Saturday night we had the Tojos over for dinner. It started a little on the late side, but since they live just down the street we don’t have to worry about last trains or anything like that.
TJ and his wife brought over a bottle of wine they bought in Florence, and also they gave us a beautiful souvenir – a handcrafted glass wine stopper from Venice. We gave them some olives from Greece and some Turkish delight from Istanbul, but I think we made out better in the souvenir department.
Dinner turned out to be a big success. I loved the montadillos and Kuniko made little tartlets, and tons of other finger foods to enjoy while we talked about our trips and other news. TJ likes to talk about the company and his projects, but I don’t really have a lot of interest in talking shop, especially in front of two people who don’t really know anything about what is going on at our work.
We ended up drinking quite a lot, which is a surprise to pretty much nobody. It was a great time, and I think we ended up sending them packing after 1 am.
The next day we could sleep in late, and we took advantage of it. The weather was getting progressively worse as the morning wore on, and we realized that there was a typhoon on its way. Luckily, the bulk of the typhoon passed to the south of us, but we had a full day of rain on Sunday. We spent the day curled up on the sofa watching movies and working on the leftovers from the party. It was a restful day, and something we both needed.
All through the night the wind howled and the rain smacked against every window of our house. I was sorry to see that it was still raining cats and dogs when I woke up the next morning at 4:30 am. Kuniko was nice enough to drive me to the Okubo station on her day off, which helped me keep my socks dry.
I waited at the station for the first train, scheduled at 5:30 am. Believe it or not, the first train didn’t leave until about 10 am. I didn’t wait around until then, though. I bumped into a former student who was waiting just like I was, and together we devised a plot to get to the Sanyo train line, and take alternate transportation to work. It still took a long time, and I ended up arriving late to work for the first time in my life. Luckily I wasn’t the only one – two of my students were gone for the whole morning and they missed my class. Still, it is amazing the havoc that a typhoon can create. Some of the images of the flooding in Kyoto and Shiga were pretty shocking – it was a wet one.
When I left at the end of the day the typhoon had passed on, and it was just sunshine and blue skies. Hard to believe anything happened at all! Kuniko had made up a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and some potent garlic bread to go with a green salad. Yum! I’ve got to admit it is nice to come home to a hot meal now and then.
