Monday, August 29, 2005

MMMMMM...THOUGHTS TO PONDER

Alright, lets see where we left off, Hempfest. Well in between that there has been a whole lot of poker. About 9 days straight to be exact and some of those days did carry on into the wee early mornings. Naoko and Tsuneki arrived in town for a true Japanese vacation. A 1.5 day stay, so a whirlwind tour it was for my buddies, didnt know how much you could really pack into a day, but most of Seattle was covered. As for longer stays you can never have too much time to cover everything, as i think Susanne only got to see part of Seattle.

Then there was also the Chu'ster to arrive in town, boy havent seen her since the cali days, always good to see you Chu, you always crack me up. Then to wrap up the week it was the grand finale of a bbq slash poker gone wild tournament at the grand opening of Amy and Brian's new home. Sure is tough to get out of this vacation mode as i am about to head back to japan, but damn i wouldnt change it for anything. Just catching up with friends, is a thing that i wouldnt trade anything in the world for, no dollar or yen or poker chip can be replaced. And yeah speaking of poker, we sure love playing it, everyone likes to win, we like money, we like talking trash with each other, we like competition, but i think we just do it, to be together. Poker is simple as that friends just hanging out together.

Clouds, back in japan i used to always look up at the clouds and enjoy how they always changed, but those clouds seemed to only change slightly every day. Day in and day out i could expect a certain type of look, a certain type of cloud shape. But when coming home when i looked at the clouds everyday i was presented with something different, a different color a different shape, they were never the same. Never paid much attention to certain things when i lived in Seattle before, guess coming back after a year or two away i come back to appreciate things more and more. Even the clouds, even the sunsets, even the friends and family. Amazing how much you can learn by sometimes taking a step back and tilting your head up to the sky. When i left Seattle i thought things were coming to a standstill and things weren't changing. But maybe it was me, and everything else was changing, or i wasn't looking elsewhere enough. Well i still dont know, but i know Seattle will always be home. Hope this next journey into Japan will be just as good as a home to me as Seattle. I am keeping my head up, looking at those clouds.

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