rebootied

Last night, as I was climbing into bed just after midnight, I heard a shrill noise coming from at least two of my walls. The racket was pretty subdued inside my house, which has double-paned everything and substantial insulation, so I was surprised to hear much of anything. It soon proved to be coming from outside; my first thought was that my neighbors' heater fan had hit some kind of resonant frequency with our own, or something which would provide that kind of high-pitched feedback. I opened the windows, and it seemed at once to more clearly be some kind of constant alarm bell.

I went downstairs, my wife confirmed that it had only just started, so I went outside to look. There is one small apartment complex on our block, which is otherwise single-family residences -- typical houses. The apartment has a lot of turnover, so no-one really knows anyone in it. Like most Japanese apartments, it has a foyer with a locked front door, and an intercom from which people can buzzed in.

The buzzer was stuck on "open." I tried the door, it swung open. I tried to manually reset the deadbolt: no luck. I tried pulling the door shut to realign whatever mechanical or magnetic lock might tell the thing that the door had opened and closed: nope.

Rrrrrrrrrring.

I went back inside and told my wife about everything I tried. She said, "So someone might have forced it open?" I guess...  "So it could have been some kind of bad guy?" I... hadn't really thought about that. Hm. I don't know what to do. You can't sleep with this, can you? "Sure, I can." So it was off to earplug land for me.

As I lay in bed trying to find how to get away to get sweet slumber to enshroud me in its purple cloak, I instead saw a bouncing light shining around my room from the window. I hopped up to see some sort of local Barney Fife running down the street with a flashlight, trying to find the source of the sound. Later, there were police cars. I'm still not sure what happened.

Interesting weekend for me: even with the wife away on a business trip, the kids were both largely angelic... but I worked hard to make it easy for them. Saturday I made breakfast for them; the boy loves pancakes and maple syrup (the real stuff) but at some point the girl decided the smell of them makes her nauseous. In the afternoon I took them and their cousin to a children's art show where they built a giant cardboard fort while I looked at a bunch of kids' work on the walls. We had an early dinner and then attended karate for two hours.

During that Saturday I managed to chalk up a number of injuries; I nearly fell down the steps again while trying to close a window on the landing. Pulling rice out of the microwave, a jet of steam opened up on one finger and gave me a searing jolt. Then I went to karate and hurried into a very bad backward roll; managed to conk my own head as well as put my 94kg weight onto my neck. Then one of my favorite black belts gave me a 10 minute clinic on resisting his joint locks, which mostly turned out to be ways to make me squeak like a bagpipe.

Everyone slept pretty well that night, though I was still paranoid about mosquitoes after that other incident.

Sunday morning, the girl rose earlier than the rest of us and helped the neighborhood kids gather and centralize newspapers for recycling. As a reward, she was able bring one of her friends over for the afternoon and play. In the evening my mom-in-law took all of us to a hotspring for a soak and dinner. This spring is about 30 minutes drive into the mountains, and has air that is more cool and clear than near our home; soaking in the outdoor tubs is something I could do for hours. Dinner was great; I had a smörgåsbord of various pickles and a little grilled fish, as well as some spicy tebasaki and some cool nihonshuu served from a chilled shoot of bamboo. Lovely. It was a great way to get all of us recharged for the week ahead of us. Only a few more days until I get my wife back.

(And in the "this cannot possibly fail" category, I'm thinking of making a hard rock band with costumes made out of steak and ribs and calling it MEATALLICA.)

We are definitely in a change-of-seasons here in Osaka. Yesterday was gorgeous clear skies, and warm. Today is not chill enough to explain the uniformly grey skies, the drizzly rain.

This morning was the first so far this year where sleeping under a single blanket had me waking up in a light sweat at 06:30. Man, I hate summers here, and it's just going to get more rough over the following 5 months. I need to mop up the remaining days of spring with an intense appreciate for their attempt at mildness.

Two of my least favorite things about getting older may be connected. My hairline is thinning out, and I am getting new hair growing in my ear. Clearly those strands from my hairline have become lost. Or bored, and have begun wandering around.

This morning I went to the chiropractor/physical therapist, who worked on my shoulder injury as well as "making adjustments to the human spine" particularly in my neck and between my shoulderblades. When I receive treatment, I come out of there feeling better, but what's weird is I feel like my vision has improved. I can see things more clearly, and further away.

Is this just my imagination, or does releasing tension in the spine free up my eyes to focus more efficiently?