obviously...random worked....let's do it again, shall we?

the hula festival is over.

despite the nervousness,

(really! i do get more than slightly nervous!!  butterflies? nope. try bats...they're that big!!)

and that first little bit, where i'm standing there, on the front row and i'm like,

"wait. do you hear music? was i supposed to start dancing now??",

 it was all fine.

actually....it was more than fine.

it was great!!!

i don't think we made any major mistakes (i know i didn't!!) and by the smiles on everyone's faces when we got off stage, i'm thinking everyone thought the same way.

either that, or we were all just soooo relieved it was over!!

it always amazes me that we work so freakin' hard for such a long time and then...

in 3 minutes...it's over.

(okay...i have to stop for just a bit here because my mind just went totally into the gutter after that last thought and it's hard to type while chuckling!! heh heh heh)

i will try to get some hula pictures this week....some of the ladies took some and when we meet for class next, i'm sure i'll get copies.  for some strange reason, i didn't have my cell phone with me...which, had i been thinking earlier, i would have thought that was a jinx and refused to go on stage.

i'm NEVER without my cell phone (and it's incredibly awesome camera!!).

see.  i told you.

nervous.

i did take one shot, the night before, when i was trying on my dress....so, just to give you an idea of what it all looked like.....

oh...and by the way....

the rubber bands in the hair worked and the flowers (and those humongous clips!) stayed in just fine.

~~whew~

***************

koji and i went to a hamburger place today....

i was thinking that a 'happy set' would be just what we both needed, but,

he informed me that there would be no 'happy set' for him today.

(the ones here don't even come in those really cool boxes either...that's kind of lame, we think)

he declared that he is too old for that size of burger and he was going to order a much bigger one today.

this is all fine and dandy by me (i really don't like that little "prizes" that come with the set, anyway)....

but really...

could someone explain to me how a boy, who is too big for a "kids' meal"

is not too big to do this........

....and to ask me to take his picture???

sheesh.

kids.

they are sometimes really kind of funny.

************

just for the record....

let me perfectly truthful when i say that,

this summer gift giving thing the japanese got going on?

yeah.

i'm lovin' it!!

(usually a box like this will have beer AND a variety of fruit juices.  the students who gave me this? yeah. she loves me and wants me to be happy. i love her! )

***********

koji and i went to the grocery store the other day.

at the register, i noticed that, as the lady was checking our basket of stuff, koji was standing at the end of the counter, just grinning like some kind of little fiend....he might have even giggled maniacally for just a bit.

shaking my head and writing it off as "him just being a 9-year-old weirdo" (which happens more often than what one might think) we finished up and i took the basket to the table to put everything in our bag (which, yes, i had, as always, brought from home).  as i was in a hurry, i didn't really pay attention to the items...i just really needed to get home.  i was running oh so very late.

then....when i got home and was taking the things i bought out of the bag, i realized why koji was being such a goofball...

yeah. see that container of 'cup of noodles'???

sorry... not on my shopping list.

(and really....why would i buy only one??)

now i understand the grinning and slightly crazy giggling.

koji...1.  momma....0.

(^-^)

did you ever, when you were younger, have a contest with your friends to see what was the funniest things you could secretly slide into other peoples' shopping carts without them knowing it?

yeah.

me, either.

i just heard about people doing that.

heh heh heh.

 i think i'll go now as i have my mother's voice in my head saying,

"what goes around, comes around" and i need to do something, like listen to music or something,

to make it stop!!

*and just for the record....issei IS still around...he's just being your basic 13-year-old and way to cool to go with his mom and little brother, you know....in public...where his friends could possibly see.

whatever.

(^-^)

oh....well....sure....but it's gonna be kind of random....okay? okay.

today is the annual hula festival here in nagasaki city.  the new group that i joined a few months ago will be performing this afternoon...there are 60-some groups doing their "thing" today...and probably just as many tomorrow.

from nagasaki city.

that's a lot of hula, my friends.



so....let's see.....

i have the dress...

...i have the lei...

i have the flowers for my hair...

it's all quite lovely, isn't it?

yes....i think it's all very nice...

except....there is one...well....two problems....

those flowers for my hair are clips....HUGE clips...

yeah...i know. i was thinking the same thing when i first saw them, too...

"but....those are for someone who actually HAS hair!!!"

 hmmmmm.  what to do? what to do?

after some experimenting with a couple strategically placed rubber bands, i think i may have figured a way to make it work....at least i hope it works...
send your best hair karma thoughts my way, would you?

**************
it's officially summer here.
the rains stopped....or should i say the torrential rains that we were getting during the rainy season stopped.
we did have a typhoon (#6, she was) cruise into the area this past week, but, she opted for the eastern side of japan, so we were safe.  we did get some absolutely wonderful cool breezes.
but those are gone.
damn.
what is a good way to know that it is summer around the kuroiwa house?

kuwagata....or stag beetles....and more than a few different beetle "cousins" that the boys have found.  which means.....pretty much at the butt crack of dawn every morning the boys are out searching for these bad boys.  on some evenings, they take honey to different areas of parks and woods around here and....honestly, i'm not sure exactly what they do with the honey but whatever it is, it seems to work because most mornings they come back with one or two critters.

which also means that at any time, there could be "battles" in the entrance way, living room, or even on the kitchen table.  i came home one time to find about 8 boys of various ages, huddled in the garden cheering on one particular battle. 

hmmmm.  i wonder if money ever comes into play here.....the boys have got a couple of really mean beetles...we could possibly turn this into a money making thing.....

heh heh heh.

no. we won't.

i'm just thinking that having these critters in the house and knowing that they were kicking some other beetle butt and we were making some cash from their winnings, i'd feel a bit better about having them around.

***************

the best $4 i EVER spent on a pair of shoes....3 years ago....

i love summer and i love these shoes.

(and yes, i know...i really need to clean out the car!...tomorrow!)

*************

fun things we found in the kitchen.....

happy green pepper!!!

we love spinach....and spinach loves us!

finding these two lovelies just reminds us that we need to pay extra attention to the little things in life....see what kind of specialness we would have missed had we just hurried through.

and with that, my friends, i'm done for the morning....'tis time to get my hula on.

.....i hope your weekend is full of special things and

 little things that make you smile.

a fill-in type post because...well...it's just easier this way

my friend, janet, does this thing called friday fill-ins and i thought that since i haven't posted anything for 10 days (so much for trying to do better, huh? oh well....) this would be a good way to get something up.  let's see how this goes, shall we?

1. I hold my shoulders back and my back very straight when i walk...thank you grandpa rock for making me walk with books on my head when i was younger.

2. the k-man is someone I like to travel with because he makes traveling fun and he doesn't care that i usually fall asleep when we are  on the highway.

3. That day, like most days, was busy but good.

4. I pray that the hot and humid summer doesn't last too long this year.

5. Trust me that i will do whatever i can to help.  really. i will.

6. my imagination sometimes works overtime  in the dark.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to the 3-day holiday (monday is 'day of the sea', umi no hi), tomorrow my plans include bowling with a PTA group (whoohoo....i'd rather be doing laundry..or getting my teeth cleaned) and going to the International library with koji in the afternoon and Sunday, I want to  wake up to find that even though it was an absolutely incredible game and the Japanese girls played their hearts out, the US women won the soccer game!

********************

on the fourth of july, koji turned 9.  he had some friends over for hamburgers in the garden and a sleepover on the saturday before (from which i am just now recovering!!), so monday was just a 'family only'/super easy kind of celebration.

here is the cake we got for him....we love us some rolled cake with fresh fruit!!

happy birthday, little man!!

and just in case you thought i had completely forgotten about that whole flamingo friday thing

i had going on....

~~my sister, anna, sent this to me a while back...i love it!!

***********

happy friday, everyone.

have a good one!!

cheers!!

just wondering....how long does one have to be gone before one can stage a proper comeback?

good lord.

obviously...someone has lost more than her blogging mojo.

she has also lost a total sense of time.

she's got no excuses.

she would love to tell you some incredibly wonderful story about how she won the lottery and with her winnings she took her family to hawaii and they have spent the last month frolicking on the beach, eating fresh mangos, and learning to surf....oh, and hula-ing every day at dawn and sunset.

yeah. she'd love to tell you that.

so what has she been doing?

hmmmmm.

thinking, here......

honestly?

a lot of nothing too terribly blogworthy.

she has gone on and on about the rain and how it seems to have rained for the last 47 days this month and that she really doesn't remember a rainy season this wet.

oh...and then she got one of these beautiful pieces of  technology...

and thanks to her friend, cheri, she now refers to it as her

i-pad goddess.

(you can, too...you know...if you have one.)

she's been spending a lot of time with her goddess....they do wonderful things together but those birds that you slingshot to attack pigs (or monkeys, depending on which game you have)...yeah, they spend a lot of time together.

oh, she also uses it in class, just in case you were wondering.

thanks to the rain and the fact that she doesn't have a dryer and there are 4 people (1 of which likes to play in said rain, like the goofball he is) in this family,  she has been spending a lot of time down at the coin laundry....ever so often, she washes a buttload  a few loads of laundry, piles them into her car and hauls them down to the before mentioned coin laundry to dry those piles of wet laundry.

oh....she takes her goddess....her music....gets herself a refreshing drink that she can only seem to find at one vending machine (that just happens to be in front of the coin laundry) ...

and she waits...and listens...and plays until all those clothes are dry so she can haul them back up the mountain to her home.  she feels really good when she does this because those clothes

actually...she has just spent the last few weeks, just being she.

she needed that.

 and can't really say for certain that she'll be posting at regular intervals but she

is going to try. 

she really will.

she hopes you'll hang in here with her.

and she thanks you.

the "but, where did they come from" lilies that were blooming in the garden...the official name is "chocolate lilies" but, she thinks they were more of a burgandy lily. 

come to find out, the bulbs were a present from a student.

she loves that student very much.

yes, she does.

To go, or not to go....that...is no longer the question

for many ex-pats, this is the time of year that we start scouring the papers and combing through the internet sites to find reasonable flights, waiting 'on hold' for what seems like forever while some person who may or may even be able to understand what it is that we want, searches

 to find the answers.

yes, my friends,

it's almost the summer holiday.

it's time to think about going to our respective countries for the break.

when i was single, it really wasn't that big of a deal.

call an agency..get the flight..."i really don't care if i  go through seattle, los angeles, chicago....just get my ass home.... however"!

deposit the cash (because at that time, no credit cards and let's face it, tickets were crazy cheap!).

get to the airport in time for the flight..."any seat will do as long as it is on the aisle, thank you very much"...

get some alcohol as soon as we were in the air and

boom baby. i'm on my way home.

having kids put a whole 'nuther twist to this.

extra suitcases...bigger carry-ons..."please, give me time to get to the next flight with a little bit of time to spare, thank you very much".

plus they added to the final cost of the whole trip....and then some.

but we did it. 

it was a sacrifice made to be able to spend some much-needed time with  family and friends. 

but now...thanks to the rising cost of oil, they have now added a pretty hefty surcharge to each ticket purchased....i've checked a couple of places and some places are charging 

about $500 extra (give or take a few dollars)

for. each. ticket.

that's $1500....just for the surcharge.

i've checked a couple of places and tickets to denver run anywhere from

$1,300-$3,000....depending on how many layovers i'm willing to make.

let's face it, when it takes about 26 hours, from door to door, to get to my mom's house, any extra layovers can really make a girl craaaaanky.

let's say that i can scrounge together the money to buy the tickets...that's only part of what i have to do, really.  even though i'm gone for 3 or 4 weeks (which is the amount of time i like to be there), i've still got bills coming in here that have to be paid.  then....keeping in mind that i am not a salaried kind of teacher (i'm basically self-employed) and most classes pay at
end of the month...i wouldn't get very much money until the end of september.
and that right there.....is one of the main causes of stress when i go to the states...knowing that when i come back to japan, i'm faced with that as soon as we land. 
oh, i can have a fun time but..still..there is that dark cloud hanging over every patio time and restaurant outing while i'm there.
so....making the decision to postpone coming "home" for another year really wasn't one that took too terribly much time to make.
man.
this making adult decisions sucks sometimes.
but really....

thanks to the internet, my blogging friends and...that social networking place i love so much,
i'm not so far away...not really.

and next year?
just try and stop me!

a 1-day car trip...quality family time...and something we'll probably never find again

during the last 'golden week' holiday a few weeks ago, we loaded up in the car and headed out on a

kuroiwa family adventure. as usual, it was a one-day trip....literally....one. day.

22 hours. about gazillion kilometers.  one car.

one angst-ridden teenager.  one aggravating little brother.

mom. and dad.

we loaded up in the car and headed out at 4:00....in the morning.

during the trip, we drove a little, took a ferry, drove some more, ate ice cream at eight in the morning, and despite the close confines of the vehicle, we all survived it quite nicely...and yes,
we can admit that we had a pretty fun time.

here was our trip:

we have taken many a day-trip over the years, but never had we journeyed down to this part of kyushu before.  it really was quite nice. 

at one point, looking at the navigation map, we all got a bit of a chuckle, for this is what we saw:

 f.y.i.....the road goes through, out and around and once again through the mountain. very cool.

an interesting part of this trip was when we got off the highway and near the city of miyazaki.

issei asked, "are we in california?"

this part of the island of kyushu is famous for it resort-ness.  a long time ago, it was THE place for japanese to go on honeymoons.  the palm trees...the beaches...the pacific ocean...

it really is very southern california-ish.

aoshima was one of the places we really wanted to visit.  there is a very small island that is just off the shore.  on the island is a shrine (famous for good luck in love...hence the many couples we saw!!) and a small jungle-like area with a few more very small shrines. 

koji gave a tarzen yell while we were in there, so that should tell you what it was like!!

the best part is not just what is on the island itself, but really....what is around it.

all around the little island (and all along the coast, actually) you see this

*note to self:  burn the overalls. they are not the most becoming article of clothing in the closet. 

they call it the "devil's washboard".  it really is quite amazing.

but the most amazing thing was what we found....

koji and issei were running along the rocks and suddenly stopped....

"mom!!!  come here!!!"

wondering what on earth it was they had found, i had prepared myself for just about anything....

but was NOT prepared for this...

 

oh sure...it was probably carved into the stone by someone, but....

really....i don't care.  what are the odds of finding something (heart-shaped, no less) so incredibly small

in this

so. very. cool.

after playing/running in the rocks for awhile, we headed on down the coast to another shrine that is up in a cave overlooking the ocean.  we hit some major power spots, my friends.  we prayed in many places and

all was right with the world.

our final stop was a place we had all been really looking forward to.

it's a place that was kind of cheesy, but, we like places like that.

you know the moai statues on easter island, don't you?

well, here on our island of kyushu is the only place in the world where the people of easter island have given permission for someone to replicate those statues.....

and we were there.

it really is a nice place...but one that, we decided, you don't really need to see twice.

that happens sometimes.

(^-^)

the boys had a good time

 

**in case you're wondering...no, there was no glass...it's just the frame. silly boys!!

yeah, yeah, yeah....we ALL had a good time!!!

.

when i realized that Motivation and her sisters WillPower, Energy and Miss No-Thanks-I don't-need-that had left the building

does that explain why i haven't posted a sentence or picture or even a joke for such a long time?

damn.

a lot of things have been going on.

a lot of nothing has, too.

i have done some soul-searching...some deep thinking....

given myself some pep talks...drank a few beers....read more than a couple books...

and have spent some time just..... being.

i also signed up for this month's "blogging everyday" group (who is using the theme of "maybe" and i was thinking that "hey, that's the theme for me!"....obviously....i was wrong  maybe next month.).

but  now, after a long-ish holiday (last 10 days, 8 days off)  i think i'm ready to do this again.

so....let's start with something i do best....

random.

********

my mom sends me her magazines after she is finished reading them.  one of my favorites is specifically for those us over the age of 40 (but, not yet ready for that AARP one, which she sends, too, by the way...you know...for the articles..."they're good!"  whatever.)

every month they have a section called

"this is what *insert particular age* looks like".

they ask questions so we can see just how much alike you and i are with that woman.

yeah.

right.

one question they sometimes ask is "what was your most memorable birthday?"

the lady of one month said that her 40th was because her husband rented a club and dave matthews was there to play for her and her close friends.

yeah.  okay.

that happens to me all the time.

so.....and not answering any questions (because that will interfere with my randomness, ya know)...

this is what 49 looks like...

as for my most memorable birthday....i'll say this last one.

i had the most incredible of birthdays this year.

if you are not one to celebrate a 'birthday week', then, really,

you need to change your way of thinking.

(and fyi....if your birthday is one that ends in a -0, then, you are entitled to a 'birthday month'...

keep that in mind)

my b-day was on a wednesday this year, so the celebrations started on the saturday before...and seriously, continued for 7 days.

we went from

a box of krispy kreme donuts from a student/friend

(which, of course, i shared with my family...sigh)

 and this (hi janet...thanks, again luv!!)

to this with a very dear friend...

and flowers and goodies from my other friends and students...

(and yeah....that is a bottle of tequila....from the husband of one of my friends...he thought i'd like it.  smart man, he is.)

everyday there was some little goody or surprise....

and the last day, i had dinner with some friends (one who had just come back from a trip to the states where she met my sister and her husband in las vegas and my cousins in denver....isn't that great??)

the place we had dinner was also the same place another friend was having a dinner, so she and i met up later for drinks (a really bad margarita and some coronas).  it was early enough that we could enjoy the drinks, the company, the conversation and a laugh or two and still make it home on the last buses to our respective homes.  the icing on the cake my friends. 

 it really was.

********

have you ever tried any of this stuff?

i got some from that friend who went to the states as a souvenir and it says that it is

" A deeply hydrating lip plumper".

it's to make your lips a bit more.....poofier.

after putting some on,  my friend who i was having drinks with said,

'if they get any poofier, i'm going to have to kiss you!!"

i guess that means it works. 

(^-^)

*************

this is the toilet in our house.

yes, the room is fairly small, but...it serves it's purpose.

but...look again....

do you see what i see?

obviously, not only am i the only one who can put a new roll of toilet paper where it belongs,

i'm also the only one who knows how that silly trash can works.  it's tricky, i know.

i wonder if the men in my house know that the cardboard tube can actually go into the trash.

note to self:  give "what trash goes where" talk to boys.....again.

(and just for the record....yes, i could see those tubes on the floor.
i was just waiting to see how many could amass before someone, other than myself, noticed them.  i finally folded after i took this picture...i couldn't take it anymore!!!)

***********

yet another reason why one particular coffee joint is the one for me:

from: me

to:  me

you gotta love that!

*****

and finally....'cause this really is what is about me the most....
(did that even make sense??)

from my friend in ny....taken from a mural at the american museum of natural history

i would love to have seen this....thanks, luv, for letting me see it through your eyes (and camera!!).

******

oh...one last thing....

look up at the header

see that first picture?

that is a card that was made by my friend, maggie.
she has a shop over at etsy and it is full of some of the most interesting pieces.
go and check out what she has made...she has something for everyone!!
she is such a creative spirit.....and the card?
i love it.
it's perfect!!
**mwah**
********
i hope you all have a great week....
to all those moms and soon-to-be moms who are reading this...
happy mother's day.
i hope your day is full of wonderment and love.