Back in the Saddle

We're back in Tokyo now. Gasoline is about 180 yen per litre (180 x 3.71 = about $7.00 a gallon), and the morning show I chose to watch this morning did a story about how nobody is buying gas and nobody is going to restaurants. There were still an awful lot of cars on the road when they did their story so the gas is being bought somewhere. My neighbour runs his Mercedes Diesel on canola oil. I think he's a bit of a douchebag and I've got Genya keeping a close eye on him in case he tries anything when I'm away, but I have to give him credit for the canola thing. It would be even better if it were recycled canola oil. I don't know if it is. Things have soured. We don't talk. Our lawyers talk to each other.

I figured Foxy would scream blue murder when we tried to land at Narita, but she was fine. We could tell she was in pain, she would wince every few minutes but apparently she has Eustachian tubes made of steel. I'm still trying to sort out my right ear. The pressure goes all the way down my neck to my collar bone. There's something wrong there. Even two years of medical school taught me that. Ali warned me that the climate here would be "humid like hell". I've never really thought of Hell as being humid, but then again I've never given much thought to Hell. It's not too humid at all, but then Ali told me to wait until it rains. The temperature is a balmy high-teens low-twenties at 4:00 in the morning and it promises to warm up as we head closer to noon.

I sliced my finger open on my wedding ring at the airport when I grabbed the luggage off the carousel. It wasn't too bad, but now I think it's getting infected. On the way home, the chauffeur nearly had an accident when a landscaping truck bolted out into traffic across our lane. Thank you chauffeur for installing the baby seat. He quickly recovered and said, "My technique... In forty years of driving, I've never had an accident". I tried to lighten up the situation and said, "In two years, I've never had an accident". Everybody think the bearded white savage so funny! I could tell by the look on my mother-in-law's face at the airport that she wasn't a fan of the beard. She refused to take any pictures of me with the baby.

Foxy was up at 2:30 this morning. We discovered last night that Foxy is not a fan of real Japanese ofuro, or bath. She was crabby from jetlag. So after a power negotiation this morning, we caved and I decided to take her for a walk. We walked down to the playground (which apparently is a tick haven I found out later), and then we walked around the hospital, and watched television on some vending machines. Then we walked to 7-11 and looked at all the yummy things we aren't going to eat this time around. She loved it. Wonderful weather. However, even at 4:30 in the morning, there is no shortage of disgusted looks for the dirty foreigner. We came back to the compound at about 5:15, and had a nice breakfast.

Foxy is still scared shitless by Grandpa, and isn't too thrilled about Grandma but she'll settle in soon enough. I pledged that this time around I was going to be a better son-in-law and I'm trying to remember why I was such an asshole last year. Honestly, it's easy to be good in a place like this. But it helps when your father-in-law has friends like the ones mine has. My wax guy gave me some good advice. When he was in a hetero relationship, things were pretty bad but he had ways to deal with it. Eventually though, he had to leave. It wasn't healthy.

We're going to visit Ali's grandmother today, the one that hates all white people. It should be fun. One of Ali's friends got her daughter on a national magazine cover. Now Foxy is jealous, and she tries to rip apart the magazine any time we put it in front of her.