I went to Yokohama Bay Beach yesterday afternoon. That's on the western end of the island, right before the place where the old highway was closed when it became unsafe. At one time you could go from our Leeward Coast to the North Shore via that route, but now you have to drive towards town and traverse the island through the mountains to get there. Yokohama Bay is the "end of the world" from this side, unless you're on foot. I've taken the hike a few times from Yokohama Bay to Kaena Point, which is the extreme western tip of Oahu. I need to do that again sometime, to see the albatross that nest there. But that's for another day. Yeterday I stopped short so I could meet friends for their annual Christmas visit to Yokohama Bay.


It was a beautiful, sunshiny day with stiff breezes coming in off of the ocean. Quite a few people had come out to play.




The ocean is very changeable this time of year. In the hour or so we were there it went from flat ...




... to frilly ...



... to booming!




That didn't bother the sun worshippers ...




... or keep the kids from trying out their new boogie boards ...



I took some photos of my friend and her son, because they don't often have the opportunity to have their picture taken together. I also took pictures of the mountains, and more pictures of the scenes at the beach. A total of eighty-three pictures were on my camera card when I got home. I could look at each in the viewer of my camera. I wanted to select a nice mother and son photo to frame for my friends and, of course, to share the best with you. Alas, something is wrong with my camera, or maybe the card or my software. Each time I've tried to correct it I've lost photos. I've ended up with no mountain pictures & no photos of my friends. I did manage to save the last photo of the day, one I took impulsively as I was coming home. Here's a little local color for you.

Labels: Christmas, life in Hawaii

An original watercolor creation by Debbie Hauter
Debbie & Stan Saltwater Clip Art Collection

Labels: Christmas, Hawaii

Because all of us need a little nuttiness this time of year ...




Make sure Santa can easily access your chimney.




Take a look around inside, too. Remove any offensive decor items,





Otherwise Santa may be short a few reindeer next year.





It might be best if parents supervise the provision of goodies for Santa.






Make sure you gas up your SUV for Christmas Eve, just in case it's needed.




I hope you're all finished with the shopping and wrapping and baking and madness. Now is the time to relax and enjoy your holiday.

Mele Kalikimaka, my friends, and Hau'oli Makahiki Hou to you all. May 2007 be a year of great thigs!

Labels: Christmas, humor

Your time is short. With a lifespan about equal to that of a fly, how much can you accomplish? There's only so much you can do to express your individuality.





There's little you can do to shield yourself from vulnerability.





You're robbed of enjoying even the simple peasures.





You're so exposed.




Sharing the joy of the season with you all, my friends, with just a bit of irreverence thrown in. Mele Kalikimaka to you, and Hau'oli Makahiki Hou! May the new year bring you peace and happiness, or some reasonable facsimile thereof.

Labels: Christmas, friends, humor

Today was what I lovingly call BookBrunch day. Once a month the Table of Contents meets. Our meetings move around to different restaurants on Oahu, and we enjoy good food, catching up with each other's lives and swapping books. The Table of Contents is a group of local members of BookCrossing.com and has been meeting for several years. Our gatherings are one of the few things that can get me out of the house other than work and necessary errands, and it's the highlight of my month. Today was to be extra-special, because it was our Christmas gathering.

I left the house about ten this morning for our eleven o'clock restaurant reservation. It takes about forty minutes to get from my place, way out in the country, to downtown Honolulu. I allowed extra time today because the restaurant we had chosen is in a busy shopping complex and I knew I'd need extra time to find parking among all of the Christmas shoppers.

At 10:30 I was ten minutes away from my destination when IT happened. My belly cramped up. I had a ruptured gut twelve years ago and it left me with a condition called Short Bowel Syndrome. You don't want the details, but my son and I euphemistically refer to it as my faulty containment system. The little bit of food that I do retain does not absorb into my body very well, so I have numerous symptoms resulting from over a decade of malabsorption. My bones ache, my joints are failing, I've lost a lot of teeth and my muscle tone is lousy. I battle dehydration all day every day, my diet is very limited and I have frequent undesired weight loss. When my belly cramps up, I know that my day is over. There is nothing I can do but go home and wait it out.

I took my medication last night and this morning. It's supposed to slow things down in my digestive tract. The amount and scheduling of dosages is as much art as science, and varies depending on dietary intake, level of physical activity and a few other variables. I can't take the maximum dosage because the side effects can be as bad as the original symptoms. So I got it wrong this time and I missed the Christmas gathering of the Table of Contents.

Sometimes my life really sucks. Like I said, I'm bummed.

Labels: bookcrossing, Christmas, diet and nutrition, health, Short Bowel Syndrome

I’m starting to feel the joy. I’ve tried to be the grumpy old curmudgeon this year, but the fun stuff of the Christmas season is starting to suck me in. That’s a good thing, right?

BlueMountain is the first ecard site I ever used, and it’s still one of the best. So it was a natural thing for me to start clicking links when I found a blog today that reviews some of BlueMountain’s Christmas online games. I just played the Gingerbread Boy Hangman’s Word Game and sure hope I’ll get better at it as time goes by. Each wrong letter guess causes the Gingerbread Boy to get bitten, and I’m afraid I let him get devoured several times. I didn’t do so well on the Elf Toss Game either. If you toss too soon, the elves end up in a tangled heap. If you toss too late, the elves doing the tossing slide onto the ice and can’t get any distance with their toss. I think I probably need a child to help me with these games, because they always seem to catch on much more quickly than us grown-up, don’t they?

The games are on ecards that you can send for free to your friends and family and old grumps like me. You can also purchase a year’s membership at BlueMountain for only $13.99 and send unlimited ecards throughout the year. That’s a lot cheaper than sending paper cards, and you can schedule them in advance so they always arrive right on time. There’s even a trial membership so you can check that out for free also. I’m glad I found this site, because I had forgotten how much fun BlueMountain ecards can be!

Labels: Christmas, ecards, games and quizzes, payperpost

Your Christmas Stocking Will Be Filled With a Puppy

Well - one cute, soft, cuddly puppy... And a very soiled Christmas stocking.

Labels: Christmas, games and quizzes

Because Sassymonkey asked so sweetly, here's a holiday tradition that my son and I used to share. The original recipe is from The Karo Cookbook, which I bought back in the eighties. Opening it up is nostalgic because you can tell by the stains on the pages which ones we've loved the most. I've always used pecans for this, but I see now that the recipe is actually called "Spiced Sugared Nuts" and you can swap out your favorites.

Spiced Sugared Nuts

1 cup sugar
*1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
*1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup Karo light corn syrup
2 cups walnut or pecan halves
1 teaspoon vanilla

Grease a 15 1/2 X 10 1/2 X 1-inch jelly roll pan. In heavy 2-quart saucepan stir together sugar, water, corn syrup, cinnamon, allspice and salt. Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until mixture boils. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until temperature reaches 235 degrees F on a candy thermometer or until small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water forms a soft ball which flattens on removal from water. Remove from heat. Add nuts and vanilla. Stir until mixture begins to thicken and gets light in color. **Pour onto prepared pan. Working quickly with two forks separate nuts into individual pieces. Cool. Store in tightly covered container. Makes about 1 pound.

*We always liked ours spicier still, so I use 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of allspice.

**I skipped the pan, sanitized the kitchen counter, then greased it for the separating process, just like they do in a candy kitchen. Careful not to damage the counter with the fork tines!

Candied walnuts: Follow recipe for Spiced Sugared Nuts. Omit cinnamon, allspice and vanilla. Use 2 cups of walnut halves and 1 teaspoon rum extract with walnuts.

We used to make these every year. I say "we" because they're too hard to make alone. It took two of us, with two forks each, to separate the nuts quickly before they solidified into one big clump. Rumor has it that you can re-heat them when that happens, but I've never tried to make them alone, so I'm not sure. I'm considering tackling it as a solo project this year, so we'll see how it goes.

I love the old brand name cookbooks for really basic ingredients that can be used in a lot of ways. The Karo one is my alltime favorite, but I also have Bisquick and some others around here somewhere. Buried under the clutter, I'm sure.

The photo above is from this current eBay listing, so you might be able to get your very own Karo cook book if you hurry.

Labels: Christmas, food, holiday traditions