Michael Chabon On Puns

"When my father and grandfather committed acts of penmanship, they were often, generally by the women at the table or in the car with them, begged if not ordered to cease at once. Maybe puns are a guy thing - I don't know. I can't see how anybody who claims to love language can fail to marvel at the beautiful slipperiness of meanings that puns, like aquarium nets, momentarily catch and bring shimmering to the surface. Puns act to shatter or at least compromise meaning; a pun condenses unrelated, even opposing, meanings, like a collapsing dwarf star, into a singularity. Maybe it's this anti semantic vandalism that leads so many people to shun and revile them."

- Michael Chabon writing in praise of Norton Juster's classic The Phantom Tollbooth (50th Anniversary Edition)

I love puns. And to have my feelings on the matter so eloquently defended by one of my favorite writers, writing in a piece praising one of my other favorite pieces of writing, is truly awesome.  Well done.

Whisky Stones

Thanks, Mom, for sending these great "ice cubes" for my evening scotch!  Fantastic!

From the catalog:

My set:

ミニ社長さん

the view from here

Another early morning for me and the boy.  Took this photo from our balcony at about 5:40 am.  I've been posting these sunrise-over-Mt-Ikoma pics on Facebook but figured, Why not share here as well, yeah?  No worries about the early mornings: most nights i go to bed expecting them.  They make for good papa-son time and a quiet, relaxing way to start the day.  Even when there is poop.

The Museum of Yayoi Culture

We went way down South of Osaka today to visit the Museum of Yayoi Culture.  Not to see the exhibits on Yayoi culture, though (which are also very interesting and worth a visit). We went instead to see a special exhibit of miniature glass art called トンボ玉 ("tom-bo-da-ma").  Fascinating tiny little dream worlds all hand-crafted in glass.  No idea how they are made but they are beautiful.

New Shoe Shelf

After such an interesting evening last night, what to do on this wonderful Sunday? 
Well, build a shoe shelf of course!

We had two large and unwieldy shoe cabinets eating space in our vestibule for as long as I have lived here (almost 6 years) and Ulala had been wanting to get rid of them for even longer.  But where would we put all our shoes?  Well, we needed another kind of shoe shelf.  So we looked at a few online catalogues and found an affordable, light-framed shelf that would take up less than half the space.  We checked the measurements. We ordered it. It arrived the very next day by special delivery.  I took all the shoes and boots and sandals and other crap out of the cabinets and laid them out on the bed.  Turns out we have way more shoes than we had realized:

And then, as is so often the case with these home improvement projects, nothing got done for a while. Until today!  Today I moved the two cabinets out of the way and set about assembling the new shelf. It was easy and I got it installed relatively quickly.  Then we selected the shoes that we wanted on the new shelf, weeding out the old and unused ones for getting rid of.  And voila! New shoe shelf! 

Now if we can just get around to ordering those new bookcases, new flooring and a new dining set we’ll (eventually) be all set.  I guess our house is perpetually a work in progress...

Ulala's Birthday

Happy Birthday to my lovely and wonderful wife! 

I had quite the plan today to celebrate!  And you know what they say about the best laid plans... 

First I arranged for our friend Emi to take Ulala for a massage in Kyobashi around lunchtime while I watched the baby.  I paid for this excursion as part one of her birthday present. This had two benefits: 1) It gave her a much-needed break from the baby to go relax and be pampered with her friend. 2)

It got her out of the house so I could decorate and prepare her small birthday get together and friends could arrive. 

We only had a couple people over. Bad timing and late planning on my part meant that some people were out of the country and others already had plans. That was probably for the best, though, since Shinryu would have enough excitement with the few new people that were coming over. 

So Ulala left to go meet Emi, and I arrogantly thought I’d quickly get the boy in the carrier and head out to the balloon shop in Hommachi.  Well, he was having none of that! It was an hour before we got out of the house! This meant I was just getting to the cake shop near us at the time our first couple guests were due to arrive. But not to worry. That’s what cell phones are for!  So it all worked out fine. Masako met me at the cake shop and helped me carry the cake and sweets back to the apartment. Shinryu was very well behaved once we did leave the house, so taking the subway, getting the balloons and cake and drinks was all no problem.

Then Ulala and Emi were supposed to get back around 3 but didn’t come home until close to 4pm!  Sheesh! But Masako, Tony, and I had fun relaxing and talking until they got there. Then the five of us ate cake and had a nice evening.  It was mostly a girl’s night for Ulala and her friends but I had invited Tony more for my sake than anything else. And he is a very good friend, so he and I hung out in the kitchen and drank and we had some really interesting conversation.  There were a few hiccups, but overall a successful venture

And why, you ask, did I go to all this trouble?  Well, March 10^th 2012 is the fifth anniversary of the huge surprise party I threw for Ulala’s birthday back in 2007, at which I proposed to her in front of so many of our close friends here in Osaka.

Back in 2007 on proposal night. Surprisingly few pictures from that night:

 And a nicer picture of Ulala the next day, still 2007, with her birthday haul:

Shitennoji (again)

Ulala went to put in the paperwork for renewing her driver’s license today and, since the police station where she needed to make the application is near Shitennoji Temple, Shinryu and I took a nice little walkabout while we waited. She was done pretty quickly so she came and met us there, and the three of us wandered around the grounds.  Still no flower blossoms to see, but a nice walk nonetheless.  After the walk, I had to get changed and head to work for a few evening lessons, which felt like a whole other day after the relaxing afternoon. 

And on the way back from Shitennoji we popped into ABC Mart and I picked up the pair of blue suede Vans shoes I’d had my eye on and were now on sale. Nice!  Then we had cappuccinos at Ciao Presso. And Shinryu had fun babbling at strangers and drooling a lot. Life is good.  

Sushi Sunday in ... Kobe

This Sunday we headed back out to Kobe for a very nice sushi lunch with Ulala's family.  Ulala's birthday is coming up next weekend, so this was a little pre-celebration.  Mami made delicious chirashi-zushi（ちらし寿司), which is sushi rice with various toppings mixed in a big bowl and scooped onto smaller plates to eat. Very popular for lunch bentos as well.  She also made a kind of tempura and great soup that had chamomile flowers in it.  I was so eager to dig in, that i forgot o take any pictures until dessert.  Dessert was two-fold: first we had delicious little sweets that were exquisitely formed to look like flowers with tiny icing butterflies on them.  Then we had strawberry and fresh-cream cake (see photos).  

Shinryu was in a good mood most of the time we were there and seemed to really warm up to "strangers."  They're not really strangers since we've met several times, but he always has a bit of trouble adjusting to new people at first.  And, of course, he was the star of the party.  Isn't that always the way with babies?  

Poor little guy didn't have much chance for a nap, though, and was getting fussy by the time we left.  The train ride home is a bit long - about an hour plus - and the little guy was really pooped.  I mean REALLY pooped.  As in, he pooped about ten minutes into the ride.  oy vey.  But luckily then he just napped until we had a chance to change him.  This is one of those stories i will tell his future girlfriends.