LONG TIME NO SEE

It's been a long time since I updated, but it's because I went on a trip to ICELAND!

Oh, Iceland!

The place where I grew up until Dad got sick of me and sent me to school here in America!

My father. He's a big Japanese man. Like Sulu, only WORSE. Like Sulu when he's on Heroes! So scary.

I was wearing this gray suit he bought me for my college graduation. I never graduated college, but he got me the suit anyway. When he picked me up at the airport he told me I looked ridiculous and I'm not fit to wear that suit until I've got some kind of education and honor or something.

To cheer that old sourpuss up, I tried to buy him a pretzel or a hot dog in the airport. I bought one of each and he just stood there with his arms crossed. When I told him he could pick one or the other, he said, "Eat them yourself. I'm not hungry, Kojiro."

My dad is a jerk.

But I didn't go to Iceland to see him! I went to see my sister! Little Hotaru!

Hotaru was waiting in the car outside the airport. When she saw me, she ran out of the car and threw her arms around me!

"Kojiro!" she said "Big brother! I've missed you!"

She was speaking Icelandic and since I haven't been to Iceland in a long time, I thought she was just jabbering in some made-up little kid moon language! Then I caught on and said to her, in Icelandic, "You are my favorite duckling."

Duckling isn't a pet name I use for her. I just forgot the word for little sister. It worked, though.

My sister and I don't like to talk too much in front of my dad. It's because he's always giving me dirty looks when I tell her about my life. He thinks Chuck and Enid are degenerates and being a baker's apprentice is a silly waste of my time. He told me that I'm a bad influence on my sister.

My dad is a jerk.

We got back to my dad's house and HOO BOY! It's gigantic! Wow! Talk about a mansion! It gets bigger every time I see it, it seems like. I said that to my father and he told me it's because my apartment is so small.

My dad is a jerk.

So Dad showed me to my old room and then I got settled and then Hotaru showed up and we sat on the floor and played Connect Four while we caught up on each other. I told her about Ramona and how I've got the total hots for her and Hotaru told me there's a boy in her class named Jacoby or something that she has the hots for!

Man oh man! You should have heard us teasing each other!

Also, she kicked my BUTT at Connect Four. We played like a hundred games and I only won like three of them. She's so smart.

She also told me Dad has the hots for some lady he works with and they went on a date the other night! Ooh la la! I told her we should tease him, too, and we both laughed and laughed until Dad showed up and told us it was time to eat.

Eating at my dad's is always really uncomfortable. He's got this big long table and he sits at the head of it. Hotaru and I always sit across from each other down the table a ways and we kick each other's legs under the table and throw food when Dad's not looking. The people who cook his food are always coming in and shoving more food at you and I feel awkward not eating all of it. Sometimes it's really gross stuff like this gray stuff that they make. It looks like something you should put on crackers, but they don't ever give you crackers and Dad eats it with a fork, so I figure that's how you're supposed to eat it. It tastes like WASABI and MUSHROOMS!

No thank you!

"So, Dad!" I said, "Hotaru tells me you got the hots for some chick at work!"

"Kojiro!" Hotaru gasped.

"Hotaru!" Dad gasped.

"Dad!" I gasped.

"What's wrong? Is she a dog!?" And I kicked the floor and howled. Dad didn't even smile. He just cleared his throat and looked at his food.

Ouch!

My dad is a jerk.

After dinner I went off into the kitchen. Dad has the COOLEST kitchen. He hates me being in there. When I was a kid I'd go in there and cook and he'd say "Don't get used to it, son! You're going to lead a life of luxury! You'll never have to cook for yourself again, son!"

Now I cook for other people.

He doesn't call me son anymore.

My dad is a jerk.

So after I baked a loaf of zucchini bread in Dad's FANCY PANTS OVEN, I brought it up to Hotaru's room and we sat there and ate zucchini bread and talked until the sun was coming up. I told her about Enid and Chuck and how Chuck's band is sort of like touring around the area in this big ol' van with curtains in the windows. She told me she wanted to join a band, but not many bands have a violin player anymore. I said she could join a band and play keyboards, but she told me that would be disrespectful to her piano instructor.

"Woah!" I said, "HANG ON LITTLE SIS!" and I took her hand.

"Now you're talking like Dad, and that's no good!" I told her.

"You do what makes YOU happy, and remember that! Dad can find some other sucker to run his company!" I told her.

"Can't I come back to America with you, big brother?" she asked me.

Oh, I hate answering this question. I told her I wanted her to come back with me, but she couldn't. She's in a good school and she's smart as a whip and she needs room to grow.

She got mad at me and stopped talking.

Until I picked up her guitar and started strumming wildly. I wrote her a song, just like when I was panhandling.

"Hotaru, cheer up! Come on!
We'll make it through one way or another!
Because I'm your big brother
And I'm really smart and I know these things!
So come on and we'll eat some more zucchini bread
And maybe watch some cartoons in the morning!"

"That was awful!" she said, but she was laughing, and making my little sister laugh is the best thing ever.

"Someday," I told her, "If you want to, you can come live with me in America. But right now, you have to get two feet under you, and then put those two feet on the ground."

Then I scared myself because that's what my father told me once.

Then I stopped being scared because, well, look at me now! I turned out okay!

The rest of the week was spent taking in the sights of Iceland (and there sure are a lot of them! Wow!) and avoiding my father as much as possible.

I went to school with Hotaru one day and had to wear my gray suit again because they have a dress code there. Teachers kept giving me dirty looks because I was wearing sneakers and I kept laughing during class and trying to talk to Hotaru.

One teacher pulled me aside as we were leaving her classroom and she was like "How old are you, Kojiro Tanaka!? You must be at least twenty-five!"

I told her, "No, ma'am! I'm only twenty-two!"

"Well, start acting like it! What are you doing in my class anyway!?"

"Hotaru Tanaka is my little sister! She took me to school with her today!"

"Hotaru hasn't been in any of my classes in a year!!"

That was when I realized that I was in the wrong classroom. I was wondering where Hotaru was...

I found Hotaru later and told her the story while we ate lunch in the cafeteria, only they don't call it the cafeteria in private school. They also don't call it a cafeteria in Iceland, because they all speak Icelandic up there. I forget what they called it. All I know is that the food there tastes like it did when I was there at that school.

Anyways, she was fit to bust!

The trip back to the airport was really sad. I gave Hotaru a hug and I offered one to my father, but he just shook my hand.

"Keep your nose clean, Kojiro," he told me. "And straighten yourself up! Make your family proud for a change!"

My dad is a jerk.