Exciting new chamnges!

Hi every minion!
There have been a lot of changes since I made a post! I couldn't get on to make a post for a while, and the blogoshpere missed out on a lot of exciting events in my life.
I guess it is time to move on now and start fresh, with the important news of my lovely, neurotic, deeply disturbed and brain damaged cat, Pyxidillo!
Her hobbies are  peeing on things, scratching things, meowing in a most annoying manner, and finding the smallest, cutest mice to torture and kill. She doesn't like to sleep, she will stay awake and bat at my head for as long as possible until she dozes off and wakes with a startle reaction, and grab my arm with her claws as she falls from her perch on the couch!
Welcome charming feline! You truly make me appreciate my dogs in a way I never dreamed possible!

captain cooks grave, and almost ours too.....

so we never saw this, I took it from somewhere else, but we hiked down to this area and snorkled around the corner from this. I kinda wished we had hiked to see this, but there was only so much time. ( and energy )

At the trailhead we saw a man with two labs, and he said, have you ever hked this trail before, and something about the look he gave us* and the way he said it was troubling. But I thought, how bad can it be if this guy takes his dogs down here a couple of times a week.

Indeed.

The trail was very long, and rather scenic to see the ocean and lava in the distance as we hiked down. when we got to the bottom, i said, well that was a hard hike but look what a great private beach we get for ourselves. hahahahah. I did notice some kayaks in the distance, headed our way, and that was a bit worrisome.

I told Jhumpi, we have to be very careful on entering the water, and went to demonstrate the proper technique, when my feet contacted algae and slipped right out from me and I fell on my butt. Luckily my head, a fatty and largely useless appendage, took the brunt of the impact.

I took the first snorkel, and spied many great fish, tang and Humuhumunukunukuapua'a *and coronet fish, wrasse and parrot fish and one very great octopus. while i was snorkeling the kayakers showed up and they just kept coming. There were piles of kayaks on our private beach. Jhumpi was sitting on the beach feeding birds our precious food.

We took turns snorkelling and enjoying the private, shady spot we had secured by being the first people there. We started to get tired, and to run low on food and water so we decided to climb back up. It was a lot hotter, and steeper on the way up. It was frankly rather unpleasant to the point of being miserable. toward the top, I didn't know how long we had left to climb, and we were almost out of water, and I was worryed. This whole thing had been my stupid idea, and what a lousy tour guide I was turning out to be. We took some rests, and then we saw some people chatting, and they chatted with us, and then they offered us some food and water. They were our angles. It would have been very miserable if we hadn't found them. So amid great rejoycing on our parts we finally made it to the top, and the jeep was still there, and then we went to get ice cream. YAY

fancy hotel

I took a picture from the hotel window of the great view of Mauna loa, but it was on Jhumpis camera, these are unrelated pictures.

So I kept thinking , when i saw pictures of this luxury hotel we were going to stay at, that I had been there before, and when I got there, it all came back to me. it is the place were I tore up my knee on lava rocks when i swam with Manta Rays.

so when we arrived there, I was ready to go snorkeling. The paper about the hotel said that it didn't have its own beach, but that you could walk from it and snorkel. so based on that , we went to the front desk to find out where we could walk to and snorkel, and this snippy youngster tried to point us to the beginners beach, just because we are old and blimpish, ( I originally typed plumpish, which is not a word I guess, and spell checker proposed blimpish, which i like better.) and I said listen here young lady, I have a scar on my knee that i actually got at this hotel, so don't think I am some green horn leghorn, no siree, and later we stole some towels to get her in trouble. haha only part of that is true. But it is sadly true that we did not get to snorkel that night, but we did get to swim in the amazing pool and Jacuzzi, and the tube slide that was cool. We ate a really expensive dinner in the manta lounge, where the waiter says you can see mantas every night but we never saw any, maybe we didn't stay up late enough/ Well that was where Jhumpi spoke the fateful words, we haven't been getting much exercise, and tune in next time to see what happens with that!

day three, off we go to Kona

Imiloa astronomy center bound, we first stopped again at Ken's pancake house, where we saw a green gecko on a fence, and it tried to sell us insurance. We told the people at the restaurant that the previous day we had gone to an inferior, overpriced, frou frou restaurant for breakfast, which had driven us back to their fine establishment.

Then we went to the astronomy center, which is a very cool place that combines Hawaiin history and beliefs with scientific knowledge gathered from the Mauna Kea observatory. They have a native garden outside, and I learned the difference between indigenous, endemic, and canoe plants.

After that, we went to visit the statue of King Kamahameha in Hilo, before heading north to Akaka falls, in the picture . That is a very pretty place were you hike through lots of tropical plants to see a very tall waterfall. This part of the big island is where all the beautiful tropical scenery is found. Also cows.

Waimea valley overlook was our next stop. It is a beautiful place and a sacred place depicted in many post cards. We learned that the missionaries brought disease to the natives and wiped out a lot of them, then had to get people from other places to do the manual labor so the descendants of the mikanele , Hawaiian word for missionarys, could make a lot of money. Which is why there are so many Japanese and Filipino people on Hawaii.

Then we went to get some lunch at a little place down the road. We got delicious ice cream and banana bread, and we picked up a CD by Iz to listen to, so that I could experience white people guilt and Jhumpi could come up with logical justifications of imperialism ( which sounds worse than it is .) There was a big dog named Elvis hanging around, and he was the first dog I got to pet on the island. The owner of the store, who sounded like he was from Chicago or the east coast, but wouldn't admit it, chased Elvis away. I wanted to buy souvenir's, but I restrained myself.

So we headed off to the big luxury hotel, eating ice cream and enjoying the scenery.

lava tubes

lava tubes, lava tubes, lalalalala-lava tubes.

They are very popular. Lots of people park here and go here.

We parked in a different lot and walked here, through some lovely tropical foliage and hearing but not seeing birds. It is very cool and neat to walk through a tube in the earth made by lava.

after walking through the lava tubes, we drove back to Hilo, and guess where we ate dinner..

we walked around Hilo after eating, and came upon this wonder ful old theatre that was showing Buck, and the lady at the door invited us in and showed us around.

Now of all the ways I failed as a tour guide, this is the one that saddens me most because instead of staying to watch the movie, I said , we have a busy day tomorrow, lets go back to the hostel and figure out what we are doing. I wish we had seen the movie.

more day 2

Ok and then we drove up to the place where the lava enters the sea but there were a ton of people and they drove crazy and made me mad and I was hot so I let Jhumpi go ahead and I sat in the car and watched these cute lava colored shore birds fly around and into cliffs in the lava rock. The ocean was so dark blue and white capped on the windward side, I just sat there and enjoyed the breeze.

Then we went to the petroglyphs and learned about the Hawaiians putting umbilical stumps in hole in the rock. Also cool carvings, very nice. There was a teenager that stepped on the petroglyphs, instead of staying on the boardwalk, and when his parents said, now bobby.. he was all duh like I am gonna do somethin to them and I was like stupid little crap head, you better get out of here before I spit on your Abercromby and Finch tea shirt not really but I was so glad I don't have any teenagers. But why would you ruin a perfectly good vacation by bringing along a teenager?

Then we went back to the Lava tubes....

OK then day two already.

We left the hostel early and headed to the little hamlet of Volcano to have breakfast. Tasty, but overpriced and lousy service.

They also had a waitress who looked 80 but talked like a 6 year old.

Fox news was on the telly, and I saw Reagan with his cav. Darn him for having one good point.

There was a photograph on the wall marked down from $800.00 to $150.00 what a bargain!

From there we headed to Volcanoes national park. We stopped at the visitors center, where i learned that Hawaii was formed from volcanoes. DUH.

Also they guilted me into buying a water bottle and filling it from their rain water faucet.

I learned that Jhumpi did not suffer from as much GREEN GUILT as I do , as Jhumpi would not buy a bottle and was all, why, are you stupid, we have water bottles and I was all yeah, but not ones that the purchase of which contributes money to the native plants and Jhumpi is all, the guy on NPR said natives are stupid and I was all, He is a republican.

So then we drove to the first crater, which is called the place where Pele lives. There was a lot of Vog coming out, and it got in my head and made me all voggy headed, which i am to this day. We sat and listened to this lady who looked a little like the wicked witch but not green and of course I mean that as a compliment since i also look like a witch according to Linda who looks like a Disney princess but acts like cruella deville,

anyhoo, she was saying cool things about the volcanoes blowing up and causing mayhem and whatnot and it was very interesting and I suggest if you are interested you go to the national Parks website and read more about it because i suffer from CRS syndrome, and i don't remember what that is. But there were these white birds with long tails, which she said nest in the cauldera and hunt out at sea. I guess they are immune to vog.

Part of the road was closed due to vog, and we went back the other way and stopped at another place, where there were steam vents, basically vents with steam coming out. Jhumpi walked along the trail to see all the sites, and I drove back to the visitor center to pick up Jhump and save time, we went to see an art gallery that had beautiful, expensive things done by the many artistic people who are drawn to Hawaii because it is awesome.

from there we drove down to the coast, to see where the lava falls into the sea. It is a beautiful drive, and the water looks awesome next to the lava. And then you wouldn't believe what we saw!

To Be continued......

Hawaii day one

So I went to Hawaii with my friend Jhumpi. Jhumpi won an award for being a vip.

first we went to Hilo. It is like Ocean Beach there, they call the Salvation Army Sally Ann's boutique and have a lot of county run drug rehab facilitys. We ate dinner at a nice Thai restaurant with a nice guitar player

For breakfast on the first day we went to Ken's pancake house, and the whole wheat cakes were very good. It is a great place and everyone there is very nice and down to earth.

the first day we went to the saddle road to do a little hiking with the intention of ending up at the observatory. It was cool and cloudy, there were a lot of old growth trees and flowers growin up out of lava. We were looking for birds, and we heard a lot of them but we didn't see them, except for a green one and a red one. Also the tour guide forgot the binoculars, dumb@$$.

the red bird was messing around with some red flowers in a tree that reminded me of a bottle brush.

We built up an appetite hikin around and went to Waimea for some chow. The road to Waimea was lovely, with cow fields and wild turkey type birds as well as a pheasant by the side of the road. We didn't see any cows.

We went to some place that had good chicken and grilled veggies for Jhumpi, and I had a veggie burger. Jhumpi also had a Ginger Rogers, which was very froo froo.

There were huge poopies left by 1000 lb pigs, too. That was at the trail, not at the restaurant.

After lunch we took a hike to look at a crater, or cauldera, and lots of big trees. There were people behind us, but they seemed to take the wrong trail and never end up at the cauldera.

It was very pretty, and looked out on fields of lava.

We had some Mochi that we had bought at the 7 / 11, and decide to snack on them on the way to the observatory. Totally unprepared for the texture of the thing, which turned out to be like a jelly fish, I spat it across the car.

Then we went up to the 9000 foot mark at the observatory, on Mauna Kea, and it was cloudy, and there were a lot of Japanese tourists eating with chopsticks. I was tired, and didn't feel up to hanging around waiting for it to clear, so we went back to Hilo, and the Thai restaurant.

happy St Francis Day

Lord make me an instrument of your peace,

where there is ignorance let me insult vampire books

Sorry....

No really, seriously I love St. Francis.

And I really hope everyone has a good day, and doesn't hurt any animals, including don't eat them.

I am sorry , I know you missed me

Dear Minions,

I am sorry that I have been away so long. I am sure you have all been lost at sea, or in space, or in cyberspace, without me and my vision and wisdom. I have been busy writing a book called,

MOMMY I AM STILL HUNGRY a guide for dogs that mistake cookies for love and the people who love them.

I expect that this book will change the world.

I have also been concerned about my carbon footprint, so I have written all 672 pages of the book, nay, tome, on junk mail envelopes. My plan to remain "green " when publishing this tome is based on having illuminators copy the entire text by hand, including beautiful illustrations, all on recycled paper with soy based inks and drawn by quills from naturally shedding, renewable fowl.

My first thought was to apply for a grant for the government to pay all the people that will be employed by my new publishing method, and I still might, but I think the best thing would be to start a new religion, and promise my followers some sort of salvation or enlightenment as payment for their work.

The individual books will be very expensive, but when people realize that they are "green" and hand made by "artisan's", possible "special need's" or "at-risk" artisan's, possibly recovering mushroom addicts, or just mushroom addicts ( which would work into my religious conversion idea),

well I think some people will find these books very appealing, and definitely collectors items.

My monks will wear red hats.

So, welcome back, and please let me know if you have neat handwriting, artistic ability is a plus, can you draw Binky?

ps does anyone know how to get on Oprah?

Thanks!

an apology, sort of, rant really I guess; sorry :(

I am sorry if I offended anyone by dissing Vampire books. Let me be clear. I do not see anything wrong with enjoying a book for sheer pleasure, and not just because it won a prestigious award or offers a unique and artistic world view. I just think we should differentiate between "my favorite" and "the best". I may say that Napoleon Dynamite is one of my favorite movies, but I would be an idiot to claim that it is one of the best movies ever. For categories such as best, there should be some discernment and standards, such as the people who hand out Pulitzer and Booker prizes use. ( this does not necessarily apply to the people who hand out Oscars. Titanic?! right.)

I may not always like the books that win these awards, but I recognize that they have some merit. Of course in this society there seems to be some resistance to trusting authority, as in "so what if he is a Nobel prize winning climate scientist, what does he know about global warming",and, "who cares if my president is a moron, I would like to have a beer with him", and, "who cares if those people are authorities on English literature, my Vampire book was the best book of the year." You have every right to have your favorite book be a vampire book. But, you know what? If you read the pulitzer prize winner, you might actually even like it better!

OK so this has turned out not to be an apology really, but more like another rant. As in I am sorry if you don't like my opinion, but there it is; even though there is the word sorry in that sentence, it is clearly not an apology.

Sorry.

monarchs and butterfly weed.PARENTAL WARNING: ADULT CONTENT

Hello. i love butterflys. Doesn't everyone?

Flitting about the sky with colorful wings, eating plant nectar, harming no-one, nary a vampire among them.

I was at a plant nursery the other month, and noticed a plant that was attracting monarch butterflies. i talked to the proprietor about it and he said that monarchs were very attracted to the plant, and laid their eggs on it. Impulsively, I purchased a small plant and took it home.

Within a day, there was a butterfly arial-dancing about the plant, sipping the nectar and laying eggs. Soon i had caterpillars. They began to eat the plant, and the realization came to me that they would soon devour the plant and be left to starve. Of course the only thing I could do was to return to the plant nursery and buy a nother butterfly weed. This time i bought a bigger one. A few days later there were two butterflies flitting about. They seemed angry with one another. I noticed that one was trying to kill the other, pinning it to the ground and beating it with its wings! On closer examination they appeared to be doing the monarch version of the mattress mambo. I was shocked that such beautiful creatures would engage in such brutality. But I guess the trip to the butterfly bush counted for the flowers and dinner. Who am I to judge? Nature is a mystery. Also red in tooth and claw.

Still, they are not vampires.

hunting poodles

This is a picture of Caydee, stricken by heat.
I have a few things to touch on here.

First, I want to talk about hunting poodles.

I found a magazine at work, and it said something about hunting poodles on the cover. Now, I don't care what your opinion about poodles is, they may be silly looking and froo-froo and yippee, but that is no reason to hunt them. I was outraged at the implications as I opened the magazine to find out where to send my strident letter to the editor, and it turned out the article was discussing using poodles to hunt. well OK but this is almost as bad. Here you are, most likely a man, and obviously having issues with your " manhood " else why would you be hunting Bambi's mommy with an assault rifle in the first place, doubtless a member of the NRA sayin "guns didn't kill Bambi's mommy, disney did " and driving a Hummer too, to boot. You show up at the forest to meet your friends who all have labs, and retrievers, and wolverines and tasmanian devils and such like fierce hunting dogs, and you are like, " this is Fifi, my hunting dog " Now that is going to cause psychic damage when they laugh you all the way to trying out for community theatre .

Secondly, I would like to announce that we have decided to get an airconditioner for Caydee,

as she has been really stricken by the hideous hot spell we are having.

Thirdly, I read an incredibly good book. It is called "All that I Have " by Castle Freeman Jr., and it is sharp, funny and other stuff too. I will maybe post about it to this book club I joined, but this book club nominated some vampire book as the best book of 2008, and I don't feel as though I fit in there. I mean, if all you ever read is crap, what is the point of talking about it? Like, omg she fell in love with this cute guy and he turned out to be a vampire , well hello did she not notice the fangs? I read books that are above me, which isn't hard, but I would like to talk to people about them, to see if others could help shed some insight on the books, to help me understand. I actually like to think that the author is cleverer than me, I mean you may have read my book, "The Phlebotomist's secret: tales of secret love in the night shift lab " which is basically about a couple of hospital workers who have a secret love, and one of them turns out to be a vampire, and it wasn't the Respiratory Therapist. OK you say, If you are so smart, then why didn't your Phlebotomist book end up on the NY Times bestseller list for, like, ever,

and OK I am crying now are you happy ? of course you are because I am an elitist and you are an honest God-fearing ( which God, I don't Know ) American who doesn't have airs, so it is a clear case of good versus evil, or is it a witch hunt. The question is, does it end with me repenting of my evil ways, and becoming a good person who reads Vampire books with the rest of the people working on the fourth floor, or do I end up with a stake through my heart? To find out, you will have to read my new book, I was a Teen-aged elitist, until I turned into a were-wolf and ate everybody, Starting with the Hunters who Killed my friend, Bambi's Mommy. It is a long title, but it is a complex exploration of the human desire to fit in, or kill everyone trying.

Also I illustrated it, in Anime style.

bye bye messy

Messy was the silver maple in our front yard. We called her messy, because the real estate agent said, " that tree is messy, i would get rid of it. " I laughed inside and thought, I will never get rid of that tree with its wonderful deciduous leaves. But then, sadly, Messy started to look bad, and the Arborist said she was dying, and had to be removed. I am not really some new agey fakey druid or anything, I am simply a person who loves trees, and thinks they are mysterious creatures that we cannot hope to understand. Part of it is that when I read the Giving Tree I thought it was about a tree, and was suprised to hear some overeducated commentators on NPR saying it was about parents. ( huh, not my parents haha just kidding ghost- of -Mom) Trees really are amazing, and losing Messy meant losing a leafy green source of shade, cool, and privacy. Even at night more light comes in through the bedroom window.

don't judge people by their writing

This is a picture my brother Tim took.
When i was single, I tried a free dating service that allowed you to e mail people and get to know them that way. This one fellow wrote very nicely, and i was impressed and so went to meet him.

He was pleasant enough, but some things he said worried me. Such as, your alright, I used to date babes so I am over that phase. 

Let me assure you that if you have spent a reasonably long life not being a babe, except to certain men with astigmatisms or bad taste, you are well aware of the fact that you are not a babe. It is not a good way to start a relationship, because you are probably not going to become appreciably better looking, and after a few weeks he will run screaming from you.

He also apparently came from a well to do background, and when he found out that I was an hourly employee he said ' wow you punch a clock and everything? I never knew anyone who punched a clock" and I did feel a little like Norma Ray but I was afraid that if we ever got involved he would make me enter through the backdoor and sleep in the servants quarters. 

The worst thing was that he turned out to be rabidly right winged, which some might consider a redundancy, saying things about taking all the land back from the native Americans and Reagan should have been made king and such. Nowadays, and this was ten years or so ago, it is common for young people to learn about each other through writing and texting and twitching or what have you, and this is just a cautionary tale from someone old enough to be your mother, though if I was and you had tatoos I would definately disown you, just a warning, and you are all like, women get mean when they get old, but sometimes that is all a woman has left, is to cut you out of the will for eating fast food burgers and driving an SUV and I am leaving everything to PETA just to spite all of you...ha ha just kidding. The Humane Society, really.

Kay-dee and jan-c review a movie

We stayed up late and watched this movie called the Dark knight. We wanted to see Heath Ledger, because he killed himself and won an oscar. Jan-c slept through everything except the parts with Heath, which she asked me to wake her up for, and I tried to sleep but there were loud parts that woke me up. mommy said it was too long, and they should have cut out the parts of the movie that didn't have Heath or Morgan Freedman in them, but Daddy said he feels like he has gotten more for his money if a movie is long. Mommy says sometimes it is better not to try to understand Daddy.

Mommy thought it was silly for Batman to disguise his voice, cuz he just sounded stupid, but if they were going to disguise it they should have done something high tech, or had him do an accent, or talk like scooby doo. Actually, that was Jan-c who wanted him to talk like scooby do, I thought muttley would be better. I think the whole movie would be better if they had just replaced Batman with Lassie, and Alfred with one of the monkeys in Planet of the Apes, and Commisioner Gordon with Deputy dog.

There actually were dogs in this movie, Rottweillers played the bad guys and of course German Shepherds were the good guys. Batman kept throwing the rotties around, but I thought it would be cooler if Batman had some super power where he could just look at them and hypnotize them, so they rolled on their backs for belly rubs.

But the saddest thing, if Heath did kill himself for some reason to do with this movie, is that, even though his performance was amazing, the movie pretty much stunk. 

Apache

This is a story about my Dad's dog, Apache. I still think of him as my Dad's dog, even though my Dad is with his beloved wife now,( one can only hope, cuz he has a lot of explaining to do, ) and A patch( his hood name) is living with another nice man who absolutely will not allow him to wear baggie pants or teeth grills or rap about his bitches whereas my Dad, in his drunken phases, was a bit more lenient.

This is a story about when my Dad was still alive, and living in a place that I will call Solar town west, with Apache. Dad, who will be known as Bud in this story, because that was his name, well Bud got sick, and had to go into the hospital, lets say he suffered from telerium dremens. I went out and spent 2 weeks in the Arizona sun, mostly walking Apache and being snubbed by the third rate ICU nurses in the hospital i will call like Hell you'll get Well. bud was always telerious and talking crazy when I went to see him, but his friends would tell me how they had seen him and he was lucid and walking down the hall. The social worker had called me and told me I had to come to the hospital and make some "end of life " decisions for Bud, and one of the doctors told me that Bud was basically a vegetable, but I never saw those same Doctors or social workers after my Dad was out at the nursing station doing Rodney Dangerfield impersonations. They were convieniently on vacation once Bud was up and reciting limericks for the volunteers. Bud was moved to rehab, and they said he would be there for a month and I should research assisted living places for him. I needed to get home to california, and Bud's good friend lets call her Shaggy, just because, said we should leave Apache with this lovely woman named, lets say Butch, until Bud was out of the hospital. My heart was so touched by the goodness, the faith and Charity showed by these kind people of Solar Town, my spirit soared on the wings of loving-kindness. I was home about a month later when my Dad called from the hospital to tell me that he was going home to live, and he wanted Apache back, and Butch wouldn't give him back. Now,  Butch really was a nice lady, she just got attached to Apache, and was afraid Bud couldn't look after him. It ended up with us having to drive out to Solar Town and buy a gallon of chivas regal and some cigars for Butch, and after much discussion with Bud's so called friends who all wanted Butch to keep A patch, we finally got Dad his dog back.

 The point of the story, if there is one, is that Butch got very sick and had to go in a group home a year after this whole incident, while our hero Bud continued on for a few years more, and passed out of this life at home with his beloved Apache at his side.

 The wonder of this story is that if I had written it for a remedial English comp class, the teacher would have ripped it up and thrown it in my face, whereas now it is published, for all eternity , in cyberspace.

compost

I made awesome compost.

rb float

john-see my puh-pee

thinks she is a big dog

oh I hve to go before vahm-see drinks the root beer float=