Formerly from a Room in Roppongi

A very happy second birthday to my super sweet niece Aliyah Ruth! I'm sure I'll sound more like her great great grandmother than her aunt when I say this, but I can't help feeling like her life (my life?) is happening much too quickly. In any case, I hope this coming year is great for Aliyah, her brothers, my sister and brother-in-law...and Aliyah, no terrible twos, please!

Who knows why I'm having these almost-cussing encounters lately? Blame it on the fact that there's no proper "HU" or "HUH" sound in Japanese and "FU" must be substituted. Is that too much foreshadowing?

So I'm with my English conversation student today and we are talking in Japanese (oops...well, she's a beginner so everything is very meta so far). Specifically, we are talking about a hook. And she says earnestly, "Do you spell that 'eff you see kay'?"

How proud are you that I had ZERO reaction other than to say, "Why no, it's actually 'h o o k'?"

Me too. I'm hooking proud.

Hey it's the last day and last minute of this month, and I did it! OK, I actually didn't do it, that is, I wasn't able to post to my blogs every single day. But I was competitively close, so I'm satisfied.

What I mean is, I've discovered I'm not a perfectionist. But I do have to feel like I met some arbitrary standard in most anything I do, or I'll be frustrated, upset, and generally feel like a loser. Really. For example, when I play Settlers with Jenny, I'm certain to lose, but if I get at least seven or eight points out of the ten required for vicory and therefore feel like I was somewhat in the running, then I don't mind so much. So though I didn't post every single day, because I came darn close, I'm proud of and satisfied with my effort. Bonus, it was unexpectedly fun! Furthermore, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that one or two friends/family are still out there reading this after all these years (Hi Mom!). Thank you!

I'm going to do my best to keep up daily posts, so please keep watching this space!

We went out with friends to the Navy Pier Imax Theatre. We watched A Christmas Carol, the newest version which is in 3D. You already knew that the moment you saw this picture of us in the glasses.
OK, so the movie was kind of a misery sandwich for me. I was surrounded behind by people who were determined to squelch me with shushing and chastising, and before by a blaring, scaring multi dimensional Jim Carrey-fest.

Details are as follows: So I was excited to be out without kids and maybe I was chatting with my friend animatedly as I have occasionally been known to do. So? This is IMAX, people. The sound of one person chatting to a friend is not going to make you miss the point. Especially when said chatting is going on during the previews...!!

Further into the movie when I was shaking in my boots and therefore extremely curious about the movie's rating, can you blame me for wanting to use my phone to immediately answer the question of PG vs. PG-13? Not unreasonable to me, but the lady behind me who promptly hissed/whined "it's (that phone) so bright, it's shining in my eyes!!" apparently thought that was a bunch of crazyness.

Anyway, I had a really fabulous night, and I mean it, because I thoroughly enjoyed being out with a group of friends, some of whom I haven't spent time with in awhile. My fun didn't have anything to do with the movie incidents described above, this is kind of an "in spite of" situation.

This year for Thanksgiving, we didn't have particular plans, yet I wanted to celebrate it with friends. I had invited my parents to come here, but that didn't work out (which also turned out to be an answer to prayer, they needed to be home to help my sister and her family as my latest nephew, Samuel Hector, was born a week ago. There he is with his big sister Aliyah and big brothers Eli and Oliver).

I decided that it would be great to spend Thanksgiving with Grant and Cheryl Lynn, yet I didn't want to call them and invite myself. So, imagine this, I decided to pray and ask God if He would arrange things for me. Remind me to make my prayers nice and specific like this from now on, because approximately two hours after I prayed this prayer, I got a phone call from Cheryl Lynn. She said, "What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?" and I replied, "Nothing," to which she responded, "Want to come be with us at Tom & Andrea's place?". Whoa. I almost fell over! God cares about my details!

Skipping forward to the day, we had a lovely time with Grant & Cheryl Lynn and company. Thanks to them and Tom and Andrea for including us (and to Tom, for sending me these pictures so promptly), but most of all, thanks to God for answering my prayer!

Andrea not only prepared the quiz I referred to here, she also got these Mentos/Coke rockets for the kids!

We got to see our long lost friends today. Here are the kids, lined up in age order. Keep in mind that Ashleigh, on the left, is six days older than Koji, and Blake, on the right, is one day younger than Misaki.
We could hardly have lined our kids up better if we had been able to plan their birthdays. Thank God for such great friends, though we're a little jealous that Blake is a much more of a "model" baby (as in, when we got the camera out, he started posing!) than Misaki.

Dear Karaoke Machine, Thank you for the good times. I confess, they weren't as good as I had hoped they'd be. You see, when I asked Aogu to *pretty please* get you for me several years ago, I envisioned us in a karaoke box in Tokyo. I imagined we could recreate the same sort of atmosphere and experience in our basement. Alas, I didn't understand that CD+G CDs would be more expensive than what I was willing to invest, or that it would be impossible for me to sing Japanese songs. I also didn't--still don't--know why my friends weren't as into you as I was. Since they weren't, my fun was diminished, too. Boo hoo. Karaoke machine, we did make some memories together and I will never forget you. I promise. Even though I sold you to Mr. H today, a random guy that found you on Craig's List. And even though I will likely be making lots of new karaoke memories with utamo, in my heart I know that all home karaoke started with you. Thanks, and I hope Mr. H appreciates you even more than I did. Love and vibrato, Jamie