mac nut farm

On my daily walk yesterday I detoured through the mac nut farm I always pass. The bees were busy with the new flowers while some forgotten nuts still hung from the trees.

Pohulu Valley Hike

One guy did tell me I'd better watch out or I'd be in labor tonight from the exertion, but it was good fun. A challengin hike for my pregnant butt, though worth it!

second baby sweater

This is sweater number 2! Unfortunatley I didn't have enough yarn to make sleeves.

The Year of Light

My friend Becky names her years. You know, the year of health, or growth, or whatever, so I'm following suit this year and deeming 2007 the Year of Light. (Besides that sounds way cooler than the year of the boar!) Our lives are regulated by light. I see the sunrise almost every morning as I rise for school in the dark. One of my new favorite children's books, How to Start a Day, is all about that actually - greeting the sun each morning. I feel it is hugely important to fill daylight with activity, because after dark our solar power will fire up three light bulbs, which isn't enough to trick my body into staying awake. Raph tries with card games, and music and candle-lit dinners, but bed beckons me when the sun has lost sight of us. I don't mind. I've come to love rising and falling with the sun and I'm prefectly alright with sleeping nine hours.

And since we're expecting, the year of light seems appropriate still. His first light. We're about to see the light. I can concoct all sorts of plays on words to justify the name. Speaking of names, two of my favorite Hawaiian names are about light. And boy were those Hawaiians poetic. Malio for example means "earliest morning light as it pierces the shadow of night." And Nikili means "to glimmer through, as light through a small opening." Those are good meanings.

I'm looking forward to seeing what 2007 will be for Becky.

most recent quilt

I've been knitting baby sweaters instead of quilting, but this one I jsut finished the binding on for a wedding gift. The pictures don't really do this one justice, but that's life.

valentines II

My mom and dad sent these and I just love them.

valentines

Homemade. The inside of Raph's valentine was very cute, but I don't want to embarress him. He's a pretty good valentine.

From the porch

The house we live in has good mana, as they say in Hawaii. It means good vibes; I guess technically it means goodness sent by the gods or something like that, but whatever the case, our house, despite the gecko shit everywhere and the mosquitos, is pretty awesome. Here's Raph's artsy picture under the mosquito net also...

after popular requests...

Here are some belly pictuers...since everybody asks me for them. Just over half way, at 20 weeks and a few days. The baby has been very active this last week and kicked me pretty hard a few times yesterday! Though I look pretty big, as of my last doctor's appointment three weeks ago I hadn't gained any weight, but there has definitely been some redistribution! I have another doctor's appointment on Monday, I doubt I'll get the same news this time!

squares and rectagles add up to something

With the awesome light-up knitting needles I got for Christmas, I made my first sweater, albeit for a baby. No pattern, just rectangles. I am very proud of myself and can't wait to start another one. Maybe I'll make the arms a little shorter on the next one! Live and learn.

Way of the Mono hike (CA)

some other winter details (HI and CA)

Bass Lake (CA) drained

A Boy!

Watch out! We're having a boy (or at least the doctor thinks so!) We of course could see very little on the ultrasound, but the doctor thought it was a boy so...now we have to start looking for boy names!

you know your belly is getting bigger when...

Yesterday while eating a quesadilla with salsa, I missed my mouth and a huge glop of salsa missed my boobs and landed on my belly. I guess I'm getting bigger than I realize. I've also had a few kicks in the last week, which is pretty exciting and cool.

Laundromats

When I was in college and had to do my own laundry (which was a rarity!) I went to the nearest laundromat. It had the usual collection of randomly aged washers and dryers, really comfortable orange couches, a tv, plants. It was nice. It was a nice way to spend a few hours.

My experience here has not been so rosy. The laundromat has banks of washers and dryers of course, no seating except outside where the smokers and terribly off-key hippies pollute any semblance of relaxations with yuck. It is not enjoyable. Plus, we live in a rainforest so it rains at least for a few seconds every time we're in there so it makes sitting outside even less enjoyable. Today, the hippies singing Bob-Dylan off-key and their kids whose teeth were rotting out of their mounts was more than I could handle!

some flowers

Toxoplasmosis

I also learned yesterday at the doctor's office that I have toxoplasmosis, albeit at low levels. I can't understand this because I've been paranoid about getting it and have avoided the cats completely. But it turns out that the disease can even be airborne - I never had a chance. Hope the baby isn't screwed up, though the nurse assured me it wouldn't be? What's the point? Why do they get pregnant women all worked up about cats anyway?

Rh-

Raph and I went to my doctor's appointment yesterday and found out that his blood type is Rh- which is awesome I think because that means I don't have to have those wierd shots they give you. The doctor was shocked and said that in all the years he's been practicing he's only had a handful of couples who are both Rh-. He told me I had picked the right guy!

Pam Berry

So we had dinner at our friend Dan's last night. He lives in a pavilion, not a house at all as there are no walls, just a roof. Needless to say eating there after sundown is a mosquito-ridden affair, plus the bees as they have their hives 25 feet from the pavilion. Anyhow, Dan joined us for Thanksgiving, where he was introduced to the greatest of all games - celebrity. He insisted on playing three times in fact, until finally I drew the line and said I'm going to bed. Well, he made sure there would be four of us there last night so that celebrity could continue. He invited another teacher, Pam Berry, a 50-some year old lady with the thickest Georgia accent I have ever heard. Pam has had a tough life, left several abusive men, suffered through a terrible divorce which precipitated a random move with her son from chilly Georgia to sunny Hawaii. Pam likes to drink and smoke and swear and she was very entertaining thoughout the night, particularly as the white zinfandel dwindled in the bottle. She promised to throw a baby luau for our unborn child (this is a Hawaii tradition and a big deal here!) And called everyone a bitch about 47 times while playing celebrity. She did a fairly hilarious charade of the indian chief, Sitting Bull. Anyway, my thoughts dwell on her so I thought I share.

vitamins

So, I've officially given up on the prescribed vitamins for pregnant ladies. After I puked the pill up a few times it dawned on me - how can this possibly be good for me if I am puking it up? Can it really be that good if my body is rejecting it? Don't worry, I've been taking Flinstones instead which seem to have enough of all the important stuff without over-doing it. I felt guilty for a minute like doctors must know what my baby needs, but alas I've decided that's a farce. My body knows better than any doctor what it needs and I'm going to listen to it.

kitty portrait

This is our stupid cute kitty who kills all the mice and I won't allow in the house because I'm afraid of toxoplasmosis. Oh well.

camping with kids

A few weeks ago we went camping with another teacher, our friend Dan, and a half dozen 7-9th grade boys. For one thing, I forget what boys are like at that age, without girls around. Or maybe I never knew. In any case, we slept in our car, while the boys raged all night long, fueled by mountain dew and freedom. They toilet-papered eachothers' tents, pulled pranks, climbed trees and threw bark at eachother, scaled coconut trees, etc. Being pregnant, they exhausted me. I laid in the car, amused but aware of how different boys and girls are. Our friend Dan is a saint for volunteering his time (four days, three nights) to take those boys out for camping and bodyboarding. Here is a shot of him body boarding at dead trees, a notorious Big Island surf spot, where screwing up can give you "tattoos" - or scars from where the lava rock claws you. Looked fun when he was doing it.

some Thanksgiving pics.

Raph and Isaac wrestling coconuts out of the tree. And Raph cooking Thanksgiving delights, while Isaac stares at the ceiling.

new digs

coming clean

I haven't been blogging for a while now because there was so much going on in my life. You may remember we were about to buy a new house when last I blogged. Well, no longer. Instead we're having a baby! And have moved off the grid into a fabulous house with incredible views and great mana (Hawaiian for good energy!) Here's a picture. Whew...now that that is out, I can start blogging again. End of June - a baby - hard to believe.

My Parents are Criminals

My parents have recently discovered ebay. They've been buying stuff from ebay forever, but recently they discovered selling on ebay. They're thinking of selling their house in a few years and recognize that it will be will take at least a few years to get rid of everything in it. So in earnest they've been selling. Unfortunately, they don't always ask me before they start selling things. They put some chairs up for sale that I wanted. There were two auctions of the chairs, so I ended up having to outbid everyone so that I won because we didn't know how to stop an auction.

Yeah, well on ebay that's illegal. It's called shill bidding and my parents infant company got shut down. We're cut off of ebay. MY mother is horrified. She called me at midnight her time (8:00 is her normal bed time) because she was so upset about it she couldn't sleep. She is really embaressed! I think it is actually pretty funny. Everytime I call and they're not home, I tell her I assume the cops have come to get her!

parent conferences

Today was the first of three days of parent conferences. Not in the vein you might be thinking of but instead a cafeteria full of teachers with no real organization and only about half with name tages. Parents could come in and pick up report cards with or without their students, then go around and speak to teachers. I have about 75 students. Five parents came to talk to me today. We'll see how many tomorrow.

The highlight of this event was when the ladies over at the ESL table shrieked and screamed in an unbelievably loud tone. A RAT! Nothing better than a rat running through the cafeteria at a parent-teacher conference. That was pretty much the funniest thing, in a sad and embarressing sort of way, that has occurred in some time.

nenes and silence

Raph and I took a hike today (sorry we forgot the camera) in a part of the national park we'd never been to, down Hilina Pali Road. It was foggy and drizzling, and the Ohia trees were sparse among the native grasses and shrubs. We walked for not too long about an hour, over crumbling lava, grassy fields and gnarled trees. It was lovely. I commented to Raph that the silence was so nice. And I'm not sure what about this place seemed silent. I guess that is a funny thing to say, but I feel like we are often by ourselves and often in the woods or by the water, but it just doesn't seem as silent as it was today. I even felt like our presence was quiet. A wierd feeling sort of. Anyway it was lovely. We saw two nene geese, which are endangered, though we used to see lots of them on Maui. They only live in Hawaii so it isn't too suprising that they're endangered. The feathers on their necks had been clumped, as though by running water, like sand. They made low mooing cow sounds at us as they plucked grasses to eat. It was really pleasant.

Earthquake

First: for any one that is wondering, we are fine.

Second: for anyone that is wondering, it did scare the crap out of me, never having been in an earthquake before. When I was completing my blog last night, I was thinking, what the hell am I am going to write about tomorrow. Well I got the answer early this morning. I had been up for over an hour, getting all of our paper-work in order and opening mail. Piles of papers were all over the table and I was running back and forth looking for ones I needed. The glass door to my right made a funny sound, like someone had thrown something against it. I looked up expecting to see a bird laying on the ground and as I did, the floor under me began to shake more and more. It didn't take long - a few seconds - for it to dawn on me that this was an earthquake. Raph was still in bed and I ran to him, screaming the whole way. I was scared. He was getting out of bed when I ran in, and I screamed that he had to get into the doorway - that's what you need to do in an earthquake. (Where the hell did I learn this?) He laughed at my fear. And then it ended. And I took a giant breath.

sleeping in cars (without boys)

I had training in Kona for the last three days. I have officially missed a quarter of the schools days for the first quarter! I heard it through the grape vine that I get a daily stipend of 80 bucs whether I spend it or not. So I think to myself immediately, "I'm sleeping in my car." It's amazing how freaked out people get about sleeping in your car. The truth is I love it. I don't know what it is about sleeping in my car I like so much - maybe it is the river guide in me. I love curling up in my car on a deadend street. Towels stuck in the windshield to block out strong lights. Listening for the first minutes to every sound wondering if someone is coming to tell me to move. Waking up at first light, before all the residents are up. I really do like it.

But noone else I work with or attended training with seemed to think this was wise. Another teacher at training offered me the extra bed in her hotel room and made such a stink about it, I finally accepted. It was a terrible hotel, which I might have excused, if it hadn't have been for the teachers ripping roaring snoring. An hour of laying in the bed waiting, wishing to fall asleep was enough, before I retreated to my comfy rental car. And slept wonderfully, sweetly. Un underrated activity I say.

more front yard

If you look closely at the second picture, you can see a fisherman on the point. Gives you perspective I think.

on our new front lawn

Our new favorite pasttime is sitting in these white chairs we bought at a garage sale and watching the ocean. Raph saw dolphins the other day while I was on a walk. Damn him. But every time we see turtles and crabs, and sometimes schools of fish in the shallow water. It's pretty much awesome. Even if a tsunami knocks my house down, I'll have been able to sit by the water, and watch sunrises most days!

the crash

Raph will tell you if you ask. I cry a lot. I don't think it is that much, but compared to him I do cry a lot (not a difficult feat considering I haven't ever seen him cry.) My departure from Pittsburgh was like removing one of those really sticky bandaids and I cried a lot, for leaving my home with permanence, knowing that this time I wouldn't be coming back.

But after the 18 hours of travel, my tears had dried and I was excited about a new adventure. I did pretty well. No bouts of crazy emotions. No tearful episodes about how I miss my mother. I did miss my mother. But I didn't cry about it. Not for months. And then they came. My parents. Unobtrusively, without imposing, which is their way.

Boy was I glad to see them. They took US on vacation even though they were visiting us. We spend days at the Puako beaches on the other side of the island, sunning ourselves, watching turtles and fish, playing bridge. And when we'd had our sun limit, we returned to rainy magical Puna, and shared the stars above Mauna Kea, the tide pools at Kapoho, the red road, quaint Hilo, and of course our new house. Then we shopped for furniture and played more bridge. Raph even was dealt 32 points in one hand. We ate well, and laughed a lot. And then they left.

And that little cut under the sticky bandaid resurfaced and I haven't stopped crying since.

parents visit

Signing our life away

number crunching

On Friday, we signed accepted the seller's counter offer for the house of Raph's dream. Jason, Raph's cousin, came along and jovially snapped pictures of us signing the forms and it was a jolly time, exciting.

Yesterday was a different story. We sat the with the loan officer for two hours and watched her fill out our loan application. Perhaps she didn't think we could do it on our own. I am more prone to believe that she just liked her own handwriting and wanted the application to be nice and neat. In any case it was excrutiating. We've talked to several loan officers. They all seem off, either shady or disgruntled, or something. This lady, bordered on rude. When we bought vacant land a year ago, she wrote the loan. When we considered a second lot, she'd say things like, "we don't want to be greedy now!" Yesterday she said things like, "Oh, that seems like a lot of money for a house out there." (I feel even now like I have to defend myself and tell you that actually it is a very good price for a house right near the water like this one.) Yesterday was not nearly so fun and jovial. In fact, I hope never to have pictures of myself with any loan officer.

Our course is set.

For better or worse, our course is set. We have an accepted offer on a house near the ocean in Hawaii. Come what may - lava, tsunami, hurricane, blue skies, friendly gales, friends and family - our course for the moment is set.

We went and biked around the neighborhood at dusk the other night, listened to the croaking of the coqui frogs all around, listened to the waves crashing, sat on the porch and let the wind play with my hair, tickle my eyes. My favorite thing about this house is by far the wind. It is constant and light, coming across 2500 miles of open ocean to kiss me. I can imagine the wind out of some Greek myth, arms outstetched reaching for me in Hawaii, hurling itself along, impatient.

some other hi pics

The Dry Cleaners (also from the writing workshop)

The Dry Cleaners

“You’re going to be working for the rest of your life. Why don’t you spend your free time with your friends or at the pool or something,” my mom offered. She didn’t get it. I desperately wanted a job, and for no particular reason. I wasn’t trying to make money. I just wanted a job. I considered having a job to be a great adventure, a sign of something. I wasn’t sure of what.

My friend Christina Kefalos, who brought me to Greek Conventions even though I wasn’t Greek, and who had the attention of every boy in the school, told me I could work with her at the dry cleaners. Thrifty Dry Cleaners paid $4.25 per hour and workers signed up for shifts. The deal was sealed. I was their newest employee.

The following month I headed to work, through the hole in the fence and across the tracks, stopping to feel the track for train vibrations and leaving a penny to get smooshed after I’d left. Sometimes I worried that I’d derail a train that way, but treasured the flattened metal too much to stop. I maneuvered through the fat gravel on the side of the road and hopped over the cement barrier into the middle of Edgewood Avenue.

Thrifty Dry Cleaners didn’t do the actual washing or pressing or whatever it was that they did to clothes in our store. A white van would come and take the carefully tagged clothes away and bring them back “cleaned” the following day. I was always doubtful that they did any actual cleaning of those clothes, instead suspecting that they put them on hangers, pressed them, covered them with bags and sent them back, since no stains ever seems to come out and clothes never really looked cleaner.

I learned a lot about stains at Thrifty’s. We were never allowed to tell a customer that a stain wouldn’t come out, but rather we were told to encourage them to “give it a try – you never know.” Well I knew. Those stains never came out. There were stains the workers learned to avoid. The biggest hazard to a worker at Thrifty’s were the pants of the “freeballers,” the fat men (most of the time) who without exception had stains on the insides of their pants. We went to extreme lengths to avoid contact with those pants, and tried our best to pin the little red and yellow tags to the waistband without touching the actual fabric.

The freeballers weren’t the only people who left the workers unsolicited surprises. The local drug dealers were a constant source of conversation between workers, due to the baggies of marijuana and wads of money left in pockets. We would all try to outdo others’ stories of treasures found by embellishing on the amounts of our finds or speculating about the owner. We commonly debated whether or not to keep money found in pockets. It was generally agreed upon that money less than ten or twenty dollars could be pocketed. Some of us returned such amounts anyway, to make customers happy. The issue was far more complicated when the sums grew over $100 or $200. We sometimes argued for keeping half, but reasoned the customer would then know the remainder had been taken. Christina convinced me that if we returned it, that would be an act of kindness, but we were not obligated to do so. So, mostly we returned the money, save a few dollars here and there, but grappled with the choice over an over again. Sometimes we’d take turns getting slush puppies from the convenience store next door with our found money, trying to outdo eachother with awful combinations of flavors – raspberry banana, blueberry grape, or the rainbow, which included every flavor all mixed together. In the end, they all pretty much tasted the same, even though they turned you lips and tongue different colors.

A major perk of working at Thrifty’s was that you were given a key to the store. Christina and I would occasionally sneak into the store after dark, because we knew it was wrong, that the cops were sure to catch us our after Edgewood’s community curfew of 10:00pm, which was broadcast by an exceedingly loud mounting whistle, that also alerted the volunteer fire department of a fire. We would enter and turn the light in the back room on, try on forgotten and neglected clothes. The store’s policy stated that Thrifty’s was not responsible for clothes left at the cleaners for more than three months. They never threw them away either, so we’d wait for the three month mark and then make them ours for our own personal fashion shows. Ridiculous prom dresses with puffy sleeves, too much toole, and terribly ugly cuts, were favorites. We also liked the gaudy wedding dresses, polyester shirts in browns and blues from the 70’s, and bell-bottom pants. Occassionally, we’d try on newer clothes and try to figure out which of our customers were closest in size. Sometimes we’d give them away to friends for Halloween, hoping that noone would ever come and pick them up.

They never did I suppose. Our clientele wasn’t the swiftest. We’d watch “the purse” from the big store front window on most days. She was a gaunt black lady, whose clothes never seemed to fit her right, clinging awkwardly to the wrong parts of her body, like a wet piece of clothing. She wore white pumps every day and puffy colored socks at the same time. She’d stand on the edge of the parking lot swinging her purse the way a lifeguard swings a whistle, eyeing each car that passed her. We were never sure what it was that she was doing there. Some speculated that she was trying to be a hooker. I doubted. She seemed lonely and crazy to me, and yet sure of her self at the same time. I speculated that she had lost a lover in our parking lot and would come every day to visit that memory, which was interrupted by every passing car.

Another favorite customer was Mr. Mom, who pushed a baby carriage through the parking lot, into the convenience store for a Kit Kat a couple times a week, and almost always on Saturdays, my usual work day. Very occasionally, he’d push the carriage into Thrifty’s to drop off baby clothes for cleaning. It was at these times, we’d choke back our laughter and try with all seriousness to comment on the cuteness of his “baby,” the plastic doll in his carriage. He never seemed to pay much attention to us, or catch our teasing. Sometimes I’d feel bad for Mr. Mom, wanting to understand him better, understand why he carried that doll around and chose not to hear our snickering, but I never told the worker that.

Working at Thrifty’s involved signing up for shifts, and after a year I signed up less and less. I’m not sure what had lit the fire inside of me to start working, but my mom was right, I have been working ever since. I do know that I learned a lot about stains, ethics, and strangers from Thrifty’s, lessons which I am still drawing upon now. I pause for ketchup down my white t-shirt and sometimes I pause to swing my purse in the parking lot, eyeing every car that passes.

The Suicide Run

We had to write a poem at our training today and I sort of liked mine. It was based on the structure of a poem by Mary Oliver called The Summer Day.

The Suicide Run

Who brought the snow?
Who laid it gently - an invitation?
Who made the hills?
This hill - I mean
The one who beckons my father,
The one who calls to us to test our luck, sleds in hand,
Who is waiting with trees like hair,
Who is gaping, mouth open under walls.
Now she smiles, sunlight illuminating the pores and rocks of her complexion.
Now she calls again and my dad slides away - down.
I don't know what other families are like.
I do know how to follow him, how to wait for his magic,
How to be awed and surprised, how to expect wonder and fear and wonder again,
Which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything change and too soon?
Tell me what is it that you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

about running

So I hate running. I hate running enough that I've created theories about why I'm a bad runner. Want to hear my favorite theory? My theory is that as a child dominant muscles form, based on the kinds of activities you participate in. For example, I spent most of my childhood swimming and feel I could swim for miles, presumably because my muscles had swimming as their major formative force. Other people who spend a lot of time running around and participating in sports have a whole different set of muscles formed. So this of course explains why running is so difficult for me and I hate it so much.

Having said that Raph and I are getting fat, mostly because his cousin Deanna has been cooking for us since we arrived in Hawaii. Quite seriously, I've never had so many different kinds of great food - Vietnemese (which she happens also to be), Mexican, Italian, Thai, Indian. Just thinking about it makes me fatter. So Raph convinced me to start running with him. At 5:00 AM. Ouch, you might be thinking, but in fact that is my favorite part of the running game, getting up for first light, when it is cool and sensitive outside.

Today was our third day. I'm only running half a mile, but my God it feels like an eternity. Then I walk that same distance or more back. And I have to say it feels good. I am energized for the whole morning, in a way that my cherished cup of coffee doesn't even afford. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of liked it today. Hopefully it will last at least as long as this blog.

top of Mauna Kea, top of the world.

moonlight on a lava field

It's Raph's birthday weekend and so I get no say in what we do. That's our deal. No compromising on your birthday weekend. So Raph made me stay up late. At about 10:00, we drove to Kalapana, which borders the most recent lava flows, the ones that tourists regularly photograph with the speed limit signs sticking out of the lava. Raph needed to know if you could see the lava on the hillside from this side of the lava flow. Sure enough it lit up the hillside and turned the clouds orange. More impressive than that was the silver sheen of the lava, reflection of a plump moon, so bright, we had moon shadows. We scuttled along as Raph set up the tripod and took painfully long to snap a picture. (I am not known for patience.) But soon my tendencies to fall asleep and my impatience with his pace faded, and the three of us (Raph's cousin Jason was also there) were having a grand old time taking ghost pictures in the lava. We did the old flashlight tricks, though I only posted the "LOVE" shot, not Jason's "FUCKER" shots. And the whole thing reminded me of days gone by, times in college or at the beach in Rhode Island, when boredom was the mother of invention and entertainment and beautiful landscapes the medium of our art.

newest quilts