The Kid

A week of silence.

As shared earlier, after a nice dinner with my son a week ago last Tuesday during which he expressed enthusiasm at my suggestion we go see Punch kun and he told me he wanted to go on a hike with me. We spent time over dinner discussing how to get to the zoo. For our earlier visits, I drove but I no longer have access to a car unless I rent one and it is silly to do so for such a short trip. We set a time we should leave from his station on whichever day turned out best for us to go, provided his mother agreed. We also needed to finalize plans for the hike. Instead, my son flipped out over something and I was compelled to leave without being able to confirm any of these.

I sent him a message via Teams and I can see that he saw it the day after I sent it. If the icons can be trusted, he has not checked my messages since then. I did not send him a link for the weekly Zoom with his grandmother but kept my iPad sent to Line so that I could see if his mother was asking about Zoom, as has happened in the past. Nothing. I sent multiple messages to him on Teams about the hike I went on Sunday and about the possibility of visiting the Zoo on Tuesday. I was hoping for an entire day with him as even before I asked if he would like to have dinner with me weekly, his mother asked if I could on the 24th as she had something that night. As stated earlier, he apparently is not checking Teams and has not seen these messages.

Monday I asked his mom via Line if she was needing me to take our son to dinner the next day. She thought that we were still on the every Tuesday dinner meeting. In response I sent “He didn’t seem to want to and he has not replied to me since last Tuesday. But you need me to tomorrow, right?”. After over two hours of no reply, I asked, “As he won’t, can you please tell me what our plans for tomorrow are?. The condensed responses from a short back and forth is, “No meeting with you tomorrow.”, ending with “What I know is he was not happy about last week meeting/dinner.”. No response on this issue from either since Monday night.

Via Teams I have asked about seeing Punch kun, sent a photo from Sunday’s hike, a link to the hike I plan on going on next weekend and phots of he and I from trips we took together in the past, all of which seem to have gone unseen.

I drank until 5:30 am Tuesday morning. Set my alarm for 11 am, got up at noon and got a lot done that afternoon. Last year a bought a tent that needed rewaterproofed. At the time, I thought I would be able to either do this near the river if I started early in the morning or at a camp ground adjacent to the big city park. Was unable to do so before losing access to the mini van and I was surprised only minimally to learn that the campground went out of business during covid. I lucked out in finding the same model tent in next to new condition that was missing tent poles. Got this cheaply.

The first tent came without the ground cloth and inner tent pad. As these are sold separately, I expected to have buy these but before doing so wanted to make sure my new tent didn’t come with them. I also wanted to fold it correctly. Got this done yesterday and also ordered a ground cloth and tend pad. More sorting of my stuff and putting things away from the move was also accomplished. Got up early today and am making more progress on clearing stuff out. Expect to take out a lot of now unneeded teaching aids that will open up a large amount of space in the storage room Friday.

Have some classes tomorrow. Hope to visit to zoo Friday with my son if the weather is nice, but am now expecting to be disappointed yet again. Classes start April first, and with the passing of this date so too is the most likely last chance to spend time with my son. Jr. High in Japan is when the system takes over the lives of kids almost completely. He will most likely have club activities each and every holiday period until he graduates college, if he makes it that far in the education system here.