Halloween!

Michelle of Rambling Woods posted a terrific explanation on the origins of Halloween. Stop by and check it out. The National Geographic video really does a great job of giving you the history of the holiday.

I always had the hardest time picking a costume for Halloween. More often than not, I was a witch... a nice witch, a pink haired witch, a warty witch, a plain ol' witch.

Other teachers were a lot more creative than I was.

The kids took Halloween very seriously but I always reminded them to brush their teeth and not eat too much of their candies at one time. I wonder just how many heeded my warnings.

I hope the four bags of candy I bought for tomorrow is enough. How many bags did you buy?

Just One of Those Days

Ever have one of those days when things are just not centered right? Everything just seems a bit awry? That was my Thursday. First, I got a message that one of my friends lost her mother. She'd passed away peacefully in her sleep. My heart ached for her.

Then I opened a package that came yesterday from the window company to replace some broken parts. I discovered the new parts had been broken during shipping. I e-mailed the company and they wrote right back to say they would ship it again.


I looked out my windows and the vog was so heavy that I couldn't see the Waianae or Koolau mountain ranges that I can usually see very clearly. All around Oahu, the heavy volcanic haze seemed to smother my mood. The hot, muggy air was stifling.

We were out shopping and Art jokingly said "Looks like your brother ditched you for the weekend exercising, hunh?" I would normally laugh this off but it bothered me. Poor Art... that made him feel bad.

I told Art I was just feeling really strange. Not happy. Not upset. Just weird. Low. Hot... sweaty... Yucky...

There were happy things that happened too. I went to see my nurse practitioner at Tripler Army Hospital who gave me the results to my blood tests that showed good improvement in my glucose and cholesterol levels. Kathy is such a smart, caring, thorough health care provider and she even surprised me with a warm hug before I left.

I was exhausted this afternoon. Then I came down with really painful bloating and stomach cramps during dinner. Nuts! Diarrhea. Double nuts! But I felt a bit better just in time for...

Line dancing! My childhood friend, Diane gave me a ride and she had a surprise gift for me. Her husband had made a video for us. Joanne, my other high school buddy had a pomelo for Art to eat. (I can't eat it because it's in the grapefruit family and will interact with my medication.) Presents are always such spirit lifters.

So... all in all... The day is ending on a happy note. Well... I do have this nagging headache starting however.

Hmmm... are those the cool trade winds returning that I'm feeling coming from my windows? Could it be true?

Ahhhh... tomorrow is another day...

Feelies and Young Kids?

Art and my mom have lovely, easy conversations. However, I know that each understands about 75% of what the other says. Still, that missing 25% can be crucial. The problem is that my mother mixes Japanese in with her pidgin English and Art will occasionally use English word combinations that she doesn't understand.

Last night, I heard mom tell Art, "I just saw on TV it's Feelies."

"What?" said Art. I saw him shake his head in puzzlement.

"Feelies and Young Kids, yeah?" explained Mom helpfully.

"Young Kids?" I could see Art struggling through all the things this could be about.

Finally I had to step in while I could still talk. I could hardly stop laughing. "She means the Phillies and Yankees. It's something she saw in the Japanese news."

"Yes," she said, "The World Cereals."

Wahiawa Botanical Garden Walk

I saw an article in Sunday's Honolulu Advertiser about the Wahiawa Botanical Gardens which is pretty close to our home. Mom thought my aunt and uncle would like to go and check it out and our neighbors were also game so we decided to go together today. I called ahead and was told that we should bring umbrellas and bug spray. We went out last night and bought some for the occasion.


When we got there we were relieved to see clear blue skies so we left our umbrellas behind. We also figured we didn't need the bug spray so we left that in the car.


The place was being decorated for Halloween but mom saw something that she didn't like right away!


"That's my grandson's name," she moaned. It gave her the willies.


The gardens were very beautiful. They had spent quite a bit of resource to really renovate the garden paths to make it accessible to everyone. We saw orchid plants clinging to huge branches.


There were a lot of plants I'd not seen before.


Everyone on this trip enjoys gardens and loved discovering all the strange and wonderful plants we saw.


And that's when we realized our mistake. We should have used the bug spray. The mosquitoes followed us like a blood sucking cloud. Then my uncle drew my attention to the handrail which I thankfully was not holding. It was teeming with a giant trail of GIANT ants. Yuuuuck!


Art found the gorgeous blossom on this candle tree interesting since the flower came right out of the big trunk instead of the branches.


There was no way I was going to sit down because that's what the mosquitoes wanted me to do. A sitting target!


The gardener told me this was a relative of the shrimp plant.


Art said there was more to see in another area but I think everybody had enough. As beautiful as it was, ants and mosquitoes are no fun!


We stopped by at Makino Chaya to pick up the $5.50 box lunch I ordered the night before. Our neighbors, aunt and uncle could not believe what we got. It was an extremely generous serving and the variety of food was fabulous. What a terrific way to end the outing!

IAEF, RTFM!

Tif and Ed gave me this very light and small camera this summer for my birthday and I love it. However, I couldn't figure out how to do the macro very well and I had to ask Art for help to figure out how to delete photos. I had a bit of time today so I started reading the manual that came with it. By golly! There's all kinds of information there!

This reminds me of that acronym IAEF,RTFM! When Art had just left the Air Force many years ago where he worked on satellite systems, he told me the officers used that acronym constantly and it meant, "If All Else Fails, Read The F(expletive deleted) Manual." When he worked with computers at EPA he says he was forever asking people who came to him if they had read the manual. My son-in-law complains of the same thing.

Well... I'd been getting along just fine pointing and shooting, but I see that if I'd read the manual before, there is a whole lot more I could learn on how to operate it. I guess I'll spend the next few days reading it. Who knows, maybe I'll learn something else.

HOT car!!!

One thing we've noticed about the Prius is that it's got a big dashboard surface that heats up and then radiates to the rest of the car. I can actually feel the heat even with the air conditioning on unless I put the fan on full blast. This is Hawaii. It's hot over here. We always use a wind shield shade to keep out as much of the sun as we can when it's in a parking lot. It really helps! I'm surprised everybody in Hawaii doesn't have a shade for their car.

I'm seeing a few people putting a little rug like cover on their dashboards. I wonder if this helps. Do you suppose the rug thing will absorb the heat and not radiate it? We're trying to drive as ecologically as we can without using the air conditioning full blast but this Hawaiian heat is terrible.

This week, it's also extremely, horribly humid AGAIN! Arrrrghhhhhh!

Ready for Halloween But Not H1N1

My daughter, Tiffany called to tell me about her miserable day yesterday. And it was miserable.

Our little village in Illinois really has terrific programs, not to mention that incredible library system I mentioned. They were also offering H1N1 flu shots free to young children. We always got our flu shots free there. Tiffany could hardly wait to take KC to get the shot. She'd been waiting a month but then the night before, KC came down with a case of hives.

I'm very sorry to admit she's inherited that from me. I used to get it for no identifiable reason. I attributed it to stress. If my resistance was down and I got upset, I got hives. It was sort of an early warning system. I get hives, I go to sleep, no more hives. If I didn't relax myself right away, I could end up in the emergency room. I didn't know about Benedryl then. Did they even have Benedryl?

Yesterday, Tif brought KC for her H1N1 vaccination and mentioned how she'd gotten hives the night before. They said she should call her doctor to see if it was OK for KC to get the vaccination. She called the Chicago office and they said to bring KC in. She did.

When they trekked into the doctor's office full of coughing, sick children nobody admitted to telling her to come in for a case of hives that was already gone. The doctor looked at her and sent her home.

This all cost Tif over a hundred dollars for the quick visit (lousy health insurance... but that would be another rant), lots of gas and NO H1N1 flu vaccination.

Not a good Friday for them...

Ah well, at least my little monkey is ready for Halloween!

But my all time favorite so far was not really a costume but a snow suit that her doting Uncle Jonny sent her. She reminded me of a little Eewok.

Nameless No More

My grand-dog has finally earned a name and a fine name it is even though it made me think of Mongo (fictional planet in the old Flash Gordon series) or mungo beans or mango. But that's OK. Mungo is a fine name. Here's what my son, Jon e-mailed me from New Mexico:

"The dog now has a proper name.

It's a name that I'd thought of a long time ago, but it didn't seem like a good fit for this dog. It's Mungo, after the Scottish explorer/traveler Mungo Park. I've always wanted a dog that I could name Mungo. Mungo Park was the first westerner to see the Niger River. What sealed the deal: according to Sarah's dictionary, Mungo means "reclaimed wool of poor quality." That seems very appropriate for this stray who was picked up on a reservation. He used to be so timid that it seemed ridiculous to name him after an explorer. He is not timid anymore and is mostly happy and energetic although he has been having a lot of accidents.

The gate idea initially worked. Yesterday, not so much. While we were gone, he knocked down the gate and pooped ALL over the dining room. I mean all over it. I'm not sure why he moved around so much while he was doing it, but I guess he likes to spread it around. I used a ton of carpet cleaner and half a roll of paper towels cleaning it up. We should have just kept Topcat."

I see that my grand-dog has a lot of learning to do. I'll have to tell Jon and Sarah to check out Dez's blog, Glass Half Empty-Taking It One Step at a Time. Her puppy, Piper is a handful, too.

Hmmmm.... this is interesting. My granddaughter and grand-dog are being toilet trained at the same time! Maybe they should put pull-ups on Mungo, too.

Honoka'a Boy, 2nd Screening

OK, we're back.

First of all, would cellphone users PLEASE turn off your phones in a theater! Good grief! And worse, would you please not answer and talk! Sheesh!

OK, now that I've got that off my chest...


When the movie started out and people were laughing at all the cute scenes I found I was actually enjoying the film and could go with the flow. Maybe I'd desensitized myself from feeling angry at the depiction of Bea. (Art has echoed my observations.) I was surprised that I picked up quite a few things that I missed at our first viewing on our home TV. Hmmm... maybe I need a bigger screen TV?


My mother says she thought the scenery in the film was very beautiful and fun to see. We could all see why there is a sudden influx of Japanese tourists to Honoka'a. There were also some gently humorous scenes that we could appreciate.

However, my mother says they certainly changed what was in the book when they put it on the screen. She also said Bea's character was definitely altered from the book. Another website said the movie was loosely based on the book. So there you have it. Loosely...

We spent the ride home critiquing the inadequate script writing, the bad editing, etc. but then again, a lot of people seemed to be enjoying the movie and there was applause at the end. And to cap it all, my mother says she enjoyed the movie. Now I know how Siskel and Ebert (Chicago movie critics) must have felt.

Honoka'a Boy, the Movie

We're going to see the movie, Honoka'a Boy today at the Hawaii Film Festival. We've actually already seen the video because our wonderful Tokyo friend mailed it to us knowing we were waiting to see it. Would you believe the day before the DVD arrived, we bought non refundable tickets on line to see the movie at the (HFF) Hawaii Film Festival?

My mother had already read and translated the Japanese language book for us chapter by chapter. She told us how the book emphasized the beauty and loving community of Honoka'a, Art's hometown.

The two central characters (based on real life experiences) are Leo, a Japanese student who goes to Honoka'a to recover from a bruised heart and Bea (a kind, older lady) who takes pity on him. The whole book focuses on the beauty of this small country town and is a journal of the epicurean delights Bea prepared for him.

Art and I couldn't wait to watch the film in the theater. We plunked ourselves down and watched the DVD figuring if we read the subtitles ahead of time we could just enjoy the beauty of the movie at the large screen theater.

What a surprise! A shock?

The movie moves very slowly. Perhaps the director wanted to show the slow moving pace of a Hawaiian country town. They infer that Honoka'a is known for moonbows. Hunh? Since when? An amazing array of characters speak fluent Japanese. OK... this is a Japanese movie, I understand that. But puhleeease.

But the worst insult for us is the way Bea is portrayed. They incorrectly spelled her name Bee in the subtitles. Bea is the mother of Art's childhood classmate and good friend. We felt she was pictured as a rather foolish, eccentric lady attracted to this young student. We sat through the movie upset at what the director had done and what Leo (the author) had allowed. Bea had been kind and generous to him during his stay in Honoka'a and this is how she has been repaid.

A few other people have seen the movie and felt it was touching and beautiful. Perhaps the problem in all this is that Art knew the real Bea and is extra sensitive to her legacy. Perhaps I am just reacting to his feeling of dismay. I don't know. I'll be interested to hear what my mother thinks when we take her to see the movie today.

hulu.com

Does everybody already know about hulu.com? My nephew and his wife recommended that website to me when I complained about missing some of my favorite shows. I love it! I know there's been ads for it on TV but until Barry told me about it I didn't try it out.

I don't mind not having cable anymore. If I miss House or Grey's Anatomy or Heroes I just catch up on hulu.com. And another thing, they don't have many commercials either. I can even see Jon Stewart's Daily Show. This is too, too wonderful! Oh... the best part... it's FREE! Woo hoo! I'm so into FREE!

Can You Really Cut 17 Days Out of a School Year?

Hawaii is presently suffering from recession woes and just not having enough money in the state budget to pay for everything it needs to. They are proposing cutting 17 days in the school year. Wow! That's a lot! We have 176 days in our Illinois school year. Hawaii plans to have 163. The school system here is already struggling with many schools not meeting the standards. What will this do?

I taught in a rather well funded school district in Illinois but we were having to cut many fine arts programs because of increasingly tight budget constraints. In the 19 years I taught there, the number of school days children were in session was never touched because of state law. Therefore it feels like the earth is shaking to think they are robbing not just a few days out of a child's school life but well over 2 weeks! The super bright kids will survive this but for those children who we even provided free after school tutoring, this is crushing.

You may think Hawaii is paradise but the weather is steamy right now and lots of people are hot under the collar.

P.S. I just noticed in the comments that you've mentioned cutting sports. Interestingly, Art who is a real sports nut said the same thing. He feels at times like these, sports should go before anything else. I'm not saying to cut the Physical Education program. That is important for every child's health. Just leave out sports for a while until we're back on our feet.

Techies: Nature or Nurture?

Tif posted this photo on Flickr for us to see. We thought it was interesting to see our son-in-law busy with his work and KC deciding she would copy what dad is always so busy doing.

I have no doubts that our little granddaughter will one day be quite comfortable with her computer... a real one that is.


Then again, she might be an architect... or carpenter.

Gigi's Blogger Bash

Gigi-Hawaii threw a glorious Blogger party for us today and we had a wonderful time. I knew from her blog what an amazing cook she is and she showed us again what a fabulous host and hostess she and David are.

Having been to Gigi and David's place before we knew what an interesting, gracious and beautiful couple they were. I loved meeting Cloudia for the first time. Gosh! She is just as spiritual, kind and warm a person as she is on-line. Oops! You can only see her back here.

It was an interesting experience because all I knew everybody had in common was that we all blogged. The only blogger I actually shared comment conversations with was Cloudia and of course, Gigi. Quilly and Amoeba had car trouble and and to our disappointment could not make it to the party. I'd met Quilly on-line also and was looking forward to meeting her.


As you can see, Gigi did it again! Gorgeous place settings with delicious epicurean delights. Every bite was ono! (Hawaiian for delicious)


I have no idea how Gigi knew that Ted's chocolate pie is my favorite Hawaiian pie. This is Art's plate. He also had the passion fruit chiffon cake which everybody loved. I always reserve whatever room I have in my tummy for chocolate.


Thank you for this wonderful get together, Gigi! This was certainly a party to remember with fondness and delight.



THE BLOGGERS:
GIGI: http://gigihawaii.wordpress.com/
IAN: http://ilind.net/
CLOUDIA: http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/
BURL: http://www.honoluluagonizer.com/
KAY: Musings
ART: Art the Marathonmaniac
Our missing bloggers:
QUILLY: http://quilldancer.com/
AMOEBA: http://ocquill.wordpress.com/

Birthday Buffet for Mom!

Mom's 80th birthday is actually next week but we celebrated it today because my brother's family was all available at this one place for this one day. It made it all that much more special for my mother.


We didn't realize there was parking across the street from the Makino Chaya at Aloha Tower so we had a bit of walking to do in the hot sun.

It was quite pleasant as we looked over the barrier and saw a whole school of beautiful fishes. I think we saw a puffer fish, yellow tang, some striped fish and maybe a humuhumunukunukuapua'a. (I totally forgot that humuhumu was our state fish. Sheesh! I saw a couple of fishes that looked just like it but didn't get a good photo of it.)

The cool courtyard of the Aloha Tower had several statues of hula dancers which I liked.

Mom enjoyed the cool, Hawaiian ambiance of the restaurant. We thought their buffet offerings were even better than their other restaurant in Aiea.

I now know where I got my sweet tooth from. Mom loves their chocolate fountain and fruit-ice cream crepes. It was great to be together. I specifically asked that we all sit together. I guess they thought splitting us into two groups so long as we were next to each other meant the same thing. Ah well...


Since this was one of those rare times that my brother's family could all get together, we took a lot of photos. We did the same thing when my kids were able to come to Hawaii this summer to celebrate my birthday.

Do we all look rather bloated from the buffet? Art did his best to make up the 1,500 calories he burned this morning when he did his 15 miles run.

Mom was very happy to have this wonderful day together... along with the chocolate fountain!

Thoughts at Sunset

This was the view outside my window this evening. My hand was a little shaky so the photo is a little blurry. I got word today that my aerobics teacher who I loved after just my one lesson has pancreatic cancer. She's the same age as my mother and in top health. Lessons were cancelled after that one class until further notice. I'm hoping she'll beat this terrible disease.

Life is so uncertain.

I'm sitting here without pain, with my husband in the other room, with my mother downstairs, with my children happy in their own lives. In a wink, things can be taken away. I think I'll go be with my husband right now.

Good night, everybody.

Mom Meets Mayor Mufi

To be perfectly correct Mufi Hannemann was not mayor of Honolulu yet. This photo was taken at the Waipahu Open (Farmers) Market in 2004 when he was still campaigning for the mayoral office.

It was really rather funny because I happened to have my camera and I asked Mr. Hannemann if he wouldn't mind having his photo taken with my mom. He was really nice about it even though I couldn't vote in Hawaii in 2004 since we were not yet residents. And no I didn't vote for Rod Blagojevich in Illinois! Uh oh... I'm going off on a tangent here.

Anyway, it wasn't until I uploaded my photos onto my computer that I truly realized just how tall 6'7" Mr. Hannemann was compared to my 4'10" mom. My mom got quite a kick out of the photo. I wonder if she voted for him.

I Have a Grand-dog!

My son, Jon and his partner, Sarah have adopted a dog in New Mexico. My grand-dog does not have a name yet. Jon and Sarah say he must earn his name. I suggested Dubh after discovering it meant black in Gaelic. Sarah is of Irish descent so I thought that would be fun. Or it could be Kurochan. Kuro is black in Japanese. The "chan" ending is usually given to a child.

I forgot my grand-dog was a boy dog in my excitement and suggested Mollie to represent where Jon and Sarah met. They met in West Africa's Mali.

I have the hardest time naming things. We managed to name Jon after the seagull (Jonathan Livinston Seagull) and Tiffany after the lamp. Art and his family ended up naming their three dogs Finnegan #1, Finnegan #2 and Finnegan #3. Hmmmm... I guess I'd better leave the naming to Jon and Sarah.

Discoverers' Day in Hawaii

I just saw the following on Yahoo news:

..."Some states have long just "observed" the holiday, but leave local government offices open. Others use the date to revere the native population who existed long before the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria sailed in. According to a Wikipedia round-up, South Dakota declares October 12 as Indigenous People's Day. Hawaii celebrates the more general Discoverers' Day, which actually refers to the Aloha State's Polynesian founders (although the bureaucrats firmly emphasize "this day is not and shall not be construed to be a state holiday")...."


I've been watching the news televised from Honolulu and the anchors are still calling today Columbus Day. There are also Columbus Day sales all over the place. Although the article says 22 states don't celebrate the holiday, I wonder if it's really true. It's becoming more public knowledge about the horrible things that Columbus did but I guess it's hard to change the myth.

Somebody asked me if it was really so terrible for children in America to believe in these myths.

Is it?

Kitchen: Before and After

Changing that kitchen door yesterday reminded me of our 2006 house renovation. With construction costs so high, we did a lot of demolition ourselves and tried to help in any way we could to keep costs down. Steve was one of the carpenters who worked on this project with us. Here are some photos of the kitchen part of our renovation.


Those big square holes are where support beams would be anchored to hold up the 2nd floor.


Art and I took down that center island to the left to create a larger kitchen from the kitchen/dining room combination. We replaced the island with a smaller storage cabinet area.


We added a master sink by the windows. We also added a third window to what the architect suggested.


We kept that old sink (but moved it a little) to be a secondary sink for the sous chef (unh huh... That's me).


My cousin, Arnold and son, Jon helped Art install the cabinets. My brother, Dennis came to help with the tile work on the wall and floors.

Choosing the cabinets was one of the hardest choices we had to make but we settled on DeWils.


The only problem we had was with our supplier who just wouldn't get the incorrect pieces replaced. Our contractor finally jumped in and got everything delivered for us. Our contractor was Mike Chun of Aulii Construction.



As you can see, what used to be the dining room became the cooking area of the kitchen. Moving the stove was probably a little disorienting to my mom.


We did go through a lot of agony to change the kitchen but it was worth it and my mother loves it. There's still some detail work left to do but as I said before, it's all Art's retirement project.


I mean.... OUR retirement project.