And so this is Christmas... 2018 in Japan

I was too embarrassed at the time to share on Facebook about me and two of the kids California trip that wasn't last month. All set to go tickets bought two days before heading to the airport my wife noticed what I'd failed to when checking and double checking my visa and reentry permit expiration dates in my passport.  They were fine, my passport not so much.  It was expired! And so I tell this now because... 

Well when ya run a mom and pop English school in Nippon canceling a week's worth of classes for a trip to Cali means ya gotta make up for it another time like on Christmas day. Thus I ended up donning a Santa suit for morning classes at a nursery school and teaching a couple kids classes in the afternoon. Working on Christmas day.  Dang!  But now it's done and it all worked out just fine with me still managing to get in some Christmas and just wrapped it up in important traditional style of watching Christmas Vacation.  Work again tomorrow then a few classes Thursday then  the big holiday time and days off start in these parts, but today...

Well it started in gratitude and is ending in gratitude. I think that's the key, or so it proved to be when I caught myself, or my wife caught me, starting to bitch and moan about having to work on Christmas day.  

The gratitude at the start hit while eating a bowl of Grape Nuts with bananas--a favorite breakfast I don't often get to eat around here. I can't get GrapeNuts here but lo and behold there was a box in a package that arrived the other day.  When I thought I was headed to California my mom and dad asked what I'd like to eat. "GrapeNuts for breakfast" I said!  When the trip fell through I assumed that was just one of many things I lost out on thanks to not realizing the expired passport but not a word of it.  Mom and dad are still looking out for their absent minded 52 year old son--they done sent me my breakfast, which is off the charts awesome on their part if I don't say so myself. Thus the Christmas morning gratitude. 

  We didn't do much for presents we're trying to get away from buy buy buy buy but kids each got one small gift and some snacks in their stockings, and the boys found cash in the last couple unopened days of the Advent Calendar (their awesome mom's idea), Then of course there was seeing the little girl be way excited about everything from a room extension for her Sylvania house (which she somehow knew I made because "elves didn't make it it's made with sticks" (wood)) excited with everything from that to her new octopus kite to... OMG Peanut M&M's in the stocking it's a Christmas miracle!  The cat got food, the guinea pig got carrots and the parakeet got a new bell that he's more scared of than he is the cat! Everyone's healthy and the house smells like turkey soup which's been slow cooking since last night and was our Christmas dinner. 

And so...

This is enough.  

This is more than enough.  

And so what if I had to work. It's not like I hate my job. Hell there are still times I trip out on getting paid to do what I do.  That's especially true of days like today and I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. 

There I was donning a red suit thunk up by some 20th century American to portray legendary 4th century Turkish bishop or 3rd century Greek monk—Sinterklaas or Saint Nicholas depending on the Santa legend—doing all this on the day the world celebrates the birth of Jesus even though he was not actually born anywhere near December 25th and more than a fair share of pagan ritual has worked its way into celebrating Christ’s birth—indeed the changing of his DOB only came about after Constantine's conversion so it would displace Saturnalia, the pagan Roman winter solstice festival. So I’m musing on this history of the Christmas child while dressed in a suit of another Christmas character all the while I’m at a nursery school adjacent to a Buddhist temple and run by Buddhists and…

"Good lord we humans are crazy complicated and just delightfully interesting, imaginative, quirky creatures though ain't we!” 

  And so I laughed and got caught up in the kid energy, still full of gratitude for parents who love me so much as to mail a box of their youngest son's favorite breakfast cereal halfway around the world to him, and then more gratitude kicked in around dinnertime while sharing life with the family that's grown up around me here. 

Looking back on this Christmas day now with less than an hour of it to go I’m re-realizing it's an inside thing, all this Christmas business is. It's something to do about love and gratitude. The rest is all decoration.

Merry Christmas wherever you are. 

Full Service

The guy half leaning on the pump shot to attention to guide our little white like-a-car only smaller transportation unit alongside the pump when we pulled into the station.

I'd been joking with the kids on the way. The last little gas blip had been blipping for many a kilometer.  I'd pushed it lower so knew we'd make it, we could've made it to the big self service station another few kilometers away on Nekkan Road even, but I like going to the tiny corner full service mom and pop gas stand now and then.  I know I'm paying more for gas but the good feeling that comes with giving business to local folks is worth it. And man talk about service!

Two guys are at the car by the time I got it shut off. One hurries over to the driver's side window. "Sen en bun kudasai" I say, "give me 1,000 yen's worth please"  "Hai" he responds while darting off towards the pump.  The other guy's already started in on cleaning the windshield. I'd think a mere thousand yen worth of gas--not quite 7 liters--would merit the fuss and hustle but this of course is getting gas in Japan, the service country par excellence, so I just sit back and enjoy it. "Look at those guys go" I say to my two youngest kids in the backseat. The kids watch as the squeegee wets the window then removes it on a lightning quick second pass and in comes the rag to catch the streaks.  I've been there enough times for them to know me, thus they no longer ask if I'd like them to empty my ash tray. If by chance I have a candy wrapper or empty coke can or the like all I've gotta do is hand it to them.  Same goes if I need a clean most rag to clean the dash.

Six point something liters of gas pumps quick so this time it's just windows.  The two guys have them all clean as new in Indy 500 pit stop speed and the guys' back at the driver's side window before I know it. I hand him a thousand yen note and bow as low as possible without hitting my head on the steering wheel.  I want to show my appreciation as much as possible for the excellent service.  The guy at the pump bows deeply with an "Arigato Gozaimasu" formal thank you as we pull away from the pump. The other is already out at the road gesture questioning at me to find out which way I'm headed.  I point north, he looks south down the road and holds his hand out for me to stop.  His stop gesture moves into a forward motioning one after a car comes around the corner and passes.  His southward pointing finger moves in  broad sweep till it's pointing in the direction we're headed. "All clear".  It's Yubisashi Kosho 指差呼称  Point and call out you'd say in English I think. It's a Japanese awareness method for avoiding mistakes. Train conductors make it look like an art form. After so many years here I try to do it myself nowadays. It felt goofy at first but I've come to like it. It's amazing how such a small practice can bring you more in tune with the present moment and surroundings.

 "Arigato gozaimashita" I shout as I pull away. Arigatou Gozaimashita" he echos back with a deep bow. I love watching them in the rear view mirror as I pull away.  As always he remains standing there till he appears the size of an ant way back in the distance.  Three blips of gas now I know we'll make it to the 100 yen shop and back no problem. And man just look at those windows!

Getting gas in Japan. Until someone creates a time machine to go back to USA circa 1971 I think it's the closest I'll come to what getting gas was like back home when I was a kid.  

Satire is the new reality: Apostles' Creed Edition

I stopped trying to keep track of the off the charts surreal lunacy of  it all months ago but this one....  I'm telling ya you just can't make stranger shit up! I've gotta take note of this.

There they were--all of the living former presidents and FLOTUSes along with president stupid and his 3rd trophy wife.  There they were in the cathedral to pay respects to 41.  Important to the context is the fact that the guy who's playing president now--the guy who all the other presidents clearly can't fucking stand to put it mildly, that guy has received a higher percentage of support from American Evangelicals than any other US president.  So of course that guy is the one who is not reciting the Apostles' Creed because duh! We're living in satirical times now people. 

Then there's the guy Trump supporters call Muslim--the guy who they remain convinced is not an American citizen without a shred of credible evidence--there he is reciting the Apostles' creed by heart as much as he's reading it.  The Clintons who they claim to be the devil itself if not worse, they're reading it as well. As is President Carter but hey,  he's by far the most Christ-like POTUS our country has ever known so no surprise there.  The guy has cancer yet still he picks up his hammer and builds homes for the poor.  Apparently that kind of emulating Jesus stuff is heresy in American Christianism 2018 though since Evangelical Republicans can still hardly bring themselves to say a nice word about Carter. 

But boy howdy do they love Trump. And there he is, seemingly unaware of the importance of reciting this creed for those who profess the Christian faith.  I'd be willing to guess he doesn't even hear it and wouldn't know what it is if he did.  I'm guessing the self-obsessed voices in his head drowned it all out or at least reduced this core to the Christian faith prayer to mumbling background noise.  

And so toss this one more little footnote piece of straw onto the camel and keep watching because sooner or later, and I'm guessing we're nearing sooner, that poor beast's back is gonna break.  It's just too surreal though ain't it. I still can't look at this photo or read  news of this without laughing myself silly.  

But yeah Trump was chosen by god.  Riiiiiight.  I swear believing as much makes god look more and more like a raving mad lunatic with each passing second of this supposed presidency.

It's been a while since I publicly rebuked the idiot-in-chief and know that some have taken offense to my doing so; therefore, just for the record I have heavenly ordained righteous authority to judge in this case.  How's that you say?  Well there's the fact that I've spent countless hours over the past decade and a half enmeshed in an intensive lay study of early Christianity, which of course has included researching the hell out of the history of the Nicene creed and Apostles' Creed and all of the synods and debates over the nature of Christ, reading the works of Irenaeus and Justin Martyr and Origen along with all the works unearthed at Nag Hammadi and on and on.  So there's that and the fact that, although it was a short-lived gig that ended in early Japan gaijin wedding preacher retirement, technically I am a man of the cloth. See!  

Thus as one who's conducted wedding services in both Japanese and English I hereby assert my right to criticize the dumb ass so-called president who can't even bring himself to read a few lines of a prayer in English at the funeral of a real American President.  

How anyone can continue to support that clown is beyond me.  God have mercy on whatever's left of their decency and intellect.