Listen To Louis

ALOHA!

Welcome to Year's End
in

Golden
W A I K I K I



click on photos for instant male enhancement

Diamond Head Celebrates

"My whole life has been happiness,
I love everybody."
Louis Armstrong

Honolulu's Chinatown
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"Chinatown is one of the coolest, most interesting places in urban Oahu.
Sure it's gritty, but that's part of it's charm.
Where else can you choose from a rainbow of perfumed shampoos
that sit on a shelf above raw goat meat and a whole pig's head?
It's not a manicured, controlled, master-planned community.
It has all the noise, smells and energy of an open market."
Lee Cataluna

Do you suppose that entire truck is FULL of chocolate??!!

"I began to recognize what I had considered Pops' (Louis Armstrong) grinning in the face of racism as his absolute refusal to let anything, even anger about racism, steal the joy from his life."
Dizzie Gillespie

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Is the loss of yearning something to be mourned?
Or was it just the glorification of anxiety?

Even so - if that be the case -
I turned my unease
into a quest for
MORE
experience, knowledge,
and life.

Each new beginning of my life
has been preceded by
existential dissatisfaction
leading to a change,
to chance,
akin to a rebirth.

So is it OK,
or a cosmic sell-out,
to say:
"This must be the place,"
To feel content
or am I losing my edge,
my SELF?


The world
(I am discovering)
operates by rules
very different
from those I grew up with.


Perhaps I needn't be
on guard
quite so much.


I do believe
I will dare to choose
feel good
over
fear.


I made this decision
when I realized that
animals usually look pretty
relaxed.


And when the moment
of Leap & Pounce
is announced
I will do so in an
instant!

Then
return to grooming
and staring
into
Space...


ALOHA, my Year-End Friends!
cloudia

Musing

ALOHA!
Welcome to the Sun
of Waikiki


click on photos to feel the warm

“There exists only the present instant...
a Now which always and without end is itself new.
There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow,
but only Now,
as it was a thousand years ago
and as it will be a thousand years hence.”

Meister Eckhart

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A year, ten years from now, I'll remember this;
not why, only that we were here like this, together.”

Adrienne Rich


These moments that we share
are precious.

ALOHA Dear Friend, cloudia

Square Midnight

Aloha, Dear Friend!

Welcome Back to Waikiki


click on photos!

“Dreams are real as long as they last.
Can we say more of life?”

Havelock Ellis

“Dreams are illustrations...
from the book your soul is writing about you.”

Marsha Norman

“Every artist writes his own autobiography.”

Havelock Ellis

><>


Aloha!
How have you been?
I hope the holidays,
and the Winter,
have been treating you kindly.


The president
has been working out at the gym
at the Kaneohe Marine Corps Base
every morning.
On Christmas day
he and Michelle
spent time on the base
talking with
our service members.

Everyone seems excited
that the President and his family
are here on the island with us.


Yesterday
the girls stopped for shave ice
right next door to my friend's business!


Everyone has been asked
not to photograph the girls
when they are out by themselves
so I can't show you how much fun
they had sharing shave ice with me.
(Kidding!)

This the the longest
that Comfort Spiral has gone without
daily updates.

My mind seems to be musing
and refuses to generate
worthy daily posts for now.

But I want you to know
that you are in my thoughts,
that Comfort Spiral
WILL resume daily posting,
and that I am wishing you
a peaceful and reflective
Year's End.

Bless You, Friend!

Warm ALOHA, cloudia

Merry Christmas from Oahu

A

Happy

ALOHA Christmas

Friend!

click on the tropical splendor

Welcome to the temporary capitol of the USA.

Barack and his family are here on Oahu!

Rest up, Mr. President. We are proud of you.

Actually being the decision-maker is harder than anyone knows.

You had to give in to the extortion of bankers,

to solve problems you never created.

Now they call you a socialist

for trying to get a handle on our broken "health care" system.

You are trying to end a war

that was badly launched and mismanaged,

so they call you a war monger.

But we know that there is Aloha in your heart

for the American people,

for all people.

So welcome back to your birthplace

and childhood home.

We are proud of what you are trying to do,

though others would rather harm our country and people

than to see you succeed.

Aloha & God Bless you and your family.

God Bless Hawaii, America, and our

World.

"We have a stake in one another …

what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart,

and ... if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done for the people with whom we share this Earth."
Barack Obama

What HE is thinking. . .

What SHE is thinking :-)

"Remember

This December,

That love weighs more than gold!"

~Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon~

(If you haven't listened to yesterday's post, please check it out below)

ALOHA, Friend cloudia

"It's not just enough to change the players. We've gotta change the game."
Barack Obama

O Holy Night

A L O H A


<><


Na Leo Anela,
The Voices of Angels,
are closer to our ears at special times.


The whole world over,
people are close to their purity,
to their childhood wisdom,
and to love of themselves,
others, and the
Great That is Real.



It is Christmas,
and you don't need to be a devout Christian
or chronologically young
to hear the Angel Voices
at this time of year.



This year,
one of MY best presents
is this visit that
YOU
have chosen to make here
(as well as your dear visits all year 'round)



Thank you, Mahalo Nui Dear Friends.

May the true spirit of Aloha
fill your heart
today
and always.


That is my wish for you
and for all you hold dear.



God Bless us everyone.


And now listen to O Holy Night in Hawaiian.

You will NOT be disappointed. . .

Ono Da Kine!

Aloha!
it's
Wednesday
in
H O N O L U L U



clickity click click!

Christmas Aunties

"Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many."
Anonymous

Lucky for New Year


"Go and wake up your luck."
Persian Proverb

Northern Chinese Cuisine

"I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 hours a day.
I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet,
a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language,
who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work
by the simple eloquence of his example."
Mario Cuomo

Kalapaki Apt. Hotel

"The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror.
It grasps nothing. It regrets nothing.
It receives but does not keep."

Chuang Tzu

><>

Although I enjoy walking in Waikiki, there are many other wonderful areas of our town that reward a thoughtful perambulator.

One such is the stretch of South King Street between Keeaumoku & Kalakaua. Formerly the path taken by the King from old Honolulu down to "suburban" Waikiki, King Street grew and developed along with the plantation generations as they moved from the fields to shops, small business and snug bungalow homes of their own in the nearby villages of Paawa and Mo`ili`ili.

Today, most stores and businesses have migrated to the malls and such, but this corridor still boasts small family restaurants, mom & pop shops, and doctor's offices featuring old-fashioned "American" first names with Chinese and Japanese last names (Clarence Wong MD). This area is like a museum of Honolulu's working-class-American-Dream 20th Century, now in it's twilight. Many of the physicians are as old (or older!) than their patients and these practices are unlikely to survive their founders as the younger generations join HMOs. Same trend with the little shops, restaurants and businesses. More and more Hangul (Korean alphabet) signs are seen spreading out from Keeaumoku's Korean nexus as new immigrants replace the old.

I love everything that makes our town unique, and most special is our people. In Waikiki one sees faces from all over the world. Every generation and human condition is represented. But stroll along King Street on a sunny weekday early afternoon and you will be among the local elderly. The people who built the Hawaii of today, who fought both WWII and discrimination, are now leaning on canes and waiting at the bus stop. The pulse of Honolulu's life has moved towards upscale condos, tourism, & retail. Meanwhile, the low-rise store-front blocks, and modest, aging professional buildings of South King Street host hustling entrepreneurs and immigrant dreamers as they wait for whatever may be coming next.
Elegy and expectation walk arm in arm along King Street as the traffic hurries past towards the University, Waikiki, upscale Kahala Mall, and growing residential Hawaii Kai where the last small farms and nurseries face down developers at the end of the road, where the wild Ko`olau Mountain foothills seem to recede with our past.

Walking down Kalakaua Avenue back towards Waikiki I had a sudden "local style" hankering for Shrimp Chips. How long has it been since my tongue stuck to a puffy shrimp chip as it changed in my mouth like "Pop Rocks?" Little by little, the small unique things that used to define us become submerged in a sea of Frito-Lay and Whole Foods house brands.
I stopped into the tiniest mom & pop you can imagine, right behind kupuna (elders) and teens waiting at the bus stop. One bag left. I thanked the woman in my best Korean: "Kahm Sahm Ne Dah."
Soon after, I bought some take-out jerk chicken from the "new" Jamaican lunch truck across Kapiolani Boulevard from the Hawaii Convention Center. But tomorrow (I promised myself) I'll go to a hole-in-the-wall for a local plate lunch with two scoops rice, macaroni salad, mochiko chicken, lau lau, and cone sushi - all the local stuff we like eat. . . before there's nothing left but fast food and chic cafe`s.
Ono da kine!
(Delicious, that's the kind!)

PS: Best selling novelist Alan Brennert (read my review of his wonderful MOLOKAI here) quoted me (of all people) in a recent interview and then e-mailed me about it!
Read it here

Cool! ALOHA, cloudia

Mele Kalikimaka

ALOHA
Dear Friends

Welcome
to
TUESDAY in HONOLULU

click on Claus for a hearty Ho Ho Ho!

"If you could imagine the most incredible story ever, it would be less incredible than the story of being here. . .
When your soul awakens, you begin to truly inherit your life.
You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk, and weary roles
and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become.
The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. . ."

The Aloe is in Bloom!



"Now you realize how precious your time here is.
You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. . . On this journey you begin to see how the sides of your heart that seemed awkward, contradictory, and uneven are the places where the treasure lies hidden. . .

Is your "system" working?

"You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment , comparison and assumption.
More naked now than ever, you begin to feel truly alive."

John O'Donohue
(All quotes today)

Thank You for Your Visit
at this most Busy Time of the Year! cloudia