Author: thethreeonenine

Reading is for winners!

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DonorsChoose.org is beyond cool.  For K’s birthday,  his brother gifted him with a donation to the site. The website is a menu of different projects that are in need of funds. K chose a donation of books to a local  grade school which would give them the opportunity to read about a different cultural perspective.  In this case it was the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Revin–the story of  a man’s mission to build a school in Pakistan and how it turned into fifty-five schools.  Yesterday K got a package of cards from the kids.  What an awesome gift!!

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Popcorn plus plus

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We got this at the Kahala movie theater but then didn’t use it because I didn’t know what to do with it.  Apparently it comes with a plastic bag inside and you mix your popcorn with the pouch ingredients like a shake and bake.  The mix has nori flakes and crispy cracker things.  Made in Kaneohe.  It was pretty good.  I’d say it would be BETTER if they added something sweet to it like bits of chocolate covered marshmallows.  Or lucky charms.

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This is Alan

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This is Alan’s salon

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Back home I go to the most perfect hair stylist/friend that anyone could ask for. My hair and who cuts it has been an issue for me since the age of 14 (when I discovered leave-in conditioner).  In 16 years I’ve only gone to four stylists to whom  I’ve been devoted to at each turn: Rodney Cutler, Hyunsoo Kim, and Hiro Haraguchi. All three of them are amazing and I’d go to them again in a heartbeat but they don’t compare to my dear friend and hair guru Kaz.  I’m deeply attached to him and he’s one of the elements I miss most about life in New York.

With that said,  Alan Vuong is great.  His salon (which he owns with two friends) is stylish, well-designed, and comfortable.  The staff is friendly and sharp.  Alex, who shampooed my hair gave me a fantastic massage.  I normally am indifferent to the shampoo massage, but what Alex did felt so good–she’s very intuitive about how much pressure to use.

Alan is like the glamorous Hawaiian Edward Scissorhands.  He really tried to draw out of me through conversation my likes and dislikes in regards to hair.  He gave me tips on using a straight iron and blow drying.  He’s a very sweet individual and very excited about his work.  My hair looks and feels really healthy and has great shape and movement.   I’ll definitley go back to him for a cut before my big reading on the 24th.

When all other lights go out.

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We’ve had two power outages in the past 2 weeks. Our neighbor Corey said that it happens regularly on stormy/windy days and that it takes the electric company forever to fix it. I told K that I was terrified that the power would go out on a night that he was working late. This last Monday it happened. It was about 6PM and it was getting darker and darker. Our place is somewhat remote. It’s hard to find our front door. Even with all the power on it feels very isolated.

I shut down my computer to conserve the battery and fetched our hand-crank flashlight from the kitchen drawer. I turned it on even though the sun was mostly still up. I felt like Frodo.

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I wanted to conserve every last drop of power on my iPhone in case I needed to entertain myself or talk to someone until K came home.  But I decided that texting him about the blackout was worth the battery juice.  Two seconds later he replied he was on his way home.  Joy!

So I sat down and played Supermarket Mania until he got home 20 minutes later.  Because our oven is electric we went out to Lucy’s Grill for dinnr.  I had a glass of Reisling and Opah Crab Dynamite with sweet potato mash. Disaster averted.

Cup cup cup cup of of of of tea tea tea tea

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I read this article online about niche businesses thriving in a bad economy which featured a tea house in Kailua.  I sent it to Sarah and this morning we had tea, sandwiches, scones, and sweets for breakfast.  The Victorian tea house and boutique is called A Cup of Tea.  Along with the fresh baked scones came clotted cream and lemon curd.  It was all very proper and girly.  Next to us was a baby shower party and there were a couple of moms with little girls all dressed up for tea.

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I’m pretty sure I’d go back.  It was great to catch up with Sarah.

Take a Pillbox

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We hiked up to the first ‘pillbox’ or bunker on Ka’iwa Ridge in Lanikai.  The trailhead is along a chain link fence right across from the Mid-Pacific Country Club.  The hike was about an hour and a half and pretty steep at the beginning and near the end.  I was huffing and puffing in parts but then it would ease up and it was very easy to enjoy the view.

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Afternoon in Hawaii Kai

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The other weekend we met K’s friend Jeremy at the Koko Marina Center’s Starbucks. We were picking up K’s keyboard which he had loaned Jeremy and in return we got a gift bag of organic awesomeness:

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Here they are later in our house.  It was like a bottomless bag:

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I asked him where he did his grocery shopping and aside from Wholefoods he mentioned a place called Kale’s Natural Food.  He also told us about a website that was a great resource for home remedies. We spent 3 hours at that Starbucks which is a record for me since coming here.

This is currently my favorite thing from the batch.  It’s delicious with oatmeal and bananas for breakfast:

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Koko Marina Center is big-time compared to Kailua.  It’s very fancy and has lots of stores like Bubbie’s Ice Cream and a multiplex.  Part of the reason I wanted to check it out was because Laura from Lily Lotus had said that there was a good teacher at Hawaii Kai’s Bikram studio.

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We found the studio tucked away on the second floor but it was in session so we couldn’t go in.  I read online that it’s the only bikram place in Oahu that uses infrared heat.  It looks very quaint and clean from the outside.   At some point one morning I’ll drive over there and take a class.

Driving to Hawaii Kai you pass right through Waimanalo and its stunning beach.  I tried to get a picture when we were driving home but this is the best I could get:

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