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.