中国 pic of the day

this is the way i live

i was riding my bike today (camera in hand) and decided you all deserve an insider's peek into the way i live. so i somewhat informally photo-documented some random (but vitally important) aspects of my life.

first (because it's necessary for life) is my choice of food:

in this picture we can see what's left of the 8 1-pound packages of spaghetti noodles i bought at cotsco back in january. we also have my stockpile of granola bars that i got for basically nothing at target. and of course, my jar of alfredo sauce. i boil some noodles, cook some broccoli, pour the sauce over everything and indulge at least a few times a month.
on this shelf, we see the super-sized jar of prego. i eat spaghetti at least once a week. then we have the on-sale cereals i've purchased recently: cherrios, kix and crispex. there's also some pancake mix, popcorn, instant rice, cheese-its and canned peaches (one of the few canned things that i love) plus some green tea.
of vital importance (but not as important eating) is footwear:

i have labeled the shoes- as you can see, the slippers in my possession (blue) clearly outnumber rosa's (pink). you will also notice that the ones worn most frequently are not put away. rosa tends to use the other door :). also, it is hawaiian tradition that you leave all your shoes out by the door. no one ever, under any condition, wears them inside. (fact is: you're not going to die of cold and your shoes won't be filled with snow if you take them off outside! worst that will happen is for a gecko to crawl in.)
views are nice:

if i ride my bike down the street a ways, this is my view:
and this is my view of the mountains from the backyard:
it is always good to have some transportation to get you from point a to point b:

here is a picture i stole from google showing thebus. what's great about thebus is that i don't have to drive! i can read, listen to my ipod, sleep, whatever... and someone else will drive (and pay for gas, insurance, etc)! all for $40 a month. you really can't beat it.

when you fly into honolulu international airport and you are landing, look down. if you see row upon row of houses, chances are, you are flying over my neighborhood! fortunately, some smart person somewhere mandated that the jets don't fly over at night. but seriously, after a few days, you don't hear the planes anymore.
my $70 craig's list bike. it takes me to the grocery store, library, basically anywhere close and not eastward down the dreaded ft. weaver road :).
i have some great friends who have helped me build my giraffe collection:

 this is craig, jr (who i mentioned in my previous post) from heather g:
and this is kamehameha who hether g (yep, i have two friends named he(a)ther g, but you will observe the spelling differences) sent to me:
and, because i totally believe in saving the best for last:

here's a picture with me and my beloved container of raisins. rosa is in awe of how many raisins i eat. truthfully, raisins are one of the few foods i crave. literally on a daily basis, infact...

so there you have it. the small aspects of my hawaiian life that make me tick.

craig jr. & target

for my 19th birthday i received a 6'4" wooden giraffe, who i named craig. because of his great height and lack of flexibility, i was unable to bring him with me to hawaii. yesterday, my friend heather gave me this smaller version- is it not perfect?! his name is craig, jr. he is just tall enough to peek over the top of my computer screen as i am typing away.

also yesterday i got to visit the newly opened kapolei target. the target-sized hole in my heart has been filled! i was able to score numerous bargains, which pleased me greatly. i had been receiving mixed reactions from people concerning the "hawaiian target" but i found it quite satisfactory. why anyone still goes to wal*mart or k*mart still has me baffled.

mudboots

misty rain was trying to fall through thick, humid air.

we were comfortable beneath raincoats, each several sizes to big for the wearer, as were the mudboots. really the mudboots were winterboots. winterboots with rubber outsides and liners. we took the liners out to make instant mudboots.

the corn was taller than we. if a bird were to look down upon the fields, he would see circles through the crops. each circle was perfect, save a long, silver radius. this radius was the irrigation. it pivoted around the aptly named pivot through which was pumped the water that the irrigation- a series of sprinklers on a long metal pipe, suspended above the corn on sets of wheel axels- watered the crop. the corn.

the tire tracks were the perfect width for us to walk single file. we tried to ignore the fact that we would just go in a circle and arrive at the next field lane, and think that we were going on a grand adventure.

soft thunder sounded above. there was hardly any wind. the sky was grey. the mud was thick.

we plodded along; the rough corn leaves brushing our faces.

at puddles we would stop and look for frogs. the mud was too dark, when the frogs jumped in they were gone. we could comb our hands through the muddy water as much as we wanted to, always to no avail.

i have always found beauty in water. water falling, water moving, water collecting. there is a place between two out buildings on the farm, where the water drips off several roofs into one puddle. the rocks have surfaced there, keeping the water clear.

but the water on our trek today is muddy. everything is thick: the mud, the air, the mist.

we don’t talk much. what is there to talk about? we are on one trail; there aren’t any options for other places to go. maybe we could have gone down a cornrow, but they were narrow and long and straight. the rutted irrigation wheel mark was more mysterious, winding in a perfect arc.

march 4, 2007

i have no idea what today's date is. i know that it is monday night, and that tomorrow is tuesday (because i have to work on tuesday aka tomorrow). so i am posting this today, because i don't want to be late!

- on saturday, march 2, mother and i flew to china.

- on sunday, march 3, late at night after 20-something hours of travel, we arrived in china. we had slept on granite floors, carried carryons weighing half our body weight half way 'round the world and somehow mother had endured my snuffly nose the whole way. we crashed into bed upon arrival in the lakeside hotel.

-on monday, march 4, we started the day by walking around a local park and doing some last minute gift shopping. that afternoon, we met trace for the first time. although not thrilled with us at first, he came around :).

cold?

it has been quite cool here the last week or so. such as: i am wearing a sweater right now and it rained a little bit yesterday. temperatures are in the 70’s with lows as low as (gasp) 57, with quite a bit of wind whirling around. rosa calls it “icy” and i laugh.

so the other night i worked till close and was sitting at the bus stop awaiting my bus home. it was dark and with the dark comes the dreaded “low” temperatures. three teenage girls descended upon the bus stop. between their three minds, it was decided that it was freezing cold and death was most certainly on the horizon for all of us should be bus not approach immediately. i was the only one wearing long sleeves.

the girls, all of hawaiian decent, talked about how the white kids (undoubtedly military kids coming from the mainland) talked about being cold- how they made this odd “brrrr” sound and shivered. they talked about these things the way that one talks about another country’s customs: “who in their right mind shivers?” “what kind of torture must it be to shiver!” “is there any way to prevent a shiver?”

it was fascinating to hear them discuss it. obviously they have never been really cold. the cold that gets down in your bones (this occurs right around november 1) and stays there for a long time (until about may 1 if you are lucky).

the hawaiians i talk to are in awe of the fact that i survived living in michigan for 20 years. i tell them about how i wore knee-high fleece lined, waterproof boots plus men’s knee high hiking socks everyday for 6+ months of the year. how i would wear three layers of shirts and sweaters, plus my sub-zero approved coat inside buildings, with the harf on top of that when i had the misfortune of venturing out of doors.

sometimes i see girls wearing fashionable, fur-lined boots and it just makes me smile.