more lava, more rainbows

here are a few pix from yesterday's excursion to kaimu beach at high tide. hooray for rainbows! i couldn't get it all in the frame so here are the Segments Of A Rainbow for y'all.

what else is new. i went to the volcano national park for my first day volunteering, and my supervisor shares an office with the lady who is responsible for co-ordinating all the research done at the park with the Hawaiian kapuna, or elders. since it is sacred land, all research has to be okayed by the hawaiians, and if they don't think it's important enough, it doesn't get done. so kaola is a pretty important lady up there.

i also got to visit their library (checked out about ten books for myself), see the botany collection (i've never seen one of those. it was v. educational) and the zoology collection, which includes everything but lizards (?). i saw pig skulls and stuffed hawaiian owls and nene, and all kinds of things. i didn't open the cabinet labeled "rat jaws", though. i'll be working on 4 projects they have going on to catalog and inventory all these items in all these collections. yay, database. yay, Access. Oh and -- the library is being converted from dewey decimal! they have a card catalog and everything. been a long time since i've seen ol' Dewey. bless his heart.

what else, let's see... well obviously i put off the durian for another week but listen! no it's not what you think! i'm leaving the jungle this weekend, right, so i figured why not have the Ceremonial Durian-Tasting Thingy just before i leave the jungle? that way the stinky corpse stays behind, and maybe it's symbolic or something but i'm not really good at Deep Hidden Meanings, so maybe one of y'all could help with that? my aunt (or maybe i should start saying "Auntie"?) in Thailand tells me durian is delicious. so we're focusing on that.

um, i think that's it today. i could go on about the usual sunshine, pretty things, yummy eats, but really i'm getting tired of writing about all that. i'll think of some meatier things to keep you entertained. i found this tiki guy in kalapana by a bunch of NO TRESPASSING signs and thought you might like to meet him.

'a hui ho! (til next time!)

catchemups

aloha y'all,

some people are just tuning into the Blog and never got my first emails of where i am and what i'm doing, so this post is to recap. i arrived on the Big Island on march 2, bought a Jeep, and have been hanging out in Puna (read: The Jungle) in a little "ohana" or jungalow. i've been out here with the hippies entertaining myself with scenery and good eats, and here's a few pix that you might enjoy.

doodle has something to say

Here's doodle and the lease to my new apartment. actually, upon closer inspection, the torn-up bit was the Pet Agreement that he wouldn't eff anything up. doodle is punk rock.

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yes, i signed the 6-month lease on the little cute apartment, which i learned later has 6 apartments in front, plus there is a house in the back with 2 apartments. sound familiar?? i know it'll be no 5941 but that is kind of a coinkydink, don't you agree? i move in the 31st and am racking my brain on how to make it visitor-friendly, since it's sooo teeny. o how i wish timmy would come be my interior decorator...

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(sorry about these, the blog demons want to make this whole thing one paragraph, which i am not down with. so asterisks it is.)

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so yeah, we're getting out of the jungle. in the meantime, my assignment is to find all the best bits of the jungle and enjoy them. yesterday was the Champagne Ponds, a series of inlets sort of like the Tide Pools, but manicured, deeper, and with more marine life, i.e. sea turtles! yes the champagne ponds, which are quite deep in spots, wind their way through a "gated" community (try to keep the riff-raff out of something like that -- no way). They are warm and lovely. and i got lots more sun, so i am feeling a little less White. while i was there i commented that i needed to get some sun to get the haole off me, and a local told me he didn't think i needed to worry about that b/c i was still breathing. apparently "haole" only refers to the uptight uber-tourist types. so phew.

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i'm still waiting to hear about jobs, and getting a little restless. i actually would like to be working, fancy that. i am going to volunteer at the Volcano National Park next tuesday, helping them organize their botany and entomology collections. sounds like a great way to learn about hawaiian flora and fauna to me. and meet some smart people. where my biologists at?

also, i'm feeling better and planning on hitting the farmers market on saturday, so i'll probably go ahead and get this whole durian thing behind me.

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tonight i'm going to a goodbye party for the lady i bought my car from. she's leaving for australia on saturday. she lives close to the lava flow, so all us party-goers might take a hike and go look at that action. which reminds me of something that i would love to photograph for you all, but am not able to: the stars. they are amazing here. i don't even recognize the constellations because there are so many extra stars in them. some of you know that this island has the highest elevation with the clearest air in the world, and there are multi-million dollar astronomy labs on top of Mauna Kea. all the streetlights on the island are special lowlight sodium lamps to keep the ambient light to a minimum, and ensure that those observatories get the best possible view of the night skies. someday i will go up there for their stargazing program but til then, hiking out on the lava with more stars than i thought could possibly exist, watching molten lava flow into the sea.... that sounds pretty good to me.

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hope everything is warming up for everyone, and happy 2nd day of spring!

Mr. Scary, the Centipede Man!!! and other hawaiian hazards

i haven't seen this guy or any of his friends since last week, thanks gawrd. lord he makes my skin crawl!!! fyi, he's about 1" wide and 10" long. ugga.

black by popular demand (well, black/brown, officially)

here are some doodle pictures, as requested. This is the Travel Series, in the hotel room in L.A., in the "garden" at LAX, in the airplane bathroom on the way to Honolulu, and

in the jungalow. i can't figure out how

to put them in order, so this is blogspot's creative image chronology for y'all. doodle sends his luv right back to all y'all, and says to come on over and give him a treat. i have found out that he loves poke (hawaiian sushi) as much as i do, so we share.

nekkid beach

this weekend i went to a different black sands beach, which is more popular than the last one and is "clothing-optional". (yes, i wore my suit, thanks for asking.) i heard that on sunday they have a big drum-circle thing there, so i went on saturday. you have to clamber down a pretty steep slope to get to it, but it's easily navigable even for clumsy haole girls in flip-flops, i mean rubbah slippah. one dude even carried his bike down there, but i can't for the life of me figure out why. maybe he forgot his lock. the whole beach is about 1/4 mile and surrounded by steep cliffs. the sand is nice and soft, but apparently is being lost quickly: someone told me the sand just a few years ago was up to the horizontal roots you see on this dead tree about six feet off the ground. the ocean was choppy and full of big rocks, so no swimming, but it sure was pretty. (a lot of the beaches on the island have been closed this week due to dangerous surf and high waves.)

i also hit the salvation army for some tunes on cassettes, so now i have options (sort of) when the radio gets annoying. i got hall & oates' greatest hits, johnny mathis, til tuesday, greatest hits of the 40s, glenn gould, glenn miller, david bowie (let's dance) and some hilarious-looking dudes called "3 local boyz". the parental advisory label was the deciding factor on that purchase. had a great time driving to hilo with "You Did it in a Minute" blaring. i haven't heard that in ages!

it looks like the Durian Project is going to have to wait til next week. i'm feeling a little puny (sinus stuff again, i think i might be allergic to the Jungle). or maybe it's psychosomatic cause i'm afraid of durians. i have conducted a survey and the consensus is: smells bad, tastes good. i can't get a firm answer on whether the taste is worth suffering the smell for. but that's what experiments are for, right? i did see a guy on the travel channel eat warm raw calf brains with gusto in an open market in morrocco, then later eat a durian and immediately get sick. so hm. if i don't like it, i have to figure out what to do with the rest of it. perhaps hurl it into a lava flow or off a cliff into the ocean. i don't want it stankin' up my jungalow, that's for sure!

speaking of the jungalow, it looks like our time is coming to a close, and i am signing a 6-month lease on a leetle-bitty place in hilo. it's a great location, walking distance to downtown and all the adorable shops and tasty restaurants. i've also been placed on the eligible list for a State job, and have discovered that this particular State gives 55 leave days per year to start. 56 on election years! hot diggity. so keep those fingers crossed for me, okay? i miss you all!

alohas,
k