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I'm getting caught up on stuff in real life! Though this past Sunday, spent with danaeris, was wonderful enough to almost seem like something outside that description. Thanks for coming to visit sweetie; your company was, as always, a complete delight. *kisses*

On Saturday, I drove out to my aunt and uncle's/grandmother and grandfather's place to have dinner with the extended family. I showed grandpa some pictures from New Orleans, but it was busy enough and full enough of people there that we didn't look at many of them. So, I'm going to be going out there on Sunday with my portable hard drive and projector to look at more of them! <photography geek>So who wants to see my slides!?</photography geek>

And prior to dinner, I met up with moiracoon at Tinseltown in Kenosha to see Tangled. A retelling of Rapunzel on the big screen; it was mandatory! It was a cute, sweet movie and was worthwhile, even though I have quibbles about the ending. Without spoiling anything, it could have been a lot more powerful, but it had to end the way it did because of that big name starting with 'D' that was responsible for it. Many thanks to the ever-thoughtful Moiracoon for taking me to see it.

On Friday (yes, I'm working backwards; I'm not quite sure how that happened), Moira and I drove out to the Madison area for a wedding of friends of ours, moryssa and wolfbrotherjoe. It was a touching ceremony and event at a very nice place, with a wonderful group of people. Thanks so much for inviting us you two, and please accept my heartfelt congratulations and wishes for a happy future together!

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So, this weekend will be another long one, assuming my manager gets around to approving my time off request. I'll be driving up to Kenosha on Thursday after my Japanese class and I have an appointment at UW-Parkside to talk to an admissions counselor on Friday. I'm also going to use that time to open a new bank account somewhere halfway local. I've been meaning to do that for some time anyway, and now that my old bank was closed by the FDIC, I have the excuse of looking for another account that gives me nice perks.

Saturday I'll be over at posicat's place playing with blocks building things in Minecraft and probably doing other stuff; who knows what. And on Sunday I'm having breakfast with Super-mechanic Juan and then leaving Percy the Swift in his capable hands as my mother and I and possibly other folks go off to visit my grandparents for picture-time.

But for now, I'm working hard at getting caught up in my Japanese work book before class. Speaking of which, I'm going to make another post with a usage question that's coming up tonight since my readership includes at least two people who actually have experience with Japanese! It's so cool having friends who know things!

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Random posts of mine from Facebook today:

From the 11th of November through today, the 29th (19 days inclusive), I've been home a total of 2 full days and four partial days, with one short visit to pick up stuff on another day. I've been away for twelve full days. And I actually really enjoyed the travel.

A few weeks ago, I put my sunglasses into a pocket in my coat that I didn't know existed. I promptly forgot it existed and regretted the lack of them while down south and worried that they might be lost. As it turns out, they'd been in my car. Of course, I didn't know that until today when I noticed an odd lump in my coat that I had to investigate.

A Japanese usage question

I'm working through a section on asking and answering questions about where things are. A few examples, put next to each other, confuse me a little bit. mikazo and cranberrynomiko, since you've been kind enough to offer input before, I'd be very grateful for your comments if you have some time.

(I should have mentioned samiitiger in this post too since she knows some にほんご too. I was pretty tired last night. Sorry!)

ちゅうしゃじょう　は　どこ　に　あります　か。
chūshajō wa doko ni arimasu ka.
parking lot (subject) where (location) to be/exist[inanimate object] (question marker)
Where's the parking lot?

スミスーさん　は　どこ　に　います　か。
sumisu-san wa doko ni imasu ka.
Mr. Smith (subject) where (location) to be/exist[animate object] (question marker)
Where's Mr. Smith?

ビール　は　どこ　です　か。
bīru wa doko desu ka.
beer (subject) where to be/exist (question marker)
Where's the beer?

What puzzles me about those is the difference between [noun] wa 'doko ni arimasu/imasu' and [noun] wa 'desu'. I'm not quite sure why some sentences get the more complex construction with the location marker 'ni' and the imasu/arimasu verbs, and other sentences get the basic 'desu' verb with no location marker. Is one just less formal? I thought maybe it was the difference between talking about people versus talking about things, but as above, there are examples of both forms when talking about things.

Still having so much fun with this, even if I am worried about being behind after missing two classes.