My abs are becoming rock solid, if I don't say so myself. Of course, they are covered in a thick, great-if-you're-an-arctic-walrus-but-not-so-attractive-in-Hawaii layer of flab, so you really can't tell. I would love to attribute this to all the sit-ups and crunches and planks I do in the gym, but that would be misleading. My core strength can only be fairly credited to the kitties. Yes, it is they who have me clenching my rectus abdominis with great fervor each morning as they jump without warning up from the floor to land square in the middle of my gut. No clench, and my internal organs are toast. They do this when I am sound asleep, dead to the world, out like a light, snoozing soundly, so I am forced to wake up, realize what is happening and react, all in a nanosecond. It's got to be good training for something, though I'm not exactly sure what. I now rue the day when I learned to sleep on my back. All I can say is, "Ugh!" But my core thanks you, little kitties. My lower back has never felt better.
Yesterday, driving into Hilo after our morning hour of sunlight had been chased away by vog and clouds and rain, it occurred to me that this is the gloomiest place I've ever been. Really dreary. Not only is the sunlight obscured all but a couple of weeks a year, but the air is tainted with sulfur dioxide and there's water and mud everywhere. OK, sure, it's green. That too, is part of the problem. Too much of a good thing is almost as bad as too much of a bad thing. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. Still, it's as though God ran out of other colors when he got to this part of Hawaii, so with the exception of the occasional flower blossom, it's all we get. It's surprising, even for a Pacific Northwest girl, how many variations of green there are in the rainforest. Dark shades, light shades and every shade in between; sagey greens, limey greens, kelly greens, grassy greens, mossy greens, booger greens. (Just checking with that last one to see if you are paying attention.)
Oh well. I'm just one, big whiner. If I lived in the desert, I'd say it's too hot and too dry and too brown. In the mountains, it's too bloody cold in winter. In the city, it's too crowded and concrete. It's always something with me.
This morning, however, it's nice, if a bit hazy, so I'm headed out to enjoy the day before it changes. Volcanic fumes be damned! I'm walking.
A hui hou. Aloha!
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