News, news, and more news.

Well, it seems like everything is coming together. I have a place to live in Portland! As of March 1st, my official address is:

7924 SE 17th Ave
Portland, OR 97202

I'll still be in LA at the beginning of the month, and then in NYC after March 5th, but still! I have a place to live! With a dishwasher! Life is amazing!

I also have two great new housemates: one is starting school with me and the other is applying to naturopathic school. Here's a picture of the house:



The technology of doing this all online astounds me (and even thinking that makes me feel like a grandma).

But anyway: I've got my classes picked out and a place to live and cool people to live with. I still need to find a car and a job.

Oh! And for those of you who followed the shortbutsweet puppy saga a few months ago, now we're getting a puppy for real. He's only two weeks old now, and will be ready to go to his new home in April. Here he is:



Please suggest names. Please.

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In Hawaii news, still workin', still beachin'. I put tanning oil on my skin the other day and fell asleep at the beach. I woke up to my first burn here, which is localized on my lower abdomen and upper thighs. Which basically means that everytime I take my pants on or off, it kills me.

Also: Raquel and Soren are in town! I took them on a wild goose chase yesterday, and we tried to go to the beach but the wind was so insane that they were shutting the beaches down. So instead we went to a few different places to poach some fruit, which is one of my favorite things to do here. We got: coconuts, papayas, and star fruit. There were lots more papayas and bananas that we couldn't get to, and the guavas weren't ripe.

I love it here. Leaving two weeks from today.

Time's-a-tickin'...

two step

Three and a half weeks left here! I've been trying to get all kinds of shit done before I leave. All the stuff I thought I'd have plenty of time to buy. The places I thought I had time to see...

Anyway. After work yestersay, a group of us headed down to Captain Cook. It's supposed to be the best snorkeling on the island, and once you get there (about a two hour drive from here) you have to kayak to where the Captain Cook monument is and then snorkel around there. It's quite a situation, and since we had to work and weren't very organized, we didn't get down there until 4. At which point we couldn't really rent a kayak because the places close at 5, plus they said it was a four hour trip, minimum. So instead they directed us to go snorkeling at this place known as "Two-Step" (photo above). It's this cool beach with a pretty rocky entrance, and as usual, we had to figure out how to get in with minimal cuts and scrapes. The snorkeling was incredible, with clear blue water, tons of friendly fish, and sea turtles. On the way out we found the spot where you're supposed to go in, a rocky place that looks like two steps right into the ocean. Because it was late, we got pretty cold and only stayed in the water for about an hour. It was so beautiful though, and the sun was getting low on the ocean. I wish it wasn't so far so we could do it again.

So: back to work today. I've been working outside, mulching, and using these big loppers to cut up hibiscus trees. I think I'll also be staining the new office today, which should be fun.

Time flies when you're getting dirty...

There's so much going on, and I've totally fallen behind on the reporting of it. I don't really know where to start, so here are a few random things:

I learned how to drive a stick shift! Or I'm trying to learn, anyway. I practiced this weekend on acar that this guy was going to give me for free, but it turned out to be a little bit too much of a situation for me. First of all, the car hadn't been driven in a couple months. So every time I stalled, the car died. Also, this was in the JUNGLE, basically, so when the car died, the guy whose car it was had to go hike back to where his other car was so that we could jump it. The back seat couldn't stay up, so I had to either sit up really straight or Jessie had to hold up the chair with her knees from behind. All this while trying to figure out the shifting. Which brings me to a question: how many of you know how to drive manual? Just curious...

What else. Beach, snorkeling, blah blah blah. The water's so rough this time of year that I'm still getting pretty banged up on the way in and out of the water. When I got home from swimming on Sunday I had a couple bad cuts and a cartoon-ish bump on my knee. It's weird because when you get past the shorebreak, as the water gets deeper, its great: warm, calm, and clear. Anyway.

I saw an acupuncturist who performed Chinese Bone-setting on me. I was not pleased. They basically massage you and relax you as much as possible and then procede to crack every joint in your body. It hurt, and I screamed. I even had to bite down on a towel for some of it because there's a danger of biting down on your tongue. Hopefully, I won't have to do it again. It was interesting because it turned out that my sacrum is twisted, probably from the time I was hit by a car in high school, and I've had some sciatica-type pain on and off since then. About a week after the bone-setting, you can see that I seem to be re-aligned. We'll see what it does about the back pain.

Still reading a lot, but I got a new cell phone so playing with that has entertained me for the past few days. If any of you remember my "bitch-ass-rat-fink-phone" held together with tape, you'll know why I'm pleased.

I named the calf Mahe'alani, which means beautiful full moon, because she was born around the full moon and has a crescent shaped white mark on her forehead. She's very sweet, and Berneice is being a great mom. I'll post a new picture soon.

Liu Zhi is teaching me how to make Chinese dumplings. They're SO good and we're having them for dinner tonight.

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So, I've been here almost two months now, and am about a week away from when I would have come back to NYC if I hadn't changed my ticket. Time has really flown, and I'm so glad I'm here. I know I can be impulsive and make wild decisions, but this was a good one. I still have those moments every now and then where I'm like, "how is this my life?" but it's not always bad. Sometimes when I'm working hard and sweaty and sore I think about how I could be cruisin' at the JCC, checking my email all day and talking on the phone and I wish I was. But then other times, when I'm under water looking a fish in the eye or when I'm laying on the beach drinking pina coladas I think about all the times I would fantasize about doing just that (remember Iesha??) in the dead of a NYC winter. And those are the times I'm glad I'm a little crazy.

So much for delivering calves!

Yesterday, Lew and I went to the coffee shop in the morning and were trying to figure out what to do about the cow. I had done all kinds of internet research on what to do if she needed help (very common in first-time-cow-moms) and we heard that she seemed to be leaking fluid yesterday, so the baby was coming soon.

Anyway, we woke up this morning and found that she had given birth in the middle of the night, effortlessly, and had a healthy baby girl! Here's the picture that Michael (who lives next door and co-own the cows) took at three am:


I just went over and saw her, and she's very sweet and is mostly brown, with markings similar to Berniece's on her face. I'm babysitting mom and baby this weekend, and will get some more pictures. Also, Michael and Lava have asked me to name her, and I couldn't be happier! I'm going o pick out just the right name for her...

And I thought shoveling shit was bad.

I had to do the grossest work ever yesterday. So much more disgusting than shoveling cow shit.

There's this tub full of pineapple plants in the shed (the kind where you just hack off the top and put them in water). They've been sitting in this tub for months waiting to be planted, and this was my job yesterday. I have to pull each plant out, pull off any rotten lower leaves and plant them in the ground by the pond. This seemed like it was going to be fun and easy. Little did I know. When I went over to the tub, I found a rotting festering mess that smelled horrific. It was very clearly the smell of excrement, and I felt like I had my face in horse shit. It also splashed around and got all over me as I pulled the leaves off, which made this awful squelching noise and were covered with brown sludge. The water in the tub was also FULL of worms and fish and frogs and tadpoles and they got ALL OVER ME. After dealing with the plants, I went over to Liu Zhi and asked if he would help me, miming the international signal for vomit so that he would know what was going on. With his help, of course, we planted them really quickly. I then headed right into the shower and scrubbed it all off. The rest of the day, though, I could smell that disgusting smell and kept asking to see if anyone else could smell it. They couldn't.

In other news: the cows. There are three cows here, Nellie, Norman and Berniece:


While Norman is a steer, he is castrated and therefore unable to perform. It seems, however, that Berneice is pregnant anyhow. This happened before when a bull jumped the fence, but the cow and calf died in childbirth. Cows are pregnant for about the same length of time as humans**, so we're not sure how close Berniece is to delivering, but it seems like it'll be soon. Her udder has dropped and filled with milk, and I took some pictures:

and

I'll keep you posted on this developing story.


That's all for now. Oh, I also wanted to let you guys know that I've decided to stay in Hawaii a little longer... so I'll be back in NYC around the second week of March.


** I got into midwifery school, yay!

Rain Rain Rain...

is all that's going on here today. It's tricky rain, too, because it'll stop for a while so I go out and start working, then it starts again. And rains so hard and so suddenly that I have to run for cover!

So, I worked as much as possible today while continually running for cover. I'm working on my little vegetable garden again, weeding it and just loving it up. Some of the little babies will be ready to eat soon.

Not much else to report... so I'll post a photo of me on the lanai taken on New Year's Day, as per the request of SW:

Pendulums and Psychic Healing, etc. etc.

Wednesday is hump day! But anyway.
I got to try something pretty cool yesterday, the results of which I won't know for a while. Karin works in the research department of the local hospital, and the project they're working on now is about prayer and healing. They're using functional MRIs of the brain to see if the brain reacts to prayer, healing, and intention being directed towards it. In the first part of the study they used people who classified themselves as healers and had them send messages to people getting the functional MRIs. This part of the study uses "bonded non-healer teams", which means that I got to act as a "healer" on Pat, who was in the MRI machine. "Bonded" means that the pairs are not strangers and have some sort of relationship before the study. Anyway, they put her in the machine and put me in a room behind a one-way mirror facing her. At two-minute intervals they had me do whatever kind of prayer or intentional healing I wanted. Later they'll analyze the data to see if her brain activity was different at the times when I was supposed to be sending intent verses the times I wasn't. It was cool, and I'm pretty curious about the results...

The smelly guy finally left. He was having lots of problems here and not doing well, so it's good he's gone. I cleaned his room today, scrubbed it down and aired it out and we're going to smudge it later.

More fun last night asking the pendulum questions and getting alarming answers. Pat had also brought these "life cards" that we all tried: they're fifty-two cards that say things like "moving physically" or "building relationships", and you go through them and eventually get down to the five that are most important to you. Then you rank them and try to figure out if you're doing what you want to be doing. Very interesting. Plus we had some wine.


** Emil: remember a couple years ago when you were looking for those chocolates? Were they the endangered species chocolate bars?

Out with the old, in with the new.

Happy New Year! I hope you all have a fabulous year. I certainly intend to.

I made dinner Friday night, and then went to a park and sat in the ball field and ate ice cream. Then I went to a friend's house and we painted our fingernails. With the limited color choices we had and the fact that I haven't worn nail polish in years, my hands came out looking like those of a drag queen. Oh well.

Saturday I worked some more on the path to the bathhouse and then went to a New Years' party in Kona Saturday night. The guy throwing the party was the bartender whose house we'd slept at last week, so we thought it would be pretty cool. Somehow, Jessie had forgotten to get his actual street address and just got directions to the street he lives on. He said that we would recognize the house by all the cars parked out in front, and the tiki torches. Needless to say, we COULD NOT find the house. We searched for about an hour (and it takes an hour and a half to drive there) and kept stopping people in the street and asking if they knew where the house was. A lot of people in the neighborhood were out in front of their houses doing fireworks, and it got sort of complicated to get around. Finally we decided to call the bar where he works and ask for help. Being Hawaii, of course, the guy who picked up the phone had me hold on and used his cellphone to call a friend who was already at the party. The friend came out onto the street and flagged us down, so we found the house. So we finally get there and there are only FOUR other people at the party. And it went downhill from there. There were these loser guys who were hovering around us and we couldn't shake ALL NIGHT. And we tried, god knows we tried. Then the band came, and they was so bad that I don't even have words to describe them to you. Just a total nightmare, playing random ACDC songs. Ugh, so lame.
[Our other New Year's Eve party option had been the party in town, in a barn. Later, we heard that party was totally hoppin'. Isn't that sad?]

Anyway. We got home late and I had to walk up the driveway, using my cellphone as a flashlight so I wouldn't wake anyone up. The next day was a New Year's Day potluck here at the farm, which was fun. My friends were here, and I also met some interesting people, and there was live Hawaiian music and hula dancing (not the cheesy tourist shit), it was great.

Yesterday we had the day off and went to the beach at the Mauna Lani, which was clear and calm but a little too cool out for me to want to go in the water. We just hung out there and people-watched. Lew and Karin have a friend here for a couple weeks who's a famous acupuncturist, and is also very cool and fun to talk to. She and I made dinner last night and then we all hung out and did fun fortune-tell-y type things with a pendulum. I asked it all kinds of questions and got some pretty interesting answers.


So...things are going well. This is the week where I find out if I got into midwifery school, and also whether the people renting my apartment want to stay for the month of February...


P.S.: If any of you happen to pass by a Lush store and find it in your hearts to buy me a bar of "Honey I Washed the Kids" soap and send it in the mail I'll love you forever or be your slave for life, whichever works for you.