Tranquility

Finished

2010-07-25T20:29:00.002+09:00

No more WARNINGS I am disabling this blog.

When I first moved to Okinawa I started up the Tranquility blog to keep family informed about Okinawa. Four years later I stopped updating them about Okinawa and just started reposting all of my personal blog stuff here. So I am always having to make two blog posts on two different blogs about the same thing. So this post is a warning, of which I will probably give 3 warnings before I stop posting here.

If your still reading my blog by email or any other means you will need to update your addresses to http://jackshoe.blogspot.com/ which is my personal blog. I am no longer going to be updating the tranquility blog here. Please update your links and methods of checking my blog!

This is the last post

Whale Sharks = Awesome

2010-07-25T20:28:00.001+09:00

This weekend was pretty good over all. I mean, I did after all get to dive with an endangered species, and well, to put it bluntly, that is pretty fucking cool.

Jason and I went out on Saturday with Chelsea and her husband and a few of their friends on the Whale Shark Dive offered over at Torii station. We arrived at 12:00 and then found out we were supposed to be there at 12:30. Then we waited for everyone to show up and filled out some paperwork. Once that was done we sat through a 3 minute brief on what we were going to do and watched part of a video of someone else doing the dive quite a few years ago.

Then it was time for more waiting. There was a lot of that for something Torii organizes everyday. Once that round of waiting was done we caravaned down to the Yomitan Port where we assembled our gear and got it into the dive boat. Our boat was a combination of Americans, Japanese and Chinese and about half scuba divers and half snorkelers.

It was a quick 5 minute boat ride out to the net off the coast. The net is about 200 ft wide and 65 feet tall. There were two male whale sharks in the net at this time, one was 18 feet long and the other 22 feet long. The whale sharks in the net are rehabilitated and/or exchanges from the aquarium here on Okinawa and in mainland. As the fishermen often find whale sharks in their nets they need to be rehabilitated and so they are sent here. That and Japan is trying really really hard to get footage of whale sharks mating or birthing as no one has ever seen it. Ever. Private folks I guess.

So once we arrived there was a bit of scrambling to get out gear on and roll over the side into the water. Once everyone was in and underwater holding onto the net they opened a small hole and let us in one at a time. Once we were all in and now holding onto the inside of the net they started to feed the whale sharks. This all seems to be for show really, and it gives the snorkelers a good show otherwise a whale shark would never stay up there.

So they feed them for 15 minutes and we watch and take pictures. Then once that is done it is time for free swim. We get to swim around in the net with the whale sharks at our leisure. We are not supposed to touch them, but they are allowed to touch us. Since the whale sharks think every scuba diver is a feeder, that happens quite a bit.

Once we were out and swimming about it was much easier to get pictures. Unfortunately visibility was only like 40 feet and so it was a bit harder to catch any good pictures. They also keep one whale shark occupied at the top pretty much the whole time so the snorkelers get a good show. He is hard to watch because you have to watch out not to take a tail to the face. You really only get to see his shadow against the sun, which is still pretty cool. I would have preferred they not do the whole top thing, but that was because I was down below sucking air and trying to get some awesome pictures.

Sometimes you would be photographing one shark and the other would come out of nowhere, and I am not gonna lie, when a huge 22 foot long whale shark is coming at you open mouthed or his tail is whipping by your head, you scream a little inside your regulator. Not a scream of abject terror, but a scream of wide eyed holly crap that was awesome.

So before I knew it they were making us go back to the boat. I still had over 1500 psi of air and was a bit disgruntled about that but, well, I already knew it was only going to be 30 minutes. I did hang back and was one of the last folk on the boat so I got to watch them for a while from the outside of the net while everyone else was loading.

It was well worth the $115 for the chance to swim with whale sharks and I would do it again in all honesty. It could be cooler, but I will take what I can get, considering they charge $3000 for it in Australia.

Today Jason and I did another dive at Tengan Pier but there wasn't too much special about that other than that my reg was leaking air. I think it got damaged on the boat dive and I need to take it in. This wasn't really a problem today because the dive was shallow and I still finished with more air than Jason. The nudibranches were everywhere out there today and most of them mating which was cool. But it sort of paled in comparison to yesterdays Whale Shark adventure.

If you want to see the pictures they are up on Facebook, I only have like 2-3 really good ones but I can still enjoy it in my brain! Whale Sharks are awesome, diving with them, awesomer!

Change of Address: Warning 3

2010-07-23T20:09:00.002+09:00

WARNING: I am going to disable this blog. When I first moved to Okinawa I started up the Tranquility blog to keep family informed about Okinawa. Four years later I stopped updating them about Okinawa and just started reposting all of my personal blog stuff here. So I am always having to make two blog posts on two different blogs about the same thing. So this post is a warning, of which I will probably give 3 warnings before I stop posting here.

If your still reading my blog by email or any other means you will need to update your addresses to http://jackshoe.blogspot.com/ which is my personal blog. I am no longer going to be updating the tranquility blog here soon enough, they are the same thing, there is no point. Please update your links and methods of checking my blog!

This is warning Number 3

Ups and Downs

2010-07-23T20:09:00.001+09:00

I think today was yet another day where Okinawa snuck up out of now where and kicked my ass. It happens far more than I would like to admit. I was working on surgery side which tends to make me hot and sweaty combined with typical hot Okinawa by the time I was coming home from the Commissary I was trying to pass out. Which is fun and exciting when driving!

That combined with coming home to find the dog had eaten my Taco Rice dinner made things sort of really sucky. So it was couch time for me with a Vitamin water and a movie for a while. Jason saved the day by re-buying me Taco Rice on the way home and by about an hour ago I started to perk up again.

Perk up enough to make some half chocolate chunk and half cranberry almond muffins for tomorrows breakfast! Tomorrow is Whale Shark Diving! So I plan to start the day off right with good healthy breakfast muffins and lots of anti pooing meds! Exciting I know. I also plan to start a Beef Stew in the Slow Cooker before we go so when we get done having a kick ass time swimming with some of the rarest and biggest sharks out there, we can get down on some good grub.

So not a great day for me, but tomorrow is the weekend and some kick ass diving!

Change of Address: Warning 2

2010-07-21T18:15:00.001+09:00

Restaurant Review: Ishigakijima Kitchen Bin

2010-07-21T18:14:00.001+09:00

Today was a new food adventure on Okinawa. Today I got off of work and met up with Crystal and headed towards Torii Station to run some errands at the Scuba locker. Too bad no one told me they changed the days that they were closed. So then we headed off to eat at our favorite little Soba hole in the wall out there and guess what, seems they too decided to take the day off. So with the whole trip out there a bust we decided to look for a new place to eat, an adventure.

This adventure landed us in Mihama as we did not see anything we wanted to try on the main road from Torii. So after a bit of driving we spotted Ishigakijima Kitchen Bin in its bright yellow building. What can I say, it looked tasty from the outside? So we popped in for a bit to eat and it did not disappoint.

I ordered a Bacon Cheddar Burger (M size) set with Ooolong Tea and a side of Fried Potato Cheese and found it quiet satisfying. The burger has a nice hand made patty of decent size, a good whole wheat bun, fresh veggies and soft bacon. They also added wasabi mayonnaise which actually was quite good on this burger and not too much of it, sometimes Okinawans go a bit overboard with the mayonnaise.

The Fried Potato Cheese were also pretty tasty, and I think most people would like them more than I did. I am not the biggest fan of fried stuff and these little guys are like tatter tots with cheese and deep fried. I don't see how most people will not enjoy that, like I said, I enjoyed them and I don't even like fried stuff.

So Ishigakijima Kitchen Bin was a wonderful little consolation prise for everything else being closed! They have a limited menu of only 3 burgers and a few sides along with a selection of baked goods for purchase (what an odd combination burger joint and bakery) but it is tasty and fresh, can't go wrong with that.

Change of Address: Warning 1

2010-07-20T15:55:00.004+09:00

A Busy Weekend: Part 2

2010-07-20T15:54:00.001+09:00

I am getting father and father behind! Yesterday was also a busy day and I hope things will calm down a little this week after today. We shall see.

So Sunday was Supper Club where we were doing Thai food. I was very not excited about Thai food, it just isn't my sort of thing. But the whole point of super club is to force you to try to make new things and enjoy that food adventure with other people. So I went at it with Gusto and made two dishes.

First thing in the morning I started my Slow Cooker Thai Pork with Peppers which needed to cook for 5-6 hours. It was my "alternate" dish and turned out to be the one I liked more. Easy and simple, pork with a peanut sauce really.

My second dish was Pad See Ew (Thai Noodles with Beef and Broccoli) which I thought seemed way more Thai but the recipe looked pretty Chinese. I thought I was going to love this dish, I really enjoy good beef and broccoli and rather enjoy oyster sauce in it. But this dish just turned out okay.

I had planned to try to find wide rice noodles at the gourmet store or A Price off base but ran out of time as while the pork cooked I needed to do my English lesson for Tuesday because book club on Monday was stop me from doing it then. So I plugged away at the lesson and cleaned the last bit of the house and then realized it was time to cook my second dish.

So I sent Jason off to MaxValue to look for rice noodles on the chance that they had some. I figured this is Japan, they cook everything with rice and glutinous rice, surely they have rice noodles. So Jason went off and an adventure that took a lot longer than expected. His asking for rice noodles seemed to confuse everyone and people were trying very hard to help him.

In the end he came home with Konnyaku noodles which are nothing at all like rice noodles. They are essentially gelatin in noodle form. The fluid they keep them in reeks of fish and they need to be washed and boiled to be eaten. So we did not use those but instead used the thin rice noodles I had received from a cooworker who got them from some one who was PCSing.

Yuko has offered to make me a dish with them so I can see how one would make them decent in a dish. Otherwise I have no idea what to do with them, they are really odd. It seems, after we chatted with Yuko, that Japanese don't really do rice noodles, go figure. So I am sure the people of MaxValue were trying very hard to explain this to Jason in that uniquely Japanese way of not saying no, they don't have that.

Once Supper Club rolled around I found that everyone struggled with their Thai dish. Most of us were disappointed in how things came out. However when it came down to eating time, no one left the table hungry. All the food came out pretty good and everyone was pretty satisfied. We had Thai Cucumber Salad [Crawford], "Pad See Ew" (Thai Noodles with Beef and Broccoli) [Evans], "Gai Pad Med Mamuang Himaphan" (Thai Cashew Chicken) [Ono], Slow Cooker Thai Pork with Peppers [Evans] and Thai-Style Peanut Sauce with Honey and Fresh Spring Rolls [Crawford] and Sesame Bananas [Dix].

It was a really good spread of Thai food and we even had a little beef, chicken and pork. We all tried new things and enjoyed good company, that is the important part in the end.

After Supper Club we headed down to Mother Leaf right outside my house to try some Okinawan Shaved ice. Japanese shaved ice has a finer "flake" to the ice and if often topped with sweet and condensed milk or something very similar. If you want a real Japanese treat you order Zenzai which on Okinawa is shaved ice topped with sweet beans and brown sugar with a few bits of Mochi on top. It is quite unique and a lot better than what most westerners would think. It really hit the spot after all the Thai food.

Once all the fun was over I worked on my lesson a bit more and headed off to bed.

Monday can be summed up pretty quickly here too.

Work followed by making cookies for book club. Book club, where no one really liked the book and we mostly talked about religion (the book talked about religion so it was sort of related) and ate the food that people brought. After all that fun stuff it was back home again to try to work on some of my ESL book and get ahead and then yet another bed time.

While I am at it. Today, even more boring.

Work, food, nap, ESL lesson and then teaching followed by sleep. Well I guess it can't be all fun, games and food adventures everyday!

A Busy Weekend: Part 1

2010-07-19T07:04:00.001+09:00

There hasn't been a lot of blogging for the past few days because I have been super busy! There hasn't been a lot of loafing going on or playing on the internets. That isn't to say that I am nose to the grind stone doing unpleasant tasks, but just rockin' and rollin' with stuff to do.

Friday was O-day and that was a fun and a good time. But I already blogged about that. Saturday started out with Jason and I going out for a refresher dive. We are diving with Whale Sharks this coming Saturday and since Jason has not been diving in over a year, we thought it best to get our feet wet on a dive. We do after all want to enjoy the majesty of the great beasts not fumbling with our gear.

It is a good thing we went out too! Turns out my dive computers batter is on the way out the door. It didn't even want to tell me how much air I had for a while there. We managed to squeeze in that one dive and make it work, but we will be replacing the battery this week before the dive. As I have an air integrated dive computer, it is pretty much vital that the thing work, no diving without it.

We dove at Tengan Pier which is supposed to be a pretty unremarkable dive, and it was. I still wish we had brought the camera though. Mostly the bottom is varying shades of brown. Brown sand, brown coral and brown sea weed. But there are a few spots of amazing soft coral and some very unique fish out there. I think we might dive it a few more times some day just because we live 5 minutes from it and might get some really neat pictures.

After the one tank dive it was back to the house to wash up and change and get off to Foster. I needed to pick up the book club book for this month, Enders Game, and Jason was determined to mount the TV on our TV stand. So we grabbed lunch at Macaroni Grill, mostly because we were there and hungry, and then headed on into the BX to find Jason's stuff. That didn't take too long, though it was a bit difficult to determine what we needed as we are trying to mount the TV on the bars on the TV cabinet not the wall and thats all they sold at the BX.

Then it was off tot he library where it took hell and high water to get this months book kit. I mean really, either give me the books or don't. The woman had no idea how to check them out to me and had the communication skills of a gnat. I had no idea if they couldn't find them or just didn't want to give them to me for about 20 minutes of this fiasco. In the end she checked them out to me with a lot of hemming and hawing and being really unsure of life in general. Ridiculous considering we do this once a month...

Once that task was out of the way it was back home again for some cleaning for me and TV mounting for Jason. I didn't have too much time to clean because I was supposed to be off to a Scentsy Party with Crystal. Scentsy, long story short, is scented wax and light bulb heated warmers. I am not too into it, but I must say sometimes it is nice to "leave a candle burning" and not have to worry about Mao burning the house down. I am not quite sure how all those ladies spend so much money on stuff, I have two warmers and just buy wax when some one invites me or asks. The stuff is cheap, the warmers are not. Really, why would you need so many warmers? But any way.

That took a bit longer than expected and so by the time I got home it was bed time. And today, I need to get off to work! So the rest of the recap, later!

A Busy Weekend: Part 1

2010-07-19T07:04:00.000+09:00

O-Day

2010-07-16T21:22:00.001+09:00

Today was the Vet clinics Organizational day, basically a paid day to have fun with coworkers. We had a cookout at Torii Beach and I think most people had a pretty good time. It was good food and good people so you can't complain too much, and we got paid to do it.

I only wish I was more heat tolerant, today wooped me more than expected. I was only outside for two hours sitting in the chair under a pavilion and still it was a bit much. I some how got sun burned, how that happened I don't know since I was only in the sun for like 10 minutes, but I did.

I also ended up coming home, cleaning for a bit and then I passed out on the sofa. Dehydration is a bitch I tell ya. I thought I was doing okay with one bottle of water an hour and limiting my activity but I guess it was a bit much. Lots of fluids and some resting in the ac and I am doing much better.

Tomorrow should be super busy! Jason and I plan to try to hit the water for a refresher dive before our whale shark dive next weekend. We also need to pop by Foster to grab a mounting kit for the TV and I need to get the book club book for this month. After that if there is time I need to hit up a scentsy party with Crystal and then clean the house because Sunday is Thai Night for Supper Club.

Sunday should be equally as busy with house cleaning, cooking, supper club and doing my English lesson! It is a busy busy weekend for me I tell you, but it seems like an enjoyable one.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

A Success!

2010-07-14T20:04:00.001+09:00

Jason cooked dinner tonight and though it was a bit late to get on the table, it was tasty. He made inside out chicken cordon blue and a sweet tangy dressing for some mixed greens. Things might have gone more smoothly if we could get fresh chicken at the commissary, but I didn't want to make two trips to get stuff for dinner. So with a not so quick water thaw, things came out just fine. I think he almost enjoyed himself.

In other news I almost burned down the house today.

Yeap, I almost burned down the house, you read that right. This morning I was getting ready to go to work and finished the last of the ice tea. I had 20 minutes before I needed to go so I popped the kettle on the stove to make up a new batch of tea so it would have time to cool and could go in the fridge when I got home.

I then remembered I needed to take Alex in and get her lump looked at today. So I finished getting ready and headed right on out of the house. I spent a good 4.5 hours there and then came home. Just as I pulled up the street heading towards the house I remembered what I did.

In a panic I drove around the bend and found the top of the house unburned and was a little hearted. I hurriedly parked the car and burst into the house and breathed a huge sigh of relief as Mao gave a heartening Meow for me. The house did not smell of gas and the stove was off. But it looked like as if the kettle boiled over and thankfully it had not burned out the bottom of it. It mostly looks unscathed.

Then I proceeded, like a fool, to test the stove. House could have been filled with gas and here I am trying to light the damned thing. I then thought better of this idea and ate my lunch being grateful the house was still intact. After lunch there was a lot more playing with the stove and checking the gas. I assumed my pilot light was out but damned if I could figure out how to light the thing.

So I called the housing company and asked them to send someone, and they did. The polite Japanese man then walked outside to the back of the house and pushed the button to relight the pilot light. 30 seconds later, it was lit and fine. Had I been better at reading Japanese I am sure it has directions on the silly box. I need to work on my Japanese, I have been saying this for quite sometime now.

So this fiasco of course threw off my day and I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. I did get the kitchen clean though and that is something. Tomorrow is another day and I will just get it done then. But today, today I am grateful for a good dinner and the house still standing.

Putting My Foot Down

2010-07-13T21:45:00.001+09:00

Yesterday there was a bit of a mishap in the kitchen. My hands were covered in raw egg and buffalo and I realized I forgot to add the herbs. So I ask Jason to grab them and sprinkle them on so I could mix the meat. Dumping then happened and he looked at me with a "what did I do wrong expression" when I became concerned and realized he had no idea what he was doing.

Jason is a "foodie" in that he loves food, not good food or gourmet food, just food. He also has no idea how to cook food or how food is made in most cases. I found this depressing, discouraging and just plane wrong. If left to his own devices Jason would heat and eat everything and be okay with it.

So finally I am putting my foot down. He is going to -cook- dinner one night a week. No heat and eat, not Voilà or frozen lasagna. I may regret this, but he -will- learn to appreciate me cooking dinner and perhaps even learn how to cook a bit. Thursday is his night and so I will keep you posted on how that goes.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

A Perfect Sunday

2010-07-11T20:20:00.001+09:00

Today was an excellent day. I rode my bike as planned, I played some Lego Harry Potter, I got to catch up with Crystal and I even got some excellent food at the British Wine and Tea Shop. It doesn't get much better than that.

It was yet another relaxing day on the island spent running from one AC'ed placed to another trying to avoid the heat. The day was gorgeous when viewed behind panes of glass. The sky had the perfect amount of clouds and the ocean was crystal clear and varying shades of turquoise. It was a vividly beautiful day.

It really was a good day, and I am rebelling against writing my ESL lesson plan because I didn't want to spoil my day. But then that means I have that much work left tomorrow! Hopefully my happy Sunday carries me through the week.

The Shocking Truth

2010-07-09T18:04:00.001+09:00

So this morning Mao decided that 2:00am was the perfect time to sit on the other side of The Mat and start meowing. This continued until about 5:30am when Jason got up. I of course attempted to sleep and ignored her and had fitful dreams of owning a shock collar and shocking her when she does this. I was so motivated this morning that I even looked for one on the internet, in fact I still am.

The trouble is, Mao has responded so well to The Mat I can't believe I waited so long to get one. Over all she is almost a good kitty now and the behaviors seem to be going away. We are all becoming a lot happier. However, after finding that Mao responded so well with The Mat it really does make me wish I had a shock collar.

Go ahead and call me cruel or what ever, most people on the internet seem to think it is mean, and I used to be one of them. Until I met a cat that positive reinforcement did not work on. I have trained a LOT of troublesome dogs in my time and never once needed a shock collar or even a prong collar. No really, I trained some really special dogs, abused and neglected even. Love and treats, that is all it takes.

But none of them ever liked being yelled at, or swatted at more than love and treats. Mao loves a good game of chase me smack me and yell at me. She could care less about treats, love or even spray bottles and apple bitter. She is a masochist, the worse the punishment the more she misbehaves. The better the reward the more she doesn't care.

I thought I was at my wits end when I got The Mat and now I shake my head at taking so long to get it. In the end, she has had less correction by this method than anything else I have tried. It allows me to correct instantly and even when I am not looking. The shock isn't too bad but enough to make you not want to do that again.

So call me evil, but I am still searching for the kitty shock collar. If I can find one, a few quick zaps and I am pretty sure she will stop eating my plant and wait to talk to me until I get out of bed. Until then, let us hope this 2:00am serenade does not continue.

Adventures in Young Adult Reading

2010-07-06T17:01:00.003+09:00

I had thought that today was going to be a very bad day at work. It seems like we have been having a lot of those. We are of course still under staffed, it seems like we are always understaffed. I haven't seen us fully staffed in a long long time now. But then each supervisor I have had has a different idea of what fully staffed is, so perhaps to them we have been. If you ask me, understaffed.

In any case we were attempting to run more rooms than we had people to run them and that is a bit problematic generally speaking. It usually results in us being about an hour behind and feeling a bit frazzled. But somehow today wasn't that bad. I actually got out to lunch at about 12:20 which is really good for me, I normally get out at 12:45. So it was a pretty good morning, though I am unsure about how the afternoon went, as I get to go home, eat my lunch catch up on stuff and then take a nap and get ready for teaching.

It makes napping much easier when the morning is less harrowing, and today was a good day. So I got my nap in and I am feeling just super refreshed and ready to teach a lesson on... Summer! I'll even try to be positive and leave out how much I absolutely hate summer and its cursed weather.

I am a bit eager to see how the new book will be for my ESL class (it is on its way from Amazon). We are going to read "The 100 Year Old Secret" which is a young adult book that sort of goes along with Sherlock Holms. It might be a bit less depressing than the last book we read, but it also may be more of a challenge for my students.

Welcome 12-year-old Xena Holmes and her brother, Xander, Sherlock's great-great-great grandchildren, newly arrived in London from Florida. They are playing a favorite game, guessing people's occupation by appearance, in front of their hotel when a strange man delivers a note written in disappearing ink directing them to the Dancing Men Pub. There, through a set of tests, their famous relative is revealed to them, and they are given his "Unsolved Cases" notebook. Xena, intrigued by it, soon finds a case with modern relevance—a missing portrait by Nigel Batheson, whose other works are being displayed in a nearby gallery. The siblings are off and running through a plot laced with references to the original stories and using similar devices, including a red herring. The main characters are observant, bright, and gifted with powers of deduction. Watson's great-great-great grandson, Andrew, is integral to the plot. Some clues seem to be obvious, but they can lead to a wrong conclusion. A well-paced beginning to a new series.

However students aside it also might even be interesting for me to read. I never read a lot of youth fiction, I sort of went from kid books to Stephen King at an early age. I did read some Nancy Drew and the like but only because our very small library ran out of books for me to read. I much preferred Alexander Dumas' "Three Musketeers" unabridged than I ever did Judy Bloom's "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret". But as I have gotten older I occasionally pick up one of these youth novels and some of them are better now than they were then. Quick little beach reads that remind you what it is like to be young and what it was like back then. Though I still love Dumas who may be the author who inspired me to branch out of horror "read" more than any other author.

So this book is a more modern Young Adult book and will I am sure let me see how old I am. I am always surprised to discover new slang or phrases that "the cool kids" are using. It doesn't quite make me feel old, but it does make you realize your not in "that stage" in your life any more. Reading the horrid writing of Stephanie Mayer did remind me of how in high school boys and school were more important than anything else. Way more important than mortgages, taxes and marriages. Oh how life has changed. Hopefully my books will get here soon, I am eager to preread it.

But on the subject of teaching, it is time for me to be off! I need to change and get out the door, into the 106°F weather that is outside of my air conditioned house. ::sigh::

It's Not The Heat, It's The Humidity

2010-07-05T15:41:00.001+09:00

The first year I was on the island, I embraced it. The second year I was on the island I dealt with it. The third year I tolerated and. This year I am throwing a tantrum about it. I, just, can't, take, it, any more. I am sick and tired of the heat and humidity.

Today I thought it would be nice to bring the dog for a walk to Family Mart while we grabbed some lunch there. It is perhaps a 6 minute walk to the family mart and 10 minutes the long way back home. A total of about 15 minutes outside, the sun wasn't even out for about 10 minutes of that.

Yet I nearly died, even the dog, the dog who loves the warm sun, heat and craptastic weather was uncomfortably hot by the time we made it back to the house. However she handled it with a bit more grace and just laid down on the cool floor had some water and panted. I stripped down, sat directly in the AC's blowing cool air and sweat my ass off for the next 30 minutes while I tried to replace the water that was coming out of me faster than I could put it back.

I know this is going to bring a gasp to most peoples lips, but I am just about ready to go back to Omaha if nothing else. At least I can be outside there. Now I am sure by now my Mother is already getting ready to lecture and say that FL's heat wave makes it hotter there than it is here (of which we are now matching or beating them). I don't really care, if Floridians don't like it, they an move. Like I am ready to move.

I am just flat out done with the tropics. It is beautiful and awesome here. And I am ready to flee. But for now, for now I head off to go take a shower so I can try to look presentable at dinner tonight. Even though we will need to drive to dinner and I will melt in the car any way.

Happy 4th!

2010-07-04T20:17:00.000+09:00

Today was the 4th of July, in Japan in any case. Jason and I spent a quiet day at home having our own little mini BBQ with burgers, brats and grilled veggies. It wasn't thrilling but it was a nice relaxing day at home.

It is summer time her on Okinawa so there wasn't too much for me to do. Others were out enjoying the beach or the festival they had on base, but I am stuck inside. Scuba diving was an option but it was super windy and didn't seem like a great dive day so decided against that. But then sometimes it is nice to just relax at home, eat some food and relax with the pets.

It was so windy and so hot while we grilled once we were done the pets nearly melted (we even let Mao outside for a bit). We also barely got the grill started due to the high wind! I guess there are small disadvantages to living so close to the ocean, the price for having an ocean view.

Tomorrow is one more day off, one more day to enjoy relaxing at home and then back to work and the daily grind.

Friday Night

2010-07-03T00:38:00.001+09:00

"So Crystal, what did you do with your Friday night?"

"Oh I got sucked into editing my blog after dinner."

"The blog that not many people actually read on your blog so they won't actually see the changes?"

"Yeah, that one."

That about sums up my night. I went with Jason to Macaroni Grill at his request and had dinner. It seems they changed their portion sizes to much more reasonable and added some healthy options, however their prices did not reflect this. At least I did not have to roll out of the restaurant.

After that we came home and I tinkered with my blog. I found a fun cool new layout and immediately began making it mine. I like some of the new features blogger added but it can make web editing a bitch at times. The new layout is much more colorful and such, it is more Web 2.0 in appearence than the last one.

I also found some of my old stuff was defunct and needed tossing! So I took the opportunity to scale things down a bit in some places and add new features in others.

One of the new bits is the integration of Foursquare which I think I am going to commit myself to using. It shows where I am at when I am at places, not too fancy but it is something. Now if only I could find a way to force a push to make it post a blog...

Perhaps tomorrow. Tonight it is time for sleep, I haven't seen midnight in a long time!

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

Thunder and Lightning

2010-07-01T20:34:00.001+09:00

I don't really miss Florida very much, I never really liked it there. I miss friends and family there but of all the 50 states, Florida never really ranked very high with me.

To me, it is nothing but hot, sweaty and filled with Floridians which are sort of like southern Californians but without all of the yuppy hippy stuff that makes them tollerable in small doses. I don't even like beaches all that much and when I do, I want them to have rocks. There is nothing more boring than a white sand beach I tell you.

But one thing Florida does have are amazing thunderstorms. Some of the most beautiful and bowel shaking storms I have ever experienced were there. Nothing is more beautiful than watching the lightning dance across the sky and feeling the earth rumble deep in your bones. It is a full body experience, to witness a good storm. The sound that rolls over you, the light that flashes and leaves you in a purple haze wondering if you really saw it at all, feeling the deep bass in your chest, smelling the rains clean natural wetness.

Tonight Okinawa is having perhaps the biggest storm I have seen since I have been here. The lightning and thunder have been going for hours. The sky filling with light and the rain pouring down in torrents. The thunder can even be felt which is very rare for here where storms like this blow out in an hour or so and are generally not this "close".

It is a rare treat to be lulled to sleep by a storm of such glorious proportions.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

Blogging... On the Go?

2010-06-30T18:53:00.000+09:00

So this blog is coming from you live, from my bike. Thank goodness it is a Stationary. I am multi tasking, or well distracting myself from the boring biking and the movie "2012".

So Mao had another run in with the shock mat this morning and it still makes me laugh. I think she just forgot this morning, normally she avoids the mat and will stop dead if a toy gets on it. But I think sometimes she forgets.

The mat has however made Mao a much nicer kitty. She is friendlier and behaves more now, though I wish I had mini shock mats for my plant and jason's chair. She is still being good but the plant and chair are suffering. One step at a time though, first the biggest problems then the smaller.

Maybe with enough shocks, she can become a normal kitty some day. But I won't hold my breath.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

Stranger In A Strange Land

2010-06-29T17:13:00.001+09:00

Today I got to see an unfortunate situation, that defined the phrase "Stranger in a strange land" to me. I was driving home when I spotted a hapless American in a car wreck on the side of the road. He stopped me to ask if he could borrow my cell phone as he forgot his at home.

Realizing with out my help he was going to be stuck, I of course pulled over and let him use it. The guy ended up rear ended by a big Oki truck, no one was hurt and no serious damage was done. But in Japan your required to call the cops and can't even move your car until the cops arrive. I am actually pretty sure that the Okinawan just wanted to drive off and call it even, but that doesn't fly here. Somehow that always turn into an international incident.

SO on the island, if you get hit by a local national or vice versa, you always call the cops. Well, they usually call the Japanese cops, you call the American cops to make sure you don't get screwed, even though from what I hear, your gonna be a little screwed no matter what.

However even with my help it turned into a fiasco and a half to get an American cop to come out to the scene of the accident. Many calls were made, and we all sweated it out in the sun. So until the American cop and translator showed up a lot of nothing was happening other than the Japanese cop talking to the Japanese guy. They didn't speak English and we didn't speak much Japanese.

It is a bit of a situation to be in, your "in trouble with the law" but you have no idea what the law is doing or saying. I am glad that I have not been in an accident yet on Okinawa, or well, I was rear ended by an American going onto base but neither of us had damage so we just drove off. I would like yet much to get off this island without having gotten into an accident, but we shall see what the fates have in store for me. We still have 2 more years...

Cooking And Cleaning And Cooking And Cleaning

2010-06-26T22:39:00.001+09:00

So today was spent cooking and cleaning and cooking and cleaning, pretty much all day and tomorrow should be spent cooking and cleaning and eating.

Why all the effort? Supper club (still haven't found a cooler name) meets tomorrow for Mediterannean Night, well and I wanted to try my cherry tart before my cherries went bad. So the house needed a good deep clean and Supper Clubs impending meeting gave me an excuse to do just that. Unfortunately I had planned to do all that on Thursday and then when plans changed I did not get the chance. Friday was Joselyn's going away dinner at Yoshi Hachi and so that did not leave a lot of time eather. So the cleaning was done in earnest today.

There is still a bit left yet to do, but the bulk of it is done and I can get Jason to help me finish it off tomorrow. I should also have a bit of time while my pita bread is rising. It should take me almost 3 hours to make it at home, it seems tastyness takes time. I also plan to whip up some Mediterranean Spinach inbetween all that too, it should be an eventful morning.

Today's cooking adventures involved making a Cherry Custard Tart for starters. They have some great cherry recipes online as it seems they are in season in the US and Crystal had got me some one day and I became determined to try this recipe. So when a friend requested cherries, I picked myself up a bag too and began my quest to find a tart pan.

This can be harder than you might think in a country that doesn't really have ovens. I also have to find one that fits in my oven and this pretty much eliminates any on base ones. The recipe called for an 11 inch pan, and that just was not going to happen. But by a twist of fate I found two 8 inch pans on Thursday and it was tart time, except that I had no time!

Unfortunately by today some of my cherries had gone off, so instead of two tarts, there is only one. It seems coming all the way from the US and then being in my fridge for a week was hard on them. But the one I made came out good, the sweetness is in the crust and it is a nice mild tart, no sickly sweet here. It was quite nice.

Once that was done it was time to get cracking on stuff for Mediterranean Night! I whipped up some Cheese Foldovers but found them uninspiring. They need some good sausage or some such to take them from a bit bland to really good. Next up was a Mediterranean salsa (which has no spicey crap in it) which came out excellent! I actually enjoy that one and think I would make it again, it would go great on crostini too.

But with that cooking out of the way it is late and I have a lot more cooking left to do tomorrow.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

Adventures in Japan Land

2010-06-25T20:37:00.001+09:00

I danced with the devil and I seem to have won. Today Jason and I got down on some Fugu sashimi, better known as raw blowfish. It wasn't as cool as one might think, but almost. I did not die, and frankly, I rather liked it. Jason said "Meh" but I rather like sashimi, as opposed to sushi, and thought it was pretty good.

I didn't really notice the tingling your supposed to feel or anything like that, well, except for the wasabi. Hence the not as cool as one might think. The almost comes from the fact that I was eating blowfish (which only a limited number of people can prepare), in Japan, prepared by a world famous sushi chef (Yoshio Maekawa**), in his famous Okinawan Restaurant (Yoshi Hachi) and surrounded by some pretty awesome people.

I can now cross off 57. ~~Eat blowfish (and hopefully not die!)~~

**"Yoshi Hachi", located in Chatan. The restaurant is owned and run by Yoshio Maekawa, who became a celebrity in the California and New Orleans area, while working for 12 years in the United States. He introduced sushi to many Americans for the first time, including a list of celebrities. Prior to going to America, he spent much time in mainland Japan learning his skill. Since his return to Okinawa, he has appeared in many television shows and magazines, and his "Yoshi Hachi' restaurant is known throughout Okinawa.

Organize It!

2010-06-23T20:49:00.000+09:00

I have a Japanese kitchen, meaning it is small and has cabinets far beyond my reach or the reach of any normal human and no space for anything. I am not sure how Japanese cooks do it, do the vegetables chop themselves on some hidden surface I don't know about? They are usually rather open with a bar and a window or some such, but they quickly become cluttered and almost claustrophobic once you have everything put away or as away as you can get it when nothing is in reach and there isn't enough cabinetry.

They are some of the most impractical kitchens I have ever seen, especially as they are designed for short people, so why so many tall cabinets? I didn't just need a step stool for my kitchen, I needed a 3 foot tall step ladder. You should see me do my baking, I have to hop up and down, usually getting flour everywhere, to get stuff down. But any way.

Our Kitchen has very little space to store food. It is cluttered with microwaves and ovens and well, not much else but I also only have 3 feet of counter space. So with the power of the internet and the help of my father who sent them with The Mat I now have a very cheap and convenient spice rack! I thought it was a smashing idea when I saw them on the net. I am pretty sure someday they will break, they are just cheap plastic after all, but they were like $15.00 and store 54 spices in a completely customizable way. It even fits in my Japanese tiny kitchen, which I can barely do.

It is also very Jason friendly as you can see everything without having to move stuff. He is famous for that, things do not exist if something is in front of it. BBQ Sauce has been lost for months, tupperware might be lost for years with unknown food if we did not move so often. In any case I am tickled pink with my new storage solution and I now have a whole shelf to store edible food, well, as opposed to spices because I don't often make a dinner of ground ginger...

Mao and the Shock Mat

2010-06-23T19:50:00.001+09:00

I am fairly certain that after almost 2 years of owning Mao that she is a direct decedent of Kim Jong Ill and bat shit crazy. I thought Mao was going to be an appropriate name, but we did not go crazy enough. She would be the kind of world leader that would randomly launch missiles at her own people just to keep them on their toes.

Mao is also a bit of a masochist, she enjoys being yelled at, chased, beaten and tortured any pretty much any sort of way. She does not enjoy attention, love or affection except for about 5 minutes a day. Mao is a sweet and endearing cat for less than 30 minutes a day and for the rest of her 24 hours she is... a trial of my patience.

Because Mao is not a fan of affection and only mildly into treats, training her can be difficult. If I catch her in the act I can try to positively reinforce the behavior. But if I catch her being bad, there is almost nothing I can do that wont result in her immediate joy or her continuing the bad behavior because he likes it.

So how do I correct behaviors without being part of them? Step in Shock Mat.

The Mat came in yesterday and provided me with quite a bit of amusement. First there was Jason and myself trying to figure out how to make the Mat work. This involved playing Russian Roulette with the mat to test it and see if it was working as it should.

That thing has quite a shock might I add! I had thought that being run by a 9 volt battery it couldn't be too strong, but it can. It is enough to make you not want to touch the thing that is for sure. I almost feel bad for Mao, I almost wish there was a way to warn her.

But once it was set up Mao of course decided to try to head on into the bedroom and then we knew it was working. She touched the Mat, the tone went off and then she jumped and ran. This was followed by a lot of very angry cleaning.

Jason and I had planned to just block her from the dresser to stop the angry morning urination but then I realized she likes to wake up at 2:30 in the morning by walking all over us and meowing and occasionally peeing on me. Perhaps we should just teach her that she is not allowed in the bedroom at night? So we just placed it on the floor in front of the door.

With the Mat in place we closed the door and headed off to bed. Shortly after we herd the tone and Mao run off once more time. She seemed to have settled in for the night, we read for a bit and then turned out the lights and tried to head off to sleep. One more time, the tone sounded and this time the shock must have been pretty good because Mao ran like crazy this time.

She did not try again that night. I was "serenaded" at 2:00 by a cat perched just on the other side of the Mat but over all nothing too bad. It seems that round one only took 3 good shocks for her to learn.

But she is smart. She figured out that once Jason woke up and let the dog cross the mat, it was off. So I did still get to get up early, but not too early! She also has started assuming that if the bedroom door is open then the Mat is off and will dart inside. I am okay with this, she is allowed in, just not over night.

But there was no pee in the house anywhere but the toilet last night. The Mat has been a success for one night, now hopefully it will work again tonight. I feel bad shocking her, but it seems to be working. In some ways it is her own fault for being the way she is. At least she wasn't angry in the morning in any case!

More updates tomorrow...

The Value of Play

2010-06-23T18:30:00.001+09:00

There was an interesting article on NPR today (that I unfortunately cannot find on the net) about China's One Child Policy. It seems China is thinking about canceling the policy at some point (though I wonder if they really will) in the near future. But the article mentioned something that I thought was more interesting.

Because each Chinese family is trying to invest everything they can in their one child, their only investment in the future, many children spend almost all of their waking hours in classes. They practice English, calligraphy, math, piano, dance, you name it and they are busy working hard at becoming masters of it. Inside regular schools and extra schools and with tutors and at home these children are pushing their bodies and their minds to the limit.

However all that time spent learning means that these children are not playing. Per a mother in the interview and the reporters general consensus from other interviewees "play is not important". This is spoken by parents who spent most of their time playing as children because education was not pushed as hard during the Communist Revolution.

My gut reaction finds it hard to believe that parents could put so little value on play. Play is what teaches us to be creative, adapt to different situations and even how to socially interact. Making a child the smartest kid in the room isn't always enough to make them a fully functioning individual. There is more to success than just cramming a brain full of information and forced "talents".

I am pretty sure Bill Gates isn't really all that brilliant, sure he is smart, and has done well for himself but the man is no Einstein. I think most top doctors and CEOs or other such successful people are at lot less book smart than we think they are. Books and education can only get you so far, the other half of the equation is innate and social. Things that your born with or things you learn through play.

But can you really blame Chinese parents for pushing their children so fast and so far? What if not pushing them means they do not get the same job opportunities later? If you let them play, will they miss out on opportunities they cannot recreate later in life? Also if no one is valuing this creative drive, the skills developed in play, and business are hiring people based off their "brain power" or test scores then is play valuable?

I say that play is always valuable only because I think we all need to relax and enjoy our lives. Because I value a creative spirit and well rounded children. But in China letting your children "play" may end up getting them a job in a coal mine or some other distasteful job, which is dangerous and doesn't seem very enjoyable (unless your into that sort of thing).

So were I in the shoes of a lower class Chinese family, would I let my child play instead of push them to learn? Let them enjoy childhood or enjoy adult life as the current trend in China seems to be one or the other? I think I would take the middle ground and hope for the spark of a Bill Gates or Oprah. Push them to learn and cram their head full of knowledge but still ensure that there is time for play and socialization, activities just for fun.

Authentic Cooking?

2010-06-22T17:20:00.000+09:00

So I read an intereting piece today on The Kitchn about "What Makes a Recipe Authentic?" and it really got me thinking about that particular topic. What does make it authentic? Is it authentic Mexican if I leave out all the hot bits I do not like? Is it really Mom's recipe if I do it differently? This is something to think about as this weekends Supper Club is Mediterranean night and after all, what makes authentic Mediterranean cuisine?

This is a question that is interesting for me to think about as some one who cooks on the fly, who changes stuff and tastes stuff and makes it suit me each time I cook. If I am missing something I don't think I need I leave it out or replace it. If I don't like something in the recipe I change that too, replace blueberries with raspberries or chilies with garlic. Most recently in my Autumn Bread I added pumpkin pie spice instead of just cinnamon because I thought it would add more flavor and it did.

But then I got to thinking, is any recipe really authentic in the end? I am sure that my Grandmother did not think of her Chocolate cake recipe all by herself. Wouldn't she have had some idea about a basic chocolate cake some one else made and then made it her own? How old does a recipe have to be to be authentic Irish Stew? Ireland has been around for a while now, and making a lot of stew a lot of different ways. Who is to say that Italians did not ever make salsa back in the day but it just never caught on like in Spanish cooking?

Who am I do judge what is "authentic" and what is not? Who is any one to judge? I think in the end, with cooking, the only authentic you can get is that it is authentically your own! You have created this dish, in your oven or kitchen and in your own way. After all, all of the "authentic" cooking started out that way, built out of a need or what was on hand because a person was doing what they wanted or had to do. It was just a bunch of ingredients tossed together before it ever became something special.

Sometimes Good Things Come From Bad Books

2010-06-21T21:00:00.002+09:00

Today's book club was interesting, it turned out to be 4 ladies who all hated the book. We were reading "Traveling with Pomegranates" which is a terrible book that no one should have to read. As Sue put it, it was like the authors were constipated through the whole book.

I did get a few small positives from the book, for starters, reassurance that anyone can write a book, even if it sucks. Also I learned how to spell the word "pomegranate" which is no small feat for me to actually learn how to spell a word.

This learning how to spell the word and having to bring food to book club resulted in me finding an excellent recipe for a autum fruit bread. It does however have a lot of pumpkin in it and if there is one thing I don't need it is more fiber in my diet, I am learning this lesson the hard way.

But I got a good discussion and a good recipe out of this terrible book, was it worth the hours wasted reading the book... Sure. But for now, no more lessons, time to shower and scamper off to bed.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

Honor Thy Mother and Thy Father

2010-06-21T06:20:00.000+09:00

Today has been a Sunday of being a home body, and with good reason, today is Fathers day. On this tiny little island there are thousands of fathers who are all getting treated to something special today, each on their own way. Some will recieve ties or dinner with the family, others will get a reprieve from yard work or chores and others still will celebrate with a phone call home.

I remember with fondness all of the bad gifts we have ginen over the years to Mom and Dad for their respective holidays. The terrible breakfasts, the home made trinkets and shop projects, the early morning wake ups and "extra chores" we did on their special days.

There was something more magical about these days when I ws younger. I won't say they had the same feel as Christmas but it was a day that was always happy and problem free. Once I got older the magic of it all dissipated and morphed into respect. I don't think my parents are flawless any more, they are not Demi gods who can fix everything, they are people just like me.

But they are people who who have been places, done things and most of all, put up with me. They are people to be respected and loved, remembered and cherished. The magic may be gone but the love that I feel, the smile they bring to my face, will always be there. So here is to you Mom and Dad, always.

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos

-- Hmm seems this did not post here last night... SO I am posting it this monring

Looking Out Through The Glass

2010-06-19T18:15:00.001+09:00

Somehow summer came, I tried my best to prevent it, but it came any way. Today and yesterday the dehumidifier wasn't enough, I had to turn on the AC to keep the house cool. I have been looking over my shoulder, scared of summer. To be honest I don't know how I am going to make it through two more Okinawan summers. I am just 100% done with suffering through them.

It has been this feeling that is looming like a cloud of depression, the dreading of the summer heat. After 4 years I am beginning to loathe being trapped indoors. Having to plan my day around the sun and the heat. Having to slather on sun screen and hide like a vampire. Having to evaluate my clothes on if they can hide my sweat stains or not.

Small things like taking Alex to the beach have to be planned to perfection to prevent my unfortunate demise. Even driving to and from work in my AC impotent car can be detrimental to my health. Okinawa looks beautiful in the summer and I am stuck looking at it behind glass. The island turns into a semi effective prison for 6-8 months out of the year and I have grown weary of it.

I am not even looking forward to scuba season this year as that too has to be planned. A long reef walk in the sun does me in, the steps of Maeda have more than once taken me down a notch. No matter how much water I put into me, twice as much leaks out, not to mention what this does to my other medical problems. Just a few hours outside in the sun can leave me recovering for the next 24 hours or more.

It is frustrating, just incredibly frustrating. It isn't something I can just "tough out" either, or drink more water or any of the other million suggestions I get from people. I have tried it all, usually with disastrous results. I love Okinawa dearly for 4 months out of the year and then spend the rest of the time fighting to stay alive let alone looking respectable in public.

Others dream of the tropics as their personal dream getaway, but my tropical island has turned into a prison with oppressive heat as my guard.

Sleep Deprived

2010-06-16T21:08:00.001+09:00

I feel a little guilty, I did not blog yesterday and I feel compelled to blog today, but I am so sleepy I don't have high hopes of coherent post.

Jason's sleeping schedule has been crazy, he wakes a 2:30 and then 4:30 and keeps switching back and forth to this and that. But I have been trying to keep the same schedule, trying to go to sleep by 10:00 and wake up at 6:00 but this has not been working out for me very well.

I am just ending up sleep deprived and weary. I had so much to do today and only got it half done as I was falling asleep standing up at 2:30. I ended up giving in and taking a short nap, why keep fighting it? I am not a toddler, when I need sleep I sleep. So after a short nap I managed to get some stuff done around the house and even biked for an hour.

But yet again, it draws close to bed time. My eyes are dropping, my nap did not buy me much time it seems. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a bit more time for something meaningful but I don't know. I have cooking class tomorrow and a dinner theater with Crystal on Friday. What will happen will happen.

Back On The Wagon

2010-06-14T16:37:00.001+09:00

I had been doing my own thing and working on losing weight and then sure enough vacation came. Now if there was ever an excuse to skip out on your diet, it is vacation, especially vacation on the other side of the world. So I stopped watching what was going in my mouth and working out and that brings me to now.

By no means am I in bad shape, I am actually in the same place I was before vacation but that doesn't make me any thinner now does it? It seems it is back to another Monday now and time to start again. I am going to have to start inputting my calories and forcing myself back onto the bike almost everyday.

It isn't that I don't have the time, it is that I love food and find exercise incredibly boring. It is right up there with showering. If there was ever something I never had to do again it would be dishes, workout and then in last place showering. But it looks like today I am going to have to do all three.

But with that, it's time to hop on the bike before dinner and see if I can pedal my ass off, literally.

Can It Damn It!

2010-06-13T19:47:00.001+09:00

Again the striking contrast between living in the US and living in Japan was made apparent to me today. So if I were in the US all of the lovely summer fruits would be coming into stores now. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, melons the list goes on. But my shelves have only Fuji, Jonagold and Worin apples, red and white grapes and Kiwis. My fruit section in the Commissary is pathetic, it is only 1/3 of an isle and mostly with redundant stock.

I was so looking forward to summer hoping I might be able to make some preserves, but things are not looking great with what I have. I guess it will have to be citrus! It will also cost me a small fortune to make many of these preserves, so sadly a great many of them will be out of the question until I get home, or at least some where else.

It isn't that I am incredibly upset, a bit disappointed, but it just goes to show that after 4 years I still sometimes have American expectations. I think I have figured out why canning supplies are so hard to find off base though. I'll find something to experiment on though, something is going to get canned, preserved or concocted gosh darn it!

For The Love Of Cooking

2010-06-12T17:44:00.001+09:00

Today was another recipe added into my book and it was virtually painless.

I actually enjoy cooking, I do hate cleaning up after I cook but I enjoy the cooking part. It is a bit of magic, creating something wonderfully tasty from a bunch of random ingredients that don't taste very good on their own. I also realized I am not a recipe follower, I enjoy reading a recipe and modifying it to fit my tastes. I can look at the ingredients and generally figure out how it tastes before I whip it up and changed it before if I want to.

Today was an adventure in creating a Blueberry-Lemon Coffee Cake that was not only delicious but also low fat and low calorie. It was a good thing it was too, as we ate far more of it than we should have! But after a quick read and a taste half way through I realized it should be called Almond Blueberry Coffee Cake with a hint of lemon, even after you add twice as muck lemon as the recommend.

Jason was skeptical about how lemon and blueberries went together, but he has no idea of how things taste before he puts them in his mouth. For a man who loves food so much it is a bit ironic that he knows nothing about cooking it, eating it and has a far from sophisticated palate. But he too enjoyed breakfast as much as I.

I also must confess I love my KitchenAid Mixer, I could almost curl up with the thing as night for as easy as it makes whipping up something like coffee cake on a Saturday morning. Perhaps later int he week I will give a Cherry Custard Tart as it seems cherries have made it to Okinawa. It will be cheating on my shopping local but it might just be worth it.

But now, after I have stuffed my face, enjoyed the beach and then stuffed my face again, it is time to stop putting off the inevitable... dishes.

Backsliding?

2010-06-10T19:53:00.001+09:00

So Amazon has been my biggest weakness as of late. I am all about buying local foods and sustainable purchasing but yet as of late I feel like I have perhaps taken a step back. I have been racking up the Amazon purchases and shipping things to myself half way around the world.

I think a little of this stems from my recent frustration with what is available here on Okinawa. I cannot buy the outdoor ass sweat hiding clothes that I want, I cannot find shoes that fit my huge feet, I cannot even get adhesive backed paper, or the printer I wanted. There is a part of me that grew up in the US and wants some of the things that I can get with ease in the US.

It isn't that I miss home like so many other people. I don't miss good tea like a British friend, I don't miss comfort foods found in the US or anything of that nature. But I do miss being able to buy simple everyday things that I want locally like a normal person. Okinawans have a plethora of goods for sale here, but it seems it is never quite what I was looking for. They have glass pitchers, but the wrong sizes. They have outdoor clothes, but not the same quality or cut.

I grew up in the US and I have grown accustomed to having access to some of the things that I like without even thinking about it. I wasn't even able to find a decent spice rack, though I am sure that some exist here, something that would be so easy to find in the US. I was spoiled in the land of plenty with so many varieties of things to choose from.

I am not obsessed with consumerism, it is just when I want something so simple as a particular brand of shampoo I want to be able to find with the same degree of difficulty I did in the States, which is practically zero. I think it is all just a phase, a small rebellion for a time. I think after 4 years I am looking to do a little American shopping, even if I am on the other side of the globe. I don't think I am ready to go back to the US just yet, but I am ready to shop like one for a short time.

Am I Read For A Change?

2010-06-09T17:39:00.001+09:00

I have been contemplating if I am ready to leave Okinawa for some place new, something different. And I think I am.

Jason and I have been moving around for years now, we even move houses when we live in the same city, though not always by choice. It is deep set in my bones I think, the urge to move, even though I didn't start doing all this moving until I was 19. It is an over whelming compulsion, something uncontrollable that wells up from somewhere and finally busts forth in a flurry of purging and prepping for a move.

I have been in Okinawa for 4 years now, longer than I have lived any where else as an adult. I have grown to love this little island, the people are nice, the life style is good, the food is excellent and so much more. But as much as I love this place, a place I call home, I think I am approaching the time to leave it.

I have not grown weary of Okinawa, it still holds wonder and mystery for me. It still excites me to discover something new here, or meet new people. It saddens me that so many people I have met here have already left but each time some one leaves, it provides me with an opportunity to meet someone new, so that itself isn't even so bad.

But at the same time I think I am approaching a final stage here. I think Okinawa has given me most of what I can get from it (except my Japanese is still miserable). I have soaked up a culture and a people as much as I am perhaps able to, while living and working around a military base in any case. That isn't to say I am now "Okinawan", I don't think I want to be an Okinawan. But when people ask me where I come from, I respond Okinawa, Japan by habit and no longer a US state though I still firmly think of myself as an American.

Okinawa has become a home to me. It has had just as much of an impact on me as growing up in Connecticut, going to college in Florida and living in California. Each place you live changes you, and Okinawa has certainly changed me, more than other places I have been.

But I think in 2012 it will be time to leave, it will be time to find a new place that will change me yet again. I am just left with an almost inexplicable feeling that it is almost time to leave the nest again, take flight and find a new adventure.

Todays Headlines

2010-06-08T17:26:00.001+09:00

So today is going to be a quick one because today has just been plane odd.

If my life has a scrolling title bar today would be filled with headlines like:

How To Replace Rice Paper On A Soji Screen After A Cat Slices It

Todays Special: How To Guilt Your Friends Into Giving You A Ride To Work

Calm Day At Work?! Will The World Stop Spinning?!

Todays Headline: Car Wont Start One Day, Works Fine At The Shop? New Trend In Cars

Naps And How They Increase Productivity And Decrease Yawning, But Only If You Take Them

Jonas found something new to shred. Uneventful day at work that felt eerie in how quiet and like a normal place of business. After bumming a ride home from work from Crystal we stopped by the shop and guess what, car works like a charm. They have had no trouble starting it up and checked just about everything they could think of, what an awesome way to spend a whole Monday. I got home late and couldn't get my normal nap in and so now I am dragging ass a bit or well, I will be around 8:00 tonight.

So with that I am off to go teach, or well to drive almost an hour because Oki traffic is awesome and then go teach. Perhaps a better post tomorrow... I wanted to work on my writing but it seems these past two days were not the best day to start on that.

Today Is Clearly Monday

2010-06-07T13:35:00.001+09:00

Today started off with Jason getting up at 2:30 and heading off to work which is always lovely as it means I get up at 2:30 and then get to spend an hour or more trying to go back to sleep so I can get up at 6:00.

Then I also have the extra pets to deal with once I do get up. I am watching Ollie and Jonas for Dan and Kelly. We discovered that Jonas has virtually destroyed the door to the guest room last night. I don't know that I can even sand it, stain it and fix it without doing some major work. While Mao may make small scratches in the surface that I have repaired before on other doors, Jonas has literally carved out shreds of the door. I have little carved out wood curls on the floor!

So I don't know what to do with him now when we are gone during the day. Do I lose more of my door or do I untrain Mao and let her have access to his litter box? Or do I lock Mao in the bathroom and let Jonas have free range in the house which will surely result in angry Mao urination at some point.

So I get everyone in their place and I head out to work. My car wont start. The wipers are working, as is the radio and lights but the car wont start. Tries to, sounds like it just might start, but wont do it. Awesome.

So then I start looking for some one to give me a jump. I find Joselyn who is kind enough to come over and jump my car. This of course does not work. She drives me over to the service station at 8:00, but they don't open until 9:00 it seems. Lucky me, I can't do anything until 9:00.

So I go home and take the battery out. At 9:00 Crystal pops over to bring me to the gas station again, I bring the battery and ask them to check it. They say it is good. Guy even does it in front of me, the battery is good. Awesome.

Back home to call a tow truck. They don't answer their phones until 10:00. Once 10:00 rolls around they decide to answer and I get someone who's English is not great but I work through it. She seems astounded that I live off base, why after all would my car be off base? I try to give her the address and she explains that they do not have any maps. WTF? How can you be a tow company and not have a map? So I give her directions and phone numbers and car info.

Then she tells me they can't get me until tomorrow, "sometime in the morning". Oh and I need to be with my car when they come and get it, though why I don't know as she said I need to leave the keys in it. Perhaps I should not have explained it was at my house. I am pretty sure she doesn't think the driver can find my house (which is not too hard). She asks if I can meet them on Kadena instead and they can follow me to my car, I painfully explain my car is broken, how can I meet you on Kadena?

I call up the shop on Camp Courtney to say my car is coming, but it seems a work order can't be done over the phone, I need to stop in to fill out paperwork when my car is dropped off. What ever happened to a verbal agreement over the phone?

So this morning I have accomplished nothing and missed out on work. It looks like tomorrow will be much the same, except then I am waiting for a tow truck to come "sometime".

Oh yeah and did I mention I wont really be able to borrow Jason's car all week long as he will be having crazy unpredictable hours. No really, I am just super excited about that. None of this crap could have happened last week when things would have been much much easier to take care of.

And a P.S. to all that. They keep firing something off on Courtney that keeps booming and setting Ollie off which sets Alex off and it is just more awesomeness on this particular Monday. Is it over yet? I am done with today's big waste of time.

Almost Back In The Flow

2010-06-03T19:33:00.001+09:00

Things are finally getting back to normal, just in time for Jason to start working extra hours. I got to work, I get out, I am productive, Jason comes home, we get time together and then it is sleepy time. I am not one for the mundane tedium of each day, I do like variety but it is also nice to have a small bit of routine. I still need to get back to working out and a few other things but I'll get there next week.

My house is also a menagerie again as Jonas and Ollie are staying here. But as Kelly stopped potty training Jonas he has to be "kenneled" in the library with his litter box at night and when we are not home. Ollie also gets kenneled in his case at night and when we are not home to prevent him from peeing on bits. So it takes a bit more to get out the door and get up in the morning but it isn't too bad so far.

Otherwise I am looking forward to another weekend. Jason will be gone for half of it but that just means I might be able to spend a little lady time with Crystal. But as for tonight, it is time to put up the computer and veg out watching my movie.

Back to Normal

2010-06-01T16:33:00.001+09:00

I think starting back to work and getting things back to normal was no where near as excruciatingly painful as I thought it was going to be.

I thought today was going to be more like ripping off a band aid and trying not to cry in front of anyone when you do it. In reality it was more like picking at a healed over scab. Okay no really it wasn't too bad. I say that, but the day is not over yet, I still need to teach tonight.

I was mostly dreading going back into the clinic, I wont lie, I have harbored dreams in which I quit in some dramatic way on occasion. But after having a month off and not dealing with any of the negative aspects of the job, my first day back left me refreshed when others were dragging. As I had not been putting up with any of the normal stuff for a wonderful 30 days, none of it was old and tiresome yet.

I mean, it also helps that I work half days. That always helps. But really, not so bad. Not spectacularly awesome mind you, but not so bad. I am sure I will need to reevaluate and kick myself repeatedly in a few weeks, but so far so good.

As for teaching, todays nap was crap-tastic, I tried really hard with no luck (I know, I have such a tough life). I am pretty sure I am going to crash and burn right before or right after I start teaching. I am still up with the sun each morning, which I am okay with, but for a person who likes 7.5-8 hours of sleep, this means I go to bed early. On Tuesdays I don't get home until 10:00 or later depending on traffic and lights, and I have been going to bed at 9:00 each night.

So perhaps tonight I will not be quite so bright eyed and bushy tailed, but it should be an easy lesson. We are discussing movies so I should be able to keep myself from yawning too much as I will be too busy flapping my jaws to register the lack of oxygen to the brain.

But as today is my triumphant return to reality, I need to find something for dinner much earlier than normal. So I should get off to spend time with the pooch and get something in my belly before Round Two.

Work vs Vacation

2010-05-27T07:55:00.001+09:00

I want to start off by saying that I am a terrible house wife. It is a confession that no married woman ever wants to admit, it is a point of shame like eating cookies in bed and brushing the crumbs on your spouses side.

You see I have been on vacation for almost a month now and have nothing to show for it other than having a fantastic time. I have not cleaned out the spare room or the library, I haven't even kept current on the normal housework. I am the fat house wife sitting on the sofa eating Bon bons watching TV all day. I am three steps away from a mumu, some days I don't even get dressed.

Now when I work and I am busy the house stays somewhat clean, not spotless, but clean enough. Not when I am too busy mind you but normal busy, things go swimmingly. I am the picture of a domestic goddess holding down two jobs and keeping the house clean or well at least presentable and dinner on the table, even if it is occasionally take out.

But when I am presented with endless amounts of free time, I accomplish less than nothing. I do a lot of internet research, I get a lot of stuff done that doesn't really need to get done but I don't get anything I need or want to get done, done. I am incapable of working without at least a little bit of pressure.

I am also terrible at fooling myself into thinking I am under pressure. I can tell myself that I will accomplish this goal by the end of the day, but I know I will have tomorrow to do it. Jason gets away with setting his watch fast to get him out the door, I am just not able to lie to myself like that, I know I have ten extra minutes and will use each one of them.

So perhaps it is a good thing that I have to return to work on Tuesday, it will get me back to actually doing things. For now, back to accomplishing very little.

In other news Mao likes to play Godzilla with the legos, it is kind of sick. Sometimes she even tortures the lego men.

She Has Broken Me, Now I Will Break Her

2010-05-26T11:55:00.001+09:00

So we have been home for two days and Mao has already peed in the bedroom. It took her less than 48 hours to decide that peeing in that particular corner is just the best 2:30am game ever.

I had woken up at 1:30am starving and fully awake (Jet Lag. It is awesome.) so I decided to get myself up and out of bed for a bit, surf the net, have a snack and then try to go back to sleep. So Mao of course gets up and is all lovey and playing at being a good kitty as she also did yesterday. So I love her and all that and then she wanders off. Before too long I hear Jason in the bedroom flicking on lights going "was that pre-pee or post-pee" and of course I go to investigate.

Mao of course rockets out of the bedroom at somewhere around the speed of light, skids down the hall, smashes into the bar as a form of taking the corner and runs into the living room presumably to get a head start on Mao's favorite game "Crystal chases the cat screaming Bad Cat! at 2:30am". I of course move in for the sniff test, which always comes up positive. If you think Mao has peed, she has peed.

I have gotten pretty good at cleaning this up in about 5 minutes though, there is a bit of science to it. Grab any clothes that may have been on top of the dresser and toss them in the wash. Grab the Natures Miracle from next to the washing machine, wiggle out the dresser, spray everything down and then hunt down cat and contemplate killing her for the 7 millionth time.

Today was different, today was the last straw. I have tried vocal cues, I have tried positive reinforcement, I have tried after the fact punishment, I have tried avoidance techniques... I tried it all, or as much as I can try when she is misbehaving while I sleep... except the shock mat. I am not a big fan of shock collars and mats, I normally see it as a sign of failure on the part of the trainer. Positive reinforcement is far more effective, most say at least 10 times more effective than punishment or negative reinforcement. But I have come to the end and have reached an act of desperation.

Mao has bested me, I have lost the battle. With my tail tucked between my legs I am going to retreat to Amazon and then I am going to shock the hell out of her in order to win the war. I am going to come down to her level, play dirty. I have reached what I call the Truman breaking point, I am dropping the atomic bomb in order to save lives in the end. It is time to go nuclear.

Once the mess was cleaned up I did not even play Mao's favorite game of "chance the cat", I went straight to the computer and logged onto Amazon. It took me seconds to find a shock mat, put it in my cart and check out. Mao even came over to cuddle, which resulted in a swift swat followed by a "Bad Cat!". Clicking the final buttons on Amazon was a kin to hitting the big red button, entering the launch code and turning the key.

Irreversible things have been set in motion today, today is a day that will live in infamy. The day I broke down and started the dirty war... Mao... it is coming

The Ultimate Catan

2010-05-26T03:38:00.001+09:00

So I was up at 1:30am and starving, so I got out of bed for a bit to surf the net. I have been looking into making my own home made Catan board game set. I am waffling between two styles, one would prove more durable and the other just plane looks cool. One will have each tile be custom and the other will have more of a manufactured look. I am pretty sure I can replicate both of the styles, though they might be a bit time incentive.

This is the first board I am considering, it will be more "manufactured" and if I make it like they made theirs with silicone molds then the tiles should all look the same. I wont say that it will be easier to make though, I have never tried making molds and the like and I am sure there will be quite a bit of trial and error. This set would be more durable and possibly easier to store, though I might still be hitting up Dad to make me a custom box. I like the look of this set, it is well done though I think I would add depressions for the numbered tiles like they added for the water. This set might also be easier to make all the expansions for.

This set wowed me and I did quite a bit of research on model building after seeing it. It appears they used a lot of the landscaping materials used in making miniatures, which I had looked into before when I was working on my doll house. I am sure I can replicate this set but it would be more fragile, a custom box (perhaps made by Dad) would be required for storage. This set looks much cooler but would also be more expensive to make, though possibly more fun. I would make a few adjustment to this set, more room between tiles to places settlements and roads and make a place for the tiles like the above idea.

So for those of you that do play, let me know what your opinions are, which set do you think I should build? Like I said, I think I can recreate both, unfortunately I was born a copy cat artist, but I guess it is better than no gift at all. So send me your thoughts and opinions.

The Inhumanity of International Travel

2010-05-25T09:05:00.000+09:00

I have come to the conclusion that international travel is a form of inhumane torture that we pay exorbitant amounts of money for.

Travel begins with a being suddenly woken up from a deep sleep to an alarm set to ring long before any normal waking hour. It seems that all planes depart at incredibly stupid times like 4:00am or 11:30pm. These times might not be so bad if one did not have to arrive at the airport 2-3 hours prior to these flight times. Long before the days of homeland security we could have rolled out of bed at a slightly early 3:30, made our way to the airport and boarded the plane by 4:00. But now, you need to wake up at 1:00am just to make a 4:00am flight.

Bleary eyed you arrive at the airport and enter into what looks like a slaughter yard. You wind you way to the check in counter while looking for the captured bolt gun hidden behind the magical desk. You drag your luggage through the endless lines, frequently kicking it as your just too weary at such an hour to pick it up. Your then greeted brightly by someone with the understanding and humanity of a cow recently branded.

Check-in counter people are a rare breed of humans, they are either bright and chipper and incredibly stupid or whip smart and incredibly bitter. In any case, the triumph of reaching the counter is always short lived. You hand over your documents and the staff begins to hit somewhere around 1.7 million keys to check you in. I don't understand, what exactly are they typing? It all looks like long strings on nonsensical numbers and letters from my side of the counter.

The clerk will then make a series of frowning faces, confused looks and other inexplicable facial ticks and not tell you anything at all about what that little screen says. You get fidgety wondering if your $1200 plane ticket really even bought you a seat on the plane. How is that even possible? If I bought the ticket, I bought a seat right? Not in airline world, how is that even legal?

Finally they ask for your bags after printing out about 75 small bits of paper and tags. About 70 of those small bits of paper are almost immediately deposited into a small slot on the desk going to who knows where, perhaps Mumbai, I hear it is lovely. The bags are tagged and the clerk will make a small face when they heft your bag, well under the weight limit, and say something like "That is a heavy one". Then your off to phase two, strip search.

The reason you need to arrive 2 hours prior to your flight lies ahead and depending on your airport this will take 5 minutes or quite possibly 5 hours. You enter slaughter shoot number 2 and then start to undress. No shoes, belts, hats, buttons, metal fillings, jackets, or surgical pins. Please remove all items and place them in the bin.

None of this is explained to you in the US until you are at the actual Xray machine, no pictures, no signs, you are just supposed to know what is and is not allowed. Heaven forbid you have been out of the country or don't speak English. If they made a sign with pictures somewhere 2 miles back on the line they would not get to make that condescending face to you, and that, probably makes their day.

Empty the contents of your backpack into a series of bins, because some one might take out the plane with eye drops. Remove all electronic devices and place them in a bin your going to forget when you try to get dressed on the other end of the line. Naked and confused, walking on a floor that has not been cleaned since its installation you march towards the metal detector trying to maintain your dignity as your pants slide down to your ankles.

You bite your lip every time you pass through that magical doorway because there is a 50/50 chance, despite your nakedness that you will set off the alarm and they will pull you aside to further wand you and feel you up. Despite having 0 metal objects on your person you will also set off the wand but this will be completely disregarded. Then they shuffle you off to the end of the line where you are expected to redress and repack in 0.5 seconds and in 2 inches of space.

Then you wander down to where your plane will be, if your cavity violation went well you will arrive 2 hours early and kick yourself for arriving so early. If you departed a major US airport you will still need to run to the gate while still trying to get dressed and leaving behind very expensive unmarked electronics, despite having arrived 3 hours before your flight. LAX is famous for this, I think it is perhaps a point of pride, that or they get the pick at the end of the day of your "lost" electronics.

You have been insulted, poked, prodded and perhaps even made it to second base with a stranger, but you made it to the plane. You feel triumphant. That is until you actually get on board or realize that all food shops are on the other side of security.

The plane is like a cattle train car, your packed in very very carefully and discouraged from moving. Now they will tell you that you run the risk of horrible death from not moving for 12 hours, but then will constantly tell you to remain in your seat regardless of turbulence. They also make the seats as small as possible so no one can really get up with out trampling 7 other passengers any way.

If you get a window seat you get something to lean on, a small comfort for 12 hours but will have an almost 0% chance of being able to go to the bathroom for greater than 12 hours. If you get the isle seat you will be hit 300-500 pound by carts and trampled by anyone who is so bold as to try to use the bathroom. If you get the center seat, well your just fucked.

Nothing good comes from the center seat. You end up with no arm rests, no place to lean, no access to bathrooms, no perk at all. At times in the center seat you will actually hope for a loss in cabin pressure so that you can hang yourself with the oxygen mask and end it all. Better still, if your stuck in this wretched seat, you don't even get a discount for being stuck in it. You get to pay full price for the suckiest seat in the house.

So for more than 12 hours your stuck in a rigid upright position with a seat that fits no one, surrounded by sick people who have not showered in a great many hours, while they play movies you don't get to choose and never wanted to see. One of the "perks" of international travel is that they feed you on the plane, feed you things you would not feed your dog, let alone your worst enemy. This will result in you wanting to visit the bathroom more, which is not possible because you did not get the isle seat.

I am fairly certain that if we said we were going to force prisoners to sit in a chair that they could not sleep or move for 12 hours, force fed them unidentifiable food and denied them access to the bathroom it would be considered torture. Torture. It was seen as torture to place a hood over a prisoners face, take pictures of them and force them to walk around naked. Minus the hood, that is TSA security. It was considered inhumane to deny a prisoner sleep by denying them the ability to lay down and using bright lights to deny sleep, did I mention the Chinese lady left her reading light on for the whole flight, even when she was sleeping?

Yet I paid $1200 for my seat, the center seat. What option did I have? Why is there not more outrage at being treated like this. I would rather buy myself a kennel and sleep down with the dogs in the cargo hold. At least then I would be allotted a space big enough for me to stand up, turn around and lie down.

After making 3 trips home, I think I am done. People can come and visit me from now on. I have been tried in battle and have come home with PTSD, which I paid good money for mind you.

Shoot Me

2010-05-23T06:58:00.000+09:00

Okay so after spending 4 days at home and then 3 in Boston allong with attending an evening wedding last night and getting 4 hours of sleep... I feel like poop and the flights have not even started

I had a kick ass time, but I want to sleep forever now. I think a sleeping pill may be in my future on the international flight...

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Unnamed Rd,Boston,United States

This Is How The Other Half Lives

2010-05-15T13:48:00.000+09:00

Okay if I knew this was what business class felt like I would have been sending Jason off on more trips with fond farewells. Right now, I cannot reach the seat pocket in front of me, I have a rolling lumbar massage going, my legs are fully extended and resting comfortably on the full length adjustable leg rest. Did I mention tonights dinner menu has filet mignon!

I mean maybe in 9 hours and 41 minutes I will be over the novelty but right now... Wow. They gave me socks and an eye mask and lotion, tooth paste, soap a really sweet blanket...

We need jobs that make a lot more money... Or we need to win the lotto, I could get used to this.

...

So almost 7 hours in, I am tired of flying. I just want to be somewhere not plane. The legroom is awesome, the reclining is great but after 13 hours of travel I am just ready to not be traveling. So business class helps, helps a lot, but travel still sucks.

I watched "Extrodanary Measures", "Temple Grandin", "Brothers" and "It's Complicated"

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Somewhere Above The Ocean

Awesome

2010-05-14T15:42:00.001+09:00

I am sitting in the execuative airport lounge drinking free milk and eating free pastries waiting for my business class
international flight with 78% reclining seat. I guess there is one small perk of Jason being gone all the time to Nebraska. Though we did have to spend a lot of miles and pay a bit to get here. I'll let you know if it was worth it when we get there.

I am super excited and can't wait to get to the US. I don't even remeber Salem (parents have I been?) and when gram described her house I only vaguely remebred it. I mostly remember bits of home, mostly nice bits.

If only I could convince Jason to love it too. Maybe once we go back to the US e can make a trip in the fall and I can really sell him on it. Really winter up there isn't all that bad. Omaha traumatized him, I think we could make the case he has PTSD from there, man I don't want to go back...

But we still have hours left to go until we get to Boston and longer still until I see a bed. But for now, I will gloat, I am wearing a tee shirt and flip flops in the execuative louge!

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Osaka, Japan

I'm Coming Home

2010-05-04T21:30:00.000+09:00

That photo there is a possible wedding dress for our friends wedding. I know, the hat makes the outfit right? I was supposed to find formal cocktail and well, that is about as close as it gets. It is more church and cocktail, but it might be what I am stuck with. Seriously when did they stop selling a "little black dress" and when did flapper fashion come back in style? I have not seen so many potato sack dresses in all my life. Stupid AAFES.

In other news, I am getting terribly excited about going home. I have not been home since I was like 13 or so, something like that. A long ass time is what it is, a long ass time for a place that I loved. I still love the way New England looks and feels, the houses, the seasons, all of it. I miss the people, friendly but private. It is a place I keep trying to convince Jason we should move back to, but the whole "winter" bit seems to scare him. The best I am going to get is Washington in the Seattle region for "north" and that is because they don't really get snow.

But with the mad dash to see everyone I am beginning to realize how long it has really been since I have seen a lot of my family. I have caught a few at weddings for all over about 15-30 minutes each and some of them, not even that. I am forced to keep in touch "through the grape vine" in many cases. Those relatives who do not email or check blogs are forced to do the same with me.

I think it will be nice to catch up with a little more time with people. Though still not a lot. Just enough time it seems to get out all the new info in short sentences on both ends and then be off. Maybe in 2012 I can plan another trip home again. In hind sight I should have come out without Jason earlier, but the trip was so touch and go for so long when it came down to the last minute, I flat out forgot. We all know airlines have nonrefundable tickets these days too.

So for now, it will have to be a short trip home. Maybe if somehow September in Europe falls through I will go back home again, say hello to everyone for more than a dinner or a breakfast. We will see when we see. But for now I am going to try to press out the last details of the trip back to my first home, Okinawa being my second. It really makes me smile thinking about going back.

The Vacation Begins!

2010-05-03T21:07:00.000+09:00

Today was fantastic! It was the first day of my vacation and I slept in 30 minutes, spent time reading, spend time planning our vacation, spent time with the dog, went to the beach, ate at MOS Burger, checked out some iPhone apps and a lot of other small stuff. It was a fantastic relaxing day.

Tomorrow however I need to pay rent and look for souvenir for family. Perhaps more exciting but still awesome, because I am also off from teaching for Golden week! WooHoo!

Supper Club - Indian Night

2010-05-02T20:45:00.000+09:00

So let me start from the beginning. I started a supper club, not quite as pretentious as it sounds, but a bit more structured than your average pot luck. We pick a theme for the food, a day, a time and a type of dish to make. Everyone has to share their recipe and all that sort of stuff. One dish per two people, meet about once a month. You get the idea.

So tonights "theme" was Indian food, and it was a hit! The picture above is everything we made except for Crystal's mango ice cream, because clearly that should not go on the same plate. Kelly made Daal, Yuko made Palak Paneer, Chelsea made Chicken Curry, Dan made Tandoori chicken satays with Raita, I made Naan and Crystal Mango Ice Cream. It was an excellent set up with everyone making a very different dish and Crystal's dessert worked well to cleans the pallet of all the curry powder.

I made Naan which came out quite good and was silly easy to make. I even used my new Kitchenaid mixer! My god, bread is so easy now. But the recipe was simple and I cooked it on the grill/pizza stone. I cooked some of them on a pizza stone on the grill and some of them on just the grill, each had a different texture and taste. I think in the end I should have cooked one side on the pizza stone to get the chewiness and the other side on the grill to get the grilled flavor. I would also add more garlic next time, or maybe use garlic infused oil instead of the basil infused olive oil I used this time. Either way, tasty and easy.

Everyone else's dish was really good. Chelsea's curry was too spicy for me, but in the 30 seconds I could taste it, it was really good and garlicy. The guys tore the stuff up and then added even more hot sauce, some day they will burn off their taste buds I tell you. Yuko's Palak Paneer was a favorite of mine. It was mild yet very flavorful, the semi homemade cheese really sets it off too (who knew Japanese cottage cheese and American cottage cheese are very different).

Kelly's Daal was also really good and not something I would have thought I would have enjoyed. It has lots of lentils and just wouldn't be something I could see myself picking on a menu so I loved that she made it and "forced" me to try it. Dan's Tandoori chicken satays with Raita also came out excellent and would go well at any BBQ really. Finally Crystal's Mango Ice Cream really hit the spot after all that curry and mild heat. It was just the right amount of sweet and creamy and mango.

We also played a game of Foodie Fight which is good fun, but you better know a little bit about cooking to play. Unfortunately it doesn't have a lot of cards and so we have answered a lot of them before. But if nothing else it is slowly teaching us the things we did not already know.

The next supper club meets at the end of June and will be "Mediterranean" which is pretty broad but we did not want to narrow it too much as none of us knows much about that kind of cooking except Dan. We did say no distinctly French or Italian dishes though because we would like to do those categories at a later date. I have no idea what I am going to cook. I am in charge of a side dish of some sort. Thank god for the internet!

But Jason is to get up early tomorrow and so by default, despite me being off all this month, I too will be getting up early. Well, and the pets never let me sleep past 6:30 any way, I am going to shut this off and read in bed for a while. My belly is so full of Indian yumminess!

A Long Day "Off"

2010-04-29T19:47:00.000+09:00

Today was fairly unproductive, mostly because I volunteered to stay at work after two people called in sick. This involved borrowing pants that were a wee too small, a shirt that was way to big, socks that were too small and shoes that almost fit just right. But other than the odd assortment of clothing, it wasn't too bad. I still ducked out a wee early to make sure I got the errands done that I had planned to do on my "day off".

But it wasn't so bad staying on, I found out we have tomorrow off because we finished up last duty day stuff today. So tomorrow I should be able to clean most of the house, go get my toes done with Chelsea and then finish up my last bit of errands. So all in all it works out in the end.

In other news this Sunday is the first meeting of "Supper Club" for lack of a better name. We are all making Indian food for our first get together. I wanted to start a "supper club" to force me to cook new foods and try new things. It also helps that I will be surrounded by good friends also.

Normally I am pretty happy with impromptu dinner parties but this way we all get to cook something and I am not stuck cooking for 12! This also gives me a chance to cook different stuff and add to my recipe book. Hopefully it will be good fun, good food and good people. In any case I am looking forward to it.

But with that I don't have much else and I am sort of sleepy. I think I am going to sink into my movie and then totter off to bed. I can't wait for my day off tomorrow.

Boston!?

2010-04-27T17:22:00.001+09:00

It is looking like we might be going to Boston... but I am not going to celebrate and let the whole world know until tomorrow. Jason finally got word on leave and it was approved, however, we still have not purchased tickets. If prices have sky rocketed, and they might have as we are moving into last minute tickets here, we still might not go. Tomorrow Jason will be hitting up iAce travel on base to see how much ticket prices are and if we will be going. We will only be in MA/CT for 10 days, so with travel and a wedding, really only a week.

But if we are there, hopefully it will be just enough time to say hello to some of the relatives, show Jason some of CT/MA, watch a friend get married and catch up with friends at the wedding. If I can't sell him on New England this trip, then perhaps when we go back to Nebraska I can show him how lovely it is in in the fall. I love spring and fall up north. Though I still don't know that I will ever be able to sway him to live anywhere other than WA when retirement rolls around.

On a quick, light hearted note before I head off to teach. If I eat all of my favorite "fast foods" (real fast food makes me ill) in one day I am still eating well within my healthy range! I started the day with my Kashi cereal, had Amy's Macaroni and cheese for lunch and Amy's pesto tortellini for dinner (that was all that was in the fridge/freezer). That means I am at 1260 calories, 161 carbs, and 46 fat. I am a bit shy on the protein though, tisk tisk on my part. Close enough for me for today.

But with that I need to get out the door and off to teach

That's It!

2010-04-26T19:06:00.000+09:00

I am determined to get motivated and get my life back in order. Not to say that my life is in shambles or in anyway problematic. But I am going to get back to getting in shape and get organized. The new iPhone will lead the way.

First I found the application called Awesome Note which is not only visually stunning but darned useful. I can manage to-do lists, grocery shopping, my work schedule, holidays and so much more. I can view it in a lot of different ways and it is easy to check things off. It simplifies my getting shit done and steps up my Google Calender (though the only thing that would make me swoon even more would be integration with google calender).

So this helps me not forget the shit I should already not be forgetting. It is really good for long term stuff, stuff that doesn't need to be done right away. It is also hands down better than paper as I have my phone on me all the time and it keeps track of everything at the touch of a few buttons.

Then I found the application by Spark People which I am hoping will help me be less of a fat ass. It keeps track of everything I eat and it also keeps track of my exercise. So it totals out if I am eating in my proper calorie range and if I am working out as much as I should. It makes me think twice about how much I want to eat something when it shows me the calories I have eaten when I go to log a food.

Now the blogging app I have helps me blog on the fly but well, that is just sort of annoying, writing out full blog posts on the iPhone. It is handy to pop out short ones, but that is something I am just going to have to get into the habbit of doing all by myself again.

So today was the first day in what will hopefully be a more "productive" year. Cheers.

Warning, It's A Rambler

2010-04-22T20:31:00.001+09:00

Why the picture in the dark? Because Jason is softly snoring next to me. It seems they decided last minute he needs to go in tomorrow, stupid early. And of course he will be home, stupid late.

It would be nice to be able to plan things. Plan things like dinner even. Forget plans with friends. It is even hard to watch a movie when you need to be to bed by 7:30, well technically earlier than that if he wants a full nights rest. Okay, I'll stop ranting.

I find myself strangely unproductive as of late. I think this is because when Jason was gone I would come home from work, have some free time and then in the late afternoon evening work on cleaning the house etc. This doesn't work so well when now Jason comes home in the afternoon and evening and I want to spend time with him.

Believe it or not, some good has come of the iPhone. It is slowly helping me to organize stuff and make sure things get done etc. It is wicked easy to keep all the important stuff I need to do in my phone. Perhaps I need to star programming in a daily chore list too! Then I might take the Jason approach and not look at my phone.

The cat is still sleeping in the bathroom. She is doing fairly well at this but does not like it at all. She scratches at the door to get out for about 20 minutes after we lock her up. I took sympathy on her and now put her bed in there so she isn't sleeping on the tile. I am not going to try to let her out again until my natures miracle gets here (which I am starting to wonder if it ever will!). But I am sleeping better. It is nice to mostly get a full nights rest, that is, on the days Jason's alarm clock isn't going off at 2:30am.

I am rambling, this is a crappy post so I am going to end it here.

On Location

2010-04-20T18:28:00.000+09:00

So I am still not in the swing of things, as you can see I am blogging from A&W. I think it is perhaps harder to get back into the swing of things when Jason is never predictably home. I expected him gone today and he is home, I exected him home tomorrow (his birthday) and he won't be. Air force stop screwing up my plans!

In other news our possible vacation to Boston is still up on the air. We need to see how much time Jason can get off. It seems like it is on and then off evey 5 minutes. But I am getting uses to planning vacations we never get to take. I still have trips to Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam on the back burners. Along with the someday trip to China with Mel and the hopeful trip to Europe this September.

But things could be worse. Jason is at least home and while I don't see or talk to him everyday, it is still more than I did on his last deployment, so there is that.

In unrelated news I found a way to get myself a Kitchenaid mixer. I managed to track down the one I wanted on AAFES online and they are sending it. In the end I am not getting a deal on it like I would if I was in the states but nor am I getting screwed. Dad had offered to take one appart and send it to me but shipping would still have been bad. AAFES is shipping it to me for free and after finding a 10% off coupon it took it down to an almost competative price. I had reached yet another moment of frustration making my Samoas Bars, I could smell my motor burning, and I was only creaming butter and sugar! But now, when ever AAFES decides to send it to me, I will have a real mixer.

And with that I should review today's chapter for class. That and typing on this is mildly annoying after a length of time. Perhaps a better post tomorrow.

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Chatan Town,Japan

Run Away From The Tasty Foods, You Will Burn More Calories That Way

2010-04-19T14:31:00.001+09:00

Look at me all making a blog post. I need to get back into the habit, I feel weird not blogging, or as I like to think of it journaling, though I always call it blogging, even in my head.

So I had been hoping that Jason's return would help me lose weight, this it turns out was a complete and utter delusion. I knew that I would put on some weight once he got back, what with all the "holidays" and all, but I thought after that was over we could both go at it with gusto.

It turns out that it is very easy for Jason to lose wight, and eat pizza, which seems to be his new favorite food. That and deli subs which just aren't all that good. So basically Jason eats what he wants, runs a little extra and loses weight like crazy. I on the other hand, come down with plague, can't do much of anything, eat very little and still put on weight.

I thought that he would help to motivate me, I had these elaborate dreams of cooking healthy for the two of us. But 9 times out of ten, Jason wants junk food. I don't even like junk food. He eats like a man who has been living off of gas station food, grabbing a soda each time we go to the commissary and picking up wings on the way home.

If I so much as look at wings and don't walk an extra 2 miles that day I put on a pound. I am happy for his loss, I am depressed for my lack of loss. So I guess now that the plague is gone it will be time to get back into working out, now that I can breath again. It also looks like it will be back to cooking healthy for one and eating it while I watch Jason slurp down greasy food like it is going out of style.

I am also writing this while I am baking homemade Samoas Bars, so it isn't all Jason. But my occasional indulgences (of which I always share and make for with other people) are not the culprit. But there is no use complaining about it, time to get back into the groove of things and get back to being fit.

Not Quite Normal

2010-04-08T19:53:00.001+09:00

Yeah, things are still not quite back to normal. Jason went back to work for the first day today and I continued with my work week but we still have not fallen into a routine. It doesn't help that I am still on the cusp of sickness either. I feel okay for most of the day and then tend to sort of start to crash and burn around 3.

But things will sort out. Things are good, and I am enjoying myself however I would like to get things back to normal. I would also like to get over this pseudo-sickness! So the blogging will pick back up in time, just as soon as I figure out how to work it back into my life along with doing the dishes, swimming the dog and cooking dinner.

Step one, eat the rest of the leftovers in the fridge. Step two, get over sickness. Number two can go before number one. Then work on figuring out how to get back into a normal routine each day.

Yeah... perhaps crappiest post ever.

Return To Normal... With An Iphone

2010-04-06T18:26:00.000+09:00

So life is returning back to normal, slowly. I went back to work on Monday and Jason goes back on Thursday. So things are still a bit off in any case, but it makes for a nice transition. Having a week off was really nice. No where we had to be and lots of time to relax and laze about.

I am liking my iPhone, as you can see I am blogging from it, which is a bit slow for typing but not too bad. Mostly it is my fat fingers holding me back. But it is nice to be productive while I wait for my students. It also has some pretty cool apps that make my loge easier and easier to share.

The picture from today uses color splash which is pretty cool. I also have apps to learn Jaanese and organize which is nice. I am even looking for a French app so I can brush up. To think, my phone has more computing power than many of our old home computers.

Enough for now, I am going to read for a short bit before class, as I do still appreciate nondigital medial... though I do own an eReader so what is that saying?

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Chatan Town,Japan

The New iPhone

2010-04-03T21:46:00.000+09:00

Testing how this works... Now you will never escape me...

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Uruma City,Japan

Photo Op

2010-04-02T16:30:00.001+09:00

I am still not quite back into blogging. Soon enough, I start back to work on Monday, so normal life will return. But for now I wanted to share these two pictures and their story.

This was Jason's welcome home Cheesecake (While chocolate cheesecake with a milk chocolate Bailey's sauce) which came out quite good. I made the penguin out of polymer clay and though he came out super cute. I should have moved the stuff in the background, it would have made a great picture then.

This was Jason's first Christmas present. It came while he was in the car and had already read that it was "animal art" so he had an idea. Stupid customs. It was created by 3 penguins at the St Louis Zoo. It is not a reprint or a poster, those are genuine penguin foot prints, there is even a bit of poo in the corner, authentic penguin poo. We took them off to get framed today, but sadly it will take three weeks. More pictures will follow once we get them back.

Bubble Wrap... 20 Minute Buffer

2010-03-30T16:57:00.001+09:00

I am pretty sure Mao was put on this planet to test me, I think perhaps later in life I will come across difficult times and I will have been prepared by Mao. Other times, I just want to kill her.

Operation bubble wrap the house was a success for all of 20 minutes. She does not enjoy scratching bubble wrap. So she just removed it. Tap is no match for Mao. I even bubble wrapped the floor because she became wise to that trick in about 5 minutes. So now the dog is afraid to come and go in the room, but not the cat.

So last night after about 20 minutes she removed the tap and pushed the bubble wrap away and I put her in the shower room for the night because I can't handle the determined hours of scratching. I am pretty sure that if left to her own devices Mao would bore her way through the door in a matter of days. Either I will find something to deter her or she will learn to sleep in the shower room each night.

We did buy her a laser pointer and she loves that. I saw an automatic laser pointer online and purchased that too. Perhaps she is a bad cat due to a lack of stimulation. In any case, here goes another round of trials. The important part is that I will break her will, not the other way around. She is a cat and I will win. I. Will. Win.

I teach now

Bubble Wrap

2010-03-29T20:28:00.000+09:00

Not to much in the mood for blogging. I am more in the mood for a tweet, so expect a short one.

My door and surrounding walls are covered in bubble wrap. The door also has tin foil under the bubble wrap. Now why does my house look retarded? The cat. Most of the troubles in my life can be blamed on the cat. As Crystal so often reminds me, she gets more sleep and has an infant.

You see the cat is no longer allowed to sleep in the bedroom. This is because she pees in the bedroom between the hours of 1-3am. So she can't sleep with us any more. It is a punishment and a preventative. Mao however really wants me to get up at 3am. So between 1-3am Mao claws at the door. For hours. Hours. So in an effort to stop the clawing, bubble wrap. Mao does not like to claw bubble wrap.

Hopefully tonight I will get to sleep. Please oh please. I may have to kill her.

Ants In My Pants

2010-03-24T16:22:00.001+09:00

So I finished the cleaning, did the dishes, got a hair cut, went to the BX, went to the commissary, baked a cheesecake, worked on a Christmas present and... yeah now I still have like 4 more hours to go until I have to leave to go get Jason. Yet I feel like I have ants in my pants and should be doing something.

My cheese cake looks like it turned out quite well, though why they had me cook it in a 10 in pan I don't know. It is now a semi flat cheese cake, sitting at a whopping 1.5 inches high. Myself I prefer a nice tall cheese cake, a tower of cheese cake one might say. But taste has nothing to do with height.

Too bad I have no idea how it tastes! That will have to wait until tonight when Jason gets home. I have to wait for him to get home, have to wait for him for cheese cake. Really, so much waiting all in one day!

Tomorrow should be eventful though. I will get home super late tonight with Jason and probably go straight to bed. Then I get to roll out of bed early tomorrow to hit up work. Post work I get to rush home to meet Crystal and get off to cooking class. I would love for Jason to come but I don't know if he will be done with in-processing by noonish. So up to Nago-ish for cooking class and then back home lateish from that to spend a wee bit of time with the hubby before bed again.

I will hopefully get to see him Friday afternoon and all weekend though!

I am rambling. This is a crappy post. How about I just go sit down and watch a movie instead.

Almost... there...

2010-03-23T16:10:00.001+09:00

That right there is a horrible picture and it is soon to be followed by a horrible blog post. I don't think I have the energy to write a very good one today. Tomorrow should be a better one in any case.

So this morning I got a chance to chat with Jason finally and it seems he is located in Nebraska at the moment. Though I guess he will only be there for a few more hours now. In any case he should be returning tomorrow, though I have no idea on what flight, and hopefully getting here at 9:30 PM. This was of course a bright spot for me in the morning, finding out he is almost home. Jason has the worst flying luck ever though so it would not surprise me to find out he will not make it in on time tomorrow. Watch all this yellow sand from China prevent his flight from getting in.

In any case, almost home. Now if only he could stay here for a bit!

Other than the yellow haze surrounding the island creating a surreal yellow fog that prevents visibility and the temperatures slowly climbing, not much is going on. I have cleaned the house as good as it is going to be cleaned before Jason gets home and life is boring otherwise. I have been in debate about making him a cheese cake tomorrow as I asked for the day off to take care of a few last minute things before he gets home.

Ah, that is the other bit of news. So the guy on Amazon who was going to sell me my Kitchen Aid mixer said he wont ship to me at an APO address, even though when I bought the mixer it said it would ship to an APO address. So now I need to go through all the trouble of finding a mixer again, and someone who will ship it to me. Oh joy. I was so looking foreword to getting it too. This also probably means I will end up paying more for the thing too. Poopy. But somehow, the mixer, it is coming. I will find a way.

But other than that, I have nothing. It is hot and sticky and I feel a bit bla because of it. But the show must go on (now the song from Moulin Rouge will be stuck in my head) and I must get off to go teach.

Sometimes Renting Has Its Perks

2010-03-22T19:04:00.001+09:00

Do you know what the best thing about renting your home is? Apparently if the weeds start to grow up more than the owner is happy with, or they took sympathy on me because they know Jason is gone, they mow and weed your lawn for you.

This only reinforces my bad habits of not mowing the lawn. Though this time to be fair I was going to do it on my own. Okinawa goes through this odd period of time in the winter when everything just goes dormant and stops growing in full force. This also happens in deep summer when it gets too hot and rain stops briefly. Those two times of year aside, everything green on this island grows like Kudzo in Georgia.

So we just came out of that period of time and with the combination of sun, rain and warmth when things started sprouting up and growing like wildfire. So to be fair, it has only been growing for like 3 weeks. But in any case, in typical Japanese fashion my lawn is now a few millimeters high.

So woo hoo for not having to cook dinner because I had leftovers from yesterday, and woo hoo for not having to mow the lawn before Jason comes home. And one last woo hoo because the cat looks like a weird floppy kitty (no I did not kill her it's because we have her subcutaneous fluids and the extra fluids have migrated into her legs and shoulders) and so I have a source of amusement.

Okay, enough happy blogging from me. I need to vacuum and clean the bedroom and then the house is clean enough for Jason to come home and be neglected for a few weeks. I even almost finished all the dishes, there is only one drying rack load left for tomorrow! There had been a mountain of dishes from yesterday and I chunked through most of them today.

So a little more cleaning and then I call it a night.

Let The Reindeer Games Begin

2010-03-22T17:09:00.000+09:00

Today was a last resort, a final reaction. I took Mao into the vet.

I wanted to make sure that somehow Mao did not have a UTI and this is why she was acting up inappropriately at home by peeing in two particular places. It was her last chance, her last remote corner of hope. I was sort of crossing my fingers that out of left field it would turn out she had something wrong and that it would be easily fixed.

But you see knowing a bit about cat behavior, I already knew the probable results even before she vomited in the kennel on the way to the vet clinic. Mao was only urinating in two locations and only at one time throughout the day, between the hours of 3-5am. If she had had a raging UTI that caused the inappropriate elimination it should be sporadic, unpredictable and not always in the same locations.

So the cards were stacked against her and as of 11:30 this morning, the war is now on. I had her poked and prodded and tested and it all came up clear. She even tried to act all loving a cute while we did it all. That is the same act that convinced me to take her home, she is a conniving bitch in every way.

But all I could think, as I drove home was "let the reindeer games begin". Most people would have given up, would have learned to adapt to the cat, it just isn't worth the trouble. Not me. My stubborn streak goes deep and now it is time to take out the big guns.

A list of a few things on the table:
-Putting the rings back on the toilet for a short bit
-Locking her out of the bedroom and computer room each night
-Kenneling the cat every night like a dog
-Psychological drugs
-Trying to create a cat door that leads into an outside cage
and my last and final resort... having an indoor and outdoor cat as that is what she wants any way.

It is sort of sad that I know Mao wants to be an indoor/outdoor cat, she wants it deep into her bones and has wanted it ever since we brought her home. But I can't bear to let her do something that in the end might end up killing her. Not only with FIV or FeLV but she either freezes or runs like crazy when she sees cars. I am a firm believer that if she stays an indoor/outdoor cat that one day a car will be the end of her.

I am too stubborn to give up on her, and way to stubborn to let her win and give her a litter box (though I am no longer sure that would solve the problem). I. Will. Win. I feel like I am trying to cure a meth addict and I just can't give up. She will learn to be a civil cat. I am not asking for the kitty I thought I was bringing home, full of fuzzy affection and love. I am just asking for a cat that follows the simple rules of the house, pee where I tell you, don't claw the furniture and don't chew stuff up.

But now, now it is all on the table. Like a wild stallion I will break her spirit if I have to.

Being American, Japanese and Irish

2010-03-21T08:37:00.000+09:00

It has been 5 days since my last confession, er, I mean, blog. Normally I am a compulsive blogger, it is my own personal way of journaling. I don't write for other people, I write for myself. I do keep in mind other readers on occasion and leave something out, but when I write, it is a selfish thing.

In any case, I just have not felt like blogging for these past few days. I am not one who is prone to emotional swings, I tend to hover around neutral most of the time, but as of late I find myself a bit moody. Not going from fits of tears to giggling laughter but emotional for me, which is to say dips and rises around neutral.

I am not one to be very chatty when I am like this. If I am spitting with rage or depressed, then I am prone to write. When I am hovering in my neutral state, I blog like normal, it is part of my day. But in this shady grey area, I tend to withdraw a bit.

It is quite clear why I have so "moody" and it is about Jason's impending return. I am excited, but I don't want to get too excited because in the military getting excited often leads to disappointment. I will get excited when I see him get off the plane, for now my emotions will be wobbly.

Today is the Evans family -1 St Patric's Day. It is becoming a time honored tradition of moving holidays to days that are more convenient. Days when we can be with family and friends as often the actual traditionally celebrated day is impossible for us. I am looking forward to finally celebrating Christmas and Valentines day in the near future.

But today, today is St Patric's Day. A day that was celebrated in the US as a parade against oppression of Irish immigrants, when people wore blue, not green. But in my house we will just be celebrating Irish food more than anything else. Which is ironic as Ireland is not known for its food.

I was planning to make a lamb stew, but when I found I could only get lamb ribs or a whole leg of lamb (all frozen) I decided just to go with beef instead. Too much thawing and butchering. It reminds me that I live on the other side of the globe, in Japan. The US is celebrating strawberries and apples and other delicious fruits, not to mention the vegetables. I am still eating citrus like it is going out of style. Oranges, bananas and very expensive apples (and -never- a granny smith).

I can't say I miss home too much, but sometimes it is hard being raised in one culture and living in another. I have failed to renounce being American and I have failed to fully embrace Japanese culture. It makes for an odd perspective sometimes, living in between.

In the country of rice, I often crave a good sandwich. I want to serve turkey for Thanksgiving and lamb for St Patric's Day. But I love taco rice, sashimi, tatami mats and soji screens. There is so much to love about both countries and cultures, but I think I am beginning to understand some of the trials and tribulations of multi-ethnic families. I am no longer all American, but I will also never be Japanese.

But today, today I am Irish. We will celebrate with an Irish beef stew, Irish apple bread pudding and Colcannon Bake. Perhaps someone else will bring a few things Irish to add into the mix.

But with that, I should return to cleaning and cooking. Enough blogging, back to business.

The Joys of Pets And Cooking

2010-03-16T16:58:00.001+09:00

Oh my gosh. Sleepy. Just woke up from my Tuesday nap and my brain is a bit fuzzy. I don't know if a good blog post is really in store.

So today started at 3:00am. Alex wanted to go outside, probably because Mao got up. So I let her outside. Since I assumed Mao was still a bit miffed that she did not get any affection yesterday I was indulgent this morning. I do not want more pee. So at 3:00am I was up and petting the cat until she was happy and then she sneaked off to paw sucked for a bit. So at 3:30 I tried to go back to sleep. At 4:00, just after I had fallen asleep Alex wanted inside, up again to let the dog in.

4:30 Mao starts meowing and romping around the house in poo denial. She likes to work of romp around, ask for outside and make a fuss when it is poo time. There isn't too much you can do about it. 5:00am Alex wants outside again. Mao is still making cries of poo time and walking in a circle around the house. I get up and toss her in the bathroom and shut the door. She finally poos. I reward cat.

5:15 Mao is back out in the house again and now wants love, again. I give in, please no pee. 5:30 Alex wants back inside the house again because she has a 6th sense and knows when Mao is getting affection. I let her in, flop back in bed for 10 minutes and give up on getting the last 10 minutes of sleep and just get up. Yay for the 3:00am wake up today.

This means that my Tuesday nap was long and deep. Deeper and longer than expected. I woke up just before my watch alarm for a very good sleep. Now I need to shake my brain awake and get out of this muddled state.

That is the daily recap, now for the attempt at good blogging. Don't get your hopes up.

I want to get back into cooking. It is something I enjoy, sometimes others enjoy and I am pretty good at doing. Now I am not saying I am an awesome cook, I know that no top restaurant is going to hire me for my glorious creations, or any restaurant for that matter. But I can follow a recipe and occasionally wing it or modify it and make good food. Generally, things come out like they are supposed to come out.

I have moved away from cooking at home over the years because Jason and I are not home a lot, specifically not home at dinner time. Or if we are home, we have no idea what time we will be home at the same time so it becomes hard to plan. Neither one of us likes to eat at 8:00, we are the crotchety old people who get the early bird special, so we wait for no one to eat, including each other.

It also makes a big difference that we can afford to eat out whenever we want to. Some days it is just easier when we look across the room and realize we are both home and both hungry to go out to eat. This habit of eating out is further exacerbated by having a bachelor refrigerator. We are stocked on things like, milk, beer, cereal and condiments but that is about it. We lack most of the basics needed to actually cook very much.

So I bought the new Moleskine Passions Recipe Journal partly to store the recipes we learn from the British Wine and Tea Shop and partly as a goal to fill it full of recipes I have personally cooked. It is a small goal and I don't really have a date on its completion but it is something I am very aware of each time I heat up a hot dog.

I could store these recipes online, or print them out etc but then I sort of have a limitless goal. This is a book with tabbed sections and it means I need to try deserts and appetizers and all sorts of things. It reminds me of each section to fill out when I get a recipe from the BWTS. It forces me to work in the confines of the book and make standard recipes and write out all the directions. It even forces me to write out servings and rate the recipe.

It is ironic that we read Julie and Julia recently as she had a sort of similar goal. The book was shit, but she had an interesting idea and ran with it. Good for her, bad for a novel. My goal is not to work with any one cook book, but to sort of make my own cook book. My own list of triumphs and failure, good recipes and not so good ones.

Yesterday I got to add two recipes to the desert section, "Pastry Cream/Custard" and "Desert Crepes" and it was with a bit of satisfaction. I would make both again and perhaps I will soon, or perhaps it will be a while. The important part is I tried the recipe and put it in the book.

I don't expect this to fill up over night. I expect to eat out still. I expect to make crap dinners on occasion. But I do hope to try a new recipe once a week or so and make something and jot it down in the book. I will get back into cooking and hopefully love it all over again.

Now the Crappy Recap

2010-03-15T20:33:00.001+09:00

So now that I wrote a decent blog post, here comes the crappy one! Today started off rough. It seems it is daylight savings time back in the US, I know this because my clock set its self an hour back. So lucky me got to get up an hour early this morning. So after I left Alex out to go to the bathroom I tried my hardest to snatch an hour more of sleep.

I like my sleep, it is a vital part of my day. It is as important as water to me and I get grumpy without. These past 4 or 5 days I have not been getting my daily dose. So todays rough awakening and figuring out what happened started me off on the wrong foot. Of course one has to wake up quite a bit to figure out it is the wrong time, to accurately asses that it is the wrong time and indeed you should be sleeping. So I of course did not get back to sleep.

This was a hopeless cause not only because I had to wake up too much but because Mao was up an in force. Meowing and being the general pain in the ass Mao is every morning. I of course stubbornly decided I wanted to try to sleep still. She decided to make sure I got up by peeing on the floor.

So I leap out of bed, chase her around the house, catch her, mop the floor with the cat, put her in the shower, clean the mess, hate the cat, yell at the cat through the door and then go about my normal morning. I debated leaving her in there until I got home for lunch, it would deny her her breakfast, but I voted against that. I let her out before I left with a lot of shouting "bad cat" while trying to reassure the dog that I still love her.

Work was actually not that bad! I was a bit worried about our first day in the new building but we all held down the fort and things went okay. It was not problem free and we did have snafoos and mishaps, but things could have been worse. I am still more concerned about the day we go fully operational with surgeries and vaccines than I am for this phase in with two weeks of vaccines. We shall cross that bridge when we come to it.

I even got my canning books in the mail today. None of my jars and like like, but the books. So now I can do my homework and decide what recipes I might be able to make when the time comes. I don't have access to some of the fruits they have in there, or they are too expensive for me to purchase 6 pounds of them. But I am excited non the less. I am determined to get back into cooking (which I still need to blog about) and I am well on my way.

But it is almost book club time and that summary about brings me to the end of this crappy part II post leaving you at the cooking fest and its aftermath. Perhaps tomorrow I will post a meaningful post about my getting back into cooking. We shall see, don't hold your breath though as it is teaching day.

I am French, So I Cook French Honw Honw Honw

2010-03-15T16:49:00.000+09:00

Today my monthly book club meets and we are discussing Julie and Julia which I have chatted about before. Don't bother reading it.

In any case I wanted to cook something French for the book club and wanted to cook something that would "keep well" as I did not have a lot of time to cook today. So I went with Crepes filled with pastry custard and topped with caramelized bananas. I mean, crepes are incredibly French, even the name smack of France and Persians drinking wine and eating cheese. Creams and custards, definitely French. Caramelized bananas... not too French but Crystal thought it would be better than fresh ones. I will have some of both.

So yesterday I whipped up some crepes and stuck them in the fridge, because crepes keep well. That is why they make decent street food, fast, easy, cheap and they keep well. I don't know what more you could ask for in a street food. Oh yeah, did I mention they can travel well, it is like eating the wrapper. In any case, no one wants to eat just crepes, especially desert crepes which tend to be a bit eggy if you ask me. If you want savory ones they tend to have less of an egg taste but to each his own. I made "desert crepes" and they are a bit eggy.

Note the shattered glass in that picture. But I blogged about that yesterday.

Today I needed to make the pasty cream or, as I changed the name of it, pasty custard. I call it a pasty custard because it looks and tastes more like a custard to me than a "cream". If one has a scale of heavy custard to light almost tasteless cream this recipe fall more on the custard side. In any case it was easy to make and tasty. I added some pumpkin pie spice to add some zing and make it more than plain custard. Pumpkin pie spice is the wizard of spice mixes, that stuff makes anything taste good. I mean it has all the good bits you use to flavor apple pie, pumpkin pie and well just about everything. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice, all you need is vanilla and you have automatic tasty desert.

In any case it did not take too much time to whip up the custard and set it to chill in the refrigerator. With that done it was onto the bananas.

The bananas were a HUGE disappointment. You would think the easiest thing would come out the best but no. I followed someones recipe online that was just bananas, sugar, butter, spices and vanilla but the butter did not combine well with the sugar because they had me do it after sauteing the bananas in the butter. Combining the sugar with the now softening bananas did not go well and there was way to much butter. I ended up trying to siphon off the excess butter and salvage the bananas. They are okay, I am mostly unimpressed.

I should have just used my bananas foster recipe without the booze and it would have been better. Sometimes you know more than the internet. I need to come to terms with that. Perhaps some of my recipes are better than theirs. In any case, I have disappointing bananas to top off my crepes, or fresh ones.

But once the cooking was done I was left with the aftermath. I was left with pots and pans and bowls and dishes galore. All with out the smug satisfaction of a dishwasher. So with everything cooling in the fridge I ended my afternoon doing a lot of sticky dishes (that is how you know your cooking healthy!). I still have two more pots to wash and a few more utensils but I did as much as fits on the drying rack and that is where I stopped.

I know you can dry dishes by hand but since I hate doing them I always find that one full dish rack is a good stopping point. After all, this two day cooking fest made me violate my dishes once a week rule and that rather upsets me. Can I say I don't like doing them because I don't want dish pan hands? Wasn't that what all those soap ads were for when I was younger?

In any case I decided I need Jason to come home so he can start taking fantastical pictures of my food. My photos today were all taken in a hurry and while trying not to get goo all over my camera. I love food pictures but it is hard to take then when you are the chef. So he better hurry home so he can photograph my food, and perhaps if he makes it look tasty, I will even let him eat it.

Goodbyes and Glass Explosions

2010-03-14T19:26:00.001+09:00

This morning started off with a farewell breakfast for Doc C. It was nice to get everyone together like that and chat. I wish we did more things like that as a clinic, just sit back, chat and vent. But it was also a farewell for Doc C and it was nice to see him again before he goes. He will be deeply missed in the clinic. I have already missed him and he isn't even off the island. A bright spot of sunshine each day will soon be winking out.

After breakfast it was time to come home and snatch a bit of weekend. I played some video games to just relax for a bit and put off chores for a while. Once it was chore time Brandi called and it was great to catch up with her for while and put off chores even more. I miss having her around. The three amigos, not disbanded but operating far across the planet.

Once the conversation with Brandi was finished up it was time to get off to the Commissary. I hate going to the commissary on the weekends. It is filled with people who have no idea what they are doing. They don't seem to know what they want to buy, they don't seem to know they are standing in the middle of the isle blocking all traffic, and most of all they don't know how to use self check out. I almost offered to check the two people out standing in front of me as they just couldn't seem to figure it all out. If you can't figure it out, don't use it.

But I needed to go to the Commissary because tomorrow is book club. As it is the sort of book club where you eat stuff pertaining to the book I needed to make something. And something French, as we read Julie and Julia this month which is all about a womans quest to cook all of the recipes in Julie Child's The Joys of French Cooking. The book itself is crap, it is an over glorified semi crappy blog in print form. But the concept is interesting.

It comes at a time when I want to get back into cooking. I love to cook but so rarely do. Jason is often not home, I hate doing dishes etc. It all leads up to me not doing a lot of cooking but I want to get back to it. I miss the dinner parties and sharing of food. But I digress, that is all for another blog.

So today I decided that I would make Crepes for book club. I remember eating them growing up and it has been a long time. It is also surprisingly easy to make crepes. Everyone thinks it will be so hard, but with a well greased pan, no trouble at all. So picked up the stuff to make crepes and pastry cream along with some bananas. Had I been able to find chocolate sauce I would have, but it was too much hassle.

So I started off with the crepe making and all was going well. Right up until it came time to melt the butter. Now if any one remembers the red velvet incident they will remember the sparking and the trying to burn the house down. Well today, it happened again. It seems I am no longer able to melt butter in the microwave.

So in my brilliance I decided to put it in a pyrex measuring cup and hold it over the stove. All I needed to do was melt it after all. So on goes the gas and I hold it over the stove. Just as the edge starts to get melty, the glass burst. Not shatters, bursts. So much for pyrex. Apparently this is not laboratory grade, and I find that disappointing, it was not even in the flame.

So I scoop up the chunk of butter and trash it. I leave the glass on the stove to cool and put new butter into a fry pan to melt it that way. It does double duty and greases my pan for my crepes. Everything goes swimmingly after that, though I still have a lot fo glass to get out of my stove now that it is all cool. I also am quite sure I have a few glass splinters in my feet but they are tolerable right now.

Blood, sweat and mock tears all in the name of crepes.

I had to put off the pasty cream for tomorrow as I felt getting my lesson plan done for Tuesday was more important as I have book club tomorrow and wont be able to work on it for long. So I worked on my lesson plan of prefixes and suffixes, which is incredibly boring. It is pretty much finished now, so I am writing this post.

Which is disjointed and crappy, someday I will work on my writing. But I am always trying to multi task when I write. I have the TV on, or I am getting ready to do something. It is always such a quick and hurried thing, blogging. Get it all down before my brain slowly melts the memories away like butter in the pan. This is why I am a blogger and not a writer and know my place unlike Mrs Julie.

But perhaps I should add that to the list:
1. Work on being greener
2. Work on cooking more
3. Work on better blogging

But none of that is today. Today is showering followed by printing out my lesson and then sleeping.

Oh yeah, see I forgot to even mention Mao. She peed on the floor. I scrubbed the floor with her. I put her in the shower. I cleaned up the mess. I hated the cat. I later let her out, she smelled of pee and so I did not let her sit with me. I hated the cat. She has not yet earned my forgiveness again yet. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for Mao.

Ho-Hum Lazy

2010-03-13T17:29:00.001+09:00

Some Lessons from Today:
1. The pets will get up at 4:30 regardless of what day it is.
2. Removing doors is a lot easier when the military out it up poorly to begin with.
3. Never go to the BX on a Saturday after Tax returns have come in. Ever.
4. The tide will always be going out when it is beach time.
5. Pancakes are always good, but never good for you.
6. Alex still hates other dogs, especially when they are interested in her toy.
7. Flappy and humans are Alex's only friends.
8. Today is only Saturday, I have a whole other day of weekend.
9. The BX will always be sold out of the one thing you need.
10. On an uneventful Saturday it is hard to come up with 10 lessons learned.

Yeah so the recap on today: Removed doors with Souder at the old clinic. Stopped by the BX to get tupperware, which they did not have. Grabbed a breakfast of yumminess at 50's cafe at noonish on the way home. Came home and goofed off for an hour because I wanted to. Took Alex to the beach. Did the laundry. Installed a shelf in the bathroom. Dried off the dog and out the cat on her leash for a bit. Cleaned half assedly. Cooked and ate Edamame. Peeled and ate and orange. Ate a Tuna kit.

Brings me to now. Like I said, uneventful. I keep thinking about cleaning out the kitchen Misc. drawer so I can decide what tools I need and what tools I want to get rid of, but I don't really want to. I am trying to avoid doing it. I could also work off some of lunch on the Gazelle but I am trying to avoid that too. I mostly want to just sit on the sofa and be lazy. I have stuff to do, but I really want to be lazy. We shall see as the night goes on.

Yeah, back to lazy time for a bit. Hopefully more productivity later.

The Daily Routine And Its Impending Undoing

2010-03-12T07:43:00.001+09:00

That is me still in my PJ's as 7:20am when I should be going to work. But all this week I have had an extra hour in the morning because we have been coming into work at 9:00 instead of the normal 8:00. It is nice. Mostly it is nice because I get up at 6:00am any way and thus find myself with more free time to get stuff done.

On a normal morning I get up once at 3:30-4:30 when Mao has woken Alex up and she wants to go outside. She stays out there for an hour or so and then cries to come back in when I wake up the second time at about 5:00-5:30 and pretend to sleep briefly or if Mao is being a royal plain in the ass (it has been too cold this week for that) just get up and screw the last 30-60 minutes of sleep.

I get up and turn on the computer as I walk by. Fill my bottle with water and grab two Q tips and head back to the computer. By now the internet is up and running and as I refresh my pages to get todays goodies I clean my ears. Then I check my mail. This if followed by checking Facebook and playing my 2 Facebook games. Sometime between game 1 and game 2 I get up and grab my bowl of cereal and eat my breakfast while I play game number 2.

Once that is all done, on a normal day, it is almost time to put in my contacts (so my hands are clean), feed the fish, pill the dog and get into my scrubs. This would be followed by applying deodorant, brushing my teeth and brushing my hair while I watch the fish eat breakfast. On with the shoes, grab my bag and sun glasses and off I go.

But now, now I have a whole hour after Game number 2 to do what ever I please. It is glorious. I can do the laundry, type up a blog post, surf the net, play with the dog, pet the cat, all sorts of fun free time stuff. Finding extra time is right up there with finding money in your pocket.

This well choreographed routine is however about to be interrupted. Not by the return to a normal work time, that is no big deal, but by Jason. He should be returning in a week and a handful of days and that thought makes me smile. One would think that military life style would breed routines, but not in this house. He is home he is gone, he is flying he is not. It is often very play it by ear. Sometimes we share meals, sometimes we don't. Some weekends he is home, some he is not.

But I think we have made it like this for 7 years, we will do okay. I think we will both find our stride again in the few weeks after he comes back. He leaves his stuff everywhere and I don't do dishes, we will learn to cope. Usually he does the dishes because they are too stinky and I put his stuff away because it is in the way. The randomness of his being home and his random at times job will create its own routine that looks random, however from chaos comes order and it will all be right in the end.

I am excited for his return. I am excited for Christmas. I am excited for a great many things rushing up at the end of this month.

Boring Is An Understatement

2010-03-11T20:52:00.001+09:00

It is going to be a crappy post. I can feel it. It is late and I sort of don't really want to write this but, somethings you just have to be determined to do. It is for posterities sake? I don't know, I feel odd when I don't post. Okay, moving on.

So the clinic is shaping up! I am not excited about working in the new clinic, I think the set up is going to suck, but sometimes you just have to make the best of what you have. I don't think I am a negative Nancy about it, but I am far from optimistic. We will see how it goes. But the unpacking is moving along and we should be as up and running as we need to be for Monday, though I am sure some stuff will still be left for next week.

Post work it was time to play 1 hour of video games with lunch and then the cleaning started. The dishes were stinky and needed washing so I got to scrubbing. Then cleaning up the pet hair, then washing the floor and then I tackled the tupperware situation.

Tupperware on the right is missing the top or the bottom and so is getting tossed. Tupperware on the left has matching bits and is going to stick around for now. I still think I am going to get a Rubbermaid set, they do have an interchangeable locking lid that is BPA free though people say it is not as good as the one with BPA. Maybe I need a little bit of an estrogen like chemical in my diet? I'll think on it some more since the tupperware is the BX and I hate going there.

Then there was more vacuuming and other incredibly boring stuff. This was followed by a microwave dinner and then hitting up Makeman with Crystal, which for once I did not need anything! I mean, how often am I working on something around the house, and this time I am not working on anything. So I went with Crystal and it was mostly uneventful.

Then I came home, worked out and that brings me to now, writing a blog that is really lame last minute. I don't think there is anything of substance in this post. I blogged about Tupperware and cleaning. So I am gonna end it here. Yeah.

Don't Put Away The Winter Blankets

2010-03-10T07:35:00.000+09:00

Last night was a night to toss on the "winter blanket". I have three layers here for Okinawa for the bedroom. First a sheet, second a thin blanket and finally a small down throw blanket. When it is cold, I use all three and as summer approaches I start to peel them off until I am sleeping with just a sheet (utilities are expensive here!). I had been waffling back and forth between the sheet and blanket depending on the day at night, but last night was a winter blanket night and it was glorious. I got to get all snuggly with a surprise day of cold, which for me is wonderful. Summer sort of depresses me, well and literally oppresses me.

Why the AM blog? Well the pets get up around 4:00am so I usually half sleepily take care of them at this time and try to go back to sleep until 6:00 but this doesn't really work that often because if I sleep in too late Mao will pee on something. I don't have to pet her or love her, I just need to get up. But today we are arriving into work at 9:00am and waking up and getting up at 6:00am just means I have that much more time on my hands in the morning. Like Mao would let me sleep in, or Alex either for that matter.

So with my early wake up I thought perhaps a morning blog. Make up for my earlier slacking. It is the beginning of the month and already I have missed two entries and posted more than 2 crappy ones. Time to catch up on the journaling.

So I read a few online blogs on a regular basis and one of them had a home design / technology / cooking / and Green sub pages. They have started the new Apartment Therapy goal of organizing and making efficient their kitchens. I find this ironic as it is something I just got around to last month. I am almost finished with the kitchens transformation. Though according tot he web site I am doing it backwards. They started with the "junk drawer" and organizing Tupperware, and that is all I have left! I found those to be the most distasteful tasks and left them for last.

I am currently working on the Tupperware situation. I had had all Gladware and random odd cheap stuff but I am wondering if I should change to something better if only because I am somehow always losing lids. The other days search for tupperware resulted in about 50% of containers not having a lid. How this happens I have no idea. No earthly idea. I think perhaps Underpants Gnomes have branched out. Step one steal lids, step three profit. In any case it is a bit wasteful. I think Iw ill still keep some Gladware so I can send stuff home with friends but it might be time to invest in a big girl set yet again. This time, not a cheap set that sucks butt!

I think perhaps if I get a set with lids that lock on or lids that work for more than one container I might have a hope of making this all work out. They also have collapse-able tupperware these days too. Trouble is, none of it is BPA free. Bugger. I have not now, nor will I ever be a BPA Nazi, but if I am going to buy new tupperware do I want to buy stuff with BPA in it? What are your thoughts on this?

Lastly, I still have the junk drawer and it pains me to have to sort through it. But it is time to sort it and replace a few items, and perhaps find a few others. I really need to find a better whisk too, mine are going all rusty but I think silicone is going to be too flimsy. I also want a silicone pasty brush as with my once a week dish washing wood ones are not my friend. But no new toys in the junk drawer until I clean it out of the old stuff and see what I really need.

Once I get those two projects firmly in hand the Kitchen will be complete! Just in time to move in two years. No, I fully plan to enjoy my kitchen in that time. Too bad we had to move 3 times and perhaps I would have reached this step 2 years ago. ::sigh::

I am slowly moving into this house more and more. Once I feel I have everything right, as always happens, it will be time to move again. It keeps you on your toes. But it is good to purge all the excess stuff and replace the things that need replacing now and again. IT is how we keep inside our weight limit!

But I should get off the computer, kick Mao off my lap (it must be cold in here, can't read the thermostat inside but outside is 50) and get ready for work. Maybe more blogging later, maybe I will get lazy again. We shall see!

Quick As I Head Out The Door

2010-03-09T16:20:00.001+09:00

Not much to say today. I had the morning off and that was glorious. I wasted it playing video games, which I never do. The I worked out, hit the shower, ate dinner watching Time Travelers Wife (the book is better) and that brings me to now. Finishing up getting ready and heading off to teach. Fantastic day. To bad tomorrow is back to being productive!

No more slacking starting tomorrow, real blog updates are on the way.

Remember

2010-03-08T19:44:00.001+09:00

I think I am feeling bit sentimental today. I think it sort of starts off with me thinking about how Jason is almost home and it sort of snowballs, especially after watching Everybody's Fine.

I miss a lot of people. Sometimes I am incredibly happy that the military moves me around all the time. I have met some phenomenal people. But with those meetings comes a lot of goodbyes. Some of them I know are not for good, some of them mean we will grow apart but still keep in touch and others are almost permanent in a way. I have missed weddings and even funerals. I missed births and birthdays. But in the same token, I have witnessed just as many of those things with new people I have recently met.

The people of my life flicker by, in and out of vision. I think the people you meet in life aways stay with you, they have touched you in someway. But only a few of those people change with you along the way, because they are still in your life. Everyone else stays the same while you continue to change, get older, live your life.

It is a day for memory lane. It is a day to remember my first crush, Billy Stamper, who is still in 8th grade in my eyes. Grampa's big nose and always feeling small in his arms. A tee shirt traded back and forth in high school, which we still occasionally trade. Kirks amazing smile and his awesome movie recommendations, online polls said we have 89% the same taste. My first time riding bare back after Aunt Debbie plunked me up there.

People physically come and people go, sometimes forever, but they are always still with you. In your memory and in your heart. It is the sort of day to remember all those little bits and smile, laugh and cry.

Sleep Cooking And Unfulfilled Bagel Needs

2010-03-05T19:10:00.001+09:00

Those are Angelfood cake muffins with a chocolate glaze and kumquats sliced on top to make them look pretty. I don't know if they will keep until tomorrow, but I wont have time to cook tomorrow so, it will just have to do.

Today was all in all poopy. Okay well last night was poopy, today I just suffered from last night. Last night I did not feel well, it kept me up a lot through the night and so today I felt like my head was full of luff or stuffed up my ass, one or the other. I kept forgetting simple things and making small mistakes, it sucked.

It did not help that I left the windows open last night and the neighborhood cat decided to stroll by at 3:00am to say hello which made Alex very mad and Mao all wired up and alarmed. So an already bad night of sleep turned into a crappier one. I don't do well without sleep. I am one of those people who likes my sleep and makes time for it. I enjoy it, unlike showers. So when I don't get it, I turn into an idiot, a cranky idiot at that.

Post work I thought it might pick me up to go with Crystal and Stacy and all the wee ones to the Bagel place, but damn those hippies, they were not at work again. Really, when do they work? They need to take up the Dunkin Doughnuts logo, "It's time to make the bagels". Despite the hours posted saying they were open, they had up the closed sign and no bagels.

Instead we hit up Fresh Burger, which I forgot is not at all as good as MOS Burger. But all was made right by stopping at Yogurtland next door and eating deliciousness.

Then I came home to hit up the Commissary to get stuff to make the above/below dessert and the stuff for my Veggie Pizza that everyone likes. There is a BBQ after the Saturday Clinic (no phone calls home on Sat) at Souders house and even though he said no one needed to bring stuff, I figured I would. Isn't that the way BBQ's always go? People say don't bring stuff and then they bring stuff any way? It is sort of a food exchange program I guess.

Well in any case it was all easy to make. Though I did forget the crust for the Veggie Pizza and had Crystal pick it up for me (life saver). And that brings me to know, with the food cooked and done and stored and ready and it is almost bed time. An early bed time because I am exhausted and tomorrow is an early day. I think cooking is the only thing that kept me awake.

So now I chat with Jason (I know, holy crap he is online, and I get to talk to him) and then totter off to bed after I conclude this nonsensical post.

Concluded.

A Day Of Ups And Downs

2010-03-04T19:04:00.001+09:00

If I take pictures in the dark (because I am too lazy to get up and turn on the light) you can't tell I am pale and sweaty. Okay, maybe you still can it just looks grainy.

Today was an, interesting, day. The day started with 3 emergency cases, was followed by saying goodbye to Doc C after almost 20 years of working here at the clinic. This then faded into a crazy morning in the clinic with too many people, crazy pets and demanding clients. After a late release from the clinic I headed for home to get some chores done, which was boring but in a good way.

Once some of that was done, I tossed Alex and the gear in the car and headed to the beach. To find the tide lower than yesterday! I didn't even know the tide could go lower. But it can. So we walked on the beach instead, and I sweat. March 4th and already it is too hot for me. I have a love hate relationship with this island.

But that brings me to now, ruminating on today and recent events. I failed my last two weigh ins, no weight loss. So today I made an effort to get back into my weight loss mode. Once I finish with this blog post I plan to spend an hour on the Gazelle. I need to get back into my good habits or I might not make my goal of 10 pounds before Jason't gets back. I have ~3 weeks to lose 4 pounds and so I need to get on!

Hopefully once Jason gets back he can work with me on this weight loss thing and we can do it together. But I am wondering if they are going to fly him like crazy, which means I wont really eat food or see him very much any way. We will see what happens when he gets back. I would ideally like to lose 20 more pounds after this 10, but I would settle for another 10. After all, I do like to eat, and summer is coming so I wont be able to go outside.

Other thoughts of the day include, I have an awesome dog, lots of people are moving, work is frustrating, spending more time with myself is going well, my house needs more cleaning, I really like how my desk came out, I need to finish moving into this house, I miss many good friends back home, and... some other stuff.

But it is 7:00 already and I need to get on that Gazelle and then take a shower later because it is going to make me hot and sweaty. So more tomorrow, perhaps even a good post, but I wouldn't bank on it.

Leaps And Bounds

2010-03-03T20:23:00.001+09:00

That is a video of Alex trying to swim at low tide. Not so much with the swimming, more with the jumping. Since the tide was out we ended up walking on the beach instead as plunging in and out of the water is not exactly low impact.

Today was an interesting day. I stopped into work only to find out that I was scheduled as off! Nothing is better than an unscheduled day off I tell you, or at least when money isn't an issue. It is better than finding money in your pockets. So instead I went with Crystal to Elyse's first vaccine appointment.

Then we hit up the BX to pick up a few things and then we tried to go to the bagel place but they were closed. Silly hippies never work I tell ya. They make some awesome bagels but they are just never open. I was even gonna bring some bagels back to people at work. So much for that.

But then it was time to go home and get busy. I ate my lunch, cleaned some of the house and worked on my desk. Operation desk conversion is complete. Both desks are spray painted and their window clings are cut and applied. I hit up the commissary for much needed food and then took Alex to the beach.

Post beach fun it was off to Torride with Crystal for dinner and now we are watching The Spirit so it is going to be another distracted half assed post.Gonna end it here for now, movie seems like it is good so I want to enjoy it.

Charlie Romeo Alpha Papa

2010-03-02T17:04:00.001+09:00

Tuesday. Yeah. It is Tuesday. Work wasn't so bad, got out late but I always do. Came home, ate my lunch, accomplished very little and then went off to read and try to take my Tuesday nap. No joy, students are probably going to see me yawn. In almost 2 hours of trying, no success a waste of my time. I hate that.

I should have just sucked it up and put on the dehumidifier in my bedroom. It feels like a sweaty armpit right now. It is like 75, on and off sunny, humidity at about 100% and rain on the way. Stupid poopy humidity crappy weather. That is not good English, I don't really care right now.

We are still in threat con-bravo. It took me almost 15 minutes to get onto base today, how fun. It seems now we have 6-8 suspects we are looking for. How fun. It was yet another day where I am reminded how different military life is.

Everyday someone checks my ID card each time I shop, go to work, gas up the car, everyday things. I have to show my ID just to pick up my own mail. Some days I am greeted with guns out and ready, other days they sit holstered, and yet other days I am greeted with heavily armored vehicles with really big guns pointed at me that I am expected to casually drive around.

I need to know my husbands social by heart, no one really cares about my own. If I lose my ID it is a threat to national security, not just a trip to the DMV. I have seen med in military fatigues, cleaning playgrounds. If something happens somewhere in the world, that might in any way threaten the safety of the military or the United States, my life gets infinitely more complicated.

My life is different, very very different. Who would have thought the tree hugging hippy would become so casual about all this?

But it is time to get off to teach my students about fun prepositions and Journal writing. Who isn't excited about that?

Fear The Thumb Drive

2010-03-01T20:15:00.001+09:00

Modern warfare And How You Should Fear The Thumb Drive. Well, that is what I wanted to call the post but it was a little long.

So it seems that when I went to the clinic on Kadena on Friday and we were in threat con Bravo it was not part of the exercise. You see this is the problem with always having exercises, you never actually know when we mean it for real. So in any case, we are in threat con Bravo still.

It seems that someone is pretending to be a contractor or some such somewhere in the world and accessing computers, putting thumb drives into them (which no one is supposed to do) and giving the military viruses, somewhere in the world. So because of this we are in Bravo.

This means we need to check everyones ID's, sign in and out of places, not leave clients alone in the exam rooms (we have computers in them). Doors are locked, routines are changed. It is all a big pain in the ass. I understand the issues, and I respect why we need to do these sorts of things, but that doesn't change the pain in the ass feeling you get when you have to do it all.

But once that was over with I checked the mail and headed home for lunch. Post lunch I hit up the bank and then worked on my lesson plan. Once Crystal was ready, we hit up the beach for a bit with Alex and Sammy. Then it was back home for a shower and finishing up my lesson plan.

I know, my life is thrilling.

That brings me to now, I finished my lesson and bounded it up. Ate my dinner and now I am watching The Informant with Crystal. Which is quite interesting. So this is going to be a boring post because I want to watch my movie.

A Lazy Sunday... Oh And A Tsunami

2010-02-28T19:13:00.001+09:00

Today wasn't very exciting. Oh wait except for the Tsunami.

Okay, so Saturday we were rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake right off the coast of Okinawa. This generated some moving, shaking and a bit of water movement. Not a whole lot went on with that except that Jason's shop called me and I had to get up early with the pets.

Then Chile gets hit by a 8.8 magnitude earthquake, on the other side of the globe. Suddenly all the shit hits the fan. Warnings, evacuations, air raid sirens, loud speaker announcements... on Okinawa. An earthquake rocks Chile and suddenly the whole world is a flutter, including my little island.

People start screaming Tsunami and looking to the ocean. All day long they made announcements in Japanese warning of the tsunami, several times Courtney made announcements. The base issues evacuation orders for any one below 60 feet of sea level. All. Day. Long.

So after all that hype, all the media, all the sirens... nothing. Or at least nothing I could see and I live on the Pacific side of the ocean and can see the ocean from my house. Life went on, around all the fuss because there is't much to be done. If it is small, no worries. If it is big we are all screwed.

So the Okinawans went around their business and so did I. I cleaned the house, though not all of it ::sigh:: and spray painted half of my desk. I even did the dishes and hit up Makeman because I ran out of spray paint. It was productive today but lazy. I didn't get as much done as I wanted, I sort of took my time doing everything.

This of course means I have a lot of work to do this week. I sort of wasted half of my Sunday. I even put off my lesson plan as I just could not get into it. Tomorrow is going to suck, and it is my own fault. But for now, I am going to be lazy, enjoy the last of my weekend and deal with Monday when it comes.

Shoes! And If The House Is Rocking... It's An Earthquake

2010-02-27T11:38:00.001+09:00

Last night and this morning I finished off the booties for Elyse. She is currently sleeping in her car seat at my feet. It only took about 2 hours to whip up the shoes too which was nice. They almost fit her feet, a little bit big not by much at all. So hopefully she can wear them soon and hopefully. I think they came out pretty cute, I still have a blue pair to make that Crystal requested. I ended up changing the beads on the side though to little flowers in the corner as Crystal and I both liked it better that way.

So even though I blogged about it yesterday I am blogging about it again today because today I took pretty pictures now that they are all done. Once the blue ones are done I will post those too. But I think that is work for another day. Right now I might try to stop rocking Elyse with my food and get some house work done, which is what Crystal is doing right now.

I told her I would watch Elyse for a few hours so she could get some stuff done. Most of my stuff is already done so if I don't get to it, it will be fine. But Matt is leaving today at some point and poop face keeps being cranky, so I think Crystal needed some peace and quiet.

Funnier still but sweet was that Jason's office called me today to make sure that everything was okay after the big earthquake. For those we missed all the Facebook chat, we had a 7.0 about 50 miles from Naha, which is the biggest I have experience on this island since I have been here. Reports have it that we "felt" a 4.0 on the main island of Okinawa, so there was quite a bit of moving and shaking. So I got a call from Jason's office and he tried to make it mostly painless and seemed rather aware that I have Dix as a contact and work with his wife.

But in any case, I am off to see what I can get done with poop face since she keeps waking up in little spurts if I don't rock her.

Baby Shoes Are Cute

2010-02-26T20:56:00.001+09:00

So I found a super cute pattern for baby shoes on ETSY for about $1.50 or so and decided to get it so I could make some cute little shoes for Elyse. I asked Crystal what color felt she wanted them to be made out of and she chose the most riotous hot pink she could find. I modified the pattern just a little bit, it wanted more embroidery which I am not so hot at. So instead I added little clear sparkley beads.

I like how the shoe came out except I am not too sure about the beads on the side, they look a little lame to me. I'll ask Crystal about them tomorrow and see what she thinks. If she likes them I will keep them, if she doesn't I'll change it up a bit. But I think the rest of it is super cute.

Now I just need to make another shoe and hope they fit okay (Crystal traced her foot)!

An Almost 15 Year Record Is Broken

2010-02-26T19:51:00.000+09:00

That is my very pale face and some awesome pearly whites. That is right, after almost 15 years, I made it to the dentist. Unfortunately, it seems I did not need to.

I had been having some pain on an off in the back of my mouth sometimes, frequently when I woke up. I was worried that I might have a cavity and after a few months Crystal managed to get me to make a dental appointment. It was like marching towards dooms day. I worked pretty hard not to think about it.

I know it is pretty silly to freak out about going to the dentist or the like, but I have had enough mouth trauma to last me a life time. The orthodontist caused me endless amounts of pain and this was followed by a preemptive drilling of what might turn out to be a cavity that ended in me white knuckled and tear stained. So I kind of sort of avoid the dentist.

I also am not quite sure how much all this poking and scraping in your mouth is really good for you. I know Crystal will never believe me, but sometimes I think it is good to leave well enough alone. Maybe they are scrapping off stuff that I need under that calculus and the improper use of a scaler will kill your teeth. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

In any case, I wound up at the dentist today. They took X-rays and looked in my mouth and proceeded to tell me everything was perfect and that they could not believe that I had not been to the dentist in 15 years. I was hopefully they would let me go after that, but no such joy. They felt I needed a cleaning.

So an hour of scraping and scaling and poking and mildly freaking out it was over. The lady seemed to insist on getting some of my left over cement off my teeth from my braces and now my mouth feels funny. I am not fond of this feeling. Leave well enough alone I tell you.

Once it was over I was light headed and wobbly legged. I am pretty sure this is what happens when you have a mild panic attack while laying upside down. So I decided not to add pait fumes into the mix and headed for home. I did not get far before having to hit up a restroom in which my colon tried to evert itself or some such. I think you can scare yourself shitless, but it is going to catch up to you once the danger is over. You should make plans for this sort of thing.

So after that trauma was over I made it home. It was close enough to time to drink something and the fluoride was making my tummy even more upset so it was time to hydrate and get some food in my belly since I think I pretty much cleaned everything out. So there was food and drink and relaxing and recovering. That's right, recovering from getting my teeth cleaned, we all have our weaknesses.

My teeth still feel stupid and over all it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be but I am glad it is over. And I have no intentions of going back again any time soon unless something goes wrong. Thank god for good genes, at least in my teeth any way.

Now to work on shoes for Elyse and soon after bed time. Tomorrow should be a better day.

Todays Word is Disappointment

2010-02-24T21:11:00.000+09:00

Some girls look sexy with their hair up in a towel after a shower, I am not one of them. I just look like a dripping wet nerd with a towel on my hair after I probably did something sweaty or nerdy.

Today was a day filled with disappointments. Work was work for the most part with a bit of a huge downer thrown in. It was a downer out of left field, one that I just did not expect. It was like coming home on your Birthday to find out that everyone partied without you and then didn't even leave you any cake.

Then I came home to find I missed lunch with Crystal because I forgot my phone which I made it a point to grab this morning. Clearly that point was to get the phone, move it close to my bag and check the battery so I could leave it right there on the counter when I left. So no lunch with Crystal. Oh yeah and movie night was canceled. I was sort of looking forward to that, I am not sure why. It wasn't anything special, but I sort of planned on doing it and so I was a bit sad not to.

So I hit up the Commissary and took Alex to the beach, after all I need food and there is no reason she should suffer. Well, her suffering aside, it was sunny out and she would be even more insufferable than normal if we did not go to the beach. Food perhaps I could do without, I am trying to lose weight and the best way to lose weight is to stop eating, but the beach on a sunny day, Alex could not do without that.

But even Alex seemed disappointed by today. Normally after our 30 minutes of swimming she is pooped and despite me swimming her hard today, she came home and was dissatisfied. She wanted to play and to be inside, then outside, then inside and then outside in about a 5 minute repeating pattern. She would best be described as antsy.

I even let the cat out on her leash and she was mostly indifferent. She did not eat grass to the point of joyous vomiting. She did not even try to escape. She just scoped it out and then I took her inside after a while. Incredibly disappointing.

After pleasing the pets, or trying to, I set myself to cleaning. I was of course out of bowls since we had soup night, and things that have cheese in them were not meant to soak in the sink. So I cleaned the kitchen yet again, all nice and neat. I turned on a flick on Hulu but I was a bit despondent watching the film Ned Kelly and even tried playing with my new Moleskine Recipe Journal I got to not only log my recipes at the British Wine and Tea Shop but to fill up and motivate me to cook more. I enjoy cooking, I should do it more.

But even this task did not interest me for too long. It was all sort of just eh. All sort of just disappointing. I had been looking forward to today and it sort of crashed and burned before getting really off the run way. I mean it is not a particularly depressing day or a bad day, just a disappointment over all. I was hoping for the day to be a juicy rare kobe beef steak and somehow it turned out today was cafeteria Salisbury steak day.

But tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is cooking class and that is always fun and tasty. We will not discuss or think about Fridays impending doom known as my first visit to the dentist in almost 15 years. We will be hard line focused on tomorrow. And. It. Will. Be. Happy.

It's A Tuesday

2010-02-23T16:27:00.001+09:00

It is Tuesday and there isn't too much more to say. Work was work, busy but not bad (I was in the lab). I came home, did a few things, poked on the comp and then read some of my book. Tried to take a nap with little success, perhaps because this is the first time the sun has some out on a weekday in a long time.

I am pretty sure Alex knows it is Tuesday too and is pretty depressed about it. What a wonderful day and no beach time! Mao could careless, she gets her sun in in the windows and such.

But that about brings me to now. Eating a light dinner, getting ready to teach, heading to A&W, reading for a bit (holding a table), teaching and then coming home to
read until I fall asleep. Tuesdays are never very exciting.

$27.00 and Overcoming Bowel Loosening Fear

2010-02-22T20:09:00.000+09:00

I think I have my sanity back. I have given up on doing it all and just set a few goals each day and get them done. Realistic goals.

Plan an English lesson, tidy up a bit, spend time with the dog, work on my Elyse project for a short bit, curl up with Mao for a short bit and watch some TV and write my blog.

It is a good day.

I was astounded that today there was a client who did not think they would be able to pay their $27.00 bill. Now this was after I told her that she had the rest of the day to come up with the payment. She had like 6 hours to somehow find $27.00 to pay for the sick call fee. I cannot imagine my life any more, as an adult with a job and being unable to come up with $27.00.

Perhaps in college, sure, but with my husband in the military, overseas? But then giving her the benefit of the doubt, which she doesn't really deserve as she just gave lame excuses about diapers and such and seemed not too ashamed about all this, you can't find a friend to give you $27.00 in like 6 hours? I don't know. I have a hard time with this abject poverty line when you have a husband in the military and he is an E5. But perhaps something has happened, I don't know her situation.

But it did bring me back. Back to the days when I would watch Alex eat the best dog food I could buy and know that I only had Romen. Eating saltines with ketchup because it was free. The pipes freezing because we could not afford to turn on the heat. Times have changed, I am planning a trip to Europe which will cost more than my first car (thank you Mom and Dad for that car by the way).

Other than Jason being gone, life is good. We have money, we have food, we have friends and family and things are going okay. That isn't to say that there is no room for improvement, winning the lotto sure would be nice, but things are good. I am grateful that they are good, I am grateful that I can afford my dogs health care.

And I just want you to know, I am grateful I did not scream like a little girl when Doc C let that womans bird out of the cage and it flapped around the room and eventually landed on me. I thought I was being brave by seeing the birds at all, after all they were in the cage. But then, he let it out! I am apparently working on over coming my fear, I think I didn't even flinch that much. Then again, perhaps I did and no one noticed in all the commotion. Thank goodness.

But it is almost time to take my eyes out and read in bed for a bit. Tuesdays are so long and boring. Nothing exciting happens on Tuesdays so tomorrow should be fairly uneventful. With that, G'night.

Another Pleasant Day

2010-02-21T20:47:00.001+09:00

I think she does it to mock me. I think all cats like to rub their asses in your face just so you know they are the boss and you are just an ass kisser. No really, this is how I think it is.

Today was another fun day, so I assume if this week is like the last week, it is going to suck because I enjoyed my weekend. I think sometimes the work week sucks just so you can appreciate the weekend that much more.

So today I started out with a spot of cleaning and a bit of crafting. I am working on Elyse's Christmas/Birthday present slowly over time. I figure if I have a year to do it, no big rush. Though as soon as I get her foot size I plan to make her some cute shoes! Crystal, if your reading this either trace her foot or give me all the measurements. Pictures will follow of the booties, but not the present, after all Crystal does read this on occasion.

Then I hit up the beach for some hard core beach swimming with Alex. The sun was out and it was cool enough for me to be outside so off we went. We swam extra in case Jeff from work popped by with his dog and wife, and sure enough, they did. So Alex got to meet Dina, who is a dog so she could care less. But she did enjoy seeing Jeff and his wife.

Unfortunately she seems to have out done herself and I let her a little bit. We were at the beach and swimming and did our 30 minutes and then I tried to just let her explore for a bit instead of swimming. But no, she cried and cried for more swimming. So I threw flappy some more. The Jeff showed up and we stayed at the beach a bit more and swam a bit more.

Now she is at home and stiff with a slight limp. Yeap, over did herself today. This is why I usually try to keep swim time to a timed 30 minutes. It is the perfect amount of time to get her moving, let her have fun and tire her out just a bit. She loves swimming so much she just wont stop and regrets it later as she struggles to jump up on the bed. Poor thing, it sucks to get old.

So then I got home and went off with Crystal to Jusco for some felt for baby shoes and some stuff for Elyse's present. This was preceded by lunch at Shin Shin which was good and tasty.

Post food and shopping we decided to go for a walk. The original intent of the day! I showed Crystal some of the caches I have out on the man made island in Gushikowa. So we walked for a while, Elyse was a poop face about it on and off but over all good. Crystal found 3 of my caches and I replaced one of them. It was a nice day for a walk and it is good for me too!

Then it was time to head home before it got too late. I came home to a puddle of pee in the bathroom. At first I yelled Mao! But then I realized there was a LOT of pee and it did not smell like cat pee... it smelled like dog pee. It seems after the beach Alex was a bit dehydrated and so she drank a lot while I was gone. Then she of course had to pee, while I was gone. Poor thing. She was at least polite enough to do it in the bathroom where it is easy to clean it up. See now if the Cat had "accidents" and not "intentionals" we might have a different story with her...

After that it was time to eat some dinner, work on Elyse's stuff, shower and that brings me to now, just now realizing I did not return the videos. Damn. That means I get to leave early for work and give them back then. This better not be a sign about what Monday will be like. I will remain hesitantly optimistic about this week. We shall see, we shall see.

A Nice Quiet Day

2010-02-20T20:07:00.001+09:00

That picture is not creepy at all... no... never creepy. I guess since I turned off the over head light and just have the reading light on beside the bed, I get to look like a combination psycho killer and Cheshire cat. Such is life.

Today was a pretty good day. The morning started out with me cleaning the kitchen. There were bits of red velvet here and there, crumbs all in my stove because I had to use the stove top as a cooling rack (who doesn't love Japanese kitchens?), dishes in the skin, the trash needed to go out... you get the idea. So I took the time to make my kitchen spotless again, which despite my telling Mom I wasn't going to, inspired me to cook. More on that later.

So once the kitchen was cleaned I decided to take Alex to the beach as the sun was out and it was a nice day for once. I thought I would call up Crystal and offer to entertain her pooches at the beach with Alex since she said that the whole family was sick online. This of course got me to thinking, why not cook them dinner? I figured it they were sick and feeling poopy then what would be better than some beer cheese soup and beer bread.

Crystal and Elyse it turns out were feeling much better, it was Matt who was still under the weather. So Crystal brought Bridget to the beach with Alex and I and we frolicked there for a bit. I wont say Alex loves Bridget but she tolerates her well enough and after the beach Alex was tuckered out.

So with dinner in the works I had to rush off to the Commissary to pick up the stuff for said offered food. Crystal also requested a dessert, which I also needed to pick up the stuff for. So I grabbed what I needed for Beer cheese soup, Beer Bread and a "Mock" peach cobbler like thing for a recipe I wanted to try.

Then it was home again home again to tidy up the living room a wee so we would all have a place to sit. Like I would entertain dinner guests in the "dining" room, you eat at my house and you get the coffee table unless it is a special event. I also started the cooking, which didn't take too long as I picked mostly quick foods. Beer bread takes 5 minutes of prep time and only 40 minutes to cook. The soup took about 10 minutes of prep time and 40 minutes of cook time. Dessert was about 10 minutes prep and 40 minutes to cook. I apparently did a lot of 40 minute cooking.

Everything turned out good, though I was not at all impressed with the dessert and wished I had made real cobbler. Basically you take a big can of peaches and cut them up and dump them in the pan. Dump on a box of yellow cake mix. Add pats of butter all over the top, sprinkle on brown sugar and bake. The pictures they had up made this look awesome! In reality it just tasted like its basic ingredients and I was not at all impressed. I was craving cobbler and should have made cobbler, but I really wanted to try this recipe and see if it was any good for a while now. Dang it, high expectations and mediocre outcome.

We also watched "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell", I had herd about the book and the book sounded very funny. The movie however was just okay. I could see how the dialog they used in the movie would make a great and witty book, but it just made a mediocre movie. Somethings just don't translate well into movies. I am interested to read the book though, I think it might be right up my ally.

But that brings me to now, writing my post in bed, getting ready to finish off the last pages of Julie and Julia and then delve into "The Lost Continent" which is Kelly's book and she thinks I will like it. Tomorrow will involve more cleaning, hopefully more beaching, some English lesson and who knows what else. But for now, with my belly fuller than it should be the night before I weigh in, I am off to read until I fall asleep in this perfect cool sleeping weather.

A Meandering Post

2010-02-19T21:16:00.001+09:00

Well, operation slow down has gone into effect. Today I took the time to watch a movie and take Alex to the beach and did not think about any other work that needed to be done. No multi-tasking or anything like. I just enjoyed myself. It was, again, nice. I think housework may suffer with this new me time thing. Somehow, housework always suffers, I am not now nor will I ever be an immaculate person. If I get busy, housework is the last thing to get done. Not that my house is a sloven mess, but it could use some tidying up. Perhaps I can put some of that that on tomorrows to-do list.

The 390th spouses have finally found me. Jason left and so they are supposed to check up on me once a week. It is a sweet gesture, one that I really don't want each week. I guess Dix said that he was in charge of me and has kept the wives, who apparently need jobs, off of me for the most part. But today, in a series of three emails in about 30 minutes, they found me.

How does one politely say, leave me alone, I don't want to join your club and I don't want to be your friend? Well, in any case I tried to convey that message politely in an email and it seems like she might leave me alone, mostly, except she wants to check up on me once a week. Fortunately, she does not have my phone numbers, only my email and that and Dix gives me solace.

Work for once was not crazy, it was almost easy. I got to do my job with no huge rush and everything seemed fine. No fires, no angry people, all normal. I like normal days, then I come home "normal". Alex likes those days too, she gets extra love. Mao, well, I think she likes the days I am depressed or stressed and sit on the sofa. It is still cold and she likes to cuddle for warmth, as long as I don't pet her that is.

I have been missing Jason a lot as of late. I am sure the romantic comedies I have been watching as of late have brought this to the forefront of my mind. But it is not to be helped, Courtney only has like 50 movies to choose from and NetFlix takes a while to get here. So when all the slash-em and hack-em, independent, foreign films, man-films, comedies, and just about everything else are checked out, I am left with things like "500 Days of Summer" which is as close as I am getting to a chick flick.

It was almost too close I tell you, so close. One of my ovaries might have even tried to make a helpless plea and sent out a surge of estrogen to try make me like this movie. It even has that guy I think is mildly cute in an everyday sort of guy way. I tried to focus on the interesting filming and timeline, it made the movie watchable and almost enjoyable as a non-chick flick at times.

But back to the original point, missing Jason. Since we get to talk so little it is sort of like he is just missing most of the time. I don't really know what he is doing or even really where he is at any given moment. He is just sort of gone in an odd way. His stuff is here, it is all over the house. He even has Christmas presents here, lots of them. But if you came to my house while no one was home you would think he was just missing. Missing for a while.

His shampoo is in the far corner of the shower. His clothes are all put away and out of sight. His side of the bed in covered in a fine layer of dog fur, the sheets mostly undisturbed. His shoes are all in the show cabinet and the fridge doesn't have anything chocolate in it.

He couldn't have died, there has been no effort made to clear out his stuff or memorialize pictures of him. Definitely not divorced, all his stuff is still here. Not away on a short business trip, his absence is palpable, his smell is almost non existent. He is simply missing. Because he is missing, I am missing him.

But it will only be another 6 weeks before he is home. Perhaps two weeks after that we will have learned how to live together again without getting in each others way. With out both of us trying to brush our teeth at the same time. Without one of us kicking the other one in bed. Then life will be back to normal, at least for a while. Only a little bit longer.

Because A GYN Appointment Can Get Worse

2010-02-18T15:31:00.000+09:00

Let me start by saying, no one likes going to the gynecologist. Dad, you may wish to stop reading here, Tom, you too. Some people like getting their teeth cleaned or don't mind their physicals for work or sports. But I don't know any woman who enjoys going to the gynecologist. We go because we have to, most of us go only because if we don't go they wont give us contraception. Might I add that I don't think this would be so if this was a man thing, men wouldn't stand being denied birth control because they had not had their nether regions looked at yet this year.

But today was the inevitable day, had to be done, mostly because I am very anti baby having. Jason may be gone right now, but he will be back, and no babies will be had. Under no circumstances will babies be created in my uterus, Dad if you still reading, no one will sat anything if you cry just a little.

So I show up to my appointment early, who doesn't go early to medical appointments? They get me in a room right quick where the girl takes my TPR on a paper towel. Maybe this is okay if one is rushed, but I am the only person here. We have all the time in the world.

Lady finishes and then tells me the doc will be in to see me in a minute. Doc comes in and with the typical swagger of a fly-boy, eh-hem I mean flight med doc, and sees that no one has had me fill anything out. Not much said to me, who is perched on the table with that stupid paper crumpling under me as I shift trying to get comfortable. Really, what is sterile about that paper? Why is it there? Can't we just wash the damned table, or maybe invest in some cloth we can put in the laundry?

So she leaves. I am sort of confused as to what I am supposed to do right now. Do I get undressed? They have given me no gown. Do I wait here? Dance a jig? Do it myself? This room is not set up for anything. No one was even so kind as to put a heater in here, it is cold, and I presumably am about to be naked.

In comes assistant/tech lady who now has forms for me to fill out. Awesome, my doctor is unable to talk to me until these forms are filled out. What ever happened to taking a patient history. No, I circle the Y/N on each line. I think I should conduct all my vet appointments this way. No really, we treat dogs better than I got today.

So then the lady takes the paperwork and comes back in with another lady who shows her how to set up the room. She is telling her what does what, how most doctors like thing set up etc. What do I over hear? "These are small speculums and these are the medium ones. We do live in Asia, so sometimes, we need the small ones".

Dad, if our still reading, or Tom, don't say I did not warn you.

Okay, first, that strikes me as a little racist. Asian women have small vaginas? Secondly, why does any one need a medium or large speculum? Why can't we all be given the courtesy of the small one? Clearly if we can make due for other people, why do I not get this courtesy?

But in any case I change, while being interrupted like 3 more times and sit on the stupid paper in my paper gown with the most stained medical sheet I have ever seen. I know it is sterile, I am not worried about that, it just looks gross. That is someone else's... fluids.

So in comes the doc and she says she is bringing everyone with her. I say "awesome" in the most sarcastic tone possible. Yeah, because having my legs in the air and having one person look at my vagina isn't enough and having another person training isn't enough, I need 3 people! Kick ass.

The exam itself is always very uncomfortable and frequently painful for me. So how awesome is it that I get to wait for the new girl to figure out how to give stuff to the doctor. Okay, training time is over when you ask the patient "Are you doing okay"
and they respond with "Yes, but this is very painful". Let us let the lady who knows what she is doing hand the stuff to the doctor now. I would brain someone with my foot except the large plastic knife like object jammed in my unmentionables makes me fear ripping out my insides with sudden movements.

The doc had told be before the exam that it is no longer necessary to run a pap ever 2 years for me because I am in a low risk group. She told me I only needed a physical inspection, so no speculum. So needless to say when she asks for the speculum during my exam I am a little surprised. No no, she means next time I get get out of it, not today, because today is apparently teaching day. Yay everyone looking at my girly bits for practice.

So exam is done and over and all 3 people get ready to leave the room. Doc jets out and the other two ladies decide to clean up. By cleaning up, I mean they want to take out the trash, and leave me no trash bag. Now all the ladies out there will know, you sort of want to clean up post exam, where do you put those tissues when there is no trash bin? Or the paper gown, or, well, anything you want to throw away.

Awesome. So I sort of make a tissue snowball wrapping the dirty tissues in layers of clean tissues and wrap all that in my gown. Then, while I am changing someone must have realize they left me with no trash bin and they knock to give me a new one. Just a minute ::sigh::

So yeah, that concludes my visit today. Super happy fun time of awesomeness. Some of that may have been To Much Info for some of you, but I warned you and I left some of it out! The story actually gets better, but that would really be crossing the TMI boundary for most of you. So yeah, my day sucked. I am done with today, no really. It is over and nothing will be accomplished. It can all wait until tomorrow.

Screw you flight med, crappy weather, diet etc. This day is done.

I Am Not, Nor Will I Ever Be, June Cleaver

2010-02-17T21:27:00.001+09:00

"Winter" is back on Okinawa for a few days it seems and I somehow have acquired cabin fever or the winter blues. The past three days can best be described as poopy and after coming off of a weekend high, I am really feeling it.

I got pretty down in the dumps today, things are not great on the mental front, I am feeling a bit... frayed. I am starting to feel like I was when I was working the 60 hour work weeks and part of me keeps trying to beat the other half into submission, telling it to suck it up because I am working nowhere near that much, not even close.

But I don't think it is all work. Sure, work sucks but it has sucked a lot on and off before and it will again. I think it is the nature of this job, here, in this place. It teaches you patience and humility and all the other things people say they learn in unpleasant situations. There are always good times and bad.

So if I am not over worked, why do I feel so frayed? This is killing me to commit to text, perhaps admitting you have a problem is an integral step, but I am doing too much. I have sort of turned myself into the 1950's era TV woman trying to do it all and thinking I can. A one man show with no mistakes, no mishaps and no foul-ups. It isn't working. When the camera pans to Alex frolicking on the beach or Mao acting silly, I am off screen pulling out my hair trying to cook dinner, sew a sweater, grocery shop and bake a cake for the neighbors while still trying to look perfect when the camera is back on me.

I can't do it all. I am not perfect. I cannot take the dog to the beach, fix the car, clean the house, catch a movie with friends, keep in touch with family all at the same time. Even if I could, it is not leaving enough me time. Tonight, because I was feeling miserable, I sat down on the couch under the covers and just watched a movie. I did not multi-task. I did not check my email. I did not sew. I did not clean the house, do the dishes or work on the Pajero. I bundled up under the covers and I watched a movie. I don't know the last time I just stopped like that.

I like to be busy, but I need to reorganize my life. It is okay to be busy, it is not okay to lose yourself in all that you do, whether that is optional stuff, chores or work. I need to slow it down and stop neglecting the things I care about, including myself, trying to get it all done. I am not an island. I am not a one man show. I am definitely not Beaver's Mom. I need to admit that and I need to do something about it.

I refuse to admit that I "need a man around the house" though he sure is missed and would be welcome, but if he isn't here I need to tone is down a notch. The dog is terrible at getting the mail and the cat is afraid of the vacuum so that never gets done. With out anyone to pass off some of these chores to I just need to do them myself and not do something else later, and not worry about not doing something else.

So tomorrow, after my most uncomfortable doctors visit (still better than the looming dental visit on the 26th) I need to sit down with myself and the things I want to do. I need to decide what is important to me and what is not. The stuff that is not, has got to go. Less multi-tasking and perhaps a bit more efficiency and I will still get all the things I need to get done, done, and I assume quite a few of the things I want to get done, done.

Tomorrow is a new day. Okay well, it is new after the gynecologists, lets just leave that bit on todays door step since it already sucked.

Do what you can, don't do what you can't.

If You Have Nothing Nice To Say

2010-02-16T16:26:00.001+09:00

If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. That should be the end of my blog post right there, because I don't really have much positive stuff to say.

The only bright point I had today was that I got to talk to Jason for like 15 minutes for the first time in a few weeks. This normally cheers me up quite a bit on any given day but it is getting a bit depressing. Talking to him for 15 minutes online isn't really cutting it and only brings to light that we never get to talk. I married my husband because I liked hanging out with him and talking with him and as of late, due to necessity I understand, we have not been doing a lot of that.

Other than that, stuff just sort of sucked today. It is raining so the locals are driving like Floridians. This does nothing to improve my mood when I got stuck behind some one who turned at less than 5 kilometers an hour at every turn, less than 5 kilometers per turn. I live for a series of roads with about 8 turns each!

Work, work too sucked. Yet another day when we over booked the schedule. I dare say it is not over booking if it is what we normally do everyday. I am starting to think we should just function like an ER and see people on a need to see basis and just see what we can see between 8-5, if we did not get to you, I am sorry, try again tomorrow. Clients were ass hole all morning long because they had to wait, and it was raining, and we have no appointments for who knows how long.

I know, do what you can, don't do what you can't but I was a vaccine robot for a great many unappreciative clients, it makes for a poopy day when you have to smile at them all. They grow weary of my "I am sorry we are understaffed today" line, mostly because I have to use it everyday.

I am also not at all enthused about my lesson plan for tonight which is going to be very off the cuff. I am going to have to cover what little printed material on computer warnings and then go through computer menus with my laptop as in the end it was just easier to show them. I know some one out there has a list of computers errors, but I could not find one, so my list is skimpy. Hard to teach what you can't remember. So job number two is also going to be poopy.

I would say that maybe tomorrow is going to be productive but I am pretty sure I am going to have to go through hell and high water to get my HIPPA training done on that cursed government website that will waste my time and the vet clinics time. Most I am concerned about wasting my time though, struggling to get that website to work. I have gone so far as to request a death by power point just we can all stop dicking around and get this done.

But I am going to try to be optimistic, perhaps tomorrow will be better. Things could be worse right?

No More Food and Fun

2010-02-15T18:12:00.001+09:00

There must be a white balance on this thing, I mean really. This is like taking pictures in a Japanese photo booth where being white is a good thing. I find it terribly ironic that I grew up in a culture where being white or "pale" was a bad thing, it means your sicky or nerdy or so many other bad things. But now I live in a culture where often (but not always) the paler you are the better. I just can't get past my cultural upbringing and embrace the culture I am in fully. I see picture of myself and I am occasionally taken a back by how close to clear I am.

Don't get me wrong, I embrace my paleness, it means I just might not get skin cancer but this is not culturally acceptable. I should want to be tan and even though I am okay with being pale, I wish I was born a bit tanner. I wont work on being tan but I can wish I was naturally a little more brown can't I? But enough about that, about my translucent skin.

Today was a day of work as the weekend was filled with more fun that I deserved. I failed to accomplish any of my to-do list on Saturday and Sunday so I had to force myself to get stuff done today. That isn't to say I did not have a bit of fun, Alex and I escaped to the beach fro 20 minutes in between rain showers. The tide was out and as I threw the toy she could jump into and out of the water like a rabbit in snow. It was funny to watch. Unfortunately incoming rain made us leave and she has been trying to convince me since then that we did not go to the beach and we need to go back.

I also took a little time to chat with my sister for a bit. We don't chat too often on the phone but now and again we align the stars and chat for a bit. This took up a bit of time this morning but was pleasant. The hour on the gazelle and shower was far less pleasant. After all this food indulgence this weekend I need to really make sure I work out if I want to hit my weight goal this week.

Then I had to get down to business. I decided to tackle the English lesson I needed to do for tomorrow and became rather discouraged. It seems no one has a list of MS Word error messages which a student requested a lesson on. The other student requested a lesson on the menu bars which is a bit easier. So basically after wasting a lot of time trying to find something to base this off of, I came up with a pathetic lesson and then decided I will just bring the laptop to the lesson and we can do some hands on teaching. It is going to suck. This may be my most difficult lesson yet, and I am a bit discouraged.

After that was done I needed to get to some cleaning! I thought for a short time I had perhaps purchased some bunnies and not even known it, but once the vacuum was out it seems I did not have bunnies, just wads of hair. This came as a large disappointment to me but mostly to Mao who I think would love for me to purchase some bunnies and let them roam about the house. She would name them things like Snack and Jerky.

I also took the time to try to fit my living room (I just want to say, why is "Bedroom" one word but "Living room" is not?) rug, which is really just a floor mat to put your futon on (Yeap, I live in Japan) into my incredibly small Japanese washing machine. I crammed the thing in there and managed to wash it with out the washing machine exploding. I mean, I am sure it is not spotless, its not a great clean but it is better than nothing. Perhaps it will at least have removed any traces of Ollie pee or perhaps unknown Mao pee. Or even the bits of baby vomit that have started to pop up.

But since it is raining and I got sick of waiting for not rain, I now have to try to dry the thing on the tops of the diving room chairs. This means I can't clean out the computer room today and will have to wait until the rug dries. It also means that the cat is angry and excited that I have moved things. It is both an adventure and a curse, she is so Bipolar.

After that it was time to finish off the last few odds and ends small chores and then write this. Still left tonight is binding up my English lesson, finishing the laundry and a bit more tidying up. I finish up my thrilling day with a bit of reading Julie and Julia for book club and then nod off to start my day tomorrow.

I guess not everyday can be filled with awesome food and fun, some days must be filled with the everyday drudgery that allows me to have fun on those other days. Unless maybe I win the lotto, this might give me a bit more fun time and a bit less boring time! But for now, back to the chores!

This Weekend Is All About Food!

2010-02-14T18:48:00.001+09:00

A double blog post coming at you. You don't need to see a picture of me because you got two in the last one from today. On word we go to recap todays adventures.

Today Crystal had invited me to the Agena World Festival held at the Agena Bull Fighting Ring right by her house, and a stones throw from mine. Or as many of the signs proclaimed The Agena Worldfestival or even the Agena Warld Festival, so I am pretty sure you can all it what ever you want. I just appreciate that there was anything remotely resembling English at all.

The festival was small as we had expected. But the important bits were there, fair food and something to look at. There was an effort made to get a variety of countries foods present at the festival. Empanadas graced the stalls next to Okinawa Soba, Russian tea and even some Peruvian stick foods. It was varied, but it was mostly fried.

I managed to sample a candied apple (above) which was so small and yet tasted just like a mini apple. I was expecting something like the Chinese candies hawthorn berries, this was an old school red candy apple, in mini form. It nearly removed a few of my molars.

I also snagged "Meat and Cheese" which seemed somewhat self explanatory, seasoned mean and some cheese tossed into something very fried. If the bag becomes clear before I even start to eat it, it means all the grease was wicked away and it is healthy for me correct?

A fashion show displaying many costumes from around the world on very cute Japanese children went on while we searched for food. There was none of the pomp and circumstance you see in most fashion shops, nope, this was cute embarrassed kids strutting their stuff and showing off region styles of dress (and very well made might I add).

I also managed to scarf down some empanadas both "sweet" and "savory" though there was not much difference, half of a fried mashed potato covered cheese ball (it sounds gross but they are tasty), a Mango smoothie of sorts that tasted of real mango, part of Crystal's Russian empanada looking thing and maybe some other stuff I forgot. It was all so tasty and so incredibly not on my diet. All the little paper sacks became clear before I finished eating the contents. I did hold back and refrained from adding a crepe to this list of yummy goodness.

While we gorged on food and for quite some time after, there was a lot of cultural dancing going on on the stage. There was a lot of different dances, Salsa, belly dancing and hula, among others I could not identify. They did not introduce them all, or if they did I did not know what was going on.

But I busted my diet yet again but had such a good time doing it! I must confess all of this recent "cheating" has set me back. I only lost one pound this week and I need to get back on the wagon! I still need to lose 2 more pounds to get me to my goal of 10 pounds and since things have been going so well I want to see how much I can lose before Jason gets back. She says as she finishes off her last half of empinada justifying it by saying it will be bad by tomorrow.

Well, since it is so chilly, I will sit my happy ass of the Gazelle at least for an hour or so tonight to make myself feel slightly better, like I at least half assedly tried.

Tomorrow should be the end of fun though. I had the day off for Presidents day, no really, who doesn't like working for Uncle Sam? It does have its occasional perks, key word being "occasional". But I need to crack out a lesson plan for Tuesday and I think this one might take me a while. They want to know computer menus and warnings and such. It is going to be oh so much fun to do the research for that one!

But I had best hop on that Gazelle now or I am not going to want to!

Yesterdays Recap: Flowers, Farmers and Food

2010-02-14T18:18:00.001+09:00

I am very worried by this photo. Mao is sitting with me now for the second time today. The last time she was all snuggly with me, she peed on my wall in the bedroom. She likes to get me when I least expect it, but I am on to her. When she is sweet to me, I have the most to fear. But Mao's continued sweetness to me, or heat sucking if we want to be honest about it has spurned the dog into action.

She actually jumped up and into my lap. All 40 pounds of her, which she never does. Not in the computer chair. There she stayed trying to get comfortable for the next 20 minutes or so, after a while I think she discovered she is not as small as the cat and this is not so easy. Then in a big huff she jumped down and wandered off, very angry at me. I am apparently a bad mother.

But onto the fun stuff! Yesterday there was a lack of blogging because I scampered up North to the Tropical Dream Center for the International Orchid Festival which was quite impressive for a display or purely Nancy pants flowers. No, I love flowers and I especially love Orchids, hey, I have my girly moments! Don't expect me to start wearing pink any time soon, but I still love flowers, even if my husband never buys them for me (okay 3 times in almost 10 years).

They had a lot of displays of Orchids both rare and common. It was a bit impressive to see the sheer number of them in one place. Each room was filled with hundreds of Orchids in varying arrangements and displays. I was actually less impressed with the award winners than I was with just some of the displays.

The smallest of the Orchids even filled one of the rooms in a rather pleasant smell. Most rooms had a tone or orchid, but most orchids are not particularly smell worthy, just mostly just look pretty. But these little guys packed a smell you could make out as soon as you walked in the room. I would love to have some of these little fellows on my desk here at home, though I fear I have no idea how to care for them.

After the Orchid show we headed on out to The British Wine and Tea Shop to see our good friends the Farmers. They of course entertained us for quite some time with delicious food. They fed us "off menu" and gave us yummy left overs too! We had medium scones and tea, salmon roulade and a salad, Coque au vin, Gratin Dauphinois, peas and carrots and a chocolate souffle for dessert. It was magnificent and it busted my diet hard core!

But it was great to see them and catch up, it has been almost 3 months and we are used to seeing them once a month for cooking class. But Crystal had the baby and they left for mainland and the UK. But now we are all back on the same page and resuming cooking classes this month. We set up a date when we were there, it should be a grand old time!

After that is was late, they do like to socialize, Crystal ended up with a a migraine and Elyse decided to cry almost all the way home. So it was a bit of a poopy ending but a grand day.

The Insurmountable List

2010-02-12T21:00:00.000+09:00

Today was sort of poopy, though it sounds like it could have been even worse had I stayed at work all day. This morning we were short staffed and everyone felt a bit over worked. It seemed like the shit hit the fan and just kept coming. I felt a bit flustered all morning long, I kept forgetting things and making mistakes. The harder I worked to not make mistakes, the more I made. It was a morning I just needed to hit restart on, and I am quite sure I was not the only one.

Perhaps fortunately I escaped at noonish to accomplish all the crap I needed to get done. Some days feel like I have an insurmountable amount of things to get done in a very finite number of hours. I still can't shake this feeling that some how I am doing something wrong. I work half days and end up with no time for anything in the end and yet I have had very little down time in my day, very little wasted space.

The bits of time I give myself are the hour before work when I wake up and when I eat my lunch. Then I fiddle with the computer or do anything that isn't really productive like play on Facebook or read some blogs. Though I guess my blog time is also personal time, I could easily but myself 30 minutes a day if I cut that, but it is something that I like to do and it helps me keep in touch with friends and family. So many people are so far away.

I feel like I just need to get on top off all this small crap that needs to get done and then I will be caught up, but somehow that seems difficult. I have even set aside numerous small projects in the hopes that I can catch up but oddly other things more pressing have already filled their space.

I am not saying my life is unpleasant or that I am unhappy, and I do enjoy being busy, I am insufferable to be around when I am bored, but somehow things have felt a bit off balance these past few weeks. Things have not just been busy they have been break neck paced. Slowly drained by a thousand pin pricks of obligation.

But I did accomplish all that I needed to get done today. I can't say I got to the vacuuming or any number of small tasks around the house, but I did all the needed stuff. I even got a few new clothes in the mail today (that I had to wait 30 minutes for).

That is my new attempt at a hat in the photo. Think of it as my "dressy" hat, so sad. I used to not be a hat person, but then I moved to Okinawa where my face burned all the time and made horrible sunglasses tans on my face and I started to invest in hats. I still look terrible in them, but it is a burden I am willing to bear. I hate bring sun burned. If only I could come close to pulling off those frumpy sun hats, they always look so fun and provide soo much shade.

But I think I will draw this mostly rambling blog to a close here and totter off to read in bed. Yes I know, it is Friday and only 9PM but I don't wish to "accomplish" anything else today, I just want to read and fall asleep. I have a whole 3 day weekend to tackle that insurmountable to-do list... if I can just get on top of it...