1,576,800 minutes

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to close out our blog. What could I possibly say that would sum up our three years, resonate with us and others, and give a sense of all that we’ve experienced and what we’ve learned?

But then I got into my car one day and found a CD playing instead of the radio. When we first moved here and realized there were only 2 English-language radio stations, I made some CDs and took a few from my existing collection to stash in the car. Of course, they promptly got stuck under a seat and I basically forgot about them. But as we’ve been cleaning out the cars, they must have re-surfaced and, during a particularly annoying bout of top 40 music (the only thing on the radio here), Yoni stuck one in. It was a mix I made with my high school friends our first year of college, and, obviously, featured the RENT classic Seasons of Love.

While that song has always resonated with me, I’ve found myself coming back to it a lot in the past couple of weeks. How do you measure a year, the lyrics ask. In daylights/in sunsets/in midnights/in cups of coffee/in inches/miles/in laughter/in strife. I started thinking, how I would measure the three years we’ve spent in Okinawa?

…in birthday balls.

…in Friday night services.

…in drives in the mountains.

…in time spent hoping for, waiting for, and loving on Calanit.

…in pedicures.

…in trips to the beach with Penny.

…in diapers.

…in time spent sitting in traffic.

…in chaplain spouse get-togethers.

…in trips to the aquarium.

…in hours spent on skype and facetime.

…in time spent breast-feeding.

…in doctor’s appointments.

…in time spent making and maintaining new friendships.

…in visits from family and friends.

…in walks on the beach.

…in time spent waiting for Yoni to get home from work or back from deployment.

…in blog posts.

…in sushi.

…in Thanksgivings / Christmases / endless Jewish holidays spent with friends and family but sometimes (often) without Yoni.

…in time spent feeling lonely and/or alienated.

…in time spent feeling welcomed and included.

Of course, in RENT, the answer is simple: measure in love.  And I really believe the same is true for us. As hard as it was for us to accept the idea of moving here; as difficult as it was to find our place; as much as we missed our friends and family back home; as much as I would never say I or we loved being out here – I choose to measure our time here in love. In the love I feel for Yoni, Calanit and Penny. In the love that Yoni feels for his Marines. In the love that service members worldwide feel for their country. In the love that the chaplain community showers on its members. Three years later, I’m choosing to remember the love.

Thanks for supporting us, following us, cheering us on from near and far. For loving us. We couldn't have made it to the other side of this three years without you.

All our love,

Leora, Yoni, Calanit and Penny

over and out.

nakagusuku castle

This past Sunday, seeing as the heat index was only 104 instead of the usual 109, Yoni and I decided to venture out and spend a bit of time exploring. Okinawa is covered in ancient castle ruins (a throwback to the long and complicated history of the Ryuku Kingdom), and even though they all basically look the same, they can be interesting and beautiful.

The main parts of Nakagusuku Castle were built in the 14^th century, with later additions put on in the 15^th century. It was operational in some capacity (first as a residence and later as a village office) until the Battle of Okinawa when some of the structures were destroyed. Despite the damage, of the approximately 300 castle ruins located in the Okinawa prefecture, this castle is one of the best preserved in its original state. (I got this factoid from the brochure. I can assure you Yoni and I have not visited 300 castle ruin sites. They’re nice, but they all look basically the same. But still – fun for a Sunday outing!)

Our local poisonous snake is called the Habu. Okinawans, however, are not known for their command of English when it comes to signage.

All of the rocks were numbered - we figured they were possibly re-assembling something a la the Jerusalem Stone walls near Machaneh Yehudah.

Yoni says that this hotel is haunted (at least according to local Marine Corps lore). If you're interested, he recommends googling "Nakagusuku Hotel haunted". 

I could not believe how many layers this woman was wearing. It was seriously hot. 

the end is in sight

As my August 6^th due date gets closer and closer, it gets harder and harder for me to find interesting and inspiring non-baby things to write about. (I know, I know, you all think you’re interested in the baby things – but I promise you don’t really want to hear about the hours I spend thinking about baby monitors, changing pad covers, and all manner of other minutia. It’s really not interesting. Just ask my mom.) Add into the mix the fact that we recently found out we’ll be leaving Okinawa in December to move to beautiful Annapolis, MD (about which we’re SUPER excited, by the way), and you can understand why my brain is moving a million miles a minute, and not providing me with much blog inspiration.

That being said, our impending departure does have me thinking about what kinds of things Yoni and I absolutely want to do and experience before we leave. To be honest, I don’t think there’s much on either of our lists – we’ve been living here for a long time, now. But Yoni told me the other day that he still desperately wants to go scuba diving with whale sharks, which is a thing you can do here. And I know he still wants to go deep-sea fishing; he’s signed up for numerous trips over the past couple of years but they always seem to get cancelled. Stupid sub-tropical weather. As for me? I’m sure there are things we haven’t done, places we haven’t seen, but there are no activities in particular that stand out. I do find myself thinking much more seriously about my pedicure choices, knowing that my remaining pedicures on island are few in number. It would be nice to do more exploring around the island, but when it’s not thunderstorming the heat index averages about 108 with about 99% humidity – and that just doesn’t seem like a good idea for this 35+ weeks pregnant lady.

We did brave the heat today to take Penny to the beach for an hour or so. Penny was thrilled to celebrate her independence (and ours, of course), and to cool off in the East China Sea. Since it’s erev Shabbat, we won’t be attending any BBQs or parties or fireworks displays tonight. We’ll be at shul, doing our regular Friday thing. But then again, in thinking about what we’re really celebrating on July 4 and how hard our founding fathers worked to obtain religious (and political) freedom, maybe going to shul is a good way to celebrate July 4. Lounging by a pool, drinking margaritas and watching fireworks would be more fun, but as my niece Dafna says – we get what we get and we don’t get upset. So there you go.  Happy 4^th, and Shabbat Shalom!

bureaucracy 101

At the end of season 4 of The West Wing, Toby and his ex-wife Andi have twins. Stunned by the whole birthing experience, when Toby makes it back to work he remarks to several people that, unbeknownst to him, babies come with hats. In Okinawa, I’m sure they come with hats, too – but really, they come with paperwork.

Today, Yoni and I attended what’s called the Birth Registration class, which is highly recommended if you want to properly understand everything you have to do to get your child a birth certificate, passport, and social security number. To be fair, having never had a baby in the US, I don’t actually know how complicated it is to accomplish these things there. I’m sure passports at least require the usual paperwork. But I very much doubt that you have to attend a class to make sure you properly fill out the pages and pages of paperwork necessary for all of the steps of the process. Oh, and by the way, the class is taught by the only employee of the Birth Registration Office – a Japanese woman – who is solely responsible for processing about 130 births a month. And each package processed requires a one-hour interview with both parents and the baby in attendance.

I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. After all, if there’s anything a military life trains you for, it’s an understanding and expectation of endless bureaucracy. But just in case finagling a birth certificate, passport, and social security card didn’t seem like enough, you also have to get the baby enrolled in the military personnel system, added to your healthcare plan (I’m sure that’s normal outside the military as well), and – my personal favorite – you have to request that the hospital create a medical record for your new child. Apparently, it’s not obvious that all of the medical records generated by being born need to be collated and kept on file somewhere for future use. Instead, one must specially request that the Medical Records office create a file. Will wonders never cease? 

flying high

Normally it would be Yoni's turn to write today. However, due to the fact that he is currently deployed, you're stuck with me again. I'm going to cheat a little, though, by sharing some photos that I know Yoni meant to share before he left but never did. 

Yoni celebrated his 31st birthday in the weeks before he left, and as a birthday gift, our friend Josh, who moonlights as a flight instructor, took Yoni flying. We both assumed that they'd go on a scenic tour of Okinawa, see the sights from above, take in the ocean and the mountains. But Josh had something else in mind. When he said he wanted to take Yoni flying, he actually meant that he would let Yoni fly the plane. I know, it's a terrifying thought. Luckily, though, the plane was what I like to think of as a driver's ed style plane, meaning there were dual controls. But Yoni insists he took off and landed twice, practiced turning and steering, and was generally trusted with the operation of the (very small) plane.

At any rate, assuming he was going on a sightseeing tour, I sent Yoni with the camera. He didn't get too many pictures (he was pretty busy concentrating on the flying part), but he did - with Josh's help - get a few shots of himself in action. Hope you enjoy!

deployment "benefits"

Last night, I attended my first ever pre-deployment brief for Yoni’s battalion. By the way, I can tell that I’ve been living in the military world for too long because that sounds completely normal to me – of course that’s what I did with my Thursday night. In case it doesn’t sound quite so normal to you, here’s a bit of an explanation. As I think he’s written about on the blog (although, looking back, I’m not sure he was so overt), Yoni is getting ready to head on a deployment for about 1 ½ - 2 months. His battalion, Combat Logistics Battalion 31, is part of the 31^st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which, to make a long story short, means they spend almost as much time off island as they do on island.

During the lead-up to any deployment, Marines, Sailors and their spouses always have a lot of questions, like – when are we leaving? Will it be easy for us to stay in touch with our families while we’re gone? Where are we going, exactly? What should we expect? Where can I send my spouse mail while he/she is aboard ship? What if there’s an emergency at home while we’re gone? The pre-deployment brief is designed to address those questions and concerns.

While we did get answers last night, I can’t share very much with any of you (or, really, with anyone). At least not if what you want to know is when will Yoni be leaving and when will he be back. I can tell you that we’re told to expect bad connectivity i.e. don’t be upset if your spouse can’t call you and doesn’t manage to send many emails. (Awesome.) If there’s a real emergency you’re supposed to send a Red Cross message. And we’re told that any dates we’re given re leaving and returning are – of course – subject to change.

While this is all valuable information, I’m sure you can imagine that a spouse who is a veteran of many deployments might find such a brief boring; aside from the specifics, the information and suggestions don’t really change. MCCS (Marine Corps Community Services), though, who runs the briefs, is always looking for ways to encourage spouses to come out. And so they decided that if you want to receive a Deployed Spouses Benefits Card, you have to come to this meeting. These cards are serious – they have our names printed on them and they’re laminated and everything. Someone, somewhere spent time making them. It would follow that there are some serious benefits to be had by cardholders. Want to know what they are?

Typhoon Motors (our on-base auto repair shop)

-       free roadside assistance to include towing (I already get that from my insurance provider)

-        40% off all oil / filters (every girl’s dream)

-        all retail sale item discounts will double (discount will not exceed 40%)

-       20% discount for regularly priced retail merchandise over $50 (in case I want to…buy a new car stereo?)

Bowling

-       free rental shoes 7 days a week during open bowling

-       first game of bowling is free for adults during open bowling (bowling is pretty cheap on base anyway…but I guess that’s nice)

-       all retail sale item discounts will double (discount will not exceed 40%)(for all my bowling merchandise needs I guess)

Food, Beverage, Entertainment, and Special Events

-       $5 off Sunday brunch

-       20% off the total check (excluding alcohol) at all participating MCCS club dining facilities, to exclude: Sunday Brunch, Family Night, Mongolian BBQ, Sunday Breakfast Brunch, Catering, and Banquets.

-       $0.50 off for children under 5 from a Lunch Buffet, excluding: Sunday Brunch, Family Night, Mongolian BBQ, and Sunday Breakfast Brunch (what is that? I don’t even…)

Impressive, huh? If by impressive, you mean not really. Thanks, MCCS. I appreciate your support.