Canon's Diary

Thursday, June 26th. It managed to stay dry during the day, but by nightfall, the rain had started up again. From morning on, it was just one thing after another.

First, I headed to a nearby municipal office branch to get all the necessary documents—family registry, official seal certificate, and so on. I had already listed the required number of copies in an Excel sheet, but the forms were still tricky to fill out, and I struggled through the process. It took about an hour for everything to be issued, so I had lunch at a nearby restaurant while I waited—spaghetti with meat sauce.

To my surprise, the food was brought to me by a robot. Living long enough lets you witness all sorts of technological advances, and I find myself amazed again and again.

After that, I went to the bank to freeze my late father’s account and begin the inheritance procedure for my mother. But they couldn’t accept the documents on the spot. I was told I’d receive guidance by mail, and I’d need to resend everything accordingly.
Then I went to the Machida City Office to file for the war bereavement compensation. By that time, it was already 4 p.m.
I had hoped to also handle the property inheritance transfer from my father to my mother at the Legal Affairs Bureau, but when I called, they said I’d need not only the documents but various details and a separate property valuation. That process, it seems, will require appointments and multiple visits.

Honestly, in a world with AI and robots, why are paperwork procedures still this overwhelming?
Anyway, that was all I could manage for today. Still, I want to give myself some credit for making even this much progress.
Tomorrow, I’ll take my mother to the pension office to switch her pension to survivor’s benefits. On top of that, there’s still the name transfer for the home internet contract, an unknown monthly charge from KDDI that needs investigating, the life insurance claim application…
There’s no way all of this can be done in a two-day break. I hate being in this kind of mental state, but juggling so many things at once makes my head feel like it’s going to short-circuit.

When I finally got home and opened my work laptop, I found a mountain of emails waiting for me.
Ah, I’m done. I surrender. This is bad.
The next time I’ll be able to come to Tokyo will be sometime around the week of July 20th. I’ll have to take more time off then. I’m starting to feel a little lost.

Just then, my wife came home from work. She immediately went into the kitchen and cooked up a Japanese-style hamburger steak with grated daikon.
That might’ve been the only comforting moment of the entire day.
Yes… I think this hamburger saved me. I feel like I might be able to return to being human again.
Thanks for the delicious meal!!