Recovery

Cian, it turns out, had a touch of pneumonia which has kept him, and me, out of the nursey and university for the past two weeks. While I'm pretty sure the Nursery has missed their little bit of Irish charm, I figure the university has been a model of indifference. We have been in and out of the hospital over the past 10 days or so, and are now pretty much on first name terms with all the nurses in the pediatrics department. And we'll be back again on Monday when the boy goes for another x-ray and I sit in the doctor's office pretending to understand what he is mumbling on a about. And God, does he mumble. When he speaks it sounds like an extended clearing of the throat, a low, incomprehensible bass-line of barely formed words that has me itching to give me a clip across the ear and yell, "For chrissakes, would you speak clearly, man!" I mean, its bad enough that all this is being explained to me in Japanese, but it is made irredeemably worse coming from a man who learned about elocution from watching Marlon Brando in the Godfather.

Still, I shouldn't complain. The cost of all our visits, consultations, tests, and medicines have yet to break the 10 euro barrier. Let's hear it for socialized medicine, folks! God bless Marx.

In fact, the hardest part of the past two weeks have been not so much the illness per se, but keeping the boy's waking hours occupied and entertaining. He's an active three-soon-to-be-four year old, and the doctor's strictures about limiting physical activity and getting plenty of rest are easier said than done. Particularly when we are enjoying our annual extended spell of fine weather that turns Hokkaido, for the month of September, into a Japanese version of southern California. So thank God for the internet. Initially it was just cartoons and train videos on Youtube, but then we discovered the unlimited joys of online poker and, well, as long as "don't tell Mammy", then its no-hold-'em happiness for Cian 'Texas' Takahashi and his financial backer, 'Studs' Gaynor.

Today, because Mammy was around, we had to fold and leave the online felt table, so we went for a train ride. Cian likes his train rides. I think chugging along the rails, sitting in the open boxcar, eeking out a tune on his harmonica reminds him of the Lone Star State, his spiritual home.