cindy's world

This day was driving exploration day for the southern part of the island. We left early in the morning for snorkeling, having learned that dolphins do their thing in the morning hours. Sea turtles mosey along the water all day long.

Well, we didn’t see any dolphins, but one spot we hit for snorkeling nicknamed “Two Steps” was unbelievable. I practically stepped on a large yellow tang with my fins as I lowered myself into the water off a rocky shelf. Instantly, we were over a coral reef with colorful and beautiful fish were everywhere. I mean, EVERYWHERE. Each time a wave lifted, visible fish were in the raised cross-section of ocean. I was struck by all the life and coral forests underneath the surface, and all the many fish living together, swimming lazily about, pecking at hidden things in the crevices, being very kind to us intruders into their world. I even watched two fish “fight,” which I learned later was a cleaner wrasse pecking the parasites and dead scales off a yellow tang in a symbiotic relationship. Going farther out into the ocean, the coral stopped and we found ourselves swimming over a sandy ocean bottom. Suddenly, a surprise for the visitors of the water: on the white sand underneath, written by placement of cement bricks, was the word “ALOHA.” As we swam along, the water sometimes got “wrinkly” and blurry, and at times got very cold currents that chilled me to the bone. Turned out there was a fresh water spring that feeds into the ocean somewhere, and the mixing of the fresh and salt water was what created the wavy rippling effect, and possibly the temperature change. After getting out (I got a little seasick), I mentioned to Mr. W that I needed to pee. He said, “You didn’t pee while you were in the water?”
I looked up at him. “No! There’s all this fish and life down there, I’m not peeing on them!”
“They pee on you all day long,” he said. I held my breath and visited the Port-o-Potty, which I figured would be really clean if people thought like Mr. W. “OR they could just be full of shit.” Great. (He was right.)

After the morning was spent exploring beaches, we spent the afternoon and evening visiting Kailua-Kona Town on foot again, taking photos.

Many of the shops weren’t open when we visited it the day before, due to the early morning hour. On this day, a cruiseship had come in, so all the shops and streets were abuzz with excitement. We walked into a jewelry store, wandered around a bit, Mr. W said he didn’t care to look at jewelry and walked out. I followed him, since the store clerk was helping a couple of cruisers anyway and was busy. We later passed by that jewelry store’s side window on the way back down the street, and I casually looked over, saw a pretty purple gemstone ring, then looked a foot to the left of that and saw two rings, both with a purplish-gray tint. I stepped up to the window and lowered my height up and down, seeing the rings from two different angles. The color changed to a greenish-gray. “Oh my gosh, I think that’s Alexandrite!” I exclaimed and Mr. W walked back to me and looked. So of course we had to go back in, especially since Mr. W figured that if there was Alexandrite in the window, there had to be Alexandrite in a display.
The store clerk came by as we were searching the displays. “Is that Alexandrite out there?” Mr. W pointed.
“Indeed, it is,” the clerk Ron said as he unlocked the window and took out the smaller of the two rings. It was perfect; a half carat or so of natural, not simulated, Alexandrite from Russia, of amazing clarity and quality. No clouds, feathers or inclusions could I see with my eyes, and the color change was so distinct that it went from a red (red!) in indoor incandescent lighting to an emerald green in direct sunlight. My simulated Alexandrite isn’t even of this quality, and the clerk noted how rare this stone is in general, and how unheard of a natural one of this color-change quality in this size is in new jewelry. The best natural Alexandrite I’d seen barely goes from a light purple to something slightly blue-green, with cracks all through the tiny stone. Also, this band is slender, feminine 18K white gold, the center Alexandrite is emerald-cut and safely set in a Bezel-setting, accented on either side by clusters of 3 diamonds, and the band itself has diamonds running halfway down the sides. It was everything I’ve ever wanted, more than I’d ever hoped to find, thousands more than I could afford, but half the price of the engagement ring. It was The Ring, the one Mr. W was looking for to propose with but could not find. He knew it, too. I put it on my finger. “And it fits, too!” Mr. W said incredulously. The clerk engaged in a great conversation with us about his background as a science teacher and gemologist, which he’d come to the Island 25 years ago to do after a near-death experience in which a gunshot wound ripped out most of his carotid artery and bled him to death. I should call it a death experience, but what he experienced as he died, after he died, and upon his return to his body hours later, reinforced everything I believe in. That sideways glance into the store window, catching the ring unexpectedly, was no coincidence. He gave us a CD of some music he composed on his piano after his experience, we chatted some more about how his scientific anti-religion family disowned him, his epiphanies about life and death, and I decided I could not turn away this ring. So he brought it back out from the window and we talked shop. He gave me the 10% local discount, couldn’t go down lower as the store’s policy was to never discount their stuff, but he can legally avoid having to charge me sales tax as he was mailing me the ring out-of-state, so I saved another 8% right there. The plan is to go back home and call him with my credit card information (funny story: I unwittingly brought along an expired credit card on the trip, duh) and he’ll mail the ring to me next week. I’ll just not spend any money on gas or food or anything at all for the next few months to pay for it.
I was happy the rest of the day, looking forward to my future jewelry. I glowed in the dark all through our dinner at a nice tatami-style Japanese restaurant in town. The hunt for my birthstone is finally over.

The walk through town back to our hotel was also highly romantic.

Reading photo captions by resting mouse pointer on photos is MANDATORY. 🙂

Mr. W and I got up early on Saturday morning, before the crack of dawn (the 3-hour time difference will do that to ya), and explored the very quaint beach town of Kailua-Kona on foot.

We drank organic Kona coffee grown locally, ate local ice cream, watched the waves crash over the rocks, looked for sea turtles, bought a ton of fruit at the local Farmer’s Market, which we brought back and stashed in our room’s refrigerator.

Bananas were $1 a bunch, unusual red furry lychees 30 for $3, large Butter avocados 3 for $2, sweet papayas 7 for $1. For $7 we got a week’s worth of fruit. Oh, and also, we went and purchased some supplies at the local WalMart. =P

Then we went back to the hotel and got ready to attend “Wilco” (Mike) and Christi’s wedding. The wedding resort Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel in a town called Puako an hour north of us is a cross between a ritzy palace and a maze. It has its own golf course. Rooms cost $400+ a night, that’s all I need to say about it.

On the drive up, we observed “Hawaiian graffiti” along both sides of the highway; names, initials, little messages “written” by placing white coral rocks against the black lava stone landscape.

I freaked out excitedly when I saw this one.

It was Mike and Christi’s wedding theme, “Better Together,” and it was HUGE. Mr. W u-turned, pulled over and stood on the hood of the rental car to take the photos. We would find out later that one of the wedding guests actually did the graffiti to surprise the couple. Damn. Wish we would’ve thought of that.

Mike and Christi found a Hawaiian Catholic priest who performed the ceremony for them in the warm easy manner that Hawaiians have, sharing a bit of local lore in between the Bible passage readings.

The ceremony itself was similarly hybrid, held outdoors at the resort’s private beach as the sun slowly dipped toward the watery horizon.

Mike and Christi did not want to bore their guests with a long ceremony — after a couple of songs, a lei-ing ritual between the couple and their family and a symbolic sand-pouring ritual between Mike and Christi similar to the Catholic unity candle lighting…

…the two became officially bettered together and made out in front of their friends and family.

After the ceremony, the guests were directed to a nearby private cliff off the lawn of the resort, where we were served delicious catered hors d’oveures and drinks.

I don’t know why, but I was the only female called out to toast Mike with a tequila shot.

By that time I’d already had a rum & coke and a surprisingly strong Mai Tai on practically an empty stomach. (I had the Farmer’s Market fruit for lunch.) And the shot was very generous. It took two huge gulps to down it. I was a little concerned at this point that I’d be drunk for the first time in my life, and it didn’t help that Mr. W was going around announcing, “She claims she’s never been drunk before. Do you believe that?!” and all the declaration did was make people look at me with an evil “Hmmm” glint in their eye. Because, as it was explained to me by more than one guy, it was now a challenge to get me drunk. Strangely, though, the tequila cleared up my head and coordination. I almost engaged in a jujitsu battle with Greg (who was responsible for my tequila shot) before I reminded him, after lining up with him, that I’d thrown our friend Jimmy, and all of a sudden he remembered seeing that and backed off. (We wouldn’t have REALLY sparred anyway. I think.)

Dinner reception was in a private hall inside the resort.

I was happy that the couple didn’t do the cheesy wedding games that I’d come to dread (“We’re gonna blindfold the groom, then I’m gonna call up volunteers. The groom has to feel each volunteer’s hand/nose with one finger, and determine which one is his new wife. Meanwhile, we’ll be really sneaky and hide a male guest in the lineup of women, so the audience can have a big laugh at the groom’s expense!”). Mr. W and I left during the dancing, but at that point there wasn’t even a bouquet toss or garter throw. THAT is admirable. I’m going to cut that out of my wedding, too. I really enjoyed all the class and goofy details of the wedding like the single delivered pizza Christi ordered for Mike (his one expressed dinner desire when they were planning the menu)…

…and the extra giant Boston Crème Donut cake in addition to the standard wedding cake with a clay cake topper which Christi hand-made…

which details personalized the wedding more than even their wedding favor did, which was a deck of cards with their wedding theme logo and names printed as the deck design (cuz, you know, all their guests had a long flight home with nothing else to do).

An unexpected highlight of the wedding was meeting Dardy for the first time. I’d been wanting to meet this guy for a long time, ever since I randomly dropped in on his blog some years ago through Mike’s blog, and then had to email college roommie Diana to ask whether this guy was for real or if it were a gag blog. Diana reassured me it’s a friend of hers and Mike’s. I did not expect him to be so cool, despite the few emails we’d exchanged over the past couple of years. Mr. W said that he wished we had more time to hang out with him, as Dardy flew back to his Northern California home the morning after the wedding.

Congratulations to Mike & Christi. How can you look at them and not smile?

After my very first American train ride from a station 10 miles from home to Los Angeles, then hopping on a free shuttle from the train station to Los Angeles International Airport two miles away, Mr. W and I had an uneventful and smooth arrival to the airport. Cost: $1.75 each. Time in transit: 45 minutes (30 mins by train, 15 by shuttle). Had we driven, it would’ve cost $100 to park near the airport, plus gas, plus easily a 2 hour drive in traffic. I wouldn’t do it by myself, as when we got to the slummier parts of LA, I felt a need to turn my ring downward into my palm. Some of the train riders, dressed in gang-banger gear talking loudly to their homies in slang that I haven’t yet learned through Gizoogle, made me uncomfortable. Aside from that, it was a great experience.
The flight was uneventful as well. A German guy sat to my left, Mr. W to my right. The German guy awoke groggily when the flight attendant inquired as to his beverage selection, and he replied in confused mixed English and German, “Orange juice, bitte.” After flipping through the Skymall magazine, I spent the remainder of the 5 ½ hour flight unconscious. I didn’t see a need to be awake as American Airlines, despite the hefty cost of the tickets and despite the flight being at dinnertime, did not find it necessary to give us any solid food. Instead, miniature bags of chips were available for purchase for $1.00 and cold sandwiches were a steal at $5.00 each. I thought back to our China flights, which saw to it that all passengers received a hot meal, no matter the duration of the flight. We got to our destination in the very flat, rustic looking airport at the Big Island of Hawai’i, Mr. W shuttled off to get our rental car as I stayed behind waiting for our luggage, he came back to pick me up and off we went to our Kona hotel.
Our room’s great. It’s on the fourth floor, has a balcony overlooking both mountain and ocean, and has two full-size beds. That’s cool with me, means the room’s bigger. The hotel itself (Kona Seaside) is a block north of Ali’i Drive (which means “royalty”), the main drag full of night life and shopping that runs alongside the beach. You literally have waves crashing up against the low wall made of indigenous volcanic rock as you stroll on the sidewalk.

As always, rest mouse pointer on photos for captions.

*** Afternoon addendum ***
K reminded me in her comment about the US citizenship exam, so here’s a question from the exam that I remember from my childhood (from my parents studying for the exam):
Q: What are the colors of the American Flag and what do the colors represent?
A: Red is for courage; white is for peace; blue is for justice.

You don’t want to turn 5o around HERE, man.

Today is a court reporter’s 50th birthday. Everyone knew it was her birthday, but she didn’t know that we knew it was the big 5-0. A few of us waited around after hours yesterday until she went home. And then we busted out some decorations and got busy.

I would say we “trashed” her desk, but it’s so much more FESTIVE than trash. The clerk of that courtroom said that when the reporter came in this morning and walked into the courtroom, she screamed for about 10 minutes.

Aside from the obvious large decorations of the black desk covering, balloons, signs and streamers, there are also AARP magazines on the top of her desk, 3 cans of not just Ensure, but LIGHT Ensure, stacked at the front edge of her desk, a diaper, Tiger Balm medicine pad, and “Over the Hill” sparkly confetti sprinkled everywhere. I even put some in her desk drawers and cubbyholes. She’ll be finding sparklies for weeks. Some more details:

Even as I was having the best time doing this yesterday, I was secretly glad that these people with the crazy decorations will be retired when *I* turn 50. Whew!
And yes, the judge took the bench and went into session with all the decorations in place, conducting business as usual. The litigants were delighted at the decor, I heard. Who says Family Law isn’t light-hearted?

You can just barely see the top of the court reporter’s hair over the top of the cards on her desk.
(I don’t know if this happens on your computer, but for some reason on these photos, about 15% is cut off on the right margins when I view them on the site, so all the photos look off-balance. In the full photo, you can actually see a litigant’s arms on the counsel table in the last shot. Roll mouse over each photo for caption, as always.)

Saturday was a beautiful day for riding to (or for Mr. W and myself, driving to) San Onofre Beach. We went to Costco for some supplies, had an organic healthy lunch at Mother’s Market, then drove down south to the campsite. We were the second party to get there; my jujitsu pal Gloria and her husband had already set up their tent. The four of us hung out and set up our tent until the biking crew arrived. It was a lot of fun, and sunny without being too warm as we were just over the deep blue ocean. I’d brought along a bunch of Milton Bradley Get-Together games, but never pulled them out as everyone was enjoy hanging out so much. We burned lots of wood in the firepit, made turkey burgers for dinner, smores for dessert, laughed and joked and listened to music. Mr. W rallied everyone into agreeing to go with us to the nude beach the next day, and altho they all agreed to include a visit to fleshville as part of the next day’s beach festivities, no one was going to join Mr. W as part of the 80%. Together, we were gonna make non-nudist participants of the nude beach 21%, darn it. Even the night was beautiful. The weather was cool and we needed nothing more than a light blanket over us in the tent to be perfectly comfortable.

The night was great, I mean, except for some crazy guy in the tent next to ours, not part of our group, who thought it was a good idea to make sex sounds in between snores every 5 minutes through the night. He was by himself. “OOH!” he’d groan. “OH, yeah, BABY!” “OHHHH!” There were little KIDS with their parents at the campgrounds, for gosh sakes!! He would actually startle me awake every time I started to doze. I think I finally fell asleep after some angry parents threw his tent, him included, over the fence into the water. Or maybe that was just wishful dreaming.

The next morning, we got up at 7a, made campside breakfast of pancakes, fire-toasted French rolls, scrambled eggs, and coffee, packed away all our tents and camping gear, just in time time to watch lightning strike the water in some dense dark clouds approximately 30 miles away. We’d heard about Florida’s Hurricane Dean bringing showers to Southern California, and looks like it was happening. Nevertheless, because it was still a nice morning out, we headed over to the beach, Mr. W barely able to contain his excitement at the prospect of his upcoming public stripping. That’s when it started to pour. We could barely see the road ahead of us through the splashes and mist, and after parking at the beach area, we exited the car in our bathing suits and proceeded to get drenched. It was a cold rain, and altho everyone was trying to be a good sport trudging their goose-pimpled flesh to the cliff’s edge, the amount of water and mud and made our descent down the hill onto the beach, in our flip flop shoes, impossible. From behind us, someone mumbled about having a lot of stuff yet to do this weekend. Another person agreed, saying something about laundry and unpacking, and then another voice about catching up on work before Monday. To Mr. W’s utter disappointment, we disbanded. Only three remained to surf, having the luxury of their own boards, wetsuits and water shoes. Oh, and the instructor who was supposed to bring extra boards and teach us to surf never showed, anyway.

Nevertheless, despite Mr. W’s threats that we were going to go back there sometime very soon to camp out on our own and visit the nude beach THEN, I had a great time and secretly thanked the Lord for the providence. It was also nice that everyone saw me in my pyromanic state, burning pine cones, used paper plates and napkins, etc., and still loved me for it. Turned out there were other pyros in the mix who enjoyed watching random things burn as much as I did. Chewed gum is fascinating. It dissolves and the whole thing lights on fire. The blackbelt organizer of the trip even offered his experience that pine needles burned really well, and at one point, he brought back an armful, threw it into the fire, and said, “There you go, Cindy!” as the fire blazed upward in a hungry lurch. I vaguely remember cackling and dancing around the living flames. Other people started experimenting, too. I returned from the restroom once to see a large black charred blob stuck on the side of a piece of wood. “What’s that?” I asked. “It’s a marshmallow,” a brown belt revealed.

This is me having way too much fun watching a cup of coffee in the flames. Mr. W put it in there for me. The theory is that the cup wouldn’t burn because paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit but that the liquid forced it to remain at 200-some degrees Fahrenheit. Indeed, it DIDN’T burn…until the coffee boiled dry and as soon as upper portions of the paper cup dried, that part of the cup burned off. Fascinating.

Oh, and it was also nice that these people are used to seeing me without makeup, as I used to attend jujitsu bare-faced, cuz man, I realize as I see this photos that I’m not fit to be seen without makeup on!

Since I’m now posting faces, here’s a photo of me looking like crap and my fiance looking like a model.

Guess he would’ve totally stolen the show at the nude beach, gay or straight audience, huh?

Ramon: *nodding at red fleece sweatshirt that comes down to my knees* That’s not YOURS, is it?
Me: Sure it is!
Ramon: Did you BUY that for yourself?
Me: Yup. It’s a 4X. I was looking for something bigger, but this is all they had.
Ramon: How long have you had that?
Me: Oh, about 6 years. And it’s really comfortable and warm, it’s like wearing a blanket with arms.
Ramon: *picturing how fat Cindy must’ve been 6 years ago*

Yesterday while I was lounging on my living room couch, eating and playing on my laptop (and trying to recover from the shock of my doctor’s visit), I heard a faint rattling sound to my left. I looked over, looked out the window behind me, but didn’t see anything amiss. I listened again, and it was still there, a faint on-and-off rattle, lasting about a second and a half, with an equal pause, and then another rattle for a second and a half. I finally crawled over the couch and peered over the left arm, down at the triangle of space formed by the side of the couch, the side of the La-Z-Boy recliner, and the side of the end table. There was a black and white and pink ball on the ground in the triangle, and it was snoring.

Looks like my fuzzy wuzzy Dodo boy has found a new spot to hang that’s totally invisible except from the top and the back view.

Is there anything more comforting than hanging in your home on a day off and listening to the snoring of a snoozing cat? Awwww… Little joys of life.

This is Cindy the Cartoon Part III (see C the C Part I and II here), or Cindy Simpson Part II (see CS Part I here).

Since I couldn’t get the Simpsonize Me site to work, my friend who told me about it, Erin…

took this recent photo of me and cropped out most everything (including Mr. W) but me…

and created therefrom this version of Cindy…

as in…
.

She also took Mr. W out of the same cruise photo, and here he is…

as in…
.
I laughed out loud when I saw him as a Simpson.

Thanks, Erin, for doing this and emailing me with the pictures!

I was trying to do the Simpsonize Me thing that Erin was commenting about, but I can’t get it to work. First it rejected my .bmp cuz it wanted a .jpg. Then after I converted it, it claimed my photo was too small. And I can’t find a larger photo of my mug. So argh, forget it. Instead, I’m posting my zen.

I was walking by some night market (flea market outdoor swap-meet type thing) in Shanghai, saw this little guy at the bottom of a glass display case in a jewelry booth, did a double-take, doubled back, and cooed and awwed and pointed and giggled until Mr. W took a photo of it for me. It is THE cutest lucky cat I have ever seen to date. I’m posting it to make myself feel better tomorrow when I see this at work.

I drove up to Mr. W’s place this evening and saw him standing outside aiming his camera at something small in his hand. His next-door neighbor and fellow photography fan was holding a giant sheet of white cardboard-looking thing up against the subject. For lighting, I suppose. Mr. W then played with his photos on his computer while I watched TV and ate some wheat pasta and watched “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The Simpsons” on TV. Finally, I was called into his room where he asked whether the fruits of his labor were blogworthy. So at the risk of looking braggy, I’m posting his work.

Hey look, free advertising for the Lakhi Group’s Pristine Hearts collection! There is surprisingly little information online about this line.

I think my favorite photos are the undoctored ones, #1 and #3. But if you look at #4, his nice camera’s zoom is so powerful that you can actually see the outline of the heart inside the stone.