Our oldest looked up from her phone for a second to mumble something that sounded like “yeah, that one’s okay” before returning to Twitter. In her defense, my response was similar.

Our youngest, however, was more involved.

Our girls passed a milestone in their lives today, although one was forced to wait longer than the other and hasn’t technically made a decision: they got to choose their own drinking cups.

This seems like a small thing, but it was a big deal for our youngest because she not only chose a cup, she paid for it with her allowance. She did this at a flea market sponsored by her elementary school.

Of course, being related to me, there is a certain contrarian streak involved.

She Who Must Be Obeyed also went to the flea market and, despite my best efforts to hide as much money as possible, she managed to find enough coins scattered about in the sofa and on the floor to purchase a pair of annoyingly cute cups. Because the cups feature a character that our youngest likes, SWMBO seemed to figure these would be the cups to rule them all.

However, our youngest is in a Pokemon phase and she found a cup with five Pokemon characters on it. This is now her official cup.

I’ll make sure she takes care of it. In fact, I think she’s going to have to wash lots of dishes to make sure it doesn’t accidentally get broken.

I suppose I was pre-disastered, but it actually wasn’t that much of a disaster. That had me worried.

With Typhoon Whatever (not its real name) on its way to Tokyo the first concern (after mudslides and drowning) are the state of the trains. Even with a little bit of rain, my train to work was delayed. I hurried on to it when it was on the platform–I was in such a hurry I boarded the non-air conditioned car–and then sat there for five minutes before the train moved. Then the train moved a few hundred yards and stopped between stations. I used the pause to move to an air conditioned car and then enjoyed the 40 minute version of my usual 15 minute train ride.

As the train filled with delayed travelers I also got pressed close enough to several people that I think it technically counted as adultery.

This train ride wouldn’t have been an issue except that I also had an evening class that was scheduled during the arrival of the typhoon. This wouldn’t have been an issue except that I would be in Tokyo and, on a good day, I don’t get home until 11:30 p.m. I was informed that I’d be informed around three in the afternoon if the evening class was cancelled or not.

At 4:00, after hearing nothing, I headed down to Tokyo. I was then taunted a bit by the obligatory arrival of news crews at Shinjuku Station. They traditionally set up shop at the large South exit and file nearly identical reports about the rain flowing down the street.

The trip to the office involved a 75% useless umbrella and resulted in wet feet and an ill temper.

Oddly, after all that foreshadowing, the night ended with a bit of deus ex machina that would ruin a movie. The storm decided to take an abrupt right turn and I was able to get home with little trouble.

Somehow, that has me worried.

It will cost me money, but it’s totally worth it.

I’ve been substituting for a teacher while he’s on a work related trip, but today he contacted me and said he plans to take the class over.

Although it costs me money I was like “yeah, sure, please”.

This leaves me with a much needed entire day off and a chance to sleep in a little. It’s been a long eleven days.

Of course, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I decided to have a date night (that was sort of sabotaged by our oldest). We couldn’t go to a local beef festival, but we did manage to go to a couple local places.

Now it’s bed time and I’m looking forward to it enough that I’m actually falling asleep as I write this.

I hope my readers are not.