May 31, 2004

Decoration Day

May 30 was set aside as Decoration Day, a day to tend the graves of the dead of the Civil War, or as we say "The War Between the States" I found a on line copy of Sarah Orne Jewett's short story, "Decoration Day". Written in 1892 for Harper's Magazine, It gives us a glimpse into life at the turn of that century,and a simplier more honest time. The data base is not allowing me to link so I have copied the story into the blog. Its a tad long but I think its worthwile to see how all of this got started, our celebration of those that gave their all for freedom's sake...

Jewett, Sarah Orne. Decoration Day
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library





I.
A WEEK before the 30th of May, three friends -- John Stover and Henry Merrill and Asa Brown -- happened to meet on Saturday evening at Barton's store at the Plains. They were enjoying this idle hour after a busy week. After long easterly rains, the sun had at last come out bright and clear, and all the Barlow farmers had been planting. There was even a good deal of ploughing left to be done, the season was so backward.

The three middle-aged men were old friends. They had been school-fellows, and when they were hardly out of their boyhood the war came on, and they enlisted in the same company, on the same day, and happened to march away elbow to elbow. Then came the great experience of a great war, and the years that followed their return from the South had come to each almost alike. They might have been members of the same rustic household, they knew each other's history so well.

They were sitting on a low wooden bench at the left of the store door as you went in. People were coming and going on their Saturday night errands -- the post-office was in Barton's store -- but the friends talked on eagerly, without interrupting themselves, except by an occasional nod of recognition. They appeared to take no notice at all of the neighbors whom they saw oftenest. It was a most beautiful evening; the two great elms were almost half in leaf over the blacksmith shop which stood across the wide road. Farther along were two small old-fashioned houses and the old white church, with its pretty belfry of four arched sides and a tiny dome at the top. The large cockerel on the vane was pointing a little south of west, and there was still light enough to make it shine bravely against the deep blue eastern sky. On the western side of the road, near the store, were the parsonage and the storekeeper's modern house, which had a French roof and some attempt at decoration, which the long-established Barlow people called gingerbread-work, and regarded with mingled pride and disdain. These buildings made the tiny village called Barlow Plains. They stood in the middle of a long narrow strip of level ground. They were islanded by green fields and pastures. There were hills beyond; the mountains themselves seemed very near. Scattered about on the hill slopes were farm-houses, which stood so far apart, with their clusters of out-buildings, that each looked lonely, and the pine woods above seemed to besiege them all. It was lighter on the uplands than it was in the valley where the three men sat on their bench, with their backs to the store and the western sky.

"Well, here we be 'most into June, an'


I ain't got a bush bean aboveground," lamented Henry Merrill.

"Your land's always late, ain't it? But you always catch up with the rest on us," Asa Brown consoled him. "I've often observed that your land, though early planted, is late to sprout. I view it there's a good week's difference betwixt me an' Stover an' your folks, but come 1st o' July we all even up."

"'Tis just so," said John Stover, taking his pipe out of his mouth, as if he had a good deal more to say, and then replacing it, as if he had changed his mind.

"Made it extry hard having that long wet spell. Can't none on us take no day off this season," said Asa Brown; but nobody thought it worth his while to respond to such evident truth.

"Next Saturday'll be the 30th o' May -- that's Decoration day, ain't it? -- come round again. Lord! how the years slip by after you git to be forty-five an' along there!" said Asa again. "I s'pose some o' our folks'll go over to Alton to see the procession, same's usual. I've got to git one o' them small flags to stick on our Joel's grave, an' Mis' Dexter always counts on havin' some for Harrison's lot. I calculate to get 'em somehow. I must make time to ride over, but I don't know where the time's comin' from out o' next week. I wish the women folks would tend to them things. There's the spot where Eb Munson an' John Tighe lays in the poor-farm lot, an' I did mean certain to buy flags for 'em last year an' year before, but I went an' forgot it. I'd like to have folks that rode by notice 'em for once, if they was town paupers. Eb Munson was as darin' a man as ever stepped out to tuck o' drum."

"So he was," said John Stover, taking out his pipe with decision and knocking out the ashes. "Drink was his ruin; but I wa'n't one that could be harsh with Eb, no matter what he done. He worked hard long's he could, too; but he wa'n't a like a sound man, an' I think he took somethin' first not so much 'cause he loved it, but to kind of keep his strength up so's he could work, an' then, all of a sudden, rum clinched with him an' threw him. Eb was talkin' 'long o' me one day when he was about half full, an' says he, right out, 'I wouldn't have fell to this state,' says he, 'if I'd had me a home an' a little fam'ly; but it don't make no difference to nobody, and it's the best comfort I seem to have, an' I ain't goin' to do without it. I'm ailin' all the time,' says he, 'an' if I keep middlin' full, I make out to hold my own an' to keep along o' my work.' I pitied Eb. I says to him, 'You ain't goin' to bring no shame on us old army boys, be you, Eb? An' he says no, he wa'n't. I think if he'd lived to get one o' them big fat pensions, he'd had it easier. Eight dollars a month paid his board, while he'd pick up what cheap work he could, an' then he got so that decent folks didn't seem to want the bother of him, an' so he come on the town."

"There was somethin' else to it," said Henry Merrill, soberly. "Drink come natural to him, 'twas born in him, I expect, an' there wa'n't nobody that could turn the divil out same's they did in Scriptur'. His father an' his gran'father was drinkin' men; but they was kind-hearted an' good neighbors, an' never set out to wrong nobody. 'Twas the custom to drink in their day; folks was colder an' lived poorer in early times, an' that's how most of 'em kept a-goin'. But what stove Eb all up was his disapp'intment with Marthy Peck -- her forsakin' of him an' marryin' old John Down whilst Eb was off to war. I've always laid it up ag'inst her."

"So've I," said Asa Brown. "She didn't use the poor fellow right. I guess she was full as well off, but it's one thing to show judgment, an' another thing to have heart."

There was a long pause; the subject was too familiar to need further comment.

"There ain't no public sperit here in Barlow," announced Asa Brown, with decision. "I don't s'pose we could ever get up anything for Decoration day. I've felt kind of 'shamed, but it always comes in a busy time; 'twa'n't no time to have it, anyway, right in late plantin'."

"'Tain't no use to look for public sperit 'less you've got some yourself," observed John Stover, soberly; but something had pleased him in the discouraged suggestion. "Perhaps we could mark the day this year. It comes on a Saturday; that ain't nigh so bad as bein' in the middle of the week."

Nobody made any answer, and presently he went on:

"There was a time along back when folks was too near the war-time to give much thought to the bigness of it. The



best fellows was them that had staid to home an' worked their trades an' laid up money; but I don't know 's it's so now."

"Yes, the fellows that staid at home got all the fat places, an' when we come back we felt dreadful behind the times," grumbled Asa Brown. "I remember how 'twas."

"They begun to call us hero an' old stick-in-the-mud just about the same time," resumed Stover, with a chuckle. "We wa'n't no hand for strippin' woodland nor tradin' hosses them first few years. I don' know why 'twas we were so beat out. The best most on us could do was to sag right on to the old folks. Father he never wanted me to go to the war -- 'twas partly his Quaker breed -- an' he used to be dreadful mortified with the way I hung round down here to the store an' loafed round a-talkin' about when I was out South, an' arguin' with folks that didn't know nothin' about what the generals done. There! I see me now just as he see me then; but after I had my boy strut out, I took holt o' the old farm 'long o' father, an' I've made it bounce. Look at them old meadows an' see the herds' grass that come off of 'em last year! I ain't ashamed o' my place, if I did go to the war."

"It all looks a sight bigger to me now than it did then," said Henry Merrill. "Our goin' to the war I refer to. We didn't sense it no more than other folks did. I used to be sick o' hearin' their stuff about patriotism an' lovin' your country, an' them pieces o' poetry women-folks wrote for the papers on the old flag, an' our fallen heroes, an' them things; they didn't seem to strike me in the right place; but I tell ye it kind o' starts me now every time I come on the flag sudden -- it does so. A spell ago -- 'long in the fall, I guess it was -- I was over to Alton tradin', an' there was a fire company paradin'. They'd got a prize at a fair, an' had just come home on the cars, an' I heard the band; so I stepped to the front o' the store where me an' my woman was, an' the company felt well, an' was comin' along the street 'most as good as troops. I see the old flag a-comin', kind of blowin' back, an' it went all over me. Somethin' worked round in my throat; I vow I come near cryin'. I was glad nobody see me."

"I'd go to war again in a minute," declared Stover, after an expressive pause; "but I expect we should know better what we was about. I don' know but we've got too many rooted opinions now to make us the best o' soldiers."

"Martin Tighe an' John Tighe was considerable older than the rest, and they done well," answered Henry Merrill, quickly. "We three was the youngest of any, but we did think at the time we knew the most."

"Well, whatever you may say, that war give the country a great start," said Asa Brown. "I tell ye we just begin to see the scope on't. There was my cousin, you know, Dan'l Evans, that stopped with us last winter; he was tellin' me that one o' his coastin' trips he was into the port o' Beaufort lo'din' with yaller-pine lumber, an' he was into an old buryin'-ground there is there, an' he see a stone that had on it some young Southern fellow's name that was killed in the war, an' under it, 'He died for his country.' Dan'l knowed how I used to feel about them South Car'lina goings on, an' I did feel kind o' red an' ugly for a minute, an' then somethin' come over me, an' I says, 'Well, I don't know but what the poor chap did, Dan Evans, when you come to view it all round.'"

The other men made no answer.

"Le's see what we can do this year. I don't care if we be a poor han'ful," urged Henry Merrill. "The young folks ought to have the good of it; I'd like to have my boys see somethin' different. Le's get together what men there is. How many's left, anyhow? I know there was thirty-seven went from old Barlow, three-month men an' all."

"There can't be over eight, countin' out Martin Tighe; he can't march," said Stover. "No, 'tain't worth while." But the others did not notice his disapproval.

"There's nine in all," announced Asa Brown, after pondering and counting two or three times on his fingers. "I can't make us no more. I never could carry figgers in my head."

"I make nine," said Merrill. "We'll have Martin ride, an' Jesse Dean too, if he will. He's awful lively on them canes o' his. An' there's Jo Wade -- with his crutch; he's amazin' spry for a short distance. But we can't let 'em go afoot; they're decripped men. We'll make 'em all put on what they've got left o' their uniforms, an' we'll scratch round an' have us a fife an' drum, an' make the best show we can."

"Why, Martin Tighe's boy, the next



to the oldest, is an excellent hand to play the fife!" said John Stover, suddenly growing enthusiastic. "If you two are set on it, let's have a word with the minister to-morrow, an' see what he says. Perhaps he'll give out some kind of a notice. You have to have a good many bunches o' flowers. I guess we'd better call a meetin', some few on us, an' talk it over first o' the week. 'Twouldn't be no great of a range for us to take to march from the old buryin'-ground at the meetin'-house here up to the poor-farm an' round by Deacon Elwell's lane, so's to notice them two stones he set up for his boys that was sunk on the man-o'-war. I expect they notice stones same's if the folks laid there, don't they?"

He spoke wistfully. The others knew that Stover was thinking of the stone he had set up to the memory of his only brother, whose nameless grave had been made somewhere in the Wilderness.

"I don't know but what they'll be mad if we don't go by every house in town," he added, anxiously, as they rose to go home. "'Tis a terrible scattered population in Barlow to favor with a procession."

It was a mild starlit night. The three friends took their separate ways presently, leaving the Plains road and crossing the fields by foot-paths toward their farms.

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II.
The week went by, and the next Saturday morning brought fair weather. It was a busy morning on the farms -- like any other; but long before noon the teams of horses and oxen were seen going home from work in the fields, and everybody got ready in haste for the great event of the afternoon. It was so seldom that any occasion roused public interest in Barlow that there was an unexpected response, and the green before the old white meeting-house was covered with country wagons and groups of people, whole families together, who had come on foot. The old soldiers were to meet in the church; at half past one the procession was to start, and on its return the minister was to make an address in the old burying-ground. John Stover had been a lieutenant in the army, so he was made captain of the day. A man from the next town had offered to drum for them, and Martin Tighe's proud boy was present with his fife. He had a great longing -- strange enough in that peaceful sheep-raising neighborhood -- to go into the army; but he and his elder brother were the mainstay of their crippled father, and he could not be spared from the large household until a younger brother could take his place; so that all his fire and military zeal went for the present into martial tunes, and the fife was the safety-valve for his enthusiasm.

The army men were used to seeing each other; everybody knew everybody in the little country town of Barlow; but when one comrade after another appeared in what remained of his accoutrements, they felt the day to be greater than they had planned, and the simple ceremony proved more solemn than any one expected. They could make no use of their everyday jokes and friendly greetings. Their old blue coats and tarnished army caps looked faded and antiquated enough. One of the men had nothing left but his rusty canteen and rifle; but these he carried like sacred emblems. He had worn out all his army clothes long ago, because when he was discharged he was too poor to buy any others.

When the door of the church opened, the veterans were not abashed by the size and silence of the crowd. They came walking two by two down the steps, and took their places in line as if there were nobody looking on. Their brief evolutions were like a mystic rite. The two lame men refused to do anything but march, as best they could; but poor Martin Tighe, more disabled than they, was brought out and lifted into Henry Merrill's best wagon, where he sat up, straight and soldierly, with his boy for driver. There was a little flag in the whip socket before him, which flapped gayly in the breeze. It was such a long time since he had been seen out-of-doors that everybody found him a great object of interest, and paid him much attention. Even those who were tired of being asked to contribute to his support, who resented the fact of his having a helpless wife and great family; who always insisted that with his little pension and hopeless lameness, his fingerless left hand and failing sight, he could support himself and his household if he chose -- even those persons came forward now to greet him handsomely and with large approval. To be sure, he enjoyed the conversation of idlers, and his wife had a complaining way that was the same as begging, especially since her boys began



to grow up and be of some use; and there were one or two near neighbors who never let them really want; so other people, who had cares enough of their own, could excuse themselves for forgetting him the year round, and even call him shiftless. But there were none to look askance at Martin Tighe on Decoration day, as he sat in the wagon, with his bleached face like a captive's, and his thin, afflicted body. He stretched out his whole hand impartially to those who had remembered him and those who had forgotten both his courage at Fredericksburg and his sorry need in Barlow.

Henry Merrill had secured the engine company's large flag in Alton, and now carried it proudly. There were eight men in line, two by two, and marching a good bit apart, to make their line the longer. The fife and drum struck up gallantly together, and the little procession moved away slowly along the country road. It gave an unwonted touch of color to the landscape -- the scarlet, the blue, between the new-ploughed fields and budding road-side thickets, between the wide dim ranges of the mountains, under the great white clouds of the spring sky. Such processions grow more pathetic year by year; it will not be so long now before wondering children will have seen the last. The aging faces of the men, the renewed comradeship, the quick beat of the hearts that remember, the tenderness of those who think upon old sorrows -- all these make the day a lovelier and a sadder festival. So men's hearts were stirred, they knew not why, when they heard the shrill fife and the incessant drum along the quiet Barlow road, and saw the handful of old soldiers marching by. Nobody thought of them as familiar men and neighbors alone -- they were a part of that army which saved its country. They had taken their lives in their hands and gone out to fight -- plain John Stover and Jesse Dean and the rest. No matter if every other day in the year they counted for little or much, whether they were lame-footed and despised, whether their farms were of poor soil or rich.

The little troop went in slender line along the road; the crowded country wagons and all the people who went afoot followed Martin Tighe's wagon as if it were a great gathering at a country funeral. The route was short, and the long straggling line marched slowly; it could go no faster than the lame men could walk.

In one of the houses by the road-side an old woman sat by a window, in an old-fashioned black gown, and clean white cap with a prim border which bound her thin sharp features closely. She had been for a long time looking out eagerly over the snowberry and cinnamon-rose bushes; her face was pressed close to the pane, and presently she caught sight of the great flag.

"Let me see 'em! I've got to see 'em go by!" she pleaded, trying to rise from her chair alone when she heard the fife, and the women helped her to the door, and held her so that she could stand and wait. She had been an old woman when the war began; she had sent two sons and two grandsons to the field; they were all gone now. As the men came by, she straightened her bent figure with all the vigor of youth. The fife and drum stopped suddenly; the colors dipped. She did not heed that, but her old eyes flashed and then filled with tears to see the flag going to salute the soldiers' graves. "Thank ye, boys; thank ye!" she cried, in her quavering voice, and they all cheered her. The cheer went back along the straggling line for old Grandmother Dexter, standing there in her front door between the lilacs. It was one of the great moments of the day.

The few old people at the poorhouse, too, were waiting to see the show. The keeper's young son, knowing that it was a day of festivity, and not understanding exactly why, had put his toy flag out of the gable window, and there it showed against the gray clapboards like a gay flower. It was the only bit of decoration along the veterans' way, and they stopped and saluted it before they broke ranks and went out to the field corner beyond the poor-farm barn to the bit of ground that held the paupers' unmarked graves. There was a solemn silence while Asa Brown went to the back of Tighe's wagon, where such light freight was carried, and brought two flags, and he and John Stover planted them straight in the green sod. They knew well enough where the right graves were, for these had been made in a corner by themselves, with unwonted sentiment. And so Eben Munson and John Tighe were honored like the rest, both by their flags and by great and unexpected

nosegays of spring flowers, daffies and flowering currant and red tulips, which lay on the graves already. John Stover and his comrade glanced at each other curiously while they stood singing, and then laid their own bunches of lilacs down and came away.

Then something happened that almost none of the people in the wagons understood. Martin Tighe's boy, who played the fife, had studied well his part, and on his poor short-winded instrument now sounded taps as well as he could. He had heard it done once in Alton at a soldier's funeral. The plaintive notes called sadly over the fields, and echoed back from the hills. The few veterans could not look at each other; their eyes brimmed up with tears; they could not have spoken. Nothing called back old army days like that. They had a sudden vision of the Virginian camp, the hill-side dotted white with tents, the twinkling lights in other camps, and far away the glow of smouldering fires. They heard the bugle call from post to post; they remembered the chilly winter night, the wind in the pines, the laughter of the men. Lights out! Martin Tighe's boy sounded it again sharply. It seemed as if poor Eb Munson and John Tighe must hear it too in their narrow graves.

The procession went on, and stopped here and there at the little graveyards on the farms, leaving their bright flags to flutter through summer and winter rains and snows, and to bleach in the wind and sunshine. When they returned to the church, the minister made an address about the war, and every one listened with new ears. Most of what he said was familiar enough to his listeners; they were used to reading those phrases about the results of the war, the glorious future of the South, in their weekly newspapers; but there never had been such a spirit of patriotism and loyalty waked in Barlow as was waked that day by the poor parade of the remnant of the Barlow soldiers. They sent flags to all the distant graves, and proud were those households who claimed kinship with valor, and could drive or walk away with their flags held up so that others could see that they, too, were of the elect.

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III.
It is well that the days are long in the last of May, but John Stover had to hurry more than usual with his evening work, and then, having the longest distance to walk, he was much the latest comer to the Plains store, where his two triumphant friends were waiting for him impatiently on the bench. They also had made excuse of going to the post-office and doing an unnecessary errand for their wives, and were talking together so busily that they had gathered a group about them before the store. When they saw Stover coming, they rose hastily and crossed the road to meet him, as if they were a committee in special session. They leaned against the post-and-board fence, after they had shaken hands with each other solemnly.

"Well, we've had a great day, 'ain't we, John?" asked Henry Merrill. "You did lead off splendid. We've done a grand thing, now, I tell you. All the folks say we've got to keep it up every year. Everybody had to have a talk about it as I went home. They say they had no idea we should make such a show. Lord! I wish we'd begun while there was more of us!"

"That han'some flag was the great feature," said Asa Brown, generously. "I want to pay my part for hirin' it. An' then folks was glad to see poor old Martin made o' some consequence."

"There was half a dozen said to me that another year they're goin' to have flags out, and trim up their places somehow or 'nother. Folks has feelin' enough, but you've got to rouse it," said Merrill.

"I have thought o' joinin' the Grand Army over to Alton time an' again, but it's a good ways to go, an' then the expense has been o' some consideration," Asa continued. "I don't know but two or three over there. You know, most o' the Alton men nat'rally went out in the rigiments t'other side o' the line, an' they was in other battles, an' never camped nowheres nigh us. Seems to me we ought to have home feelin' enough to do what we can right here."

"The minister says to me this afternoon that he was goin' to arrange an' have some talks in the meetin'-house next winter, an' have some of us tell where we was in the South; an' one night 'twill be about camp life, an' one about the long marches, an' then about the battles -- that would take some time -- an' tell all we could about the boys that was killed, an' their record, so they wouldn't be forgot. He said some of the

folks must have the letters we wrote home from the front, an' we could make out quite a history of us. I call Elder Dallas a very smart man; he'd planned it all out a'ready, for the benefit o' the young folks, he said," announced Henry Merrill, in a tone of approval.

"I s'pose there ain't none of us but could add a little somethin'," answered John Stover, modestly. "'Twould re'lly learn the young folks a good deal. I should be scared numb to try an' speak from the pulpit. That ain't what the elder means, is it? Now I had a good chance to see somethin' o' Washin'ton. I shook hands with President Lincoln, an' I always think I'm worth lookin' at for that, if I ain't for nothin' else. 'Twas that time I was just out o' hospit'l, an' able to crawl about some. Well, we'll see how 'tis when winter comes. I never thought I had no gift for public speakin', 'less 'twas for drivin' cattle or pollin' the house town-meetin' days. Here! I've got somethin' in mind. You needn't speak about it if I tell it to ye," he added, suddenly. "You know all them han'some flowers that was laid on to Eb Munson's grave an' Tighe's? I mistrusted you thought the same thing I did by the way you looked. They come from Marthy Down's front yard. My woman told me when we got home that she knew 'em in a minute; there wa'n't nobody in town had that kind o' red flowers but her. She must ha' kind o' harked back to the days when she was Marthy Peck. She must have come with 'em after dark -- or else dreadful early in the mornin'."

Henry Merrill cleared his throat. "There ain't nothin' half-way 'bout Mis' Down," he said. "I wouldn't ha' spoken 'bout this 'less you had led right on to it; but I overtook her when I was gittin' towards home this afternoon, an' I see by her looks she was worked up a good deal; but we talked about how well things had gone off, an' she wanted to know what expenses we'd been put to, an' I told her; an' she said she'd give five dollars any day I'd stop in for it. An' then she spoke right out. 'I'm alone in the world,' says she, 'and somethin' to do with, an' I'd like to have a plain stone put up to Eb Munson's grave, with the number of his rigiment on it, an' I'll pay the bill. 'Tain't out o' Mr. Down's money,' she says; ''tis mine, an' I want you to see to it.' I said I would, but we'd made a plot to git some o' them soldiers' head-stones that's provided by the government. 'Twas a shame it had been overlooked so long. 'No,' says she; 'I'm goin' to pay for Eb's myself.' An' I told her there wouldn't be no objection. Don't ary one o' you speak about it. 'Twouldn't be fair. She was real well-appearin'. I never felt to respect Marthy so before."

"We was kind o' hard on her sometimes, but folks couldn't help it. I've seen her pass Eb right by in the road an' never look at him when he first come home," said John Stover.

"If she hadn't felt bad, she wouldn't have cared one way or t'other," insisted Henry Merrill. "'Tain't for us to judge. Sometimes folks has to get along in years before they see things fair. Come; I must be goin'. I'm tired as an old dog."

"It seemed kind o' natural to be steppin' out together again. Strange we three got through with so little damage, an' so many dropped round us," said Asa Brown. "I've never been one mite sorry I went out in old A Company. I was thinkin' when I was marchin' to-day, though, that we should all have to take to the wagons before long an' do our marchin' on wheels, so many of us felt kind o' stiff. There's one thing -- folks won't never say again that we don't show no public sperit here in old Barlow."

May 29, 2004

Nine Layers of Being

I found this on Pariah Burke's Classy Blog I am Pariah author of The Saturday Slant Very deep questions on this Meme so stay tuned...I thought that I would do this one that he had posted on his personal website


LAYER ONE:
Name: Aletha Kathleen Roberts (alias Dancing Rain Girl)
Birth date: 6 March
Birthplace: Anaheim, California
Current Location: Hawaii
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown and Grey "highlights"
Height: 6'
Righty or Lefty: Hopelessly Righty
Sign: Born Again under the sign of the Cross


LAYER TWO:
Your heritage: Father Welsh and Iberian
Mother Southern Scots-Irish Mutt
The shoes you wore today: slippers, bare feet
Your weakness (es): Perfectionism, Pride, oh all of the 7 Deadly Sins, Chocolate, Pastry... I guess Gluttony is high in the 7
Your fears: Not being needed or wanted. Being forgotten and left out
Your perfect pizza: Hot tomato sauce, cheese, Spicy meats Chicken Pepperoni, Sausages
Goal(s) you'd like to achieve: To finish and publish my writings, to record a few songs that I love... To be a sucess in business and to find love on the human level.


LAYER THREE:
Your most overused phrase on AIM: LOL
Your first waking thoughts: "Thank You Jesus"
Your best physical feature: My hands
Your most missed memory: I have too many to list...


LAYER FOUR:
Pepsi or Coke: Diet Dr. Pepper
McDonald's or Burger King: Taco Bell
Single or group dates: I gave up on the whole "dating thing" as a contrivance of society to do away with chaparones. I want to get to know a person in a setting that is less passive for the woman and more active for both
Adidas or Nike: Nike--They fit better...
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Lipton cold
Chocolate or vanilla: Did somebody say Chocolate
Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee... ummm the elixer of life,


LAYER FIVE:
Smoke: Never never never... Horrible way to kill yourself
Cuss: Yes, sometimes still... Im working on it
Sing: Like I breathe... I estimate I sing 3 hours a day when alone, I sing to my cats, to my husband and for no reason at all... Have been a worship leader in a church,
Take a shower everyday: Yes sometimes two, its very humid here
Do you think you've been in love: Yes, too many times...
Want to go to college: yes and finish
Liked high school:No..I survived my teens only because Music kept me alive
Want to get married: Yes to the right person, married the wrong person twice now
Believe in yourself: Yes
Get motion sickness: Sometimes never at sea
Think you're attractive: To some
Think you're a health freak: NO!
Get along with your parent(s): Yes,
Play an instrument: guitar a bit and not lately


LAYER SIX: In the past month...
Drank alcohol: No
Smoked: Quit with the smoking thing ok!!!
Done a drug: Anti histamines
Made out: I wish
Gone on a date: Yes, with my girlfriend Kathy
Gone to the mall: Yes
Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No, but I've killed a couple cartons of Ice Cream
Eaten sushi: No
Been on stage: No
Been dumped: By a vendor at the store
Gone skating: No
Made homeade cookies: yes if brownies count
Gone skinny dipping: No
Dyed your hair: No
Stolen anything: No
You sound boring: Possibbly


LAYER SEVEN: Ever...
Played a game that required removal of clothing: [blush] Yeah, I've done that
If so, was it mixed company: Yes
Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Yes, when I was younger
Been caught "doing something": Yeah, that too.
Been called a tease: Yes, and worse
Gotten beaten up: Yes--I Have been beaten up twice, once by my ex, the other during a rape as a teen. Im glad that I am still alive.
Shoplifted: Yes--by accident, was too embarassed to go back so I mailed the money to the store...
Changed who you were to fit in: We all have at some point or another in our lives. It has been many years since I've felt insecure enough to do that.


LAYER EIGHT:
Age you hope to be married: I am married
Numbers and Names of Children: Two cats Makoa and Kanani
Describe your Dream Wedding: I had it. It would take me two days to describe it and I would cry the whole way through. It was the last blissfully unaware of reality day of my life.
How do you want to die: peacefully drifting off to sleep
Where you want to go to college: No thought on that, other then the Gemological Institute of America
What do you want to be when you grow up: A Writer
What country would you most like to visit: England. I want to spend 6 months going to all the places that I have longed to go to


LAYER NINE:
Number of people I could trust with my life: No humans as of today
Number of CDs that I own: A few hundred (music)
Number of piercing: five, three in my left ear, two in my right
Number of tattoos: ZERO
Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: at least 10 likely more
Number of scars on my body: dozens from insect bites that dont heal
Number of things in my past that I regret: A few more than I care to think of...

Aloha and Hana Hou

What We Want

.
What We Want
.
What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names--
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening. © W.W. Norton.

I feel like my life is like this. All that I ever wanted in life, has been denied. What I do have is so much more than most ever have... that like the poet, I feel like I have aching arms from holding it all. Yet I would drop it for what I dont have. Seems somewhat ungrateful of me...

This is the quiet time. Woody is in Keauhou,he likes his new posting, quieter, less stressful. Up in the hills above Kealakekua Bay, where Captain Cook first landed on Hawaii, he has a lovely view...has adopted two stray cats to feed, and is happy with things...

I am still discontented but know that its not something I can change. He is as he is, I am as I am. Yet I have these little reminders come up of the past or what might have been. Its a little sad.

I was trolling news sites and found one that I knew of, but had never seen.As I went through the archives, I think I have avoided it in the past, because I knew that seeing the familiar names and faces would really hurt.It did... The founder of this news site is a well known journalist, whose life work has been to chronicle the struggle of the persecuted church, and has been a personal voice of martyrs since that terrible day in 1978 when he witnessed the slaughter of thousands of Ugandan Believers at the word of Idi Amin. I have admired Dan Wooding and his wife and those that work with ASSIST Ministries. Those "26 Lead Soldiers" (type writer keys) are now computers and instead of all the means we used to communicate 20 years ago that were dinosaur slow compared to high speed internet connections, we have the Blog Websites and virtual Newsrooms.

And we still have: Uganda...Sudan...Timor...Gaza...China...North Korea, the entire Islamic Sphere, and a host of other countries that persecute believers.

There were two other bylines on related or linked posts that were of note , one was Ray Comfort, well known New Zealand born evangelist and writer, who was also my neighbor on the mainland and a Pastor at the church I was in ministry in up until 1996. I miss Ray a lot and will have to drop him a line...

The other byline...I will not say who he was... it is enough to say that seeing his name after so many years was a stab in my heart. When you meet someone that so overwhelms you with who they just are let alone their life and how God chose to use them, your life is forever changed... This guy had taken people and materiel behind the Iron Curtain, and into China, praying that the seeing would be made blind...Had worked in situations that are scary even now to think about. Musician, photgrapher, journailist. Adopted as an infant into priviledge, He gave it up after spending two weeks on the Manila Dump, and became an itinerant missionary...He was amazing in his tenacity to do the will of God and the work of God however he was called to do it.

After an few weeks, I realized that I could love this guy...he must have too and informed me that I wasnt suited to his life and he never spoke to me again, and I only saw him from a great distance. I respected that, as sad as it was... for you see, I wasnt willing to give up my comforts then and now...It wasnt something I discussed with him or anyone. He knew that perhaps from how hard I worked (50 plus hours and put in 30 plus at the church), and how I lived...and what was important to me and my plans...the husband kids and house with a white picket fence. Church and ministry here in LA not the Philippines or God knows where. I have the husband, but nothing else out of my plans.... (at least I am not stuck in LA...)

This is the first time I have said anything to anyone about it. It didnt seem right. Sometimes its best to let dreams die before they are born...But it doesnt take away the wondering of the might have beens...

Sometimes I have heard his music in the back of my thoughts... a gifted songwriter, some of his tunes are still in my head even after all this time and distance...A good song will do that...

...Against the darkness, I have struggled
Without You, I cannot stand..
Give me one more day to free a soul...

Ari el, I hardly knew you...

May 27, 2004

Snappy Comebacks

Thank you Jeff Soyer at Alphecca the sister blog to Tarazet for this bit of sharp edged humor.I have worked in some ruthless offices where this stuff would have come in handy... and I did amature stand up comedy prior to becomming a Christian...(I have to give up most of my material...all that was left were divorce jokes, fat jokes and political jokes.)So I thought that this was funny. Some were edited for content, after all MWBS is a PG rated blog, and I try to keep the cussing to a minimum and cuss only at newstime... #1 had to be compleatly removed. Sensoring it for broadcast compleatly removed the context and made it nonsensical...

Snappy Comebacks
Because sometimes you just need that perfect phrase to get rid of an annoyance. From an email that made the rounds at work yesterday:


1. Deleated....

2. You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing.

3. Well this day was a total waste of make-up.

4. Well, aren't we a damn ray of sunshine?

5. Don't bother me, I'm living happily ever after.

6. Do I look like a people person?

7. This isn't an office. It's hell with fluorescent lighting.

8. I started out with nothing and I still have most of it left.

9. Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble wrap is cheap. You choose.

10. Why don't you try practicing random acts of intelligence and senseless acts of self-control?

11. I'm not crazy. I've been in a very bad mood for 30 years.

12. Sarcasm is just one more service I offer.

13. Do they ever shut up on your planet?

14. I'm not your type. I'm not inflatable.

15. Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven't gone to sleep yet!

16. Back off!! You're standing in my area.

17. Don't worry. I forgot your name too.

18. I work 45 hours a week to be this poor.

19. Not all men are annoying. Some are dead.

20. Wait...I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.

21. Chaos, panic and disorder ... my work here is done.

22. Ambivalent? Well, yes and no.

23. You look like !@#$. Is that the style now?

24. Earth is full. Go home.

25. Aw, did I step on your poor little itty bitty ego?

26. I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert.

27. Bad Hair doesn't count as personal growth.

28. You are depriving some village of an idiot.

29. If jackasses could fly, this place would be an airport.

over and out... Hey I cant always be so serious, you guys wont read me if I dont lighten up once in a while!

Aloha and Hana Hou!

May 26, 2004

Happy Birthday, Azure Seas Jewelry

Yes my "baby" is one year old today. It was on this day May 25,2003 that our first sale occured. It was a piece made on Kibbutz Revadim, of Sterling Silver and 2000 year old Roman Glass, a line that has been our best seller....The trouble in the region and trouble with our supplier may end this relationship. Its my hope to find another intermediary or import the peices myself. We shall see how things go. Its important to me not just becasue we sell a lot of the peices from this line, or even the fact that we, in buying a product made in Israel, support Gods People.... Its the look of reverence on a young mans face as he holds this tiny relic of history in the palm of his hand and says "this is going with me when I go back to Iraq next week, to remind me of the long struggle in this region and to pray as well as shoot my gun..." Having this antiquity changes people...and I have been changed for having it...

It has been a struggle financially but also emotionally. the growing pains have been hugely apparent this week when we realized that we have had our first thefts of jewelry. We had that set of keys stolen earlier this year, but at least two rings were taken by a woman and her son last week. I was out when they were let in and came back throught the back door and peeked through the curtains...I saw this group in the store creating such a disterbance that its little wonder Woody got distracted as left cases open to try to deal with an out of control distructive 10 year old. They all cleared out quick when they saw me. Id have slapped the little brat, and frankly Id have never let them in, they were not right and like gypsies... how you just know not to have them around cause theyd steal you blind... As far as I know they got two things replacable and we are installing security cameras next week.

I never raised my voice at Woody. He knew better, admitted that and knew something was up but did the wrong thing. He is way too trusting and learned the hard way.

There is more work than I can handle alone and we do need two people there to aviod such comotion as that day last week. I also turned down over 1000.00 worth of work last week that had I been a benching jeweler, I could have had. The cash stream from that makes it vital that I pursue learning that skill soon. Its going to take about 10000.00 to do what I need to do we shall see how things go.

We are slowly digging ourselves out of the hole... The house is no longer in danger of foreclosure and we still have the lights on...Praise God.

We went out to dinner to celebrate. A new restaurant opened last month called Island Cantina. Two guys from our part of the world moved over here last year and live not too far from us. This is their little dream and I wish them well. I think they will do well as the food was great and they had great live music in the middle of the week.... Hilo is growing and there are opportunities if you can stay the course...The odds or very much against you...100 to one that you will survive the first five years.

one down four to go...

I am determined to, with the help of God we will.... Thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement. It has ment a lot...

And most especially to the birthing coach and god mother of this "child" Kathy Hammes of the Small Business Development Network. It wouldnt have happened without you either... Take a bow...We beat the odds.

May 25, 2004

Tell The Children the Truth

Hana Hou to Conservative Punk and their excellent coverage of conservative issues in a format for those of us that might find some political bolgs a bit "square"... (ooops sorry people been talking to the other generation in our house Woody and he uses "square", we punks or reformed neo punks would never use that term) I thought that this bit might stimulate intrest in their blog and its good too...

Knowing the Roots


Whether you believe that internal strife, American neo-imperialism or combinations of those factors are the causes of the current state of affairs in the Middle East, we can all agree that we must explore the roots of Middle Eastern and Islamic, anti-Semitism and hatred of the West.

A new campaign called "Tell Children the Truth" has been formed by Islamic Scholar Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, it's goal is to spread the truth about the origin of hate in the Islamic world. Surprisingly, Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Semitism can be traced to a single man, Amin Al Husseini. Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi says of him:

Amin Al Husseini was a friend and close collaborator of Hitler and Mussolini, who saw himself as the Muslim arm of the world Nazi coalition. Husseini promised Hitler and Mussolini to turn Islam into the most formidable weapon against the West and the Jews. After the war he helped organize the creation of dictatorships all over the Muslim world, where many of his believers are now the leaders. Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Assad of Syria, and other Arab dictators were all schooled at Husseini's feet. Amin al Husseini was at different intervals the head of the Islamic World Congress, The Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League. As a leader of these organizations, until his death in the 70's, he had the time and possibility to spread his hate philosophy all over the Muslim world. Since Husseini's days, the whole Islamic world has been infected with armies of fascist violent groups.

Osama bin Laden and all other Muslim terror chiefs are ardent followers of Amin Al Husseini.
Read about the perversion of Islam, and the man who turned it into a tool of hate. http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com

Some how I knew the Nazis were involved...

May 24, 2004

Ka Pokole Mo'olelo a ka Aina (A Brief History of the Land)

I have found an archive of old "Volcano Watch" columns thanks to the US Geological Survey and our own Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory. I cannot talk or write about this enough. This is one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World and its in my back yard. I will be posting more of these colums as I give my hands some time off...Carpal Tunnel is the plague of modern man...

Volcanoes of the Big Island

The Island of Hawai'i consists of five coalesced volcanoes, a submarine volcano that has already subsided below sea level, and another, Loihi Seamount, that has yet to grow to sea level. The following is a brief history of each of these volcanoes, starting with the youngest and progressing to the oldest.

Loihi, which is in transition between preshield and shield stages, has infrequent small eruptions, and has had small earthquake swarms nearly every year since 1980. The flat-topped summit, about 3,180 feet below sea level, is connected to a well-developed south rift zone and a less pronounced north rift zone. There are two deep collapse pits, similar in size to Halema'uma'u at Kilauea's summit, located in the southern part of the summit region. Hot water escapes from vents near its summit and along its upper south rift zone. These observations, and the recovery of fresh, glassy lava fragments, indicate that Loihi is an active volcano destined to emerge as an island within the next 200,000 years, grow, and coalesce with Hawaii.

Kilauea Volcano, in the explosive substage of the shield stage, and the most active volcano on Earth, has erupted 60 times since 1840. Its lava flows are interbedded with ash deposits produced by infrequent explosive eruptions, most recently in 1790. Eruptions can occur anywhere at the summit or along the east or southwest rift zones. The south flank of the volcano, bounded by the two rift zones, slips towards the ocean at rates of a few inches per year on a flat-lying fault about 6 miles deep. Large earthquakes, such as those that occurred in 1975 and 1989, are associated with large-scale movement along this flat-lying fault.

(Bloggers note: I live in the shadow of this wonder and while I feel safer than I did living in LA on an earthquake fault that was unpredicable, I keep a light touch on things one never knows of someday I will come home to find steam rising out of the puka (sink hole) in my back yard...)

Mauna Loa Volcano, nearing the end of the shield stage, is declining in its eruption rate. Only three of its 36 eruptions since 1843 have occurred since 1950. In addition to the two prominent rift zones, repeated fissure eruptions have occurred randomly on the northern and northwestward flank of the volcano. In order to grow to its present estimated volume of roughly 10,000 cubic miles, Mauna Loa must have erupted, for much of its lifespan, at four or five times its historic rates. Like Kilauea, the southeastern flank of Mauna Loa slips slowly towards the ocean on a flat-lying fault that generates large earthquakes. The west flank also slips during large earthquakes. The flanks of Mauna Loa have spawned at least six catastrophic landslides that can be recognized as blocky debris on the sea floor adjacent to the island. The Alika slide off the west flank of Mauna Loa Volcano is inferred to have formed about 105 ka (thousand years before present); it appears to be the youngest of the large landslides around the Hawaiian Islands.

Hualalai Volcano, an active volcano in the postshield stage, last erupted in A.D. 1800-1801, once about 700 years ago, and three times between 900 and 1,200 years ago. It erupts every few hundred years, on average; the flows of 'a'a and pahoehoe advance quickly due to its steep slopes. The final summit caldera is buried, and spatter and cinder cones align along well-developed northwest and south rift zones. At about 105 ka, the postshield-stage pumice cone Pu'u Wa'awa'a, and its associated 900-foot-thick flow at Pu'u Anahulu are the oldest exposed lavas on Hualalai. The youngest shield lavas are about 128 ka. Hualalai is a potentially dangerous volcano that is likely to erupt in the next 100 years.

(Bloggers note... The cities of Kailua Kona and Waikoloa, boasting some homes that cost 40 million dollars, and some of the worlds posh resorts are here... in 1801 the volcano exploded and rivers of lava rained down on this lush paradise killing thousands and rendering it a desert. Man again is pushing the envelope on this imagine the insurance bill...)

Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in its postshield stage, last erupted about 4,500 years ago. Lava flows and cinder cones have buried the final summit caldera. Although a few flows have funneled down stream beds and reached the coast, its youngest lavas are thick and pasty and formed large cinder cones and short flows. Its oldest exposed lavas are about 250,000 years old. Many Mauna Kea eruptions were explosive and produced widespread ash deposits. These ash-producing eruptions may have been triggered by water/rock interaction as lava encountered glaciers at the summit of Mauna Kea. Three periods when mountain glaciers covered the summit region have been identified. The thick ash cover on its flanks is derived mostly from Mauna Kea eruptions, but perhaps three feet of it may be from explosive eruptions on Kilauea about 39,000 years ago. Mauna Kea could erupt again, although it is unlikely, because postshield-stage eruptions become less and less frequent before they cease altogether.

Kohala Volcano is extinct; it consists of shield lavas, including the oldest lavas from the island of Hawaii, dated at about 460,000 years old, and postshield-stage lavas as young as 60,000 years old. Its northwest rift zone extends through an elongate summit depression, apparently an extensional basin at the headwall of the Pololu landslide that moved towards the northeast. Waipi'o and Pololu valleys have formed along faults that bounded this landslide, which occurred before eruption of postshield-stage lavas began about 260,000 years ago. The thick ash cover on Kohala Volcano is derived mostly from Mauna Kea, although some is probably of local origin.

Mahukona, the first volcano to form part of the island of Hawaii, is located off the northwest shore of the island; it is now completely submerged. Mahukona has a prominent west rift zone, but the location of its summit and any other rift zones are now buried beneath flows from the adjacent Kohala and Hualalai Volcanoes. It apparently became extinct at the transition between the shield and postshield stages about 450,000 years ago. A stairstep series of drowned coral reefs occur on the northwest- and southwest-facing slopes of the volcano. These reefs mark former shorelines and record the subsidence of the island from about 465,000 years ago until the present. At its zenith, Mahukona probably rose no more than 820 feet above sea level; it was completely submerged shortly after 435,000 years ago.

The Island of Hawaii will change shape in the future as Kilauea extends its southern and eastern shorelines and as Loihi grows to sea level and eventually coalesces with the island. At the same time, however, continued subsidence will reduce the size of Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, and Mauna Loa Volcanoes. At the present rate of subsidence of about 1/8 inch per year, Kohala will become a separate island about 350,000 years from now. Between 600,000 and 850,000 years from now, Hualalai and Mauna Kea will become separate islands; exactly when that time will come cannot be estimated without knowing when Mauna Loa will stop erupting.

Aloha

May 23, 2004

The Day That Time Stood Still.

Along Kamehameha Highway near the intersection of route 11 and Kam ave by the airport, and next to the golf course at the Naniloa golf course, is an old lampost clock. It looks like new, but the hands are fixed at 1:04am. This clock was one of the few things that were still attached to the ground at Hilo's Ground Zero, where the great tsunami of 1960 struck. It is maintained as a memorial, to those who lost their lives and to the loss the community suffered.

Today marks the 44th anniversary of this seminal event. Hilo is still struggling with the aftermath of this disaster. Few new buildings have been built on the bay front since then. The Shinmachi neighborhood was washed out to sea, never rebuilt and is now a huge park and ball fields...The affordable housing that was there was lost forever, the housing stocks have never recovered to the level per capita that the were prior to the Tsunami. Unlike most shore communities we have no receational facilities on our waterfront. The insurance issues and well founded fears of a future event, make it impossible to take advantage of the gorgeous bay and develope recreational facilities...This limites the revenues that can be gathered from these sorts of activities and hurts the city in the pocketbook. and so it goes...Tsunami story here I dont place it here on the blog as there are photos attached that are good to see...

The Pacific Tsunami Meseum has a lot of great infor and photos. This was an amazing event, and the pics are great.

Cant type much more, and may be off for a few days as my left hand and its Carpal tunnel is so bad that my middle finger feels like its being electricuted, Sore as heck. I can hardly type.

Store is doing fine and we may go in on Sunday as we have three ships in and perhaps few shops open. Will be like shooting fish in a barrel maybe????? We shall see.

May 22, 2004

The Sands of God's Armpit

We say "Hana Hou" to Solomonia for this great post quoting the venerable Gene Simmons, comanding general of the KISS Army, now older greyer and I hope, a bit wiser than we all were 25 years ago...(I know I am MUCH larger than I was then... I gave away the last of my leathers last month...I will never be able to crawl back into the "uniform", so consider me honorably discharged from the KISS Army...lol) I thought this was the quote of the week for me, as it describes so well so much of the area our troops are fighting in, and much of the area between LA and Phoenix...lol

KISS bassist offends Muslims
By Alex Wilson
May 14, 2004
.

KISS bass player Gene Simmons has caused an uproar among Australia's Muslim community by launching an attack on Islamic culture while in Melbourne.

The lizard-tongued rock god who is touring Australia with the world's most enduring glam rock band launched an attack on Muslim extremists during an interview on Melbourne's 3AW radio.

"Extremism believes that it's okay to strap bombs on to your children and send them to paradise and whatever else and to behead people," he said yesterday.

The Israeli-born US musician went on to say Islam was a "vile culture" that treated women worse than dogs.

Muslim women had to walk behind their men and were not allowed to be educated or own houses, he said.

"Your dog, however, can walk side by side, your dog is allowed to have its own dog house... you can send your dog to school to learn tricks, sit, beg, do all that stuff – none of the women have that advantage."

He went on to say the west was under threat.

"This is a vile culture and if you think for a second that it's going to just live in the sands of God's armpit you've got another thing coming," he said.

"They want to come and live right where you live and they think that you're evil."

Simmons said the United Nations approach did not work and the west had to "speak softly and carry a big stick".

read the opposing and politcally correct view here

want more of Conservative Rocker??? read the link. There Simmons dicusses the War on Terror, very straight shooting... (he cusses dont be offended Im warning you this isnt rated G....but its so true

You go Gene You da Kane ... did you all know he was born in Israel?

A Dream Fulfilled

I erred yesterday in my post. I made an assumption about Gov. Lingle based on the fact that she has had a fairly sucessful carrer and marriage to a wealthy lawyer (they are now divorced), that she had been to Israel prior to the historic trip she is making this week on behalf of the state of Hawaii. She had not... this was a long time dream of hers, which makes me all the more happy for her after all, when you have a tough job and she's had a few, a person needs to fulfill a few dreams too....
.

Lingle Makes Dream Trip to Israel
.
.
The governor and state officials seek to "establish friendship"
.
.
By Matt Sedensky Associated Press
.
.
As a girl, Gov. Linda Lingle saved her dimes to plant trees in Israel, all the while conjuring an image of a fantastic faraway place.

This week, Lingle finally made the trip she long wanted to take. And while it came amid rising tension and increased bloodshed in Gaza and shifting international support for Israeli politics, Lingle said it was a defining experience of her life.

"For me personally, as a Jew who grew up hearing about Israel, talking about Israel, hearing about Israel as a place where Jews could always go, it was a tremendous experience," she said yesterday by phone from Tel Aviv.

Lingle arrived in the Middle East late Monday with a 27-member delegation of state officials and representatives of Hawaii's Jewish community, hoping to create a partnership between the islands and a country she says is also sort of an island "because they're surrounded by neighbors who are unfriendly to them."

Israel and Hawaii are separated by more than 8,600 miles, but both occupy similar land areas and both base their economies on tourism, agriculture and the military. Lingle brought along state Adjutant General Robert Lee, state Business and Economic Development Director Ted Liu and state Agriculture Director Sandra Lee Kunimoto, among others, in hopes of capitalizing on those similarities during the trip, which concludes tomorrow.

"The bottom line really was to establish friendship between Israel and Hawaii," Lingle said.

To that end, there has been a marathon of meetings with those at the highest levels of Israeli government, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, with whom Lingle said she spent an hour on Tuesday.

Lingle says the trip could have a number of positive results for Hawaii, but perhaps most defining is the personal impact it may have on a woman for whom Judaism is an inseparable part of her life.

Growing up in St. Louis, Lingle attended services and Sunday school every week, learning about her faith, in part, from a devout grandmother who she said once quit her job because her boss was an anti-Semite.

Today, Judaism remains an influence. She meets weekly with a rabbi, Yitzchok Krasnjansky, who joined her in Israel this week. Fresh-baked challah arrives at her office on Fridays for Shabbat and a mezuza has been affixed to the doorway at her home across from the Capitol.

She has strong support among Jews, including Democrats, and she's received checks from supporters scattered across the country. After she was elected in 2002, an Israeli Web site declared her "Hawaii's Jewish Queen."

"For any Jewish person, it's a tremendous experience to come here to Israel," said Lingle, who made the journey at the expense of the Israeli government. "It's really just been a trip of a lifetime."

Along the way, there were emotional experiences for the 50-year-old Republican governor.

At Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, Lingle tucked two notes into the cracks. It's tradition to write a prayer and leave it at the wall, the remains of biblical temples, though Lingle wouldn't say what she wrote.

At the President's Forest, Lingle planted trees, just as she hoped her dimes would do as a child.

And at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, Lingle said she was especially affected by the portion of the museum that pays tribute to the children who died at the hands of Nazis during World War II.

Yesterday, Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians, most of them armed, and demolished several buildings in a Gaza Strip refugee camp. In the West Bank, three Palestinians were killed by army fire. The White House sharply criticized Israel's military operations in Gaza and stepped aside to let the U.N. Security Council condemn the Jewish state's campaign in Gaza.

"I think Israel sees the United States obviously as its greatest friend and ally, and I don't think anything has been said to change that," Lingle said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would to God that she was right. I wonder sometimes if we forget that God has promised that He would bless those that bless His people.I will hate to see the day when this is not so

May 21, 2004

..."We have much in common"...

This was a part of a comment heard on a Talk Story radio broadcast prior to our Governor, Linda Lingle leaving for a trip to Israel. The Israeli government has been inviting governors from various states to come and discuss various issues, commerce, education ect, and I think to expose some leaders outside of Washington to Israel and perhaps some different facets of that country than they had experienced before. This is not a taxpayer financed junket so I was thrilled for her, and for the others who likely have never been to this part of the planet to see the grandure of this land. I know that Ms. Lingle has been there before but this has to be a different experience for her and we are proud of what has been accomplished for our state in the past few days. You can read her e-newsletter regarding the first part of the trip here

here are some more links to other information on the visit

GOVERNOR LINGLE AND DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS PROMOTE HAWAI`I-ISRAEL RELATIONS, COOPERATION

GOVERNOR LINGLE SIGNS AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT WITH ISRAELI GOVERNMENT

a side note, one of the sponsors for the trip was the new owners of the Puna Geothermal Plant down the road from us. The plant gathers and uses steam from the volcano to generate electricity... Cool... renewable energy at its best... Now if we could only get permission to dump all of our trash into the volcano. It would get rid of everything including junk cars but the Native Hawaiian would have a blessed cow that we were dumping trash into Pele's livingroom... oh well. Fire up another landfill...

May 19, 2004

California Dreaming

I have dreams about LA, some are good others look like this One of the big reasons I left the "Golden State" The air polution was insufferable... But darn, I do miss In and Out Burgers...

But I also miss fine dining but as of today, I think that I have found a cure for that Restaurant Kaikodo where I went today as a guest of my business mentor and friend Kathy Hammes. It was wonderful. We discussed trying to work up a new business plan as mine went to cyber never land when the computer decided to have a "mental colapse"... I do need a better tool to try to predict the future.

I heard throught the Hilo grapevine that my old space at 114 Haili Street is now rented. May God be with the brave soul that is venturing that place. We had several people ask us about it we were as candid as we could be about the madness there. The rent is cheap and I left a SUPER airconditioner that will help to make the place bareable.

I am starting to keep a log of repair jobs that I am turning down, and what I could expect to earn from them. I think that the totals will be more than enough to justify going to crash school and learning the basics of repair. Woody said that he would watch out for the torch... I am a certifiable crazy woman. He'd best mind his Ps and Qs... Just kidding.

Actually things are going we between us I think that he does appreciate me more now that he is away so much. He said that his California dream is the saturday morning golf game with his friends...every saturday with out fail. I was NOT invited. I know that he misses those guys alot... I dont miss them at all.

And there is that California dream... My mother. I call her faithfully every week and it seems like things are not going well. She is having problems with her crazy room mate, who wont let her sleep, as she is lonely and afraid that she will die in her sleep. She had a bad fall last week and is confined to bed for a bit. Mom says she was trying to get into her wheelchair and it moved... The nurses told me that they think she was trying to get out of bed by herself...My nightmare is that she is in a nursing home from hell... This is compounded by the fact that the affiliated home here in Hilo is under investigation. I think its an understaffing issue, and that is a problem with everything here There is not enough skilled labor here to do anything well. I need to call the admministrator but I dont know what to say. Perhaps I will cal my brother.. or our friend that is supposed to be he "advocate" and see whats up...

Well I need to pursue some Hilo Dreams its long past my bedtime

War Stories

I must hand it to the Good Doctor at Iraq at a glance for this postWhen you listen to the news all the time and you hear the trash about the situation in Iraq and all the stuff that goes on and how they hate us and want us out of their country pronto, this is so much closer to the truth... There are also tidbits like this. 95% of all Iraqi children are in school. Many places have clean water and power for the first time in years. While there is fear of our over staying our welcome most people seem to know that we are not their for self intrests but for the best interests of the world, lets all not lose sight of this fact.

Last week was the National Day of Prayer. This is an annual event and the organization that promotes it had Oliver North as this years speaker. I heard the speech tonight for the first time and it was very moving. A few excerpts are below

Several speeches at the Hill gathering focused on American troops overseas. Retired Lt. Col. Oliver North, the keynote speaker and honorary chairman of the event, described the soldiers he met during a visit to Iraq last week.
"They are committed totally to the ideals of our nation," he said. "They are courageous ... they are compassionate toward the Iraqis in ways that are hard to imagine considering the reception they got, they have compassion and a remarkable number of them are Christians."
These soldiers "may be able to take profanity to a new art form," he said, "but they take this book," he held up a Bible, "out of their rucksacks and aren't ashamed to be seen reading it regularly."

You can hear the entire message here click on the 5-18 day's recording

You may not agree with him, and you may not look upon his past with favor, but everyone agrees that this man Oliver North was a REAL war hero in Vietnam, and he knows his own kind... When he looks upon the young people serving in our military today and says " yes they have the right stuff... they are devoted and selfless to their duty," He know of what he speaks. No namby pamby waffling out of him... and no tainting of our troops with the sins of a very few.

I took heart in hearing about our troops and the war in a positive sense. I cant wait for the day when it will be over but until then I am glad for the people that are willing to go and do what needs to be done and for those who are willing to tell the truth for righteousness sake.

May 17, 2004

Profanity:The Failure to see the Divine Mystery

I bow again to my mentor and friend Elisabeth Elliot Gren for this masterful essay on women, marriage and the home. I was only going to lift out on paragraph to deal with the subject I was writing about but I found that it might not make sense out of context, even though I was going to talk about the weddings taking place today in Massachusetts. There is still meat here for the chewing even though this was written about 1975...And on a little different topic. The profound changes in our culture then are being matched today by changes in how we relate to each other and how we view our deepest relationships.

On Motherhood and Profanity


"OK now, which one of you clowns put that bag of M 'n' Ms in the grocery cart?" The mother looks harried.

Two boys, maybe five and seven, eye each other and race away toward the gumball machine near the supermarket door. There is an infant strapped to a plastic board on top of the groceries, and a two year old occupying the built-in child seat in the cart. The mother picks up the M 'n' M candy bag and starts toward the aisle to return it. The two year old screams and she relents, throws the bag in with the rest of her purchases, patiently waits her turn at the check-out, fishes five ten-dollar bills from her purse, receives her small change, and pushing the cart with the babies in it, herds the two boys through the rain to the station wagon in the parking lot.

I go with her in my mind's eye. Jump out in the rain. Open the garage door. Drive in. Close door. Babies, boys, bags into the house in how many trips? Phone rings. Answer phone, change baby, wipe muddy tracks from kitchen floor. Feed baby, put groceries away, hide M 'n' Ms, start peeling vegetables, take clothes out of dryer, stop fight between two older children, feed two year old, answer phone again, fold clothes, change baby, get boys to:
1) hang up coats,
2) stop teasing two year old,
3) set table.
Light oven, put baby to bed, stop fight, mop up two year old, put chicken in oven, answer phone, put away clothes, finish peeling vegetables, look peaceful and radiant--husband will be home soon.

I see this implacable succession of exigencies in my mind's eye. They come with being a mother. I also see the dreams she dreams sometimes--write a novel, agents call, reviews come in. TV interviews, autograph parties, promotional traveling, a movie contract--preposterous dreams. Try something a little more realistic. Cool modern office, beautiful clothes, make-up and hairdo that stay done all day. A secretarial job perhaps, nothing spectacular, but it's work that actually produces something that doesn't have to be done over at once. It's work that ends at five o'clock. It means something.

I know how it is. I have a mother. I am a mother. I've produced a mother (my daughter, Valerie, has a two year old and expects another child soon). I watched my own mother cope valiantly and efficiently with a brood of six. ("If one child takes all your time," she used to say, "six can't take any more.") We were--we still are--her life. I understand that. Of all the gifts of my life surely those of being somebody's wife and somebody's mother are among the greatest.

But I watch my daughter and other mothers of her generation and I see they have some strikes against them that we didn't have. They have been told insistently and quite persuasively that motherhood is a drag, that tradition is nonsense, that what people have always regarded as "women's work" is meaningless, that "roles" (a word we never bothered much about until a decade or so ago) are changing, that femininity is a mere matter of social conditioning, that it's time to innovate. If the first-grade readers show a picture of a woman driving a hook-and-ladder and a man doing a nurse's job, see what happens to the conditioning. Abolish the stereotypes and we can abolish the myths of masculinity and femininity.

I hear this sort of claptrap, and young mothers often come to me troubled because they can't answer the arguments logically or theologically. They feel, deep in their bones, that there is something terribly twisted about the whole thing but they can't put their finger on what it is.

I think I know what it is. Profanity. Not swearing. I'm not talking about breaking the Third Commandment. I'm talking about treating as meaningless that which is freighted with meaning. Treating as common that which is hallowed. Regarding as a mere triviality what is really a divine design. Profanity is failure to see the inner mystery.

When women--sometimes well-meaning, earnest, truth seeking ones say "Get out of the house and do something creative, find something meaningful, something with more direct access to reality," it is a dead giveaway that they have missed the deepest definition of creation, of meaning, of reality. And when you start seeing the world as opaque, that is, as an end in itself instead of as transparent, when you ignore the Other World where this one ultimately finds its meaning, of course housekeeping (and any other kind of work if you do it long enough) becomes tedious and empty.

But what have buying groceries, changing diapers and peeling vegetables got to do with creativity? Aren't those the very things that keep us from it? Isn't it that kind of drudgery that keeps us in bondage? It's insipid and confining, it's what one conspicuous feminist called "a life of idiotic ritual, full of forebodings and failure." To her I would answer ritual, yes. Idiotic, no, not to the Christian--for although we do the same things anybody else does, and we do them over and over in the same way, the ordinary transactions of everyday life are the very means of transfiguration. It is the common stuff of this world which, because of the Word's having been "made flesh," is shot through with meaning, with charity, with the glory of God.

But this is what we so easily forget. Men as well as women have listened to those quasi-rational claims, have failed to see the fatal fallacy, and have capitulated. Words like personhood, liberation, fulfillment and equality have had a convincing ring and we have not questioned their popular definitions or turned on them the searchlight of Scripture or even of our common sense. We have meekly agreed that the kitchen sink is an obstacle instead of an altar, and we have obediently carried on our shoulders the chips these reductionists have told us to carry.

This is what I mean by profanity. We have forgotten the mystery, the dimension of glory. It was Mary herself who showed it to us so plainly. By the offering up of her physical body to become the God-bearer, she transfigured for all mothers, for all time, the meaning of motherhood. She cradled, fed and bathed her baby--who was very God of very God--so that when we cradle, feed and bathe ours we may see beyond that simple task to the God who in love and humility "dwelt among us and we beheld his glory."

Those who focus only on the drabness of the supermarket, or on the onions or the diapers themselves, haven't an inkling of the mystery that is at stake here, the mystery revealed in the birth of that Baby and consummated on the Cross: my life for yours.

The routines of housework and of mothering may be seen as a kind of death, and it is appropriate that they should be, for they offer the chance, day after day, to lay down one's life for others. Then they are no longer routines. By being done with love and offered up to God with praise, they are thereby hallowed as the vessels of the tabernacle were hallowed--not because they were different from other vessels in quality or function, but because they were offered to God. A mother's part in sustaining the life of her children and making it pleasant and comfortable is no triviality. It calls for self-sacrifice and humility, but it is the route, as was the humiliation of Jesus, to glory.

To modern mothers I would say "Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God's equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as a mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal. That is why God has now lifted him so high. . ." (Phil. 2:5-11 Phillips).

It is a spiritual principle as far removed from what the world tells us as heaven is removed from hell: If you are willing to lose your life, you'll find it. It is the principle expressed by John Keble in 1822:

If on our daily course our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Today, in churches, townhalls and and backyards, gay couples are "getting married" they are entering a legal contract to be "spouses for life." Good for them. Im glad that they are happy. Im glad that they get the rights that I think everyone married or single should get in this country...

We have had a law on the books here in Hawaii for a long time that gives anyone the right to contractually join with anyone else and have the same legal benefits as "marriage" provides. Under the Reciprocal Beneficiaries Law, passed in July 1997, the state of Hawaii offers domestic partnership benefits to employees. The legislation gives same-sex couples the broadest package of rights and benefits ever accorded gay families in the United States. It would also allow me to give my brother or a friend the right to a "community property" style legal relationship, so that estate taxes can be lessened. It would allow me to place my mother or a roommate of any gender on my healthcare plan at work. I would just have to pay for it.

Marriage was never meant to be a diseminator of social benefits, or a means test for preferential treatment by governments, agencies or the church. We have profaned the sacred by doing so. Its not something you can just choose to do. If it was, many of us that longed as single people to get married would have...It falls between race and childbearing...Yes, unlike race, which you have no choice over, you can choose to not be married. Yes, some people cant have children naturally, but you can go out and adopt one and that child may not have a say in that choice. Marriage is a different thing, You can want it with all of your being, but if you are not asked, or if you are not acceptable to the asked, you cant be married. So why do we tie benefits to it? That is discrimination of the highest order.

Who created marriage? God did. In Genesis 2 we read:
"and God took the rib which He had taken from the man and made the woman out of it and brought her to the man who said..."This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman for she was taken out of man." There fore a man shall leave his father and his mother and he shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh."

God took two opposites and made them one. Like the opposing poles of magnetism, the opposite draw toward each other. It is the deepest emotional tie you can have. I can tell you that this doesn't happen in the same way in homosexual relationships. It isn't conditioning or society, its the fact that you are two similar people trying to be together. Its not the same, as much as we want to try. The relationship is different than that of a man and a woman... This is hard to explain... Its like the Greek myth of Narcissus falling in love with his reflection in the pool. You are striving to complete yourself with your own image rather than the opposing image of the opposite gender. I am not saying that you cant love someone deeply who is your gender (I have) or that you cant live with someone that is of your gender, what I am saying is that the mystery of the two becoming one was reserved by God for the man and the woman. It is the energy that builds families and nations, and it is more needed today than ever.

This is not the ranting of a Born again fanatic who doesn't understand how it is to be gay. The greatest love of my life was, perhaps is, is the better term, a gay man. I watched him try to transition into the straight life and while I have known many, many people that have done this, he was not successful. It was tragic for him and for me, but we both knew that it was best to go our separate ways and not strive for what couldn't be. I found myself in love with a woman I had met and traveled with. Nothing sexual went on but the experience allowed me to see that these relationships can be very intense and provocative. In the long run it was futility, I knew that and prayed it through to burnout. She never knew...

We profane marriage by demanding more of it than God intended. We cheapen it by using it as a social welfare tool. It is a social/spiritual contract that was meant to benefit and nurture two people and their children.

It is Profanity to scream at these people who want what everyone else seems to have, and it profanity to go against the Word of God and encourage these people to commit the sins of sex outside of God's plan. I believe that giving out marriage licenses to everyone is likely the legal thing to do under the circumstances, but all the paper on the planet and all the "I Do's" said wont change the fact that the only marriages that count are the ones that God has ordained and blessed. Sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman according to the Bible is a sin. God will not bless such a union. Its sad but true. By saying the opposite we are speaking profanity.

May God help us all.

Genetic Mutations

I just read an article on how air pollution can cause genetic mutations. Its little wonder the decline in our cities of civility in public. now we can blame giving "the bird" to some one while driving down the freeway on our bad genes... brother...

Woody sees this all the time at the dump. People will be asked to obey the posted rules regarding how where and when to dump their refuse and there is always some whine, excuse, and downright meaness...." you cant tell me how to dump my trash!!!" ... Its the same everywhere, Hawaii is no exception to that verse in Judges 21:25 "There was no King in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes." the answer to that is Proverbs 26:5 "answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes..."



This rudeness bleeds over into every facet of life. Our Police chief Mahuna was on the radio begging people to slow down when they drive and obey the speed limits. People are being mowed down in cars. We have had more traffic deaths since January than in all of last year and it seems to not be letting up. The number of young people dying is awful, a full on waste of human potential. All because we are in such a hurry for what,we live on an island for Pete's sake. We arent going anywhere!

Seems I only have time for news bits and such. The store is doing very well and we are target for a really great month. I am hearing people asking for different things and I am able to do more buying as I have the funds...

My website is in the process of getting a face life. I have found a great IT guy and he is moving the site to new local hosting and is going to redo all of the photos and we will have about 50 items in there, all open stock and ready to order, Maybe I will get more than traffic off of the site, Maybe a bit of $$$$$$$$$$

Woody is making a change starting this week he is no longer at the Kailua Kona transfere station but has been transfered to the station in Keahou, about 5 minute form where he stays. this is a cooler and smaller location with less traffic and close to the hotel so he wont be living off of Costco hotdogs. The Manago has a full dining room wher he can get a real hot meal. Im sure that will boost morale.

I got the word that the man that I refere all of the repair work to is no longer taking jobs as he is so backed up. I had a desparate lady that wanted a ring engraved and another that needed a sizing and I feel horrible to say no and I dont know who can help. I also have spent some time figuring out that we are missing out on a cash stream that would make a huge difference in our business. but how to learn how to do this...

You go to a crash school. After two weeks of training I could be doing all of these things and making the money. Woody could say goodbye to the dump.I would need him in front selling. He might be able to learn some of the stuff too. I think that it would take my shop to the next level. So I am looking at this... One of the schools that gets high marks is this one. I am really giving it a lot of thought...Its a lot of money, I would have to close the shop for two weeks, put the cats into the cat hotel, as Woody will be gone for his days maybe and figure out how I caould afford this. I think that it would pay for itself shortly but it is a big investment.

I am also terrified of adding on more responsibility to an impossible load now. As I told my cousin Lyn in an email last night, I need a wife... not a husband to look after...

Well more in the am Im beat.

May 15, 2004

Hawaii Idol

If you need fluff to get your mind off Iraq we have it here in Hawaii. "Our Hawaii Idol" Jasmine Trias is back from a victory by means of Verizon... She got more phone calls than the others so she wins this round... I have not seen the show as I dont own a TV but I have heard some tape of her singing.. Barbara Streisand she aint... but she is better than William Huang...Hes a local joke here... to catch local reaction you can read about it here

I think that the true Hawaii Idol is novelty... Something new. When you live on an island 2700 miles from anywhere you never underestimate the power of novelty. This is why people are fighting to get Krispy Kremes on the airplane to take them home and that if you do something new and people know about it they will flock to it...I am waiting for the rush at Azure Seas...

Yet we are seeing a lot more intrest and I am seeing more business than ever... I am now afraid that I cant keep the place stocked.. A terrible problem to have. I am busy lately pouring over trade mags trying to find the next trend to bring to the islands...the big Vegas show is next month and even if I dont go I can order stuff and get the trade show discount and I need every bit that I can get.

back to novelty. You have never seen so many contests for such a small pool of people. I was told I should be running a contest every month... people will come in and enter them they love them... Even if I give away spam and rice thats ok...But they really want a Tahitian Pearl.

On to other things

Speaking of new my website is getting a makeover by eworld fair.com, a consulting and hosting service here in Hilo. I met with the tech, a soft spoken computer guru named Bruce that has a day job with the Natl Guard in logistics... So I am getting the full experience of the US Military behind my site... He has been back and forth to both theaters of combat to assist in the tech end of things. I didnt know this till I hired him and he said " You know that if I have to go someone will help you while Im away..." Not getting it I said " where are you going? on vacation?" Yeah right...some holiday... I found out that Hilo aside from being a mecca for Astronomy buffs is also a techies haven and there is a lot going on in the cyber world here... Cool

Bone weary. I have been not writing as much as I have had this gut wrenching feeling about the Iraq abuse thing...I didnt want to write about this over the last week or so. But perhaps I need to get it out and say it... so much of what I am hearing and what little I have seen reminds me of the garbage I have seen in my past life, before I became a Christain...I was in the gutter and saw a lot of garbage. Visual garbage...Hardcore visual trash for both gay and straight bents.. this sounds like what a lot of this stuff is... As I posted on Smoothstone's blog comments last night, I feel that a lot of those pictures were taken for public viewing... In the Internet smut stream... It makes me ill. and I feel very badly about it. Young people used other people and allowed themselves to be used in the worst way and it breaks my heart. The words of that young woman talking about the encounters she had that she allowed to be photographed, told me of a concience seared hard by a life we know little of, I hope. Abusers are themselves abused 9 times out of 10. Its a sick cycle of violence that...goes on and on. I pray for the victims, the victimizers, and for those that will vitimize themselves by viewing this trash.

I also want to comment and say a short word of condolence to the family of Nick Berg. Here in East Hawaii, where the soil has not grassed over another martyr's grave, we understand in a very small way the pain of your loss. Our hearts go out to you and we wish you the very best and all the Aloha we can send your way.

May 13, 2004

The Early Morning Wake Up Call

I have had a few questions about our feline family so I thought that I would post a bit on them... our little fuzz balls. I cannot imagine life without them.

First I was asked about their names. Both are Hawaiian and I asked a Hawaiian lady if local people would think I was being insensitive if I did this and she said no not at all , and I have found this to be true. I named them while we were waiting to get into our house and they were still with their Mum. They stayed 15 weeks with the mother kitty. a long time and may explain why they have such wonderful dispositions and are so downright cuddly.

Makoa means "Filled with Courage", It is a common boys name and is an adjective attached to a noun in a name... He is Popoki Makoa or the "Brave Cat" His markings resemble the wood grain of the curly Koa so Ma Koa, can mean " as/like the Koa tree. I was thinking tree and hes sort of a chicken compared to his sister. Isn't that how it is?

KaNani means "beautiful One" or "filled with beauty" This name is given to both boys and girls so you could have a son and name him Makoa Na KaNani... While Mak is striking with his stunning fluffy coat, Nani is beautiful, not so much in her colors or markings, she is an average grey mackerel tabby, but rather in that she is a cat's cat. A terrific hunter and into everything she is clever and wise. Affectionate when she chooses... I am honored ever time she wants into my lap... Which only happens in my office chair in the mornings when I am having coffee and my devotions. We talk to God together just us girls...

The cats amaze me. I cannot believe how much they reason out things and solve problems. When I am here alone, They are so attentive its hard to get anything other than petting done. They know when I should be in bed...At promptly 10:30 pm Makoa is up at the computer trying to hit the escape button, now that he has learned that will effectively end a blogging session. Biting my feet gently also lets me know that I am quite past my bedtime and best be wrapping things up.

There is a method to this madness. There are sleeptime rituals to be performed and if Woody is not here its my DUTY to be there for Makoa...After all isn't that why God gave cats humans to look after?

First, I have to go to sleep. Its no fun to have a human waiting for you. You must be in charge of things after all you are the cat and she (ie me) is the human... So around midnight Makkie jumps up on the bed and walks on me to get me up (I have been known to sleep throught it LOL) then stands on me,(all 21 lbs on his little pointy feet... I get bruises...) Purring like a 450hpr diesel engine (its really loud!) he will wait for acknowledgement of his presence,pets must accompany any verbiage ( why DO humans talk so much...Shut up and pet me) Nibbles on any visible appendage are allowed to assure that I am properly awake for the most important part...Then he will do " happy paws", you know the kneading thing, on me, usually my leg then hell maybe lay down and sleep till 5 am when he will then go and have a bite to eat and make sure that the house isn't falling down... This is a normal night. Last night I ran him all over the house chasing his mousie on a string and the poor beast collapsed on the bed and snored all night...And we had no 3 am operatics but...When Woody goes to Kona, Makoa will bring me a catnip mouse and sing to me at 3 am. I think hes consoling me, or thanking me for getting him more room in the communal sleeping nest, by booting the other guy out... Who know what lurks in the mind of the feline... Little cat thoughts...

Meanwhile...My girl kitty KaNani is on her own, patrolling the house at night, playing with toys or other things she finds, often many legged...LOL...Some times I find "parts" of her evening entertainment, out on the lanai. We have trained her to take things she catches out the for easy disposal if needed. She spends little time sleeping at night and sleeps most of the day . I find her in the am usually on my desk in the early morning sun.

Mak is a great alarm clock and will wake me at 6 am only on tues-sat, when I have to go to work.. He knows when "stay at home days" are. We find this fascinating. Once I get up they run out to the screened in lanai, where they spend the day sleeping and watching the birds and wild chickens. WE lock them out there as we found that much mischief was averted in the house when we are away.

I am likely growing allergic to them, but I dont care. They aren't going anywhere... I love them to pieces. They are my furry children and I say that unashamed. In my worst moments here in Hawaii, with Woody or what ever, they offer quiet (and not so quiet)comfort. How often does one find unconditional love in this life? For me, its not much farther than a word away and there will be a jingle of bells and my little guy will be there...Purring his heart out... an angel in furry pajamas.