Selected shorts

So, just trying to keep the momentum up as we swing into the new bloggin' year... here's another little pic dump.

This is a page from a book on communication.

Muhammad Ali's two biggest rivals were Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

George Frazier is not a boxer. George Frazier is an error.

I think my Sissy would say than an error of this nature, as trivial as it may seem, destroys the writer's ethos and credibility. It sure did for me in this case. But maybe I'm just being harsh; stones and glass houses, right?

Canadians can be so much more civilized sometimes. This is a train crossing in White Rock. Would that we had the same rules here in Fairhaven; Coco and I would get much better rest.
 

Larrabee State Park is still out-of-the-way, if no longer remote. I can't imagine what it must have been like getting to this bandstand in 1915, the date on the sign. A state park must have been a more like wilderness then.

I saw this earlier in the holiday season. This might be my best choice for a post-retirement job.

#HawaiianEye: Return

So, we were wheels down at Bellingham International a little more than ten hours ago, walking out in winds that were forty degrees colder than the island breezes we had left. I guess it's always good to be home, but the cat might have been the only compelling reason to return right now.

This, of course, is why we come. Coco's smile is never more genuine than when she is on the beach, near the ocean. Her relationship to the sun has shifted since her melanoma (hence the supersuit) but her relationship to the island has not. The bio on her website still reads in part "My soul-home is in Maui, Hawaii. My birth home is in Seattle, WA. My current home is in Bellingham, WA." I can see this truth whether she is quietly studying the landscape or searching the tide pools for turtles or letting the power of the waves embrace her.

Which is not to say that our trips to Hawaii are not problematic to us. We are both well aware of the colonial adventurism and history of deceit that made Hawaii part of the U.S., and of the high environmental impact of maintaining the tourism-based economy on the island - and of just getting to and from it. In our previous forays into moving to Hawaii, we often wondered how deeply we would wind up involved with the sovereignty movement and how ironic that might be. For now, we try to move gently and mindfully through a land that is still pretty close to paradise in many ways.

In any case, we return refreshed and ready for what will likely be a tough year ahead.

Bonus bits and bobs:

I paid a visit on our last day to Maui Comics and Collectibles, the only comic book store on Maui. Look for a report on that experience in an upcoming He is a Thark.

Our last beer in the island was in the airport lounge, which has these crazy cool fans:

Coco thinks I have recorded this before, but I couldn't find it on Pog and Vodka..

On the plane ride home, the latch fell out of the seat back in front of me and I could no longer return my tray to its full upright and locked position. The flight attendant came up with this interim repair job, and I needed to change seats for the landing for safety reasons (the word "impale" was used more than once).

That's is for this edition of #HawaiianEye. Mahalo.

My happy vacation face.

#HawaiianEye: Well-met

So, a trip to the islands is a get-away, but this time it was a get-together as well. Our last vacation dinner was a sunset meal at Maui mainstay Kimo's.

 The big deal wasn't the menu...

...or the spectacular view...

but rather our dining companions:

In a little bit of serendipity, our visit to Maui coincided with the longer-ranging travel plans of our good friends Erin and Tim Steinke, who were visiting relatives in Hawaii after an excursion to Samoa. A long, leisurely dinner marked with catching-up and telling new stories was the perfect cap to our trip.

I even celebrated with a proper umbrella drink.

Cheers!

#HawaiianEye: Ahaaina

So, some readers may recall that on another holiday trip to warmer climes - Palm Springs, 2014 - Coco and I had splendid dinner on Christmas Eve and improvised our Christmas Day dinner plans, winding up at an out-of-the-way Chinese restaurant. The young staff, working the first holiday the restaurant had remained opened, were completely overwhelmed by the unexpected slam, and we wound up waiting literally two hours for any food beyond a bowl of wontons and some sweet-and sour sauce. The crew was wonderful and we were pulling for them, but still and all it was not the evening we had anticipated.

This trip, we were sort-of following the same pattern. We enjoyed a grand meal at the fancy Pacific'O restaurant on Christmas Eve, but we had made plans to see the 7:00 pm showing of Moana in Kahalui yesterday night, so we just wanted a place to grab a bite. We verified that the Tiki Tiki Thai Restaurant was open for dinner beforehand, and when we arrived, I was a bit anxious that we were going to repeat the Palm Springs experience. The Tiki Tiki, a small strip mall eatery, seats maybe 30 people, if I am being generous. There were people waiting, and we had only allowed a little more than an hour before we needed to head to the theater.

5:35 - We are seated within minutes because we are a party of two and not one of the hopeful clusters of four or six or eight - a very good start. The white plastic illuminated tree adds a "festive" touch to the table.

5:42 - Our order is taken by the youngest staffer, a teenage (tweenage?) girl in an Anime Convention T-shirt. Things are looking  good, but I overhear the cashier telling some people ordering takeout how it might be 30 minutes for their order.

5:58 - We get our beers, brought by the boss, whose red and black service smock is oddly reminiscent of a Star Trek uniform (Next Generation). Hope remains strong as Coco and I play I Spy.

6:19 - The food arrives - yay! Not only do we have sufficient time to eat, but both the Pad Thai and the pad See Ew are very good. History does not repeat itself; all is well.

PS: Moana is really good.

Bonus photo: We fared much better with our holiday breakfast - we were the third in line when the always-in-demand Gazebo restaurant opened for breakfast at 7:30, had sweet banana pancakes while watching the morning waves, and then visited the tide pools to look for turtles.

(Shortly after this exuberance, Coco went back to bed for nap before her morning swim.)

#HawaiianEye: Mele Kalikimaka

 Holiday music at the Kaanapali Beach Hotel

So, I usually celebrate December 25 as Isaac Newton's Birthday, a practice that grew out of my reluctance to embrace either the religious holiday of Christmas or the commercial holiday of Christmas, but wanting something to celebrate along with everyone else.  Apples and rainbow ornaments replaced the crèches and the reindeer, and a tradition was born (Newton Day apple pancake breakfasts became A Thing in our crowd).

But Maui is about as far from Isaac Newton as I can imagine, so here's a try at a different sensibility: for some time I have been thinking about what I call TV-movie Xmas: a non-denominational, spiritually vague celebration of peace, good will, and generosity; a time when we take a moment to reflect that kindness is actually important and that manifesting it is valuable. I can get behind that.

So, in that spirit, Mele Kalikimaka from Napili Bay!

#HawaiianEye: Business

So, part of this trip was in service to Coco's creative healing art enterprise: energy work, body work, art, art products, workshops, and now, Body Cards: Insight from the Body, Wisdom for the Soul, her meditation card/book set, published by Schiffer Publishing and available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and in specialty bookstores across North America.

In between the morning swim and evening cocktails, Coco spent some time at the signing table in the Lahaina Barnes & Noble store, promoting the book, doing impromptu card readings with customers, and signing copies. The in-store event wasn't quite the mob scene one always hopes for, but there was a lot of coverage on local social media so we'll put this one in the win column.

Bonus photos:

 
Pro tip: If just being in a Segway tour group doesn't makes you look dorky enough, be sure to wear the helmet and reflective vest to cut that colossally dorky figure.

#HawaiianEye: Pilgrimage

So, I mentioned to a colleague that I was coming to Maui and they said they would be heading here in the New Year and asked me what we do on Maui.

Me: Well, there's this place called Makawao we like to go to, kind of a sanctuary garden, where there's a labyrinth. Not the corn maze kind, the meditation kind.

Them: You go to Maui and meditate?

Me: Well, not all the time, but yeah, kinda.

Them: Is there any night life?

Me: I think there's a Hard Rock Cafe in Lahaina.

Yes, we do make a trip upcountry every visit to go to the Sacred Garden. It's a nice drive up to the North Shore and a different kind of Hawaii from the beaches. I'm not sure what I'd call the ethos of the place, but it's something along the lines of equal-opportunity spirituality.

We've got Ganesh, Buddha, and Jesus - and that's just for starters. Lots of other figures I recognized,  some I didn't, and I even saw some dragons. Mostly, it's a quiet place full of plants. Whatever the trip is, it is a calm and serene place, and helps refill the soul.

On the way back, Coco had another soulful experience. For months and months she's been wanting a close encounter with a cow - cow has sort of become her spirit guide lately - and  when I spotted a pasture alongside the coast road, well, let's just say we didn't see the Private Property sign until too late.

I gotta say, those bovines have one of the best views in the island - I think they can see the  surfers at Ho'okipa from their field.

All that and we made it back to Napili in time for Coco's afternoon swim. Good times.

Bonus picture: the colors in the cafe in Paia ( home of the dope-smoking surfing cowboys) were too good to pass up, especially with a beautiful woman in the composition:

(Does Coco look a bit like Kirsten Dunst in this photo? I never noticed that resemblance before.)

#HawaiianEye: Tradition

Ever since an epically rainy night on a our first stay in Maui, our visits to the island have included a traditional dinner at Maui Tacos and a bad movie, in the spirit of our first showing, Ang Lee's Hulk.

I love Maui Tacos because the vegetarian taco has potatoes in it; Coco loves the pineapple salsa most of all. It's all good, man.

It wasn't truly a dinner-and-movie night because we ate first, then headed into Lahaina town to walk Front Street and take in the ambience (since it wasn't raining), and then returned to Napili for the late show.

The movie was Dragon Blade, an inspired-by-possibly-true-events hot mess that pits a lost Roman legion against Chinese soldiers on the Silk Road and stars Jackie Chan and John Cusack! Watch it at your own risk.

Bonus photo: here's the wee gecko from yesterday, lounging on the deck.

#Hawaiian Eye: Arrival

So, I had originally planned to revitalize POG and Vodka to memorialize this trip to Hawaii, but then I decided that that record of my Maui-moon with Coco was a perfect stand-alone artifact and I didn't want to tamper with it. Instead, we'll post here and hashtag it like the cool kids do.

Breaking news: in the middle of typing that paragraph, I went to the kitchenette to refresh my coffee and found a tiny gecko inside the fridge. I'm no naturalist, but I am pretty sure he didn't want to be there, so I transported him out to the deck, breathed on him a little, and he perked up and scooted off.

Innyway, herewith are some brief impressions of the trip this time around.

We have learned that airport mimosas are good way to start any flight.

In what I call Complaining about Miracles™, the flight seemed awfully long. The Alaska/Virgin people were great, and it was as comfortable as you can expect, but that's still a lot of hours.  

 

And the in-flight magazine crossword puzzle was deucedly harder than it had any right to be...
 

In a world where so much business is conducted online or digitally (the flight attendants hand out individual tablets instead of headphones now!), it's kind of charming that the agricultural declaration for the State of Hawaii still needs to be completed on paper.

Baggage, rental car, and all that went smoothly, and sooner rather than later we were at the condo:

Top drawer, this time, right on the beach. Embiggen the following for full effect:

Went out for a great dinner at one of our favorite spots, made the ritual stop at the Honokowai ABC store, and jet-lagged ourselves to bed hoping to get on schedule.

Mele Kalikimaka. I'll let you know if we run into Barack and Michelle.

Oh yeah:

Saw this as we were picking up provisions - what the what? It was mostly energy drinks...

5.9 for 59: a Geek's Tour of The City of Subdued Excitement

I haven't done this in some years, but I took the day off for my birthday and had a solo walkabout. Coco had to work and was gone for the bulk of the day, the weather was cooperating, and I need the exercise, so off I went to clock 5.9 miles to commemorate the end of my 59th year.

(Of course, the 5.9 was arbitrarily selected for its symmetry in the title; I actually traveled a bit further than that.)

I started by deadheading to the other side of town by bus. BTW, the bus fare in Bellingham is one dollar, but there are no transfers - a buck each time you get on.

Coco wanted selfies, so here I am at the start of the walk, entering the Railroad Trail, one of the many urban and interurban trails in the Bellingham area.

When I exited the trail and got back in the neighborhood, I was going to stop for a bite here at Homeskillet, but alas it was closed on Mondays. Still fun to look at!

(Obligatory Christopher Walken pun.)

My next stop was to be Cosmic Comics, one of the two comics shops in Belligham...

...but they were closed as well - apparently, they had a fire about a week ago that I hadn't heard about.

Undaunted, I continued my journey, stopping briefly at Arlis's Restaurant for a cup of coffee and an excellent corn muffin.

Can you answer the trivia question on Arlis's wall? I could. (Answer below.)

Finally, a planned stop that was actually open: Henderson Books. This place is off the hook: imagine the entire stock of Powell's crammed into a space one-third the size. I'll be doing a separate post on my prior adventure here but suffice it to say it's amazing.

Today, I just picked this up. After the Misadventure of the Three-Week Tuba Player (also the subject of a separate post), I felt I needed some formal education.

I took a little detour to Dark Tower Games; it also wasn't open yet, but I hadn't planned on going in. It's a pretty solid game store; I just wish it had more grown-up gamers hanging out.

Finders Keepers is a few doors down from Dark Tower - it's an eclectic - or confused - shop that doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a mainstream toy store a  geeky game store, or, it seems, a comics shop.

This was my main destination: the Comics Place, the other comics shop in town. They recently moved from  a typically sketchy comic shop storefront to a wonderful space in bank building, of all places. Look at all those straights exiting the lobby door that the shop shares with the offices.

I mean seriously, this is like the Daily Planet building or something.  It's a warm, clean, open, carpeted store and I hope they do well there.

I did my best to contribute to the cause: a couple of Batman anthologies, happy birthday from me to me.

I left downtown via the South Bay Trail, which runs on a hillside along Bellingham Bay , with constant glimpses of the water...

 ...and some great views when there's a clearing. In the center of this picture is a small white tower set against the green trees - that's on campus, and the building that can be seen just to the left of it is where my office is.

The trail connects to Boulevard Park, which is connected to Fairhaven Village by a pair of over-the-water boardwalks. I hit 5.9 miles just before I reached the village green.

All in all, a pretty sweet day, and a nice chance to reflect in what it means to be entering my sixtieth year. More on that later, as well.

Oh, and Elmo Lincoln was the first screen Tarzan.