It's just across the board

Sorry no fun pictures. We're under a typhoon warning until Saturday, it's been rainy and windy and we've been hiding out in our hotel room. A typhoon is kind of like a hurricane, I guess. I have no reference point for bad weather caused by the sea. I know the weather is nasty, but its nice to have weather again. San Diego was constantly the same....and it gets really old having the same weather day in and day out no matter how beautiful it might be. I'm the type of person who gets very bored with the same scenery all the time. So, this nasty weather is welcome in my book.

Okay, the good news:

First, I found a foster home for Wylee (a halfway house if you will) with a local military family who lives in base housing. A dog can be in quarantine on US base housing instead of in the kennel. I am so happy! If we had kept Wylee in the kennel at the end of his stay in October, we would have paid $3500. I'm paying this family $1500 to keep him until October. That's just to ensure that they have money to cover his food and to pay them for their time. So, we're saving about 50%.

Second, I joined the Yokosuka Sushi Rollers roller derby team. This is exciting because it lets me be part of a team, learn a new sport, get exercise, and generally enjoy myself. I wanted to join the Derby Dolls in San Diego, but never had the time and was kind of intimidated. The Sushi Rollers are a relatively new team and they seem like they're ready to get their compete on!

Third, John and I completed our first Japanese writing class yesterday. It's amazing how characters I see EVERYWHERE have gone from being so foreign and so alien to actually having meaning. However, we did three intensive days of learning and our brains have hit a wall. In the last class, we both had trouble remembering the characters we had just learned. After each class, we would go back to the hotel and recognize all the characters on the Japanese tv channels...last night we had to implement a "no reading Japanese" rule to give our brains a rest.

Finally, John and I both passed our Japanese driving test! Which means we both have our Japanese licences. Driving on the left hand side of the road takes a lot of getting used to after driving on the right side for over 10 years. The Japanese officials that gave the test were just as intimidating as the American officials I faced when I was 16. I thought then that I would never have to feel this level of nerves again....but I was wrong.

Now the bad news:

John submitted a chit asking permission for our overseas housing allowance (oha) to start. He also asked for advanced oha in order to pay the $10,500 move-in costs to our new home. Now these two items are not abnormal. Everyone (EVERYONE) who plans to live out in town (not on the base) asks for these items.

In the US, your housing allowance starts automatically, you don't have to ask for it to begin. You also get a cap amount (in San Diego, we got $2,100 a month for housing) and if you find a cheaper place than your cap, good for you! You get to keep the extra! However, overseas, you only get the amount of your rent. So, our cap is 210,000 yen but if our rent was 189,000 yen, we'd only get 189,000 yen and we can't pocket the rest.

So, anyway, the differences are frustrating. Not only that, John's request for the $10,500 move in costs got kicked back....why? Because he hadn't completed financial counseling....why does he need financial counseling? Because by submitting the request for the $10,500 you admit that you do not have $10,500 and the Navy has flagged this as a problem. To be clear, the Navy is saying that by asking for their entitlement of move in costs, you admit you can not save money properly..........

No one I know (my age anyway) has $10,500 saved. Those that do have it saved are not going to use it to move into a rental house. Those that do have it saved would want to be reimbursed anyway....no one in this whole wide world is going to wave good-by to $10,500 in savings without asking for it back. So even if you do have the money, use it, then ask to be reimbursed through the entitlement, you STILL have to go through financial counseling. How backwards.

So, John's going to take care of this (hopefully it only takes a day to get the financial counseling straightened out) and resubmit his requests. The requests to start the housing allowances and get the move-in entitlements take about 30 days to be approved. 30 days. 30 DAYS. They go to a higher up and sit around on his/her desk until they feel like getting to it. In the meantime, hardworking Navy families are living in a hotel. Not cool. Not cool.

So, it looks like we'll be in this hotel until the middle of June. Man, they do not make this easy. In the meantime, I'm going to dream of my big house with the two balconies on the hill. Sigh.