Things I miss about Tennessee (Part 1)

I pretend to be unsentimental. The flipside is that I have a nostalgic gene that takes command of my thoughts every now and then. Triggered by corny sepia-colored memories or wistful affection for a particular snapshot of the mind, I enjoy the odd trip down the rabbit hole. This post is the result of one of those trips.

The Rising Family™ has been fortunate with opportunities to live outside its comfort zone. Particularly for Lady E. and M., our two-and-a-half-years in the Nashville area contributed to their language skills and broadened their life toolkit. Naomi developed her own friendships and support systems. I learned lots from being in a state that physically resembles my home province but is different in fundamental ways. I first fell in love with the idea of The South thanks to reading the novels of Pat Conroy in my teens. I got to experience southern life for real by living in Tennessee. I was lucky to have that chance.

Accordingly, here's several things I loved about living in, and exploring, Tennessee. And the one thing that I hated about it. 

The History

There's a lot of history in the Volunteer State. East, Middle, and West Tennessee are geographically, culturally, and economically distinct. We did a fair amount of in-state travel and experienced the differences among Memphis, Jackson and Chattanooga. I enjoyed being in the Music City's nexus of country music bars in downtown Nashville. But country music is lost on me. My musical heart lies in Memphis. Sure, Graceland and Elvis cast the longest shadow, but there so much more with Sun Studio and the Stax Museum of American Soul.

Another thought: for me, listening to "Southern Man" by Neil Young set against "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd defines the dilemmas of Southern history that are still relevant today.

I also enjoyed a bunch of great concerts including the Cowboy Junkies in old Franklin.

The Places
On weekends, we'd explore as a family. Places like the Nashville Flea Market, the Ryman Auditorium, Cheekwood Mansion and Belmont. And finding Asian supermarkets and restaurants.

And in autumn, the pumpkin patches. Those were always a hit. 

County fairs in late August.

The Food & Drink

When we wanted some reliably good food with southern atmosphere, we'd hit the Cracker Barrell.

And --this is more my thing --southern cuisine: wet versus dry rub BBQ, homestyle macaroni and cheese, pies of all kinds, fried pies, fried EVERYTHING...

My Dad, feeling the hot chicken burn.

 and Nashville's famous hot chicken.

I was overjoyed that I could go to a local Walmart and get my caffeine fix with Tab and Diet Coke Lime. However, the onset of the COVID pandemic led the Coca-Cola Company to discontinue Tab…(sniff).

- To be continued -

R.I.P. Pon-chan the Philosopher Fish

It is with great sorrow that I report that M.'s pet fish, Pon-chan, has died.

Pon-chan passed away this week. I wish I could say for certain why he died, but he had been sluggish for quite some time. I wish I could tell you that he passed peacefully, in his sleep, due to natural causes. I wish I could specify even one cause of his departure for the Watery Hereafter. I can't.

We went on vacation in mid-August and even prior to our departure old Pon-chan stayed close to the bottom of his tank and rarely moved. Seldom gave us a smile. Fish, our aquatic buddies, are filled with mystery because of their placid behavior. Pon's contemplative approach to life was…sedate…to say the least. He was far too cryptic to indicate what exactly was exciting or troubling him. He always had that upside-down frown that fish have—pondering existence in silence (except for the gurgle of the tank filter).

Still, Pon had charisma.

He gave Marina immense pleasure. He also taught her about responsibility when charged with the well-being of another living thing. Things like providing care and sustenance, interacting in good times and bad, and the give and take of close relationships.

"Well, he had a good life," said the mighty M. Her composed reaction to his demise reflects the serenity Pon imparted during their years together? One will never know.

We gave Pon a place of honor in the pet cemetery in our small front yard. He got his own rock marker. Doing so marks where he rests and ensures his remains are not disturbed by local critters looking for an easy meal.

We all liked Pon. He was easygoing, he did get excited when we doled out a pinch of his food, and frankly he wasn't that needy. All he asked was that we clean the tank every now and then, which Marina took seriously and did diligently.

One final thought: imagine old man Pon hovering out there forever, pondering the floating existence in perpetuity, and giving the Rising Family™ much pleasure. We wish Pon a full stomach and clear gills in fish heaven. Pon-chan, we will miss you.

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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