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You’d think I would blog about something as big as moving around the world, back to my home country if not exactly in the same place as my home state. But, no, not me. There wasn’t a “bye guys” or even a “see you later.” I don’t know why but things like that sometimes become so normal to me that I forgot to mention them.

So “Bye” and “Hi” again. On Tuesday i flew for nearly 24 hours on 3 different flights, with my husband, from Misawa to San Antonio. We said good bye to Misawa, friends, Japan, great food, small roads, unusual customs and language barriers.

We were greeted by my in laws at the airport and have been staying at their place for the last few days. In just 3 days I have managed to become sun burned; I thought I could do without the sunblock but I now know better. We’ve also gone car shopping but haven’t done a lot of stuff that I’m sure we will have plenty of time to do.

During the journey we were bombarded with snooty gay stewards, bus rides across Tokyo, exhaustion, know-it-all Air Force entrants on their way to basic training and bad food. We also were unfortunate enough to spend twice as much money on perfume I’d had my eye on for some time as we would have here at Target. However, I did pick up a really cute lucky cat keychain.

So here I am, homeless and in a most awkward situation. Sun burned but alive and I’ll probably survive even longer.

A wet little Cole. Wonder where she came from? Well, I’ll tell you.

She was living in her apartment with no furniture save for an air mattress and all her belongings being shipped overseas. Then they kicked her out (in reality, housing came and must have decided the place was fine, so we handed over the keys) and she spent countless hours (more like 5) wandering aimlessly through the slums (having breakfast and reading at the library). Then she was forced into tiny accommodations without climate control (a room at the Misawa Inn; no A/C) with a crazy alien (Ryan).

And now she’s tortured by medieval devices (really slow computers) because the sadists (lodging personnel? Services?) don’t believe in magic (wireless networks).

In reality, I’m not horrible. The room was surprisingly ghetto and I’m disappointed but I’m sure you all know how critical I can be and anything is better than nothing, really. Our room isn’t even in the main building; I’m not sure if that makes it any worse but it seems like little more than a glorified dorm room (same set up and everything) with furniture supplied.

It is quite hot but – they’re so sweet that – they left fans in the closet. Only 1 of them didn’t work! They were also really thoughtful to leave us complimentary items like coffee and shampoo but those are complimentary only for the first night’s stay and after that any items we silly travelers have “forgot” are available for purchase at the front desk, or so says the signs everywhere. It’s quite rude.

The shower is really nasty. I mean, it’s not horrible but it’s not hotel quality by any means! The metalworkd used to have gold on it which has worn off and looks all nasty. The showerhead shoots you with water, not a nice spray, and although there is a knob to adjust, it goes from painful to fatal. The tub fauce also is connected to a pipe which sticks out from a hole in the wall so there’s a gap between the wall and the faucet.

On the plus side, there’s a kitchenette supplied with some dishes which will make life a little easier, and we have a dozen TV channels (that’s 11 more than we had in the apartment) to flip through discontentedly. I also have some Netflix we can finished up (which reminds me, I need to put my account on hold).

Interestingly enough, right after we got into the room yesterday, we lost power because of a lightning strike! When does that ever happen?

So Ryan thinks my blog sucks these days or something. Whatever. d= I do think it’s suffered a bit from me being busy with some others projects, some of which are more secretive than others.

The moving stuff has also kept me busy periodically. I am not officially living in a stuff-less apartment – no furniture (we invested in an air mattress), no dishes, no computer, no good fan, no TV (and no DVDS to go with it). Needless to say, I’m pretty bored.

I can only spend so much time on the laptop. A) because it sucks. B) Because it’s uncomfortable to use and C) because I don’t have my stuff on here I can only do a little shallow e-mail checking and web surfing – nothing that I get really busy with.

I’ve been playing a lot more DS – I got back into Nintendogs. I also just finished a book and have a few more to keep me busy. It’s not enough though. Luckily, this is only for a few days until we go to the inn which will at least have a DVD player (and furniture!) to keep us busy. It’s also within walking distance to pretty much everything on base and most things right off base, too.

The getting ready was a little frustrating. My sleeping schedule is not conducive to happy days. I had been up for some time when the movers showed up around 8:30 – although I swear the guy said some time between 11 and 3 – and they only took about 2 and a half hours to wrap everything and move it to the truck. It was definitely fast but, then, I suppose it is their job!

Unfortunately, some things were packed that I didn’t intend to be (plastic silverware, duh!) and that shouldn’t have been (we were told no spices so I put them aside but they packed them anyway) and some things didn’t make the cut (most cleaning things). One of the thing I hate about moving is that you seem to have to throw away so much perfectly useful stuff because it doesn’t necessarily pay to move it and it may not be expensive or hard to replace but I still hate getting rid of stuff I paid for. I like to use things up to the last drop.

That’s all for now folks.

Time is really winding down. We’re officially without bedroom furniture. I came up with the bright idea of using an air mattress which we are now doing so we’re not on the floor.

Either tomorrow or the next day they’ll be coming for a smaller shipments of goods. Clothes (which we’ve already separated for the most part), dishes (which I’ll split so we have some to use here and some there) and my computer are the biggies.

These things should show up slightly faster than the rest of our stuff, only I don’t think it’s enough time to make much of a difference. They estimated 45 days for the “express” shipment and 50 for the regular stuff so I don’t think it pays to make a big deal about stuff that will only be there 2 weeks earlier and that’s still a month and a half we have to wait. But maybe it won’t matter because we don’t know how long we’ll be waiting for a house anyway.

After that stuff, we just have to go through the stuff and figure out what we’re packing in luggage or what we’ll need that we will mail ourselves because we’ll still need it after they pick up our stuff – like the air mattress and blankets, etc.

So right now I’m doing dishes and laundry in the washers and just waiting. I’ll try to give a call early tomorrow morning to see when TMO is coming, hopefully Tuesday.

It’s just another one of those “hurry up and wait” situations.

I bet someone is. -peers among the faces in the crowd* At the very least, I bet Sav or Elyse might stumble upon this entry. -chuckles*

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been in the Milwaukee area for over a week, specifically in a little south-western suburb called Greendale. It’s bigger than Milwaukee but doesn’t seem so. All it is is houses – houses which were government built and owned for smoe time so they looked astonishingly like houses one might find on a military base. Pair this with the fact that while the houses are oddly rectangular, there are no normal square shape blocks and half the roads are only one block long, ending at someone’s house proving it a bit of a task to get turned out after you find yourself on one of these roads.

Enough of that.. A bit about the situation. Becky’s house is small and even though my cousin, Violet, is only there half the time, it definitely can be straining. Becky is a bit of a neat freak in denial – at one point she called Violet a slob – which she certainly is not. She is just a normal 13 year old girl and Becky’s expectations are.. way too high and just not realistic. Becky is also stressed because she’s very busy at work and because of this, she feels she shouldn’t have a house guest (obviously me) but she did anyway. I would have preferred she just said so in the first place so we could avoid this mess.

Anyway, the first week was disappointing and frustrating – because of the reasons already mentioned and because of my job and apartment search. Although I had sent out a few resumes early in the week – mostly to temp agencies – and done a few online applications, I had recieved no call backs so I went back to the phonebook and called every temp agency listed (and there were 6 or so pages) and sent out resumes to everyone I qualified for. I figured temp work would be fast to find, based on its nature, but I guess I was wrong.

I finally got some call backs and have gone on one interview which might lead to something, and have 2 more interviews tomorrow and Friday, one of which is at a law office. Wouldn’t that be cool? There wasn’t much in the paper when I looked and I don’t have the experience in the field I’m intending on breaking into (clerical) so that leaves me with fewer options still and, even then, Becky thought I was aiming too high but that call back certainly gave me a boost of confidence.

During all this I’ve been making numerous phone calls about apartments – mostly studios. I’m a bit surprised that everything I’ve looked at is cheaper than I expected rent-wise and most of those include most if not all of the utilities, unlike the apartment in Wausau.

I’d looked at a few but kept running into dead-ends when it came to leasing and being unemployed. It was either I needed a cosignor or a double security deposit. The latter while doable, was not prefferable. The apartment I liked the most, actually doesn’t require either, which rocks! I hope I get it. -crosses fingers-

I’ve been looking at what Becky calls the “fashionable East side” close to downtown and UWM so there would be a lot of people my age there which is good; I don’t like being lonely. Plus, it’s definitely not the suburbs!

I’m way excited to be in the city because there’s so many shops and restaurants which look like a ton of fun – plus I’ll be close to shows, concerts and festivals (they do a weekly Jazz in the Park thing and just had an art fest at the museum plus, of course, Summerfest! (they have a whole Dew-sponsored stage.. how cool is that?!)) and the musem is a real live one, not like our pitiful excuse for a museum up north.

So, anyway I don’t really have money-issues to worry about and even if the jobs don’t work out, having an apartment much closer to downtown (where I desire to work) will allow me to check it out and find something there. Did I mention I’m so relieved to be done with Wal-mart? Well, I am!