School - Hawaiian and Wine, but not Hawaiian Wine.

Life is getting busier but that's OK. My sister J says that if you need help with getting something done ask someone who is busy because busy people know how to get stuff done.

Courtesy of my employer I'm enrolled in the WSET Level 2 Intermediate Certificate in Wines and Spirits. I'm pretty excited about it. Classes start tomorrow. A few cool things about it. #1 - work is paying for it, #2 - the classes occur during business hours so I get paid to go and #3 - it gives me more wine knowledge and opens the door up to being able to take more classes about wine. Think of it, one day I'll have an MW (master of wine) at the end of my name -- not, but the classes are still fantastic and a great opportunity and quite possibly it'll get me out of my current position at work. Not that I don't like my job, because I do, and I like my bosses a lot. They treat me well. It's just that I have more inside of me than "really-freaking-great admin". It would be nice not to be an admin.

Also, if you remember my last blog, my Kumu suggested na haumana of his class take Hawaiian language lessons. I've enrolled in the Ahapunaleo Niuolahiki language courses. I'll start with level 1 and see where it takes me. I think I'll do OK. I have always found it easy to remember words and phrases, a lot easier than remembering dance moves, that's for sure.

I'll be blogging about both. I'm excited about the prospect of writing my first blog in Hawaiian. OOH, better yet, my first blog about wine in Hawaiian - just don't make me drink Hawaiian wine, icky.

Busy Andrea.

Teachers don’t correct you unless they think there is value in it, at least that’s what I’m choosing to believe in this case.

I have referred to it before. I knew it would happen again. It happened last week. Hula just got a little bit harder. At class last week, Kumu spent most of the class going over fundamentals. Were we sinking into `aiha`a low enough? Were we placing our feet flat on the ground for hela? Did our knees pop out just the right amount, in the right direction and at the right time when we did `uwehe? Were our hips moving correctly as we practiced our `ami? And lastly, the `oniu. The move I have not mastered. I knew it wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t know it needed that much work. Kumu corrected me. (He not only corrected me, he came up behind me, put his hands on my hips and moved them to the beat of the drum in the hopes that I would catch on and be able to do it myself. I’m not pleased that I don’t do a good ‘oniu, but am confident that I will soon. I’ve been practicing and practicing.) `Oniu is such a great move. When I become the master of the `oniu my hula dancing will totally benefit.
Another thing Kumu did was talk to us about learning the Hawaiian language. He said that there is a growing wave of halaus in Hawai`i where the haumana speak Hawaiian. Kumu is going to be incorporating more and more Hawaiian into the class in instruction and in general conversation. I can see his point on this one. We recite Hawaiian words, sing songs in Hawaiian. We know words here and there, but to put it all together, to know the meaning of the phrases, and not just the meaning of certain words will definitely make us better dancers. I know I can use all the help I can get. (Speaking of help . . . .There’s a woman from the Thursday class named N. One night after practice for the show she came up to me and told me that she could tell by looking at my face how much I love hula and how hard I’m trying but there were a few simple things I could do, a few things I should be mindful of that would improve my dancing. I took her advice. After the show at the Palace of Fine Arts she came up to me and told me what I great job I did. I told her thank you and it was because it was her advice that helped me. She graciously said that it wasn’t her advice. She just handed me some tools, it was up to me to use them. Sound familiar?)
So, now that classes have once again, officially gotten a little bit harder, a little bit more involved. Our kuleana has gotten stronger. (Kuleana is the principle that one has the responsibility, the right, the obligation and the privilege to do something or take care of something. In hula, it is my kuleana to dance to the best of my ability, always try harder, go to class every week, practice, learn and respect what I’m taught.)
I wonder who will decide that this particular building block in our hula education is the straw that broke the camel’s back? I don’t want anyone to leave. I love my hula brothers and sisters. As hula gets harder and harder and more is expected of us it is going to get harder and harder so see people leave. I know it will happen. I’m just not looking forward to it. The longer we dance together the more we become one in our dancing; sort of like putting a drops of water into a glass. The droplets disappear and come together as something bigger.

You Belong in the Zoo . . . . .and the Zoo Belongs to You

Yesterday the Littles Miss and Mister and I walked to the zoo. While there we engaged in one of our favorite activities, watching the squirrels rummage through the strollers parked next to the petting zoo and then watching the owners of the strollers freak out and act surprised. There are signs telling one to hide their food. There are squirrels everywhere. How could one not know that their stroller could be invaded? We've seen squirrels eat chips, kettlecorn, suck on sippie cup spouts; I've even seen a squirrel tear apart a tampon.
Best part of going to the zoo.

Booger-head Boyfriend.

Yesterday I told Little Miss the story of my first boyfriend --

I was about 4 years old. I went to Sunday School at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Long Beach. We went every Sunday, rain or shine until I was in the 3rd grade. Then we started going to Bethany (every sunday, rain or shine). Anyhow, when I was 4 my boyfriend was named Rocky and he was in my Sunday School class. Our teacher was named Peggy and she had big ankles and her slip was usually slipping down an inch or two below the length of her dress. Rocky had a little bit of a speech impediment and called her Piggy.

One day during Circle Time we were all standing in a circle (hence the name) and holding hands and singing "Jesus loves the little Children. All the Children of the World. Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his site. Jesus loves the little Children of the World" You know the song. Well, maybe you don't but anyways, right in the beginning of the second verse "Jesus died for all the Children . . . .", Rocky wiped his nose on my arm. I kept trying to position my arm so that he would wipe his nose on his arm but he wouldn't budge. On my arm his boogers went. That was the end of him.

I don't remember seeing him at church or sunday school very much after that. I think I avoided him. Other people's boogers are super gross.

What do Frank Zappa, Jane Goodall, Vanna White and I have in common?

I know, you think you know the answer. The Vanna White thing tipped you off. The thing that Frank Zappa, Jane Goodall, Vanna White and I have in common is that we all like(d) to crochet! FAIL! You're only half right, which also makes you half wrong. Vanna and I do share a love for crochet, but guess again my friends.  We all make good Pant Hoots? Wrong! Give up? Frank Zappa, Jane Goodall, Vanna White and I have performed on the stage at the Palace of Fine Arts. Cool, eh? OK, so I haven't actually performed yet, but I will, so there. On Saturday October 24 at 8pm and Sunday October 25 at 1pm and 6pm I will be able say that I've danced on the same stage that Tito Puente played on. That's so freaking cool! I'm very excited. My hubby and daughter, my inlaws, my friend P and a friend of his, my friend KQ and a friend of hers, and my co-worker and her sister are coming. Very cool. I can't wait to see you in the audience.

There is a bit of sadness connected to it, though.

There are a few people I really wanted to come, but they are not. I could just chalk it up to some of my friends being flaky, maybe some of them don't want to spend the $25 per ticket, maybe for some of them dance just isn't their thing, but I have to tell you, this bothers me.

I'm not alone, however. I was talking to a few of my Hula Sisters about this. One of my hula sisters said that a friend she had known since grade school isn't coming. I do as well. Another hula sister has some friends who know she dances, and they think "good for her" but aren't really interested. I have friends like that, too. We decided that our flaky friends weren't bad people, they just don't realize how much this means to us and we just need to suck it up and get over it already.

We have become so invested in this show with more practices than our families have patience for, we're spending money on costumes, making our own leis. We walk around with headphones on doing mini hula as we walk down the hallways or down the street. We hula at red lights strapped into our seats. We are constantly practicing, thinking about the show, figuring out how we're going to do our hair and makeup. Trying to remember where we are in the line-up. Our lives have been on hold and we forget that with as much as hula means to us, it doesn't mean that much to our friends who aren't a part of it. Well friends, we are inviting you to be a part of it. All you got to do is pay $25 and sit relatively still for 90 minutes, and you're done. An opportunity like this doesn't come often and we're excited about it, we want you to be a part of it.

Done lamenting.

Who would win in a fight? Buffy and the Scoobies or Sylar?

Well, of course we all would want Buffy to win but I don't think it would happen unless we were dealing with mid-series Scoobies. Willow would have to have more power than just wearing overalls and hacking into computers and she couldn't be all "I can't use magic because it makes me kooky" although she would need the skill of skinning, like when she skinned that guy who killed her girlfriend Tara. I don't know where the Werewolf boyfriend would come in. I think that Sylar would steal his ability/curse thinking that would be a cool power and it would turn out that Werewolf-Sylar would be a bad combo. Cordelia wouln't be of any help. Spike would have to be, at the very least, chaotic good. Xander would be good, expecially if the vengance demon was his girlfriend, but not after they broke up. Miles would have to have is magic store and he'd have to be there and not tucked away somewhere in England. Of course we'd need the help of Faith, too. With all of them working together, they might be able to harm Sylar and make him go away, but I don't think they'd win the war, only the battle. Eventually his werewolf abilities would be what brings him down. The next full moon he'd turn in to a werewolf and the powers he stole from Ted would kick in and he'd blow himself up.

Hubby and I like to get series of shows on netfix and watch those instead of regular TV. The first series we watched was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I wasn't too in to it, but I promised Hubby I'd do one season. I dug it so much we watched all 7 seasons over one summer.
Right now we're watching Heroes. We are about 3 episodes into season 2. I'm enjoying it, but not as much as I enjoyed Buffy.
I had a Heroes dream last night.
I went back and forth between being the main character in the dream and being an observer of things happening. I was on a coach with a lot of people. In my dream I knew who they were, but I don't think it's any body I know in real life. We were going south on the 101. We had just passed the 380 connector to the 280. Out to our left we saw a bunch of walkers from the SGK breast cancer 3-day walk.  I cheered out the window for them. I've done a few walks in my day so I knew they liked being 'woo-hood' at. There were a lot of Warming Hut Hotties walking.

Then all of the sudden I was being chased on foot. Well, sometimes I was being chased and sometimes I was watching the chase. The person who took my place, the person who was being chased when I was an observer looked like Julia Roberts. She wasn't Julia Roberts, she just looked like her, except her hair wasn't as pretty. At one point, the Julia Roberts doppelganger got caught by the guy chasing her/me.
He threw her to the ground and then showed her a little dirt clod in the shape of a scarab.

On the belly of the scarab was an intricate carving of grape vines and in the grape vines was the symbol from Heroes cut into the block of vines kind of like a crop circle. The man asked if she/I recognized the symbol. She/I said yes. He walked away. Dream over.

mmmmm . . . . Pork.

I love me a good BLT. There's one I really love, in particular, but I  hardly ever get because it's $8 and probably really bad for me. In fact, I only get it when I'm super-PMSing or I'm having a bad week and I need a treat. This is never-ever an every day item. It's called a B.L.A.S.T. which stands for Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Swiss Cheese and Tomato. I like it on toasted light rye bread. The yummy sounding crunch, the way my teeth cut through the sandwich and I feel the creamy avodado, the crunchy lettuce, the juicy tomato and the little bits of grease that squeeze out of the many lawers of warm bacon. mmmmmmm.

Today on FB my friend VB posted a picture of all the McDonalds in the USA. I checked out the website the graphic came from. It was pretty interesting, interesting enough to hold my attention when I should have been working. I came across this. The Purest BLT in the World. They guy created the purest BLT in the world created a flow chart illustrating The Purest BLT in the World came to be. Check it out. The guy has a blog onehungrychef.blogspot.com. I took a look at it. Enough bacon on his blog to keep me interested, I'd say.

Just rambling today.

Tomorrow's the Big Day! One more day and I'm old.

Do you share your birthday with anyone?
I do, and I have to say I am in good company.

Bonnie Parker, you American Outlaw, you. She'd be 99 tomorrow if she were alive.

The first Dumbledore would be cutting the cake if he weren't dead.

The Lovely Julie Andrews shares a birthday with me.

Many other people share the same big day as me. From baseball we have Rod Carew and Mark McGuire.
From TV we have Tom Bosley and Christopher Titus. I once stood behind Tom Bosley at WFM. He was buying some roma tomatoes and a loaf of crusty bread.

Oh, also, let's celebrate the right to self determination by recognizing the national independence days of Tuvalu, Nigeria and the Republic of Cypress.

I betcha you didn't know that according to wikipedia, October 1 is World Vegetarian Day. A very happy day to you, vegetarians.


Now, believe it or not there are a few people that I actually know that share a bday with me. I don't know how old they are.

There's Ms. HM. I used to work with her at a bakery called Mary's that no longer exists. HM was, I think, about 16. She lived in the east bay and would take BART in every day. She was a really nice gal. I think she's still living in the east bay. 13 years later, she's got a few kids and from her FB profile looks really happy. Mary's is now a pizza place that is super yummy called Pizzetta 211. Mary's was a great bakery with the best coffee. I lived across the street from it when it was owned by a woman named Mary. She sold it to a woman named Natasha and she and her boyfriend Corey ran it. After that a woman named Karen bought it and eventually closed it. A sad era for that neighborhood, but luckily it looks like the folks who turned the space into pizzetta 211 put the light back into it that that space deserves. Good thing because before it was the pizza place it was a failed bakery, then before that it was Mary's - the Karen years, then it was Mary's the Natasha year, then Mary's the Mary era, then it was a barber shop, but it started as a church that worshipped light.

There's Ms. KG. KG is my hula sister. She has long beautiful hair. When all her gray grows in she'll have the kind of gray hair that all women envy. She's also a very beautiful hula dancer.


Finally there's Ms. SM. SM lives on an island far far away with her baby and her soon-to-be hubby. I don't know why but when we first met each other there was some bad bad vibes going on and passed back and forth between us. We let it fester and our half-hearted attempts to fix it were never successful. I always felt bad and wrong about it, even when it was happening. I found her blog one day and read it from start to finish (OK, I skimmed over some, but it's a really really long blog. she's been doing it a long time.) Reading it I started seeing what kind of person she was / is, and what a beautiful person she was / is on the inside. If I had the chance to do it over I wouldn't have let the negative atmosphere of my workplace get the better of me and I would have been nicer. She probably would have responded in kind.

Hope all of you have a great day tomorrow!

Barry and Me - a dream

Last night I had a dream that I was waiting for an elevator.
When the doors opened The First Lady, her two kids and a body guard were inside.
President Obama got on the elevator. I asked if I could get on too. The President said I could. I pushed the button for the 57th floor. The President and his family were going to the 61st. We exchanged pleasantries and then I asked him if I could take a picture of the two of us together with my blackberry. He said no because the flash would make the walls look weird and the secret service would freak out and have to kill me. I shrugged and said OK. We got to my floor and I got off.

September 29, 2008

Happy Birthday Emily Lloyd. Today is her 39th birthday. She is 2 days older than me. I liked the movie she was in called Wish You Were Here. I know she's been in a few things since 1987 but I can't think of what. The only thing that comes to mind is that during the filming of some movie she confused Rabies with Attention Deficit Disorder and was released from her contract.

Still trying to beat this stupid cold or whatever it is. Hubby and I have taken to calling the Little Mister "Patient Zero". He was the first to come down with this, now he's feeling fit as a fiddle. Little Miss has yet to get this icky cold. I hope she doesn't.To her credit, however, she is pretty easy to take care of when she's sick. Just hand her some juice and the remote and she'll hang out on the couch all day watching iCarly on on-demand.

I was excited to see that today in 480BC there was an event called "Battle of the Salamis". Not as cool as it sounds, however. I has nothing to do with cured meat products.

I got my first birthday present for turning OLD this year. It came from my mom. I got a gift card for Macys. She used to send me a check, then I had to tell her that if she didn't want me to buy groceries or pay the electric bill with her birthday present she had to get me a gift card for a specific store. Now how do I tell her I usually save up my gift cards and buy birthday and christmas presents with them. I do need a new coat, though. Maybe I'll buy a coat.

Until tomorrow.

September 28, 2009 - 3 days until I'm old.

I totally missed out on yesterday. On Saturday afternoon I started feeling scratchy. By Saturday night I was coughing, sneezing and had a big case of the "hot-colds", you know, where one extra layer makes you too freaking hot and one less layer makes you super freaking cold. That continued all day. Shame because it was such a beautiful weekend. While I was either sleeping in the bedroom or watching TV on the couch in a daze, hubby and the kiddies were in Pacifica at a sand sculpture contest, plus I missed hula at yerba buena gardens. Yesterday was a lost day. No big things to report on the 4th day before my birthday.
To celebrate 3 days until my birthday I plan on doing pretty much the same as what I did yesterday; sleep, watch TV and with I weren't a sickie.

September 26, 1970 - the cool side of the day

I think on September 26, 1970 no one had any creative juices flowing. Wikipedia, The Wall Street Journal, This Day in Canada, and random searches of stuff didn't hold anything of interest to me. Sure, it is Brian Ferry's birthday, but who, outside of those of us who grew up in the 80's really cares, except for Brian Ferry's mom, of course.

Flash forward 39 years later, 5 days until my birthday.

Hubby has a bad cold so last night I slept on the couch so that he could have all the blankets, or move over to the cool side of the bed if he got too hot. Also, who wants to sleep next to a sickie? I woke up to the sound of Little Miss and Little Mister digging through fridge looking for left over chinese food from last night. They came into the living room with potstickers in their fists and wonton soup in a coffee cup.

Yay, breakfast served.

September 25, 2009 - The best 6-days before my birthday celebration ever.

I woke up a bit late today. I don't know why. I went to bed about 9:30pm. I certainly had enough sleep. Little Miss woke up about 6am. I heard her tinker around in the kitchen. I thought she was feeding her cat or making herself some cinnamon toast. She loves cinnamon toast. She loves to make cinnamon toast without supervision because her secret ingredient is 'more sugar than thought humanly possible'. When I stumbled out of bed she came up to me, said Good Morning and then told me that coffee was ready. My Little Miss made coffee for Hubby and Me, plus she made her own lunch. It was so sweet of her. I have the best daughter ever.

then

Today my very good friend Prakash met me for lunch.
We met in 1992. He was the first friend I made who was outside mine and my roommates' circle of friends. From 1992 to 1996 we had a class together every single semester, first at City College then at SFSU. We became really great friends. We still are really great friends.
I hadn't seen him in a while so it was such a nice surprise when he called me and told me he was going to meet me for lunch today.
Today has been pretty great so far and it was a great way to celebrate 6 days before my birthday.

I can't wait to see what tonight holds. I hope it includes a big bowl of pho, a really great episode of "are you smarter than a 5th grader" and a few baskets of laundry to fold. that would be a nice relaxing night.

Don't be so smug Bono, my Mom can kick your ass, and you'll like it.

Last night I had a dream that my mom was friends with Bono. In my dream I still lived at our old house in Long Beach - all of us did, me, my 3 sisters but they weren't in the dream, they all just still lived at home, and my parents. One day, the day after Christmas, I walked into the living room only to find my mom yelling at Bono and Bono smiling. She called him 'John' with the same loving tone that Ms. Cunningham called Fonzie 'Arthur' because in my dream-life Bono's real name is John. She was yelling at him to get his feet off the coffee table and to take his jacket off and make himself at home already, what did he need, an invitation? Why did he think he was so special?.

I went into my room and called my friend EAW to tell her that Bono was over our house and if she wanted to meet him she should come over, but she had to be casual and say she was over for another reason. Come over she did, in her pajamas, and without her wig on (huh?). When she got to my house Bono was next door chopping wood with the disabled adults who lived next door to us, Matt and Carl. My dad, the disabled adults' dad and Roy from across the street were sitting in lawn chairs in front of the house. We walked over to say hi to my dad, but really to introduce EAW to Bono. Then I noticed that KH from Camp Wintaka and high school was there except although she looked like KH, she was actually my hula sister KK.
Bono was too busy chopping wood and doing chores that only regular people do so my friends never met him but they did see him and in fact believe me that Bono was at least spending his Boxing Day doing chores on Fairbrook street and getting scolded by my mom, and loving it.

September 24, 2009, "Oh baby, we don't need a piece of paper to prove our Latvian love."

One week until my birthday. Seven Days. 39 years ago today my mom was 35 weeks pregnant with me, her 4th baby. I think she was just about done with this whole "being pregnant" thing. Wow, 35 weeks preggers with the 4th kid, I'd be done, too.

What was happing in 1970 on this day? According to Wikipedia nobody important was born and nobody important died. I'm sure they are wrong, but there  you go.

There is at least one cool thing, however.
Today is the 100th birthday of the guy that created the neon lamp. If this guy weren't born, we wouldn't have neon. Well, we probably would but it wouldn't have been this guy's claim to fame.

Oh, and one thing I found interesting. In the Latvian days of yore, today was the only day of the year men proposed marriage to women. I wonder if women could propose to men the other 364 days (365 in leap year). 
I wasted some time and decided to look up some Latvian wedding traditions.
---Groomsmen "kidnap" the bride, and the groom must complete a simple task to "ransom" her back
---Writing sins on rocks, then tossing the rocks into a body of water, will allow a person to atone for their sins
The most interesting one I found was this -- To honor true love, the Latvin Couple, on their wedding day, puts flowers on the Grave of Maija. The story goes like this
“The Rose of Turaida.”

In 1601, after a battle near Turaida castle, a castle clerk found a surviving baby girl in the arms of her dead mother. (don't worry; it gets much worse.)
Maija – as the baby girl was named – was raised by the clerk and his wife as their own child.
Maija grew into the loveliest maiden imaginable, inspiring the community to dub her “the Rose of Turaida.” In spite of her great beauty and potential for many loves, there was but one man in Maija’s heart: Viktor, a young gardener living in the nearby castle of Sigulda, who returned Maija’s love wholeheartedly.
A certain Polish nobleman (by birth, not breeding) named Adam Jakubowski, disregarding Maija’s and Viktor’s love for one another, decided that he was a better match for the young beauty. Apparently, within Jakubowski’s insanely narcissistic world, coercion, cruelty and deception were acceptable elements of courtship. One August afternoon, convincing Maija that she would be rendezvousing with her beloved Viktor, Jakubowski lured her into the cool shadows of nearby Gutmanis Cave where he then shared with her his evil intentions to forcibly take her for his wife, presumably right then and there.
The clever Maija (apparently lacking all self preservation instincts) quickly convinced Jakubowski that the silk scarf in her pocket was magical, rendering its wearer immune to injury. If Jakubowski agreed to let her go, she said, the scarf would be his. As proof of the scarf’s magic, Maija offered her own precious neck. Wrapping the scarf around her throat, the young girl valiantly told Jakubowski to strike her with his sword, which (the apparently not too bright) Jakubowski did. Within an instant, in the isolation of the cold dark cave, Maija lost her life while maintaining her honor.
Unlike many legends, papers found in the archives of Sigulda castle seem to corroborate this story (with some varying details), as well as to confirm the eventual fate of Jakubowski (which involved his neck, a noose and, I’m guessing, an angry mob).
From that day forward newly married couples have left flowers on the grave of Maija: The Rose of Turaida.

On that note, 7 days until my birthday. Until tomorrow . . . . .