Waikiki from the Water

A L O H A!

click on photos to smell the surf Looking out at the sunset.

All Ted Trimmer photos today!

“The sky broke like an egg into full sunset

and the water caught fire.”
Pamela Hansford Johnson

Waikiki looks beautiful from out on the water.



"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
Jimi Hendrix


"A clever man commits no minor blunders."
- Goethe



Here is the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
During WWII, Japanese subs would lurk here in the shallows
listening to the music wafting from the hotel.



"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
George Washington Carver

A drop of water on the lens.

Who cares?!

“Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday”
Zora Neale Hurston

Today I am performing a wedding out on the Windward side of Oahu!

Please enjoy these photos by Ted Trimmer with my good wishes.

Aloha, Friends! Cloudia

Average VS Avant-garde

Aloha Cool People!

Welcome to My Pad.

Like, make yourselves at home.

Kick off da footwear - click on da photoArtPalm Trees against the sky - yawn.

Check out THIS view, cats!

“Everything we hear is an opinion not a fact.

Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Marcus Aurelius

Wow! Like, Skies Are A'Changin` wit da Seasons!

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

Emily Dickinson

We've seen plenty o` dem together, haven't we?



"Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance."

Yoko Ono, Season of Glass

Still, We Wait Patiently.

Seems everybody's waitin` for something!

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature— the assurancethat dawn comes after night, and spring after winter." Rachel Carson

The "normal" and the "mundane' always stifled me.

It was the unexpected, novel and new

- the DIFFERENT-

that entranced me growing up.

Of course, back in the day,

there was a prevailing impatience with old stuff,

as buildings, neighborhoods, and folkways were obliterated for tall, glass & steel "international style" blocks & towers.

If it wasn't for Jane Jacobs,

http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/jjacobs

Honolulu's Nancy Banick: http://historichawaiifoundation.blogspot.com/2008/02/obituary-nancy-bannick-1926-2008.html

and other crazy citizens-without-portfolio, we'd be living in an even more sterile environment. So a rebellious love of "useless" old stuff has always been part of my makeup too.

As long as I'm swimming against the school, I know I'm going in the right direction.

Yes, swimming against the current has always been my default position, so love of the crumbling, archaic, and imperiled (be they people or buildings) came easy to me. It was just another early characteristic that set me apart from the progress-mad land that I grew up in.

I guess you'd say that nonconformity was the air I breathed and just as necessary.

To live buried in a bleached suburb was to me synonymous with death.

I needed underground comix: http://www.undergroundcollectibles.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/parentcat/8157

a bohemian district to breathe in, and plenty of non-mainstream nourishment like Pharoah Sanders:

But lately,

I notice that I'm finding delight in the most ordinary

people & things.

The very plodding, solid, grimy face of this life seems to me, at last, infinitely superior, fascinating, and worthwhile than the latest avantGard sensation.

Rather than seeking out the latest "exclusivity"

I mine delight from the abundant messiness of a normalcy

that has lately begun to reveal

a harmonious richness

in which the discordant oft provides

the graciest of grace notes.

My longing for belonging has expanded;

I'm not looking for the in-est connoisseurship any longer,

but feasting at the family table,

and enjoying every minute of it!

And thanks to all you fearless bloggers who share your daily bread with me!

A L O H A Cloudia

Life Abundanza

A L O H A

You Made It - Come On In!

click on photos for immediate gratification

"The greatest possession

is self possession."

Ethel Watts

"We work to become, not to acquire."

Elbert Hubbard

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion.

The great task in life is to find reality."

Iris Murdoch

HOLD IT GENTLY

Some may think

that exploring the Inner World

means gazing at your navel

and withdrawing from the world outside.

But when we begin to experience

the immanence of deeper reality

something else happens entirely:

the world around us is liberated.

The world becomes free to be just itself,

not "all there is" or mere anteroom.

This messy place becomes a wonderland,

and renouncing a celebration.

So

Just for today, pretend you do not know.

Let all be fresh, reborn.

We all live in the wheel ruts we have made,

but it's never to late to jump off the juggernaut -

if only for a day. . . or a lifetime . . . . .

Aloha! Cloudia

Wise Bird

A L O H A

Greetings!

You Have Entered a Zone of Ease & Good Spirits

Bring Your Well-Intentioned Self Inside for Refreshment

click on photos for the full sensory experience

The Morning Mists Yielded a Rainbow



"A dream you dream alone may be a dream,
but a dream two people dream together is a reality."
John Lennon




But Late Morning Shed a Blue Smile

on Diamond Head

and all the little bungalows of Kapahulu.

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see

when you take your eyes off the goal."

Hannah Moore

This picture has a story.

The bird was RIGHT outside our parked car, perfectly posed on my favorite husband's side. I handed him my "live" camera:

"Shoot it! Shoot it!

The bird flew from my sight, but hubby remained intent with the camera. "That's OK, just hand it back." I said, a little peremptorily.

Who ever heard of an impatient Cloud-ia?

(I wandered as impatiently as a cloud...)

I recognized my (sometime) tendency to impatience...

He got the swell pic you see above

and a sheepish apology.

Sometimes you just have to take a chill pill

and let them play it out!

A little bird told me.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions”
Rainer Maria Rilke

A L O H A! Cloudia

Exactually!

A L O H A

WEB TRAVELER

W E L C O M E !

click on photos to participate fully

Moiliili, Honolulu

"It was labor that helped build the largest middle class in history.

So, even if you're not a union member, every American owes

something to America's labor movement."

President Barack Obama

Is that Jerry Dromedary

of Dorothy Hamill-Camel?

"I believe there surely is such a thing as truth,

but who among us can claim a monopoly on it?"

Edward "Ted" Kennedy

1983

Too Cute Pooches

"Censorship is the height of vanity."

Martha Graham

Times are tough.

Scary winds of change are howling at gale force.

Old certainties are daily revealed to be less than. . . certain.

People are showing their true colors.

Some are not handling it well;

They are aiming their anger at

targets of questionable appropriateness.

For it's easier to shout a punchy slogan

than it is to consider

the complexities

that brought us

here.

For those whose values,

whose guidance,

comes from

within

these are exciting times.

For much needs changing

in our hearts

before society can change

for the better.

So keep your powder dry.

Don't fall for the easy con of blame.

Dare to believe

that cure, or Salvation

is a relief - a release;

Not a sweaty hike.

Be cunning, relaxed

and poised as a serpent

while harmless as a dove.

And like a cork

you'll dance the turbulent waters

till brilliant Dawn

takes away all but

delight

(be it in this ocean

or the next)

Ahoy my friends

Aloha.

The most powerful thing we can do

is to love one another

and forgive each ourselves.

Thus is restored

the kingdom

of our

longings.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Boat-aversary!

A L O H A!

Welcome to Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor

at the Edge of Waikiki

click on photos to smell the surfHome Sweet Home!

"Hug the shore; let others try the deep."

Virgil

Cloudia Wine!

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils.”
William Wordsworth


“To behold the wandering moon,

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray

Through the heav'n's wide pathless way;

And oft, as if her head she bowed,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.”
John Milton

In the Hawaiian Language, OPALA means trash. Ouch!

“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine,

so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.”

Aristophanes

Boats and booze go together.
Or maybe I drink to forget.
Yesterday was my
Boat-aversary!

On September 8, 1992
I moved all my stuff,
even Previous Kitty,
onto this boat.

3 days later
Hurricane Iniki
took dead aim at Waikiki.

I was too tired to move,
so we rode it out
shrieking winds, lashing surf
and all.
Capricious Iniki headed for hapless Kauai instead.

I drove my taxi from this harbor,
finished college,
got my first professional job
(and left it);
I wrote a novel at this drop-down desk,
and produce
Comfort Spiral
from here on board every day.

To read how it all began:
http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-aboards.html



Some people do not have homes at all,
but I have a deck overhead.



Bonus Points:
For years I have driven past Mekaleka Street,
and Ekela Street without knowing what those names meant.
Well now I know!
Mekaleka = Margaret
Ekela = Ethel.

The familiar is always ready to serve up unseen treasures.
YOUR photos and blogs prove that to me everyday!

Well,

Your launch is here to take you back to the shore.
All ashore that's going ashore.
But please come back tomorrow,
to ride here at anchor
and sing a song together.


A L O H A! Cloudia

News to Amuse

A L O H A, FRIENDS!

click on photos to visit Hawaii instantly Reach!

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

Dr. Seuss

Parsley Planet


“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

I liked her cute little outfit!

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Darwin




For the first time in over 40 years, a nation has decided to change the

side of the street that they drive on.



Today is the second day of a two-day national holiday in

S A M O A.



The island nation will now be driving on the

Left Side, British style,

like Pacific neighbors Australia and New Zealand.



Have your figured out why they are making this change?



Steering-wheel-on-da-left American cars

are expensive to ship!



Samoan officials hope that expat Samoans in Oz & N.Z.

(of which there are many)

will send used cars home to their rural relatives.

It is hoped that this change will thus give the country

an economic shot in the arm.





Experts claim that doing things in new ways,

like brushing ones teeth with the unaccustomed arm,

is good for the brain-

forging new connections and maintaining cognitive flexibility.



How might you improve

YOUR

life by seeing things in new ways,

trying on new perspectives?





Thanks for visiting today!




A L O H A! Cloudia