Announcement...

Today I field tripped to Bothell to go to the Washington State Ferret Rescue Shelter. There I fell for two of the cutest little babies. Tess & Rigby. I had to take them. They'd been at the shelter for over a year! They are 2.5 years old. They both are bigger than Minka & Baxter ever were. They are very sweet and not biters! (Which should make Michelle happy). Currently they are exploring the crap out of the apartment. It is exciting. I'm sure if they poke around under the bed they will find left over Baxter treats. I'm pleased. Now to spend some time getting to know their personality quirks. Oohh... the guy who adopted them to me, HOT! And an owner of 10. Perfect for me right? Yummy, volunteers at the shelter, NOT GAY, loves ferrets... but lives with a girlfriend who also volunteers at the shelter. :S But it does give me hope. :D

Here's the girls:

Rigby (Pink Nose)

Tess (Brown nose)

M. Cho

Margaret Cho was funny. Much funnier than when I saw her at Benaroya Hall 2 years ago. She was political but funny political not like last time. We had Johnny Rockets for dinner. I love their chili cheese fries! mmm.... I saw my gay pothead bartending husband, but I didn't get a chance to say hello because we were on the way out. I miss him periodically. I may have to stop in either this Monday or next Monday to say hello. The search for the car was kind of ridiculous. Seriously, who doesn't remember what parking level and area they park in? The people I was with... had no clue. We walked all over that parking garage. I could've walked home in the time it took us to find the damn car.

Happy Friday!

Crows
I was walking to work this morning and I saw the cutest little ball of feathers on the ground. As I looked closer I realized it was a young crow. Not a baby anymore, because some of its longer feathers were growing in, but still fairly downy. Apparently mama or dada crow did not like me looking at baby because it started sqwaking at me and left its perch on the tree to fly closer to where I was standing. I kept walking to about the next tree and stopped again to look at it. Adult crow followed sqwaking at me and landing on a building above me and continuing to berate me. This continued on until I actually turned the corner to go up the next street. Apparently they're fairly protective. :)

Evaluations
I have to do a self evaluation for my job. I hate these. At Homestore I was there for 3 years and never NEVER had an evaluation. When I taught school, I had them many many times over the 1 year I taught. They were almost all bad because I was awful at keeping the little hellions under control. (Actually I was good with the projects and knew what I was talking about so that part was good, but always balanced badly by the big fat "sucks ass" rating when it came to keeping them under control which dragged the whole score way down. Seriously, a 24 year old should never try to teach 13 year olds.) At the casino I had 1 review that was mildly good, except for showing initiative. Apparently my failure to attend an OPTIONAL FIRE EXTINGUISHER TRAINING showed I lacked initiative. Did I mention I worked in the BENEFITS OFFICE? So now I have to do a self-evaluation for my job. I'm a little freaked out.

Movie update
I mentioned before how I worked doing transcription for Inlaws & Outlaws and how I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to see it at SIFF because I was volunteering during 1 show and then I was in Hawai'i for the 2nd show. Well, the director found my blog and sent me an email about how sorry he was I missed it at SIFF but did I know it was going to play at Cinerama on July 7th. If I was interested he'd hook me up with tickets. And would I be interested in volunteering? First - I was mildly embarrassed that he found this. I don't know why, especially since I've only said nice things about volunteering and encouraged people to go see the movie, but I was still embarrassed. Second Yay! Now I'm going to go and despite it being a violation of The Summer of Joanne, I'm going to volunteer for the other showing.

Summer of Joanne
I think the basic premise of the Summer of Joanne is that I'm not going to volunteer for any causes this summer. Except for ones that I've already committed to. Like the movie and the Seattle Paint Out. Of course if I never hear from the Paint Out people, I can't really be the First Hill lead, now can I? If I were a good volunteer, I'd email them. Obviously I'm not a good volunteer since I haven't. The other tenet of the Summer of Joanne is to get out and do stuff. Like going to Portland. But since Sunday adventures have to be curtailed to non-walking adventures I'm not sure what other adventures I'm going to plan, but there'll be other stuff. Definitely other stuff.

Margaret Cho
Tonight I'm going with coworker and a couple of other people to see Margaret Cho. I think she's here as a part of Pride events. I am not attending any other Pride events. I may even avoid the grocery store all weekend to avoid the gays. It isn't that I don't love them, because I do. But I don't really like crowds to begin with so the fact that an estimated 130,000 people are going to be here on the hill at some point this weekend pretty much ensures I will be hiding out in my apartment. That is when I'm not field tripping to Bothell to potentially adopt 2 more ferrets. And no, KTP, a 3rd is like 15 times harder than just the 2. Or maybe it isn't but to me, for some reason, a 3rd seems to cross an invisible line I don't want to cross.

Quick turnaround

Wow. I emailed the ferret shelter here and asked about the process and how they approve people and if there's a waiting time and apprarently I could go up this weekend and find one or two and take them home that day. That means mad cleaning before then though and some thought but I just may do it.

This does not bode well...

While walking to work in the rain this morning I thought today was Thursday. Damn I was disappointed when I realized it was only Wednesday.

A decision...

I think I'm going to adopt another ferret or 2. I know I always thought I'd get a cat once the Bax passed away, but the more I think about it, the more I want another little fluffy bundle of craziness that creates little furnace spots on the bed where they're sleeping. I just like them that's all. I have to clean up all of Bax's toys and bedding and stuff first and clean it as well as search around under the bed to see what, if anything, she stored there. That may be my weekend project so that I can then adopt a new ferret.

Vaguely fascinating

My job is vaguely fascinating. Sometimes. Recently we had a new employee come and ask about their spouse. It seems once upon a time they were opposite sex married couple, but at one point, one had a sex change operation. Now are they legally still married? (the answer is yes) and can they have the spouse on our health insurance even though we do not cover domestic partnerships? (interestingly after a lot of research, the answer is also yes) but I got to research that. And that was fun and interesting. Also apparently a few weeks ago a woman died. She worked for us more than 15 years ago so we have no records on her because the laws on record retention don't require us to go back that far. So I call our retirement folks, once I have her SSN. They at first wouldn't give me any beneficiary info, they would send the stuff directly to the beneficiary. I had to point out that this would be bad as they have not been formally notified of the death. I offered to let them call the ME's office directly but she kept screwing it up so she finally said she'd call me back once they pulled the info out of the archive. So coworker calls back the ME to ask if 2 days is okay for their timeline. Apparently the woman's been dead for weeks. So two more days won't make much of a difference. How sad. I fear that a little bit... dying without anyone knowing or realizing I'm dead.

Starry starry night

Last night MP & I went to eat some dinner and then we played backgammon until about 9ish in Starbucks. For the record, MP won but it was a bunch of tie breakers. I think he cheated. After that we walked up the freeway park stairs and just chatted. Neither of us were feeling particularly compelled to go home so we ended up on the patio of my apartment building talking. I haven't really wanted to be all alone in my apartment lately, I hate being in there now that it is just me and the fish. I know I didn't see Baxter that often because ferrets sleep a lot, but there was comfort knowing that she was there and I could go rouse her from her hiding place and pet her or get her riled up and wrassle with her. The fish isn't so fun that way. Anyway, I've digressed, it was just nice sitting on the patio talking to a friend and watching the stars come out. Well, planets first really. :) And I saw a shooting star and made a wish (of course). Turns out we sat there chatting until after 11. Now I may know more about MP than the little bit I know about Shane, Sparky not liking Pagliaccis and MP's birthday. :)

Fremont Festival

On Saturday morning I went to the Fremont Festival with the intention of just sitting and watching the parade and then coming home so that I wasn't necessarily walking more than I'm supposed to... best laid plans I suppose. But this was the first time I'd actually seen the parade and it was fairly cool. After the parade, coworker and her friends and I went to Dad Magoos and had lunch - their tatertots are to die for - then we wandered around the festival to see the art cars. I was going to pick up Baja Fresh and some Ice Cream from Coldstone since I was on that side of town, but as I was walking down the road the bus to come home was right there so I just figured I'd head for home. It was after 5 and I was tired. I did have a good time though! Here are some pics:



One of the notable things about the Fremont Parade are the naked bicycle riders. Some just ride naked, others do elaborate bodypaint. I got a few pics of different body paints I liked or I thought were well done.



Wonderwoman was especially well done. If you saw her from a distance you wouldn't realize she was naked.



The red villian was part of a whole group of The Incredibles. I tried to get others of that group but some of them ride pretty fast. :) I'm sure I would! There were a lot of different body shapes and types so it was kind cool to see all sorts of bodies out there being cool with themselves. The WORST part of the naked bicycle riders, this older guy was riding back and forth and he was fine, whatever, until one of his final rides by... erect. That was a little weird.



Great body paint I thought. Although could you imagine how hard it would be to wash that crap off?



She really went all out for hers. Rode by like queen of the parade.



One of the groups in the parade was this troupe of belly dancers. They were really good and again, all sorts of different bodies just out there on display. I know I wouldn't have the gumption to do that.



This little kid went up to shake the 'clown's' hand but didn't look too sure he wanted to do it. It just made me laugh.



Cute kids on top of a wedding cake. All the floats are man powered, there are no motorized vehicles in the parade at all.



Here I thought, wow a concession to 'normal' parades, a marching band. Yes, a marching band made of homosexual performers. Rock on.



A float about monsters destroying the city. I thought both the float and the monster costumes were really well done.



Oh Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. Golden Sun won't you please shine down on meee. This was actually the first float in the parade. Notice how it is towed by gladiators. I noticed when it went the other way, there were cheese puffs under the sun. Hee.



The end of the parade. Everyone singing This Land is Your Land.



The art cars were all over the place. Some were very cool and very well done, and others looked like they were just thrown together. I really liked this Mini that had been redone as a ladybug. I thought it was so cute and little!



The fish car was hmm... interesting. The whole thing is choreographed to music and the lobsters would sometimes rise up in song. It was kind of funny.

No More Sunday Adventures

For awhile. I went to the doctor today. It was my first field trip to Group Health. I was actually pretty impressed about how quickly and efficiently everything went. They actually entered all my medical information into the computer right then. My doctor was able to put my pharmacy request in while I was there and my pills should've been ready when I was done with the appointment, but they didn't have any in the pharmacy. I'm not too shocked about that. Dapsone is a rather unique drug and one not generally kept on hand. Bartell would have to special order it. They also did some blood tests and I should be able to get the results of those online later this evening. All very slick. Ok so why no more Sunday adventures... I have achilles tendinitis. So I have to cut back on all the walking I do. I also now have a medical excuse not to hit the gym. :) Which I was actually going to originally post that part of the Summer of Joanne was going to be getting my ass back into the gym. I'll have to check the pool hours, I could swim, but I think they are not at convenient times for me.

2 great things about summertime at my job...

1 - Since it is summer and most of the students are gone, we get to wear jeans every day! YAY for jeans!

2 - Since it is summer and most of the faculty are gone and things are usually fairly quiet, we have a rotating schedule on Fridays. 2 of us admins get to leave at 2:00 PM and one stays and minds the desk. So every 3rd Friday I'm here until 4:30 but all the others I'm outta here early! Yay for going home early!

1 bad thing about summertime at my job...
Food services on campus are severely limited so either I bring my lunch or I pay real money (as opposed to the soft money I put on my campus card to buy lunch 'out' once a week which really means I eat on campus but didn't have to cook it myself).

Random thoughts

Now that the Summer of Joanne is officially in full swing, I must ponder what that really means and what's going to happen. Sad to say, I still don't know really. But as the first weekend in the Summer of Joanne, I should do something fun, right? Well what I should do vs what I SHOULD do are 2 different things.

should do:
Something fun
Preferrably outdoors
Maybe with alcohol involved in the evening, but not required.
Visit a place I haven't been to before
Hopefully doesn't cost too much money
Perhaps check out solstice activities in Fremont
Maybe go fly a kite (I don't own one though)
Take a long walk
Check out a museum
Go to the movies

SHOULD DO:
Dishes (dishes are always #1 on the list because I abhor them!)
Put away stuff from Hawai'i vacation (yes you read that right I still have everything from Hawai'i in bags around my bedroom)
Put away stuff from camping
Clean up all of Baxter's toys/mess/treats scattered on the floor and put away her cage
(I don't know if I can do that one yet - I can do the mess part but I don't know I can put away her cage and her toys all away yet)
Laundry
Deal with recycling stuff

Walk down memory lane
Co-worker reminded me that this weekend is solstice and she would be doing the Fremont Solstice stuff. It made me think that when I lived in Alaska, Michelle & I would do the Midnight Sun Run. Not that we were all you know athletic or anything, we'd walk it. I'm sure at home I have about 3 t-shirts from my years of doing it. I also have some pretty cool pics of us at the finish line at midnight wearing sunglasses. :) So I was explaining this to coworker and I mentioned it started at the college and ended at Alaskaland. Ahh Alaskaland. It is now renamed Pioneer Park. That's just wrong by the way. The funniest thing about Alaskaland? There's a bar in the park. The Palace. It is known for its fun touristy revue... at least during the early evening. Late at night, it's the local gay bar. I've been there once with V. Coworker thought it hysterical that the tourist hotspot is also the gays' hotspot. Only in Alaska, she said, would a bar do double duty like that. :)

Picture Project

So I printed out all the pics for the kids last night that I thought they would like to make their collages... all told, in the short run it would've been cheaper to pay $.29 at Bartell Drugs than what I ended up paying to buy a USB AB cable and a color ink cartridge. Cheaper by about 1/2. BUT... now I have a printer that's up and working and I haven't had a home printer since I was on a Mac about 6ish years ago, so that's an improvement. And I can't wait to try and print out some of my Hawai'i prints to hang up in my apartment and convince me to go back. :)

I am thinking of going to Portland in July for just a weekend. Take the train down. See the sights. Check out that restaurant that was recommended to me by Chicken. Stay in a hostel. That sort of thing. Since MP claims this summer for him will be the summer of Matthew, I'm thinking that for me, it should be the summer of Joanne! :) I need a summer that's all about me after the year so far. (of course, I really don't know how to do this but I'll figure it out)

I might heart google...

I sometimes make my life hard for myself by deciding to do something at the last minute that would be totally cool, but now I have to figure out how to do it. So I decided at the last minute that it would be neat if I printed out a bunch of the pics of the girls from my digital camera and let them make their own collages or scrapbook pages tomorrow at our last meeting for the summer. Now for normal people, this might not be too hard, here's where it is hard for me. I don't own a printer. Well, I do, but I've never hooked it up. I only got it last month, an inheritence from V when he moved out of my building. It requires a USB AB cable. Now I know what a USB cable is. I have one for the MP3 player, but for some odd reason in my head what I need is different than what I own and I can't find what I think I need. So I head to google to do an image search get a picture of what I need... It is what I already own. Yay! I know I could've gone to like Bartell or one of those and had them printed there, but those pics are 29 cents for 1 4X6 yo. That's too much cash. So now I can do this at home tonight. Well, after I buy photo paper. :)

Further evidence of dorkiness...

I was just sitting in my office and I received yet another phishing email and so I forwarded it to WAMU's scam address. But it got me thinking. Does the band Phish mind that the verb phishing is now being used to indicate fraudulent attempts to get personal information. I posed that question to Peeved Michelle and she suggested I email them. So I did. :) I'll let y'all know what they say.

not my day...

so to add insult to injury, I'm standing at the front reception desk when with no warning, the lens of my glasses just falls out of my glasses and you hear the screw pop and go flying. Luckily eagle-eyed coworker who found the screw last time this happened found the screw again and I was able to repair them. Seriously, I'm crawling back into my bed and never coming out. :S

Irrational fear realized

Have I ever mentioned how I am frequently afraid of walking across Boren (the street my apartment building is on and it is very busy all the time) and having a bag I'm carrying rip and spill my contents out on the street while I'm crossing? I'm sure I haven't because I realize that it is weird that I fear this. I have a whole mental image of that scene from Fried Green Tomatoes where that happens to the Kathy Bates character (except it is in a parking lot). Also Boren is a big hill so in my imatination I can see cans of soup (except I rarely buy canned food) rolling down the hill. So this morning, fear realized. I'm trying to cross Boren on the brink of tears because I know the vet appointment I'm about to go to will be bad. So in one hand I have Baxter's carrier. I'm also carrying 2 paper sacks of camping supplies, my backpack has camping stuff in it and under my arm is a camp stove. Bag tears. Luckily it wasn't the bag holding the rubber bouncy ball. So now I'm standing in the street with a torn bag that just keeps tearing worse trying to pick up the lantern and box of pots that was in the bag and of course... the light changes. The van driver I was holding up seemed nice. He at least smiled at me as I scurried to drop crap on the curb out of the way and then waved him on when I had picked everything up. Seriously... craptastic day.

Baxter

Well, I left work this morning and turned right back around. I felt too worried about Baxter to just leave her at home. I called the vet and got her an appointment at 10. The vet looked at her and we had 'the talk.' I knew it was coming. I knew when I booked the appointment this morning what the outcome would be. I knew she was old and it was time to let her go, but damn, I didn't expect to feel this bereft about it. And that's really all I have to say about that.

Camping & Baxter

Well I'm back from camping. Actually I got back at about oneish and showered. Then I went to lunch at my favorite Gluten Free restaurant. Yum... chicken tenders and then I bought 2 cupcakes to go and some mozzarrella sticks. I'm planning on munching on the sticks in a little while and the cupcakes, already gone.

Camping - A rehash:
The kids arrived at varying times after 7 PM on Friday night. We didn't do much, had a snack of cookies and helped the other kids lug their crap across the field. We were as far from the parking lot as humanly possible. I have no idea how long it took me to trek back and forth across the field with stuff like food and our supplies. I had picked up my little Girl Scout about mid way through the afternoon and she helped, but we gave up towards the end because I was too tired. The nice thing about camping with just my kids and not as part of a big encampment is that we were on our own schedule. The kids didn't get up until 8:00 am on Sat morning. They cooked eggs and sausages for breakfast. It turned out very well. We cleaned up and went on a hike. We walked very slowly and looked at a lot of different things. I like that I know stuff... :) and can tell the girls. I imparted a variety of wilderness knowledge to them like about moss on the North side of trees (except in WA where it is too wet so moss just grows on the outside of trees.). We studied slugs and snails and trees and tree rings. We took about a half of the long trail and turned back to the cabins at the same place I stopped walking on the trail when I went on my own. That thing I thought was a waterfall, it isn't. It's a climbing wall with varying levels. One of the moms pointed it out and I felt dumb for not realizing it sooner. The girls cooked lunch too. We had tacos. The moms were impressed that we made that. :) After lunch it rained a little bit but we made our wish boats for our bridging ceremony. We played board games by the cabin. We also went out into the field and played kick ball. My feet got wet. The poor things didn't get to be dry until I went to bed after 11:00 PM. It was awful. They were itchy and pruny. Dinner was a whole other story. We were going to barbecue chicken and hamburgers and hotdogs and make potato salad. The potatos took forever to cook. We ran out of propane. The chicken took forever to cook. We started cooking at 4:00 PM... We didn't eat until after 6:40. We did manage to do our ceremony at about 7:20. Which was just in time so one of my moms who had to leave to go get her husband could go. The dads showed up at 5. We had 2 show up. They did not help. In the end they did not camp either. And one took his daughter with him when he left for the night and didn't bother to tell me. I was pissed. The ceremony went well. The girls did their poem and crossed their bridge and got their candle lit and put their wish boats into the pond by the bridge. It was all very nice. (as far as Girl Scout Ceremonies go...) We went back to where we cooked dinner and there was still fire going (not in a fire circle, in a rock bbq). We cleaned up the mess from dinner. (Did I mention it RAINED all while we were trying to cook dinner?) We had no propane to do dishes so we only used paper. I know I know but we did wash all our other dishes for each of the other meals. The kids had a bunch of marshmallows and 1 s'more each. Our whole day progressed much more like family camping than like Girl Scout camping... no real agenda we just played and did what we wanted to do. I think they liked that a lot.
We didn't get up until 9:00 this morning. (I had been up at about 7ish and was sitting outside reading my book). The dads (who left and were supposed to camp) arrived. We ate breakfast of doughnuts and fruit. We packed our lunches and we cleaned everything out. That took us until noon. And the kids left. I was so glad to see them go. I like them! Don't get me wrong... but I was so tired.

Baxter - I came back and she is much more frail than she usually is. I think this month (and maybe this week) may be her last week. I've decided I'm not going to rush her to the vet. I don't think there's anything the vet can do. She is skinnier than she was even 2 weeks ago when I took her to the vet for her monthly shot (and then she was thinner than she was when I took her last year for her condition). Bax is 7 and she's from the ferret breeder known as Marshall Farms. Their ferrets are not hardy. Age seven is usually their limit. Minka died last year at around what would've been her 7th birthday. I've known this is coming for awhile know. Unless she seems to be really suffering (which she doesn't right now), I'm going to let time do its thing. Although typing this is making me tear up, and it is entirely possible that I'm just being a drama queen. But my instincts were right on Minka and I suspect they'll be right on Bax too.

Camping!

Well, luckily this is the last weekend in a long while I have anything planned. I'm very excited to be done with things to do for a little while. I'm looking forward to a few weekends of me time where I can go to a park on a Sunday afternoon and enjoy the sunshine. Perhaps clean up this craphole I call an apartment. :) I know that all this is my own doing, and I do like to keep busy, but this has been ridiculous!

Tomorrow I pick up a rental car for the weekend camping with the kids. Who knew that if I charge the car with my AMEX card I am covered for loss and damage to the rental car. That's the most expensive add on insurance I got last time. Now I will only have to get liability add on. Very nice... and much cheaper. Tomorrow is going to be psychotically busy. I have to go to the Girl Scout office and get some supplies and exchange the damn vests for sashes. Apparently we want sashes now. Sigh. I also have to grocery shop for our trip, and gather up some more arts & crap supplies. I have to do laundry and pack up my own gear. I have to swing by the U to pick up our glue and other art supplies that I usually leave there. I have to pick up my usual brownie and feed us both some dinner since I'm not having the other kids eat at camping. And instead of working on that this evening... I'm watching Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban. :) Such a slacker I am. I can't wait though. We'll have a nice ceremony for the bridging girls. One more meeting I think and we're done for the summer!

Also...

It's a two coke morning! I'm having the worst time lately with getting up and going in the morning. My apartment is freezing because I have 3 windows open (Please, I know the logical answer is to close a couple of them, but I actually like it to be cold in the apartment when I sleep.) But it makes it so damn hard to want to get out of bed!

lurve is in the air?

According to all of the horrorscopes I read it is. Maybe the Tiki God of Lurve is working after all... :) (A girl can hope right??!!)


Quickie: Love is all around you. Learn to expand your definition, and you'll find that your life is filled with it.
Overview: Don't be surprised if your concentration is a little lacking -- you've got matters of the heart on the brain. Think creatively about jump-starting your romance, or, if you're single, starting something brand new.

More Pics

This was at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The woman in yellow taught us to make our cute little fishes.



Dark skinned Mormons. MP wanted pics because the only Mormon's he's ever seen were white. These are not necessarily the hot Mormon College boys. This was during the Canoe Parade.



The island out there in the distance is called Chinaman's Hat, for probably obvious reasons. I believe this is another of the zooming along in the car shots.



Regulars know my love for interesting trees. I liked these trees. I think they are Banyan (although it is entirely possible I'm wrong.) But they grow all these tendrils from the branches that reach into the ground and create more trunk. They look so cool.



A cute little crab in the sand at Lanikai Beach. I had thought it was dead so I flung a tiny bit of sand at it. It sucked one of its eyes in so then I felt a little bad about disturbing it.



Probably the fanciest looking dessert I've ever eaten. At the Tiki Bar & Grill. It was cheesecake with fruit salsa and that drizzle is of a yummy fruit that I can't remember the name of. Very good!



This is back to shore and the community of Haleiwa. It was a tiny community that I kind of liked. The type of place in my imagination I have always wanted to live in. The type of community that is better in dreams than probably in reality.



If you look closely, you can see me in the cage! :) Mostly you can see the snorkle. Also these 2 guys were the captain and first mate... hot and hot.



The King as part of the Canoe Parade. More dark-skinned Mormons. :)



I had never been to Hawai'i. I'd also never ridden in a limo. We called for a taxi to take us to the airport and a limo is what appeared. It's just a regular taxi so we didn't pay extra for the fancyness. It was kind of cheesy inside but whatever! :)



This too is on the road to either Lanikai or PCC. It also serves as an inadvertent self-portrait. :)



Sea Dragon at the aquarium. I think they're so freaking cool! They also have them here in Seattle.



I KNOW this was on the road to Lanikai. There is actually a mountain back there, but it is completely shrouded in fog.



Michelle took this shot while bobbing around in the ocean. The waves were rippling all over us. I think you can kind of see a boat in it.



I took this at the aquarium.



We saw this cute little lizard on the little path to Lanikai Beach.



There was a lookout point and this was a valley you could see from the look out. I'm not sure what the community is though.

You wanted pics? You got pics! (sorry HUGE post)

The pics are in no specicfic order...


This one was taken on the road to Lanikai Beach where we spent one afternoon. There was a scenic pull off. I have no idea what beach this is. In any event, it is the quintissential Hawai'i shot.



This is Diamond Head. The houses in the area are very expensive! But so beautiful.



Hibiscus flowers were prevalent. I really liked the yellow ones.



This is some little cove on the way to either PCC or Lanikai Beach. Actually, I took this one from the speeding Chrysler Seabring Convertible. I believe Michelle mentioned, but I'll reiterate... the Seabring Convertibles were EVERYWHERE! Apparently they were the official rental car of Hawai'i. :)



This is some island off Lanikai Beach. The water was so warm and blue but very choppy. The wind was very active. Michelle read later that Kailua beach which is right nearby is known for its windsurfing because of the tradewinds.



On the way to Lanikai I saw this paraglider off the mountain.



I believe this is Rabbit Island (although I could be wrong) :) Beautiful, just beautiful.



A secret little pathway into Lanikai Beach. There were houses all along the entire stretch of the beach so that in order to get in you had to park and go down the public access walkways. We had heard about Lanikai Beach from Citysearch. Unfortunately, what they don't tell you is that much of the actual beach has washed away so there is only a small strip of sand. It was so beautiful and secluded though. And the sand was so soft and totally unlike Waikiki Beach which was very rocky and caused cut feet.



Hee. Speaking of feet... I took this shot just to give a little perspective. That's my purple toenailed big toe and some other guy's foot looking down from the shark cage.



Shark viewed from the shark cage. These were all relatively harmless Galapagos Sharks. They still have teeth yo, but aren't likely to attack anytime soon. :) Apparently Captain Mike was patting one one day he wasn't paying attention and the teeth grazed his arm and it required 36 stitches. Michelle told me this but I missed the story because I was under water.



That's the boat we took out. There were 13 of us on board besides the 2 crew. The "hot water shower" the brochure boasted about... was a hose with a spray nozzle. I rinsed off at one of those external showers on the beach and changed in the grossest bathroom I've been in in years.



One morning I got up at about 5 and got dressed and slipped out before Michelle was up. I wanted to get a vague picture of the sunrise, not realizing that it really couldn't be seen from Waikiki. These are some sunrise surfers I caught at about 6:00 AM.



Conversely, here's sunset at Waikiki Beach.



Gorgeous view from our Lanai. Really there was enough space on the balcony for 2 chairs and that's about it, but who wants to sit in chairs all day? Although in the early morning when I was awake before Michelle, I'd sit out in them and read.



View from the Tiki Bar & Grill where we ate a fancy pants dinner one night and had drinks on our last day trying to kill time before heading to the airport.



Lanikai Beach again. See how the waves are right up to the rocky parts of the houses? That's how it is... there is almost no beach left. I think the section we put our towels on was maybe 8 feet to the ocean.



Hey that's me! :) I tried the 1 handed pic from inside the shark cage. Kinda cool no?



Finally, I don't know where this is but it was on our way to either the Polynesian Cultural Center or Lanikai Beach (same road to get to both). Another pic taken while zooming along in the car. :)

Feelin' hot hot hot!

I'm back online... for now. :) Michelle & I have been killing time until it is time to leave. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) this internet cafe is one of the few places that's airconditioned, so we're killing an hour here. We headed over to the Aquarium. It was nice and all, but I find it somewhat sad that Seattle has a better Aquarium than Hawai'i. It took us just about an hour to go through the whole thing. We then headed up to the Tiki Bar & Grill and had a drink (mmm... rum punch!) and some lunch. That killed another hour. Unfortunately, we don't leave until 9:00 tonight. Swimming is a nice idea, but since we've checked out of our hotel room, too hard to clean up afterward. AND my back is still burnt. Although I noticed where my chest got burnt 2 days ago, it is actually starting to tan a little bit! Who knew? (Tan being relative). Oh yeah, and the freckles... good Voltaire! the freckles.

Last day...

and I don't want to leave! There's still so much to do here! So much to see! I guess I'll have to save it and come back another time. Maybe. :) Maybe if tiki-idol helps me out in the love department like he's supposed to (he's probably thinking, Christ, I can only do so much...) I can have my honeymoon here. ;) We just checked out of the hotel. We will be spending the afternoon at the aquarium, since we didn't get to go snorkling. (I think I've been misspelling snorkle this whole time, but pop-up blocker is installed on these computers and so I can't do a spell check.) Then we go back to the hotel, get our luggage and hop our respective planes. In less than 24 hours I'll be back in Seattle... Landing at 8:30 in the morning! That's so early...

I am so completely freckled right now! Michelle took a picture of our arms for comparison purposes. I'm sure she'll post them and you can see exactly how much a white girl I really am. :) See y'all soon! :)

Poor little shoulders

Are dying. They are burnt! They got a little bit burnt on our way to the Polynesian Cultural Center 2 days ago. Today... burnt. Now before y'all lecture me about not wearing sunscreen and all that crap let me say this. I WAS wearing sunscreen. SPF 30 to be exact. SPF 30 Coppertone non sweat waterproof type. I know there are higher SPFs out there, but in reality once you go past 30 the ratio of benefit decreases significantly. So my shoulders are burnt to a crisp. I'm pretty impressed, actually, that I'm not burned much worse. Anyone who knows me personally knows what a white girl I am. I blame it on my Polish ancestry. Or maybe the Germans. Damn Germans! :)

Today we headed out to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. That didn't happen as the lot was full when we got there and they don't let any more people in, so we headed directly to Lanakai Beach. It was breathtaking. We took a ton of pictures. The water was warm. The sand was very fine and there weren't rocks! Yay! (Although at one of the public access points there were rocks and I bruised the crap out of one of my toes. The joint area is purple.) We spent I think 2+ hours just drifting and lounging around in the water. It was so warm and lovely. Honestly, as much as I loved going in the shark cage, this may have been my favorite thing I've done this trip. And it was free. :)

I think I've made a decision to move to Hawai'i now. ;) Halewia was beautiful and the total small town I always think I want to live in. I have a whole romantic notion about that... I'm not really serious, of course, jobs aren't plentiful and housing isn't cheap and if I were to move here, I'd either have to live in Honolulu or outside of Honolulu and do the commute thing and I hate commuting! But it is a nice dream. I have a notebook full of entries about what we've done and all that, that I'll use to post more info. I also will be posting pics once I get back. At least the digital camera pics, otherwise I have an Advantix camera with pics AND 3 waterproof cameras of pics that have to be developed. Damn, I'll be eating top ramen all month long after this! :)

Walk on the ocean

Yesterday was the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was cool. We had a nice Luau. We saw a good show. I'm sure I'll post more after I get home and post pics. Today... was Shark Tour! YAY!

It was sooo cool. I was in the cage with 1/2 sheet of plexi on 2 sides and cage on the bottom and cage on 2 sides. I have never been really good with snorkles but this time it was so easy. I just held on to the cage and put my face in the water. They were so close. Several times they bumped into the cage. And at least once scraped along the side of the cage so close I could touch it, but I didn't. I followed instructions. I saw one of those fish that attach to the sharks' bodies. I also saw tuna who were feeding on the chum the boat guys were throwing in... and for the record both of those guys serious YUM! I got to stay down for 2 sessions because there were only 10 people who wanted to do it and they have room in the cage for 4 people each time. I was in the 2nd group and Captain Mike said 2 of us could do it a 2nd time. Heck yeah! The only bad thing was that as I was getting out, I started to feel sea sick. I hadn't any other time... but for some reason by the end of the 2nd session I was feeling it a little bit. There were a couple of people who got legimitely sick. It is weird, I get motion sick on many things... cars if I try to read... buses the same thing... revolving rides at the fair... but I don't get sea sick. This afternoon I just napped much of it away. Swimming in the ocean (even just really treading with my feet) is hard work! We were supposed to go to Pearl Harbor, but I don't think that's happening as we're shopping and then dinner today and tomorrow is snorkling (maybe) and another beach. While in the cage there was the cutest tiniest fish ever floating right in front of my eyes. It was about as big as the tip of my little finger. It was striped and looked like a tetra. It just kept swimming around me!

(and blogger may rule right now because I'm doing this from an internet cafe and I ran out of time and it shut the window down, but when I logged back in and clicked on recover post, this entire thing was here! YAY! Blogger did something right!)

I'm here!

And it is beautiful! And hot! And Michelle & I are at an internet cafe. I have a bunch more to post, but when I have more time I'll be able to do that. Today we're heading to the Polynesian Cultural Center. I am looking forward to that a lot! We went swimming in the ocean yesterday. I kind of don't love swimming in the ocean. I forgot how much salt water stings the eyes and how gross it is in your mouth. :) But we played in the waves. The only problem was that the ground was very rocky and kind of slimy. Not at all like I expected. I scraped my knee and the bottom of my foot in 2 places. It was exhausting playing in the waves. You get so tired so fast. I flopped back on shore just tired. I also bought a Hawai'ian Tiki statue... for love. :) We'll test him out and see if he works. I've got high hopes. :D