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happy father's day

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2020.06.21

One of the first things you forget about when moving to a new country (or even one where you've lived before) is the holiday schedule. Happily, Hallmark exists (or existed, hard to know who's still in business these days) in Japan, so Father's Day is a thing here. I talked to "Opa" first by phone and then by the ubiquitous "Zoom". I didn't hear from my own kids, but that's how it goes when you move away from them. Besides, I'll have them cooped up here in the house for two weeks of quarantine soon enough.

rand()m quote

It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row