Shots from the Lip

Can I travel long distances again?   Once again I got some form of gastro problem - food poisoning?  The result was a horrible experience returning to LAX.  At least my arrival was after the Memorial Day weekend traffic, and I was able to get a day and a half of recuperation.   Here it is, the afternoon of the 31st and I am functioning once again!  It is hot outside - temperature reached 25C this afternoon.   We had one day of temperatures like that in Tokyo - I bought shorts for that day from Uniqlo.  Alas weather turned colder again the day after I got my shorts....such is life. Regardless,  I have classes again this week and bank meetings......and picking up the dry cleaning......normal tasks at hand...... And perhaps, my mind will think of something witty and whimsical to write in future days on the blog - today my mind is blank........

 I arrived on the 20th, with Joanna meeting me at Haneda Airport.  Ziwei met us at the Imperial Hotel after check-in and we had a sushi/tempura dinner before I got to soak in a bath that night.......I soaked each night here as we do not have a tub at home....such is life..... And then we walked......4 straight 15,000 step days.  Ziwei joined us in Tokyo for 3 nights and we the three of us spent the weekend together - Saturday in Kanagawa and Sunday in Shinjuku where, after getting some watercolor paints from a seven-floor art supply house, tiredness caught up with me and I slept for 13 hours. Monday the 26th - we did Blue Note-Tokyo.   How wonderfully nice to have a 6pm dinner show with world-class jazz and surprisingly reasonably priced good food!!!   I could easily adapt myself to a couple of shows a month were I to live here.....this was great!!! On Tuesday the 27th, we went to Jingu Stadium to watch the Swallows vs the Dragons in a pitcher's battle...

 Japan baseball has not done much to reduce the length of a game as MLB has done.  Last night, Joanna and I went to Jingu Stadium for a game between the Yakult Swallows and the Chinuchi Dragons of Nagoya.  We left after 6 innings of a 1-0 pitchers battle - 2-1/2 hours for 6 innings.......... Too slow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  A boring game of lengthy proportions is not my proverbial cup of tea..... I got up at 1am and spent 40 minutes on the phone with Chase due diligence which put a hold on my Saphire credit card account.  How can I really complain if the bank, seeing an expensive expenditure, puts a hold on the account?  But really - a hold over the Memorial Day weekend?  Try to get that fixed....other than at 1am in Tokyo??!  Regardless, I used that card for breakfast from Wendy's this morning and it worked, so getting up early was indeed beneficial! Today is my last day of a wonderful time with Joanna and her family.  How the hell did I get...

 Sometime in June, I will seek help to transfer photos from my iPhone to my Windows computer so I can 'enhance' this blog.......until then, words only......such is life..... I've passed by Blue Note-Tokyo before.......Lew Tabakan/Toshiko Akioshi appeared there when I was last in the neighborhood.......I did there tax returns in the mid-70s when they lived in North Hollywood and performed in the States. They have two 70 minute sets a night - 6pm and 8:30pm.   We did dinner (which was quite reasonably priced) and thoroughly enjoyed the attention paid to me as a cane using old fart who got to use their private elevator and had a taxi waiting for us to take us back to the hotel after........ With top flight entertainment, one can view the schedule and easily go to You Tube and see music videos of those performing......... This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening in Tokyo!

  I love big tax bills because they show just how corrupt the system can be!   I made money over the years by reading legislation like this and hopefully finding things that lobbyists included (they were the ones writing the damned bills – certainly not the elected legislators who never read what they vote for) for the companies and industries they represent that I might be able to apply the benefits for the clients I represented.      The New York Times, on 26 May, 2025, listed six ‘tidbits’ of interest.  Three of them are of ‘real’ interest to me:   Tax breaks for the U.S. Virgin Islands:  The United States collects a minimum tax on income that companies earn overseas.  Since the creation of that tax in 2017, the U.S. Virgin Islands, a territory, has been treated as a foreign location for the purposes of the tax.  This legislation would create a new carve-out for income earned on the islands, a generous change that is expected to r...

 Yesterday, exhaustion caught up with me - after 4 days in a row of 15,000 steps a day, I simply could not function - Joanna and Zhiwei joined me for teppanyaki at the 51st floor restaurant in the Sumitomo Building in Shinjuku.  After, we went to a 7 floor art house supply store where I could have spent so much more time, looking at cakes of watercolor paints  that are not available in the States.   I thought that Blick Art Supply was a big store - it looks like a small, 'mamma/pappa' store compared to where I was, yesterday.  I surprised myself:  my total purchase was less than 5,000 yen!    Tonight we go to the Blue Note for a 6pm dinner show.  Tomorrow we go to Jingu Stadium for a baseball game.  Tomorrow morning I return to the barber shop I used to go to - shave and a haircut time!.........and if I can find it (assuming it is still there) I will go to the Hall of Fame Cafe where I spent so many happy moments during prior trips ...

 Today will be a day of rest - at least compared to the past four days:  15,000 steps each day, Wednesday through yesterday (Saturday).  It is now 7:36am and soon we'll go to a Singaporean breakfast.  Joanna stayed over since Wednesday.  She will go home tomorrow, after we go to the Blue Note for an evening of jazz. Today we meet Ziwei and go to the 51st floor teppanyaki restaurant that we went to 13 years ago.......and after, we will go to an art supply house where I want to purchase Japanese watercolor paints......and after, get what we need to get at Daiso. .......and later.......reading, drawing, painting.........and perhaps a walk through the Imperial Palace gardens......this is a wonderful, 'deja-vu' experience!!