Sometime during my first year in Japan, long before I’d started dating She Who Must Be Obeyed, and probably during a fit of culture shock, I got word that one of the women I worked with like me and had even chased away the guy telling me. Despite alcohol being involved, and the information being dubious, I asked her out and, to my surprise, she said yes.

The plan was to go to a nearby, reasonably civilized town and hang out. She, of course, would drive. Then, when the big day arrived, I clean shaven, ironed and armed with cash, waited to be picked up. You can imagine my surprise then, when there were two other people in the car, including another man, who was one of the pair who’d suggested I ask the woman out.

I was informed that plans had changed and, in a fit of shock, climbed into the car. My first issue was that I was apparently expected to date in front of an audience. My second issue was deciding if it was still a date.

I then lost control of the events, although the Japanese teachers involved gave me the semblance of control. Somehow, and I still don’t remember how, but a causual answer to a question along the lines of “Yeah, I like to do that” was probably involved, we ended up at a game center.

After that, we ended up at a bowling alley which isn’t that bad a place to end up, especially when they actually have bowling shoes in your size. What happened next was kind of, well, not at all good.

I lined up my first shot, used my typically four step approach planted my left foot, did a two step “ice step” as if I’d just stepped on to a sheet of black ice and ended up flat on my butt on the foul line. This would keep happening. I told everyone that the approach was too heavily waxed/oiled and my shoes were too new. They, however, looked at me with a sad “poor child” look as they weren’t having any trouble. I tried scuffing my shoes, but it didn’t work.

For the record, it’s very hard to impress someone when you’re flopping around on wood boards and swearing. (But maybe that’s must me.)

In the end I just stood at the line and rolled the ball without any approach to give me momentum and my score improved.

After that, we went to lunch somewhere and then home. We never went out again, either the woman I’d originally asked or the other teachers.

Today a strange man was in my house playing with my stuff. Before he left, he gave me a bill.

After a slow descent into, well, slowness, I’ve finally upgraded my internet to a fiber-optic connection. In order to do this, an NTT technician had to visit the house and start tinkering with stuff to get the high speed goodness going.

Oddly, despite Japan’s blistering speeds, I may be the last fiber-optic holdout in my school. There are a lot of reasons for this. When broadband first became available it turned out our apartment was too far away from an NTT station and was, therefore, in some sort of ADSL dead zone. We stuck with dial-up.

Also, because of expensive landline phone prices (at the time) most Japanese learned to surf the internet through their phones which means they took to smartphones quickly. It also means that Japan has some of the fastest internet speeds in the world but has few people interested in it.

Finally, a version of ADSL became available for our apartment but there was still a huge drop off. Our 50 mbps broadband was only 8 mbps by the time it reached our building. (At the time, that was still faster than the USA.)

This was such a huge improvement that for several years I couldn’t think of a good reason to upgrade even though I knew it would be a good idea. This is also a symptom of my “use it till it’s embarrassingly old” attitude toward stuff.

Then, on Christmas 2013, things began to crumble. The internet shut off for a while and then was spotty for a week. I emailed and complained and called and complained and suddenly everything was working fine.

Last October, though, everything crumbled. The connection became spotty and when it recovered it was deathly slow. One test registered a .79 mbps down and .39 mbps up. (And that was average.) My provider sent a new modem that helped mostly by curing the spottiness but not improving the speed.

It was frustrating and even our oldest was complaining about how slow things were. (I responded to this by unplugging the wi-fi hub, thus curing her problem. Sort of.)

Finally, She Who Must Be Obeyed complained and I contacted my provider who told me to contact NTT and then to contact them again once things were set up. I called NTT and asked the guy who answered to speak slowly so I could understand him. He did, at first, but the basic technique of Japanese sales reps is to bury you in words said as fast as humanly possible and then get softer and softer as they list all the possible options. It’s almost as if they’re reading the fine print on a drug commercial:

(XYZhasbeenknowntocausefataleczemaifyourskinfallsoffceaseuseofXYZimmediatelyandcallyourdoctor
ifyouarestillabletouseyourfingersdonottauntXYZandrefrainfromusingbadlanguageinitspresence.) Sign here. Send money there.

By the time he got up to speed, I could barely hear and understand him. I told the man to call back when She Who Must Be Obeyed was available. She spoke but I could hear that hearing a Japanese voice made the guy talk faster.

All I managed to glean was that I couldn’t get the 1 gigabit per second connection I wanted and would have to settle for a paltry 100 mbps connection. Sigh.

Then today’s bit of nervousness was the fear that we’d still have the big drop off. We have some, we’re getting about 79 or 80 mbps, or about 100 times more speed than we had last week.

Now I have to think of some interesting ways to use all that speed.

Since yesterday I talked about the arrival of our oldest, it’s only fair I talk about the arrival of our youngest.

When our youngest was born there were fewer complications and a lot less snow. This is partly because she had the good foresight to be born in the summer which made it easier for me but brought a few other problems.

First, I was working until the middle of the month which meant while She Who Must Be Obeyed was hoping it would be over soon, I was hoping she’d put it off until after exams, pass-backs and final marks. I was, of course, hoping for a healthy and happy child and that She Who Must Be Obeyed would have an easy delivery. However, I didn’t want the paperwork and endless series of phone calls and attempts at Dad-Shaming leaving work before the end of term would have triggered.

Luckily, our youngest was late. (She’s a girl, remember.)

(Before people start throwing things I feel it only fair to point out our oldest arrived on the exact day the doctor predicted which means she’s been on time once in her life.)

I was able to stay at our in-laws until the serious contractions started but this meant a late night drive to the hospital on a road with a reputation for having a lot of accidents. The highlights of the trip, Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed reaching around Father of She Who Must Be Obeyed and shoving hard candy in his mouth scaring the crap out of both him and me. The logic of this act involved the fact that if he’s choking he’s not falling asleep at the wheel (or something like that). The other highlight involved tollbooth attendant carefully quizzing Father of She Who Must Be Obeyed to see if he was fit to drive.

The hospital was the same as where our oldest was born which meant I could stay with She Who Must Be Obeyed for most of the night–the preliminaries lasted seven hours or so–but could not go in the delivery room. (One of this hospital’s rules.) I waited outside the delivery room, though, and was able to rush in once our youngest was born.

The final complication involved the hospital’s refusal to turn on the air conditioning at any time during our stay. It’s not an exaggeration to say our youngest was born in a sauna.

At 25 minutes old our youngest screams “turn on the damned air conditioning!”

Just over 14 years ago our oldest arrived and, like all things involving me, there were a few complications.

(Note: Officially our oldest has been told we found her on her grandmother’s doorstep in Nou-Machi. Our youngest has been told she was found under a bridge. Please maintain this official story despite any contradictory information provided in this post.)

The first complication involved She Who Must Be Obeyed moving back to her parent’s house until the delivery. This gave her experienced and competent people nearby but put me on the other side of Japan. My job was basically to keep doing my job and be ready to travel at a moment’s notice. Sort of.

The second complication involved language. When I finally got the call that things were happening, the call was kind of vague. I was told, by She Who Must Be Obeyed, that she  was going to the hospital but that there was no hurry because the contractions were several days apart (or something like that) and I should just wait. Unfortunately, I’d been in Japan long enough to question what I was being told and spent a good part of the next couple hours checking various Japanese/English dictionaries and an NSA code book to see if I’d missed something in the message.

When I finally got the call to move, I encountered the third complication: a crap load of snow (that’s a technical term) that slowed down the train. Somehow I finally arrived at the hospital, although it involved moving through a maze of snow piles.

Once in the hospital, I got to see She Who Must Be Obeyed a few moments and enjoy her loving “damn you for doing this to me” looks and then took up my position in the waiting room outside to get properly nervous. (Long story about why I wasn’t in the delivery room.) Less than an hour later, as I was selecting a proper location to begin pacing, I was informed our oldest had arrived.

I rushed in for the first pictures and was shocked to see that, at her most slimy, deformed and “uncooked”, she actually looked like me. (Fortunately she ended up looking more like She Who Must Be Obeyed.)

Now not only do I have a teenaged daughter, but at age 14, she’s already had a year of practice. She’s taller than She Who Must Be Obeyed and better at math than I was. (I’m better at taking stuff and hiding than she is, though, especially when it’s her stuff and I’ve told her to turn it off and study.)

She’s perfected the eye roll and I challenge anyone with a teenage daughter to an eye-roll contest. (Email pictures of your teen daughter giving her best eye-roll and we’ll see who’s best.)

Despite this we decided to have another one; but that’s another story.

Only 20 minutes old and already practicing her skeptical look.