not a honeymoon blog, but a humorous realization.

these 2 are still too sexy for their....whatevers.

I am reading a book right now, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and the author, John Irving, jumps back and forth between writing about present and past... I have the bad habit of writing like whoever I've been reading recently (a la the Terry Prachett-inspired blog entry), the same way Ro does, and to me this means it ends up being fake. I don't mean to imitate the style of other people, it just happens! So I was sitting here, in my cabin at Takayama, thinking of cool ways of talking about how it snowed up here yesterday, how I found 2 of our 3 cats in a bush outside our river house, how I cut Nelle's hair on our honeymoon, and how amazing our wedding was. And I suppose I've now done that, in a way.

Just because of the kind of person I am, I like to think and write in a conversational style, as if I was in town for a few days, and you called me up and we went out to Palio's for coffee, and stayed there talking over a chessboard until they closed and all the students and philosophers and us got kicked out into a typically
rainy Portland night.

At this moment in reality, though, I'm trying to find that perfect spot where the kerosene heater hits me with the delicious blast of warm air, but doesn't dry my left eyeball out while doing so. I'm now typing with one eye closed, which somehow is making me spell badly.

The wedding. It was amazing. Mostly how everything worked out, and everyone seemed to have a blast. Nelle and me think that it has something to do with the fact that everyone had a job to do, everyone was involved somehow. I think usually at weddings, all the work is done, so all the guests can just sit back in the pews and judge everything. But when everyone is helping out somehow, everyone ends up with a personal interest in how everything's going, and the feeling, the atmosphere is somehow different. A lot like church, actually. Of course, the flip side is that we really did ask for a lot from a lot of people, who, to their credit, were all servants about doing everything. Just yesterday at our thanksgiving dinner, Alanna Foxwell told me the story of How My Pants Got Hemmed. Nelle and I had pinned them, albeit to two different lengths, in anticipation of getting them hemmed by someone, but, with all the details, we had forgotten to follow through. The night before the wedding, one of Nelle's aunts somehow figured this out, (maybe she'd been asked to iron them?) and hemmed them for me. This much I knew, but “The rest of the story”, is that they actually had no thread that matched the color of my pants (they were tannish colored linen), so they cut lengths of white thread into tea and coffee to stain them, and the next morning used the thread that most closely matched the color of my pants.

Stuff like that. I mean, everyone was helping out, everyone was involved. Parents and high school students ended up in the back, going through the trash that had not been thrown into the proper bins, re-sorting it, up to their elbows in gunk. When the 50cc monkey that we made our getaway on ran out of gas, one of the vans driving back stopped for us, and the passengers (laughingly) got out so we could get a ride back to our waiting taxi. Earlier today, Nelle and I wondered out loud who had put the stage back in the chapel, as we certainly didn't, and it took about 4 able-bodied strapping gentlemen to move it out of the chapel. But someone had taken care of it. It was just one detail among thousands that we had overlooked, but some unnamed person (hopefully persons, that thing was heavy! I heard...) fixed it for us. And who put the internet cable back? Who made sure all the high schoolers got spots in the 4-hour car ride back home? Where did the people who were flying back to America stay in Tokyo? I have some idea for some of these, but the point is, it felt like a little bit of heaven to have everyone finding joy in being given responsibility. It's a little sad that all that effort went into our wedding; can you imagine what would be possible in a church filled with so many people sharing both the common vision and the desire to be involved in making that vision a reality?

Of course, I'm romanticizing things a little bit. I'm sure there were people who got a little frustrated by the level of work we were asking them for; I know a huge amount of work fell to the wedding party and our families, and they, as anyone! would rather have spent the time getting reacquainted or surfing or playing scrabble. But the wedding was a huge success! All the way from the bachelor parties (mine will forever be impossible to top: totally deserted beach 30 minutes hiking from the end of a tiny road, a roaring bonfire, a Japanese approach to nudity, a phosphorescent ocean, a seemingly endless supply of bottlerockets, an invented sport of throwing live coals at eachother's naked bodies, live Jonny-Cash-themed music, and the usual debaucherous vices), to the rehearsal dinner (which everyone coming to the wedding was invited to, much to the initial panic of my mother, and involved not only collecting wood for and lighting 4 huge bonfires for cooking and sitting around, but also collecting and lighting an untold number of barbeques, not all of which made it back in one piece. Sorry about that.), to the wedding pictures (which not only was everyone very patient about, but goofy as well! It was a little tiring, as these things seem to be, but, as is evidenced by the pictures, everyone seemed to be having a genuinely good time.), to the weather (the likelyhood of rain was a full 100% for the day of the wedding; our local Japanese friends were coming to offer their condolences a day in advance, while on the actual day of the wedding, they reported to us that the rain, which was pouring in sheets for hundreds of kilometers to the south of us, was mysteriously stopping literally at the horizon from where we were. I have obtained satellite photos of this weather pattern as evidence for those who believe I am exaggerating.) to the ceremony (only the programs were forgotten, and they were retrieved before anyone even missed them, and the only mistake in the ceremony was when I announced to everyone that I both want Nelle and love to be with her, rather thansaying that I love Nelle and want to be with her), to the ceremony pranks (Brent made plans to “accidentally” throw the ring out the window when asked for it; unfortunately he missed the window, which was 2 feet away, and about 3 feet by 6 feet, and had to scramble around on the floor for it; Lydia simply handed Nelle the wrong ring. Nelle didn't even notice), to the ceremony webcast (hi to everyone that was watching from all over the world!), to the reception (outside on a warm night, live music from the stage, and couples dancing in the water), everything was simply wonderful. One of the high school girls in attendance is quoted as sighing, “My quota for romance has been filled for at least the next 3 years”.

***the full blog has already been written, but in order for good
digestion, i'll be posting the next section, titled "the honeymoon!" in a few days. enjoy!***

ALERT!


the link that you all should follow if you want to watch the live feed of me and nelle's wedding is as follows:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ryans

we'll start running the live feed this evening, then we'll just leave it running all day long tomorrow, which, in case you missed the memo, is the day that i'm getting married. the wedding itself starts here at 4:00pm, so you'll have to do your own sleuthing work to figure out what time that is for you, since there's just too many people in too many countries that read this thing. tune in, and be entertained!

geez. i write about being all good about blogging, then don't forever. but seriously! it wasn't my fault! no, actually, i should say that it wasn't totally my fault. there's some fault there that belongs to me. but some that doesn't:

a few days after my last entry, the power cord on this here lappy-toppy went to absolute crap. which, actually, i am responsible for. i use this thing for powerpoint with the JAM kids, and i tell the leaders over and over that that they have to be careful with the technology. and, of course, i was the one that pulled the bench out from under the laptop while i was moving it. it landed pretty hard, right on the power cord, right where it comes into the computer. the compy was mostly ok (nothing a good take apart/put together didn't fix pretty quick), and the power cord still worked, but the end was bent at a 45-degree angle. which i could live with. then, like weeks later, as i was using it for non-arobic activities, the tip of the cord just couldn't handle it anymore, and broke off. and, of course, hewlett-packard computers are not the most popular over here in japan-land, so it was somewhere between almost impossible and completely impossible to get a new cord from over here. and then it was golden week, so the HP japan headquarters closed down for that whole week. in the end, in what i fear has become typical ryan-fashion, i went to hard-off ( i can't even write that without feeling weird), found an old HP power cord that had the right size adaptor on the end, but ran the wrong amount of power, and cut the end off it and soldered it to the broken end of mine. and it works fine now.

so there was that.

also, i lost many, if not all, of my most important cards. i don't really like to always carry around a freakin' huge wallet with me, so when i can, i pull my drivers license, my bank card, and my alien registration out, wrap a hairband around it, and carry it around in my pocket.

sidenote: it's really hard to blog while listening to weird al's "albuquerque". i have now rectified the situation.

so, at about the same time as i was taking trains all over japan, trying to find a store that sold HP parts, my cards went missing. truly in denial, i refused to talk to the police, or the city, or the bank, or the licensing center, positive that i had simply misplaced them in my apartment somewhere. for those of you familiar with my rooms, and my history of short-term memory problems, this will seem perfectly reasonable. as time wore on, however, it seemed less and less likely that these cards were in my possession. it's also a little scary to be without the alien registration, as i have been stopped and asked for it before by a bored policeman, who needs no reason to do so. so, finally, i decided that it was not impossible that i had actually lost them downtown, and i went in and started the process for getting some new cards. as was inevitable, shortly thereafter, i received a post card from the police department--not koban--saying that they had some of my belongings if i would be kind enough to come and get them. so, being part-way through the process of renewing cards, i had to go back and fill out still more paperwork, the purpose of which was apparently to anull the previous paperwork.

much stamping of the hanko ensued.

the wedding is a month from tomorrow, which is awesome. there's still stuff to get worked out, of course, but the most difficult stuff is all taken care of. at least, the stuff we know about. if we did no other work until the week of the wedding itself, we realized, we'd still be pretty ok. which is a good feeling. we are, however, rediculously overfull in the chapel. it's seriously gonna be standing room only. people just keep walking by us in the halls and being like "hey, good news! i rearranged my entire life, so now i can come to your wedding!" and we're like "...and your name is......?" ok, so it's not that bad, but there's been a few people--or worse, families--that have given us the "good news" that they are coming to our wedding, when they weren't really invited in the first place, and there's really no room for them. but they're coming anyways! moral of the story--sometimes having your wedding a thousand miles away from anything convenient means that the people that you really do want to come (all you saps in the states) really can't, while people you don't really even consider friends get to come. lesson learned.

in general, though, we've just really let go of this thing. as the college kids are starting to come back, and life's getting crazy with hanging out with siblings, cousins, and friends, we realized that these couple of kids is really just the tip of the iceberg--there's what, about 40 family members flying over from the states? and it already feels crazy, and fun, and sleep-deprived? we can't really imagine what it'll be like when everyone's here. it will be madness. there will be laughing, crying, punching, and chocolate cake. and it really will be an epic wedding. and it's actually gonna happen. weird.

i was gonna post some pictures to spice this up a little....but i looked through the photos and realized that i don't really have any new pics. well, any new ones that haven't been posted on facebook. although, not all of you have facebook. i'd hate to be discriminatory, so i'll make a google photo album again and put it into the bottom of this again. this time, it's pics of how me, nelle, her sister lydia, and lydia's hubby john spent a 3 day weekend a few weeks ago. yay for sunburn!

Hiking Nojiri

So, this has been a while in coming, and it's not gonna be that long, or anything. i'm mostly doing it cuz i realized while video skyping with ro that most of the people who read this are in america, and have no idea what's going on in my day-to-day life over here. i'll write updates when something big happens, and i'll take a long time to do a good job, but 1. it takes forever to read and to write, and 2. there's more than just huge, i-just-got-engaged type of stuff that happens to me. and it's the littler things that define my days. it's like a seismometer. every once in a while, there's huge earthquakes (none here for a while, actually), and they make these huge peaks. but more often, there's little earthquakes that make smaller peaks. and i want you guys to be able to be a part of my life over here.

so, with that in mind:
spring is finally here! about a week ago, on a saturday, the temp got up to 25C (about 80), and we were all in shorts and t-shirts and sandals, and all the sakura and ume trees were blooming everywhere, and life was good! then the next day it was chilly and windy. then it got rainy. and more windy. etc. etc. the low on that magical saturday was like 13C, and the highs for the next week were all about 12 and 13. so we were all pissed off. but now it seems like spring is here to stay, which somehow makes everything better: food tastes better, the air smells cleaner. it's like we remember that everything is an adventure, and it's exciting.

on a sidenote, i also realized that it's pretty easy to make a rough estimate of fahrenheit from celcius: take the celcius, double it, and add 30. so 25C becomes 80F. if you feel like doing the actual math, ((25 x 1.9) + 32), you'll find that the real answer is 79.5F., which is a variation i think i can live with.


wedding prep is going well, as far as i know. i've never really done this before, so i have nothing to compare it to, but things are progressing, and me and nelle are still friends. we did realize last week that we are doing this whole wedding thing as difficultly as possible. for example: we're doing the invitations ourselves, and they're 2 layers, and we commissioned the art on them, so they're really cool. but it took forever just to print them, especially since the printer felt like asserting it's control over me from time to time by jamming for no reason on the really expensive paper we had in there. and we're including a photo in the invite (which you guys now get to look forward to), but rather that being sensible and either getting it done professionally (which japan doesn't really do that well, to be honest), or just having a digital photo made and slapping it in, i (for some reason) thought it would be cool to hand-print the photo. so i've already spent about a full day locked in the schools darkroom making these things, and i'm only about half way.

i think they're really cool when i look at them individually, but really, nothing destroys the beauty of something like mass-producing it.

we could have eloped. nelle was seriously suggesting it. we could have had our wedding in america. the parents and siblings could have put it together. or, we could have gotten married in japan, but somewhere local. and rather than try and do everything ourselves in our own way, we could have just looked at stuff on the internet and ordered it. (sigh) i think it was a good thing that we chose to do this the way we did, but in the moment, it's kind of a pain.

alright, i'm gonna add some photos to this bad boy, and call it done. hopefully before too long i'll be back!

ps. i'm including the link to the pictures we had taken for our invites--they're some of the best of us i've ever seen!

Ry's Pics

Ok, first off, I apologize for the lack of information from me. I mean, pictures are worth a thousand words, but they lack...detail. So, here's some details about the engagement that I'm sure you all want to know.

I'd been thinking about how to propose; where, when, public or private, etc., and I realized I was going about it all the wrong way. So, first I sat down and thought through a purpose statement. I mean, what was I trying to do that was different from just giving her a ring, and why was I trying to do something different? So, upon reflection, I decided that my purpose was for her to know that I love her a lot, and I would show her by surprising her with an unexpected event that she would know took planning and sneaking and scheming. So, that done, I began scheming in earnest.

I decided that I would propose outside, somewhere in nature. We're both fairly outdoorsy people, and I figured it would work well to prepare some place in advance for the surprise. So, I began going out to the woods in my spare time. There was no place that I'd been to that I thought would work well, some place that had a lookout of some kind, was near a road so I could drive in stuff, but was still fairly remote, and had a good view. So, I just started adventuring. I drove out on crazy windy, snow-covered roads (which was frightening in my tiny, bald-tire'd car), and whenever I saw a trail branching off from the road, I'd get out of the car and take the trail for a ways, just to see where it went. Most of the time, I was unimpressed, so I'd hike back and keep driving. The only maps I had for where I was driving were driving maps; I didn't have any hiking maps, which made it even more of an adventure. At the end of all my adventuring, I had driven a few hundred miles (about 300km), but I had found the perfect spot. It was a concrete lookout on the top of a mountain, about 3-stories tall, and about a 15 minute hike from a parking lot. Since it was January, it was pretty deserted, and there was snownd ice on everything. Now all I had to do was figure out what to do with the place.

I decided that I would decorate by putting up Christmas lights, wrapped in tulle, around the railing. This meant that I would need Christmas lights, tulle, and also a power source. So, I talked to a friend who runs CAJ (Mr. Willson), and told him my plans. He told me he would lend me the lights the school uses at Christmas time, as long as I didn't mind that they were absolute crap, and he would look into finding a generator for me to use. The lights were, in fact, absolute crap, and it took me about 4 hours of pulling lights out, switching sockets, and testing the strands, to hobble together enough to cover what I figured was the length of the railing. The problem with doing a surprise engagement is that, assuming you are fairly good friends with the person you are planning on proposing to, they know what you're doing about 98% of the time. As this was the case with Nelle and I, all of the scheming, work, and implementation had to happen when she thought I was asleep. Which means I stayed up till like 3am working on the dumb lights. And tulle-ing them was no picknick either. I got 14 meters of tulle, and had to quarter it lengthwise to use it. Cutting 14 meters of tulle in half, and cutting those halves in half, took a fair amount of time that I wish I had been sleeping. The generator to run the lights was found, and fixed up a bit, and ended up running pretty well. Everything was falling into place. The church here owns an amp that runs off a rechargeable motorcycle battery, so I figured I'd bring that up there too so we could have carefully chosen music playing at the right moment.

The next hurdle was how and when to get back to the place to do the decorations. It is a public building, in the middle of a park, so I figured I'd go up on Friday night and do it then, as Nelle and I were planning on hiking on Saturday (the hike had been planned for about 2 weeks). There were a few problems- 1. there was a concert at the school Friday night that would probably go pretty late, and 2. it was a lot of work to do by myself. I also wanted to have a surprise engagement party at her aunt's house, but I couldn't pass out the invites until the end of the concert late Friday night, or else all the kids would have given away the secret. In the end, I asked 2 HS guys if they wanted to spend the night helping me set up for my engagement in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. They, of course, were thrilled. I then told Nelle that I had made a commitment to look after some guys on Friday night, so we couldn't do our usual Friday-night-date. Because my car was in the shop getting serviced (shakken...what a perfect time...) we were borrowing Nelle's aunt's car, which is big and strong and 4WD, which is good for driving in ice and snow, to drive out on our hike. This also worked well to get Nelle in the house for the surprise party afterwards, as we had to return the car. Wheels within wheels...

As a quick aside, may I just say that getting engaged really, really sucks. Being engaged, now that's awesome. But I honestly hated the fact that I had to lie to Nelle, point blank lie to her face, in order to pull this off. Lying and deception are not things that I think are the basis for a good relationship. Not only that, but the one person that I would tell everything to is the one person that I can say nothing to about the thing that is consuming my life and all my spare time. I'm fairly good at lying (unfortunate result of my high school days), but I almost blew it so many times just because we always talk about how we spent our time that day. And I frantically doing about a jillion things at once, almost driving off the road on ice, having hilarious conversations with her relatives about our imminent engagement, all of which I couldn't talk to her about. I actually started typing letters to her during this time, cuz I hated that I couldn't talk to her about it.

At any rate, I gave the invitations to a trusted few, with instructions not to pass them out until after the concert. I drove Nelle directly home after the concert, as it was raining, apologized for having booked myself with the guys, drove back and got the guys, went home and loaded all the stuff up in the car, and headed out at about 11:30pm. We got up to the building at about 1:30am, and set up until about 3am. We got home at about 6am, I slept from about 6:30 to 8:00, and got up to go out hiking with Nelle. I had been averaging about 3 hours of sleep every night since Monday night. Yikes.

So, Nelle none the wiser, we went hiking. It was a beautiful winter day, snow on the ground, frost all over the ground suddenly caving when we stepped on it. We went bushwhacking for a few hours, thought we were lost, then suddenly found ourselves. We sang hymns at the top of our lungs, bickered over nothing, had good conversations about the uncertainty of life. All this time I was trying really hard not to grin constantly. I mean, she had no idea that this would be the day that she was getting engaged.

We got back from the hike earlier than I intended, so we killed some time at a local noodle shop, sharing a tempura soba. I told her that I had talked to my dad, and he told me about a really cool lookout on some mountian that we should visit if we were out in the woods with a car. I had told Nelle that we should go, so we headed out to “look” for it. Even with the hour or so we killed eating, we were still going to get up there well before dark, which was not good. I decided that we would get lost—the roads out there were all very tiny, windey, unmarked roads, so it wouldn't be unlikely that we'd get lost. In the end we did actually get lost, but not by design or intention. We really did genuinely get lost, which I thought was hilarious. Nelle didn't mind, but she didn't know why I thought it was so funny. I think, in retrospect, it was the sleep deprivation laughing, which was dangerous. Fortunately for me, I am apparently somewhat bizarre anyways sometimes, so she just shrugged it off.

Getting lost had cost us more time than I intended, so we ended up getting to the mountain about an hour after dark, which was not good. Remember, I had a surprise party planned, which means that people were all going to show up at a certain time, so I had to get back by then. Which, of course, we didn't. The entire way up, Nelle was acutally driving (illegally...), and I was fumbling with the map, “trying to figure out where this crazy thing my dad told me about was”. We finally got there, and I told Nelle that I had actually been up here when I was a kid, just like my dad said! There was some hiking involved, and I needed to cover the fact that I knew where we were going. As we got closer and closer, I got more and more nervous (actually, I'm getting nervous all over again just retelling the story), and just when we could see the building ahead, I told her that I really, really had to poo. I'd been building this up for a while—she'd brought a mug of espresso coffee that we'd been drinking all day, and I told her that it had finally worked it's majic on me, and I needed to go. The woods behind us were totally clear, since it was winter and there was snow everywere, so I told her that I was going ahead a ways to poo on the other side of the building where she couldn't see. This was my great escape. I had to get ahead of her and start the generator, and pull the amp out and get it all set up on the top—both the generator and amp had been stored there from the night before. I set up the amp, then ran back down to start the generator. This was the moment of truth. I knew that if anything were to go wrong, this would be it, and it would blow the whole thing. So, I sat down to start the generator. It has a pull-cord, like a lawn-mower, and no matter how many times I yanked that thing, it just would not start. To make matters worse, if I let the cord back in too fast, it would vibrate going back in, which made a really loud, high-pitched sound that was audible for about 100km in every direction. After about 5 minutes of alternately swearing and praying, it reluctantly started, though it didn't sound that great. I ran back down to Nelle, who was freaked out. I told her that I'd been pooping and I heard someone in the building, so I snuck over and saw someone starting a generator. I speculated that perhaps there was some sort of powered weather machinery in the building. She bought it, but she was still freaked out.

It was perfect. It was totally dark, and I had “accidentally” forgotten our flashlights, although in reality, I had mine with me in my bag. I just didn't' want her to be able to see the stuff on the railings, or the amp. We got up on the top level, and I set my digicam up on a ledge, the video function running. Nelle walks to the railing, and you can hear her say “what is this? Hey, there's tulle on this!” and at that moment I plugged in the lights and the entire place lit up, and she stopped talking words that made sense. I had a poem memorized, by E. E. Cummings, one of her favorite poets (“I love you much (most beautiful darling)”, in case you're interested), which I'd been reciting to myself over and over, all day long, but at that exact moment, I totally and completely blanked, and I just knelt there, looking up at her. I had to pull the paper out of my pocket as a prompt, then I did ok. So, I stumbled through the poem, asked her if she would do me the honor of being my wife, and allow me the honor of being her husband. She did manage to say yes, and I put the ring on her finger. Then, we stood, and kissed our first kiss. (sigh) I am a romance MACHINE!

The story's not quite over yet. As we were standing there, hugging and (cough) whatnot, the generator coughed once, raced, then died. Turns out we had run it too long the night before while setting up, and it was totally out of gas! We had a good laugh about it, and headed home, both exhausted. She was driving again, and said something to the effect of “My apartment had better not be full of people when I get home!” which I assured her, it wasn't. We went to return the car, however, and about 25 kids came out of the back room to hug and congratulate us. We hung out with them for a while, told the story that you have just read, and eventually went to our homes.

In spite of the fact that this story is about 2 pages too long, there are about a thousand funny/interesting details that I have left out, like how I had to push my car out of her parking lot for fear of waking her up, how I “accidentally” overslept so we late for our hike late, how she “broke” the news that we were planning on getting married to her cousin, who was in fact helping me plan for the engagement, not to mention all the conversations that I had in secret with people, coaching them to say certain things when me and Nelle came by later to ask about something, etc. My purpose in proposing was accomplished—Nelle had no idea that I'd been working on this stuff into the wee hours of the morning, she had no idea that I had a custom designed ring for her, and, most importantly, until about 1 second before I plugged in the lights, she had no idea what was happening. And she was thrilled that I'd done all of it for her, and she felt loved.

Sometime I'll post some stuff about how I feel about getting married to Nelle, how I never prayed for guidance regarding marrying her, how I feel like a victim of circumstance more than anything, but that'll have to wait for some other time. For now, I have my actual job to get back to!

Just saw this yesterday. it claims to be a face cleaner.












*insert joke here*

Oooh. i've officially been blog-smacked. many thanks to brents and xeryl for the smack to the head. the truth is, my life right now is hectic, more so than usual, which, let's be honest, isn't saying all that much. i'll give a quick rundown of my recent, and not so recent, activities.

For starters, Christmas was a blast. lots of good things, fewer bad things than usual. all in all, i'd have to say that it was one of my most favorite Christmases home ever. first went to the potter home 2.0, where there was ample chill time, although we never really sat around for big chunks of time in front of the TV. played frisbee golf, which, really, i was much worse than i should have been. nelle was there, and she was totally the whole team. which was me and her. the game ended in pouring rain, which was fun. also, freezing cold.

Got a chance to hang out with one of my favorite people, a rather diminutive chap named andrew. i was sort of a bastard and didn't call him or email him for a while, like a year and a half, during which time, for other reasons, his life sucked a lot. so that acted upon my bastardliness in an exponential fashion, and i'm surprised he didn't curse at me a lot more. we walked and talked and chilled, and we are once again good friends.

Had lots of good late-night conversations with brent in our dungeon of a room, which was also great.

Got to hang out with mr. and mrs. cami and deidre potter also, for the first time since their wedding, since they weren't able to make it to tak this summer. it was really great to see them be all married, to see deidre crack the whip on him. it was also great to hang out with nelle, who, at that point, i hadn't seen in three days. we all went bowling, i lost, but we had a lot of fun, except for the part that, due to a miscommunication, we each had to pay what we thought we would have to pay collectively. and we're all pretty money-grubbing people, so it wasn't pretty.
Christmas day was a lot of fun, with the giving and receiving of present, which was as it should be. unfortunately, we've gotten out of the practice of stringing up lights all over creation, though. i think since we're all home for Christmas on vacation, we keep putting it off. i hold myself partially responsible.

A few days after Christmas, i flew to georgia to hang out at the pettit ranch on a mountain. if i've ever been to georgia, i was too young to care or remember. it was actually really cool. they live on this mountain ridge that goes for like 1,000 miles or something. i really liked the space, the feel of the air, the different kind of nature. one of the highlights from my time in georgia was when we were on a hike. there's these crazy vines there that attach themselves up into the branches of big trees, and hang down 20 or 25 feet to the ground, where they are rooted. a little sawing action on the bottom, and you've got a great swing! the best one was partway down a gully, and at the apex of the swing we were about 30 feet above the ground. thrilling.

Came back through portland, and got to see cami and dre's apartment, which i'd heard about, and i got to see their cat in a non-terrified state, unlike when she was at the parents house with the dog. i was only in portland for 2 full days, a saturday and sunday, but i managed to hang out with a lot, though not all, of my friends. i'd like to thank tre and kelly for that, who were considerate enough to plan their engagement and party around my presence in america, causing everyone to be gathered in one place for maximum friendage. flew out to japan on monday, which was also the 8th, which was also me and nelle's 1-year dativersary. it was a short day, though, since it turned the 9th sometime in the early afternoon. by happenstance, seriously, me and nelle landed in narita on the same day, which, if you have been paying careful attention to detail, you will realize we did last year as well. i landed about an hour and a half ahead of her, so i de-planed, and then sat around, not going through customs or immigration, and watched what i figured (correctly) was her plane land and taxi in, then once i figured out what gate her plane was heading to, i ran across the wing to meet her at her gate. this time it had been 4 days since i'd seen her.

Then i went home. everything was still standing, nobody had stolen my car or broken into my apartment (i assume), the youth ministry was still around, and the kids still seem to like me, so all's well. i am planning madly for a retreat in february, and in fact i just stayed up till 4 in the morning making a 5-minute advertisement video for CAJ chapel, which, in spite of it's best efforts not to be shown, did, at the last possible moment, work out. it wasn't saving, then it wasn't exporting, then the sound wasnt' working...etc. and watching it in chapel with all the kids was actually my first time to see that particular copy all the way through, so i was praying that nothing had gone wrong in the middle without me knowing about it. i was a stress case. and now i smell really bad. you know how when you're stressed your BO is worse? well, mine is. a lot. and even though i've already had two showers this week, i'm heading home now to take a third. the funny thing is, seriously, all last week i took 2: one on monday and then one on sunday. that's one thing i like about winter; you just don't smell as bad. except for now.