Whole Language vs. Phonics

I saw something in the newspaper a few days ago that made my hair follicles perk up. I wish I kept the article. I wasn't going to post about it, or I would have kept it. However, since I have nothing else to post about...

Some expert was saying that for autistic kids whole language was a bad way to go and is a bad way to go for most kids. The Phonics approach and the Whole Language approach to teaching reading has always been mired in controversy from the start. It made me crazy.

When I went back to teaching first grade in the early 80's we taught using phonics with basal readers (sort of like the Dick and Jane series) that had controlled vocabulary. You would introduce new words slowly so children could feel successful from the start. You also taught a LOT of phonics to help children decode new words.

Then came whole language. Basal readers became taboo. They felt that basal readers with its controlled vocabulary was boring for children and not true literature. Ummmm... for first graders? The district wanted us to teach it so badly that they threw out the basal readers and we were forbidden to teach with it. The younger teachers were all for it. The ...ummmm... older teachers (maybe I should say veteran teachers) like me (I wasn't THAT old, by the way) hid our basals and taught with them anyway. I find it humorous (hilarious) that several years later the district was asking if any of the schools had kept their basals. (Nope, I refused to give them mine. I needed it for my class. I actually passed it down to a new teacher who wanted them when I retired.)

My teaching friend and partner said she would actually have the kids reading with it in her small group and if the principal came in, she would tell her students to lay the book (politely) on their laps under the table (so that the principal wouldn't be able to see it). It was the craziest thing to think we had to resort to that. I just told the principal I will use the new whole language series but I would continue to use my basal readers for the more challenged students. Actually, in first grade I considered all my middle and lower performing kids challenged since they were just beginning to learn to read. The few top performers could start off with the whole language series. I also refused to stop teaching phonics and it was a fundamental part of my reading/writing curriculum.

In whole language we were told that you could only teach a phonics lesson if it had something to do with the story because everything in whole language needed to be meaningful.

Teachers really took sides with the whole language versus phonics approach. I am proud to say my team of first grade teachers used phonics and our kids did exceedingly well. The 2nd and 3rd grade teachers used to tell us that our kids went up well prepared.

When you get right down to it, this is what my teacher friends and I believed as far as true first grade literature went. It's all in how the teacher presents it. If the teacher uses her/his own excitement of reading to introduce each story for their students and show them a way to relate it to their own experiences they will love it. Mine did, and it didn't matter if the language was controlled. In fact, they found success in being able to decode more words on their own and not having to struggle with difficult ones before they were ready.

Don't even get me started on the math (Everyday, traditional or otherwise)...

Gosh! It's only Monday and I'm on a rant. Please forgive me.

We're going to clean out our garage tool shed today and I have to paint it. Yuuuck!

POSTSCRIPT: From the comments I'm getting, I have a feeling people are thinking that teaching phonics means not teaching comprehension. Yikes!!! Far (far, far, far) from it! We definitely taught children to comprehend and analyze what they read. How could you not? We also taught them to write about what they'd read to relate their own experiences to what they were seeing in books.

Hachiko

Sarah of Brit Gal in the USA recommended a movie called Hachi A Dog's Tale quite a while ago.

This evening, I told Art I was getting cabin fever from doing so much scanning. I needed to do something different. We hadn't seen a movie in such a long time we decided to go down to Blockbuster to rent a movie. We looked through the aisle and nothing grabbed me until I saw Hachi A Dog's Tale and remembered Sarah's recommendation. I told Art he should choose a movie, too but he couldn't find anything he wanted to see.

When we went to check out the DVD, I was shocked that it now cost $5.00 for one DVD for 5 days and $1.00 extra for each additional day. Wow! I'm glad we only rented one movie. No wonder there were so few customers in the store.

When we got home I told mom about the movie we were going to watch, but she wasn't especially eager to watch a movie in English. However, I did some heavy convincing, "Mom! I paid $5.00 for this and you have to watch it to make it worth my while!"

She grumbled a little and sat down in my favorite chair to watch it. Well, she quickly got into the story with very little translating from me. It was beautiful! Yes, I did have to wipe my eyes several times, but it was worth it. And... hmmm... I could swear I saw Art wipe a few tears from his cheeks as well. Mom loved it. To my credit, I didn't say I told you so.

Hachiko is a true story. This American version with Richard Gere has adapted the actual event but stayed true to what happened. It tells the story of a dog's loyalty. I wrote about him a long time ago when we went to Japan.

I just copied this off of Wikipedia:

"In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo took in Hachikō as a pet. During his owner's life Hachikō saw him out from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting. Hachikō was loyal and every day for the next nine years he waited sitting there amongst the town's folk.

Hachikō was given away after his master's death, but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. Eventually, Hachikō apparently realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachikō waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he did not see his friend among the commuters at the station.

The permanent fixture at the train station that was Hachikō attracted the attention of other commuters. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachikō and Professor Ueno together each day. They brought Hachikō treats and food to nourish him during his wait.

This continued for nine years with Hachikō appearing precisely when the train was due at the station."


When we went to Japan this spring, we took my aunt to see the Hachiko statue at Shibuya station.

There's something about the Hachiko story that is so powerful.

Art left to take a shower and before he left he said, "Good choice, Sweetie."

State of Fear

I've just finished reading Michael Crichton's State of Fear. When I mentioned to my son, Jon that I'd bought the book at the book sale and was looking forward to reading it, he said, "Why are you wanting to read a right wing propaganda book?

Well... For one thing, I didn't know anything about it except that I've enjoyed all of Michael Crichton's books.

What a surprise to see he'd written a book completely discrediting global warning, environmental groups and environmentalists. And then he had one scene in the book that had me rather unable to get to sleep.

It was an interesting and entertaining book when he wasn't spending so much time sermonizing how environmentalists and biased researchers have it all wrong.

Did any of you read this? What did you think?

Whatever the Weather?

The weather has been driving my mom crazy!

Mom has been coming out of her side of the house every morning after I whip up her morning mocha saying, "The weather forecast said it would be sunny today so I can do the laundry." She loves to do one load of laundry everyday, either by hand or machine and hang it out to dry in the sunshine.

The last few days, we've looked out the window as she said that and seen rain falling. Guy Hagi, my favorite weather guy says we're in the midst of a drought.

However, we live on the side of a hill so whatever Guy says rarely applies to us. They say all the islands have micro-climates. I believe it!

I looked out our windows this morning and this is what I saw.


Looking EAST toward Honolulu


Looking SOUTHWEST toward Waianae


Looking SOUTH toward Pearl Harbor


Looking NORTH toward the Koolau mountain range


Looking WEST toward the rainbow...

So this is what the skies in my world look like this Friday. In 20 minutes the skies will totally change. If you go to Waikiki right now, it's probably cloudless and sunny... perfect for tourists and my mother's laundry.

However, I just heard my mother saying she's going to use the dryer. The weather is making her crazy!

POSTSCRIPT: This evening I looked out our front door and saw this.

All Fired Up!

I just heard from one of Art's cousins that her house was nearly burned on the 4th of July. She and her husband spent the night hosing down their house while the fires burned in Kalama Valley. Their son took this photo. Art says he heard something about it in the news, but didn't realize his cousin's house was so close to the fire. In fact, their neighbors were out for the evening so the cousins were hosing down their neighbors' houses as well. The fires, of course, were caused by fireworks.

In our neighborhood, at around 11:30 PM somebody detonated a bomb. I swear it was a bomb! It was so loud, it shook our house and AT LEAST a half dozen cars in the street had their security alarms go off from the vibration.

I'm so mad about it! What idiots! How does this make it fun for anybody? What makes them think this is the way to celebrate the 4th?

Hmmm.... I'm just noticing that my posts are taking a downward turn. I need to find something happy to write about! Sheesh!

I'm not even going to write about Governor Lingle vetoing the Civil Unions bill... nope not a word...

POSTSCRIPT: Ooops! I'm noticing (from comments) that people are thinking our cousins' house burned. It didn't. They were spared, but it certainly gave them some frightening moments. Their neighbors' homes were also OK, and I hope they are grateful for the cousins working so hard hosing their houses down.

You've Got to be Carefully Taught

The reason why I loved living in our town in Illinois is because of its diversity. Our children grew up with many people of different backgrounds giving them a good foundation for understanding varying ideas. This photo shows just four of them on an outing to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. You see a Palestinian-American, Japanese-American, African-American and Jewish-American. Jon's close knit group of boys also included a Venezuelan-American, Irish-American, etc. Seeing them playing happily together always had me smiling.


When they entered middle school, the Palestinian-American and Jewish American kids went to their respective Middle East areas during the summer to visit places of their heritage. It wasn't much later that I began to see the slow deterioration of what used to be easy and happy friendships.


I remember Jon mentioning how there was a verbal blow-out on the school bus. Eventually, they broke up into separate groups and that was that.

It brought to mind one of the most poignant songs from the musical, South Pacific by Rogers and Hammerstein.

You Have To Be Carefully Taught

"You've got to be taught
To hate and fear
You've got to be taught
From year to year
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!."

-Oscar Hammerstein, 1949 "South Pacific"

Who knows? Maybe they would have moved on to different paths and friendships anyway because it's part of growing up. Jon got involved in swimming, running, water polo, etc. and the friends he made during all those practice sessions took up more of his time.

However, as I look at this old photo and scanned it for posterity, I couldn't help but feel sad.

Old Postcards

I'm still scanning and scanning and scanning.

I found something interesting amidst all of my mother-in-law's photos. Some very old 1935 copyright postcards. This was the folding type of 9 cards with 18 photos front and back.

The first thing that caught my eye was the postage price to send this thick stack of cards. It says 1 1/2 cents. Did they actually have a half cent stamp?


I guess they took black and white photos and painted them in.




And of course, Waikiki certainly no longer looks like that. It's now a mass of hotels. Other things have changed along with the price of postage stamps.

Christmas in 1948

I'm afraid you're going to be seeing a lot of old photos because my life is a mountain of photos and my scanner.

Here's a photo that caught my eye right away. For one thing it's colorized from around 1948. Art's older sister, Kay is Mary. Art is next to her as one of the wise men.

I was puzzled because Art's family has always been Buddhist. Why are they in a nativity scene? Could it be a public school show?


When I asked Art, he said, no, it wasn't a school play. A family friend asked them to pose for the photo and then gave them a copy.

I love this photo. The children all look so sweet... even Art. Juuuust kidding...

In fact, I'm thinking Tiffany looks sort of like him. Looking at all these photos... I keep seeing resemblances. This is really addictive.

Celebrating the 4th!

Happy Independence Day, Everybody!

I've been buried under a pile of old photos, scanning from daybreak to nightfall. I can't seem to help myself. I'm now discovering wonderful treasures of the past in photos from Art's side of the family. When Art's mom passed away, all her photos were passed down to us.

I resurfaced today for the 4th and realized I was missing being back in Illinois where our little village would have their own 4th of July parade.

Tiffany was not yet 1 year old when we marched with her.


It was 1976, the bicentennial and surprisingly, they awarded Tiffany "Honorable Mention."

I loved living there. Our little village of almost a hundred homes was a friendly community with our own board, our own little newsletter and phone book, our own babysitting pool. There was such a feeling of connection between all the neighbors. I'm glad Tif now lives there with her family.


Peggy of Meggie's Musings lived two doors down from me. Our children played together and we were part of a large group of neighborhood moms who supported each other and became fast friends.

We didn't do much today. I hear firecrackers going off in the distance. Next year, I really think we need to go some place and truly celebrate.


Wait, I just looked out the window and saw fireworks going off at Pearl Harbor. Art took this shot out our window. Hmmmm.... not bad.

I hope you've all had a wonderful celebration! Happy 4th, everybody!

The Irony of Life

I'm now busily scanning photos from albums spanning the last 35 years of our family. It is a daunting task, but my son, Jon has asked me to preserve the photos before the Hawaiian weather destroys them. The colors are beginning to shift in many of the very old photos. I'm so glad we bought a new scanner that actually restores some of the original color. The photo below is from 1974 at Kamuela Airport (Big Island, Hawaii). We'd gone to visit Art's parents before we moved to Illinois.


I realize that there are often stories about terrible relationships with in-laws. I have been really, really lucky and blessed. Art's parents were loving, respected, honest people who always put everybody else's needs before their own. They made sure from the start that they considered themselves my mom and dad also. I did.


Art's mom suffered from breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other ailments that she contracted from the hard work of operating the marginal Sweet Shoppe (restaurant) with her husband. She had a double mastectomy and eventually lost one of her legs and was confined to a wheelchair. She never, ever complained. We know Dad would have loved to travel (I do think it's a genetic thing since Art, Tif and Jon are the same way), but he refused to leave her side except to attend our wedding on Oahu.

We realized that we might not have Mom with us very long so we took photos of her every chance we got. We didn't take a lot of Dad because he was so busy running the restaurant as well as the movie theater across the street for the widow who owned it. Dad kept the books, got the movies, and ran the projector for the failed business so that the widow could have an income.

He would get up at 5:00 every morning to open his restaurant for the very few customers who would come in for their morning coffee. I told him he needed to stop that. He was ruining his health by not getting enough rest for pennies of profit.

He said, "These customers are the people who have kept me in business when this town was thriving. I can't stop being here for them when they now need me."

Art had plans. He said that when the time came when we would have to lose Mom, we would take Dad and travel everywhere with him.

When Dad was just a young man he traveled from his sleepy country town on the Big Island to Milwaukee's Institute of Technology to become an engineer. Unfortunately, he contracted a liver ailment, was operated on and had to return home to Hawaii for a prolonged recuperation. There was never enough funds for him to go back to continue his education so his dreams were unfulfilled. He found joy in sending both his children to the Midwest to graduate from colleges there. He was never bitter about what life denied him, but seemed to love the life he made on the Big Island with Mom.


When we brought Tiffany to Hawaii to visit her grandparents, they were overjoyed! Grandpa would carry the not all that light Tiffany up and down the town showing her off to everybody. People would tell us how proud he looked. He loved her so much. This January, 1978 picture is the visit where we told them I was expecting again. Dad said he knew it would be a boy. Mom agreed. They were so sure. I just had to smile. Dad had finally retired and he was happy and relaxed. We returned to Illinois after a wonderful visit.

A month later, February, we were awakened by a phone call informing us that Dad had a heart attack. Before we could make all our plane reservations and pack our suitcases, we got another call saying Dad had passed away. How could this be? We had plans. We were going to show Dad the world.

It was such a terrible time of sadness, but Mom still kept herself in control trying to keep everybody else's spirit up.

Art and his sister went through the house, taking care of all the necessary paperwork to move Mom to California where my sister-in-law lived. When they went through Dad's desk they came across a checkbook box. In it was a stack of uncashed checks he'd written to himself for operating the movie theater. He didn't want his owner friend to know that he was not paying himself, that he'd been taking care of her without her feeling any obligation to him. We were stunned.

Before we left, Art's mom took us aside and begged us for one thing. "Please," she pleaded, "when your son is born, name him after his grandfather." We did. Jiro is Jon's middle name and he will carry his grandfather's legacy.

I have married the man who was raised by these incredible people. It's not surprising that he has taken such pains to make sure my mother is always happy and comfortable. It's not all that surprising that he wants to take her to see the world.

Bob's Big Boy Rises From the Flames

We took my mom in for her blood test today at Kaiser Permanente in Mapunapuna. Since she has to fast for her tests, we used to make it fun for her by going next door from the clinic to Bob's Big Boy Restaurant for a nice breakfast.


About a year ago Bob's Big Boy suffered a terrible fire which closed the restaurant. We wondered why they did not renovate right away. We figured they might just go out of business in this economy.

Therefore we were really surprised to see that they were open for business this morning. Granted, their menu was limited and there was no doubt that they were opening without much renovation having been completed. I have a feeling their kitchen is not totally operational because I could swear I saw them grilling food outside of the restaurant from the highway.


However, we enjoyed our breakfast and had a long talk with our waitress who told us about how the economy was causing her family a lot of stresses in their family life. I think the waitresses at Bob's Big Boy are the best thing about the place. They are always so friendly and kind.


Bob's Big Boy in Hawaii wears cute aloha attire.


It'll be interesting to see how their renovation continues. I'm glad to see they are rising from the ashes.

The Marathon Maniac 2010

Well, he's done it again.

He's signed up to run in the 2010 Honolulu Marathon in December.

I was hoping he wouldn't. I just think everything in moderation is good. Running 26 miles and 385 yards in hot sun just can't be good for you. He's now in training trying to eat carbs and putting himself on a schedule. He ran 10 miles today.

Yes, I know his blood pressure is under control now. The doctor says he doesn't even have to take meds. No pills! Nothing. His cholesterol, glucose, everything is just fine.

But still... I worry every time he goes out to run. Well... he'd probably snitch on me and tell you that I'm sleeping when he goes out anyway.

His dad had his 1st heart attack in his 40's and Art is trying his best to keep his health at its optimum.

On the other hand... I should, I should, I should do a better job myself.

Right now I'm just sitting on my duff all day scanning all our old photos. The Hawaiian weather is just murder on color photos. The black and whites are doing better but the colors are fading. And gracious, the photos I took in the beginning were really not good. When I scanned them I could see they were actually blurry. It wasn't until 1979 that Art bought me a new camera and the photos improved.

This photo of Tif and Jon in 1980 after a day at Disneyland with my sister-in-law, Kay (Art's sister... yup, her name is Kay, too)in the back seat of the car (Oh Wow! No seat belts!), just brought back sweet memories. I just want to reach in and hug them again.



Ah well... what I meant to say is that I'll have to pull myself away from this project and get some walking in! Really... I mean it! I will...

Modern Motherhood?

Tiffany is an excellent mother. Granted, sometimes I felt she was too soft with KC. Tif says KC tends to be stubborn at times (Tif says she comes by that naturally) so she has found the best way to deal with it is to give her choices. Instead of saying, "Wear your shoes," (before leaving the house)she'll say, "Would you like to wear your blue shoes or your yellow ones?" It's good to empower your child, but sometimes I think your child needs to know you're the grown-up and has to follow your directions. However, Tif is the mother and she knows her child best.

That's why it surprised me that she was upset the other day because a friend has been constantly telling her that she is too strict with KC. True, Tif has rules, but they're definitely appropriate from all I've seen. She is firm about the rules, but clear and loving. KC knows the rules but whenever this friend comes to visit with her child, Tif has to later undo all that KC has picked up from this other child. KC has asked, Why does she get to do this and I can't?"

It's quite a dilemma.

I've been to restaurants and seen children running amok. I've seen children climb up furniture and grab at things in another person's house with parents who merely ignored it because, "Kids will be kids."

Tif says she stopped KC from rolling around the floor (during a class) and pulling up her dress hem over her head. Her friend saw this and told her that 3 1/2 year old KC is just a baby so she should chill out.

When Tif and Jon were kids, they were taught how to behave in public. If they misbehaved we discretely escorted them to a private area and read them the riot act. I remember a lot of people coming by our table and telling us how well they behaved in restaurants. They did, but they had to be taught until it became second nature.

Has parenting changed in the last 30 years? Well, I'm glad Tif is sticking to her guns (I mean rules) because it teaches KC how to be more agreeable and likable. I really do believe that children need to be taught. But then again, I suppose, once a teacher, always a teacher.

A Whopper of Calories!

I was looking through my Boy Scout Makahiki Book and found a coupon for a Free Whopper with Purchase of a Sandwich Value Meal. We decided to go to Burger King and get it just for fun since we hadn't gone fast food in quite awhile. Art said he could use the calories since he's been training for the Honolulu Marathon again.

It was quite tasty and we enjoyed it. However, as we were leaving the place I happened to notice a big poster listing all the calories, fat, etc. in each item being sold. The Whopper had 660 calories. The medium fries had 400 calories. I don't remember what the unsweetened ice tea had. Probably not much, I would think.

Art said running a mile would burn 100 calories. Since he's probably run 10 miles he's OK. Let's see. I walked a couple blocks. Sigh... Not good.

Wait... wait... I did clean two bathrooms yesterday. I wonder how many calories that burned.

Sigh... I guess it's going to be another good long while before we do fast food again!

Personal Palm Pineapple

Art's cousin, Kazu used to work for Dole Pineapple. He's retired now but hasn't stopped working. Every so often he brings us the sweetest pineapples ever. I suppose it could be because he gets it freshly picked, but it's fantastic.

We decided to take the crowns and grow them in our garden. The fruits are never as big as the original. However the last one we got was really miniature.



I remember taking some relatives around the island once and they were shocked to see the pineapple plants. For some reason they thought pineapples grew from trees.

Now then... what to do with this pineapple?

LATER: My brother stopped by and we showed the pineapple to him. He thought it was rather cute and happily said he would love to have it. He said the other pineapples we gave him from our garden were surprisingly sweet.

You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby

My son asked me to scan our old family photos because photos tend to deteriorate in Hawaii. This is going to take quite a while since we've taken a lot of photos in the last 30 years. However, I have to laugh because we took more digital photos of KC in the first month of her life than we did for the 6 years of our kids' young lives.

I came across this photo of Tif and had to chuckle. I hope she doesn't get mad at me for posting this. If she does, this post will disappear immediately.

My first born, the delivery was pretty rough and she came out looking rather banged up. The hospital offered photos taken of newborns. We didn't buy one. As the days passed, she didn't improve a whole lot.


Everybody kept asking us what our son's name was.


We dressed her in LOTS of PINK and LACE. It didn't help, but we only loved her more.


And then suddenly one day, people stopped asking us. In fact, people would stop us in restaurants to tell us what a cute little daughter we had.


And then, like a butterfly she emerged into a beautiful woman. More than beautiful, she is kind, loving, caring and responsible.

This brings to mind the song, "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." It's not necessarily so. I don't think you can tell for sure how a baby will turn out. I do think life shapes you and that people will consider you beautiful for the character you show.

This also brings to mind something I read in a book. I wish I could remember which one it was. It said that every woman has one time in her life when she is stunningly beautiful; it could be when she's a baby, or a young woman or an older woman with silvered hair. I never forgot that thought. Every so often I'll look at a woman, young or old and think, Ahhhh... she's in her prime. I'm sure this holds true for men, too.

However, again... I do think a person's character shapes their faces, too. I've seen so many woman over 80 look serenely beautiful. I've seen some rather haughty 20 somethings who look shallow and unattractive no matter how regular and unlined their features are.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how KC will grow, inside and out.

Taking a Shower Together

Yes, we do live in the tropics so we should expect lots of fauna here and there... BUT not in my shower, for goodness sake!

I'm using the guest bathroom for the duration of my illness. Last night, it was quite late because I'm into another project. My son, Jon asked me to digitalize our family photos. Well, we have a ton of them so it'll probably take me a couple of months to do. Actually it might take me several months because I'm still working on my mother's family history. Anyway, I got so involved with scanning photos that it was about 11:00 by the time I went to take a shower.

Taking the shower part was OK so yes, I'm clean. However, when I started squeegeeing (How the heck do you spell that?) the walls, this gecko jumped down at me. I would have screamed if I didn't know that it would terrify the neighbors.

It scrambled right over my toes! No, I still didn't scream.


When I went to bed, Art opened one eye to say good night so I told him about the gecko.

"How big was it?" he asked.

I spread my fingers to about 5 inches and he opened both eyes.

"I didn't hear you scream," he smiled knowingly. "I have a feeling you're exaggerating the size. Why didn't you take it outside?"

Riiiiight...

I went to the bathroom this morning and he (the gecko) wasn't there. Maybe I'll move back to our master bathroom now.

Healthy Meals

We're pretty lucky because my mom does most of the cooking for us and she enjoys it. We enjoy it even more. She makes a concerted effort to keep our meals healthy because she's got to watch her carb intake as well as salt. She's also pre-diabetic and has high blood pressure, not to mention high cholesterol. She tries to manage this with her diet and exercise as much as she can.


Last night, I noticed that the nishime dinner was really an example of how she manages our diet. Nishime is Art's FAVORITE dish but it is extremely labor intensive. My mother has to start preparation the night before and then work at it all day. She loves to make it for him because he's her favorite son-in-law... OK... only son-in-law. When you get right down to it, the ingredients are quite healthy for you.

We also have brown rice and a bowl of miso soup which she makes almost every night. She prefers making it from scratch to avoid the salt that most mixes have too much of. We used to make miso soup with the mix occasionally when we lived in Chicago but we would dilute it.

She also made stir fried pak choy which we really enjoyed. On many nights, I'll also add a green salad. Our desserts which we do have is usually fruit or a smoothie. During the day, if we feel hungry and need a snack, we always have nuts available to munch on. Art's nut's are NO salt. I'm sorry but I need a little salt with mine but it is reduced. Our drinks are either tea or water. I've gotten mom seltzer water at times which she really gets a kick out of. She says it's like drinking soda.

Therefore, all in all we eat pretty healthy and it helps to keep our weight down. We also use a smaller plate. It's a Corelle 10" size. I've heard that most dinner plates these days are 12" in diameter.

The only problem I have is that I still have a bit of a pot (belly) that I can't get rid of. Art doesn't have that problem but I'm not going to start running to get rid of it. I have my limits. I'll have to start walking again soon as soon as I get rid of this irritating, annoying cough/cold/whatever it is.

Civil Unions, Separation of Church and State?

I saw the front page of the Star*Advertiser yesterday and it got me thinking. I don't usually think on political lines because I don't feel like I have a thorough grasp on the situations. However, it also brought to mind something I saw on TV the day before.

People were protesting the building of a mosque somewhere. An angry woman spit out that America was built by founding fathers who believed the country would be based on the one true God. I don't even want to go there. OK... one true God. Would that be the Catholic God? the Jewish God? the Muslim God? The Mormon God? The Protestant God? Therefore we shouldn't allow a Muslim mosque to be built?


Then I saw the article about our Governor Lingle trying to decide whether or not to veto the Civil Unions bill. It's passed the Hawaii Legislature and waiting for her signature to turn it into law.

Governor Lingle says she does not want this bill to be her legacy. To be honest, I'm thinking her legacy for me is her taking time to campaign heavily for Sarah Palin and then saying she was too busy to meet with the newly elected President Obama who was meeting with all the nation's governors. Never mind that President Obama is a local guy. OK... I'll stop that rant.

Anyway... as I said, I may not have the full grasp of the situation. However, wasn't part of the foundation of our country built with the cement of religious freedom? Separation of church and state? A civil union, whether for gays or for heterosexuals would be a state sanctioned union, wouldn't it? Couples who don't want to belong to a church or is not allowed in a church can have a state recognized civil union with rights and benefits, thereof? Shouldn't the churches, temples or mosques just stay out of this?

At first I told Art, "Shouldn't they just let the people vote?"

Art said, "If they let people in the Southern states vote on the Civil Rights Bill for their state, would it have passed?"

But then I just saw a poll that indicated the majority of the people of Hawaii are for the Civil Union bill to be passed.

So why not just pass it already?

And Governor Lingle's Legacy? It's also under her watch that 17 furlough days were taken from Hawaii's school children whose school system was already struggling to meet the nation's educational standards.

Presents in the Mail

We have begun the week on a fun note. We received two flat rate packages from Tif, Ed and KC. They wanted to thank us for our visit and what we helped them with when we were in Chicago.


Art was thrilled to see this Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup Championship t-shirt! They also sent a TON of different kinds of nuts and a couple of bags of our favorite veggie chips.


I was excited to see two special glass mugs/steins. I have a collection of three mugs. I decided to start a collection that would be hard to find so it wouldn't grow too quickly. Whenever we're on a trip, I look for a larger clear glass stein. I looked for one in Chicago and in New Mexico and failed. Tif mailed two glass steins with KC's picture on it. I couldn't believe it!

It sure is a nice start to the week!

LATER: Gigi asked where Tif got the mug. I looked at the package and it says Kodak Gallery. She got it on-line. However, I do have to warn you that the inside of the stein has a matte finish. I'm hesitant to put ice tea or mocha in it because I think it will stain. I'll just use it for clear liquids.