“i think there r more dolphins on my shore,” Carlos wrote in a text message last week. Since early this year, an alarming number of dolphins have been washing up dead on Carlos’ beach. We don’t know why and probably never will, so for fun let's just blame it on the old standby: Global Warming.

Instead of imagining the darkly comic image of a dolphin being pan-seared by the sun, I felt a wave of emotion, similar to seeing roadkill decomposing or dogs dressed in sweaters for the humid Japanese summer. The thought of suffering is never far from my mind, which is why I am at least partially vegetarian. But what I didn’t expect to feel was the desire to actually see the deceased!

I bought flowers in hopes of having a little memorial service for the poor creature, but left it on the table when Suzie came to pick me up. So, armed with only incense, we proceeded into Futsu (that’s “normal” in Japanese – funny considering the abnormality of this situation) to get Carlos and pay our respects.

Well, it turns out that we also forgot to bring something to light the incense with. So we held our sticks of incense (and our noses) and said a little prayer. It was sad leaving it on the beach amidst decades of rubbish, but I feel like we did our part...I will certainly not be able to push the image out of my mind any time soon. And I would post the pictures, but don't want to traumatize anyone.

Only for the morbidly curious:
I know a dead dolphin when I see one

So what does one do after paying respects to dead dolphins? Why, go to Uniqlo, of course!

And what did we eat for dinner (only because it was a Hawaiian restaurant and they put it in everything)?

TUNA! *gags*