Wishing You a Happy New Year Once on a Blue Moon

Did you know that it's a Blue Moon tonight? Here's what I got from the ABC network website:

..."The term "blue moon" generally refers to the second full moon in a month and occurs just once every 2.7 years. The last blue moon to shine on New Year's Eve was 19 years ago, in 1990."...

We're having my brother and his family here to celebrate the start of the New Year. My mother is happy to celebrate the day with traditional Japanese New Year foods (osechi). The photo at right is from the Tokyo Food Page website.

We're going to have some noodles today at lunch time. The long noodles signify long life. We're making chicken and beef teriyaki sticks (not because it's traditional but because my brother's family likes them), kazunoko (herring roe), rice, kabocha (pumpkin), ogo (seaweed), kamaboko (fish cake), mizu yokan (sweet azuki bean dessert). My brother's family, nephew and wife will be bringing the sushi and a dessert.

I hope we'll be able to hear each other in the din of the explosions, I mean celebrations. I'll try to videotape it to give you a very small taste of Hawaii New Years fireworks.

Happy New Year, everybody!

I need to get downstairs and help my mom with the cooking.

Illegal !^%!&# Fireworks!!!

Enough is enough! I feel like I've been hearing fire crackers go off since after Thanksgiving and it's ridiculous! Some of the fire crackers aren't fire crackers. They are explosions! Horrendous! The walls of the house actually shake and I've heard more than one car alarm go off from the shock waves.

Each year the smoke from the fireworks sends people with respiratory conditions to the hospitals. I have one friend who actually went to stay at a hotel with more air tight rooms and air conditioning because she has asthma. It also injures and sometimes kills people who were playing with or near others who were exploding the fireworks stupidly.

This has been a problem since before we left the islands over 35 years ago. Setting off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits going into the new year is a Chinese custom. Hawaii is a melting pot for different worldwide customs. So why not set off a few state regulated fireworks at Chinese (lunar) New Years?

Here's the Law:
§132D-3 Permissible uses of consumer fireworks. Consumer fireworks may be set off, ignited, discharged, or otherwise caused to explode within the State only:

(1) From 9:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve to 1:00 a.m. on New Year's Day; from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Chinese New Year's Day; and from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on the Fourth of July;...

Well... I'm thinking there's a WHOLE lot of crazy people out there who don't know the law or don't care.

I just saw this article in the Star Bulletin this morning.




Fireworks are on sale EVERYWHERE we go. It really IS ridiculous! Maybe I'm just cranky from having explosions go off at 2:30 in the morning. The police can't catch the culprits because by the time they get there, the crazy perpetrators are gone.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit these past few days. I've had insomnia and my cold is not 100% gone yet. I thought I had it licked and we went for our usual walk in the evening. Doing too much along with the irritating fireworks explosions in the middle of the night may have caused a bit of a relapse. I have one day to shape up for New Years!

Such a STEAL!

There was an article in the Star Bulletin about a crime of opportunity at the Pearl City Walmart. A man put down his keys for a moment while shopping and a thief stole it, went to the parking lot clicking at cars until he found the right car and drove off in the borrowed BMW. I told Art, "Isn't it crazy that you could put car keys down and not pay attention long enough for somebody to steal it?"

Well.....


Art just reminded me about something that happened at the After Christmas sales. We were at the SAME Pearl City Walmart looking at Christmas tree garlands. It was pretty busy and there was a shopping cart in the way. I wanted to ask the shopper if I could move it a bit but she was busy talking on her cellphone. Therefore, I had to lean over her cart to get to what I wanted to look at it. That's when I looked down and saw her wallet and car keys lying at the bottom of her basket with several bills sticking out. I was dumbfounded! I turned around and she was looking on the other side of the aisle still talking on her cell. I looked at Art and saw that he was surprised to see it, too. I could EASILY have taken her wallet bulging with money and car keys and walked down the next aisle without her knowing.

I wanted to warn her so I waited a few moments to tell her but she was still so busy on her phone that we just had to leave.

Incredible! Some people are such easy pickings!

Clip Art for Christmas!

I asked my daughter for a clip art collection for Christmas so I could use it for my blog. I have the worst time finding what I want free on the web that's not copyrighted. Tif always likes for her mom to be happy so she sent me the ART EXPLOSION set with 300,000 images. Actually it wasn't really 300,000 cartoons. There were 100,000 vector (hunh?) images, 30,000 raster (HUNH?), 25,000 classic images (that was OK), 5,500 (didn't need it) backgrounds, and 57,000 (unnecessary) photographs on the DVDs. Somewhere in there were clip art.

HOWEVER, the files were all something called .wmf!!! What the heck! Blogspot refused to accept it.

Art tried to find a way to change the file to a .jpg, .gif, .bmp or .png that Blogspot said it could upload but when he tried changing it to a .bmp file it came out with a black background instead of white.

(Later) Art just reminded me that he did figure out that I could do it through Office Picture Manager but it required more steps than I was happy to do.



I was seriously ready to do something horrible. It wasn't the computer's fault but I didn't care.


Finally I remembered my brother advising me earlier about what I could do to change the file. 95% of what he said went right over my head at the time. I am NOT a computer geek. However, I did remember him telling me I could try opening it on Adobe Illustrator. I opened the Illustrator for the FIRST time since I've had this computer, got the clip art and saved it to .bmp. Same thing happened with the black background. And then I tried SAVING IT TO WEB and BINGO! It turned the clip art to a .gif file. Success! Yesssssssssss!

I wonder how many thousands of clip art I really have at my disposal now. Be prepared to see a few.

Upside Down Pineapple

Art's wonderful cousin often brings super sweet Hawaiian grown Dole pineapples for us. We love it! It's usually sweeter than sweet in summer. In winter, it tends to be a bit more tart but I love to use it in my smoothies. My mom insisted the other day that I need to turn the pineapple upside down to let the sugar run down to the top of the pineapple. Sounded like an old wives tale to me but then my neighbor told me the exact same thing and added that I should put it in sunlight. So I did.





Is it sweeter? I don't know because I didn't taste it before I cut it but it was not bad for a winter pineapple.


Postscript:
OK, before anybody tries this I must tell you that mom also insists that when I cut the ends off of cucumbers I need to rub the ends with the part I cut off to somehow suck all the bitterness away from the rest of the cucumber. I've told her time and again that it doesn't make sense but she insists!

Christmas is Done...On to New Years!

Our Christmas party was wonderful last night. My brother, Dennis, his two sons, Cody and Barry and Barry's wife, Miho joined us to celebrate the happy occasion. Mom especially loves having Miho here because Miho is Japanese and can speak with mom in their native language. Our only unhappiness was that my sister-in-law, Nancy had to work. I should boycott Walmart for doing this to us.

We had traditional ham for the first time because it happened to be extremely reasonable (cheap) at Foodland. WHAT a deal! I think it was 97 cents a pound for the shank and $1.17 a pound for the butt. We picked up the shank but a shopper stopped us and insisted we should get the butt because we'd get a lot more meat without contending with the bone. After that long conversation, we decided to go with the butt and put our shank back. Just then, the store staffer watching us said, "Did you know that the butt is better? ....." OK, OK!!! We bought the smallest butt which was still a huge 11.6 pounds. We looked on line for a pineapple glaze recipe. Then Art hacked that humongous hunk of butt in half to make cooking it faster, and stuck it covered in the turkey roaster. We added the glaze a half hour before it was done.

And you know.... it was great! Everybody loved it. Mom made kinpira gobo (teriyaki burdock) and macaroni salad. I added a somen noodle green salad. Dennis brought a green bean casserole. Everybody took home a TON of left overs. We had some tonight and it was just as yummy!


Miho and Barry brought two adorable and utterly delicious Christmas cakes.


Barry, Cody and their brother, Shawn who is performing in Waikiki and could not be with us are all very close. It does my heart good to see the three handsome brothers, so very different but so devoted to each other. Whenever they're together, they act like it could be their last time in each other's company. It's beautiful. My children, Tif and Jon have a very close relationship, too. Siblings are such a wonderful, glorious thing.


My dear friends, Dave and Diane brought over a fruit tart pie that was out of this world.


Dennis did the honors. Are you wondering why I'm only posting photos of the desserts? I don't know. That's when I remembered to take a photo, I guess. I totally forgot to take a photo of the butt of ham.


This morning something occurred to me. I asked mom if she always made us put away the tree each year right after Christmas. In Illinois, I always insisted the tree be taken down right after the holiday. I don't know why. There was just this compelling force that made me insist on it. The kids wanted to keep it up longer but I felt it had to be put away.


"Of course," she said. "It's important to put things away and clean up everything before the New Year. You don't want to take old debts, celebration things, grudges, (dirt?) into the New Year. You must go into the New Year clean."



Now that I'm living with my mom, I'm finding an explanation for a lot of the things I do. All those quirks I have... it's Mom's fault.




So there you have it, we took down the tree and put it away in the closet. It was amazingly quick.



Everything was put away so we went to the After Christmas sales today and got some fabulous deals! I bought a NEW $79.99 12-quart stock pot at Macy's for $34.99. Woo hoo! I also bought a NEW $16.00 calendar at Borders for $7.00 and NEW holiday wrapping tissue for the NEW coming year.

OK... that's that.

Sigh... now comes the old cleaning.

Presents Galore and Susan Boyle

I'm about to go take a nap. I had a night of insomnia. I have a feeling it's the result of a week and a half of Alka Seltzer Cold Plus PM. Last night I went to bed for the first time without that sleep aid cold medicine and I got up at 1:00 and couldn't get back to sleep.

As groggy as I am, it sure has been a rollicking morning. The neighbors and friends have stopped by with presents and goodies and we've opened our presents. We are LOVING everything we received! It's so much fun! I especially love the 300,000 clip arts DVD that my daughter gave me. Be prepared to see some in the next few months. However we had the most fun watching mom open her gifts.

Jon was Art's not quite secret Santa and he gave Art a new wallet, quick drying shorts, jogging water bottle belt and chili pistachios from New Mexico. He gave his grandma camping towels for her to use when we stay at a Buddhist monastery on our trip to Japan next year.


One of my cousins gave mom a beautiful new muumuu! Mom was thrilled and is looking forward to us taking her out someplace where she can wear it.


Then came the secret surprise gift from KC! It was Susan Boyle's new CD. Mom had been hearing some of the songs on the radio for the last few weeks and mentioned how beautiful her voice was. A little bird must have told her great granddaughter who told her mother.

Mom was ecstatic! I haven't seen her this excited in a while. She had us play the CD right away. The boom box has an automatic replay. It played the CD twice and I told mom we would switch it to something else. No, she wanted to listen to it a third time. Third time was done and Art was going to change it. No, she wanted to hear it again.

"I love Irish songs and Irish singers," she sighed dreamily. Ummmmm.... I told her Susan was really Scottish. (I know she named my brother Dennis because she loved the song Danny Boy. She must have sung that song to us a million times when we were growing up.)

Aaack! It's playing again! This is the 5th time! The neighbors are going to buy ear plugs soon.

Oh no... I may need ear plugs. I think we might have created a monster.

Ah well... Have a happy, peaceful day, everybody!

Mele Kalikimaka, Everybody!

Mele Kalikimaka, everybody!
We just received three ornaments for our tree from KC yesterday. It's funny how whenever I look at the tree I see those three ornaments first. OK, maybe it's because they're the biggest ones but I do feel so much love emanating from them.


And speaking of LOVE, Art and I would like to wish all of you a very wonderful, HEALTHY, and happy Christmas! Thank you for all your kindness in supporting Art throughout his Honolulu Marathon endeavors and especially for being my friend. Although, you may not live next door to me you certainly know more about me than any of our neighbors. In turn, you have allowed me to be part of your lives. Mahalo (Thank you), Peace and Shalom be with you. I love you all!

Dreaming of a Better World for the New Year

We talked to our son on Skype tonight and probably just added to his blood pressure. He was venting about the watered down health care reform that would directly affect him, the continuing massacres and suffering going on in many countries in Africa, the corrupt politicians who use their powers for their own gain...etc. I tried to remind him that this was the time of year that it would be good to think about all the positives that make his life happy and comfortable.

It didn't work. He wants the world to be a better place. He and his life partner, Sarah, both Ex-Peace Corps Volunteers in Mali, want to do something significant to change things but are frustrated that they don't yet have enough skills to do it.

Jon left his firefighting and is now back again at a University to further his studies and get another degree. Sarah left her job as an investigative reporter and is now the Director of Open Government for New Mexico. She leads Fog (New Mexico Foundation for Open Government).

Jon is very proud of the work that Sarah is doing to make sure politicians keep their meetings open to the public. He told me I would be surprised if I knew the sort of shenanigans that go on by some politicians and that Sarah has to work hard to make sure the public is able to see what is going on. Newspapers do this also but we're losing a lot of papers who do this kind of investigative work.

He encouraged us to make a contribution to support Sarah's work for New Mexico and said we must have these organizations in Hawaii, too. I don't know. Do we?

Later: I just got an e-mail (following morning) from Jon and here's part of it. He explains FOG better than I do:

"...I hope that you guys do check out that NMFOG website. Sarah works hard for the organization and it is an important cause. They are a lot like the ACLU, in fact one of the FOG board members recently won an award given out by the New Mexico ACLU and we attended the award ceremony.
Here’s the thing about Open Government: If it was reversed overnight, no one would notice. But over time, corruption and mismanagement would run rampant. Right now, there are constant attempts to keep things secret; to do things behind closed doors. If this were allowed to continue unchecked, all decisions would be made in secret. Eventually you would be completely cut off from the democratic process. That is exactly how the ‘powers that be’ would like it. They don’t really want you to know what they’re up to.
It’s like freedom of speech. People are always trying to make limitations and exceptions. On a day to day basis these don’t affect your life, but that is because there are a small number of first amendment advocates fighting everyday against these forces of censorship. They have to be defended on a case to case basis.
Like open government issues, the right only exists on paper. It must be defended by activists. In New Mexico there is only one. You don’t have to give money to the cause. I just wanted you guys to know how important the issue is, not because it is what Sarah does, but because it is an important issue everywhere. It is a central tenet of our democracy. Few people realize that it is an important issue and even fewer understand it at the local level.
Sarah recommends that you try to go to City Hall and try to get a copy of the budget. It’s only after people try to get access to the government and are denied that they really understand this issue.
The bottom line(from Sarah) is: People don’t really understand “open government,” but they do understand “transparency.”....

And yes, Art and I did send a check to FOG.

(Much later.... Sarah wrote a comment and I decided to just add it to this post because it clarifies further what Open Government is about.)

Thank you for the shout-out, and the donation! It's greatly appreciated.And now for my soapbox. The issue posted on Ian Lind's blog sounds like a rolling quorum, which happens when elected officials discuss an issue and reach a consensus outside of a public meeting. Commissioner A talks to Commissioner B, who then talks to Commissioner C about the same issue. And so on. Then they all come to the public meeting and vote without any discussion. The public is left going, 'huh'? This is becoming even more problematic now that everyone is firing away on their Blackberries all the time.It sounds nit-picky, but rolling quorums violate the spirit of sunshine laws and frustrate the public's desire to hear deliberations on important matters. After all, public meetings are one of the only opportunities we have to influence policy and hold our local officials accountable. Maybe the elected officials are about to fire a popular superintendent, or they're negotiating deals with an oil company that wants to lease drilling rights. (A big issue in New Mexico.) Whatever it is, people who care about that issue are caught off-guard and given little to no opportunity to weigh in and try to influence the commission's decision. They're left feeling disenfranchised and cynical about participatory government. This should never happen in America, but people really, really like to meet and talk behind closed doors.Okay, I got it out of my system. Merry Christmas to all, and thanks again!

Sarah

New Mexico Foundation for Open Government

p.s. Check out www.nfoic.org to find out about sunshine laws and advocates in your state.

Holiday Remembrance

My mother wished to pay her respects today. She sighed during our car trip to the temple, "All my old friends are gone...every one of them. I think about them all the time."

Our first stop was to put flowers at the ashes for her good friend of 50 years who passed away two years ago. Every time I see this gentle lady in my mind, I picture her smile.


Then we drove into Honolulu to offer flowers and prayers for my grandfather, grandmother and father. The cemetery was festive with red flowers decorating all the grave sites.

"You'll be seeing your family again in Japan soon," I said. "The new year will be so busy with things to do."

"Oh yes, too busy," I saw her energy rising to the challenge. "We have the Christmas party and the New Years party...Tiffany and KC will come again in the summer..."

I'll bet she's figuring out what part of the house to clean first.

Computer Clean Up for the New Year

Good Grief! Is it Monday already? I feel like I've been stuffed up with cotton wool and drowsy from my Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, endless napping, lemon juice, chicken soup, beef soup self cure for the last few days. It seemed there was no end in sight with this cold but I do think I'm a bit better today. Not great but definitely better. The light doesn't quite bother me as much and I'm wearing shorts again instead of long jeans and a long sleeved blouse.

Christmas is almost set now. Finally. So I was ready to think ahead to the new year. When I was a child I thought it was just some cruel diabolical plan of my mother's to tell my brother, Dennis and me that it was an important tradition to clean the house before the new year arrived so that she could put us to work. She said you needed to go into the new year without debts, without dirt. This meant she had Dennis and me crawling about on our hands and knees wiping down all the corners of the house, all the window sills and probably the walls. Being respectful children, we did as she asked but I always wondered if it was really 100% true. Whatever the case, I told my children the same thing. I never could get them to wipe down the floor boards though.

Then when I moved to Chicago, I saw a Ripley's Believe It Or Not cartoon that said exactly what my mother had told us. I was so surprised that I kept that cartoon on my bulletin board for several decades. When we moved back to Hawaii a year and a half ago, I know I must have kept it but... Doggone it!.... I can't find it. I'm sure I have it in some secure place. It would have been great if I could have added it to this post.

Since I didn't have the energy to clean the house today, I thought I'd clean up my computer, especially after I shocked Art when I told him I had over 63 GB of photos on my computer and only 25% storage space left over on my hard drive. It was really slowing down my computer. I complained about it to my brother but didn't realize it was my own fault. I was almost at the point of convincing Art that I needed a new computer... something he was not thrilled about.

I spent the day saving photos onto DVDs and organizing them. At least I'll know where the photos are even though I don't know where my cartoon clipping is.

My computer is responding a little faster now after the files were deleted, cleaned and defragged. It's ready for the new year.

Goodness, I got our Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving and now I'm thinking about the new year before Christmas.

You know... I wonder if I can convince Art that I'll be too sick to clean the house for the next 2 weeks. I'll bet he'd love to help my mom with the windows and floors. I can already see that gleam in her eyes as she looks around the house and notices every speck of dirt in every corner of every room.

I Love Skype!

It is especially at the holidays that I find myself missing our children. I am so grateful to have Skype. It was our friend, Sam in Japan who first introduced it to us and we could hardly believe we could speak to somebody in Japan for free via the computer.

Now we're almost taking it for granted. My granddaughter, KC celebrated her 3rd birthday in Illinois today and she was able to show us one of her gifts. It was a Barbie computer. I love hearing her say, "Where are you, Grandpa?" "I love you, Grandma." (I just took a photo of the computer screen like my friend in Israel, Dina did.)

The nice thing is KC will never forget us or lose that familiarity she has with us. When we met her at the airport this past summer, she was comfortable with us right away.


We're also able to talk to our son in New Mexico almost whenever we want and actually see his expressions. And it's free! How awesome is that?

Since Mungo can't talk, we got to see what he learned in Obedience School. He now knows his name and can give you his paw. We're looking forward to meeting him in person some time next year.

Wow! 2010? Doesn't that sound strange? At one time 1984 was George Orwell's future. Then it was 2001, the Space Odyssey. 2010: The Year We Make Contact followed. So now we are the future. When I look at Skype, although I'm taking it for granted I see that the future has some really neat stuff. Yes, there are bad stuff, too but that would be another post. I'm not healthy right now so I'm looking for positives. The future has not invented a cure for the common cold.

To all of you who asked so kindly, please let me reassure you that my mother is doing fine. She is completely recovered and admonishing me to go to the doctor and get some lovely antibiotics. How quickly she forgets what it did to her digestive system. I'm fighting this on my own, thank you.

Have a happy Sunday, everybody!

The Perfect Gift for My Husband

My husband and I used to exchange gifts while the kids lived with us. My kids were great at coming up with ideas for what their dad needed. Unfortunately, I don't have that gift of knowing what gift to get. And also unfortunately, Art doesn't really know what I necessarily want either. Granted there've been a few times he hit it on the nail... and yes, I have, too. But 89.54% of the time, nope. He really should never pick clothes out for me. When we've been out shopping and he's shown a few outfits to me, it's been almost painful to keep my eyeballs from rolling upward. Just kidding... sort of.

One season, we finally came up with the perfect gift and that was nothing. Yup. We give each other nothing. In return, we receive a lot less stress. After the holiday, we go out and pick out something we'd both enjoy together. That is a lot of fun. Well, yes, most of the time it's what I really wanted but... gosh! Art says it makes him happy to see me happy and that's a gift for him. Do you buy that? Actually, Art never feels he needs anything. He says he doesn't want anything so it makes him happy if I want something. Isn't that great? Do I believe him? Yes, yes, I do, I do. He'd never lie to me.

Can you tell I had nothing to post about today? Ah well... I'm trying to get better so I can finish my shopping. This being sick is not fun. I feel like it's gone on for so long I've forgotten what it feels like to be healthy. On top of that, I'm too tired to move around but not too tired to eat so I've gained 5 pounds in 6 days!

How many more days do I have left to get my shopping done? Arrrghhhh!

Snowflakes

As a child in Hawaii, I remember cutting snowflakes out of paper. Our cutouts always had either 4 or 8 points depending on how you folded it.

I never believed that such things really occurred in nature. It didn't seem possible. Even after moving to Illinois, at first I saw snow as a mass of white, often beautiful, often slushy, always cold.

In Illinois I would stare at the windshield when I saw snowflakes bouncing and shattering on the glass. Sometimes individual flakes would fall on my black winter coat and I would stand there and just marvel at its beauty. I saw then that all flakes have 6 points, not 8.

One morning, when the conditions were just right I noticed that many of the flakes had fallen in tact. I tried to take some photos and wished then that I had a better macro lens. Still, I like to look at these photos to feel the wonder again.

Postscript from December 24, 2009:

I got the following e-mail from Amanda of Amanda's Musings and just had to share it with you all. Thanks so much for sending this poem, Amanda.

Hello Kay,
I was reading through an anthology of Christmas poetry and I thought of you when I read this poem by Clive Sansom.

Snowflakes
And did you know
That every flake of snow
That forms so high
In the grey winter sky
And falls so far
Is a bright six-pointed star?
Each crystal grows
A flower as perfect as a rose.
Lace could never make
The patterns of a flake.
No brooch
Of figured silver could approach
Its delicate craftsmanship.
And think:
Each pattern is distinct.
Of all the snowflakes floating there –
The million million in the air –
None is the same.
Each star
Is newly forged, as faces are,
Shaped to its own design
Like yours and mine.
And yet… each one
Melts when its flight is done;
Holds frozen loveliness
A moment, even less;
Suspends itself in time –
And passes like a rhyme.

Amanda
http://scrandasmusings.blogspot.com//

Support Crew Down!

Oh the irony!

Art was supposed to be the achy, tired, in pain person after the Marathon. However, with advice from his e-mail mentor, Ed (who is the ex-Marathoner husband of my super teacher friend, Gerri) is up and running again. Think Energizer bunny. Ed advised Art to soak his legs in epsom salts at night before bed-time and it really did the trick. Art is feeling great and thinking he might start his regular jogging program again this weekend.

On the other hand, I came down with a ferocious cold the day after. I felt like a ton of bricks fell down on me. I haven't been very sick since I retired some 5 years ago. It's been the most amazing thing not to be sick once a year at least. However, that healthy streak is gone. I used my old remedy Alka Seltzer Cold Plus and chicken soup. This time I got the Alka Seltzer Cold Plus PM. I thought I could use a little sleep aid. I took it at lunch time yesterday thinking it would just let me nap a little. WRONG! It was really strong. I got knocked out for the afternoon. I took it at night and slept right through. On Monday night, Art actually videotaped me snoring. It's the first time he's heard me snore. I never snore. No, really. I never snore. Well, there you have it. I'm as tired as I've ever been, congested, coughing, mild headache and feel a little feverish though there's no fever. Yuuuck!

Then there's the other half of Art's Marathon Support Crew, my brother, Dennis. Dennis was getting up from a kneeling position on Sunday and managed to twist something behind his knee and injured it. He had to stay home from work yesterday. My sister-in-law was with him most of the time because she had a root canal that got infected. Yeeeowch!

So here's Art bouncing about the house and I'm going back to bed.

Oh the irony of it all...

My Brother: The Master Photoshopper

My brother has tried time and again to teach me to use Photoshop. His hands move the mouse in fluid motions and he transforms photos effortlessly. He works for the Honolulu Police Department and he uses his talents quietly without fanfare. In this day of super technology he often has to go to court and testify that photos have not been altered.

The only problem is he doesn't realize that everything he tries to teach me goes right over my head. It's like my first year of teaching first grade when I realized that children had to be taught how to sit properly in a chair, how to hold a pencil correctly, how to walk in a straight line, etc.

When he opens a layer on Photoshop and tells me I can do this magic thing or that magic thing, I'm awed. Then he opens another layer and I'm stupefied. "It's easy," he says. However, the moment he leaves and I try to duplicate it, I haven't a clue. There's too much to learn, too much to remember and it's frustrating. I'm going to have to corner him someday and write down everything he says.


When he saw that this photo had a glare from the sun it took seconds for him to correct it.


Then I could use it on my post. If he had more than the 10 minutes he gave me because he needed to get home after the Marathon, I'll bet he could have taken 20 years off our faces, too.

thelaughinghousewife couldn't see any difference between the first and the second so I thought I'd add this photo which I did myself. I turned the photo into a cutout.



Here's a photo I thought I'd have to delete.

With a few clicks on something or other he was able to lighten only parts of the photo and bring back color on other parts. How the heck did he do that?

Then there was this photo.


He's told me that the important thing is not for me to know everything now. It's for me to know that it's possible and that I can learn to do it.

Arrrrghhhhhh!

I wonder what I can cook for him to get him back here to give me another lesson.... hmmmmm....

Honolulu Marathon, 2009: He Did It!

He did it! We are so relieved that he finished well and finished safely.

We got up this morning at 3:00. I was going to get up at 3:30 but was too keyed up. Once Art got up, I couldn't stay abed.


I started collecting the things we would need for the day. My brother, Dennis arrived 15 minutes early to drive us to Honolulu. I think we were all keyed up. Art had his clothes ready; racing bib pinned to his shirt and racing chip tied to his shoe so we'd be able to monitor his progress on line.


My mom was up early also to say good-bye to her favorite son-in-law. It was about 4:15 AM.


Dennis and I dropped Art off to walk a distance to the starting point. We then waited for the race to start at 5:00. It looked deserted. I wondered if we were at the right place.


Then came the wheelchair racers flanked by bicycle chaperons to insure safety.


The elite (fastest) runners went by in a jiffy and then the 23,000 other runners either ran or walked by us as we clapped for them.


Do you have any idea how long it takes for 23,000 people to run or walk by you? A long time. I started looking around at the Christmas decorations across the street.


And then... good grief! There he was! Dennis and I were barely prepared to snap Art's photo.


We followed the long procession on Kalaniana'ole Highway as the sun began to rise.

It was about 7:45 when we parked in a shopping mall not yet open at the 14 mile mark. The runners run past toward Hawaii Kai, make a loop and come back this way. We waited and waited until we realized that we must have missed him. Can't imagine how. If he's in another race, I'm going to sew a giant peacock feather on his cap.

A tiger costume would have helped us pick him out. I imagine it would be TOO hot for that.


This fellow was the only guy running in a SUIT!


How would Art look with bunny ears?


We finally gave up and went across the street and waited there. And suddenly, there he was! I could breathe again. We'd seen an ambulance parked along the street helping a runner. It was unnerving.

Dennis thought he looked awfully good since this was now the 19 mile mark for him. OK, I thought. This is respectable. He can stop and rest. But no... he kept right on going...

...right past the First Aid Station. He did learn the routine of drinking the Gatorade that was offered.... then the water.... then to sponge water on himself. The road was strewn with cups and sponges.


Dennis and I drove about a half mile down the road to Wailupe, parked and walked across the street and before we even managed to point our cameras straight, there Art was still looking OK. He told us later that this is when he felt strength ebbing. It was about the 20 mile mark.

Dennis and I then went off to find a computer to see where Art was. We found he was still doing well so we went to the Finish Line area. And THERE he was going across! I could hardly believe it!

Every runner received a shell lei as they crossed the finish shelter.

He looked mighty happy.


We walked to the booth to pick up his Finisher t-shirt.


Phew!

We'd parked a distance away so Art had to add another mile or so (to the 26.2 miles he'd already run) to walk to the car.


As we were walking to the car, Tif and Jon called to congratulate their dad from Illinois and New Mexico. They had been following his progress on line.

Art says throughout the run he thought about all the kind and beautiful messages all our blogging family had sent from around the world to wish him safety and success on this race. He said there was a lot of time to think so everybody's messages kept him focused to doing the best he could. We would like to thank you all for your support and love!

Art's Marathon time is 5:41:54!

Yae!