Home camping

Things are settling around here. Sort of. Don't have much of a routine yet, as the kids aren't in school til the 3rd, and we still don't have most of our stuff. We are still camping in our house. Still sleeping in the basement, cooking with crappy old pans, wearing the same clothes. But we got our dressers out of storage, so I don't have to live out of my suitcase anymore, and we have a dining room table again. I would dearly love a couch. And my bed. That's coming this week sometime, theoretically.

We have been been painting all the walls new colors. That's fun. The colors, I mean. Not the painting itself, so much.






























































Yeah, that's a gold bedroom. Not just the gold-like yellow color, but real metallic gold. I love people's reactions when they see it. "Wow. Gold, huh?"




















The kitchen looks the same, actually, but it'll be getting a facelift soon. New floor (proper tile instead of crappy linoleum that can never be clean), new fridge (so produce stays fresh for more than a day), new cabinet knobs (not so scratched-up brass, ghetto).

Fascinating, I'm sure. I think it's gonna look awesome once we have furniture. I can't wait. It's really echo-y in here, which is not a good thing when one has two not-so-quiet boys.

Went with Anuska to Uwajimaya, our Asian Super Grocery Store, to see if I could find the food to which I had become accustomed, and check out the prices. I did find a lot of the familiar food, and the prices were about as I expected: ridiculous.















My maitake is about 3 times as much. But it was interesting to find out that it is known as "Hen of the Woods" in English. It was also surreal to see the exact same packaging for condiments, but with English words in "Japanese font."


































How much for a bottle of tea? Jeez. I'll just make my own, thanks.

The sashimi selection was pathetic, and now I understand why Macky et al turned up their noses at it when they were visiting a few years ago. BUT they do have a huge tank of live fish to choose from, so that's something.

So, anyway, I spent far too much money stocking up on staples like dashi, miso, wasabi, soba, ramen ("fresh" noodle, not that fresh), and yakisoba. I don't know how often I'll be doing that. I'm afraid that Japanese food is going to have to go back to being special occasion food, mostly. We do have a ton of kick-ass Thai restaurants within easy distance, so there is some consolation.

The boys have quickly re-established their sibling-like relationship with our family friends' kids. Tarran and M will be (weather permitting) celebrating their birthdays jointly for the first time in awhile this Saturday at Wild Waves. Tarran is one year and one day older.

Olivia Macy is again like a little sister (which she likes when M is giving her a piggyback or fetching her blackberries, but chafes at when M tries to tell her what to do), as Anuska and I swap kid-care as our schedules demand. She is the daughter I will never have. I took the three kids to the beach yesterday.






























































Nothing like the beach for low-maintenance kid-watching, though there was a marked lack of vending machines on the wooded trail to the beach itself, spawning thirsty whines. Gotta remember to carry more then one bottle of water in the future.

Our old nomadic friend Stephanie was in town, and stopped to have dinner with us last night. She's the same. Love her. She's a badass mountain climber.















Tonight I am, embarrassingly, going to meet some friends at Hooters tonight. Before you lambast me, it's for Pat's 21st birthday, and some coworkers of his are taking him out after work. So we're going to meet him there. I've never been, neither has Shannon, and we are both prepared to do soem heavy sneering and mocking. I'll be wearing a padded bra, and still feeling wildly inadequate. But I'm all for new experiences.