Larva poop, etc.

I wonder if anyone else in the world has a title like that. Maybe I am the first. But today I saw a Japanese larva poop, and when you see something like that, it needs to be told. So I went and told Atsuko, but alas she did not know the word "poop." I wonder what others would resort to in this situation, but first I tried "used the bathroom," which of course makes no sense whatsoever because larva do not use the bathroom and I don't think that is the expression used around here anyway. Next I tried "left a spot," because Atsuko has used this expression before when refering to a horse. She remained confused, and I began to die in painful spasms of laughter (which confused her more I think) as I tried to draw a diagram of a larva pooping. She still thought I meant that guts were coming out, which is normal and people don't die laughing about it, so I had to continue with "you know how food comes in this end and waste comes out this end..." as my own handle on the English language was lost in hypoxic brain damage from laughing too hard. Finally, after emphasizing the waste end of the diagram and saying that I saw him do that, she understood and laughed, but still looked confused in that she obviously thought I was crazy. It is possible that Japanese culture is refined enough to not even contain correlates to my story in Japanese. When Atsuko finally understood my mangled description of an idiotic event, she said "Ooooh, you disturbed his private time! Maybe you will have to kill him now because you saw!" Atsuko has a very good sense of humor which enables her to put up with me.

I can't tell all of my Yokohama stories tonight because I need sleep and still need to pack up my apartment for moving out tomorrow. I have to tell one though. Yesterday, my last day in Yokohama, I grabbed MacDonald's lunch-to-go and went to the grassy hill by the river to eat it. Yes, I did deserve a MacDonald's lunch, I ate jellyfish the previous night like a good girl. Anyway, I was enjoying staring fixedly at the giant Cosmo-clock Ferris wheel when a cute little boy, maybe 3 yrs old, appeared in front of me. I smiled at him, but he did not smile back and proceeded to walk very slowly around me, staring intently at my face without a blink as he walked. When he finished his circle he ran up the hill and disappeared. I finished my lunch about 15 minutes later and started heading back to the conference center when I heard "Bye-bye! Bye-bye!" being yelled from somewhere up on the hill. I turned around and there was my little boy, waving frantically and yelling "Bye-bye" to me! I yelled "Bye-bye" back and waved. A true highlight of being a foreigner, hehe.

I'm off to Niigata to see the races tomorrow. Must leave by 6:30 a.m. Must pack first. Sleep is so over-rated! Best dream in Yokohama: I had a pet pink octopus that was trained to jump into his container every time I tapped the table (similar to how I tap the rig table to get the electrode to go into the muscle). Unfortunately I dropped him and he turned into a pile of noodles. I wrapped up the noodles and took them to Farida's house for dinner. What does this mean? I am obsessed with octopi, I eat too many noodles, and I need to send Farida a postcard.

Gone 'till Monday...