Black Water -The Doobie Brothers

Old black water, keep on rolling
Mississippi Moon wont ya Keep on shinning on me?

We were listening to the radio and the song, began to play on the radio just as we were driving past the sign WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. We all sang along. We hadn’t planned on driving into Mississippi, but we missed our connection in Atlanta. We were put on stand by to get onto the next flight into Gulf Port, Mississippi but we did not make it on the plane. Our pets and luggage however did make it on the plane without us. They put us on standby for the next flight leaving four hours later. We had already been traveling at this point for 26 hours. Not a lot of sleep happened during this period. So we opted to rent a car instead of waiting four hours to be told we wouldn’t be on the next plane either. We schlepped ourselves to the car rental place, paid a small fortune and rented the coolest car, don’t have any idea what it is but it is smoking hot.

The drive from Atlanta to Biloxi is supposed to take about six hours. However, our sleep depravation caused us to have to stop a lot and switch drivers. The one not driving would sleep like the dead the one driving started to drift off a bit. When we finally made it to Mississippi we were all awake and feeling quite a rush of excitement at entering our new home state. Mandy had to use the restroom and we could not find a single gas station open at 2 a.m. I did however know where the Wal-Mart is located and so we all took a potty break at the local Wal-Mart at 2 a.m. with our two kids. We of course hadn’t really slept in 33 hours, hadn’t showered or brushed our teeth, what they must think of us. We decided as long as we were there we might as well pick up a few things. $70 later we were back at the car. We decided as long as we are near our new home we can do a drive by. We pulled in the driveway and looked at our pretty new house, it was 2:30 am by now. Then we decided to drive past Mandy’s new school and finally we found our hotel. Lucky for us Jeff’s new boss went to the airport for us and picked up the animals and our luggage and dropped it off at our hotel for us. So at 3:30 a.m. we had arrived at our hotel and so had our pets. We fought for the rights for the first shower. I lost and had to take the dog for a walk.

By the time we had unpacked our suitcases enough to find some clothes and our soap and toothbrushes, and we had all showered and ate it was 5 am. Jeff and Mandy had to go to the airport because we were missing one bag, one of Mandy’s bags and the airport opened at 5. I got Lily cleaned up and I got the cat and dog bedding all cleaned up and the litter box all set up etc. By that time it was 6:30 and Jeff had to go into work to sign in and Mandy and Lily were watching TV and I laid my head on the pillow and rested for about an hour. This was now about 40 hours into our trip. We then had to get going to our final inspection of the house and then to the closing.

After we closed on the house it was around 11 and getting pretty close to the 48 hour mark in our journey. Of course I had rested my eyes for an hour or a moment here and there but not really all that much. At least I had showered. Anyways we decided to try and register Mandy for school. Next week is their spring break and today is the last day they would allow us to register before the break. I thought it might be nice for Mandy to have her school book over the break so she could figure out what is what. They gave me a huge packed of paper work to fill out and it was so difficult to get my brain to function well enough to remember Mandy’s name, age birth date etc. I was hilarious, what a spectacle to see me at almost 48 hours try to concentrate enough to register Mandy for school. They gave us a list of items we needed to get like a health certification of her shot records from the health department. She gave me directions to the health department and it made sense at the time however, that was before all the paperwork and when I arrived at the car I had a hard time remembering the directions. Then when we finally found the health department they wanted three phone numbers of people who could verify our identities. I am sure you know at least three phone numbers but I know zero phone numbers off the top of my head. How often do I call people in America? I could give you 100 email addresses off the top of my head but no phone numbers. It was a half an hours drive back to the hotel to get the numbers. So we worked very hard and “remembered” 3 phone numbers. Then we looked at the list and they needed some other documents that required us to actually and really drive all the way back to the hotel and then back to the school. Half an hour each direction. We had to do it right away or they wouldn’t allow her to register for two weeks because of spring break and something else I really can’t remember it all. Brain was fried. I somehow convinced Jeff who doesn’t really know his way around yet to go back to the school and Lily and I stayed here and went to bed. Of course I had to walk the dog, feed the Lily, and update my blog first priorities people.

Jeff and Mandy came home and we all slept like the dead for 8 solid hours. We were then hungry so we went back to Walmart this time at about 11pm, with our three year old. Took the dog for a walk, ate and no one would let me on my new lap top computer which I begged and pleaded to buy. My early birthday and early Christmas present. I had to wait until they all went back to bed to get a chance to play.

So, now I am back to bed it is almost 2 am, I am going to sleep until 7 and tomorrow we are going to rescue our car which has been in storage for four years.

off to bed

The short story is that we are here safe and sound in Mississippi, all six of us including the dog and cat. I have many stories to tell, but for now I need sleep. We closed on the house this morning and have the keys, it is lovely and beautiful and they cleaned it like new for us. What lovely people. So we are off to bed.

Two more days...

I have shed many tears and said many goodbyes. It is hard and sucky. The final out of the house went well and is done, Mandy is out of school, the car is sold, now we just have to reduce the amount of things we think we can carry all the way to Mississippi and mail a bunch of stuff. Tomorrow is our last day and we don't really have any plans, an easy relaxing day before the big travel day. We are lucky enough to have very short layovers, unless of course we miss connections and then short layovers are a bitch.

The pets are in a kennel, we go and visit, our dog cries like you would not believe we we have to leave, it breaks my heart. The cat has lost a little weight which is good because she is huge. This time next week we will be living in our very own house. We may be sleeping on the floor and without lights or water, but we will be in our home none the less. At least the pets will be happy.

Living in very close quarters in the hotel has been an adjustment. Jeff and I were talking today about how we plan to all enjoy a moment to ourselves when we arrive. We will all go to separate rooms and shut the door. Jeff says he is going to find himself a trail and take a very long hike. Perhaps I will wander down to the Ocean and take a lovely stroll on the beach.

We have been doing a lot of walking. Taking Lily along too, so they are slow walks. Still it is lovely. When we lived in Italy, before coming here to Japan, we lived in a down town area of a mid sized city and we walked all the time. Even when we traveled we walked and walked. But, here we almost never walk together. There is something great about walking with Jeff. We get a chance to talk and talk and laugh and laugh. Especially when we have to wait up for little miss Lily, who when the mood strikes her can run at a pretty fast clip for about a mile, but mostly she gets bored by all the walking and slows way down.

Lily has a habit of wanting me to repeat every last thing she says. This began when she first started to speak, because she started a little later than I had hoped I tried all kinds of things to encourage her, including repeating what she had said, to show her I understood. This gets quite annoying now that she speaks nonstop all the time. I haven't been able to break her of this yet, and I really don't think this is a good time to try. Still it is funny to see us walking down the street, taking turns repeating Lily while having a separate conversation with one another.

Many people here now have the flu that we had a couple of weeks ago, I am trying to avoid said people. They are everywhere and we had dinner with many of the a couple of days ago. This coupled with the fact that I haven't been sleeping well is scary. Hopefully if I did come in contact with the scourge again I have the immunities all built up. It would suck to get sick now. Good thoughts.

I am afraid that I was not aware of an earthquake in Japan until I read Patrice's comment. I haven't been watching much TV. I looked it up on the Internet and the earthquake was pretty far away from where I am, the main island of Japan, where I live and where Tokyo is, is about the size of California. I live in the very northern eastern tip and the earthquake was about 3/4 of the way down on the West coast. It was a pretty big one, we had a bigger one here when I first arrived but there was minimal damage and no injuries, it appears that this one was quite devastating. In Japan they measure earthquakes on a different scale then we do. They measure it based on how many people feel it and how much damage occurs. Interesting.

Four More Days

We have four days until we leave. We are in the process of saying goodbye to people and places. Mostly we are hanging out in the hotel room. All very melancholy. It is hard to be around the people and places we love and will most likely never see again. It seems like it would be nice to be around it one last time, but it isn't very appealing right now.

We are having all kinds of things go wrong. Little frustrations to keep us busy I guess. And I keep buying things like food. Everyday I brings bags and bags of things into the hotel, like I am stocking up for winter. Trying to get rid of things, but it isn't going well instead I am accumulating things. Must be the part of my brain that hasn't yet accepted the fact that we are leaving.

New Miyaki

We went out to dinner last night to celebrate our four years and thirteen days anniversary of arriving in Japan. We were all sick on the four year anniversary. We went to our favorite restaurant the New Miyaki. Here are a few photos of our night. There are in a random order because blogger hates me today. The fact that it was 4 in the morning when I got up to post these pictures shows that I have a bit of a problem giving up the blogging. They come to pick up the rest of our things this morning, including our computer. I am hoping to find random computers to feed my blogging addiction throughout our journey.

To my friend Patrice, I hope these photos look more Japanese than the snow photos I took on the military base. And to Kim, I do not have anything to tell you, I believe my memory issues are all about stress or old age. And to Laura, I am sorry I didn't get the chance to help you change the header on your blog.

Laughter is the best medicine

Today is my last day in my house. I was planning to write a lovely blog entry about being a stay at home mom or about the soul searching I have been doing in order to help me overcome my weight issues. Pretty exciting stuff, not.

We got a phone call, our stuff has already arrived in Mississippi. How lovely, we will be able to have it when we arrive. Months of living with borrowed furniture is paying off, not.

It seems that a flatbed carrying our stuff flipped over and more than half of all our belongings have been damaged or destroyed. Not sure what that means exactly until we get there and take a look. I hope it is all the stuff I don't really like and none of the stuff I love. Our photos, the lovely oil paintings I have collected from our travels, the girls' things. Moving is hard enough on the girls but if all their stuff is destroyed, that will be an added frustration.

Oh well, nothing I can do about it. I guess I will be more devastated later when I see the broken things. I was actually thinking of having Jeff go and assess the damage and not ever physically looking at the things that were broken myself. Especially not allowing the girls to see the broken things. I think it will be a little easier if we don't have a mental image of it broken, instead to just be told, that was broken. Poor Jeff I always make him do the hard stuff.

Last night I finally gave in and agreed with my whole heart that we would let someone come and finish the cleaning process. How depressing, I feel like a failure. What that means is starting tomorrow I am all done with the moving crap. We will be living in a hotel, we will spend our last week saying goodbye to people and places, no worries. I will try to find computers to stay in touch and give the old blog an update every now and then.

Thanks for all your support on the Jeff - fixing Lily issues. I am sure that I laid the ground work and that Lily and I were just stuck in a bad pattern, Jeff was able to get her out of that pattern, and he deserves some credit. Not all the credit, but some. This last week Lily has been a source of joy and a beacon of light in the mist of all the chaos. She is going through the process of learning about make believe, she makes up silly stories and does silly things. She likes to make people laugh and I comply as much as possible. I think she has discovered that a good laugh makes her feel better. I have learned the fine art of forcing myself to laugh at the same thing a million times. But, once I get going it usually turns into real laughter in a minute or two. While Mandy has always been very affectionate, Lily has always preferred to run and play than to be held. She is affectionate, just not in a physical way, and this gives us a chance to show our love to each other without smothering her with kisses and dreaded hugs. I thought this move would be made harder by the fact that Lily is so young, but really she has been a way to get my head out of the stresses and just have a good laugh.

Angels

The Master Sergeant replacing Jeff here in arrived here last week and I have been showing her and her family around a bit. Taking them out to eat and out to shop. This giving me the opportunity to see some of my favorite places, perhaps for the last time. I don't know I would have taken the time to do these things if it hadn't been for them. I have had such a lovely time.

Next week we move out of the house and into the hotel. I will be saying goodbye to my computer. I have been trying to think of a final blog entry to leave up while I am in the process of moving, but my creativity seems to be already packed away.

I keep taking my camera with me on our adventures around town, but I keep forgetting to take it out and snap pictures. My brain is so totally fried right now that it is hilarious. I try to tell our new friends about a restaurant or a store or something and every time the name of the place totally escapes me. I must sound like an idiot. Oh well. I did get some sunshine today so my mood is good, the stress hasn't gotten me yet. Or, maybe it has but I just forgot.

I am loath to admit this...

I work really hard at being a good mom. I read a lot of books, I have taken a lot of classes, I stay up all night discussing strategies with Jeff, etc. But...

While I was in Mississippi and Jeff was taking care of the girls, somehow he fixed Lily's screaming problems. Since I have been home she has been as sweet as pie, for the most part. Not just while she was sick, but even before and now after. We went out to dinner with a bunch of people and Lily was delightful. I have taken her all over the place with hardly and warning and she is always delightful. She speaks politely and hardly ever resorts to fits when she is distraught. So Jeff fixed Lily, which maybe embarrassing to admit but it is so delightful that I don't even care.

Our new friends even remarked that they thougth we were exaggerating about Lily because she is always so sweet. If they only knew.

snow

This is my last weekend in our house, next weekend we will still be here in Japan but we are moving into the hotel on Wednesday. I took a few pictures of the snow which occured earlier in the week. It has mostly melted now. I am starting to think that we are not going to be seing any cherry blossoms this year before we leave. I'll be spring is occuring in Mississippi right now. Here are some snow pictures, from what might be the last snow I see for quite some time.

This first picture was taken at night while the snow was falling, a view from my bedroom window. I was very excited that so much snow was falling.

By the time I got outside and took pictures during the day, most of the snow had already melted, but here are some shots of our back yard the next day.

Sunshine

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to spend about a half an hour outside in the sunshine. At the time it was cold and windy and not so much fun. But, as a result I cannot tell you how much my mood and energy level improved. Weird.

I have also noticed that my mood dictates the mood of the family. The more I smile the more they smile. The more light heartedly (It appears that I have made up this word, still I like it so I will use it) I take life's little stumbling blocks there more light heartedly the family takes these things as well. Weird.

I heard Jeff singing in the shower for the first time in weeks. I heard Mandy actually laugh out loud. And Lily, well she is pretty chipper 24/7, unless you tell her no.

Lily still isn't eating normally, so far she will only eat strawberries, she must be craving vitamin C. She is however, feeling better... While she was sick, she actually enjoyed curling up on the couch and cuddling with her momma. She went directly to bed without any drama, she was just the sweetest little thing... Last night it took me more than 30 minutes to get her to settled down for bed, so I guess Lily is getting back her fire. Maybe some sunshine will help her recover her appetite for something other than strawberries. The suckers are $5 for a box of about 6 strawberries right now. I am really looking forward to American produce prices!

Iraq

I was able to watch a little TV last night while the family was all sick in bed. I don't usually get the opportunity to watch news programs because I am the only one in the family who loves the news. I happened to catch a story on 60 Minutes which upset me to no end, I thought I would share my frustration with y'all because currently Jeff is working so many hours he doesn't have time to listen to me complain about the stuff on TV, please feel free to not read this if you do not like to get frustrated by the war in Iraq...

You can go to this link to read all about the story that was done by Scott Pelley, entitled Left Behind. Here is quote to give you the gist of the story

Many thousands of Iraqis believed in the cause. They signed on as drivers, construction workers and office workers. But now they and their families are being hunted down by insurgents bent on killing them for collaborating. No wonder many are fleeing Iraq, desperate for asylum. But as they appeal to the U.S., many feel they’re being left behind.

The story goes on to show many young healthy Iraqi men who want to defect to America and we are saying no to them. Most of these men have left Iraq and are currently refugees in bordering countries.

My problem is, why are they not in Iraq fighting for their country? The story is told in such a way as to imply that they (the Iraqis) helped us (the Americans), and now we owe them. The story says that they (Iraqis) believed in our(Americans) cause. This is a major problem in the war, the Iraqi people who agree with us, think this is our fight. Shouldn't they be thinking this is their country, their fight and we are there in Iraq to help them?

We have over a million men and women from America who have gone into Iraq and risked their lives. These are volunteers, people who want to make a difference for their country (America) and are willing to risk their lives because the yahoo's in Washington swear that fighting in Iraq will make America more safe. But, the young and healthy Iraqi's are unwilling to make that same commitment to their own country. These people are former translators, former truck drivers, former as in they are no longer helping us, they are now living in another country asking us to let they come live in America because we owe them for the help they gave to us. What about what they owe us? What about what every man, woman and child in Iraq owes us? There is no way we can ever stabilize this country until it becomes the Iraqi people versus the insurgents instead of the American military versus the insurgents.

If we decide to pull out of Iraq and leave the country to solve it's own problems as we did in Vietnam, then I am all for allowing those people who helped us to defect to America. However, right now I do not favor allowing anyone from Iraq to defect to America, I believe that as long as our soldiers are in Iraq risking their lives to make it a safe and democratic government that the citizen's of Iraq are either with us or against us in this war, they need to either stand beside us or we need to leave.

Of course I never thought we should have gone in the first place, but that is just me. I was just so disgusted to see these young Iraqi men on TV saying poor me the Americans won't let me defect even though I translated for them and now my life is in danger from the insurgents. From my perspective every grieving American family and every wounded American solider should be asking these men, look at the sacrifices I made for you and your country, why aren't you doing more to help defeat the insurgents?

This news story makes it seem as if the people of Iraq are currently afraid to be associated with the American military, afraid that those against the Americans will take revenge upon them and their families. I wish that more Iraqi's would stand up to these people and make the insurgents feel unsafe. It seems that no one is afraid to be an insurgent, it is not a threat to your family to be against the current government and the American military. Any thoughts?

The Snow Princess

The way I go on about this house cleaning must sound like I live in a toxic waste dump. I think I am just transferring the stress of the moving onto this one area. For the record, I have already finished the stove, oven, washer, dryer, and refrigerator. Of course these people I live with still expect me to cook and wash clothes, but hopefully it wont take long to re-clean it all when we are gone. The trying to keep it all pristine is frustrating me too.

Last night we had our BIG SNOW! I am so excited. It was so beautiful, I lit up like a Christmas tree. This morning I spent over an hour shoveling snow. Worked up quite a sweat in the sweet first thing on a snowy morning air. Maybe it will help me sweat out the rest of my cold. I am doing pretty good, just some head congestion left for me. Mandy is still pretty sick, and Lily is not recovering as fast as Jeff and I did. She has had it now for 6 days, today marks day 7, and she really hasn't ate in all that time. Perhaps a strawberry or two per day and milk. She is no longer just sleeping the entire day, she is playing and laughing, so I see improvement. I just hate the part where she doesn't eat. It may be my imagination but it appears she has lost weight. Jeff lost weight and didn't eat during the bad days, Mandy hasn't ate for a couple of days, but me, I ate three meals a day during the whole thing. And I am the only one in the family who could benefit from a few days without food. Oh Well.

Jeff and Mandy have not as of yet been helping with the cleaning. This is not because I am a big martyr. They do help around the house a great deal, I am no martyr. Right now they are both very busy with other important tasks and they will help when they are able. I am having a good laugh thinking of how I portray the family like I do all the work while they sit around with their feet propped up! ha. It isn't like that at all. I am the princess in the house. Today I believe I am going to do something easy like take the nails out of the walls and wash the light switches and base boards. It will feel like a major accomplishment but only take a little bit of time. I still have the bathrooms, kitchen cabinets, dishwasher, windows, blinds, light fixtures, and the outside, which is now completely covered in a good six inches of snow!

Tomorrow I promise to find something to talk about that does not involve sickness, stress or cleaning the house!

am I wrong?

Last night I was starting to feel a bit better. I was looking around the house making lists in my mind of all the things I have to get done in the next 10 days to ready the house for the inspection. We will be spending our last week in Misawa in billeting (hotel).

I told Jeff that I was worried I wouldn't be able to get it all done in time and maybe we should just hire someone. I lost a week of cleaning time with this stupid illness, taking care of the entire sick family is a lot of work. Plus, there were a lot of naps. Some how last week went by without a single thing being done toward the move out. Now the list of things I have to do feels enormous.

Jeff got so happy. I asked him why is he so happy, does he really want to spend all that money on someone else cleaning the house when I can do it for free. He said, he doesn't want to spend the money, but...

He has just been waiting for me to admit that he is right and I am wrong.

Laptop

It seems I spoke too soon about not being all that sick. The crud got me bad, the last couple of days have been horendous. Now we all have it. This is supposed to be the time we are getting everything done, instead we are all unable to do much more than sleep and take meds. Hopefully we will have a more fruitful week this coming week.

I keep trying to tell Jeff that if I clean the house and we do not hire someone to do it for us, which I have now found out costs $350, that we can use that money to buy a laptop. But, it seems laptops costs a bit more than that, plus we have to buy so many things when we move into the new house. I do have an old computer that is already shipped, it needs a new hard drive and a monitor so maybe I will be able to get that working. I was thinking that we could use one computer for internet where we get all the lovely viruses etc and another computer for homework and buying things on the Internet.

We will see, two months is the worst case senerio, but moving and unpacking, and decorating, getting the girls adjusted I will be busy. There are still 17 days until we leave this island. So we will see.

sickly

We are all quite sick. Jeff came home from a snow shoeing trip over the weekend with a terrible cold. The sickest I have ever seen him. Now Lily and I have it as well. Mostly Lily she has it a lot worse. It is like a cold with a kick, causing us to loose the ability to move for about three days, well, not really us more like Jeff and Lily. I just have a regular cold. It is weird to see first Jeff and then Lily so still, they are both so active and me the slothly one of the family has not been kicked quite as hard with this scurge. Maybe I have had it before, and Mandy hasn't been effected yet at all. We will see how it all plays out. Not a lot of moving stuff is getting done. Hopefully we will start to feel better soon and get all the work done.

When they come and take my computer away in a couple of weeks, I will be without a computer for about two months. This happens every time I move. The thought of it is quite scary, but in reality I survive.

from hello to goodbye

Today marks the 4Th anniversary of our arrival in Misawa, Japan. It was an arduous journey here. We left Italy, had a stop over in Portugal. This being a military contracted flight we all had to get off the plane and wait while the plane is refueled and inspected. We were on the bus to get back onto the plane and continue our journey to America when the bus was stopped and we were told to remain seated. We could see the plane, but had to sit on the bus for about an hour. This was in February 2003, most of the people who were on the bus and on the plane were coming home from the Persian Gulf. This was before we invaded Iraq, did you know that the Air Force has had people deployed to the Gulf since 1991, people have been having to serve in this area and have been shot at and away from family for 16 years. Anyways, most of the people on the plane were Air Force people's returning from their tour in the gulf. While deployed in the Gulf you are not allowed to drink any alcohol at all, even when you are not on duty. There were a bunch of young men on our bus, sitting looking at the plane, and they had managed to acquire a suitcase full of little liquor bottles and began to pass the liquor around our bus. I guess we decided to have a good time on the bus. Too bad I was 20 weeks pregnant with Little Miss Lily, who we were sure was a Howard Eugene at the time. Turns out that one of the women who was in Saudi was also pregnant and this being the reason for her return from the Gulf, she was very sick and they were seeing if she had to be evacuated from the plane or if she could continue on the journey to America. Evacuation would mean that all the plane's luggage would have to be removed, hers found and then everyone else's reloaded. Hours. So the doctors gave her an iv of liquid and she was able to continue on with the flight.

Our plane was scheduled to land in Washington DC in the morning. However, the airport was fogged in. Our plane was redirected to Pittsburgh, however, there weren't any customs officials working in Pittsburgh at the time so we were not allowed to get off the plane. This was a plane that came from an American military base in Italy and then in Portugal. Filled with military and family only, still we could not get off the plane without being cleared through customs. So the plane was refueled and we left Pittsburgh to circle Washington until the fog cleared or we ran out of gas. When we finally landed, our connecting flight to South Carolina had already taken off. We were told the next flight was in several hours and then we wouldn't be able to connect to Roanoke until the next day. We decided to rent a van and drive to Roanoke instead.

We arrived in Roanoke and had a lovely visit with the family. The motel we had booked off the Internet which allowed pets (we were traveling with our precious Daisy the cat from hell). Our motel room reeked of cigarette smoke and me being preggers this caused my all day sickness to increase and I had several lovely sessions with the toilet. We spent a week or so visiting with Jeff's family and we were then off to visit my brother in Salt Lake City. Of course our plane was delayed. We arrived in our connecting city Philadelphia with the cat and with no flights into Salt Lake City until the next day. We found a hotel that would allow us to have a cat, bought a new cat box and some litter and spent the night. Actually the hotel was lovely and we even had a lovely dinner. We made our way to Salt Lake City the next day and had a lovely few days visiting my brother and his family. I hadn't seen them in years. Hadn't even met his daughter who was about four at the time and hadn't seen his son since he was a tiny baby. So that was lovely, except they are smokers and that made me so so sick.

Next stop was Seattle. We stayed there a few days. We had to find a veterinarian to certify our cat was still not sick as we were in the States for more than two weeks and our current certification expired after two weeks. This cost of about $100 for the vet to look at our cat for about 5 seconds. So fun. Then began our flight to Japan. This was another military flight, we had to stop at several bases in Japan before arriving in Misawa. We had to get off the plane, sit around for hours and get back on the plane. The whole trip took more than 24 hours. We arrived in Japan our new home, got off the plane and it was raining.

Jeff's workmates met us at the airport, and helped us get our stuff and our cat to billeting (military for hotel). By then the rain had turned to snow. We should have been ready for an 8 day sleep in but after taking showers we felt a bit hungry and were ready to sample some fine Japanese cuisine. We called a taxi and asked to be taken to a Japanese restaurant. Our taxi driver did not speak a word of English and took us instead to the Japanese police department. We finally convinced him to take us to a restaurant by miming eating and chewing. Very American. This is how we discovered the New Miayki, our favorite restaurant in Misawa. We eat there every year to commemorate our anniversary. It also snowed 19 inches that night, and has snowed around that much every year on our anniversary since our arrival. This winter it hasn't really snowed all that much at all, which is very weird, since it usually snows at least 100 inches every winter, this winter I think we have had less than 20 inches. So I wonder if we will get our annual big snow? Still tonight we dine at our lovely New Miayki which by the way is a Chinese restaurant, I usually get the sweet and sour chicken.

Sweet Sixteen

Mandy turned sweet sixteen last week. Many people have asked me about how she is doing in regards to our move. Mandy has been in six different schools so far in her life and she is about to move to another one, her last. This time she will be moving to a school that is not a military school filled with kids who move all the time just like her. This time she has been in the same school for four years, here they have junior high and high school together in the same building.

The moving is hard on all of us. The process, the leaving, the uncertainty, we are all a bit out of sorts and scared. We have moved many times. We have traveled all over the world and I think being in the middle of China or Kenya is gives me the same type of feeling of freaking out that moving gives me. So, I would have to say that Mandy is struggling but she will be OK. Many people tell me they would never do this to their child and I understand. It breaks my heart to see her struggle. It also breaks my heart when they are sick or have to get shots.

Perhaps I have just justified it all in my head, but I believe that this life we have given to Mandy is helping to prepare her for adulthood. I believe that learning to get through difficult times is a great skill to have and that will help her in life much more than having the safety and security of a constant house and school and friends. I believe high school is hard for everyone. This move will give Mandy the opportunity to start over. To make new friends, hopefully. We have talked a lot about how to make friends, about how to put yourself out there, about how to handle the rejection. We have talked a lot about the fact that she is an excellent student and if it is just an awful situation we can home school her through the rest of what she needs and she can begin taking some community college classes.

I believe that we have a strong family and we depend on each other through these difficult times. We all deal with the stress in different ways and we are all having a hard time right now. The leaving is the hardest part. When you get to a new place it is all sunshine and roses, but the saying goodbye to everything you know and love, that sucks. So Mandy is having a hard time, and I think that it is OK. I think that the moves and the travel has prepared her for life better than if we always lived in the same place. I believe she has learned how to deal with difficult situations and she will never be the type of person who stays in an abusive marriage or continues in a horrid job just because she is afraid of change. I believe we have taught her that she has the ability to shape the world in which she lives, she chooses if she is happy or sad, she chooses her circumstances and she is not a victim of the world, poor me. To me this is one of the most important gifts I can give to her. I don't think that high school is all sunshine and roses for her right now as it wasn't for me, so I don't think that moving is taking her away from some idyllic happiness and forcing her into a world of gloom and despair. The process of moving is very difficult but I believe in the end it will be worth it.

My 20th high school reunion is this summer and now Mandy will have a school where she can graduate from and attend reunions. Not that I have gone to a single reunion but still the option is there she will be reintegrated into America after living overseas for almost 7 years.