Fruit Flies Like a Banana (or, Here's a Rambling Post with an Awkward Segue)
Sorry. Silly punchline from a hairy old joke, that I know you've all heard: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."Ha ha ha ha ha.
We tell jokes a lot in my family. Wait, I take that back. We repeat jokes a lot in my family. Over and over and over. None of us can ever remember to whom we've told a joke (or who told it to us in the first place), and so we often tell the same people the same joke a bunch of times. As a result, one of our family favorites is the one about the new prisoner:
Every night, after lights out, the new prisoner on the cellblock hears numbers being shouted aloud, followed by laughter.
"377!"
"Hahahahahahaha!"
"14!"
"Bwahahahahahaha!"
"561!"
"HAHAHAHAHA*snort*HAHAHA!"
When he asks his cell mate what's going on, he's told that there is a single book of 1,000 jokes that's been passed around the cell block for years. As a result, they all know all the jokes by heart, so now, instead of telling each joke, they can simply call out the number, everyone remembers the joke, and everyone laughs.
The new prisoner wants to be popular, so he borrows the joke book and spends the next month memorizing every single joke. Finally, one night after "lights out" he begins:
"864!"
*silence*
He shrugs, thinking maybe they didn't hear him, and tries again, with greater volume.
"342!"
*silence*
"79!"
*crickets chirping*
Frustrated, he asks his cellmate what the problem could be. The cellmate shrugs. "Maybe it's your delivery?"
Ba-dum-bum!
Anyway, that explains this and other obscure fragment-of-the-punchline joke references.
Ahem.
My long-lost point...is that time is flying for me here, like the proverbial arrow. I can't believe we've been in Japan for almost a year and a half. I'm a month and a half from the halfway point of our tour of duty!
I began thinking about that this week, as I recover from houseguests (one for ten days followed by two for two weeks). I was making notes for my other blog, so I could post the various adventures we had. I was feeling some relief that I could finally stop "having adventures" and sightseeing and relax for a while.
Sure, I can relax...and I've needed to relax, as well as catch up with the piles of work that have built up. (I'm honing my skills in ignoring the piles of housework that have built up.) But life is short, and our time here is shorter. (Case in point -- I had to hold the Solemn Whirlie Ceremony for the late Ernie the Goldfish last week, sadly enough.) Rather than become a couch potato until the next set of houseguests, I need to keep exploring.
Yes, I've done a lot in the past month...but there is still so very much to see on this side of the planet. And now I've proven to myself that I can find my way around on Japanese roads, with Japanese maps and Japanese language signs....and that finding a parking place is not the Grail Quest I've tried to make it. The trains and buses are really lovely here, and easy to take. And I have the freedom, the physical ability, and (if I travel cheaply, plan well and pinch pennies) the financial wherewithall to keep having adventures. I must continue to carpe the damn diem.
Life is short. Time flies like an arrow.
(...and fruit flies like a banana. Hee hee hee hee hee...)
posted by Carolie @ 9:32 PM
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