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I’m back. I made it safely if not entirely in good spirits. More to come.

One of the adorable though, admittedly, sometimes obnoxious traits of Samantha is her love of singing and music. She sings along to most anything from theme songs to music on the radio and will sing words to the tune of a song – usually “If You’re Happy and You Know It” rather than just saying them.

For instance, the other night she sang along to the theme of Two and Half Men which was cute but made only more precious by the fact that most of the words of the song are simply the repetition of the word “men.” Scooby Doo is another favourite and I melt every time she says “shiver.”

She must have learned this adorable song at school about ducks because she knows hand motions too.

Five little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only four little ducks came waddling back.

Four little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only three little ducks came waddling back.

Three little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only two little ducks came waddling back.

Two little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only one little duck came waddling back.

One little duck
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But no little ducks came waddling back.

Five little ducks
went out to play
Over the hills and far away
Papa duck said,
“QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!”
Five little ducks came waddling back.

Lastly, somehow she wound up with one of those obnoxious singing fish Billy Bass which plays snippets “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “Take me To the River” Of course she sings those too and when she gets to the whistling part of the former, she simply “oohs.” Haha
I really wish my camera had a microphone so I could record her singing!

Most of the things I recalled and missed from home were the positive things but spending so much time here reminds me of the things I could do without.

Family drama is one of those definitely but it seems like that’s one no one can ever avoid so who am I to complain?

Another has to do with the cleanliness and condition of the homers of my family, especially Mom’s. My family has never been known for being clean and I think my standards have far surpassed most of theirs already, so I’m a little uncomfortable being here sometimes. In fact, I’ve done a bit of cleaning up and spent the first few days working on different projects like removing all the stickers from the entertainment center I bought Mom.

Of course, no amount of cleaning can make a home newer. Mom has lived here almost a decade and Tim has lived here some years before that. Continuous living certainly can take its toll on a building and it has in this house. It seems like every time everything breaks, the fix is only temporary and the issue will come back even worse next time, ultimately leaving the house in worse condition.

Frozen pipes seem to be an issue which occurs frequently and they’ve actually had to take the shower out to fix it and whoever reinstalled it did a sloppy job caulking the shower when they put it back in and the shower looks absolutely disgusting but seems to match the stained linoleum and loose toilet in the bathroom.

I guess I’ve just gotten used to living in nicer places and it bothers me a bit to be back. I always imagine renovating this house which is probably useless as Mom and Tim are trying to buy a new house but I know it still won’t be great and they’ll have a mortgage to pay off for the rest of their life from the loan.

Another thing I didn’t recall was just how much fur 6 animals can shed! It’s absolutely insane. I remember why I started lint brushing my clothes in the first place! Of course, 6 animals also equals scattered food, dumped over water bowls, litter box cleaning and accidents on the floors (which absolutely gross me out), all things I’d like to pass on even though I really am a pet person.

I suppose you can’t have your cake and eat it too but I certainly do miss my clean, new-ish and fur-free home in Japan.

I have, so far and despite Samantha’s grievances and protests, managed to spend time with everyone who is available. Luckily, Robyn had spring break last week so we were able to grab some lunch and do some driving. Who knew you could get so lost in the town you’ve lived in all your life?

I’ve gone out with Wendy many times including a few games of bowling which I didn’t excel at and a couple bars. One, the local gay bar, actually had a drag show going on the night we went and it was pretty cool to see the Miss Gay Wausau Pageant. I took a couple nice pictures but my camera was dying so I held off toward the end.

I saw most of the family at Easter which was dramatic as usual (Grandma freaked out when Grandpa showed up and my uncle and his wife called up whining that they had no place to go so mom was forced to invite them and then they begged my grandparents for money); I really shouldn’t come to expect anything else from the family. I was a little disappointed at how little time any of my grandparents made to spend with me but, from what I hear, Grandma is drinking more again. I also was a firsthand witness to one of Grandpa’s stranger traits: he brings over his junk mail for the younger grandchildren. He writes to strange people who send him things like Chinese doilies and chain saw key chains. He’s a bit off.

I spent additional time with my aunts Liz and Grace as well as my uncle Ed. I had some time to spend with my cousin Ginger and will spend more time with her tomorrow. Overall, I feel like I’ve spent a fair deal of time with my family although Mom has had to work a lot which isn’t as much fun as one might think it is.

Last night Wendy, Ben and myself bowled, went for a few drinks and fooseball games afterward and finally headed to his house for a few rounds of Halo during which Wendy kicked my ass, before calling it a night. It was really fun and both of them seemed to get along great, which was awesome.

I’ve also seen Sav a few times, including a little road trip we took with Wendy to Appleton, specifically the Fox River Mall that was all but boring. I had searched for a few places online I’d like to go and printed out a Google map with all the information. As fate would have it, the printer was running out of color ink so the map was pretty sloppy and hard to read and I didn’t want to print out the list of places so I kind of didn’t know what dot on the map was which. -lol-

We made it down there without much problem, headed down what must have been the main drag. En route, we found a comic store where I felt I needed to purchase something for Ryan and did. We visited a rather large occult/spirital/metaphysical shop, Angels Forever, which was pretty awesome and both the girls made purchases but I decided not to. We found this oh-so-wonderful shopping center which had absolutely nothing in it (City Center Plaza, if you’re wondering).

My map included restaurants, bars, Eldorado’s, some art galleries, the Historial/Houdini museum and music stores. Unfortunately, because of my lack of knowledge about points on the map, our unfamiliarity of the city and because we simply didn’t have enough time, we didn’t get to most places. We wound up skipping the bars and just ate at the food court of the mall although we tried to eat at TGI Fridays, there was too long of a wait.

Savannah and I both would have liked to see the museum but since it was a Saturday and many things were only open until 4 and we arrived about 3:45, it didn’t pay to even try to find it.

We also has to skip all the music stores which was disappointing because they have so many! Wausau has 1, which is tiny and stores like Best buy or Walmart are you only other choices for buying music in a brick and mortar establishment.

We did stop at Eldorado’s on the way out where I made a purchase and also bought something for Wendy. Mine came with a free DVD which sucked and not in the good way.

We left nearly 7 hours after we arrived and I was a little confused at just exactly what we had done. We did spend a good deal of time at the mall which was okay. No one bought a whole lot but I was excited that they had a Torrid and even if the in-store collection was a little disappointing compared to their site, I did buy some pants and something a little sassy I’d been considering for a while. It’s probably a good thing I did as it’s no longer available online and I grabbed the last of my size they had in store.

Somehow, the way out was a lot more confusing and I had only gotten directions to get there. It would make sense to just follow them backwards but none of us really remembered any of the sights we passed. We must have been on the right path because when we stopped to ask for directions, we were only a few blocks away from the highway. unfortunately, we weren’t exactly sure which entrance we needed to take to go in the right direction and by the time I spotted it, we missed it so we wound up heading toward Green Bay.

I figured that as long as we were going in a generally northern direction, we were fine. I was wrong. We drove about half an hour out of the way and I was afraid that we were headed to Door County and although we were farther East than we wanted to be (we probably weren’t far from lake Michigan) we did manage to go around Door County. It didn’t help that the former resident of Green Bay – Sav – thought she recognized the road we were on when she didn’t.

We finally asked for more directions and had to backtrack 20 minutes or so until we found the right highway (though not the same one we took down) which took us right to Wausau where we spent the night at Wendy’s after watching the horrible porn. All in all, it was pretty fun.

It’s been great seeing my friends. I had forgotten how fun they all are and regret not spending more time with them when I could.

Don’t get me wrong; Samantha is great. She’s absolutely adorable and cute, playful and creative, loving and sweet but she’s also very energetic which, while not necessarily bad, can be exhausting when she clings to you incessantly.

She’s also a little girl which means she doesn’t quite yet completely grasp the concepts of right/wrong, responsibility and sharing. She’ll often demand that I share something with her but really mean I give it up and she doesn’t like to share much herself, of course. I forgive her but sometimes you just can’t reason with a little girl who thinks mostly about herself.

It’s hard when she’s naughty or really pushing it and you have to scold her because she becomes so hurt and whiny. She hasn’t thrown any big tantrums, really but she’ll tart crying (or faking it) and crawl under a table or some similar object and sing a little song about how no one loves her. It’s rather cute and amusing but still exasperating.

I love her, I do but I need time to myself and to spend with my friends. Every time I leave, it’s a big to-do with her usually crying, clinging to my leg and, like last night, asking for 50,000 hugs before I leave. I feel so bad because I don’t want to hurt her feelings but there’s so many people I’m trying to see before I leave. Even though Samantha really does like Wendy, she is always mad at her because Wendy takes me away. )=

And for some reason, she is as hungry as a teenage boy (and her tummy shows it) and often satisfies these cravings with the strangest foods – hot dogs in taco shells, “cheese tacos” (cheese on half a taco shell), butter sandwiches so on and so forth. From what I gather, she’s a pretty picky eater (ha, like me!) and prefers chicken (also like me!) and happy meals too often (not so much like me). She’s not eating anything too healthy and I hope mom and Tim crack down on that but she doesn’t always like to listen.

She is awfully cute, though. She tells me she doesn’t speak my language when I correct her English and she seems to run to me to defend her from others (like Mom). She loves and only wears pink because I like it which is the same reason she’s obsessed with Scooby Doo; although even I am sick of it now. She has such a cute little face when she wants something and she uses many expressions which I try to get in picture but sometimes she likes to play the “I won’t let you take a picture” game which is usually remedied by asking her to take a picture with Floppy (big Floppy to her) whom she loves and I don’t think she will let me have in the future.

Luckily, I have a few hours every day when she’s at school to get some things done. Her spring break lasted for about a week and a half and it was too much for me! I will miss her immensely when I leave and I wonder how she’ll take it but it’s been so an exhausting few weeks here and I miss Ryan terribly so I am ready to go. I’m also looking forward to a good night’s sleep as Samantha isn’t the easiest person to share a bed (or even worse – a couch!) with and she wakes you up when she’s awake by saying “I think I can’t sleep anymore.” Ha!