Some BASKETBALL stuff!!!

Basketball HAZARDS!!!

I mean HERE:

Guys trying to DRAG HIM DOWN!!! What they will do!!!

Halloween's coming~Autumn's here and~

PEACE Pumpkins!!

Our Neighbors, Angelina and Azalea with their homegrown pumpkins.

Their pumpkin that read "Rasta" became the yummiest soup which Angelina shared with us.

(I must get a photo of Angelina's gorgeous longs dreadlocks for you!)

This is a famous old house waiting to be renovated near where we live. If I were young again, I would be trying to get inside with the hope of meeting the spirits who must be there!

Oh, Zen~this is the only kind of photo he lets me take of him!

Well, to tell you the truth, I wanted this of his VERY cool shirt from Japan.

240 means NI-SHI-O! [our home town in Japan]

Maybe it was Yuto who gave this basketball shirt to Zen?

Ozzie, Darling Julie was HERE in CaliFORN-I-A- USA!!!

Julie took quite a bit of a tour through the States here!! We got to have her fly through our home THREE times between her other destinations actually! She IS a wonder of a woman!! (He hee!! WONDER WOMAN JEWEL!!).

And Julie, driving on the RIGHT side of the road in our purple SUBARU-Yes!! Memorable TRAVELS


Along with a friend of Julie's from Argentina, Carmen,we got up there where it wasn't as freezing cold as I had feared, to Golden Gate Bridge!!

Zen posed cooly for Julie!

I attempted SHUJI!

Taka broke out the new calligraphy brushes!! He was trying to teach me. Wow, it's an awkward way to "write". Well, it's really like being an artist painting. I didn't imagine it was THAT hard



.

Power to the Peaceful @ Golden Gate Park September '09

Last year this time it was SUNNY and HOT!

This morning, it THUNDERED and RAINED, staying cold throughout the day.

NALU!!! She's lived on Haight Street in San Francisco for as long as I lived in Japan, since '86!!

And with her "little girl"! KAYA!!! Sheon's age!

Then we got another fantastic surprise, friends from Santa Cruz! Their big boy has played basketball with Zen for years. The Kolars~~Who we also hung out with LAST YEAR too!!!!

Fall Flower? and then the Veggies! oh, Eggs too!

One day Taka brought this home for me. He has a different sort of eye now that he's a landscaper!

There's a new Supermarket opened near us and look what they have in stock!!!

OSTRICH EGGS!! ガッチョの卵だ！！（is that the right Japanese?!)

They also have QUAIL'S EGGS!!! I wonder how Americans use them?! It's the first time I've seen them in an American Supermarket!

うずらの卵！

And "Chinese" eggplants but they look Japanese. And "TARO ROOT" in Japanese they are "SATOIMO?" What I love to use in Miso soup.

And GUCHA GUCHA Shitake! Well, perhaps they are organic and "naturally" grown so not perfectly shaped.

Persistence Pays!!! and an Epilogue added

I kept after my the kids to get a photo of them all together in Japan~ and they pulled it off! Along with dear friend Sayoko!!

Zen, Naomi, Sheon and Ischin and Sayoko at Kayaking in Mikawa-wan

But what I also mean by "persistence pays" really is this story following~

Zen went to Japan for the whole month of August (Taka for two weeks)

We messed up the return tickets for Zen, his school started up again the 26th but Zen's return wasn't until the 31st.

The night of the 30th when Zen was supposed to be getting on his plane from Nagoya Japan, we were in bed in California.

His flight was cancelled because of a storming typhoon, when he got to the gate.

He had to call Hiromi to return to give him a ride back home, along with his luggage.

They couldn't get him him a flight again until two days later. Sept. 2nd from Japan.

When we found out in California it was too late at night.

But the morning of the 31st when I was supposed to have gone to pick him up and deliver him to school, I started making phone calls.

Cause Zen said he wanted to be on his way back to California ALREADY. He'd done said his good-byes.

So I started calling. NWAirlines, and the travel agency... they all said the same thing. No other seats any sooner. Since it was due to weather, "sorry" they couldn't help.

But I didn't give up.

Finally the fourth NWAirlines agent I spoke with the evening of the 31st ( in California), I asked him whether I could use our mileage points to pay for an upgrade and get Zen into a seat... the man switched me to Mileage people and THAT man said, with a deep voice all calm and cool, he seemed to be as a GOD. He said "No, you needn't use miles, I have a seat for him".

HE could make the almighty decisions. There in the "WorldPerks" section. And he waited patiently and VERY quietly on the phone

while I began to e-mailed, and try to Skype call frantically.

Mailing-texting to Zen, who I hoped had awaken in Japan- "CAN YOU LEAVE IN AN HOUR??? THERE'S A SEAT FOR YOU!!!" I e-mailed my manager, (Wait- let me say- when I e-mail all these people in Japan from my computer, it's going to their CELL PHONES) I e-mailed Ischin's phone (Can you Drive???) I tried Skype calling Zen's phone, and Hiromi's house, and Sheon's where Zen was staying... but I was at Grandmom's where the wireless was borrowed from neighbors and my phoning couldn't be heard through Skype...FINALLY (cause maybe Zen had forewarned his dad the night before that I'd be trying to change his flight to 24 hours earlier- he was READY!!) Zen e-mailed back to me and said "Oto-san can drive me-OKAY!" and I could reserve the seat with the NWA WorldPerks Almighty Man ~who never shared my enthusiasm, but had sat "with me" through that.

Still after hanging up I worried whether Zen could really make it to the airport in an hour... I skype called him once again and got through. His dad had JUST gotten to him to take Zen from Sheon's and they were off. ON TIME!

That's where the PERSISTENCE WORKED!!

....

Now if only Zen manages to make the two connections~ One in Tokyo for Portland (he didn't originally have to do THAT) He has to go through Immigration in Portland then change to a domestic flight...I wondered how well we'd sleep that night, with my phone by the bed.... The "baby" of the family flies alone for the first time. Of couse he should be so perfectly fine but...but another mama was here trying not to imagine the worst!

Is this where I can plug in- it's called an "Epilogue"?

The plane from Japan to Portland WAS delayed an hour.

Zen told me after he arrived, he wondered "WHY ME? Me? who's traveling internationally alone for the FIRST TIME having to deal with all of this?"

Zen's flight from Portland was changed and he ended up waiting there three more hours. We did have sudden hope he could switch to a flight to San Jose but it would involve Zen's literally running, and rechecking in bags within ten minutes from deboarding in Portland so... one NWA woman who even remembered us from my phone calls the day before!... advised Zen not...push it. And Zen agreed to sit and wait it out. He got to SFO looking dazed and confused but the fresh air seemed to revive him. Once home, and unpacked a tad, he got started at more of his homework. Tomorrow, it will have been a week of missing classes, but he's just about as ready as he can be for school! THANK YOU EVERYONE here and there and everywhere, for helping Zen have a safe and truly wonderful looking trip!