I just ate my airmailed Thanksgiving dinner (thanks Mom, Dad & Claire!). It was a "just add water" kind of meal: Stovetop stuffing, mashed potato flakes, and gravy in an envelope. The meal was quite tasty, and left me with that overstuffed-turkey feeling that goes so well with a Thanksgiving evening. I also had soba shiro (buckwheat noodle soup). Could this be a new T-day tradition? You never know. Of course, most of you Americans are just starting your day, so... happy Turkey (holocaust) Day!
Let us see... Issue 6 left you with the amazing abacus acadaemians...
The next day (1999.11.06) a ten-piece all-female Latin-American-music band played for the student body. They sang songs in Spanish, Japanese, Japanish and Spanese... Pretty impressive stuff. They even taught the kids some basic Latin dance moves. Nobody in Hiroshima, it seems, dances for fun. Something I really have been missing is contra dancing.
As I am fond of saying, I've been contra dancing since before I was born. In my last year of high school I got back into the swing of things, going whenever I could get a ride. So I have really been missing it. In fact, last Tuesday, in a letter to a dear friend, I said this:
>You know what I would give my left pinkie to do? Contra dancing.
Little did I know how I was tempting the fates with this random phrase... Thursday, two days later (1999.11.18), I got to take a tour of a Japanese clinic.
Don't worry... it's only a small break, same joint of the pinkie as last time, same reason (basketball), no pain.
Breaking it seems like a dream to me now. I was in the gym alone, shooting hoops. The ball bounced off of the hoop, I blocked my face... so this is not proof of my clumsiness, rather, its proof of my supafast reflexes. I thought to myself, "I just broke my finger," then proceeded to shoot (one handedly) until I made my free throw and 3-point shot. My work there was done. I went to the school nurse, who strapped on a menthol-powered cold compress, and gave me a bag of ice. If it swells, come back. And it swole. She did not think it was broken, but we were going for an x-ray anyway...
Hospitals and clinics are closed on Thursday afternoons, except for the one that stays open. The one that smells like a litter box (that an old man peed in). There was a nice doctor that promised to email me the x-ray. (go to http://briefcase.yahoo.com/phuzo , album "Broken" to see)
Have you ever read the story of the Monkey's paw? You get five wishes, one for each of the monkey's shriveled phalanges. Your wishes come true, but only under the most horrible of circumstances. A woman wishes for $100, and gets it as a conciliation present for the death of her son. She then wishes her son was alive again, and he comes back. i.e. ba-a-ack. i.e. the undead.
I mean, what possessed me to offer my left pinkie? Now that I have "given" it will I find a place in Hiroshima to go contra dancing? Or will something beyond my control send me home? Or has my left pinkie yet to fall off or something??? These thoughts, no matter how much logic tries to push them out, have been occupying my brain for the past week.
Maybe I made a wish on my own left paw...
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