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.

make hay while the sun shines

Here's the newest flower in our yard. I've no idea what it is called, but I'm in love with its huge waxy blooms.

Today, I immersed myself in Pumpkin Math, at Kindergarten, and was pleased to find myself less stressed than usual considering the impending Huge Freakin' Orgy of Sugar that tomorrow promises to deliver. Maybe it's kind of a 'make hay while the sun shines' philosophy, ie, teach math while the little buggers have some attention span? Ahhhh, October, going out with a bang! We weighed, measured the circumference, estimated and counted the number of seeds, counted the lines, and in general, analyzed the dickens out of 3 pumpkins in the classroom. I am reminded, fondly, of a child (child of a Salvadorean Pentecostal Evangelical family) who came into my classroom a few years back, who announced to me that "Teacher, my mother told me to tell you that in our house, we worship God, not pumpkins!"

Alas, no pumpkin pix for you today. Wouldn't want to steal their souls by photographing them.

No knitting today, save for a few cursory stitches on my Trekking socks, living at school, for lunch hour amusement only. No illusions about Socktoberfest here on this blog, no siree!! I'm feeling a little compulsion to play with yarn, though not to knit, so I might go roll some skeins into balls in anticipation of the future blinding progress on Rosedale.

ribbed, for your pleasure

Ta-dah!
The corrugated ribbing, she's done! I have to admit, this colorway is a bit of a circus. I am a woman who normally dresses in blacks, greys, greens or browns. I like being invisible in a crowd, and I'm afraid this sweater will blow my cover. But the Kureyon is fun to knit, and it is impossible to be in a funk with such sunny colors on the needles. The ribbing, worked using 2 different balls of yarn, was not hard, once I learned to keep everything untangled. It made my wrists hurt, though, and I could only do a couple of rows at a sitting.

Today, I hiked the ledge trail at St Louis Heights' Wailae Ridge Recreation area. Very nice, high above Manoa valley, with clouds blowing in and all around. The trail is mostly shaded by casurina trees, with many twists and turns, and lovely places to sit and dream along the way. Alas, it was such a nice day that all of Honolulu was out hiking it today, so it wasn't the most peaceful hike. A kid gave Cricket a spam musubi, which he liked very much. Hey, who can blame him?

Later, I went in to school and worked off my to-do list, and was actually successful, completing everything on it except for the odious task of weeding out the kids' folders, which, really, is better done with them there to help me.

I am cheered by the encouragement from readers that I may be able to actually do this post-a-day thing. Right now, I've no idea what I'll talk about for 30 days straight, but hopefully it'll break beyond the exhaustive to-do list that some of my entries in the days of yore have sounded like.

I am off to bed. It's coming up on hell week at Kindergarten, what with Halloween and all. You know, for a pagan, I really don't like Halloween that much. I love Samhain, with its darkness, the idea of the thinned veil between the material and spiritual world, the focus on communion with the ancestral spirits, the earth's slide into winter, the understanding that Death and Life are inextricably intertwined. I think, as a teacher, who always spends Halloween throwing a party, managing children's costumes, eating way too much sugar and being a disciplinarian, all the while, wearing a costume and carving a jack-o-lantern, I'm too fried to actually celebrate Samhain properly. Fortunately, I tend to regard it as a season, rather than one day, and generally try to do it justice sometime within the 10 day span in which it occurs.

can i do it?

http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html
http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html

Can I post once a day for the entire month of November? I have actually participated, though not finished NaNoWriMo, and written nothing I was very proud of, though in the process, I wrote more fiction than I've ever done on my own speed before. That fic shall remain closeted and cherished, in my warchest for the time being. But blogging, well, I don't think I've ever posted daily in my journal, for 30 days straight. Still, I regard and celebrate Samhain as the Witchly New Year, and as such, I see November as the time for all good resolutions to play themselves out. So this may fly.

I had set this post up to show you my progress on the corrugated ribbing of Rosedale. But Blogger's determined to keep me from posting my photos this afternoon, so I leave the gaudy Kureyon circus for a later day. After all, there's 30 of them, coming up. And Rosedale is a big project that I hope to have wrapped up by New Year's. The mundane New Year, not the witches' New Year. Heh. That would be Tuesday, right?

Dog obedience is kicking my ass. That's all I'll say. I make some progress (better recalls in life-or-death situations) and backslide (crooked sits in the ring, earning my instructor's ranty ire), thus contributing to my pattern of bipolar dog training. ugh. Cricket remains bipolar, though an enthusiastic participant in the training effort. I keep hearing "you've got a nice working poodle, now all you have to do is keep him that way". Nothing like pressure, eh? What's a working poodle? I think it's one that's being trained to compete in performance rather than conformation venues, but I'm not sure. I don't have a conformation type dog, and since I have no interest in grooming, and since both my dogs are now de-sexed (hooray for neutering!) it's the working ring for me. Today was good-ish, in that he didn't have a tantrum in class, worked willingly for me, and simply doesn't hold a heel position w/o food or enticements. So it's not engrained. Our test is coming up in 2 weeks. In my mind, we're already repeating the class, especially as there are some STUNNING dogs in the class and we are merely mediocre at this point. He is a wreck at 8 months, full of yips and lunges at any opportunity to play with classmates. I only have to look at the now-steady off-leash-obedient Ella and trust that the process will work for the crazy Cricket, as well. I don't know...

So stay tuned. I'll try to write.

Rosedale's beginnings and saving my sanity

Enjoying a gorgeous Saturday, and dealing with my horrible, chaotic mess of school supplies and teaching materials, purging, organizing and trying to figure out what should go to school, w/o loading down the already messy classroom. I finished my Parent-Teacher conferences, and was very pleased to entertain many parental complaints about how Kindergarten is working out for their children. These conferences would have slain me, had I been a new teacher, but in my current position, that of very experienced teacher, stepping into a program I have my own doubts and questions about, I was okay. I listened to their concerns, brought up a few of my own and will make some changes in the classroom and schedule to meet the needs of these kids. But damn, last week was intense, made worse by the occasional foray into insomnia-land. I haven't been trying very hard to sleep, and so suddenly, being sleep-deprived sneaked up on me. I think I'll sleep better, next week. I feel okay about work, these days, surprisingly. There are some people I need to avoid, and I'm seriously considering divorcing the teacher's lounge for a few weeks, just to clear my head and listen to something besides the incessant nattering of one or two particular teachers, whose negativity threatens my sanity. I've also made a few friends at work, one of whom reminded me that I needed to remember that I had this whole other life going on, and of the importance of not obsessing over work. So I'll take her advice, and enjoy the other side of my days on the other side of the Pali.

There's been some knitting going on. Pink Clapotette is waiting to be finished, with just a few more rounds to go. I finished another washcloth, and am trying to decide whether to keep it or give it to Marie, who is in need of a cheering up. Perhaps I should go with the karmic goodness of continuing to give away some of my FO's, yeah?

And I cast on for Rosedale in this candy colorway. It's Kureyon #131, stashed away for awhile. This color reminds me of the sunset, but also Hawaii in general, it's so pinky-orangy-happy-happy-happy. Rosedale's corrugated ribbing is a challenge. I started doing it with my knitsters on Thursday night, and their good nature and amusing commentary helped buoy my spirits immensely. I worked some more on it today, and am actually making progress. I have to plow through 3 inches of this knitting k2p1 ribbing with 2 different balls of yarn (you knit with one ball and purl with the other) by my drop-dead date of November 3, which is when the Aloha Knitters are planning their night of cocktailing and frolic. I can't be knitting complicated stuff while consuming alcohol, so I've gotta be on the stockinette part of the sweater by then. Intarsia looks easy enough, so I think I can manage through the martinis on that, anyway. No pix of my progress, as I've done so little. I'll get a shot of it after I make some more headway on the ribbing. I'm kinda pleased with myself, knitting from stash, and actually stopped myself from ordering yarn the other day.

Flying back from DC, the other week, the airline offered me, in lieu of a bad movie, 3 back-to-back episodes of the medical drama "House". I watched it, and have become addicted. I came home, looked for it on tv, and it's not on, til the new season starts on October 31. I'm itchy and fretting to take this quirky show on, and marvel that I didn't really watch it last year. Is Hugh Laurie my new media boyfriend? I watch relatively little tv, so I don't begrudge myself the occasional obsession with a show.

shake, rattle and roll

Sunday morning, I woke up at 5am with a reprise of my brutal headache of last week. I was due on the tracking field at 7, but a hard rain was pouring, and so I got up, drank a half-liter of water and took some Excedrin and went back to bed. At 6am, I turned off my cell phone alarm, and announced my intent to ditch tracking and sleep in. "mmmffff" came from P's side of the bed, and the tracking dog in question, Ella, lodged between us in the bed, flipped over on her back and sighed. Around 7am, the radio came on, and P and I were just waking up, mumbling about how much nothing we planned to do that day. Suddenly, the house started to shake, and continued for what seemed like an excessively long time for it to be a big truck on the street below. My first thought was "BOULDER!" Nuuanu, our neighborhood, is known to be kind of geologically unstable; I live on a street which is best known as the street that the boulder rolled onto, several years ago, killing a resident in her bed. We love our quiet forested abode, but "BOULDER!" is never far from our minds, especially in hard rainstorms.

All this thinking must've taken about 5 seconds, because then P and I established that oh yeah, it's an earthquake, and uh, duh, we should go stand in a doorway. So we got up, stood in the office and bedroom doorways, while the house shook, and the windows rattled, and everything felt like it was going to break apart. Ella tucked her tail and ran cowering into the living room, and Cricket had a barking fit, running wildly around. We tried to calm him down, while sweating the possibility of a boulder, or the old part of the house (the one we just moved heaven and earth to make level, last year) cracking off and falling down the hill. Shaking stopped. "Wow. Man. An earthquake. Dude." Hey, our 15 years in California gave us cool heads in such times...

Breathing easy, I left the doorway, noted that the power was out, and then the shaking started again. This time it seemed like it was harder, and I waited for it to get worse. I found my doorway again, wondered aloud if I shouldn't be in the newer part of the house, and P muttered something unintelligible about the damn rock walls around us. It felt as if the shaking was coming from under our feet. It stopped, and we sighed. Cricket calmed down, and we tried to find a radio station for information. No dice. After some milling around, I called my dad on my cell phone, back in Virginia. He reported that we'd had a 6.5 magnitude quake and some mudslides had happened.

We spent about an hour, waiting for boulders and mud to come down on us, in the pouring rain, then got bored and decided to conserve some water. So we filled up all our water bottles, and pots and pans. Then we decided that we'd better use the hot water before it cooled down. Our water heater is electric. So we took a hot bath, and made tea, and later, oatmeal with skillet toast and butter. Hooray for the gas stove!

The rest of the day, a rainy, dark, gray day, was marked by frequent trips up to the car to listen to breaking news on the radio, some house cleaning and reading and the eating of all our possibly perishable food, like sliced turkey, brie, salad greens, etc. We felt it was a shame to waste our ice supply, so we made some mango margaritas on the rocks, with some mango puree, and limes we had hanging around. Our liquor cabinet is healthy enough to sustain such a disaster, it would seem. I dusted some shelves and took the dogs for a walk. P walked downtown to see if he could buy some batteries for our flashlights. No dice, there. Fortunately, a pagan household is rarely without a healthy supply of candles, so we didn't curse the darkness, too much. I knitted on Pink Clapotette til eyestrain got to be too much. More brie, red grapes, steamed green beans and the rest of the salad.

I went to bed with Diana Gabaldon's "Voyager", and read til around 10pm. Slept well in the amazing quiet darkness, and was awakened at some unknown time by all our power coming on, including the damn streetlight that always shines in my eyes in the bedroom.

It turns out, Hawaii got through this with minimal damage. The epicenter of the quake was somewheres north of the Big Island, and overall, we did really well. We weren't as prepared, with batteries and such, as we probably should have been, but we were okay for food and the like. It was the biggest earthquake I've ever felt, though the Loma Prieta quake, in the Bay Area, in 1988, was bigger and did more damage, but I was living in Davis at the time, and we were minimally affected.

Some recent pix...
Our gardenia is blooming furiously. This bloom is a bit past its prime, but smells heavenly.

And because Cricket is featured disproportionately in this blog, I leave you with a pix of Ella, the tracking dog, the wonder dog, the perfect dog, coming down the steps to the house. Not pictured are the lava rock walls and scary steep hill. But there are 31 steps that lead down to our house, so you can get a feel for how steep the pitch of the property is.

consumption and resolution and indecision, oh my!

I had just about finished my recap of my trip back East, when, due to my careless bouncing around on the internets scaring up fun links, I lost the whole damn post. Now all you get is a bunch of images. Enjoy!

My friend Lucy's car broke down on the GW Parkway. Fortunately, we had a great view to enjoy for the 2 hours we waited for the AAA tow truck!



I've recently finished some things (Airy Scarf, a felted purse) abandoned some things (freakin' Purple Koigu socks, which neither fit, nor please me) and made major progress on Pink Clapotette.

I bought some things:

Trekking XXL inspired by the October skies.
1/2 lb of Corriedale Roving and a top whorl spindle.
Some autumnal Spirit Trail Fiberworks sock yarn, because, well, in spite of the fact that I suck at socks, this was all I could afford of their gorgeous yarns.

Now I really am stuck in stash, because stash is too big for me to store from the ever-marauding Cricket,
who does like to steal and re-purpose yarn, and because there is simply no more money for yarny stuff.

I have a plan to have a go at socks again, complete with experimentation with 2 circular needles and some fresh new patterns. I'm also dithering about whether to knit Rosedale, bpt or
Lady Eleanor next. I've got yarns in stash for all three, in the form of Kureyon, Silk Garden and Paton's Classic Merino, so all are possible. Now's your chance to weigh in and influence me!

Now I must go and listen to some Richard Buckner and see about some dinner.

be it ever so humble...

Something about flying nonstop Newark-Honolulu today has taken the starch right out of me, and left me unable to breathe through my nose. I'm dosing on Airborne and enjoying the clean sheets of my own at-home bed. More later.

a cursory update...

...is all I'm good for, right now. I'm in the Olde Country, that is, Southwestern Virginia, enjoying spectacular fall weather, the last gasp of Indian Summer, really. My time here is too short; punctuated by intense visits with my nears and dears, and interspersed with extreme downtime at my parents' rural place, knitting and watching reruns on tv with my dad, while eating my mom's home cooking and the last gasp of garden produce. Blue skies, the smell of fresh-cut grass and a hazy lull cover everything. mmmmmmmmm....aaaahhhhhh....

Today, I'm dashing out of my sis' place in Roanoke, going to Target (because I've gone over a year w/o shopping at Target!!) and an astonishing bakery and tea house. Tonight, my mom's homemade lasagne and coconut cake. Tomorrow, more knitting and hanging out with the 'rents. Saturday, a long crawl up the Shenandoah Valley, to the Virginia Fall Fiber Festival, to admire all the wooly goodness, pet the sheepies, and possibly, just possibly, to find the perfect drop spindle and fleecy raw material for such a fleecy raw beginner as myself. Now I wasn't gonna touch the handspinning realm, but all this rurality, plus the reports from acornbud on her spinning adventures has made me brave. So wee shall see.

Meanwhile, it's all good. I am actually even looking forward, a wee bit, to returning to my life in Hawaii, which will happen with a big leap on Sunday morning. More on the other side...

myths and mopes

I skipped knit night last night, ostensibly to write sub plans (I have a writing workshop training today) which were easily finished, so then tuned into my longtime addiction, "Survivor". It's the controversial "divide 'em by ethnicity" season, and I gotta say, the white folk are...um...jerks. So-called hot women cozying up to the buff boy. Everybody big, conformatively attractive, hardly noticing their invisible backpack of white privelege they're carrying around. The assumption of success. Too alpha, for want of a better word.

My personal jury's out on whether it was a good idea to divide a cast along these lines, but I do think it gets people talking, and maybe more talking about ethnicity as it relates to justice, prejudice and privelege is what needs to get done. Certainly Justice and Privelege are timely topics in our society today. So if it keeps the topic open and the lines of communication flowing, let's go with it. I think, in our current national Terror Over Terrorism, we have neglected to keep chipping away at the lines that divide us. So we leave it to a tv show to bring it up again, though admittedly, they are doing it in the most heinous fashion, and only for ratings.

Can ya tell I'm lonely for Ann and Coko, and missing our 2 years of grad school camaraderie, in which no stone of white guilt and social analysis was left unturned?

In other news, I had a long chat with Myke, my handyman who inadvertently triggered my current permit ordeal, with his fence-building and flag moving. He has moved off to the mainland, now, but has been supportive of us, in the ensuing firestorm of bureaucratic hassle. I like Myke, and wish him well, though I am well and truly finished with home improvement, after this trial by fire, that I fear may never be resolved. I am definitely finished with attempts to be aimiable with my neighbor, who filed the complaint, though I imagine she didn't consider the possible results of her complaint, either. It's interesting; when I spoke with her about being in a hassle with the city, weeks ago, she responded "I'm just a widow, no one cares for me, I have to look out for myself." She fights with the neighbors out of some bizarre fear that we could possibly be taking advantage of her. Reya referred to the urban permitting process as a weird form of power struggling, and I have to agree. I am rapidly leaving the place inside where I personalize this experience, however, and am starting to view the process as a long slog that may or may not resolve itself, but one in which I have no power. In seeing it as such, however, its power to wreck me with insomnia and weeping and gnashing of teeth diminishes, as well.

When the going gets weird, the weird break out the red wine and nail polish, I say.

I tried on the Purple Koigu sock last night and must say, am not that happy with my effort. More than 2/3 way done with sock #1, running low on ball #1, the love has fled the building. Will I be cursed to rip and re-knit? Like Prometheus, rolling that rock up the hill each day, or was he the guy who had his liver eaten daily by buzzards? Or both? Again, I am not one of the nation's great sock knitters. Maybe it's time to toss in the towel, and claim no knitting progress whatsoever for the past month? meh.

the pedicure is mightier than the sword

After a long and very trying day at the permits office, I am home, moving through the bureaucratic bad mood by scrubbing my shower, and cleaning out the fridge. I'll then proceed to revive my practice of facing my demons with a bitchin' pedicure. I do think this rip-roaring red is just the thing, don't you?

Funny...I don't have a permit. Seems the permits take up to a month to get issued. Good thing the work's already been done, eh? Sheeeee-it. There was some issue with whether one of my fences crosses lines of easement on my own property, and the city doesn't seem to have any real straight answer for me on that, it "requires further research". After the research, they'll draw up a maintenance agreement, giving the city permission to come onto my land to work on water lines, etc. Duh...of course they have my permission. But it's frustrating that they don't know themselves where the lines of easement are; that it's not readily available on public record.

I did get a fair amount of knitting done in the office, though. I am cheered by that, though I'm coming to the conclusion that people who find sock knitting to be a rewarding pursuit are obviously gifted in ways that I am not. Progress on a first sock is not necessarily a cheering thing, as one has the second sock looming ahead.

Makapuu

I took the dogs to Makapuu Flats today for a sunset stroll and swim. In the picture, it's the beach and the whole flat area from the bottom of the picture back toward Koko Head Crater. In reality, it's the whole area between Sandy's surfing beach (too rough and scary for me) and the Makapuu lighthouse area. The beach is very sheltered, a little cove, really, and usually rather deserted. A big culvert lies half-buried in the sand at the tideline. I amused myself by sending both dogs racing through and out into the lagoon. The picture makes the area look much lusher and greener than it really is, this time of year, but I like the aerial view. In reality, now the grass is tall and bleached to a very silvery color. Mesquite and agave plants dot the landscape and it's a bit hilly, with dusty gravel paths running hither and thither. Today we were completely alone out in all that space, an unusual phenomenon, to be so isolated on this busy, buzzing island.

The school district meeting in Waikiki ended up being rather enjoyable, in spite of all my whining yesterday. Amusing company, smart presenters, and sessions on data analysis, which always pleases me. For a woman who doesn't like numbers, I rather enjoy looking at testing data, particularly when it's broken down and dissected, six ways to Sunday. My last session of the day ended early for us non-test-coordinators, and I got to go home at 2:30, ensuring a traffic-free commute! Hence the inspiration to go to the other side of the city for some beach time. There were BIG waves coming over the rocks today. I was walking around on some tidepools, but the dogs were going out on the rocks and I was afraid they'd get washed off and into the current, so I took them inland and then over to the beach, instead.

I spent the evening working on the paperwork to correct our fencing violations with the city, for tomorrow's planned ordeal at the city offices. I'm told the application for a retroactive permit and subsequent paying of fines will take me all damn day, but a tiny corner of my mind keeps hoping that I'll get in and get out with a minimum of bureaucracy. There's always the knitting to keep me company, if it doesn't go well.

my cross to bear

A week zipped by, as we were held hostage by the fabulous cook guest, and the holy terror toddler. I had fun, but let me tell you, this past Friday was a Happy Day, being able to come in from work and have my house back. To once again enter my kitchen, to lay in blissful silence on the sofa, watching mindless television, to keep all bedroom doors open in the house, without fear of dogs destroying children's stuffy toys...my dogs and King David (the fiendish 3 year old) did not mix so well, though the exposure was good on both sides. Ella was predatory, slipping around, thieving toys, eating pasta right out of the child's mouth, and expressing her distress at the invader by employing her age-old trick of peeing on her bed. Cricket's roughhousing and rampaging through the house whipped the boy up into a fever pitch, causing Cricket himself to spend a few evenings enjoying the solitude of our bedroom, with a beef rib, while the child was doted on.

It's weird when your party animal friends have children. I'm sure they think it's weird when their party animal friends acquire more animals and pick up strange habits like knitting.

In King David's wake, I realize that my friend Dan and I have parted ways in the cooking department. He has become a better, more enthusiastic, inspired cook, and P and I have remained the same sort of ordinary, survival cooks we always were. We have a few staples, we can make a fair number of things from scratch, but we are not above a bit of Taco Bell and Top Ramen to get us through the week. Ah, well, I do have my standbys, and tonight I made Tandoori chicken on the grill, salad and some yummy pesto potato salad.

The Crown of Thorns plant is blooming: I've always liked its waxy looking leaves and the flowers look rather like lipstick to me. Of course since moving to Hawaii, I hardly know lipstick anymore, relying on a bit of sunburn to make me look colorful, rather than my old stash of Clinique, Cargo and Aveda cosmetics. Still, if I were a glamourous woman, working in the business world, this matte-finish pinky red flower is the color of lipstick I would wear.

Working...I've developed a complete case of dread that starts up around 5pm each Sunday evening, and every morning around 6am, regarding my job. I like the students. I am just sick of feeling like a fish out of water at this school.

Last week, we had a field trip, and kids were strongly urged to wear the school shirts (and buy them if they didn't own them already) and close-toed shoes to go to a play. I am not a kid, and in light of the 85 degree heat, chose to wear a skirt, tank top and some open toed sandals. I caught it from a co-teacher, both about the shoes and later in the day, about my lack of ownership of the school shirt. Baaaahhhhh! Not a real hassle, just a cool "no closed toe shoes?" immediately upon my arrival in the classroom, and later in the day, a t-shirt order form was given to me. As a teacher I would always urge my students to wear sneakers on field trips, too. But as a teacher, I generally wore what I pleased. I realize this may come off as hypocritical to some, but hey, I'm an adult, and generally choose to dress in a way that's practical and comfortable. I DID notice that another teacher opted to wear platform shoes, displaying a stunning pedicure, and so I felt vindicated.

At the theater, it was pointed out that if the place caught on fire, those who were wearing sneakers could make a hasty escape. I guess I'd stay to burn, along with the fashionable other teacher and the odd parent chaperones and nonconformist 3rd graders...

Now this high-schoolishness and chuffing about my job is due to quit any minute now, and I do need to qualify it with the unequivocal statement that there are people I've found at work whom I truly enjoy and respect. They are just not the people I spend most of my days with. I am not necessarily a thin-skinned person, and I assure you I defended my choice of footwear as well as that black tank top with my typical sharp wit, but the damage is done. It remains no lovefest for me in my employment life. I seek my joy in the students, now, and in plying my craft, but I fear the lack of joy here.

Luckily, there's Life After Contract Hour, and it remains enjoyable. I have been self-medicating with the beach, Lanikai, to be specific, and snorkeling, and with grilling and my patio, and the almost frantic anticipation of my visit to Virginia in 3 weeks. P is out of town again, gone off to the Pacific Northwest, and the dogs and I are holding down the fort for a few days.

Tomorrow, in lieu of my teaching day, I have a meeting in Waikiki, which is not as shiny as one might expect, given that it's all about testing and scores and protocols. I'm going to be there with people who have the power to evaluate me, so I can't even knit, even though it's a 7-hour meeting. Still, Purple Koigu is going in my bag, because I can't resist the chance to enjoy the temptation.

The day after tomorrow, I go to City Hall to pay our fencing fees and hopefully, with the Universe's blessing, put this Bad Neighbor issue to rest once and for all. I'm taking a personal day to take care of this, and so won't see actual school until Wednesday, which is a short day. So I really have little to complain about, in the greater scheme of things.

eating and drinking through September

September already. I am still wondering what happened to June, which flew by in a whirlwind. It feels like fall here, but maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. Still, the hard rain in the night, the yellow grass on Diamond Head and Punchbowl craters and the blue blue skies all shout "autumn!!" to me.

We are buried under houseguests this week, as our old housemate and friend from waaaay back, Dan, is here, with wife and 3 year old son. I'm glad to see them, but find myself wishing for peace, as well. The constant interaction, the vigilance over the toddler, the need to play host and entertain are wearing me down. To compensate for the grueling part, I must mention that Dan is an outstanding cook, and we've eaten like fat hobbits since he's arrived, feasting on grilled aku, steamed crab, and a whole host of other gourmet delights. I've supplemented with cocopuffs from Liliha bakery and my newly-perfected smoothie recipe. So no one's getting thin in our household. Not this week, anyway.

Little knitting has been done. The heel of Purple Koigu Take Two is being formed. A few more rows of the Sophie bag have been knitted. I think I'm moving slowly on that one because I am trying to decide how to embellish it. But I do need it for my trip to the Olde Country, coming up at the end of the month, so I better get a move on!

My job may change at work, it turns out. They are thinking of buying out my contract (that of staff developer and resource teacher) and converting me to a Kindergarten teacher. No problem, says I, putting my new flexible-whatever attitude into practice. I mutter the mantra "my job does not define who I am" and remember that no matter what I end up doing this year, the reality is, I'll be on the chopping block come the end of the school year anyway. So my job, my real job, is to enjoy myself and work hard, in a non-attached (in the best Buddhist sense) way.

weekend retrospective

Here's what the knitted, ripped, re-knitted, re-ripped and final version of Purple Koigu sock did this past Friday eve.

Yup. I had my customary Friday night gin martini, while knitting and watching old episodes of "The Wire" on tv. Something about knitting, drinking alcohol and watching drug-dealing tv doesn't seem right, does it? Hmmmm...anyway, k3-p3 ribbing isn't too complicated, so I'm managing to make up for all that ripping. I rarely rip things that leave me ambivalent. Oftimes, I just suck it up and knit on. But Koigu cries out to be loved, adored, savored. So frogging it over and over was part of the equation. I'm using my own pattern, more or less now. Yikes. I like ribbed socks. I like purples and blues. I like the #2 needles WAY better than #1's. My wrists and hands thank me.

After the martini came the lentil soup, from Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone". Longtime readers know how I love this cookbook beyond all others. I think Deborah Madison rocks the veggie world. Clean simple flavors, everything from scratch, and generally interesting reading.


Beyond that, I am in a work-induced funk today, not due to work itself, but by the fact that I have too much to do, and houseguests coming from LA on Friday. I am not ready to entertain 2 people with toddler in my messy abode right now!!

Off to do some trail running to work off my frustrations. Cricket will appreciate it anyway!

stash monkey

I cannot get up out of bed this morning. I made the mistake of turning on NPR just as the Ellen Kushner program "Sound and Spirit" was coming on. Now normally, I enjoy this particular program as a background to my other activities. But her theme this week is music inspired by Lord of the Rings - the books, not the movies. So I, Tolkien geek that I am, must hear every second of this show. Can't take a shower. Can't get more coffee. Can't move...must visit Middle Earth one more time. Middle Earth does not invade my thoughts often, these days, though on occasions, hiking the Judd trail, I'm struck by how it could could be Lothlorien, especially in certain lights...

I visited Michelle, of my knit ladies, yesterday, out on the North Shore. The woman lives in Paradise, I tell you. I thought Nuuanu was Paradise, but I'd not calculated the great forest of banana and avocadoes and the seeming 20 steps to the pretty, tranquil beach that figure into her environs. We drank the promised pisco sour, complete with frothy eggwhite on top, and I am sad? proud? to say that I got quite buzzed on just the one, though I guess it was a rather large one. Speaking of rather large, she gave me a wee peek of her yarn stash, and I was duly impressed, and now realize that just because my own stash is creeping into another dresser, it is not a large one, after all.

I think, among other things, today calls for a stash inventory, and a cold, hard look at some of my WIPS, and whether or not they'll be finished. I'm going to frog the Cathay tank, and a couple of other things that have sat on the needles for a well over 2 years now. Then, to line up the things I do, honestly want to complete: Kiri, the Airy Scarf, the handspun pink Clapotis...the purple socks and the felted bag to be aren't worrying me as UFO's yet, they're still too new. But some of these other things have been hanging around for no good reason.

So I'm off to the frog pond, well, as soon as I can leave Middle Earth, anyway.

how soon they grow up

Baby Cricket

has now become quite a bit bigger. He's housebroken, he's been to Agility, Tracking and will be starting Obedience in a few weeks, he walks somewhat nicely on the leash. He knows the all-important command "Off!" and obeys it most of the time.

He is growing up, as you can see!



Happy Birthday to Giday Going Walkabout, our crazy Cricket.

crawling up onto dry land.

I am better. I decided to just laugh my way through my day, enjoy the students and not take these oh-so-stern-and serious teachers seriously, when it comes to correcting/nagging me. I can serve the students, do my job, enjoy my days and appreciate the instruction I like and admire and just wade on through the rest. It isn't worth it to get up in arms about someone correcting my penmanship. I'm 46 years old, for gods' sake. I've taught dozens of children to read and write, even if I do make my 5's and my M's funny. Move on, anal retentive types!

At the risk of sounding manic-depressive, I am better. I am much, much better. Mercury is headed toward directness, slowly but surely, and I have an Endangered Species Dark Chocolate (chimpanzee) bar. Yum. I have a plane ticket to Washington, DC for a week in October. I have the first season of "Weeds" on dvd. I finished hemming my new blue linen skirt, which has taken me all summer to sew. I have paid my rather large library fine to the Liliha Public Library, and I did some marginally successful training with Cricket this evening. The wool purse is growing, and the purple sock is being knitted, a row at a time on my lunch hours.

That Bits of Knits Chris pushed me over the edge and into a big yarn sale at WEBS online store, where I succumbed to a whole bunch of Noro Kureyon in a rather wild color. This woman is an enabler, and a dangerous one at that! Yikes. I have a little idea that's calling out to me in a soft voice, and I figured I might as well indulge it. Nothing like a depressive funk to provoke self-medication with candy-colored Kureyon, eh? Stay tuned.

The city inspector visited us, and inspected our fence and informed us of our fine, which should be around $60, for work without a permit. This is less than we feared it'd be, so we're slightly mollified.

weirded out

This is a pix taken by a friend of mine on Maui, up in the hill country near where he lives, in Kula. It is very beautiful up there, reminding me of CA's Napa Valley, or my own Virginia foothills to the Blueridge.

I wasn't going to whine overmuch about work anymore. But today, 2 incidents happened within an hour of each other that so boggled my mind that I had to vent a little wee bit. I've been assessing students for a teacher the past couple o' days, doing a 1:1 interview, testing them in math. I love this sort of thing, and have done a lot of it, in past jobs. I was taking detailed notes on what the kids knew and could do, on an assessment sheet, and the teacher I was working for came up, and out of the blue started correcting the capitalization of my notes. I had assumed the notes were sort of "for teacher eyes only" and so I had taken some of them in incomplete sentences, and hadn't capitalized perfectly. So she's standing over my shoulder fixing my lowercase "d" into a "D" and suggesting that I be more consise and brief in my notetaking, that the assessments were taking too long. Apparently 28 kids in 2 days is too slow. It is not the ONLY thing I do in this class these days. I am also teaching. It just floored me. I honestly couldn't think of anything sassy to say.

This is the same teacher who commented that my curled up posture at my desk (behind the bookshelf) didn't look very professional; what if a parent came by and saw me with my legs propped up against the desk? Mind you, this is at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon; our campus isn't exactly crawling with parents out looking for evidence of professionalism.

Okay...in the past week, I've been called on my handwriting, my posture at the desk, my notetaking, the speed at which I assess children and my punctuation. These are all the sorts of things these teachers hound their students about; work speed, posture, handwriting, proper use of capitals... I wonder how many more little offenses I can commit here? The bizarreness of it all is that it's all coming from peers, not anyone in a position to assess me. As far as I know, with admin, I'm in okay shape.

My reaction to this nonsense has been to laugh it off and to just say "I was taught to do it this way" or "you might want this information eventually" or the very blunt "28 kids in two days is a lot of kids for one person to assess." But it does grind me down, because I've never been hounded like this; not in my teaching life, anyway. It's all sort of adding up to that stinking cloud of negativity that's festering away, right now. I could analyze it, but don't really want to do so in this public forum.

Now, campers, this sloppy writer is going to bed.