Mountains and Islands

   I had a job interview for a marketing specialist position on Monday, with a follow-up assignment sent via email to provide a graphic and a writing sample on Tuesday. This second step seemed like a positive thing to me, like a second interview. So there I am, Tuesday afternoon, feeling pretty good about the interview and the samples I sent that morning. The Doctor Dog and I are cruising up the road for an afternoon walk, feeling light of foot and generally good, when we hear a familiar sound. There's no mistaking the distinct bumble of my neighbor's Anthurium-red BMW with the black rag top and miscreant muffler. It closes in on us fast, prompting us to step aside and into the grass along the non-shoulder of our one-lane road. Her window is down when she reaches us.    "You didn't play tennis Monday, did you?" she asks. It's a weird question, since I play with her.    "Nope. Had a job interview."    "Oh yeah? Where?"    "At a loca...

I must have one of those benign faces, an approachable demeanor, an aura that screams friendly.  It's as though the word  sucker is emblazoned on my forehead, or across my back, advertising my niceness.  Being nice is a curse, let me tell you.  I went to the Hilo library yesterday to write.  My plan was to sit there for three productive and uninterrupted hours of quiet, with no barking dogs or, "Can you help me with this" husbands.  I found a spot near the courtyard and got quickly to work, eyeballs trained intently upon my laptop screen, tick, tick ticking the keyboard.  A man arrived to sit in my area at an adjacent table.  I didn't notice him at first.  I was busy.   Engrossed.  But the neon of my niceness must have flashed, "Bug me.  Irritate me. I won't get mad.  I'm NICE!"   "Excuse me," he said.  "Excuse me."  I looked over to see him sitting there with papers strewn about on the table in front of him.  He was a small,...

I picked up a few items at the Hilo Farmers' Market this morning.  The place was bustling, but the merchants were complaining to one another about how slow it was.  There were lots of lookers and few buyers.  Everyone, however, was happy to see the sunshine, so despite the heat and mugginess, nobody was complaining.  "At least it's not raining," said one man, a merchant powering down an enormous cheeseburger like he hadn't eaten in a week.  "I hear that," I said. "One think about Hilo though," he said.  "When it rains, it's a warm rain, you know?  So it's really nice for just walking around.  Really comfortable." "True," I said.  "Especially if you have one of those giant, Hilo umbrellas."  He liked that, smiled and nodded. I wanted to add that 72 degrees, dry and sunny are also nice conditions for walking around too and don't require an umbrella, but I didn't want to burst the guy's bubb...

King Kameha was looking particularly regal today, don't you think? I saw a great bumper sticker out and about this morning.  It said, "Don't believe everything you think." Something to ponder, eh? Hoppsy and I returned to the vet for some X-rays and hope for some definitive answers to why she is walking so oddly.  Her gait is all out 'o wack .  It's as though her back legs have only one slow, stiff speed and her front legs must stutter to maintain the pace.  It also seems that her hips or lower back are sore, since she now hates when I try to feel anything back there or massage her.  X-rays were, unfortunately, inconclusive.  She has an arthritic spur on one of her vertebrae which could be the cause, but only slight signs of any arthritis anywhere else.  So, we're trying some prednisone (yuck!) for a few days to see if she responds.  It's a powerful drug, not to be taken lightly with nasty side effects if taken long term.  I took it for four days to...

Yesterday at the winery, I made the mistake of telling a woman how cute her granddaughter was, how adorably precocious, what a great kid.  The youngster was a delight.  She and I enjoyed talking about Hanna Montana and singing B-I-N-G-O.  The grandmother was understandably proud, but once the topic of the youngster was exhausted, she launched into her own diatribe.  Now I'll admit she was a very nice lady.  But the moment I opened the door to conversation, she burst through it like a levy break, her life story gushing forth, a torrent unleashed.  She relived a tragic injury of years ago, elaborated on the gory details of a long and painful recovery, told me how her children coped, enunciated specifics about each and every family member, how often she visits them and for exactly how long, the divorce, she's a writer(isn't everybody?), loves where she lives, doesn't need much money but has all she needs to visit her children and grandchildren whenever she wants, yada yada...

Hilo now has what may be the weirdest radio station in the known universe. KHBC is actually a pretty old station, but was previously broadcast only on the AM dial. Now, it's comes into my car via FM signal. Better yet, Kahikina and Lyman, two of my faves from KAPA (and two of the most well known radio personalities on the island), recently defected from their old digs and are now part of the evening drive time, Pau Hana Party show on KHBC . They share the mics with a gal named Pohai . Initially, I wasn't too keen on Pohai , thinking Lyman (formerly one of the boloheads on KAPA) and Kahikina (aka Tommy Ching , the Polynesian Pirate) could handle the show quite nicely on their own. Now, however, I see that she really adds zaniness. In fact, she's hilarious. Pohai has the perfect female radio voice, deep, a little raspy yet uniquely feminine. I like her. KHBC is strange because the station's musical offerings are all over the map. They might play a classi...

The slacker has returned! Today was fantastic. It was one of those days that could trick me into thinking this must be paradise. Over the past week, we've struggled with vog . It hasn't been so bad at the house. OK, it's been kinda bad. But not as bad as elsewhere. We had a few bouts of thick haze, but it was intermittent . The haze has been everywhere. Even O'ahu and Maui have had their landmarks, like Diamond Head and Hale'akala , shrouded in volcanic spew. They closed the volcano viewing station for a few days because the wind was blowing toxic gas and fine glass particles in the direction of where the visitors would be standing. Apparently it's not good for one's health to breath fine glass particles and toxic gas. The trade winds died away, causing all of this nastiness. Today, however, a light northeasterly breeze returned, palm trees began to sway and rustle, the sun shone brightly, the sky was blue and all was right with our little world...

Ron swore he saw several pigs in the yard today. He said they were riding in an ark. Or maybe it was a canoe. I went for a walk with the poochies despite the rain. Actually, I did it to spite the rain. Like the rain cares. No need to give the dogs a bath this month. They got so soaked, they're now squeaky clean after a good drenching and a towel dry. Not all wet dog smell is created equal. Each of mine has his or her own unique odor when dry. Each smells unique when wet, too. Fortunately for me, none of them are particularly funky. They all smell pretty good, wet or dry. Still, there's a bit of a damp-dog aura in the air right now. We'll fire up the wood stove in a little while, when it gets a little cooler, to add some smoldering guava smoke to the aroma mix. Then we'll cook dinner. It'll be a cacophony not of sound, but of smells. There is no mist these days. No light drizzle. No spritzing. Just giant drops falling out of the sky in such great volume an...

"Hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right...." Paolo Nutini - Lyrics from "New Shoes." The other day, as I lumbered along the belt of the treadmill with my iPod cranked for musical inspiration, it occurred to me that I was probably the only person in the gym who was listening to Alison Krauss through my earbuds . (Never mind the fact that I was the only person in the gym just then.) I also thought it likely that I was the only person on the whole island listening to Alison. Maybe I was the only person in all of Hawaii. That same experience happened to me today. This time, the artist was Roger Miller. Hey, King of the Road is a good song and fits in nicely with my folk/country/bluegrass playlist . DON"T MAKE FUN OF ME! Roger Miller was a genius! Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let - fifty cents..... Or how about the classic , You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd? You've gotta admit ...

You see some interesting people at the Hilo Farmers' Market. This morning I spotted a flaming gay black man strolling toward me with an adorably cute and perfectly quaffed Jack Russell Terrier. How do I know he was gay? Well, I'm pretty sure the Jack Russell was straight. But the 30-something human was definitely light in the loafers. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He was wearing one of those wide necked, horizontally striped sailor's shirts, yellow and blue. His pants were white pedal pusher, tight at the knees. On his feet, canvas boat shoes with no socks. His outfit looked a little like the one Kirk Douglas wore is Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Only instead of dancing with a seal, this guy was prancing with his dog. To top it off (the outfit, that is), the man wore a boat captain's cap, the kind that sits not quite flat on your head with a small brim. It was tilted just so. The flaming sailor tip-toe-trotted across the road, elbows in, ha...