Geico Cabbage Patch Kid

This is why I love commercials.

Gimme some pirate love, matey!

That's right, it's that time of year again. So shake the dust off your pirate hat, get your eye-patch out of its drawer, and give some cpr to that parrot to revive it. Time to get your pirate on!

Argh!

New google maps feature brought to you by me!

Well, I was at least one of the people that suggested it to them. I can take credit for it, right?

With the new google maps feature you can Customize your route

I pointed out to them in a long and detailed email that people like to take detours on their route or want to pass through or avoid a specific area (such as the MacArthur Maze, for my hood). So now you can drag your route to include a side trip or a route you want to take.

Yeah, I know. It's brilliant. Though really, Google, a little appreciation would be nice. So here's my next suggestion: "Dear Google, I think you should try to thank the visionaries whose ideas you use to increase the value of your stock. One share should be enough. Thanks!"

I miss Japan

But the Japan I miss I can't return to-- it exists only in the jungle of my memories. What remains now is the right-angled, towering concrete of modern Japan. I miss the wild of Oba-chan's back yard, where Jane and I, dripping with sweat, would stalk spiders and stray cats. I miss listening with a mixture of laughter and awe as Oji-chan chanted his prayers, the incense heavy and woodsy in my nostrils. Of how he would throw the left over rice out the window and marvel at the birds as they swooped to catch the grains. We would go every night to the public baths and steep in water so hot I swore it scalded me every time. Later Jane and I would sit outside, the summer heat now feeling cool against our skin, and tease the giant koi in the pond outside with our toes.

Ghosts and spirits descended on us from the mountains, kodama lounged in the bows of the pine trees, and the red bean ice cream was sweet. I try to relieve this hunger for the past through my writing, and increasingly Japan has been sneaking in, one way or another. Is this what is meant by ethnicity?

On a slightly different note, but related, a couple weeks ago I observed the fourth anniversary of my mother's death. They lie when they say time heals pain. It does not. I sat quietly in the room where I had found her fallen and reflected. Did I do the right thing? I pulled the plug, now I have to live with the consequences. I think I did the right thing, but I will never know, for sure, and always there's that lingering hope, turned to dread now, that maybe, maybe she could have made it.