Grandpa

Today we buried a great man. A husband, a father of 6, a grandfather of 20 and a great grandfather of 30. Richard Lathrom touched so many lives. I knew him for a short 10 years, but have many fond memories. We danced together at my wedding. I will never forget watching him eat cornbread like it was candy. First, seconds and even thirds. Heck, I think he even ate it instead of dessert. And of course, watching him hold Mary in his lap when she was a few months old. You know, when I was growing up, I remember seeing funeral processions on the street and getting impatient having to wait for them to pass. I always hoped the line was short. Today, the line was long...very long. And it dawned on me, I shouldn't view it as a hinderance on my time...my busy schedule. All those people are mourning the loss of someone they loved and today, I was one of those people. You were well loved, Grandpa Lathrom and you will be missed dearly. Goodbye.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, nearly 3 months later I finally use my birthday gift certificate for a pedicure. It was luxurious, fantastic, relaxing, wonderful...and according to Doug, my feet no longer look like they belong to an 80 yr.old woman. Thanks, honey. Hard to believe I still have the tan line from my flip flops this past summer. I was watching the woman rub my feet and all I could think about was that crazy V shaped tan and how I probably should use sunscreen on my feet, but then do I need to rub it all up my legs too? I'd hate to have the "sock" look created purely by 30 spf. But I also hate to put on sunscreen when Mary and I are just walking around the block once, before the all-consuming heat and humidity drive us back into the a/c. A hat works perfectly fine. So what if the top half of me looks 34 and the bottom half looks like an 80 yr. old crocodile. That's what pants are made for, right? Ok, let me get back on track. The pedicure was fabulous. 2 hours of uninterrupted, relaxing, ME time. I read a book, thoroughly enjoyed the massaging chair, sipped some sweet tea that rivaled Wendy's sweet tea from GA, and practically purred with my leg and foot massage. I told Doug that I want that every year for my birthday for the rest of my life. Ahhhh, Happy Birthday!

Happy V.D.

That's Valentine's Day for those of you that need the help. Doug is so miserably sick with the flu. You know, it stinks to have a sick kid, but I think it's doubly worse to have a sick spouse. I have less help with the munchkin and it's the weekend, so I always look forward to the extra set of hands. Poor Doug. I do feel bad for him. Last night was Valentine's Day and we had tickets to The Taste of Asia at the officer's club. We were going to get all dressed up and have a date night. I even babysat the neighbor's kids Friday night, so we could have a babysitting swap. Well, I ended up going stag. Not as depressing as I imagined. Never once did I feel out of place for not having a date. It probably helped that our friends Melissa and Kaye were there too. I did have the daunting task of eating $130 worth of food (since Doug's ticket went to waste). Not an easy task since I drove myself and couldn't partake of the open bar. Boo, hoo. I did eat 2 person's worth of shrimp...grilled, boiled and chilled and of course, tempura style. Speaking of which, have you ever had tempura lettuce? Yep, a small leaf of lettuce dipped in tempura batter and deep fried. They can make anything delicious. How come the Japanese aren't larger? My initial thought was to not fill up on salad and rice, but after my 2nd plate of dumplings, Korean ribs, shrimp, tempura veggies, and little pork wraps, I could feel my arteries clogging up, so I got a plate of salad. The dressing was delicious. I did not go for the sashimi, but there was an enormous tuna on a slab of ice that the man was carving in front of us. At first, I thought it was fake. I'm still not a huge fan of raw fish, but I heard it was wonderful. So we ate and ate and ate, then came the show. The costumes were beautiful and the music was...hmmm..interesting. It was the typical Asian screeching. Sounded very similar to the Korean show we saw a few years ago. We had a quick break for dessert and then the drummers came out. Fantastic. It was amazing to see the athleticism. They beat these huge drums for what seemed like forever creating the most wonderful sounds and rhythms. And of course, a Japanese night cannot be complete without the Shisa dog. We had great seats about halfway from the stage and right on the aisle. Hopefully, he won't be sick next year. I have a feeling we'll be there next year. Happy Valentine's Day!

Got Milk?

Ok, it's not really a milk mustache, but when you look at all the ads, they don't look like real milk either. Actually, Mary and I went shopping at the exchange to get out of the house for a bit and give Doug some much needed "alone" time. He seems to have caught the flu from Mary, our 2 1/2 ft walking petri dish. I don't know why I didn't get it, but I'm soooo thankful. I guess if Doug has it now, I still have a chance of getting it, but he's usually pretty good about NOT sneezing in my mouth, unlike other household members...hmmm, I wonder who? So back to my story, Mary and I were shopping and she asked very nicely for a snack. Of course, I forgot to bring one, so we scooted on over to the Cinnabon store. A nice relaxing snack of cinnamon sticks dipped in icing. These are the days.

Things that made me laugh today:

-We've been using a bit of sign language with Mary hoping that it will help with the communication. Doug's been so good with it. Today he asked her a question and said, "can you say 'yes'?" He kept repeating it and she kept staring at him. Finally he looked at me and said "how do you say 'yes'?" I simply replied "yes". He rolled his eyes and I started cracking up. Thanks Doug. By the way, Mary can say "yes" when she wants to.

- Mary has learned how to scowl. She furrows her little brow, purses her lips and looks downright ticked off. She even lowers her head a bit and instead of turning her head to face you, she'll glance out of the corner of her eyes. Hilarious. I HAVE to get it on either video or a picture soon. Doug said no rush, she'll probably continue doing it for many years.

-We went to the dentist for a check-up. Do you know that in her goodie bag they included a toothbrush, mouthwash and dental floss? Yeah, like I'm really going the floss my 19 month old's teeth. Sometimes I just have to shake my head...after I have a good laugh over their insane ideas.

Showdown: parents vs kid

Cheerios on the floor, Doug nicely telling Mary to pick them up, she laughs and runs away. Uh-oh. Showdown. The battle of the wills. Who's going to give in? It's can't be the adults. It just can't. ...two time outs later and my getting involved gave us the result we wanted. It was so hard not to laugh at her stubbornness. We could tell she was really testing us to see how much she could get away with. I'll be honest, she's been sick the past 5 days and I've let her get away with a lot more than usual. Well, no more. She's on the road to recovery and that means she has to behave again. Round one goes to the parents!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Sunday, we headed to Nago to see the Cherry Blossom Festival. Yea for us, since we usually try to avoid crowds at all cost and this time we were purposefully driving toward them. Of course we got lost, of course the directions we were following were extremely vague and of course we saw another American and decided to follow them. Ends up, they had pretty much the same crappy directions we had and ended up following us. Bad idea. We finally just found a parking lot in the area we thought it had to be and walked. We were pretty close. We were just in time to see the parade. We found a nice empty spot in the warm sun and sat down to enjoy the festivities. I haven't been to a parade in America in forever, but if the short one we saw at Christmas on the Air Force base is any indication, the Americans love giving out candy. The Japanese gave out little tiny oranges. How refreshing (esp. considering how expensive fruit is around here). One of the first groups that passed us handed Mary an orange and she held on to that for the longest time. She loved smelling it and then shoving, I mean, gently putting it up to our noses to smell. So cute. Near the end, a man handed us a handful of oranges, so we decided to join in with all the other on lookers and eat them. Yum. Tart, sweet and perfect. Didn't get any pics of Mary eating them, but she was gobbling them down as fast as Doug could de-seed them. Unfortunately, by the time the parade was over, we only had time to get a beer and a snack (and a much needed bathroom break for me) that we didn't walk far enough down the street to see the cherry blossoms. Funny, since that's why we went. We did see some beautiful trees in the distance as we were sitting in traffic on the way home. Overall, a good day. Next year we'll check out the trees. (ps. the pic of the trees at the top of the page was a part of the parade. They were fake tree branches on a truck. Still pretty)

A Shisa dog in the parade. They walked around with a bunch of drummers who stopped right in front of us for a show. It was great...and loud. I was so mesmerized by the show that the dog sat down right next to me on the sidewalk. I didn't even notice him. I glanced to my left and shrieked. Everyone had a nice chuckle.

One of my favorite pics. Mary holding her orange. Doug said it's crooked. I thought it was cool.

Watching the show.

ESL

It is so amusing to see how the Japanese translate even the simplest things into English. Mary has a t-shirt that I bought at a local store that says "cutie flower". Not too weird, but still sounds a bit "off". Yesterday, we stopped at a hot dog stand for a quick bite to eat. The french fry wrapper was completely in English and we got a good chuckle. I, of course, had to take a picture. I almost brought it home to mail to Brian and Carrie, since they really got a kick out of the crazy English. Doug helped me realize that was a crazy idea. So for now, enjoy the picture.

"What a so tasty?"