Am I the Only One Who Thinks This is Stupid?

The White House said President Obama would be talking to kids and telling them to stay in school and focus on their studies. I got this from the LA times.

  ..."According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Obama will "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens." school...." 

Then WHY oh WHY are there parents saying they're going to keep their kids home from school so they don't hear that message? There's some kind of hysteria going on and I don't hear a lot of rebuttal about how dumb this is. What am I not understanding? Children are looking up to President Obama as the leader of our country. Why shouldn't they hear him tell them that it's a good thing to be in school and to study hard? I'm totally at a loss. 

What must people in other countries think of us when this kind of stupid thing about us is in the news?

Sports or Libraries?

Hawaii is having a financial crisis like the rest of the nation. One of the casualties appears to be the library system. One of the sad things about leaving Illinois was having to part with the incredible library in our town. After living in several cities and traveling around the world, our son said he really appreciated the library we had there.

Hawaii's library system comes nowhere near the standards of what we had in our Illinois town and it's getting worse. Now they're talking of closing some of the libraries in the state.



However, we're seeing a lot of effort being put toward keeping up the high school sports programs in Hawaii. While I think sports is important, shouldn't there be an even bigger push toward keeping the libraries open?

In Illinois, the parking lot outside the library was jam packed with patrons. I really believe that people will make use of the library if it is available and up to date. We're making our donation to the Hawaii Library on-line. I sure hope more of Hawaii's citizens will put as much financial support to the libraries as they do the sports programs.



It's equally important to give kids a place to have their brains enriched as well as their bodies.

Keeping Our Guests Safe, Too!

I felt we should have a safety bar in the guest shower stall even though it's not a tub. Besides, I figure we need as many places as we can manage to hang towels and whatever.


It was much faster and easier to do this time. As Art always says, "You finally get pretty confident at doing something and you have to learn to do something else with these home projects."

Art, The Marathon Man-iac

Art has decided to train in order to run in the Honolulu Marathon in December. Our son, Jon recommended that he record his efforts to a blog so he can keep tabs on his progress. Art doesn't have time to learn how to do a blog, much less keep one going. Therefore, I decided to just start one for him. I didn't want to post his daily running routines and schedules on my Musings blog because... well... frankly... it's rather tedious for me to keep up with his regimen.

So I started another blog. I changed all the information, etc. in the profile and discovered that OOOOOPS! It changed the profile info on my Musings blog. Arrrghhhh!

Back to square #1. I changed everything back and just added the second blog, Art the Marathon Maniac to my sidebar so I can go back and forth more easily when I need to post something else he's written and sent to my computer.

I don't really need him to start blogging because... well... let's be honest. I'd rather he get my ideas for the house done. Our home renovation is far from over and he's also got to get the planning done for our trips.

Therefore, here's hoping I can manage two of these blogs without totally losing my mind. I don't know how so many of you are able to manage several blogs at once. I can barely keep up with my one... sigh... and now, two. Yikes!

Burning Bushes

We were returning from Lowes Hardware today when we were startled to see a lot of smoke close to where we lived.


It sent a shiver up my spine. We've been hearing a lot about the terrible fires in California. It felt like we couldn't get home fast enough.


When we returned home, this was the view from my window. Thank goodness they got the brush fire under control. I somehow feel comforted having a fire fighter living across the street. I'm thinking he'll let us know if we really have something to worry about.

I understand that because of the dry weather we've been having, we're under a fire watch. As I write this, we just got a burst of rain but it was over in seconds. Still, it was nice.

Barring Any Mishaps

Since my fall and breaking my foot, I've been thinking I'm (getting to be a klutz) needing some safe guards around the house. This led me to a great idea. Art says my ideas keep meaning more work for him. However, he agreed that I (am a klutz) could use some safety bars in the bathtub.


We found some stainless steel bars at Lowes that we liked and I had to look at measurements I did before we had the walls installed to make sure we didn't hit any pipes.


It took an afternoon to get this project done. But now I'm thinking the guest bathroom could use a bar, too. Besides, the bars are a great place to hang washcloths, but I'm not telling Art that. I'm all about safety.

6 Word Haiku?

I'd just read a while ago in AARP magazine (July-August 2009) about Hemingway being asked to create a story in just 6 words. He did.

"For sale, baby shoes, never worn."

I was stunned at how much emotion those 6 words could evoke. I even mentioned it in a comment to Susan of Stony River Farm not too long ago.

This morning my mother was watching the Japanese news and called me over. She asked me if I'd heard about 6 word haiku. That didn't make sense since...

I got this explanation from Wikipedia: "Haiku (俳句, haikai verse), plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 moras (or on), in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras respectively. Haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to parallel the three metrical phrases of Japanese haiku."

Apparently the 6 word fiction has caught some popularity over there. For the country who started haiku I could see how less is more could be intriguing.

AARP Magazine was asking for submissions they termed 6 word memoirs which they might print. If they choose yours, you get a t-shirt.

Here's mine:
Art and me,
traveling together,
contentedly

What's yours?

P.S. Art has enough t-shirts.... ahhhh... but that's another story.

Serious Cereal

I know it looks like we're breakfast nuts but we've somehow gotten ourselves to the point that we can't seem to eat one kind of cereal. We like having a combination.

Our kids were rather aghast at our breakfast ritual. We alternate oatmeal on one day and a mixture of cereals on another day. We also add raisins or cranberries and bananas to our cereal.

It all started innocently enough with us just mixing two kinds of cereal and then we kept on adding to it. Sounds like my chicken soup. I just don't know where to stop!

Sunday! Sunday! So Good to Me....

(Apologies to the Mamas and the Papas. I know it's supposed to be Monday, Monday.)

It's been a quiet week but we had a LOT lined up for today!

8:00 - 10:00 AM: We helped our friend, Jeff with his eagle scout project, painting over graffiti and cleaning the skate park and community center.


There were a lot of glass doors, windows, mirrors and ceiling fans to clean.
The skate park really looked new and spiffy after the clean-up and paint job.
It's my brother, Dennis' birthday today and I was proud of him for using his birthday to help out another Boy Scout. He and Art were both Boy Scouts.





10:00: Rushed home, showered and drove out to Waikiki for a 1st birthday party for Art's cousin's grandson.
The birthday party was at the Waikiki Sheraton. We've never been to such an amazing 1st birthday party. The food was out of this world (ate too much) and we had fun seeing all the relatives, many whom we hadn't seen in years. There was even a buffet line just for the keiki's (children) to be able to reach on shortened tables. The bouncy inflated tent had children jumping merrily. A Wii video game was set up to also entertain children.



First Birthday parties in Hawaii are typically a joyous time for extended families to get together to meet the new addition to the family as well as spending time catching up on each other's doings.


The favors were the famous Big Island Candies macadamia nut candies.



Art's cousin's son had hired a balloon sculptor. She said it was a family business. They're called Adventure Balloons. She made the MOST incredible things just by twisting her balloons.




Art decided to get a balloon for Dennis. Won't he be surprised to see this at his party tonight?

As we left the hotel I thought the scene was so "Waikiki." I told Art I felt like we were living next to another world.

When we got home, mom was already preparing her popular Lemon Chicken and kabocha. I prepared a salad and we were ready for Dennis' belated birthday party.





My nephew, Barry and his wife, Miho brought over a scrumptious strawberry cake that we polished off with no hesitation. Here's Cody helping his brother light the candles for his dad.


Poor Barry and Miho! When they were bringing the cake into the house, the box tipped and the cake slipped which smeared the birthday sign. It sure didn't hurt the taste of it at all.



As I said, it's a hectic Sunday, yes! But satisfying?... Absolutely! Wonderful? Definitely!

Creative Cooling

We watched our neighbor's construction from our second floor for several weeks and were perplexed at the shortness of the ceiling height and lack of windows or room partitions. It didn't look like the ceiling height could possibly be 8 feet high.


We bumped into another neighbor who explained that they added that second floor to cool their house because these homes didn't have a ceiling to help insulate the house from the Hawaiian heat. They're planning to use the space for storage and wouldn't be using it for living space. Ahhhhhh.... that explains it.

I think air conditioning might have been cheaper but then again, storage space in Hawaii is at a premium. Still, this seems like a drastic solution to me. Fun, but drastic.


We just noticed another neighbor choosing a cheaper option to cool their house. They're painting their roof white to reflect the sun's heat.

Poison, Pineapple and Papayas

Poison: We've been getting an awful lot of ants and roaches so we hired our termite person's company to apply some insecticide around the perimeter of the house. We noticed quite a few dead roaches the following day. We're a little nervous about the herbs in our garden though. I think we'll wait until there's a goodly rainfall before we eat anything from the garden.


Pineapple: We were so surprised at how sweet the pineapple my mother has been tending tasted that we decided to go ahead and plant its crown also. We stuck the crown in a jar of water until the roots formed. Now we'll be able to plant it in soil.


Papayas: The papaya tree that we thought would never bear fruit has finally given us a fruit to harvest.


Mom has been watching the fruit ripen for several days and insisted that Art go out and pick it this morning. It's still pretty firm though so we'll wait a few days before we have it for breakfast.


See that other papaya tree quivering in the background? I just threatened it with the axe if it doesn't start doing something soon.

Memed by Meggie!

OK... you can come out from under the bed now, Peg...

Peggy of Musings of Meggie just tagged me with a meme. I can't take the stress of passing on awards or memes but I'll play along just because Peggy is part of my blogging family and you know how hard it is to say no to your family. :-)

"This meme is a simple one. Collect the book that you have most handy, turn to page 161, find the 5th complete sentence, and cite the sentence on your blog. Next (of course) is to pass it on to 5 others."

Here it is, drum roll:

Book (right on my desk next to me where Art left it for me to research): Lonely Planet Japan


5th sentence: "An Asian restaurant that's been on the block for years is Erawan, where spicy curries and green papaya salad are served in a setting reminiscent of an outdoor Thai cafe on some southern shore...except here, you get a glittering urban view from this top-floor dining venue."

I guess now everybody will know that we're (Art actually) is planning another trip to Japan. We're going to Japan again because it's the only place my mom is willing to go to. This isn't a problem at all because there's a WHOLE lot of Japan that we have not seen. My mom hasn't been to these places either so it'll be another adventure in spring. She says that at 80, her traveling days are over. We've told her that at 80 she needs to see as many of the amazing places there are in our world as she can.

If there's anybody else who'd like to pick up this meme, please, please do! It would make me and Peggy happy.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

We finally got around to seeing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince late this afternoon. We took my mom who didn't quite understand what was going on. I thought it dragged at times. We haven't been to see a movie in maybe a year so it surprised me that there was almost a half hour of commercials and previews before the movie started at the Pearl Highlands Theatre.

Now then... is it just me or does anybody else feel like Harry should have ended up with Hermoine? I thought so after reading the books. Even in the movie, there was more chemistry between Harry and Hermoine than between Hermoine and Ron. At least that's what I thought but then again, I'm just a muggle.

Bed Update 4: Prone to Depression

After three nights on the Serta Felicity Latex Mattress from America's Mattress I'm sad to say there IS a depression again. You can't see it as much as on the very soft Tranquility mattress we tried first but.... by golly.... it's there... AGAIN! You can definitely feel it. This is a much firmer, flatter mattress so it's not quite as pronounced (yet) but it's there.

The latex mattress series is touted for having a quicker bounce back than foam. However, because of the fiberfill layer on top, you don't get to that bounce.

There's no other mattress we can exchange it to because I think this is a trait you can't get away from in this line of mattresses. Therefore, unless it caves in further... we'll have to live with this.

The only thing we can say worked for us on this mattress is that it could make it up to the second floor because latex is flexible.

Final impressions:

We wouldn't recommend the Vera Wang latex mattresses because of the depressions.

Make SURE you get the comfort guarantee. I don't even know if all the America's Mattresses have this same guarantee because one of the salespeople at the other store even in Hawaii said they didn't.

Really lie on the bed without the salesperson for 15 minutes in every position you sleep in. This won't tell you if the mattress will have a depression because you're still on it for a short time, but you'll get a better feel for it.

Price doesn't guarantee the best bed for you. Boy! Have we learned that!

Good Night, KC...

Tiffany called on Skype this afternoon. It was 4:30 PM in Hawaii but 9:30 PM in Chicago. It was much too late for KC to still be up but she insisted on saying, "Good night" to grandpa and grandma before she went to sleep. I have a feeling she's still not completely adjusted to Chicago time.

Yesterday, I was busy putting toys away, storing baby gear in the attic and cleaning up smudges here and there. Without thinking, I wiped away KC's hand smudges on our hallway mirror. She liked standing there sometimes to look at herself and would often touch her reflection leaving lots of smudges on the glass. I'm rather sorry I cleaned it up.

However, seeing KC's face briefly this afternoon because the connection was so bad gave us a lift. She was actually chatting with us in the dark so we couldn't make her out clearly. Still... it was enough.... almost.

Trying Aerobics!

My friend, Joanne suggested that we take an Aerobics class together. Joanne is also the friend who introduced me to Line Dancing.

We signed up together this afternoon and I met our Aerobics teacher. She just celebrated her 80th birthday and after meeting her, I hope I can keep up. Seriously. I've never taken an Aerobics class before. She said to bring an exercise mat, towel and a bottle of water. I think she's expecting us to sweat.

I'm not too good with sweating. We'll see how I manage this.

Bed Update 3: Princess and the Pea

We went to America's Mattress about a week ago and chose our replacement mattress. This time we went to the other extreme. Instead of the too soft Vera Wang latex Tranquility mattress, we went with the firmest Vera Wang latex Felicity to avoid the padding which we were not trusting to form a depression again.


However, looking at the tag when it was delivered today, I saw that there's even less latex percentage wise. Consumer Reports won't even rate mattresses because all the different companies create their own "recipe." You can't compare apples to apples. Therefore, if any salesperson tells you it's 100% latex, check the label. But you know what? At this point, I don't care anymore. I just hope it's comfortable enough and doesn't have a depression in it after two days. We'll see. It's supposed to have a 30 year garantee but who knows where the company will be then?


The Felicity mattress was delivered today by the same cheerful guys who delivered the Tranquility. They looked at the hilly mattress and said, "Oh, you've got a mountain in the middle, hunh?" He told us that they would be taking the mattress back to where it was made in Waipahu and find out who made it. Apparently the name of the person who made it is in the mattress. Interesting.


So we've got a new mattress... again. It seems like it's almost half the height of the other mattress and I'm feeling like the princess looking for the pea. Luckily, I've got a prince already sound asleep on the bed right now. But then again, he could sleep on the stone floor of a castle just as peacefully. I'm looking for a happy ending here.

The Saddest Time of Aloha

Aloha has many meanings. It can mean hello, love or good-bye. I guess it's sort of like Shalom.

Today, it was farewell and it hurt even more to say good-bye to my daughter, Tif and our granddaughter, KC than I thought it would. I was dreading this moment so I tried to put it out of my mind but today's pain was always looming in the background.


Tif and Art started the morning by getting some Beard Papa's cream puffs. The store is very close by but we never get them because we figure anything that tastes that good has got to be bad for you. For KC it was love at first bite.


Then she had lots of energy to go outside and do some sweeping... at least that's what she said she was doing.


She thought it was rather funny to play peek-a-boo with her broom. She may have been a bit tired of me following her around with my camera trying to record her every move.


KC loves flowers so she made it a point to water the orchids one last time.


Too soon it was time to go to the airport. KC seemed to understand what was going to happen.
"Grandpa come, too?" she asked.
"No, KC but we'll see you in spring," Art said.
"Grandma come, too?" She tried another tack.
"No, I'm not going but you'll be seeing your friends soon and Daddy will be picking you up at the airport," I reassured her.

She grabbed some toys we'd bought for her to play with during her stay and asked Tif if she could bring them with her. Tif said she could select one if grandma said it was OK. I wondered what she would take. What she chose wasn't a toy that she played much with during her stay but today that toy horse was imbued with strong emotions and significance.


The toy never left her side from her ride to the airport to the security gate.


Tif hand carried two heavy backpacks (filled with snacks, diapers and assorted baby stuff), KC's carseat, a laptop, a stroller and sometimes, KC. I have NO idea how she does it. I'm just grateful she's willing to do this just so she can spend extra time with us. It's a red-eye NINE hour flight back to Illinois non-stop. As I write this post, she's been in the air 5 hours and I'm feeling her tiredness.

I asked KC at the airport what she was supposed to do on the airplane. She said, "KC quiet."
I asked her what she should do with her feet. She said, "Down." I hope she remembers so the person in front of her doesn't get foot jabs on the flight.


The house is too quiet now. Much too quiet. If I close my eyes I can hear Tif talking to me. I can hear KC's shrieks of laughter. I can feel her arms around my neck. I can almost smell her baby smell. As she looks at that toy horse, I hope she can see us, too.

This is so painful.

But then... tomorrow, we'll have Skype!

The Last Beach Day

Yesterday was the last day at the beach for KC and Tif. KC still won't step or sit directly on sand even after three beach day attempts but she LOVED the water and shrieked with piercing delight when we pushed her in her floatie toy.


When we got home mom said we really needed to harvest our pineapple because it was getting very ripe. This time, Tif got to pick the pineapple. It was the sweetest one we've had yet. It was rather surprising how very sweet and non acidic it was. This motivates us to try planting another pineapple. Now if only it didn't have such sharp leaves.

KC has been a little reserved around her great grandmother. We thought it might be because my mother doesn't speak much English and because Aachan is always busy and doesn't get to spend a lot of quality time with her.

Last night, KC decided she needed to spend LOTS of quality time with Aachan. She asked to go and find Aachan. She then climbed all over Aachan and asked her to read her a book. Aachan can't read English very well but she improvised using a mixture of English, Japanese and pidgin English. Once the book was done, they looked at family photos.

They both had a beautiful time bonding and getting to know each other better. When Tif went to get KC for her bath, she did not want to leave her great grandmother. I love the fact that KC took it upon herself to have a loving relationship with her great grandmother on her own terms, in her own time.