The Surprise Engagement Party

Friday was graduation day at my high school, and this year was particularly emotional, because I'd seen many of the graduating students grow so much in the past three years, and had become incredibly attached to them.

However, it was also a uplifting occasion because I got to celebrate with them, take lots of pictures together, and see an old coworker, Max, who'd come back for the occasion.

 To celebrate graduation day, and for old-time's-sake, Max, Sun, and I went to lunch at Cafe Kugafu. While there, we kept an eye on little baby Dion, whose family owns the cafe. When we were getting ready to go back to school for an International Club meeting, the cafe got incredibly busy. I knew that Kazuno (Dion's mom) would be extremely busy trying to take care of customers and watch Dion, so I offered to take him back to school with me for the afternoon.

Back at Koyo, we waited for the club meeting to start, and Dion fell deeply asleep in my arms. When it was finally time for the meeting to start, I walked in and the room exploded! 

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More than twenty students greeted me with party poppers and screams of "Congratulations!" I was completely shocked: they were throwing me an engagement party! Amazingly, Dion stayed asleep through all that commotion, and I quickly searched the room for some place for him to sleep. I spotted the prop box full of cozy costumes and laid him in there. He stayed asleep in that box for an entire hour of loud music, dancing, laughter, and countless girls taking his picture. :) Too cute.

 Once Dion was settled I got a chance to really see what was going on. The students had gone into great detail decorating the classroom, and had drawn some pretty convincing pictures of me and J. <3 br="" nbsp="">

 

 Then the leader of our club, M, annoucned that it was time for the first event: a dance to "I Think I Wanna Marry You." At first I was amazed that they'd choreographed a dance for me, but it turns out the plan was to play the music really loud and just run/dance around the classroom in a circle. Tooooooo fun!
 

 We also had a delicious cake with fruit and a giant chocolate circle on top. :)

 And the final event was a model-walk-race. Haha only my girls would come up with such a thing.

 It was incredibly fun, though, and Max really got into it.  That boy looks FIERCE!

 After an hour, Dion's mom came to claim him, and the party kept going for about another 45 minutes. We played another round of runway race, they asked me a bunch of questions about J and our relationship, and then we all sat around eating and chatting. It was SUCH a sweet thing for them to put together, and I feel incredibly lucky to have such thoughtful, kind students. I am going to miss them all TOO much. What a great day!

Something Scratching in the Night

A few nights ago I was settling down and preparing to crawl under the covers when I heard a different kind of crawling. Something was going scratch, scratch, scurry in the next room. Once I gathered my courage to peer around the sliding door, I found a strange shell scooting across my tatami. Apparently, it was occupied.

Lest you think this is just some tiny little hermit crab that snuck in with my prolific shell collection, I took a picture to give some perspective:

That ain't no baby!

The first question is, naturally: HOW did it get in my house?!?

I suppose it's possible he just crawled right into my apartment, but I live on the third floor!

And my door is rarely left open, and never long enough to admit a crab of this stature.

Such a mystery.

My friends and I have come up with a few theories:

-I brought his shell home, thought it was empty, and forgot about it.

-Somebody else brought it over and didn't mention it.

-It crawled up three flights of stairs, snuck in the front door, and jumped from the entry way into the house. ??

-The poor guy was snatched up by a bird which flew the mile or so from the beach before dropping the shell onto my front patio, hoping to crack the shell open (which would account for the damage to the shell... but still... how did it get IN my house?!?).

-It is a spirit crab, come to warn me of danger to come. Or something.

What do you think?

He didn't really scare me (except when he was marching straight toward the camera like this with those spider-like legs a-scurryin') but I was so shocked that I immediately called my neighbor-JET, Kim.

"The weirdest thing just happened to me," I whispered, trying not to scare the crab back into it's shell.

"What happened?!? Are you okay?!"

"Yeah, yeah. I am fine, but... there's a.... a crab... a giant crab... in my house!"

"I'll be right there. Boil some water."

So I scratched my head, left the hermit crab to scurry about the tatami room, put a pot of water on the stove, and waited for Kim. She was there in no time and marched right in, blue cone in hand, prepared to take on the crab intruder.

"Where is it?" she demanded, all full of courage and crab cravings.

I pointed and she dropped her purse, held up her cone, and charged.

She stopped short. "You mean that??" She shook her head.

Apparently, Kim didn't realize I was talking about a hermit crab--which is not so prime for eating. I guess I should have specified. :P

So, instead of boiling the lil guy to death and serving him with butter,

we stuck him in the cone,

drove him to the beach,

and set him free.

I like to think of him out there right now, enjoying this fantastic spring weather (70 degrees!), and searching for a new, less damaged shell to call home.

Crawl free, Hermie. Crawl free.