This is a Penn -- Part 1

Back in Philly. Of all places...

Here in Glenside, sharing a cavernous house with Amy. The neighborhood is quiet, secluded, rich, and has mature landscaping (big trees, for the uninitiated). Where the wealthy come to soak in superiority while slowly and soporifically dying.

Saw the family in Lancaster. Needless to say, it was great to be reunited with everyone.
Noah and the cousins played as if not a day had passed. Minami was right there in the mix. She became
so attached to one of Olivia's dolls that Jessica was able to convince Olivia to let Minami "borrow" it. Turns out that this doll is actually Livvy's first "Minami" doll -- I promised her a "double Minami" shot if she let us borrow it.

It's been a rough two days since we got back, though:

• Minami was a little under the weather Monday night, and tired yesterday.
• Tomomi and I both lost our sunglasses in Lancaster.
• Tomomi had a terrible ordeal on SEPTA trying to get from 30th St to Elkins Park. The short version is that she had to switch trains 3 times -- with Minami and no stroller, backpack, etc!
• Tomomi lost one of Minami's shoes in the process (we replaced her shoes with the same ones yesterday).
• Tomomi ruined her favorite cardigan (light blue) with bleach stick: it looked like stain stick. We replaced that, too.
• Meanwhile, the Comcast contractor came at 8am to switch to the TV-Net-phone bundle. He was here until nearly noon, and when he left we still didn't have TV or working Internet service. After nearly two hours trying to update the account over the phone, we finally got the Net to work. Left the house to go shopping. Came back to find that now the phone doesn't work. The TV is still not even close to working, but at least I have another service call today.
• Got lost on the way to Target, but found that it's in the same shopping center with a Giant supermarket and TJ-Maxx (where Tomomi got a new cardigan) on Old York Rd.
• Amy's battery was dead when I went to move the car in the driveway. AAA came and fixed that, but while on the phone with Comcast and outside with the AAA guy, my instructions to Tomomi about baking yams were apparently not so good. She completely foil-wrapped them and they were still nearly raw after an hour. I unwrapped them and they were very good (on sale at Giant).

I have the feeling there was something else, but that should give a pretty accurate picture of what a lovely two days it was. Oh, and it's been a nearly constant deluge since we got back, so the kids haven't been able to play outside even once in Philly yet.

I've set up a GrandCentral account. Check out http://www.grandcentral.com/ for details.
Basically, you click the button below, and my phones ring.



I'll be using this blog to post all sorts of rants, raves, notes, and diaries over the next few years. Some will be in English, some in Japanese.

The blog title is a reference to my upcoming PhD program at Penn and to the first thing a generation of Japanese learned in English: "This is a pen. That is a pencil." No comment necessary, I suppose.