our first full day

Our stay on Maui was at the Royal Lahaina Resort. Check in was easy, the staff friendly, courteous, and helpful and we took advantage of the valet parking as it was only an extra $5 over the self park fee. Whenever we would leave and return, we were greeted with 'welcome home'. It's a lovely open air resort on a beautiful beach with with water ranging from light blue to turquoise to indigo, not too large with high rise hotel rooms or bungalows, a conference center, a location for the luau they had almost every night, travel and visitor services, and a small general store where you could buy clothing or food items and everything in between. Apparently it's a popular place for weddings as well.

We opted for rooms with a partial ocean view, that's Molokai in the distance...

Our first full day there, Wednesday, we spent at the resort resting up from our long previous day (we'd been up nearly 22 hours by the time we went to bed since Hawaii is 5 hours behind us and when we finished dinner the previous night at about 8:30 PM it was 1:30 AM the next day on home time). We started out the day with a (free) guided yoga session on the front lawn with mats and towels provided at 7:30, the only day it was offered during the time we would be there. After breakfast, where we sat out on the covered patio by the pool and attended by sparrows and spotted doves and red crested cardinals and mynahs (you didn't want to walk off and leave your plate full of food for even second) 

the girls and I sprawled out on the coarse sand beach, 

taking the occasional swim (them) and the occasional stroll on the beach (me)

here's another view of Molokai.

We could actually see two of the islands from the beach, Molokai on the right and Lanai on the left.

Lanai...

until we got too hot and moved to the pool where I sat in the shade and the girls lounged on the chaises until it was time to go to the lei making class at 1:30.

The lady had a huge bag of orchids and she dumped handfuls in a pile in front of each of us and we strung them on needles that were about 18” long, and then gently pushing them down onto the string that was attached, about three needles worth for one lei.

Properly bedecked with orchids we went into Lahaina for a late lunch/early dinner and then later strolled along the waterfront, going into the shops while the girls picked out things for their friends and family and themselves (we did this a lot throughout the trip).

I bought a rainbow plumeria stalk and a bamboo and coconut wind chime of course.

next: the twins birthday and the road to Hana

it took all day but we got there

The day before we left was a frenzy...I had to clean house because I hate going on vacation and coming back to a dirty messy house, put up the batch of tomatoes that were approaching the edge (and still I took a huge bag of tomatoes to my daughter when we picked up the twins), mow the Little Backyard (have to do the whole thing with a trimmer as the lawn mower won't fit through the gate) because if I didn't my sister would need a machete to get to the back door to feed the cat, and pack. I think I fell into bed around 10 PM.

Since we live an hour and a half from the airport and had to stop on the way to get the twins and then park the car and get the shuttle to the airport and then check in our bags and go through security, we got up at 3:30 AM in order to leave the house at 4:30 AM to get to the airport at the recommended two hours before our 8:35 AM flight. We made record time though since it was so early and no traffic so by the time we did all that, we still had two hours to wait before they started boarding. Well, better too early than too late I guess but we could have used that extra hour's sleep.

First leg of the trip was to Dallas and we arrived a little before 10 AM to discover that our 11:15 flight to Maui was delayed til 1:15 which gave us time for food but also gave us another long wait in an airport.

Eventually though we boarded (those are the twins feet in the first row)

and arrived on Maui, picked up the rental car, and drove the 45 minutes or so to the resort which was about 10 minutes past Lahaina, checked in, and went for dinner in time to see the sun set while a lovely lady danced the hula.

we're home

We made it into the driveway sometime around 12:30 PM yesterday. My sister brought Minnie home shortly after. Minnie (dog) and Emma (cat who stayed locked up in the house all week with daily visits by my sister) have been glued to my side ever since. Mostly what we've done since we got back is sleep.

We had a wonderful time doing everything we could (afford) and were able (traveling with 2 folks in their mid-60s...that would be me and Marc). I'll write about it, just not today. Still recovering and plus I'm dealing with an issue that I will write about but also not today.

see you on the flip side

Did I mention we are going on vacation this month? We're leaving Tuesday and taking the twins to Hawaii for a week to reward them for all their hard work, four days on Maui and three days on Hawaii. Not looking forward to the actual traveling part. We'll have to leave the house about 4:30 in the morning to pick them up and get to the airport and all that stuff. Our flight leaves at 8:30 AM.  Leaving politics behind...no news, no FB, no Twitter.  It will be a relief.

The corn man was at the market yesterday, sweet hybrid corn, organic and comes with the occasional worm. Fewer this year than previous years. Worms, that is. 20 ears for $7 with two extra thrown in because...worms. Somehow last year we missed him altogether. So yesterday I was putting up 21 ears (only one total reject) because I don't have enough to do between then and Tuesday when we leave. Still have a bunch of tomatoes to put up too because otherwise I'll just have to toss them in the compost pile which may be their fate anyway. Those damn plants are still putting on fruit though they aren't getting very big now before they start to ripen. Those that ripen while we are gone will be my sister's problem.

So a couple of days ago, something stated smelling bad in the kitchen. I thought maybe it was something in the compost bin so I dumped it on the compost pile but it didn't seem to get rid of the smell. I took the bottom drawer in the row out thinking maybe there was something dead down at the bottom of the cabinet but nothing but roach parts and crap so I cleaned out the mess and emptied the drawer, then I checked the next two, nada. Finally pulled out the top drawer where the few cookbooks and printed out recipes are kept and ewww, a dead mouse! How the hell did it get in there and why the hell would it want to be in there in the first place and if it got in there to begin with why didn't it climb back out? And why the hell did it climb in that drawer to die? So of course that nasty smell had impregnated everything in the drawer, had to spread everything out on the outside table to air out all day and sprayed it all liberally citrus air freshener. The cookbooks are OK but the loose recipes still have a lingering odor. I didn't put those back in the drawer and I'm hoping it will have dissipated by the time we get back. Sure am glad it didn't wait til after we left to climb in there and die. Wouldn't that have been a wonderful homecoming.

So I don't leave you with the image of a stinking dead mouse, here's a few things seen around the yard the last week or so.

a new bromeliad

the same bromeliad with toads

Big Mama

a little snail on the toad lily

a fungi that was shriveled up an hour later

a plumeria seed pod that popped

native hibiscus

the current list and it's no better than the previous lists, depressing but best to stay informed

This man is pure evil, cares nothing for anyone or anything but his ego. Trump is turning the US into just a bigger and more dangerous N. Korea, aligning us with Russia and would turn us into a totalitarian regime and the Republicans, who are just as complicit, will let him. They care nothing for democracy either, only about staying in power. He loved Saudi Arabia because there were no demonstrations, no protests, and he thinks Americans are disrespectful. I flip back and forth from angry to hopeless. I know there are serious investigations going on and eventually some of these people will be taken down but it's not happening fast enough! The only bright spot is the many governors, mayors, and individuals (CEO Michael Bloomberg has offered to pay the $15 million to the UN operating budget for the Paris Accords that the US was expected to contribute) that are standing up and standing against. If 'make America great again' means abdicating our role as a world leader and a light unto the nations, then he has succeeded...

The Assistant Attorney General, because Sessions had to recuse himself because he's fucking involved, appointed an Independent Counsel at the FBI to continue the investigation, a man that both parties find honorable. True, Trump can fire him as well but it will be much harder thanks to the terms laid out by the Ass't AG when he wrote up the order, not to mention how much worse it will look for Trump to have fired two heads of the same investigation. And of course, Trump responded like he always does whining about how unfair he is being treated.

A transcript, and apparently the tape itself, has surfaced of a conversation between Republican congressmen when it came out that Trump and another Senator were thought to be being paid by the Russians and Paul Ryan stopped that dead in the water and swore everyone to secrecy...what happens in the House, stays in the House.

Democrats have produced proof that Pence was told back in November that Flynn was getting paid by Turkey.

After Trump sang Turkish president Erdogan's praises at the White House, Erdogan ordered his bodyguards to beat up the peaceful protesters outside the Turkish Embassy. Trump's response? Silence.

The White House is trying to keep the Office of Government Ethics from viewing documents detailing which former lobbyists have been hired by the Trump administration for positions in the federal government.

After Comey's testimony before Congress, Trump contacted the Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coates, and the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, in an attempt to pressure them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. The two men refused to comply.

Trump, during his visit to the Middle East told a room full of Israelis in Israel that he had just come from the Middle East.

Wilber Ross, Trump's Commerce Secretary, thinks the lack of protest in Saudi Arabia, which is punishable by death, is a good thing.

Trump, on his trip to Israel, told Netanyahu at the end of a press conference, with the press still present, that he didn't mention Israel to the Russians...“just so you understand — I never mentioned the word or the name Israel in conversation. Never mentioned it.”...totally confirming the source of the intel he bragged about to the Russians.

Trump admits firing Comey over the investigation into Russian contact and then tells the Russians that Comey was a nut job and he fired him and now the pressure of the investigation was off.

Not only did Comey create a memo directly after his dinner with Trump when Trump asked him to drop the Flynn investigation, so did Mike Rogers of the NSA when Trump asked him to lean on Comey to end the investigation.

Trump's AG Jeff Sessions, who perjured himself during his confirmation hearing, also lied via omission about his contacts with the Russians on his security clearance form.

And speaking of omitting information on contacts with Russians on their security clearance forms, so did scumbag Jared Kushner who buys low rent properties and then sues ex-tenets that had already moved out for breaking their leases.

Not only did Trump spill highly secret intelligence to the Russians, he told Phillipine president Duterte the secret location of two of our nuclear submarines.

While we're on the subject of spilling intelligence, information from the investigation of the Manchester bombing made it's way into our news before the Manchester investigators made it public and now they are refusing to share any more information with us.

In another show of vindictiveness, Trump sent Sean Spicer back to the US early depriving him of meeting the Pope, the one thing as a Catholic he truly wanted to do.

After promising in a January press conference that his company would donate all profits from foreign governments, Trump now says it's more trouble than it's worth to determine exactly how much that would be in order to comply with the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Too hard and too much trouble to comply with the Constitution which he calls archaic and not good for the country.

Trump and Pence have both recorded robocalls in support of the Republican candidate in Montana where robocalls are illegal. Their work around was to have an actual person dial the phone and ask whoever answered if they would like to hear a recording.

Because his ego demands that he be front and center of any photo op, Trump rudely pushed other NATO leaders aside and barged his way to the front for the photos of the NATO meeting in Brussels.

Trump's White House put out, and reported by Fox that Trump was the first sitting American president to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem...well, except for Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton.

During a meeting with Netanyahu in Israel, Trump got a blank look on his face, stood up and wandered off and his aides had to bring him back.

Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader, thought congressional procedure worked just fine for the last 8 years while they obstructed everything President Obama tried to do. Now that Democrats are doing their best to obstruct the cruelties of Republican policies and the shoe is on the other foot, he thinks that congressional procedure doesn't work so well.

Trump, on his first international trip to meet with other world leaders praised the repressive Saudi regime from which most of the 9/11 attackers came from, making a $110 billion arms deal with them allowing our arms and helicopters to be made in Saudi Arabia while in his meeting with European leaders lectured them about not paying their 'fair share' for NATO proving once again that he does not understand how NATO works and declined to re-commit the United States to Article 5 which says an attack on one is an attack on all making it dependent on whether or not the attacked country was spending enough on defense in his opinion.

Trump also refused to commit to honoring the Paris Accords telling them he had to think about it and then days later, out of spite against anyone and everyone who doesn't adore him, announced he was pulling the US out of the agreement putting us on the side with the only two nation in the world who did not sign on, Syria and Nicaragua, because he doesn't believe in global warming. Well, I always said that human beings would be one of Mother Earth's least successful lifeforms because of our arrogance. Too bad we will change her face in our death throes and I never thought it would begin in MY lifetime.

Trump's performance in Europe was so poor that Angela Merkel has stated that Europe can no longer count on the United States.

White nationalism/terrorism has risen dramatically given a big boost by Trump and verbal and physical attacks by whites on non-whites and non-christians have also increased dramatically. In one such recent attack, a white man was verbally attacking two women he took to be muslims and three men came to their defense. The attacker, wielding a knife, murdered two of these heroes, wounded the third, and then called it an act of patriotism. Trump's response? Total silence.

While Trump has had nothing to say about the murder of the two men who stood up to protect American citizens from a white terrorist, he did manage to congratulate a Republican, who physically assaulted a reporter days before his election, on his win in Montana.

Jess Sessions, Trump's AG who is supposed to be tough on crime, accused the NYC police department of being soft on crime while he gave corporate criminal banks a slap on the hand and a small fine. But, hey, if you get caught with little marijuana you can expect to be jailed for life in a for-profit prison.

In his continuing effort to undo everything Obama did, Trump has announced that he will rescind the looser relations with Cuba.

Trump, who always puts his business and bank account before country, admitted that his difficulty in opening golf courses in Europe influenced his EU views.

Russia demanded their diplomatic property in the US back 'or else' that Obama denied them access to for spying and Putin's lapdog Trump will oblige them.

Conservatives and Trump were angry about a comedian's photo of holding a bloody fake Trump head but they have no problem cozying up to Saudi Arabia who regularly beheads people.

Trump's White House has issued 17 ethics waivers for his staff (more than Obama did in 8 years). What does that tell you about the ethical nature of his staff?

And speaking of his staff, people are resigning and he can't find anyone to replace them, he still has many positions left unfilled crippling the government, he would replace many others who he thinks aren't loyal enough but he can't find anyone who wants to work for/under him.

spring reading list

Nine entries this quarter, finally getting back into my reading habit...

Red Rising by Pierce Brown – the first book of a trilogy that takes place on Mars. Humans have successfully spread to the solar system's other planets and moons, terraforming them to sustain human life and creating a complex society via a strict caste system coded by color. Reds are the lowest of the low spending their whole lives living beneath the surface of Mars mining the Helium3 that fuels the terraforming and the spaceships, believing the propaganda that they are sacrificing their lives so that humanity can escape the miserable ruined planet earth, and unaware that there is a thriving planet and society on the surface above them. They are, in essence, slaves unaware of their slavery while they fuel humanity. They marry young, they die young. Golds, cold blooded power hungry killers, are the ruling class. Vain and arrogant they consider the other colors as less than human. Certainly less than them. They are bred for power, physical and intellectual. Darrow, a 16 year old Red 'helldiver', the most dangerous job of mining, and his wife are arrested when she stumbles on a tunnel that takes her to an enclosed forest and they see the sky for the first time. He is whipped, she is hanged, he is hanged but rescued and recruited by the Sons of Ares, the underground resistance group. His mission, to rise up high enough in the Gold hierarchy to have enough power to break the system but in order for him to do that he must first be made into a Gold, something that requires remaking his body from the inside out. That accomplished, he passes the entrance test to gain admittance to the Institute, a school for only the best and the brightest of Gold children. Now he must not only survive the year long Institute, but finish high enough to win the powerful and connected sponsorship necessary to rise in the system. It's a good story, fast paced, told in the first person present. It captured my attention and I've been spending a lot more time reading. The rain has been helpful in that respect. I finished it, put it down, and went immediately to the library to get the second book.

Golden Son by Pierce Brown – Darrow, now known as the Reaper, after winning the Institute and another year at the Academy is poised to win the final battle there when he is lured into a trap and he and his crew barely escape with their lives. His sponsor, the ArchGovernor of Mars, Augustus, is sorely disappointed and Darrow loses favor since he failed to kill the son of the family with which he has a blood feud that killed Augustus's favored son. Political intrigue also had a hand in the Reaper's sidelining until he comes up with a daring plan to usurp the power of the Sovereign who rules all the planets and moons. Darrow/Reaper's plan is to bring it all down to create a new more egalitarian society for all the colors but only a very few Golds and the Sons of Ares are in on the ultimate goal. All seems going to plan and victory is in sight until he is betrayed and the Golds and all the other colors find out he is really a lowly Red.

Morning Star by Pierce Brown – With many of Darrow's supporters murdered and Darrow himself imprisoned in a box and the rest of the worlds thinking he is dead because of his supposed execution, all seems lost while the Society's Armada continues to fight the uprising, which without the Reaper and Ares, also murdered, is floundering. In the meantime, Darrow's right hand man and best friend, Sevro, a Gold, now Ares himself, does not believe he is dead and is carrying on the fight, taking control of the resistance. It takes a year but Sevro finally discovers Darrow's fate and they rescue him from his captor, the new ArchGovernor of Mars, and desperate plans are laid to continue the fight and gain more supporters, most particularly the Moon Lords of Jupiter and the Obsidians of Mars. They are given unexpected aid when they hatch a plan to kidnap a very rich and influential Silver who turns out to be one of the original founders of the Sons of Ares. After a battle with the Society's Sword Armada, which they defeat and capture those ships that were not destroyed, Darrow, Sevro, and Mustang hatch a daring plan to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Sovereign on Luna and put an end to the war and create a society that allows a person's talents to determine their fate rather than their color caste.

There is so much in these books I didn't tell, for instance who Mustang is, who the Obsidians are, but I was trying to keep it all fairly short. It's a good story, moves quickly, and I finished all three books in the time it has taken me lately to read just one.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden - a supernatural tale written as if it were a Russian Fairy Tale, or rather, the basis for a Russian Fairy Tale except the tale is one of many told at the ovenside of an outlying boyar's house at the edge of the wilderness in 16th century Rus'. Vasya was born to a beloved wife, herself the daughter of the mysterious girl who rode into Moscow on a horse and charmed the grand prince into marriage, who died soon after childbirth. Vasya is a wild spirit and when she is 7, her father decides to remarry in an effort to tame Vasya and groom her for a woman's life as a wife. Pyotr is manipulated into taking the current grand prince of Moscow's mad sister to wife in return for a high born marriage for his other daughter. Soon after Anna, a devout Christian, arrives the old priest in the village dies and a young charismatic priest is sent to take his place. Vasya and the village still honor the old spirits and the village is prosperous until the new priest arrives and instills fear in the villagers and they turn away from the nature spirits and things start going bad. Vasya's wildness and power are unsettling to the villagers and the priest is determined to bring her to God. With the villagers turning away from the protective nature spirits, an evil spirit that has been bound for ages is about to get free and it is up to Vasya with help from the Winter King, also known as Death, to save everyone. It's a good story and I really enjoyed this one.

The Girl Before by J. P. Delaney – a murder mystery of sorts, two stories are told simultaneously...Emma then and Jane now...of two young women living in a house built by an architect who specializes in austere but beautiful buildings with the aim to change the occupants that comes with a long list of rules and requirements. It's a story of obsessive love and control as both women engage in an affair with the architect. Then Emma dies under questionable circumstances in the house and now Jane tries to discover the truth about Emma's death discovering along the way the obsessive nature of her lover and trying to determine whether or not she is in danger. It's a good story that kept me engaged. Either that or I've finally gotten back into reading as this is the 5^th book in a row that it only took me a week to read.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena - Anne and Marco, parents of a 6 month old, have an 'adults only' dinner engagement with their neighbors with whom they share a wall and due to a family emergency the sitter cancels at the last minute. Anne wants to stay home but Marco convinces her to leave Cora, the baby, at home, they will take the baby monitor with them and take turns checking on her every half hour. They return home sometime after 1 AM to find the front door ajar and the baby missing. Marco was the last to check on her at 12:30 and claims she was sleeping peacefully. The police are called and then begins the investigation into the abduction. Anne, who is suffering from postpartum depression, fears she has killed her baby who has been difficult, crying and hard to soothe, when she went home for Cora's 11 o'clock feeding because she can't remember everything that happened and has a history of a violent episode during a blackout when she was in school and that Marco got rid of the body to cover for her. It is gradually revealed that Marco kidnapped Cora with the help from an accomplice for the ransom he knew his in-laws would pay in order to rescue his business from financial disaster. Unknown to Marco, his father-in-law, Anne's step-father, who despises Marco, set the whole thing up in an attempt to discredit Marco and steal $5 million from his wife and run off with his girlfriend who happens to be the neighbor Cynthia and has had Cora the whole time. Anne and Marco get the baby back. That's the nuts and bolts of it though there is more to the story written in third person present but I found the author's writing style tiresome after a while and when I got to the last page, I was like, what?!

Ape House by Sara Gruen – from the author of Water For Elephants. Isabel is a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab with her also scientist fiance Peter. John, a reporter who has been working on a story about language acquisition in apes, and his colleague Cat were sent by the paper they work for to visit the language lab and while John was allowed to interact with the bonobos, Cat was not since she was recovering from a cold. Later that day when everyone was supposed to be out of the facility for the night, there is a massive explosion that nearly kills Isabel. The bonobos survive and are promptly sold by the university that underwrote the language lab when the president's house was vandalized and his family threatened at the same time. As Isabel recovers she is frantic to find out what happened to the 7 apes she considers her family. Several months later, the bonobos, who are very sexually active and use sexual encounters between opposite sex and same sex members to bond the group, surface in a TV show, Ape House, by the reality porn show king. The bonobos wake to find themselves in an empty house except for a computer and a stool. It doesn't take long for the apes to start ordering food, blankets, furniture, toys, etc. live streaming 24/7. John, who had his story stolen and given over to Cat by their editor quit and the only job he could find is at a tabloid that sends him out to the location of Ape House to report and write up sensationalist stories. Eventually he and Isabel reconnect and try to find a way to rescue the apes. I was almost to the end of the book and all these balls were up in the air and I thought no way is she going to resolve all this in the remaining pages but she did neatly in a page or two. This is the nuts and bolts but it's a great book/story with lots of entertaining characters and I do recommend it. But then I really liked Water For Elephants too.

Slade House by David Mitchell – Down a dark narrow hard to find alley in a working class neighborhood in London is, sometimes, a small black iron door. Not just anyone can find the door to Slade House and not just anyone who finds it can open it and those who can open it get invited inside. I don't know how much I want to say about this book as I really enjoyed it and don't want to say too much for future readers. These are small stories that are all linked to the iron door and build on one another. Every 9 years, it seems, one or more people go missing on the same day never to be seen or heard from again. Their experiences are different and the same all at the same time until it all reaches an unexpected conclusion with a little twist.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell – I saw the movie before I read the book and while it was very pleasing visually, I had no idea what it was about. I just finished the book and I'm here to tell you I still don't know what it was about. Then I watched the trailer again...nope. The book is a series of 6 stories interrupted in the middle, sometimes mid-sentence (except for the sixth which is as complete as any of them). The next story starts after a jump forward in time. Small jumps and then large jumps until we get to the sixth so far forward in the future that mankind has fallen to it's knees and succumbing to savagery and from the end of that story we start going backwards picking up the previous stories in reverse order until we end with the last half of the first story. As far as I can tell, the only thing that connects them is a comet shaped birthmark, an occasional reference to the title, and in some cases a character from one appears in the next. Stories 1 – 4 do have some sort of continuity but are otherwise completely unrelated. Then a big jump in time for 5 and another big jump in time to the sixth. I did enjoy the book. The stories are well told but don't ask me what the book is about.

all growed up

Some of you might remember these girls from their first Granny Camp back in 2009...

Jade

Autumn

Well, this is what they did last Friday night...with honors.

In August Jade will be leaving for college at University of Texas San Antonio and Autumn will be leaving for college at University of Texas in Austin.

They will be separated for the first time in their lives.