Sunday Muse

Aloha & Welcome to another Waikiki Sunday!

click on photos to enlarge"The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek."
Robert Louis Stevenson

"Troubles are often the tools God fashions us for better things."
Henry Ward Beecher

Riddle of the Sphynx

"What walks on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, and three legs at night?"

I am just like you.

Awakening at 3 a.m. for that dread life-review.

How amazing it's all been (so far!)

yet how different and puny are my accomplishments

viewed side-by-side with youthful dreams and expectations.

And this is where the whispering wise one within

draws back the curtain,

the thinning curtain of our illusions,

and smiling shows

immediate evident abundance of blessings:

technicolor skies, and the real-er

unseen coin of affection.

My child's dreams were just that,

provisional aspirations

that pale in the light

of this vivid and only moment.

So this, at last, is true:

I've lived amidst great beauty

and struggle

coming to focus more

on the former,

a farmer of verities

from the stony

depleted

soil of our late day.

In returning and rest

I have found a lovely song

to sing, surpassing

the obituary

I might have built.

A L O H A Cloudia

Two Incidents

Aloha & Welcome!

click on photos to enlarge Dum Dee Dum. . . . Another perfect Hawaii day!

"I like life. It's something to do."
Ronnie Shakes

What's this?


“All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.”
Jack Kerouac

Y i k e s!!!!!!!!

“I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?”
John Lennon

Incident #2:

A father and his 5 year old son have just completed their business in a shop.

The boy has a quarter that he is avidly playing with.

"I'll give you a dollar for that quarter." The shopman says.

The boy runs over to his father yelling:

"No! My quarter!"

His father points out:

"That's a good deal, son."

The boy runs back to the man exclaiming loudly:

"I'll TAKE the deal!!"

A L O H A! Cloudia

Ship Shape & Confusing

Aloha!

You are MOST welcome today-

click on photos to enlarge Big Sky Beach (note the tiny palm trees to da far right)

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

Anatole France

Red Hibuscus always remind me of Jamaica




"The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble."

Henry Miller

Shameless neighbor kitty

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine."

Robert C. Gallagher

As soon as I approached down the sidewalk I could see that things were Back-Assward. The back of my house was facing the street, and the prow (for our home is a boat) is now facing the open channel of the harbor, appearing ready for a quick get away to an off-shore voyage.

The "shake-down" cruise had been a success. Both engines - the giant tractor-trailer (lorry) sized Detroit Diesel in the engine room/Cloudia's dressing room, and the new Yamaha outboard "kicker" - had functioned flawlessly.

The surveyor counted the life jackets, admired my sanitation system (*blush*) and made sure that the navigation lights, well, lighted.

Everything checked out. Next stop: an appointment with the Harbor Master (a functionary of the State of Hawaii) who will observe our exit and return of the harbor before signing off on our continued residence here in the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.

Reversing the orientation of our home has taken some getting used to. 3rd Mate Kitty in particular seemed a bit befuddled. Usually she leads me aboard, turns to the right, and then leads me on to her food bowl aft so I can admire it's abundance, or replenish a scandalous drought of crunchies.

She hesitated. I could almost hear the cogs in her little kitty-cogitation device reversing. We, too, forget what we will see outside the hatch, and the sun now shines through a completely opposite morning-porthole here aboard the good ship Bizarre-O.

Fortunately, here at my keyboard below decks, everything looks comfortingly normal. Though things have clearly been "shaken up." Habit has been broached just enough to make us really SEE , instead of merely pass through accustomed surroundings. Fresh eyes, sorta.

Gotta be the cheapest backyard vacation yet, and gives a whole new meaning to "flipping a house!"

Yes, we're enjoying our "backward" life. I've just got to be careful about walking off the usual side.

Blogger overboard!

A L O H A! Cloudia

Treasure Trash

Aloha & Welcome to da Beach,

WAIKIKI!

Click on photos to enlarge A Clark Little masterpiece (c) (above)

"Show me a sane man, and I will cure him for you."
Carl Jung

Blue Fairies Pagoda

"If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower."

Samuel Smiles

Ke`ehi Small Boat Harbor, just under Honolulu Airport's flightpath.

"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."
Ovid

So THAT"S where my bicycle is!!

Living on our boat brings with it responsibilities to the sea, and to the environment. It wasn't always that way. Sailors used to consider the deep one big trash dump conveniently close at hand. Did you know that Jetsam is what is jettisoned from a boat? That Flotsam is what remains on the surface after a boat goes down?

Humans love to live near the shore, and everywhere we settle the coastline grows as a result of all the junk we like to toss nearby. Much of lower Manhattan is built on this "Fill land" and Honolulu the same. We know that Honolulu harbor, back when it was a worldly forest of masts,, was much closer to King Street than it is today.

My boating neighbors and I, being modern, eco-minded people, assiduously remove our garbage to the receptacles provided. Nevertheless, undersea O`ahu is far from pristine. Out on the sparkling leeward coast, for example, the military disposed of tons of surplus armaments after WWII forming what some local recreational/ food-gathering divers have dubbed: "ordinance reef." Only now is that all being cleaned up! Kids used to string "shell" lei of strange porous "stones" found at leeward beaches and call it "Hawaiian Jade." Just a few years back someone took a closer look and realized that these were little incendiary charges! Decades in salt water, yes, but possibly volatile after all. Happily, I recall no stories of such a lei killing anybody.

Robin Bond, Operations Manager of a new outfit: Wikoliana Educational Excursions at pier 7, appears to be the first person in decades interested in Honolulu Harbor below the surface. The guy's a diver, and noticed lots of - shall we say "junk" - carpeting the bottom. Take it from Robin, no one's living in a pineapple down there, just car batteries, fishy bicycles, and the odd freezer or handgun. "Whose job is it to clean this up anyway?" he wondered.

Remember the saying about changing lemons into lemonade? Well diver Bond began to envision a Harbor Stewardship program to remove and recycle the refuse - all with the participation of school children. Educational excursions can teach many lessons, it seems.

Soon the bureaucrats were "on board" this feel-good project that would cost them nothing. And then Schnitzer Steel showed up at pier 7 with a big dumpster and a willingness to recycle the items retrieved. Proceeds will be shared with participating schools. Grants and volunteers are most welcome!

Beginning May 19th at high noon, divers will utilize "floats" to surface the junk, then a large crane will convey it, dripping, to the Schnitzer dumpster. Wikoliana intends to begin it's original mission of taking groups on educational harbor excursions later this Summer.

Which keiki (child) will be the first to excitedly tell mom & dad over dinner:

"I wanna be a maritime trash collector!"

And what will they find down there? Amelia Erhart? Every one's retirement account losses? The world's discarded common sense?

One thing they WON'T find is my refuse!

But if you DO find my keys, or my sunglasses, or my lost dinnerware, Mr. bond, I'll be grateful. Somehow I know there will be plenty left to recycle. . .

ALOHA, Cloudia

Mundane Scenes of Youth

Aloha & Welcome to Waikiki!

Click on photos to enlarge "Genius is easier to take from three rows back."

Mrs. Al Jolson

Nice folks enjoying the Waikiki air.

"Any idiot can face a crisis;

it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." Chekhov

Catch of the day, Water toys!

"Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future."

Ayn Rand (!)

Growing up in my little town outside of Philadelphia, the township building/library was a dusty, great Victorian wedding cake of a building. I still remember the smell of hundred year old wood, and of books - lots of fascinating books. It was exciting to be rooted in local history - I could almost smell old rural times too. The road that George Washington traveled between Philadelphia and New York was the one that passed before my library.

Behind the township building was a big yellow field on which a working farmer had a barn, a house, and a life. His family had probably worked it for some time. Beyond that farm and some "wild fields" of tall grass was my elementary school. It was built six years after my birth and, come to think of it, I must have been one of the first kids to live the suburban dream in that school named for a local "Indian" tribe. There were no Native Americans back then; at least not in Pennsylvania. They were distant enough to be romantic, and to put their names harmlessly on a school. More history.

Eventually the farm became a shopping center.

Next the "wild field" of tall grasses sprouted apartments. That new shopping center featured prominently in the dramas of my childhood. It had a Food Fair super market, and a five & ten cent store. I don't remember much more except for the toys and pets and doo-dads that I bought at Woolworth's, and the taste of thin, greasy hamburgers & coca cola served at their lunch counter....

Recently I realized that I live near my childhood shopping center's "double," Market City Shopping Center here in Honolulu. It too is rooted in local history and hearkens back to days of boundless optimism and development. To quote from their website:

"Market City, Limited, was founded in 1946. The 3.5 acre site at the corner of Kapiolani Blvd. and Kaimuki Ave. was originally a vegetable/koa patch with a beautiful monkey pod tree. "

The center opened, boasting Hawaii's first supermarket, Food Land, in 1948. Little shops were dissapearing everywhere: Kosher butchers in Philadelphia, and Japanese Produce markets in Kaimuki; all closing as the "second generation," mostly WWII veterans, set their GI Bill-fueled sights higher.

Eventually the up and coming neighborhoods of Kaimuki, Kapahulu, and Kapiolani/Date (which all converge here) as well as nearby Manoa, Saint Louis, Palolo, and Waikiki made Market City a hub of activity. It is one of the local scenes in my Hawaii taxi cab novel: "Aloha Where You Like Go?" After all, many of my fares were going to or from the center. It's a big part of this area.

The calender year opens at Market City with a traditional Chinese New Year lion dance blessing, and ends up with a 4o foot Santa perched over FoodLand. Not to mention the scholarships awarded to local high school students.

Kaimuki High School is across the street from Market City. Those kids are doing like I used to do: hanging after school by the shops - hoping not to run into mother while observed by peers. Some verities are eternal, after all.

Today the great monkey pod tree remains, as does an up-dated FoodLand. When I decided to stop by for a quick lunch last week (it's right on the way) it was a very safe choice. Or rather a winnowing down of choices. Old standbys, including: Gina's Korean BarBQ, and Torito's Mexican, as well as a plate-lunch place, and a couple of little cafe`s all vie there for one's appetite. But I'd never noticed Cafe Kaila before.

Welcome to the dream project of former elementary school teacher, Chrissie Castillo. Kaila, her middle name, loves food, cooking and people. That must be what I felt walking past. It struck me through the window, as a cafe, NOT the branch of some corporation. Inside I found fresh, home- made food that was special, tasty and healthy all at the same time. The genuinely friendly servers told me they "do" Breakfast all day! Yup, waffles, hotcakes, and omelets liberated from the clock. Me like!

In the afterglow of a pleasant lunch I reflected on the pie I used to eat at my childhood Woolworth's. Then I thought about the generations of Honolulu kids who've bought "crack seed" penny candy at Market City, and realized: "There's a post here somehwere."

As You can see, I'm still looking for it.

But thanks for sharing a few moments of your day while we search for the "aha" together. Your visits & comments are like gifts left me by the Blog Fairy.

Remember I serve aloha all day here. So y'all come back now.

Hear?

Aloha! Cloudia

Kermit the Monk Seal

Aloha & Welcome to Waikiki!

Click on Photos to Enlarge Ah, Contentment!

“Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase”
John Balguy

Even the Flowers are Dancing

“Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.”
Bertolt Brecht

“We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.”

Anonymous

Today's "It" Girl Having a Laugh

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
Plato

Kermit the Hawaiian Monk Seal is back lazing on his favorite piece of beach at the skirts of Diamond Head here in Waikiki.

And no one can laze like a Hawaiian Monk Seal!
(See the YouTube link below to see what I mean)

He had been spotted near Waimanalo with a great fishing hook piercing his mouth. The scientists and volunteers charged with looking after these endangered celebrities wondered if tattoos and additional piercings might sweep the seal community.

Bad for the image, you know.

So they sprang to action, tightly netted Kermit out in the open water, and expeditiously removed the offending barb.

And now, as we began, Kermit is again lounging unconcerned here in Waikiki.
Please observe the velvet, er, plastic ropes and keep a respectful distance as law and custom both enforce.

Take a lesson from Kermit:

Easy, Bruddah;
Cool Head Main T`ing!

A L O H A! Cloudia

Moon over an aMusing Monk Seal Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hysYmoQ6ceo

MTM: Let's Go Beach

Aloha & Welcome!

Courtesy of Clark Little (c)

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

"You should not live one way in private, another in public."

Publilius Syrus

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Anaïs Nin

Going to the Beach here in Hawaii

When you pull into a beach park among all the local folks who are spending their day off with their families do so humbly and with a good spirit. Easy does it. Remember: weekending families are not cultural exhibits or chamber of commerce employees

Regular folks work very hard simply to make it here, and they enjoy their weekend relaxation just as you do. Please understand that the closest beach is like the neighborhood’s living room, even though it’s “public.” Be laid back and you’ll probably meet some new people, or even be welcomed in inimitable Aloha style.

Offer to share your stuff first, like a juice to a child, or a slice of pizza to the guy sitting right next to you. I could recount many stories of visitors being invited to the baby luau, the wedding up the block at somebody’s house, given deeply personal tours, or even invited to stay over. Nice people do find each other, bad attitudes: just keep driving!

A L O H A! Cloudia