Baker Joe's Tale

ALOHA

 Means "Welcome"

"A kiss that speaks volumes

 is seldom a first edition."

  Clare Whiting

"A tattoo is a true poetic creation,
 and is always more than meets the eye.
  As a tattoo is grounded on living skin,
 so its essence emotes a poignancy
 unique to the mortal human condition. "


V. Vale and Andrea Juno, Modern Primitives

"The world is divided into two kinds of people:

  those who have tattoos,

 and those who are afraid of people with tattoos."

Author Unknown

Note:
Names have been changed because I respect privacy - not because there's 'anything wrong with that.'

I like the little boutique hotel across the street from the beach.  It's the right size, human size, and the fact that Honolulu's flag-ship Gay Bar has moved there makes for an interesting dynamic.  

First of all, the lobby and the rest of the place is very clean & stylish - "Queer Eyed" you might say.

  And I know that the rainbow flag waving from the second floor is sort of a talisman that keeps intolerance out of the place.  I like tolerance, and though I'm no longer the sort who dances the night away, I do like stopping in during the day to shoot the breeze.

  Sometimes my husband and our friends shoot some daytime pool there.  Plus I get to see friends, and to make friends in the building. . . Me Mum's moving in the place this month.

 Everyone is welcome in the hotel and it is a mixed bunch of residents and visitors, so those who might be "uncomfortable" kind of self-select themselves OUT.

One morning Baker Joe came in to the bar and announced:

 "I think I've been discriminated against.

 Aw, never mind."

But we all wanted to know about it.  Joe is "straight appearing" so we were curious.  Turns out this talented pastry chef who works at one of the town's great restaurants had sought extra work at the local branch of a national Super Market Chain that boasts it's own bakery.  After a few days, they told him "he's not good enough."  An experienced pastry chef - right.

What no one knew is that I had just met and spoken to the head baker of a wholly local concern that is expanding.  Now, I speak with everyone!  Just go right up to them and act like we're all friends. Well aren't we?  Gotta know when to let folks be, but mostly I speak with everyone.

So I got on the phone to speak to the head baker fellow I'd met. But his boss, the founder and a local immigrant success story hero, Mr. Lamm, picked up thee phone. 

 What a thrill and privilege to speak with HIM! 

 I know I gushed a little.  He asked why I was calling, and I started telling him about baker Joe.

"Oh my wife and I love the bread at that restaurant."  (where Joe bakes)

They interviewed Joe;

And they hired him!

So speak with everyone.

  Being strangers is merely a feature and illusion of wearing a body.

  We'll all laugh about it in the next world.  

You know, you and I are friends without having met

 in-body.

Perhaps our blogging friendships are a foretaste of Heaven?

      Warmly, cloudia

1920's Waikiki

A L O H A

means

 you are warmly welcome here :)

Here is some Hawaiian Music from the 1920's

North King St; the Heart of Chinatown

The First Hawaiian Bank building seems to be sending

"cutting Chi" right as us.  Bad Feng Shui?

"One step at a time

 is good walking"

  CHINESE PROVERB

Pleasant Path to a Bower of Beauty

“Democracy is the art

 of thinking independently together”

 Alexander Meiklejohn

See how the rainbow twists into a spiral?

"To reveal art and conceal the artist

 is art's aim." 

Oscar Wilde

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What a weekend!

Mom called from the hospital:

emergency appendectomy.

Fortunately, I spent some time

'flying' on my scooter.

Moving through the beauty of

Hawaii mesmerizes

all worry.

Polynesian paralysis

makes effort

seem puny and wasted.

I just wanna ride

on my "motor-sickle."

Mom's OK.

The business of life

goes on.

Lyric skies

spread their siren song;

the concerns of life

seem like comic diversions

as the waves surge

and pound.

There is

this one

perfect moment.

And here we share it.

Can't believe I haven't posted

or visited

in two days!

          Forgive me? cloudia

Moments Millenia

A L O H A !

Fred Tomaselli,  Expulsion

"Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive,


 and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see


 is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang.




 The next time you complain that there is nothing on,


 remember that you can always watch the birth of the 


universe."

Bill Bryson

“The butterfly counts not months

 but moments,

 and has time enough.”

 Rabindranath Tagore

“Kindness in words creates confidence. 

Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.

 Kindness in giving creates love.”

 Lao Tzu

"Life is a succession of moments.

 To live each one

 is to succeed."  

                                                                                                           Corita Kent. 

Hope you enjoyed this one :)

                                                    cloudia

Lost Time

A  L  O  H  A !

This was my theme-song for many years. 

 Now it mostly reminds me of the blessings of ALOHA,
of friends, family & neighbors.


Let's be rocks together! Click and sing along as we look at some fresh Honolulu images:

"You don't really understand human nature

 unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round

 will wave at his parents every time around -

 and why his parents will always wave back."

  William D. Tammeus

"Each day of our lives

 we make deposits

 in the memory banks of our children."

  Charles R. Swindoll

“Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble”

 French Proverb

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We were as tiny mice,

 living in the baroque edifice

 of our parents' war-without-end.'

A milieu of constant stress + no reassurance or positive attention = severe damage.

That would be me.

It all seemed so fated,

 just the way the world works;

 get used to it.

"This is the best time of your life,"
 my father told me.
  "You'll have to work hard everyday,
 so enjoy being a kid."

This was the best I could hope for?!

  I already wanted to die.

Other kids played.

 They seemed childish and stupid to me;

  I knew the truth,

and set my sights on the far horizon

 of adulthood and escape.

I wasn't popular,

 which didn't bother me
 and was mutual.

The only peace & comfort I knew

 was in blessed solitude:

a book, a brook

running through trees.
Animals.

Alone at night in my room

their arguing filtered through a 

reassuring wall. . .

They never meant the messages that I received

but the were received.

And only now-

half a century later-

are they being examined

and rejected.

Dead letters

whose news (nevertheless)

 had shaped my life.

Time to explore new frontiers of being human.

No time for regret.

I'm making up for lost time:

being happy

"wasting" love and patience on strangers

and myself;

even on those closest.

                                                                                                   cloudia

"Make us glad

 in reward for the days of our sorrow,

 and for the years in which we have seen evil."

Psalm 90:15

Douay-Rheims Bible

Fleeting Gold

A  L  O  H  A  !

"But especially he loved to run

 in the dim twilight. . . 

 listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs. . .

 reading signs and sounds

 as a man may read a book,

 and seeking for the mysterious something 

that called -- 

called,

 waking or sleeping,

 at all times, for him to come."

   Jack London 

(The Call of the Wild)

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards,
 but sometimes, playing a poor hand well." 

Jack London 

"One cannot violate

 the promptings of one's nature

without having that nature

 recoil upon itself."

Jack London

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Hawaii's sun 

mellows 

in the Autumn

Sleeps in

larks about

retires early

Less cruel

(Lahaina)

fully lovely to contemplate

as a mature

and beautiful

woman.

Getting There

A l o h a !

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"We're all here for a little while.

Let's try to work it out."

Rodney King

"To me, everything terrible in the world

 stems from people

 trying to force their ideas and beliefs

 on other people."

Ed Hardy

"Just become quiet, still and solitary - 

and the world will offer itself to you

 to be unmasked; it has no choice.

 It will roll in ecstasy at your feet" -

Franz Kafka

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The Ego is fighting for it's life.

Your best interests are not it's goal.

It makes you

"just not want to"

do just the things that will set you free.

You free = ego death;

and that feels real good

and it feels just right-

as the ego shivers in it's grave,

starved of striving

and regret.

So hush little ego

don't you cry

I will defeat you, by and by

to live Here,

Now

without gut's regret.

Bravely

matter-of-fact-ly

in the glory 

of my own

sunset.

   

        You know?   cloudia