Friday, January 9, 2009

Who are you? Where am I? What year is it?

Shoots. Happy 2009, y'all!

Since I last blogged waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in what, October, let's recap wha-tall has happened (big kine)...

- Went to Cambodia and Thailand for a month

- Went to Kauai for thanksgiving with G's family

- Went to Honolulu for New Years (real fireworks in the street! woo! Grant's brother Kyle brought these aerials for the finale.)

- Oh yeah, and I lost my job (funding ran out! booo.) My old lab went from 7 people to 2 people. :o(

Yup, that's all you missed. Exciting! Pix are going to be on Flickr and Facebook, I can't keep up with all this interwebbage no more!

Grant's building is getting to the final stages of done-ness now, and he's crazy busy trying to juggle a full schedule *and* keep up with the zillions of little details that revolve around opening a brand new practice (with optical shop, which he didn't have before). So instead of laying around watching Oprah and eating bonbons, I've been trying to help out with that as much as I can. So I don't *feel* unemployed, I just, err, am.

Yeah. I'm going to use my time helping Grant, planting things, and doing things round the house that have been neglected for-evah, like fencing doodle's yard, lol. Oh yeah, that's another thing that happened -- Doodle moved outside! He now has a house of his own and my only worry is the bad dogs will get out. (They have killed 6 of our chickens and, worst of all, a teeny baby kitten they found in the yard. That was my christmas heartbreak kitty. don't want to talk about it.) I would love to have Doodle inside safe and sound, snuggle-able 24/7, but in the three months he was inside, he refused to use the litter box and made life more than a little difficult. And the way the house is set up, the dogs have full run of the perimeter, so there's no way to sneak him outside to do his kitty business. So there ya have it.

So I did the best thing I could think of for my outdoorsy little guy. He's even got a lanai to sun himself on! Pix of El Casa de Doodle to come.

I'm also getting to cook more than I have since I moved here. After eating some delicious onaga (just one of many delectable dishes) at Grant's family's New Years celebration, I found out from G's mom that Aunty Marcia used a Sam Choy recipe and have devoted myself to getting his cookbooks and trying out some new dishes. Choy's recipes are famous for being ono *and* easy to make. That's what I'm talking about! For my birthday one of my presents from Grant was Audrey Wilson's What The Big Island Likes To Eat, so I'm cooking from that as well. Oh and for Christmas "Santa" brought me a musubi maker, so I get to make my own Spam Musubi!

I'm also wishing somebody would come visit! It's great that I have time on my hands now, but with Grant working ~18 hours a day, not much playtime is happening. I need a fwend! All mine are working! (Losers.) Okay, Grant and I did stop at Honaunau to snorkel on our way to his belated holiday staff dinner in Kona last sunday, which was great. There was a huge puffer fish (about 18 inches, biggest i've seen up close) that kept coming around me, right up by the surface. Of course I had to chase it and try to get it to puff up. But i guess it thought playing was fun so it started following me! there were also turtles and parrotfish and the usual suspects, but puffers are my favorite :o). Of course I forgot my camera, too. old well.

So, maybe I'll have more time to blog and maybe not (you would not believe the amount of work Grant has to deal with, just the runoff I get is nuts). But I'll try to be better! Facebook seems to be the venue of least resistance these days. And I'm so far behind on Personal Communications it ain't even funny. (Right, Timmy? Oh yeah, I'm dead to you. sigh.)

so pixtures, maybe, soon. Links to them, at least. here's one, anyway, from Mauna Kea at the end of the first snowfall's life (we got lots more snow the week after).

okay, once again, happy new year! I'll try to blog again before 2010!