As it turned out, there was nothing to worry about. The storm passed us and we got the warm, muggy, clear weather that follows a storm.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and our youngest made it back with no problems, although they did encounter some rain.

The rain before had messed up her reason for going: rice harvest. Now a group of cousins are being dragged out of retirement to help with harvest and we’ll probably have new rice in a couple weeks.

Our oldest also made it back from school on time, although there was some confusion about whether or not she needed lunch:

Me: When are you coming back today?
Her: ——————
Me: Do you need lunch today?
Her: ——————
(door slams)
Me: (shouting out window) Do you need lunch today?
Her: ——————

It turned out she did need lunch, but she arrived home after I ate so I sent her on a mission to buy a lunch at a convenience store.

Then, I tried to teach her how to answer questions.

We took our youngest to a bar tonight because our oldest was out with her friends and doesn’t understand English or Japanese for “Get home early, we want to go out”. (Long story.)

This means She Who Must Be Obeyed finally got some beer tonight. However, although we had fun, it wasn’t as good as she was hoping.

We went to a local izakaya called “Yakitori Big” which features a good selection of things on skewers and a decent selection of alcohol flavored beverages.

The beer was fairly watery, which disappointed SWMBO, but the food was good. I started with watery beer, then ran through a selection of drinks, finally settling on sake which turns out to be the best deal for the money.

Our youngest had soft drinks, of course, but we got her to try gizzards, hearts, and tongue. (She was unimpressed with the first and last; tolerant of the second.)

Hopefully next spring we can make plans for the Spring Craft Beer Festival. If we start planning now, we might be able to pull it off.

Suddenly, I remember what the end of summer was like back when I was in elementary school. I’m ready for it to be over.

The doctor who did my retching/endoscopy check said I didn’t have cancer, but that my stomach showed signs that I was stressed. First I was like “Really? What proves that?” Then I was like, well, yeah, I could have told you that.

I was in a bad mood all summer and I’m not sure why. Maybe my usual October malaise has become an August angst.

There’s the anniversary of dad’s death along with the recent death of people I knew when I lived in Colorado. What bothered me about the latter was I didn’t remember the person until I saw pictures of her when I knew her. Even now, I don’t remember specifics, just warm feelings and a friendly smile. I’ve even seen pictures of us camping with her family and all I can do is think “when was that”?

There are also issues with my in-laws that are going to force major decisions fairly soon.

School starts soon, though, and I’m getting back on a normal sleep schedule. Maybe that will help.

Heading off to bed relatively early so that I can get up in time to drink some tea and some water. Won’t get to eat anything though. I’m already in a mandatory fast.

After that, though, all I’ll be doing is filling in forms and then traveling one station away for the annual health check.

This year I’m lucky that it’s been scheduled at a clinic near my house, which means I get to have a relaxing morning before needles, tubes, and cameras get involved. (Note: Japan has clinics that do nothing but annual physicals. Period. If your arm fell off during an exam they’d note the “arm related issue” on your physical but wouldn’t recommend another clinic.)

After a couple hours of exam I’ll get to come home and take a nap whilst some medication wears off. Then I’ll finally get to eat something.

Life intervened again with She Who Must Be Obeyed coming down ill this evening.

This had me cooking and has me reminding our oldest she has to do dishes. This involves periodically chasing her off our living room sofa. There is something about the living room sofa that causes the two oldest women in  the house to immediately fall asleep as soon as they sit on it.

This something is so bad that I actually have to make our oldest get up off the sofa before I can leave the room. If I don’t, she will be asleep again in a few minutes and the process will start again. Even if she’s sitting up and playing on her phone when I leave the living room the something will cause her to fall asleep sideways with her phone somehow still gripped in her fingers.

This makes my job a bit more difficult as the sound of her phone hitting the floor was the Dad Signal calling me into action.