Monday

As I was driving home yesterday, I noticed a crowd gathered by the side of the road.  They all appeared to be looking at something on the beach. Huh, must be a monk seal, I thought.  Sure enough!

Not all that impressive from here, I know, but there are only about 1,200 of them left and apparently sightings are fairly rare (even though we see them a couple times a year on our beach!)

See?  She's a little cuter now that we're closer.  That's about how I feel after a day in the water!  (Also, we're not really closer, I'm just zooming in.  Don't yell at me for getting too close to the monk seal!)  Doesn't she look relaxed?  I think we all need to learn to do this more often.  Ooooooooooommmmm.

Aww, monk seals remind me of our old Basset hound-she used to do this thing where she'd look up at you and her ears would fall back, and she'd look like a seal.  Or maybe I would just hide her ears with my hands.  I can't remember now, but I know she used to look like a seal!  Also, the fin-to-body ratio on a seal is similar to the leg-to-body ratio on Basset hounds.  Basset hounds are also good at intense relaxation.

So cute!  Sorry about the pictures getting smaller, but I don't know how to fix that.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  There's a reason I'm not a professional photographer (or a professional web designer, for that matter).  

I hope you have enjoyed your Monday Moment of Zen, brought to you today by your local neighborhood monk seal.  

Some final thoughts on Australia

These are just random bits that I couldn't really fit in anywhere else, but I still wanted to mention them, and then I'll move on.

-What they call "lemonade" we call "Sprite." If you want a lemonade, you have to order a lemon crush.

-To all the young men of Australia: Pull up your pants. You look like morons. Seriously.

-To all the young women of Australia: If you are dating these morons, you deserve a slap upside the head. Stop perpetuating the moron...ity...ness. Whatever. They look like morons. Stop encourging it. They will never amount to anything because they are going to spend so much time worrying about keeping their pants from falling down they won't be able to give their full attention to anything else, including you.

-Australia has weird crows. They make this bizarre sound, kind of like a baby, a baby that is trying to lure you into the tall grass where you will be set upon by a pack of hyenas. If I can figure out how to get something up on YouTube, I will put up my video of the weird crow call. If I can't, then just use your imaginations.

Yay me!



-There is A LOT of graffiti in Australia, at least in the parts that we visited. I noticed this especially in New Castle and on the train ride between New Castle and Sydney. The graffiti monsters are rampant over there! Catherine, over at She Never Shuts Up, pretty much sums up everything I feel about graffiti, so I'll let you check out her musings on it here.

-In the same post, Catherine also touches on words that are fun to say, which brings me to my next point. Australia has a lot of place names that are just fun to say. Woolloomooloo, Wagga Wagga, Ulladulla, Wombat. Okay, the last one isn't a place name, but it's still fun to say! Also, Wagga Wagga always made me think of Fozzie Bear ("Wokka wokka!") This was not the only Muppets connection that I found in Australia; there was also a store in Sydney that we kept walking past named Wagamama, which I had never heard of, but I thought it was fun to say. (Apparently, I am out of the cool loop. Foxie, over at Dreaming of Ferraris was blogging about her desire to hit up a Wagamama on her next visit to London AT VIRTUALLY THE SAME TIME THAT WE WERE IN SYDNEY. How wierd is that??? Cue Twilight Zone music.) So, everyday, we'd walk past it and after about 1/2 a block my husband would stop, look at me, and patiently wait for me to say, "WAGAMAMA!" and then snicker like Ernie (another Muppet!)for the rest of the block. Once it was out of my system I was fine. Until the next time we walked past. I don't know what the actual pronounciation is supposed to be, but in my head (and whenever I shouted it out on the street) it sounded like the Muppet performance of "Mahna Mahna," the YouTube version of which I cannot embed, so you'll have to go here to check it out. Just remember to replace "Mahna Mahna" with "WAGAMAMA," and you'll have a good idea of what my husband was dealing with on the streets of Sydney.

-There is a general straight-forwardness that I like about the Aussie people that we, in America, are seriously lacking. At the Wildlife World or the Aquarium, I can't remember which, there is a crocodile display. You can go upstairs and look down into the display, and at the top there is a sign that reads, "If the fall doesn't kill you, the crocodile will." That's it. There's no waiver you have to sign saying how you have been fully warned of the dangers of hanging over into the crocodile pit due to the possibility of falling in and the bodily harm that might ensue should you find yourself injured at the bottom of a crocodile pit. You don't have to release the company; their children; their heirs; their successors, assignees, trustees, agents or any other thrid party that might in any way shape or form be affiliated with them ever in case of any injury resulting from said inappropriate placement of one's body in relation to said crocodile whether or not said crocodile, his heirs, replacements or agents was negligent in the method of his attack on your intruding body, which negligence shall be defined as but not limited to any failure to hiss, posture, snap his jaws or in any other way warn of a possible pending attack and shall NOT include the crocodile's bellowing in a manner likely to persuade the invading person that he is indeed an alligator, not a crocodile, thereby confusing said person about what animal will actually be attacking his dumb ass.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Aussie's are a lot more straight forward about stuff. I like that.

-Since we were there in winter, it was pretty chilly outside everywhere we went. There is also a lot of outdoor seating, which, when combined with the chillyness of winter, can make for very uncomfortable dining. The Aussies, however, have embraced the heat lamp. Almost every establishment that we passed that had outdoor seating also had at least one heat lamp throwing off a welcoming warmth to passersby. I don't know why I haven't seen more of this in America. Maybe the places I've always lived have just gotten too cold in the winter to bother. After all, when it's 40 below, a heat lamp on the sidewalk just isn't going to cut it.

-The local news is always worth checking out. While in Newcastle I read about Ely, the koala who had gotten his head stuck in the grille of a speeding car that had mowed him down while traveling at a high speed. Luckily, Ely was not fatally injured and is recovering at the Australia Zoo. Unfortunately, Ely was also diagnosed with chlamydia, which is a real downer, seeing as how it is koala mating season. Ely, you might want to pay a little more attention when you finally get back out there, both on the road and off.

Pokolbin-Wine Tour!

From Newcastle we took the jail bus to the Hunter Valley Gardens in Pokolbin where our wine tour was scheduled to begin. When I say "the jail bus" I mean the bus where everybody on the bus who wasn't us had to get off half way through to switch to the actual jail bus which, I presume, takes you to the jail so that you can visit your incarcerated loved ones.

Once we got to the Gardens, we walked across the street to meet up with Annette, who runs the horse-drawn carriage tours at Pokolbin Horse Coaches, and Clyde, the clydesdale who would be pulling us around that day. Clyde was adorable; he knew exactly where to go at each winery. He had a favorite tree or post or whatever that he would sidle up to and then stop, waiting for Annette to get out and tie him up. Annette is bubbly and enthusiastic and totally loves what she's doing. We were lucky enough to have arranged a private tour, but they also do larger tours, up to 10 people at a time I believe. So, we started out our tour at Tamburlaine, an organic winery which had a nice Verdelho. Wine connoisseurs, you should probably stop right here because you are going to get no useful information out of this. I can't tell you what year anything was unless I have the bottle in front of me. I can't tell you if anything was fruity or oaky or well-aged or robust. I can tell you that I drank wine, I liked it, and we bought some, and that's about it. I CAN tell you that the Verdelho that I tried at Tamburlaine tasted like grapes. That's not as dumb as it sounds. What I mean is it was kind of dry up front but after you swallowed it, it was very clean and refreshing and it tasted like you had just eaten a white grape. Unfortunately we did not buy any of the Verdelho here because we had just gotten started and I did not yet realize that that was going to be the one I would want to go back to later. We did buy their 2005 Late Harvest Riesling though.

Next we went to Polkobin Estate where we tried everything they offered us. We also gorged next door at the Olive Centre where they have samples of all their olives, olive oils, tapenades, vinegars, and various other yummy condiments available for sampling. I probably ate about 5 slices of bread one sample-sized chunk at a time trying to taste everything. I wasn't trying to be greedy, I was trying to avoid drunken nonsense later in the day. But back to the wine...we bought a 2004 Semillon and a George's Tawny Port which, interestingly, doesn't have a year on it. I think we also bought a Semillon Viognier here as well, but we already drank it so I can neither confirm nor deny this information at this time.

Our last stop was at Meerea Park where we bought 4 bottles of wine, for a total of 8 for the day! In our defense, 2 of them were gifts. Also in our defense, we'd had a lot of wine by then. We bought ourselves a 2007 Verdelho and one The Aunt's Shiraz which we already drank, so I can't tell you the year, but it was great!

We had a wonderful time, and I highly recommend touring the Hunter Valley with Annette and Clyde if you get the chance. If they are booked, there are other operators you could try, but I can't vouch for any of them. You don't get to hit as many wineries when you're traveling by horse, especially if you have to make it back to the Gardens in time to catch the jail bus back to Newcastle; but it's so much nicer than being stuck on a bus with a bunch of drunkards you don't know, like the crowd on the Pub Crawl Bus that passed us on the highway when we were headed back to Newcastle. Our bus driver looked over, shook his head and said, "You couldn't pay me enough!"

On the way back to Newcastle, we were with the same folks that were on the bus with us in the morning. Apparently there is only one jail bus per day. We bitch about a lot of things, but when you're sitting on a bus with $300-$500 worth of wine in a box (there was a third person in our party; it wasn't ALL ours) and everyone else on the bus has just come back from visiting their loved ones in jail, it kind of puts things in perspective.

Newcastle

We took a train from Sydney to Newcastle, which was a pretty scenic ride for the most part. Newcastle is about 2 1/2 hours north of Sydney via train, and it's an old coal town which is trying to revitalize itself as something young and hip. To some extent they are succeeding, but it's currently an odd mix of ghetto and swank. When we arrived at the train station, we walked outside to the taxi stand area where we watched one taxi pull away and then waited about 10 minutes for another taxi to show up. I thought that the taxi stand would have taxis lined up waiting for passengers; but, then again, we did seem to be the only people actually standing around looking for a taxi...so, I guess everything was doled out proportionately. My husband went in search of some information, and we found out that our hotel was within walking distance, so we started hoofing it. While we were waiting for the taxi, I took this picture:




We stayed at the Crown Plaza Hotel Newcastle. As we were approaching the property, I was skeptical. It was on the water's edge (swank!) in this industrial port town (shetto!), but it turned out to be quite lovely. Our room was a nice one-bedroom with a little kitchenette area and a view of the waterfront, sort of. After we unpacked we grabbed some lunch and then walked along the waterfront, past the lighthouse at Nobby's Head, down to the end of the pier where we sat on a pile of rubble (ghetto) for a while watching a seal play in the water (nature-imposed swank). Every once in a while we saw whale spouts in the distance, and we watched all kinds of sea-faring vessels going in and out of the harbor. It had been a bit rainy and cold when we arrived, but it turned out to be a lovely sunny day. That night we ate at the near-by BWP (which stands for Blue Water Pizza) which had great food and very friendly staff. I ate an entire pizza all by myself.


On the news that night, I learned that the Pope is affectionately known as "B16." I don't know if this is an Australian thing or something that is sweeping the world, but I wondered if the Pope was aware of this nickname and, if so, if he approved or not. Again, as with the flags-as-capes situation, I'm a little conflicted; it's nice to see the Pope as approachable and that people are referring to him affectionately, but he's THE POPE. Is nothing sacred anymore? I mean, really, when it's ok to be casual about the Pope, what's left?

For the rest of the week, my husband was working, so I pretty much wandered around the town, spent a day washing laundry in our sink (underwear, socks, tank tops) (self-imposed ghetto), and took a ferry ride. The wandering around town part took me to Darby Street which is where all the restaurants are. Everything we ate in Newcastle was great and also quite expensive. The cheapest thing I ever found was a noodle house where the small portions were around $6 or $7. Other than that, everything starts at about $20. This is what we can't quite figure out about Newcastle. At night, there is definitely a young, hip vibe going on in the swanky new part of town (where we were staying) and on Darby Street. There are a lot of people coming out and spending a lot of money, but we're not sure where any of it is coming from. Newcastle is a coal town, so unless these are all kids whose grandparents made millions in the coal business, where are all these people getting all this money to go out and blow $25-$50/night on food, not on drinks and food, just food? Maybe their parents all own restaurants. Anyway, like I said, everything was good, but we ate twice at Anacapri and both times it was wonderful.

As I was wandering around Darby Street, I kept seeing signs saying "The Obelisk." I decided to follow them and see what this obelisk was all about. Turns out it's...an obelisk. Who woulda thunk? It looks just like the Washington Monument only smaller and whiter. It's on top of a hill and there's a great view of the city from up there. As I was climbing up the super steep streets that lead to the obelisk, I noticed that you cannot live here and be a bad parallel parker, at least not in the steep-street neighborhoods. There is no messing around with the parallel parking here.





Once I reached the obelisk, I knew I was there by the nice signage(bottom right corner).

I was really impressed with the signage. It was all on street signs and everywhere I needed to turn, there was a sign. I didn't need a map or anything, and for me that's saying something. From the obelisk I walked to Strzelecki Lookout which was listed on my map as a scenic lookout. (I didn't say I didn't HAVE a map, I just said I didn't NEED a map.) Turns out it is also the jumping off point, literally, for the local hang gliders and paragliders. They just walk off the hill and swoop up into the sky! Go to Air Sports' home page and watch their videos of people taking off-they did a much better job with the photography than I was able to do! It was really cool to watch and a nice surprise at the top of the hill as well. If we had been there through the weekend we could have gone on a tandem hang glide, which I think would have been cool, but we didn't have the time, what with our pending wine tour and all.

As I was walking back to the hotel I walked past a lot of houses that were for sale. The Aussies don't fool around with their For Sale signs. They're these huge signs, probably 4' X 6' and they have a big color picture of the property with the address and other pertinent information like how many bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. They don't list the price, however, which I guess is fair. You have to call the realtor for that kind of info.

One day I stopped in Newcastle's local library which also houses the Lovett Gallery. I almost didn't stop in, but I'm glad I did. They were displaying the winning entries from the 2007 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and they were amazing. This picture was in the downstairs entry, and as soon as I walked in and saw it, I knew I had to go upstairs and see what else they had.

On another occasion I took the ferry across the channel to Stockton to see the Shipwreck Walk. At one time Newcastle was a very dangerous place if you were trying to navigate a boat through its waters, and lots of ships ended up wrecked off its shores. They finally built a breakwater, and they incorporated one of the wrecked hulks into the sea wall, so I wanted to see that. I sort of over dramatized it in my mind. I thought I would turn a corner, and there would be a whole beach full of wrecked ships, their monstrous carcases towering over me as they stood watch over the shores, keeping them safe...from other dangerous ships...or pirates or something. I'm not sure why I thought this; the brochure that I had showed a picture of the ship in its place in the breakwater and pretty clearly explained what the situation was. I guess I just got excited. I've never seen a wrecked ship on land before. Apparently I am a carnage junkie. So, while I was a little disappointed that I only got to see one wrecked ship, I still enjoyed my 3-minute ferry ride over to Stockton and my walk to the end of the pier and back.

It's hard to see, but there is also a bird on one of the rocks with his wings outstretched, sunning himself. See how artsy I am?

Another thing I did in Newcastle that I have never done before is I went to a spa to have my legs and bikini area waxed. We were getting ready to jump on a live-aboard dive boat, and I didn't think I wanted to be trying to shave at sea. Just down from our hotel was a lovey little spa called Sugar Suite. Emma, who is possibly the teeniest and most adorable person ever, was my aesthetician and she was so sweet! I walked in and was trying to work an appointment out for the next day, but the times they had available weren't really what I was hoping for, but they were workable. She was at the counter and said that she could get me in at 8:00 that night if I wanted to come back, which worked out much better for me. She gave me champagne and a little fruit plate when I got there (I'm pretty sure that's part of her job, but still.) As she was viciously ripping out all of my hair, we chatted as though nothing traumatic were going on south of my navel and she made some recommendations about local attractions and then wrote everything down for me later so I wouldn't forget. And now we come to my conundrum. Tipping is not really the norm in Australia, and from what I hear it's kind of pissing them off that we Americans keep coming in and tipping everybody because now people are starting to expect it. They had a good thing going and we're screwing it up. I'd be pissed too. I think they do tip in restaurants, but I'm not sure where else, if anywhere, they tip. So, do I tip for my spa service or not? Emma and I had been talking earlier about how you have to be sensitive when you are visiting other cultures and should make an effort to play by their rules, and here I was, a hairy American coming in and foisting tips on people who aren't expecting them and are not happy about the prospect of other people becoming accustomed to them. Emma stayed late to accommodate me, she went out of her way to be helpful with tourist information, and she handled all my bikini-area hair, something I don't even want to do for myself let alone for someone else. I decided that some things are just worth the tip, customary or not. Emma protested and assured me that it wasn't expected, but I insisted. So, if you're ever in Newcastle and need some spa services, ask for Emma and while you're enjoying your treatment tell her I'm sorry about messing with their gratuity system.

I am not a good traveler

My recent travels between Hawaii and Australia have led me to realize that I am not a good traveler. My husband travels about 30-40 weeks a year. I don't know how he hasn't landed himself in jail yet because if it were me, I probably would have been pulled out of line at the airport for making some snarky, smart-ass remarks about airport security because I cannot stand the ridiculousness that is airport "security" these days. What the hell difference does it make if I have a 3-oz. tube of toothpaste or a 6-0z. tube of toothpaste that has been squeezed down to less than half? What's that? All the reasonable people in the world say, "I don't know. There doesn't really seem to be much difference."? That's what I thought too, but if you read the TSA web site, you will see that you are not allowed to carry a 6-oz. container of toothpaste (or mouth wash or deodorant or whatever) even if the contents are clearly down to 3 oz. or below because this would be...WHAT???? Dangerous? A slippery slope-where do you draw the line between 3 oz. and 3.25 oz? If someone could please give me an actual, based-in-common-sense answer to this, I would be fine with it, but they don't. They just make up all these arbitrary rules, and I'm pretty sure they do it just to piss me off. Seriously, do any of you barefoot people in line feel any safer now that your toiletries have been trimmed down to a safe, single layer of 3-oz. containers? Lighter, and less loaded down with crap? Sure. But safer? Me neither.


Did you know that you can't take a box cutter on a plane? Of course you did, you're not an idiot. That's a dangerous instrument, and you could hurt somebody with that. But did you also know that cork screws are ok? Are you telling me that a cork screw would inflict less damage than a box cutter? If I had to fight someone on the street, and I had my choice of a box cutter or a cork screw, I think I'd take the cork screw. Arbitrary rules, man. Arbitrary.

Anyway, none of this has actually been an issue for me, but it pisses me off every time I have to pack my 3-oz. bottles in my clear plastic baggie. Why? It just does, ok?


What WAS an issue for me was the additional security features brought on by international travel. At the Honolulu International Airport, when you arrive at your international gate, they tell you, "once you enter this holding area, you will not be allowed to leave and come back in. Are you ok with that." That is very nice of them. They could just get you trapped in there and then laugh at you when you get up to try to go back out for a Starbucks. Upon hearing this information and being sort of hungry and kind of wishing I had stopped at the Starbucks we just passed, I peer into The Holding Area, and see a doorway with big letters that say, "GATE 30 SNACK BAR." So, I say, "Yes, I am ok with that," and wander into The Holding Area where I get a better view of the Snack Bar area:


Hmmmm...this does not look promising at all. I decide to investigate further and discover this:

That's right, there's no snack bar here. MWAHAHAHA! I'm not sure what sick bastard is in charge of this operation, but I think s/he needs to contact somebody about updating the airport signage. ASAP. I don't know about you, but I get bitchy when I get hungry. I don't mean to be, I just am. This is no fun for me, and it definitely is not fun for my poor husband, who usually ends up taking the brunt of my bitchiness. I know there are other men out there who can sympathise with this. So, if you are traveling internationally out of HNL, be sure you have some snacks hidden in your pockets to fend off your bitchy travel companion (or somebody else's bitchy travel companion whose boyfriend/husband/brother/father did not read this post and went in unawares) when she gets trapped at Gate 30 by the misleading "SNACK BAR" sign.


Flying back from Sydney was similarly frustrating. First of all, the Pope was in town for World Youth Day, and as a result Sydney had a lot of extra people on hand. I'm not sure of the exact number, but I think it was somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000. Turns out all those extra people decided to return home on our flight. All of them. They may have even had the Pope with them. We arrived at the airport 3 1/2 hours before our flight, thinking we would have plenty of time to check in, sit down for a bite to eat, and then mosey on over to our gate, pretty much in that order. An hour-and-forty-five-minutes later we were finally checked in. I had given in and hit up the vending machine for a $2.50 bag of peanut M&Ms earlier because I was starting to get mean. I try to take evasive action when I can. We finally make it through security and into the terminal to find that there are only 2 (two) places to eat, the place with the nasty looking sandwiches and the place with the nasty looking pizza. I go for the nasty sandwich place because they also have coffee. I buy my dry-ass $7.50 toasted cheese and tomato sandwich-even the cheese was dry-and sit down to eat. Seriously, people, didn't Sydney host an Olympics, and wasn't it fairly recently, like the year 2000? Is this really what they greeted all of their high-falutin international guests with?

I've choked down my sandwich, I'm drinking my coffee, and the pilgrims behind me are singing and somebody nearby is trying to play...a harmonica? A dead wombat? Ah, perhaps a didgeridoo. Either way, it sounds terrible. There are times when I would be able to be happy about the pilgrims singing-youth celebrating in a non-destructive uplifting way, enthusiastic and having fun. This was not one of those times. I wanted to grab the dead wombat didgeridoo and beat the singing pilgrims with it. Instead, my husband talked me into walking over to our gate.

At our gate, the security guard informed us that we WOULD be able to come and go, but that our bags would have to be searched each time. This, of course, sent me into another blind rage. Why? WHY?? We've already made it through airport security. Presumably, we are in a secure location. It's not like we're leaving the gate and going back out onto the streets of Sydney and coming back in with drugs, guns, and hookers. Although, technically, I don't think hookers are on the "things you can't bring on a plane" list. Anyway...if you are worried about what I might buy at the Duty Free store or the souvenir shop, should I be worried? I go to the bookstore which is over by some other gate where the gate agent has gathered everyone around and is yelling boarding information because, "we don't have a PA system." Oh, for the love of God! Are you kidding me? Seriously, people! 2000! It couldn't have gone that far downhill in 8 years!

After that, it was fairly non-eventful. I bought a book at the bookstore which, to my knowledge, was not selling any "Build Your Own Bomb" kits, made it into the gate area hassle-free, and then sat around with the 200,000 other people that were on our flight, waiting for our shouted-out boarding instructions. To Sydney airport's credit, they did have a soda machine in the waiting area.

Kitty feet!

Laurie, over at Crazy Aunt Purl, recently (sort-of) posted about "Things I Like." This was a list of the little things in life that make her happy. (Check out her June 17, 2008 post entitled, "Cheap and Cheerful." Sorry, but I am not sophisticated enough to link you directly to this post, just to her archives.)

Recently, we found a kitten in our yard, and have been taking care of it while we try to find it a home. The longer we keep it, the more it is looking like we have a new kitten. Look how cute his feet are!!!





Okay, the rest of him is pretty cute too, but look at his cute little feet! Kitty's feet make me happy. When he passes out on my chest, I like to play with his toes. Because I can. And because they're SO CUTE!

John McCain, Elephants, and Courage

Here's a nifty little coincidence. As mentioned in my last post, I just finished reading Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Lifeby John McCain and Marshall Salter. One of the points that they drive home in this book is that courage means doing something that you know is right even if you are afraid of the physical, psychological, or social ramifications of doing so, even if, especially if, you KNOW that the outcome is likely to be not only unfavorable but possibly even dangerous, if not fatal. I read this book while I was in VA, visiting my mom. A few days later, while I was waiting around in the airport, I picked up Water for Elephants: A Novel.

On the plane ride home, I saw Horton Hears a Who! which is about an elephant (Horton) who is on a mission to save a community of people he can't see (the Whos of Whoville). They live on a speck, and Horton can hear them, but he can't see them; and the leader of his community is fit to be tied when Horton's nonsense about believing in life you can't see starts to influence the youngsters. She calls for his head on a platter, and Horton is facing real, physical danger; but he persists in his promise to help save Whoville because as he says,"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one hundred per cent." As I'm watching this, I think, "Wow, Horton is courageous in the sense that John McCain would recognize and appreciate."

On the second leg of my flight home, I open up Water for Elephants: A Novel, and the epigraph reads thus:

"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant...
An elephant's faithful--one hundred per cent!

--THEODOR SEUSS GEISEL, Horton Hatches the Egg, 1940"



I mean, seriously, what are the odds? What does it all mean? I recently read The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imagination, and the author talks about paying attention to coincidences. In particular, he talks about his personal experiences with travel-related coincidences. So, seriously, what does this mean??? Am I about to face some situation which is going to require elephant-sized courage? That can't be good.

What I'm Reading Now-July 2nd edition

Well, as you can see, my wheel of books has not changed significantly since my last post. I did finish The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals which I did enjoy even though it was a long read. It was thoughtful and thorough and provided a lot of good information. It's very easy for people to take frivolous political stands about being meat-eaters or vegetarians or vegans, but I think Michael Pollan did a good job of evaluating the different considerations of these various stands. It's not as cut-and-dry as we would all like to think it is, especially for those of us lucky enough to be living in a place like the United States, where food, and food choices, are, for the most part, abundant. Pollan does end up creating a meal that he has hunted, gathered, and grown on his own. While proving that it can indeed be done, he makes no bones about the fact that it isn't a very realistic expectation for most people. Anyway, long story short, I would recommend this book.

Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Susan Warren-I loved this book! Remember how I said that, "I like reading about gardening and huge undertakings by inspired visionaries." No? Well, I did. In my review of A Clearing in the Distance. This book was all the things I wanted that book to be. Okay, maybe growing giant pumpkins isn't the same as designing Central Park, but it's something. The book was a quick, easy read, and it provided me with a lot of interesting facts. Did you know that pumpkins can put on up to 40 lbs. of weight a day? I didn't think so. And neither did I before I read this book. Backyard Giants follows a group of growers, mostly in Rhode Island, through a pumpkin-growing season, during which they are attempting to break the 1,500 lb. goal. That's right, 1,500 POUNDS. Go outside and look at your car. Now, imagine it's a pumpkin. Impressive, right? Anyway, it mostly follows a father-son team, but also incorporates all the folks in their growing club as well. These are regular Joes, people who work for a living and tend to their pumpkins the rest of the time. They help each other out, they cheer each other on, they wrap their pumpkins in blankets at night. I was laughing, crying and cheering throughout this book. Pick it up and give it a read. If nothing else, it provides you with great material for small talk.

Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life by John McCain and Marshall Salter-I feel bad not giving this book a rave review, but it was just ok. I had a hard time with McCain's writing style. To be fair, I guess it could have been Marshall Salter's style that I had a problem with and not John McCain's. It wasn't complex, but I often had to go back and re-read sentences several times to figure out what he had just said. I think McCain felt awkward about writing this book, and it sort of showed. While I liked his humility and candor, I felt like he felt obligated to write a book when perhaps a short paper would have sufficed. He tells several stories about brave and courageous folks who are certainly worthy of our admiration and provide much inspiration. He talks about how we tend to over use the word "courage" these days, thereby devaluing real courage. Sure, it might be painful or scary to talk about your struggle with weight or make a public speech, but is it really courageous? Can you really put that in the same category as running back into a jungle full of enemy soldiers to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade when you're already injured, out of ammo, and outnumbered 10-to-1? He talks about moral courage and setting examples for our children. Overall, the message was good, but I don't think the book was great.

Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen-This is one I've picked up a dozen times over the years but was never quite convinced that it would be as good as I wanted it to be. I finally had a couple rave reviews from close friends and picked it up in the airport on my way home from DC. I loved this book. It had elephants and romance and the circus and trains and beloved pets and sweet, sweet justice. What more could you ask for? The main character, Jacob, runs away and, without really meaning to, joins the circus as their resident vet. He meets and immediately falls in love with the beautiful Marlena who is married to August. August is in charge of the animals and is a bit psychotic. August is also Jacob's new boss. You can see where this is going, right? Nowhere good.

This is a depression-era novel, and circuses are going out of business like crazy. The owner of the circus that Jacob has fallen in with is a shrewd businessman and manages to pick up defunct circus assets in his travels. In this way, they gain the new star of their show, Rosie, the elephant. Rosie is gentle but doesn't seem to know anything. Between the general hit of the depression and August's non-performing elephant, the circus is falling on hard times. Employees aren't getting paid, and the owner isn't averse to "red-lighting," tossing people off the train during its night-time travels to avoid...problems. Things eventually pick up, Rosie gets in the game, but she still makes mistakes that send August into psychotic rages, much to everyone's distress.

At the very beginning of the book, we learn what we think is the big secret that Jacob has been keeping all these years, and the book works its way back around to this calamitous moment, during which even more is revealed, and I have to say I was surprised. I thought I knew where it was going, but I didn't. Jacob is now an old man in a nursing home, and the story goes back and forth between his days in the circus and his days in the nursing home. The circus has come to town, and so begins his reminiscing. I liked both endings of this book-the ending to the story that Jacob is telling and the ending of Jacob's current-day story. This was also a quick, easy read.

**Edited 3/31/09 to add

Other reviews:

Jackie-Farm Lane Book Blogs

Marg at Reading Adventures

Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood-Margaret Atwood is one of those authors I feel compelled to like. I've read a couple of her books and thought they were ok, but I don't recall being bowled over by any of them. People always rave about her, and every couple years I think that maybe I've matured enough to finally appreciate Margaret Atwood like I am supposed to. Apparently, this isn't the case. I still think she's ok. Wilderness Tips is a book of short stories...*sigh*. I feel compelled to try to like short stories too. I just can't think of any short story that I've ever read and gone, "Wow!" And, again, this makes me feel like a literary 12-year-old. So, anyway, I've got this book of short stories by Margaret Atwood...and so far, it's ok. Actually, at the end of one of her stories, "Hairball," I did go, "Wow," but it was "Wow, that's kinda f*cked up," not "Wow! I've got to tell other people to read this!" I'm about half-way through; I'll let you know my final verdict.

Lost and Found

LOST
Eyes are lovely blue.
Striped fur, fluffy, purrs loudly
Can't find her. So sad.


FOUND
Eyes are lovely blue.
Flea bitten, scrawny, loud purr
Can't keep her. So sad.

Canine Freestyling

I can't even get my dog to realize that he has his own name separate from our other dog. You call one, you get both. Kate's dog is clearly a bit smarter than my dog.

Bird does moonwalk, hippo licks croc, octopus eats shark

HAHA! That sounds like some wacky new animal version of Rock Paper Scissor. But it's not. It's just stuff that I think is cool in some way.

This bird cracks me up. I first saw this on "Nature" on PBS. Unfortunately, I can't seem to actually find any info on the show itself, but fortunately, YouTube has just what I was looking for! I don't know why, but I just find this ultimately entertaining. My favorite part is about 1 minute in when he does this little bouncy thing that you can't help but try to emulate yourself, which just leads to you sitting at your desk looking like a giant dork who thinks he looks super cool. Then, you imagine somebody walking by and catching you doing this (or, God forbid, somebody actually does walk by and catch you doing this), and you see yourself through their eyes, and you crack up because you realize you are sitting at your desk be-bopping around like a giant dork. Either way, it's great entertainment.



I was going to insert video of a hippo licking a crocodile here, but YouTube has disabled this feature for this video. So, if you want to watch it, you'll have to go here instead. I'm sure there's some sophisticated way around this, but I am not that sophisticated, so you're just going to have to go visit the site in person. I just think this is funny because A) Baby hippos sort remind me of my Basset hound, and my Basset hound is super cute and B) How indignant it must be to be a crocodile, top of the food chain, master predator, scariest beast on...hey, hey, stop that. Stop chewing on my tail. Stop that! Hey! No, no licking my eyes! I hate that! How humiliating.

My husband likes to dive, and he has a buddy who is a shark fanatic. Whenever they are in the water, they want to go find the sharks. This, of course, scares the bejeezus out of me. While most shark sightings in Hawaii are of the innocuous reef shark kind, tiger sharks have been known to take people out out here. So, I've decided that if they are going to continue to go out looking for sharks, they need to start taking an octopus with them for security.



Of course, they'll need to find like a 1,000-lb octopus, but still.

Crabs are FAST.

Seriously. Have you ever sat on the beach and watched one of these suckers move? They've got those little tiny legs and those big flat bodies, and they do that freaky little sideways shuffle and, somehow, they manage to cover about 3 feet in about half a second, maybe less. Depends on the size of the crab. That's got to be the human equivalent of about 93 mph...or something. I'm guessing. I could be off. By 90 mph or so.

Okay, for those of you who would like some semblance of "official" information, Wikipedia says that ghost crabs (which are what we have in Hawaii and which you can see here-they're excellent at camouflage, BTW.), can travel at 10 mph. That's pretty impressive. I can't run 10 mph; well, maybe I could maintain that speed over small bursts of distance like the crabs do, but I certainly wouldn't want to have to do it all day, and I definitely couldn't do it while crab walking (like we used to do in elementary-school gym class-did anybody else have to do this, or was this just some weird little thing our gym teacher made up to amuse herself at our expense?).

In addition to their freaky speed, ghost crabs also possess mad digging skills. They dig themselves holes on the beach, and while they may not be able to out dig a badger, they are still kind of fun to watch (I don't have many hobbies, okay?) They go down into their hole, grab an armful (clawful?) of sand in their big claw, scuttle out to the edge of their hole, and fling the sand out and away from their hole. It's almost graceful, like a ballerina running to the edge of the stage and flinging an armful of rose petals across the stage. Except, you know, scuttley...and with sand instead of roses. And those weird beady eyes bouncing around on top of their heads.

Oh, AND they are really curious. If you flick some little piece of beach debris in their direction, they will scuttle over to it and check it out. They pick it up, move it around, turn it over and just generally inspect it. They also spook pretty easily, so it's a fine line between giving them something interesting to play with and scaring the bejeezus out of them.

I need to get out more, don't I?

Perception=Reality II: The Hyena in the Carpet

For the last couple months, our office carpet has had a string of black spots on it. (See "Perception=Reality: Livin' the Dream" post about me not being a likely candidate for the June Cleaver Housekeeper of the Year award.) Anyway, the spots were unsightly, but I knew that cleaning them would result in a bunch of clean spots that might look just as bad. At least, that's what I kept telling myself to continually justify not cleaning the carpet. Well, I finally decided to suck it up and try to get the spots out.

Just as I thought, the newly cleaned portion of the carpet was, well, a lot cleaner than the rest of the carpet. So, now my carpet looks like it has some horrible disease. There's just this big streak of light-colored, welty carpet running across the floor. About half-way through the process, my husband came in to see what I was up to, and I asked him which was better, all the black spots or the streak of clean. He said he kind of liked the black spots because that way, whenever he walked into the office, he could pretend he was standing on a hyena. I don't know where he comes up with this stuff.

**Update 10/26/08-I seem to have a fair number of people that land on this post after doing some kind of a search regarding "spots" and "carpet."  I can only assume that they are trying to find some good spot-removal techniques.  Well, for what it's worth, I used the Just'n Time Spot Remover, which is made by Bar Keeper's Friend, and it seems to have done a pretty good job on the spots themselves.  Unfortunately, the clean spots have not dirtied back up as quickly as I thought they would in order to blend in with the rest of the carpet.  Maybe I need to sneak our Basset hound into the house more.  He can dirty things up pretty fast.