Life is a highway, Part 2

Courtesy of the NPA

Besides Black-Black alertness aids, good 'ol coffee is a performance multiplier during these long drives. The downside is sipping java does impose extra visits to the rest room at the roadside service areas. At one of these inevitable breaks, I came across a manga poster (above) from the National Police Agency of Japan. It was placed right above the urinals in the men's restrooms. Captive audience, right? The poster presents warnings that it's against the law to drive recklessly and the legal consequences of road rage. As a public service announcement, it's a smart way to get into the heads of male drivers and coax them to not be flaming a**holes and to drive responsibly.

The Great Middle of the Journey
We approached Nagoya via a new section of the Shin-Tomei expressway. By then, the ladies were asleep and I was motorvating solo. We drove through a new, very long tunnel with green-colored light rings projected onto the tunnel walls.

 

These green rings seemed to move forward along the wall surface. Their pukey-looking shade of green reminded me of the slime monster in the first Ghostbusters movie.

 

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

The wall rings' forward motion practically prompts you to drive faster than the speed limit AND have a bowel movement. Perhaps the Big Idea behind these moving rings is to keep drivers awake, or engaged enough to stay in one lane, or to maintain traffic flow with green signaling no traffic jam in the tunnel? None of these change my notion this is the most dazzling display of wasted taxpayer yen I've encountered in quite some time.

I drove on. It's always a good idea to stop for a snooze when everyone else is sleeping and solo head bobs start happening to you despite the kickass music. So, after passing Kobe at about 0400 in the dead of night, I pulled over into the Miki Town service area. I soon joined hundreds of other nappers doing the same recuperative snooze in their car seats with air conditioning running. Remember, it's still over 28-30 degrees and oh-so humid even at the witching hour. Hearing nothing but car engines in the dark deep of night – no people talking, very few people moving about -- is a bit creepy.

I bagged some quality shuteye and kept going. I snapped a few photos of the Rising Daughters all cute and curled up in the back seats. It reminded me of the little girls they were only a few years ago. After merging with the Sanyo Expressway, the vehicle traffic is more manageable and the road space feels wider. Naomi woke up, and we talked about how it somehow felt different because we'd passed through the major cities and were nearly at her folks' home. Fewer cars and trucks, fewer fancy tunnels and light contraptions. 

She snapped a photo of the sunrise in our rearview mirror. It's humbling to see the sun rising and the moon disappearing within the same panorama of sky framing the road ahead.

After scanning this rapturous view, my co-pilot wife again nodded off while listening to music on her iPhone. I was pondering the universe underscored by the thrum of the car engine. Then one of my daughters ripped out a loud and proud -- but nontoxic -- righteous fart that made me laugh aloud. Happy endorphins flowed and I was giggling--back in the McMurphy zany zone.

Arrival rituals
As we drew closer to Hiroshima, I planned our schedule so we wouldn't arrive too early at Naomi's parents' place. We did not want to obligate our wonderful hosts to feed and welcome us at an absurdly early hour. So, I slowed down and we exited the expressway near a Joyfull family restaurant. They offer the best value of the casual family restaurants here and are easy to find in southern Japan. After nine hours in a car together a Joyfull "morning course" and refreshing drinks are crucial to raise morale. It's long been a tradition for these trips. And Joyfull rarely disappoints, priming us for arrival and to signal the start of our visit.

Every one of these long drives is a catharsis. It's about focus, endurance and fun for me. It doesn't matter if it's two wheels or four, I delight in the freedom of movement and the rituals of the voyage, and I always have.

"The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.” 

 - Alain de Botton

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Life is a highway, Part 1

Prologue
We prefer to drive from Yokohama when visiting Naomi's parents whether it's for summer vacation in August or New Year's chillier temperatures. It's cheaper and easier than flying or taking the bullet train. The journey is about 800 kms on the expressway, which works out to about 10-11 hours' duration from start to finish. I drive overnight to avoid the world-class inbound or outbound traffic jams from the Tokyo area especially prevalent during long national holidays. The bumper-to-bumper jams can be 20-30 kms long. Ugh.

In real terms, imagine, if you will, driving all night in the darkness with periodic stops for gas, food and toiletry. But it's mostly just you, the captain of the ship, the family, and the road. It's a deliberate choice, these night drives. And when the family sleeps your mind takes off-ramps into deeper thoughts that aren't possible in today's always-on lifestyle. When you switch on the car engine, you switch off the attention deficit default of constant connectivity with your devices. Your focus is only on the road.

Here's a few vignettes from our most recent drive from Yokohama to Hiroshima to visit the in-laws.

Pre-departure
Despite successful completion of plenty of long-haul highway journeys, my loved ones lecture about the dangers of overnight driving and how I must sleep a prescribed amount of time lest we become a vehicular fireball. Everyone is worried I'll drift off to sleep at the wheel. 

Credit:Warner Bros.

Feeling like a maniacally grinning McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," in the afternoon I pop a sleeping pill to get the rest I need to remain alert during the long haul.

Before we began the drive, I regressed to being a sexist pig and insisted on repacking the trunk of our SUV myself because I always contend that men pack large heavy objects better than women. And you know what? Experience proves me right. I had initially relented and let my wife and daughters pack our luggage into the SUV, and it turned into a clusterf**k with zero rear window visibility. Ignoring their venomous stares, I pulled out all the bags and boxes, and tersely packed it low and tight. Efficient. Boo-yah!

The real departure
We left almost on time at 2000 and immediately went off schedule on account of stopping for dinner at an expressway rest stop not 15 kilometers from our Yokohama home! That's because "it is famous and serves good food." Wazzat all about? Deciding on which mediocre food court stall to eat and which giftshop to buy gifts for friends and parents-in-law created intense debate and horse-trading. This is the point in the journey where I'd have my first drink if drinking and driving were still legal. Instead, I popped several perfectly legal Black-Black "strong type" caffeinated mint candy capsules to forget the gifting gab and get primed for the road. 

Courtesy of Lotte

Wired magazine describes their taste as "Sambuca spiked with Vicks VapoRub." For me, they taste like inevitable success.

After my wife and rugrats settled into their seats, I pushed the engine start button to get going, gently pressing down on the gas pedal and nudging our Gallic SUV into the expressway lanes. It was finally dark out and we left the crowded confines of the Tokyo plain. I headed into the mountains. Thankfully, my passengers' yapping ceased, and they retreated to their individual screen and musical diversions. That meant no complaints about my incrementally higher speed.

What fuels the urge to drive faster in the humid summer night? Besides the Black-Black go-go mints? Music, baby. The Who's "Sparks" and side 2 of Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy." That's the musical aperitif to get your driving mojo going. Then the Doors' "L.A. Women" intensely throbbing basslines compel multiple lane changes Just Because You Can. Throw in some Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Then long, long  bouts of James Brown's funkatude to get creative thoughts brewing.

Driving into the mountains near Mt. Fuji the ambient skylight of the Tokyo metropolis recedes. It is truly a dark highway except for the offramps and toll booths. The big commercial trucks on their night haul routes dominate the space.

Those truckers make you want to have James Bond 007-like options such as rearward oil-spewing pipes, roof-mounted sniper rifles, or laser guided mini-missiles to take them out and clear the road. It's hard knowing you're the best driver on the highway, bar none, while all these other driving greenhorns are holding you back from your birthright as King of the Highway.

Ed. note: This isn't "Ford versus Ferrari" quality storytelling folks. Still, Part 2 is coming soon.

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MonkeyOvid whingefest

Graphic credit: Getty Images via HHK.org

This week, the first two cases of monkeypox were detected in Japan less than 20 kms from where I live. What's more, the bigger picture is the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of monkeypox a global health emergency. 

Also, in the past week in Japan (a.k.a. the "Land of the Rising Omicron BA.5 Variant") medical authorities tallied nearly one million new COVID-19 cases. That means BA.5 is gaining traction here faster than anywhere else in the world.

One encouraging note is it appears there are no existing cases of anyone infected with Covid-19 and monkeypox at the same time. 

Graphic credit: CartoonArts via Bloomberg.com

Overall, I'm not ready to put on my big boy pants and deal with this endless cavalcade of infectious disease shit.

With our bad luck of late, maybe the random asteroids-possible-hitting-the-Earth reports published in questionable websites might actually come true. Is a meteor the size of Manhattan destined to hit Yokohama and Tokyo?  Ker-blam!

Add in "RealFeel" temperatures approaching 40 degrees for days on end. Can the crap news get any crappier?

Oi! Two and a half years into the pandemic. Now this new twist in the mix. I feel like…

Waa! Waa!

Somebody call me a Wambulance!

Thus ends my rage against the state of the world in this whingefest post.

Of athletics and anguish

Some recurring storylines in Rising Daughters™ are school-related events involving our kids such as the annual Sports Day held by elementary schools. I also have a habit of mentioning elections and democracy because I am "a fan." Elections help to mark the temper of the times.
Here's another blogpost along those lines.

Sports Day: the end of an era for the Rising Family™
Naomi and I have a love/hate relationship with sports days. We love the opportunity to see our daughters energized and interacting in their school environment. Watching them compete in their individual events, collaborate in team events, and to observe them in their learning space where they are developing as people is always a treat. Still, we hate the early-morning line-ups and jostling for a position to get an unobstructed view of the kids in action. The competition among parents for a decent picnic spot in the school grounds is Darwinian. Naomi always created a lunch box feast which took plenty of time to prepare in the early morning. The videos and photos we took over the years, and the memories made, marked the kids' development during their formative years.

Marina is growing up and nearing the end of primary school. This became clear to us after seeing her perform splendidly at her last Sports Day extravaganza in late May. It was a shorter, scaled-down version of the day-long fiestas of yore. Lingering Covid pandemic restrictions on large groups created a staggered event wherein different grades grouped together to limit crowd size. But the symbolism of the athletics was unchanged. The thinking being that physical exertion and sports build character, and a sound body nurtures a sound mind. Marina was smiling and goofing off with her school friends for three hours in the sun. Her sprint relay team won in the combined sprint category.

It was our last time to attend Sports Day. Other parents we chatted with laughed when they told us that after six or more years of attending the day-long "traditional" sports days, the shorter version was perhaps the only social benefit of Covid. No lunch, sun tents, sunscreen or patience were necessary. As veterans of the day-long events in the past, we also welcomed the compressed time. Yet, it being our last time, there were mixed emotions: pleasant blue skies yet the air tasted bittersweet. Daughter #2 is definitely a pre-teen.

Election season ends sadly
In July, the election campaign sound trucks started plying the streets, rapidly repeating candidate names through loudspeakers and blaring their platform messages. The election billboards went up in my neighborhood, with aspiring politicians' photos and party affiliations vying for attention. 

This was for the July 10 election involving half the members of the upper house of the Diet vying for a term of six years. It was great to see many women candidates, some wild-looking posters, and wacky characters standing for election even for the stolid upper house. I was interested to see how Japanese people would vote and what choices they would make for society.

Things took a horrible turn with the assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe on July 8. It carries a deep meaning that the election went forward as planned despite that despicable act of bloodshed and cowardice that shocked Japan and the world.

Courtesy of Time USA LLC

I was taken aback, too. "Politically-inspired violence strikes even in safe and stable Japan?," I thought. It was a dispiriting realization. Nowhere is immune to it.

I made a point of raising this politically motivated murder with Lady E. and M. I wanted to hear their thoughts, to see what they heard at school. Not much was said at their schools, except for expressions of sorrow, but we discussed it anyway at home. It's necessary and character-building for them to learn about the occasional evil that lurks in the world.

Shit is happening again

Crow pic credit: Globe and Mail.com

Every June a new flock of black crows comes to perch in power lines in my neighborhood. They like to also pick open trash bags, foul up the sidewalks, and crap on our cars. At dawn's break their squawks become a scourge on deep sleep. I mostly detest them because it's quite difficult to scrape their guano off the hood of our car. So, yeah, this post is about this year's Campaign Against the Crows.

I've written about this before, but the added twist to this year's tale involves both semantics and serenity. As I went about studying countermeasures for crows' nasty behavior, I found a striking collective noun for them: a "murder" of crows. This term takes the disparaging tack in describing their canny intelligence, social hierarchy within groups, and long association with death. Dark shit, right?

All I know is I often want to murder a few of these pesky scavengers so they'll skip our neighborhood. Yet I've chosen the path of serenity, using non-lethal means to persuade them to leave our 'nabe alone.

One way to do it? Online shopping!

I learned that bright flashes and movement catches a crow's attention and makes them uneasy. So, I purchased light reflecting bird repellent icicles and hung them from the balcony of our house not far from the power lines.

I also bought a plastic blow-up human scarecrow and strategically placed it outside. It looks like a mentally disturbed sex doll. If nothing else, it definitely repels good taste.

Working from home has helped my anti-crow operations. When I hear the telltale "caw-caw-caw" sounds I grab my super soaker water pistol. I've developed anti-crow insurgent techniques that allow me to blast them successfully (but harmlessly) and send the message: "not welcome here."

My neighbors have noticed my persistent application of these tactics and voiced their appreciation. That's because their stuff gets crapped on, too.

It seems to be working. Not a speck of crow crap on my car the past few weeks. 

And it's sort of fun.

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Ch- Ch-Changes

Graphic credit: Axios

In this blog I’ve written about changes in my daughter’s lives. Sometimes I focus on how their school activities and environment is transforming them. It’s fun to document their activities and their trajectory. Naomi is charting her own course, too—more exercise, more hamsters, more healthy food. There is no staying still or remaining static for any of us.

January through March was another still-working-at-home, highly caffeinated prologue to 2022. Then things changed in April when I moved to a new employer--and it has changed my life. Truth be told, the jury is still out if this new position will work out for me or not. Making the decision to leave my previous company was tough, primarily because they'd been good to me as an employer. I believe I did my part as an employee, too. Deciding to stay or go wasn't easy. I weighed leaving my stable and good job -- that I was grateful to have – for something new, exciting and challenging. Did the salary comparison. Assessed the potential impact on work-life balance and how that could affect the family. And I discussed it at length with my wife because we’re co-captains. In the end, I went for the new gig.

Credit: discogs.com

I couldn’t help myself. David Bowie’s timeless song is perfect: "Ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange. There's gonna have to be a different man."

"They" say the first few months of any new position is tough because it rips your moorings away. You must seek out new allies in the workplace. You have new processes and goals to contend with. And people expect you to contribute quickly even during the adjustment phase.

I am right in the middle of experiencing all that. It’s jarring. Sleep deprivation is real. Self-doubt occasionally rears its ugly head. My weight loss is based on stress, not a new exercise regimen. Gadzooks.

I write all this stuff for posterity more than anything else. It's capturing the moment because the changes that headline this post are real for us.

An interesting corollary is an old friend has become a life coach and we are having very interesting conversations. It’s healthy and helpful to discuss the adjustments due to a new job along with extra challenges. It can’t be all wine and roses when your working life turns upside down. For all that, it’s a good thing to take on new opportunities in life and damn the torpedoes. To not take a new fork in the road to see where it leads has its own perils such as wondering what might have been. Better to dare and do, live out loud regardless of the ultimate outcome. Life’s a real pageant (thank you Michael Stipe), but you have put it all on the table sometimes and see what happens next.

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Close call with Covid

Courtesy of Asahi News

The world has endured two years of relentless discussion of Covid* and its profound impact on society. Without question, coronavirus has changed the world. When the impact gets personal, though, it is wince-inducingly personal.

How would you feel if your pre-travel antigen test or mandatory-for-travel PCR test result was “weakly positive”? It's a clinical judgment rife with ambiguity. It means you cannot travel and must immediately self-isolate. The added significance is the medical authorities are not sure of your upper respiratory health status. Asymptomatic refers to folks who are infected by Covid or a variant, as detected by a PCR test, but who never develop any symptoms. Yet “weakly positive” stops everything in its tracks. “Uhh, we’re not sure if you’re really sick, but just in case, you can’t travel or interact with others.” Goodness gracious, Charlie Brown. 

This scenario happened to me as I neared the end of a business trip to Europe.

Graphic credit: Aida Amer, Axios

To prepare for my return home I needed to take a PCR test 72 hours before departure to Japan. My test result was the above-mentioned “weakly positive.” I stopped all work and immediately self-isolated in my hotel room. My colleagues on the trip took over my responsibilities.

We’re all aware of the human cost of Covid. At this point, 515 million infections with 6.2 million deaths. My feeling some anxiety about being infected feels petty in comparison to the anguish others have endured. But you can’t deny your feelings. I was marooned in a hotel room in Europe. I got busy doing back-office support for my co-workers, but that eventually ended and I had more free time to fret. Had I been too careless with prevention? Did my actions somehow cause this, or was I unlucky? Will it develop into full-blown Covid? How would I self-care, like monitoring body temperature or buying other medical needs, if I was prohibited from leaving my room? All this stuff revolves in your head. Your room phone, mobile phone, and laptop become your best friends. Yet, a pleasant hotel room is not Alcatraz, right? You suck it up and stick to facts, try not to become too mired in thinking about possibilities.

For roughly three days, my world narrowed down to the hotel room and numerous emails and texts. I will never forget the human element – the kindness of strangers – that made it easier to set aside negative thinking. One co-worker bought me a thermometer, self-testing kits, and extra masks that met local standards. Amid an arduous, high-pressure work program, another co-worker dutifully visited every day to make sure I was doing well and to drop off some morale-raising bread and beer.

Then my European colleagues arranged a new PCR test at a local clinic. That clinic appointment turned into a Marx Brothers slapstick trip. As the minutes ticked by to depart to the clinic by taxi as planned, the hotel front staff’s body language and whispers told me that taxi drivers were refusing to take me to the clinic. Likely because I could be Covid-positive. I was dismayed, but it is their right to choose their passengers. Yet, I felt like a pariah. Sensing my plight, two of the hotel staff heroically commandeered their boss’s personal car without permission and drove me pell-mell to the clinic. We got stopped at a train crossing for several minutes, imperiling my test appointment. No problem. We jumped out of the car and ran across the train tracks with the oncoming train in sight. It being a Latin country, despite my being ten minutes late, the clinic let me take the test without too much fuss. They swabbed my tonsil area and poked in both nostrils, inducing involuntary tears. I was done and outta there in 10 minutes. The good Samaritans felt sorry for my plight and took me on a small tour of the main attractions of their city. Up to that point, all I’d seen was the hotel room and its window views.

It’s worth pointing out these were two complete strangers. Turns out one of them had already endured real Covid twice. Yet they helped me without hesitation, potentially endangering themselves. If I take anything away from this experience, it was these small acts of human kindness by co-workers and strangers. It made a great impression on me.

Precisely one day later, I got the email from the clinic with one magic word: “negative." It immediately released me from these dispiriting three days in limbo. I drank Pellegrino sparkling water in celebration, like I was the winning driver of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Now, all I needed to do was re-arrange my flights and get back to Japan…

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(Ed. Note: Is it me, or are we all so tired of capitalizing COVID, thus giving it full command of our attention, that we’re consciously minimizing it by using only the initial capital “C”?)