Jan. 28, 2012 - I think I ordered the spaghetti?

We decided that not everybody needed to go to the swim meet today.  Cooper could get the day off from having to sit through another very long swim meet, and Drew would have the chance to do a few things around the house.  This ended up being extra good for Cooper when he was asked by his friend Isaac to spend the night Friday night.  Speaking of Friday night, I forgot to write about our dinner last night.  There is a street we walk down on our way to the subway station that we call "the green street."  (This is not its actual name.  It's just that it has green paint on the ground along the sides of the road.  We have no idea what its actual name is, or the name of almost any other street, for that matter.  Dave Barry is pretty funny on this issue.  We recommend chapter 3 of "Dave Barry Does Japan.")  On the green street is a tiny restaurant called Bacca Bacca that Drew suspected was an Italian restaurant and he has been wanting to try it. 

  If you look carefully above the "Bacca Bacca" in the sign, you can see the word "trattoria."  Unfortunately for us, "trattoria" on the sign and "antipasto" on the menu were the only words we were able to recognize.  Everything else was in Japanese.  Now, while many restaurants have English along with the Japanese on their menus, that is by no means widespread.  However, very many restaurants have plastic displays of their food or they have pictures of their food.  So, we can place an order by pointing to the appropriate display or picture.  At Bacca Bacca, no such luck.  Greer was ready to pack it in, and I was ready to just randomly point to an item on the menu and hope for the best.  Drew, however, was determined.  This is a man who likes his Italian food.  By using a translate app on his iPhone, he was able to communicate enough with the waiter to figure out where on the menu the pastas were.  Then the chef came out (I said this was a tiny restaurant).  He didn't speak any English either, but he was able to say the words "arrabiata," "pepperoncini," and "carbonara,"  and point to the item on the menu.  So we ordered those three pastas.  The waiter, using his phone, was able to ask us if we wanted anything else, so we also ordered a salad.  And we ordered water to drink because we know that word:  mizu!  All three of our pastas were very good, and Drew, using his iPhone again, told the waiter that we would certainly be back.

So, anyway, just Greer and I headed out to the swim meet this morning.  It was a good one for Cooper to miss since it ended up being extra long.  It was past 4:30 by the time Greer and I made it home.  Today she was swimming long events, so she just had four events instead of five.  She swam on the medley relay team (backstroke) and on the 400m freestyle relay team.  Her individual events were the 200m free and the 400m free.   The 400m free is a long event, and not too many middle school swimmers swim it during a meet.  Greer came in fourth, which she pooh-poohed as there were only 5 or 6 swimmers.  However, I thought it was pretty good, considering the third place swimmer barely beat her, and she was the only 12-year-old (and hasn't been 12 for long); all the other swimmers were 13 or 14.  Here's a picture of Greer on the bus on the way home:

Meanwhile, Drew went and picked up Cooper at his friend's house, and the two of them went to Bic Camera for some electronics.  They were unsuccessful on the new TV, but they did manage to buy a dehumidifier (for our basement), a toaster (ours does not seem to like Japan), a fan (we really miss our ceiling fans), and various power strips and adapters.  Cooper, however, was a little tired during the checkout process, while delivery was being arranged (yes, he's actually sleeping, not just closing his eyes):

Japanese word of the day:  mizu  (click to hear pronunciation) means "water"