I'm such a dork sometimes. I guess it makes it better that I realize this.

Today while my husband was out of town for business, I went out to the local Japanese restaurant for some lunch. Not only have I now been upgraded to larger glasses of plum wine then standard, but there was a group of three Japanese girls there today. I'd say they were around my age, maybe a little younger. They were speaking in their native language the whole time, looking through one of the Japanese magazines the place keeps for customers to look through. At one point they found a page with a very cute hairstyle on it and one of the girls liked it so much she asked the host if she could have that page. He ended up cutting the page out for her and after he gave it to her, I smiled over towards them and said, "Kawaii!" And then looked at me with bright smiles of their own, nodding and saying, "Kawaii! Kawaii!"

Kawaii, of course, means cute. And it was indeed a very cute hairstyle. I know it was a dorky thing to do, but it made me smile nonetheless. It makes me wish I knew more then a scattering of words, but learning a language seems like such a daunting thing.

And I will say this - if you think all those cute little Japanese character culture things are just a sort of export item for really young girls, you're wrong. One of the three pulled out a bright pink plastic wallet that had all sorts little puppies on it. I prefer my Mr. Sushi Rice riceball coin case, but to each her own.