Wednesday, 1 October, 11AM

I know I've done my share of complaining about the weather since we got here, but I must admit that it's been glorious the last couple of days. And I just got a huge thrill -- a Cessna flew overhead as I wrote the prior sentence! There's hope!! There must be an airport around here somewhere.

I just turned my Barron's column edits around. Thanks to my editor's upcoming vacation, this one is getting filed a week early; I think it is due to be published in the 10/13 edition. Just in time for my next Barron's deadline, which is 10/16.

I'm looking forward to seeing Bryan Lovegren next week. Sounds like we'll have a group from HP Labs visiting on 10/14 after the big meeting at Canon on the 13th.

The Seisen middle school volleyball team remains undefeated, beating Japan International School 2 games to 1 last night. The coach has the team organized into two groups, and Colleen's talents place her right on the border. Unfortunately, she usually plays with the second group, and they have not been playing well. The first group is very good, with one exception, and I'm hoping the coach moves Colleen into that spot in the near future. Otherwise, I'm sure Colleen will be in the first group next year, and this year she's just paying her dues. I tried to tell her about my year on the J.V. team when I thought I deserved to be on the varsity, but I'm afraid she didn't get the point. I told her I got moved up about 2/3 of the way through the season, but I also know how hard it is to wait for someone else to recognize what you're capable of. It's a nice group of kids, and being a member of the A team has definitely made her more popular around school, so I'm glad she's doing it. The team's next match isn't until 10/18 though. I was talking with a couple of the other moms last night and we though we should give them a scrimmage or two in the meantime ... Mean Old Moms vs. the Junior High Crowd. Could be messy!

Kate is doing After-School Drama now, and the first meeting was yesterday. She got cast as the Big Brother in the Three Little Pigs story -- the one who builds the house of bricks. She wanted to be the Wolf, but that might have been type-casting. This way, she'll have to ... uh ... stretch and dig down deep to find the adult within. Right. I don't know when the performance will take place but I'm sure it will be very jolly.

Thanks again to Lynn and Myrt for sending me a new carafe for my cappuccino maker. It's good to have it all back in working order again. I had found another carafe to use in the meantime, but it didn't do as good a job of catching the Elixir of Life as it streamed out of the coffee machine; too much got splashed on the counter. I'm almost out of the coffee I shipped over in July, so I'm trying some Japanese coffee. They don't sell much decaf over here ... I haven't seen any! ... so my caffeine consumption is way up (I usually mix caf & decaf 50/50). I found this the other day online, which seems appropriate:

YOU KNOW YOU'RE DRINKING TOO MUCH COFFEE WHEN . . .

~You ski uphill.

~You get a speeding ticket even when you're parked.

~You speed walk in your sleep.

~You answer the door before people knock.

~You haven't blinked since the last lunar eclipse.

~You just completed another sweater and you don't know how to knit.

~You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.

~You sleep with your eyes open.

~You have to watch videos in fast-forward.

~The only time you're standing still is during an earthquake.

~You lick your coffeepot clean.

~You spend every vacation visiting "Maxwell House."

~You've worn out your third pair of tennis shoes this week.

~Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.

~You chew on other people's fingernails.

~Your so jittery that people use your hands to blend their margaritas.

~You can type sixty words per minute with your feet.

~You can jump-start your car without cables.

~You've worn out the handle on your favorite mug.

~You go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.

~You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged

in.

~You forget to unwrap candy bars before eating them.

~You've built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.

~People get dizzy just watching you.

~You've worn the finish off your coffee table.

~People can test their batteries in your ears.

~Your life's goal is to amount to a hill of beans.

~Instant coffee takes too long.

~When someone says. "How are you?", you say, "Good to the last drop."

~Your birthday is a national holiday in Brazil.

~You go to sleep just so you can wake up and smell the coffee.

~You're offended when people use the word "brew" to mean beer.

~You name your cats "Cream" and "Sugar."

~Your Thermos is on wheels.

~Your lips are permanently stuck in the sipping position.

~You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.

~You can outlast the Energizer bunny.

~You short out motion detectors.

~You don't even wait for the water to boil anymore.

~You don't tan, you roast.

~You don't get mad, you get steamed.

~You help your dog chase its tail.

~You soak your dentures in coffee overnight.

~Your coffee mug is insured by Lloyds of London.

~You introduce your spouse as your coffeemate.

~You think CPR stands for "Coffee Provides Resuscitation."

~Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup.

Hope all is well with those of you who grace my Friends and Family Mailing List. Write when you get a chance!

-- T.

Thursday, 2 October, 10:15PM

Of course, after several days of glorious weather, which were spent indoors working on a couple of articles, it started raining again today. Just when I'd worked myself to a state of having some freedom ... sigh!!

I got a few more names of people to check with this week about flying. Seeing those three small planes earlier this week got my hopes up. I miss flying like a drug, and it's one I don't want to withdraw from.

I was considering taking a trip to Nagano for fun today … Actually, I bet it's packed this weekend with people checking it out since it just started running on Wednesday this week. This new shinkansen line, installed for the winter Olympics in Nagano, cuts the travel time from 3 hours to 1.5 hours. There's one super-fast train every day that makes the trip in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Some folks are a little put out by the fact that the Nagano train station is still quite a ways from the ski slopes, but they also built a new expressway this year so driving up there shouldn't be too bad. Maybe we'll check it out ... either before or after the Olympics. Tickets to Olympic events are long gone.

Today I got disgusted enough with myself to go out in search of a haircut. I checked out the various English language listings, all of which required a trip into Shibuya or Chiyoda or Roppongi (20-50 minutes each way), so I decided to take my chances with the local salon. My Japanese teacher gave me the magic phrase, "Ni shonti mijikai onegaishimasu," which means "2 centimeters shorter, please." I said that to the hairdresser, and he replied in perfect English, "So you just want it trimmed a little?" Then we got into the entire haircut ritual, which is impressive. My hair is cleaner than it's been in ages -- the shampooing process took about 15 minutes, and involved a head massage and a light toweling of my forehead, ears and back of neck. The chair is really comfortable -- like a First Class airplane seat, complete with footrest. After the long and involved shampooing, and the use of at least three towels and two combs, I was led to the official haircutting chair where the hairdresser went over every single strand at least twice. Then it was back to the sink for a rinse and some conditioner, then back to the work station for a blow-dry. The whole process took 1 1/2 hours, and was the same price I'm paying for a 40 minute job in Palo Alto. So not everything is more expensive in Japan. The legendary service extends even to haircuts.

I took another outing to the Summit Grocery store, the one recommended by David Green (who owns the lodge in Tateyama). I buy the heavy stuff when I have the car nearby -- wine, beer, juice, soft drinks, etc. -- just because buying that stuff near home involved stretching my arms down to my ankles carrying it all home. It's at the intersection of two large street, Kampachi Dori and Setagaya Dori, which is a little further away from our Fife house as the Menlo Park Safeway (2-3 miles), but it's considerably more complicated to get there. Getting home is even more fun; it's basically impossible to just get back on Kampachi Dori and come back home, so I end up making a big loop. It's entertaining at least!

After picking Kate up today following her ballet class -- Colleen had come home on the bus with Lauren, and they spent about an hour goofing around -- Kate made the observation that, "It's almost the same here as it is in Palo Alto. Except that the streets are narrower, you're driving on the other side of the road, the traffic lights are on their sides, the signs aren't in English and ......" She got up to about 12 differences, but was laughing all the while. When she helped me make dinner -- our old favorite, yogurt and bread crumb chicken -- we went through the litany again. "This is just like we make it at home, except the chicken is boned, the yogurt is different, the bread crumbs aren't as crunchy, and the oven is smaller. It's our pan though!" Kate was very cheerful about all the differences today. She seems to be pretty happy, but still misses California and her pals quite a bit.

I miss California and my pals too <pout>. Thanks to Myrt, Jeni, Fred and Lynn for the updates! GO GIANTS -- get out there and win 3 in a row!!

Konbanwa, family and friends!

Thanks to Robin for passing Aunt Lillian's fax number along to me. Lillian, you're now one of the fax-folk on my mailing list, which has grown to 24 via email and 4 via fax. I really ought to get the web page up. Maybe I'll patch something quick together this week, and work on the long-range solution later. I keep trying for perfection immediately ... just one of my many personality flaws!

It's been a fun weekend. On Friday night, we decided to go out for dinner, in honor of my constant whining to get out of the house. We got a recommendation from Kent's administrative assistant for a shabu-shabu joint near our place, so with map in hand we headed down to the train station and headed for Jiyugaoka. This is a fun area, at the intersection of two subway lines (Oimachi and Toyoku) and not very far from our stop. As we left the station, we were amazed to see a good-sized crowd of people all waiting to meet their evening escorts. A good 20% of the 100 or so gathered around the exit were talking on cellular phones too, which made for an interesting sight. There were a couple of guys toting billboards, which apparently advertised some strip joints nearby. Jiyugaoka looks like a cleaned-up North Beach, full of pachinko parlors, karaoke places, strip joints and restuarants. We managed to find the recommended shabu-shabu place, and also managed to parse the menu and figure out what was going on.

Shabu shabu is a fun meal to share with a group. There's a large burner in the middle of each table, and a waitron comes and puts a big pot of hot water on it and sets it alight. Then platters of thinly sliced beef and a variety of vegetables are left at the table; you pick up the stuff you want to cook and hold it in the boiling water (which soon turns to boiling broth) until it's ready to eat. You get two bowls for the two sauces, one of which is strongly flavored with sesame paste while the other is a light and slightly sweet soy sauce mixture. Most shabu shabu places are set up to keep bringing you platters of meat and veggies until you holler, "O-naka ga, ii pai desu!" (which means, My middle part is full!). This place, which was very reasonably priced, lets you order a certain set over a 90 minute period. Kent and I both ordered the beer set, so they brought us beer and meat and veggies until we begged them to stop. Colleen and Kate got the "kid's plates" which included soft drinks rather than beer. We managed to fill up in less than 40 minutes, and left the restaurant totally stuffed.

We walked around the area and saw a variety of other restaurants -- mostly inexpensive Japanese restaurants offering udon, soba, tempura, etc. There were a couple of Italian restuarants too. For every three or four restaurants, there was a pachinko parlor. We haven't tried this ubiquitous game yet, which is a sort of pinball/gambling game that is extremely popular here. I'd like to get a local to take me to one and show me what's going on.

We hit another karaoke place and sang a bunch of dippy songs for an hour. Kate used her allowance to buy a necklace from a street vendor, and with two tired girls in tow, we got back on the Oimachi line and went back home.

Saturday morning brings aikido lessons, and this time Colleen also had a half-day volleyball practice. Her coach is trying to introduce the 5-1 rotation, which takes some work to keep the players from getting totally confused. I remember learning this one in high school when it was a brand new concept. The high school team runs a 6-0, which I didn't learn until college. How times -- and volleyball team lineups -- change. I spent a little time shopping on Saturday, replacing Colleen's destroyed backpack and stocking up for our dinner guests. Colleen went and got a haircut from the same guy I saw on Thursday; he did a great job with her 'do. Kate wants a haircut now too!

Bryan Lovegren and one of his co-workers, Devra, came over for dinner on Saturday night. Bryan works for H-P in the safety area, and at work is always nagging Kent about safety glasses, noxious chemicals, and all that fun stuff. He's OK at the dinner table and avoids warning us about using sharp knives and alcoholic beverages <grin>. It was a great visit; our goal was to keep them awake since they had just arrived in Tokyo the day before and were in the middle of jet-lag city. They'd covered a lot of ground during the day, and I was impressed with how much of the city they'd managed to see in a few short hours. I cooked up a big pot of Caribbean style curry, which we washed down with Kirin autumn beer. Yum.

Bryan had written us to ask if there was anything he could bring, and I asked him to haul over a few boxes of brownie mix if he didn't mind the hassle. I've been volunteered to bake brownies for the big Seisen festival next weekend. Anyway, Bryan showed up with a few boxes of brownie mix all right -- TWELVE!!! One of them ended up as Saturday dessert.

Today we did some errands around the house, including helping Kate with a school project. She has to build an instrument, so she and Kent went to Tokyu Hands (the local Home Depot equivalent) and bought some stuff to make an instrument that vaguely looks like a rubber-band bass. Kate can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on it. Colleen had to have one too, so now there are two of these delightful contraptions in the house. They'd make good weapons too.

Bob Indig, who worked with Bob Carey at Beckman for a while, called just before noon, so we invited him to head out in our direction. It was fun to see him -- he's in town giving the same sort of training talks that Bob C. used to give all over Europe. Just think, Bob, you could have done them here if you hadn't retired so soon!! <grin!> We went out for lunch at the Grand Cafe on the top floor of the Takashima-ya department store. That's a good choice because it's a combination of 4 or 5 different restaurants -- Japanese, Chinese, Italian, etc. -- so everyone can get something to eat. Then we went for a walk along the river, which was nice -- the weather was great today, sunny with a little breeze. We invited Bob to stay for dinner, which he accepted, and had teriyaki steak, pasta with blue cheese sauce (a particular favorite of Kate and Colleen's) and broccoli.

Now we're settling in and getting ready for a busy week. Colleen's pal from Addison and Jordan, Azumi Horiuchi, shows up on Thursday afternoon and I'm sure we'll see her quite often. (Her dad works for AMD and travels to Japan quite a bit; it sounds like Azumi talked him in to bringing her along this time so she could visit Colleen.) We'll also have Tessa and Jonas Opperman stay with us next weekend because their parents Mark and Ghislaine are going to Italy for 10 days (the lucky bums). Of course, there's also the Seisen festival next Saturday -- last year they raised over $100,000!!! (Eat your hearts out, Addison Festival organizers!) -- which will be the debut of the 1997 version of Evensong, the mom's chorus I've joined. Big fun. C'mon down!

It was great to hear from Joe Margevicius this week, so he's on the mailing list too. I guess if you send me email and sound vaguely interested, I'll fling you on the list. <grin>

Kent just came upstairs and told me he'd already sent out a weekend update, so some of you have gotten two versions of this. They're probably both true!

Mata ato de,

-- T.

I didn't make this up, but I wish I had:

Mary Poppins has moved to L.A. where she has opened a fortune-telling stand, specializing in predicting bad breath.

The sign outside reads: Super California Mystic, Expert: Halitosis.

How's it going?

I've been up to my armpits in fiddling with that *#(@ web site and may have finally beaten it into some early form of submission. There's really not a lot up there now, but I appreciate those of you who have visited it. It's very satisfying to see that counter click upwards, and not all the hits are caused by my checking to see how the page looks! I just found out how to password protect the page, which I'd like to do because I don't want just any bozo to stop by and look at pictures of my kids. I'm not going to register the page with any of the search programs, but it might get picked up without any effort from me. Hence the password; I'm putting the site up just to have an easy place to share pictures and stuff with you guys.

Some of you may recognize the 4437 number as part of my Palo Alto fax number. But then most of you will not <grin>. I tried to get 1121 but it was taken. <pout!>

Enough of that hoo-hah. We've just been pluggin' along this week, doing normal sorts of things for the most part. I got a chance to take a few hours out of Wednesday and go play tourist. After careful study of the subway map, which is almost as complicated as the terminal area chart of the Los Angeles area, I figured out how to get to Ueno with only one train change. It still took an hour to get there; the one train change involved a 10 minute walk from one side of the station to the other, all under ground. I switched from the Shin-Tamagawa/Hanzomon line to the Ginza line at Mitsu...something or other... (no map in my office)... and that change is a little tedious. But it's better than changing at Shibuya, which is a total zoo. The trains on the Ginza line have little lighted displays and writing in arabic as well as Kanji/hiragana so it's easy for the bewildered traveler to answer that musical question, "Where the <bleep> am I???" A nice touch.

The Ueno area is part of the former "shita machi" or "down town" area. It was literally downtown -- the movers and shakers lived up on the hill, while the merchants and servants lived down by the bay. There's a great museum right at the edge of Ueno Park called, of all things, the Shitamachi Museum, and though it's small, it's packed with information on how people lived in that area. Many residents had a small shop in front of their living space, and the living space for 2-4 people was usually just a single small room. This museum recreates a regular store as well as one of the tenements that several families inhabited. You take your shoes off to go into the exhibits, and it's OK to open the drawers, pick up the tea kettles, and basically poke around. I had fun.

After the museum, I wandered around the park a bit, checking out the Shrine to Denten. Denten is the goddess in charge of the arts, so I'll have to drag any painters who might visit me over here to pick up a little of her luck. After the temple, it was time for lunch, so I stopped into a little restaurant near the park that served indifferent udon. The one fun thing about lunch was using the vending machine to buy tickets that I then had to present to the cook. The machine is labeled all in hiragana and katakana, so being able to order all by myself was a personal victory.

I only had about 45 minutes left before having to go back home to be there when my little darlings got out of school, so I headed back towards the tracks to look for the Ameyoko. This is a shopping district that grew up out of the black market following WW2. U.S. Army folks used to bring stuff down here from the P.X. and sell it at outrageous prices. I didn't buy anything this time, but my Japanese teacher assures me I can say, "Takai desu! Yasui kudasai," and bargain the price down. ("Expensive! Cheaper please.") Maybe next time.

This morning, Kate headed off to catch the school bus a few minutes early, and I was amazed at what a good job she'd done getting her buns in gear. But then she popped back home 15 minutes later, sobbing, "I missed the bus!" It turns out she got there really early, and nobody was there waiting. So she came home, certain she'd missed it ... if she'd just stayed a few minutes longer, she would have discovered she was the first one at the stop. So I had to drive her, and thanks to bad traffic -- it took about 10 minutes to cross Kampachi Dori -- she was quite late.

Tomorrow (Friday) I get to bake up most of the brownies that Bryan Lovegren gave us, then go to Seisen to help set up the American Booth for the huge Festival of Nations on Saturday. I'm seriously considering signing up for a weekend-long Reiki training session, but it falls while Kent is out of town... anyone want to pop over and hang with the kids the weekend of October 25th???

Talk to you soon ...

Tuesday 14 October

Howdy,

Just a short note to let you know what I've been up to over the last couple of days.

Sunday (Saturday PDT) we had several nice phone calls. We heard from Mom and Dad and from Robin and Bill and visitors. Nice to hear your voices.

Sunday afternoon I took the train to Mishima to meet some other HP people for a meeting Monday morning. Mishima is a seaside town near the base of Mt. Fuji. To get there I took our local train to the Yokohama subway, the Yokohama subway to the Yokohama Shinkansen station and then the Shinkansen to Mishima. That is about 1 hour and 45 minutes of train riding. With train changes and waiting it took a little over 2 hours. As I arrived in Mishima the sun was just setting. The weather was clear and pleasant with just a touch of coolness. From the train platform I could look to the north and see Mt. Fuji looking almost close enough to touch. I was meeting several others from HP at the Mishima station at 6 PM and arrived with about 40 minutes to spare.

Surprisingly, all six of us, arriving in 4 different groups, were able to get there by 6 PM. We found a local sushi bar for dinner then took a taxi to our hotel.

The hotel is about a 30 minute taxi ride from Mishima, up in the foothills closer to Mt. Fuji. Next to the hotel there was a brew pub having an Oktoberfest special. We went to check it out, but they were closing. So we bought a few liters of their beer and some snacks and took them back to the hotel. Both their Pils and Weissbeer (sp.?) were tasty.

Monday morning breakfast was on the top floor of the hotel. One side of the dining room has windows facing Mt. Fuji. The weather was clear and the sky blue making for a very impressive view. We were able to keep watch on Fuji all day as the conference room also had a great view of the mountain.

The meetings went well. We were there from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM. Things move very slowly when everything must be translated. We made some progress, but there are still a lot of items to be worked out.

While I was gone Teri and the girls were very busy. They had dinner guests on Sunday night and spent all day yesterday at Disneyland. I'll let them tell you about their adventures.

Bye for now,

Kent

Wednesday 15 October, 11PM

Konbanwa yet again!

It's been a busy week since I last did my update. I tossed a couple dozen photos onto the Web page on Sunday, and have a few more I could put up there that I scanned in last Friday. Whew. This web maintenance stuff is not for the faint of heart.

Friday was a holiday for Kent, but not for Colleen and Kate, poor little dears. Kent and I went into his office for a couple of hours so I could scan photos and Kent could do some work. We had lunch at a noodle joint next door to his office, then came back home. I had to go to Seisen to help set up the American booth for the big festival; when I got there, we managed to finish everything in just an hour. So I came home and baked brownies (thanks again, Bryan Lovegren!!).

Saturday morning, the weather was great (totemo ii tenki desu!) and I got to Seisen at 9:30 to warm up for the Evensong performance. The kids were at aikido lessons, so there were no family witnesses <pout> but we did pretty well anyway. Evensong kicked off the entertainment portion of the program with three tunes, then the moms all dispersed to their various booths to get to work. I didn't have to go to the American Booth for my shift for a few hours, so I wandered around and looked at the goodies on display. I found a teacher who organizes ski trips, and will probably sign up for a 4-day outing in February with him. I also found a company that rents bottled water thingamajigs, and plan to sign up with them. The water in Tokyo is supposed to be very safe, but it tastes to me like watered-down bleach. I put a filter on the sink in the kitchen quite some time ago, but I'm not sure that's a good long-term solution.

Anyway, the festival is pretty wild -- dozens of booths packed around the Seisen campus selling food, clothes, cards, home supplies, etc etc etc. One of the Australian dads was at his country booth hollering, "Aussie steak sandwiches! Gitcher Aussie steak sandwich here!" So I did. I also nibbled on some goodies from Thailand and Korea. Kate's third grade choir did three numbers, "Rubber Ducky" being the highlight of the show, complete with rather complicated choreography. (Photo coming soon!) Colleen painted faces and applied temporary tattoos at the 7th grade booth, and I ended up selling American cereal and other goodies at the American booth. It's like the Addison festival on major steroids, but packed into about half the space. We were all very very tired when we got home!

Jonas and Tessa Opperman arrived on Friday night to spend the weekend with us while Mark and Ghislaine headed off to Italy. Jonas slept in my office on a rollaway on Friday night, while Tessa bunked with Kate. Saturday afternoon after the festival, though, the kids discovered .... The Attic! They climbed up there and moved all the futons and rollaway bed mattresses into a large space, then added some lamps, books, and Colleen's boom box. They had a great time goofing around up there for several hours, and all fell asleep too. After a hearty pancake breakfast on Sunday morning, they went back up into the attic until it was time to take the Opperman kids to Shinagawa to meet the family taking care of them this week. Kent left for his trip to Mishima while I was driving over to Shinagawa and back.

As soon as we returned from dropping Jonas and Tessa off, Azumi Horiuchi (from Palo Alto) and her mom arrived. They brought Yoshiha with them, who is a friend of Azumi's from her school days here in Japan. Yoshiha speaks no English at all, but went along with the sleep-in-the-attic program in good humor. Azumi's mom stayed for dinner, and it was great to visit with her. She left around 7:30PM for the trip back to Hachioji.

Monday morning, we woke up at an awful hour -- 5:15AM. Ugh. We wanted to head over to Disneyland to get there right when it opened, and we had 90 minutes of train riding to do to get there. We didn't manage to leave the house until 6:40AM though; I don't know what everyone was doing for all that time. We took the Oimachi line all the way to Oimachi where we met up with Jessica, then picked up the Tohoku line to Tokyo station. Tokyo Station is *HUGE*!!!!!! and it took us about 10 minutes to walk to the other side where we found the Keiyo line for Maihama. The gate to Disneyland is a 5 minute walk from the Maihama station. At Jessica's suggestion, we bought our return tickets to Tokyo Station right away, to avoid a long line on the way out. This was a Very Good Idea!!!

So there we were at the gates of Disneyland, tickets in hand, at 8:30AM. But the gates didn't open for another half hour. That's a long 30 minutes!! Jessica had found some discount tickets that saved 1000-1400 yen per ticket, which was very nice of her. Once the six of us -- me, Colleen, Kate, Jessica, Azumi and Yoshiha -- got in, we headed straight for Space Mountain. We got 4 rides in by 10AM, but then the crowds got a little thicker and the waits were longer. The longest we waited all day was 45 minutes, which is average by Anaheim standards. I noticed that Tokyo Disneyland, though it's on a larger parcel of land than the Anaheim version, has only about 2/3 of the rides but double the number of shops. There's no Matterhorn or submarine ride, but they do have Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, the Jungle Ride and .... the Tiki Room! I'm sure all you animated parrot fans out there are thrilled about the latter. The castle is much bigger than in Anaheim -- big enough that they run a "mystery tour" through it. Even though I could only understand about 10% of what our guide was saying, I could tell she was very entertaining. Azumi got chosen to help beat the demon at the very end of the tour, so our guide put a "HERO" medal on her that she wore around for the rest of the day. We had a really good time. Azumi and Yoshiha had to leave to head all the way back to Hachioji (probably a 2 1/2 hour trip, maybe longer) at about 5:30, but the rest of us stayed a while longer. We had dinner at a pasta restaurant that was really quite good and not terribly overpriced (just slightly overpriced...) and went and rode some of our favorite rides again. And again. The waits were down to nothing by 8PM; you could just walk right on the rides.

The kids ran out of steam at about 8:30, so I dragged them from the park. Colleen could barely stay awake on the various train rides home -- actually, she didn't stay awake at all. She engaged in that time-honored Japanese tradition of falling asleep while leaning on a total stranger's shoulder. I was so proud!

Tuesday morning, Colleen had to drag herself up early again and go to volleyball practice. Kate had another day off, thanks to an in-service training day for her teachers, which she (of course) wanted to spend at Disneyland again. I was too exhausted to even consider that suggestion seriously.

Mike and Scott from HP Labs came over for dinner on Tuesday, accompanied by Mike's extremely precocious and funny 5-year-old son, Matthew.

Shortly before dinner, I got a call from the athletic director at the Christian Academy of Japan, where Colleen's team had played a volleyball match a few weeks back. I'd talked to the basketball coach during her match and offered to put my name on a list of referees they could call in an emergency -- and they had an emergency. With great trepidation, I agreed to ref the junior varsity high school match for them tonight. It takes about 90 minutes to get there by train, and I managed to make the trip in time even though more than half of it was on lines I've never seen before. (I took the bus with Colleen's team last time.) I chatted with CAJ's middle school coach, who was the other referee. She asked me to stand up on the ladder and she'd do the floor refereeing. So I pretended I knew what I was doing, and got the game underway. Amazingly enough, they went along with my calls and even seemed to know what my various signals and whistles meant. Seisen trounced CAJ's JV team, 15-1, 15-4, and I thought my job was done for the night. But one of the refs for the varsity game didn't show up, so they asked me to be the floor judge. Ulp ... this is a much harder job! But I managed to pull it off like I knew what I was doing. Seisen won the varsity match also, 15-2, 15-9, and I found out I was getting paid for all my hard work. I'll try not to spend it all in one place.

Thanks for the various emails ... talk to you all soon! I'm enjoying your comments in the Guest Book on the web page. Robin and Bill, your honorary renaming of tiramisu to "Terimisu" is very touching. Or something. <grin>

-- T.

Monday 20 October, 10:10PM

First of all, I've gotten a few comments lately about how fast I must be typing, given the time I put at the top of these notes and the time stamp applied by CompuServe when I send them. I'll give you a hint: I write the first line last, right before I send the email. My typing is fast and sloppy, so I go back and edit a lot (not enough though ... <grin>) but I assure you my speed is well under 800 words per minute. I appreciate your confidence in my limited abilities though...

Yes, it's been 2 months since we landed here. Sometimes it seems like it's been much shorter, and at other times it seems much longer. I still barely know my way around and have just scratched the surface of learning the language, but we've all come a long way towards getting settled.

When last we spoke, we were recovering from Disneyland and refereeing. Kent went to Kobe on Thursday night, returning Friday around 7:30PM. I had a bit of an adventure on Friday -- I met a friend from the Japan Forum at the Tokyo American Club for a short visit. Getting to TAC (as everyone here calls it) is a little convoluted from here -- Oimachi line to Jiyugaoka, then the Hibiya line extension to the TAC stop, the name of which I can't recall right now but it starts with a K and is right after Roppongi. Kamichayo? That might be it. The trip takes 50 minutes. But I digress. I met Liz at the front desk; she'd just been to use the athletic facilities and had stashed her 2-year-old daughter Kate in day care until noon. So we had coffee and fat pills (also known as pastries) in the Garden Cafe and chatted for a while. Liz is about my age, and has two other children, boys 10 and 12, who are in boarding school in Scotland. She arrived in September, and the three of them live in an apartment near TAC. She doesn't know yet how long they'll be here, and there was a chance that they would have only stayed a few months, so they didn't want to disrupt schooling for their older kids. It looks like they'll be here a while though, so Liz is trying to figure out how to get the older kids here at semester break.

After visiting with Liz, I went up to the 4th floor for a big print show, sponsored by the College Women's Association of Japan. This organization has been recommended to me, so I figured I'd go check out their big annual scholarship fund-raiser. Some of the prints were great, but none of them grabbed me and said, "Take me home this very instant." I wandered down to the third floor where a fashion designer from the U.S. was showing her wares, and found several things that shouted, "You must take me home right now!!!" This designer buys piles of kimonos here, then takes them back with her to Hawaii where she slices and dices them and turns them into stunning outfits. I'm not much of a clothes horse, as most of you know (and some of you despair), so it was a surprise to me to see something and think to myself, "I've got to have this." Unfortunately, Anna wasn't selling anything out of her fashion show area at TAC, so I'm not sure what I'll do to get hold of one of her suits. Guess I'll have to go see her in Honolulu ... what a shame.

Friday night we went out for dinner at the Dogwood Plaza -- it was a beautiful evening, and really pleasant outside. Kent and I had Indian food while Colleen had Mexican food. Kate nibbled on a piece of nan from the Indian restaurant, continuing her imitation of an air fern by soaking up available nutrients from the atmosphere. We chatted for a while with my bus-stop friend Jane (from Australia) and her husband Ken, and another Seisen mom, Jenny from South Africa. You would all like Jane -- she's really funny, and is out to have a good time no matter what. Her favorite adjective is "brilliant" which she uses when we might say "great" or "fantastic." I'm enjoying hearing about brilliant meals and brilliant dance classes. <smile>

Saturday was a volleyball day for Colleen. I didn't go along this time and missed the usual experience -- riding the bus all the way out to Yokosuka (over an hour), suffering through the B team games (truly dismal and boring), only to watch Colleen play for perhaps 20 minutes. She left the house at 8:15 and returned at 5:30 ... Seisen was again victorius in matches against both Kinnick and Zama (U.S. military base schools) but I'm sure I would have been pounding something in frustration watching them play out of position and flub serves. Kate had a consultation with Dr. Kondo, the orthodontist, scheduled for 3PM, so that was my excuse to not go.

The consultation turned out to be very interesting. Dr. Kondo recommends taking Kate's braces off now that her teeth have been straightened out, and waiting and watching to make sure there will be space for her remaining adult teeth before doing anything else. So she took impressions of Kate's teeth and will make retainers (top and bottom) for her, and take the braces off on 11/15. While we were there, she said she wanted to clean Kate's teeth and give her a tooth-brushing lesson; as her pushy old mom has been telling her, she needs to brush her teeth better. I asked if Dr. Kondo had a hygienist on staff because I missed a cleaning appointment last month; she said she'd be glad to have her hygienist do the job.

I sat down in the chair, got the bib tied on, and opened my mouth as directed. As many of you know, I've had a lot of jaw problems over the years. Two dentists, an orthodontist and a surgeon have given up on me, saying I have the worst case of TMJ they've ever seen (or heard). The hygienist looked at me with considerable alarm the first time she heard my jaw pop, and called Dr. Kondo over. She said that my teeth are very pretty, but they don't function well -- my bite is totally wrong, and it's destroying my jaw. I told her that 4 other doctors had already given up on me, and I figured I might as well just live with it. She said, "I can make this better for you," then had me hauled downstairs to her X-ray room. I don't know why I don't glow at night now; she took about 20 x-rays of various views of my head. She's sure she can make some kind of bite-guard thing that puts my jaw in the proper position ... I'll wait and see what she comes up with. Been there, done that, still popping. Anyway, she'll have something for me on 11/29.

Sunday I woke up feeling like cooking a lot. So I invited Liz and her daughter Kate over for dinner (her husband was in Scotland on business and visiting with their sons), as well as Kazuko who is a friend of Ayako's (the Japanese girl who lived with us for most of 1994). I ran down to Meidi-ya and bought a small turkey (9 pounds), which I then speed-thawed so I could toss it in the oven in time to cook it for Sunday dinner. While the turkey was roasting, we all went for a long walk by the river. Liz really enjoyed that; she has no greenery or parks near her house at all. Little Kate had a great time playing with both Colleen and Big Kate; Liz asked if Colleen is available to babysit anytime soon. We had a turkey feast, complete with mashed potatoes, a gallon or so of gravy, and a pile of roasted veggies. Pumpkin pie for dessert, of course. It wasn't quite the mob scene that many of my Sunday dinners have become, but it was fun anyway. Kazuko offered to take me shopping sometime soon -- she's a flight attendant for one of the major domestic airlines, and has varying days off. She's been in Tokyo for a year now, and lives just 6 subway stops away on the Oimachi line. I think she wants us to adopt her; she misses her mom and dad in Osaka, and Kent and I are only a few years younger than they are. (What a concept ... she's 23!)

Jane had mentioned on Friday night how much she loves pumpkin pie, so I brought her the very last piece this morning after taking Big Kate to the bus stop at St. Mary's. I ended up getting invited along on a major shopping expedition to Kou's, which is the Tokyo equivalent of Costco, complete with fast food outlets out front. We got there about 10 minutes before it opened, so we sat and had some coffee to regain our strength for the assault on the store. Jane picked up Jenny (from South Africa) and Brett, a house-husband from Australia (we'd met his wife (who works for IBM) and daughters (who are gorgeous) on the train a few weeks ago). Jenny and I signed up for memberships, which cost 3000 yen per year, and we all trooped in. (A member can bring 3 guests along, similar to Costco/Price Club policies.) We all "went mad" as Jane said, and filled shopping baskets with all kinds of stuff. Jane kindly dropped us all off at our front doors, which was a good thing; I couldn't have walked carrying the two cases of drinks, boxes of laundry detergent, an iron, some meat and veggies, and god-knows-what-else anyway. I was the last one to be dropped off, and as I was pulling the case of Coke out of the car, the box popped open and about a dozen cans spilled out and started rolling down the hill! Jane and I both chased them and finally gathered them all up, but there was a great deal of hollering and laughing involved in the task that probably upset our neighbors. Kate had a dented can tonight and thought it was funny; she wondered how far down the street the can had rolled before I caught it.

Tomorrow I have Evensong, Japanese lesson, and a pitch to a brand new magazine aimed at online investors. Kate has drama class and Colleen has a volleyball practice. Kent is gearing up for his trip to the U.S. this Friday.

Talk to you all soon ... I put a few more older pictures up on the Web page this weekend, including one of Kyle and his band. Enjoy!

-- T.

Chilly autumn days

Monday 27 October, 10:20PM

A week has flown by since I last wrote an update. ("Whew!" I hear many of you mutter to yourselves.) The air has definitely turned cool, and it's downright cold, at least to my California sensibilities, in the morning and evening. It's been clear and beautiful though; definitely a major improvement over the murk and gloom of September. (That could have been my mood rather than the weather ... but I digress.)

My major problem this week (I will spare you all the minor problems) is that I missed Jimmy Buffett's stop at Shoreline last Thursday night. Sigh. Maybe he'll come to Japan next year. He has a new book coming out that I've already ordered from amazon.com so they'll send it to me as soon as it's available. This could classify as addictive behavior. Speaking of books, I just completed Alison Weir's "The Children of Henry VIII," which is about the tangled histories of the four people he named as his heirs to the throne of England. I've enjoyed all of her books ("The Princes in the Tower" and "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" are also terrific) because she does such good research and puts it all together so well. I came away from this book grateful for two things: the separation of church and state, and the (relatively) orderly government transitions when power shifts from one party to the other. It's been ages since a Cabinet member was beheaded, for instance.

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One interesting aspect of the retail business in Japan is that each of the big department stores shuts down for one day per week. I don't know how the day off is chosen, but it's set up so that only a few of them are closed on any particular day. Our local department store, Takashimaya, closes on Wednesdays, and the area around the shopping center is much quieter that day as a result. Last week, I decided to head over to Mizunokuchi (near H-P Labs) to look through the department stores there for a few more little things to send home with Kent last Friday. As it turns out, the Marui is closed on occasional Wednesdays, so the whole area around the train station was very quiet. I took off exploring the shopping district away from the department stores, and found quite a few enjoyable surprises.

There's a tangle of narrow streets emanating from the area of the train station that encompass the shopping district of Mizunokuchi. The opening of the big department stores last month doesn't appear to have disrupted their business very much; the streets are still quite crowded and I found some real bargains. My favorite is one I bet a few of you see when you come visit: an incredibly cheap, high quality sushi joint. Would you believe I completely stuffed myself -- couldn't possibly jam another morsel down the hatch -- for the equivalent of about $12? This little place (I don't know its' name because I can't read the kanji!) has a conveyer belt circling the sushi bar, and the chefs keep it packed with nigiri sushi, served in pairs. Most of the selections are 120 yen per pair, which is just a smidgen over $1. A few items (scallops, mackerel) are 240 yen per pair. I was snarfing down sushi that cost $3-6 per serving in Palo Alto for the equivalent of less than a dollar. Yes, I was in heaven. I also found an inexpensive vegetable store with a better selection than the one close by, and a shop with good prices on meat. I'm still looking for a fresh fish store; I'm only finding the places that sell fish heavily salted. Anyway, it turned out to be a good thing that the Mizunokuchi Marui was closed that day even though some of you didn't get the gifts I wanted to send. Maybe next time! Or better yet -- come and get'em <grin>.

Last week I had a big problem with my main computer -- it crashed, and wiped out the files for the Internet sign-on that I usually use. Of course, I don't remember the password, so I couldn't do any web page updating for several days. It took several phone calls to get a new password, one of which was partially in Japanese, but the situation is finally straightened out. Bobby sent me a bunch of pictures of Monica today, which I posted on the page in the niece/nephew paragraph. I hope to reorganize that page and scan a few more pix in before I head to the U.S. on 11/9.

Kent spent some extra time at work getting things ready for a big presentation at HP Labs in Palo Alto (which is coming up on Wednesday), but he was able to break loose just after noon on Friday. I showed him where the cheap sushi joint is, and we totally pigged out and spent about $25. (I know it won't make up for the air fare, but c'mon .. cheap sushi! You have to come over here!!) Then he headed for the airport, going via Tokyo City Air Terminal (TCAT) which is most definitely the most convenient way to get from Narita to our house, and vice versa. I'll post some excrutiatingly detailed descriptions soon -- we even took pictures of the subway station and the machine you need to use. Oh! News flash! Kent got some great news today on his blue laser project. He and/or his boss, Wahguih Ishak, will be quoted in today's New York Times regarding blue lasers, but what they say about H-P Labs' results is out of date as of about 8 hours ago. (Buy HP Stock Now!) (That was a subliminal suggestion.)

The Seisen middle school "A" volleyball team ended up the season undefeated, taking care of American School in Japan and St. Maur's on Saturday. That evening, the girls and I went to Marge and Chris' for dinner, and we met another Colorado couple, Ben and Deb, and their two daughters Katherine and Jillian (2nd graders, twins!). Marge cooked up some lasagna and it was mighty tasty. The kids had a scavenger hunt and discovered candy and little prizes in a variety of hideaways around the house. That of course provided the segueway to the loudest game of hide and seek I've ever witnessed -- lots of clomping around and copious giggling. Or maybe the sake we drank after dinner colored my perceptions... hmmm. My big triumph of the evening, and we take these triumphs wherever we can find them, was driving all the way over there and back without a navigator.

Sunday (yesterday) we got a late start and spent some time on the phone with the people in California. I wonder what the hourly rate is on that "Call Home America" plan ... guess I'll find out soon! Jonas Opperman and his Boy Scout troup came down to the river to build rafts and navigate them across the Tama and back, so the kids and I went down to hang out with Tessa and Ghislaine and observe the madness. I met a lot of nice people, including one woman who fell madly in love with Hershey (he *is* a lovable guy) and offered to baby-sit him if her schedule allows it while were in the U.S. over Christmas. I hope this one works out! It was a gorgeous day by the river and fun to sit among the grasses and talk metaphysics with Ghislaine. Kate, Colleen and Tessa had fun blazing trails through the tall pampas grass at the river's edge ... at least for a while. We watched a couple of innings of a Little League baseball game, played with a hard rubber ball that bounces a lot, observed the launch of the rafts (and several boys falling into the river) then came back to our house to warm up and dry off.

I had another triumph: I ordered pizza to be delivered, over the phone, *in Japanese.* I am not making this up! What's more amazing -- what I ordered actually arrived. And in less than 20 minutes! I was thrilled. I had to give the Pizza Hut dude my name, address, phone number and pizza order, and also (here's the difficult part) understand his replies and questions. Mark, Ghislaine, Jonas, Tessa, Jonas' friend Tim, Kate, Colleen and I all feasted on three varieties of Pizza Hut pizza ... my first pizza since coming to Japan. My next challenge: getting beer delivered. Film at 11.

I hope you all had good weekends. It sounds like the Carey gatherings were a lot of fun. Hey Paul -- that *was* George Ward!

-- T.