The 411 on Me

I am afraid I have been having the What do I blog about? quandary lately. It is not that my life is not exciting, far from it. I tend to become enveloped by my work. I am an ox in Chinese astrology. The qualities of an ox are strong, hard working, loyal, dependable, yet not always the most exciting individuals. I am definitely an ox - hard working, loyal, yet a big creature of habit. I am working overnights beginning my day at 8 PM and working through the night until 7 AM. I really enjoy the night shift. The officers that work nights tend to be younger and more fun (not to mention the dispatchers). During the day, it is constantly busy and you do not have much time to yourself. In the very early morning hours, you usually have some time to chill out and relax. I can blog, pay bills, get stuff done. Not bad at all. The downside is, on your days off it can be hard to adjust back to normal time. I work four days and then have four days off, so you spend two days getting readjusted only to have to revert back to being a vampire two nights later. Still, I am having a lot of fun and enjoying my work.

I am heading to Seattle this weekend to visit my brother and his family. After a whirlwind year and change in the United States, they are heading back to Japan unexpectedly. My brother was offered a position that he could not say no to, so they will be heading back to the Land of the Rising Sun at the beginning of April. My brother has lived in Japan most of his adult life, so it was such an unexpected pleasure to be able to call him and not have to consciously add 14 hours. My niece and nephew are both in high school, so I am very happy they had the chance to experience life in the U.S. My brother hopes they will attend college here in the States, so this was Life in the U.S. 101 for them. Most people from Japan think the United States is a dangerous place due to all of bad things they see on the news. Yes, you have to be more street smart here than in Japan, but it's certainly not a war zone or a third world country here. I know that my brother will end up living back here in another few years, but I will miss him, his wife, and my niece and nephew. Yoshimi (my brother's wife) is also pregnant and due in June, so they need to get her back to Asia soon. Otherwise, she would have to stick around here for the birth of my new niece.

I just read on Google News that Newt Gingrich admitted to having engaged in an extramarital affair during the Clinton impeachment years. I was never a huge fan of Mister Clinton, so the whole impeachment mess did not bother me. The hypocrisy of the right is the thing that irks me to no end. Everyone has sex and everyone lies about sex. As humans, deception is a part of who we are. If, as a culture and as a civilization, we focused more on empathy and understanding (and a lot LESS on judgement), we would be much better off.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Cuidate.