Happenings

Japanese has a lot of loanwords from other languages. It is usually a bastardized version of the word in its original language that takes on katakana-ized pronunciation. One example is the word hapuningu （ハプニング）, taken from the English word “happening,” as in an event out of the ordinary. We were visiting my in-laws in Niigata a few years ago when, for some reason, hapuningu infected the familial lexicon. My children and their grandmother took every opportunity to use it, no matter how mundane the happenings actually were. I’m not sure why, but I found it annoying. Now that I think about it, though, it vaguely reminds me of when my own grandmother used to excitedly exclaim “Atmosphere Atmosphere!” whenever the train that ran behind our house would rumble by, blowing its horn and causing the house to tremble slightly. Viewed in that light, I suppose hapuningu is a bit more endearing.

There’s been a hapuningu for me this morning that has me a bit wound up, so writing this blog post is helping me focus and settle down. I arrived at work and pulled my keys out to unlock my office, only to realize that I had both my wife’s and my keys in my bag. It isn’t the first time I’ve made this mistake, though it’s a new phenomenon. We bought a new car back in March, and now we both have a big Honda key fob on our keychains. This has broken my brain, and I routinely grab the wrong set of keys off of the kitchen island on my way out the door.

The problem is that my wife has work today, and I live about 30 minutes away. Thankfully, I was able to make it back home in time to return her keys, but it made for a long start to the morning – 30 minutes in to work, 30 minutes back home, and then 30 minutes back to work. At least it’s a beautiful day for excessive driving.

There have been other happenings this week. For starters, building this website seems to be having the intended effect of helping me re-engage in my creative pursuits. I recorded a podcast last weekend for the first time in many months. I’ve also written several blog posts. I want to record a Christmas album, which I’ve been internally threatening to do for several years now. And I’m dutifully keeping a note in my phone of anything that I deem to be worthy pod fodder for next week’s episode.

Another occurred as I was just drifting off to sleep the other night, when a mighty ruckus arose from the chicken coop – mad flapping sounds and distressed squawking. It was close to midnight, and I assumed the worst. We’ve had fox intrusions before that resulted in wounded (not gravely, thankfully, I think) chickens, and the chicken moaning in this case was eerily similar. I hurriedly put on some pants and found my glasses to rush outside. My wife was already on the scene. We opened the coop fearing carnage, one chicken bolting out into the yard in the process, but there was . . . nothing, other than flustered chickens. I thoroughly inspected the coop by flashlight, but there was no sign of any creature attempting to make its way in. Everyone seemed fine. I returned to bed full of adrenaline and struggled to get back to sleep with one ear out the open window toward the coop.

A positive happening, if you are one who appreciates the seasons as I do, is that our local sacred mountain, Hakusan, emerged from the recent inclement cold spell with its first dusting of snow. I always look forward to this event.

So, it’s been a bit of a weird week. Here’s to less hapuningu before the weekend.