• I write to you from Narita Airport, where it is 4:04 p.m. local time on Monday, May 8. I’ll board a flight to Toronto at 5:30, where I’ll change planes and, after around 14 hours of flying, I’ll arrive in Chicago at 7:00 p.m., on Monday, May 8. When you see the zombie on Dearborn later, that’ll be me.

That’s Brian and me at a Hanshin Fighting  Tigers game at Jingu Stadium, the oldest baseball stadium in Japan.

I left April 29 and  arrived in Tokyo April 30. My time here has been exhilarating, exhausting, and just a bit magical. This due in large part to our generous nephew Brian Miller, who teaches English here. Brian shepherded me around Japan to two baseball games, a heavy metal concert, temples, shrines, hostels, hotels, sushi joints, ramen joints; somehow he got all the right trains and all the right platforms.

We walked on average about eight miles a day. Brian worried more than he needed to about whether I was seeing everything I wanted to see. He’s been in Japan for several years—so he couldn’t fathom that pretty much every mile we walked and everything I saw was mesmerizing.

I could do a blog about every half day here—and I may—especially about the two Japanese professional baseball games Brian treated me to.

But I need some time to process it all. Japan—most of my time was in Tokyo—is at once completely familiar and utterly foreign. It is organized and regimented—and chaotic. All these things at once.

For example, baseball is the same as it is here. But it isn’t. There are organized cheering sections that shout cheers, pretty much constantly, as fans do in in a soccer match. They know every player and they know songs for every player. Forget walkup music, these people have it covered.

The trains, well. They ride on rails, but that’s about it for similarities. Clean. Comfortably upholstered (including the subway). Quiet. Passengers are extremely well behaved. And one of the damn trains went 200 mph.

And the bathrooms. They have toilets—they no longer have the squat holes. The toilets—porcelain and everything—are largely the same. But the seats, well, that’s another story.

To start, they’re heated. And you can adjust the temperature. And you can also adjust the water pressure. The water pressure for the little spray that you can activate to give yourself a little spritz in the places that count. The first rule of Japanese toilet seats: find the stop button before you press any other buttons.

And the TV. Oh my God, the TV. Take the craziest Spanish language program you’ve ever seen. Then take LSD and turn the TV upside down. You’re still not there.

And the people. Impeccably polite. They really are smaller. Some of the women are at once so delicate and elegant looking that you’re afraid they’ll break if you bump into them. I didn’t pay much attention to the men.

And the food. Sushi of course. We did one of the keitan conveyor belt things. Oh my. I had the best ramen I’ve ever had, and it was about eight bucks. Pork cutlet that was fried with this perfect panko crust.

I could go on, and I will. But I gotta catch a plane. See you soon, I hope.

My last post shared both sad and happy news. My loveable retired Seeing Eye dog Hanni died Wednesday, and the book I’ve been working on for more than a decade had been released just the day before.

It’s been an emotional week for sure, but in the end, so much good to think about. Hanni lived an amazing 17 years, and she wasn’t suffering much at the end. Those 17 years just caught up with her.

That’s me with Hanni, a back cover photo from Writing Out Loud (Photo courtesy Kaitlin McCall)

Hanni played a major role in my life, and she plays a major role in my new book, too. It’d been a while since I wrote and revised some of the stories about her for Writing Out Loud, and rereading them these past few days made me smile. Publishing an excerpt here that highlights her guide work might be just the right way to honor that brave, funny, smart, cute, fluffy, heroic, tail-wagging retired Seeing Eye dog. Here’s an excerpt from a chapter called “Getting There,” where Hanni guides me to the very first memoir-writing class I led in Chicago back in 2004:

On our way to the first day of class, Hanni looks ahead, makes a split-second decision, and darts left. Holding tight to her harness, I sidestep along with her. My shoulders breeze by something as we needle our way down Michigan Avenue. A tree? A lamppost? A person? Without being able to see, I have no idea what we missed. I’m just glad we missed it.

“That dog isn’t looking where he’s going!” a random voice calls out from behind me. But what does the voice know? That’s just the way Hanni works. She’s quick on her feet. A proud graduate of The Seeing Eye, class of December, 2001, Hanni – her name rhymes with Bonnie – was taught to make quick decisions. She has to. That’s the only way we can avoid collisions with pedestrians. With cars pulling out of parking garages. With taxis turning right on red. With delivery trucks rushing out of blind alleys.

The trip is less than a mile from our apartment. Commuting by foot and paw, we sail down Michigan Avenue. Weaving through the lunch crowd, we are right on time. Until we run into this guy. . .

Aha. A cliff hanger! I won’t leave you hanging there for long, though – you can find out who “this guy” is by clicking on the Look Inside link on Amazon free of charge. “Getting There” is one of the chapters featured.

Hanni guided and kept me safe (and gave Mike some reassurance, too) for eight years, then brought joy to our friends Steven and Nancy for seven more. As one of you commented to my last post, Hanni really did lead an important life.
Thank you, Hanni. Thank you.

For all you patient readers who prefer hard copy to e-books, your wait is over. The print version is here, available for order on Amazon.com, and soon to be at Sandmeyer’s and other fine booksellers.

You Safe & Sound blog readers are going to recognize some of the characters in this new book of mine — many have written guest posts here. Chronicling my time with a remarkable bunch of senior citizens has been a labor of love, and I hope reading Writing Out Loud leaves you loving (and learning from) them as much as I do.

Here’s the link to check it out: http://amzn.to/2pGpQOa

One advantage of books in print? The author can sign them for you. And who knows, Whitney the Seeing Eye dog might give you her paw print signature as well.

It’s been an emotional week here — we got news yesterday that one of Whitney’s predecessors, my retired Seeing Eye dog Hanni, had to be put down this past Wednesday. That loveable ball of fur lived an amazing 17 years. Hanni had her own book, of course, and is a major player in Writing Out Loud as well. Mike and I are still processing all this, and I hope to write a more proper tribute to Hanni here — an excerpt about her from the new book, perhaps — once all of this sinks in.

Photo from our visit with Hanni a few weeks ago. (Photo: Nancy Bolero.)

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Sound the trumpets! The day has come: Writing Out Loud is here!

Well, the e-book is here.

If you’re an e-reader type of person, you can link here to download Writing Out Loud now on your Kindle, Nook, iPad or whatever contraption it is you use to read books. When my publisher/editor Nancy Sayre at Golden Alley Press gave me the good news late last night, she said even the “Look Inside” feature on the ebook is already working. “That means people can read the first nine chapters and really get a feel for it.”

I just checked, and JAWS (my speech synthesizer) can read everything on that “Look Inside” feature out loud, too, so if you have a visual impairment and use a screen reader, check it out. I’m also working with the Library of Congress Braille and Audio Recording Download (BARD) to get Writing Out Loud on their list of books to produce in Braille and audio, stay tuned on that.

Meantime, if you’re a print person and want to be notified as soon as the paperback is available, sign up for my newsletter here. And hey, I don’t judge. Read Writing Out Loud on an electronic device, in Braille or in print, I just hope this behind-the-scenes look at memoir writing leaves you loving (and learning from) the writers in my classes as much as I do.

Let the celebrations begin!

I’ve been immersed in working with my editor at Golden Alley Press, putting on the finishing touches, and proofreading with Mike’s help. So, to be honest, I’m sort of all written out.

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Except to say this: If you’re interested in Writing Out Loud, which chronicles my learning to teach a memoir class for seniors, and learning about their remarkable and rich lives: there’s good news. The e-book will be out any day now.

The print version will take a bit longer, and I’m in contact with the National Library Service to see that it will be produced in audio and Braille editions for people who are blind or visually impaired as well. To be among the first to be notified when it’s available in the e-book version this week , please, please, please sign up for my newsletter today.

Thanks to all of you for your patience. I think you’re going to like what you read.