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An Easter Update

It’s hard to believe that Chuck and I will hit our 2-year mark in Okinawa in just a couple of weeks.  One year left sounds like both a lot of time, and no time at all. Much has been done, and yet there is still so much to do!

I didn’t mean for this blog to turn into a travelogue, in which I only update when I go somewhere exciting. Even if no one ever reads it, I want to look back on it myself and remember all the adventures I had, big and small. So, here’s a quick re-cap of what we’ve been up to since our Thai Holiday, in reverse chronological order.

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Thai Holiday: Phuket

Originally, I had planned for Phuket to be the relaxing part of our vacation. I was thinking a resort with its own beach and everything on-site so that we wouldn’t have to leave if we didn’t want to. The only thing I would schedule was a boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands, which had been on my bucket list for years…

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My Favorite Holiday

Seriously, Halloween is my favorite. There’s no other time you can dress up and be silly and act ridiculous for no good reason. Plus, who doesn’t love a good spook? Not that I’ve ever dressed as anything “scary” in my whole life, but I enjoy the haunted house/forest/corn maze thing, whenever I have the time to go on such an excursion or plan such a party.

This year, I did not have the time for an excursion, but we did have a party planned. There was also  a second, unexpected party that required a last-minute costume #2… because I never duplicate costumes 🙂 Please excuse the poor-quality cell phone pictures!

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Celebrating 5 Years

IMG_2670Every now and again, Chuck and I get so caught up in the separate things we have going on in our lives, that we start to lose touch with each other. This calls for what I have dubbed a “reset”, when we share openly and honestly over a glass of wine (or scotch, in his case.) We talk about what has preoccupied us individually, and then what we miss in each other. I hope this is something we can maintain over the years, because it goes without saying that communication is vitally important in a healthy relationship.

This particular exchange was well-timed because it was mere days before we celebrated five years of marriage.

Our reset made for a truly enjoyable, distraction-free October 8th. I think we both felt relaxed and in-touch with each other. We don’t typically exchange gifts on our anniversary (opting for a trip somewhere, instead), but – unbeknownst to each other – we both ended up purchasing items that we had been wanting for a while – an XBOX One for him, and a Kerrie Hess painting for her.

We enjoyed a romantic and satisfying dinner at Soupcon, a favorite local Okinawan cafe, before wrapping up a last day of work and jetting off to Kyoto!

I think it’s been our best anniversary so far… and I know there will be many, many more to come 🙂

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Hafa Adai, Guam!

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Growing up, Guam meant one thing: brown tree snakes coiled up in your toilet.

It was an undesirable duty station for military personnel, and certainly not an exotic tourist destination.

But Chuck goes to Guam a lot for work, and he loves it. He kept pestering me to meet him there, and since he so rarely gets excited about one particular location (and I plan the bulk of our travel adventures to begin with), I decided to book a flight for Labor Day Weekend. It helped that the government had him covered, so it was going to be a cheap vacay in the scheme of things 🙂

… But Guam blew my mind. It wasn’t necessarily the people or the culture, but the landscape. WOW! It was everything I had hoped Okinawa would be, with beautiful, crystal clear blue waters in which to frolic like a mermaid. Continue reading →

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“An Unlikely Bestseller”: The Guest Cat

It’s been a hot minute since I read a book for pleasure in its entirety. imagesFor a while, I was in the process of reading three books, because I couldn’t decide which to read first and each one satisfied different moods at any given time. Of course, work, school, OkiPaws, and Chuck generally compete for my attention, so neither of the three books (despite being pretty good) have been completed.

While browsing Huffington Post, I came across 12 Books That Will Lift You Up When You are Down. I briskly scrolled through but then quickly backpedaled to examine one title closer: The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. If you know me at all, you know why I backpedaled, but the fact that it was a book about a cat written by a Japanese poet made me all sorts of curious:

A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife ― the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens….

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