Mountains and Islands

I'm a big fan of Clint Eastwood movies, especially the films he directs. I always go see them, even though I know the movie will not have a happy ending. I thought he might depart from that with Flags of Our Fathers. It is about World War II after all, "The Good War" as Studs Turkel called it, a war we fought for all the right reasons. No such luck. While the ending wasn't as devastating as Mystic River or as sad as Million Dollar Baby, it was still not the warm, fuzzy finale we've come to expect from WWII flicks. As usual with a Eastwood film, "Flags" is a reflection of both the best and the worst in human nature. Flags of our Fathers is about the guys who raised the flag on a mountaintop at Iwo Jima. They were just young soldiers, doing their job, following orders, under extraordinary circumstances. The photo of their efforts to raise the flag became instantly famous and the guys were dubbed heroes, against their own wishes. "Flags" tells the...

A little shi shi, then Waikiki! I flew to O'ahu yesterday for a little checkup. Since nobody had high recommendations for a clinic or OBGYN near Hilo, I opted to schedule an appointment for my overdue exam in Honolulu. Dr. Vo was great. She was young, smart, cute and very personable. I'll go back to her. The exam, as unpleasant as it always is, was relatively painless and quick. I was out of there in an hour. That meant I had the entire day to kill before my flight home. As it turned out, the clinic was within about a mile of Waikiki. Since Waikiki is the only part of Honolulu I know, and since I had already blown my wad on cab fare from the airport to the clinic, I decided to hoof it. Waikiki is overdeveloped, kitsch, corny and an undeniable tourist trap. It is a Disneyland version of Hawaii. That said, I love it. Oh I wouldn't want to live there, but it is a nice diversion. There are some beautiful hotels there and some great places to grab a bite. There's an ABC Sto...

It was back to the gym today with gusto. I actually returned last week, but gently. Today's workout was back up to a full roar; running, lifting, crunching, stretching. I should be pretty well hobbled tomorrow. If you are a 40 or 50 something woman who believes everything she reads these days, you'd be convinced by the press that, if you don't run your ogle off and engage in strenuous, daily weight-bearing exercises, your bones will rapidly become riddled with holes and eventually turn to powder, after which your limp body will fall to the ground like a soggy load of laundry. Or like the wicked witch of the west. "I'm me-e-e-lting! I'm me-e-e-elting!" You'll break a hip! Yes you will! It's like the middle aged version of "A Christmas Story," (my favorite holiday flick), where poor Ralphy, whenever he tells someone he wants a bb gun for Christmas, hears, "You'll shoot your eye out." While I think much of what's written is...

Ding dong the coqui's dead, citric acid on his head, ding dong the coqui frog is dead (two, three, four) Not much bigger than a dime, douse him with hydrated lime, ding dong the coqui frog is dead..... Yes, he's dead. Actually, there were two of the little buggahs on our neighbor's property, chirping up a storm, having us all wondering when the two would transform into 30, then 60 then on and on until we were just like lower Puna district, listening to 10s of thousands of them all night long. I am being credited by the neighbor across the street for the frogs' demise, since I am the one who called the coqui police and they, in turn, contacted the other neighbor to lend them a hand in the eradication effort. Ta da! I do feel a little sorry for the cute little guys. It's not their fault some stupid human neglected to inspect a shipment of plants from Puerto Rico years ago and let their ancestors stow away enroute to Hawaii. Of course, I still, for the life of me, do n...

Here we were, feeling so smug about having made it through the earthquake yesterday, no worse for the wear, when bang! Boom! Down came the bottles from the top shelf of the closet. I was reminded of the flight attendants' intercom message on every commercial airplane ride I've ever taken. "Please take care when opening the overhead bins as contents may have shifted during the flight." Indeed. Replace the words "overhead bins" with closet, "contents" with wine bottles and "flight" with earthquake and you've got the picture. Three bottles narrowly missed Ron's noggin and came crashing to the floor. Actually, six bottles fell; only three broke.Ron yelled out a few expletives. I did too, as I ran to the house from the yard, hearing his cries intermixed with "The wine!" Upon seeing the purple mess of glass and grape, the #%*&@ was followed by a Tim the Toolman Taylor-esque "Oh no...." Needless to say, my closet ...

When I was 3 1/2 years old, I experienced a tempest known as the Columbus Day Storm. It was what they call an extratropical cyclone (according to Wikipedia), and is considered the strongest storm to have hit the Pacific Northwest in modern history. I don't really remember much about it, other than what fun I thought it was that the lights all went out and we had to make our way with candles for days. I also remember lots of fallen trees across the road and one that squished the neighbor's house. And my tricycle blew away. My dad found it a few days later way up the block. In 1980, I was living in Portland, Oregon when Mount St. Helens blew it's top. Initially, the explosion had little effect on the city. A couple of days after the eruption, however, the wind shifted and Portland was covered with a 6 inch blanket of ash. City residents all donned surgical masks to go about their daily lives. People tracked the whitish grit everywhere they walked. The stuff was extremely abra...

There are two fashion trends that, in my humble opinion, have been around way too long. It's time for them to go away... NOW! One is the skull cap. I might get the appeal of a knit ski hat as trendy in places like Minneapolis or Bar Harbor or Anchorage. It worked well in my old hometown of Gunnison, Colorado. But Miami? Atlanta? L.A? Hawaii? It's just silly. It's mostly boys and young men, but I occasionally see girls sporting woollies on their noggins, too. Board shorts, no shirt, slippahs and a ski hat. It's hot. It's humid. I must really be getting old. I just don't get it. Even worse are the hip hugger jeans the girls are wearing these days, paired with a cropped, navel-bearing tank top. But wait. It's not just the girls wearing this outfit. It's women. Very mature women. Middle-aged, pudgy women. Now don't get me wrong. I actually like the look. It's great if you're built like Janet Jackson. But trust me ladies. This ensemble is not for...