Four days ago, on a crowded Tokyo Metro train:
<mild jostling>
Me: Sumimasen.
Jostler: Gomen nasai.
<We then trade shallow bows.>

This morning, while exiting a crowded Red Line train delayed by mechanical difficulties at Judiciary Square:
<jostler attempts to overtake between me and my wife>
Me: Excuse me, can I stay with my wife, please?
Jostler: You can’t always get what you want.
<Jostler then attempts to keep pushing way in, fails, then tries to walk-race me and my wife through the crowd to the Metro Center escalators.>

It’s good to be home!

Paulo Ordoveza

Roving Asian mendicant, can occasionally be seen wandering the streets of downtown Washington, muttering unintelligible gibberish to passers-by while pushing a “bag lady” shopping cart full of old blankets, American flags, soda cans, and healthy secondhand snacks from organic food shop dumpsters. Used to live in a cardboard box at 16th and K but the rent was too expensive.