People Like Talking to Beautiful Girls

Written the morning of July 16th.

Friday night I left judo early to pick up Afia who was coming North from Iwamizawa at the train station. As I was at home gathering myself together before leaving I realized I had no gas in my car. I made a mad dash to the gas station, only to unsurprisingly discover all of Hamatonbetsu’s options were closed.

I drove close to investigate for sure and saw that one had the lights still on in the office. With a hint of gaijin smash I drove up and looked into the window with a desperate look in my face. One kind hearted gentleman came out and even though the gas station was clearly done, walked in to get the key to re-start a pump for me.

Saturday morning we went to see the Northern most point, then drove back for the Team Hibeki Taiko concert that evening at the Beer Party to raise money for the Park Golf course.

James and Inoue were kind enough to drive in from Toyotomi as well, and adding that to Chris’s friends Rob & Tim from Ebetsu and Hamaton was rocking foreigner style. Rob started one of the best ni-ji-kai’s I’ve ever attended off well by singing a Japanese song.

The following morning was the Lake Kutcharo festival, which turned out to be Hamaton’s biggest annual event. Everyone from teachers to students to drinking buddies to after school play club friends to the Japanese Self-Defense Force turned out. Afia and I had an incredible day sampling local delicacies, taking our picture with the kamen riders, watching my students brass band concert and running on logs floating in water,

Walking around with a beautiful girl next to me people were strangely far more interested in talking with me.

Birthday Flowers

Written this morning.

On my birthday night, I received 3 to 4 bouquets of flowers. Given my mother was visiting at the time, the flowers stems were cut and they were placed into some glass containers I had sitting around the house. Were I alone, they instead would of been placed on a table and left there unattended for at least a week or two.

As it turned out, when my mother did leave, they stayed in those bottles from March 18th to April 18th to May to June and past July 18th. I was surprised the flowers remained in bloom and beauty for a few weeks, but clearly 4 months is stretching things.

In any event, they were likely to be left as welcome gifts for my successor, were it not for the intervention of two angels from who came north to save me from myself.

Clare and Dana not only tossed the flowers, they scrubbed down my counter with bleach [they found it funny when I mentioned I never would've thought to clean with bleach], did all my dishes [Dana asked if the bowl I used to cook oatmeal last week was vomit] and bled [Clare cut herself on a cracked cup that I should have thrown out months ago] to save me from myself. I tried asking telling them it was alright, but Clare insisted it was fine and that they were enjoying themselves.

Well, ladies from the bottom of my heart and from my successor’s as well, thank you.