Arriving in Japan
My first post is stuck in my laptop which uses a 3 prong plug. All outlets here are 2 prong, so I'm stuck until I locate an adaptor.
The 13 hour flight was a breeze. They have these personal video screens for each seat where you can watch 4 recent movies, several channels showing very recent programming (the CBS channel showed a recent 60 minutes interview with Stephen Glass), some really bad radio selections, and a real-time map showing your plane's progress, estimated time of arrival, flight speed, etc. Pretty cool.
Yes, it was long, but it was really the least boring thing I did all day. Anyone who has a long overseas flight, I cannot vouch for the other airlines, but AA was great. My only complaint is the quality of the food.
There are drawbacks to international travel. When traveling to Japan, the drawbacks are these:
- Narita airport is a 1-2 hour bus, train, or car ride from Tokyo
- The foreign passport check line is oppresively long, however it moves rather quickly
- The customs line is relatively small, but moves incredibly slow
- The currency exchange line is both long and slow
The plane ride is nothing compared to those lines and the traffic. I landed about 3:30pm and finally got to the girlfriend's (GF) house about 9ish.
Onboard Movies:
Millenium Actress - Highly recommended. Interesting, facsinating, touching, ...but beware, you WILL cry when watching this movie.
Almighty Bruce - Smarmy in parts, kinda funny in others, ...rather predictable tale about heaven, and separating what you want from what you need. Not bad, though.
The Itallian Job - Interesting movie that was poorly conceived and poorly written. Of course, Ed Norton is great, but the rest of the cast is rather blahze.
First Post
Blog entry 8am 10/30 O’Hare airport
I’m sitting here in O’Hare wishing I had wifi on this laptop, but I don’t so I’ll have to post this later. Last night was a mini-adventure …
Knowing my flight left at 6:24am, I needed to get some serious sack time. My parents suggested I stay at their house for the night as they were taking me to the airport in the morning anyway. This was also convenient because WND (Worlds Naughtiest Dog) is staying there for the week, and it would save me some running around in the early am.
Well, as usual I am running behind schedule and WND is not helping matters by jumping, whining, running in circles, and making a general nuisance of herself while I’m trying to carry my luggage down to the car. Once she sees her leash she goes even more bizzerk, making a huge racket while my neighbors are trying to sleep.
11:15pm, I load WND and my crap into the car and head for the parents’ house. A few accidents dot the scenery, slowing traffic to a crawl, speeding up again, and slowing down once more.
At the house, WND is not sitting still while I try to unload the car. Jumping into the front seat, then the back, trying to escape through whichever door I am using to unload my baggage. I have never let her out of the car through any door but the rear passenger-side door under the naïve assumption that this repetition would teach her the proper door to exit the car through. Nope. She just jumps at any opening almost small enough to let her slip out. She once escaped through a half-opened window while I was paying for gas.
At my parents house she is running around like a holy terror. Running, begging, running again, jumping, running, pestering, running, more begging, and begging while running and jumping. I let her out to do #1 and get ready for bed. About 5 minutes later I retrieve her, let her up into the bedroom I am using (my sister’s old room) and show here where she is supposed to sleep for the night. Of course, all she wants to do is play. Dogs don’t really have the concept of “Hey, it’s f-cking almost midnight, everyone has to work in the morning, shut the f-ck up!” To them, life is entirely situational. Late, early, …doesn’t matter, Let’s play!
So, play she did. In fact, she played so hard that she ralphed up her dinner on the bedroom carpet. Ok, grab her, back down the stairs and out the door in case she is actually sick and will need to spit up again. Back up the stairs to clean up the mess. Mom doesn’t have carpet cleaner. Super. A house full of carpet and no cleaning solution. So I use water and some pre-depression powdered substance called Soilax or something.
I’d always wondered why dogs like that meat flavored dog food. It doesn’t look or smell like meat. It says it is made with meat, but I was never really convinced of that, …until today. Dog food smells like meat once it’s been half-digested in a dog’s stomache, then spilled out on the floor.
Cleaned it up best I could and went to grab the WND. I go to the back door, but she is not there. The leash is pulled tight. I call her. Nothing. I rattle the door. Nothing. She’s gotten tangled up around the tree and is sitting there in the rain waiting for me to come and get her. So, it’s about 37 degrees outside and rainy. I walked through the yard in my socks and untangle her, returning to the bedroom freezing cold and wet. Time to try to get some sleep.
About 2 hours later she is at the bedroom door whinning that she needs to go out. Not wanting to clean up another mess, I let her out again without incident. Now it appears we are both ready for sleep.
A good night’s sleep, considering …Got the airport on time, saw some nice racks on cute girls, found my connecting gate, an outlet, and here I am.
So, I called the wife (not my wife, yet). Yesterday she had told me about some more trouble signs for her pregnancy. She’s had a lot of symptoms consistent with miscarriage, and they are continuing. When I called her just now, she was looking up some info on miscarriages on the web, but it wasn’t easing her mind. She’s pretty convinced that she is having a miscarriage, as more symptoms popped up today. She is calling her doctor in the morning.
She blames herself for this, like I knew she would. She always take the blame and the fault for things within and beyond her control. Her x-husband cheats on her with some loose Japanese girls, and she thinks it’s her fault. Her childhood cat dies of a disease shortly after birth, and she thinks it’s her fault. Now, she is blaming herself for the miscarriage.
Of course, I tell her that it is not her fault, it is a common occurrence, and that these things happen sometimes. We will try again and again and again. She knows this, but she cannot help feeling the guilt.
There’s an off chance that she may be in the hospital when I arrive, meaning that I will have to try an take the trains from Narita, to Shinjuku, to Tachikawa station in her city, Fussa-shi. I’m not really prepared for that, but I’ll give it a shot. I don’t really have a choice anyway.
For the past several days I’ve been nervous, scared, worried about the pregnancy, about the trip, about spending the rest of my life with her, …but I’m not worried or scared now.
I do love her. If I remember that, the rest of it is manageable.
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