I don't usually get sick.

But when I do, I can feel it coming on like a roller coaster car reaching the apex of its track. I feel the phlegm boiling in my throat and my face becoming red hot. A sickness is brewing, and it will lay waste to everything it leaves in its wake. I usually like to consider myself impervious to sickness. A monument to health and fortitude. But all it takes is a timid little cough to puncture that false confidence and let the air out of my ill-founded pride. Somehow, mysteriously, year after year, I seem to acquire amnesia particular to the instances in which I encounter sickness. As though perhaps my mind files them under "been there, done that" and never deigns to consider the fact that antibodies don't actually become invincible to viruses and diseases once they encounter them.

And so, here I stand(sit), sent home from work by the principal of the school, who upon looking at me, a short-sleeved polo shirt draped over my slouched person in the middle of winter, mentally began to paint a wonderfully clear picture of just how I came to be riddled with disease.

So here I am writing about it.

I have many pictures from my weekend, as more than a couple of great things were experienced. But I dislike unleashing a barrage of pictures with a terse appraisal of each one, because I feel there are more pleasant ways to send readers into comas.

I went to Inaba Jinja, which often seems to be the place where things happen in this city. It's a rather large shrine near my uncle's house. We walked there, little Kentarou and Uncle Shigeji. Kentarou was rattling off all the English her learned in his Elementary school classes, and I kept egging him on with praise.

We bought baby castellas, which I guess are the Japanese equivalent to Dunkin Donuts' Munchkins. We had french fries and Takoyaki too. Representatives from different companies in the city lined up with what looked like Roman Candles, and one after the other, lit them into brilliantly burning and smoking orange faucets of sparks to the amusement and wonder of the crowd.









After about 15 seconds of angry, hissing scintillation, the whole ordeal is summed up with a massive blast that explodes like a shot gun round.