterday, it was at Kiddyland, one of the major toy emporia in the world's biggest cities. Hubby was a bit nervous about what a visit to a toy store could do to a couple of kids....kinda like a ko-gal with a gold VISA card in Shibuya. Well, his fears were partially realized when his son demanded to get the most expensive Pokemon set in the store at the very real risk of creating a scene. Then, it was a number of small incidents at Shakey's Pizza next door which got Hubby's temperature rising, including when said son cried that he needed to go to the washroom just when poppa was finally able to tuck into this pizza.
I'd always thought it would be the opposite situation. The Dancer, whom I've known better than Hubby, was always the type to fly off the handle. I remember distinctly back at university when she got into a huge philosophical argument this side with Lou Dobbs with a Marxist-Leninist at Club Day, whereas Hubby was one of the most even-keeled folks I'd ever met. Yesterday, it was more of the Homer/Marge Simpson dynamic between the two.
After lunch, we all waded through the crowds in Harajuku and made our way into Yoyogi Park. I thought after almost 2 decades, those bizarre rockabilly dancers would have finally excised themselves, but there were still half a dozen men reliving the 50s, complete with leather, pompadours and sunglasses. In fact, we saw quite a few interesting examples of cultural colour in our half-hour trek through the park. There was the elderly fellow singing some sort of enka/minyo fusion just a few metres away from a couple of wannabe actresses hamming it up. Then there were the hip-hoppers with a couple of tap dancers hoofing away a la those guys from the final scene of Beat Takeshi's take on "Zatoichi". Some other guys were practicing flag-twirling while some avid otaku were flashing their cellphone cameras at some maid. There was even a real model getting shots taken by a professional crew. The Dancer remarked that the rockabilly guys were boring in comparison. Of course, the kids were oblivious to the scenes. Finally, at the main fork branching off into the roads into Yoyogi Park and Meiji-Jingu Shrine, there were the various maids and goths getting their pictures taken by the tourists.
We were somehow able to get through the literal sea of humanity on Omotesando Dori although we did make a pit stop at this wedge-shaped sculpture spouting off water which amused the kids no end. Hubby was getting tense again since his buggy for the kids was squeaking something awful although I think it was bothering him far more than anyone else. But we managed to make it to the Children's Palace next to the U.N. University in Aoyama, just across from Aoyama Gakuin University. I'd always heard about this place but never been up there...for obvious reasons. Up on the roof, there was one of those huge jungle gyms with tons of crawlspaces and tunnels as if it had been designed by Escher. The kids naturally loved that, and then we downstairs to the tricycle-riding area. As is true with all tiny siblings, the brother made it his mission to try to ram his sister's vehicle. The sister, like any criminal mastermind, merely sped to the nearest empty trike for escape while bro struggled to maneuver his.
The too-good-to-be-true moment of tranquility was indeed that. When we got to the target pitching quarter, bro and sis got into a little battle which got bro into another crying jag and sis getting severely lectured at by momma which got sis into a "IT'S SO UNFAIR!!" weepie. I just kept myself apart from the family moment and hummed happy thoughts. However, the tension lasted for just a few minutes and by the time we got out at closing time, things were back to normal....for a young family, that is.
All of us trundled down to Shibuya trying to figure out what to have for dinner. The bro was seriously finicky with his fave food...which basically amounted to juice, plain white rice and chicken nuggets. TGIFridays came to mind before Hubby threw another condition which was he wanted to get to a true Japanese establishment. Luckily, thanks to Chip Guy's knowledge of Shibuyan restaurants, I knew about Toriyoshi, the izakaya that specializes in chicken dishes. Of course, we had to go through some more seas of humanity before we got there, no small feat with a giant stroller in tow. But we got there.
The maitre d' there seemed (I could be wrong) a little nonplussed to see us...probably our family status automatically signalled no heavy drinking which meant no big payday. In any case, that would've earned him a chintzy tip back in Toronto. Despite the presence of chicken, the bro was still plenty picky about what he liked. He wouldn't touch the yakitori and he demanded that the chicken wings, the piece de resistance of Toriyoshi, be shredded before eating them. And of course, once the meal was over for the kids, they started getting restless. Luckily, I had my crayons which I usually hold for Chip N' Dale...they took to them and the pieces of paper that The Dancer had like ducks to water. That got us down to some fairly peaceful eating.
On the way back to Shibuya Station, and after several hours of often volatile parenting, there was a bit of a victory of sorts. The son finally held my hand when I offered it to him since walking through Shibuya on a Sunday night was often intimidating for many adults let alone a 4-year-old kid. The little kid was finally warming up to me. And so, I was able to get everyone back in the right direction for home. The Dancer's family is a good one....and I'm happy to say that Hubby, despite his usual mild mannerisms, will brook no funny stuff from either of his children. Still, I was quite exhausted when I finally got home. At least, I'll get a week of recovery before I see the clan one more time before they head on out on the 16th.

Luckily, it's a light day today with only SIL and Mr. TOEIC at bat. The week itself will be a bit busier than last week since Speedy is heading on his long-awaited honeymoon. Basically, Thursday will be somewhat of a commuting elastic band. But with the increased Citizen's Tax payments and the dreaded NHI premiums coming up, any dribble of money stream will be welcomed.

Saturday July 7, 4:44 p.m.

Well, I'm done for the day. Got through The Manhattanite and The Dentist. The Dentist had one of the more interesting stories this week. Her favourite oden restaurant's owners (the bossman also frequents the place) had just started a second branch in Kanda last week when a little gas accident basically totalled the entire place. No injuries but no insurance, either. That's a very fast way to throw away tons of money...faster than a few rounds of blackjack in Vegas. The Manhattanite will be making another appearance here late on Thursday night...which means I'll have to rush up from Ichigaya where I'm scheduled to teach The Carolinan and BC (provided that BC has recovered from her depression). It would be a long day on Thursday but I've got this rather huge gap in the schedule between 11:30 and 6:30, so I'm not really griping.

Supposedly, Live Earth Tokyo is booming along with some band called The Abingdon something or other right now. Those technopop dinosaurs, Yellow Magic Orchestra, are skedded to play as well. There was an an NHK 1-hour special (you Youtube guys have probably already put it out) last night on Sakamoto, Hosono and Takahashi with a performance. Yep, quite a lot of time has gone by. That was one of the tamest versions of "Cue" I'd ever heard. Quite a far cry from those slick modern Asian boys I saw thirty years ago on the stage.