Hyatt Regency (Main Wing) Saipan

... it had a preponderance of road. In the rain. With mud. And did I say rain?<br><br>Fortunately, the On Home was in a covered picnic area. We had hot dogs in addition to the usual snacks and beer. It was also Esther's shoe down-down. See the end of my last trip for an explanation of that.<br><br>After, I got dropped off at the Bank of Guam where Suka picked me up. I was very wet.<br>

... in the area of the dinner with the restaurant as the final stop.<br><br>So The Instigator comes in late, three sheets (that's six bars) to the wind, screams Esther's Hash name across the room, says that everyone who didn't do the Dark Side Hash should **** themselves, and orders a Miller Lite. Despite my variation in wording, none of this was done in anything short of a very loud voice. And while Ester's Hash name can be spoken on American TV, it ...

... were quite a few bees (not of the aggressive boonie bee variety, thankfully) and dragonflies. It was also the day for insect sex, apparently. We personally witnessed the mating of bees, dragonflies and butterflies. Suka was particularly fascinated that they did it in mid-air.<br><br>By the time we got to the end of the road and onto the Point, we were both getting hungry and the water was running low. We explored the area a bit, but decided not to hike back by the ...

... they don't have them in Saipan), I taught Suka that fine piece of apparently distinctly Western culture. You know, the motion of sticking your tongue out between your lips and blowing air around making lovely flatulent sounds? I started doing it to relieve my frustration every time we passed the Saipan USCIS office. She tried to immitate me and is still working at it. Apparently, she has never been exposed to that before. Hers isn't quite wet enough and comes out more ...

Since we're not certain when the Green Card will come through, we decided to proceed with renewing Suka's Immediate Relative status. It's important to do it while I'm on island as they've been giving people a hard time whose spouses aren't. That's the last thing we need is to have her deported from the CNMI while I'm in Boston. We filled out the form, which she had gotten ...

I had breakfast and worked at Coffee Care while Suka went to church nearby. I joined the church group for lunch afterward. We spent the rest of Sunday prepping for the interview and just lounging around and sleeping. Monday morning we organized our documents. We went to Global to copy and print some things. The interviewer was late. We ...

... night, I left the car and keys with Suka. When she was done with work, she came over to Wild Bill's, also. It turns out that two of the waitresses are also DFS employees. One was Chinese with an American husband. Now the waitresses started buying shots, but these weren't fine sipping tequila. They taught Suka how to do the whole salt, lime, tequila shot thing. Yes, these were the harsh tequila shots you might have envisioned ...

... out times. The 7:00 movie fit our schedule nicely if we ate a quick meal at home. We dropped off the gear at Mr. Lee's and used their dunk tanks to rinse my gear. After showering and a quick meal (more pork spare ribs getting increasingly tasty with age and more cooking), we went to see "Defiance." Very good movie. Well acted. Well composed. A different facet of the Jewish experience in WWII.

... some food in the refrigerator. We got up at 1:30 a.m. I needed to be at the airport at 3:15 for a 5:15 flight. It was really hard to leave. Four weeks seems like such a short time to spend together. They upgraded me at the gate, which was a surprise. The gate agent, himself not used to upgrading people, explained to me that they've been instructed to fill as many first class seats with Elite customers as they can now. I was appropriately thankful.

... They weren't too bad, and I negotiated them with only a minor thump on one of them. The first dive was pretty uneventful by design. It was Suka's first time diving in a year and a half. We followed the old pipeline out and back. We saw some interesting fish, sea cucumber, sea urchin, several crabs in cool shells and a clam. Suka did well. She really has a good feel for diving and a good understanding of the mechanics of ...