Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

Some really big events are coming up.  Like Anathema’s wedding, my concert, Liz’s concert – I haven’t said too much about it but we’re practicing.  She trusts me, so she’s doing most of the practicing on her own, and we just get together once a week or so to make sure we’re still in sync, for now anyway.  And Beth has a recital coming up too at some point.

Yuki, Haruka, and Suzuka were practicing their little butts off today (and they’re Japanese women so they are little butts) and other than Yuki going off to a couple of classes at the college that’s all they spent their time doing.  They work so hard!  I’m almost embarrassed at how hard they work, I work hard but not near that hard.  For dinner we took them for some real Texas style barbecue.  Now they want to move here.

I told them they’re probably better off in Japan, but our barbecue here is good.  Sabby told them to spend some time with us tonight and don’t practice after dinner, and they kind of begrudgingly did so.  We taught them how to play some card games they didn’t know how to play, and we all had lots of fun.

David is, of course, a bit besotted, but I said that he has a girlfriend, they’re like ten years older than he is, and to leave them alone.  He said he likes his girlfriend but she’s not as pretty as they are.  I told him, number one, to wait a few years, she’s still eleven, and number two, to never say that in the presence of a woman again.  To hammer the point home, I got a newspaper, made a slapstick Chika-style, and then whapped him across the head repeatedly with it.

Sabby just smirked.  Then she asked me for the slapstick.

David looked like a deer in the headlights…

She whapped him a couple of times, hefted it, said “I’ll save that for later”, and smirked at him.

He gulped.

A slapstick is just folded paper bound at one side by tape.  It doesn’t cause damage and doesn’t even hurt that much, but it gets the message across.

Suzuka and Haruka both looked shocked.  “I’ve.. never seen anyone actually use a slapstick before!”, Suzuka said, amazed.

I just laughed.  “I got some good ideas from anime”.

We all giggled.  Except David.

I just told David he’s lucky none of us actively dislike his girlfriend, because we woulda told her.

David asked “but… don’t women like to be told they’re pretty?” after the anime style bump on his head receded and the magically appearing bandages fell off.  (well, not really)

“Yeah,” I said, “But when you have a girlfriend, we care more about being in solidarity with her than getting compliments.”  I looked solemn.  “Remember this pain well.”

He just sighed, said something about anime creating a monster, and went to play games with his friends.

Anyway, other than all that, it was a pretty quiet day.  Suzuka and Haruka seem to be having a good time here.  To hear them tell it, they have a lot of work to do, the futons are soft and warm, the food is good, and the air smells really nice in the morning.  Maybe it’s a Japanese thing, but they seem content.

Love you all!!! ❤️