Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

Everybody warned us about the fireworks and firecrackers on New Years in Hawaii. I do remember firecrackers when I was growing up but WOW! This is amazing. Fireworks are legal between 9 PM and 1 AM but many of the neighbors were practicing earlier.

There's a heavy blanket of sulphurous smoke that is swirling about hugging the wet ground. We've closed all our windows and doors to try to keep the air in the house fresher. I've never been in a war zone but I have a feeling this must be how it sounds.

The horizon, what I can see of it, is punctuated by colorful fireworks that people are setting off in their streets and backyards. Hawaii is a melting pot of different cultures and fireworks is a Chinese custom to scare away the evil spirits that may be wanting to creep into the new year.... at least that's what somebody told me. Every year there are accidents and the emergency rooms are visited by people who were hurt by fireworks. People with respiratory problems are also in danger. I hope everybody stays safe to welcome in the new year happily. Happy New Year, everybody!

I'm so happy to have discovered blogging. I nervously got into it with Dina's (Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo) encouragement and now I feel like I've got friends all over the world. What a lovely feeling. Thank you to all of you who became my blogging family. It's great to go into the new year together with you.

New Years in Hawaii!

(All the photos on this post are from Wikipedia.)

Happy New Years, everybody! I thought I'd share some information about how the Japanese celebrate New Years Day. Here's what I learned from Wikipedia.

The Japanese celebrate New Year's Day on January 1 each year. Before 1873, the date of the Japanese New Year (正月, shōgatsu) was based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar and celebrated at the beginning of spring, just as the contemporary Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese New Years are celebrated to this day. However, in 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar, so the first day of January is the official New Year's Day in modern Japan. It is considered by most Japanese to be one of the most important annual festivals and has been celebrated for centuries with its own unique customs.



Japanese people eat a special selection of dishes during the New Year celebration called osechi-ryōri (御節料理 or お節料理, osechi-ryōri), typically shortened to osechi. A popular soup is ozōni (お雑煮, ozōni), consisting of miso, boiled seaweed (昆布, konbu), fish cakes (蒲鉾, kamaboko), mashed sweet potato with chestnut (栗きんとん, kurikinton), simmered burdock root (金平牛蒡, kinpira gobo), and sweetened black soybeans (黒豆, kuromame). Many of these dishes are sweet, sour, or dried, so they can keep without refrigeration—the culinary traditions date to a time before households had refrigerators, when most stores closed for the holidays. There are many variations of osechi, and some foods eaten in one region are not eaten in other places (or are even banned) on New Year's Day. Today, sashimi and sushi are often eaten, as well as non-Japanese foods. To let the overworked stomach rest, seven-herb rice soup (七草粥, nanakusa-gayu) is prepared on the seventh day of January, a day known as jinjitsu (人日, jinjitsu).

You're supposed to display this kadomatsu arrangement at the entrance of your house to welcome Toshigami to protect the house and to bring long life and strength to the family. I WAS going to buy it but then you're supposed to throw it away after New Years Day and I just couldn't do it. (Granted if it was a bunch of roses, you'd have to pay even more and then still throw it away in a matter of days. I know. I know.)

Although the only thing we did in Illinois was to make sushi on New Years Day in addition to cleaning up the house a bit, it's a little more elaborate in Hawaii. We'll do a few of those dishes listed above.

Art's uncle and aunt brought over some mochi (rice cakes that he pounded himself).

My mom says that shrimp is also eaten because the curve of the shrimp's back resembles an old person therefore signifying longevity. We'll also be eating noodles (another symbol of long life). Kazunoko (fish eggs, I think)and kobu maki (pork wrapped in seaweed, kuromame are also on the menu. My mother will be making lemon chicken and I'm in charge of crab casserole for those in our family with more western leaning taste buds.

We did clean the house. That's very important. We've been trying to organize things better to start the year fresh although it drives my mom crazy when I reorganize the kitchen and she can't find what she needs. We've paid all our bills, written all our thank you letters, etc.

However, I think the thing that sets New Years apart in Hawaii is the FIREWORKS. I've already been warned that there's a LOT of fireworks around here and that I should close all the windows well before midnight because the smoke pollution will be terrible and unhealthy. Thank goodness for trade winds.

My mom says the noise is deafening. My friends tell me they have to sedate their dogs. There were fireworks here for the 4th of July but apparently that's nothing compared to New Years when fireworks are supposed to chase away evil spirits according to Chinese custom. Everybody is Chinese during New Years just like we're all Irish on St. Paddy's Day!

Congratulations! It's a Boy!

Art planted these two papaya trees with the hopes of having mountains of fruit everyday. Then he learned that there were male and female plants. However, no worries! He found information on the web that said male plants were VERY RARE so he was confident that he had a female tree that would bear more fruit than he could handle. He figured he'd have enough to share with the neighbors, with the relatives... who knows? Maybe he'd have to sell them at the farmers market.



My mother laughingly teased that he probably had a male plant because the flowers kept appearing, then drooping off. No symbolism here. Last night Art looked at photos of male and female flowers online and discovered that we 99.9% probably do have a male plant. Female flowers have a much plumper bud.



We don't know what the other tree is. We're hoping it's either a female who will have a nice male companion close by or a hermaphrodite. In which case... what do we do with that useless guy?

Art says that since it's very rare, we could just admire it.

After Christmas Island Power Outage

We were watching spectacular lightning bolts flashing across the sky the night after Christmas and remarking how it was almost like the Midwest. We very rarely saw lightning or heard thunder when I was growing up on Oahu as far as I could remember... but then again I do have a poor memory. Back in the kitchen my mother was just taking something out of the fridge after dinner when suddenly all the lights went out.

Art happened to be looking out the window when suddenly... he saw all the lights on this side of the island go out! NOT again!



However! This time we were more ready than the last time. Art put a Red Cross radio on his Christmas wish list and we had batteries for our flashlights. The radio was fantastic because we knew right away what had happened. Apparently the lightning bolts knocked out transmission lines from the Kahe and Waiau power stations and one of the safety features on the island shut off all island power except in a couple of pockets on the Leeward side. They said that because we ARE an ISLAND... sigh... we are not able to borrow electricity from another state. Therefore they said that since power could not be restored all at once it would be "A WHILE" before we would have power again. They refused to be pinned down to an exact time. "A WHILE," they repeated several times more. They did later say it could be up to twelve hours.



Happily, we noticed that our area got power back around 1:30 AM. My mother says she thinks it's because the Mayor lives in this area. I don't know if that's true. Whatever the case we happily woke up this morning to see lights on as far as we could see. I understand that other areas are still waiting and they were warning people to throw out meats and poultry from the refrigerators to be safe if it was at room temperature for more than two hours. "If in doubt, throw it out!"



And what??? No morning newspaper to read with my husband's coffee. I can't remember that ever happening before. Wow! For Art... now that's a catastrophe!

P.S. I'd like to reassure everyone that President-Elect Obama was perfectly safe in Kailua. His security people had generators and they were rushing power out to where he was staying.

Sky Watch Friday: Christmas in Hawaii

It's our first Christmas in Hawaii after 35 years of celebrating the holidays with our children and neighbors in Illinois. It's certainly different.


We just talked to our daughter with Skype and webcam and could see the snow piling up in the backyard in the midwest. As you can see my husband is going jogging and doesn't need his snowboots. It's not snowing but it was drizzling a tiny bit. It's different.



For more incredible skies around the world, join us at Sky Watch Friday!

Happy Holidays One and All!

Our Christmas Eve family party was jolly fun with a LOT of fabulous food. All the food preparation went well and there was so much food left over that everyone could bring home enough to have for tomorrow's meal. This is the first year that we celebrated Christmas with my mother, brother and his family. In previous years we celebrated Christmas with our children and our neighbors in Illinois, often with snow falling outside and freezing temperatures.



After all that food this new scale was perfect. My nephew, Barry and his wife, Miho ensured that we would not only be able to weigh ourselves but also know how hydrated we are and how much body fat we had. That was rather amazing. I'd never heard of such a thing. Art and I were glad to see we were doing OK with body fat but I needed to go get a drink of water.



Happy Holidays! Enjoy happiness and peace and goodwill to everyone!

Christmas Menu

I'm seeing quite a few posts about holiday dinners so I thought I'd post what our menu is going to be as far as I know today.

Teriyaki chicken sticks
Teriyaki beef sticks
grilled zucchini marinated in Italian spices
kinpira gobo (burdock in teri sauce)
brown rice
green salad
pickled ogo (ogo is an island seaweed)
mabo tofu (My nephew and his wife will be making that.)
some kind of dessert (My brother and sister-in-law will decide what we'll have.)
Sushi
Macaroni salad (I just added this later because my sister-in-law reminded me that they'll be bringing this also.)

Beverage: Calamansi (sort of a lime) soda, diet Pepsi, Kona coffee, green tea, coffee mocha

Dr. Maffei

We went to the Salvation Army today to donate a dinette set. We had to drive to the back of the building in Waipahu where I grew up to deliver the table and chairs. Waipahu used to be a thriving sugar plantation town when I was growing up. I suppose we were poor but we didn't know it.

When I looked across the fenced parking lot I noticed a burned out building and memories flashed through my mind. That building was the plantation clinic where all the workers and families went for their care. There were two doctors, Dr. Noda (known to give injections) and Dr. Maffei (who liked to give pills). Guess which doctor I preferred?

I was a very gawky, country girl in those days (I still am in my heart). I must have been a middle schooler when chasing after my younger brother one evening, I fell and cut my knee on a broken piece of glass that was buried in the ground. The cut was deep and dirt filled.

I was driven to the clinic (emergency room) and examined by a nurse. About 45 minutes later, Dr. Maffei arrived. He was dressed in a white tuxedo and had obviously been called away from some higher society event. I'd never seen a white tuxedo before. With his blond hair he looked like Robert Redford but even more handsome. I was mortified that I'd called him away from some fancy ball or whatever to tend to my battered knee.

Not once did he ever show any disappointment or consternation at having been called away. He joked about my having a more difficult time now to win the Cherry Blossom Queen contest. I was shocked. Did he even think I had a chance? It's funny to think about it now from an adult point of view. He explained everything he was doing to my knee, keeping up a steady stream of quips to make me laugh and kindly sent me home all patched up. I wondered if he would be able to make it back in time to his social world.

Forty or so years later my mother mentioned how her friend's friend was doing some work for Dr. Maffei. I was stunned to hear the name. Being Hawaii, friends of friends or cousins can get you in touch with people you'd not seen in decades. I wrote to Dr. Maffei to tell him about that evening and what an impact it made on me...how he helped me through that evening and gave me a bit more confidence in that in between stage of my life. And yes, I mentioned how handsome he looked in his white tuxedo.

I got a long letter back from him a couple of weeks later which I treasured but can't find now. I think it's gotten stored away in some box somewhere. Seeing that burned out building reminded me of Dr. Maffei and his kindness and all the people in my past who did so much in all their different ways to make a difference in mine.

Sky Watch Friday: Sunrise Over the Koolaus

Here's a photo of sunrise over the Koolau mountain range. I actually took it this summer right out our bedroom window. Right now, it's a very wintry cloudy and rainy.

For more fun sky photos around the world, join us at Sky Watch Friday.

The Season for Giving

People often ask us to contribute to their favorite charity. Unfortunately we have a system that we stick to and just hope everybody understands.

We collect all requests that we get for contributions throughout the year. We then sort through them all. We could get over six requests from the same organization. That aggravates us because it's such a waste of paper and materials.

We line them up alphabetically and then make our choices from what we read or have heard. Then Art researches the organizations to find out how they operate and what percentage of the contributions actually go toward the cause and not toward advertising or "administration."



Then we decide how much we want to allocate and send off our contribution. This works best for us. Otherwise we'd be contributing a far higher percentage to breast cancer research (which is also important to us) because there are so many people who ask that we contribute to their runs or walks. Art did the Y-Me Breast Cancer Run on Mother's Day every year in Chicago with Tif. We like to handle our contributions carefully so that our money is used appropriately and that we've given enough to all the charities and organizations that we want to support.

Still, I feel badly when people ask that we contribute to their cause and I have to say we'll take it under consideration.

And yet... we still contribute to many of the Salvation Army kettles that we see everywhere. Oh well! It's the season for giving.

Diehard Advocate of Free TV

Hawaii will be making the conversion from analog to digital a month early.

Here's the explanation I found off the web:

I got this photo from Wikipedia.

...."all the analog TV signals will be shut off in February. It won't be pretty, but it'll be progress. Hawaii, though, has a dilemma: it just so happens that the analog towers that'll be torn down are awfully close to the nests of the state's adorable and endangered petrel birds, whose nesting season also occurs in February. Hence Hawaii's digital switch will occur a month early on January 15th..."

Art has resisted getting cable and paying that extra cable bill each month since the kids were little. Both Jon and Tif still laugh about their dad's insistence that, "We don't need cable. You should be reading a book or playing outside."

When we built the second floor to this house over two years ago, Art had the electrician wire TV connections to the attic where he installed a roof antennae. He figured the antennae would then be protected from the fierce winds we often get in winter. I know our contractor thought we were quite eccentric. However, they were very impressed when they saw the reception we got.



With the digital conversion, however, TV stations are moving their broadcasting towers to a different part of the island so Art is having to crawl in the attic trying to figure out which direction he should point his antennas. Unfortunately, some of the towers are in different directions and we'll have to choose which ones we consider most important. Presently, PBS is the only one that we can't do without that we don't get yet but we're hoping it's because they're in the process of moving or something.

Well, at least I'm getting Brian Williams and I can see Chuck which we love. Art was watching Heroes tonight and blood looks bloodier (cringe) and bullet holes are even more gross (yuuuck!) with the digital reception. I'm seeing a lot more wrinkles on people. Brian Williams looks good even with wrinkles, though so I'm perfectly happy.

Last of the Roller Shades, Craigslist

We have one crazy window that is over our stairs and difficult to reach. I asked Art how he was going to be able to hang the roller shades on it. Well, he remembered how the carpenters were getting to high places and copied their technique. Looked pretty precarious to me but it got the job done. Now, we just have four more windows to put vertical blinds on... once they arrive. Hopefully the reordered blinds will be correct this time.



In between getting the roller shades up we went on another Craigslist hunt. This time, it was a 4 feet high very heavy mirror. We'll hang it up tomorrow.



Art says I must have been a hunter gatherer in a past life. I hate to go shopping but I'm getting such a kick out of Craigslist. Maybe it's the idea of recycling. Maybe it's getting more for our money. Maybe it's sort of like gambling? I do tend to bargain. Art thinks it's all pretty funny.


Can you see the kraft paper behind me on one of the four windows we have left to work on?

P.S. Good grief! Would you believe it's still raining? The Hawaii Marathon was this morning and those runners got soaked!

Peace and Tolerance on Earth: Margaret and Helen

I just read something on Margaret and Helen's blog that I thought was so important I had to post a link to it today. I feel very strongly about this. Tolerance, understanding, acceptance, friendship. We need this. Helen uses some pretty salty language on some of her posts which some people might not care for but makes me chuckle everytime I read it.

Rainy Saturday

It's another rainy Saturday. The whole island seems to be blanketed by heavy rain clouds and we're really getting pelted by waves of heavy downpour.





The kids, however, are taking it in stride running around outside and enjoying getting wet. I took this photo from our 2nd floor.


It was a good day to stay inside and work on putting up our roller shades.


This is what it looks like close up. We're pretty pleased with it. I think the Home Depot salesperson still didn't get it quite right. She insisted we needed to get the roller to roll on the inside but we've noticed that it brings the shade too close to the glass and handles. However, at this point, we give up. We'll just be content with this and HOPE we never have to order anything complicated again! It looks better than the construction kraft paper we had hanging over the windows for 2 years.

Flash Floods and Winter Damage in Hawaii

Here's a photo from the Honolulu Advertiser of some people being rescued by firemen when the flood waters overwhelmed them.


Some schools had to close because of the flash floods and torrential rains on Oahu. We had a bit of flooding in the backyard but not enough to worry about. It's rather nice that we live on a hill so the water tends to flow down. However, many families on the island were flooded out and some lost everything in their homes.

It was strange to hear of school closings because of rain in December. I'm so used to school closings only when the temperatures were well below freezing or there was a snowstorm in Illinois.

Still, it was surprising to hear of so many people getting flooded out. My cousin called to say that my aunt had lost power. I wanted them to come and stay with us but that would mean going out in the rain in heavy traffic. I hope they're OK...

Home Renovation: Doors and Windows

It'll take a few years to get our house completed after having our contractor, Mike Chun build the outside for us on top of my mother's house. Mike worked with us to get our ideas for the house started. Now it's Art's (and my) turn to finish the inside of the house. It's a constant learning process.



Art finished most of the doors. He just has two more to figure out because they are non-standard doors. He managed to get these doors hung after having to reorder them two or three times from Home Depot because they got the louver direction wrong. Sigh. The first time we ordered them, the container they came in actually burned along with our doors.



We had kraft paper curtains covering the windows to shield our furniture and floors from the harsh Hawaiian sun.



Here's Art putting up the roller blinds in my office. I'm liking the fact that the blinds are semi opaque so it lets in some light. I was happy to see that the blinds arrived early after we had them re-ordered because they sent us the order incorrectly. We wanted corded and they sent spring loaded.



Here's how they look! We stopped because it was dinner time.


Here's the next project for tomorrow. Our bedroom.

Sky Watch Friday: Gutterman

He calls himself James the Gutterman and he is as nice as can be. We get ferocious winds that bombard our house causing the gutters to rattle like a machine gun. The gutters that James installed a couple of years ago came loose again. He came over and climbed right up to the top of the house under very blue skies and reinforced the whole thing. I know the neighbors are thrilled.

For more lovely skies, please visit Sky Watch Friday.

Let There Be Light!

Putting up the chandelier was our project for today and by golly we spent a good part of the day doing it. For one thing, there was very little help with the directions enclosed in the box. Still, we were determined to get it done.



We just had this naked light bulb hanging for two years because we couldn't decide what to put up.



We finally bought it at a small store called Lighting Concepts in Honolulu and installed it. Then we stuck on some dimmable CFLs that work OK but is a little harsh. When you dim it, it buzzes.



And here it is all done!



Yahoo!

Brighter Day

Well, yesterday had it's dark moments but today improved after the startling news about our old, corrupt Illinois governor. Sheesh!

We went down to Home Depot with our too small, special ordered vertical blinds and found out from the customer service person, Sarah that the person who took care of our order previously did it all wrong. Sarah was such a huge help. She redid the whole order. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it will be correct this time. We'll find out in 6-8 weeks.... again.


Once that was done we went to Honolulu to look at some lamps I spotted on Craigslist. I thought it was going to be too big. They looked smaller in the photo. He was asking $50.00 for the pair. I offered $20.00 for both just because it would be a long drive into town and I didn't think Art would necessarily like them. I was surprised when he e-mailed to say he just wanted to get them out of the apartment so we could have them for that price. Art was kind enough to drive me to see them and was pleasantly surprised to find he rather liked them. One of the little legs on the stand was chipped but it was in otherwise fine shape. They seemed to belong in our living room. When I asked my mom later if she noticed anything, she stared around the room and actually did not notice them. My goodness!

Our next stop was to a lighting store to pick up a chandelier for our dining room. I'll post a photo once Art installs it. It's a bit of a job to do it. We couldn't decide whether to do the chandelier or track lights. I hope it'll look OK, too.

The day ended with a webcam visit with our granddaughter who is not calling me "um humh" anymore. I'm now either Harmonie (she must be mistaking me for her Korean grandmother), Noni or Nana. I almost told her to just call me Tutu which is grandmother in Hawaiian. Ah well, all's well that ends well.

Another Crappy Governor

I just saw the following article on Yahoo's website. OH MY GOSH! Granted we did not like Governor Blagojevich....but GOOD GRIEF! It's bad enough that I'm mad at Hawaii's Governor Lingle, But this THIS is outside of ENOUGH! Arrrrghhhhh!

CHICAGO – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested today on charges that accuse him of trying to benefit from his ability to appoint President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate.

The U.S. Attorney in Chicago says federal investigators bugged Blagojevich's campaign offices and placed a tap on his home phone. At a news conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the corruption charges represent "a truly new low."

An FBI affidavit says the 51-year-old Democrat was intercepted on wiretaps conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife.

I move to a state with a childish governor and find that the state I left has an even worse one. Sheesh! My day is not off to a promising start.

I should also mention that our previous Illinois Governor (Ryan)is presently asking for a presidential pardon from President Bush. He's in jail right now on corruption charges. Arrrrghhhhhhhhhh........

Special Orders, Special Troubles

I've been noticing some blogger friends are having, just like Alexander in Judith Viorst's book, rather a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

My day had a downer as well. The vertical blinds we special ordered finally arrived from Home Depot. We'd ordered roller shades also. The roller shades came a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, they were spring loaded and not loop corded like we asked. We had to reorder them. It takes 6-8 weeks to arrive in Hawaii. Sigh.

Now the verticals. We asked for an outside mount. Yup. It's an outside mount. But when Art put them up to look at them, he saw that the measurements they used was for an inside mount so they're TOO SHORT. Arghhhh! We went down earlier to Home Depot because they'd also forgotten to include some brackets in the shipment. NOW everything will have to be reordered. Special orders are a special headache!

The doors that we special ordered a few months ago also had to be reordered twice because of a mistake. Sigh........ sigh... sigh... Home Depot is very good about getting things reordered for you but it's frustrating to have to do it over and over again.

However, this evening two of my elementary school buddies picked me up and we went out for a bite to eat. So I'm cheerful again. Unfortunately, I had two glasses of ice tea and the caffeine is keeping me up. Sheesh! Ah well... there's nothing like being with your friends to perk you up 100%

Let me modify that a bit. It perked me up 99.9%. I'll feel 100% when our orders arrive correctly.

Hawaiian Santa

We went to the grocery store today and passed by this huge Santa. It seemed out of place somehow.

I grew up here. You'd think I'd be used to this. However, I've grown so accustomed to spending winters in Chicago shoveling snow and sometimes trying to walk backwards against the freezing winds in December that walking around in short and my tank tops just doesn't have the same holiday ambiance. When we return for a visit next month I wonder if it'll feel even colder because I wasn't able to gradually acclimate myself to the colder weather. This should be interesting.

Hmmmm... since we left all our winter coats in Illinois, I hope my daughter will meet us at O'Hare with our heavy jackets. Hint... hint...

No Shoes in the House Please

My aunt made these house slippers for Art, mom and me. Actually she's made slippers for everybody. She's been cutting up old clothes, towels, and assorted fabric to make these very comfortable, colorful slippers.



In Hawaii, everybody takes off their shoes or slippers before entering someone's home. It's an Asian custom that is now part of the Hawaiian lifestyle. When we moved to Chicago, I absolutely could not wear shoes in the house. It just felt wrong. I felt as though I was bringing dirt and germs from the outside into my clean house. When my babies were born and crawling around the floors, it became even more imperative to not track grime into the house.

Luckily, our friends (maybe that's why they were our friends) understood our idiosyncrasy and were kind enough to always remove their shoes before they entered our house. One particular couple of friends even brought over their own house slippers when they came for dinner in winter.

I've been amazed at the sensitivity of some sales or repair people who noticed that we don't wear shoes in the house and automatically honored us with their understanding in Illinois by removing their own shoes before going further into the house.

Now we're in Hawaii and it's no longer a problem. Everybody just knows they must remove their shoes no matter what the cultural background of the homeowner might be. It just makes things so much easier.

It's humorous to us that my mother's family room area is carpeted and she has asked Art and me to remove our house slippers before we step into that area. We think that's a bit much but by golly, we sure do as she says. Won't our mainland guests be in for a surprise!

Happy Holiday Decorations

I've seen so many beautiful decorations on everybody else's holiday blog posts. I sold off most of our decorations before our move or gave them to our daughter and son so I didn't have much to display.

My mother is the daughter of a zen priest and we consider ourselves Buddhists. However, we enjoy the secular Christmas very much. My mother had these decorations packed away to bring out every Christmas.



I was going to add my dreidel but I can't find it. I'm sure it's still packed away somewhere.

I remember the holidays as being a time of sensitivity where I taught 1st grade in Illinois. I avoided most of the holiday decorations and put up a small but equal representations of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Diwali. Our music teacher also taught as many songs as she could find from the different celebrations of the season. We taught a unit called the Holidays of Lights. I was proud of the fact that we tried to teach the children that there were lots of different customs in the world. I was extra proud of my student's parents who respected and enjoyed the fact that I did not show favoritism to any religion. I rather loved that.

Beeing Careful

I was out in our small garden when I saw this golden bumble bee sitting on my basil bush. I tried to get a close up from far away but my camera would not cooperate.



So I went a little closer with my macro lens. I was almost right up to it. (If you click on the photos, you can enlarge it even more.)



And then YIKES! It turned and seemed to sit on its haunches and stared at me as though to say, "Watch it! You're infringing on my personal space." Let me tell you I backed up plenty fast!