All Clear

Tsunami Warning Ended.

Mahalo Ke Akua - Thanks be to God!

And Thanks to YOU, for caring, cloudia

Tsunami Progress

amazing reports from neighbor islands of weird surf conditions.

Rushing water, exposed reefs.

In fact, some secondary waves are stronger than the first.

Officials from the Tsunami Center look more relaxed on camera.

Many surface roads in the inundation zone remain closed. Roads into Waikiki remain

blockaded.

Exciting, a worthwhile drill for "when" not "if" there is another disaster.

I'll not soon forget police with sirens & loudspeakers clearing the beaches and harbors...

adrenaline is a strange drug indeed. Not back to normal, but a whole less scary.

Aloha! c-

Tsunami Progress

We are now seeing changes in Waikiki's famous surf.

Quite amazing scenes of powerful water at the shore lines!

All is quiet. Power remains on (yay!)

Miss Kitty is still hiding under the furniture.

Maui Water is OFF.

I am exhausted from carrying and worrying, but we are quite comfortable.

Looks like we might be back on board today, but the warning has not yet been called off, and bigger waves might well show off.

Life. . . GLORIOUS! Aloha, friends

Tsunami Progress

We are watching a live cam from Hilo Bay on local TV. We can see changes in the water level happening before our eyes! Hilo lost life and property in 1946 and 1960 and take it seriously. We are seeing drastic, unusual changes minute to minute now. There is turbulence as the ebb and flow continue: in and out. Hilo is not out of the high water yet. The event here but not over. The wave should reach us here in Waikiki later. The mountain roads above town are full of parked cars watching the sea. The elevators in this building are off and people are being asked to stay above the 6th floor. Updates as we receive them here in Waikiki beach.

Aloha, Cloudia

Note, Blogger shows post time in California Time, Hawaiian Standard Time is 2 hours behind.

At 11:47 am, C-

TSUNAMI! Impact in 15 minutes

Favorite Hubby, Miss Kitty & I are on the 20th floor of a cement highrise here in Waikiki.

We left our boat/home of 18 years an hour ago taking all we could of values. Hopefully we will be home tonight, but we WILL be OK; HALLELUJAH!!!!

I know how I'd be worrying over one of
YOU blog friends in similar circumstances.

So IF the power goes out for a time, KNOW that we are OK if offline.

I really love you guys! Please excuse this rushed post. No niceties. We're watching live cams on TV and I wann get back to the Tsunami Party. Miss Kitty is hiding but safe.

ALOHA NUI ME KE MANA!!!

Saturday Garden

ALOHA!

Welcome Back To Waikiki

Friend

click on photos, OK?

"Sweet is the memory of distant friends.

Like the mellow rays of the departing sun,

it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart."

~ Washington Irving

"My lady's presence

makes the roses red,

because to see her lips

they blush for shame."

Henry Constable

"Love thou the rose,

yet leave it on it's stem."

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

ALOHA, my friend; and thank you for visiting today!

Loner's Club

Aloha Fellow Loner

Welcome Back

to

Our Stretch of Waikiki Beach!

Click on the photos!

A crowd of cute Japanese tourist girls in their cute outfits.

"Every crowd has a silver lining. "

P.T. Barnum

"For the last few years, it's been so chic for everybody to be

miserable.

Like if you're in with the cool crowd,

you can't be happy."

Lenny Kravitz

"Good sense travels on the well-worn paths;

genius, never.

And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason,

is so ready to treat great men as lunatics. "

Cesare Lombroso

"I have never wished to cater to the crowd;

for what I know they do not approve,

and what they approve I do not know. "

Epicurus

><>

Did you read The Catcher in the Rye?

or

Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters?

Were you a lonely adolescent

in a strange world?

You probably heard that

J.D. Salinger,

the famous writer/recluse

died recently.

The "poet laureate" of the loner

was often chided

and wondered over

because he didn't play

the celebrity game.

He didn't pontificate,

nor push his opinions forward.

He just wanted to live,

and to write.

A recent piece by Lillian Ross

in the Feb 8, 2010 New Yorker

reflected on her long friendship

with the author.

I wanted to share a few of his remarks, which she remembers,

with you:

"I think I despise every school and college in the world,

but the one's with the best reputation first."

><>

"If your child likes - loves - you,

the very love he bears you

tears your heart out

about once a day

or once every other day."

><>

"No matter how he ( famous scholarly writer) stuffs his readers

with verbiage,

it never amounts to a core of truth."

"It takes me at least and hour to warm up

when I sit down to work (write). . .

Just taking off my own disguises

takes an hour or more."

><>

"There are no writers anymore.

Only book-selling louts and big mouths."

"God,

How I still love private readers.

It's what we all used to be."

><>

Yes, God bless us disguised loners,

Every One!

ALOHA, cloudia

Bonus:

"Writing, real writing, is done not from some seat of fussy moral judgment but with the eye and ear and heart; no American writer will ever have a more alert ear, a more attentive eye, or a more ardent heart than his."

Adam Gropnik

Golden Rules

Aloha Friend!

Click on the photos

Home Sweet Home - Hawaiian Style

"...if Americans felt the level of economic security that people take for granted in, say, Germany, France, or Denmark, it would be a huge improvement over what we have now. People should be able to count on healthcare, a decent retirement, and other basic necessities of life. To a large extent, even upper-middle-class Americans can't assume this level of security."

"There is an incredible elitism in the idea that autoworkers, steelworkers, and textile workers are losing their jobs or facing pay cuts because they don't have enough skills or education to compete in the twenty-first century economy . . . Plenty of foreign doctors would be delighted to come here and work for less than most American doctors, but they are not allowed to because our doctors are protected by trade agreements. Yet in these same trade agreements conservatives dismantle protections for American blue-collar workers, calling the protections

'barriers to trade.'"

"I don't think we have a free market model.

what we have is the wealthy using their power to control government

and shape the rules in ways that redistribute wealth upward.

The so-called free-marketers don't want the market left alone;

they just want the government to structure the market to serve their interests. . .

Show me someone who's made lots of money, and I'll show you how we wrote the

rules so that he or she made money."

Two creatures sharing a moment, yet unaware of one another.

"In the three decades prior to 1980 the U.S. economy was relatively strong. It grew steadily, productivity increased rapidly, the unemployment rate was low, and the benefits of that economic growth were shared widely.

It was a virtuous circle in which more productivity translated into wage increases, which gave people more buying power, which translated into more demand. . .

But as unions lost strength, gains in productivity didn't translate into wage growth. Instead the benefits of all that productivity increasingly went to those at the top. . . Reagan also blocked increases to the minimum wage which meant that the real value of the minimum wage was eroded each year by inflation. Average American workers saw their real wages stagnate between 1980 and 1995.

Because many people were losing income,

borrowing was the only way they could maintain their standard of living."

><> ><>

Perhaps you've heard it said

that the Golden Rule means

that those who have the gold

make all the rules.

In 2002, economist Dean Baker wrote a piece called:

The Run-up in Home Prices: Is It Real or Is It Another Bubble?

His reasoned predictions of a Bust where ignored.

He is co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [CEPR]

and posts a popular blog at the American Prospect [Here].

The quotes above where taken from an interview

in the February 2010 issue of The Sun

[Here]

He ended the interview by saying:

"People are looking for alternatives.

The dominant economic paradigm is hugely vulnerable.

We just need to reframe the debate."

ALOHA! cloudia

Camera Dog

Aloha, Friend

Welcome to Wednesday

in

Waikiki

click on the photos!

"A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. "

Robert Frost

"At the age of four

with paper hats and wooden swords

we're all Generals.

Only some of us never grow out of it. "

Peter Ustinov

"If you live to be 100,

I hope to live to be 100 minus one day,

so I never have to live without you."

Winnie the Pooh

Captive sky - or imprisoned eye?

"There are always flowers

for those that want to see them."

Henri Matisse

><>

My camera

is just like a dog:

Eager to please.

But sometimes

when I point it towards a

little miracle

all it sees

is my finger.

I suppose that's

what all the advanced

lenses and filters are about.

And when the camera loves you

it's canine devotion

is whole-hearted

as it is

fleeting.

ALOHA, cloudia