After the Rain

A butterfly who looks a little worse for the wear goes about business as usual after the rains let up.

This weekend Tropical Storm 0704 / Man-yi rolled past Japan along its eastern coastline. Even though Gifu was inside the red circle for high winds and lots o' rain, our town is sheltered among the mountains so 'twas mostly the rain that we got.

Strange fungus on a rotting log.

The festivities started on Thursday when the morning drizzle suddenly became typhoon-like blowing waves of rain across the playing fields. Even the teacher got distracted and we all stood to check out the crazy weather. It wasn't long before the vice-principal came on the announcements asking the teachers to come to the teachers' room right after class. At this, the students raised a cheer, echoed down the hallways. We didn't even do the aisatsu before rushing down.

Of course, the meeting was to say that the kids would be sent home at 1:30, after lunch and a short kaeri-no-kai (afternoon homeroom). So off the students went at 1:30, with strict orders to call the school or their homeroom teacher's cell phone upon arriving. Which they did, leading to many obnoxious half-rings on cell phones, pieces of songs I personally wouldn't want to hear in any length. Over and over again.

And that left me with two and a half hours of nothing to do but try to stay awake and nurse the Day 2 Cold I came down with on Tuesday night. Because of course the vice-principal made a point to tell me that I had to stay. I finally packed it in at 4:05, a whole ten minutes earlier than usual. As I was making my escape, putting my shoes on in the genkan, the head teacher came running down the stairs to invite me to play badminton with them.... in a little while. Yeah, nice gesture, and on a happier day I would have loved to. But that day I couldn't get out of there fast enough. So thank you, but good-bye.

A work helmet abandoned near my house, which you can see, along with Ar-Jay, up in the corner. And blurred by a raindrop.

Friday business as usual, and last night the storm moved in, dumping much rain (as one of my teachers would say). This morning I opened my front window, here by the computer, and could swear that I heard a river, pretty loud. It struck me as odd because I was pretty sure there wasn't even a creek near here. Further investigation found a narrow yet relatively deep cement drainage ditch, your standard drain for these parts (there's no sewers for rainwater, just covered - or uncovered drains) with a "raging river" running down it. There you have it folks.