In my defense, you can't do that in the States

I am in Tokyo this week for work. When I checked into the hotel last night, my room was stifling hot, so I asked the hotel employee* who insisted on walking my bag up with me how to turn on the a/c.  She informed me that it's winter and so heat is the only option.  I just stared at her in angry silence. Then she added, "You can open the window if you want."  Dumb-ass was not said but it was certainly implied.  This is the second time that this has happened to me - the first time was in Geneva.  I always try to laugh it off, hahaha, in America we can't open hotel windows, but the hotel employees always seem not to be buying it. 

* The employee spoke excellent English. I asked her where she'd learned it.  She said North Carolina. When asked what she thought about it, she paused and said, "It's very green." Word. 

Dignity

So I was taking La Principessa and our dog Che for a walk today. Of course, we brought one of her beloved Wubanubs with us*, and of course, she decided to toss it out of her stroller at a time where the stroller wheel would then roll over it. It was right before we were going to cross the street, so I stopped short to pick up the Wubanub.  As always, ** I sucked on it to clean it off, except this time, I puckered up. The stroller wheel had picked up salt from the streets and imparted it to the pacifier.  Even I didn't like the idea of La Principessa imbibing that so I licked the pacifier thoroughly clean before getting ready to move on. It was then that I looked up and saw that there had been a car waiting for us to cross the street and its driver had sat there and watched the whole thing, no doubt stunned by the klassiness of it all.

* Have I ranted here before about sensational Wubanubs are?  My god.  Changed our lives.  They're soothie pacifiers attached to stuffed animals, which means that they are easier for the kiddos to hold onto and hard to lose.  We bought one on a whim and then immediately bought two more so we'd always have one close in hand.

** I always think of a woman I met at a BBQ when La Principessa was maybe seven months old. This woman was a few months pregnant and asked me a lot of questions about having a baby. The one thing that completely grossed her out was how I told her that we just pick up the baby's pacifiers and suck them clean instead of washing them. She was worried about getting germs. HAHAHAHA boy I think of her often and hope that her awakening wasn't too rude.