An auntie visited for lunch the other day and shared a pretty box of intensely sweet red-bean confections. Mari brought out old family photos, going back to when her mom was a baby.

A digital slideshow piped into the TV with a custom mp3 soundtrack is all good, but you can’t beat the really old-school, silvery bronze, fading, paper-smelling prints from so long ago that they might as well be from another planet. Actually, the photos of Mari’s mom as a Tokyo teenager standing with her overcoated co-workers looked like a Yasujiro Ozu film. We stared into the pictures and compared the mother’s and father’s faces to the children’s.

The other day, after my neighbors Carlos and Reme found out that Mari’s gone, Reme surprised me with a delicious lunch delivered to my doorstep: bean and vegetable stew (with the biggest beans I’d ever seen), bechamel/ham croquettes, rice, and a banana. It was a touching treat, a welcome change from the rice and miso soup I’d been eating for the previous two days. Such a thoughtful gesture from next door, and how lucky  I am!

While I miss Mari, I’m also enjoying my temporary solitude. I have a bunch of projects I need to focus on, and I can do my own thing for awhile. I can stay up late watching sci-fi and horror movies, read an ActionScript manual in bed, hog all of the blankets, sleep in until 11 — go wild. Actually, I’m a little proud of myself for keeping the house together. I’m still vacuuming, doing the dishes, showering, doing laundry, eating my vegetables. This afternoon, I remembered Mari’s advice to pick leaves from the garden and make a salad. It would have been nicer to share the bowl with her, but this way I can tell her about it on the phone and in the blog.

Today’s mission: go to the pet store and buy medaka, small fish which would eat the mosquito larvae. We decided the errand would also be a good opportunity for me to practice my rudimentary Japanese. Over dinner last night, Shigeo-san dictated a script for me (language students take note):

めだかを　よんひき　ください。medaka o yonhiki kudasai.
にひきは　めす。nihiki wa mesu.
にひきは　おす。nihiki wa osu.
Four medaka please.
Two male.
Two female.

I’m reporting back on my blog, as assigned. きょうは　くろめだかを　ごひき　かった。Today I bought five black medaka. (Five was the minimum order.)

The shopkeeper expertly netted five medaka — how do you tell the males from females? — and tied them in a plastic bag for me. I hung them from my wrist as I pedaled my bike home, and I slipped them into the water. Each is a bit over 1″ long, and more grey than black. They seem to be enjoying themselves, darting around the water and swimming up to the edge of the pot to find food. A worrisome note, though: three separate times, I had to rescue fish that jumped out of the water into the flowerbed. The first time, I only noticed by chance the tiny escapee wiggling in the dirt. The second escape was almost as easy to miss. After checking on them a few times, I decided not to worry too much about it. If they’re going to jump out, what can you do? So I won’t be surprised tomorrow if there are fewer than five left.

Update:
Not more than 6 hours after I brought the fish home, they’re all gone. I think a bird ate them? Or they buried themselves? There is not much room to hide in that pot, and I don’t see anything moving nor any dead fish bodies.

Bay Area: Kid-sitting my nephews while their parents attend a wedding.
Above, left: Kite flying on what I thought was a windless day.
Above, right: My sister Marnie showing off her new mehndi.

Washington State: More time with family:

Mom watching the inauguration of the Pope.

Dad wayfinding in the backyard with his RoadMate GPS system and portable battery pack.

My brother Andrew at REI in Seattle, where we attended a presentation by a couple who circumnavigated Iceland in kayaks.

Can’t remember the name of the restaurant. Maybe you know the Thai place just around the corner from Kamihatecho Kyoto Zoukei Geidaimae? The service was warm, and the green curry was hot and delicious.

Then to UGA just down the street, where they put us in a red rock-concert-themed room with a spinning ball of lights that seemed to start up whenever one of us hit a sweet note.

Carlos found all the Spanish songs in the book (“Bamboleo!”), Chris sang heart-warming renditions of the Beatles and always hit the highs, and I aborted several experiments (like “Church of the Poison Mind” and “Scatterheart”) midway. Well, I finished “Golden Years” and “Far Away So Close” and like to believe they didn’t sound so bad.

Thanks for the fun, guys!
Dinner: ¥1600 ¥2900 each. Karaoke: ¥1500 each for 3 hours. Beer: ¥200 per can. Potato chips: ¥150

Photos (left to right): lights and leaves at Enkoji, plenty of food for all, sharing baby photos and video on ketai denwa.

Anyway, I already had this ticket to the U.S. and was about to let it go to waste. Instead, it will be nice to see family before the holidays. And I can pick up my Xbox and bring it back to Kyoto, just in time for Halo 2! (You video game geeks out there know what I’m talking about.)

Osaka airport has free wireless Internet! I found the stations next to some of the wired stations, which cost ¥100 for 10 minutes before the passport control gate, free after passport control. Plus, electrical outlets!

I’ll only be gone 10 days, but I’ll miss you, Mari and Kyoto. I’m taking with me some sweet memories from today — walking leisurely in the sun past rice fields and the lush green near Manshuin temple, the smell of the fresh basil Mari picked for our spaghetti, which we ate while crouched on our tiny balcony.

Finally our Spanish next-door neighbors joined us, bringing their little boy and a bottle of Manzanilla sherry, and we all sat down to eat. Lots of food — bread, rice, fried beans, tempura, green curry, vegetables and salad, beer and a luxurious assortment of department store cakes. We’re still finishing the drinks and ice that our guests brought us.