The Story of the Nearly-Dead Pigeon

My manager has some trouble with English, but his handwriting is great.
"A person's will is more important than his age." This poster is part of a movement to push the socially accepted retirement age to 70. And that's what the Japanese are going to have to do- that or have more babies. I love the picture.

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So, the story of the Nearly-Dead Pigeon. Last week I was jaunting my usual jaunt along the lovely Yagami river. I passed the Hobo Bridge, and caught my first glimpse of one of the two homeless guys who live under it: a squat, thickly built man with dark skin and a round stubbly face. He was smoking on the riverbank.
Then I came to the fenced-off edge of the local water purification facility. I don't know if it's because I live so close to a treatment plant, but the tapwater here is quite good. Anyway, I know this area very well because it is home to a whole community of cats- at least 16 in all. On this day, I caught sight of twelve of them or so as they lazed about in the fair weather. A sign hung on the fence of the home on my left, written in black permanent marker on a badly weathered piece of foam. Mysteriously surrounded at the edges by the marks of a small child's teeth, it read "do NOT feed the cats!" However, this sign was apparently as thoroughly disregarded as the "no bicycle parking" signs in front of the station, since the ground was littered with empty cans of cat food. For every group of homeless cats in this country, there is a kind old lady and a kind old man to feed them in the course of their morning walk. As a result their fur was sleek and their eyes clear. Healthy cats. Many of them were just kittens a few months ago.

I paused to watch the cats, for a time. Men were fishing from both banks of the river, and one narrowly lost a sizable carp as he struggled to reel it in. I noticed a black tomcat, creeping low behind the grass toward a burbling flock of pigeons. He emerged from behind the cover of the grass, drawing nearer and nearer to the birds, head down, movements smooth and compact. Most of the birds saw him as soon as he left his cover and fluttered off, but two or three of them were too preoccupied with pecking around for food to notice. The cat snuck in close behind one of them- I had never even seen a cat even get this close to a bird before. The cat was no more than four feet away when the pigeon finally realized its peril and took to the air in a whirl of feathers and fear, but the cat leapt for all it was worth and reached for the bird with its claws outstretched.
It took me a moment to realize that the cat had actually caught the pigeon. But when I understood what I had happened, I got too excited and shouted "holy damn!" loud enough to startle the cat. The pigeon flew off, and the cat slunk away, smooth and cool, pasted with downy grey feathers. Sorry cat! I feel I was to blame.

So yes! Dinner tonight is going to be salmon risotto, and I believe that afterward I will recline in my swivel chair and sip a Jack on the Rocks while watching videos of snowplow trains and looking at pictures of Bullet Owl. Also this: I am Master of My Fate. Because that's how I spend my Friday evenings these days.

Work Work Work... Freedom?

Maya in Gotanda on 12.22. We were there killing time before going to Tokyo Disneyland, looking for gloves for our mutual friend Fabien (to replace a pair of his we had lost at a nightclub).
It was a little bit creepy of me to take this picture, but I thought it was too cute to resist (I did, creepily, ask their father's permission to take it). This was at Tokyo Disneyland on the 22nd. Part of the glow in the frame is from the enormous Christmas tree that dominates the central mall around Christmastime.
Until recently, these were everywhere. I'm not sure if these are properly called kadomatsu or not, but their purpose is to welcome good spirits into the home for the new year.
My freshly organized bookshelf. The door on the left leads into the entryway-kitchen.
My cramped prefabricated bathroom. The bathtub on the right is deep, but so narrow that it's impossible to take a shower without constantly rubbing against the shower curtain.
My desk, with bed and balcony visible.

'tis a cold, bleak day in the Land of the Rising Sun, and all around me deadlines are closing in like a determined pack of hyenas. But in the end I am a professional procrastinator, hence this post.

I spent the last few days in a deplorable state of acute procrastination paralysis, culminating in a disastrous attempt to bike 30km+ to Maya's place on the far north side of Tokyo. I figured it was well worth an attempt, since round-trip train fare between our dorms costs something like $17. The satellite images I was navigating by were a few years old, so I was thrown off by some major new construction and missed an important turn. I then muddled my way to the correct road, but from the wrong direction, so I wound up heading south (back where I had come from) instead of north (to Maya's place). In the end, I had traced a 24 kilometer upside-down V shape through southwestern Tokyo, winding up closer to where I had started than where I wanted to go. I finally suspected something was wrong when I noticed a sign for a highway that I recognized, and stopped at a police box to ask for directions.

After puzzling over the wrong section of the map for a while, the officer broke into a laughing fit when he finally realized just how lost I was. "Damn. Well, you're on the right road, but Sasame-doori is way over here. You'll have to go way, way, way up this way, back the way you came," he said, digging his fingernail into the map as he traced the route north, and laughing again. He saw me off with a wave and wishes for a safe trip, and I started biking again toward Maya's place. By this time the sun had set and it was getting cold. I had been biking for two hours and was faced with three hours more.
I called Maya, and she convinced me to just give up and take the train. I found the nearest station (Kugahara) within a few minutes (I love you, Japan). I spent the night at Maya's watching Flight of the Conchords and a movie called Benny and Joon (with Johnny Depp!), and in the morning was treated to a pretty fantastic omelet.

I struggled home in the late afternoon, finally in the mood to get down to work. And of course, as soon as I opened my computer, I realized the internet wasn't working in my dorm. Again. The connection here is always overtaxed, particularly during the early evening. Just about the only times I can get a swift connection are the godforsaken hours between 12am and 8 am.

I needed to use the internet in order to do my work, so in the end I hopped back on my bike, with all of my books, and set out in search of it. I wound up buying a cup of coffee at a cozy, wifi-enabled Doutour near Motosumiyoshi Station, and working (lurking) there for the three hours until closing time, surrounded by my books and papers.

Alright, I have to get to work...

But three things first:

Britain, looking like some scene out of a Roland Emmerich film.

I love this video: A train passing through a Bangkok market.

And some of the most extraordinary CGI I've ever seen. You can search for "The Third and the Seventh" on Youtube, if it doesn't load for you. EVERYTHING in the video is computer-generated. Watch it in full-screen mode ^ ^

More soon...

Back

I am back safe and sound in Japan, and everything is exactly as I left it (including my terrific mess of a room!). I realized to my horror that I had, in fact, neglected to take the kitchen trash out when I left, so I'm still working to scrub the smell of spoiled fish out of the trash cabinet. My objectives for today, after biking to McDonald's for some breakfast, are to edit some MBA application essays for my friend Daniel, and finish tidying up my room.
Actually, despite being exhausted after the plane ride back, the spoilt fish-trash-crisis spurred me into a spasm of neatening up, vacuum-cleaning, and laundry last night. I felt that, when I finally collapsed into bed, I needed to collapse into crisp, clean sheets. Time to maintain that momentum...

More later...