Fantastic! Meretricious. And a happy new year!

I thought about doing a "year in review" post, but as typically happens after a long vacation, I'm too out of sorts to manage it. Instead, you get a rare roundup of what's been going on in Aka-land. Lucky you.

The greatest ornament

For the first time in two years, I returned to the US for the last two weeks of the year. The guy at customs asked me how long it had been and I honestly couldn't remember (it came to me several minutes later - December 2009!). I'm a citizen okay, just let me in the freaking country DX The flight from Kansai to San Francisco was so empty that I had an entire row of 3 seats to myself, including all the pillows and blankets they had prepared! I made myself a little nest an even managed to sleep a bit on the flight. Then it was a 5 hour layover in California, followed by a long flight to Orlando and they didn't even feed us dinner. US Airways, you are on notice.

No gaudy Winter Veil sweater this year!

I had brought my laptop with the hopes of doing my Greench daily at least, especially after I was reminded of the Lump of Coal pet, but in the end I only did it about 4 times over two weeks and mostly used it to check email and manage the Furtive Father Winter business. And I did get my gifts on Aka on Xmas day, but my other alts will just have to wait till next year! It's been a long time since I played WoW on Lappy, and I must say that my Desky has really spoiled me. I can't believe that I used to raid on a macbook that barely manages more than 5fps in Org!

My dad likes to catch lizards.

It was great to see my parents and brother again; the last time was August 2010 when they toured Tokyo and Kyoto. One of my mom's brothers and his family dropped in from NY and I got to chat with my extremely cool aunt. It was ridiculously, blessedly warm. I forgot how totally oblivious Florida can be when it comes to "winter". I took my brother and little cousin to Universal Studios and IOA on Xmas Eve, and not only was it totally empty, it was hot! They even went swimming! The biggest highlights were hanging with my mom, getting a Kindle (books beware!), and playing my piano for hours every day.

The view from my bff's parents' backyard.

Then it was off to Huntsville, to visit my BFF, her GF, and my future home! Since they also had the week off, we did a ton of cooking, drinking, and gaming. I made them watch the BBC Sherlock season 1 (if you follow me on twitter you probably already know that I'm a big fat fangirl, so uh, sorry. But seriously, watch it!) and we devoured season 1 of The Big Bang Theory. Why did I wait so long to start on that? Bad nerd, bad! Just like old times, we gorged on Vanilla Coke and "break and bake" chocolate chip cookies and played Pokemon. I restarted my Japanese copy of Black, and she gave me a walkthrough so I can have maps. Mapses, my precioussss. We rang in the new year bullshitting a poker game (her GF is actually an incredible player and has won a few tournaments; we on the other hand were far too tipsy and incompetent to play seriously) and enjoying a 7-layer dip.

Creepy Santa

I flew back to Orlando, met my family for lunch during my layover, then went to LA, on to Haneda, and finally back to Kansai. The good news is that I managed to avoid those creepy new scanner machines at all the security points! And, because I requested an aisle seat on the long flight, not expecting anything since the flight was so full, they generously stuck me in the "premium economy" section to remedy overbooking the economy section! You guys, they get real silverware, cloth hand towels, and the toilet sink is motion activated! HOW DID WE EVER LIVE BEFORE LUXURY?!

Happy New Year!

Now I'm back at home and trying to settle into the new year. My WoW resolutions are still undecided - I'd like to work on the Darkmoon Faire dailies so I can get all the cute new pets and mounts, and maybe fill out my tier 0.5 set, which was never finished and has mismatched colors! Other than that, I have a few achievements I'm still chasing on Aka, and I want to continue my questing and storytelling on my mage. There are other alts I'd like to keep working on, namely my Ally priest and goblin hunter, but since my meatspace resolutions consist of: eat, sleep, exercise well, I may have to leave them for extreme downtime. I'd also like to get back into raiding, which means actually showing up on Thursdays and Sundays. Balance is hard work!