On Father’s Day

My father, gone now since 1997 and a relatively young age shouldn’t have been what he became.

He grew up in a totally dysfunctional, broken farming family having a father who turned into a raging alcoholic, beat his wife, stole whatever money he could get his hands on whether it be what his wife or children earned; all this in the depths of the Great Depression.  There was a time we were told, when it was all they could do to huddle around the one stove in the house for warmth in the winter.

Finally his wife could take no more took the four children and fled to her father’s house where my father spent the rest of his childhood.

Then came The War, he realizing it would be only a matter of time before he was drafted, he chose to exercise some free will and enlisted in the Marine Corps, who sent him eventually to Saipan & Tinian as a radar operator until Iwo Jima fell and there were no further need to watch for Japanese planes.  His story is he spent the rest of the war hauling bombs to the bombers.

Upon discharge,  he was the first in the family to get a college education thanks to the GI Bill, got his degree, started working as a low level accountant for the Thai embassy in DC, married my mother, had me, then another son and another, working his way into government service reaching at the end of his career senior level.

He really hated me going to Japan realizing I believe, I would be gone for much longer than planned, but once there he was supportive.

Regrets are that he did not live long enough see me return to The United States  for good with my family( I left with just 2 suitcases) and that besides his other 2 grandsons, he was not around to see my son also grow into manhood.

He had his faults; he was quick tempered but at the same time, was equally quick to forget it all as well.  He once strayed from the straight and narrow.  And despite the hellish, dysfunctional family he grew up in, he and his brother and sisters were extremely close and their own families were stable and nurturing for all of us.

So Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Another Serving of Ethnocentricity Slightly Flavored with some Racism?

There’s a brand of Tofu, made in Kyoto and up until recently,   available only in NYC ‘round these here parts, marketed under the brand name ‘Johnny Tofu’ and ‘男前’.  It great tofu, probably the best I’ve ever had; don’t even need to add soy or ginger to enjoy it.

About a week ago, wife unit found a store in Maryland carrying this tofu and bought a bit, which I quickly and happily consumed.    Now a day or 2 later I mentioned this to one of the Japanese reviewers on the project I am on and she later went out and bought some for herself.

She told me the tofu was indeed excellent and (here it comes…) said she was amazed that I a non-Japanese had the discerning taste buds to tell the difference….  Now she’s been here for many years and she’s not some 田舎ペイfrom deep in some woebegone hamlet deep in the Japanese mountains, but from Kamakura.

 

I do not feel complemented.  This sort of remark comes from the same nonsensical school that claims Japanese have cognitive functions on the opposite brain sphere as non-Japanese, that Japanese have longer intestines, thus are not disposed to eat meat, etc., etc.

The Low T Problem

Depending on the channels/time one sits in front of the idiot box for ”entertainment”  besides the ads for pills to relieve men of prostate problems, there are also nostrums and drug ads to address the low T (for testosterone) problem.

My most recent yearly (thankfully) visit to the urologist, relieved that besides having no prostate problems, I was told I too have low T levels, which affects us men by making us a great deal less romantic.

Was prescribed a topical, but like all drugs addressing low T, the downside is that raising T levels back to normal levels,  there is the risk of prostate cancer-no joke in this family as every male in my father’s side of the family (it was what got my father) thus far has eventually had to face this.  My hope is thus far that while my mother’s side of the family has very less than enviable genetic ’baggage’ (cardiac disease, which has carried away everyone save for a near 93 old sibling), it will  perhaps work for me making me the first to escape this paternal family curse on the males.

So do I fill the prescription for more male enhancement and run the risk for more male pleasure?

There are Some Weird Overly Wound Up People Out There

And sometimes one has to work in close proximity to such.

Exhibit A. my humble brown bag I use to carry my day’s lunch.

Each morning, I take it out of my back pack, place it next to the desktop computer at my workstation and leave to alone until I am ready to eat.  I then open the bag up rustling it a bit as I take what I have put in out in front of me and later in the day, rustle it a bit more as I put the now empty and washed containers back in.

It was brought to my attention yesterday  that the bag or my way of opening and closing it makes too much noise to suit one person.

Think I’ll open and close the bag today with a great deal of gusto today.

An Optimist

Gotta be an optimist in believing on this crappy Monday morning, you’ll be a cab before your upraised arm tires.

 

The Circle Comes Full Ciricle, Sort of…….

This is son unit packed and about ready go drive out another 9 hours back to Ohio to take up a summer internship starting today.  On one hand I/we are relieved he finally has a summer job other than that minimum wage paint ball refereeing job he’s held during the summers since high school.

On the other hand,  he was only here for a little over a week and as the job will probably flow straight into the fall semester, we will probably not see him until winter break several months from now.

It also marks the beginning of him striking out on his own; much like I did when the yen was at 361 to the dollar, packing my suitcases and boarding a flight to Tokyo.  From that point I was out of the house returning only every few years for short visits.

Son unit still has growing up to do.  Most of his time here was spent carless as some major repair work had to be done to the car he uses.  He let the car battery go dead in the previous winter despite me telling him to occasionally turn the engine over to keep the battery charged.  Then he and a buddy goofed and reverse the connections when the attempt was made to jump start the car; and in doing so fried the transmission’s electronics making he total bill 2/3rds of the car’s residual value.

I told him I wans;t unhappy that he goofed everyone goofs, but I was unhappy he ignored my advice, let the battery needlessly go dead and that led to the issues we had to deal with.  so he’s going to foot the labor costs  for the repair.

DC’s 痴漢 Problem?

This caught my eye on the way home last night.

Now I know trains in Japan have and perhaps have always had, a molester problem, one reason I understand that there are women only cars on some lines.  But here in DC,  that’s news of sorts.

Have never witnessed groping and while Metro does get crowded at times during rush hour, its nowhere near the type of near inhumane packing that goes on in commuter trains in Japan.

Second,  unlike their Japanese sisters, I would think a western woman, particularly an American woman if groped on a train, would not quietly endure, but either slap or very loudly draw attention to her situation and the perv in question.