improbable, no?

Watched a Japan vs. New Zealand rugby game yesterday – just a couple of regional teams. The sun was harsh. I rolled up sleeves and pant legs, grateful that Anne had reminded me to sun-screen it up before we went.

Anne's a rugby kid. Plays at home (D.C.); plays here, too. She somehow managed to get on the only women's team in Kyoto. Owns a t-shirt that says "Rugby," and probably eats the cereal for breakfast, too. Anne points out number 8 on the New Zealand side. That's the position she "most identifies with," she says. (Hell if I remember what it was called.) Moments later the same Goliath of a man is shoved into the air by his teammates and grabs the ball.

Despite a brief fixation with the sport in high school, I know nothing about rugby. The sun discouraged me from learning much yesterday. Found it easier to squint at the people around me than the game. Forty-some uniformed teen-aged boys sat several rows behind us and chanted "Gambatte!" at intervals.

But that was yesterday. Today I sat in the kitchen as A.J. – eyes hidden by aviator sunglasses and hair (as usual) seemingly sculpted by electric current – got hammered. He'd poured some Coke into a bottle of whiskey and took swigs as he told a really beautiful story about his friend's grandmother. She lives in Belfast, and they threw a party for her 72nd birthday. The theme: Protestant accomplishment in Ireland. It was tongue-in-cheek: A.J.'s hands ghosted the posture of the gun-toting paramilitary decorations they put up. It was, as he said, with no trace of bitterness, "basically a celebration of everything I don't believe in." The old woman chose A.J. as her dance partner. He was the only Catholic at the party. Later when, quite by accident, a Catholic song came on, she danced and "played the spoons against her teeth and all that."