wakey

Third early-bird Saturday in a row. Difficult as it is to extricate myself from the bedroom coccoon (especially when I know I don't, under pain of death or unemployment, "have" to be somewhere), I like being active. I wouldn't give up my involvement in community and cultural organizations (and all their early weekend events) for all the snooze buttons in the world.

On sleep ... once vacation kicks in, I'm going to spend some time figuring out how to improve the quality of our zzz's. Can't do anything about the noise - the occasional hooligans who loiter on the backstreet at the choice hour of 3 a.m., or the college students who don't realize how easily their drunken conversations float right up the bedroom-side of the building. (I have a secret crush on the resident who gives each late-night disturbance about four minutes before he screams out his window "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" ... it always gets the job done. Except for the one time the drunken college student answered, "Your mom!") I don't live in a slum or anything, nor in a concrete jungle, but it's definitely not the idyllic valley I grew up in. These things still wake - and keep - me up. As for how we can improve our sleep, I think we can invest in a tempurpedic topper, or somehow improve the feng shui of our limited bedroom furniture (add that to what I'd do with a fraction of a billion dollars: buy a bedroom set).

meme du jour

From Rookie Teacher.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Probably partying away the split second between finals and summer school. 'Twas my second year at UHM. I was still very much hooked on school, so to me, partying was sipping a can of Mountain Dew through a Red Vine straw and listening to Natalie Imbruglia while making a list of titles I wanted from the campus bookstore.

2) Five things on my "TO-DO" list for today?

- Coordinates and mapping game: DMOs of the Great Barrier Reef. One of my favorite math, science and social studies bundles - I'm lovin' it.

- Make the graduation invitation.

- Go to the bank.

- Rush home and hope something arrived from Amazon.

- Go walking with the object of my affection (and body art.)

3) Snacks I enjoy?

PBJs, olive-based spreads, Goldfish crackers.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire?

Pay off my parents' mortgages, pay off my mortgage, buy a house, open a bookstore, stock the local foodbank, establish a School Supplies and Lunch Money Fund for Children Whose Parents Have Skewed Priotities, pay for our wedding and honeymoon, buy a pair of Manolo Blahniks just to see what all the fuss is about, send my dog to boarding school, quit my job and become Anthony Bourdain's roadie.

5) Three of my guilty pleasures?

Eyeshadow, trainwreck blogs, The Hills.

6) Two places I have lived?

Manoa and Makiki.

7) Five jobs I have had before this one?

Ka Leo copy editor, Honolulu Magazine restaurant guide compiler-gopher, part-time PE teacher, long-term FSC pre-school SPED sub, private tutor.

8) Six peeps I wanna know more about?

Tag, sucker. You're it!

because i can can can

Coming soon: Ms. D_C blogs "If You Could Change One Event (or Twelve) from Your Past ..."

I don't normally indulge in regretful writing, but this is actually more of a fun fantasy kind of thing, not so much with the boo-hoo-hoo I wish I hadn't dated that loser. Although I'm sure there'll be some of that.

In the meantime, I shopped.

in spite of my loss*

I had an awesome weekend. Friday was awesome simply because it was the end of a hair-pulling workweek.

"Won't you miss us when we graduate?" asked the kids Tuesday afternoon, after I had mumbled something quite to the contrary. We'd been making Diet Coke-and-Mento geysers, and the technical difficulties of sending half a dozen Mentos and a tablespoon of rock salt down a folder paper chute + their racuous, it's-almost-June behavior was wearing my patience thinner than a bulimic supermodel. "You'll miss us lots, won't you?"

As little fountains of Diet Coke landed and formed fizzy pools near my favorite green Steve Madden sandals, I grimly replied, "Not really, no."

(They know I love them. They shriek with laughter when I tell them otherwise because they are so sure I'm joking.)

So Friday we considered an evening walk, but decided to stay home with Bear Grylls (I say, that Jungle Swamp ep was quite gross - and I've gotten pretty used to eating mushy leftovers while the likes of Andrew Zimmern, Anthony Bourdain, and Les Stroud do their Nature Boy / Native Boy thing). Just for fun, read this. It's hilarious.

Saturday dawned bright and early (see previous post). The post-walk hot dog and 2.5 hour nap were muy delicioso. That night I attended a CCCH dinner - and I thought Birth of a Nation was long. Just kidding.

Sunday I did several loads of laundry (any amount of laundry automatically makes it an exciting weekend for me), went to church (surprise appearance by Father Marc Alexander, presiding over the sacrament of Confirmation. This year's slate of "badgered" teen confirmandi included the first daughter of my high school math teacher. I remember when she was born, for goodness sakes.) And in the evening, we (minus Mart and plus Scott) went to see DHT's The Producers. I've enjoyed the entire season but will say this was by far the best production yet, even with Dennis Proulx's vocal affliction. Only The Wizard of Oz left in the '07-08 season ...
_____________________

*I lost my camera. I don't want to talk about it. Okay, I do.

baby steps, baby

Yesterday: Visitor Industry Charity Walk. Doubletree Alana's chocolate chip cookie stop - this was majorly downplayed by all the people I talked to about this walk. Sure, they mentioned the cookie, but no one mentioned that you should seriously consider skipping the rest of the stops and just hanging out at the cookie tent. I like cookies, but good - or even excellent - cannot suffice as descriptors for these cookies. You just have to check into the hotel - or order a tin online - to see for yourself.

The six-mile walk got me thinking about health and fitness in general. Scott runs two miles at least three times a week. Once a month or something pitiful like that I will join him in a run - otherwise I walk, or I stay back to enjoy/utilize the emptiness of the apartment. Though I walked with Scott's company (sort of, they were all over the place), a bunch of Tong members represented WKHT as well, and at a CCCH dinner last night I talked to my former high school VP, who had participated in the Charity Walk with her daughter.

Not only did they barely break a sweat (whereas Scott and I packed up our plate lunch, headed home, and fell into a deep 2.5-hr sleep), they walk the Honolulu Marathon every year. You can walk the marathon? You mean, people don't bulldoze you off the highway? Eureka! Doesn't training to walk a marathon seem like the perfect baby step toward eventually running it? I thought so.

I've only ever done noncompetitive community run/walks, and so far no training has been required. 2003: Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. 2006: Great Aloha Run. 2007: Alzheimers Memory Walk. 2008: Visitor Industry Charity Walk. Not only am I building a great collection of awful t-shirts, but I hope to add more run/walks to my fitness vita, and turn up the intensity, ever so slightly, as I go along.

So my "trainers" and I have a date tomorrow afternoon - but I think I'll keep it a mellowish stroll because the following day our GL has a bus-free field trip to Stan Sheriff - hup two, whippersnappers! They don't call me the Walking Field Trip Nazi for nothing.

dan's politics

This is why I don't watch evening network telly. Instead, I just wait for the entire season to come out on DVD so I can sit there and gorge myself on 5 eps in one sitting. That way I can have my cake and still love Barack Obama too.

p's on earth

Pretty in purple. My friend Niranda's wedding was lovely, from rehearsal dinner to reception (crepes and lobster to the Cupid Shuffle), and everything in between. The corset was tied without a hitch (not without a little nervous sweat on the part of moi, the least dextrous person on EARTH), beautiful vows exchanged, a really ... interesting banzai offered, and crab legs swished through drawn butter. The couple is off to Australia and I now look forward to the next wedding fete: Noce de Peahen! (Not mine, not yet!)

Puh-leeze send help my way. I did something really bizarre at a salon this weekend, which I will simply chalk up to the Barnaby Gaitlin in me. The last time I did something this odd was when I used to catch the bus home afterschool in the seventh grade. One day an older girl at the bus stop announced, "You have a leaf in your hair." I guess it had floated down from a tree overhead and landed without my noticing it. I thanked her, plucked it out, and placed it square on top of the head of a Stevenson boy (whom I didn't know from Adam) and said, "You have a leaf in your hair." Everyone scooched ever-so-imperceptibly away from The Weird Girl.

Projectile puke. Again, Milton waited too long. I heard it hit the floor - and in my split second of oblivious bliss, I toyed with a couple of more attractive possibilities: that someone had forcefully dumped a cup of water on the floor, or one of the custodians was pressure washing the walkway. Yeah, it made that sound.

Putrid. Today was WORM HARVEST day! Say it with me: perionyx excavatus, our blue earthworms are the greatest! ... However, what was not the greatest was the swarm of fruit flies and aroma of rotting garlic and molding bread, which is exactly what I had in my mini-bin. But no matter - I graduated to a 10-gal. bin (which can house 1.5 pounds of worms) and would have won the pool, had we actually made one, because my colony made the greatest gain. From one ounce of wrigglers to 3.75. Promote global worming!

Peace. I love the sound of the new church bells across the street. After a long wedding weekend and a longer Monday of vomit and vermin, de-stressing to the bells is one of those tiny gifts that one must look for and revel in once found.

damned cat

I am in heaven. I just cleaned the bedroom (my half, anyway - S doesn't accumulate much of a mess) complete with vacuuming the rug, washing the bedding, and reshelving dozens of books. I usually sleep in on Saturdays (well, not the most recent ones) but was awakened by the familiar sound of a glass of water tipping onto the rug near the bed (swimming in a glass of water is the cat's absolute favorite form of mischief) - I usually don't even bother to blot it up because it's just water and the rug will be replaced sometime in the forseeable future - but this morning I foggily remembered that before turning out the light last night I had stacked my bookfair plunder on the floor near the bed (contrary to S's belief that books don't belong on the coffee table, kitchen counter, shoe rack or floor, I believe they belong everywhere), scrambled upright, threw the cat about six feet in some direction I cannot remember (except that it wasn't up), and swept the armful of books up onto the bed. Checked them blindly for water damage, and, finding none, curled up and went back to sleep with all of the books under my arm.

Anyway, it's my first Saturday "off" in awhile. Even if it hadn't been for Fish Cat's antics, I wouldn't have slept in - I was much too excited about vacuuming and rearranging my tiny bedroom bookshelf. Due to space constraints (my chief reason for wanting a house upon marriage is so that I can have lots more bookshelves) lots of stuff got relegated to the living room bookcase. Which, from the looks of it, also needs a good reshelving. Ooh, so much stuff to do with my free Saturday. Maybe when I get home tonight.

S, a much early riser, is already at his mom's. We're going to the water lily farm out in Waimanalo today ... hopefully we will come home with ideas for centerpieces and not with silly purchases like guppies or actual water lilies. I do tend to be impulsive around plants and fish, but am pretty sure that after last night's damage at the bookstore I will be able to keep my pocketbook shut.