Twice in a row I've cooked dinner.  Twice in a row I've cooked breakfast.

Who'd have ever thought that I'd come to Japan and have the best ITALIAN food of my life?

It's gray outside and it looks cold (I'm sure it's not ACTUALLY cold, but it certainly appears that way from inside the apartment).  I think I'm going to turn on my Christmas tree, do a little laundry, and then make chocolate chip cookies with Amaris.  We might also consider some gingerbread.

I have over 3 dozen tamales on my freezer.  And my neighbor has at least that many in hers.  They were a success, I do believe, despite the fact that we're both pretty darn white and had never attempted to make tamales before.  They taste great.  And they look pretty nice, too.

I'm heading to bed for now but later on after I've woken up, my friend and I are going to make our very first attempts at homemade tamales.  I cooked chuck roast all day long and it's hanging out in the fridge overnight.  I'm excited.  Mark will deface them with ketchup and I don't even care.  This'll be my first ever Christmas outside of California, which basically means that it'll be my first ever Christmas without access to tamales.  So I'm pretty stoked to carry on the tradition myself by making them here to enjoy.  I need to clear out some freezer space.

Everybody else gets half a day off after they've had duty for "recovery". Why is it that Mark never winds up getting what "everybody else" does?

I have not heard from Mark in 20 hours, now. He called a little after 8PM last night to check in and tell me that he missed me and my pork chops (more on that later). Then he never called again and he didn't come home around noon like most of the guys in his shop do when they've been on overnight duty.

Since we arrived here, Mark has had duty 3 times. First was the night before he had to go to the rifle range and that prevented him from getting his half-day off. Then was the Friday after Thanksgiving, and obviously he'd have already had the time off afterwards. And now last night. He said he might not get his half day this time either because they were "really busy", but I figured he'd still at least CALL in between and let me know some sort of an update. I've checked my phone all day long to no avail. He has not called, nor has he answered any of my 3 phone calls today. I'm getting annoyed. I just don't get why HE is always the overworked one. Anybody else would have taken their half day and left regardless of anything that needed to be done.

Long gone are the days of Port Hueneme duty. Duty there consisted of him having to carry around a rather annoying cell phone and check the building twice a day for a week, once every 2-3 months or so. Duty there was cake. Duty here, similarly to San Angelo, means that he has to stay at the barracks once a month, and gets to sleep a whole 4 hours, if he's lucky. It ticks me off that they obligate even the married Marines to this task, rather than just the Marines who are actually living in the barracks. I don't see them sending single Marines to keep an eye on the building we live in.

So I'm irritated.

Okay, back to the pork chops. Night before last I made pork chops for dinner that made Mark say, "OH MY GOD." Pork chops never get an "oh my God" in this house. We tend to find them boring and even a little tough and dry. Enter "Awesome Honey Pecan Pork Chops".

Ingredients:

• 4 3/4" thick boneless pork chops
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour for coating
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. In a shallow dish, mix together flour, salt and pepper. Dredge pork cutlets in the flour mixture.
2. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add chops, and brown both sides. Transfer to a warm plate.
3. Mix honey and pecans into the pan drippings. Heat through, stirring constantly. Pour sauce over cutlets.

Yes. You should try them. Seriously. I'll bet if I put them in a bento box, Mark would find Bento completely irresistible.

My newest dilemma is sweet potatoes. I was looking forward to cooking some delicious Thanksgiving sweet potatoes this year, and didn't really want to use the canned variety. But sweet potatoes here in Okinawa are... well, purple. Really purple.

And purple yams just doesn't seem Thanksgiving-y to me. In fact, it seems downright weird. Ah... Every day is a new adventure.

This is easily the coolest song on Noggin these days. It makes me happy. Goofy old Dirty Socks Funtime Band and their hit, "Dinosauring".

We had an uneventful weekend. Mark ran in a triathlon (he was on a team, which I think is actually cheating as far as triathlons go... but whatever) on Saturday and then we came home and slept. And then we went to the crappy sushi place here in town and had some barely edible sushi. I heard somewhere that it takes 3 years to learn to properly make sushi. The chefs at Nakamura didn't bother to figure it out. Everything there tastes dry and dissatisfying, even when doused in various sauces.

Anyways, then yesterday we had breakfast at Denny's, took Amaris to the playground, ran a couple of unnecessary errands, and then cleaned house for movie night. Very eventful, see. We watched Dodgeball. To my disappointment. I wanted to watch The Goonies.

I'm getting increasingly more excited about going to Okinawa. The brainstorming about Disney parks led to a lot of researching and it turns out that MCCS in Okinawa has a really awesome, extensive website. And they offer a ton of really cool annual tours, both on and off the island. It's my intention to do AS MUCH traveling as we humanly can while we're there. And since Mark will inevitably be deployed at some point, I figure I'll have plenty of opportunities to save up money to fund these excursions.

MCCS also has a lot of job opportunities. I'd LOVE to score one. But I'm not real sure I'll feel comfortable putting the little bean in daycare. I'd really like to have Amaris in daycare even just for one day a week, but I am not sure I'll feel comfortable putting my newborn in someone else's care. So I'm not quite certain if and how that'll work out for us. Time will tell, I suppose. I may potentially just apply myself to school while we're there since they offer STAP to spouses of service members stationed in Okinawa, and Mark's GI Bill will finally be coming available to me as well. We'll see what happens.

At any rate we'll have plenty to do to fill our 3 years there. And of course, I'm looking forward to the food. Genuine sushi and yakisoba and...

Yes, we'll make the most of it. We'll have a good time. Mark my words.

By the end of the weekend, every weekend, my house always ALWAYS looks like it was hit with an unyielding typhoon. Mostly the kitchen and the living room, but I've noticed this phenomenon is slowly seeping into other spaces as well - the office, the bathrooms, and the bedrooms. I don't know what exactly it is that causes this. Laziness, Amaris, Mark, heck - maybe even me. Most likely suspect is a mix of all of the above - I know that I am feeling less than energetic, Amaris is being about as destructive as she can be, and Mark has been attached to his computer and the couch all weekend attempting to learn to play his guitar and playing Mob Wars on Facebook. Whatever the cause, I'm exhausted just looking around.

Mark rented I Am Legend last night for us to watch, and we sat and watched it while Amaris took a really long nap after we came home from the lake. That was a rough movie. I mean it. I sobbed so hard and uncontrollably that I started to feel really self-conscious and uncomfortable. Mark kept looking over at me. That didn't help matters - I just felt more on the spot. I didn't realize a movie starring Will Smith could ever be so heartbreakingly sad. It was good. Very good. Not at all what I expected - don't quite know what I expected, though. But I can say fairly certainly that I never want to watch it again. Once was more than enough for me.

I have a hankering for a bierock. Seems that just because I am in Texas means that I am pretty much doomed to want every single food that I haven't found here. Miserable old Texas. I can't wait to get the heck out of here. Of course then we'll be in Okinawa where all of my faves and craves are even further out of reach. I just can't win, I tell you.