Wednesday, 14 October 2009

• Wills, Updates, Flying into Okinawa

  Wow, so...I'm behind, again...but I have good excuses!
  
  I did do a protected post a few weeks ago...but maybe I can talk a little about it here. There has been so much going on. So to get the depressing news out of the way, my father-in-law has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Not the kind that you may live 5 years or so with...the kind that kills you within a few years, most likely. He has small-cell lung cancer. He's asked us all not to talk about it because I guess he doesn't want the community at large sympathizing with him and all that. I can respect that. On the other hand, I don't see the harm in blogging about it. After all, I have no adults to talk to. I need to release some stress, right?
  
  Of course, the family is all freaking out and you have family members trying to take up positions of authority in breaking news about my father-in-law and small family squabbles are always on the brink of occurring. This is also happening on my mom's side of the family and my grandparents aren't even dead yet. It makes me want to cringe...and just pray that my grandparents and my husband's father have very detailed, already laid out wills...which also makes me think of something:
  
  I am going to make a will.
  
  They say anyone who has kids should make a will, but who really does? I mean, at our ages? But let's face it - we live in a foreign country now. We're going to be flying a lot. Anything could happen. We're not rich, we certainly don't have massive amounts of material possessions...but we do have kids and they deserve this. I also have realized that you should make a will BEFORE YOU EVER GET SICK. Let's say you come down with a terminal illness - all of a sudden, everyone around you goes insane. These won't be the people you knew once. All of a sudden, people who never gave a shit suddenly will. They will be at your bedside sponging your forehead and saying "Go into the light" prayers. At some point, they will ask you if you have a will. They will offer to write it for you. They will hint that THEY are the ones by your bedside while nobody else could be bothered. You will be in an easily-swayed state and not realizing that the world doesn't stop for one person's illness, these days. Many employers are jerks who only care about the bottom line and who could care less about your personal tragedy:
  
  "Let me get this straight....your mother is dying? Well...uh, how long do you think this could take? It's not like she really needs your assistance to die or anything, right? I don't mean to sound insensitive...it's just that we're really busy here..."
  
  When you are on your deathbed and not thinking clearly, it is not time to make a will. You're not going to see through cousin Larry's bullshit very well when he's the only soul you've seen while those who really love you are busy fighting with their bosses over the extent of your illness. So that's my rant about wills - make one!
  
  On the other hand, you're saying, "Shut the hell up about this crap and tell us about Japan already..." I've had more stuff happening, but I guess that can wait and I can add all that later...
  
  Okay, so here you go....The kids weren't too bad on the plane, but they were really obnoxious in the airports. I hate LAX. I hate it. I hate the whole damn city of Los Angeles, actually, and I've never made a secret of that. Been there quite a few times only to see hundreds of thousands of poseurs bitter about not being discovered and people who honestly don't realize they live in a total garbage pit. In LAX, you will find airport employees who actually DO seem to realize that they live in a garbage pit and who also seem to hate it there as much as I do. Only they are public service employees and their only reprieve is to take it out on everyone around them and most act like they have an oversized carry-on shoved up their ass.
  
  In LAX, we almost missed our plane because the security guys decided to redirect the security lines no less than 3 times. We made the plane, flew 12 hours and watched some crappy Renée Zellweger movie about her in some northeastern town with a lot of snow and 'He's Just Not That Into You'...which bugged me because I can remember back in the day when I worshiped Bridget Jones and any woe-is-me chick flick about dating. WHY?!?!
  
  Now Tokyo is like the polar opposite of LAX. We landed, walked into a very clean airport. Where people in LAX look like the hippie version of 'Night of the Living Dead', Tokyo's airport was full of neat, clean, well-groomed people and people wearing masks across their faces as if they actually cared about germs. I couldn't tell if they were really worried about getting sick...or if this was their weird way of paying homage to Michael Jackson...but anyway...
  
  We experienced our first bit of cultureshock in the form of "ROOK AT THE RITTLE BRONDE KIDS!!!!" Our kids were celebrities for about an hour. We also got to experience a little bit of traveler's horror. We waited by the baggage claim...and we waited...and waited...one of our bags was missing. Blaine started freaking out and seemed to be saying repetitively, "We're in a foreign country....and we've lost a bag....we're in a foreign country...and we've lost a bag..." I was trying to restrain the kids who wanted to run in opposite directions. I finally yelled at Blaine to go ask someone...and he yelled back that he didn't speak Japanese. Eventually, he did and then I saw a feat of customer service like no other. This little Japanese woman listened to my husband, talked into a radio and said, "They are checking, right now, to see if there is any more bags..." in perfect English. Then, she took off.
  
  We stood there freaking out for five minutes in the now completely-empty baggage claim area. All our fellow passengers were gone on their way to wherever and we were stuck standing there waiting on a lost bag and trying to remember exactly what was in that bag. Soon, the lady came out WITH our bag...she had actually found it and was carrying it. Not only did she carry it to us, she brought it to the check-in desk with us. She instructed the people to help us because we were running late for our connecting flight to Okinawa because of the mishap. We were being treated like royalty. The airline employees even picked up our kids and carried them through security with me running behind them thinking, "What the hell are they doing with my children?" They put us on a shuttle bus in which there was an old lady who immediately looked us up and down and put her scarf over her nose. Either she thought we smelled or she was afraid of catching something from us like the OCD crowd behind us in the terminal. I couldn't help but feel kind of hurt....and at the same time, it made me feel the animalistic urge to go up and cough on her, scream, "We're all healthy!" or something...
  
  You have to remember, this was three months ago when Swine Flu was still not an overly common affliction. I understand that now flu season has started, everyone and their dog seems to have battled H1N1.
  
  The flight to Okinawa was short...and I was tired. I zonked out and seemed like I woke up right as the flight was landing. It was nighttime in Okinawa and I was bummed. I wanted to see it as we were flying in. I had heard it's beyond beautiful from the air. After we unloaded our sleepy kids and started walking through the airport, I started hitting my husband up with questions, "You DID arrange a ride for us, right? We're not going to be stranded here are we?" The only thing in the world I wanted was a bed. I have never been so tired in my life. My husband kept repeating, "I don't know..." We claimed our bags, all of them and then made our way out into a crowd of people waiting to pick up passengers. I saw a sign that said our last name and was so overjoyed, I could have hugged the guy. His name was Brian...and he was not only giving us a ride home...he was our sponsor.
  
  Sponsors are people who are assigned to help you out when you get to an overseas duty station. We must have been blessed by God to have Brian as our sponsor. He told us all about the island as he loaded us into a van he had borrowed to pick us up. I was so tired and so in shock that I was just looking at all the large signs in Japanese. Here, I thought we were going to be on some small, quiet island...but there were bright, flashing neon signs everywhere. The streets were filled with people walking. I suddenly started feeling really overwhelmed.
  
  We got to our hotel...that's about all I remember. I was so unbearably tired. We got a room on base and my head hit the pillow after getting the cranky kids set up on a pull-out sofa bed. They were asleep instantly.
  
  In the morning, we woke up and already had a woman wanting to take us out to dinner. I begged my husband to cancel...BEGGED him. I was so tired there was no way in hell I was going anywhere. Apparently, this woman was the wife of my husband's Master Gunnery Sergeant. I appreciated the offer, but I just couldn't get over the jet lag. I was later to find out this was going to be a big mistake. But I'm now feeling just as tired as that night several months ago when we arrived in Okinawa...and I need to sleep. It's 2 a.m. here.
  
  I will continue this tomorrow...and I may also have to buy premium again because this simple text editor is really annoying. I like being able to format my text without having to format it all myself with html, which I no longer even remember. Is this worth buying premium over? Is nobody leaving the Xanga party anytime soon? Because if you're all planning on sticking around, then I'll cough up the funds for the premium...See you tomorrow!

  • 12:58 PM
  • 74 Views
  • 20 eProps
  • 10 Comments