Friday, November 02, 2007

Car Accident

I just got into a car accident. No one was hurt and it wasn't my fault. Two very important facts. A lady slammed into a lady who slammed into me, us. I had picked up J from his tutor and we were on our way home from getting his dad at the station. Wham!

The middle car was messed up. And there were kids in there so I was concerned about that. I noticed the uniform and it turns out they went to the same school as J and live quite close to us. By the end of the night the kids were shaking gingko nuts from the trees and running off to pee in various seedy-looking bars nearby. Kids can make anything fun.

I have a phobia. Things like this bother me because I have this overwhelming fear of being blamed for something I didn't do. It all started with a girl name B. Hickey. It was first grade and I was in a Catholic school and the teacher told us to draw a picture of what the world would look like when God was finished with it. Everyone drew lots and lots of flowers, a couple puppies. Amateurs! Me? It was as if the clouds parted and a shaft of holy light bathed and stimulated my six-year old brain, I got an idea! I drew a picture of a hospital with a "Closed" sign on it.

When the teacher came around for us to present our ideas to the class she started on the wrong side of the room and reached cute little B to my left before me. B holds up her paper and it was then that I noticed that she had copied mine! Only better. A fancier hospital...with flowers, lots and lots of flowers...and a puppy. The teacher was amazed, delighted, excited. She clasped her hands to her chest and sighed. The other children swooned. There was aplause. Eventually though the teacher recovers and calls on me. She shakes her head in disapproval and asks me why I copied. I am nearly speechless but I blurt out that I didn't copy. Next she begins quoting several Commandments and crossing herself. I got a lot of that in Catholic school. That moment still haunts me. There were other moments too, the snowball. I can't forget the snowball And don't get me started about the fern spores. I'll weep. Focus, focus.

Back to the accident. So, the lady who was in the wrong came forward and said she was wrong and she called the cops and told us she was fully insured, everything would be paid for. She even suggested we all go to the hospital right now for tests to make sure we were okay. So that was cool.

The police came. Am I allowed to say they were hot? Japanese police are hot. You almost never see an overweight police officer here. I mean these guys usually look like they could take you out if need be. Which is a good way for a cop to look, I think. At one point during the questions one of these drove by:



Except it was red and had dozens of baby Mickey and Minnie Mouses (Mice?) all over it. Rudely loud too. By then I was warming up to the police fellas so I leaned over and rattled the young officer's gun (knowing he only has one bullet and he keeps it in his pocket...or some other secret place) and I say, "Look at that! What do you think of that?" He smiles, glances over at the head officer and then whispers "Man, those things piss me off. I wish they'd just cut it out." Yea. Me too, I say.

After an hour and a half of filling out papers, answering questions, and exchanging information another police car showed up. It was bigger, more lights and from it tumbled the keystone cops. OMG they were funny. They were the ones who usually do this kind of fender bender work so they come onto the scene and the first they do is name us Front, Middle, and Back and begin a much more efficient method of gathering, well, the exact same information. It took them thirty minutes to do what the other two took an hour and a half to do. Well, I suppose they could have ASKED the first to officers and taken less time.

Random stuff: I finally saw Pan's Labrynth yesterday. I somehow assumed they'd put Japanese subtitles to the English version. How stupid is that? Of course they showed the Spanish version. But it was awesome. I managed to understand all the subtitles and loved listening to the Spanish. The movie was much darker than I thought it would be, but good.

RSS feeds. I don't get them. I mean I get them...but then I don't. How can you have a dozen subscribers one day and then loose several the next? I mean do people subscribe one day only to cancel the subscription the next? Or maybe its the stats that I just can't read properly. Where is that shaft of holy light when I need it?

And on a final note, KM are you reading this? I think you've found it. Have suspected for awhile. Comment if you have!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Makes Me Smile

There are moments being an expat when you think to yourself, Why am I here again? Oh, I don't know, maybe you go into a bar and order a margarita and a plate of buffalo wings and they say, Huh? Or perhaps you get the third degree from someone you don't even know because you forgot to wear shoes to retrieve your mail.

And then there are moments like this:




The above is a Japanese band called Yura Yura Teikoku. The song is called "Yakousei no Ikimono Sanbiki"..."Three Nocturnal Creatures". The dance is most likely a version of Awa Odori, my absolute favorite Japanese dance. It sounds like I'd get sick of it, but I haven't yet. For now it just makes me very, very happy. I mean deep down I-wanna-dance happy!