Just another random day

Last Friday night Ian and I were at home watching TV.  It was just another random night with absolutely nothing special going on until we heard the beat of a drum.  At first we thought it was coming from the TV show, so we ignored it until the sound got louder and louder.  We paused the program, looked at each other in bewilderment, and rushed to the window to see what was outside.  Sure enough there was some guy beating a drum and several followers walking on the road behind our house.  We crept on them, watching them from the window wondering what the heck they were doing.  We tossed ideas back and forth as to what it could be, but we never really solved that mystery.  Oh well!  …….just another random experience in Japan!

I have been having some pretty fun and crazy dreams lately.  Over the weekend, I dreamed that Ian and I were vacationing in the rich people country of Monaco.  (Monaco is a tiny country in southern France that hugs the Mediterranean Sea and is most famous for its wealth and Monte Carlo.)  I remember standing on the cliffs overlooking the sea and thinking that wow, the Mediterranean is crystal clear.  (While I never saw southern France’s Mediterranean Sea, I did visit the Spanish coast during my study abroad days in Europe, and that sea isn’t the clearest….)  I also remember that there was this fun slide/roller coaster to take travelers down the mountainside.  It was incredible!  I also remember accidentally swimming with my phone.  I know that it was my phone because it had the same red lined casing that my Japanese cell does.  The phone was in my pocket, (…..because in my dream my bikini had a pocket ) but I had forgotten about it and went swimming.  As soon as I immerged from the water, I realized my mistake and pulled the phone from my pocket, thrusting it at Ian, begging him to fix it.  (What makes this dream even funnier is that THAT actually happened to Ian last summer.  He forgot that he had his phone in his swim trunks pocket and took a dip with it in there.  Oops….) 

The next dream was even crazier.  I dreamed that One Direction came to Japan and that I was friends with Harry and Louis.  Harry came over to my little house for a visit, and we were sitting around the kotatsu drinking tea and catching up like old buddies.  I told him that I have some students at the JHS who are crazy about One Direction and that I needed to get a picture with him to prove to the kiddos that I actually know him.  He agreed, and I tried to snap a quick picture on my iPhone, but we had to take it a couple of times.  The first one blurred, and the lighting was bad in the second one.  (When I was telling Ian about this dream, he interjected there and said, “So even whenever it’s someone famous you’d rather get a picture on your iPhone camera than my high quality professional one??”  Hey, I don’t control what happens in my dreams!  )  Harry stayed the night, and the next morning I walked him to the airport.  (You know….because the airport is TOTALLY within walking distance.  )  However, it had rained all night, and the bridge we needed to take over the river was almost completely flooded.  There was only a small strip of walkable path down the middle, and the rest was covered with brown flood water.  While I feel like this would stop any normal person from crossing, it was time to go to school, so all of the Japanese students were walking to school.  Whenever they saw me with Harry from One Direction, they stopped and stared.  As we were walking across the bridge, we met the one girl from my third grade class who is absolutely and positively in love with One Direction.  I introduced her to Harry, and she couldn’t stop squealing.  That was the most emotion I’ve ever seen from a Japanese student!    Then, Louis was on the other side of the bridge calling for Harry and telling him that he was late.  My student squealed even louder, and if I didn’t know any better, I thought she was dying.  Louis came to meet us halfway across the bridge and introduced himself to her.  I guess the emotion overtook her because she ran off.  Ha, ha, ha!!  I walked with Louis and Harry the rest of the way to the airport and watched them fly off on their private jet. 

*sigh* I wish I actually knew the boys from One Direction!  Call me a pop princess, but I think that they are absolutely adorable and would love to meet them!  Plus, it would totally make me #1 cool teacher at school if I could bring Harry or Louis to class with me. 

Mr. Fujiwara has given me a task at the JHS.  Hurray!  Since he has rushed through the textbook, and we are completely finished with it in first, second, and third grades with there being six more weeks in the semester, he wants me to think of warm up games to play every day for the first 10-15 minutes of class.  Last semester when he asked for warm up game ideas, he ALWAYS wanted me to play hot potato.  At first the kids liked that game, but halfway through the semester I saw their looks of dread whenever they saw me carrying the “hot potato” ball into class.  This semester Mr. Fujiwara has given me free reign on warm up games, and I have been ROCKING it.  I don’t want to toot my own horn, but BEEP!  BEEP!  There have been a few times when I just couldn’t explain the instructions to games or something was too difficult for the kids to understand, but I feel like sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes.  Now I make the directions extremely simple and demonstrate or gesture when possible.  Usually most of the kids understand what I say after I explain it twice, and I’ve actually been having a good time planning and playing some of these games because kids get SO COMPETITIVE…..especially with the group work games.  Whenever I pin one group against the rest, they are DETERMINED to be number one, and suddenly they forget that they’re actually learning and not just playing a game.  Teaching = success!!   

Yesterday was my elementary day, and as usual it was a welcome break from JHS.    I love elementary kids’ enthusiasm!  Plus, for the most part they are genuinely excited to see me!  I have noticed that a few of my sixth graders have started making fun of things after I say it, but those are my sixth graders.  I’m not a fan of that class…..  However, more on them later!  Kids at elementary school aren’t required to wear a uniform yet, so anytime that I’m at the elementary school I’m on the prowl for funny Engrish shirts.  They most certainly aren’t difficult to find!  Yesterday’s best shirt came from a second grader and said:

Indiana: change

Missouri: show me state of gasoline

I don’t care how much Engrish I see, it won’t stop surprising me.  Just when I think I’ve seen the worst something like this happens, and my brain hurts.  The thing is that the shirt was almost….ALMOST correct.  I can overlook the “Indiana: change” part.  That’s just…..whatever, but the “Missouri: show me state of gasoline” part kills me.  Missouri is the “show me” state, so they ALMOST got that part right, but then the shirt maker had to go and tag “gasoline” onto the very end, and I’m right back to square one of being utterly confused.    Oh, Engrish!

Now….back to my sixth graders.  Like I said, I normally hate that class.  I don’t hate them all, but there are certain kids in that class that I want to drop kick, and they completely ruin the class for me.  I dread going to that class every week for that reason.  Yesterday was the BEST sixth grade class period I think that I ever had.  Since we’re nearing the end of the textbook, my sixth grade teacher suggested having a review day, so we did.  He introduced this new and fun game that the kids absolutely LOVED.  We played it for almost the entire class period.  It goes something like this: the first person in each row stands up, and I say a word in English.  The first person to shout out the correct translation in Japanese can sit down and allow the next person in his/her row to stand up.  The object of the game is to finish your row first.  The kids went WILD for this game, got SUPER competitive, and wanted to play again and again and AGAIN.  It was incredible to see the kids actually EXCITED about learning English.     Usually that class is like a bump on a log and could care less about English class.     

Alright.  That’s all for now, fellow blog readers.  I’ll write again soon!

Ian funnies and what I’m going to miss about Japan

So……first I have a couple of funny Ian stories to tell that I haven’t told yet. 

Last Friday Ian had to go to the city for work, so he met up with some of his guy friends that night.  I knew he would be getting in late, so I didn’t wait up for him.  I don’t remember him coming in, but I remember waking up around 5:30AM and seeing him on the computer.  I asked him why he was awake and told him to come to bed…..to which he responds, “We should get a puppy.”   I was completely thrown off by his statement.  That’s not exactly what you expect to hear at 5:30 in the morning.    Apparently Mr. Ian had drank coffee or some other highly caffeinated substance because he was WIRED.  He took that moment to explain to me that the guys were talking about dogs, and he decided to come home and started researching what our first dog should be.  Um…..ok.  Since it was 5:30, the first hints of morning light were creeping in, and Ian suggested that we stay up to see the sunrise.  WHERE WAS ALL OF THIS ENERGY COMING FROM?!?!  I told him that he was crazy if he thought that I was waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning to watch the sunrise.  Thanks but no thanks!

Last weekend, Ian and I had a fight about his stuff.  He tends to leave his things just sitting around, and since it’s winter, we’re pretty much living out of one warm room in our house.  It doesn’t take a lot to make the room seem cluttered.  His camera equipment takes up a whole dang corner of the room, he’ll leave his guitar just sitting out in the open, and he has no qualms about leaving his work papers floating anywhere around the computer area.  It.  Drives.  Me.  Crazy.    I HATE for all of that crap to be out in the open!  However, he apparently has a method to the madness.  If I clean up or move anything, he notices.  He’ll ask me where I put his ____.  I respond with, “In its place.”  I’m pretty sure that it’s universal that there’s nothing quite like those three little words uttered from a wife to a husband to get under a husband’s skin.  Ian HATES whenever I say that because what I consider a suitable place for his ______ is not what he considers a good place to be.  How did we solve this situation?  …..with a compromise, of course!  Ian cleaned out a section of the closet, crammed a shelf in there, and put all of his stuff into that hidden area of the house.  I promised not to touch any of it as long as he kept the stuff in there and not out in the open.  Since Ian is always talking about wanting a “man cave,” (a room in which he can leave his crap wherever he wants to, and I’m not allowed to touch it) but our house is too small to donate an entire room to his cause, I nicknamed the closet space his “man cave.” 

Since getting back from Australia, Ian and I have been getting serious about going home.  I know that it’s still six months off, but time will go by quickly, so we have to start planning.  I mentioned in one of last week’s blogs that we booked our flights home and are having a couple days layover in both Tokyo and Hawaii (YEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!)  However, we’ve also been looking into jobs, housing, and insurance…….big kid stuff.    I emailed my former bosses at both WKCTC and MSU, and I can go back to both schools for fall semester.  The fall schedule isn’t out yet, but I’ll be at WKCTC on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and at MSU on Tuesday and Thursday.  What really stinks is that since I haven’t been an employee at WKCTC or MSU for two years, I have to go back to through the application process.    Most of it is online, but WKCTC has an intensive seven page application online that is basically a resume builder.  It would be great if I could just send in my resume…but alas.  This is a hoop I have to jump through.  MSU takes the cake, though.  Their application is sixteen pages long, and that’s just the stuff that I can do FROM HERE.  Once I get back in August, I have to go to campus and fill out more application stuff.  Blarg! 

Ian has been looking into jobs as well, brushing up his resume, and sending it out.  He’s going to keep his current job and do what he can from the States: phone interviews, voice recordings, etc, but that isn’t quite enough to make ends meet, so he’s been looking for something more full time.  As we make preparations to leave, it’s becoming a reality:  we’re leaving Japan for good.  While it would be nice to come back, I really, highly doubt that we’ll ever come back to Japan.  We’re leaving our crappy little car that we have become endeared to, REALLY good friends that we may or may never see again, our beautiful little mountain town that we love, and so, so much more.  Once we get back to the States, it’s almost like it’s back to reality.  No more amazing winter vacations to another continent, no more easy teaching job, no this, that, and the other!  I started making a list of all the things I’m going to miss when we go home.  While this list isn’t inclusive, (I normally add something to the list a couple of times a week) it’s a pretty good start.  They are in no certain order.

1) Mochi.  Mmmmm…..mochi!  Mochi is sweetened pounded rice.  They beat the rice with huge mallets until the rice reaches this sticky paste consistency and then add sugar.  Sometimes the mochi is then wrapped around anco for an even more delicious tasty treat!

2) Anco.  Mmmmm….anco.  Anco is a sweetened bean paste.  I know it doesn’t sound that good, but trust me….it is!  I love anco treats!  Sometimes when we go to the conbini, I’ll get an anco sandwich.  That’s just two slices of bread with anco in between.  YUM!

3) Conbinis.  These are convenience stores.  They are kind of like gas stations without the gas.  You can buy snacks, drinks, meals, batteries, gloves, band aids, magazines, and loads of other random crap there.  Also, you can pay bills, reserve bus/train/ferry tickets, print or copy things, and use the ATM there.  Conbinis are a one-stop shop and are open 24 hours a day.  Hurray!

4) Time with Ian.  Ugh!  This is something that I’m REALLLLLY going to miss.  As is now, we get to spend soooooooooooo much more time with one another than we did living at home.  Due to our different schedules of work, I would wake up early, go to classes, come home around 5PM, and be in bed around 11PM.  Ian would wake mid-morning, go to work around 10-12, get off around 7-9, and want to stay up late.  Plus, he usually worked on the weekends, so his off days were random weekdays that I had to go to school.  If he did have a Saturday or Sunday off, (a rarity) it was a special treat that we got to spend the whole day together.  Here we have none of that.  I get to spend nearly every night and every weekend with him.

5)  Safety and security.  Japan is SUCH a trusting country, and no one ever steals anything from anyone here.  I don’t live in constant paranoia of identity theft, fraud, scams, someone getting ahold of my social security number, etc.  When I go to the ATM, I don’t have to hunch completely over the keypad to ensure that no one steals my PIN.  I have actually given a complete stranger my bank account info so that he could read and interpret the kanji and enter in the information into the ATM.  I would NEVER do that in the States, but you can TRUST people here.  I’m going to miss that.

6)  Milk tea.  I never would have guessed that milk in tea would be so good, but it is!  I can make it at home, but it doesn’t taste the same as the delicious bottled or packet stuff.

7) Vending machines.  Vending machines in Japan are EVERYWHERE.  Driving home along some rural mountain road and get thirsty…..no worries!  There’s a vending machine lighting up the darkness along the side of the road.  Stuck on the train platform with only a minute to spare…no worries!  There’s a vending machine conveniently sitting right there.  Vending machines are WELL stocked with everything from cola to juice, and even hot drinks in the winter time from coffee to corn soup.  I’m going to miss the convenience of them when we go back to the States where there are vending machines only where you’d expect them—outside of malls, grocery stores, etc.

8)  My salary and job.  I have an incredibly amazing salary and benefits package for the amount of work that I do here.  This very well could be the thing that I’ll miss most about Japan.  Considering that while teaching in the States I had to create lesson plans, take and record attendance, assign and check homework, grade essays, keep up a grade book, frequently check my email and answer student questions, all of the administration duties, and everything else that goes with teaching, I’ve got it pretty easy here since I don’t do any of that.  I create lesson plans for my elementary and nursery school days and occasionally create warm up games to play in class with my JHS students. That’s the extent of my duties.  When I go home at night, I don’t have to worry about taking work home with me or getting fifty essays graded by tomorrow.  When we go back to the States, I’ll have triple the amount of work with less than half the pay. 

9)  Heated toilet seats.  Ah, nothing quite comforts your bum like a warm seat in the middle of winter.  It sucks to leave the one warm room of your house to go to the bathroom, but having a warm seat to sit on doesn’t make it half as bad.  If I didn’t have a heated toilet seat, winter would be just a bit more miserable.  Toilet technology in Japan is unlike anywhere else in the world.

10)  Time.  Since my job isn’t nearly as intensive as at home, I have MUCH more free time here to do…..whatever.  I can spend my entire night reading, watching movies, hanging out with friends, spending time with Ian, attempting new recipes, or whatever I feel like.  I’m going to miss that.

11)  Unlocked doors.  We haven’t locked our house or car in over a year (even the times we went on vacation to the States and Australia).  I feel completely safe leaving my house at any hour of the day and going for a walk.  I’m definitely going to miss this comfort of being so safe!

12) Friends.  Oh, the friends that we have made!  This is also a really difficult aspect of leaving Japan.  Even though most of our ALT friends are from the States, we’re scattered out to the four corners from Hawaii all the way to Connecticut.  Once we leave Japan, we’ll probably never see a lot of these people again.  That’s not including our Japanese, Australian, South African, Portuguese, and every other nationality of friends that we have made.  Thank God for Skype!  One friend in particular, Melissa B, is going to be extremely difficult to say goodbye to.  We’ve shared our ups and downs with one another, traveled together, randomly shown up at each others houses to hang out, and to say the least….she has become our best friend over here.  I’m dreading the day that we have to say goodbye to her and to all of our friends.

13)  Fast internet.  OMG.  Ian and I both LOVE our fiber optic internet.  Even though we live in the middle of no where, we still have better internet than 98% of homes and businesses back in Paducah, Kentucky.  Thank you, Japan!  Everything is going to seem sooooooooooo sloooooooooow when we go home. 

14) Kotatsu.  A kotatsu is a heated table.  The top comes off, and you place a fire resistant blanket over the heating element and place the top back on the table, so it effectively traps all of the heat under the table.  Then you slide your legs (or entire body) under it.  SO.  WARM.  It’s like being in a constant hug of warmth.     I enjoy it and can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen asleep, watched TV, or read a book under it.  That kotatsu is the reason I am fat and lazy in the winter.

15)  Being a celebrity.  I stick out like a sore thumb here, and sometimes it gets on my nerves, but mostly I enjoy it.  When I go to the grocery and one of my cute elementary kids shouts “MELISSA-SENSEI!” and runs at me, it absolutely melts my heart.  Whenever people give us random gifts simply because we’re the foreigners in town, it makes me feel special.  Whenever every Tom, Dick, or Harry I meet on the sidewalk bows his head tells me “konnichiwa” (hello), it makes me feel like a part of the community.

16) Travel opportunities.  OK, I lied when I said the thing I’ll miss most would be my awesome salary and easy job.  I’m going to miss the traveling to new places, trying new things, exploring new cultures, learning, etc.  Back in the States things are so……normal.  There’s a whole world to explore, and living in Japan has really allowed me to take advantage of those.

17) No family/friend drama.  It’s true!  When we talk to our friends and family, they generally only tell us the good things.  We don’t hear about Crazy Aunt So and So and her latest offense or negative gossip.  Even if things like that do come about, we are able to quickly change the subject and tell about some new Japanese experience or ask about something other than Crazy Aunt So and So.  Worst case scenario: our Skype gets a “bad connection” and we have to let the family member/friend go. 

18)  My supervisor.  It is so incredibly awesome to have someone take care of me the way that she does.  Sick and can’t go to work?  Call Sawada, she’ll take care of it.  Have some mysterious mail that you can’t read?  Ask Sawada about it, she’ll take care of it.  Need to make a doctor’s appointment?  Tell Sawada, she’ll take care of it.  That woman is my life saver.  She’s on top of EVERYTHING regarding my well being over here, and I’m going to miss the crap out of her.

19) Mountains.  Ian and I LOVE our mountains.  While western Kentucky has a few hills, there is nothing close to the mountains that we have here.  We’ve always wanted to live in a mountainous place, and here we are.  Waking up every morning and looking at views like this is certainly going to be missed:

OK, I’m going to stop there.  Even as I was writing this, I kept thinking about other things that I’ll miss.    Like I said, this list is not inclusive.  It’s going to be difficult to leave everything behind, but we are excited to be coming home! 

Face masks and other random Japanese things

Random but fun fact: sometimes you get free stuff at the gas station in Japan.  Most Japanese gas stations are full service….meaning that they’ll fill your tank, wash your windows, and do anything else you tell them as you stay in the comfort of your car.  It’s great!  What’s better is that after they fill your tank and you pay, sometimes they’ll give you small gifts.  Usually it’s a package of tissues (printed with some company’s advertisements on it), but I’ve also heard of people receiving chocolates or cartons of eggs as well.  I love the randomness!!

Before I go on with the story, I need to give a little back story about Japan.  It is very common to see people wearing face masks (like what doctors wear into surgery) in Japan.  I know that in the States if you see someone wearing a face mask, you automatically think OMG, WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM/HER???  DOES HE/SHE HAVE SARS?  SWINE FLU?  FLESH-EATING BACTERIA?  AHHHHHHHHH!!!!  However, it’s completely normal in Japan…..especially in the winter.  People do it when they have a cold, the sniffles, allergies, and even for prevention of getting sick.  On Wednesday Ian went to the gas station to fill up and get the oil changed.  On his way out, the gas station attendant handed Ian a box of face masks as a gift.  This box had about fifty masks in it.  Ian was confused about taking the whole thing, so he asked.  The gas station attendant confirmed and told Ian yes to take the whole box and said, “pu-rez-sent-toe.”    Awesome.  Now we have an ENTIRE box of face masks, and neither of us wear them.  Any ideas about what to do with that many face masks….?

Here’s another random but funny story for you….A couple of my third grade girls in the JHS have an obsession with the boy band One Direction, and I told them that I like One Direction last semester.  Since then we have been best buds with all things regarding One Direction.  Last Friday they ran up to me after class and said: “Melissa-sensei!  Melissa-sensei! You…….watch……Japanese TV…..yes?”   I said, “Sometimes.  A little.”  They said, “Tonight…..One Direction….on….Japanese TV.  You watch?”  I said yes and thanks for the head’s up, and they squealed like….well like JHS girls.    Even though I didn’t watch the show because I went to Devin’s apartment on Friday night, I told then on Monday morning that I did, and together we squealed and professed our love for Harry, Louis, Niall, Zayn, and Liam. 

On Tuesday I went to my nursery schools.  At my first nursery school, Jikou, I didn’t have to teach.  Instead I watched the kids practice some dance routine.  It was pretty good coordination for six-year-olds, and I was impressed.  However, it then became AWESOME.  They were doing flips and tumbles that would definitely be considered too dangerous for kids in the States to do outside of a professional gym.  The finale included the kids in the middle doing handstands….and then walking forward on their hands.      I was so shocked and impressed beyond belief.  IT.  WAS.  INCREDIBLE.

Yesterday was my elementary day at school.  I was playing with some of my 3rd grade girls during break time, and one of the girls told me that I have a big nose.  I was confused, and I guess my face showed it.  She then told me that ALL Americans have big noses.  Ha! Ha!  What a strange observation….. 

Now that the random stories are out of the way, I have good news to spread.  Ian and I booked our flights home!  WOO-HOO!!!  Last weekend we were casually looking at flights and talking about having a layover in Hawaii long enough that we could enjoy a little bit of the islands.  As it turns out, a flight with a layover in Honolulu was the cheapest flight we could find.  It might be a bit early in the year to be looking at flights, but the more we looked at Hawaii, the more we WANTED TO GO.     Plus we booked our flights home this time last year, and prices only went up after that.  I showed my supervisor on Monday a flight itinerary with a three day layover in Hawaii and compared it to other airlines, showing her that it was the cheapest.  (The Japanese airline that I looked at was darn near $4,000, and the other tickets that I found were $2,600 for A ONE WAY TICKET.  )  I waited eagerly for her response, knowing that her decision would make the difference between us going to Hawaii or not.  She emailed me back on Tuesday with as answer: YES!  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!        Ian and I are going to fly from Kagoshima –> Tokyo and have a few days to go climb Mt. Fuji and see Tokyo.  Then we’re flying Tokyo –> Seoul, Seoul –> Honolulu and having a three day layover there.  We already booked a hotel (for FREE thanks to our Amex points!!!).  The good thing about our location is that we’re not too far away from Diamond Head volcanic crater or Pearl Harbor.  Amazing!!  Those three days aren’t going to be long enough I fear!  SOOOOOOO.  EXCITED.  Then we’re back on a plane from Honolulu –> Las Vegas –> Dallas –> Nashville and will arrive back in good ole Paducah on August 15th.  We’ll have one last little adventure home before it’s back to regular life in Kentucky.  HURRAY!!!

That’s all for now, people!  I’d love to stay and write more….but alas…I actually have to do work now. 

When it’s okay to lie to your spouse…

Lately I’ve been telling people that it’s perfectly fine to lie right to your spouse’s face when regarding two things: Christmas presents and surprise birthday parties.  This weekend really followed the latter.    For the past week, I’ve been busily planning a surprise birthday party for Ian, and Saturday night it went off without a hitch! 

We have a couple of people in Kuma-gun who have birthdays around the same time.  Mary’s was January 13th, Mollee’s January 14th, and Ian’s January 17th.  I thought that we might as well plan a birthday party and celebrate all three together.  I asked Mary if she wanted to drive down from the city, but she said that she couldn’t afford it.  That left Mollee and Ian and the question of how to get them to the same place at the same time…..  So I hatched a plan…..

I told Mollee that I was planning a surprise party for Ian and needed help getting him out of the house.  I asked if she would distract him for a bit by asking him to fix something around her house.  She really did need a light switch fixed, so it wasn’t a complete lie….  She asked Ian to come over sometime on Saturday afternoon, giving me a few hours to get everything ready at home.  Then, I told Ian to tell her to come over for dinner.  While Ian balked at the idea of driving all the way across Kuma-gun to Kuma Village and then have Mollee drive all the way back over to Yunomae for dinner, I told him that I wanted to cook and that I’d have dinner ready at 6PM.  I asked Mollee to call me as they were leaving so that I’d know exactly when they’d be home.  Mollee thought that the party was just for Ian, so the plan was set!

Now….in order to throw suspicion, I had to do SOMETHING for Ian’s birthday or else he’d know that something was up.  Therefore, I organized a birthday sushi dinner for Ian (and Mollee).  Last Wednesday night, we went to Hitoyoshi with a couple of our friends for birthday sushi.  Ian LOVES sushi but complains about how he doesn’t get it very often since I don’t like it.  We went to a conveyer belt sushi place, and everyone quite enjoyed themselves.  On Thursday, Ian’s actual birthday, it was very low key.  He had to work that night, so he didn’t get home until about 10PM.  I asked if he’d like me to make him a cake so that we could enjoy it when he got home, but he said no and that it would be too late for cake.  I didn’t let him get away without celebrating his birthday on his birthday!  No way!  After my Thursday night class, I stopped by the grocery store and got each of us an ice cream (despite it being January).  When he got home from work that night, I stuck a candle in it, planted a party hat on his head, and sang “Happy Birthday” to him.   

Since we didn’t get to have cake on his birthday, Ian suggested inviting everyone over for cake and ice cream on Saturday.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  That would TOTALLY RUIN THE SURPRISE!!!  I quickly thought on my feet and told him that there was a taiko event in Hitoyoshi on Saturday that several people were going to and suggested having people over for an afternoon tea on Sunday.  He agreed, and I told him that I’d send out the word.    By the next afternoon, I told him that a couple of people had responded and could come over to celebrate.  Lies, lies, lies!! 

The day of the surprise party flew by.  I woke up that morning and immediately started to get ready.  I cleaned the house, which isn’t completely out of the norm for me to do on a Saturday.  After a late night out with the boys, Mr. Ian slept until about noon.  By that time, everything was cleaned, and I started the cooking in the kitchen.  I first made chocolate chip covered Oreo cookies.  Yes, you read that right.  It’s a chocolate chip cookie with an Oreo in the middle….absolutely delicious, but one cookie could easily put you into a sugar coma!    They were a little bit more time consuming to make than what I thought.  After I finished those, I started his cake.

Every year for his birthday Ian wants a lemon cake with lemon icing.  I absolutely wrinkle my nose in disgust at this, but he loves lemon cake!  His mom used to make him a lemon cake with lemon icing every year for his birthday, so that’s what he looks forward to on his birthday.  (I found a recipe online, but when I told my mom about it, she said that she would just ship me a box mix lemon cake and icing.  It was nothing against my cooking, but rather she had accidentally bought it and didn’t think she’d ever use it.  Woo-hoo!  Easy baking for me!  )  As I was mixing up his cake, Ian asked why I was baking so much food.    I told him that I was just in a baking mood!  The cookies were for dessert that night, and the cake was for the following day when everyone would come over for afternoon tea and cake.   

He didn’t leave the house until about 3PM, giving me not very much time to prep.    As soon as he was out the door, I rode my bike to the grocery to get food.  Even though it was the first thing on my list, in my haste I forgot chicken, so I had to go back into the grocery and check out (with the same cashier) again.  Blarg!  Once I got home, I started boiling the sweet potatoes for sweet potato casserole.  Melissa came over around 4PM to help me get ready, and together we made mashed potatoes, gravy, fried chicken, and biscuits.  Delicious!!  Margo, Brian, David, Krista, and Sara all arrived before 5:30 and in plenty of time to put up a few decorations, blow up some balloons, and sign a card for both Mollee and Ian. 

I had the kitchen window cracked so that I could watch for Ian, and it was a little after 6PM when his headlights rounded the corner.  I told people that it was game time, so everyone turned off the living room lights and huddled together.  Ian and Mollee walked in together, and as they walked into the open doorway of the living room, the light flipped on, party poppers went off, and everyone shouted “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!”  The look that confetti covered Ian gave me was of utter shock.  He didn’t suspect ANYTHING!  Plus to make matters even better, Mollee had no idea that the party was for her as well and was shocked whenever people started party popping her.  DOUBLE SUCCESS!!!     

The whole night was a success.  We forced Ian and Mollee to wear party hats.  Ian’s was a blue headband that lit up, and Mollee’s was a princess tiara (even though in the picture they are switched).    We ate delicious southern comfort food and hung out with our amazing friends.  When it came to cake time, people had two options: Ian’s lemon cake with lemon icing (below, left) or a funfetti cake (below, right) that Melissa had made for Mollee.  Honestly I think the options were unfair.  Who can say no to funfetti cake!?!?  I think I cut only two pieces of lemon cake, and everyone else (including myself) had funfetti cake. 

I love throwing surprise birthday parties for people!!  I love seeing that expression of shock/joy/amazement when the birthday person realizes that the party is for them.    So watch out, guys.  You might be next on my surprise birthday party hit list!