Good food, good friends

So my friend emails me and tells me she's going to be visiting the islands in a few days...so what do I do...I tell her to come to Hilo and guess what? SHE DID! I am so glad that she did. It's been years since I've seen Karen and it's been like no time has passed. We talked the same as before and it was a total trip. Karen finally moved back to C anada and got her teaching credential. That was awesome so I told her to get a job in Hawaii. We'll have to wait and see if she does. Hawaii, being Hawaii likes to make it difficult for people to get jobs. Go figure. Well, one of these days, I'll see Karen again and see how things are going. Maybe next time I'll see her in Canada!

I love fishing. Well, I don't love it...but I love it. Here's 10 reasons why:

1. You don't have to have any special skills
2. You can just kick back and relax
3. You don't have to fish for any specific amount of time
4. If you have a fishing rod, you can fish just about anywhere
5. If you don't catch anything, no one really cares
6. Fishing doesn't make you tired
7. It doesn't cost a lot to go fishing
8. You can eat what you catch (if you really want to)
9. Fishing is relaxing
10. You can fish by yourself or with friends

But a funny thing about fishing is this...you can catch some really interesting fish and increase the size of the fish every time you tell the story about how you caught it.

What U Can Get For $1000

Did you know that for the mere price of $1000, you can get a truck? Before we moved to Hilo, we needed something to transport our large, lemme say, huge pictures. We spent a little too much money on art work, so we needed to spend a little too much on transporting it here. At the time, we also needed something to transport garbage too and from the dump. No such thing as garbage pick up around here! If you want to get rid of your rubbish, you gotta take it to the dump yourself. I wasn't about to put garbage in the trunk of my car, so, what was the alternative? A rubbish truck! What as little as $1000 can get you...Go figure!

Life in Hilo

There's no doubt that I like Hilo. In fact, I love it. We moved here in July 2007 and we've done so many things since we've been here. After all the initial moving in, we did the following:

• planted all kinds of veggies - eggplant (white, green and the regular purple), beans - (green, purple and pencilpod), tomatoes (roma, black zebra and persimmon), rainbow chard, snap peas, sugar peas, choy sum, bell peppers (green, yellow, red) and papaya...just to name some of the stuff
• planted all kinds of flowers - sunflowers (mammoth, teddy bear, autumn harvest, vanilla ice - yes, it is actually called vanilla ice), marigolds (court jester, disco flame, jaguar, sunset giants), zinnias (candy cane, old mexico, scarlet flame, giants, peppermint, burpeeana, tetras), calendulas, foxgloves, sweet peas, impatiens, portulaca....and some other ones I forgot the names of...
• fished - but caught nothing
• swam - although not in Hilo, we have gone to the other side of the island...Hapuna Beach, Spencer Beach...
• caught bugs - yes, caught bugs...Chris is in some sort of biology class and he has to catch and pin bugs and weeds. Don't ask me...he's turning hippie on me. Oh well, better that than raging alcoholic!
• taught Ollie how to dance - well, sort of
• taken long motorcycle rides. we found that the rides down to the southern part of the island is pretty boring...that is unless you're going about 90-100 mph and going around cars. but mostly, it's pretty straight...like i said, boring. The ride up the Hamakua Coast is really nice and we've stopped here and there just to get a Diet Coke. We found that the ride up Saddle Road, which is supposed to be off-limits to rental car peoples, is the most fun. There's a lot of twisties and you can lean the bikes over pretty far if you're going fast enough.
• taken the bikes out for long rides

dumbass

Have you ever been at work and been so irritated by something that you wonder to yourself, "What the #$%@ ?!" Today I had that feeling when one of my students made a very inappropriate comment. I only get to work with the kids for 25-30 minutes at a time so I really try to get as much out of them as I can. As the boys were sitting talking about some girl they had seen working at the animal shelter, in the middle of the lesson mind you, I asked them to get to their assignment. Of course, they ignored me and kept on talking and laughing with eachother. After telling them I thought they were being rude for NOT paying attention to their lessons, one of them had the nerve to tell the other that I was being bitchy because I hadn't had sex. Of course, I was appalled and I got up and walked out the door. How does one deal with this kind of language??? I wanted to yell at him and tell him to #%&# off, but what would be the point? So this boy thinks he will get the gift of a passing grade?! Oh HELL NO! He will be working for it. I am so sick of these kinds of students' S#@! Here's what I have for him...

O' Henry

Have you ever raised a butterfly? When Chris and I went to Kona to search out butterflies for his biology class bug collection, he collected a bunch of monarch butterfly caterpillars. We took them home along with a bunch of crown flowers and leaves. Apparently, these little buggers are pickier about what they eat than I am. About 3-4 days after watching these little guys chomp their way through the leaves, one made a chrysalis. After a week and a half of waiting for it to emerge, it finally did. Introducing O'Henry!
After drying out his wings, he sat on a flower and began just flapping his wings...he went from flower to flower and finally just flew away. Oh the life of a butterfly.

Hitachi Tree

Check out the tree sponsored by Hitachi!
They pay $400,000 to Moanalua Gardens just to keep the tree alive.

Anpan

Why do some bakeries find the need to make such big pastries? That's cool though, I guess...besides the ever expanding waistline...because at least some bakeries make some super ono stuff. Take for example Mr. Ed's Bakery, which used to be known as Ishigo's, in Honomu, Hawaii. They consistantly make these huge anpan that probably only locals can consume in one sitting. Normally, anpan is pretty small, like smaller than the size of your fist...but Mr. Ed's anpan...it's the size of your face! If you're ever in the area, check it out!

Toshiko

Before the sun even rose, I was up, changed and ready to take Toshiko to the airport so she could return to Japan. The pot of coffee I made didn't seem to have any effect on how alert I was. Oh well... It had been about 7 years since I had last seen Toshiko and it didn't really bother me that she was leaving Hilo, my hometown.

Toshiko spent one week with me...first in Honolulu and then in Hilo. We ran around everywhere because I wanted to share as much of the island as possible with her. I wanted Toshiko to have as much "local" experience as possible, including a midnight run for dinner at Miki's in Waimalu! We sought out some huge tree at Moanalua Gardens in Honolulu that is supposed to be famous in Japan for the Hitachi Corporation. Don't ask...it's a huge tree. We even drove up to the North Shore just for lunch at Ted's Bakery. I don't have a great video for Honolulu yet, but once we got to the Big Island, we did a Big island Cruise with Chris. We caught a beautiful sunset in Hawi after swimming all day in Hapuna. We had a little Kona Brewing Company beer while waiting for sunset in Hawi…it was beautiful. Now she's gone back home but I know we'll meet again someday. When I think of Toshiko, I think that the "world is her playground" and that no matter how far she goes, I'll always see her again someday.