Mountains and Islands

Sing the following to the tune of the original Spider Man theme song: Spider poo, spider poo, always cleaning up spider poo, Round and brown, nasty blotch, emanates from a spider's crotch, Who knows, what's in the spider poo, man, digested bugs and goo, man, clean up the spider POOOOOOOO! Sorry I have no photos of the poo.  I always think, "Duh.  Shoulda grabbed the camera," after I clean it off the table and chairs on the lanai.  As you can see from this photo, Abby is unconcerned with spider poo.  It's been a big week at the vet.  Monday, the babies all got snipped.  You'd never know it.  The next day, they were running around like maniacs, like it never happened.  Even Winnie.  She's got a tiny incision on her shaved tummy.  Her other stitches are "hidden" as the vet says, and will dissolve.  I do keep an eye on it to make sure she keeps it dry and doesn't start licking it incessantly. So far, all is well.   And speaking of poo, these kitt

You may think it's crazy that someone plunking down three grand per semester to attend a far away creative writing program would need to fork over another $65 for local workshop, but that's what I did today.  I've hit a creative dry patch lately, so needed a quick shot of inspiration. I also wanted to see how such workshops are taught, with thoughts toward one day teaching them. It was great fun and I plan to shamelessly steal some of this material to use one day as an instructor. On both fronts, the day was worth while.  The instructor is a well regarded local writer named Tom Peek.   He's got a very easy, comfortable instructional style, filling the day with worthwhile exercises proven to get the pen moving.  The workshop was entitled, Tapping Your Right Brain and it did just that.   The class was the last ever to be held in the Old Japanese Schoolhouse, the same place where I took ukulele lessons.  The property is being sold by the Volcano Arts Center .  There are tw

It was hard to be in a bad mood today.  New president.  New direction for the country.  History was made and hope restored.  It's exciting! Yesterday, I read a column by Thomas Friedman imploring us to refocus our energies in education toward science and math in our schools.  Today, our new president touched on that same theme in his speech.  I couldn't agree more.  Add a finance piece to the math equation, so that the average American can understand loan documents, grasp the concept of accrued interest and the time value of money and get the fact that you really can't spend more than you make indefinitely.  That said, why stop at math and science? Without language arts, all our presidents in the future will speak more like George W. Bush than Barack Obama.   Strategery . Nucular .  I rest my case.  It is his study and love of words that enables Obama to communicate so effectively and so eloquently.  He does not speak to us in bits and bytes, nor does he invoke the Pythag

I heard a great joke the other day.  I'm Norwegian, of Norwegian descent anyway, a.k.a. Norwegian-American, so I feel I am, if not totally qualified, at least absolved of all guilt in telling this joke: Why do Norwegians cook with so much milk? To add color and spice to their food. If you ever ate my grandmother's cooking, you would be howling with laughter at that one.   The pooches and I encountered a most curious creature on our walk the other day.  At first glance, it looked like a stick.  A burnt stick, curved like a piece of charred drift wood, right there on road.  The dogs completely ignored it, while I stooped to take a closer look.  It wasn't wood at all, but a chameleon , turned almost completely black to blend in with the asphalt.  Now, I'm sure this method of defense works well in the rainforest .  It certainly worked with my dogs.  The little critter had no color (or is black considered all color?) and no smell.  But I knew that wouldn't protect him f

(Sing this to the tune of Purple Haze) Crater haze, all in my yard, Lately fumes, we're suckin ' hard, Either vog , or rain galore, ' Scuse me, while I choke some more.... (Insert raging ukulele interlude here) I've decide to change Pippie's name to Alvin.  I think.  He is always in trouble, with a propensity for climbing up my legs, whether or not I'm wearing long pants.  So Alvin seems to suit him better, even though he's not a chipmunk.  Al- vin ! Work sucks.  Yesterday we were actually very busy, but we are so short staffed that it was just two of us scrambling all afternoon without a moment to breath.  My co-worker tells me that on Tuesday we had three small tour groups descend upon the place within a half hour's time and again, with only two people working, it was impossible.  So other carloads of people who were unlucky enough to come at the same time simply left.  She said six people walked out.  We once prided ourselves on our presentations -

A belated Happy 2009 to you all! We escaped the rain for a couple of hours today, trekking to Kalapana to see where the lava is currently entering the ocean.  It's pretty cool, though you can't see orange until after nightfall.  The plume is impressive and the 3/4 mile hike over rock is only a little tricky.  It's all pahoehoe lava there, looking like solidified black cake batter.  Other flows aren't so easy to navigate, namely a'a lava, which is rough and clumpy.  It's name is easy to remember,  because you can imagine walking over it with bare feet and screaming "A'a!"  There was a little sun down Kalapana way, with whispy clouds and soft trade winds keeping the hike very cool and comfy indeed.  It was the first sun we've seen in a couple of weeks and I could feel the vitamin D being sucked up by my bones, like a dry sponge dropped into a swimming pool.   There was a keiki noni plant poking right out of the fresh lava, so I shot its picture.