Happy Solstice!

since this is toby's second solstice, we now have some established traditions. according to last years solstice post, apparently we open presents, then have some wine and a bath. I guess the wine and bath will wait until later, at least until sometime after noon, but Toby got started on a couple presents this morning. his paternal grandparents "Baba" and "Jiji" contributed to toby's growing obsession with Totoro by giving him a Totoro towel. Similarly, Toby's maternal grandmother has added to his collection of melody cards as well as his college fund. Gifts from both sides are featured, along with some surprisingly rhythmic knee slapping, in this brand spankin' new video of Toby.

toby of the day, 11.30.2008

Toby has had a number of loves so far during his short time with us. There was the black halogen lamp, the blue lamp, the American analog set poster, Mr. Cow. There are still owls, phones, dogs and pumpkins. But right now, on top of it all, there are balls. There is a corner store at the end of our street (eddie’s discount liquors) that has three baskets of balls that they set out every day. And every time we leave the house, toby is ready to sprint down the hill to find them. We can’t go anywhere near that corner without spending at least a few minutes while he tries to fish a ball out of one of those baskets. Of course, eddie’s doesn’t have a monopoly on balls. In fact, like pumpkins, they’re everywhere. Especially when you can’t tell the difference between something that is simply spherical, such as a decorative stone finial on a handrail or a round glass ornament, and a ball which might be suitable to throw or kick. Yesterday we purchased a ball that is full of water and glitter that shake around like a snow globe when you throw it. It’s actually quite awesome. But still, jon and I did eventually tire of hearing about it. it was all he could talk about in the store, and on the walk home, and after we reached home. and then once we got it home, he would cradle it in his hand like some sort of magic gem before hurling it across the room and screaming “a ball”. I think that is my favorite part, actually. While he may not yet have the vocabulary or prefrontal cortex of a modern human, and while he is sure to break something in short shrift because he cannot catch the ball after he sends it ricocheting around the room, by adding that ‘a’, he is telling us that he is sophisticated, cultured, ready for us to acknowledge his arrival as a person. Of course, we’ll know he’s really arrived at personhood when he calls it ‘my ball’.

toby of the day, thanksgiving

Today, we had Isaac, Mai and Steve over for squab and an array of vegetables. Jon and I have “discussed” squab for a couple weeks now, mostly I’ve been insisting that we had guinea fowl last year on thanksgiving, and jon says we had squab, and I then insist that we have never had squab, and he says that yes we have, we had it last year, for thanksgiving. Historically, I would have been correct. In fact, much of my irritating stubbornness in cases like this results from having a weirdly precise memory with regards to random and insignificant facts. However, it turns out that I have lost my touch. There, in our wine notes in my own handwriting, is a description of our dinner (squab and a light curry sauce) and our wine (white burgundy, tasting like earth and fruits) last thanksgiving. This is unfortunate since I have no memory capacity for other things (the names of people that I meet, anything that has to do with my job), so my ability to remember random information is all I’ve got. Jon may feel that he has won the battle, but I think in the end he’ll miss it when he asks me if I remember the name of someone we met at a party and I respond by telling him what color socks I was wearing. Regardless, the squab was tasty, the company friendly, and “trapped in the closet” chapters 13-22 were ridiculous. It gave us much to be thankful for.

(photos courtesy of Mai)

Operation bring home the bacon Part 3: bringing that bacon home

Today: Imperial palace, food market shopping street, curry udon lunch, sanjusangendo, train back to KIX airport in Osaka, 7 hours awaiting my profoundly delayed flight, 7 hours sleeping in my empty row on the plane, and then I was home. well almost, I went directly from the airport to meet jon and toby at a birthday party. I gave toby a bottle cap with an owl in it that I had saved from my beer. He promptly lost it, but regardless he seemed happy to have me back. That was on a Saturday. By Tuesday, while they were interviewing the remaining 8 candidates for the position, I was in bed fighting off a cold. And by Thursday morning, 5 days after my return, I opened my mail, and there in my inbox was ‘the bacon’ if you will. They sure don’t dawdle there at Kyoto University. Toby will be so pleased since this means he could live in the land of rice, nori, and tofu. Of course, it also means that he could be farther away from the land of penne and pumpkins. And we would be far, far away from the people and places we hold dear. But, while I still consider becoming an industry puppet to be my dream job, I couldn’t ask for a better back up plan if all else falls through. Kansai, here we come! maybe.

Operation bring home the bacon Part 2: bacon acquired

So I made it to Kyoto and the next day, powered by salad, pickles, and rice from the hotel breakfast I found the university. It was full of parked bicycles but strangely quiet and I was sure that some sort of plague or alien had swept in and destroyed all the humans. But I continued on and gave my talk, which I ended by saying “okini” which I’ve been told is kansai dialect for “thanks a lot!” When I said this, the twelve-man panel, who were all vigorously nodding and note taking throughout my talk, laughed and clapped, and I sighed with relief. I was pretty sure I would screw up and say “oniki” or “oishi” or it would turn out that the postdoc that told me to say okini was really just trying to sabotage my chances and so my talk would be met with the sound of crickets rather than clapping. But it all went extremely well, and after some deft question answering, I headed across the street to gather the envelope of money covering my plane fare. A friendly biochemist showed me around the lab space, and I chatted briefly with a young assistant professor who I promptly intimidated somehow (I’m like 5’4” in heels, so I guess it's understandable). While I learned very little about the position, department, or university, I did discover that you have to change shoes when you arrive at work, and you actually have to change them again when you go into some special rooms. I’ve never dropped anything dangerous on my feet in the lab, but I’m confident that once I’m walking around in slippers I will begin to do so almost immediately. Fortunately, as a guest, I didn’t have to change shoes (except of course when I went into the special rooms) so my powers of intimidation were intact throughout my tour. And that was it. I left, ate some ramen, went to kiyomizudera to see the momiji in their autumn colors, ate oyakodonburi, went to the hotel onsen, had a beer in my room, watched some Japanese game shows, and fell asleep.

Operation bring home the bacon Part 1: the long trip to the store

Earlier this month, I was invited to interview at Kyoto University. Jon and I have sent out more applications than we can shake a stick at, so it is incredibly reassuring to have heard a response from one of them. now at least we know some of those applications must have gotten to their destinations. My interview is scheduled for 30 minutes on a Friday. I’ve tried to determine if it is just my talk that is scheduled to be 30 minutes or the entire interview, which seems terribly peculiar but at the same time, terribly possible. That means that pretty much I’m flying for 21 hours to give a 20 minute talk (and take 10 minutes of questions). It also means that I will be away from toby for 3 full days and nights, a first. And that jon will be alone with toby for 3 full nights, also a first. I think this will be a challenge for both of us, but I have to admit, I am looking forward to 11 hours on a plane without a restless toddler on my lap.

this second photo is of my hotel room. I feel like they could have found a slightly larger picture for that wall.

toby of the day, 11.15.2008

Today, we went to the beach. I know it’s November, but it’s been unseasonably warm lately. In fact, I think with the current cold front hitting florida, it might be the same temperature there and here. Anyway, in preparation for the beach I packed a blanket to sit on, some plastic cups and spoon to dig with, some water and snacks, and a sun hat. Because the pacific ocean is always very, very cold, there are a number of things I never thought to bring: bathing suit, towel, change of clothes. Mostly, I imagined jon and I sitting on the blanket, maybe having a beer, while toby dug around in the sand. Then we’d make our way down the beach to the park chalet for more beer. Instead, toby seemed unfazed by the freezing temperature of the water, and rather than wanting to sit and dig in a dry area reasonable for a blanket, he preferred to sprint after the receding waves like our own little plover to pick up handfuls of muddy sand. Which wasn’t too bad until he did a face plant into an oncoming wave. And even then, toby seemed to think that was fine, a perfect opportunity to take off his chafing clothes. So there he was, wet, covered in sand, wearing just a diaper that was itself probably full of sand, running in and out of the water. He was pretty ecstatic, it was just jon and I who saw this all as an invitation to pneumonia, or at least all the more reason to move closer to that beer. So we packed him up and headed to the park chalet where I washed him off in the bathroom sink, dried him with our blanket, and dressed him in a sweatshirt, jon’s wool hat, and a skirt fashioned out of the breastfeeding cover we keep in the backpack. He looked lovely. Especially after we got our pitcher.

toby of the day, halloween

I believe I’ve mentioned previously that Halloween is my favorite holiday, in part because I really like to make stuff. I like the planning part and the construction part, and I even like the moment in the construction where you think that your planning must have been just craziness because this is obviously never going to work, and then I especially like the following part when it turns out that it will work and thank goodness for all that planning. Anyway, I feel as though last year at this time our lives were like some unassembled piece of Swedish furniture sitting in your living room, a pile of wood slabs, bolts, allen wrenches, and a little paper brochure just waiting for you to sleep off your hangover enough to make sense of them, but somehow you never quite do. Consequently, although it made me somewhat disappointed, the best I could muster last year was to send toby off to day care in t-shirt with a monkey on it. This year, we seem to have built that piece of furniture, and while there are a bunch of extra screws and it’s a little lopsided, it seems vaguely functional. The point I’m trying to make is that, what with all the sleeping we’ve been doing, this year I managed to make toby a costume, an owl costume. On Sunday, I took him to a party at the gymnastics place next to his day care where he enjoyed running around and managed not to get crushed by any wayward gymnasts. And then on Halloween proper we went trick or treating in cole valley. Because toby hasn’t the slightest idea what candy is, he spent most of his time pointing out pumpkins, which he pronounces as mummins. You have no idea how many pumpkins there are on the street this time of year, and toby knows the location of them all, and screams in delight whenever we pass near them, “mummins!” Naturally, people think that he has confused that round, orange squash with his mother and shake their heads with a look of pity, but I know he knows what he’s talking about, and that if I were in a line-up with assorted pumpkins, even if they were carved and decorated, I think he could tell us apart. Except of course when I’m wearing a giant orange mumu, but I reserve that for very special occasions, so it’s mostly not an issue. anyway, you can see lots more pictures on flickr using the link on the right.

toby of the day 10.20.2008

Toby very much likes his new table. He sits there and ‘colors’ which is mostly a process of rubbing crayons against the table then gnawing on them, then rubbing them on the wall. Right now he really likes yellow, which we know only because that’s the color of wax that pours out of his mouth most often when he smiles. You’d never guess that from the picture of course. Here, he looks like an upstanding citizen, one who pushes his chair in and sits up straight, someone assiduously working on an important art project, someone whose cheeks are not brimming with tiny bits of crayon. I guess you’ll just have to take my word on it, or stop by some time and tickle him. Then you can learn all his secrets.

toby of the day, 10.19.2008

Today we went to ikea to buy toby a little table and chairs for his room. It was quite a long process. The store is set up so that you weave past section after section of goods that you didn’t come with the intention of buying, and after enough wandering you start to let your guard down and then you suddenly have difficulty convincing yourself that you do not need to leave the store with a sofa, not today anyway. After we finally made it down to the warehouse toby and I headed to look for his table and chairs. We were the only people in a huge aisle of children’s furniture, and as we searched for his table, ‘take on me’ by a-ha was playing. Maybe I was loopy from the fumes of the flame resistant furniture chemicals, or eager to add one more allen wrench to our collection or maybe I was just so excited to finally be so close to the exit, but somehow it seemed perfectly appropriate to just dance our way along, toby riding and dancing on the dolly, me dancing and pushing him, as we collected our bright orange table and two little chairs with squirrels on them. thank goodness wham! didn't come on next, or we could have become poster children for consumerism.

toby of the day, 10.18.2008

On Saturday, we stopped by the hall of taxidermy just to take a gander at the animals. Toby was busy looking at some sort of horned ungulate when an 19 month old boy spotted him and came running over. Toby noticed the charging boy and stood his ground, and so there in full view of the horned ungulate and two sets of parents they had a head on collision. But, instead of tipping over or crying, toby looked up and gave the boy a hug. Someday I’m sure he will face social castigation if he uses such a conflict resolution tactic, but until then it sure is adorable.

After the museum, we went outside where there was a large and awful music festival that would eventually feature mos def, but at the time there were just horns blaring out of the PA. We met up with Isaac and he and I went through the elaborate security procedures necessary to purchase a beer, which involved procuring beer tickets and hand stamps so that we could enter the official drinking area and acquire drinks. Toby and jon met us inside the drinking area. Apparently the elaborate security system mostly involved a piece of police tape around the edge of the drinking area indicating its boundaries. It reminded me of the very fancy cigarette machines in japan that would take your photo to determine if you were of age before selling you cigarettes. According to those machines, toby can pass for 18, as long as you hold him up high enough to look into the camera. Next thing you know he’ll be sneaking into bars, as long as he can find a friend tall enough to hoist him up onto the stool.

toby of the day: animal preservation

The California academy of science closed right after jon and I moved to San Francisco. Well, maybe not right after, but soon enough that we never made it in. Anyway, it has opened again. On the opening day, the traffic thwarted our ride home from the airport, and the part of the day that we didn’t spend in a bleary jetlagged nap, we watched the hundreds of cars lined up outside our apartment, trying to get to the park, trying to get away from the park, or just trapped in the unexpected traffic jam. We got a membership and even though we have been three times so far, and the museum is not very big, we have maybe seen half of it. The line for the rainforest remains far to long to even consider standing in unless toby is sleeping and the planetarium supposedly has the potential to freak out small children. Instead, we spend our time looking at the taxidermied animals. I had never really appreciated these, because as long as I can remember I have found live, moving animals much more exciting. But apparently, prior to the time in your life that you can remember things, stuffed animals are pretty cool. They’re big and look like animals, but they stay still and sit right next to the window so they’re easy to spot. Toby especially likes hartebeests and lemurs. On our third visit he became vaguely aware of the living, swimming penguins at the far end of the hall of taxidermy, but his interest was quickly taken over again by his new buddy lemur catta who sits in a glass box under a looping video of lemurs. Our friend shelly is in Madagascar, working on a conservation project for some group that didn’t have the foresight or inclination to give them proper maps so I spend my free time trying to hunt her down on google earth. Still, I'm quite jealous, as I’ve always wanted to go to Madagascar. I tell toby this whenever he points to the lemurs, but he seems uninterested. Perhaps he knows that in Madagascar, lemurs run free in the trees, so you can’t reliably find them sitting in their box every Monday morning like you can at the academy of sciences. Or maybe it’s because he’s already moved on and spotted his absolute favorite thing at the museum, the stone cat statues outside in the lawn area. Or it could be that since he’s 15 months old, my rambling is nothing more than blah blah blah blah lemur blah blah blah. that's fine. I feel the same way when I listen to his stories too, so I feel like we have a mutual understanding.

Day 14: uchi!

Today, we took one last tour of the ramp at roppongi hills and the sculpture at Tokyo midtown, purchased our last milk tea and $4 kiwi, thought about trying to fit in a round of our favorite taiko drumming game but couldn’t wait for the game center to open, received our last notices about phone calls under our door, picked up a final convenience store nigiri, and headed to the airport. We catch the airport bus at the ANA hotel down the street. It is apparently THE place to get married on a Saturday morning, which meant we got to watch a parade of finery (kimonos, hanboks, gowns, tuxedos) while we drank our milk tea and waited for the bus. Not to be outdone, we had dressed up in clothes laundered in the hotel bath, I’m surprised no one mistook us for part of a wedding party. We got to the airport plenty early so toby could tire himself out. Narita has a kid’s playroom where toby insisted on hugging one boy slightly older than himself. The boy just wanted to go down the slide, but whenever he would approach it, toby would run over to hug him and so the boy would jump back onto a bench with his parents, and toby would go down the slide. And that’s about it. I really should end there. But, you’ll say, how was the flight back? Well, not surprisingly, the flight was long, very, very, very long. So incredibly long. There was the “turbulence” which required us to stay seated for the first 4 hours. Toby did not like this much. And then there were the curmudgeonly flight attendants, one of whom accused toby of breaking the plane when, after finally being released from our seats, he discovered a piece of rubber molding that was coming loose from the bulkhead. Jon and I did not like them much. I mean really, if a 2.5 foot tall, 24 pound toddler can “break” the plane, I’m not sure I want to be flying in one. As it is, I’m not sure that we’ll be stepping on a plane any time soon. It was very tiring. It’s two weeks later, and writing about it makes me tired. And to top it off, on our way out we lost one of toby’s new shoes. I’m pretty sure one of the surly flight attendants stole it off his foot as we passed by. bitch. Hmmm, that seems like the wrong way to end this last post. because, those 9 hours aside, it was a fabulous trip. and while spending 24 hours a day with a toddler sure is exhausting, it was awesome to get to hang out with him for 2 whole weeks. But still, it’s good to be home, where everyone can sleep in their own bed. And if some of them, I won’t name names or anything, but if some of them wanted to sleep perpendicular to the normal sleeping axis, they could do so without putting their feet on my head or crawling into my armpit. Unless jon decides that’s his new thing. But that’s what the extra bed is for. See, it’s great to be home. Phew!

here's a taste of some of our homecoming celebrations.

day 13.5: kouri

Our trip started and ended with zeno. We had dinner with him tonight, ramen at a hole in the wall that jon and I passed on our many excursions to Tokyo midtown. We followed that with a drink at a shochu bar. We were looking for a sake bar and I made the joke as we approached it that they probably only serve shochu, as a reference to our night out in nara where we ended up with shochu and hot sake. Of course it turned out that they did only serve shochu, pages and pages and pages of shochu. Apparently it’s all the rage. So we had a drink. The ice cubes were spectacular. For the entire trip I’ve been impressed at the ice cubes here, they are always perfectly shaped, solid cubes. However, at this place, the ice cubes were perfect spheres about the size of a racquetball. They were amazing. I wanted to sneak mine out in my pocket, but fortunately I hadn’t had quite enough to drink to actually go through with my plan. We then bought some drinks for the road and headed back to our hotel to put toby to sleep (he can’t seem to get to sleep without nightcap these days). Zeno joined us. He did a little dance for toby, the video of which I will save for a rainy day (hmmm, I guess today is kinda rainy. . .). we had some pleasant banter, and of course, not to let pleasantries be the last word, we discussed at some length his impending crowded train ride home where there was a high probability that someone might violate his leg. And then we wished him luck and he was gone.

day 13: inu

Today we went shopping for gifts for ourselves and others at muji. My dream of remaking myself as a stylish Japanese woman was thwarted by a combination of my body shape and my own stinginess. But we did find some cool stuff. All while toby played on a little toy filled section of carpeting in the middle of the store. We then went to lunch with kunchan and hiroko, friends of jon’s parents who own a 2 michelin star restaurant that only serves fugu. When we ate there a few years ago we were just in time for the peak season of shirako or ‘male egg sacs’. while it was overall an amazing meal, after 5 courses involving shirako, I feel I can now say that pufferfish testicles are not one of my favorite foods, but I do like that I can say so from experience whereas most people can only guess at their opinion of blowfish testicles. In any case, lunch with kunchan and hiroko was one of those experiences that made me wish I spoke Japanese. They are both friendly and funny and appear to tell great stories. If only their stories were about cats, then I could maybe follow along, though I suspect that might reduce their greatness. Toby slept through most of the lunch, though he did wake up in time to meet their dog. Toby very much likes to indicate the presence of dogs, by pointing at them while panting. And often he becomes upset if, after he has indicated there is a dog nearby, you take him away from the dog. But there is a minimum distance that he likes to maintain between himself and dogs such that while he might appear as though he would enjoy petting a dog, once you bring him in close enough he loses interest or becomes frightened and turns away. However, if you were to then move too far from the dog, he would begin to complain. It’s a very slippery slope. Such was our interaction with kunchan’s poodle, who was either too close or too far for toby’s liking. I’m not sure what this means about getting our own dog since I think having to maintain proper distance between toby and a dog would quickly drive me insane. Fortunately getting a dog isn’t high on our agenda in our small, yard-free apartment, so for the moment it’s a non-issue.

Day 12.5: akachan

For dinner, we met up with andy, a friend of jon’s from high school, and his wife and 7 month old daughter. We of course went to Tokyo midtown because we only spent a couple hours there today. We ate at a place that I would compare to that semicircle of nations at disney’s epcot, except with bland versions of international food all housed in one restaurant whose decorating scheme reminded me of a german cafeteria. It was fine, and to its advantage, toby’s meandering around wasn’t disruptive at all. At one point we let the kids sit next to each other. Andy and his wife sat back and watched, confident that their quiet daughter would sit still, while I hovered close by, confident that, because toby loves babies, he would try to hug their baby and in the process knock them both off the chairs to form a pile of very angry babies on the floor. Fortunately, this did not happen. Whether it was due to my excessive vigilance or not, I don’t know, although I’d like to attribute the absence of an angry baby pile to my meddling since then I can feel like I contributed something other than just getting in the way of the picture taking.

day 12: denwa

Each time we enter a new hotel room, one of the first orders of business is to unplug the phone so that toby doesn’t bankrupt us by calling argentina. This means that either we are unable to receive calls, or can only receive them on the phone in the bathroom. Until a few days ago, this didn’t matter at all since no one, perhaps with the exception of a toddler playing with a hotel phone in argentina, has tried to call us. Now, we seem to get a lot of calls. Jon’s parents call every day or so to make sure we’re all still fine. And in addition, our good friend mrs. N calls us once or twice a day. Often, she calls when we’re gone or not standing in the bathroom. This results in the front desk having to print out a piece of paper telling us her message, which is usually just that she called and hopes we are well, and slip it under our door. We now have a stack of these papers in our room. toby of course likes to eat them. In addition, today we received a package from her of candies and other goodies, mostly because during one of the times when jon answered the phone and spoke to her, he mentioned that we were looking for a specific kind of candy to bring home as omiage. sadly, the candies she sent were not the candies we were looking for, but we sure do have a lot of them. Having never been stalked by an elderly Japanese woman, I found all of this quite exciting, and lamented that jon had not told her we were looking for something more unusual, perhaps a pet fugu or a small elephant. It inspires me to plug in the phone, at least until toby gets Sweden on the line.

Today we went to the imperial palace. It was hot and sunny and there were lots of spiders. Then, perhaps feeling a bit of withdrawl, we headed to Tokyo station for lunch, which is, yes you guessed it, a high-end shopping center. Toby played with some other children until he got sleepy. as he napped in the backpack, we headed to Tokyo midtown for some coffee and dessert. He awoke while we were there and lead some old ladies in a clapping exercise. As you’ll see in this video, I think he has a future as a guitarist for the kind of stadium playing band that stops playing to clap their hands over their heads and encourage the crowd to clap along. rock on!

day 11: yoguruto

It turns out that our hotel is situated midway between two very upscale shopping centers, roppongi hills and Tokyo midtown. We stayed at the same hotel a couple years ago, completely oblivious to the presence of either of these places. However, now that we are trying to figure out what one does in Tokyo with a toddler, we have found them to be oases in the middle of an urban landscape that is not generally child friendly. While we have neither the money nor the desire to spend much time in the actual stores, the places themselves are immaculate, full of interesting architecture, sculpture, and other decorations, and have wide concourses and spaces for toby to run through. So we spent the first half of today in midtown. Then after a rest, we headed to the meiji shrine, but because toby fell asleep on the subway, we wandered through harajuku and eventually made our way to yet another high end shopping area, omotesando hills, to taste some sake. On the way, we feared toby might be peckish so we purchased a drinkable yogurt, which, it turns out, is essentially sugar masquerading as a more nutritious food. As jon and I quietly sipped some sake, toby slurped down the last of the yogurt drink, and transformed. I admit that in some respects I was mildly disappointed that he didn’t somehow break out of his clothes or turn into a green lou ferrigno, because that might have provided us with a better indication of what we were in store for. Of course in other respects, I’m quite happy that toby remains regular colored and not lou ferrigno. Anyway, we spent the next hour or so trading off with one of us chasing him up and down the ramps and stairs in the shopping center while the other would sit peacefully, cultivating a nice buzz and watching, bemused, as our sugar monster sprinted past. Just for your information, it’s very hard to catch a sugar monster after a few glasses of sake. But eventually he slowed enough, and we regained our energy enough, to capture him, eat some dinner, and return at last to our hotel, our lesson about the dangers of yogurt related drinking products learned the hard way.

Day 10: shinkansen

Today we took the train to Tokyo. Toby slept most of the way, which is good since the pay phone on this train didn’t have as good a shelf to hold him up while he punched buttons. We ventured over to roppongi hills where toby continued to work on his ramp walking skills. This particular ramp had some nice round rocks in the adjacent landscaping so he could pick up a handful of them, roll them down the ramp, then chase them. I have the feeling that we could be spending a lot of time here over the next couple of days. Toby has a very elaborate ramp walking regimen that he has to keep up with.

Day 9: gyunyu

Today we went to kiyomizura where toby was engulfed by a veritable paparazzi of Japanese students from some sort of athletic team. They took his photo alone, then had all of us pose with them, then posed with him individually. Just when we thought they were done, we ran into them again at a different part of the temple, and then again, and then one more time. He was quite the star. Who knows, maybe he’ll be the next Japanese fad, bigger than pikachu or frilled lizards or skirts that look like you’re not wearing any pants.

For dinner we headed to a tiny place purported to make the best oyakodonburi in all of japan. We waited quietly in line while toby befriended a large testicled raccoon statue out front then sat down at two of the twelve seats to eat. And I have to say, it was really good. But perhaps even better, we may have stumbled onto their secret, the key to making eggs, chicken, and dashi somehow transcendant. There are a small number of foods, well actually just one that we know of, that toby’s skin is a wee bit sensitive to. And after a couple bites of the oyakodonburi, he had the telltale red marks on his chin. He’s like our own little hercule poirot, just without the mustache.

Day 8: daruma

There is a map in the lobby that toby likes. In particular, he likes the picture of the daruma, a little red guy with big eyes and a beard. The map is not to scale and provides only a vague indication of the location of various temples and other sites. However, based on the map, we decided to take toby to visit the location marked by his little red friend. We set out on foot with our free umbrellas from the hotel, various warm clothes to deal with the rain, and a copy of the map. Two blocks into our walk, the rain cleared, and the temperature started to rise, making most of our baggage obsolete. But, we reasoned, the daruma temple can’t be that far, so we continued on. but after another 45 minutes of walking and pestering numerous pedestrians and shopkeepers, most of whom had no idea what we were talking about, we realized that toby would probably be just as happy if we let him chew on the map as he would be if we ever found the temple, so we hailed a cab and headed instead to kinkakuji, the golden temple. It was quite pretty. And golden. Toby was especially impressed by all of the rocks on the ground, which further convinced us that we made the right move to give up on the daruma temple. I bet their rocks weren’t nearly as nice.

Day 7: ba ba

On our morning walk we saw some of the infamous Nara deer. Most of them were sitting in that refined looking deer pose, legs curled under them, head held high, you know the one. One deer was not. After discussing whether deer sleep splayed out on their sides, completely immobile, we decided that probably they do not and that ended our morning deer-viewing excursion. Because the typhoon seems to have moved on, we then wandered around to see some of the local pagodas and other sites, including a number of healthy deer that were standing on their legs. Toby of course slept through all of this until we reached the covered shopping street. We ate some pastries and headed back to the hotel to pack and catch the train to Kyoto.

Toby’s great grandfather accompanied us to Kyoto where we had lunch with a woman (whom we’ll call mrs. N) and her daughter. Mrs. N had planned to take us out to dinner, in part to repay a favor from jon’s parents, but additionally because she was apparently just really, really excited to meet us. I know this is cynical, but I find it weird when someone we’ve never even heard of is said to be excited to meet us. And I find it more peculiar that someone would want to have long, awkward dinner with us as we spend most of our time trying to calm and feed a squirmy toddler. Such a dinner is not really a favor at all but more of a punishment. So we managed to coax her into lunch instead, where, as usual, Jon and I raced through our meal, this time tiny and delicate bento boxes, so that we could juggle taking toby up and down the stairs to visit the pay phone while everyone else ate in peace. I can only hope that the experience was all that she dreamed it would be.

Once we finished and bid farewell to N-san we headed to our hotel where we also bid farewell to jon’s mom and ojichan. Toby has started calling his grandmother ba ba and every morning when he’s ready to leave our room he goes to the door and says ba ba, indicating he’s had enough of the two of us and is ready for better company. I think he’ll be quite disappointed when he goes to the door tomorrow morning and says ba ba only to discover a maid or an empty hallway or a copy of the japan times. I think jon and I will miss her too, since she’s been incredibly helpful. Although toby’s timing on saying ‘bye’ is usually a little late, often minutes after the person has left, for his ba ba, he managed a ‘bye’ as she headed out. By her next visit, he might even have ‘thank you’ down. It’s something to work towards, anyway.

Day 6: Taifu jusan-go

Seems the typhoon has followed us here to Nara. This morning, between downpours, we headed over to a covered shopping street and brought back some pastries and coffee for breakfast. After eating them and then lounging around the hotel for a spell waiting for the rain to subside again, we headed back to the covered shopping street to meet toby’s hi-ojichan for lunch. Afterwards, we wandered around window and actual shopping where toby’s grandmother bought him some nifty shoes. In the past 7 days toby has managed to outgrow one pair of shoes and we realized that the other pair that we brought is just too dorky looking to be worn out in public. Outfitted with his new shoes, toby quickly fell asleep so we returned to the hotel for a nap, a bath, and then some puddle stomping in the rain. Toby doesn’t have much experience with rain, so he thought the puddles were the best thing since, well, owls I guess, or maybe that noisy plastic car from Kyushu. After we dried off, we thought we were going to see a different part of town, but it turned out the taxi was just taking us to the covered shopping street area via an alternate route. We may not know much about Nara, but we do know that covered shopping street, which is really helpful if you’re eager to buy tiny, 1 cm tall porcelain cats, inflatable deer, or Frisbee sized dorayaki. It’s the place to go.

day 5: gokiburi

Today we took three trains to nara. I think toby has trouble distinguishing train from rain, which have both been in ample supply on this trip. or maybe he has them right in his head, but because he pronounces both of them as ‘main’ we can’t tell the difference. Anyway, his favorite part of the train is the fact that there is a tiny room with a pay phone. Pay phones are like a dream come true, combining his love of phone receivers, and large buttons into one single gadget. In this case, he also seemed to enjoy pushing the buttons on the picture of a pay phone posted next to the phone itself. So jon and I traded off, with one of us getting to watch out the window as we glided past the beautiful countryside, while the other was trapped in a tiny stuffy booth holding a 25 pound baby as he pushed buttons. Once we reached the hotel in nara, we were met by toby’s great grandfather doi, which means that toby has now met all four of his great grandparents, so in that respect, our mission is complete.

after dinner, we left toby with his grandmother and jon and I headed out for a drink. We ended up at a tiny hole in the wall where we hoped to have some sake. The only Japanese characters that I can recognize are for entrance, exit, and Kyoto. None of these are of any help in ordering off a menu. Jon knows a few more, well actually many many more since he can actually read and write in japanese, but regardless, somehow we still mixed up shochu with sake and hot with cold so we ended up with a shochu on ice and, even though it was 98 degrees and humid outside, a hot sake. We then asked to try a yuzu sake, which initially ended up in them having to find a tiny glass to let us taste it before we could just get a full glass. In all, it reminded me of a time during jon’s 30 bars in 30 days where on like day 17 we went to a local bar, and unable to come up with the word ‘neat’ when ordering a bourbon, jon said ‘straight up’ at which point the bartender asked to see both of our IDs. In both instances, I think we could only have appeared less familiar with alcohol if we had ordered wine coolers or mad dog 20/20. Along with ordering drinks like schoolchildren, we also managed to leave our shoes in the wrong place, which required the waitress to bring them in and place them in a cupboard for us. In the end though, I would have been more self conscious about the experience had jon not pointed out the cockroach on the wall idling it’s way toward me. while I tried hard to keep track of him while appearing non-chalant I was ultimately successful at neither. I think I hit my tipping point when our insect friend headed over to the shoe cupboard. So we slurped down the last of our yuzu drink, rescued our shoes and headed out.

day 4: matsuge

Today we bid farewell to Kyushu with a last dip in the onsen, a final sprint up and down the ramp, and the purchase of the noisy car toy from the gift shop. We also visited with toby’s great grandparents one more time to take some photos and further discuss toby’s eyelashes, which are a hot topic here in japan, and are often pointed out in a loud, surprised whisper accompanied by the placing of hands, palms forward, fingers up, near the eyes. This always reminds me of the scary monster with eyes in his hands from pan’s labyrinth, which is probably not the effect they are going for. Anyway, we then buckled in to a van and headed to fukuoka. On the way, while trying to go through a toll booth, the electronic debit card failed to work, causing the van to screech to a halt inches before hitting the gates at the toll plaza. This had the fortuitous side effect of dislodging the ice cream shaped bubble wand that toby had thrown under the seat a few days earlier. So I, for one, was pleased that we did not just bust through the gates, exciting as that would have been. We really need that bubble wand. Upon arriving in fukuoka, we found that jon’s mom’s room smelled of old feet, so we headed out for dinner. It was raining and we were all tired and grumpy, but we ventured out to the yatai (food stalls next to the water) anyway. And it was a lucky choice. the ramen was awesome. So very, very awesome. Even toby thought so, which is good since it provided a little break from his current rice and seaweed addiction. And by the time we returned to the hotel, the foot smell was gone. That right there is the power of ramen.

day 3.5: fukuro

For dinner we went to yakiniku and I’m proud to say that we did not light toby on fire. But he did start to say “owls” because of some hand-stitched owls we looked at in the foyer. I don’t know what words other kids his age learn, but he’s got a kind of strange vocabulary. Maybe because he’s partial to L sounds. Bubble, noodle, owls. If this keeps up, it will be interesting to see what he manages to put together as his first sentence.

day 3: onsen

It turns out there isn’t much to do in Kyushu, especially when a typhoon is heading your way, albeit very, very slowly. So far today we’ve eaten a few breakfasts, walked to the supermarket, and visited the onsen. Toby’s favorite things here are going up and down a carpeted ramp in the hotel and playing with a noisy plastic car in the gift shop. I think he’s really getting the most out of this trip to japan.

Day 2: kutsu

today we headed to kyushu to visit toby's great grandparents. on the way, I learned the following important lesson: do not remove your shoes at the airport security station. even if you're wearing shoes that are so easy to remove you can't see any reason not to, just leave them on. removing them will result in great confusion and concern, as it requires the security person to, after looking confused and irritated, pull out the special slippers for you to wear, and then spend a few minutes deciding what to do with your shoes before ultimately placing them on top of a basket rather than inside because your shoes might tarnish the inside of the plastic basket. I just imagine the day when they do decide to xray shoes, the slipper manufacturers will be making a killing, while the airline industry collapses trying to keep hundreds of pairs of feet properly slippered in the 2.5 meters between the beginning and end of the metal detector and luggage xray.

Day 1.5: uma

We spent the afternoon watching toby’s new dance which involves saying “ghi ghi ghi ghi ghi ghi” while stamping his feet then falling over while yelling “blllmmgglmblllphhh!” and rolling on the floor. After that toby thought that our day was over and tried to go to sleep for the night at 3 o’clock. He woke momentarily to enjoy a poster in the subway and the flashing lights of ginza, then fell asleep during our fancy Chinese dinner, woke again for ginza and the subway sign on our return, then fell asleep for good back at home. We left him with his grandmother and headed out for drinks with zeno. we had a leisurely walk to a cozy izakaya and drank some very tasty sake while exchanging pleasantries, overall a lovely experience. and then came pony. pony who will live in my nightmares. poor poor pony. let's just say that nothing will shake up your evening quicker than a lengthy discussion of pony, the indonesian orangutan sex-slave (apparently you can google this, although I wouldn’t suggest it). but then again, it would seem almost disappointing if an evening with zeno was just polite conversation, so really, we got what we came for.

Day 1: sebun-irebun

it turns out that even in Tokyo, not much is open at 4am, which is unfortunate when your jetlagged baby becomes hungry from having already spent an hour playing with the phone in your tiny hotel room and needs to get out to stretch his legs and have a snack. So we headed to the 7-11 in the lobby of our hotel. While I believe this was toby’s first visit to a 7-11 period, I think it’s a whole different experience in japan. For example, instead of having a turntable of expired hot dogs or chemical flavored frozen drinks, they sell nigiri with the nori ingeniously separated from the rice by a piece of plastic that you remove just prior to eating. So far, toby has eaten two. If this keeps up, I’m not sure if my lap can handle him on the trip home. Especially since it’s now only 4:35am.

Day 0: hikouki

We got here saturday after a 10 hour flight from SFO. Jon and I had both worried extensively about the 11 hour flight to tokyo, but we got in an hour early, which must be why it wasn’t so bad. We had some occasional trouble with toby dropping things under our seats and wanting to steal cups off of other people’s tray tables as we walked the aisles, and being really interested in the emergency exit door handles. But otherwise, it was as easy as spending 11 hours couped up in an airplane can be. Here’s a little breakdown of how toby passed the time: 192 minutes sleeping, 68 minutes trying to sleep but instead grumbling about being too crowded, 118 minutes walking down the aisles and charming the flight attendants, 6 minutes pulling all the tissues out of the holster while getting his diaper changed, 38 minutes playing with the video remote, 32 minutes plugging and unplugging the headphones, 16 minutes actually watching the video screen on the back of the seat, 12 irritating minutes opening and closing the window shade, 35 minutes pretending to blow bubbles with the wand from the empty bubble canister, 13 minutes playing with any of the actual toys that we brought along, and the rest of the time eating and eating and eating. I had imagined we would just have to relocate to japan after the flight because we would want to wait until he was older to board the plane home, but I now think we can make it back. In fact, and maybe this is just me feeling cocky, India here we come!

august in september

Wow, so august was quite a month. Toby got his own room and now sleeps through the night (finally), jon’s birthday wish to dress as a giant carrot and compete in a mini-golf match ended in a crushing sudden death double overtime loss to a bananna, and we went to utah where despite some rascally attempts by altitude and crazy drivers to maim us, we had a lovely time. I would love to tell you more about all of those events, and perhaps someday I will. I mean, you don’t go to utah every day, and going to utah is like a free pass to make jokes about mormons, although I admit that we don’t actually know if we met any mormons, and all the people in utah were quite friendly, so maybe there’s not much more to tell. But the thing is, that right now, right NOW we’re in japan. Japan! So I’m going to try to tell you things in pseudo-real-time. As real time as my jet-lagged brain and occasional internet connection will allow, anyway.

toby of the day, 7.24.2008

the first bear jacket we ordered for toby was a wee bit tight in the shoulders, so we returned it for the next size up. I now worry a little about what we're in for. if these sizes are correct, toby will suddenly go from his current, normally proportioned size, to something more akin to an orangutan. we haven't decided whether or not to return this jacket, if only because it's been an endless form of entertainment, watching him try to pick things up through the super long sleeves. and really we only have so many more months of this, where we can giggle as he flounders about because of something we've attached to him, before he starts to remember these episodes and will someday recount them to his psychiatrist or a jury of his peers. so until that happens, we should all enjoy this video of toby the bear vs. the wily TOOTHBRUSH.

toby of the day, 7.20.2008

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I used to do bikram yoga. Not like once or twice, oh no, I mean like 4 times a week, for two plus years. Indeed, despite all my anti-corporate ranting, I was addicted to corporate yoga. The studio I went to is only a block from our apartment, it’s got an environmentally friendly heating system, has rubber floors (why all other bikram studios are carpeted I’ll never understand) and the teachers and owner are all very friendly. But still, despite the special touches, it is corporate yoga. And even though part of me, the scientist part, would laugh at their exclamations that yoga (but, naturally, only this particular yoga) would cure everything from acne to liver disease as long as you went to enough classes, the part of me that reveled in having toned arms for the first time ever was convinced that it would, and even more, that if jon would just start going, his thrice broken knee would be good as new. The kicker though, the thing that kept me there for so long, was one teacher that I had who was almost run over while riding her bicycle. Somehow she saw the car out of the corner of her eye, realized it didn’t see her, and in the split second before it would have crushed her, she leapt straight up into the air, bounced off the hood and landed on her feet, while the car plowed down her bike and dragged it a block before stopping. Bike: totaled, superhero yoga teacher: grumpy but otherwise fine. Surely with enough classes, I could be a superhero too. But it turns out it doesn’t work that way. Maybe it’s because I switched over to iyengar a couple years back and 10 minute headstands are not the path to flashy superpowers, or, more likely it’s because I have the natural agility of a sleepy turtle and at this point nothing is going to change that. Case in point. Today we were walking on 16th street in the mission. I was multi-tasking: chatting with isaac about some mediocre Italian place we were passing, reading some signs on the sidewalk, and mentally noting the strange trail of blood that we appeared to be following and thinking that there often seems to be a strange trail of blood on 16th and wasn’t that weird, when a bicycle zipped past us on the sidewalk. I looked back to be sure that it hadn’t run over jon or toby and as I turned back around, I saw the panicked face of a 10 year old kid, inches from my own. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and he was moving really, really fast. Yes, today I was run over by a 10 year old on a bicycle while walking on the sidewalk. Fortunately I was wearing our incredibly dorky diaper bag backpack, which provided some cushioning as I was knocked flat on my back. And very fortunately I was not carrying toby either in the front or as a backpack. I was mostly alright, a little scraped and bruised. But, my superhero dreams were dashed, unless there is a plan in the works to create a comic book series about a flexible but extremely slow, sleepy, and distractible turtle that saves the world, perhaps by remembering obscure and meaningless details. Maybe that should be my new dream.

toby of the day, 7.17.2008

prior to toby’s birthday keg, the last time jon and I bought a keg was for our wedding. That night, jon and I did keg stands in our wedding attire, and then passed out, leaving our unguarded keg on the porch where it was stolen by some rascally teenagers. I felt this made for a fitting story, but some of our guests, perhaps outraged that those snot-nosed kids got the best of us, or perhaps just grumpy that their “hair of the dog” hangover cure plans were thwarted, wouldn’t let it go. And so instead of just sitting in bed the next day lamenting our decision to hold the wedding so many thousands of feet above sea level, I got to file a report with the local sheriff’s deputy where he asked me a series of questions to which I could only feebly mumble responses, all while hoping he would quickly realize that my recollection of the previous evening was sketchy at best and that would be the end of questioning. Of course, they never found our keg so my interview with the deputy just resulted in us keeping a copy of his business card next to copies of our invitation and other wedding keepsakes. Today we had to do what we didn’t have to do that last time, return the keg to the place of purchase. I don’t know whether it was the academics or children under 4, but someone at toby's party wasn’t drinking their fair share and so try as we might we were unable to float the keg. But rather than let those last few gallons go to waste, we emptied them into our beer brewing bucket, equipped with a spigot, which is now sitting at the top of our stairs. The beer has taken on the quality of a cask conditioned English ale: room temperature, minimal carbonation. I’d actually say it tastes better than it did on Saturday. Which is good, since it is atop our stairs, you can’t really make it into the house without pouring yourself a glass or two. And so I do, and no crazy kids can stand in my way. Well except for toby. Fortunately he’s not allowed near the stairs yet, so it looks like the coast is clear. Of course, it all reminds me a little of the simpson’s episode where homer keeps nibbling on the last few inches of some 20 foot sub he started months or years before. But jon and I have agreed, the second time either of us has to go to the emergency room for skunked beer related illness, we’ll totally get rid of the rest of the keg.