Well, it’s Sunday evening and I’m getting ready to call it a night. My weekend went pretty well. On Saturday during the day I peeled apples and made applesauce according to my mom’s secret recipe. The peeling was kind of a pain, but the sauce turned out great. I was putting together a big dinner for Kuniko, who showed up around seven o’clock. She had to work on Saturday – apparently her school has them working every other Saturday. She was exhausted from her first week.
I served up Jamaican chicken, green salad with real ranch dressing, sauteed mushrooms, the aforementioned applesauce, and corn with black pepper and jalapenos. The dinner was a success, and there was a lot of leftovers. I should be busy eating for a little while.
The reason Kuniko came over is because we were both invited to a volleyball match/BBQ by the master of the yakitori. I couldn’t completely understand what it was all about but the master was picking us up at 9:30 in the morning, so we wanted to get an early start in Futami.
In the morning we walked outside the apartment and met the master, his wife, and his father in the family wagon. We went off to an elementary school in Nishi-Akashi and went inside to use the gymnasium. There were lots of regulars from the yakitori there, as well as some people I didn’t know. I thought this was going to be a casual game, but soon they had set up spiking drills. It became clear that there was a women’s team playing, and soon thereafter it became clear that we were the opponents.
Kuniko got lucky and got to sit out and watch us embarrass ourselves. The women had the uniforms, knee pads, the communication – everything that makes a good team. We had a bunch of beer drinking guys and a few inches of height advantage, but it was really no contest. I played in three of the six games that they played, rotating out to let others play and to catch my breath. It was a workout!
The time was later than we expected, and Kuniko needed to head out, so we bowed out of the BBQ and walked over to the nearest station at Uozumi, and then I rode with Kuniko to Akashi. We ate lunch at the Indian restaurant there, and then walked back to the station. After some ice cream, we were walking through the station and bumped into my old buddy Struan, who is sticking around another year like me. He asked about Antoine, and we started talking about poker night. Ever since we both lightened Antoine’s wallet in poker we’ve been thinking about getting a game together. Hopefully this time we can pull it off.
I saw off Kuniko at the gates, and then took the Sanyo line home. I took a long nap in the afternoon, had leftovers for dinner, watched the movie Timeline and amused myself by saying “dude” out loud after everything that Paul Walker’s character said. The movie wasn’t too bad actually, but I can’t say that I recommend it.
I’m off to bed now, and if I’m lucky I’ll get to teach some classes tomorrow. I’m anxious to get started.
