I'm officially a bad blogger...

I guess I can officially call myself a bad blogger, not to mention a bad friend, when I haven't blogged in (let's see... September '08 makes...) 9 months! Wow. Even I am shocked by my bad behavior.

Here's a brief summary of what's happened since then. In October, Tosh and I quit our jobs (during the beginning of the global decline in the job market of all times) and officially said November would be the last month in our apartment in Tokyo. Then I found out that I totally misunderstood Tosh's visa situation, which meant that we had to stay in Japan for 10 weeks AFTER leaving our apartment. So we moved in with Tosh's very generous parents in Kyoto for those 10 weeks, while getting Tosh's paperwork in order. It was an interesting two and a half months, but I loved living with my in-laws--they are great people--and eventually we got everything worked out. We came to California on February 9th with Oto and Leo in tow, and then proceeded to live with my (very generous) parents for the next three months. Then, after T got in touch with an old friend, he started a business and decided to make our new base camp in Long Beach, CA. Why Long Beach? Well, Tosh has always wanted to live by the beach again. I figure it's as good a reason as any. So here we are, a 5-minute walk from the beach. Too bad it's so dang cold here! (What can I say? I'm too used to Fresno summers.)

We've been in Long Beach for about 6 weeks now, and it's finally starting to turn into summer. I love the flowers and greenery here.

Last night I went to kendo practice here in Long Beach. I didn't take my bogu, so I just changed into my kendo-gi and hakama and did some stretches and suburi with the beginners. I felt kind of weird that I was with the beginners, but they worked hard! We worked hard. I think that was the best thing I could've done, though, because I haven't practiced in a year and a half and I needed to get back into the swing of things... gradually. I still ended up with a blister on my left thumb, one on the soft spot on my left big toe, and a nice, deep blister that I'm sure will pop at a future date on the pad of my left foot below the other blister. It's nice to have something to look forward to. But on the bright side, I really enjoyed practice and the people I talked to at the dojo. I'm looking forward to going to practice again.

If you want to see some posts that T and I did over the last six months or so, you can check Toshio's blog.