Meeting the neighbors

Being home so much lends itself well to bumping into neighbors.

So far, I know we have:

An American, Matt, who lives with his Okinawan wife on the first floor (they're an older couple, she wanted to come back home, so they moved here a few days ago)

A very friendly Japanese firefighter, also on the first floor, who loves the dog

A young couple with an infant who live on the second floor

Two small children in the house next door whose mother tells them to go practice their English with foreigners, so they ask Elsa questions in broken English

And various other people (mostly singles) who now know me enough to know that it's okay to greet me in Japanese whenever we meet. And squee over Elsa.

Japan sure does live up to the stereotype of loving adorable and tiny things.

No nosy old ladies yet. But I'm not going to let myself get complacent.

And there he goes.

It's 8:30 am.

I slept maybe an hour and a half last night.

I woke up at 3:00, dragged HP out of bed, and he picked Elsa up out of her kennel to say goodbye. She knew something was up, as it was 3am and he never picks her right up out of the kennel. And she's no fool - she's known something was up for weeks now. She clung to him, scrambling up onto his shoulder with a panic that read "something is going on I don't like it what's happening OH GOD" and refused to relax like she always does when he holds her.

This, of course, did not ease any of the anxieties he had about leaving.

I kid you not, this is exactly what her expression looked like.

We stopped at Walgreens for wedding prints (which was an adventure in itself) to show to the kids and his family, then spent the drive to the airport chatting about this ridiculous thing we were doing and watching the sun rise.

I had made it through this whole experience without crying. But when all of his bags were unloaded and he kissed me goodbye, I will totally own that I broke a little. I was exhausted, this whole ordeal was intense, and I still had a long day ahead of me.

When I got back to what was left of the apartment, Elsa was awake and pacing. I grabbed a box of clothes and the necessary dog supplies, tossed them in the truck over my moving boxes, and took her out to pee before the trek to RI.

Seriously, I'm surprising the hell out of myself with this newfound stamina. Two days of information overload, packing and no sleep, and I still managed to complete three one-hour car trips. And am still fairly awake, if unhappily so. Badass level of stamina, people.

Maybe I should grow a beard.

I couldn't find her car harness, but Elsa knows how to ride in a car. She sat obligingly in the passenger seat, but was visibly nervous. So when she inched over to ask for affection, she got it, and alternated between staring out the windows and sleeping with her head in my lap. It was the first time she'd really asked for reassurance, and while it did freak me out a little bit, I was super impressed that she understands car manners enough to know to ask rather than bulldoze into the driver's lap.

She was super ecstatic to arrive at my parents' place, as it's the land of Grandma and Grandpa Have All the Best Parties. She ran around in their huge gardens, scaring moles and bees and being a general terror until I brought her inside and kicked the cats out of my bedroom. In went her kennel, litterbox and toy bucket, and somehow she just knows that this time was different. Instead of tearing through the house like she normally does, she only went a few feet beyond the bedroom door before ducking back in and crawling into her kennel. Even now, the only time she's spent out in the living room (previously her favorite place to rampage) has been velcroed to my feet and being extraordinarily clingy.

Maybe she's just tired.

Or maybe she understands a lot more than I give her credit for.

As it gets real

This week has been full of packing.

All. The packing.

To anyone reading this, never marry a person who loves books. Twenty-one boxes of books later, he has more boxes of books than I have my entire life's possessions in.

Bastard can get a goddamn kindle.

Know how much box space this takes up? NONE BECAUSE YOU BRING IT WITH YOU, BITCH

It was easily the most stressful week of my life. We had a few friends come over to move boxes to my parents' place of storage, and my apartment STILL has a ton of crap in it. I'm going to die.

As far as packing goes, I don't need to be truly out of here until August 3rd, so I might take tomorrow to recuperate, strategize, and recruit people to help me finish packing and moving on Sunday. Sunday will be a day of trips to Goodwill and exhaustion.

But seriously. All the things still in my apartment.

It has to end sometime, right? Right?

It also doesn't help that my major support is about to leave. I'm inches away from exploding like a volcano filled with stress and misery and covering the poor villagers below with molten anxiety.

"OH GOD IT BURNS LIKE SELF-DOUBT" scream the doomed townsfolk.

But the JETs had their orientation lunch today, where they got their passports back (my visa just got approved, so I'll have to come by and pick it up later), their plane tickets and instructions, and it hit me that at 8am, he's leaving the country.

Get up at 3am. Make sure everything is packed. Leave at 4. Drop him off at the airport at 5. Take a nap. Drive to parents' house to drop off dog and more boxes. Die of physical and mental exhaustion.

I have not yet cried this week.

Oddly major relief.

Just got pictures of our apartment. Hardwood floors, not tatami.

Oh, thank goodness. I was having nightmares about vacuuming.

Assignment details

So, we're in Okinawa-shi, about half an hour outside of Naha on the main island.

That's us in the fuchsia.

We also have information about the previous JET's setup. It is in an apartment, not like the pile of rocks surrounded by rice fields that HP led me to believe.

This is the image he painted. He may have been messing with me.

The good:
The apartment allows pets
The apartment has a parking setup
Near major facilities, like hospitals and
Near many parks and natural preserves
A working (albeit sometimes unreliable) bus system
We will be inheriting the apartment from a previous JET, so it will be somewhat furnished and she'd be willing to sell us her car
About a 2 mile walk from HP's grandmother's house
THERE ARE DOLLAR STORES

I WILL BUY ALL THE THINGS. KAIMASU YO.

The bad:
It's a 1LDK, so it's likely a two-room setup (although the setup for the standard 1LDK is this, which I find totally comfortable)
The rent is fairly high for a JET (though we don't know if the school will subsidize cost of living, which many do)
The key money is high (about $3k, but see the note above)

So, this is independent of the school. We don't know if the contracting organization will be covering any of it, or if they'd have a certain setup that they would be able to subsidize. Though if they did, the option they'd provide probably wouldn't allow pets.

Ughh. It doesn't seem like a huge problem, but until I get a steady income, money will definitely be an issue. And while we'll have things (like two fold out mattresses, fridge, rice cooker, table), there will be move-in expenses, obviously.

Money doesn't seem super dire, though. I mean, if one JET on her own could afford this and make it work, then two people working definitely should, right?

...Provided I don't cover the house in random Japanese dollar store merchandise?