Is there a Santa Claus?

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. "Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. "Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?


This letter, written in 1897 by Virginia O'Hanlon, and answered by Francis Pharcellus Church, editor of THE SUN, has become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial.

Here at home we are debating the same question. When my children were wee ones I told them Santa was pretend—I got them, though, the year the carrots we put out for the reindeer had disappeared come morning.

Now DD has her own wee one, he is almost two now, and she has decided that Santa ought to be a belief, much like the success philosophy we have been expounding. And so we wonder, how does one convey a belief in a thing when the thing is fiction?



So what is Santa? Is he a concept, a belief, a figment? Can we judge him by what he does for people? We wish strangers a Merry Christmas when we normally wouldn’t say anything to them at all. Perhaps Santa is a metaphor that gives us permission to be nice, to wear silly sweaters and to drink eggnog, to read The Night Before Christmas story over and over, and each time feel

the thrill of waiting for morning to see what Santa brought.

Maybe there is a Santa, a Father Christmas, a spirit that makes glad the hearts of children and adults. Maybe he doesn’t live at the North Pole, but he lives on, passed heart to heart. Without the spirit of Santa Claus we might give a present, as with birthdays, but not with the lavishness that Christmas brings. We have to fill all the stockings and then turn to the tree and dump our bag of gifts under it.

What was your favorite Christmas?

My step dad said that as a family with five boys they didn’t have much money for presents, but one year the fire department had painted bicycles and tricycles and restored toys and come Christmas their family found more presents under the tree than they had ever seen in their lives. That made a believer out of him.

A believer in what? In magic? Dreams? That wishing will make it so? That whatever we put our attention on will come to pass? What about the genie that is our own subconscious what works to bring to us what we focus on. The Secret? The Secret? What is the secret? The spirit of peace and good will to all?

“No Santa Claus!” writes Church. “Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

Day Dreams and Night Magic

Last Christmas we were entertaining turtles on Black Sands Beach in Hawaii. Well, we didn’t entertain them, we watched as they snoozed, lazy eyed and still on the incubating sand. About a foot and a half in diameter they were, ancient wonders. This year we are cavorting around Southern California—and I am sending you the lighted Palm tree we see on every trip driving to our house here past the wine country. Someone wrapped a real palm tree with incredible precision.


I just mailed a DVD of my book, It’s Hard to Stay on a Horse While You’re Unconscious. I offered a download, but ebay requires a hard copy. One copy. I decided to sell it on a file to save people the money of purchasing it, and, of course, if they like it they might want a hard copy. There is nothing like holding a book, smelling it, running one’s fingers over its cover. You can tell I am not a fan of Kindle, although if you want to carry around a 1,000 books that is a way to go.


One downloaded book down, 100,000 to go. Daughter number one tells me not to give it away for $1.00, but I figure if I sold 100,000 that would be a good salary. Of course preparing that one was something like preparing a garden for the first time. You might get a cantaloupe, but it would cost you about $150.00. But, think of it this way, that one DVD book might transport the reader into another realm, might give them courage to carry on, might make them believe that dreams do come true.


I am grateful for the one.


Did you read this quote from www.successbooksguru.com?


"Daydreams can come true. I daydreamed about dangle ball. Got one. I daydreamed about cookies. Got some. I daydreamed about watermelon. Got some. I daydream big rig loaded with frankfurters overturns in street in front of house, nobody hurt, but 20,000 weenies scatter across pavement, and I'm only dog for miles around, and same day Mom buys 20-gallon drum of mustard at Cosco. Hasn't happened yet, but Mom just bought some mustard, so truck will overturn soon."


Life is Good


by trixie koontz, dog


Edited by dean koontz 

Bound, Bound and Rebound

“Pink, Pink? What’s wrong with pink? I think you’ve got a pink kink in your think.

'Doesn’t matter what color. That’s a nope,


“Whether it’s pink, purple or heliotrope.

“Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down. When you’re down just look around,

“You’ve got a body, good legs and fine feet. Get your head in the right place and then you’re complete.

“As for the dancing, just slap your foot down and bound and rebound…”

From Bounding, a Pixar short film. (A little sheep—all fluffy and self-righteous, gets dragged out of his desert home, sheered and dumped back into the drenching rain, all naked and pink. Along comes a Jack-a-lope with sage advice. "Bound, bound and rebound.")


Back home—rebounding. Had a thought while traveling up the I -5 roadway on the way home from our Thanksgiving trip to Oregon. Imagine this: “We’re having split pea soup for dinner,” says Mom.

“Yea,” says the kids.

“That’s wonderful,” says the Papa.

You think?

Or would they say, “Pea soup? Yuck.”

Actually the pea soup was pretty good, especially when accompanied by a glass of wine and followed by a chocolate éclair.

Anderson’s Split Pea Soup. I have seen that advertised for the last 40 years. We stopped this time, happened to stop at the Anderson’s motel, and there it was—next door, the restaurant. Had to have pea soup. The power of advertising.

Back home. Time for DD and I to pour positive affirmations into our heads. Do you do that? Is it hard to stay positive sometimes?

Saw daughter number one and family in Oregon—that was good. Feeling sad now, a sister-in law passed away as we were driving home. It was a shock, she didn’t tell people she had cancer. I didn’t know her well. She was Korean and our language differences was a barrier—a shame. I wish I had known her better.

While in Oregon we  loaded up the rest of the house belongings, HD loaded up some machinery he wanted from his place of business, he dragged a U-haul trailer back to our house here, and now we have another full garage. While parked at the lab, someone took a hammer to the truck windshield and Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, we begged and HD waited until a nice company replaced our windshield.

Humm…what was it with that???

Right now the sun is shining. I’m happy to be back in California. “Bound, bound, bound and rebound.”

Out of Common into Extraordinary

In Isak Dinesen’s exquisite book, Out of Africa, she wrote this of the natives: “For of the Lord they knew from the great years of drought, from the lions on the plains at night, and the leopards near the houses when the children were alone there, and from the swarms of grasshoppers that would come on to the land, nobody knew where-from, and leave not a leaf of grass where they had passed. They knew Him, too, from the unbelievable hours of happiness when the swarm passed over the maize field and did not settle, or when in spring the rains would come early and plentiful, and make all the fields and plains flower and give rich crops.”



Last Sunday I experienced an old friend in a new way. He shared his explanation of “truth” of which there is no absolute, of time of which it is only a measurement, of us being eternal beings. (Even using the word eternal signifies time—we can’t avoid it.) He spoke of that level of clarity in which whatever you are doing appears to come from a higher power. He said that when he wrote his doctorial thesis it appeared to him that he just held a pen over the paper and it wrote itself.

I asked him if he was happy and he said “Yes.” He is in his 80’s, has one leg amputated, the other foot partially gone, has had cancer, a heart attack, diabetes, and is on dialysis three times every week. Last Sunday I met a happy man.

Imagineering Your Life

“I suck” “If I hired myself as a manager I would fire myself.”

I walked toward my treehouse and ranted. I had just accepted this challenge to write about the Imagineering life, and what do I know of it? Not much.

I thought about my life, and screamed to the powers that be to help me. I ranted and yelled to God that I trusted and expected things to work out.

And then I realized that is what the Imagineers at Disney do. Well maybe not exactly the ranting I did, maybe they don’t scream to God, but something like it. I know they accept an assignment without knowing how to do it. They say “Yes I can do that.” And then go to their study and pound their heads on their desks.

One can only pound their heads so long. Time to stop. Time to get to work. What is it they say? “The universe likes action?” Action tells the universe that we are serious. We can dream all we want, but if no action is taken nothing happens.

You probably know that the word Imagineer means to Imagine and to Engineer.

At Disneyland the Imagineers are the creative geniuses behind all the rides, the buildings, the displays, the interior design, the sets, they are the wizards behind the scenes who create magic.

A lot of us want that—to create magic, and we wonder how to go about it. Walt Disney’s motto was Dream, Dare, Do.

I know enough about entrepreneurs to say that typically those who succeed buck the system, instead of bowing to it. Entrepreneurs create new markets out of their vision or their imagination. Such is the stuff of Imagineering.

Do we bang our heads? Yes. Do we scream and yell? Yes. Do we get the job done? Yes.

I am writing a book. I don’t know how to do it. I begin, it sucks. I start over. I will keep on until it happens. An Imagineering life is not always wonderful or beautiful. Neither does it work easily. It is a process. As life is a process. To work as an Imagineer moves us forward. It lets us know we’re alive. It connects us to the divine. It is following the yellow brick road to the Emerald City.

I accepted this challenge to write on Daughter Darling's website Disneyland Enthuiast, even though I wasn't feeling that I was Imagineering my life very well.

http://disneylandenthusiast.blogspot.com

Good Dog, Good

Bear on grass. Ahhh, scratch back on grass, smell grass, sneeze. Sigh.  


“Popcorn. Soft pretzels. Hot dogs. Roasted chicken breast with mashed potatoes and gravy (in dream theaters.) Me, Trixie, who is dog (good dog, good) loves movies. Last week saw King Kong, saw The Thin Man, really liked The Big Sleep. Warning! Don’t go see Old Yeller. Ending sucks! Old Yeller written by angry hateful crazy cat! Or Satan!


“In Thin Man movies is smart dog named Asta. Like all dogs, Asta is funny. All dogs except Old Yeller—and Lassie, so busy saving stupid Timmy, she never had time to be funny. And did Timmy ever give her peanut butter? No. Mostly he just said, ‘Thanks girl,’ and ran straight off into burning barn or quicksand.”

From Life is Good by trixie koontz, dog, edited by dean koontz.

You know how everyone and their dog wants to write a book? Well, here’s one. Had to mention this book. Love Trixie. Pretty soon you talk like Trixie. Good dog, good.

Last blog I mentioned movies, now I’m talking about books, what is your favorite? I have to add Meryl Streep’s recent movies to my movie list. That woman, can you believe, Momma Mia, Doubt, Julia Julia (about Julia Childs), and It’s Complicated? Just when you think movies have lost their luster along comes this woman, the great Streep. She can play anything. And see Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Hereafter. It might make a believer our out of you…

Working on being positive. I suck sometimes.

“Howl a little. Let loose. Say, ‘I am here.’ Say ‘I am dog,’ or whatever you are. Don’t howl ‘I am dog,’ if you are not dog. You’ll look stupid.” Words of wisdom from Trixie:

Life as Art

                            This little Meerkat meditated so long he fell over.
                                      Has this ever happened to you?

We loved that little guy, (saw him at the San Diego Zoo) and so adopted him as our mascot for our new website entitled http://www.successbooksguru.com/

Now we come to the question of the day: Why are Americans so unhappy?

Our family watched the DVD documentary The Boys of Baraka, about troubled kids from the one of the most violent ghettos in Baltimore Maryland who are taken 10,000 miles to an experimental school in rural Kenya.

When asked what they thought of Africa one of the boys said, “They are black and poor like us only they are happy.”

What do did those boys in Africa know that we don’t?

Speaking of film—do watch Temple Grandin with Claire Danes, one of the best actresses of our time. The story is of Temple Grandin, an autistic young girl who grows up to get a PhD and revolutionize the cattle slaughtering business. She sees as the animals see, in pictures, and can therefore predict how they will behave and what will calm them. “Nature is cruel,” she said, “but we don’t have to be.” A marvel.

Oh, I’m on a film roll, those of you who know us know we like movies, but of late we have been disenchanted, and rarely go. Husband Dear and I did see one film I loved, Flipped by Rob Reiner about growing up, about crushes, about integrity. I loved it, especially the female, strong from first grade to teen aged, and I’m sure beyond.

Okay, one more: Secretariat, considered to be the grandest racehorse ever. He deserved a better screenplay. The film didn’t have the panache of the movie Seabiscuit, but then the book, Seabiscuit, was written by Laura Hillenbrand, who writes with such skill it makes your teeth ache. But listen to this, Secretariat, was the Triple Crown winner, the first in 25 years. The Triple Crown means winning the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont races all run within 5 weeks of each other. The Belmont is the final one, the longest of the three, and the most grueling. Secretariat won it by 31 lengths. No iffy nose, no iffy seconds, no photo finish, 31 lengths. No horse has matched his record. And his champion was a housewife in 1970’s taking on the “Good ole boys club.” I love it. We recognize grace when we see it. Penny Tweedy believed in her horse and gambled the farm to see it win the title. Thirty one lengths! The spectators were stunned. I wish I had seen that race.

Again those of you who know me know I was involved with the Science of the Mind Church when we lived in San Diego. The minister was Terry Cole Whittaker. We saw her in LA last Sunday, and boy that woman is a marvel and a joy. She is 20 some years older than when I attended her astounding church, as am I, only she’s cute. Talk about panache, that girl has it.

What if you believed you could do, be, or have anything you wanted?

How would you behave then?

What if you believed that the world was friendly, that life was ongoing, and that your job was to be happy and to minister to others?

Wouldn’t that be a kick?

Daughter Dear and I have decided to start a movement…let’s feed our minds with good stuff. Let’s read motivational books. Let’s neutralize the negatives we hear every day by feeding our minds with positive words, thoughts and actions, and believing, once again--I believe I fell off the wagon for a time--that God’s divine energy is alive and well and living in us.

Thus our new site, with motivational, inspirational books. http://www.successbooksguru.com/ It is up and running. I'm excited. Just looking at the titles makes me happy. We intend to add a motivational thought a day, you know, like when you mother let you dip a finger in the icing--that dip tasted so good. If you want the whole cake you will have to read the book. When the site gets some hits we will begin our thought for the day.

What did I learn from my Hawaiian experience? I’ve been asked that twice this week. It was a dichotomy really--paradise/irritant--a contradiction of events and feelings, and a catalyst. How does one describe a catalyst except to say it spurs to action. That experience spun us around, slung us off the island, and gave us new direction. It wasn’t so much a learning as it was an experience.

Aloha! (You know that means love, not goodbye.)

Victories

Two NEW rules for life:

1. NEVER BUY CHEAP DUCK TAPE.

(A friend in Oregon said “Don’t ever travel without a roll in your suitcase either.” In Mexico she and her husband lost a fender on their rental car and taped it back on with duck tape. No incident occurred, and the rental company didn’t complain.)

2. NEVER GO TO THE DMV WITHOUT EATING BREAKFAST.

Seven hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles--well that included running home for additional data--but after seven hours DD and I, with BD in tow, emerged VICTORIOUS with our California driver’s licenses in hand.

The pickup truck didn’t pass its smog test, and needed a new catalytic converter. That’s done. The car registration is done, the truck needs weighed and checked and in need of another member of this family to stand in line.

After we got our driver’s licenses, DD and I went to LA and bought two season tickets to Disneyland. (With a California license it costs about half.) Now we can pop into the park, spend a couple of hours, run around, let Baby Darling play, and leave with our brains still intact.

Since our trip to Disneyland last April, my other grandson who will be five this month, has been building rides. His Tower of Terror knock-off called The Tower of Loveliness (so as not to frighten his mother) is at last count 7 feet tall and made of K’NEX, a building toy, sort-of like Tinker toys, only made of plastic and so complex you know some creative engineer had fun delighting kids and driving adults nuts. Obviously a ladder is involved. We expect pictures.

At Disneyland Grandson number one saw the burnt-out building that is The Tower of Terror. We told him it was fake, but scary and none of us were going on it. That just fixed it in his mind of course. On TheTower of Terror ride, an elevator falls eight stories, goes up, falls again, over and over. If that isn’t enough, at the top of the building doors sling open and the ride catapults the entire row of seats outside the building hanging those eight stories over the park. It gives you time to scream, jerks you back inside and drops you those eight stories. Nope, not for a four year old.

I know of what I speak, I’ve been on that ride. A little girl about eight years old came off the ride excited like it was the best thing invented, and ran back to go on it again. I figured if she could do so could I.

Right!

Our Disneyland great balloon adventure came for Baby (Little Boy) Darling when we bought him a Minnie Balloon—it’s Minnie for him, not Mickey. You know how they have weights now to keep balloons from blowing away? Well, not twenty feet from the vender and the string came loose and Minnie floated way up over the rooftops and into the far blue of the sky. We watched it from afar, like a hot air balloon we often see hanging over the vineyards. The vender told us to go to “City Hall” and they would give us a voucher for another balloon. While waiting in line at “City Hall,” BD told his story to the little girl in front of us. If she took her attention from him, he just got in front of her and continued, “Doddo aberginix, wallooo, uh, uh, Minnie, Oh, Oh,” and pointed up.

The couple and the little girl weren’t too interested—you know how some people gush and are interactive, and love talking to children, and some don’t?

These didn’t.

BD, though, persevered like a stand-up comedian talking to a hostile house. He didn’t let the little girl’s lack of interest bother him, he just had to tell his story. Pretty soon he won her over, and she showed him her fancy pen.

Baby D walked out of the park VICTORIOUS carrying a new “Minnie,” and dragging the plastic Mickey weight behind him. When we got home he repeated his great balloon adventure story to Grandpa who gave him a standing ovation.



P.S. COMING SOON TO A WEBSITE NEAR YOU: Two brilliant questions from an equally brilliant reader, answered by three generations. http://advicefromfarfaraway.blogspot.com/

1. Why are pain, suffering, war and scandal, more popular subjects to talk about than love, charity, miracles, and the wonders of nature?


2. And to Baby Darling: Are you glad you came?

There's a Beach on This Side the Pacific too

“You’ll miss 100% of the shots that you never take.”

--Wayne Gretsky

You guys don’t know how much I appreciate you.

In looking back over my blogs, I notice I have to watch not only the date but the year—I’ve blogged that long. Wow, and many of you readers have stayed with me. I am in awe.

I’m created another blog! This one is island repeats. If interested you can find it at http://thefrogsong.blogspot.com/ entitled Notes From The Treehouse, a retrospective on the Big Island of Hawaii. Don’t concern yourself with reading again all those convoluted thoughts, anxieties, worries, and issues I had with the island, I’m just telling you what I am up to.

I wanted www.notesfromthetreehouse.com, even paid ten bucks for a domain name, but alas, it doesn’t work. The http://thefrogsong.blogspot.com/ does.

I figure the island information is worthy of some pay-per-click ads. Ads pop up on the page and the reader—for free—can click on an ad. The advertiser pays per click. Sound good? Let’s see how it works. The site places ads according to the content, so I am anxious to see what pops up. They will probably change with each post.

On the home front, I got broadband on my PC. Yea! It works great. I can type here, go online here. Before I had to use the laptop and my fingers stuttered all over the place. Of course now on this computer when I make mistakes I will have no one to blame but the nut behind the wheel. Guess I will still have to use the laptop in the tree house though unless I drag this computer up there…whoops have to drag a phone line up there too.

The sneezing, coughing, wheezing, sniffling isn’t over, but we took ourselves to the beach last week anyway—ended up in San Diego at our favorite pizza place, Fillipis, the original one with cheeses, dried fish, pastrami, salamis, olives, cookies, some hanging overhead, some in cases. You squeeze past this array of tantalizing foods, and then you sit at a red checkered table clothed table, and prepare yourself for an epicurean delight. The beach trip was for another business plan, and another website.

Don’t laugh.

This site is called, Advice From Far Far Away, http://www.advicefromfarfaraway.blogspot.com/
and it is an advice column.

Before arriving at the beach I bought a bottle of rum, removed the label—hey, if you are marooned on a tropical beach you had to be marooned with a case of rum, right? Or that bottle found in the sand would, most likely, be a rum bottle. Remember the lady at the Ponds Restaurant in Hawaii? She found an ancient brown Purex bottle on Tsunami beach. A note in a Purex bottle? Naugh.

I poured the rum into another bottle, removed the label, put a note in the bottle and threw it out to sea. When it rolled in we photographed it. You see we are--in fiction--still stranded on a remote island somewhere in the Pacific. You can write to us, ask us your heart wrenching questions on life, love, and whatever, put it in a bottle—called cyberspace—and we will throw it back to you.

We are not professional counselors. This site will be peer to peer answers only. Daughter Darling, however, does have a degree in Psychology, and one of her contributions at the Battered Woman’s shelter was peer counseling. I haven’t lived past the mid-century mark for nothing, besides think of all those seminars I took. The site will feature a three generation perspective, which includes Baby Darling, who, being new and closer to the source, still knows that life is supposed to be fun. His advice will often be “Have an iced Tea and a cookie, and get over it.”

We thought of naming our advice column, Ask Two Dorks and a Man Cub. (What do you expect for free, two PhD’s and a Nuclear Scientist?) We decided, though, to call ourselves Grandma Jo, Momma Lani, and Baby Elias.

Okay, guys, we need some questions to get started. Got any?

P.S. We photographed the bottle rolling in the waves on video. However, the camera is sick and will not download into the computer, so we are going with a still photo for now. When the camera is repaired we will attempt to load a video.





Baby D finding a bottle


P.S. Please give your attention to: BreastCancerWarrior.net  It's from a dear reader and all around wonderful person.



Noses, Memory and Temecula

I swear my nose grew during those 7 months in Hawaii, but I was telling the truth, honest.

It’s strange though about memory isn’t it? That experience is there vivid, yet far away already. Makes me wonder about fact verses fiction, and how memory is fluid sometimes.

About my nose, it seems bigger to me, everybody else would probably say, “But you have always had a big nose.” Maybe I didn’t notice its size before, or I lost some weight initially, and thus it seemed bigger. I think, though, I am noticing my age.

“I’ve learned that old age is not a defeat but a victory, not a punishment but a privilege.”

—age 79 (From a book, dear Barry the caretaker of the Hawaiian farm left behind)

That touched me for I feel I aged 20 years during our Hawaiian stint. DD says no, but she is my Darling Daughter and wants to make her mother feel good. (My body feels good though, and if I don’t look in the mirror I’m fine. I’m grateful.)

Meanwhile in the grand state of California, It is storming over Big Rock Candy Mountain.

The mountain lies beyond the swath of green that is the grapefruit orchard. The mountain looks like a humungous Baby Ruth bar. We named it.

It was 104 degrees this morning, and then the clouds rolled in and thunder and lightning struck, really struck, and made a small brush fire behind the mountain, then sprinkles came—lasted long enough for DD to bring in the furniture she was painting--and then it was over, the fire was out, all returned to normal. We wondered if it ever rained here, although I don’t believe those little spits of water could, in all conscience, be called rain.

About Temecula, at first I thought this town was Eat, Shop, Eat Shop, Eat Shop, then it dawned on me. This is a planned community, and they placed a shopping center every mile or so. I guess so every little residential area has close access to food and shopping. It has no central old downtown area as do so many older cities. It has an old town, though, that looks like an old western town—I believe that was planned as well, or at least updated. I did feel at home when we went into a Laundromat and a sign read, “Do not wash horse blankets in the machines.”

No more Laundromats for us now though, we can wash our clothing at home. Hallelujah. And between DD and me we save about $50.00 a week.

We are recovering from colds—A strange one, “I feel like I am coming down with something. No, I feel fine. It went away. I’m out of sorts. The world’s in the pits. Rats, my head aches. Now my nose is running. I have a cold, I’m getting over it, ‘Cough, cough,’ Well, not yet.” A week coming, a week here, let’s hope not another week to leave.

I have decided since success is our goal, and wise people have said wise things, that I am going to include something motivational in each blog post. Here is my first:

“You are not your brain. Your brains are like your arms or your fingers, your heart or your lungs. They do their best work when you stay out of their way. Just try listening to your heartbeat for a couple of minutes, or pay close attention to your breathing. Chances are, you’ll get so worried about the whole process, you’ll wind up hyperventilating.”


“Or try this when you’re typing—figure out which finger presses the next key to spell out a word. You’ll bring the whole typing process to an immediate standstill.


“So there you are: you try to help out, and you wind up hyperventilated and totally unproductive. The thing about creativity is this: don’t think about it. And that’s perfect, because that leaves the productive parts of your brain free to work.”

—Brush Gordon, Project Director, Creative Development, Disney Imagineer.

More from the Treehouse

“And the day came when the risk to remain in a tight bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” –Andis Nin

(From a wonderful reader.)

To all my readers:


Thank you for sticking with me and for not telling me of all the mistakes I have made. When I read that I wrote Tennessee Ernie Williams, I went, “What? It’s Tennessee Ernie Ford.” And I have repeated myself on more than one occasion, and that’s not counting the typos. %&*xoyqqqqqqhee Ah well, I must throw myself on the mercies of kind folks.

Second, remember how this blog began as a horse oriented site? Wish on A white Horse I called it. I wanted to promote my book, It’s Hard to Stay On A Horse While you’re Unconscious—long title yes. That experience happened so long ago it seems like a different lifetime. This blog continued and metamorphosed into THE MOVE—that is our move to Hawaii. Now we are on the mainland, and I have gone into horse grieve again.

Ever since we ended up, serendipitously, with 3 acres of property I have been secretly dreaming of getting my previous horse, Velvet, back. I don’t know if her new owner would part with her though, probably for enough $$$$$. I casually mentioned--this opened a can of worms--to Daughter Darling that our landlord told me to check with the neighbor to see if we would have a horse on the property, DD went into a total tilt.

Here she gave away her horses to move to Hawaii, as did I. We decided that it was best not to have horses for a while as we are renting this property, and don’t know what will happen eventually. On top of that I thought perhaps I should hang up the old riding boots. So what was I doing lusting after a horse? Besides maybe Velvet is happier where she is…

It was a moment of weakness and heart yearnings.

And then I read Sheve’ Stockton’s new website and blog http://honeyrockdawn.com/ about her horse Ranger and felt more twangs. There he was, in photo, standing at the Post Office, her Pony Express. She told how she can close her eyes, and he will bring her home. Such a sweet girl, and her photos of Charlie, her coyote, are beyond description. She has raised him from a pup, talks about him, posts a daily photo, and tells of her life in Wyoming on http://www.dailycoyote.com/ Her book, The Daily Coyote, carried me, like closed eyes on Ranger, to her site.

And then, oh, there’s more, while driving down our road I saw a man riding his horse through a luscious green vineyard trailed by three Golden Retrievers. What a dream.

To top it off, I saw the preview to the movie Secretariat, and almost broke out into tears.

Secretariat was, as you might remember, one of the greats in Thoroughbred horse racing history, a Triple Crown winner in 1973. To win the Triple Crown a horse must win The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness and The Belmont races. These three grueling races are all with 5 weeks of each other, so the horse must be a tremendous athlete and fast to boot. Since 1919 only 11 horses have won. I didn’t know this, but Secretariat’s champion was a housewife who believed in him from the beginning, and was a force to be reckoned with. I love it.

‘Life is a trip and an education. Don’t be afraid of the stop signs, dangerous curves, and bumps in the road.”

--Tom Morris,

Vice President, Executive Producer, Creative Development and an Imagineer at the Disney Company

P.S. Speaking of bumps, how about a little positive energy beamed to our property in Hawaii, that someone loves it and buys it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Yipes!

Last night I stepped into the garage and encountered something I would never have seen in Hawaii.

There against the wall stretched as though sun bathing on the beach lie a snake, black as fresh asphalt, with a brilliant yellow broken passing line painted on his back. He had no rattles, but his tail was was doing a rattle dance. That freaked me.

I yelled to DD and HD to come see what we had in our garage. DD beat feet out of there, while my mighty hunter husband gently swept the snake out the garage door, across the driveway and into the bushes. I picked up two juvenile mice we had also swept out of their nest, and deposited them into the bushes. Don’t know if I was feeding the snake or what, but all were released into the wild, and into their destiny.

Meanwhile back on the Big island of Hawaii—I assume it is still there even though we aren’t. I spoke with a neighbor and she answered the phone, so I guess the island is still holding her up.

My daughters and I have that same feeling about Venice Italy, we wonder if it exists when we aren’t there to see it. It seems strange when places are a memory, and already Hawaii sits in the back of my mind.

I do have a message for The Hot Dog Guy:

Hey hot Dog Guy!

Nobody makes hot dogs like you do.

Hot dog Guy was an import was Alaska as are his raindeer hot dogs. At first I wouldn’t eat one. It was a moral issue, like eating Rudolf’s cousin or something. Then HDG gave me a sample of the meat, and I decided—you know how we can justify things—that since these reindeer were farm raised, and since no one went into the wilds to shoot them, it was okay to eat one. If you find a better wiener, tell me.
Driving from our farm in the country to the little town of Pahoa we would stop by the fork in the road where The Hot Dog guy set up the cleanest, most well stocked—sauerkraut, mustard, ketchup, onions, jalapenos—hot dog cart in the world. For $5.00 you could get a hot dog (beef) a soda or juice or water, and a bag of chips. The reindeer dog was, I don’t know, $6 I think.

When he wasn't there we missed him even if we didn't want a hot dog. It was a meeting place, a chat room in the wilds. On rainy days he set up a canopy over the cart. He said when he came here he had a terrible hot dog at the beach, and decided he could do better. And so he did. Don't you love it when people have an idea and do it?

Hawaii from memory:

At the Merrie Monarch Festival parking lot, a big burly middle aged Hawaiian, biceps the size of whiskey kegs, delicately held a towel forming a cabana between the car door and his body while his diminutive lady of about the same age changed into her Hawaiian dress.

One must purchase a Merrie Monarch ticket about a year in advance to attend the hula competition. We attended the art faire though. The art was expensive and exquisite, the atmosphere rather non-festive. We were surprised; it was a festival after all. The day was dreary so perhaps that added to the lack-luster of it. I mentioned to Mrs. Chiropractor that I expected a festival to be festive, she said, “The Hawaiians take their hula very seriously.”

I was naïve’ then. As I mentioned in the last blog the hula is more than entertainment. It is spiritual.

There were times when DD and I reined in our outrageousness, for fear of offending. One did learn who was approachable and who wasn’t. I guess that is what children do, and adults, too, for that matter. We notice the reception we are getting and adjust our behavior accordingly. If one lives under restrictive conditions, however, they learn to be hesitant and self-conscious. We didn’t want that for ourselves and our sweet baby. Hawaiians do love their keikis (children) though. It is great to see.

We met a couple we met at the Laundromat, he Hawaiian, she Caucasian, who had newborn twin babies, two of four children. He was a large man, robust, who held a tiny baby in the crook of each arm. They just rocked, quiet as lambs, on his massive stomach while his wife did the laundry. She told us her birth story and how they had to fly to Honolulu because the babies were so small. Then she added, “We never wish there were less of them, just more of us.

One day as DD and I were parked across from Cash and Carry, DD was feeding BD, so I felt I couldn't run away immediately, we saw a scene that made us cringe.  A pickup truck holding a wire cage enclosing about five dogs also held a dead pig strapped above the dog’s heads.

One night coming home on our jungle road, we encountered a dark truck in the middle of the road.  I waited, not wanting to approach a dark vehicle. Oh no, squealing, a little sound. Soon a young man came to the truck carrying a squealing football sized piglet over his head. “You aren’t going to kill our pigs are you?” I asked.

“I’m going to take it home and raise it. “

“How did you find it?” I asked.

“The dogs did.”

Rats.

One might wonder about the call to Hawaii. Everyone knows of Hawaii, has been there, or wants to. I’ve heard that if you ask people where they would want to spend their vacation, most people say “Hawaii.” It is a dream, a romance, a vision out of the blue sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Hawaii conger’s up visions of a quiet life, of sipping Mai Tai’s on the beach, of beachcombing, of surfing and snorkeling. One has to agree that the water there is the best. A place where you can walk into the warm water, swim, and walk out without reaching for a towel and feel perfectly comfortable. It is multidimentional, like life.

Notes from The Tree House

The Tree House,

or My Ivory Tower

Remember the old I Love Lucy TV show where Tennessee Ernie Williams plays her country cousin and Lucy gives him a fold-up roll-away bed, only he doesn’t know to open it, so he squeezes himself into it like a wiener in a bun?

That’s the way HD and I have awakened the last four nights.

Until our furniture shipment arrives, we are sleeping (sleeping?) on a plastic blow-up bed. It’s a queen size, as tall as a box springs and mattress together (about 2 feet high), so when it leaks air—guess that is the destiny of air beds—we are dumped into an ocean of floppy plastic and getting out is like a walrus floundering in a bathtub.

I’m in my tree house. It’s not built in a tree, but close enough. It’s on posts about 10 feet off the ground. The house is small, 4 feet wide by 8 feet long, with a deck of the same dimensions, but perfect. With the two doors open—into the house and out onto the desk—the breeze wafts through keeping the little room a perfect temperature. My ivory tower. I love it. I bought a little potting table for a desk. I have paint for the interior, our island colors, lime green, aqua, yellow-orange, not that I relish a painting job again, I finally got the paint out from under my fingernails, but fresh paint will make it pretty and mine.

 I’m waiting for painting motivation to strike.

I thought about calling this blog Ode to a Refrigerator, for when we got here we had none. DD said, “I’m not living without a refrigerator,” and thus pressed us to buy one the first day we got here. I never told you that our Hawaiian refrigerator stayed pristine because we never plugged it in. We used the freezing compartment only and bought ice. Priorites, you know, lights, computers, an ability to watch DVD’s on the television at night, and oh yes, electricity for the water pump. We figure we will pay for the refrigerator with the money we are saving by not buying ice. Ice, ode to ice, now with an ice maker, what luxury, more ice than we can use. Wish we could send some to Hawaii, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t make the voyage. DD said she never knew how much she would appreciate ice.

Remember the lady at The Ponds Restaurant who said, living as we were, we would appreciate everything?

Here in the upscale town of Temecula California, we are like country bumpkins. “Golly gee, look at all the stuff.” The shelves are full, the stores are well-stocked, abundance is scattered about over the hillsides, the stores, and the houses, like glitter on a Christmas tree. We live in the wine country so there are vineyards alongside on the road to our place, and the wineries look like castles.

CALIFORNIA BY WAY OF HAWAII. WHAT A TRIP.

I do hope you guys stick with me, for although we are not in Hawaii, the adventure of life continues for us as it does for you. Send me a note if you wish for I’m sure your escapades put mine to shame.

A fascinating aside is that three days after we were here HD’s boss wanted him to be in San Diego. And that drive is easier than from our place on the Big Island to Hilo. On top of it, because we are here, HD will oversee the San Diego production on an instrument they were working on. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A RETROSPECTIVE:

A night at Houkalinis Steak House in Kee’au Hawaii: the wife on one of the singers volunteered to dance the hula for the patrons. She was a mature woman, not the curvaceous young things you see at Luaus. Here dance was sign language for the singer, I couldn’t understand a word of the song or a stich of the movements, yet her dance was a spiritual experience.

There is a movement of the feet and a graceful swing of the hips we don’t normally associate with the frantic gyrations of the Polynesian hula. This woman was so present, so concentrated, so graceful, it was mesmerizing. After the exquisite hula dance, a couple of little girls played with the dance and you could see how the women can become such masters of the hula when they begin as a 3 year old.

At Luaus you see the sexy side of the dance, beautiful bodies, scantily clothed, grass skirts. It is the dance of many Polynesian islands. The Hula of Hawaii has a power beyond the martial arts. No wonder the controllers outlawed it. The martial art of Karate opposes energy battling it head on; Jujitsu redirects energy by turning it back on itself. Hula goes a step further. It teaches that when the life force flows uninterrupted from the feet through the hips and joy out the finger tips, the dancer is in a perfect state of grace with all life. The dancer is immune to negative energy—a target for nothing, it is a place where no fighting exists.

Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and other native shamans practiced this sort of energy. They would ride their ponies back and forth before their enemies knowing that nothing could hit him. They were on “Sacred ground” a place that attracts only the joy of being.

The Big Island gave us so much I am grateful to her for the experience. She certainly taught us to feel “energies.” DD used to laugh at any references to new age- type “frequencies.” Now she says, “I believe.”

For some living on the Big Island is a permanent dwelling place and they enjoy it and are light hearted people. For others, there seems to be some resign to their lives. DD has stated emphatically that we do not want to get to that place of resign.

If you stay too long you will become accustomed to the area, the energies, the situation, the scenery, the people, and you will take pride in living the rugged life. When I told my Chiropractor we were leaving he said he wondered why we came, being smart people. Hum. He is working up to leaving as well, Think about it, he said, “The most sold item at the Cash and Carry across the street is alcohol.”

Then there is the blank stare or expression coming from the natives. I know cultures are difference and we need to respect that, and this does not apply to all native Hawaiians, but many do not want us there. One does not need to live under prejudices if they can choose another way of life. And there was so much security on the island you might wonder if they were keeping you safe or keeping you controlled. If you go to the bank, at the Ready Teller after 6 pm there is a security guard. I asked him once if there was a problem. He said someone took money from a customer six years ago. Six years ago?!!! And there is security at the grocery stores, the movie theater, even the Laundromat after a certain hour.

In reading about Hawaiian heritage, and how oppressed they were, controlled, enslaved, as were the Native Americans, you can see that they are attempting to climb out of that oppression, but still have a control mentality. And anger at the haole. (The foreigner.) An oppressed culture has a hard time feeling free, even after the oppression has lifted. They can resent the missionaries, and still be Catholic or Christian forgetting that they had a splendid spirituality before the foreign controllers arrived.

You have probably heard the word haole, a derogatory term used for outsiders. It means “without breath.” The Native Hawaiians observed that the missionaries did not prepare themselves for prayer with the necessary breath work, and thus dubbed them haoles. It has come to mean foreigners. I never heard the term used, and I never worried about it, and no Hawaiian would know how much “breath work” this family done over the years.

DD and I both feared we would die before we got off the island. First I feared for Husband Dear when he had his heart situation. He got that regulated, and then I was afraid I would die. Finally DD confessed that she was having those thoughts about herself. We were like Ray Bradbury who at fourteen feared he would die before the movie Fantasia was released in the theaters.

Pila of Hawaii in his book the Secrets & Mysteries of Hawaii states that it is common for people to feel “Called” to the Big Island. Yes, I say, and it is common for people to beat feet out of there.

I believe there is a power point on the island much like one in Sedona Arizona. Sometimes the Grandmothers will kick you off. You need to go there, you need to get when you came for, and then you need to leave.

A friend and reader sympathized with our “misfortunes” in leaving Hawaii. I said it was only drama and Pele having her last word. We believe Hawaii called us, and we believe she kicked us off. Before we left, though, she had to state emphatically that SHE was the boss. And then she laughed at us and put us into first class and sent us on our way.

P. S. Budweiser is at it again. If you like the Budweiser Clydesdale horses, and want to see something really cute check out this minute commercial.


Snowfight.mpg (2494KB)

Escape From Paradise

And their kinfolk said, “Better move away from there, California is the place you ought to be, so they loaded up their truck and moved to Temeculie. (Temecula that is, no swimming pool and no movie stars that I know of.)


You know about centrifugal force, and if you let go of the bucket it sails into space? Whap, a tree, Bang, a boulder, Ping, Pong, Bonk. It rolls to a stop.

Hawaii: July 21, 4 am. Get up, shower, leave at 5 am, whoops 5:30, you know me. I say Good Bye to the house, it looks good, the kitchen is great, new cabinets, new paint, new flooring, candles on the cupboard, new plates decorating the backsplash, artificial orchids. You know I like real, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I grouted the lanai flooring two days ago—to the wire you know. The living room has a desk, more candles, a basket, a decorative pillow. The bedroom box springs—courtesy of the previous owner—covered with a turquoise sheet and a Hawaiian throw decorates the bed room, oh yes, bamboo on the ceiling—a new towel in the bathroom. Cute house. I like it. What a change from the house we moved into seven months ago with its cracked ceiling, gray kitchen floor, plywood lanai floor, white throughout, but not that clean, cracks, mildew, water damage in the cupboards. We did good. Bye house.

We load two dogs, two cats, nine suitcases, Baby Darling, Daughter Darling, Husband Darling, and me into a van.

We’re off to Kona on the other side of the island where Bear, DD’s Newfoundland dog, can fly United, the same plane as us, a direct flight to LA.

WHAP! About 40 miles out of Hilo we encounter a road-block. A tanker rolled over, and it will take about a half a day to clean up the mess. Okay, turn back to Hilo, take Saddle Road. Bear needs to be at United Cargo by 9 am. Everyone is silent for awhile while we worry.

We arrive on time. From the car I see the fork-lift driver shaking his head. More talk, more head shaking.

BAM! Bear’s kennel has been modified, they will not take it. (HD made a stretch limo out of it by bolting two kennels together. It met Continental Airline and Aloha’s specifications, when we traveled to Hawaii initially. United, however, refused to be responsible for a modified carrier.)

Okay, we go to Pet Co, where—miracle—they have the largest kennel available.

Back to Cargo. It is 1 ½ hours before the flight, time enough we think, No, they will not load him. He must go that night at 8 o’clock. THUD!

We go to ticketing where a nice man changes all our tickets to the 8 pm flight, we go back and rescue Bear from confinement and heat.

Be back at 2 pm. Okay, we’re back, deposit Bear, and go into town with the other animals in tow. En route we get a phone call. Our flight has been canceled. We’re scheduled to leave in the morning at 10:00 am. PING, PONG, BONK! (No hotel in Hawaii will take animals. I envision a hot night in the car.)

Back to the airport; wait until 6 pm as no person occupies the ticketing booth until then. There we encounter other passengers who got the same phone call.

ROLL, ROLL! GEORGOUS GRASS AHEAD! An exquisite woman by the name of Karen, changes all our tickets to another plane with a stop-over in San Francisco. We leave at 8:55 pm, arrive around 9 am in the morning, HAPPY DAY! She calls to have Bear shuttled over to that plane, gets all four animals aboard, checks our carry-on’s, but doesn’t charge us, bumps us up to first class, and we are off.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We’re in first class, food for the family, wine for me, we relax. What is that sound we hear? From beneath us, from the bowels of the airplane comes a recognizable yap. It is Peaches, our dog, our poodle, “What dog? I don’t hear any dog.” We sail out over the grand Pacific Ocean to the tune of, “Yap, Yap, Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap...”

Aloha,

Joyce

P.S. More about Hawaii later if you care to read it. I haven’t mentioned Hawaiian Hula…

Leaving the Island

Zoom Zoom finally got off my desk.

We packed it from beneath him.

Zoom Zoom is our cat, and he would, under duress, leave the desk to use the litter box, or to eat if we didn’t put the food next to him. To him that big outdoors was like a trip through an alligator infested swamp. Those wild pigs you know. Although we do not see pigs on our property, they live a stones toss away and he might sense them.

We like seeing the pigs. They appear often on the road at dusk or at night. Big ones, little ones, and ones in-between. We have healthy-looking pigs here on Hawaii. Maybe that shows the value of fruit in one’s diet, for they live next to Papaya orchards, and Papayas drop to the ground, and pigs eat Papayas. These long legged stealth pigs can run as fast as a dog, but normally they just saunter off the road. To our dismay, hunters use dogs to chase them down. I hate that. And then a dog will get on a trail and the hunter loses his dog. And to see a lost dog is heartbreaking. The only thing you can do is call the phone number on the frequently posted flyers.


We wondered when we first arrived on the Island why people were so afraid of dogs, now we know. There are many macho dogs such as pit bulls, and Dobermans for watch dogs, and then the hunting dogs. There are little ones too that people carry around like babies, and if I take Peaches with me anywhere people go gaa gaa.

I’m thinking about the animals since we are going to ship ours again, and we spent 3 hours at the Vet’s office yesterday getting medical certification for the trip back to the mainland. It is easy going back, not like coming here. Don’t know why it took 3 hours—Island time I guess. Hope, DD’s cat, is cool. She loves being outside. Talk about stealth, she runs up the trees, onto the roof, jumps off, catches mice, comes in for a snack and a love and is off again. Bear has endeared himself to the neighbors who had never known a Newfoundland dog before. BD is wonderful with him although a Bear’s tail wag can send him sprawling.

New territory is coming up for everybody--Southern California. We are leaving Wednesday, that is July 21.

The shipping container is loaded—the other day while stuffing it I thought, It seems I just did this the other day. That was 7 and 1/2 months ago. We visited and bought the property last July, that was one year ago. We moved December 1, 2009. Our disconnection to the island came the day we visited Disneyland and DD got it that she wanted a career off the island, and we realized that there was no future here for her. None for Baby Darling either. The crowning blow came with Husband Darling’s heart situation, and they said the Big Island was not for him. The island called us and now the island is pushing us off.

For some islanders living here is a badge of honor, an endurance test, and they have passed it and if you are hearty enough you can do it too. DD says, “Why?”

I have spoken before how this island “calls” people, as it did us. This has been called “The dirty laundry island” for whatever issues you have will present themselves. It’s a blessing really, for if we are carrying baggage we need to let go of it---oh, oh, Joyce, think of all that stuff you stuffed in that shipping container. But it’s good stuff.

Did I tell you the truck driver got the shipping container onto our property? He jockeyed a lot making our corner, skidded up the slope, grumbled, but he did it, and I greased his palm with silver so he would come back. Yea! We packed our belongings right here in our front yard, not as we unloaded it 2 miles down the road and pickup trucked it to the house those 7 ½ months ago. No wonder we were fried when we came here.

My friendly carpenter and his son loaded the heavy furniture onto the container including two washers and two dryers we never used. We packed the boxes--many had never been unpacked since we came here, so that made it easier. That same carpenter is going to be a care-taker for the property after we leave. Please, if you care to do it, hold a high thought for us, that this property sells quickly, easily, and for its asking price. Thank you. Thank you.

And now as though we have been in a bucket and the Great Spirit has twirled us around and around, we are still spinning, but I feel the rope slipping through her fingers…

What's It All About?

Why or why--oh I know you never do this, but tell me--why do we have clothing in the closet that is never worn?  It’s like those little do-dads that nobody knows their use, we don’t even know what they are, so we throw them into the junk drawer—they might be useful someday…

The great thing about moving is you clear out drawers, closets, etc.

We got the house together, sort-of, and our Realtors, a husband and wife team, came last Monday. Shannon took pictures, and we listed the house for sale.

Two days later I’m packing.

Oh the irony of it all.

On her last trip Darling Daughter found a house for us to rent in Southern California. It is located on three acres, a better transition for us than being plunked down in the heart of Los Angeles.

Here we live down a long 2 ½ mile unpaved lumpy bumpy road, yet there exists about a city block from our house an orchid farm. I called the owner and we visited his exquisite spread, acres of green with a manicured park-like setting, palms, all planted by him, a rock wall, an iron gate, spreading green populated by 3 dogs, 3 horses, sheep somewhere I didn’t see, and pigs who play with the dogs and sleep clean and sleek under the palms. They were wild pigs Joe told us, but born on the farm, so it was home to them. “Isn’t that what a farm is about,” said Joe, “having animals?” Joe, the owner, sells orchids wholesale which was the reason I called.

When he moved there the land was raw, he bulldozed it and planted everything. Now it is an oasis, a house, a tree house maybe 100 feet in the air, a packing building, and rows of shade-cloth covered growing structures filled with flowers.

Considering all the work that goes into growing orchids I’m surprised they aren’t more expensive. Joe was breaking open bottles, square on the diameter, about one foot long, filled--like a ship in a bottle--with little green squiggly sprouts growing in a jell substrate that in 2 years will become blossoming orchids. In Taiwan planters didn’t throw seeds in the bottle and shake them up, but painstakingly with a long tweezers placed the seeds in three rows. Once sprouted they fill the bottle like bean sprouts. Joe smashed the bottom end of the bottle with a hammer, poured the babies into a bucket of water, and two young women carefully placed a single sprout into a one inch size peat pot.

Perhaps we will become an orchid importer for Southern California. From the Big Island with love. The climate here is perfect for orchids, and they are healthier than orchids raised in a green-house. The name of the farm? Alohilani. As best as I can determine it means “Bright Sky." I better ask the owner to make sure.

As I was preparing to leave Joe said, “You eat pork don’t you?” He opened his refrigerator took out an entire pork shoulder and thrust it into my arms.

A parting gift. What a guy.

On the same Monday as the house listing, we drove to Kona to place Husband Dear on a jet plane back to Oregon to work on an optic instrument. Rather than drive back that night DD, BD and I stayed over.

Morning dawned magnificent, clear, sun glistening, aqua-marine water of picture post card quality, palms swaying. We swam, had breakfast, but by afternoon the Vog rolled in and everything turned white, or more accurately gray, the sky and water barely distinguishable from each other. Apparently that is typical of the Kona Coast these days.

Normally I don’t relish a COSCO store visit, but that day seeing well-stocked shelves gave me a taste of the mainland. We bought file boxes to pack, and white utility towels for packing, and were on our way.

This island with its variation in landscape, topography and climate never ceases to amaze. Instead of driving the coastal route as we normally do, we drove through the middle of the island, from Kona to Hilo over Saddle Road that runs between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two volcanoes. It is like driving through Texas, the hills look shaved, barren, a few cattle on dry grass, a few goats, oh, and wild turkeys, didn’t know they existed here.

There are tales about Saddle Road, of an area 51 sort of situation, of trucks secretly going up the mountain, of a military base, legends of UFO sightings, of men in unmarked cars and plain clothing, but with the tell-tale cropped haircut of the military, who show up behind your car should you venture off the road. There are even tales of ghost warriors who appear, at night usually, and scare the bee-jeeses out of unsuspecting souls. We, however, cruised over the high elevation, down the dips, over one lane bridges, cresting the summit, and getting 100 miles per gallon down the other side, with no legends, warriors, or military appearing.

In parting, consider these:


“Your expanded self is driving the bus. You can’t make a mistake, mess anything up, or blow it. You just trust your Expanded Self and flow with what you feel inspired or motivated to do, moment to moment.”
—Robert Scheinfeld

“The High Self is an utterly trustworthy spirit self who is there to guide and help us when we ask—but —Pila of Hawaii

“There are two way to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
—Albert Einstein.

Believe again

“I don’t have the miracles I did in the early days of my practice,” my Chiropractor tells me, “people stopped believing in them.”

In 1938 Clyde Bristol wrote The Magic of Believing, and Phyllis Diller for one, and Angelia Lansbury for another applied the principles of believing, and look where they went. Jim Carrey placed a 5 million dollar check into his Dad’s coffin as an affirmation of how much he would make as an actor. The next movie, The Mask, paid him $5 million in salary.

We need to start believing again. Our subconscious will love us for it.

On the Hawaiian front, we are forging ahead on house renovation. When I told June, a friend in Eugene Oregon, how Daughter Darling and I carried a kitchen counter top, a U shape that fit the width of the kitchen, and complete with sink in place, over the refrigerator, over the table, jockeyed it beside a shelving unit, and screwed it out the door, she laughed and almost fell off her chair. “Write about it,” she said. Yes, but who but wonderful June would want to read it?

I didn’t think we could get that unit out the door, but when DD sets her mind to doing something she does it. Telling her I would place the house for sale when the kitchen was complete provided motivation that sent that kid in into the hyper-drive of a super hero.

After the new cabinets were in place, and the sink was removed, we carried the counter top back in. That counter has a melamine surface, very water proof, using it eliminates all that plywood, hard backer, you know, it worked and looks great with ceramic tile on the surface and the sink back in.

When Husband Dear was in the hospital I painted the one wall behind the cabinets red. I told him, “You are going to be shocked.“ He said, “I figured.“

It looks great.

I grumbled a lot at more house renovations, but you know how it is before you put your house up for sale you fix it better than when you live in it. More Chiropractor visits ensued, but there I got a nudge to believe in miracles again. Oh yes, without a kitchen sink I washed dishes in a dishpan in the bathtub. (Telling you that is just to garner sympathy, but I bet at one time or another all you guys have done something similar. My log designer in Oregon told me he lived in a Teepee for a time when he was building a house. And later when the college of his daughter’s choice required an essay. What did she write about? You got it. The teepee experience.)

DD says, “In California we will have abundant electricity, and water, and a dishwasher, and does that refrigerator have an ice maker?”

“We had that in Oregon,” I said.

“Yes, she said, “but now we appreciate it.”

Remember the lady at The Pond’s Restaurant who told us, “Living as you are will make you appreciate everything?”

P.S. You ought to see the fish at The Pond, the water is so clear they appear to be hanging in space, no it is clearer than that, like on glass, no, its like nothing is holding them up. The ducks too, baby ducks following momma on nothing.

Mixed Blessings

”You know about the Big Island don’t you?” the doctor asked me.

“In what regard?” I said.

“The Big Island doesn’t have the facilities your husband might need in the future. He would have to go to Honolulu. The Big Island isn’t for you.”

Looks like we have another reason for leaving this island—although not a reason we want.

Husband Dear was fine when Daughter Darling, Baby Darling and I got home from Southern California, and here I was blogging, chatting about the food—Point Loma Sea Food crab sandwich is the best in the world, and has been for 30 years. I was chatting about our wonderful trip, about my food poisoning, yuck, (not the crab), and three days later Husband Dear suffered shortness of breath with fluid build-up in his lungs. Yuck, yuck, yuck. A skipped medication and then re-taking it sent him into a crisis with Congestive Heart Failure. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Three days in the hospital, and a couple of days of rest and he was up and rearing to go. Where? I don’t know, but he was ready.

Actually cruising the island was it. On Thursday he circumnavigated the island. I was reluctant to have him drive, but he wanted to, was perky, clear headed and alert. We took DD to the airport in Kona. A conglomeration of miles gave her a free ticket, and leaving from Kona instead of Hilo, it only took 4 ½ hours to get to LA. (Another house-hunting trip.) Beats the stop in Honolulu and the stop in San Francisco and the entire day it took for us on our last trip. On top of it, the airline gave DD and BD the entire row of 3 seats. BD napped and played with Kiekis behind him, high-fived the passengers, and had a ball. It was a day meant for miracles.

So there we were half-way around the island, about 40 miles from Pu’u Hononua O’Honaunau, The City of Refuge. We had been planning to visit it as HD missed DD’s and my earlier trip. The serenity was not as gelatin-silent as my first visit, but miracles rolled off the lava like the mist that blows off a cresting wave.

First the weather gave us a window of non-rain. It had rained on the drive, even in Kona where they get dribbles of inches of rain, while we get feet of water. So we ran between the raindrops—my family agrees that that would be a good title for my Hawaiian book. What do you think of Running between the Raindrops? Anyway, when the sprinkles came again we left.

Second, a Native Hawaiian stood under a palm tree carving a Tiki god and talking to a small assemblage of people. He said when he was a child the elder would sit the Kiekis down and have them watch the sunset. “What do you see?” he would ask.

The children were afraid to answer, afraid to get it wrong, but when pressed they would shrug and say, “The setting sun.”

What you ought to see is that “There is life beyond the horizon.”

To the children the island was their entire world; they didn’t know or understand how life could exist beyond the water. I took it to mean there is more for us as well. There is life beyond the horizon. Hey, maybe that’s a title. Which do you like better?


Third: an epiphany, remember the excited Tiki god who was there to tell us that when our blocks are cleared the zest for life returns?

I believe we came here to heal emotionally and to begin to live again, not to buy our little property and nestle in and live out our life. No no no, there is life beyond the horizon. Meet you in LA for lunch.


                     --A life lesson from Baby Darling: “If you hear music stop and dance.”

A Fishing Expedition

I miss everyone I know, and if someone I don’t know is reading this, I miss you too.

Why? As though living 3,000 miles away from my friends and daughter isn’t enough, Daughter Darling, Baby Darling and I took a trip to the mainland and I didn’t visit a single friend. (It was a fact-finding mission.)

Maybe we made a new friend though—Baby Darling is a master at attracting people, you know how it is with puppies and babies… At Chevys Restaurant in Glendale California we met Debbie, a young woman, efflorescent as champagne, and a photographer. Her companion was a Documentary maker—his documentary, “Press One for English,” has to do with immigration. While Debbie goo-gooed over BD, we struck up conversation. We asked her how she liked living there and told her what we were up to. She gave us her email address and we were off.

Back at the plane change in San Francisco BD high-fived the passengers around us. He high-fived the man in front of us who played finger puppets over the back of the seat, he high-fived his wife, as well as the man beside us who showed him pictures of his dog he had shipped from Hawaii to SF. The couple behind us figuring we were having so much fun joined the fray and were high-fived along with the group. As we were coming in for a landing at the City of Angels airport, the sun was gold on the horizon, and BD was squealing, pointing at the wonder that was happening outside our window. Someone commented that they had never seen anyone so excited over a sunset.

We have to get this child off a remote island and into the world.

Shall I tell you about the man in San Diego now or later? Now? Okay.

From our eighth floor Hotel window overlooking a grassy hillside I could see an orange dome. It looked like a beach ball set in the tall grass, but I surmised it to be a small tent.

The following morning BD and I watched as a young man, dressed in clean light colored clothing, stood beside the tent, it was a contemplative stance, and while there he slung bubbles into the wind almost like someone bowing to the sun. He then gathered up a small plastic bag, a skate board, walked down the hill, threw his bag into a garbage can, jumped on his skate board and took off into the world.

You might wonder about our restlessness and our search, and you might understand that too. You have your own life and search for fulfillment and understanding. It is a human condition. The ancients called it pathos, a yearning for home. Ulysses traveled around the known world to find his. The ancient kahunas of Hawaii knew about energy and that certain sites would heal the physical or emotional body, thus when they felt called, they moved. Yes, I have nomadic tendencies. I do believe, however, that our human search is to find the divine within us.

The Edge of Eternity

It was impossible to worry there.

It was silent, reverent. There were people, but no chattering, no frivolity. It was rather like the time two friends and I traveled to Germany to visit the silent guru Mother Meera. The silence was so thick you could swim through it.

Daughter Darling, Baby Boy Darling and I were visiting Pu’uhonua o Honaunau, “The City of Refuge.”

There were maybe 50 people there, yet we hardly noticed each other. People moved quietly around the huts noticing the tiki’s who guarded this sacred place, and people stopped to look out to sea. Occasionally one would turn around to honor the mountain behind us. The sea roared its continual sounding of life. Brilliant yellow tangs (fishes) dotted the tidal zone and an occasional sea turtle waved a flipper giving us a high-five.

We had read of this place is called “The Crossroads of the Universe.” If you are able to travel physically to the Edge of Eternity, it would be there at the City of Refuge. It is located 20 miles or so south of Kailua-Kona. Some believe this is an energy vortex for those who have not been able to get out of their own “soup.” Supposedly there are two distinct entities there who are guardians of this sacred spot. There are tall spirits, and little ones likened to menehunes. We saw no spirits; neither did we see the “excited” tiki that according to Pila of Hawaii if he offends you you are beyond repair. He is a symbol that once one’s “housecleaning “is over, the zest for life returns. We were wondering if he was censored by someone beyond repair.

Baby Darling played in the sand, and later waded in the crystalline waters of the sand-lined bay. We were there for a few hours, just there, being at-one-with the area, feeling peaceful, getting out of our own skin. The temperature was perfect. The blustery wind we had experienced not 30 miles away at a gas station was non-existent. The sky was overcast. We stood barefooted on Pele’s pahoehoe (smooth lava) for it is said that standing there will cause things you need to resolve to bubble to the surface.

As we stood looking out to sea the couple next to us pointed. “Dolphins.” A pod of dolphins swam off shore; occasionally one would curve its beautiful body in that gentle arc of dolphins and show his blue-silver hide. We watched as they continued their journey down the shore-line. And then before they drifted from our sight one gave us an aerial display, leaping from the water in a joyful acrobatic flip. “Goodbye, goodbye,” said the dolphin, “Good bye, good bye. You can be free too. You can be innocent and care-free as us.”

The City of Refuge still contains a massive stone wall built in 1550 that separates the royal grounds from the pu’uhonua, the sanctuary. Fallen warriors or individuals who had broken some taboo and were sentenced to death could, if they manage to make it to this place, be forgiven and return home to their families. It was a place of a second chance. No blood was to be shed within its confines.

We planned to stay until sunset for we heard that is the time of greatest healing, but as we sat there, we suddenly felt complete—it was time to go. So we left as the glow of Ra lighted the overcast sky and the ball of the sun remained hidden in clouds.

We drove the 20 or so miles to Kona, and as we got out to go to dinner, the ball of the sun was there hanging orange over the palms, and people stopped alongside the road. Some sat on the little rock wall alongside the road watching the setting sun and taking pictures. We watched until it was down, and commented to each other that this was a “happening” place. Because of our location on the south side of the island, we never see a sunset. The area felt enlivened. Music wafted on the breeze, and we sat overlooking the endlessly pounding sea while we dined at Forest Gumps Restaurant.

Perhaps if we had moved to the Kona side of the island we would want to stay on the island, but we are glad we didn’t for we believe our destiny lies someplace else.

On the Big Island you are on special ground. You are at standing at a doorway in your reality where even the Earth itself liquefies and nothing is as it may seem. Says, Pila of Hawaii, “That is the reason I feel it is paramount for individuals to come here and experience the energy in person at least one time.”

Many people find their direction just by coming to the Big Island.

No wonder it “calls” people.