back to the blogosphere

sorry for my absence. a lot has happened since i posted last, and i don't really know where to start. first let me link y'all over to chris's blog so you can see some of the fun stuff we did. (i thought about creating an Identiblog and just cutting and pasting from his site, but that would be Lame.)

the one thing i don't have a picture of is the chameleon my boss found on thursday trying to cross the road! yes, a chameleon. with crazy cone-y eyeballs and sideways feet and the whole chameleon dinosaur weirdness. he puffed up all big and scary when we picked him up, and one of his eyeballs was checking out ppl on his left while the other one was looking for a way out. i wish i could look behind me and in front at the same time. anyway that was the one day i forgot to bring my camera. won't do that again! chameleons, like most things here, are not native, but there is apparently a population of them hanging out in the jungly rainforests.

chris and i did a loop of the island by car and one by little airplane. we went playing in the tidepools and saw urchins and eels and teenage sea turtles and pretty fishies. we also drank lychee martinis (YUM!), ginger-lemongrass vodka with pomegranate juice, and ate our weight in sashimi and poke. y'all got to come down here and try this poke stuff. it is so freeking good. we also drank 'awa, the narcotic tea the hawaiians drank before there was booze, and it got us kinda mellow and giggly. doesn't taste very good, but it's kinda fun.

chris got to experience Hilo's rainy reputation firsthand. it got sunny when he left, but it was kinda miserable the whole time he was in Hilo town. we went to a bar one night and met a young man, quite soused, who explained that he had been depressed from the rain and had gone to check his mail earlier in the day. when he had no mail, he decided to go to the nearest bar and drink seven gin and tonics to make himself feel better. i explained to chris that hawaii attracted a lot of people from the mainland who were trying to get away from something, and chris cannily deduced that the thing they are trying to get away from is themselves. i don't feel like that's what i did, so when i meet ppl like that, i'm like, okay BYE. god bless'm. as blake told me my last night in nawlins, wherever you go, there you are. for some ppl that's no fun, i guess.

then i had to go back to work. we have another intern now, molly, so the boy to girl ratio has decreased and the ladies now outnumber the fellas. this coming week everyone but me, melody, and kulai are going up to Hakalau Forest Refuge to do some fieldwork. the week after that, i get to go! then we'll alternate weeks. that should kick my ass even more than the fieldwork we've been doing. it's halfway up Mauna Kea and very remote. I can't wait to see it! we have to be very careful to check the car and ourselves for seeds, bugs, anything that might establish itself in the virgin forest. shd be interesting. i'll keep you posted.

tourists in kailua-kona

Road Trip!

yesterday chris and i went to Puna. we stopped in at the Painted Church, which i'd never bothered to do before. it's so pretty! look!

today we're headed to waterfalls, up the hamakua coast, north kahala, and then down to captain cook. i'll try to post from there as well.

aloha!

chris is here! chris is here!

i picked him up this morning! he got lei'd and we're having a rainy day eating lots of food from the farmer's market. i think we're about to get all up in some champagne.

sorry i've been outta touch. fieldwork last week kicked my old butt. i was whooped. still lovin it though. yesterday after lunch we had a croquet match in the yard amidst the hydrangeas. gotta love a workplace with a croquet set on the front porch.

hope all's well everywhere. check back for pictures of doodle wearing chris's lei and looking not-very-pleased about it.

first day at work! but first let me say

sharelle, chris, kristcha, beely, and aimee. i didn't make it thru my list on sunday. i'll try y'all on saturday, okay?

first day at work! omg i love it! there's 5 other kids right now:

Justin = sharp as a tack. he is super-funny and we love him. listens to joanna newsom, joni mitchell, elvis, small faces. looks at plant/bug interactions.

Sam = california boy. also extreeemely intelligent and humorful. listens to sunset rubdown, wilco, the mountain goats. looks at parasitoids of caterpillars.

Ben = british chap. listens to bowie, the damned, belle & sebastian, lee "scratch" perry. he's leaving on thursday for PhD in Scotland. we'll miss him.

Melody = from pennsylvania. of some sort of asian descent. surfer girl. gave justin the newsom cd. looks at pollen and native pollinators of native plants.

Kulai = hawaii boy from Volcano, of all places. goes to duke. only met him for a minute. he wears earphones. the only thing i've heard him listen to is crosby, stills, nash & young.

Bob = bossman. encourages free-thinking, going off on tangents, listens to everyone as peers. this lab is known to have Very Low Turnover because of the think-tank atmosphere he engenders. a rare boss indeed.

this is really really cool. the boss went home early today and the kids were just as productive a bunch as i have ever seen, constantly batting ideas back and forth. this is gonna be a great experience for me as soon as i get up to speed. i'm reading a lot and asking a lot of questions but i feel like the new kid at school for sure. we're getting a new intern tomorrow, emily. then in another week Molly arrives. i'll keep y'all posted, but this is gonna be fun! tomorrow we do fieldwork, yay!

many return phone calls owed

i know! i know! i've been remiss. and reclusive. tomorrow i am getting up early and calling each and every one of you, i swear to god. i miss you ten times more than you think i do.

xo

i'm gonna have to change my blog name

to "The Inadvertent Cat Lady". Urnge has usurped Doodle's new favorite perch, and then the neighbors had an allergic reaction to these two little monkeys and brought them to me. i kept them a couple of days cause they were awfully sweet (little orange-ears especially), but yesterday i had to take them to the shelter. :(. but: the shelter is running a two-for-one special this month so i'm sure somebody will take the little angels. i'm gonna check back just in case, though....

oh, but the other neighbors know somebody who really wants to take Urnge. they're traveling for the summer but will come get him when they return. so he's now just a foster child. soon it'll just be me and the doodle again, the way it's sposed to be.

and in non-cat news, i start my job on monday! all the paperwork has gone through and i'm Officially A Productive Member of Society. my boss emailed me to say that he's started a new study of the way the ants interact with their little "cows" (the insects they tend for the nectar they produce). this is gonna be so cool. i've always kind of wished i could go back in time to when Science was just naturalists observing things. and that's exactly what this job is. just lookin'. it's awesome. no molecular hooey at all.

i am now eating real food again too, after my horrid illness. that was the sickest i've ever been. yuk.

amy, if you're in nigeria already and i never got to talk to you before you left i'm gonna punch a wall. i'm sorry i had to drop off the face of the planet like that. i miss everyone terribly and have been looking at a lot of old pix of all the fun we've had. july 4 in cape cod. mississippi beach. pirate party. beach trip NC. fake-hurricane ivan. guilty pleasures. god, i miss you all so @%$&ing much! so i'm starting to plan a return visit for my birthday in october. everybody tell me when/if you're going to be around, because i need a good solid dose of Mah Peeps. you know who you are.

oh, and if anyone's planning on getting married any time soon (emily), let me know a timeframe, cause that could change everything....

happy friday everybody!