sum-sum-summa tyme!

Craaazy busy, amazingly amazing summer recap outline:  Meegain and Kaley visited for 2 weeks, then I went to AL for 2 weeks, then two weeks of brothers:  Goose's bro and his wife came to Kauai for a week, followed by my brother, Phil, and his gf.  Then I beed lazy for a week or so, and headed out to Cali for a week with Gbird and kiddos!  Whew!  Other pertenent news:  Veebert left us to live on the east coast :''''''( , we hired a new mathie - yet to be nicknamed, and I got an iPad :) !




The deets, Part I:


Meegain and Kaley showed up for a 2 week visit the day after graduation.  We went to a bunch of beaches where I became an even more GOLDen peoples of Ha-VEI-ee, hiked (I'm a pro now, remember), and visited the Big Island.  

The Big Island is the island of Hawaii - the state is actually a string of 8 islands, 4 "major" ones. Hawaii has an island of Hawaii just like how NY has a city of New York.  

For all 4 of us, it was our first time on the BI.  We covered a lotta ground in our 4 day visit - the island is over 90 miles across... but of course, you can't drive directly across, there's only one "cross road."  To drive along the coast from Kona to Hilo, from one airplane to the other on the map below, takes about 2.5 hrs.

The claim to fame of the BI is the volcanoes - where you can usually see flowing lava.  (Surely I don't have to explain the significance of the itallics.)  What we did see was pretty cool, I guess.

kidding - this is a pic of a pic in the Volcanoes Museum.  But this is what I was hoping to see:(

What we actually saw - lava glow.
 It was cool, and got brighter as the sky darkened, but it was pretty far off. 

dried lava... good thing they closed that road!

 Snorkeling with the giant manta rays completely made up for the lack of lava flow!  If you ever have the chance, do it!  Even though you have to pay $70 for a 10 minute boat  ride to the manta ray hangout and a cup of hot chocolate... it's worth it!  

Oh, I guess you're paying for the rental of this awesome spidey-suit too!  
The ocean is kinda chilly at  night.  

The manta rays eat plankton, which are attracted to light... so at night, a group of manta-enthusiasts shine huge lights from the bottom of the ocean, maybe 50 yds down, to attract the manta rays.  Lots of charter boat companies bring snorkelers and scuba divers out to see the spectacle.  Note:  This is a must-watch video!  The manta rays have not been trained to do this - it's just how they eat dinner ;)

This particular manta is named Choe - she's easily 

recognized because she's missing half of her mouth:(

the pics didn't turn out too great... video is much better.

Did I mention they have a 14-20 ft wing span!?!?  Beautiful gentle giants!


Kauai snorkeling is spectacular, but BI snorkeling is the best I've ever seen!
We also snorkeled at: (bear with me - documenting for future reference)

• Kahalu'u Beach in Kona - easy snorkeling, lots of pretty fish and turtles, black large grain sand (p. 64 167 in Hawaii:  The Big Island Revealed)
• Pu'uhonua o Honaunau (aka Two Step) in Kona - pretty fish, great underwater landscape, saw an Eagle Ray, and heard that sometimes you can swim with dolphins here just outside and to the right of the reef, we didn't see dolphins tho.  (p. 73)
• Wai'opau Ponds in Puna - several interconnected tide pools, beautiful!  Like a bunch of Queen's Baths right next to each other! Unfortunately the Goose broke our much beloved ocean/snow/drop-proof camera here:(  And by that, I mean water got in it and finally made it stop working.  Thus, the rest of the summer pics are from my phone - which isn't bad, but it's no Lumix...  (We will probably be getting the newer model Lumix - yes, the last one broke... but after 3 very faithful years and oodles of priceless pics!)

Other highlights of Meegain and Kaley's trip: we saw black sand beaches on BI, ate gallons of shave ice with icecream and snowcap, we all read Harry Potter, and we discovered a supa fly beach here on Kauai - Hideaways.

Snorkeling on the Big Island - Kahalu'u Beach.
(It's hard to smile with a mask.  Now that I look at it, maybe it's just me.)

my swimming buddy
Kahalu'u Beach, BI

Video of me swimming with my swimming buddy - sorry about the

shaky camera at the beginning... did I mention I was swimming;)

Can you find the goose??
In a big banyon tree on BI!

Hideaways Beach
Princeville, Kauai

Parts II and III of my summer recap later... probably;)

hike, take 2, and other goings on

After my last not-too-successful hike, I planned to try to do at least one hike per month. I wanna see all that my island has to offer and I wanna be able to do a "mild hike" without almost dying. [I know many of you are doing marathons and 5k's (both of which are in the same category to me - crazy long runs that I'm not even remotely interested in attempting, ever) and summers abroad at yoga camp... but I have more modest goals]. So last weekend we ventured out to Koke'e. It's the area on the west side of the island that has trails all throughout Wimea Canyon (supposedly nicknamed "the Grand Canyon of the Pacific" by Mark Twain, altho blue book says that's a myth). Whatever the case, it's amazing! If you have the blue book (The Ultimate Kaua'i Guidebook), the hike we did is on p. 143 "Canyon Trail to Waipo'o Falls."

We ended up between the upper and lower falls in the above pic. We played in the smaller (upper) FREEZING waterfall for a bit before enjoying the view from the top of the lower falls. It's cooler there because of the elevation, which made for perfect hiking weather. The book calls this hike "moderately strenuous", but I made it just fine. (This time I ate a big breakfast and took lots of snacks, and didn't think I was even close to dying at any point!) And, while the view from the top of Sleeping Giant was amazing, this was even better... by a long shot! More impressive than the actual Grand Canyon in my opinion! Here are a few highlights...

Here's a video at the upper falls - I thought 
G was taking a pic, so I look like a goob.  

But you can still see the cool scenery!

Shortly after I got to school yesterday I received a text from the goose saying he was at school wearing heels. Um, ok... so immediately I rushed to the front of campus to find him. And sure enough, he was wearing sparkly silver 4 inch heels, he and several other men, in fact! It was part of an event about preventing violence against women, so for obvious reasons he and several people from his office were there to participate. The event culminated with everyone walking a lap around campus, men in heels of course. The Goose was a natural, which I'm sure surprises no one. But much to my surprise, my coworker, and second favorite man on the island, Tom, was a natural as well. Go Goose and Tom!

Goose, people from his office, and people from my school 
warming up before the big lap.  

Try not to be distracted by the looker in front of G.

Later that night, Veebert had us and several of her groupies over for a potluck dinner. I don't usually love hanging out with "strangers" (I prefer being with close friends, anything else is too much work... so I usually flake on events like this), but Tom was there and a few of the less strange strangers. I really love Tom! He's possibly the most genuinely nice, unselfish, humble, reliable, and honest person I've ever met, and he puts up with me, Veebert, and Gbird anyway.  (We are the 4 mathies btw.)

Veebert has recently taken up learning the ukelele (in HI, pronounced ook-uh-lay-laly, but so far I have successfully avoided saying that word... no way I could do it without cracking up). She has trouble transitioning from one chord to the next (that means moving her "holding fingers" from one formation to another, for my fellow musically challenged friends). Tom told her to let go of the chord on the last strum (he called that playing it open), and use that time to transition to the next... here's a priceless clip of her trying that out. That's Tom, to her right, your left.

Finally, I will leave you with Mel, who always manages to surprise me!

As suspected, I like hiking downhill...

Hiking intimidates me. Surprising, I know.... I love being outside and seeing beautiful crap. The walking part, not so much. When I was little I hiked all the time, but we called it playing outside. No granola, zipoff pants, spf shirts, funny looking shoes, or camelbacks involved. We just went outside in whatever we happened to be wearing and 'hiked' until we got hungry or wanted to play Nintendo.


Seeing how I live on a crazy beautiful island that people fly across the world to visit, and hike on, I decided it was time that I overcome my fear. I mean, it's just walking around in the woods, big deal, right?!?  Veebert invited us to go hiking in Kokee this weekend.  The Goose has been admiring the pics from her last hike there, so he readily agreed, and signed me up in the process.  I didn't object, I've been expecting this and I have a cute (read "funny looking") pair of shoes I've been wanting needing to break in since Christmas!  The eve before our big hike, Goose proclaims that he's gotta go to the office, so can't go hiking all day.  Oh well :)  But then the next morning he wollups me with, "I wish we were going hiking," (heard "You're not getting off that easy")... so I suggest a lighter hike.  Sleeping Giant, this mountain in Kapa'a that I've heard is one of the easiest hikes on the island.  We could spend an hour or two there and then he'd still have time to get his work done.  Also, no pressure - just me and him.  [With Vb and co (Vb has developed quite an entourage on the island) I'd be worried about slowing them down or breathing too loudly, or hating it and feeling like I needed to pretend to love this whole walking around in the woods thing, like any good sane person would!]  So we grab 2 granola bars, fill the bootleg camelback, throw our cute shoes in the car and head to the base of the Giant. 

Two nights before, Vb cooked us all authentic Vietnamesian Pho at GBirds house.  My dryer's been shrinking my clothes lately (that's what I get for giving up on line drying I supposed), particularly the week after my birthday when Goose brought me this AMAZING Dulce de Leche Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory, a luxury item on this island for sure!  Gbird urged me to bring some to school to share, but I kept forgetting ;)  So the Goose and I took care of it ourselves, yes, it was a whole cheesecake.  We were also on a costco pre-made alfredo kick about that time too!  It's $14, but 3 delicious, no-hassle meals for both of us!  Can't beat that, right!  So anyway, the scale in Gbirds bathroom lured me over... and I discovered it was not my dryer's fault!  I mean, I knew I was near the top of my 5 lb comfort continuum, but not 4 lbs over it!  Not knocking on the door of the next 10's digit, surely not!  I've never, ever been over my 5 lb comfort continuum, ever!  Certainly not in Hawaii, where I wear a swimsuit half the time!  After leaving Gbird's, I reluctantly told Goose my devastating news.  We made a healthy living grocery list, that did not include alfredo or cheesecake... and went full throttle into healthy eating mode!  The next day we did great, all three meals, off to a wonderful start!  Then I got up, had half a papaya, half a cup of yogurt, and 1/4 cup of granola for breakfast... still going strong!  Not to mention, we were heading out for a nice leisurely hike up Sleeping Giant, then we'd come down and have a late lunch from Mermaids, maybe (mmm and healthy!).      

So we get to the start of the trail and begin our hike.  I felt weird... like when you don't know what to do with your hands in a pic or during a speech.  I was glad my maiden hike was just with the Goose, so I could figure out all the nuances of this new hobby of mine, and look like a pro at my group hike debut!  I like to think I am one of those enjoy the journey types, but when it comes to walking, I'm just not.  So I walked, kind of briskly up the trail... looking forward to the nice views at the top and excited about overcoming this hurdle, about taking the power away from the word hike, and owning it!  We rose in elevation quickly, it seemed like we were nearing the top!  I liked the interesting parts - the parts where you had to walk on rocks, or the shortcuts where you had to grab roots to pull yourself up the steep parts. 

Feeling accomplished since I was nearing the end of my uphill journey, I power up a long uphill stretch, then another ignoring the thumps in my brain, it doesn't matter how tired I get, I'll rest at the top and eat my granola bar!  eeeeeh... I suddenly feel horrible - my stomach is cramping, my eyes aren't working well, even my teeth sockets hurt. 

I drink out of the foux camelback G's wearing and rest for a while and decide to continue to the top.  This happens a few more times, I feel like I can hardly breathe, and I feel like the biggest weenie ever (and I HATE when people are weenies).  Ok, I know I'm not in great shape... but there are kids, old people, and beer bellied men walking right passed me, seemingly fine!  This is ridiculous!  Remembering my "healthy" breakfast, and noticing that it's almost 1, I decide to split one of the granola bars with Goose.  I felt a little better and continued up.  We passed a nice family and give them directions down, I ask how much longer to the top and the moderately pudgy mom of 4 says about 20 more minutes... WHAT?!?!  There goes my light at the end of the tunnel!  I sit down, eat the whole other granola bar, wait a while, and insist on continuing.  If this is how my maiden hike ends, giving up and going back before I reach the top, my only memories of the hike will be defeat and feeling like I was gonna die.  So we continue up... against G's concerns that he doesn't know what to do if I pass out. 

Drama over, that granola bar must've given me just what I needed!  I took it easy all the way to the top, and collapsed (on purpose, not actually passed out) on the bench at the top. 

The view was amazing... not all that much different than the view from half way up tho, but I really enjoyed the bench!  We rested, took pics, and headed back down. 

I enjoyed the hike down, I suspected I would like downhill hiking!  G got a little shaky on the way down, and I had already eaten the last of the granola... neither of us are in great shape, but I think we shoulda been able to handle this.  I wouldn't call it a leisurely hike, but it shouldn't have almost killed us!  I blame Gbird's scale!  If not for that stinker, I wouldn't have freaked out and eaten so healthily!  We have since bought a scale of our own and determined that Gbird's scale is a whopping 3 lbs off!  Although, if you remember, I was 4 lbs outside of the continuum... so I will still be eating relatively healthily, and I guess it wouldn't hurt me to do 8-minute buns a few times a week.  But I will be taking the proper precautions and extra granola before my next hike!  Btw, we ended up forgoing the tasty, healthy Mermaid's lunch for a 20 pack of McNuggets, large fry, and Sprite.  Oh well, at least no Frappe...           

broken in cute shoes

goodbye rain!

It's been rainy for a month solid!  I hear February is like this every year... so don't plan your trip for Feb!  We were determined not to let the rain spoil our 3-day Presidents' Day weekend (4 for me since I don't work on Fridays.  Yes, 4 day work week, 9 months a year - not my fault you didn't choose to be a professor... in Hawaii:)  So we went snorkeling and fishing in the rain last weekend.  The ocean was so cold and visibility was not the best, but we saw the biggest prettiest fish we've seen yet.  They were in Poipu just past the sand bridge - not the side we usually snorkel.  I wish we had taken our camera out!  My favs were a large rainbow colored one - not rainbow like his silver skin would shimmer rainbow in the sunlight, actually rainbow striped, and a huge turquose fish (I think this really should be the Megan fish - absolutely "her color", but I'm not sure I'll ever see him again...).  They were both about 2 feet long and swam right up to me, within an arm's length!  And the shrimp were crackling so loud in the ocean!  When you're underwater here you can always hear them, like Rice Krispies, but that day they were especially loud.  Maybe because of the rain or the cold water (cold because of the rain and lack of sun), or maybe they were trying to scare the huge fish away, I don't know, but it was amazing! 

We also went fishing with Gigi and fam.  They caught a few, but when me and the Goose tried, nothing:(  We were trying to get bait for crab traps that we were planning to set in the river... but then it started pouring, hard!  So we gave up and bought shellfish from Costco.

The sun finally came out on Wed and Thurs was the prettiest day ever!  I sooo hoped it would stay for the weekend, and it did!  So we soaked up every second of it!  Prepare for a mini-vaca...

Headed down the long and dusty path.

shenanigans.

Alligator is her name-o!

What I learned while Goose was in Texas...

1.  If you melt butter in a pan, toss a couple slices of bread in, then make a sandwich... the sandwich tastes like the best grilled cheese you've ever had.  Even if there's healthy stuff on it - still tastes like grilled cheese!  Also, arugala and avocado are amazing... they make everything taste expensive and creamy!

2.  Our textbook company sends chocolates for Christmas.  The Russel Stover lemon filled ones are surprisingly my fav thus far.  Enough reason to keep using that crappy textbook - possibly...

3.  Driving a huge truck on this tiny island sucks.  The lanes are so skinny!  (Y'all know why I'm driving the truck!)

4.  The RGB input puts the computer on the tv, not the Comp input.  The Goose obviously set it up this way for security purposes.

5.  The ratpoo takes after her father.  Thursday night, after driving home in the worst storm I've seen since I've been here - crazy heavy rain and even thunder and lightning (a rarity here!), I opened the truck door to get a surprise soaking wet ratpoo in my lap... in my lap before I even saw her!  I couldn't find any vulnerabilities in the fence, so I was hoping the water might've provided some kind of temporary escape route.  I came home today, stopped at the bottom of the driveway to get the mail and BAM, another surprise ratpoo in the lap.  I did an experiment - Oscar and I played outside the fence while the poor little ratpoo watched... and yup, not too long before she jumped up, latched on to the top and climbed right over.  That little terd! Not sure what we're gonna do with her.  The funny thing is that the two bigger boys - Oscar and the neighbor dog get left in the fence during her little escapades...  she's showing those boys up fo sho!
Oh yeah, her poodle papa was named Houdini for his remarkable escaping abilities.

6.  I love shopping online for toys!  There are so many cool ones out there and even youtube videos to show you exactly how they work.  I did enjoy looking through the Toys R Us catalog every Christmas when I was little, but this is even better!

7.  Solar water heater sucks when it's cloudy for 3 days straight!  The goose warned me about this before, but a cold water day never fell on a shower day for me until yesterday.  I put it off til the afternoon and it sucked less, but burrr!  Felt like I was at camp:)

8. It DOES get cold in HI!  Well, only between the hours of 8 pm and 8 am... but cold enough that even with the windows shut and two warm dogs in the bed I was chilly.

9.  The island is crawling with sleeping grass (watch this video)... it has thorns and may have been what stuck in my foot a few weeks ago.  I need to go outside and see if I can find some, it looks pretty amazing... straight out of Avatar:)

and possibly the most imporant lesson of all...

10.  You should thoroughly search your vehicle before entering, there may be something that is trying to kill you lurking inside!
Other items to inspect before using include, but are not limited to: toilet, clothing (especially shoes and pants), bed (even between sheet and top cover), lawn furniture, bathtub, umbrella.  This inspection should only take about an hour and a half out of your day... and not being surprised by an 8 inch centipede is absolutely worth it!  (If you think I'm over-reacting about the whole encounter, search youtube for centipede - you will see all kinds of videos, just reading the titles made me pee myself:  centipede vs snake, centipede attacks bat mid-flight, centipede overpowers grizzly bear, centipede takes Manhattan, centipede wipes out entire dinosaur species, next target MAN!  Y'all better watch out... just ask V who showed up in her potty after she scoffed at my story!)

Close Encounter of the FOURTH kind

Close encounter, listed by kind...
first kind - seeing a ufo
second kind - seeing the effects of a ufo: crop circles, scared animals, ...
third kind - seeing "animate beings" associated with a ufo
fourth kind - being abducted by an "animate being"!

(btw - I didn't already know that, just googled it.)

So last night I had a very opening-scene-to-a-horror-movie close encounter of arguably the fourth kind.  I had just dropped the Goose off at the airport for his week long business trip :( and was on my way home.  It was just before 10 pm.  The road to my house is a two laner with moderate traffic flow, but very few places to stop and hardly any street lights... so it's completely dark except for headlights.  I'm cruising along, about halfway home when I see a shadowy figure sluggishly slithering about on my dashboard... and by "dashboard" I mean a few inches in front of the steering wheel where the gas gage is.  My car is very compact - so this is really close to me.  I immediately knew what is was!  You however, do not... so maybe I should give you some backstory...

First of all, there are no snakes in HI - or so I thought... kidding, really it's not a snake.  Last weekend I was walking in from the yard, barefoot, and suddenly felt this horrible pain shooting up my leg.  I thought I had stepped on a thorn and got it stuck in my foot.  But when I looked for the thorn, I found this thin clear, slightly curved, almost centimeter long thing stuck in my foot.  It kinda looked like a really sharp cat claw, but much thinner.  I thought, "weird thorn!"  The next morning, on our way out to the beach I see this HUGE, ugly, black, crazy creepy "animate being" stuck under the crack of the door that separates our house from the neighbors garage apartment.  Eww, eww eww!  How could that thing be anywhere near our house... it belongs in the amazon jungle!  Luckily it was dead - I think it was too fat to crawl under the door and it got stuck and died.  The G rid-ed our house of the crunchy carcass.  


Later that day my foot starts to itch where that "weird thorn" was.  Like a bug bite... why would a thorn make a bug bite?  Ahhhh.... the nasty intruder!  He must have bit me on his way into the house and left a fang behind!  No, that's crazy... surely I would've noticed if I stepped on something that big!  Off to google to research bites, stingers, and fangs.  Ok, if you've ever done an image search on something ookie, like a spider bite or growth on the eyelid (yes, I have done both), you know that the first pictures that come up are completely disgusting and make you think you need to run straight to the emergency room and be admitted immediately... like before the guy that got shot!  I kept my cool, and decided I'm sure these skin-rotting-off pics are from people who are allergic, not the typical bite/sting.  I decided to monitor my injury for a few days and see what happened... of course in my search I saw tons of images of this creepy animate being - G laughed at my because I was covering the pics when I was trying to read... it seriously made me want to vomit!


If that's not enough to make me terrified of this creature... the next night I hear G yell from the bedroom, "Bring me the paper towels."  I assumed someone threw up in the floor or something normal and non-terrifying like that (the babies are here now - that's who would have thrown up in the floor in case you missed that, Jolene is having issues with her new food).  Anyway... nope, it was terrifying.  There was another huge one in our room, next to our BED!  The cat had chased it down (yeah, she's a fearless beast!) and cornered it!  Thank you Jolene!  So I threw the paper towels to G, stood in next room, and looked away... I could not handle seeing this thing in my house after probably getting bit by one, finding a dead one, and doing a disturbing internet search... it was too much!  After a few minutes, the poor G seemed to be getting nowhere in the battle.  "You need a shoe!"  I tossed him one.  After another five minutes or so... and a lot of "He just won't die" 's later... the goose takes him outside and shows him whose boss.  I don't know how exactly, but he assured me IT was dead.  We tell our neighbor about this encounter (this is of the First kind mind you... the fourth kind is in my car... which I'll get back to later).  He says the only way he's been able to kill them is by cutting their head off - and even then they might not die (I may have imagined that last part, my mind is foggy now.)

Ok... end backstory.  Now we're in the dark car right after dropping G off seeing a shadowy slithery figure.... and I am 100% sure what it is, as I've seen a million of them in the past week (in person, online, and in my mind when I think about getting up in the night to go pee, and instead decide to hold it).  ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?!?!  This thing of my nightmares is in my car! inches from me! in the dark! no street lights! nowhere to pull over!  AHHHHH! flashlight app... YUP - he's just as big and scary as his shadow was! I'm creeped out and shakey and don't know what to do.  Surely someone will stop to help me... but then I'll look like such an idiot girl - the person wouldn't know that these things have been terrorizing me for a week now, and one has finally abducted me!  They would just think I'm a silly girl from the mainland that is scared of bugs.  Not to mention they might abduct me too - altho, at the time that seemed preferable to getting back in the car with that monster!  Of course, I call G... the one person who knows the backstory already, but can't help (I hear them calling for boarding in the background).  ahhhh!  I get off the phone so I can use my phone as a flashlight and keep an eye him - if I lose him I will never be able to drive my car again!  Did I mention these things are practically unkillable?  I haven't a knife or a blow-torch, or anything like that (altho it prob wouldn't kill him anyway)... I'm just a girl with a flashlight app stranded on the side of the road!  My best option is to get him out of the car... maybe I could run him over when I screech outta here, that might at least cripple him so he couldn't make it all the way to my house to find me!  I find an Ace Hardware sale paper and decide I will fling him out of my car.  The driver door is closest to him, and I'm certainly not flinging towards me, so I go the the passenger side with my sale paper... muster up the courage to fling, start to and get freaked out, start to again and get freaked out... ok, gotta do it this time... fling!  Ok, it was a really crappy fling - there's no way that got  him out... but where'd he go????   He's not where he was, in the seat, or in the floor... SERIOUSLY?!?!?!
I look for 10 minutes and conclude yes, this creature is loose in my car and I can't find him and I have to drive home.  The only place he could be is in the crack behind the steering wheel - he musta fallen or scurried down there where I can't see him.  Is home too far to walk?  around 7 miles - I could do it, right?  No, that's crazy.  Call G again, he's right, I gotta drive this infested machine home.  This WORST realization ever!  I re-search the car, my flashlight app shining on every inch of the front seat.  He's hiding, waiting on his dinner, me, to surrender.  Yeah, the thorn/sting/bite I got before hurt, it was awful, but it happened and was over.  The girls that get killed right away in horror films don't suffer that much... it's the girl that's trapped in the house with the monster that keeps us on the edge of our seat.  Stupid girl, why did you go into the house?  Because I had to drive that house of horror home!  

Huew, Huew... I can do this!  I sit halfway on the seat, get up, try again.  Ok, I'm sitting the car - my light still pointed at the crack so he doesn't sneak up on me again.  Try closing the door twice... no way, can't do it.  Start the car,  roll the window all the way down, ok, I can close it now.  Cars coming, can't pull out... reopen door til it's clear - minimize the time I'm closed in here with him. Don't have to wait too long til there's a break in traffic. I slam the door, put three finger tips on the steering wheel and pull out... still holding the light at the crack with my right hand.  Everything in my body was clenched and shaky... but I did it, drove all the way home with no sighting.  Pulled into the driveway and BOLTED out of that death trap!  Got bugspray and the neighbor, and set out to take revenge!  As I'm sure you can guess, we were unable to find him.  I soaked the steering wheel shaft with bugspray and we laid out grocery bags so we could hear him if he's roaming about.  I don't feel very confident about this plan tho - it would be foolish to think bug spray would kill such a beast.  I think I'll be a truck driver for the next week, maybe indefinitely.  Sorry G.

Oh, yeah... of course there's evidence, see below.  Or maybe not - you might not want to look... I myself will not look directly at this pic.

 

work.smirk and new friends!

So... I broke the card-reader.  This means no pics from the camera til our new one gets here. (fyi: If you need an adapter that will take your camera card and plug into the flash drive port you can get them for less than $1 on Ebay.  The cheapness is not the reason for the breakage - I physically broke it.  No worries tho, 3 more are en route from China as I type.)  So I'll write about something less picturesque this time I guess.

I've almost finished my second week of teaching.  I like the students, most of them anyway.  It's not the Dangerous Minds type of kids I was halfway expecting... so that's def a plus!  I'm teaching a bunch of algebra - some alg 1 and some alg 2.  One of the classes uses a completely different textbook - so it's more like 3 preps than 2 (for you nonteaching folk, that means I have to prepare 3 different sets of lecture notes).  Since everything's so similar, I'm having trouble keeping straight who I taught what and when.  Prepping for these lower level classes IS easier - I don't have to craft complex examples that magically (magically only to the students, not the crafter) work out to nice clean numbers.  When you're adding fractions, there's just not that much that can go awry.  That challenge, of course, is replaced by a new one.  These students are much more antsy than what I'm used to.  They don't respond well to my usual lecture - example - you try this example - harder example - you try a harder example style of teaching.  I can hold their attention for 10 minutes at a time on a good day.  So I'm doing a lot more group work.  Of my five classes, I've got one very engaged/responsible/attentive group , three fun/eager groups, and one terror group (to be fair, it's really just a few bad eggs).  I've gotta figure out something to keep me and the good eggs from going crazy in this class.  I've got a few ideas, so maybe I can whip them into shape in the next week or two.

I'm really loving my coworkers! We've spent a lot of time with V (also new to the garden isle) lately... grilling on the beach - hotdogs, long squiggly egg plant, and sausage juice infused OKRA!, snorkeling (coaxing her into the water even tho she claims she can't "tread"... whatever that means??? She has not drowned yet, so I'm convinced she can swim just fine) , hiking over lava pools (long dried up lava pools, not hot bubbly running lava), and eating many a microwaveable Chef Boyardee bowl in the faculty lounge (while onlookers gawk at my very un-adult meal, their original suspicions that I'm really 14 reemerging).  Me, V, My (V's version of Meegain), and the Goose joined another coworker last night to pick and cut a crazy amount of corn.  Not just any corn - organic corn... which is code for corn with 6 foot tall weeds and nearly as big bugs.  Three people picked a truck-bed FULL.  I don't think there are enough people on this island to eat all that corn!  It was HARD work, but a great experience!  The corn was sold to folks from work and a few local grocers, and all the proceeds go to buy supplies for a local school - so all for a good cause.  I got some pretty priceless pics and a delicious meal with great new friends out of it too!

The Goose's work is looking up.  He put together a super cool presentation for some upcoming meetings,  the first of which was tonight... and I hear there were oooo's and ahhhh's in the audience.  He was even referred to as a "gem" by his boss at the meeting... not kidding!  And it's looking like he's gonna get a better assignment than he thought - so he'll be working on some hardcore stuff pretty soon, and I know he's eager to put some scumbags away!   If you wanna see some of his work, you can check out his office's website (just google it - I don't wanna post it on here) - he completely redesigned it, and naturally it's the best website ever!

Ohhhh, I almost forgot the big news... we did try to surf.  We went back to Polihale with our neighbor and a friend of his - not the best place to learn to surf, but we wanted to at least give it a go.  The stinkin Goose stood up on his first wave!  I totally woulda done the same, but I wasn't 100% that day:  1.  I had a horrible crick in my neck (still hasn't gone away, but it's better) and 2.  I'm gonna need a more secure swimsuit... let's just leave it at that.  My board nose-planted and flipped me on my first wave, and the waves continued to try to kill me until I managed to escape... what seemed like an hour later.  The next two waves I took easy and just rode in on my belly - they were fun and much less aggressive than the first!  G's next two attempts were not as successful as the first.  We're looking forward to getting back out there and showing those waves who's boss - mayyyyby during this long weekend:)

Enjoy your Labor Day - eat some ono food and spend time with your ohana!