Sunday, February 25 

I took an early train because I expected to miss connections because of my luggage, but I didn’t.  I ended up waiting a while at the Kamatori station, reading in the sun and chilly wind until Judith came and picked me up (earlier than we’d arranged, thankfully).  During that wait, I indulged in people-watching, and was watching a middle-aged Japanese lady approaching when behind me, blocked from view by a sign, a bicycle in the bicycle parking fell over.  The lady gasped with concern and hurried to the bicycle parking, with me wondering what there was about a bicycle that could get her so worked up.  Then, a few seconds later, I saw emerging from behind the sign a man in the process of extricating himself from a bicycle.  Now I felt embarrassed at what they must think of me, sitting in callous inaction when a fellow human is in trouble. 

After church and a lunch at Saizeriya, the faux-Italian place, where as so often in Japan the non-smoking section is just where they’ve removed the ashtrays, we headed back to church for Masaki Goto’s farewell concert.  We’d missed the first part but got to hear the last few songs, some original, some, like Danny Boy, getting the acoustic guitar J-pop treatment, but all fitting the scene and occasion.  Afterwards, I busied myself taking pictures of the young adults, which, while enjoyable, always makes me feel antisocial.  

Robert and Lisa had invited Judith, the Suzukis, and myself for dinner, and soon I was playing Duplo with their children William and Isabelle.  Isabelle still had trouble aiming Duplo pieces and pressing them hard enough for them to hold together, but William had it down pat.  He’d build a tall wall or a tower and at some moment that must have seemed opportune to him but seemed nothing but random to me he’d smash the wall, sending Duplo flying all over.  Soon he tired of Duplo and repeated the same game with wooden blocks.  Of course, if someone smashed his tower before he did, he’d voice his discontent at how the tower had been broken, and I suppose his being able to smash someone else’s tower with impunity derived from some governing principle that I just wasn’t able to figure out.  To me, it was just fun to play with Legos again. 

Before long, Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki arrived, and we had dinner, of which I remember the pumpkin soup and the chicken most.  Mrs. Suzuki at one point mentioned the missionary from Norway who had founded her home church and how he insisted that to drink alcohol was something a Christian didn’t do and how his brusque refusal had at one time irritated her father.  I didn’t yet put two and two together, but my Lent decision was soon to have similar repercussions.