Happy Semi-belated Birthday, Sharon

Living in Japan sometimes wrecks havoc with your conception of time in regards to special days for family back home. In the event that you remember some one's birthday on the right date, you have to wait a day to offer your good wishes because they haven't gotten there yet. This need to delay increases the chances that you'll forget by the time the day arrives for your family member.

This year, I remembered to wish my sister a happy birthday both yesterday (the 13th for me) and today (the 13th for her). Unfortunately, I didn't remember to blog on the right day and offer my good wishes on the right date. Sure, I can cheat and put up a fake day and time on the post to cover up my mistake, but I'm not quite that lame. I'll admit my mistake and take my lumps.

Unfortunately, Sharon's birthday hasn't been the greatest day. There was icy rain in western Pennsylvania and she spent the day cooped up with my mother, an unnecessary early wake-up call from our Mom telling her they couldn't go shopping because of the weather and further maternal demands to clean the refrigerator. I guess our mother feels that our birthdays aren't really all that special anymore.

I wanted to say, belatedly, that this day is special for me because I appreciate my sister and the friendship I have with her. I wish I could be there to do something special but the best I can do is say something which is (hopefully) special.

The birthday dragon picture above was pinched from Jame's Rhinehelder's Science Fiction and Fantasy Art page. If you like his art, please visit his page and have a look. His art is whimsical and evocative.

Happy 49th

One of my husband's coworkers is a single male who, when the topic of marriage comes up, likes to say, "marriage is subjugation." While I'm not sure what he means by this exactly, it doesn't demonstrate a positive attitude toward the idea of being married. At the very least, it implies both parties are being enslaved. At worst, it's trotting out the old saw about how men are painfully shackled to their wives when they finally succumb to their women's wishes to marry.

The idea that men are unwilling and lacking in desire to marry is one which is commonly played out in television, movies, song, and, no doubt, in bars where single men congregate to lament the woe associated with being "tied down" with the "old woman". The irony of this attitude is that studies show that men usually benefit from marriage and women usually are harmed. Studies comparing single men and women to married men and women show men are healthier and live longer when they have wives and women are less healthy and live a shorter time when they have husbands. The old myth though, that men are held on a short leash by their wives when they marry, is nonetheless fairly pervasive.

I think men who grow up to think marriage is a trap that will limit their freedoms and make their lives miserable spent some time as little boys who witnessed their father's talking or acting like marriage was making them feel trapped and unhappy. My husband has never uttered a negative statement about marriage. In fact, from the moment I had contact with him, he has been nothing but positive about being married and had always viewed finding a (suitable) life partner as his most important goal.

I've often bored people with praise for how wonderful my husband is and how well he treats me. I think he couldn't be the person he is or find marriage such a positive thing if he hadn't grown up around two people who were clearly happy together and showed him that marriage is a wonderful thing that enriches their lives. I have my in-laws to thank in part for how happy my marriage is. I have no doubt that they role-modeled a very loving and fulfilling relationship for him.

Happy Anniversary, Mary and Tito! (thanks to my brother-in-law Luis for providing me with a very illustrative picture)

Today is their 49th wedding anniversary and I want to wish them all the very best. I also want to wish them many more years together as a happy couple.

Birthday (2)

When my friend Shawn and my sister Sharon and I play multi-player games together, I like to talk. In fact, I like a conversation or at least some witless banter to be going on at all times. This tendency is not something my partners in time wasting share so I end up initiating or holding up more than my end of the conversation. In a long gaming session, I'll eventually run out of things to say. Sometimes, I'm just out of steam and stop talking so much (much to the relief of my cohorts, I'm sure). At other times though, I'm bored and I want my less verbose companions to initiate some conversation.

Since both Sharon ad Shawn are relatively content to sit back and play the game in peace, it takes a bit of a prodding to get them to make the effort. At these times, I have an emotional weapon in my psychological arsenal that I take out and fire to get their mouths moving. I threaten to fill the silence by raving about how wonderful and perfect my husband is. Since they've heard more than enough of that sort of thing already, they're strongly motivated by this threat to start talking. On this date, each year, my faithful readers can expect to share their pain as it's my husband's birthday.

If you're wondering what makes him deserving of all my exultation, you're in luck as I'm more than happy to go on about his positive character traits. My husband tells me he loves me everyday, several times a day. He has the sort of patience a saint would envy. He's very intelligent but not arrogant about it. He's affectionate in the way women crave, offering hugs and kisses but not as bribes to achieve a lecherous goal. He's funny, sweet-tempered and optimistic about life. He also works hard so I can stay home and relax because he's concerned about my health. My husband is everything most women say they want in a man before they end up marrying some jerk who fits none of their professed criteria. I'm immensely grateful that he's my partner.

Last year, my husband didn't want a cake for his birthday but this year I stumbled across a recipe for an "Elvis Cake" which sounded like it might suit him so I gave it a try. Since my husband loves banana, peanut butter and chocolate separately and he had tried the Elvis Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and found it pretty good, he opted for a cake this year rather than the celebratory pie he chose last year. I made the cake above and 6 cupcakes (for him to take to work and offer to students if he chose to). I haven't actually tasted the cake myself but I tasted the frosting it is incredible (though I cut the frosting recipe volume in half as it was far more frosting than we needed and added a teaspoon of vanilla to it). My husband pronounced the cake "different" but "very good". I'm thinking the same frosting on a white, vanilla or chocolate cake might be nice for the less adventurous.

As was the case last year on my husband's 44th birthday, he has to work so we won't be able to properly celebrate until Monday when he has a day off. Of course, given how wonderful he is, I do my best to celebrate his presence on this planet each and every day.

Lying

During my formative years, I lied to my parents as many children do in order to avoid punishment. Around the age of 12, however, I developed a rock hard aversion to any sort of lying and stopped doing so. I'm not sure what motivated this change in character. Perhaps my trust was betrayed by a friend or fellow student in such a way that the long-term consequences to a relationship when someone lies were made clear to me. Maybe I just was born with the type of character that would eventually jell into the one I have now. It's also possible that I finally reached an age where I realized that my mother lied whenever it suited her position in discussions or power plays.

In regards to my mother, my father used to say that she lied so much that she eventually believed her lies were true. I recall on more than one occasion when she'd make up some "fact" to back up her assertion that my sister or I should do something or other that she wanted. When we challenged her "facts", she'd just make up more and more ridiculous lies to support what she'd said. When the lies upon lies resulted in the logic of her assertions folding like a house of cards buckling under a gust of wind, she'd get angry and start lashing out and attacking us verbally. I'm guessing that sort of experience might tend to cultivate a strong aversion to fibbing in a person.

During my youth, this wish to avoid lying at all costs translated into a character which was blunt, strident, and abrasive at times. It took until I was nearing 30 or so for me to start learning to seriously moderate these tendencies. While I still hate to lie and having other people lie to me, I began to realize that lies in the service of failing to hurt others, particularly lies that had no long-term impact, were not a betrayal of my principles. For instance, if a student asks me if his English has improved, I won't lie and say it has if it has not though I may say that one aspect has improved (if that is true) as a way of only partially answering the question. Sometimes though, I'll simply tell them that they haven't been putting in enough work to improve based on their current basic level.

"Lies" to students are a part of business though mine tend to take the path of avoiding the crux of the question rather than being out and out lies. I'm not so sure that Japanese people may not prefer this to a 100% accurate answer so that they can have a softened bit of truth. From a certain viewpoint, this may be seen as a self-serving lie since a student who is told blatantly that he isn't getting better despite taking expensive lessons may decide he should just give up and I'll lose a source of income. However, my impulse is not to keep my rosters full of paying customers. I don't want to hurt their feelings or discourage them.

When it comes to lying, two points are always key in determining whether or not the lie serves a positive or negative function. One is whether or not the lie miscommunicates information in such a way as to perpetuate a destructive situation which may eventually eat away at a relationship or result in a future devastating and extremely painful revelation. The most common lie of this sort is related to women lying to their partners about the extent of their sexual satisfaction. If a woman lies about this point, she starts a cycle which confuses her partner about what is best to do to please her and often finds herself pressured to continue to "fake" once she starts doing so.

The other point is whether or not the lie is primarily self-serving rather than in the service of the other party. Yesterday, I was exposed to what I'm certain was this sort of lie. An office worker at my former company was communicating with me regarding scheduling of telephone tests I conduct as freelance work. Since I worked in person with her, I know her character and I've also had issues with her in the past. She can be rude and often doesn't listen to my former boss when he directs her and follows her own counsel rather than his. This always results in a problem because he has good reasons for doing things a certain way but she only has her own interests in mind.

For over a year now, I've been scheduling tests on a case by case basis to accommodate my private lesson schedule changes. This means any time my former company wants me to do tests, my schedule for the times and days in question has to be confirmed. This woman suggested that it was too troublesome to keep asking me about my schedule so it should be "locked down" to avoid the need for the questions. What it seemed to me that she meant was that I should promise I would reserve hours for the tests each week so they could freely slot them in any time without asking about my availability. This would essentially put me in the position of refusing private students indefinitely in such time slots and risking losing income with no guarantee that the infrequent tests would even be scheduled into those slots. In essence, she can skip the part which takes time and set up a situation where I'm the same as I was when I worked in the office.

I told her that the only way they could "reserve" my hours was by paying a retainer for them and she claimed that her suggestion was for my benefit so that I wouldn't have to put up with answering schedule-based questions. This was an incredibly transparent lie as I've never complained about such questions and, in fact, insist it be done this way for maximum flexibility. I should note that that flexibility goes both ways. The company gets far more possible hours for tests (which the companies who buy the tests prefer) by consulting me than locking in a limited schedule of a few hours each week or day.

Like many people who offer up a self-serving lie, she tried to mollify me by saying the situation she wanted was for to my benefit rather than hers. This sort of lie makes me angrier than most because it seems to assume I'm very naive and gullible. The thing about people who lie without a second thought is that they have an unrealistic notion of how effective their lies are. They often believe obvious lies are credible. Of course, in the case of the Japanese, I sometimes feel they know the lies are obvious but they rely on the cultural tendency not to be confrontational to keep them from being called on them.

Happy Anniversary (to Me)

The only piece of jewelry I wear.

My husband and I actually celebrate two anniversaries and this one is the one other people recognize as valid but we tend to view as less significant. Today is our 18th wedding anniversary. Time does fly when you're having fun. :-)

Unlike most little girls, I never grew up dreaming of big, frothy wedding or wearing a frilly gown. In fact, I grew up thinking I'd never marry at all and generally having a negative impression of the institution. Even after falling in love with my husband (who I've stated on several occasions is so wonderful that he should qualify for living god-hood), I didn't really care if we made it legal or not. My husband, on the other hand, did want to get married though he probably wouldn't have resisted if I'd have had more serious objections.

Circumstances ended up dictating to some extent when we had to get married as we were planning on coming to Japan and we knew that the visa situation might be a problem if we weren't legally tethered and one of us failed to get a job which provided visa sponsorship. We chose April 1st because it fell within the window of opportunity before my husband planned to fly off (alone) to Japan and find a job and because it was a memorable date. This has the added bonus of adding some depth and meaning (at least to us) to what is surely one of the most moronic and juvenile holidays in the history of civilization.

Our wedding was very small with only about 20 people in attendance. It was held in my in-law's home. My mother-in-law made turkey lasagna and ordered a lovely strawberry sheet cake for us. My husband's late best friend Greg was the best man and Greg's mother, Diane, bought my dress and shoes as a wedding gift. She also served as my matron of honor. I wore a light pink dress and my husband wore a regular suit with Birkenstocks. Our gold rings were purchased at a discount through my husband's aunt. I believe she worked at Zales at the time. We chose our particular rings because they were neither plain nor fancy. To this day, we both still love the rings we decided upon.

We were married by a man who had gotten a license to wed people through some sort of mail order agency quite some time ago. It was important that our ceremony not be religious in any way since neither I nor my husband are a part of a particular religion so we were happy that we didn't have to enlist a church minister to do the job. We wrote our own vows but the non-denominational minister still tacked something about "God" on at the end much to my husband's annoyance at the time.

My husband chose a piece of classical music and we walked in together since neither he nor I was interested in fanfare or showcases. We wanted it to be special but we wanted it to be ours rather than follow a traditional style. The ceremony was short as was the "reception" which was essentially all of us enjoying the food my mother-in-law had prepared and arranged. We spent the first night of our honeymoon at a really wonderful hotel in Monterey and the next three days in Carmel. It was short because my husband had to fly off soon thereafter and we were going to have to go seriously into debt to set up our life in Japan and we didn't want to blow a lot of cash on an extended honeymoon.

Our entire wedding cost about $600 including the rings, dress, cake, and paying the minister. My father-in-law covered the costs since my family was too poor to do so and he was so generous. In fact,
my family couldn't afford to fly over and attend though it was such a little celebration that it didn't seem all that important that they make the effort anyway. The entire "event" was videotaped so at least they could watch what happened after the fact.

I wouldn't change a thing about our wedding if I could go back and do it all again. It was very special and memorable and reflected the type of people my husband and I are in every way.

To Web Cam or Not to Web Cam

image lifted from Amazon U.S.

My husband and I recently purchased a web cam so his family can see him when he talks with them via Skype. After considerable amounts of research, we decided on a Creative Labs Ultra notebook camera which is a tiny little thing that clips onto a laptop display.

Despite the fact that it was relatively cheap (about $70 from Amazon in the U.S. or Japan) the camera seems to work fine but the facial tracking had to be turned off to stop it from appearing that an earthquake was constantly in progress and the lighting in our bedroom is distinctly yellowish so the color looks a bit off.

I was happy to see that the camera came with software and manual in a variety of languages so I didn't have to hesitate to buy it in Japan. While you can usually download the software in English if the same product is released in both Japan and an English-speaking country, this is not always the case.

Generally, I'm not a fan of the notion of web cameras for several reasons. In this case though, it was purchased to allow my husband's parents and his mother in particular to see him when they talk. He and I don't go back to the U.S. very often (that's a dramatic understatement - I haven't been back for 16 years) and his mother is currently in poor health and the camera allows his family to see him without the plane trip back.

One of the reasons I don't like web cameras is that they symbolize the next level of privacy invasion. I think that the insistent ringing of phones and doorbells are bad enough without the idea that someone gets to see you any time they call you. With family, it's a little different because you don't have to look particularly put-together for them to see you but, with others, I dread the day when video phoning becomes the norm and everyone feels they are entitled to peer in on you if they decide to call and you decide to answer.

I also developed an early aversion to the notion of web cams because my former company dabbled with the notion of teaching lessons by telephone simultaneously with web camera transmission. This was back when ISDN was the fastest connection available. The cameras we used showed a sequence of poor quality, jerky images at a size which made any notion of "eye contact" or demonstrating pronunciation ridiculous.

What was worse about this idea was the fact that the company wanted the teachers to be on camera but the students didn't have to put their mugs on the screen. In other words, this wasn't about the illusion of face-to-face teaching at a distance, it was about letting the students watch the gaijin monkey perform. In the end, the company gave up on the idea before it ever got started because of the logistical issues. Most students didn't want to be tethered to a computer during a lesson that was done easily just with a phone. Also, the fact of the matter was that the work we did required a great deal of database entry during a conversations. We would not really be emulating eye contact because we had to spend so much time looking at the screen or keyboard to do the work.

I guess that my take on this really shows my age since YouTube is full of people who can't wait to upload videos of themselves talking about their lives or doing dumb things. While I think that video or pictures should be mainly for an audience of people who know you and have an emotional attachment to seeing you, it seems that others feel its just as good to put themselves out there for the amusement of strangers. Perhaps living in Japan where I often feel my mere presence often amuses strangers has seriously put me off of any such notion.

Happy Birthday, Sharon!

My sister's birthday is December 13th. When we were kids, I was aware of the fact that having this date as a birthday was a drawback on two counts. First of all, and somewhat of limited importance, her birthday sometimes fell on a Friday and everyone would be going on about it being an unlucky day. Second, and much more importantly, her birthday was only 12 days before Christmas and that invited the dreaded combo-gift situation where people would give one gift for both days rather than a separate gift for each day. It rather made me glad that my birthday was in August.

Anyway, the internet has been a great facilitator in allowing my sister and I to build up a relationship again despite distance. When I first came here, we had little or no contact because she's not much of a letter writer and neither of us had the cash for calls (nor are we necessarily big on chatting on the phone). More than the internet itself though, multiplayer gaming has been the force behind a renewed and closer relationship for my sister and I. Starting with Diablo II , we began to regularly meet up on-line to play games. The games gave us a reason to be on-line at the same time as well as a common topic to talk about. After a lot of years apart where we lost track of each other, this was an easy way to re-build our rapport.

Anyone who thinks on-line gaming is about geeks role-playing as they grow pimples and cultivate a pale, unearthly glow doesn't get the point. For a lot of people, it's about the socialization aspect. It allows you to come together in a community and relate to each other through the game. It's little different than couples who used to bond over games of Bridge or Hearts. It just doesn't require you to do it in each other's homes.

At first, we mainly chatted by typing in messages in the game and then later graduated to using talk. Now, it's very much like we're hanging out at home talking like we did when we lived in the same house. We have that same level of comfort that you have where you don't feel obliged to feel the gaps in conversation with idle chatter and you can just say things when you feel like it or just say nothing at all. Cheap computer-based talk has allowed for that and being able to do this with my sister has been immensely valuable to me in my relative social isolation since quitting my job a year ago. It's also been very nice to feel a part of my family again.

A lot of people have blood-bond-based relationships with their families and their siblings in particular. They associate out of obligation rather than a desire to be around each other but my sister is actually my friend. We have a lot of things in common and some things not so much in common but I'd want to hang out with her even if we weren't related. I wish I could be there to bake you a cake, Sharon! Have a great day and see you on Arena.net!

(The above image was pinched from Nimwendil's Blog - I'd ask for permission but I don't speak the language - I hope he/she doesn't mind! Please visit the blog to see other very nice bits of fantasy artwork.)

Birthday

Today is my husband's 44th birthday. I tell him every year that it's the most important day ever. And, I mean it. I adore my husband. In fact, I adore him more every year we're together.

Like many men, my husband doesn't really look his age. His hair isn't going grey much except for an odd hair here and there. The same goes for his beard. When he was younger, he looked older than his age (likely because of the beard) and now he looks younger than his age. By the time he's 60, people will probably think I'm his mother. :-p

Unfortunately, he has to work so we can't do any sort of proper celebrating. I made him a pumpkin pie (his favorite pie) last night but he's saving the serious celebration for next Monday when he has a day off. I'm not sure what we'll do but he does have a nice, thick steak in the freezer that he's been saving for this occasion.

As is the case for many people as they get older, we don't really do much in the way of gift-giving anymore. It's not because we don't care but rather that we can't really think of anything we want. I'm not sure if this is because we're not particularly materialistic (we're not) or because we've already acquired most of the things we want through time.

The picture above is pinched from Apple's eCards on .Mac. I generally dislike eCards but I think Apple has pretty nice ones. They're tasteful and simple. You also don't run the risk of your e-mail address being sold off to a spammer when you use Apple's cards. When you send one of those cards, Apple puts a nifty Apple postmark on it as well. I would never do something as impersonal as send one of them to my husband, mind you. I do send one to my mother but that's because she actively likes them.