Non-Sequitur

[*Author's Note post-publishing: Eventually the internet did come back up and I was able to finish the blog ALMOST all by myself. Except I can't get the pictures to upload so luckily, since that is Dan's FAVORITE thing to do, you will have to wait to see the associated pictures after I send them to dan and he has a chance to upload them*]

For those of you who are not familiar with the word (as I previously was not until described by a good friend as one), non-sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow" as in, an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises; an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence. Basically, in a nutshell- something that does not logically follow another.

For those of you that know me (and presumably, if you have committed this much time to reading this much nonsense for so many days/weeks/months/years, then you must know me. If not- who are you?) you would probably be inclined to agree with my good friend, Bridget Barry (aka Bridgee, author of this blog which I love to follow to get my sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, fill of random honesty. We can probably all admit that we probably need a little more random honesty in our lives too.) who once described me as a "non-sequitur". I think this is a pretty spot on description (after I learned the definition of the word). I wouldn't say I have ADD or anything like that but frequently I easily and deftly jump from one subject to another, skipping around stories and ideas and thoughts. (again, if you've been following my blog, you are probably already aware of this fact).

So it should only be fitting to warn you that this blog is going to be a non-sequitur because I came up with 4 stories today, none of which have anything to do with the other nor are they really all that important. Don't worry though, I won't even try to come up with grandiose conclusion at the end to tie them all together. I don’t have THAT much time on my hands!

First. Let's talk about some new changes to the blog. You might have noticed on the left hand side, half way down the page, the new section entitled "My Cheerleaders." This is the section previously known as "My Followers." Apparently, most of my family/friends/readers think "My Followers" is a creepy thing to call yourself (i think stalking is technically considered a misdemeanor in some states), or else only 6 people are actually reading my blog. If that's the case, then apparently I need to come up with some better stories to start drawing in the readers. I am pretty sure though, that I have more than 6 readers. And for arguments sake, we will discount my parents/dan's parents who I don't believe have gmail accounts and probably don't religiously "follow" blogs at the rate at which our generation does (that means you get a free pass for not being "official" followers, mom and dad. I am excited that after 3 deployments you both finally started posting comments. This means a lot to me :)

Anyways, back to the point (here we go again with this "it does not follow" theme again). I changed around some things about the blog to help better tell "my navy story." So then I thought, I will call the followers section "My Fan Club"- but then again, that sounded too creepy as well. I mean, I think fan clubs dissolved sometime back in the mid 90's, right around the time that New Kids On the Block dissolved (the first time around).

So then it hit me- who are all of the people that read my blog and comment on it and send me emails? They are really my own personal cheerleading squad. Yes, that's it! They are my cheerleaders who bring a smile to my face and keep me going with their funny stories and comments and knowing that my family & friends are actually reading this blog (other than Dan who I think is required by some antiquated marriage law to faithfully read his wife's blog posts, even if they are super lame) helps me feel connected to them and to home. And let's be honest, who DOESN'T want to be in a cheerleading squad? Let's just say that if YOU had a cheerleading squad, I like to think that I would be on your team, cheering you on from the sidelines. That was basically a long-winded and overly desperate attempt to convince my loyal readers, whoever they are, to join "My Cheerleading" Section of the blog. If not, that's cool too, you can cheer quietly from in your heart. And if you have a blog that I am unaware of, please send the link my way because I would loooove new blogs to follow!

Two. Tonight as I was getting ready to leave the watch floor, one of the Surface Trackers (I don't know who she was because she was a NIMITZ watchstander and I don't really know that many of them) said "Ma'am- do you know who you look like? You look JUST like Jennifer Love Hewitt!" I was like "whoa, no way, that's the SECOND person to tell me that this deployment" and she said that all of the other watchstanders have been talking about it for awhile. I thought that was the funniest thing ever! I didn't see it a month ago and I don't get it today either. So tonight, I googled "JLH" again and after finding MANY racy photos (apparently she's quite the babe these days!) of her, I found this one that I held up to myself in the mirror. Now, I know I've been gone a long time, as I looked at this picture and looking at myself in my rumpled, frumpy coveralls with no make-up on, I thought "there is no way that ANY amount of time away would give me such long and healthy looking hair and such a great tiny waist to large chest ratio, topped off with killer toned arms" (in fact, the longer we are away, the SHORTER my hair is getting!). Anyways, I thought that was funny because I feel completely opposite of this polished movie star right now. I don't even think I remember how to apply eyeliner. I should probably brush up on that over the next few weeks, lest I return home looking like a Halloween costumed-girl.

Three. I have beat the Navy internet system. Yes, the one that doesn’t allow Gmail or skype or anything else EVER. The one that limits our “open internet hours” (anything non-Navy or banking) to only 8 hours a day. Well, it turns out that google is always available (however, after you click on the link that you would like, then you get blocked out). But, because you can physically log onto Google, type in something and see at least the results, that means that you can always log onto blogger (since it is now supported and run by Google). What does this mean, you ask? Well, this means that even after midnight, I am able to read and write blog posts. SUCCESS! This also means that I am not QUITE as dependent on my husband to get out the good word. However, as I was proudly blogging all by my self (a very fulfilling thing to do after months and months of having to email off my posts for uploading), the internet cut out. Stupid, stupid Nimitz internet system. Totally predictable. UGH. Just when I had the system beat!

So now I am blogging with slightly less enthusiasm, knowing that I will have to wait until the internet comes back so that I can email it to Dan and have him post it for me like 15 hours from now when he gets back from work (no, Dan doesn’t work 15 hour days but we’re SEVENTEEN hours ahead of west coast time so he is just getting up and getting ready for work so he won’t get around to this until after he gets home. Apparently he is a very busy/important person at work and doesn’t do frivolous tasks like blogging at work. Weird, I know since that is the norm for me. However, Dan also doesn’t live at his office, or at least to my knowledge he doesn’t… I think/hope he still lives & pays rent at 1455 Kettner Blvd, since that’s what I’m counting on… and apparently they do let him go home at nights so he will get to it them shortly)

Four (finally, I know right? You’re wondering when this will end already!) I wanted to tell you about these awesome shoes I bought in Malaysia (and given that I have bought no fewer than SIX pairs of shoes this deployment… oops?... I have to delineate where I got them AND the story behind them).

These sandals are AWESOME. They are definitely different than anything that I would buy back in the States (my other 5 pairs of shoes were all flats. Right now as they’re reading this Dan/my father are thinking “FIVE other pairs of flats?! Molly, you can only wear one pair at a time!”). These sandals were procured at the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur. They were made by this little old lady and man out of “the official Malaysia wood” (which I promptly forgot what it was that made it so special/official). The old man (he is over SEVENTY and still making shoes EVERY DAY!) takes the wood from the trees and sands them down into this wedge/platform style. If I could best compare it to something back home, it would be like the shape of the sole of a Dansko clog. Some of them were higher than others, but I picked out a medium height wedge. After he sands them down, the old lady hand paints Malaysian flowers on the sole and the wedge part of the bottom of the shoe and stains/finishes the wood so that it is shiny. Then, they take this material known as “Batik” which is a very traditional and brightly printed cloth, with flowers, geometric designs, birds, etc etc. It runs a range of colors and styles, but it's basically a really pretty material that they use for skirts, sarongs, napkins, table clothes, whatever.

So after the painting of the wooden part, she takes a small piece of batik and drapes it over where you would logically place fabric to make a sandal. Then, she uses a big staple gun to staple the fabric to the shoe. Then she takes a hammer and nail and hammers the nails across the fabric to secure it to the shoe and then removes the unsightly staples.

This process was made much cooler by a few facts. One- these handmade right in front of you shoes will run you about $25. Which is more than I paid for some shoes this deployment, but I thought was pretty reasonable after watching the process of how they were made and how special they were. Two- the lady didn't have the 100% combination of what I wanted (the height of the sole, remember, I didn't want a really high one) with the brown/gold/tan printed batik cover. Also, your average women's foot is much wider than mind, so I could tell by trying on a few pairs that my foot was going to slide around and thus it would not be a good purchase. So, she lets me pick the exact size and height sole and the Batik print that I wanted and then fit the fabric directly to my foot. Three- she was about to use these brown-ish nails when I saw that some of the sandals had gold colored nails, which I thought matched this fabric more. So, since she was already going to go through the whole staple and nail process for me, I thought I'd ask if I could have the pretty nails instead. No, no, no, she explained to me, those nails make the shoes more expensive, this price does not include these nails. Remembering back to my childhood with my economist parents who I think at one point explained that in capitalism, everything can be had for a certain cost (or was it everything can be had at a certain price? shoot, i forget. that's why I'm in the Navy and not an economist...) Anyways. So I ask the lady "can I pay a few extra dollars (or ringits or dinars or dirans or bat or whatever ridiculous monopoly money currency were were in at this point in the deployment) for the gold nails?". She immediately picks up on this idea and says that yes, for $2, I can have pretty nails. Given that we're already spending the time and effort to make these specially for me, I figured an extra $2 for the prettier and less-unsightly nails was a good idea).

So here is the final product- my less than $30 hand picked, hand painted, hand made, made to order like a Sheetz sandwich batik covered flowered wooden Malaysian wooden clog/sandal. Ta-Da! And of course, what else to show off next to my shoes, but a can of Coke Light (I have NO idea why I took a picture of these shoes next to a Coke Light can, but in light of the blog from a few days ago, it is interesting to note that as you move into South East Asia, they have apparently figured out how to master the non-removeable soda can tab, as evidenced here).

And a side note, as she was hammering away at my shoes, I look across the market and see a girl in a similar pair of shoes and I asked the little old lady "are those your shoes too?" and she looks up at the shoes and after studying them for a minute says with enormous disgust "those are commerical, not hand-made, fake" and I immediately felt EVEN better about my purchase.

Whew. Ok. That is done. That's all I've got. Back to work for a little bit and then good night. I'm sure in another 24 hours I'll come with more logically unrelated things to say.

"Ma'am" the Torpedoes?

No, not damn the torpedoes and yes, ADM Farragut, you read that right.

And if you read this article, you'll learn about some awesome, incredible, sweeping changes taking the US Navy by storm.

With the graduation of the US Naval Academy's Class of 2010, as soon as NEXT spring, the US Navy Submarine force, the all-male force since its conception, is going co-ed.

Wow- what an incredible idea! 14 years after women were allowed by Congress to serve on combatants (read: Warships and fighter aircraft), the submarine force will allow Academy women to go straight to Nuclear Power School to be the first women to serve onboard a submarine.

Despite all of the issues and debate and drama behind it- (and there are a lot! cost, integrating the crew, what do you do about fraternization, how do you alter berthing/bathrooms for women, blah blah blah)...

Whatever your opinion is (and for the record mine is: this is great but I personally would not like to be a submariner), this is an awesome time in our Navy's history. In the mid-1990's it was incomprehensible that I would be sitting here right now, doing the job that I am (ok, not blogging, but my ACTUAL job). All those grumpy old retired salty Sailors saying women could NEVER be on warships and could NEVER drive ships and could NEVER be leaders in the Surfare Community... All the same naysaying arguements were prevalent and here we are, doing the exact same job as the boys (and frankly, in my opinion, doing it better :)

What do you think?

This or That?

Today I had a “whoa!” moment. And I’m not talking about when I was running at a 7.0 on the treadmill and the ship took a little roll and I grabbed onto the bar and went “whoa” so I didn’t fall off. No, not that kind of whoa.

Today I merrily skipped to the vending machine to have my allotted one a day Coke Light (no, the Navy isn’t rationing our C.L. allocation, but rather I am limiting myself to one a day to keep up my health- with it being so cold I need plenty of tea and water to keep me healthy and plenty of water to keep me hydrated for my daily treadmill sessions and definitely don’t need too much caffeine- in fact, I need something to calm my excitement so I sleep more soundly through the night. Channel fever 26 days out? Oh dear- it’s gonna be a long month!)

So, anyways, there I was, in the Zulu module, where we stand watch when I absent-mindedly crack open a nice cold artificially sweetened diet soda. KPPPPYSSHHHH. (that’s the sound of me cracking open a cold one) when I stop in my tracks and think to myself “that didn’t sound right…”

I looked down and noticed what I had in my hand was not a Middle Eastern born and bred Coke Light, splashed with un-readable Arabic, with its environmentally UN-friendly removable tab (seriously? Who thought of that? How inconvenient!). What I had in my hand rather, was a good ole American, Capitalist produced, and red, white, and blue as the colors we fly on the NIMITZ, Diet Coke. With a non-removable, more environmentally friendly (what do you do with that tab? Who is within a trash can range when opening a soda? What do you do with that tab? Put it in your pocket? Throw it on the floor? Try not to cut yourself with it? Hello- this is 2010! Get with the trend, Middle Eastern Coke Producer!) tab. A KPPPYYYYSSSHHH sound producing Diet Coke.

Now, if you know me, you know I LOVEEEEEEE Coke Light. I love it as much as I love a cold glass of 1% milk with breakfast or a skinny vanilla latte when it’s cold outside (not that I know what that’s like anymore) or a crisp glass of Sauvignon Blanc on a warm day. One of my favorite things about traveling abroad (aside from the food), is the plentiful abundance of Coke Light. I love Coke Light like all good Americans love baseball and apple pie (neither of which I am really a fan of, but I’m still a good American, I swear). But today in the Zulu module, being only 26 (I think it’s actually now 25 days, given that it’s past 3:30 in the morning--- clearly I shouldn’t have had that Diet Coke!!!) days from home, that Diet Coke, was the most glorious taste and sight I think I’ve ever seen or tasted. It tasty of home sweet home and America and capitalism and freedom and 3G access for all and all of the other little idiosyncrasies that you never really realize are so important to you or that you would ever miss until you completely pick up and exit American society for 6 months at a time.

And with that, I think it’s time that I hit the hay. I know that was totally pointless and rambling but I couldn’t help but share. Also note, the Diet Coke photo illustrates a proper can opener tab. I can’t find any picture of the other kind, but I think you know what I’m talking about.

Counting Down… again

Hi Everyone! Not much time to write as I have to run to a staff meeting in about 15 minutes but I just wanted to say a quick “hello!”

Well, here we are, the first day of MARCH! Yes, you read that right- MARCH. In like a lion, out like a lamb, right? That means I can officially say “I’m coming home THIS MONTH!” Ahhhh!

As you can tell, I’m pretty freaking excited! Yesterday marked 3 weeks until I see the three M’s! We have a great day and a half planned for Seattle. I am excited to try a little crumpet shop in Pike’s Peak or Pike’s Place or whatever that market area is in Seattle. I’m not 100% sure what a crumpet is, but it has a pretty positive connotation in my mind- something flaky and fresh and doughy full of good-to-eat things. Which is awesome, in my book.

I also cannot WAIT to have a latte with REAL steamed milk. Oh, and milk. I haven’t had milk in over 5 months! (other than in one Starbuck’s latte in Dubai). And I think Seattle is a GREAT place to be re-introduced to American coffee- yum!

Wow- I literally can hardly contain my excitement. Our conversations and emails from home have slowly started migrating from “what did you do today, what are you doing tomorrow?” to “Oh my gosh I can’t wait to see you, it’s so soon, what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Ahhhh!”. I was just thinking last night back to October, when I was living on ABOT. Where it was hot, and unfamiliar, and lonely. We were on SUCH a wedding/honeymoon high, but depressingly, we weren’t on that high together. It was so bittersweet to be able to look back at memories and pictures and so much happiness, but being so incredibly lonely because we weren’t together, and had just embarked on a very, very long time apart.

And I’m not saying that it’s gone by fast. Looking back at October, it’s like it was years ago. The wedding seems ages and ages ago. I literally feel like I have been all over the world and met a hundred new people and experienced a million new things. It’s been one heck of a roller coaster ride. But now that it’s almost over, I can’t believe 5 months are already behind us.

The winter Olympics are over, the snow is melting back on the East Coast and (I think/hope that) it has stopped raining in San Diego. We’re making our post-deployment plans, making our lists, checking them twice. It’s so great that March is finally here and the seemingly endless months? Well, 5 of them are behind us, and only 26 days to go!

Nicole and I are diligently counting down, we are cutting off one of our paper chain links every day and the chain that used to do a double loop is now almost to a single loop- we can actually see the chain diminishing, right before our eyes.

Like I said, you can tell that I’m excited. Alright, well off to our staff meeting and a workout and watch but I will try and think of something of actual interest to write about.

Lost in Translation

Hi everyone! Not much time to write/ramble because it’s 2:30 and I just finished up so I’d like to get some sleep (let’s not feel bad for me for staying up this late, I intend to sleep until about 11 tomorrow morning :))

So anyone who has ever traveled to Asia realizes that their languages (pretty much all of the languages in that region) are extremely difficult and not easily translatable by the average foreigner (again, having a Chinese speaker in your liberty group REALLY helps out!). However, the disparities between English and Chinese were quite apparent whenever you would see signs or advertisements or tee-shirts that were clearly translated from Chinese to English: it just didn’t quite look right. The grammar and the meanings and the order of words would always be shuffled around in an order that made the verbiage seem extremely funny.

So there we were, walking through the night market in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong. This being our third port visit in SE Asia, we’d gotten pretty good at the pushing through narrow stalls of foreigners and locals alike, bargaining for or pushing to sell “copy watch” or “copy purse” (side note- it turns out no matter WHAT language you speak, “copy” or “fake Louis vitton” is universal) and pashminas and trinkets and fake Ed Hardy tee-shirts and shoes (like my authentic hot pink Chuck Taylors :)) and art and knick-knacks and what not. One of the stalls was a man who would spell names in Chinese on little card stock pieces of paper, so you could get cute cards or whatever.

Also in his stall were these little signs (sometimes big ones that you would hang in your room when you were little that would say like “Molly Blvd” or whatever, others were small magnets). They were all of these “funny” sayings- you know about beer and sleep and work and being lazy stupid stuff like that. However, they were all in Chinese, with the English translation above them. And they were SO.FUNNY. The phrases were these hilarious little sayings that, while stupid in English, were absolutely HILARIOUS when translated from Chinese into English. It was almost like if you had a big set of those magnetic words that you would put on your refrigerator and re-arrange into funny nonsensical phrases.

Of all of the stalls at the market, we probably spent the most time at this one, howling with laughter over the little signs. At like $.50 each, I couldn’t resist getting a few, which are stuck to the wall in our stateroom on the ledge that we keep our toiletries by the mirror/sink. So every morning and evening, we see these little phrases and if anything, I know I’m guaranteed to laugh at least twice a day.

I wish I had pictures of them, but unfortunately I don’t. however, the first one reads:

“You are my Love, my Angle, don’t treat me like Potato”

And the second-

“You talk like Angel, Walk like Model but your body look like Buffalo”

I mean, how can that NOT make you chuckle? Don’t treat me like potato? What does that even MEAN?

Alright well, it’s bedtime for this bonzo! I was super fortunate to be able to call Dan and my mom tonight and chat for about 30 minutes total and it was sooo great to continue getting even more excited for Tiger Cruise and Homecoming! Five months down, one to go- we’re in the homestretch, folks!

The Grass Is Always Greener

Even if your job doesn’t involve painting or writing evaluations, I feel like everyone can relate to this cartoon. [here, the junior Sailor is thinking that the Officer’s job is way better and the Officer is thinking the junior Sailor’s job is easier]

Confessions and Obsessions

My last post about my port visit shopping piqued my interest to peer into the multiple drawers and cabinets of my stateroom as I thought “I wonder what’s REALLY in all of those shopping bags…”- so, I busied myself for the next 2 hours going through EVERYTHING that I bought, putting them in little plastic shopping bags and taping post-it notes on the bags delineating what they were or who they were for, to assist with the unpacking and gift exchange process (lesson: most everything I bought was for myself. Sigh….).

2 hours later I had made it through everything and was able to fit all of my great purchases into 4 (rather large…) shopping bags. I was pleased with this, and also to announce that there were only THREE things that I left off of my list of things I bought:

1. a cute dress for my niece (I can’t help but spoil her cute self rotten J)

2. a pineapple carved out of Malaysia wood (I’m not sure how it is special from your average western wood, but anyways), that you hang on a wall and it has little hooks for hanging keys, etc

3. a wooden spoon, but instead of being a spoon (because yes dan, I’m aware that we have 2 already J), it is like a straight edge on top, that you would use for browning meat. Success!

Also, the record should state that during one of my bi-weekly phone conversations, dan actually said “I’m so excited to see all of the cool stuff that you got for our place”. Not that I needed the validation, but- SUCCESS!

As for me, now I’m just in that “one month til home” phase where I can’t think of anything else. It literally consumes my every thought, every minute of the day (luckily, my job is neither time-critical, nor dangerous, so it is safe for me to be consumed by the thoughts of returning home)- I have to imagine it would be rather dangerous to be flying an F-18 as it is hurled off of an aircraft carrier while thinking about going home. That’s why I just monitor a chat computer and not fly F-18’s. But anyways.

We are down to just over 30 days, which means a strange creature has begun to emerge out of the dusty corners of the NIMITZ (despite how many times the XO gets on the 1MC and yells at people to clean, there are in fact, many dusty corners) and it lurks slowly and sluggishly around every corner. That is, every corner that leads them to…. THE GYM! These creatures are what we call “30 day Warriors” who woke up today and said “OH S#%T! what have I been doing for EIGHT MONTHS- I totally meant to get in shape so I return home to impress my wife with my new David Hasselhoff body!”.

So these “warriors” clutter the gym in a desperate attempt to shed 8 months worth of pounds in 30 days. They cling to the treadmill like a small child, riding on a 2-wheeler for the first time, hogging WAY more minutes than should be authorized. Us “real” runners onboard look at these Warriors with disgust, wishing they would stop hogging the treadmills and let the rest of us complete our weight loss plan with ease and peace. So, that’s what I’m up do, dodging the warriors and squeezing in my few miles each day.

I’ve also cut out midrats (gasp! Yes, midrats! You read that right!). it is SO hard for me too, because every night around 11:30 I would stroll into Wardroom I/II with a good book or magazine or invite myself to a table full of my favorite silly pilots and enjoy a warm, perfectly melted, perfectly (ok, maybe a little OVERLY) buttered and cheesy grilled cheese sandwich. As I speak, my stomach is literally crying out in pain “SHOW ME THE CHEEEEEEEEEESE!” and CS3 is probably thinking “What did i do to offend her?! Why hasn’t LTJG Laufer graced my galley with her warm smile and her chipper response of “you betcha!!!” when I ask her: “the usual?” So, CS3, if you’re reading this (and if you are, that’s slightly weird/creepy)- no, I do not hate you and no, you did not offend me, but unfortunately you and your amazing grilled cheeses, in addition to my friends who lure me into funny stories and 2 hour long conversations while I am surrounded by all the food I could possibly eat are unfortunately NOT supportive of my end of deployment diet. So we’re breaking up, at least for now. (Tigers, you’re not off the midnight feedings so easily- I fully intend to resume midrats for Tiger Cruise. And, given that today I just paid your full Tiger fee, it is now assumed that you will also eat this incredible 4^th meal. Or, at least join me for the company J)

So, since I have given up midrats and limited myself to 2 meals a day, I’ve had to find other things to do to occupy myself and distract my midnight growling tummy. Which, have turned into my 2 new obsessions- reading and eating (and reading about eating).

I am so into reading. Seriously. I know that sounds so funny, but I haven’t really had time to read in what feels like years (other than volumes of essays and books about the causes of war in college). Now, reading is my new favorite thing to do. It started out with my vast collection of Patricia Cornwell novels. I’ve now moved on to more “grown up books” or whatever. When I’m reading, I can totally escape to another time, place, life. I just finished reading “Eat, Pray, Love”, after a recommendation from my sister-in-law, Tammy. Tammy, being a writer, has GOOD taste in books (and hers are the best). I was so happy to stumble on E,P,L in Malaysia. And I quickly dove into it and plowed through the first section at the same speed that the author probably consumed all of the pasta dishes that she encountered in Italy. However, I’m not going to lie, as I moved into the 2^nd and 3^rd section, I started to like it less and less. Don’t get me wrong, she is a wonderful writer, full of the most amazingly descriptive passages that made me feel like I was right there, but especially as the story took her to India and the Ashram for her hours and days and months of praying and meditating and sitting and yoga-ing, I just felt like it got a little preach-y. and she got a little too “woe-is-me”. In my opinion, there are people in the US that have very similar problems and tribulations that she went through but can’t just up and travel the world and “find themselves” for a year. It was hard, because the book was so well written and I could hardly put it down but I just kept getting more and more annoyed with her and wanted to be like “enough already, stop complaining, stop with all the meditating and the soul-searching and pull yourself together." (Tammy, I’d love to discuss this, and probably other books, with you over a good cup of tea [my next book is Three Cups of Tea J ]- do you see where I’m coming from in any of this? How did you get past some parts in section 2?)- that being said, I loved the section of the book where she was in Italy and it was so incredible to escape to a world of great art and great language and beautiful people and cappuccinos and gelato!

My 2^nd obsession? http://www.smittenkitchen.com/

Go there. Explore it. Love it. Bake it. Obsess over it. I’m not even going to go into great detail about what it is, because you can soon see the amazing-ness for yourself. It’s basically a blog that combines my favorite things: blogging, recipes, stories, food, pictures of food. Awesome. My 3^rd obsession: Tea. Hot tea, cold tea, chai tea, any way you present it- I love tea. We drank SO much hot tea in Hong Kong, and I loved the way they served it at a local equivalent of Starbucks- hot black tea, with 3 huge slices of lemons. YUM! I can’t wait to get home and make tea out of our bright red stove-top tea pot and sit on my balcony, drinking tea and reading good books.

Well, I feel like i have more things to obsess over, however, I have been waiting until midnight for the internet to switch to “Navy only website” and I have about 99 million things to do that require the internet late at night when no one else is awake.

So, that’s all for now, sorry for the lack of colorful pictures or anything of real importance.

Until next time!