Your Friendly Neighborhood Mystery Writer is Still Here
I counted 21 open flowers on this orchid, another 14 buds, and even more nubbins that promise to be buds that promise to be flowers. Talk about an over-achiever! Yes, it’s been… let’s just say a while since I’ve posted. But I’m still kicking and, per my lovely photographic evidence, still doing it in East Hawaii. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve written a bunch of brilliant blog entries, usually in the shower or in bed at night when I can’t sleep. Of course, you’ll have to take my word for them being brilliant since they never made it from the ether Read more…
Postcard from Puna, Where Pork Might be Back on This Vegetarian’s Menu
Aloha, my daydreaming snowbound friends! Last post, I shared a bit of the reality of living in East Hawaii with you, specifically that we received (there’s that deceptively grateful word again) 17.5 FEET of rain last year. Seriously. Well, in true contrarian fashion, our normally rainy January has been quite dry. So dry that I’ve started regularly (dysfunctionally?) laying a hand against our catchment tank to check the water level when I feed the fish in the evening. (Don’t worry—we still have plenty of water; I just like to be reassured that we still have plenty of water.) It has Read more…
From Dog Pee to Avocado Blossoms: Odiferous Tales of Rainy East Hawaii
Happy New Year, everyone! I can still say that in the first week of January, right? It is so fricking beautiful now, sunny and breezy and the perfect temperature. Check out the anole sunning himself among the avocado tree blossoms. And boy, do they smell good. All in all, it’s the kind of day that would make you step off the plane from Iowa and exclaim, Wow, this really IS Hawaii! At this precise moment, anyway, so hurry and step off that plane because there’s a cloud bank on the horizon. 😉 Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful. We’ve Read more…
This is Paradise: Tropical Turmeric Tales
Hey, um… is it Friday again? [scrambles to blog] I’m in the midst of some good stuff here, including trying to wrap up the rough draft of Sydney Brennan Adventure #8—has anyone seen a title lying around?—so I’ll keep this brief-ish, but I did want to share a little something cool that might make you smile. Here in the tropics, you probably think we’re wading through fields of… well, just fill your favorite fruit or vegetable that comes in fields. But, as I noted last blog post (Changing Seasons, Hawaii Style) common expectations and on-the-ground reality don’t always align in Read more…
Marking the Changing Seasons, Hawaii Style
I had a video call with someone this week who, wearing a cozy sweater, told me she’d gotten out her desk foot warmer (a gift created by her engineer husband to warm her feet, not the desk’s.) I think the shirt I was wearing had sleeves. Thanks to climate change, seasonal transitions are getting to be slippery buggers, with seasons slowly creeping into USSC Justice Potter Stewart’s hard-core pornography territory: “I know it when I see it.” (Jacobellis vs. Ohio) But seasons have always been tricky here in East Hawaii, at least for someone used to a temperate climate framework. Read more…
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