Scraps from the kitchen table

Just returned from an awesome trip to Tokyo, one of the great cities of the world. Here are some random musings. This can be dangerous when you're on jet lag, and you're me.

We were delayed 4 hours leaving LA. We all got a nice letter from United saying they were sorry and fill out this form and we'll give you a travel voucher. No word on how much the voucher will be worth. I'm sending mine in just to find out. I'm guessing $50.

The problem was something about crews and flight attendants being sick and not enough to fly the plane. The crew that flew had to fly in from Boise and Denver. The pilot gets on the intercom and says, we have no First and Second Pilots, we're both captains. But we are pretty sure we can do this. I can overhear the other guy saying, "hey, I've never seen one of these lever thingies before. I wonder what it does." It was hard to relax for awhile.

The part of Tokyo I was in was not as crowded as I thought it might be, and it was incredibly clean and organized. There were no trash cans around. I brought home several pockets full of candy bar wrappers and coffee lids as gifts for my family. They were not impressed.

Our friend Yoshitaka was late for our meeting the last morning by 30 minutes. Someone had caught their backpack in the closing doors of the overpacked subway car and, well, a big owie followed for that person. This led us into a discussion how there are 500,000 suicides in the world a year, and 30,000 are in Japan. That's a high rate of really bad days/person. The mass transit authority is trying to figure out how to keep people from using the mass transit system as a personal killing field by jumping in front of trains.

The Land of the Rising Sun may be named that because it comes up so early. Dawn started at 4 am (jet lag, remember, that's how I know this, in case you were wondering if I normally get up at 4 am.) and by 5 the sun was up. Shane and I went to a large and beautiful park a few blocks away each morning where dozens of people were walking and jogging. Wearing white gloves seemed to be important to some of the Japanese, but not that many. People were playing fetch with their Japanese version of Freckles the Wonder Dog. It was all very pleasant and enjoyable. I actually thought Freckles would like this park.

The first early morning there we were up in the lobby of our place trying to get the hot water pot to work for my travel coffee, which I always take with me. I've found I can live a "normal" life even with jet lag if I start with my own coffee. We never figured out the water pot (so many buttons with Japanese subtitles that we got confused) but we found a 24 hour mini mart with hot coffee - in cans. Yes, the cans were behind a glass case, not refrigerated, but heated. So we got our Japanese version of the Starbucks Double Shot all heated up for us and took it on the road. It was great, and odd that the coffee was hot but the can didn't burn our hands. I wondered if I spilled it down my lap if I could sue the Mini Mart for billions of yen? After I finished, I just put the can in my pocket, and carried it back with me to the US as a gift for Matt.

So, speaking of trash, which somehow I've oddly veared into this morning, the trash cans there are actually organized in a recycling system. Even where I stayed, we put our trash into separate wastebaskets for paper or plastic. I think I fooled them a few times, practical joker that I am. Will there come a day in the US when we use lines like this on our grandchildren: Well, when I was your age, we used to just chuck all our trash into an oversized green plastic container in the garage. We liked it that way! And they'll roll their eyes cause they've heard that story a billion times before, and still can't believe there was a day when "mumps and grumps" didn't recycle. Ahh, those were the days.

Enough, it is time to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend. Here's to all those who served our country in the defense of freedom. And to my dad, who was an awesome dude. He took 4 sons out golfing at the same time every summer. This act of insanity puts him in the Hall of Fame of Fathers.