There will be a party to mark the leaving of Science Writing Fellow Rebecca.  Rebecca is a role model to us all.

The Yellow Rose of Texas

To make the party go with a swing I will BBQ two legs of lamb. My noble Cobb is too small for such big chunks of meat so I borrow a big Weber. I load it into the back of the Fitu with great nonchalance. Now we come to an essential weakness in my personality. I get the big stuff done but do not pay enough attention to the end game. In this context it means I get the BBQ, I load it into the car, I drive home. I move onto the next preparation. What does it matter when I unload the Weber?

Driving to work this morning someone pulls out in front of me and I hit the brakes. Suddenly the car is full of choaking dust and I cough grotesquely as I gasp for air. I pull over and burst out of the car into the beautiful Okinawan morning, panting like an old dog.

The Weber was still in the car. The Weber was full of ash and old charcoal. The Weber had fallen over and tipped its charge into the back of my car.

After the ash has settled.

I get to work to work and it being summer, I took off my shirt, and I tried to wash off some of that dusty dirt.

I worry about how I will get all of the dust and junk out of my car. Naoko looks kinda bemused and tells me to go to the gas station that has the car wash and vacuum cleaning stand. So, a reflection on my life in Okinawa. Because I am illiterate and essentially deaf and dumb through lack of Japanese skills, I exist in a very feral way. Find food, shelter, survive. I find the places where I am least exposed. Thus in nearly six years, I have only been once to the gas station with the vacuum cleaner, never to return. It is a self service gas station and being illiterate, I could not work out how to pump my own gas.

I was going to clean the car at home with a dust pan and brush. Do you hear what I am trying to say?  Japan / Okinawan is a hyper modern society but I experience it like a fox sneaking around the trash cans at night.

I have already taken out most of the detritus.

Luckily the machine has only 3 buttons – Start, Stop and Dust. I only dare use the first two.

Any way good adventure. I like being a fox.

Check out the sunset.

Golly

Gosh

A bit later the same night.  I mean after the sun had gone down.

Ohayu gozaimasu

What next?