It was Hana's birthday yesterday. Now she's 3 years old. She already looks like she's 5 or so, but she still acts like a giant, violent 3-year-old. We got her a bunch of books and stuff for presents, but the highlight was the cake. My wife and I made it together in the shape of her favorite character, Spongebob Squarepants. She really went crazy for it.

After that, we had planned to take her to a Kaiten Sushi place with the whole extended family and then have a big party with Piña Coladas and bacon and Boston Creme Pies, but just then we noticed that her jaw was all swollen under the ears. We took her to the doctor and it turns out that she has the mumps. She just got vaccinated for mumps about two weeks ago, so she almost certainly got it from the vaccination. It seems to be a mild version, because she doesn't have any fever or other symptoms, except for the Jay Leno jaw. But anyway, she's gotta stay inside for the next few days. So we're just hanging out, eating leftover cake.

The other day, I went to Boston for my brother's wedding. Due to the timing of it, I could only take 3 days off from work, so it was a fairly hurried affair. I may have spent as much time on planes as I actually did in the US. I was one of the groomsmen, so I had to do a few various things, most of which involved drinking for three straight days. I was kinda freaked out because all of the other groomsmen were total Teabaggers. One of them even had Ronald Reagan as the background image on his iPhone. I couldn't believe that those sorts of people actually existed in real life, but I guess that's what you get when you go to the same high school as Pat Buchanan. Anyway, those guys spent the whole weekend comparing their basement arsenals, how much water and rations they have saved up for when it's time to take down Obama, and their 150-mile commutes that they make each day alone in their SUVs. I'm pretty sure that there were some fancy parties and that sort of thing, but it's all a blur really. I'm sure that Boston and Salem, where the wedding was, are nice places but I can't say because I didn't actually see anything of them except the inside of a church, a hotel, and some bars. But those parts looked nice. Hana had a great time when she was awake, but she slept a lot of strange hours, just like the rest of us. And she had a lot of fun hanging out with my family. And it brings the number of US states I have been to up to 28. I used to be keeping up with my age, 1 per year, but I've fallen behind since I came to Japan. Here's the states I've been to:

0. District of Columbia
1. Alabama
2. Arizona
3. California
4. Delaware
5. Florida
6. Georgia
7. Hawaii
8. Illinois
9. Kentucky
10. Louisiana
11. Maryland
12. Massachusetts
13. Michigan
14. Mississippi
15. Nevada
16. New Jersey
17. New Mexico
18. New York
19. North Carolina
20. Ohio
21. Oklahoma
22. Pennsylvania
23. South Carolina
24. Tennessee
25. Texas
26. Utah
27. Virginia
28. West Virginia

Hey, it's Easter. Easter is not a big thing in Japan because most people aren't Catholic and it doesn't quite play to their consumerist urges quite as well as Christmas does. But we had a little fun this year. We invited all of Hana's little friends (literally; they're all half her size even though they're the same age) to the park for an Easter party. With 2-year-olds, there's no hunting for easter eggs or any of that stuff; the party simply consisted of playing in the park for a while, and then getting some candy. I wore some pink fuzzy rabbit ears when I gave out the candy, so that part was at least a little bit Easter-y.

Hey I forgot to mention to "everyone" that it was my birthday last week. It was my 36th birthday. I like this age because it is the product of consecutive squares. (That's 2² x 3², not my mother x my father.) Anyway, no one really did anything for my birthday, because no one really knows about it. I did get a foosball table, which I tried to play with Hana. She's not very good at it.

Anyway, if you're in the mood, here's my amazon.com wishlist, and my Amazon.co.jp wishlist.

So it was Valentine's Day last week. As you may know, Valentine's Day in Japan is different than America. If you know, check my entries from all the years prior to this one. Anyway, as usual, I got a bunch of chocolate from students of mine. And as usual, a lot of it was homemade. What was unusual was that none of it was nasty. some of it was actually pretty good. A few of the kids just melted some store-bought chocolate into a different shape, but some of those bitches actually baked! I was quite impressed once I overcame the rumbling trepidation in my bowels and tried eating some of it. The only bittersweet part (Ha ha! Actually bittersweet is not a popular variety for valentine's confections due to its obvious bittersweet connotations.) was that none of the chocolate was made (or purchased) especially for me. It's all obligation chocolate of one sort or another. The kids make 5 or 10 of the same cake, and then give one to each of their teachers, or at least all the ones that they don't hate. While some of the girls might like one of their teachers, they'll still give the same chocolate to everyone to avoid being found out. There's not too much of the romantic-type of chocolate going around. There's definitely some being furtively passed to the oblivious loser who pass for boys in my school, but none of its coming my way. But I do have to remember the names of the 20-or-so brown-nosers who gave me chocolate, so I can give them some white chocolate next month.