Another cute nighttime murmur.

Last night in her sleep, Katleyn turned over and said "teeth". Then she rolled back and said "eyes". About an hour later she kicked off the covers and shouted "no, no!"

A coversation between me and the J's Restaurant lady.

Me: Hi, can I place an order for take-out.
Her: What would you like?
Me: One crispy pata.
Her: Ok, one pata. Anything else?

Let me translate:
Me: Hi, can I place an order for take-out.
Her: What would you like?
Me: One crispy foot.
Her: Ok, one foot. Anything else?

And man, was that foot good!

Yes, I actually watch every episode of Laguna Beach and then go in to work and talk about it with my coworkers.

James: Who's that?
Me: Derek, Tessa's date.
James: He's wearing a white belt.
Me: Is that gay?
James: I think a white belt is pretty gay.
~~~~~
James: Can I change this? We saw it already.
Me: We saw it? I saw it, but I couldn't hear everthing.
James: I saw it. She's going to ask him for a crunchy cone and he's going to say that he already ordered it. If I'm right I get to change it.
Me: It's a cruncy roll. You lose.

Look out now!

I think my daughter has some of my OCD's.

I have this thing about ordering. For example, if I have four cookies and someone hands me a fifth, it has to be eaten last because the others were in line first; if I'm placing a bunch of books onto a shelf, I have to place them on the shelf in a certain order, according to my made up book-right-of-way-system. The other day as I was getting ready for work, Katelyn's nanny was feeding her cream-of-wheat with raisins (normally she feeds herself, but whatever). I came over to say goodbye as her nanny was scooping a spoonful to feed her. She pointed to the raisin she wanted and said "other". She wouldn't eat any other spoonful than the one that held that particular raisin - I guess because that's the raisin that was next in line.

I have this thing about evenness, that is, making things even. For example, I can't just have James massage one foot, he has to make it even and massage the other foot as well, and in the same manner as he massaged the first; if I accidentally bump my right shoulder on something fairly hard, then I'll deliberately bump my left shoulder in the same manner to make it even. Call me crazy, I don't care - I already recognize that I'm weird. So Katelyn has this thing where if you kiss one of her feet you have to kiss the other - my guess is to make it even.

So I'm trying really hard not to let Katelyn develop my same irrational fears about almost everything. So far I've found that she likes geckos but isn't quite ready to touch one, she's a little apprehensive about playing in the ocean, but she laughed at me when I jumped on the couch and started screaming while my mom killed the crazy spider-creature that mysteriouly appeared above the back door.

Taotao Mona or Diabetes, You Decide.

One of James co-workers, who is also one of our cousins, has been out of work for some time now. James says the office believes he has "taotao mona foot". But James thinks his foot is turning black because he has diabetes....I'm leaning more toward James's explaination.

When James got into bed a few weeks ago his feet were ice cold. I told him he had popsicle foot. I know I'd take popsicle foot over taotao mona foot any day.

(Hmm, is spelling "James's" correct?)

Chili cup or cup of chili?

So you all know I was at the PXC fight at World Resort last month. As the ref was talking to the first fighter in the ring, the fighter hit his groin area a couple of times. I heard some chick behind me ask her friend why he did that. I didn't hear a response. Duh, he was showing the ref that he's wearing his chili cup.

Growing up on Saipan, chili never meant food. When I was in California I would always giggle inside whenever I heard the word chili. Chili fries, cup of chili, chili peppers, chili dog, Chili's restaurant - there was chili everywhere!

Having grown up in Los Angeles, chili was always chili to James. Not anymore. One day at the gym this teenager turned to James and asked where he got his chili cup. James was imagining a large cup of chili with cheese and onions from Wendy's.

What do babies dream about?

Last night Katelyn rolled over, still half asleep and started calling out, "Mikey, Mikey." A little while later she rolled over and said, "eat it, eat it, eat it."

Other words she's said in her sleep: milk, grandma, daddy, water, susu, and bottle.

Bye Rach!

My friend Rachel is leaving for NYC soon. We've known eachother since we were, what, six? (Oh my gosh, 19 years, that's crazy!) She's been back on island for about two years now. And in that time we've seen each other exactly 5 times - well, really we've seen each other 5 times in the past 10 to 12 months.

We were neighbors on the 1300 side of the government housing - note to my old friends from CA (as if any of you are reading this), we did not live in the projects. Although we don't live in those old government houses anymore, we're still sorta neighbors, but we've still only seen eachother about 5 times in the past year. We were really good friends when we were young, but we went to different schools, you know how that goes. We stayed friends after she moved to their own house a few minutes away - and a lot of memories came back as I walked in the door this evening. We always had mutual friends, but we sorta drifted apart. Then she moved to Vermont. We would go out with friends when she'd visit on vacations, but we didn't hit it off. I think it's because I was a bit of a jerk when I drank, and on and off in high school I was kind of a mean girl. I'm sorry.

Anyway, I'm so happy for her! There are so many people who come back to Saipan after college with plans to just stay for a couple of years and head back to the states (like James and myself), but end up staying for much longer. But not Rachel. She's got her act together.

She invited me over for a small farewell get together tonight. It was nice. I really don't go out much, so even though it was only a 3 minute drive to get to her house, I still felt like I went out. And it was nice to spend some time with her and meet some of her other friends. And I think Katelyn made a few friends too! As we drove home, Katelyn kept saying "Ratel, Ratel."

I don't think I would ever want to live in NYC - no, wait - I don't ever want to live in NYC. It's just too big of a city for me. I wouldn't mind visiting once, but I don't think I'd like living there. Downtown LA is enough for me.

So Rach, even though I don't think you read this blog, I'm saying goodbye and God bless. I probably won't see you again before you leave. I hope this new journey turns out better than you expect! And the scarf that I gave you comes from the bottom of my heart - I hope it keeps you warm and brings you comfort. Love you!

God is good and Rota is nice.

Earlier this week I went to Rota for work. I brought Katelyn and my mom. Unfortunately, the weather was bad. I was a little worried about the flight there and even more worried about the flight back - if you were in the islands this week, you'll know why. But I knew that God would carry us safely.

Katelyn was so excited to fly and didn't seemed scared at all when we hit turbulence. I've been to Rota five times - twice in high school, twice for my last job, and this last time for my current job. My mom however, hasn't been to Rota since 1967 when she was being trained or doing training or something for the Peace Corps. I think she had a good time; unfortunately, because I was working, the weather was bad, and Katelyn was feeling under the weather, my mom didn't want to drive around with Katelyn and go sightseeing while I was at the office. So we basically would just head into the village to get food.

Even though I've pretty much seen all there is on Rota (on land of course), it's still just as beautiful and new as ever. I borrowed my sisters camera and took a few shots here and there. I don't really understand her camera so all the pictures were taken in the same mode - ON.

The island is beautiful and the people are super friendly, but everything is more expensive, goods are limited, and no one would serve us coconut crab - me thinks they were saving all of the coconut crabs for the Fiesta that's going on now. Here's a picture of what the Pizzaria considers a patty melt. Every once in a while I tasted rye bread, but most of the time it was just wheat.

There's this water park thing on Rota that, just like the hotel we stayed in, has so much potential.

I have never once seen anyone swim in it, but I've always thought it was such a cool place to have. It's a water park with a couple of pools and a water slide.

The water comes from the lagoon. To get there you just have to cross a narrow bridge. You can sorta see that Katelyn and I are standing on the bridge in the wonderful picture my mom took. I watched my mom look at the preview of the picture on the camera and listened to her tell me that the picture was good. Yeah, whatever, she didn't want to take the time to take another picture. She just wanted me off the bridge.

Even though I think this water park is really cool, and even if it is still actively used, I don't think I'd be able to swim in it - well, I can't swim at all, but I don't think I'd use it. I think my crazy fear of the ocean would keep me out.

Since it's been 40 year since my mom was last on Rota, it looks a little different to her. Even though we didn't do much sightseeing, she wanted to drive around Songsong to see if she could recognize places she had been in back in '67. She thinks this may be the first hotel on Rota.

Anyone know for sure? She remembers the arches and the location on the main road...but still, it's been 40 years. There was no real airport on Rota in '67 and there were no paved roads. So when a member of the Peace Corps was injured and needed to be flown out of there at night, they gathered up everyone on the island who owned a car and had them drive up to the landing strip. They all circled around and turned on their headlights so the plane could land and take off. I think it'd be pretty cool to have seen that. That was Rota in 1967, imagine the states in 1967 - a whole other world. Crazy!

On our last day as we made our way to the airport, we drove to the Taga Stone Quarry, we tried to go to the Bird Sanctuary (but Katelyn was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her while driving over the bumpy roads).

Along the way, we saw some cows, some goats, and the same roads you can find on Saipan and Tinian and probably on Guam and the Northern Islands as well. But it was still nice. Nice and boring. Ha ha.

Anyone see Zatoichi? This picture reminds me of that movie. Lovely weather to fly in, isn't it?

I'm on Rota.

'nuff said.