I'm back!

Just wanted to let all o' y'all know out in the blogosphere that I'm back from Hawaii and the wedding went just beautifully. I'll write more about it, but I thought I'd just let you know to expect lots of pictures!

Weddings and stuff

The only problem with waiting so long to write posts is that there's entirely too much to say. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me 'splain...no, there is too much. Let me sum up. "

The wedding in California was wonderful. There were so many factors that could have made it a disaster, but it ended up being a super-duper success. Of course, the bride called me while she was on her honeymoon and left a voicemail saying, "We're in Oahu. Do you want us to do any cake tasting for you while we're here?" which shows you exactly what kind of silly friends I have. I called her back and told her to go enjoy herself with her husband, for goodness sake, and not call me again while she was in Hawaii unless she wasn't having a good time.

The following weekend, I attended another wedding, this time in Philadelphia, so no there was no need to board a plane or go through security, which is always nice. (I had forgotten the new "no liquids" policy coming home from SF, and the security guards confiscated a perfectly good unopened bottle of V8. Oh, the humanity!) The Philadelphia wedding was fun, but both the bride and the groom pride themselves on being rednecks, so there was a lot of country music played at the reception.

Since that's really my only complaint, I'd say that wedding was a success as well. This gives me hope, since Ray and I have passed the 6-month mark, and more things are piling up on the to-do lists I keep getting from The Knot and The Wedding Channel.

Unfortunately, however, I can't do anything on the list this month. I'm swamped with rehearsals for all kinds of concerts, including Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges with the New York Philharmonic, where I have an itty-bitty solo! Very excited about that, let me tell you. We had our first rehearsal, and I'm so happy the season has started on such a nice note!

Back with tons of stories

You know, before I went off on vacation nobody was really blogging at all, so I didn't feel left out for not writing too much. But now that I'm back, I have discovered that all my favorite bloggers have been busily writing while I've been away. So here I am, trying to play catch-up, and not doing very well, since I'm looking at the clock and realizing that I have to leave to get to work.

So to tide you over until I get to the stories later on this afternoon/evening: the roof is done, and not a minute too soon, since Hurricane Ernesto (although it was a tropical storm by the time it got to us) came barreling through two days after my roof was finished. I went to a friend's wedding in California last week, and when I came back, Ray whisked me off to Ocean City, Maryland for a couple of days. I went to work yesterday, but I really didn't want to. And today I still don't want to go to work, especially since it's rainy and sort of a bleah day.

Oh well. Gotta pay the bills somehow. I'll expand on my summaries in a bit.

One last story, I promise

The last Hawaii story that I have for you is that we visited the beach where they film Lost, and it's a rather desolate and out of the way beach on the North Shore. My mom says there are different spots on the North Shore...she was going to take me to the place where the plane crashed, but she said they removed the plane when they wrapped this past season, so there's really nothing to see.

She did, however take me to a beach in Haleiwa where you have to walk down this really obscure pathway and past tons of "No Trespassing" signs. She also said that when they are filming, there's a security guard at the entrance to the path as well as a bunch of people patrolling the walks. Nobody was around when we were there, but there were a whole bunch of tire tracks in the sand.

Anyway, I couldn't quite place this spot, but it looks awfully familiar. I think Jin fishes near those rocks a lot. So here I am, lost on the set of Lost. I'm also pretty sure this is the spot where Hurley and Libby almost had their picnic, before Libby went to go find some blankets and then got shot. Do any of you recognize the area?

Oh, and before I forget, we had a lot of geckos in our vacation rental, eating up the bad bugs. We thought they were cute, and none of them tried to sell us insurance, so we took a picture of our favorite one before he ran away from me and my camera.

More Belated Photos & Stories

Because I am really falling behind on my stories here, I'm going to try to skip over some of the more boring bits of our vacation. Actually, they aren't boring at all to me, because we went to different sites to pick out our wedding spot, but they might be boring to you, because you're not the one planning the wedding. However, I will let you know that although we have decided to get married at Waimea Falls Park, we have nixed getting married at the actual waterfall, because when we got there, it was so loud I had to yell for anyone to hear me. Can you imagine? "I do!" "Whaaat??" "I said, I DO!!!!!!!" "Sorry, I can't hear you. What did you say?"

We finally decided on a more serene area of the park called the Upper Meadow. It's got a lovely little stone stage with a backdrop of bright red ginger flowers. There are benches all set up, and our wedding consultant said most of the weddings are done in that area, so it's obviously tried and true. And hey, we can always get our pictures taken at the falls, even if we don't get married there.

And for those of you who remember Hawaii's Noah's flood of March 2006, yes, we do have a backup plan just in case it rains. There is a cute little enclosure closer to the entrance to the park called the Butterfly House that can be quickly set up as a contingency.

We also went to a luau on the Windward side of the island. Very touristy, but I'm glad we went, because I don't think my mom would ever have gone otherwise. Ray called it the "Hawaiian Renaissance Faire," because that's really what it was. You pay an exorbitant amount of money to wander around, buy folk crafts and souvenirs (in this case, Hawaiian folk crafts), participate in some activities like lei-making or learning the hula or watching a guy climb a coconut tree, and then you sit down to a buffet dinner and watch a hula show. I sort of think of it as a cross between the Renaissance Faire and a theme park, because the slick hula show, with the microphones and the lights, made me think of my time at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Mom had a good time, as you can see. I think she was a little sad at the beginning because K. begged off at the last minute, and there were no ticket refunds. But once we decided to say screw it and started acting like tourists, it was a lot more fun.

At Long Last

After having come home from vacation to find that my computer had crashed beyond all recognition (those last two posts I had written at work...shh, don't tell my boss), and also that Itchy had run away again, I have been in no mood to write any stories of substance about my fun and exciting time in Hawaii.

Since I've come home, I have gotten a new computer (yay!), recovered Itchy (I'll write about that in another post, I think), and started rehearsals for Grendel. So it's not like I've not been having adventures, it's just that I only have a small window of time with which to post anything. So I guess I'm going to stick with the Hawaii stories for now.

We arrived at the Honolulu airport after a grueling 11 hour nonstop flight from Newark. The good thing about the nonstop is that it really does cut down on the travel time. The bad thing is that the flight just keeps going on and on and on and on...

My mom met us at the airport with her partner, K., and after we got the rental car, we caravanned to the North Shore of Oahu, where we would be staying for the next week. My mom had rented a beautiful vacation apartment for us, but when we got there, we could care less how big or spacious or close to the ocean it was; all we wanted to do was sleep.

In the morning, however, we went outside and beheld the beauty of this vacation rental called Waimea Wonder. I cannot stress enough what a great time we had there. We were in a two bedroom apartment, complete with kitchen, living/dining room, and wrap-around porch. The apartment itself was its own house and stood with the landlord's house (also the same size) on the property.

When we walked to the yard behind the landlord's house, we realized that we were right on the ocean. The backyard opened out onto a rocky shore, and there were two coconut trees with a hammock strung between them (Ray's favorite part of the whole place). There were benches facing the ocean as well as a gazebo to take one's morning coffee, I would assume.

It was like we had our own private ocean. It was so peaceful, and while we were out there that first morning, a monarch butterfly kept flitting around the garden, reminding me of my plans to have a butterfly release for the wedding.

We spent the first day recuperating from jet lag. Actually, we spent the whole week recuperating from jet lag, which made it all the harder to get back on East Coast time when we returned, but it was worth it. Ray discovered (of course) that we had cable with our TV, so he loafed around watching the Discovery Channel while I puttered around making breakfast.

My mom had stocked the kitchen with everything one might need, including fresh papayas and mangoes and locally grown coffee. Ray, who eschews all vegetables and most fruits (especially the exotic ones), had bacon and eggs for breakfast, but that just meant more papaya for me.

My mom and K. came over around lunch time, and we went "into town" to Haleiwa, which is the most popular tourist destination on the North Shore. Most tourists (and hotels) are in Waikiki, which is on the southern part of Oahu, in Honolulu, so the North Shore is a little more country, and the locals like it that way. They get their share of tourists, especially surfers, but the bulk of the tourists stay in Waikiki, where the hotel deals are.

We ate at the famous Haleiwa Joe's and then walked around the rustic shopping area, where my mom pointed out an off-the-wall shop where the eccentric owner paints and carves old surfboard and other pieces of wood and displays them. There were large wooden painted birds hanging from the trees, angry-looking turtles painted as if they were coming out of the surfboard at us (perhaps some foreshadowing?): indeed, a whole garden of surfly delights. While we were touring the outside of the shop, we were approached by a very tall, friendly, black woman who either had purposely styled her hair into an Afro that stuck out almost ten inches around her head or, more likely, hadn't combed her hair in a week. I can't remember her name, but Ray called her Rastafarian Rita for the rest of the trip. She was very nice, although she clearly wanted to sell us some of the surfboard art, and she was the one who recommended that I buy a disposable underwater camera for snorkeling. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have had those pictures of the fishies.

Well, now my time has run out, and my post has gotten way too long. So I shall say adieu until I have a little more time to show you more pictures and tell more stories.

More Teasers

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting pictures and stories from Hawaii, I've been a bit busy because my computer died a slow and painful death. I do have a new one, thank goodness, but I've been loading all my extra software and stuff on it, and haven't had time to blog.

That being said, here's something to tide you over. I like to call this one "Ray's view of Hawaii."

Turtlebane

Just as a follow-up to my previous post, I did want to mention that I went back twice to the turtle beach to see if I could find another turtle and NOT freak out this time, but I didn't see any. There was even a local guy standing on the beach telling tourists that they were definitely out there; all one had to do was swim out there, and they would come. But try as I might, I didn't see any.

Ray says that the one turtle I had the encounter with told all the turtles in the area to keep away from the crazy flailing girl. I'm thinking I scared away all the turtles on the North Shore for two days. When we were driving to the airport, we passed the turtle beach, and I actually did see one out in the water, but we didn't really have time to stop, and I didn't want to get on the plane dripping with seawater.

More tales to come, attached to pictures, which I have yet to download from Ray's camera.

Swimming with the fishies

I just got back from Hawaii, and I'm exhausted. I managed to write a few tidbits down while I was there, and I just finished scanning a few pictures into my computer. Keep posted for more stories about the trip.

This Hawaiian vacation has been spectacular. I only have a couple days left, and I have managed to keep from burning myself too badly.

Yesterday, my mom and I went snorkeling. Ray wasn't really interested in getting in the water, so we left him lying in the hammock outside our vacation rental, happily reading a book.

I really wanted to try to see the turtles at Turtle Beach (apparently it's a favorite place for turtles to hang out), but there is never a guarantee that you'll actually see one. Apparently, the place attracts a lot of tourists, and a lot of the locals are upset that the tourists are endangering the turtles' livelihoods, so there are all these signs up all over the beach that say "don't crowd the turtles," and other such warnings.

When we got there, the beach was pretty crowded, and my mom was pretty pessimistic that there would be any turtles at all, due to the large volume of tourists. I guess the turtles might also have "don't crowd the tourists" signs posted around the beach, too.

Anyway, my mom wanted to leave before we even got to the beach, but I saw what looked like a rock in the water start to move, so I kept on going. Now, I haven't gone snorkeling for some time, and I'm not the world's best swimmer, especially when it comes to underwater stuff, so I figured I'd wade in and just stick my face in the water and remind myself how to snorkel for a while, just up near the beach part, before I go looking for turtles.

So I put my mask on, put the snorkel in my mouth, and stuck my face in the water, getting used to breathing through the snorkel, and lifted my feet off the sand, and started to float. I turned my head to the left and saw my mom's legs, and I turned to my right and saw a GIANT SEA TURTLE as big as me, not three feet next to me, looking at me as if to say, "Hey."

"Holy shit!" I screamed through my snorkel. I backed away and stood up, my heart pounding. I had had an underwater camera in my hand, and instead of taking a picture or just taking in the beautiful of such a marvelous creature, I had freaked out and probably freaked out the poor turtle, who was gone by the time I got the nerve to go back underwater.

I'm probably the only person on the beach that morning who had seen a turtle, and what did I do? I freaked out. I'm so MAD at myself!

After my brief encounter with the sea turtle, my mom took me to another little snorkeling cove away from the tourists, and I managed to actually keep calm and take some good pictures. You'll see more as soon as I'm more awake to put them on the site.










(a humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the state fish)