One More Wonderful Picture of Hawaii

Of all the pictures I took in Hawaii, (and there are about 750 of them...) THIS was my favorite sight. Actually, I did not take this picture. I had to find it on Google afterward because I catastrophically squandered my one chance to have original photography of such a sight, but Kelly spotted this on our Haleakala morning sunrise outing, above the toilet in the bathrooms near the visitor's center. I know you may be confused at this point as to why the most memorable sight was in the bathroom, but let me just reveal the picture and perhaps thou shalt understandeth:

So his leaves me to wonder... Do they routinely drink water out of the toilet in Hawaii? Maybe this place just isn't such the paradise I once thought it was...

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

This is how my garden grows... when I am gone. :) Really, tho, I'm pretty sure they were glad to see me.

Pictures of the Day, Saturday... and We are Home!

Saturday we went on a helicopter tour (seriously, we got hugely discounted tickets on all our excursions because John and Josh so generously sat through a timeshare presentation whilst Kelly and I absorbed much medical knowledge at the conference on Friday) and then it was off to the airport for the longest and most miserable flight ever! :P

First, the helicopter tour: Pretty cool, but kind of overrated. But, the third couple on the tour was a couple of girls who have been living in Maui for 4 months and in a couple more months are going to backpack through Mexico down to South America or something. They figure this will take a few months at least. (I was wondering who was financing all this.) Anyway, they were all giggly and spacey and hippie-like and talking about how they didn't have strong desires to go to Europe because they could sense Europe in their "ancient blood" or something like that. And a lot other intricacies such as this. But they sure seemed to be having fun.


There they are.


Nice view.

Big tall Waterfall.


Our fearless pilot, Mike.


We ruled the skies. (for approximately 45 minutes)

Ok. So enough fun. Then back to the airport story. The l-o-n-g flight from the islands to the mainland had teensy weesey little legroom, and if you have ever met John and I, we do not have teensy weensy legs. Therefore, this poses a problem. (We had bulkhead seats on the way out, which was a bit better.) Anyway, so John's legs don't fit unless he's basically straddling the seat in front of him, which means his knees are protruding into the aisle on one side, and my legroom on the other. Not that I had any to spare, but where else was he to go? And of course he couldn't get comfortable, and couldn't move, and therefore didn't sleep at all on the 7 hour overnight flight. Fun times. I slept very little, pretty much contorted into some odd position, until my back was hurting (approximately 1 hour), and then I pretty much couldn't get comfortable at all, seeing how I'd just ensured a permanent curvature in my spine. Finally... we arrived in Dallas, tried to sleep on the floor there a little while (we had almost 5 hours) with little success, and then finally another couple hours flight to home base. So... tonight, I am very very sleepy, and soon, I will be going to bed. Reality starts again bright and early tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening to me complain. :)

Pictures of the Day, Friday

Friday morning was again spent at the conference, and then in the afternoon, I managed to get more sunburned at the beach, and then in the evening we went on a sunset whale watching cruise. That was very cool, although I didn't get any good pictures. There was one whale that was pretty close to us, but he never surfaced much (we could just hear him on the audiophone thing). So here are a couple of pictures...


That's a tiny piece of a while. And some people's heads.

Pictures of the day, Thursday

Thursday we just kind of chilled out in the morning, and went to the beach for a while. John and Josh swam, but the water was cold, or so they tell me. I just sat there in the sand, looking out at the waves, and got a little sunburned. Good times. Then Kelly and I went to the conference in the afternoon. (yeah, did I mention that I am actually here under the guise of a continuing medical education conference? I have just been so busy I hadn't made it there yet. And also I don't actually need any more CMEs, but I still did when I registered for this conference 7 or 8 months ago...) But you don't care about all that. So anyway, we went to dinner at Kimo's (a fancyish restaurant on the oceanfront), where we watched the sunset from our table. It was cloudy, tho, so no amazing pics, and there was a tree and a flag pole in our way anyway. But still. It was very nice.




This sunset is actually from Wednesday night, and was taken at the luau.

Pictures of the day, Wednesday

Wednesday we went on a snorkel cruise in the morning, (did I mention I really don't like snorkeling?) and then a luau in the evening. Both were very fun. (Personally, I preferred the luau.) Here are a few pics.





The Luau show told the history of Hawaii. It was very interesting. Lots of colorful costumes and lots of booty-shakin' hula. Oh. And men in loincloths.

Pictures of the Day, Tuesday

I didn't get around to posting this yesterday, but I have a few minutes this morning, so I'll see how far I get. yesterday we got up at 3 (!) and trekked over to the Haleakala Crater to watch the sunrise. It was very cold up there at 10, 023 feet, and windy, but this was the general result.



It was amazing.

Then we cruised for many many more hours on the Road to Hana, which is a scenic and windy road basically around the east and south of the island. It was awesome, but all in all, this trip took us 14 hours. So it was a long day of driving on narrow winding mountain roads. Good times. :)

Pictures of the Day, Monday

It's only mid afternoon here, but thus far, this is what we've got for the day. (Not as many as yesterday...) Today we cruised around a bit seeing some more sights, and then picked up our friends Josh and Kelly at the airport. We've just been kind of relaxing and planning out the rest of the week, and here pretty soon, I imagine we'll be heading to dinner. In case you wanted to know what it's like to live the good life. :)


some mountains and clouds.


This is actually remnants of sunrise. Yes, I get up early here. (Actually, my body is not on Hawaii time. For instance, we've been going to be at 7 or 8 in the evening, and then this morning I was awake at quarter to 5. Sunrise is at 6, so I have plenty of time. Too bad I'm on the wrong side of the island.)


We found a lighthouse.


And this Hottie McTottie was cruising around one of the beaches in only his delicates and strummin' his guitar. Yes, my dears, that is a man-thong. 5 points for self-confidence.

Pictures of the Day, Sunday

I don't suppose you can necessarily expect this every day, for my dearly beloved and loyal bloggies, but here are a few pics from today, which was spent going to church, then driving around and seeing the sights around the 'hood. (By 'hood, I mean this side of the island, which appears to have some strong volcanic influence to its landscaping design...)

Without further ado...

In Which I Spend the Day Close to the Heavens, As an Angel

This is where I spent the day...



Where the sky meets the sea.

And now... I am in Hawaii! :) I would post more pictures, but a) I haven't really taken that many, as we didn't get here til 330, waited an hour or more for a rental car, stopped and got some groceries (who pays $5.49 for a gallon of milk?!), drove 40 minutes to our condo and then proceeded to immediately lock ourselves out of it, only to not be able to get a hold of the owner to come save us and ultimately breaking back in... (don't tell her, ok? no permanent damage done.) b) the pictures I did take didn't turn out that breathtaking and c) It is now 1 am my time, and I have been up since 4 am, and spent 15 hours today in airplanes or airports, and I am very very tired. (and clearly moderately whiny as well)

More soon. Have a wonderful and joyous Easter!

In Which I have a Greenish Thumb

I planted a baby garden in my house, so that someday when spring decides to come here and stay, I will plant them outdoors, and later on, I will have lots of yummy things to eat. (And some very lovely flowers, which I have no idea where I am going to put yet, but I will find somewhere..)

Famous Chef of Ethiopian Cuisine:Part 2

Last night we had more people over and made them take part in our further experiment of making and ingesting Ethiopian Food. Last night's menu featured (in addition to leftover Missir W'ot, which is Spiced Lentils) these delicious items:

Sweet Potato Curry (Yeteqeqqele Sikqar Dinich... try saying that three times- ever.)


And something that I suppose would be called Chicken Tibs, since we used the same Eggplant Tibs recipe, but instead of eggplant, used chicken. It was SO good. :)


Who wants to come next? :)

In Which I was Never that Pleased and Decide to Redecorate the Dining Room Already

When we painted and decorated the dining room after we moved in, it looked really great in my head, but slightly less great in reality, so then, I would look at it and consistently be less than satisfied in my own OCD perfectionist way of pumping something something up in my head until there is no earthly way I would ever actually be that impressed. Nevertheless, I decided that what would be more perfect is this:



Which formerly, and much inferiorly, looked like this:


That which you were hitherto beholding were sconces, whereas now, as you are currently beholding, there is none other than my own awe-inspiring photography, featured in sepia, which I do believe I like much better than the sconces, which now reside on yonder wall where you can't see them in this picture. Also, you can note our beautiful new table, and the fact that we no longer have boxes sitting there from when we moved. Perfectionism assuaged.

Next up: The Master Bath. (And let me tell you, it looks really great in my head.)

Famous Chef of Ethiopian Cuisine:Part 1

This weekend, we had some pallies over, and in a voluntary experiment, fed them some fine homemade Ethiopian Cuisine. Here are a few views of the splendor:

First Step: Grocery Shopping
Who knew actual vegetables could live together in harmony in my very own kitchen? I don't know that this has ever happened before. ("Cooking" in this household typically means something like cereal, mac and cheese, or on a good day, tuna helper!)


Next Step: Spiced Oil.
This is used in many of the recipes in the book. You just chop up a bunch of veggies, and simmer them in oil, then strain off all the vegetable bits and keep the oil.) Here it is, pre-straining.


Then, Injera. This is the flatbread sort of dish they use to scoop up their food (instead of silverware.)


John made the injera. As you can see (above) he did a great job!


Just a warning, the dishes themselves look pretty gross. But don't judge- They were good!

Here we have Spiced Red Lentils (Missir W'ot)
(Its consistency is somewhere between refried beans and a thick soup. And the lentils were red to start...)


And Eggplant Tibs.
I'd never had eggplant before, so this was just an adventure all around. It was pretty mushy in consistency, but the flavor was good. I was worried that it was going to burn my mouth off, since it was comprised of spices, spiced oil, garlic, ginger root, and mounds of onions. But it wasn't very hot at all, and it was yummy!