Ahhh, the joys of PMS....
I vacillate amongst a range of emotions. That's generally the case, but the intensity of those emotions is presently cubed. Like I want to kick several people in the office really hard, not with just a tap of foot.
And I got a little teary-eyed this morning reading about the death this weekend of Dr. Carlo Urbani. He was the first WHO officer to realize that something unusual was happening, and to recognize what has now been named SARS. Yes, that was the cause of his death.
There are so many things going on in the world at this moment, that are full of death and sadness. But then I get excited when I realize how much of the world is banding together against such things.
And I get excited when I think about how yesterday, my cousin ran into Lacey and Cinnamon in Vogue Fabrics. Very cool - she'd never met Cinnamon, but she was shopping for fabric after being inspired by Cinnamon's blog. The smallness of the world.
I forgot to wish you a happy Prince Kuhio Day. March 26 is a state holiday here, in honor of the birthday of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole. (Try saying that three times fast.) Prince Kuhio (1871 - 1922) served as the Territory of Hawaii's delegate to the U.S. Congress from 1903 to 1922 and was a big proponent of land rights for native Hawaiians.
I don't think people really wish each other a happy Prince Kuhio day, but I really enjoy saying, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole. I also enjoyed my day off on Wednesday.
I hate it when I do this - wait so long between entries that I feel this pressure to say something profound. But I've got to write something, or the pressure will build to unmanagable proportions. So I will say this....
Sometimes I scare myself. I'll be walking down the street and see someone with toenails extending a good half-inch or more past their nail bed, and I'll think, I wish I had my nail clippers with me. Even if we're talking about the ten-foot-long variety of clippers, there is something a bit too compulsive about wanting to groom the dirty feet of strangers. Even if I am more focused on the end product of tidy nails rather than the process of getting them that way.
Last night, I discovered something I find interesting. Why such experimentation came to mind at 2 am on a brief foray into awakeness, I don't know.
Normally, my husband is quite ticklish - the gentlest touch to most anywhere on his body will send him squirming. But last night, while he was sleeping, I was able to rub his underarm, tummy, chest without a flinch on his part. He finally flinched when I rubbed his chin, but I think that was due to my having touched his facial hair. I never knew that people aren't ticklish in their sleep.
Try it on your bedmates, your roommates, the person sleeping next to you on the train. Let me know your results.
Happy Naw Ruz everyone! And happy vernal equinox!
Hope spring is in the air wherever you are!
Sam: So, I guess we're going to war at 3pm today....
Me: Guess so....
Strangeness. This is probably the first potentially catastrophic world-impacting event that can be scheduled in my PDA.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Fast, and ho tian is Nawruz, the Baha'i New Year. It's around this time every year that I wish the Fast would go on for longer. Sure, my mouth and tummy would love to eat chips and salsa at whim, but I want the specialness to continue. What happened to my plans to pray like five hours a day during the Fast?!
We always had traditions associated with the Fast - the special plates we used in the mornings, the food we ate for breakfast ("fast food" - the things that keep you chugging through the day). Just the fact that we ate breakfast together was something different from the rest of the year when we ran in different directions carrying various foods in our hands. Even when I lived alone, and now that I'm married, I carry on some of those traditions.
I was thinking the other day that this has been a good Fast for me. I've been able to fast without getting sickly, a problem of the past two years. I've bonded with Sam at the breakfast table. More importantly, I've generally walked around with a happy shiny feeling. Let it continue past sunset tomorrow.
Being in the world of public health means lots of focus on the respiratory illness that has popped in Asia. One of the things I like about it is that one of the areas with lots of cases is
Hong Kong, which is a SAR - Special Administrative Region
and the illness is SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
I just read that there are 95 SARS cases in the SAR.
This morning on my way to work, I saw a motorcyclist with his helmet - strapped to his bike instead of under his chin.
Yeah, buddy. If I wiped out, I too would want to make sure that the left back corner of my seat stayed intact.
I am excited to have found this word! The scatological child within giggles.
crap·u·lence n.
Sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking.
Excessive indulgence; intemperance.
In the words of me, to my father on many Fast mornings past, "I'm gonna sleep some good tonight."
In my younger years, I was all about breaking the Fast with Girl Scout cookies - Thin Mints. Mmmmm.... It's easy for me to remember when Girl Scout cookie time is because it's always when I can't eat in the daytime. I've moved away from shoving junk food in my mouth as soon as the sun goes down. But I still have some treats after dinner. Last night, we had Dreyer's Thin Mint ice cream - chocolate mint ice cream with Thin Mint pieces. I highly recommend.
At the end of this Fast, I will have been fasting for half my life. Well, not straight through, but I will have spent as many months of Loftiness fasting as I did not.
Better yet, don't call.
So, I figured out how paradise gets lost in Hawaii. When telemarketers call you at 5:45 in the morning.
I just walked the few blocks to Chinatown to get a pot for a new plant. There's some definite sketch between my office and there - you know, people with insufficient and ill-fitting clothing, with vacant looks in their eyes, standing in front of dark "bar" doorways. I passed one place, called Paradise Lost. That is a particularly depressing name, given that paradise is all around here. You have to work pretty hard at losing yourself to lose paradise in Hawaii.
Last night, I was quite excited to drink a fruity beverage decorated with a paper umbrella, an orchid, and slices of pineapple, while sitting on the patio of a beachfront hotel. And not just any hotel - a pink one! The Royal Hawaiian - the hotel that always shows up in pictures of Waikiki. At some point, I looked up and saw the crescent of the moon, framed by the tops of palm trees. It's times like that that make me go, "We live in Hawaii!"
We went to the Royal Hawaiian at the behest of another set of young marrieds. How can you turn down the invitation of a couple celebrating their one-week anniversary? When we showed up, it was still a half hour before sunset. Sam ordered a smoothie, but then just pretended to sip it. (He's been getting up and eating breakfast with me every day, and some days fasts with me.) I told the waiter I would order something in half an hour. A few minutes later he passes and goes, "what time is sunset?" I was surprised that he was astute enough to associate my drink timeframe with the sunset. He then revealed that he had noticed my bracelet with the Greatest Name on it, and that he too was a Baha'i. How funny is that?!
Man fakes choking to pick up ladies
The food culture here is very meat-oriented.
Sam: Tuna sandwich, please.
Shopkeeper: No meat for you today?
Sam: No.
SK: Is that some kind of religious thing or something?
Sam: Yeah.
SK: What religion?
Sam: Catholic.
SK: I'm Catholic, too. You're not supposed to eat meat today?
Sam: Yeah, no meat on Fridays during Lent.
SK: I never knew that. But dinner's okay, right?
The past couple of nights I have been low on energy (read: stumble in door, stumble into bed), and yesterday I was out of the office, learning how to give shots (at least I got to spend the day with my hubby, as his branch was being trained too). So, that's why it's Friday and I'm writing about Ash Wednesday.
I'd never been to church on Ash Wednesday, so I was kind of excited to tag along with Sam the other evening. I grew up in a heavily-Catholic city, but I guess most classmates went for Ash Wednesday Mass after school, or washed their foreheads before coming to school. My freshman year of college, I remember being initially confused by all the people I passed with dirty foreheads. Being a New Orleans native, but a non-Catholic, I'd been so focused on the day before being Mardi Gras (and that life in NYC was as usual), that I forgot about Ash Wednesday.
The church was pretty packed the other night - standing room only. I watched as everyone first got in lines to have the ashes crossed onto their foreheads, and then got in lines again to recieve Communion. It's very foreign to me.
I think what fascinates me most about going to church is when I think about the fact that Sam's family members, and people all across the country, have the same readings that day. I love systems - airports, the US Postal Service.... If it's efficient and well-planned, I'm all about it. It's very cool to me that the Missalettes are the same the country-over, organized by date well in advance.
The homily is different, the songs may be sung to a different tune, but if you're traveling, you won't feel too out of place going to a different church. Which is how I feel as a Baha'i, going to meetings in different cities. I wonder if that's the case for all religions.
I'm thinking maybe I should become a wigmaker. At this price, I would just need to make one every month or two to live very comfortably. Or maybe it's just valued that much after being on Cher's head. I'm wondering what kind of market there is for black and teal wigs - this was either done by a crazy-lover of Cher or someone with poor business sense.
Interesting article on black cats. Apparently, fur color and appearance is the result of a combination of 10 genes. Black coats in domestic cats and jaguars are the result of different kinds of mutations.
Probably more interesting to me is the statement that "99.99 percent of all mammal species that ever lived have gone extinct." That's a lot of different kinds of animals that I've never seen. It also makes me wonder if people's obsession with saving animals from extinction is unneccessary. I recognize that a lot of species' endangerment/extinction is due to humanity's actions, but for some species it's just natural that the jig would be up. A delicate balance between letting things run their course and trying to right wrongs we've made.
What a weekend! The kind that makes you go, "Whew! Can I have another day off?" Ayyam-i-Ha (Happy and Merry, Intercalary... I - N - T - E - R - C - A - L - A - R - Y, that spells a lot of fun....) came to a close with an Ayyam-i-Ha party at the Honolulu Baha'i Center.
Saturday night, I hosted the 19-Day Feast, which meant I got up at 4:30 in the A.M. to get in some baking before the kitchen got too hot, and then spent the rest of the day running errands and preparing more food. I'd never hosted Feast by myself for this many people (~40), so I was kind of nervous. But I think it went well.
And yesterday, we went to a wedding. A short and sweet one, at the military hospital's chapel. The whole experience (though not neccessarily the wedding details) seemed out of a movie set in the '40s or '50s. I guess that's because of the setting - a pink hospital in a tropical environment.
But, woohoo, the Fast has started. Always a special time of year.