Prince Welcome to America Tour - Charleston, SC

Anyone that knows me, knows that my idol Artist is Prince. I have reached levels of mass hysteria over his work, and then humanely backed away to allow for space. Imagine my upset when I found out he was now touring in America, and I happened to be in Japan with husband and daughter for Nissan working assignment. So, after fleeing Japan after the earthquake... when I was dealing with jet lag in L.A., and "all I wanted to do was have some fun...all the way to Santa Monica Blvd...."I thought what would make me get back my groove now? It obviously was if Prince had finally released where he would be in America soon, so I could go see him. The information had just been posted, and I have always wanted to check out Charleston, SC. I got Leslie and I front row, floor tickets. Now I just need to get on stage to dance with him, and my Trauma will be healed my healing energy to send to Japan will be amplified!!! I am thrilled to be alive, and want to "put the oxygen mask on myself, so I can put it on others, before we crash".

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Now that we are safe, and well taken care of at Nana's home...we are feeling the healing. Hannah has gotten thru a yucky cough with cherry bark medicine. She stopped throwing up, and lowered her fever today, and she has rested. Hopefully today she will start eating. We spent time in the yard today, and found a 7 leaf clover! I am receiving wonderful amounts of loving attention and sympathy. Tuesday was the most eye opening day ever for me, as I took the time to appreciate every single breathing moment. Friends are gently letting me feel my emotions, and talk about my upsets. I went to www.synergywellnessspa.com and was welcomed back by loving arms and hugs from my collieges. My nausea is slowing down, and I am ready to heal. Adam is back to work, and not being told anything about our future, yet. Face book finally has my 99% approval rating on an efficient way to get the word out, and get word back to you..fast...when you need it! Hannah and I are making fun plans for how to spend the next 4 weeks in TN. We are sending our loving energy to Japan. Life is Great!

Sunday, March 13th

Adam and Hannah got up around 6:30 am, and they let me sleep until 9:30am. I woke up rested, but full of panic. Leslie and Matt skyped me as soon as I turned on the computer, and asked me when we were leaving. I turned on the TV and saw things were getting worse. I went into panic mode, and told Adam we had to leave immediately. He called his boss at Nissan in TN and his boss agreed we should do what we needed to do. Adam called to book flights. He told the travel agent we would go anywhere except China. She looked at South America, Canada, Australia, etc...and said we could not leave until Monday night at midnight. Even though I would have liked more time to get our bags together, I knew we could not wait that long. He put a hold on that flight, and told her to keep searching and call us back...she never did. Adam called Lance and they were wanting to leave too. Adam then called a different travel agency, and was able to find 6 tickets flying to LA, but we only had 45 minutes to pack our bags. We did it. It was interesting running thru the house making quick decisions on what we would be taking in our 2 carry ons. We each ended up with 2 pair of pants, 2 pair of shoes, 3 pair of underwear and socks. I picked out my favorite jewelry, and grabbed Adam and I's "love journal" that we write to each other back and forth on. Hannah got her blankie, her baby Carol, and her leapster. She has not complained one time about leaving everything else behind. The Sullivan's have a car, so they picked us up to drive to airport. I walked outside with our ex-patriot plant that has been passed down who knows how many times, and UT (our fish), with his food. The first ex-pat neighbor I saw, I handed him the plant and fish with feeding instructions, and said please take care of them until you have to leave, and then put them on your doorstep and hope for the best. We got to the airport and were given meal tickets, but only had time to get a quick bite at McDonalds, so we gave tickets to people who had been sleeping in the airport trying to get out. They were thrilled! As we were lining up to board the plane, another quake happened, and our flight was delayed a little. We spoke to a Canadian man who had been at the airport when the earthquake happened and told us about standing on the runway for 3 hours, and then being jammed into a small room with about 2,000 people in it. At one point there was 20,000 stranded at the Narita airport. He was relieved to be getting on the flight with us. We are so thankful that NISSAN took care of us and got us out of there fast. We received phone calls from management when we got to L.A. welcoming us to America!

Saturday, March 12th

At midnight, the electricity came back on and I immediately logged on to Face Book to let people know we were safe at the moment. It was wonderful to see all the messages that people were sending to us. We spent the day in a daze. We finally got the house put back together, and the broken things put away. We were glued to the TV. We finally went outside around 4pm and went to check on Dee Dee, Landon, and Lance. We all relived our stories, and didn't know what to do next. I got a call later that night that the French Embassy was recommending us to shut off heat, and not go outside, to not breath the air because of the nuclear power plant radiation leakage. Also, they said to fill up tubs with water in case we needed it. I followed those instructions, not knowing if it was over-reacting or not. I decided that electricity would probably be limited soon anyway. It was so cold when we went to bed, I decided to leave the bedroom heater on low. (each room has individual heater/air conditioner). Of course we had Hannah in bed with us again. The aftershocks all day long made you feel like you were on a ship. I finally had to take a nausea pill before I went to bed, which helped me to sleep deeply.

Earthquake 3/11/11

We spent all of February in complete bliss. Our time home in TN during Christmas filled up our hearts, and then Grammy eased us back into Japan in January. The weather has been warming up, and we have enjoyed every "family weekend", as Hannah calls it, where we three just hang out together and play games. When I felt the smaller quake on Wednesday March 9th, I got a very strong message in my body that things were not going to be ok. Thursday March 10th I refreshed the earthquake survival kit with fresh water, food, and flashlight. Friday morning March 11th I called Dee Dee (the other Nissan Mom) and asked her to walk with me. We talked about how irritated I was feeling, and how we both felt so vulnerable wondering when a big earthquake was going to happen, and I talked about my fear of taking showers. At 2pm I picked Hannah up from school. At 2:30pm I asked her if she would take a nap with me, so we could be awake when Adam got home at his usual very late Japanese hour. I took a quick shower, and was dressing for a nap..at 2:46pm the quake started. Hannah was next to the bed coloring, so I grabbed her, sat on the floor, and faced her toward me and cradled her head. The quake just kept going and going and getting stronger. The standup mirror came crashing down and hit my left shoulder, and her right elbow. She said "it broke my elbow!" When it finally stopped, I checked her elbow, and there was just a cut, and I forgot about my shoulder until I found the wound the next day. We carefully walked downstairs and saw the damage throughout the house. We got the earthquake backpack and headed to Dee Dee and Landon (Hannah's 4 yr old school mate) who live in same neighborhood. We all came outside with the other women of the neighborhood. A big aftershock came and we sat down in the street. The other women were screaming for us to move from behind Dee Dee's car that looked like it could roll out of drive way because it was moving so much. Everyone went to the park in our neighborhood to be in an open field. We continued to feel the aftershocks...which are still happening at this moment 6 days later..and could go on for 2 months. Dee Dee had a radio that was announcing in Japanese what was going on. The neighbor translated that we now needed to move to higher ground because of tsunami threat. The four of us got in Dee Dee's car and drove up to the Country Club. The electricity went out in our neighborhood when the quake happened, but the club had power and the TV going, and we were immediately bombarded with images of fires and raging water. We could not get a hold of our husbands until 5pm, because the phone lines were jammed up. Adam's co-worker offered a car ride to get him and Lance (Dee Dee's husband) home, because the trains were not running. They were in grid lock for 2 hours and then Adam told his Japanese friend that he needed to get home to "his" family, and he and Lance could walk to the nearest station and try to get a taxi. Thank goodness Adam had a flashlight because it very dark with no electricity at this point. They got to a station, and Adam heard a voice saying "Yokohama" in English. He went to the guy who was from the UK and found out he was going near our neighborhood, so the guy let Lance and Adam take the taxi with him and his Japanese companion. These two had been waiting in line for a taxi for 3 hours, and when Adam found them, it was their turn next! They were very crowded for 3 hours in the taxi, but Adam finally made it home shortly after 10pm. Around 6pm Dee Dee and I went back to our homes to get candles going, and put food in freezer. I was not able to check in with Adam again until about 9pm. Hannah and I put pillows on the floor in front of the staircase by the front door, and wrapped up in blankets. We watched Shrek on our portable dvd player that I happened to have charged up the day before. We ate fruit for dinner, and stayed calm. Our friends came by around 9:15pm to check on us and helped lift the heavy screen off the couch. We were very cold and tired, so we went to bed right after that. I took things off the wall above the bed, and left the standup mirror on the floor. It was so good to have Adam back home...if it was our time to die, I at least wanted us all three to be together.

Plum Blossoms

We went to Sankien Gardens to view the Plum Blossoms. Their blooms mean that Spring has started in Japan, however today it snowed! There is a fruit called Ume that comes off this tree. The Ume is processed and put inside a triangle of sticky rice and wrapped in seaweed, and it is called Umeboshi. Leslie and I both tried one right before she left Japan, and we both liked it's sweetness. Hannah Lee was obsessed with putting little stones in each bamboo fence stick. It seemed like a good meditation to me, since it took her at least 30 minutes to do it. We finally got her to walk up to the 3 storied Pagoda, where she created Kairns (mounds of rocks).
There was a special music performance happening this day to celebrate the plum blossoms.