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Good morning. ⏰🫘☕

17 August 2026

I woke up this morning and found that one of my hearing aids hadn’t charged — a minor annoyance, but enough to throw off the rhythm. My hearing aids connect to my iPhone, and I usually listen to the news or some music when I’m out walking. And Monday is a walk day.

No sweaty da. I’ll let it charge a bit before heading out. I need my eyes and ears along the way. “The way,” by the way, is just circuits around my yard — roughly 400 yards per lap.

Whoa — I pulled “no sweaty da” out of an old dusty suitcase. I’m pretty sure it’s a hybrid English/Japanese slang phrase used by service members way back in the day, meaning “no problem.” I spent time in Japan both as a kid and later as a Marine, so I probably picked it up in the early ’60s without even realizing it stuck.

Speaking of Japanese phrases, I don’t think I learned any dirty words in Japanese — and if I did, they’ve long since evaporated. After all, it’s been over half a century, and most of what I knew has faded. There was one mildly insulting phrase that got tossed around: baka tachi, which means “you fools” or maybe “you idiots.” It was playground language, the kind kids sling at each other without thinking.

People say that when you’re in a foreign country you learn the bad words first. I don’t think that’s true. What you usually learn first is something practical — like “Where is the train station?” I mean, really, how are you supposed to learn the bad words first? Walk up to a stranger and ask? No, it doesn’t work like that.

“We do not remember days; we remember moments.” — Cesare Pavese

“It is the simple things that are the most extraordinary.” — Paulo Coelho

“Every language is a world.” — Federico Fellini

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