Way Past Due

I guess I can't complain about being unfriended in Facebook when I can't even remember the name of the person who unfriended me.

More Than Words

I want to tell you about how much I love the beach.  Sort of.  I don't want to get deep or wordy or write a 20 stanza poem about the beach.  I just have to remind you all that you should spend more time relaxing and less time stressing.  You may not decompress at the beach.  For you, it might be the gym or the track or grandma's house, but whatever it is, do it more often!

I am so freaking blessed to live in this neighborhood that is perfectly located in Honolulu.  It's only a 5 minute bike ride to the beach, zoo, and aquarium, and an even shorter bike ride to the park.  We live in an  old community with lots of history, but we're close enough to the university to increase diversity.  We have Thai restaurants, non-denominational (read: not Starbucks) coffee shops, bike shops, and parks.  Bars, tattoo shops, supermarkets, Hawaiian restaurants, a poke shop, and a library.  Now, I love all those things and I love the diversity, but when it comes down to it, I'm most thankful for the close proximity to the beach.

I also have to say that I'm thankful that Charlie's FINALLY taken a real shine to the beach, too.  He was a reluctant visitor for a few years to the point of ridiculousness.  I mean, he's from FLORIDA!  Hello!  But now, after we've both had a hard day, that's where we turn.  Together.  That's amazing, too, that we can do it together with the same intent.  Now, I can't tell you what it is really, though I know I've tried before.  You've read about the buoyancy and the feel of the hot sun, and maybe that's all it is.  But when I'm at the beach and I try to pinpoint what it is, it doesn't FEEL like it's the sun or salt water.  It feels like home.  It feels familiar.

If you've seen me recently, you know I'm pretty overweight.  In fact, I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life, and though I'm working on getting fit, I'm still a big woman.  I should be uncomfortable at a beach, at Waikiki Beach, where there are not only hot chicas covering the shore, but hot bods from all over the world.  Am I cowed?  Not a bit.  Which doesn't make sense except for that no matter what, the beach feels like its my space.  Oddly enough, I don't feel fat at the beach.  I don't feel insecure.  I feel strong and vibrant and whole.  I'm at ease.  I belong.

And maybe that's why it's where I go to feel good.

You're Perfect, Yes, It's True

I've recently come to the realization that I'm in my mid-30s.  Smack dab, right in the middle.  On May 30, 2011, I made 35 years old.  I think it was fully realized when, at my yearly check-up at the OBGYN two months ago, he said, "Get a mammogram in the next 2 years."  Wha??  Who??  I'm the age at which health concerns start edging in and calling attention to themselves.  And because I was never really a health-conscious person, my door is now falling in from all the pounding.  My body is telling me to take better care of it, and I've been slow to listen.

Some of you may know that I quit smoking back in March after having been a smoker for about 5 years.  I started to worry about my general well-being because I was having difficulty breathing.  Charlie said my snoring was TERRIBLE as a smoker, and of course I stank.  After one night of being completely convinced I was going to have a heart attack, I quit, cold turkey.  I wrote a drawn-out essay over the first few weeks of quitting, and I'll post that at some point, but to make a long story short, my reasons for quitting were simple: I wanted to live.  Having decided that, quitting smoking was as simple (never easy) as choosing to live every time I wanted to light up.

Shortly after I quit, I started exercising.  My daily walking goal was 10,000 steps, I started bicycling, I gave up soda (more or less).  When I couldn't walk, I'd do a few vigorous rounds of Wii Sports with my kids or take my bike down for a ride around Kapi'olani Park.  We visited the beach often.  But as summer began, I slowly stopped exercising.  It wasn't too bad at first because I was doing hula twice a week and riding bike more often.  Then hula ended, school began, and now I do nothing more than ride my bike to the beach maybe once a week.

And I began to feel anxious all over again about my health.  It's entirely possible that my breathing concerns lately are purely fictitious concerns of a taxed and over-worked mind.  My doctor today ran a couple of tests and a bunch of blood work, all of which show that everything is as it should be.  She stressed more than once that nothing is wrong with my lungs or heart.  The echo and stress test are precautions, says she, because I was a smoker.

It's not even that I have reason to think something's wrong other than the fact that I'm overweight and was once a smoker.  My test results always come back normal, I eat a variety of healthy foods, I don't do drugs, and I'm in reasonable athletic condition so that when I go hiking, I'm not winded.  When I ride my bike uphill, I'm not dying.  I'm just worrying myself because I'm middle-aged.  That's my theory.

And I'm gonna start exercising again tomorrow.  I swear it.

From This Lostie

It's done.  After about a month and a half, I am finally done watching all 121 episodes-- 6 seasons!-- of Lost on Netflix.  And now that it's actually over, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.

The journey itself was like a visit from a new friend-- exciting, fresh, and surprising.  Having watched the series long after most everyone else, I knew to pay attention because questions and mysteries could possibly lead to some startling revelations (which was half the show, of course).  I tried to prolong it as best I could, but Lost being such an unusual and charming friend made it hard to stay away.  

I found the ending satisfying, if not predictable.  I think I kind of figured out what the side-timeline was before they actually revealed it, but even as I expected it, I was still disappointed in the whole intimation at religion.  They're in a church which starts off looking Catholic... and then looks Baha'i... which still alludes to religion.

But I digress.  After we were pau with the last episode, Charlie and I looked up some websites that some disgruntled Losties vented about their disappointment with the finale.  I find I don't share the same issues, and I credit being a long-time lover of fantasy fiction as the reason.  You learn that you just have to chalk some occurrences up to "well, it's a fantasy" because a lot of fantasy fiction share the same anomalies that the reader assumes in all those realms to be completely true.  You don't ask why this planet, for example, has 3 moons, you just accept it as a foreign planet.

My boss and Mark both lead me true when they said most of the big questions will be answered and the last 5 minutes kind of suck.  What were the polar bears about?  Some kind of DI experiment, right?  I don't really care.  What about the pregnant women dying?  Minor plot line, I lost interest in that long ago when there were no more pregnant women to think about.

I want to know what happened to Desmond.  I loved him, by the way.  He was one of my favorite characters through the whole thing-- sincere, selfless, loving, and smart.  But Jack tells him to go home to his wife and son, they talk about figuring out how to get him home, but you don't know if he actually leaves!  And why did Desmond have to go down only to be sent back up again by Jack?  Desmond was right, you know. He could have put the stopper back without any repercussions (his immunity and all), and they both could have lived.

I am troubled by their so-called international cast where all the black people were basically murderers.  Well, okay, Walt doesn't actually kill anyone.  To my knowledge, anyway.  And Sayid?  Let's make sure we further facilitate the idea that men from the middle East are torturers and murderers!  And while we're talking about characters, I didn't like any of the women, either.  Sun was the closest thing to a woman I liked, and that was because she didn't really say or do as many stupid things as the other women AND Sun created the garden.

The other thing that troubles me is not so much the incompletion of certain story lines, it's that some were perhaps too ambitious.  Good vs. evil?  What the french?!  The end of the world if Jacob's nameless brother got off the island?  WHY? Says who?  I was actually kind of rooting for him by the end.  I felt bad for him!  He's not supposed to leave, but no one ever told him why.  But that all went away when Desmond pulled the stopper out of the sink and Kate shot him.  Oh, and Jack kicked him over the cliff.

Anyway, that's all I got time for right now.  I would love to hear what you have to say about the series and its finale.  Please share!

What a Little Bit Can Do

It has been a challenging week, both at work and at home.  I can't remember another time when I concluded a lesson before it was done, but I did that on Tuesday.  The worst part about that was I couldn't vent to my husband because he wasn't there!  Him working night shifts SUCK!

And so it is that I'm reminded how powerful little things can be.  Such as a pair of headphones and the ocean.  Submersing myself in the Pacific Ocean has always been a source of comfort for me, especially since I've had children.  The warm, salty water provides buoyancy and the illusion of weightlessness.  I indulge in the ritual (that I otherwise hate) of applying sunscreen to the backs of my children and husband.  I revel in the feel of the hot afternoon sun upon my face and shoulders.  The crash of the waves serves to block out all other sounds-- like kids bickering-- but also makes it so that there's no bickering, anyway.

So on my walk to get coffee before work the next day, I fondly think back on my trip to the beach like I would think on a recent encounter with a new lover.  It was amazing and memorable and still surprising.  While I'm reminiscing, I'm also listening to my ipod and Sublime's "5446/Ball and Chain" comes on, and I am further relaxed.  It surprises me, too, because I didn't realize how loud the music was, and it was pleasant because the song itself reminds me of good times.

On the melodramatic side, it kind of makes me want to cry.  Forgetting these simple joys is SO easy.  TOO easy.  Also too easy is filling up my day with stress-- running too many "important" errands, promising too much to too many.  I have to actually remind myself to breathe and count my blessings and enjoy whats been given to me.  Instead of whining about what I don't have or what I have to do, I need to remember why I do them in the first place and fill my daily motions with love and purpose.

Enjoy some Sublime!

My son is not the manliest of sons, and I say this with all the love and pride in my heart.  He is goofy and awkward and sensitive and weird.  The other night when Charlie was at work, Noah, Lucy, and I went through this whole thing because there was a not-quite-dead cockroach in the shower and none of us had bathed yet.  Towel-clad Lucy convinced Noah to take care of it, and he did... with much ado.

When he was 4 and we were living in Oklahoma, it was 1 year-old Lucy who picked up bugs and played in the dirt.  It was Noah who ran in the house to wash his hands.  But my son loves to read and draw and play video games.  He likes to play in the ocean and goes hiking with Charlie.  We ride bikes around town, he walks to the corner store for me to pick up sour cream or a chili packet.  He may not be athletic, but that doesn't mean in any way that he disappoints me, nor does it mean he doesn't sometimes surprise me with his bravery and protectiveness.

An example.

We have 6 bunnies and a couple of them have gotten out of their cages a couple times, and every time they were retrieved, scolded, and put back where they belonged.  Our 6 bunnies sometimes go nuts in their cages at night because apparently they like roaches about as much as I do.  Our neighborhood has been having something of a rat issue in the last year or so, and the rabbits hate them, too.  So one night a few weeks ago they were going especially nuts.  I asked Noah if he was sure he closed the cages good when he fed them earlier and he said he had.  Then he said without hesitation, "I'll go check on them, Mom, just to be sure."  My son, my not manly-man son, went into the dark garage where flying cockroaches and the occasional rat have been known to roam to check on the bunnies.  And he didn't just stick his head around the corner, either.  He stood in front of their cages and checked the latches to be sure.

It's a small thing, but I was so proud of Noah, more proud than when he brought home his last wonderful HSA scores.  He wanted to protect the bunnies even as he hates having to feed and water them twice a day EVERY day.  More than he hates roaches and rats.  I thought of how grown my little boy has become, how mature and strong.  Noah feigns weakness so he can avoid actual labor (and who among us hasn't and doesn't?), but I can count on him to do the right thing.  Usually, anyway.

Not one of us is perfect, but I revel in watching my children grow up and grow into strong human beings.  I love seeing them use their hearts to help people and help themselves.  I'm proud of them.  I'm glad I have the privilege to be a part of their lives.  I'm so happy they're my children.

In General

It didn't take long to notice that the "Note" feature in Facebook was lacking as far as being a substitute for a blog.  I miss blogging.  The FB Note thing is fine and all, but by simply NOT being labeled a blog, a blog is shall never be.

Which leads me to blogger.  That it's a completely different website from FB is already one strike against maintenance because I'm a creature of habit.  I'll just have to squeeze it in if I want to keep this thing updated.

This will be a forum for me to post whatever random thoughts I have about any random thing.  Or event or place or person or group of people.  You can choose to follow or not.  I will sometimes be profane, occasionally insightful, probably boring.  But no one's twisting your arm, you can stop reading at any time. But if you feel so inclined, feel free to drop me a comment!

By the way, did you notice the big letters?  The apostrophes?  Let's see how long THAT lasts...