A look of joy, and horror.
We went to my parent's house last night (since in all technicality, it's Sunday morning...), and along with a delicious dessert and a bottle of wine, we brought ourselves and my mom's birthday gift.
I suck at waiting until the day of to give a gift - last Christmas is testament to this. Chris had but a few gifts to open that he didn't know about, and we opened them all on Christmas Eve.
ANYWAY. She was thrilled to the point of horror when she opened her gift (I don't think that the huge shopping bag that said COACH, or the box within that had COACH stickers were enough of a give away, though). She thinks I spent a lot of money on it, which I did. I haven't spent that kind of money on anyone, including myself, in a long time. But she deserves it, and I really wanted her to have her new purse in time for their trip to Napa for her birthday. And it's not something I know she won't use. The wallet, she'll replace her old Target wallet with; the purse, she'll save for when we go out or whatever; basically use it everywhere except at work, like I do. She knows damn well, despite being well-off, that she wouldn't buy a purse that expensive for herself. Maybe this will be a push in the right direction.
Right, being, MY right. My one weakness is a expensive purse. But at any rate, she told us not to spend that kind of money on her for a long, long time. My dad told us that he can't wait until his birthday, in October.
Anyway. So, usually, we just go to my parents house once every week or two for no special reason except to just chill. But today, my mom's mom and her husband were guests, so we had a nice dinner and visiting with them. I wish I could see them more - I miss my grandma a lot. When she first moved to the U.S. after a few years of my family and I living here in the early 90's, she lived with us. When she married her husband, she still lived only 15 minutes away from us. Now, she lives an hour and a whole life away. I have my own life, my own family now; my brother is off doing his own thing with the Navy. Family is so important to us, as is tradition and keeping up with family back home, and it was nice sitting down and talking to her about that. Despite the language barrier (that I hope to bridge once I'm done with Nursing school; I'm slowly, but surely, losing what little Japanese I know), I have hopes of visiting my aunt and cousins, and a great-uncle/family. I have dreams of helping Chris finally meet his grandma's family (she came from Nagasaki; she married a US Sailor, who also happened to be German). It'll happen. The Japanese, fortunately for us who have gone our own ways, have a knack for tradition and keeping with family lineage. Even little ol' me is registered under my Japanese family name, in the town where we lived in 2000.
Drab family history. But really, it's one of the only interesting things about my life. What, with me sitting here on my computer, compiling my schedule for April in iCal, and my husband sitting on his computer playing World of Warcraft. We don't have a lot going on at the moment. The least I could do is dream of going back home, even just to visit. As expensive as it is, I know how to cut costs there. One of the benefits of having lived there. I would take living there and NOT speaking the language over speaking the language fluently and having never lived there. Any day. If that makes any sense at all...