06.22.08
Snoring softly
It’s 5:05 pm here on a rainy Sunday in Nikko, Japan. It’s been plenty hot and humid lately. I almost up and hit the futon for a nap, but decided against it. I slept quite a bit yesterday (a three-hour nap and a ten-hour sleep) and I will probably get at least eight hours tonight, so by the time tomorrow rolls around I expect to have recharged my batteries enough for the coming week (when I won’t be getting eight hours’ sleep a night).
Today we went to the pool (a decent indoor deal that’s part of a hotel-cum-hot-spring-resort-cum-vegetable-market-cum-conservatory—a whole bunch of different attractions bundled together. It seems to be an odd admixture of destinations, but it’s nicely put together, clean, well maintained, well designed, and so on. I thought the pool would be really crowded on a Sunday, but it was only somewhat crowded, and not unnavigable, as I had feared.
Although there are no plastic thingamajigs dividing the pool into lanes (and thus no actual lanes), it is possible to do lengths/laps, but only on a weekday, when there would be few people. Today the pool was just full of people frolicking, playing with their kids, and walking back and forth in the water (a popular exercise in Japanese pools).
Mom’s got her own car now, a brand-new Honda Life (yes, she has a life), so she’s doing a lot of driving on her own now. Preparing to go to the pool, we came down the steps and unlocked mom’s car. The kids, however, began to fight over who would get to sit behind Daddy. As mommy was driving, Mickey wanted to sit behind dad, who was to plop himself down in the passenger seat. Milo, however, also wanted to sit behind dad, so he was unhappy with Mickey being strapped in behind me. An idea then came to Milo, which he repeated over and over: “Daddy drive! Daddy drive!” However, since mom was driving, this was not going to happen. Milo then calmed down a bit and then I told him that I would rest my (right) hand on his leg, which he gladly accepted and further calmed down. So off we went.
These days life has a lot of demands, and I find I can have a lot more peace if I just keep things simple. I try to limit life’s requirements to work, family, exercise, and managing our finances. When I’m at work (between classes and not on a gym day), I often set up my laptop and scanner. I have an old laptop that still works OK (although very slowly) and I leave me scanner at work, and I use my spare time to scan old family photos and upload them to my server. For example, I’ve recently scanned my kingergarten-Grade 3 photos. Eventually, I hope to have as many photos of my and Shiho’s childhood online as possible. Saving money is paramount now if we’re going to be able to afford a move back to Canada and build up a financial cushion that will allow me to survive the first few months without a job, if necessary. We were going to go back to Canada during my nine- or ten-day vacation this summer, but the airfares are really looking exorbitant (probably around $2,000 each for four people) and if I spend money like that there’s just no way I can save it up. The wife is home now with groceries so I’ll help her unpack. Later.
