Shokufeh is... home

Continuing the trend

I've seen this a few places, most recently Anissa's blog. Speak (type) up.

1. first, recommend to me:
* a movie
* a book
* a musical artist, song, or album

2. ask me three questions, no more, no less. ask me anything you want.

3. paste this into your journal, allowing your friends to ask you anything.

Thank you

Dear 'Bucks on Bishop:

Thank you for bringing me back to life. Your vivacious employees, full of aloha, are always a treat. And the jolt of your java is sometimes just what a girl needs, when her morning tea is not enough.

With alertness,

Shokufeh

Now on to-do list: Go to Staten Island

In my years living in New York, I think I went to Staten Island once. My memories of that day include: seeing about 30 guys stopping to pee along a wall; being encouraged in Spanish (for the record, not a language I speak), by a guy who'd already finished and was just running for the heck of it by that point; deciding it was better to just stop than walk the last mile and see my name as the last finisher.... Yes, it was for a still-unfinished half marathon, 10 years ago.

Anyway, my reason for wanting to go to Staten Island is not to run a half marathon, or the mile left from the one I showed up for in the fall of 1994. (Can you tell that I'm still carrying the mental burden of quitting?) I want to go to Staten Island to visit Ozon. There's an article about them and their marketing in yesterday NYT Magazine. Interesting and all, but what I really want is the food. Mac and cheese in a sealed sandwich! Ice cream in a sealed waffle! Two drinks in one cup! Bring it on!

The appointed minute

Yesterday, I recieved two telemarketing calls. Not such a big deal, except that they occurred almost exactly at the same time! They were spaced just enough that both calls got through: the phone rang, I picked it up, and instead of hearing a person at the other end, heard a beep indicating a second call. Trippy.

At least I could honestly tell both that I was on the phone, and not have to endure their pitch. (Okay, Iwas fudging a little when I told the second person, since I'd already used that line and hung up on the first person. But what's a second or two of reality when it comes to getting out of a sales pitch?)

One of many strange and detailed dreams this weekend

I was driving a car, the same shade of turquoise as Eggbert, my old Honda Civic hatchback. Anis was next to me. Meisa was behind me. A middle-aged-woman (MAW), whom I know from Honolulu, was behind Anis. We were going down a major street, but it was relatively empty. I guess because it was late at night. Or maybe because of the inconvenience of the pothole. Not potholes. Pothole. Huge pothole. Which I proceeded to drive into. And when I say into, I mean it swallowed the front half of the car.

Thank goodness it wasn't Eggbert, since the front windows were in the pothole. Because it was a four-door with power windows, I was able to roll down the back windows, and the four of us climbed out of the car. MAW, being of sound mind, disappeared. Meisa, Anis, and I decided we should take all our stuff out of the car. Getting things out of the interior was made a little easier by the shifting of the car that had resulted from us climbing out. Then we started to get things out of the trunk of the car. There was a dumpster on the corner where I got a box to put our stuff in. Then I realized - a picture! How often does the front half of your car get engulfed by a pothole?! Definitely a photo opportunity.

So, I took out my camera and turned on the power. Just as the camera was making its I'm-ready trill, the car backed up, out of the pothole. It did a little jig. Dipped its front end back into the pothole, but from the other direction. Did a little jig. Dipped down again. After a few more expressions of its excitement, during which we stood with our jaws at our bellybuttons, the car revved its engine and swerved all around the street and then into the garage door 20 yards from where we were standing. We breathed a collective sigh of relief that its rampage had come to an end. It revved its engine again, backed up, and then went though the hole it had just created, made a hard right, and slammed into a wall. Bricks went flying, our anxiety dropped agan. But only for a second.

You guessed it - the car revved its engine again, swerved back onto the street, and then started aiming for us. We knew we couldn't make it to the roof of the fast food restaurant across the street, so we started running, and then did some Bionic Woman/ Six-Million-Dollar Man moves to leap across a huge dumpster. We knew we couldn't outrun the car, but we figured we could outsmart it. Next to the huge dumpster was a big truck with poles we could stand on and hold onto. Anis stood on one. I stood on another about 10 feet away, with Meisa right below me. Meisa was super excited and was flailing her arms. I tapped her with my foot, hoping she'd stay still. The car rounded the side of the truck and entered a doorway. We stood quiet, not yet ready to believe the ordeal was over. An old man came out of the doorway, looked straight us, and said, "Son, I think you need to clean that truck over there." We'd been made. Eddie Murphy stuck his head out of the doorway and did his special laugh, with a gleam in his eye. We weren't laughing. We were about to be cleaned.

Do hormonal fluctuations make your dreams more vivid and exciting?

A reason to be happy to be living in 2004

I try not to write about work here, but sometimes I'm moved to:
My heart did a little happy dance just now, as I passed our server room and saw two of my male coworkers conferring - one of them with his infant son strapped to his front.

With all the sadness going on in the world, it's good to step back every once in a while and recognize that humanity is moving forward.

Fall

I finally feel like fall is here. In September, I told myself not to focus on what fall on the mainland means. (Or really, what fall in places with more seasonal variation means, e.g. Chicago, my last place of residence). I got psyched that surfing season was upon us, I delighted in the rare day where the "fall light" was present. But I still didn't really feel like it was fall. But now I do!

I finally changed the wreath on our door - it now contains fall leaves instead of flowers.

We're having a cold spell - all the way down into the 70s. Remember, it's relative. Today, I have the pleasure of wearing tights. And, Sunday evening, I felt super cozy, wearing my warm pajamas after a hot shower, eating ash-e-reshte.

We signed up for surfing again. If the waves aren't good enough to hold the surf contest, we'll start on Saturday.

Not fall related, but also good - The Amazing Race starts again tonight! Three hours of my two favorite shows - Gilmore Girls and AR.

Vog

What rhymes with fog and smog?
Vog.

What results when Kilauea is extra-active and we have Kona winds?
Vog.

What casts a haze over the city?
Vog.

What inspires me to use my all-but-lost inhaler?
Vog.

What do I wish would go away?
Vog.

Swirls

There have been so many thoughts swirling in my head, I find them hard to put into words. They have to do with:

While I wrap my brain around my thoughts, I'll share something that I found very powerful:
Last week on the Today show, they did a segment on a "mompreneur" (stay-at-home-mom and entrepreneur, rolled into one), who started a purse business. It grew out of some drawings she made based on dreams she had while suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her second daughter. Now, six or so years later, she balances the business of purses with the business of being a mom to two elementary school-age girls, with the latter taking first priority.

But she didn't say that raising the two girls comes first. She said that raising the two women comes first. That one word difference turned the sentence from a regular sentence to a very powerful one. Because, when it comes down to it, when you have a child, you are raising them to be an adult. They happen to be in their child form, and you shouldn't treat them as if they're 25 years old. But, I think, the parents who keep in mind that they're raising women, rather than girls (and men, rather than boys), are creating offspring who will take responsibility for themselves and the world they live in, endowing them with a lot of positive power.

Living heritage

We just got word that Doe v. Kamehameha will be heard, by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in our building tomorrow. (The courtroom originally to have been used was flooded, I think.) Reading the notice reminded me of some of my thoughts weekend before past, as I was running and walking the Komen Race for the Cure.

Along the course and through the park, I saw a number of people wearing the Kamehameha Schools team shirt - "Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation" on the front, a portrait of Ke Ali’i Pauahi, who died of breast cancer, and the years of her life, on the back. Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop founded the Kamehameha schools with the goal of providing Native Hawaiians with the education needed to "compete with the other nationalities in all the ways open to them for getting an honest living; And so, in order that her own people might have the opportunity for fitting themselves for such competition, ...these schools were provided for, in which Hawaiians have the preference, and which she hoped they would value and take the advantages of as fully as possible."

All who attend the school, at this time, must have at least one Hawaiian ancestor. Other ancestry is diverse. As I looked at the numerous people who were wearing the Kamehameha team shirt, I reflected on the beautiful diversity present in each person, the team as a whole, the islands of Hawaii.... And I thought about the benefits and challenges of bringing together people of different ethnicities while maintaining the cultural and the biologic clades that bring beauty to the world. The people wearing the shirts, representing the Native Hawaiian school, had various colors of hair and skin, in every part of the spectrum. While their ancestors come from all over the world, what they have in common (besides the shirts) is Hawaiian ancestry.

I thought about a Native American woman I spoke with a few years ago, who explained that she was fiercely fighting for the survival of her people. Her strides in encouraging young mothers to seek prenatal care and breastfeed, reducing infant mortality, went beyond saving individuals - she was saving a culture, language, history. What, at the heart of it, is it that makes a “people”? How do we balance achieving integration and preserving the individual cultures and ethnicities present in the world? How do we make sure the group of people called Hawaiians exist, along with the unique characteristics that make them Hawaiian? How do I make sure that the unique characteristics that make me Black and Persian and the characteristics that make my husband Filipino are passed on? How do we achieve this while we all meld together? How do we make a delicious salad with flavors that blend while not tasting the same thing in every bite?

Consider the flowers of a garden. Though differing in kind, color, form, and shape, yet, inasmuch as they are refreshed by the waters of one spring, revived by the breath of one wind, invigorated by the rays of one sun, this diversity increaseth their charm, and addeth unto their beauty. How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the leaves and blossoms, the fruits, the branches and the trees of that garden were all of the same shape and color! Diversity of hues, form and shape, enricheth and adorneth the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof. In like manner, when divers shades of thought, temperament and character, are brought together under the power and influence of one central agency, the beauty and glory of human perfection will be revealed and made manifest. Naught but the celestial potency of the Word of God, which ruleth and transcendeth the realities of all things, is capable of harmonizing the divergent thoughts, sentiments, ideas, and convictions of the children of men. (Abdu'l-Bahá)

A picture is worth...

We've been having quite a bit of rain the past couple of weeks. Even a little lightening and thunder, which in my time here has been rare. Apparently, the rain on Saturday night was more torrential than we realized. I now have a greater understanding of what a flash flood might entail:

Now that the time has changed in many places, but not here, the time on my posts is four hours ahead of local time.