My girlfriend, Ms. Britt, also nicknamed Binti or Binters or Bti in some circles (not sure how to pronounce that last one) has been visiting me in Japan for about a week and a half now. As a result, I have not done any blogging. Somehow, when I get home, me sitting down for an hour to post pics or type just doesn’t seem appealing when the girlfriend I haven’t seen in 10 months is sitting nearby.

However! She’s putzing around my apartment or the town while I’m at work, and also updating her own little blog she started right here on the Intarweb! You can look at it and see more pictures or strange little adventures. The photos are rather good, if I may say so.

She’s here another two and a half weeks, lucky for me, so until then if you are curious about what’s going on, you can check out Observed by Binti at observedbybinti.blogspot.com

Now I must mentally restrain myself from itching my lovely new mosquito bites that came from mosquitos about the size of your smallest pinky bone. Which is still far too large for a mosquito to be.

Current bite count: 16. Up to 4 of them might be spider bites cuz they are enormous and red and splotchy. One of them kind of looks like Satan if he was a skin blemish.

Britt posts about flowers. I post about bugs. Despite such powerful evidence, I am a gender egalitarian.

This is a letter I found myself having written to my girlfriend and parents back home. Britt’s coming to visit in mere days, and one of my teachers became aware of this fact. I thought it an amusing enough letter to post here. Unfortunately, its only vaguely (or not at all) related to Adventure. But neither is cookie-spinach salad.

Today I ate a frozen pizza that I poured extra-butter popcorn over. A burrito would straighten out my sense of taste, I think. Anyway, the e-mail:

——————–

Hey guys!

I just got a call from my teacher, Fukushima-sensei. You know, the guy who enjoys Centrum-brand vitamin supplements. He had a sad story for me.

Well, I guess way back when he lived in Atlanta, he bought a coffee maker with his wife. They loved that coffee maker to bits, and brought it back to Japan with them, along with many years worth of basket-style coffee filters.

One day recently, they noticed they were finally running low on coffee filters. They realized with panic that in Japan, people don’t drink nearly so much coffee, so their coffee filters are only big enough to hold a SCROTAL SAC’S WORTH OF COFFEE (this is my size comparison, not his). The Fukushimas, having americanized somewhat and desperate for obese amounts of coffee, are in dire straights.

If they don’t get more basket-style coffee filters, they will have to resort to eating babies for their caffeine fix. This will result in the consumption of many, many babies, as babies are a poor source of caffeine.

WE CAN AVERT THIS DISASTER BY WORKING TOGETHER! Parents locate the filters (which we hope are standard sized… 3 inches or so for base?), Britt removes from box and flattens them into her luggage if there is room, Arius delivers it unto this unfortunate couple.

Now, he wanted a few hundred filters. I don’t know what kind of luggage capacity you have there, Britt, but please don’t feel the need to exclude your favorite pair of shoes to make room. Squeeze any in that you can, if you can. (I read an article that girls like shoes.)

Thanks for your help, guys!

I’m looking forward to your visit with inordinate delight, Britt!

And I’m looking forward to coming home in 2 months, to the land of the free, and the home of the cave!

Myliu!
-Arius