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I like the word Calabash

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This morning I found a dead baby gecko under the table I work on. It was so tiny! On the opposite end yesterday while I was working on HIFF fliers I heard a lawnmower buzzing from far away. Then I realized that’s not a lawn mower! I walked to the back door and there it was a GIGANTIC bee that was as big as a gob stopper. I tried to take it’s picture and totally missed it.

I’m getting my haircut tomorrow. I’m nervous as hair is such an issue for me. Sarah at HIFF recommended 2 places beyond the two that I’d found from user reviews etc.

Hair Salons in Honolulu & Kailua

  • Paul Brown
  • J Salon
  • W Salon
  • Salon Blanc
  • Chop
  • The Fix

I’m going with Salon Blanc and we’ll see how it goes. I was talking to Sean at HIFF and he said that he’s getting his haircut on Saturday and he goes to the same person that Barack Obama’s sister goes to. Sean has great hair. It’s like Sean Cassidy circa Hardy Boys (sort of shorter). Which is coincidental because my hair is in an awkward growing out stage I was going to tell the person I’m going to that a Dorothy Hammil-ish style might work for me.

Two great recipes:

Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi

Basic Hamburger (delish)

Hawaiian Word of the Day, from answers.com:

In Hawaii a calabash is a large serving bowl. It is usually made from a hardwood, rather than from the Calabash Gourd as in Maroon cultures. It is used on a buffet table or in the middle of the dining table. The use of the calabash in Hawaii has led to terms like “Calabash Family” or “Calabash Cousins”. It indicates that an extended family has grown up around shared meals and close friendships. Food is very important in modern Hawaiian culture. “Komo E Kaukau”, meaning “come and eat”, it is the most expected greeting in a Hawaiian home.

Fall 4 U

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This morning I woke up missing New York and feeling a little blue. But we got ourselves together mid-morning pulled out our copy of Oahu Revealed and headed to Maunawili Falls for a hike. The trailhead starts at Maunawili Road and Kalewina Road only a handful of miles away from our home. I had a great time but it was definitely a little harder than the previous hikes we had done (Diamondhead and Manoa). The main obstacles are crossing streams on slippery boulders (4 each way) and inclines that are slippery (mud), and a bit steep at times. I said to K at one point ‘my heart is beating so fast I can hear it in my ears’. But I’m also out of shape.

Things I would make sure to have on our next hike:

  • a good walking stick
  • good hiking shoes
  • bug spray
  • water
  • knee brace (because I have bad knees)

At the end of the hour long hike is a seimming hole with a waterfall. There were a whole mess of local kids there. Alot of them ran past us up the mountain. Mostly boys with their shorts hanging down total indifferent to their butt cleavage. One of them was carrying a little knapsack with a radio playing inside. They were loud and rambunctious but totally fine. On the way up the mountain I would hear a large ‘boom’ like a bomb. and when we arrived at the water fall i realized it was the kids catapulting themselves off of a cliff and landing canon ball style in the water. it was impressive.

There were many pretty things to see on the way up but it was hard to see them because I was looking down all the time.

It was very satisfying. I wish it was possible to do things like that everyday. The only thing I would change is that I would bring a bathing suit and I wish the swimming hole wasn’t so exclusive. Oh and that I could swim.

A 319 Day/ Ahoy!

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Today was by my definition in the sidebar a real 319 day.  I took care of a lot of things as well as came to understand alot of bureaucratic garbage that had been dogging me.  The issues I solved today:

Mobile me

I switched to Apple’s Mobile me email service two months ago before we came to Hawaii.  It was brand new and had ALOT of bugs.  I basically couldn’t sync my computer with Mobile me.  Apple was horrendous to me.  I say this being an Apple super fan.  The service costs about $80 a year.  I have aol, gmail, and rocketmail accounts.  I didn’t really need Mobile me but their marketing campaign of all your ‘things’ happily coexisting together and accessible anywhere on a fluffy cyber cloud totally won me over.  So I paid the price even though I had just quit my job.  In the couple of days before we flew out I frantically tried to work out the kinks.  I had sent an exit email to all of my contacts using my me.com address as my new address. First of all mobile me only provides support through articles on apple.com and when you’re totally desperate online chat with a representative.  I was on hold for two days once for 2 hours another for 4 hours.  Granted Mobile me had just come out.  The representatives had no clue.  They referred me back to the articles and forums I had pored through that lead me to chat support.  After that I called Apple care and even went to the genius bar to no avail.  They all had no clue.  It was staggering.  After a few days the me.com website was operating properly and synced all my information.  I got an email while in Hawaii from Apple saying that they were crediting mobile me members with a month free service.   It wasn’t great but I could send and receive webmail and from my iphone.  The only remaining problem was the mail application on my computer.

I have Tiger which retained the .mac program which mobile me was an update to.  I could recieve mail but I couldn’t send mail.  I really didn’t want to deal with Apple so I just let it slide.  This morning I said ‘no more!’.  I decided to confront it head on.  And after screaming at people (not very Aloha) for about an hour I finally got a tech person to agree to help me without charging me.  Initially they insited on chrging me $50 for help because I hadn’t purchaced the extended Applecare warranty for $250.  I screamed so loud that I was worried the neighbors would come thinking that I was being murdered.  It took a couple of times calling them using this method to actually produce results.  When I would yell at someone they would put me on hold and never come back.  Eventually I got someone and said ‘let me preface this conversation by saying that if you don’t find a way to help me on this call I’m going to spend my whole day writing user reviews about how crappy your products are and how I didn’t get any help because I didn’t pay the extra money for Apple to be nice to me.’  This seemed to work.  I got a real tech person on the phone. 

I am a huge fan of IT people.  I love how they think and how they solve problems.  My admiration for them is similar to how I love film and theater production people.  They know their shit and they get it done.  Until Dustin, the tech support person at Apple that helped me, all the other people were flacks.  Do nothing, know nothing, bureaucratic, out-sourced hacks that speak in some indistinguishable accent and sound like a robot.  I HATE THOSE PEOPLE.  They rarely solve anything.  So Dustin got on the phone and stayed on the phone with me for over an hour–maybe even an hour and half.  When he couldn’t figure it out he told me so and he said he had to do research and call me back. Unlike the gentleman at the SOHO Genius Bar who was so obviously not a genius because he decided that it was my operating system and I needed to wipe it clean and reinstall.  Oh the Hubris!  I digress.   An hour later Dustin the Apple IT angel called me back, wiped the application clean and walked me through adding mobile me as an IMAP account which worked like a dream.  He’s a stand-up dude in a sea of people getting paid to do nothing.  NOTE to APPLE when you stink you really stink.

HEALTH Insurance

I’m on a COBRA health insurance plan.  The original plan was no great shakes so I have been considering switching to an individual health plan.  My boyfriend has great insurance through SAG which I learned is basically Blue Cross Blue Shield.  So after being lead around by the nose calling unhelpful brokers and a whole mess of numbers from different websites I finally found Gerry at Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield.  And he broke it all down for me.  What I learned is that unless you are RICH it is not easy to get a comprehensive individual health insurance plan in this country. He outlined three plans for me and though I’m not going with any of them I thought Healthy New York was the most interesting:

Healthy New York
state subsidized 263.86 a month
incoming gross monthly has to be under  $2167
must be able to prove that you worked one day in the past year

IPhone App TEXT GURU

I downloaded a new app the other day called text guru.  I find it to be really great.  It is a wireless filesharing application for the Iphone like Airsharing but you can edit and SEND documents from your IPhone.  Totally great.  So my problem was that my firewall was blocking the port that Text Guru was using.  The chat support walked me through how to make an exception in System Preferences and allow acces to a specific port.  I didn’t know how to do that before!  So basically for the other do-dos out there like me you go to: System Preferences>Sharing> firewall and from there you click ‘new’ choose ‘other’ and create an exception. It took 2 seconds and my text guru began connecting beautifully.

Mold on Concrete

It’s been raining like crazy here in Oahu.  Our patio which is made of concrete bricks was staring to get a gross green sheen which I can only imagine is mold or fungus.  I looked up some ways that you could clean concrete and found all kinds of concrete cleaning products.  I thought well I guess I’ll have to wait for a trip to Home Depot.  But it kept bothering me to an OCD level.  So I gabbed a bucket and clorox.  I mixed in hot water and just scrubbed the patio.  It didn’t work amazingly but it worked well enough.  At least I don’t feel like we’re living in a slimy aquarium tank’s pirate treasure chest.

Corn on the Cob

I made corn on the cob to go with dinner tonight for the fist time. 

  1. I husked the corn. 
  2. brought a big pot to a rolling boil
  3. added Salt
  4. put the corn in and let it cook for exactly 7 minutes
  5.  took a big pad of butter and coated the ears thoroughly before serving.

It was delish.

Hoover

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Favorite Hawaii made sweets available at Foodland:

  • Bubbys Homemade Ice Cream and Desserts (mochi ice cream)
  • Roselani Chocolate Macadamia Nut ice cream
  • Ted’s Chocolate haupia cake

Things I’m going to check out as soon as we get home for the holidays:

  • Permanent Brunch 95 First Ave., New York, NY 10003 post–Tasting Room Colin Alevras and Tillman’s Lesly Bernard open this project dedicated to the weekend meal all day every day, and introduce what must be New York’s first artisanal bacon bar.
  • Kurve 87 Second Ave. , New York, NY 10003
  • Priti Organic Spa 35 E. 1st St., New York, NY 10003

Followed by a pate bonanza at Marlow & Sons with Mary.

Punch bowl

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Went out to Wilder Ave yesterday for my first sit-in with Bamboo Ridge’s (bambooridge.com) event planning committee.  The small press has been dedicated for 30 years to showcasing and publishing local Hawaiian literature including the work of wonderful writers like Lois Ann Yamanaka and my friend Wing Tek Lum.  This coming December will be their first big birthday bash and fundraiser honoring over 30 of the unsung  contributors and volunteers who have helped Bamboo Ridge thrive.  The people that were there were so nice.  I really enjoyed myself and I’m looking forward to helping them plan.

set photos from HIFF trailer shoot starring Jason Scott Lee and Kelly Hu
set photos from HIFF trailer shoot starring Jason Scott Lee and Kelly Hu

Tomorrow I’m attending the HIFF staff meeting.  K is working and has to use the car so I’m going to try to take the bus for the first time (thebus.org).  I’ve heard bad things about it.  Like that it never comes when it’s meant to.  And I have to take three different routes and it will take over an hour for a normally 20 minute car ride.  Egad.  We’ll see how it goes.

hiff_this_week_lores

Stink

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I met my friends from NY Wayland and Desiree for dinner tonight at Champa Thai.  It was delicious!  I had a great time–seeing them was like a little bit of home.  Wayland is originally from Hawaii so it was great to get his perspective on alot of things like art and community on the Island.  They told me to check out Makapu’u Beach Park/Waimanalo and Sea Life Park.

We had pad see yew and fried tofu with garlic sauce.  YUUUM.  Oh yes and I drove myself to dinner for the second time.  Which again, is very exciting.  If cars weren’t one of the leading contributors to global warming I’d want to drive everywhere.

I picked up Honolulu Magazine recently.  The current issue is 50 reasons to love this city. The two things that stuck out were Waimanalo Beach and plate lunches at The Rainbow Drive-In.  Seeing Wayland and Desiree made me miss NY a bit.

I’m going to attend a Bamboo Ridge meeting tomorrow.  It’s interesting because part of why I wanted to come to Hawaii was to get some distance from things including community–to discover a new world.  But I find the more that I meet people here that anonymity is something you have to consciously maintain.  I’m not sure how I feel about that right now.

Bulalacao

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the moon behind the edge of a cloud
the Kailua moon behind the edge of a cloud

Last night I saw my very first shooting star. It’s amazing that it’s taken 34 years for me to see one. It’s likely because I’ve never lived in a place that the sky was so clear and free of city lights. I made a wish after the fact. It was exactly as I had imagined a shooting star would be, only better.

Kailua- 2nd Interlude: One Month Mark

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We’ve been in Hawaii exactly one month today. Aptly, I’m having dinner with my friends tonight for the first time–friends that will introduce me to another poet living in the area. I’m nervous. I haven’t been around alot of people in the past thirty days or so. I can imagine feeling out of practice. Either way this week has been about not only letting go of New York, but finding a place for myself here in Hawaii so I say bring on the awkwardness. I’m ready!

Last night we watched Obama’s speech and I made my first cake. It was a cake out of a box and I probably have made one like it in my lifetime but when it was, I can’t remember.

Beachwear brands for the imperfect:

  • Juicy Couture
  • Malia Mills
  • Ecko

Settling Down in Kailua Part 1: Renting and Car Buying 101

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Today is our fifth day in Kailua. Somehow it feels like we’ve been here for ages. I think much of our ability to adjust has to do with the place we’re living in–a beautiful breezy 2 bedroom directly across from Kailua Beach. We have a backyard, a front yard, and high sloping ceilings that could make anyone forget about a Manhattan alcove studio–no matter how central its location. The rent isn’t cheap but for two people trying to make Hawaii a real home (even temporarily) it was a no-brainer.

We found our place as most people do–through craigslist. It was the first place we saw (and liked) but were wary of the cost as well as this kind of retirement vibe. But the minute you walk out of the house, Kailua Beach stretches out in front of you quiet and golden, and with respect to Susan Sontag it’s so beautiful it looks like a tv show.

Hawaii is an easy place to find a new home. There are hardly any credit or reference checks. Mostly people want to meet you and see how it feels when they talk to you–which I find refreshing and very easy to adjust to.

From what I’ve seen, read, and heard this is the my order of Oahu neighborhoods I would live in:

  • Kailua/Lanikai
  • Diamondhead
  • the North Shore
  • Ala Moana for convenience
  • Waikiki if you need to be around alot of activity (bars, mainstream shopping)
  • and Chinatown which is not very pretty or close to the beach but seems more affordable and has alot of less touristy nightlife

We had settled on a home and next had to find a used car–a first for both of us. K had been combing through craigslist looking for a Toyota Corolla until my dad said we should buy a used car from a dealer because it would be certified and have a dealer’s warranty. A mechanic I spoke to over the course of this search recommended otherwise because a private owner would likely charge less and would be up front about any problems. We focused on finding a Mazda 6 or a Corolla. My dad said that if we were looking at spending 10k-15k that we should also consider the Nissan Versa.

We visited a Servco (a certified used car franchise) near the airport and pulled up a carfax that said that the Corolla we were considering from them with 5k+ miles may have had its odometer tampered with and the actual mileage was closer to 25k. Some dealers will pull up car histories for you but in my opinion it’s worth it to purchase the 10 pack of carfax reports ($30). Another very helpful tip was to identify a good mechanic that could do a once over on the car before you buy it. It seems to be standard practice for the dealer to bring the car to a mechanic of your choosing and pick it up.

Mechanics in Oahu with preliminary good reviews

  • A1 Auto repair
  • McCully Auto Repair

We spent 2 hours at New City Nissan, recommended by McCully Auto Repair. They were very nice but had no real options in terms of used cars in our price range and they were the Honolulu version of a car salesman stereotypes (ie they would not let us leave). They did however offer upfront to bring any of the cars to a mechanic. The place we ultimately purchased from, Servco Subaru actually discouraged it saying they’d had their own mechanic look at it and it was fine (which I find funny and weird). The highlight of New City Nissan was test driving the Versa– a compact cheap little car (14k-19k). Test driving it was like sitting in a little chocolate box. The SL is bluetooth enabled, has an iPod jack, and a seat jack. Very cute and sturdy.

Our salesman, Brian, as we waited for his manager’s offer, made some recommendations in terms of restaurants in Oahu. He said Nico’s for seafood and Pyramid for Indian cuisine. We’ve yet to try either. I think our time at New City basically plumped us up for the kill at Servco Subaru a licensed used Toyota dealer. In their tiny parking lot was a charcoal gray 2006 Toyota Corolla with dark interior, sun roof, and 30,000 clocked miles. We were so tired and happy to find a Corolla in such fine condition that we skipped the mechanic check. Which was a gamble that turned out alright.

Kailua restaurants:

  • Boots and Kimo’s-an Aloha Rag staff member blogged about their macadamia nut pancakes, allegedly the best in the world.
  • Buzz’s Steakhouse– great terrayaki burgers. cash only. no flip flops after 5PM.
  • Lucy’s Bar and Grill– the fish of the day plus crab dynamite reminds me of my favorite dish from Soho’s Aquagrill.
  • Champa Thai– haven’t been yet. recommended by two people.

note- someone that grew up in Kailua swears by the watermelon shaved ice w/ snowcap at Island Snow. IMO, it’s pretty good but Waiolas shaved ice with extra mochi is about the greatest thing one can eat.

Part 2: Conveniences in Kailua