Yet another 2018 Reboot: Big Island Lava?
I know, this is supposed to be an off week for the Blog, but I thought I’d share something anyway, in case you need a break from political crazy with real world, Hawaii Island crazy. No, we haven’t had another nuke scare, but we are circling back to a popular theme… Yesterday was the first sunny day we’ve had in weeks, if not months. I know, I see a lot of you people who suffer through snowy winters throwing objects at the screen, but maybe you didn’t hear about the poor people on Kauai who got just under fifty inches Read more…
When You Can’t Blame the Cat (Or the Weather) After All—Shiny Object Syndrome
I planned my blog post yesterday, but got caught up in writing writing instead (things are getting real in Dead Hollow) and left it until this morning to draft. Except today I’m a little frazzled because—you guessed it—we had intense thunderstorms and a trembling, medicated Rhodesian ridgeback (plus a totally chill cat) in our bed last night. I was going to write about how I can’t get anything done because of the trouble-inciting Ninja Kitty. Except today, it struck me that the weather is the root of my problem. When we moved to Hawaii a dozen years ago, thunderstorms were Read more…
Palm Trees, Postcards, and… Nuclear Fall-out?
This week I thought I’d take a break from writing about fiction for one of my periodic posts about living in Paradise. Which, honestly, is a fiction of another kind. Yep, if you’ve read my posts about the lava flow that rained ash upon us and nearly swallowed a neighboring town, or even the ones about the preponderance of vermin and annoying feral pigs, you’ve probably figured out by now that Hawaii Island isn’t all palm trees and postcards. And if you watched the news at all this week, you can probably guess where I’m heading today… Most Saturdays, we Read more…
Welcomed Home by the Other Red Army
Ah, home again, after a two week, multi-location odyssey (Hilo to Austin to New Orleans to Seattle to San Juan Island and back to Hilo, if you’re keeping track). There was relatively little pet drama while we were gone, although Fred did shred his Thunder Shirt at the kennel. And there were no rats squatting in our house, as happened the last time we visited Sydney’s home state (see Vacation Interlopers). However, there were other squatters, or at least a change of behavior in the pre-existing residents. Which is why I just put Vaseline on my laptop. Not directly. I Read more…
I’m Still Here, Still Hanging with the Dogs and Skynet
This is just a quick check-in to let you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth or, Facebook post to the contrary, curled up in a corner to binge-watch Hanna-Barbera cartoons and eat cereal. I have a real blog post for you that’s nearly finished—a Stories I Love no less—but I wanted to spend a little time polishing it first. Who was it that observed, it takes so much longer to write short than to write long? (Apparently, the origins of, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter,” are a matter of Read more…
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