Summer in Japan...it's a hot heat

If you leave the United States to live in another country for a period of time, at some point you are no longer a tourist but just another average guy trying to get through the days.  Living here at Yokosuka can easily become Groundhog day...wake up, go to work, go to the gym, go back to work, go home, help with dinner, clean the dishes, watch TV, go to bed.  Sometimes we get excited and take a walk around the base.  The point is, not everyday is a trip to a temple/shrine or some kind of site-seeing adventure.  Now that it is summer the kids are out and about, hangin' with friends, hitting the pool, exploring off base.  They still usually make it home for dinner, actually 3 out of 4 usually make it home for dinner.  All is good.

Japan is a nation of strict adherence to the rules; only cross the street when sign says so, cue up in line when you are required.  Even the weather follows the rules.  If it is Spring according to the calendar then the weather reflects that to a T, rain showers, temperatures rising, generally nice days.  The problem is much like Games of Thrones...only instead of Winter, Summer is coming.  According to the Farmer's Almanac, in the Northern Hemisphere, June 21st at 6:51 AM EDT, summer will arrive.  Why 6:51?  No idea, but summer has arrived.  

I know what you are saying, "Oh it get's Hot and Humid in the States too", and I was inclined to agree with you.  We just left Pace Florida, it got hot and humid pretty good.  Last year on June 21st I actually saw the sun move closer to us.  It was easily 15 feet away from my head.  I kept saying this was just like Florida, I had remembered those hot and humid days, but then I finally remembered those hot days were me walking on the flight line with all my flight gear on.  Here in Japan its like that with just shorts on.  (We also had our pool in our back yard in FL.)  They have some nice pools here but its not the same when you have to share a pool with everyone else on base.  Far too many kids.  By the way, if I could go back in time, i'd find the person who said for the first time "Hey, let's play Marco Polo" and drowned them!

Now, I'm not complaining about the weather because its hot.  There is no helping that.  I only bring it up because after a certain amount of time in the heat, kids want to come inside to play or watch TV.  As it gets hotter, the time outside gets shorter.  So sometime after breakfast, maybe 15 minutes later the calls of "Can we come inside?" start to echo through the halls from the front door.  There is typically two problems with this, one the kids leave the door open so the AC is immediately negated, and the other is that somehow they have rounded up 5 or 6 of their friends.  Amie is a saint, she loves having tons of kids around.  Me on the other hand, well if I know the kids I don't mind...but I don't even recognize many of these kids.  It actually isn't that bad, they are usually gone by the time i get home from work because all the mom's are calling the kids home for dinner.  We'll see how it goes with the weekends as summer progresses and the sun continues to move closer to the surface of the Earth!