Wedding Week Update
International Week continues...


Wheeeewwww... I am feeling soooo much LIGHTER after my post yesterday... like I am floating...

The big wedding is now two days away. Might I mention that I love weddings? Not really. I spent a year of my life planning them for other people, and soon realized that I really AM a bitter divorced woman, as well as hopeless romantic all at the same time. It's like having split personalities.

Today, we are meeting with the church wedding coordinator to "run through" the order of service. I am going along.

You know me and my small town redneck radar.... it's been ON all week. First, the stupid people at Regions bank wouldn't accept my "sister's" (hey, it's just easier calling her my sister than explaining away the whole exchange student story) traveler's checks... because, "they are in Japanese...." and they "don't accept Japanese traveler's checks." Well, sweetie - I could understand that ... however, just because they have Japanese characters on them, doesn't mean that US DOLLAR phrase written in plain English, or that HUGE MASTERCARD logo (again, plain English) don't mean a thang.

Hence, I made the teller feel really, really dumb, and the branch manager accepted the checks. This of course, was after a phone call on my cell phone while in the bank to Mastercard Traveler Services, in which I spoke to a sweet British lady who thought my accent was "charming." She spoke with the branch manager(on my minutes, I might add), explained the MASTERCARD UNIVERSAL logo, and the branch manager accepted the checks. No apology to my sister, by the way, after the teller handed them back to her as if covered in disease.

And then ... there's WalMart. I don't think people in WalMart have ever seen or heard of Japanese people before. Did we all have third arms? Oh, no - wait - that's just the stupid people staring and listening to a foreign language besides spanish... I mean, is there such a thing?

And have you ever noticed how LOUD people talk when they think you don't understand them? Two people that we knew stopped to speak to Nats (that's short for Natsuki)... they got really loud and really slow all of a sudden. Natsuki's eyes got real big. Hooowwwww aaarrrreee yooouuuu ddoooooiinnnnggggg????? Connnnngggggrrraaaattttuuuullllaaaaatiiiioooonnnnss.
Natsuki replied.... "thanks - we're totally excited to be here," in her perfect English. "Amazing," she said... "do they think if they are louder my mom will understand them?" No, Emiko just smiles and says, Thank you to everything. No matter how slow you speak, English doesn't get any easier. Get it?

Way to rooollll out the red carpet, Paulding. I am once again PROUD.