In Which I Watched the News and Talked About Tigger

NOTE- I found this blog post in my drafts file. Thought I'd clean it up and post it.


So it was a Sunday in October 1991.

I had lived in San Francisco for about 6 weeks. I had just moved into a flat with 2 of my friends and a guy I'd met a few times but didn't really know very well, who would very shortly become my friend, and a friend I'd have to this day. Two of my roommates were in Long Beach for the weekend, the other was at work.

I was in my bedroom, unpacking, making my very first room in my very first new apartment my very own. I was a little worried because it was getting late and my roommates hadn't made it back from Long Beach yet.

I turned on my TV. It was the only TV in the house. My 3rd roommate hadn't quite moved all his stuff from his old apartment yet. He had the "good" tv. My TV was a 13" black and white TV where the volume liked to fluctuate at random.

I turned on the news, learned of the Oakland Hills Fire, and like it is with most disaster-type things on TV and me, I couldn't tear myself away. I knew Oakland was on the other side of the Bay Bridge, but I didn't know my geography well enough to know where the affected area was. I was really mad at the news for not showing a map of the area with a pinpoint of where the fire was.

When I was really engrossed in the TV, the doorbell rang. I ran downstairs and answered it. It was this guy I knew from Elementary school and Junior High. I recognized him right away. I had no idea why he was at my house. I had no idea he was friends with one of my new roommates. I don't even know if he knew I lived there.

I let him in. I knew him, after all. We sat in front of my 13" black and white TV and watched the fire spread on the news. We also talked about Tigger, and whether the area under his chin was orange or white. I had a poster on my wall were Tigger's area under his chin was white. He had a tattoo on his ankle? arm? of Tigger where the are under his chin was orange. Al Gore hadn't yet made the internet ubiquitous yet, at least to the extent where we could log on to Prodigy or AOL and look it up. We talked about it for a good hour.



He hung out for a few hours, then left. He never saw our friend / my new roommate. And come to think of it, although I'm friends with this guy on Facebook, I don't think I've seen him since that day.

In summary:
My roommates got home later that night all safe and sound, totally oblivious to the fire that was happening.
I had a pretty pleasant afternoon setting up my first new home, watching the news, talking about Tigger and getting to know someone that I'd known since at least 2nd grade.

Huli and Holo I Mua

Sometimes when we're learning a new hula, or even sometimes when we've known one for a whle, Kumu will change the choreography ever so slightly, like he had a flash of genius of making that kaholo an 'oniu instead, or to kūnou at the 2nd ha'ina, but not in the first. As haumana we adjust. We implement the changes to the hula at Kumu's direction then we holo i mua, or progress to the next verse. We make the changes and we learn to adapt. We move forward.  

Life's map has me sitting at the corner of So Close Street and Yet So Far Away Avenue.

I have a job. I'm starting to look at apartments more seriously for my kids and me. I'm *this close* from my divorce being finalized. I found a nice fella to smooch on. I lost a shit-ton of weight and am more than 1/2 way to my goal. I cut my hair off and feel like myself again. I'm going out. I'm spending more time with my friends. My mom game has totally leveled up more than a few times. In short, I am healing.

However, even with all these positive changes, I still have a ways to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes that tunnel feels like the hallway scene in Poltergeist where no matter how fast I run, I just can't get to that door to save Carol Ann. Maybe I should look at it more like that part right after intermission in Dr. Zhivago when the train is going through the tunnel and you can hear the train, you know the tunnel will end soon, but it just doesn't come into view until you just relax and realize it will, sometime soon and then it does.

I need to work on patience, find ways to fuel my endurance and to realize that bumps in the road are just part of the path I'm on. 


I am learning there are four ways I'm going to survive and succeed. 
1. Trust that God will not only bring me out of this, but will help me through it.
2. Bite off little chunks at a time. Tackle what I can at the moment and be patient with myself. 
3. Ho'olilo with the punches, meet challenges head-on, and remind myself constantly that this experience is temporary. This experience is making me stronger, more confident and above all, a better mother to my children; 
4. Take time to reflect on where I started and where I am now, celebrate my progress.

Speaking of celebrating progress. Holy Smokes! 

Enough rambling. 

My Personal Beef with Rod Carew

OK, not really, but he did disappoint me.

 I'm sure he's a lovely person and if I ever met him I would shake his hand and tell him how awesome it was to meet him. Rod Carew had an awesome career. I would be incredibly honored to meet him.

I played softball from when I was about 8 and I played on my first team The Foxy Sox until I got to high school and decided boys were more fun. I was never very good, but I had a good time and got the job done. When I first started, they stuck me out in right field, but then when they could see that I had a good arm, I was moved to catcher and left field. I had no bat, but I had an arm.

Growing up my folks took my sister and me to a lot, and I mean a lot of baseball games. Sometimes we would go to Dodger Stadium but most of the time we would usually go to Anaheim Stadium to see the California Angels. My mom was a bigger Angel fan and Anaheim was closer to us than going all the way to LA. I loved watching Rod Carew play first base. He was my 2nd favorite Angel.

We never bought programs at games. My mom would very rarely buy us one. One time she actually caved and bought us a program. There was a page in the program with a profile on Rod Carew. It listed his birthday; same as mine. I was so freaking stoked when I found out Rod Carew and I had the same birthday. I used my own money to buy him a birthday card and with it, I sent him a picture of me from my softball team, a 5x7 picture, and even autographed it. I must have been about 10 or 11 years old.

I had it all played out in my head. He would receive my card, chuckle that a 10 year old girl sent him an autographed picture of herself and then race off to the post office with a complementary package to send to me.

It never happened. So bummed.

Hot Pink Nobilo

I was at work one day at my old job, what seems like a lifetime ago but really wasn't all that long ago.
I was at some kind of reception of some sort being held in my office. The Nobilo Wine people were there. I spent about 30 minutes looking at a photo album of, (well, I don't remember his name, let's just call him Mr. Nobilo), Mr. Nobilo's hunting trophies. Nice old man, whoever this man was.

Last night I was super craving a nice glass of wine. I walked to Walgreens to get a bottle. Now, Walgreens isn't really my go-to destination for wine, but last night I didn't want to drive and thought the block 1/2 walk to Walgreens would do me good. I got a bottle of Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc. Because Walgreens would rather fill their cold case with 12 and 24 packs of Shiner Bock and Rolling Rock than have 1 shelf dedicated to white wine, I had to buy an un-chilled bottle of white wine (yeah, I know, first world problem).

I got home and poured myself a glass, found it a little too warm for my taste and threw in an ice cube.

So, my boy has been experimenting with the way food coloring reacts with ice. All in the name of scientific research he's done the following:
1) putting water in the ice cube tray and then putting a few drops of color in each cube cubbie
2) putting a few drops of color in each cube cubbie and then adding water
3) filling the ice cube tray with water, letting it freeze for a little while then adding color
4) putting color on each cube after it's frozen, then letting it refreeze to see if the color absorbs.

Pretty inventive guy. Don't tell him we're doing science. He'd be all mad that I am encouraging learning during the summer.

Anywhoozle, because of all his experimenting, we have pink, blue and purple ice all the time and all of our ice cube trays are stained, and no matter how much new ice we make without the food coloring added, our ice always has a bit of a pink hue to it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you HOT PINK NOBILO Sauvignon Blanc (and my 22lb cat).

James vs. Jim

About a year ago my brain stopped giving me amazing dreams. It made me sad. I have always had a colorful and really vivid and strange dream life filled with actors, TV personalities, awesome soundtracks and just general over-all fun. My guess is that the last few years have had my brain has been occupied with other things that something had to give. My dream life it seems, took one for the team and took a nap.

Just as the fog in my life is starting to clear a bit, my dream life is waking up. So happy. I quite enjoy the strange things that come out of my brain.

I was sitting in a waiting room or lobby of some sort talking to a few people from my past that I used to work with, but didn't know very well in real life, but in my dream we were friends. 

Still in the same room, I find that I'm sitting on a banquette, like what you'd find in a diner. red glittery plastic and a table with a crinkle cut metal border. I look across that table and see 1970's era James Brown. We don't know each other but we start chatting about whatever. 

He tells me that he has a bad cold and needs to go to the doctor but doesn't want to because he doesn't want fans all around him and he's nowhere near his regular doctor. He doesn't feel good. He just wants some cold medicine and then to go to bed. 

I tell him to call ahead and tell them his name isn't James Brown, but rather 90's era Jim Brown. Then only Jim Brown fans would show up at the doctor's office and he could totally sneak in, disguised as a Jim Brown fan, himself. He looked at me, thought for a second, then said "That might just work, Baby. Thank you."

Glad I could help.

Welcome back dream life. Don't ever leave me again. You keep me too entertained.