July update

I am trying to get it through my thick skull that the dishes will never be done, the house neat AND clean, Eva asleep, and myself caffeinated in a way that allows me to blog just then. And yet I want to put down coherent thoughts, not just 'snippets'.


One piece of good news is that the World Cup in the Hepler house (of Excellence & Relax) ended with the US's loss. I don't believe we watched any more games. This is good news because the primetime games were all around 3am Japan time. This is bad news because our laundry stopped getting magically folded by Nathan.


Japanese lessons at Kumon are getting much harder. I got 100% on my first test, and then the workbooks I have to do daily jumped from taking 10-ish minutes to taking about 30 each--that is a big jump! I'm still learning hiragana and basic sentence structure, like word order, 3rd-person verbs, and use of particles. I now have the babysitter scheduled for twice a week so I can go without Eva, because that has swiftly become impossible. It is too small a room too full of kids to bring an adorable blue-eyed, blonde, very loud baby into and expect her to sit for 45 minutes. The kids and the teachers there love her, though, and spoil her when they do get to see her--every time I walk in, there's a rousing cry of "Eva-chan?!" and "kawaii!!" (cute) (Like when I procrastinate on my homework and spend the babysitter time DOING my homework, then have to go to Kumon with Eva later!) Yukiko-sensei has a couple of half-American grandkids, apparently, who are being forced by wild horses to take Japanese at Kumon, too. They're both teenagers and the girl is older, and she's at least mildly respectful. The boy is about 14 and it going to get smacked with a book one day...possibly by me. He is amazingly bratty to his grandmother. I bet she's just happy that they live on the island right now and she gets to see them.

I truly did not appreciate how easy Arizona was on the joints. My goodness! At least now that rainy season is over, things are a little less creaky and painful. More on that later though. The weather has turned to hot, hot, hot, sunny, and humid.

Evangeline and I got in our first car-bump about a week ago. I can't call it an accident because 1- grandparents would understandably flip out and 2-it really wasn't. An Okinawan lady about my age rear-ended me at a stoplight. But we were all OK and she just hit the tire on the back of my Surf, leaving us undamaged and her with a very dented hood (unnecessary SUV: 1 / economical tin can: 0). She felt terrible about Eva being in the car, but Eva was unphased and we did not call the cops (one of my greatest fears related to living overseas is getting involved in foreign police/legal systems).

I'm going to go now and pick up Mad Max from getting tutored. He stayed at the vet overnight, which made me appreciate just how much he cleans up after Evangeline's mealtimes...Hopefully he will stop marking everything he sees now.