The Annual Letter

You can find our annual winter/holiday letter at our couple/wedding blog, here.

A Whole New Adventure

For a year and a half, Nick and I had an extra job on our hands as property managers of two apartment buildings. We managed 23 apartments and many personalities. It proved to be a lot to juggle (with our other jobs, law school and grad school) but we are so grateful for the experience, because it allowed us: 1) a chance to learn about property management and rentals, in case we want to own/rent in the future, 2) a way to hone our business and management skills, and 3) opportunity to save for a home of our own!

It's an exciting time and we feel incredibly privileged to 'get in' when so many are getting pushed out. (including our sellers, who were in foreclosure). It has 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, living, dining, kitchen with breakfast nook, and a large 3-season porch. Fantastic neighborhood and location. The purchase was 'as-is' with a lot of work to do. In the month between purchasing and moving in, we had the hardwoods refinished, new plumbing in baths and all faucets replaced, GFI's installed, electric fans installed (no air conditioing), new vinyl in kitchen and one bath, painted all the kitchen cabinets with new hardware/hinges, painted rooms... Some of the work we did ourselves, and some we hired out for. We hoped to do more but learned some of the tasks, like cloth-wrapped wiring, were not our forte.

The drawback of doing all this work in winter is that we can't open the windows (enough) to let the place off-gas. I'm concerned about the environmental reprecussions on our bodies. That's why I made such a push to get work done before we moved in, so we weren't sleeping in the formaldahyde and BPA. Here are some pics of the house after the work we did. It's a project house, but that's okay.

Here's where we spend the majority of our time in this big old house! The 80's style breakfast nook!

The sellers purchased a warranty for us, to sweeten the deal when we were concerned about all the fixes necessary. We assumed that the warranty would be useless, because we've heard that other friends' warranties never paid for anything. However, thankfully, the warranty company has been totally reasonable. They've already paid for replacement of two parts on our very old hot water furnace, 4 gas leaks fixed (eeek!), and a new water heater. Next stop, new garage door. And later, a bathroom remodel! (YES, it's okay, you can laugh at the swan.)

We began the house search in September and toured nearly 100 houses (really!). We put an offer on the house on 10/28, closed 12/28, moved in 1/28, and had our open house party 2/28. No special reason for the choice of the 28th of the month, but it's kinda funny. We're glad we did it all quickly, though. We're both busy, so we really appreciate the privacy and warmth of our new home. With plenty of rooms for friends and family to visit!

Winter Love!

We had wonderful winter visitors, and made some great visits, over the holidays!

Here are some pretty pics. For starters, Ms. Mary Grace and her parents Amber and Adam came to Minnesota to see us! Well, they also came to see the loads of family they have in town, but also us. As you dear readers may recall, we visited Amber and Adam and MG last Christmastime in the Netherlands. Amber was the matron-of-honor in our wedding, Gracie a flower-girl, and Adam an honorary flower-boy. Or flower man. Or whatever he prefers to be called. He's a professional philosopher (really!) so he probably has an opinion about that. But here's Mary Grace being her funny-creative self, with boots on her hands.

Shortly thererafter, Nick and I braved the great holiday blizzard of 2009 to drive to Omaha. We needed a few drinks at Clancy's to gain our bearings.

With that settled, we enjoyed lots of family time in the Nebraska blizzard.

Here's a lovely pic of my mother and newborn niece Macy Jade, near the yule log. They're both a little skinny, but the baby has gleefully fattened up over the winter. Aren't they both pretty!!!!

Rich and Pat hosted us in their warm, laughter-filled home.

The midwestern drive was enchanting. The Great Plains stretched on limitless, crystalline, shimmering.

When we returned home to Minnesota, we celebrated our first New Year's as a married couple with silly 2010 'champagne' glasses which I bought from the grocery store. We might afford nicer crystal in future decades, but we might not be so good-lookin' then!

A Catch-Up, and A Christmas Story

Apologies for my absence from this blog! So many exciting things are happening, I haven't had the time or energy to write! Some topics:

1. My job is busy! I work with a half-dozen doctors and about two dozen support staff, doing HR and finance and scheduling duties, and I'm just getting the hang of the job. I was hired just a week before the University of Minnesota declared a "hiring pause" because of budgetary issues. A week after that, the state of Minnesota made official a "hiring freeze". And now the governor of Minnesota has just released a nearly-balanced state budget (which would be a good thing) which cuts the University's funding dramatically (which is a really bad thing). Consequently, layoffs may be coming soon. I'm praying that, despite my lack of seniority, my job will be spared. I cannot, I CANNOT loose this job.

2. I'm going to start taking graduate classes this semester! Finally! One of the many amazing benefits offered by the U of M to employees is FREE classes. I'm going to slowly-but-surely work on earning a graduate degree or two. I want a real career, hopefully within this University system, that will ensure I won't be so professionally unstable as I have been in the past. I learned a lot with all my experimenting, but now I'm ready to learn by staying still - if I can.

3. Minnesota is really cold. There was a week when it was -25F for several days in a row. It's not as cold as Hokkaido, I grant you, but it's still really quite shocking. Thankfully, our trusty little Prius and the Twin Cities Metro Transit get me all over town.

4. I'M GETTING MARRIED! Planning a wedding takes a lot of effort; more than I imagined. I thought that because I am not so concerned about many of the little unnecessary details/purchases involved in an American wedding, therefore I wouldn't have much to worry about. Little did I know how all of society's expectations about what my wedding should be, really affect my planning. I have to sift through so many cultural expectations, and extract the ones that we really want to use to celebrate. This is really part of my re-acculturation back into America.

5. Our President is Barack Obama!!!!!!!! I am overjoyed, hopeful, prayerful, awed, excited, relieved, and grateful. I donated some money and time door-knocking and phone-calling, but I certainly wasn't as active as so many citiczens in this great nation. I am so PROUD of us for choosing such a good person as President! I am so relieved and hopeful that the Bush/Cheney administration are gone (but wish them to prison, most expediently, for their war crimes and lies). I'm proud that our government is relatively stable and peaceful in exchange of leadership. I have cried so many tears in the last months, in gratitude for Obama's election and inaguration. And I'm so happy about the changes that have already happened this week: equal pay for equal work, supporting reproductive choices, raising emissions standards, and keeping to the rule of law regarding torture! Oh, and also, have you noticed that our new Prez is kinda hotttt?


6. Did I tell you we went to Europe over Christmas and New Year's?!? I haven't written much about it at all, and really need to catch up. Thankfully, my dear friend Amber has written a nice account of Christmas in her home in the Netherlands. Please excuse my appearance in her jammies and slippers and bed-hair; a bit embarrassing. But isn't my Goddaughter Gracie cute!?

I'll do a blog post later about our trips to Germany and Belgium. Promise!

Spring is coming!

It really is!

In February it felt extremely dangerous to drive in town because of visibility issues. At intersections the 4-meter high piles of snow impeded sight lines and made me worry that I would crash into a car or pedestrian. So about a month ago, bulldozers took over the city center to shave the snow piles into meter-high mounds, and cart away the snow. Now those snow piles are finally melting. In the countryside the rivers are swelling with snowmelt.



In my ikebana class last night, the flowers from my arrangement were tulips and cherry blossoms さくら. The tips of some young trees have a reddish-tint, as if they are considering buds. Birds have returned. The sun rises and sets at around six, which is a lot of daylight. And today is our first day of RAIN. Bad news for the ski slopes, but good news for my spirit.

A Sample

Here is a little snapshot in words; a glimpse into three days of my life.

さんぷる 1

Saturday was a quiet day for me. Our wireless internet, which we share with my coworker/neighbor downstairs, was not working. I should be grateful for being lucky enough to live in a town with broadband. . . many JETs do not. But a lack of internet usually just leaves me cranky. I made okonomiyaki おこのみやき, cleaned, and read. The snow is melting (finally!) and crashes off the roof with incredible force.

At the train station at six, in the dark, I met Nick who was returning from work in Asahikawa. We rushed to meet my JTE/friend Inugami-sensei and his wife Yuko. The four of us planned a "double-date" for the evening. We met at a culture event coordinated for Furano ski tourists. It was an incredible spread of traditional music and dancing. Unfortunately the food served was some of the worst I`ve eaten in Japan, perhaps made for the tastes of Western tourists. But never mind; the music and beer were a great combo! The four of us had a nice time meeting Furano`s (mostly Australian) tourists and catching up with local friends involved in the tourism industry. Apparently Inugami-sensei and I share some local notoriety for our music performances together in the past months.





After the culture event rolled to a close, the four of us walked to a blues bar serving Miller Light. The owner of the bar is the oldest of three brothers with businesses in town; his next brother owns a lovely coffee shop; the youngest owns a popular bar welcoming many locals and foreigners with classic rock riffs spilling out of the stereo. It`s been funny to meet the whole family, in stages, over the months we`ve lived here.


さんぷる 2

Sunday morning was an early one, as we`d been out late and Nick needed to catch the SIX am train to work. His students (adorable: aged 2-5) were performing in a speech `contest` in front of beaming parents. After the contest, I took the train and met him in Asahikawa for some shopping. We caught a free bus, packed with teenagers, to the biggest mall in the region. For a country that constantly waxes over their uniquely "polite" culture, not a single person offered their bus seat to the elderly woman standing. Grr. First stop at the mall was a ridiculous Western-food buffet lunch, quite a deal at 1300￥ (about $12) each. I wonder if the other guests had ever seen a man put down quite the amount of food that Nick managed to consume. Men, women and children stared slack-jawed. After months of living as circus performers, I don`t even mind the googling eyes.

The highlight of our day, though, was a return to the mall`s foreign foods store which we`d visited back in October. Back story: In our last visit the store had held our purchases for a few hours while we continued mall shopping, and we picked up the bags on our way out of the mall. Upon returning to Furano I received a frantic call from the food store, apologizing profusely for omitting to return our precious bag of tortillas back into our grocery bag; they had refrigerated the tortillas and forgotten. . . oh shame! Well, this time, upon checkout, I mentioned my name and that I had not received a bag of tortillas about five months ago. . . The looks on the cashiers` faces were priceless. My cashier ran into the back and immediately brought out THE ORIGINAL BAG OF TORTILLAS, frozen, with my name and phone number still taped to the bag. Profound bowing and apologies all around. You know that store employees have been staring at those tortillas for five months during weekly inventory, willing me to hurry up and get the blessed bag. But I thought it was so funny and sweet that they saved the original bag (rather than a store credit or something). Japanese society is so HONEST.

さんぷる 3

Today was a brilliantly blue day of snowmelt and striking mountain vistas. I taught at a school nearly an hour away from town, and on the drive back managed some nice pictures.






I couldn`t tarry, however; I needed to make it to the bank before 3pm to send some money, in a frustratingly complicated system, internationally to my bank at home. Usually this is not a problem. Today I thought I would try to do the currency exchange on my own with the limited help of a bank teller, but, sadly, this did not occur. It is so difficult to be helplessly illiterate and inarticulate. I couldn`t understand the bankteller`s directions and failed miserably at my task. Within an hour my emotions dropped from generous appreciation of Japan`s natural grandeur to defeat. In this culture, to inconvenience someone (the bankteller) as I did (with 5 minutes of language misunderstandings) means that I must feel and show extreme apologetic humility. How can I retain confidence when I am constantly bowing and scraping?! And I will live with these linguistic limitations for another five months! Arg!

Upon returning to the office I had the fortune to run into Mr. Shima, the composer of the song which I sang for the G8 Summit. The CD`s have been burned (5000 of them!) with an unfortunate misspelling of my name, Nick`s English lyrics, my smiling mug, and what I hope to be a good editing job of the music. Who knows where this will go?!

Hokkaido Winter Beauty

A view of Furano and the ski slopes.

Torinuma Park


A temple in town.



Yamabe Junior High students' skis, waiting for the afternoon group ski lessons on the slopes.


A farm in Nunobe.


A small shrine in Nunobe. Notice the tractor covered in snow!

Dark to Light

Blessed Solstice to everyone!
May your days be colored with light and love.

We are off to Thailand and Cambodia for a much-needed break. Over Christmas we will be on the Thai island of Ko Si Chang, meditating with Buddhist monks and nuns. So near Burma, where monks are being imprisoned and tortured, I anticipate this experience will provide some powerful lessons.

I live in Japan, a country that remains deeply scarred by war. And yes, I am frequently reminded that it is MY country that bombed Japan. It could be even more painful to witness to see the more recent damage done, in Cambodia, by our bombs and landmines. I hope that my peaceful witness, smiles, and tourist dollars can make our relationship a little better.

I sing a sweet old song: "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

My Lunchtime Walk

What was I thinking?! I wanted soup for lunch today and decided to make the twenty-minute trek home from the office.

Here is my view of the temple, from my desk.


And the dedicated men working on road construction. Very, very slowly. They are government employees and there seems to be no reason to rush. Here in Furano, a simple curb/sidewalk remodel takes two months or more.


And the abominable snowwoman.


All for a simple cup of miso.

Comparisons

It`s, like, really snowing. Definitely over a foot in the last day. Yummy fluffy powder.

If we were in Portland right now, school would be called off and everyone would be cowering in their homes making vegetarian soups or gender-ambiguous snowpeople. The city would be shut down for at least two days.
If we were in Omaha, the roads would already be snowplowed or covered with salt and sand. The kitchens would be filled with smells of cookies or something beefy.

However, I am in Hokkaido where everyone has miso soup three times a day. No one is laying out sand or plowing the roads. Some shopowners might shovel the sidewalk, but it seems the general consensus is that to attempt shoveling is to begin a loosing battle. No one is concerned about the packed snow or icy streets. This is totally normal. I hear that it is not uncommon to get one meter of snow overnight. One meter!!!!!

Snow!

Good thing they do all that pruning ahead of time. We got our first significant snowfall this week, and they expect more soon.

The big tree you see in this pic WAS a lovely willow, but during winter we'll have to look at its naked trunk. I'm unsure why they bother to bundle the lavendar, as it could grow back on its own next year. But they sure do prioritize these prunings. . .





The pics of the ski slopes were taken from our office window at the Board of Education. I can only anticipate the pain we'll experience, staring wistfully at the slopes while stuck in the office.