Obamas and Hawaii Marines

ALOHA!

Here is some video of the Obamas chatting on-base with military folks on Christmas Day...

Happy New Year

Warm Aloha & Best Wishes to YOU, my Friend!
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New Year's Eve in Waikiki

ALOHA!

it's

New Year Time

in

Waikiki!

click on photos - if you have the time!

The Parade of Life Continues. . .

"We are here to help each other get through this thing,

whatever it is."

Kurt Vonnegut

Some of us are watching it go by. . .

"Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it."

Confucius

And the river, too, flows on. . .

"We don't know the truth at all.

There's mysteries that bubble up within us

that we can't explain

and we can't understand.

And those are

humbling mysteries."

Jamie Hook

><>

Yesterday, some 50,000 pounds of red ahi tuna

passed through Honolulu's United Fish Auction.

EVERYBODY, not just ethnically Japanese residents,

wants to eat the lucky fish at New Year's time!

In Kapahulu and Aiea the THWACK! of the wooden mallet is heard as it comes down in the stone Usu to turn the rice into chewy mochi.

Watch your hand, Uncle!

May we all stick together just like this mochi,

where individual grains of rice have melded.

After his broadcast statement, the President and his family spent Tuesday afternoon at Hanauma Bay snorkeling.

Then yesterday they visited with some of Barry's school friends

on the North Shore.

While he was preparing to tee off (Monday I think) at the course where he learned the game as a boy, the young son of one of his foursome injured himself back at the beach compound (Winter White House?) so they all motored back to the home - the kid is OK. It was described as a "routine beach injury."

I'm sure that the Secret Service could do without the Hawaii custom of

New Year fireworks!

Though firecrackers have just gone (legally) on sale, we have been seeing and hearing illegal aerials for weeks now!

Every year it's the same.

Families who received Toys for Tots for their kids are now seen blowing hundreds on explosives. . . oh well. . .

Tonight, the professional shows will be echoed by the illegals all over the island. The Trade Winds have slacked off, so we can expect a smoky New Year's Eve - no fun for the fire fighters or the police - or anyone with breathing problems.

Pets too suffer and must be sequestered indoors and even sedated.

Meanwhile 70's icons The Village People will bring in the New Year

at one of the hotels down the beach.

We will be sharing champagne here on board da boat.

2009 has been a Year OF Review: the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing, of Woodstock, the passing of Walter Cronkite, as well as numerous other 30, 40 year observances including the 50th anniversary of Hawaii Statehood.

Perhaps we will look ahead to new solutions in the

Year of the Tiger

So Happy New Year, Hauoli Makahiki Hou to Y O U, friend!

Thank you for sharing your visits and comments here at Comfort Spiral!

See you next year . . .

ALOHA, cloudia

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
><>

"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

><>


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!
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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