Sure enough, she and her three kids came to my door. The three of them were dressed in costume: Stitch, something that looked like a Power Ranger, and something I couldn't identify as anything more than cute. They were officially my first trick-or-treaters ever.That night, a few of the teachers from Tsushima High went out to celebrate a teacher's birthday. Yagi-sensei lives in the same apartment building as me, and she wanted to have a costume party. Harry Potter was about the only costume I had available, so I more or less stayed in costume all day.
The other teachers dressed as mostly animals: a cute frog, a cute puppy, etc. We had a great time, and Yagi got a huge birthday dessert.Sunday, we had a chorus concert. Our song list included some pretty, slow Japanese tunes, as well as Oh Shenandoah. We tried our best the past few weeks to get it smoothed out, but we're pretty weak in the bass and tenor department. Nagato, the other low bass, knew the song very well. The only trouble was that the version he remembers best was done by Harry Belafonte. In 1959. He's pushing 73, so he sometimes has trouble following along on the sheet music while we're singing. In those cases, he usually guesses, going either by his memory (if he knows the song) or by his ear (picking out a harmony). That means he defaults to Harry Belafonte, which, while perhaps better than nothing, is a version with a sycnopated rhythm. As you can imagine, it sort of stood apart from the rest of us. Like I said, though, we tried our best.
That night, we had our customary post-concert party. This time we ate at Roxy, the local "American" hamburger restaurant. Everybody drinks, of course, including the preacher and his wife. (They're Anglican, though, if that explains anything; I don't know.) We always kick off the party with the same four-part-harmony drinking song, whether or not we're sitting in a private room. Every time we have a party, someone gets exceptionally drunk. I've yet to see anyone get sick or some other similarly amateurish problem, but they definitely shed their inhibitions. (Incidentally, those are the times when I get the most interesting questions.)
This time, two of the ladies had the most to drink. Both of them became even more talkative than usual, and I could tell by the reactions of the less-inebriated ladies that they were saying things women shouldn't be saying. Unfortunately, my fledgling comprehension skills were blown away by the combination of drunken slurring, native speed, and local dialects. All I could confidently identify was something about when one of them had just given birth to her most recent baby, followed by frequent gestures to her chest.
When it came time to leave, we all paid up as per usual, and cheerfully strolled out into the street. One of the drunk ladies suddenly became sheepish, trying her best to hide behind us. I quietly asked one of the others why she was hiding, and heard that one of the nurses from her doctor's office was entering the restaurant. I can't be certain about the next part, but I distinctly recall hearing something like it: she's pregnant, and feared the nurse recognizing her from her most recent check-up.
I'm pretty sure I misunderstood something. In fact, I sincerely hope I got it wrong. I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain 11 out of 10 doctors agree that drinking alcohol when pregnant is a horrible, horrible idea. (11 out of 10 means non-doctors stick their head in the door and reply to the survey.) Furthermore, nobody else at the party seemed uncomfortable with her drunkenness beyond the usual "oh, boy--so-and-so's embarrassing himself again." If she is in fact pregnant, that means either the unanimous disdain was too subtle for me to detect, or everyone was accepting of it.
Again, I hope I'm wrong about that. The mere possibility was more than a little jarring.
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