Oh, I Think So

There are seven people in my department and when we were summarily sent away from the offices of the client where we worked happily, we were given the choice of working from home or from the main local office.  Everyone excitedly went home even though they gave them 45 pages of rules they had to follow except for two of us who returned to the old office where we used to work. The hours lately have gotten longer and longer and the two of us still work in the office.  My associate is especially dedicated and works long hours without complaint.  "Let's just go home on time," I sometimes say.  "Sure and when we get in tomorrow it will be twice as bad," he says.  He is, of course, correct so we try to catch up and get ahead of it and get all our work done for that day. Staying so late is a pain and years ago we each pretty much stopped making plans after work with friends or family.  It is what it is, we figure.  My associate has a train schedule and...

The dipping sauce The Udon noodles and the hardboiled egg, ready to go Ladies and gentleman, here we have the dip.  Tsukumen.  The noodles are thicker than ramen noodles and the hardboiled egg and the noodles come in one bowl and the dipping broth and the pork and the slice of seaweed come in another.  The noodles find their way into the dipping sauce via chopsticks and the broth comes to your mouth via the spoon.  This is my favorite dip from Rokurinsha which is in Yaesu Mall, adjacent to Tokyo Station, a place where I almost always get lost.  There is also a location in Tokyo Skytree and, frankly, when I saw it when I was went to the top of Tokyo Skytree, I could not resist it. One of the good things about Rokurinsha in the Yaesu Mall is the morning dip.  I got there at 7:30am and I still had to wait.  There was just one person ahead of me so it was about a 30 second wait.  The regular lunch or dinner size of tsukumen -- pronounced "S...

So, in a nutshell:  Tokyo is hot, hot, hot in the summer.  English seems to have been replaced by Mandarin as the second language of choice but, as it was in Osaka, I made myself understood.  Japanese baseball is much more fun than American baseball.  Public transportation is a wonderful thing.  Tokyo is also a vast city, high and wide and distant.  Those charming drawn-by-hand maps that they give you at a hotel or at a store are rarely going to get you anywhere you need to go but become great souvenirs as you sit and look at them afterward and recall how you never found shit from it.  Sumos on bicycles are adorable and some of them are not as big as you'd imagine.  Put them in western clothes and they look like very built men with very good posture.  There are no weight classes in Sumo and the biggest, heaviest Sumo compete against people like Enho who is 5'6" and weighs 216 lbs (or 168cm tall and 98 kg in weight in metric). I went to the ...

I don't leave for another six days but I need to do some crap in order to leave in six days.  I am off to do that and you can think about what cool things I will see that I may or may  not share with you. Wish me a good time!

Yesterday I went to the Rogers Park Glenwood Avenue Art Fair.  I went to see Harriet's Hides whom they'd moved to the center of the festival but right by a drum circle.  Actually, they were more like a drum semi-circle and they were very devoted to their art.  Not overturned plastic buckets, ladies and gentlemen, but real African or Middle Eastern drums and the drummers played and played and played and played.  And it was loud.  I'd gone to where I thought she'd be as she'd always been in this spot before and that spot's artist did not show up leaving an empty booth.  When I got to the info booth and the drummers -- under the El tracks at the Morse stop which made the sound bounce all around and echo to and fro and be amplified -- were so loud that I had to scream, "CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHERE I CAN FIND HARRIET'S HIDES?" at the booth person who tried to scream directions but said, "OH LET ME SHOW YOU," and came around the table and poin...

As I am going on vacation in three weeks, when I was downtown today I took a few minutes to get practice in taking pictures of people taking pictures of themselves, of other people.  Where better than "Cloud Gate"?  Anish Kapoor's so-called Bean is a tourist and local (and gulls who sit on top) magnet.  I snapped off only two but I was smack next to these people and they didn't notice.  Good!  That's always the goal. Nice day, nice couple, nice memory for them (and me) "Hi, Mom!  I'm at the BEAN!"

I had all sorts of idea for this, my lovely blog, during the week and all of fled from my head as soon as I sat at the computer.  So, instead, I looked at the internet to figure out some of the things I'd do on my upcoming vacation. What I decided: 1.   A boat cruise is in order! 2.  Hard-boiled eggs and a banana from 7-11 for breakfast! 3.  Tokyo Skytree may be visited!  They let foreigners go to the front of the line -- really? why? -- but only if the foreigners bring their passports and pay over $40 -- that's why.  I'm still thinking and it is very, very tall and there is a glass floor and I can get twitchy when up high.  Glass floor?  It's making my palms and feet sweat thinking about it!  But I will suck it up, shut up, and enjoy it if I go.  Who am I kidding?  This is something I really do want to do and, yeah, if I don't have to wait in line, I am for it. 4.  Noodles?  More, please.  My fave place (s...