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.