Oahu

PAMLA (Pacific Ancient Modern Languages Association) held its annual meeting in Honolulu. A surprise, but the Association for Asian Studies will land in March, as convention hotels are offering deep discounts. We had some fun on the front end.

Michael is a natural surfer, it seems.

and were pleased to find onigiri rice balls everywhere.

Waikiki was a tourist ghetto for well-heeled Japanese in the '80s, facilitating designer label shopping and money-is-no-object cultural tastes. Our hotel elevator had an electronic signboard announcing the day's activities in a very planned, Japanese, mass tourist kind of way.

However, Japan's recession has brought lower-income strata to the islands who manage to get there on discount packages, but aren't dumping hundreds of dollars at a sushi bar anymore; hotels are full but businesses are suffering.

I was amused by this ad, attracting overseas Japanese with a forbidden thrill, as handguns are prohibited in their homeland.Initially put off by the heavy tourist vibe, we rented a car and drove to the North Shore, searching for sea turtles..

and kakikori (shaved ice)

Matsumoto's is an institution which features the traditional azuki red beans at the bottom. Far better than most, but still not quite the delicate snow that I recall which could be effortlessly shaved off.

Food trucks and lunch plates are renowned in Oahu, but Giovanni's shrimp truck was especially flavorful; the shrimp harvested just yards away.Loaded with butter and garlic and really tasty (ie freshly cooked) rice

We finally made it to the lovely white sands of Lanikai, near where my cousin got married several years ago.

where Carolyn and Michael built an elaborate castle and Michael made me a birthday cake:

Elle came along!

At Lanikai, we helped a local charity. We are thinking of ways to incorporate service projects in the Beacon Hill curriculum, as well, so these youngsters proved inspiring, even as their store bought cookies were not.

Baby turtles sometimes sit atop the back of their parents

as Jack periodically does with Michael; a move I first saw on Whidbey.

BTW, Jack LOVED boogie boarding.

Diamond Head was our third family hike ever,

from whose peak you saw:

We also met up with the Obans, who happened to be in Waikiki, after a grueling campaign for state legislature.

Michael turns 8!

Michael actually turned 8 on Oct 20, but we held the party at Conejo Community Park last Sat, amid cooler fall temps after a brief Indian summer of 90+ temps,
which spared my Indiana Jones cake. The impressive figurines (Marianne had a frying pan, Arab villains a monkey & sword, & Indy a whip) came from some ebay store in China - non-edible! - with cake help from Kake Kreations in Sherman Oaks.
Chocolate river rock, jelly bean boulders and a chocolate cake with butter cream.

But the thrills were clearly coming from the games conjuring the Raiders of the Lost Ark (which neither Michael or Jack have seen, btw):

Boulder chase with Q-Tip poison darts.

Jousting the Nazi villain, Arnold Toht

mummy making

Throwing flour-filled socks throw hoops at the enemy

under beautiful California oaks. There were gummy snake and lizards on the tables under a canopy of gorgeous leaves and jungle balloons.

and ID lanyards with names spelled in hieroglyphics

Our initial plan was a Tin Tin party, but caved upon learning so few children knew of the Belgian character and his dog, Milou:
Turned out that there's an Indy - Tin Tin resonance somewhere. Spielberg's film on Tin Tin is in post-production, so lookout, folks. Americans will all be going nuts over the boy soon.

It was great seeing all the children enjoy solid lo-tech fun. This kind of production takes a village, but has a tremendous pay-off.

Our disparate communities - church, Beacon Hill, AWANA, even a blood relative! - blended in well, the centrifuge supplied by young children.

Elle with Lee and Kai, my cousin Kathy's husband and 2 yr old.

The adults

Dressing Indy meant hats

A pre-cake group photo.

Reformation Feast

GRC had its annual Reformation Feast, dovetailing with All Saints Day elsewhere. This event kicks off a season of feasts and is what our church does best, I feel; cook & play & remembering the important matters of faith. The fall feast features soups and stews and a dessert competition. I made an African stew with coconut milk, tomato, and peanut butter - first learned at L'Abri - for flavoring the chicken and sweet potato. A hit!

First we needed to get pumpkins.

Pumpkin patches near the 101 fwy with $5 tickets for the requisite bounce house - but more charming than you'd expect, nevertheless.

Carolyn made a Pin-the-Thesis on the Door contest.

Michael actually won the pumpkin carving contest:based on his favorite theme: catsChildren really love THIS feast, but generally have a larger stake in the worship, since they can participate in the weekly communion, which is focus of the service. Protestants, in a reaction to the medieval church, largely replaced the eucharist with the sermon. Churches like GRC have both.

Winners of this year's various contests!

Harvest 2010

Michael has always loved gardening, collecting seeds. He'd rescue an avocado pit from the garbage can, gather pumpkin seeds every Halloween carving, carefully saving them in a ziploc. After a reasonable tomato harvest last year and terrible results with a lemon tree, we were determined to plant pumpkin seeds this spring, anticipating great orange results.
We are in So Cal, but our particular house gets almost no sunlight. We finally decided that above the water meter in the front lawn was the only spot, worrying we'd get reported to the homeowners' association.
My parents planted Japanese eggplants & cucumbers every year, buying starters from nurseries. I remember creating wells around each plant, fortifying with blood meal, and watching the circular dams hold their water. These generally went into pickles - salted, bran fermented - a staple of Japanese food largely missing from restaurants these days. Leaner postwar memories, when pickles provided a cheap, flavorful counterpoint to a bowl of rice with little protein.

But Michael's farming instincts seem driven by literary and film fantasies, long favoring pumpkins. A charming story, Farmer Boy, described an elaborate plan to feed milk by straw into a pumpkin, fattening it for a contest prize. (A Tacoma dairy farmer friend confirmed this strategy, btw). Our little black box yielded these fabulous leaves taking over the lawn,

until we got a beautiful deep orange Cinderella pumpkin (to the left).
Then he brought these peppercorns back from school grounds - full of instructions on drying, roasting, shelling.
A dad at soccer practice last night offered a pure bred golden retriever, but we're renting and transient, so can't offer a home we don't have. But we're glad for neighbors' animals we borrow and for park equipment our postage stamp backyard lacks.

odds and ends

The boys had their recital at Mrs. Lloyd's house on Sunday. Sign of recession: her students are about half in number this year.
Jack likes to stare into the Yamaha while Michael plays - a position he's occupied for some time now.

***

Carolyn threw a baby shower for Hilary the Saturday before the recital.

Children's book characters graced the living room.

Sample questions from Carolyn's children's book quiz:

1. The Jewish author who escaped Paris hours before it fell to the Nazis and fled to Brazil wrote:

a. The Cat in the Hat

b. Curious George

c. Paddington Bear

2. Which book was the result of a bet Dr. Suess had with his publisher that he could not write a book with 50 different words or less:

a. Red Fish Blue Fish

b. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

c. Green Eggs and Ham

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Lastly, some fond Beacon Hill pics:

Carolyn's trojan horse craft:

Author Doug Bond teaching a writing workshop: