Sameness, Sadness, and a "Celebrity Sighting"

We instituted Weekly Restaurant Night when the kids were young.  The plan called for rotating the responsibility for choosing a restaurant between the five of us, in order from youngest to oldest, but we pulled Matt out of the rotation five minutes into Week Six when he nominated the same restaurant he'd picked the first week:  McDonald's.  He was four at the time.  We assumed he'd develop more catholic tastes, at least in restaurants, as he grew older.
Silly us.

Fourteen years later, we asked Matt where he wanted to eat after his graduation ceremony.  He picked his favorite yakiniku (Korean BBQ) restaurant, Chaya, and we reserved a semi-private roomlet with two tables.

Fourteen years plus two days later, we asked Matt how he wished to celebrate his 18th birthday.  He wanted to invite his girlfriend to join us for dinner at -- sure enough -- his favorite yakiniku (Korean BBQ) restaurant, Chaya, and we got there early enough to snag that same semi-private roomlet.  Katie graduated to the grownup table to accommodate Jeanine.

Figuring they'd eaten enough Korean BBQ to last a decade, we took James and Emily to Sunday Brunch at the Officers' Club on base their last morning in Japan.  We dawdled to postpone the inevitable gut-wrenching departure.  Sunday Brunch is a great venue for dawdling but eventually we had to buckle ourselves into that rental van and wend our way to the airport. 

Emily's plane left first (long story) and we had a little time to take a few more pictures before James made his solitary trek through that family-severing metal detector.

We were feeling weepy.  Narita Airport knows all about weepy and has positioned smile-inducing signage throughout the departure area.

Unfortunately, you cannot read the sign behind them.  It says something about no samurai and no swords allowed on aircraft.  (I hid that shirt from Matt for six months.  Too bad I didn't hide it for seven . . .).

Why are we crying?  Matt and I will see James again in August.  We're going to spend a weekend in Dallas when I escort Matt to college in Virginia.  Still . . .

Mike will be deployed in August.  He does not know when he will next see James.

"Maybe a non-fat latte will help you feel better," I suggested, pushing him into the airport Starbucks. 

"Food is not a cure for melancholy," he lectured me as he waited morosely for his drink and I inhaled a box of mushroom-shaped cookies.

 Doesn't he look like Jack Benny when he is sad?  I think it's the thing he does with his arms.

Next:  Suzi and Kate in Tokyo