They bring the glow to baseball and the heart to fundraising. 💛 Thank you, @GoChiliPeppers, for raising funds, creating meaningful placard moments, and standing up for everyone affected by cancer throughout your season. Your support helps #StandUpToCancer# fund life-saving cancer research. Photos: Cosmic Baseball

🎞YouTube SKY-HI 「Future In My Pocket feat. TAIKI (STARGLOW), GOICHI (STARGLOW)」 Music Video from NEW ALBUM #SuccessIsTheBestRevenge# #FutureInMyPocket# #TAIKI# #GOICHI# #STARGLOW# #SKYHI　# @starglow_bmsg @SkyHidaka

After a very popular debut last November, we're going bigger and better with our second American Festival at Hibiya Park! Come experience the sizzling BBQ trend with slow-cooked, authentic masterpieces featuring premium U.S. meat. Bring your appetite and join us for a smoky, savory summer feast this weekend! 🍖🇺🇸🔥 @USMeat_JP @GochisoUSA @USDAForeignAg @Freedom250

My mother has lived in the same apartment building for thirty years. Her next-door neighbor, Mr. Nakai, is 81. His wife died last spring. In 55 years of marriage, Mr. Nakai never cooked a single meal. His wife did everything. After she died, he ate a convenience store bento alone every night, at the little table where she used to sit across from him. He stopped talking to anyone. My mother said you could hear the TV through the wall. Never his voice. Then Margie moved in on the other side of him. Margie is 76. From Kentucky. Her husband, Bill, died eight months ago. Her son works in Tokyo, so she came to be near her grandkids. She speaks zero Japanese. She has the voice of a church choir and the posture of a woman who has never once lost an argument. Plate 1: At exactly 6 p.m., she knocked on Mr. Nakai's door holding a covered dish. When he opened it, she put one hand on her hip and said: "Supper!" He did the polite Japanese thing. He bowed and tried to refuse. She did the Kentucky thing. She put the plate in his hands and went home. Plate 2: The next morning, the plate was outside her door. Washed. Dried. Empty. She knocked at 6 p.m. again. Plate 14: The plate came back with something on it. One persimmon. In Japan, there's a rule older than anyone can remember. You never return a dish empty. You always send something back. Margie didn't know that. She just stood in the hallway holding a plate with one persimmon on it, and cried. Plate 30: Chicken and dumplings went over. A paper crane came back. Plate 52: Meatloaf went over. A small flower from the planter his wife used to keep came back. Pressed flat in a napkin. Plate 71: Banana pudding went over. A piece of paper came back, with one English word written in very careful, wobbly letters: "ARIGATO." He had spelled it in English letters. For her. My mother, whose English is mostly "I am a pen," became their translator. She is terrible at it. Neither of them has ever minded. One Sunday, I asked my mother why Margie kept going. Every single night. For a man who barely said a word. My mother asked her. Margie looked at her kitchen for a long time. Then she said: "I cooked for two people for 52 years. I don't know how to stop." Then my mother asked Mr. Nakai why he never once returned a plate empty. He looked at the photo of his wife by the door. "She taught me. You never send a dish back empty. It's the only rule of hers I know how to keep." Two people. Two empty chairs. Two habits that wouldn't die. Keeping each other alive with plates. Plate 140: In January, there was no knock at 6 p.m. Then there was no knock the next night. Mr. Nakai went to my mother's door and pointed at the wall. My mother called Margie's son. Margie had pneumonia. She was in bed. Too weak to stand, let alone cook. Mr. Nakai went back to his apartment. And for the first time in 55 years, he went into the kitchen. My mother heard it through the wall. Pots banging. A smoke alarm. Another smoke alarm. Something burned. Something else burned. He was making okayu. Rice porridge. The thing a Japanese wife makes when someone is sick. His wife had made it for him every time he caught a cold for half a century. He had never once watched how. He burned two pots. The third one worked. At exactly 6 p.m., he carried a bowl across the hallway, holding it with both hands, very carefully, the way you'd carry something alive. He knocked on Margie's door. Her son opened it. Margie was on the couch, under a blanket. Mr. Nakai walked in, held out the bowl, bowed, and said the only English word he had ever practiced. "Supper." My mother says Margie cried so hard her son had to hold the bowl. He brought her okayu every night for two weeks. Same bowl. Same time. 6 p.m. exactly. When Margie got better, she knocked on his door with a casserole, and said, "Supper!" He bowed. He took it. He didn't even pretend to refuse. They still can't talk to each other. Not really. But every night, after he finishes, Mr. Nakai says one Japanese word to her when he hands back the plate. "Gochisōsama." It's what we say after a meal. It means "thank you for the food." But Margie asked my mother what it really means. And my mother, in her terrible English, did her best. The old characters in that word mean "to run around." Long ago, it meant: thank you for running all over the place, to feed me. Margie stood in the hallway and didn't say anything for a long time. Then she said, "Well. That's exactly what I've been doing." Last Sunday, my mother showed me the hallway between their doors. Margie's side has a small hand-painted sign. "PLATE 312." His side has a small sign too. In Japanese. It says the same thing.