Lots of food for everyone...

Well, we got a big delivery of food from the Japanese pet store, and a nice letter apologizing for all of the trouble we have had with our new baby girl. There are 17 bags of Science Diet in this box, 1 kg each! The letter also promised two more deliveries like this. Wheew! As you can see, the pups are very very interested in what is in the box. They have both been sticking to me like glue. I guess I'm the pied piper of pups. I'm not going to say I'm the dog whisperer; nothing could be further from the truth. I have one little prince who thinks he runs the place, and one who chews everything and pees everywhere.

Anyway, it is true I have become the new mother who talks about nothing but her baby.

The other day Pam, Yuri and I went to lunch at the Zushi Marina. At 3150 Yen a plate, roughly $31.50, it was the best Italian buffet I have ever been too. My Gott! I did not have the cold octopus salad, tempting as those reddish-purple tentacles looked. But they had tiny squares on polenta with a tiny piece of bacon on top of each, and a cream sauce. Crab pasta and sea urchin pasta and eggplant Parmesan, linguine and fettuccine and penne, slivers of the yummiest melt-in-your mouth raw salmon. Don't get me started on the desserts. My diet is pretty much shot for the week, in fact.

Frankie is enjoying 8th grade. The are reading Charlotte Doyle and getting ready to learn how to saute, broil, stew and make soups. They are doing algebra and learning history. Because he is in that gifted program, his same buddies are in class with him again except for the ones who have PCS'd over the summer.

Nate lives to go to lunch and recess. He and his friends are hooked on Club Penguin, an on-line game from Walt Disney that looks very cute and fun. He has been able to chat with his old friend who moved to Washington this summer. At this age, old friend would qualify as someone he met this past year after we moved to Ikego. Here is a new whine: "But Mooooom, I need to get on line at 5 o'clock, because I promised some friends I'd meet them after school."

Here is a little note I found penciled in, in Frankie's handwriting: "Meet at The Faithful Bride pub, 4:00."

Times sure have changed since I was a kid.