Moms

Me, in Nagoya, Japan, 1986. It's a warm spring afternoon, a Sunday, and I go to a park near the apartment building I live in. Japan is not noted for having much greenery in urban areas, and Nagoya, which is known for its manufacturing of cars, is not an exception. When I go to my office to pick up teaching supplies, I look out the ninth-floor window and am amazed that all I see, stretching to the horizon, is concrete and glass.
Back to the park. I'm enjoying sitting in the shade and I'm reading a book, looking up now and then to people watch. I look up and see a woman and her daughter. The daughter is around six or seven. They have a rubber ball with them and they begin to throw it back and forth, the trajectory the ball makes an invisible cord connecting the two. The girl is delighted with every catch and throw. The mother is as delighted. Both laugh with pure pleasure.
Nothing I ever saw made me want to be a parent more than this, but I never became a parent despite that, as much as I tried.

A day to treasure

Yesterday I had the kind of day I won't be able to have more of as my disease progresses and then kills me over the next year or so.
A friend came out from the city in the late afternoon and we had dinner. Her husband was with friends watching a football playoff game. She and I have no interest in the sport. We've known each other for over twenty years, though good times and some bad ones. I've learned a lot from her, far more than I could possibly have taught her, but that's not the basis of our friendship.
I met her at a train station less than a mile from me, we went to my house and had coffee. At dusk we took the walk I do around my neighborhood. She liked it and understood the beauty I see in parts of it. 

My friend getting off a train for a visit.

Around six, we went to a good Japanese restaurant near me. (She's Japanese and I lived there for three years. We met in Philadelphia.) We ordered a boatload of food. Literally, a boatload: the food came on a small wooden boat. We'd stopped at a liquor store beforehand and bought a very nice brand of sake she'd wanted to try and drank that. 
I haven't told her of my illness, so our conversation was about normal things. The funny things her husband—who I've met several times and like—does and says. How her parents are doing in Tokyo. Her job. The cat she got as a Christmas gift.
She brought me special noodles that the Japanese prepare at the beginning of the new year. (I'll make some tonight.) She caught the 8:35 back to the city.
Yesterday was a day I'll look back on with great fondness many times over the coming months.

Why I love the Japanese

From Amazon.com: 
INTRODUCTION Series take off first girl selected carefully ! 's First naked not necessarily be monthly [ ( Hatsu et al.) First naked ] , for the name is the work of a good woman limited . The baking the beauty of the nude " first " of a good women , to deliver to everyone . As soon as erotic wear debut shock of the year up to run to the industry by the end of the year ! In " excavation Pretty Revolution " , all a big hit ! Of BAGUS, nay six past work in Japan wearing won the overwhelming popularity Ace of erotic world " Yano not summer " chan he was decided to nude showing off ! I be able to worship the figure ... naked to a naked outstanding summer chan odious system 100 cm G-cup bust , healing ! masterpiece of nude image that can be accomplished in 100% summer Yano not charm ... life-size also different is the complete and Chirarizumu of erotic wear . [ DATA ] ☆ NAME: Mika Yano ☆ Age: 21 ☆ BIRTHDAY: 1991/8/1 ☆ BIRTHPLACE: Tokyo ☆ BloodType: Recommended Movies B ※ 18 years of age or older ( nude image ) Contents ( " Kinemajunposha " database) Was particular about to take off first girl to " first naked " series , Ace Yano not summer -chan wearing erotic world appeared . It was bear fruit G-cup , a 100cm bust , figure stark-naked in the dew . Charm that is different from the Chirarizumu of erotic wear is full ! 

Yakuza

Years ago when he lived in Japan the Complete and Total Loser read about a community upset that a local apartment building had been taken over by yakuza, i.e., organized criminals. During a protest outside the buildings one of the neighbors yelled to the building, "Seek an honorable life!" 
This was twenty-five years ago and the Loser still can't think of a better thing to say to the nefarious ones among us. It includes people who would dig through drug store trashcans in search of medical information, whether they're addicts or identity thieves. 
Seek honorable lives, you.

A sticker on a trashcan warns people to think before they toss.

The Quiet Car

A commuter now, the Complete and Total Loser takes the quiet car. The quiet car is his region's transportation agency's way to try to make its notoriously poor service more tolerable by reserving the first car of each train for people not interested in talking to each other or friends on their cell phones. The Loser, having no friends and a poor conversationalist, takes this car. The quiet car's patrons are invariably white and over 30; the young, noisy and sociable people sit in the rear cars, which make up the majority of them. 

As the Loser sits in the quiet car, surrounded by people reading books, newspapers, and magazines either in paper or electronic form, he imagines what's happening in the rear cars. He pictures them brimming with people in colorful native garb, dancing, shouting, balancing baskets on their heads, chasing after escaped chickens. He knows this isn't true, but he likes the idea.

Not all is perfect in the quiet car. The trainmen seem to take great delight in using the primitive loudspeaker system to tell riders the names of the approaching stops, something they already well know. The train line has new cars, pictured, which prevent this by having recorded announcements by a computerized female voice. The volume is a rational one, but she talks far too much. Still, the cars are an improvement. They reach the level of quality the cars the Loser rode when he lived in Japan -- in 1986. Ah, America.

Riders ride in silence aboard a train car reserved for those seeking quiet as they commute.

Soccer (Poem)

All hail Nippon, they won the game,

Good job, my Asian friends!

Ratings soared, ad rates insane,

A commercial for Depends?

We Yanks don't like this football sport

And I'm here to tell you why:

We simply can't and won't support

A game that ends a tie.