Thursday, August 31: Cheers and welcome to our August happy hour! Come right in to our screened-in porch, make yourself comfortable and I’ll mix you up a drink. I can offer you wine or beer. I can also offer soda or seltzer water with lime if you prefer a non-alcoholic beverage.
Luckily the weather since I returned from Japan on August 8 hasn’t been bad. The first week it was quite hot and humid, not much different from what I experienced in Japan. But on Wednesday, the 23rd, the weather improved and dropped to temperatures of my liking, around 75 degrees Fahrenheit (23C). This is perfect weather; my mood lifts considerably when I can feel a hint of fall in the air. 🙂
I’m so happy to see you. We can mingle or we can sit, whatever is to your liking. How have you been since I’ve been gone? What kind of music are you listening to? Have you indulged in any daydreams? Have you changed jobs or gone into retirement? Have you seen any good movies or read any page-turners? Have you tried out any new restaurants or cooked anything wonderful at home? Have you had any special family gatherings? Have you gone on a holiday or had a stay-cation?
Many of you haven’t followed my trip to Japan, so maybe you don’t know that I spent the last 4 months (1 semester) teaching at Aoyama Gakuin University – Sagamihara campus with Westgate Corporation. I taught 2nd year university students majoring in Global Studies and Collaboration who were preparing for a study abroad in Thailand or Malaysia. I worked 9-hour days five days a week, and every weekend I went out exploring. I believe I had about two days of rest the whole time I was there! If you like, you can check out my time in Japan here: catbird in japan. I still haven’t finished writing about my time there, but more posts will follow, slowly, slowly….
Upon my return, I also found my son Adam has boomeranged back home from Hawaii and has settled into our basement. One of our agreements since he returned home is that he will hold a job, which he has done so far. He’s been working hard, so hard in fact that he ended up with some kind of flu over the last week. He seems to be doing well overall, and I’m happy to have him stay temporarily as long as he’s working. He has been saving money to take a trip to Australia to see his Australian girlfriend Maddy, who he met in Hawaii. He’ll be gone for nearly a month beginning September 20. On my second night back from Japan, he and I enjoyed a nice dinner together at the Whole Foods Seafood Bar.
Things have felt strange since I returned. I feel that I’ve returned to a parallel universe, and one not much to my liking. The very weekend after my return, I watched on TV a despicable white supremacy march in Charlottesville, about two hours from where I live in northern Virginia; in shock, I then had to listen to our “president” fanning the flames of hatred and arguing that there is moral equivalency between neo-Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists and the “alt-left,” a made-up term lumping counter-protestors and Antifa, or anti-fascists, into one big boat. Granted, there should be no violence in protests, but the white supremacists marching openly with weapons in one of the most peaceful college towns in our state was a frightening display and one that almost begs violence from counter-protestors. I am disheartened by what our country is coming to, and it is hard to be back after being in a culture where people greet each other with respect and bow to each other in nearly every interaction!
I didn’t watch any movies the whole time I was in Japan (I didn’t even know where any movie theaters were, except in downtown Tokyo). In an effort to catch up, I have gone to several movies since I returned: The Big Sick and The Glass Castle, both of which I enjoyed. While I was in Japan, I watched three full seasons of The Good Wife, which I was totally hooked on.
The first weekend I was home, I took 4-hour naps each day as I tried to reverse my internal clock. In Japan, nighttime was daytime here, and daytime was nighttime here, so no wonder my body is confused. I haven’t gotten much of anything done. As a matter of fact, I feel somewhat paralyzed with indecision. I never had a spare minute in Japan, and now I seem to have too much time on my hands. I don’t know how to focus my attention with so much time. I think it will take me a while to become acclimated to this parallel universe.
On Wednesday morning, August 16, I found out my daughter Sarah had taken a fall the evening before while running on a muddy path in the woods. She cut her knee wide open. She didn’t have her phone with her and had to walk with an open gaping wound until she found someone. Using a stranger’s phone, she called for an ambulance and was admitted to the emergency room where she had to have 25 stitches across her knee. She’s been immobilized ever since, as the cut was so deep it still hasn’t healed. As a waitress/bartender, she’s losing valuable work time; I plan to visit her soon, but she’s been putting me off until she feels a little better. I’ve been constantly worried about her, as a mother’s work as chief worrier is never over.
Adam has been taking a course about podcasts and posted his first podcast on the same day I heard about Sarah, so there was a bit of good news as he’s wanted to do this for some time.
On August 19, after I started to feel more like a human being, Mike and I went out to see the movie Wind River, which I enjoyed, and had dinner at Coyote Grill, where I had my favorite chili rellenos.
On Monday, August 21, I went at 2:00 to Kalypso’s at Lake Anne to watch the partial solar eclipse at 2:40 pm. It was a festive atmosphere, with people enjoying the beautiful day outdoors, drinking wine, wearing the funny eclipse glasses. I had seen a total eclipse in 1970 in southern Virginia, so I didn’t feel the need to travel a long distance to see the total eclipse, but Adam drove 10 hours to Tennessee, where he loved seeing a total eclipse for the first time in his life.
Mike and I are planning a holiday from September 22-October 7 to Budapest, Sopron, Vienna, Český Krumlov, and Prague. We spent many days this month plotting out our trip and making all our reservations. I can’t wait to go! In preparation, I’ve been reading guidebooks on Hungary, Austria and Czech Republic.
To get in the mindset for Prague I just finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I loved it! Here’s my short review from Goodreads: I really enjoyed this book that takes place in Prague before and during the Russian occupation. Besides being a love story, it also ties in the political realities of living under an oppressive occupying regime. Tomas, a successful surgeon at the beginning of the occupation, meets and falls in love with Tereza, who is like a child brought to him by a series of odd circumstances. Despite his love for Tereza, Tomas cannot stop his incorrigible womanizing; neither does he want to stop. In a parallel story, Tomas’s mistress Sabina and her other lover, Franz, a professor with noble ideals, try to work out their own love affair, a mere shadow and weak immitation of her affair with Tomas.
I love how the author wanes philosophical at times without abandoning the story of these characters and their backgrounds, histories that they can never excise and that influence them every day of their lives.
Upon my return from Japan, I found out when I weighed myself for the first time in four months, that I lost 8 pounds while in Japan. I guess it was a combination of the healthy diet there and all the walking I did. 🙂
My walks while home have been sporadic, and I’m rarely hitting 10,000 steps a day. In Japan, I met my goal of 10,000 steps every day just by walking 30 minutes each way to work and being on my feet teaching. On weekends, I often walked 10-20,000 steps. Needless to say, the pounds have started creeping back on since I’m not exercising as much here. It’s frustrating because I get bored walking around in circles in the same old places without any destination. My heart just isn’t into walking, but I will have to get back to my regular exercise routine soon. Below is a picture of part of a walk around Lake Anne in Reston on August 28.
Last Monday, after Adam had been working non-stop for days, he came down with a stomach flu and has been sleeping in the basement trying to recover. He’s been working so hard trying to save money for his trip to Australia, that he’s overdone it and is now paying the price.
Alex came up from Richmond to visit and spent two days here. It was so nice to see him after my time in Japan. He, his dog Freya, and I took a walk on the Fairfax Cross County Trail on Wednesday, August 30. As we were walking, I felt a sting on my right wrist and looked down to see something small and black on my wrist. I didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t tell what it was, but I don’t think it looked like a bee. I thought it might be a spider. Anyway, the second I felt the sting, I knocked the creature away with my left hand, and immediately felt a sting on my left middle finger. Whatever it was, it got me in two places, on both hands, and they hurt like hell! I watched as the sting areas reddened and spread into a hard and hot raised area up over my hand and around my wrist. The next day, I went to see the doctor, who advised me to take Benadryl and gave me an antibiotic.
It’s been a rough time coming back into this parallel universe, but overall I’m glad to be home with my family, even though we seem to all be falling apart due to nasty falls, stomach bugs, and spider bites.
Please let me know how you’re doing, and what exciting, or even quiet, things you’ve been up to. I need to get back into a routine where I start following people again on their blogs more regularly; I hope to keep in touch more now that I have plenty of time on my hands. 🙂
nomad, interrupted 