just peeking in

You may have noticed I've been missing for a couple o' days. Yeah, life again. Those Big Island visitors are such a distraction. Concerts, dinner out, running around, long evenings of amusing conversation, dog walking, knitting, and The Lord of the Rings have served to render me incapable of blogging. Meh. I'll catch up someday.

So much to be thankful for. It's all good, or mostly good, in spite of my own incessant ups and downs.

I'm off to find food and fold laundry.

ice cream, opiate of the people

LA closed her diary. Here's hoping she finds the strength she needs to go through the next phase in her life. I do hope she stays in touch. (hint! LA, drop a comment now and then! )

Today was somewhat improved, by changing the seating arrangement of some of the rugrats, and by just plain telling the sub that "hey, you need to wake up and do something besides grade papers around here!" I realize that I am doing ALL the teaching these days. It's normally okay, I prefer the teaching aspect to the grading aspect of the job, but if there are 2 adults in the room, shouldn't there be some give and take of "on" time? Methinks so.

The big boost was the afternoon's fly-by of Coldstone Creamery. Incredible how ice cream can trigger childish delight and wash the pain away. Downtown Kailua was pretty and walkable and just peaceful today at 3pm, as I bolted from work in a way that surely set a new record. Cheesecake icecream, mixed with fresh raspberries and graham crackers was heavenly for the drive home, and the ensuing trip to get my haircut and catch up my hairdresser's life. This stylist breeds and shows Persian cats and is always, always entertaining. Today she was wearing a stunning outfit of sage green henley shirt and glittery gold sequined vest, which sounds hideous, but somehow, a 60 year old platinum blonde with a deep tan and Jersey accent can pull this off without a hitch. I think she's stylin'. She tipped me off about a new employee in their salon who does reasonably priced brow waxes, and I am down with that!

Looking down at my feet, I realize that I am desperately in need of a pedicure, a real, professional, salon pedicure, in which I pay someone to de-scale my nasty callousy feet. I don't go to the beach often enough, or the sand and salt are contributing to the transformation of my feet to hooves.

I'm no less tired, no less seasonally affected, no less unenthused about my job, but somehow, I've been distracted by the bright promise of a 4 day weekend.

Question of the Day, asked by a co-worker, when I stated that I was not a Christian: "How do you know to do what's right, then?"

blah

I wish I could afford to quit this job. Because I feel no enthusiasm for teaching at this school at all. Little camaraderie, a program I don't really support, a sub teacher coworker whom I have to think for, a green, hypochondriac ocd teacher coming back in a few weeks with a brand new baby, 27 wild kindergarteners, and a messy bureaucracy above it all. It just feels like way too much trouble for me. I don't enjoy it, and it feels too much like I'm just putting in hours here. I try to figure out what it was that helped me to love and relish my job, all those years ago. I'm thinking it was the freedom to be creative, and the opportunity to work with supportive, friendly people.

Right now, I don't really have those things in any generous amount, and I feel my work situation sucking the life right out of me.

That, and the shortening days are causing me to want to go right to bed.

I hate it when I go depressive...I feel like this weekend, with its tryptophan overdose and out-of-town guests isn't going to provide the rejuvenation I crave, either.

So it's back to sleep for me.

the most fun you can have with your clothes on

Once again we find our intrepid heroine in bed, laptop on knees, barely able to keep her eyes open. Exhausted dogs at her side, slight breeze peeking through, licking at our toes.

I have been working an agility trial all day, building courses, putting up and taking down jump heights, and all of it out in the sun. Ooof. I am barely conscious.

I ran Ella in 2 classes: Novice Jumpers with Weaves (JWW) and Novice Standard (the one with all the obstacles in it)We ran clean and fast and had a great time.

Once again, I am reminded that dog agility is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

saturday

This enchants me. Aside from the name of the site; Ellwand, which, Tolkien geek that I am, I can't ignore as a twist on my favorite elf. Half-elf, that is. But I want some of these little clothes of leaves and flower petals for my own.



It is just about time for my annual watching of the Lord of the Rings movies, the extended edition filmfest, which usually takes place on Thanksgiving weekend, but which I'm halfway tempted to save for my sister's visit, sometime after Christmas. She was always an enthused participant in these marathons of high adventure and romance. But P is lobbying for it early, and I think my sis will have better things to do in Hawaii than lay around watching the elves and orcs and swords and arrows.

I'm just back from a 4 mile walk on the beach with Cricket. He was so-so, after some ball fetching, he obsessed a bit over harrassing a rather timid golden retriever, chasing her into the water and just being a jackass, so I leashed him up and walked him smartly down the beach, just at the waterline. We had a good pace going on, and my left leg/achilles tendon is in pain now, as a result. He is acting as though he's had no exercise whatsoever, returning home to dash madly through the house (no doubt bragging to Ella that HE got to go to the beach, and all she'll get this weekend is this dumb agility trial) and is now barking heartily at the mailman on our street. I need to find food, and a shower.

I'm heading over to Kailua again, to watch today's agility trial, and then on to a craft fair with Patrice, who rescued a baby shearwater that was floating in the ocean today, and didn't have the strength to fly off. They are fledging right now, and going off to sea, but need a good wind to get going, and this guy was floating in the shallows on a rather dog-filled beach. She's going to take it to a local bird rescuer, who'll oversee its release in a couple of days, when it's been fed up and checked for injuries.

Time for some substantial food and a shower.

thinking

As I march through November, this series of posts, found through a link on someone else's blog, have given me much food for thought.

I think it's always something to weigh and consider. Writing about your life (and reading incessantly about others' lives) or living your life? Can you do them both? It's something I've been wondering, and she puts it more articulately than I ever could, getting at thoughts that have danced around on the edge of my own consciousness for months.It's not about NaBloPoMo, which I've begun see as mere homework, but about the whole gestalt of the thing, which for me has been a big focus shift; concern for comments, reading others' pages, following links, making comments, etc. Brings me joy, but causes concern as well, as to where all my time goes.

Still no rat/mouse. Grrrrrr.

soysilk seduction

Another day, another dollar. Another 4 rows on Rosedale. I went to Aloha Knitters tonight, and scored a ball of soy silk, whose soft buttery color and lucious hand managed to enchant me. Loooooove! I'm wondering if such a sweet yarn wouldn't make a nice knitted washcloth? Is it a decadent thing to wash the body with something that drapes so nicely?

I also found that the rat bastard had been out, and had licked the peanut butter off the bait tray of the rat trap. I think he's too small to trigger the heavy rat trap, so I've set a mousetrap tonight. I am gonna catch this guy...

In the "gee, am I an adult now?" department, I finally got around to making reservations for our Thanksgiving dinner out. See our friends from the Big Island are coming in for the weekend, and they want to eat out. I thought they were making reservations, they thought P was making them, and today, P called me up and asked me to make them. He's on a work-related junket. People, you have no idea how hard it is to get dinner reservations one week before Thanksgiving. Well, duhhh, you say. Hey, in my world (oh no, here she goes with that again) people stay home and cook turkeys. I did well, though, getting the reservations at 3660 on the Rise, a rather fancyish restaurant with what seems like a pretty reasonably priced buffet, given that it is a big eating holiday. So yum! And hooray! Just in the nick of time, for a rather early dinner, but hey, if I were cooking, I'd be sitting down at 4 to eat that turkey.

Camera batteries are dead. Otherwise, I'd show you a pic of the heartbreakingly beautiful color combination of Kai's soysilk swatch; a pink and delicate beige. As it is, I'm headed for the horizontal land of Nod myself.

hot night

It's been so hot, I've had the house closed up and the ac on. So my own little world has become littler. But at least it's cooler. I feel very spoiled in HI with AC, as it doesn't exist in everyone's house. Weird, as coming from the South, from the 1980's on, EVERYONE had AC. Still, when the trades are blowing here, we don't need it. But when it's still and hot and muggy, we use it.

I'm struggling with this 'post every day' thing. Last minute, about trite things, because I'm just showing up at the page. Still, Julia Cameron in her book "The Artist's Way" suggests that showing up is a good start. So I'm showing up.

Still no rat. I'm thinking he's moved on to greener pastures. I'm hoping those pastures aren't under my house, where mayhaps I should be setting all the traps.

I went for a dog walk on the Judd trail this afternoon, after a typically irritating day at work. It was nice to just blow off steam in the deep woods. But man, oh man, the humidity is fierce now! I was bathed in sweat, and the dogs were rather damp just from walking in this miasma of green airborne soup up there. I came home, did not shower (ugh) and drove down Punchbowl to Hiroshi, to meet my friend Patrice for a drink and dinner. I hardly ever see Patrice since I started working full time, and mourn our Wednesday ritual of martini and dinner at our favorite bar. Our bartender of choice is gone, now, too. But his replacement was doing well, and the crispy-skin moi, with local tofu, tatsoi greens and yummy broth with rice was fine, fine, fine. Hiroshi is like an Asian fusion restaurant, and has superb fresh fish and great cheap drinks.

Patrice and I always work each other up into a lather of whining and dissatisfaction about our lives, when we get together. I feel delightfully purged. I'm going in to feed my dogs, eat some chocolate ice cream and off to bed.

my world

There are days when there are no words. When work is provocative of such a scary ambivalence that I truly wonder if I wouldn't rather be painting faces and walking dogs again for a living. When I come home to find a gorgeous coffee table book shredded by the beast. When there's no rat in the trap.

At times like these, I like to make the Pomegranate Mudpot, my husband's invented drink. He's shivering away in the Midwest right now, but this drink will cool me right down and give me the strength to sweep up the mess, re-set the trap with better bait and go to my latest drug of choice, the Noro Kureyon crack.

2oz vodka
juice of 2 limes
1 oz ginger syrup (you could grate ginger and infuse into a simple sugar syrup if you're lacking)
2oz Pomegranate juice.

Shake over ice. Strain into a chilled glass. Makes 2 generous martinis.

Viva evenings at home!

peace

A quiet evening at home. I walked the dogs, and am making a salad and then curling up and knitting on Rosedale the rest of the evening. I decided to go with snap traps for the rats. Initially, I didn't want to deal with dead or maimed rats, but when I was talking with Lia, she stressed to me that the rats dehydrate easily and it was important to relocate them quickly once caught, and I realized that I didn't want to set them free in the forest, because of their link to leptosporosis, which I'm neurotic about my dogs picking up anyway, and I didn't want to release them in an urban area. Hawaii is overpopulated with rats, not the rats' fault, but mine are being battled with the same cold resolve I use for fleas and cockroaches.

City Mill, the local-style hardware store I went to had all the answers. An airtight pet food bin, orchid bark, diatomaceous earth for my roach n' flea war, little baskets for the classroom and a juice bar for my wait in line. I love it when it all works out.

Today, I didn't teach. I had a kindergarten teacher meeting in Waikiki. The best lunch I have ever had at a training was served there. It wasn't anything unusual, local style food, but everything was so very fresh. The best poke, (that's raw fish marinated in shoyu and sesame w/ seaweed for you mainlanders) macaroni salad, rice, tofu, incredible steamed green beans, lomi salmon, and amazingly sweet, thin-sliced pineapple. It was just really good, clean-tasting food, and the dessert afterwards just paled in comparison. Sometimes, a meal can be so satisfying that dessert is just overkill.

Home this evening, I walked both dogs, about 2 miles, on leash. Lots of barking, which I'm trying to approach differently, with Cricket. See, Cricket riles himself up when we meet other dogs on the trail. And I'm thinking about Cesar Millan, and his emphasis that dogs feed on our anxiety and on what we put out. And I think when I see another dog coming, I start to think "oh, here he comes, now Cricket's gonna go off" and I communicate this through the leash to him. And Cricket has his little tantrum, and we go on til we see the next dog. So today, I just tried to breathe through the walk, and yes, Cricket threw a little fit, but I just gave him a leash pop and kept walking, not trying to get him settled down before we moved on. I don't know if it made a difference. It made the walk go a hell of a lot faster. Which was good.

I wrote a long email to my friend, the one with whom I've been having the rather messed up relationship, the past few years. We will see how he responds. Or if he responds. Mostly, I said that if we are to continue to say we are friends, then we need to maintain the friendship, and that takes effort and honesty. Otherwise, maybe we shouldn't keep insisting that we feel so much guilt and conflict at not being friends. So. We'll see.

I direct you now over to Lady Kim's blog, to read the most wonderful gift of a poem today. So even if I'm waging war against vermin, and trying to hash out old friendships, and trying to run the barking dog gauntlet, it's a call to put out a more peaceful vibe, wherever we go.

rat in the kitchen, and I'm not talking about the UB40 song...

Okay, last night, during Boozevember, I thought I saw a mouse in the house. I told myself it was just a lizard. But this afternoon, I saw it again, in the kitchen, undisputably a mouse. Unless it was a rat. Oh this is sad. I am pleased about lizards and geckos in the house. I am waging war on Hawaii's ubiquitous insect, the roach, in all its many forms. I have defeated, for the moment, fleas. I have established a relative harmony with wild pigs, mourning doves, bulbuls and mynah birds. But mice? Rats? Nooooooooooo!

I'm waiting for email from my friend Lia, to tip me off as to where to get a "Have a Heart" trap. Because, y'know, as much as I dislike the beasts, I don't have the heart to kill them. Lia is my Buddhist friend, who used to trap the rats in her Diamond Head apartment, and release them up in the deep woods of Palolo Valley.

Not sure I'll hike that far. But I've gotta send these rats a message!

Another Makapuu pic, to cheer myself up.

the first annual Nuuanu Boozevember report

I kind of consciously blew my straight string of posts last night, when I had friends over and hung out, til 1am, drinking pisco sours and eating insanely delicious food, instead of taking pictures and blogging about it. Meh. Sometimes you gotta live, without the interference of the blogosphere.

I'm back on the horse again.

Still, it WAS fun. There was heavenly tofu salad. There was gao ji and wonton. There was chocolate, and kahlua pig and amazing cake. There were potent and refreshing pisco sours, and chocolate and fig bars. Much jolliness ensued, and there was even a wee bit of knitting going on.

In lieu of photos, which again, we were too busy partying to take, I leave you with another shot of Makapuu, this time looking away from the ocean, back towards the west.

makapuu redux

I went to Makapuu Flat today, to walk in the sunset. I was struck by how much like fall it even feels like there, with a soft golden light, and chilly winds whipping in off the ocean.

The dogs keep me noticing the small details, things I wouldn't see were I not checking out what they were investigating...

Of course, the big picture is always nice, too!

tired Thursday

Tired. Is Thursday always like that? It's those crazy knitters, and my insistence of watching Tivo'd "Survivor" after I leave them each week. Makes for a late night.

Today was a festival of irritation at work, with a co-worker who just plain nags the kids, a couple of inflammatory discussions about my old favorite topic, the Pledge of Allegiance (and how I could care less that my kindergarteners put their hands on their hearts when they pledge allegiance) punctuated by joy at George Allen's concession of the election in VA, and topped off with a headache. Upon my arrival home from work, I was greeted with a living room full of shredded newspaper and a destroyed candleholder, courtesy of that busy, busy Cricket. We had a disastrous trip to the dog park, where there was so much dog chaos and potential for fights that I left hastily and took a very long, strangely sweaty and satisfying leash walk, releasing my pent-up frustration at irresponsible dog owners and zealous, unthinking pseudo-patriots. Dinner of cold ramen and the pleasure of the Aloha Knitters afterwards. Excedrin and cappucino. Yarn and friends. "Survivor" afterwards.

a transit

First things, first. Thank you for your health wishes and thoughts for Ella. Her bloodwork came back today, and the vet says it looks great, which is a really good sign for overall health. We'll schedule the lumpectomy, and if it looks to be anything other than a cyst or the suspected fatty tumor, it'll be sent off for biopsy. Poodles, as a breed, tend to get lumps and bumps as they age, but it's good we're looking closely at this. The urine sample came back showing a few struvite crystals, which has always been Ella's case, and not an unusual one. Crystals in urine can lead to incontinence, though not always. They'll do a bladder ultrasound during the surgery for the lump. Meanwhile, she's lively, playful, very alpha over Cricket and the entire household, and seems to be feeling good. We're on the Chinese herbs now, and I'm hopeful about them working. I didn't realize this vet practiced Chinese medicine; she's only begun to do it, on the side, rather recently, had been taking classes, she said, in herbs and acupuncture. I am very grateful she supports my feelings and wishes about not over-vaccinating my dogs, and is willing to send me to another vet who orders the leptosporosis vaccine in single doses. Lepto is a BIG risk for dogs here, it's a parasite that's found in much of our fresh water in the mountains, and since we hike a lot, and since Ella is impossible to keep out of the water, it's a must-do vaccine. Really, these days, I'm only vaccinating for Lepto and kennel cough. If I move back to the mainland with my dogs (and that's not happening anytime soon, don't worry) I'd have to vaccinate for rabies again, but Hawaii is rabies-free.

So again, thank you, heartfelt, for your thoughts about my beloved sweet friend.

So many things have happened today. I have been on quite the rollercoaster. I heard from a very old friend this morning, one whom I had nearly written off, due to the years w/o any communication, which had been preceded by years of mixed messages and mis-communications. He wrote a lengthy e-mail, one to which I want to respond, but I want to choose my words carefully, because he said some things that would have inflamed me, 2 years ago, but now, with time and distance, I merely want to respond to fairly. I think I've been, on some level, working on observing/changing ongoing patterns in my life, and the negative patterns I have ingrained in this friendship (one that's been going on since I was 18) are some I'd love to address. So I sit and think, and engage in that inner dialogue that I find myself having with friends who are too far away in time and space.

At school this morning, I found out, before I walked into the classroom, that one of my students' fathers had committed suicide yesterday, by hanging himself, and that the children had discovered his body. The child is 5 years old, and told me very matter-of-factly that her daddy was gone and wouldn't be living with them anymore. There are all kinds of wheels being put in motion, for grief counseling, social workers, translators (the family doesn't speak much English) and support, but nothing removes the reeling shock of it all, huge for me, and unimaginably more so for that family. I've always believed that school is a kind of safe harbor for some children, and so it is the case for this bright girl, who threw herself into her schoolwork today, checking her classmates' folders in, and practicing handwriting with a vengeance, in spite of our urgent reminders that "if you need to talk, or play or cry or call home, you can, just tell me". Time later for the realization, the release of grief, the understanding of it all. I cannot even imagine the pain and stress this family is going through right now.

Mercury made its transit across the face of the sun today. A couple of astronomers brought telescopes to school today, and we got to see the incredible view for ourselves. It was beautiful and amazing, the great orange ball of the sun, with the tiny round black dot that is Mercury moving across its face. I felt very small, and unimportant, and the unimportance was a huge relief, in the face of the days earlier events and revelations. They say that transits of Mercury occur at the midpoint of the Mercury retrograde period and because eclipses tend to mark crisis points that instigate change, we may notice a shift in events and focus during that time. Like a shift in the balance of power in Washington? Like the voice of a person from my past that I cannot just write off because we've had misunderstandings? Like a new life, for better or for worse, for a family in crisis?

So I look up at the sky and consider things carefully.

the day off

My precious day off, fading away. I did the laundry of pretty much every linen in the house, cleaned the kitchen, took Ella to the vet for her big senior dog consultation, and tried to recycle, with mixed results; the dumpsters were too full to recycle all my newspapers. I ran into Chris at the polling place, and since she was en route to the LYS, I decided to tag along with her. I was reasonably good, buying some sportweight superwash wool, in a camoflage colorway that was most appealing, and a second set of addis #2, so I can begin my socks on 2 circs experiment. No crazy, over-the-top purchases, nothing too extravagant.

I was struck, at the LYS, how I don't really want for yarn right now. I liked what I got, but I'm feeling the yarn diet feeling.

Little else to report here today. I did a wee bit of spinning, and am getting geared up to vacuum the house, since it is hideously dusty, from all the dog trackage in and out.

Ella's fine, more or less. We're treating her increasing incontinence with some chinese herbs recommended by the vet, who is pretty holistic. She has a lump on her side, which may or may not be a fatty tumor; I have to schedule a lumpectomy and biopsy for that, and she needs a single dose leptosporosis immunization, requiring a trip to another vet, one who orders these vaccines in single doses. I don't want to vaccinate her in cocktail doses of various vaccines combined. Adult dogs don't really suffer from things like parvo, distemper and corona virus, and I don't want to give her vaccinations she doesn't need. All in all, she came out with a pretty clean bill of health, for an 8 year old dog.

Food today...lets just say a woman who eats french bread toasted with Nutella spread on it for a midmorning snack isn't really on a diet. Sooooooo delicous.

clip n' snip

Presenting the results of my Sunday's toil with clippers, shampoo, brushes and combs:

Two clean dogs with short hair! I always kept Ella in more coat, when I lived in VA. But it's hot here, and since we are fighting fleas at every turn, I figure the shorter, the better. Cricket is approaching that adolescent age when poodles' coats turn into solid felted mats, so his coat had to go, too. As it was, the clippers overheated during his cut, due in part, to the sheer density of his curls! Acornbud, in answer to your comment, I gave Cricket several breaks during our grooming session. He takes his own breaks during baths, leaping, suds-covered off the grooming table. I clip the body, then let him play awhile, then do his face, feet and tail, then more play, then finally, the legs, which are the hardest part to do. Both dogs looked rather fat, til I took the coats down, and now they seem fairly well-proportioned.

Did I mention I'm from a family of hairdressers?

More sock knitting, but nothing beyond the leg. Trekking yardage is tremendous, I don't have to worry about running out of yarn in a pair of socks. I'll probably do these about 7" high before I start the heel.

Dinner tonight was borscht; the beet soup from Moosewood's original cookbook. Yum! But honestly, it's too hot to eat soup, and I was too greedy to let it cool for the cold soup option. Now I'm horribly sweaty.

No school tomorrow, due to the election. Needless to say, I'm thrilled, though I've crammed the day with "gotta do" errands - the kind of things I can't accomplish during the school day. Visits to the bank, vet, Costco, library, car wash, Home Depot, etc. Some laundry, too. I'm off Friday, too, so I'm hoping that a flurry of activity tomorrow will result in some very laid-back time on Friday.

steamy skies

Friday night's sunset was a spectacular one here.
During the huge rains of last week, Nuuanu got quite cool, and we put a blanket on the bed. This weekend, however, the trade winds left us, and it became hideously hot and still and humid. We spend the weekend in a stupor, and finally decided to run the ac this evening, after the denial finally wore off. I've never quite gotten any real activity off the ground this weekend, beyond a couple of dog walks. I made half-hearted stabs at cleaning, cooking (mac and cheese and broccoli) and did successfully bathe and clip both dogs, which was an enormous triumph, considering that I swept up all the hair, too. Two big bagfuls of silver and black curly poodle hair, which I offered to Acornbud to spin up, but she wisely declined, so it's off to the trash with the dog fur.

There has been knitting going on, not on Rosedale (too hot to touch Kureyon) but on the Trekking sock, done in plain stockinette, better to show off the stripes and pretty colors. I originally thought these to be watery colors, but now they remind me more of wintery colors, the bits of white looking like flurries of snow, the blues the color of shadows on snow. I've dubbed them the Winter Sky socks. This is my lunch hour knitting project, small enough to take to school, and mindless to boot.


When the going gets hot, the hot start reminiscing about snow, I guess.

plumper

Thank goddess for the weekend. That's all I can say. Work was a mixed pain and pleasure this week, as my co-teacher went out (finally!)on her maternity leave, and the long term sub came in. I like the sub, but she is very dependant on me for lesson ideas and plans and sometimes, it's just easier for me to do all the teaching and for her to do the 1:1 remedial stuff, the paperwork and such. I remember now why I took a break from having student teachers; it was all that having to share your thinking about why you were doing everything, and all the time it took to discuss/review/plan people's lessons. So much nicer to be in the classroom alone...except on those days when you really need to go to the bathroom...

A chance look in my full-length bathroom mirror revealed that I have become quite the chunk in the past few months. My shorts are tight, and a visit to Mr. Digital Scale confirmed the unhappy suspicion. I have gained about 8 lbs in um...what, maybe 6 months? Yeesh! I say 6 months, because the alternative, to say I've gained it all since I went back to teaching, is unbearable, even though I know the work scene is a a key player in the game. Being in school means I'm short on time to hike, thus dog exercise is relegated to driving them to the park to frolic. Rainy weather, general busyness on the weekends and the feeling that I'm always playing catch up keeps me off the beaches, and the teacher's lounge at this school is consistently offering up junk food, delectable baked goods and treats in every form, possibly to counter the negativity that flows through the place to begin with. I'm a big one to self medicate with food, and that, added to my new favorite food of katsu curry rice on a regular basis, has plumped me up. I'm not a vain woman, but I can't be buying new clothes here.

So it's time for a reality check. And maybe a check on what I put in my mouth around here. And how I spend my scanty spare time. Which reminds me. My gym membership even expired, in the flurry that fall has become. But something's got to change, here. Because my clothes aren't fitting so well, anymore.

I lost quite a bit of weight, 3 years ago, on the South Beach Diet, which didn't starve me, though after awhile, it bored me. The biggest change it made for me was somehow, in the blood sugar chemistry way, diminish the taste I had for sweets, particularly over-sweetened desserty things and candy. Doing without refined sugars and white flour for awhile can really change what tastes good to you. Of course that's all gone now, as I scarf up cookies, pumpkin pie, halloween candy and katsu curry noodles with a vengeance.


But I don't wanna go on SBD again, not right now. So I think I'm gonna play around with portion control (because, y'know, I do eat like a horse - only not grass) and trying to get more exercise, and see what that gets me. Of coure Thanksgiving is coming, and I'm being realistic about that, and the freakin' Christmas season 'round the corner. But something's got to give. Because my clothes aren't fitting so well anymore.

hmmmm...

Will I ever make time for the writing in my life?

Hmmm....I'm in bed, after a rather enjoyable day at work, 2 parent-teacher conferences, too much bad tv, and a dog walk. Obviously, this cursory post is just to satisfy the goal of posting; can't blow it 3 days into the month, now, can I?

because i'm tired

you get little blips from my day, instead of any real formed entry.

The drive to work, at the crack of dawn, listening to music from the Spiral Dance.("A year of passion, a year of plenty, a year of rebirth; this year may we renew the earth") Having virtually no traffic, which got me to work earlier than I've ever shown up for work before, which I actually found to be a pleasing thing. Don't expect it to happen too often.

The discovery of a new shortcut/backroad in Honolulu that will make my new (hopefully not for long) commute on the Likelike a faster one.

A rollicking frolic at the dog park, which was an absolute sea of mud, and the ensuing hosing down of both dogs afterwards.

The usual Thursday evening at Mocha Java, with the Aloha Knitters, where there was much aloha and delight. I made a trade with
Opal for the beginnings of a Jayne hat. I love it when yarn I've lost the love for finds a new home! I've been wanting to pay my own homage to Jayne's fashion sense and mother love for a long time, now!

Now, I'm far too tired to continue this rambling.

a stunning drive

I drove through torrential rains over the Pali to get to work this morning. I've never seen so many waterfalls on the Ko'olaus before. Usually we just have the one pretty steady one, in rainy weather. But today, they were everywhere, and the effect was really stunning. It made it a little scary to drive, as I kept fighting the urge to gape at the surrounding beauty. It rained most of the morning in Kailua, and at 1pm, my principal called me and told me the Pali Highway had been closed, due to water and mudslides, and that I needed to go home right then, in case other roads were closed. So I headed out, via the Likelike freeway, which was an uneventful drive, once I got through Kaneohe's bad traffic.

Tomorrow looks to be worse, as the Pali will still be closed, which means all my other routes to work will be via the H-1 freeway, thus adding an hour to my usually painless commute. Arrrrgh. P said that he'd heard that today was supposed to be the calm day between yesterday's and tomorrow's storms. Yikes.

After encountering a moment of someone else's bad driving and road rage, today, and weathering an earlier skirmish of negativity from the teacher who called my professionalism into question earlier this year, I've decided that my life could use a little charm and shielding...I'm charging sea salt, sage and lavendar to sprinkle in the classroom tomorrow to bless my workplace. I'll also do something to bless my car (and hopefully remove the smell of wet dog!) as well. Might be time to add AAA's benevolent blessing, on top of it all!

Off to do the practical work of the kitchen witch.

slammed

I'm utterly exhausted. A day of Halloween has taken it out of me. Curry ramen and a beer and some knitting on the mindless Trekking sock are my Samhain observance today.