It's funny the sorts of things us silly Americans take for granted. Google, for example. Google is a great website. In ENGLISH!

In Japanese, it all means NOTHING! I get unhappy every time I open Firefox and Google appears with Japanese characters everywhere. WTF does any of that even mean? And it's even more depressing when all of my search results are in Japanese! How will I ever get things done again? Somebody should tell my freaking foreign IP address that when I type ".com", I MEAN ".com"! I do NOT mean ".co.jp"!!


Okay, that was my depressing rant for the day. Today was highly productive and Google didn't bother me at all until I opened my computer here in the lobby to check my email and saw nothing but a bunch of little scribbly marks all over my "home" page.


We got our overseas drivers licenses! This was quite a feat. We've been technically in the clear to do so since last Wednesday, but we have always had something preventing us from taking care of business. This morning before 8AM, Mark called me on the OBNOXIOUSLY loud room phone and said that I needed to be dressed and put together because he'd be here in 25-30 minutes and we were going to take our licensing exam.

So I dragged myself out of bed more than a little disgruntled, and got myself assembled for our outing. By 9:30 our chauffeur for the day had arrived and we were on our way to Camp Foster.

By 10:45, we were signing our licenses. We ate lunch at Macaroni Grill and then headed out to town to peruse the used car lots.

Boys and girls, we are the new owners of a 2000 Toyota Funcargo! (No, I did NOT just make that up. Shame on you for asking!)

Yes, I know what this car looks like. A little shoe. But don't knock it till you've tried it! Our dealership of choice was unfortunately out of both the Vamos and the Scion. So we went with this rather affordable Toyota. It has a ton of interior space and a huge cargo area in the back. It seats 5. And it has a CD player. Check us out, aren't we so high-tech? Okay, fine. You know what? You can shut your face! For $4300 with a 0% interest rate and a warranty that would knock the pants off of some American dealerships, I am not complaining!

So, yeah, the Funcargo. Which is just awesome, because honestly how many times in your life do you get to drive a car with "fun" in it's name, let alone OWN one? I mean, let's dissect that model name: Fun Car Go! It doesn't get much more authentic than that. And I'm pretty sure I've never seen one in the good old U.S. of A. Which makes it even more appealing, if possible.

We pick up the Funcargo on Wednesday afternoon.

Tomorrow, we'll be moving out of our lovely hotel and into our lovely industrial apartment. I have to keep reminding myself that it won't be entirely vacant when we get there, since the loaner government furniture was supposedly delivered today, although we didn't opt to borrow any beds because... Well, I don't want to sleep on their nasty beds. I'd rather wait for my nice comfy bed to arrive via the huge wooden crate it left San Angelo in. At any rate, it'll be interesting all by itself to see what kind of ugly crap they loaded into the place while we had our backs conveniently turned. And figuring out grocery and necessity shopping tomorrow while we are in between vehicular dependence and Funcargo-ness is going to be incredibly interesting. We'll see how that pans out, too.

For now, I feel like it must be nap time or something. It's been a damn long day. And tomorrow should be long, too. Isn't that special.

Here in Japan, there are a variety of "normal" cars available. Mark and I have reached total agreement on the fact that we are NOT interested in such a vehicle.

If we are going to be in a foreign country for 3 years, we are damned well going to buy some sort of absolutely ridiculous ride. When in Rome...!

I've fallen absolutely in love with this. I'm pretty sure to buy one would be a bit outside of our budget. But look at how freaking awesome it is! I've seen two of these now, in person. They are even cooler (and funnier) when you're standing next to them. It's like a mini-mini-van.

It's just as well, though, that we probably can't afford it. I was slightly disappointed to discover on their website that the Vamos only seats 4. I mean, we only need 4 seats - two of which will be filled with car seats - but my sensible side says that if we're getting a mini-van (even a mini- version) we had better be getting 3 rows of seats. Bare minimum in any vehicle we'd better be getting seating for 5. Even if we NEVER use the 5th seat.

Oh well.

Mark, honestly, has his heart set on a Scion. Which is fine with me - Scions are awesome cars. Although here there is no differentiating between a Scion, Lexus, or Toyota. All Toyota products are classified as Toyotas. You just KNOW an xB when you see it rolling down the road, though. There is no masking it's Brave-Little-Toaster style with a different emblem. And anybody who knows me at all also knows that I pine for my xA on a daily basis. Biggest mistake we ever made - trading it in for the CR-V! I would be perfectly happy with another Scion product. At this point, I'd be happy with ANY car if it gave us a little bit of independence. Having to rely on our sponsors - bless their hearts - or public transportation options to get anywhere is getting old. Monday we are supposed to take our SOFA licensing exams, and after that we're free to go car shopping.

I have a long list of things I'd like to do while we're here and the sooner I can get started the better. I'm feeling behind. Far, far behind. We move into our apartment on Tuesday, so at least SOME things will start getting settled. Yesterday we got cell phones. Very very slowly, we're piecing together some normalcy.

We are safely in Japan, have been since the 17th or so. It was a ridiculous journey to get here and is continuing it's ridiculous course even now - though with a pending deposit of back-pay FINALLY showing up in my online banking, I have some sort of hope that things are going to mellow out and start returning to normalcy and decency very soon. We move into our highrise tower apartment next Tuesday. It's been a total whirlwind. I am hoping I'll have some sort of internet from the house, but I'm not counting on it, to be honest.

For now, what's important is that we are safe, we are [mostly] healthy, and we are here in Okinawa. And our newest little one is definitely another girl. My elective 3D sonogram the day before we left California confirmed it. So I'm easing into actual excitement over HER upcoming arrival.


And that's about it for now. I need to be off to bed soon, it's after 10PM here and our schedules seem to be at a point now where they are never going to completely straighten out.

76% of my readers were... WRONG!

According to my ultrasound yesterday - which was a fiasco in itself since Amaris was sick and her puking caused Mark and her to miss it - the new baby is a GIRL! We're going to have a 3D scan done this coming weekend in Los Angeles, so Mark will get to see her and it won't have been a total loss.

We're excited. I think Mark is a little shocked because he was just SURE it was a boy, but a little sister for Amaris will be wonderful and it'll be a lot of fun. And we're not done just yet so God willing we've still got at least one more chance to go for a boy. Mark said to me today, "Well, with me being right all the time about everything, I was bound to be wrong once." GAG!

The ultrasound tech yesterday was wonderful. He explained every single image on the screen to me, and I got to see a lot of cool stuff. It was my first stellar medical sonogram experience.

San Antonio was awesome. We ate the famous puffy tacos, walked (and cruised) the riverwalk, did Sea World, and the Texas Pride BBQ... We had a great weekend. We also hit up a bunch of those funny, hokey tourist-trap places: the wax museum, Ripley's Believe it or Not museum... The Guinness World Records museum, the mirror maze, and Tomb Rider.

Amaris had a blast. Sea World was great. The waterpark there (Lost Lagoon) was actually a lot more fun for us than The Schlitterbahn. There was a ton of cool stuff for us to all do together.]






It was a perfect "last hurrah" for us here in Texas.






The moving process this week was not as perfect. By far. The movers sucked. Horribly. The planning was impossible and horrendous, and in general everything about it was miserable. There was no way to adequately prepare ourselves, our home, or our belongings for the shipping/storing/throwing away nightmare. Then TMO smartly scheduled both movers to appear on the SAME DAY. So there wasn't enough of Mark and me to go around and keep things in order, and the movers were constantly in each others' way. By the middle of the day, all of the movers were irritated with everything and were cutting corners to try and leave as quickly as possible. Nobody had a good attitude and everybody was unprofessional and unhappy. My storage movers tried to leave without taking my kitchen table and chairs as well as a ton of miscellaneous stuff in the living room, which they took grudgingly without properly wrapping or boxing because "we don't have any boxes." As a result they refused to "guarantee" the condition the final items would arrive in. They scratched and gouged walls and doorjambs throughout the house. And after they were long gone, we opened up a huge kitchen cabinet to find Pyrex measuring cups, ramekins, and our fondue pot, to name a few things, completely untouched. (Son of a...)

The "shipment" movers started to get annoyed when Amaris darted into her bedroom and started peeling inventory control tags off of her furniture. It all happened so quickly that I didn't even know what was happening until after she'd already done it. UGH! After that, they tried to get Mark to sign the inventory lists and I confirmed that he was aware that our giant plasma TV was functional. The driver said, "Nope. I listed it's condition as 'MCU - Mechanical Condition Unknown'." TMO warned us about this. They said we were to ensure that our expensive electronics were confirmed to be in working condition. We argued with him and he kept insisting that it was "really no big deal". Uh, yes it is. If we arrive in Okinawa and are delivered a TV that doesn't work, and we complain about it, they could say "Well, it was listed as MCU - as far as we know it was broken when we picked it up." And boom! We're screwed out of one very expensive TV that there is no way in hell we can afford to replace. We pitched a fit about it because I'd made a point to turn it on that morning so that they could see it's functionality, and finally ended up reconnecting it to show the driver that it was perfect. He then took a turn for extremely pissy, and proceeded to slam doors throughout the house, make snarky comments to us, and scratch the hell out of our driveway with his fork lift. When they left I realized they'd packed our cable modem, router, and all of the other electronics, but had left behind almost all of the power cables... Like, why would you do that?

After the movers had both left and we'd had some time to cool off, I checked our inventory sheets. Both moving companies had wrongly reported EVERY single one of our belongings to be in very poor condition. They use codes to describe the condition of each item. Everything was listed as "badly worn," "scratched," "soiled," "stained," "faded," or "rubbed." And when I say "everything," I MEAN it. Right down to things that were brand new. My golf clubs, which have seen a total of maybe 20 minutes of daylight in their existence, and are almost all still wrapped in their protective plastic, were described as "badly worn," and "faded."

I am livid.

I fully intend to write angry letters to the managers of each of the moving companies as well as TMO. The whole thing was completely unacceptable.

But I find that I am really pleased that it's over with. Even though I have a house full of miscellaneous crap that I will ultimately have to ship to myself or leave with a family member. Or throw away.

Whatever. That's my rant. Tonight we are happily in the hotel room, which is actually bigger than some apartments I've been in. And I'm looking forward to sleeping in a real live bed. And I had the room windows open to allow in the sound of evening colors and taps. Which made me happy.

Tomorrow our plan is to do absolutely nothing important. We're having some people come here so we can barbecue, and other than that we're going to just completely take it easy. Sunday we're going to hit the cleaning (and touch up painting) head on. Next week is jam-packed with appointments and to-do's. It'll be stressful, but at least we're getting a handle on things. (Sort of).