Happy Autumn!

At least, I'm assuming it's a happy Autumn. I wouldn't know. There's no nip in the air, rustle of dead leaves, or hankering for apple cider and pumpkin pie. I used to check weather.com every single day in Boston because it could be pouring rain on Tuesday and then hot without a cloud in the sky on Wednesday. Here, the 10-day forecast is like a bad joke. It's been 88° and sunny, give or take a degree, every day since I got here.

The FedEx folks, as well as the mail carriers, have been going out of their way to be helpful. When all of those boxes were arriving, the mail carrier would call to make sure I was going to be home to receive them. And that day that 13 of them arrived, a postal worker who didn't have a regular route not only delivered them, he brought them all up to the 4th floor! And FedEx knew I was expecting computer parts, so they called me too!

So, thanks to the vigilance and extra service of the delivery people, my CPU and printer arrived safely within a few days of each other. But I still don't have everything set up because my apartment is apparently the Bermuda Triangle of electronic devices. When I tried to plug the monitor into the wall, I heard this awful *POP*-fizzle and was certain I had killed it even before getting to use it. When I turned on both the monitor and the CPU, I got only a "no signal" message on the screen, so a Dell tech is going to be coming out here to help me try to fix everything. Then, when I was trying to plug the computer, monitor and my new speaker system into the surge protector, I pushed the CPU up against the wall so both it and the subwoofer would fit in the space next to my desk, and I think the CPU got too close to the cord for the lamp (which looks like some former tenant's puppy turned it into a chew toy). There was another *POP*-fizzle, and this time, I even saw sparks! How festive! I don't think any permanent damage was done, but I'm not taking any chances - the tech will be the one hooking everything up! As if that wasn't enough, I even needed help downloading the drivers for my printer. I'm so ashamed. Am I married to a geek, or aren't I?? At least the printer hasn't felt a need to contribute to the Guy Fawkes demonstrations...

Last Thursday, the 17th, I had plans to go to lunch and then do pottery painting with the Navy Wives group on Facebook. Cari, a friend of mine in the LIS program, picked me up and came to lunch with us - she's actually an Army brat, but who's counting? The pottery painting place was on Hickam Air Force Base, and I needed to go to a military installation (didn't matter the branch) to get my dependent ID card, so I figured I could go take care of that and then join everyone. Well, I called ahead of time and spoke to a very nice lady who told me that, contrary to what the very mean lady at Pearl Harbor had said, I did not need Power of Attorney, because my husband had signed the application as the sponsor; I just needed to show up with two forms of ID and the application and I'd be good to go. I didn't even need to make an appointment! She also gave me directions, but try as we might, we couldn't figure out where we were supposed to go once we got on base. So I called the office again, but that was absolutely no help. The guy was like, "Look for a gray building...oh, maybe it's tan..." I dunno, dude, you're the one who works there! Cari and I were cracking up at this point - bless her heart, she drove us around and around that base until I was sure they would stop us for suspicious activity! We finally found the office and the whole process took maybe twenty minutes, which was great. We ended up missing the pottery painting, but getting the ID was way more important. So now I'm officially a Navy wife! Eamon said in one of his letters that getting his dog tags made it all feel very real. Now I know what he means.

One of the things that really makes me feel like I'm in Hawai'i is seeing geckos inside, and I was hoping I'd be lucky enough to have one in my apartment at some point. You can tell when they're nearby because of their distinctive clicking (if you've ever ridden horses, you can approximate the clicking by making the sound you would use to get a horse to start walking). I'd been hearing clicks every night, but a few days ago it echoed right outside my door, so I ran out to check how close it was.

This guy was one door down, just at the entrance to the hall. It's a little hard to tell, but he's flat against the wall up near the ceiling. Look at how well he's camouflaged against the white! He was about 4 inches long - don't you just love his fat little belly??

A few days later, when I was adjusting the windows above my lanai door, I finally got my wish - a tiny little gecko scurried in from outside and settled on the wall above my desk!

This one was only about an inch and a half or two inches long - so cute! I love their little beady eyes and big flat toes.

Here's what Niamh had to say about all this:

I burst out laughing when I saw her staring wide-eyed at the strange little creature up on the wall. I swear she didn't blink once. Can't you just see the thought bubble? "What the...??"

I've signed up for yet another class with the Leisure Center - ceramics! I feel like I'm singlehandedly keeping the place going :-) My very ambitious plan is to make a teapot and sugar bowl to match the beautiful purple floral teacups and saucers that Micah and Ellie gave out as their wedding favors. I haven't been able to find the rest of the set in that pattern online, so if I can just match the colors I'll be happy! Well, okay, let's be realistic - if I manage to make something that even remotely resembles a teapot, I'll be happy.

One thing that makes a house (or apartment) a home is pictures. I have all of my framed photos now, and I would love to put them up around the living room and bedroom, but I am just having the toughest time deciding what should go where, whether I should keep them in their current frames or get the big collage ones that hold lots of pictures, and all those piddling little details. But I can't do it by myself - I need another pair of eyes and arms, someone who can hold them up where I kind of want them to go so I can stand back and see if I like it, or who can tell me if they look okay when *I* hold them up.

Eamon's division got to call home this past Saturday right around noon my time. I was in Hula class and I didn't even hear the phone ring :-( He had gotten his first call just a little over a week before, so I wasn't expecting another one for at least a few days, but there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they schedule these things. He left me nice messages (yup, messages plural - he tried calling me twice!) saying things were going better and he was happy I was keeping busy and doing fun stuff, and I shouldn't be sad that I missed his call. Well, with so few chances to talk to him these days, I was definitely bummed. Thankfully, I have lots of wonderful people I can call in times of crisis (or just when I need a good cry), and my roomie Diana and her wife Sarah took turns cheering me up while baking various yummies for a church function.

And I can also take comfort in the fact that Eamon graduates from Boot Camp in just a little over two weeks!!!

Produce, rainbows and cushions, oh my!

There's a really great farmer's market held on the UH Manoa campus every Friday, and I finally went this past week. It's all locally grown produce, and it's all really cheap! I spent about $20 and came away with papayas, lettuce, "long beans" (which look like nothing so much as green shoelaces), grape tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, a cucumber, and the cutest watermelon in the entire world. I kid you not, this thing was frickin' adorable:

It's the perfect size for one person!

FYI - I just figured this out - all of the pictures in the blog posts are clickable so you can see them full-size. In my browser, which is Google Chrome (try it if you haven't, by the way - it's great!) they just open in the same window and then you can go back one page to return to the blog. I don't know if they do the same thing in Internet Explorer and Firefox, though.

After the farmer's market I went to the supermarket to get the rest of the groceries I needed, and just after I got home (around 5:00) it started pouring rain. But as is often the way of these tropical showers, the sun was shining brightly - looking west, the raindrops formed this curtain of dazzling crystals as the sun streamed through them. But I instinctively turned my head east and was greeted with a saturated, gorgeous, full-arc rainbow reaching across the entire valley. Where the clouds were heaviest and darkest, the rainbow doubled in a mirror of itself. I dumped the groceries and ran inside to get my camera.

I got this one standing on my lanai. When I was first looking at apartments I considered one without a lanai - the landlord tried to play it down by saying that having usable indoor space was better, and most people just use their lanais to store their bikes. Well, screw that. I can't believe I almost missed out on this!

There were two guys getting into their car in the parking lot next to my building, and I shouted down to the poor, unsuspecting wretches, "Are you seeing this???" I couldn't bear for no one else to witness this miracle unfolding before my very eyes. They looked up and appeared minorly impressed, and I realized I must have sounded slightly crazy. I explained, "Sorry, I only moved here a few weeks ago!" They laughed and one of them said, "Oh, yeah, well, we get those every couple of days." Holy crap! If I ever come close to getting jaded about the beauty of this place, I give each and every person reading this blog full permission to slap me. HARD.

I had to go out to the top of the stairs to get a picture of the makai (seaward) half. It's kind of faint, but you can see that it really is a complete 'bow ;-)

And here's a close-up of the mauka (mountain) end. Look how it even tints the hills behind it!!

Just a few minutes later, both rainbows had faded and my groceries were in danger of spoiling :-) Sigh...

In the continuing saga of organizing and making the apartment feel more like home, I've been searching and searching for floor cushions to arrange around the coffee table for guest seating. There isn't a dining table except for the one out on the lanai, but if I have people over I don't want to make them sit on the lovely but hard stone floor. It's the kind of table that has a shelf underneath it, but the dimensions are kind of odd for most standard cushions, and I wanted them in a shade of red to go with the futon cover I brought from Boston. Mom and I had found some cute ones at Target when we went during the Whirlwind Weekend of Relocation(TM), but they didn't have four of the same kind. Well, I went to Target this past Saturday with a girl I met through the program - she's living with her parents while in grad school, and has use of their car. She had some things to get and asked me if I wanted to come along. Lo and behold, I found four of the same cushions, in a perfect shade of red, and they're exactly the right dimensions to store underneath the table, with just enough space to spare for all my board games!

Here's a picture of the futon with the coffee table and cushions out. I love how well the reds match! Now to find a slipcover for the armchair...I sure hope I can find one I like!

Dell has finally shipped out the CPU for my new desktop (that's the "brains" of the computer). The flatscreen 22" monitor arrived from Newegg.com several weeks ago, but it's taken a long time for the CPU to be built because of the high demand from the new school year starting. It will be arriving much earlier than the most recent ETA, which was the 24th, so I'll give them that. I've been busy enough what with schoolwork and social activities, but I miss my TV shows! See, the CPU has a TV Tuner, so the cable from the wall can plug directly into that and the CPU will hook up to the monitor, but without the CPU, I've been TV-less. I watched the premiere of America's Next Top Model online last week, but if all goes according to plan, I'll be able to watch this week's episode on my beautiful monitor/TV!

Sorry for all the ugly wires and stuff. I've cleaned all of that up since this picture was taken :-)

If you count from the first full day I was here, today marks exactly one month that I've been living in Honolulu. It has gone by really quickly, mostly because it's all been really fun and interesting. I could be sitting in an apartment somewhere near Groton, CT, waiting for Eamon to finish Boot Camp, and then we could live together while he completes training schools, but as much as I miss him and want to be with him more than anything, I know this isn't forever. And I get to live in a beautiful place while I prepare for a career. That's a trade-off I can live with for a little bit.

A lot of random stuff

When I was posting all those pictures of the apartment last time, I completely forgot to include any of the bedroom! I really like how it's coming together. I love this blanket/sheet set. I've even taken to making the bed every day, which is astonishing, just because it looks so great when it's all tidy. And it's such a huge bed (California King, which is even bigger than regular King) that if I don't make it, almost the whole room is in disarray!

Here's one of the closet, mid-organization. I think I'll get everything to fit okay.

And it's not home until I've got the "Sarah's Kitchen" magnet on the refrigerator. Guarded by a pair of vikings, of course.

Last Saturday, I went on a snorkeling excursion organized by the Leisure Center on campus - $20 got me fins, a snorkel and mask, and transportation. We went to a popular spot on the North Shore called Shark's Cove, which despite the name was bereft of sharks, but by no means bereft of interesting fish and coral formations. Getting into the water was tricky, however. I got my shin thoroughly torn up after being picked up by a particularly powerful wave that came crashing onto the rock-strewn shore. But once that little obstacle had been overcome, the water was (relatively) calm and it was possible to just paddle around enjoying the scenery. I brought a disposable underwater camera, and got a few good shots, but even though I had the pictures put on a CD when I got them developed, I don't have a CD drive yet so I can't upload them! But as soon as my new computer arrives, I promise to post the good ones. After we had our fill of fish - not literally, c'mon people! - we headed to a nearby beach that's a sea turtle haven. There weren't any up on the sand, but someone spotted a veritable giant in the water, just a few feet out. They had told us about this little detour ahead of time, so I had saved a few shots on my camera. I ran over to see if I could get some pictures, but unfortunately none of them really came out. I do have a terrific "eye-picture" (Mom's term) of the turtle's huge form silhouetted in a wave as it crested. Magnificent. And the turtle was entirely unperturbed by all the people clamoring for a good view - at one point it floated close enough to brush against my leg with a flipper!

After the excitement of the turtle, we all needed some shave ice to calm our poor nerves (a la Mrs. Bennet). You could get three flavors on one cone, so I had passionfruit, guava and strawberry. YUM!!! Shave ice was always a tradition on our family trips to Kauai and it brought me back instantly. I will have to island-hop over to Kauai sometime soon - I really miss it.

This weekend has been full too, thanks again to the Leisure Center. Yesterday was the first in a series of five classes in Hula, which was a blast. Today I went on a hike to the Makapu'u Tide Pools. There was a light drizzle in our faces all the way up the paved road to the trailhead, then full-on rain as we clambered down the trail, which was more like a cliff-face with switchbacks and butt-slides. The tide pools were deep enough to swim in - and why not, since we were soaked to the skin already? Once the rain stopped it was quite pleasant to dip in and admire the microcosm of aquatic life - fish, anemones, the like. The coolest part was the double-blowhole, dubbed the Dragon's Nostrils (the roar that comes before the spray does sound quite a bit like a dragon...y'know, if they were real).

I stood there for I don't know how long trying to get a good picture, but the waves weren't cooperating and all I got was this one. It gives you an idea, but it's pretty pathetic compared to what it's capable of. Whenever my back was turned or I had already put my camera away, there were these dazzling, twenty-foot-high spouts. Stupid Mother Nature.

Here's a picture I took as we started the ascent up the cliff, so you can see how much of a vertical climb it is!

And here's some really great news - I landed a paying gig! I'm the newest soprano section leader at St. Mark's Episcopal Church of Honolulu! I am so, so excited about this opportunity. I'm really looking forward to honing my leadership skills in a musical setting. It looks to be a very welcoming, open-minded congregation (they'd kind of have to be to hire a Jewish section leader, right?) and the choirmaster is really nice. All this and it'll help pay the bills!

I haven't written much about the weather here, except how it made for an extremely wet hike today, but it's been gorgeous. You're not going to believe this, but I actually like it when I hear rain falling, because I know just how briefly it'll hang around. It's not like Boston rain at all. First of all, the air is warm, so the rain is too, and it really does come and go, whereas Boston rain just sits for days at a time and makes everything cold and miserable. Here, I'll peek outside and see rain, and five minutes later I'll look again and the clouds are completely blown over, and everything's already dry. Hallelujah!

In the process of unpacking all those piles of boxes, I came across a framed copy of this picture of Eamon and me from back in '05. It was taken as an afterthought when I was getting headshots done in anticipation of my audition for Guys and Dolls. The photographer crammed a whole studio setup (backdrops, lighting equipment, the works) into that tiny apartment; this was the one across the street from our most recent place. Both of us have changed since it was taken, but Eamon's has been more drastic:

My mother-in-law Kitt took this on the day Eamon shipped out. Isn't the change almost arresting?? And he looks so determined and serious taking his oath. I'm sure he's changing even more every day, now that the Navy has him in their clutches (did I say that? I meant, now that he's in Basic...) I'm not feeling too charitable towards the Navy right now, but if I write about it here it'll just make me angry again, so suffice it to say I'll be having words with them after the holiday. If they'll even give me a number where I can talk to someone who matters, that is.

I hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing Labor Day. Me, I'll probably be working on the two papers due this week, but I've recreated enough this weekend for a month of Labor Days, so it's okay :-)

Short video of the bumblebee from previous post

Confidential to David Meadow: Ohhhhh, he's washing!!!