Aloha

Here I am in Hawaii for a month of rest, relaxation and recharge.

As those of you who know me know, (that sounds weird but how else would I say that?)this has been on horrid year for me. On April 1st my Mom died after a long slide and incredible pain associated with osteoporosis. Add to that neglect. Now, don't get me started on this, I am still pissed off enough at a certain family member that could have helped but choose to sit by and withdraw, that I am afraid I will write something I might regret in 20 or 30 lifetimes.

Then 22 days later Dad who was in relative good health, followed Mom. His death is even more tragic, all he asked for was a little help from that same certain family member and that never happened either. So again, don't get me started.
If those of you who are reading this have not lost both your parents, let me tell you it is worse than you can imagine. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I could pick up the phone and call just to chat. And if anyone tells you it is easier if you are prepared, from my perspective, it is, the sudden unexpected one was much much harder.

Anyway, here I am trying to figure out what my place in the world is now. Why do I matter and what exactly does matter? I know I can't run from the world but I still think I am going to give it a go just to make sure.

I have rented this wonderful little cottage makai of Diamond Head. It was origionally the guest cottage of a famous Hawaiian family but the main house has been mostly demolished in preparation for a fantastic rebuild. This cottage was totally remodeled in the last two years with impeccable taste. Two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen and living room. The bath and kitchen have stone counter tops and floors and wonderful lighting. The rest of the house has new windows, french doors in each bedroom to private decks and another set of french doors from the living room to another deck. The Audio Visual equipment is top notch stuff with plasma screen TV and great sound on the CD/DVD player. Since there is a lot of land here there is also a nice little stone patio ringed by Tiki Torches. There is no water view but this privacy is worth not being able to see the water. The cottage is built on the side of a hill and part of one deck hangs out over the ravine that runs from the top of Diamond Head to the Pacific Ocean. Howard's cousin Karen moved here 37 years ago to teach school for a year and of course, being the wise one, she stayed, met and married a great guy named Eric. Eric was born and raised here and is 100% Japanese. Interesting that he has a name like Eric and a sister Susan and a brother Robert all 100%Japanese, I guess when they were born they had to assimilate as much as possible. I don't think the Japanese were all that welcome during the 50's. I have spent about 3 days of my first week with them. They are wonderful guides to the Hawaii that tourists don't see. Last Sunday they took me to a potluck, what a hoot that was. All the ladies in Hawaiian muumuu's and a lot of the men in Aloha shirts. This was Karen's church Choir group annual potluck. What an incredible bunch of folks, they all were so nice that I even agreed to help stuff envelopes last Tuesday at the church.

Last night Karen and Eric came over here for dinner. I brought my cooks books written by the Blanchards. I love those and the ingredients are easy to find here being this is another tropical climate. (I have written more on this twice and each time it was deleted by my hitting the wrong key, so this is the end of this topic for now. )

Today we went to the Aloha Stadium to the flea market, it was mostly new stuff. Frankly it was similar to Berlin New Jersey in some ways, a whole ton of the same thing over and over but without the cheesesteaks. Tomorrow is all used stuff so I am going back. Eric and Karen have taken me to little out of the way places that most people would never find. Of couse the normal stuff as well, today we went to Kmart and Boarders. Now that may sound awful but let me tell you, when you need Tiki Oil, where would you go, and the most recent issue of Travel and Leisure, again where?

You know you are in a different world when even the Boarders most currnt issue of Travel and Leisure is October. I think my December issue has probably arrived at home. The store employee did not seem at all surprised that last months issue was the only one they had.