The Locked Door Mystery

All those hours spent solving adventure computer games came in handy today.

I arrived at Yokohama City Hospital thirty minutes early for my first solo conversation lesson with Dr. T, expecting to loiter in the hospital lobby, reading my book and polishing my lesson plan which consisted of three questions scribbled on an index card.

The lobby was dark and devoid of humanity. The automatic doors were locked. The only thing I could decipher on the enormous sign blocking my path was a big red arrow pointing to . . . a window. Uh-oh. What would Nancy Drew do?

I retraced my steps to the train station turnstiles and spotted an exterior staircase which landed me on the ground between the hospital and the medical school building. I wanted to be in the latter. My eyes found the second floor walkway connecting the two buildings and I imagined the two pharmaceutical sentries sneaking furtive glances at me out the windows. I nonchalantly strolled over to the door under the medical school end of the walkway and ran into a metal rod suspended between two orange cones. Hmm. Moving in a clockwise direction, I worked my way around the building and eventually found an unlocked door right next to the elevator I needed to take to Dr. T's office. Case solved.

It's amazing how quickly two hours can evaporate when you're talking about your family. Today we covered Mike's life from ninth grade through last weekend, Katie's education and gift for composing haiku, my hopes for James, Matt's conversation with Laura Bush, and the final two years of my father's-in-law life. (I agonized over that apostrophe.)

When I asked Dr. T about his childhood, he whipped out a map of Japan. We pondered that map at some length and, since I was still in Nancy Drew mode, it took me just a few minutes to deduce that it was upside down. I suspect Dr. T did that on purpose to trick me. If so, we're going to get along famously which is a good thing because I have dozens more family members to discuss with him.

And that bakery where I turn left when I exit the Kanazawa-Hakkei station? Definitely the most extensive selection I have seen yet.

So Many Bakeries, So Little Time

Late October is a good time to visit Japan. The temperature was a balmy 72 degrees when Matt and I touched down Tuesday afternoon and had crept up a notch or two by the time I set off for Yokohama City Hospital Wednesday afternoon.

Per Diana's instructions, I hopped on a local train toward Yokohama and 12 minutes later hopped off at the Kanazawa-Hakkei station where I spotted her right outside the turnstile. She led me to another train station serving the Seaside Line while I took careful notes (left at bakery, down an alley to the right, up a metal staircase). The Seaside Line offers a splendid view of Tokyo Bay and deposited us right at the entrance to the hospital.

I took copious notes once we entered the hospital: right at the elevator, through a pair of ominous unmarked metal doors, down a long hallway connecting the hospital with the medical school, left at a pair of pharmaceutical reps who look an awful lot like Secret Service agents (and, according to Diana, are permanent fixtures at this intersection), down another hallway, turn right, veer left, take the elevator to the sixth floor, turn right and then left to Dr. T's office.

These detailed directions are so Matt can rescue me if I get buried under one of the myriad towers of file folders and loose paper teetering precariously from floor to ceiling and door to window in Dr. T's office. His is the messiest workspace I've glimpsed since turning in the keys to my own office a couple of days before Matt was born.

Dr. T is a professor and department chairman at the medical school. He speaks in a whisper. He speaks so softly I could not understand a single word he said.

This will be a problem when I run out of monologues so I am already assuming I will be finding another "teacher" for him after three or four sessions which I will measure in trips to that intriguing bakery marking my first turn outside the train station.

(Note to Matt: Check the bakery before going all the way to Dr. T's office if I don't make it home next Tuesday.)

Chasing the Sun

We are thankful David and Erin gave us a reason to visit Michigan in October when the autumn foliage was positively glorious. I am also thankful Matt and Kate didn't see the man who pulled over on I-94 to skin a deer . . .

Our return trip to Japan was a surreal experience from beginning to end. My old friend Elaine and her husband, Larry, were on our flight from Detroit to Chicago; the man sitting in front of us out of Chicago made three calls on his cell phone after the captain advised us to turn off our phones (a "teachable moment" as in "Matt, wheedling in a needy, self-deprecating tone of voice is not the best way to ask a girl for a date"); and the local time was always somewhere between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm for 12 straight hours. We have now mastered the bureaucratic intricacies of the free shuttle bus service between the base and Narita airport which is a great way to travel if you don't mind twiddling your thumbs in an airport for three hours after a 12-hour flight.

Today Matt is catching up on schoolwork and gearing up for his last football game. I spent two hours this morning deciphering a cryptic calendar entry - 12:30 Diana - and am off to meet my old friend Diana at the Kanazawa Hakkei train station. She will escort me to a hospital in Yokohama where she will introduce me to a doctor who wants to practice his English by chatting with me for a couple of hours every week. This job would suit me as well as my brother Jerry's post-retirement job at the driving range if I could just figure out how to talk and read at the same time.


I estimate it will take me about six hours to relate the highpoints of David and Erin's wedding weekend to this doctor, so the first three sessions will be a breeze. After that, he can carry the conversational ball while I glance surreptiously at my Kindle.