Kate’s Quests

The boat left yesterday so D.J. will be gone for awhile. To get my mind off of it, I decided to go shopping at Tokyo midtown again. I stopped at Dean & Deluca (ok, so it was the main reason I went) and picked up some yummy things to snack on. I wanted truffle oil and balsamic vinegar, but when I saw that they each cost about 6,500 yen (about $63), I decided against it. Instead I bought some raw honey and honey with wild strawberries, cheese and crackers, and some tomato sauce. I can’t wait to try some of this stuff. Ok, so I may have already stuck a finger in each honey jar and tried the crackers, but whatever. The crackers weren’t very good (more like thin stale bread than crisp crackers), but the rest has been nice. I also stopped at a bagel place and got an onion and chive bagel. Bagels are pretty rare here in Japan and I don’t think I’ve had one since I got here, so it was time.

With D.J. gone the mornings are fine because he gets up so early to go to work, it’s totally normal to be alone. But, it’s really depressing when I get home from work at 6:30 or 7:00pm. That’s the time we catch up and watch our shows (we were watching Arrested Development again). We make dinner together and watch the cats chase each other. And when he’s gone…it’s just not the same. This deployment should be one of the better ones, though. He’s not gone very long and I’m going to try to meet him in Sapporo (northern Japan). I want to skiiiiiiiii!

I should tell you that I’ve only been skiing twice and that the first time didn’t go very well. The second time was to Mt. Baker in Washington and that was great and I felt very natural out on the slopes. But, the first time was in the Cairngorms in Scotland. It was cold, but raining and WINDY. The winds reached 80 knots by the end of the day so when we were trying to ski down the mountain, they wind was actually pushing us back up. I had taken the bunny slopes about three times when D.J. found a beginner path to try. Well…we got a little lost and ended up on an intermediate slope. It was a bit too advanced for me and I fell. I started to cry and wail, “I don’t like this, I wanna go home. This isn’t fun. I can’t get down.” And so we took off our skis and walked down the mountain. He thought it was pretty funny, but I wasn’t so amused.