Lisa

The Boy has a girlfriend and her name is Lisa.

Lisa is 1 year old but she's older than The Boy. She has red hair and blue eyes. Her dad's name is Stoodoo. Her favorite color is white. She doesn't have any pets.

I don't know where the idea of Lisa came from, but it seems to make him happy.

My Least Favorite Hula

Everyone hula dancer has her own "go-to" dance. Y'know, the one that if asked to dance hula they would say OK I'll dance "(insert favorite hula dance here)." And, y'know, I'm guessing everyone has a hula they really don't like to dance.

Last night towards the end of class Kumu pulled out a  makua lua hoʻohiluhilu kula  (my attempt at translating 'golden oldie'), Papalina Lahilahi. Then we danced some we learned in the last few years like Waikaloa, plus we danced some that we learned more recently like Pua 'Ahihi and Pua Lililehua.

I started thinking about all the dances I've learned during my time with my halau. Some of them I really really love. Some of them  . . . .  I was going to say 'some of them I don't like so much' but stopped myself. Some of them I need to get to know a bit better.

It would be wrong to say I don't like some of the dances. What is more appropriate is to say I don't know them well enough, I haven't practiced them enough. The reason I think I don't like some of the dances is because I don't know them. I don't have them pa'a. If I knew them, I'd like them.

I can't miss any weeks when we're learning a new hula. I need the first night when Kumu hands out the paper with the mele, goes through the lyrics and explains the kaona. I need each week we learn a new verse or two. If I miss it, even when I learn it later, every time we dance it I think "I missed the week we learned this" and it trips me up every single time. (Example - "i ka hunehune i ke kai" I missed the first week we started learning this dance. I can do it now, but I still think "i missed that week." every single time that line comes up.)

Those are the hulas I think I don't like, but not because the hulas are unlikeable. I don't like to dance them because I don't know them.

Then there are some dances that have particular steps that I just can't seem to get. I am in class, learning every single verse in class the first time it's taught and I still can't get it. Once in a while there are little glimpses of hope when I do get a particular step down. I think "I've got it. I love this hula now" then the next time comes around that we dance this particular hula and I miss the step. Like in the 'auana version of Aia la o Pele i Hawai`i in one part we go from huli hema to hula akau to huli hema and 'oniu. I can't keep up in that verse.

I know all it takes is practice and those hulas I need to get to know a bit better and I will become great friends.

I Never Could Get The Hang of Thursdays And I'm Blaming The Stupid Cat

I hate being annoyed awake. I hate when the first words out of my mouth in the morning are negative. It just sets the worst tone for the day. I'm blaming the cat.

Stupid cat.

He is a very sweet and patient cat, but he is a very stupid cat.

This morning, right before my alarm was scheduled to go off, the stupid cat started playing with something loud and crunchy. Batting it around the hallway, banging into walls. Stupid cat. I hate the tone it set for the day. Then The Kiddies woke up way too early and started fighting about stupid things and crying and making annoying noises. I stomped out into the living room and snapped at them. I felt bad the moment I did. It just made for a more annoying morning.Then Too Much Perfume Lady stood too close to me on the train. There was a long line at the Chinese bakery by my bus stop and too long a line at the Peet's Coffee at my Muni station for me to not be annoyed with. There weren't any good seats on the train because there were too many men "man-sitting." Because of delays in the tunnel I missed the shuttle to my office so I caught the F line. It was too crowded with tourists that wouldn't move to the back so there was a big cluster at the front door that nobody could get through. The condensation from my yogurt that I keep in the freezer and throw in my bag w/ the intention to eat it around 10am got all over my workbook for the test I have to take next Wednesday, and the worst part, it ruined the answer key. My cup of coffee didnt' take. I didn't pack a lunch so I have to buy one. I'm sick of the salad bar at both the employee cafeteria and the little market across the street. I'm certain there are wolves after me.

I have a feeling that none of this stuff would have bothered me so much if I hadn't had been woken up prematurely by the stupid cat playing with crunchy things.

Book Review - Set Phasers on Par-Tay!

The other day The Boy totally needed to get out of the house. He needed a good run. I asked him where he wanted to go. He promptly said "the playground with the train." At first I was a bit annoyed because we have to drive to 'the playground with the train,' and I wanted to walk him down to Ocean Beach and run him there. After grumbling a little bit I said I'd take him there but being that 'the playground with the train' has a library pretty close to it, we had to take a short detour and got me a few books to read. He was amenable to that plan of action. I got two books.

I shouldn't be reading for fun. I should be studying as I have a test next Wednesday that I need to pass. I took it last June and failed miserably. I'm being given a great opportunity to be able to take this test again. I compromised  rationalized that I could read just one of the books and then start the other one on the train ride home from taking my test. By only reading one book I still had time to study for my test, especially since I had been to all the classes, taken the test before AND there are a few full-day review sessions next week before the test on Wednesday.

OK so it was probably a bad idea and bad rationalization on my part but I talked myself out of studying and in to reading my newly borrowed book. BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE!!!

The book I chose to read first was Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson. You can find the author's blog here.

 I frikkin' loved this book.

I started it Monday morning on the train on the way to work. By the time the train got to my stop I was hooked. When I got to work I looked it up online to see what was out there about the book. I was super excited to find the book had a movie-like trailer for it. Of course I watched it. When it was over I was even more hooked.

I finished the book yesterday on my way home. I kept waiting for someone to comment on the book and ask me how I was enjoying it so I could tell them the book was really freakin' enjoyable in a loud voice. Sadly, it never happened.

Night of the Living Trekkies is about this guy named Jim who after doing a few tours in Afghanistan decides to get a go-nowhere job in Houston, Texas. There's a Star Trek convention going on. At the start of the convention people who work at the hotel start calling in sick and hotel guests are acting weird and sick. Jim's spidey senses start tingling like something is wrong but he dismisses it. His sister shows up with her douche-bag boyfriend and a few of their friends. After the big Klingon feast funky things start happening. Jim goes into the security office to grab some tasers and a gun. He gets a sense of what's happening, all the people are shuffling around and taking bites out of each other. He finds a woman dressed like Princess Leia chained to a beg, frees her and then the two of them go out and try to figure out what's happening. They meet up with some kid on an abandoned floor, then find Jim's sister and her friends. The douche-bag has gotten way douchier and they abandon him. They find that the zombies had attacked one of their friends. She fights off her inner-zombie and tells Jim what the fuss is all about, then he shoots her. Turns out they aren't really zombies. They are parasites from some alien race trying to take over the world. At the end of the book they kill the alpha-zombie, kind of, and then Houston gets blown up. Lots of other stuff happens, but you get the gist of it. It's a pretty simple story, but super duper fun to read. I was on the edge of my fully-paid for seat on more than one occasion. I would recommend this book to any Star Trek fan, or any Zombie genre fan for that matter, but mostly I think the Star Trek fan would enjoy it more. I said it before but I'll say it again --

I FREAKIN' LOVED IT!

When I finished the book something dawned on me. None of my favorite lines from the book were in the trailer. That's not so weird I guess. I mean I don't think the line "It's raining. Quick, take off your clothes!" was uttered in the trailer for The Perils of Gwendolyn in the Land of the Yik Yak. Then it dawned on me that none of the crucial elements from the book, like how the zombies manifested themselves weren't in the trailer. Not even the main characters from the trailer match the main characters from the book. There was no girl dressed like Princess Leia in the trailer. There's a scene in the trailer when the guy dressed like the Klingon runs around the corner to save the day then comes back screaming like a girl. The Klingon in the book was a big 'ole wuss. There's no big fight scene next to an RV that's tricked out to look like a Federation Starship.
The trailer was really entertaining, and did get me to want to read the book even more, but it pissed me off that it didn't follow the plot of the movie.
Here's the trailer. Again, super entertaining, but different from the book.

December Wordle