Posted by: mdilloway1 | March 21, 2010

Maunawili Falls

The Kailua area in the Koolau Mountains is home to Maunawili Falls, a 30 foot waterfall contaminated with bacteria so you’re not supposed to swim in it (yet people do). Yesterday we decided to do the hike because we were bored and it was only about 75 degrees, and hiking is much pleasanter to do when it’s not 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity. Especially if you can’t swim at the end.

The trail was at the end of a long and narrow– very narrow– road. So narrow cars can’t pass each other, and there’s a mountain on one side and a drop off on the other. We passed a truck, but luckily it was a truck so it went sot of up on the mountainside a bit. That’s what trucks are for. The driver seemed unwilling to subject his precious truck to such dirt, but he finally acquiesced.

Also back here are huge homes, whose owners, when visible, look perturbed at the sight of all these cars coming to the trail. Yet the roads are public, so there’s not much they can do.

The waterfall trail itself was a 1.5 mile hike, extremely muddy, wet stinky and sticky mud (we saw several shoes that had been eaten by the mud, it was sort of like the swamp scene in THE PRINCESS BRIDE), with obstacles like CROSSING A RIVER 5 TIMES. It was more like a stream. It was highly exciting, especially with muddy feet. And there were tons of stairs. My left knee, busted a couple of weeks ago, did not like the stairs. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, but the popping noise while I stand around cannot be good.

Ethan and Kaiya complained the entire time. It is difficult to get Ethan to do anything, in fact, because he is a homebody. Once he’s out, he usually has a good time. Not on the trail. “I feel sick, I want to be at home watching TV,” Ethan moaned over and over. To which I told him, “Hey, stop whining, most people save up their money to get to come here and you’re telling me you want to watch TV?” Finally I told him if he said one more thing he would not be allowed to watch any television, which seemed to shut him up.

Kaiya, I think, mostly enjoyed chiming in with her brother whenever she could and was scared because the mud was slippery. But Cadillac CARRIED her most of the way, what did she have to worry about?

Elyse had no problems and ran ahead of everyone in her high-top highly impractical-for-hiking basketball shoes.


At the end, there were a bunch of people swimming in the aforementioned bacteria-laden waters, waters which looked gray in the streams, so we just watched a woman jump up from high up.

What else? Lots of graffiti, litter, pot smoke wafting strongly through the jungle at several times, but it was still pretty cool to be inside a jungle that looked straight out of LOST.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | March 15, 2010

Writing Advice

Once you sell a book and it looks like it will actually be on the shelves one day, you begin to meet people who want to meet you, the author.  Yes, Virginia, they DO exist.  A debut author, shaken out from the steaming masses of slush piles.  These people have one question on their minds.  How do you get published? Was it a secret potion?  Is there a special handshake?  Which is understandable, if you’re a writer.

However, there’s genuine curiosity, and then there’s plain old rudeness.  One woman had the balls to tell me, “Of course YOU can write.  You have lots of time.  You’re a stay-at-home mother.”  Which goes to show you the woman has no children.  Also, I was not strictly a stay-home mother because I worked as a freelance writer.  I think she believed all stay-home mothers are married to extremely rich executives who get $2 million bonuses for failed companies.  Did I tell you this story already?  Sorry.  I’m going to keep telling this gol-durn story until the end of my days.

Anyway.  I must give you the following advice.  Perhaps I will even pass out business cards with links to this very blog post on it, for easy reference.

  1. Write.  Do not talk about writing, do not say you will write a book someday when you happen to have a big old chunk of time or an extra half hour because it’s so easy.  Write right now.  Do it.  Stop reading this and turn off the Internet and write one page.
  2. Write every day.  Even if you only have time to bleat out two sentences while your spouse is in the bathroom and your kids are watching a cartoon and dinner is burning on the stove.  Do this everyday and someday you’ll have a whole story.
  3. Learn from those who know.  Ignore those who don’t.  If you’re paying for a seminar about How to Write a Bestselling Novel, perhaps the teacher ought to be a Bestselling Author. Or an editor of such things.  Not some lady who wrote a bunch of books on the art of novel writing and underwater basket weaving, but has a stack of incomplete manuscripts.
  4. Don’t take rejection personally. Remember, you yourself have not loved every novel/film/ice cream flavor ever created.  Though they are all obviously very wrong about your book.
  5. Embrace editing, but know the story you want to write.   If your editor is telling you to make it a romantic love story but you want to write a brother-sister-adventure story, then there may be a problem.
  6. Find a good supportive writer’s group.  Or one good friend who’s a careful reader.  Avoid groups of beret-wearing men who hang out in dreary suburban chain coffee shops and talk about how the only writing worth anything is experimental fiction involving talking cabbages, and who particularly hate you, you terrible commercial sell-out.  Also avoid people who praise you too much and people who praise you too little.  Does this sound difficult? It can be. Good luck, Goldilocks.
  7. Keep reading.  It will make you a better writer.

I was going to do 10 tips for writers, make it search-engine friendly, but I ran out.

The point is, there are many paths to being published.  Some people write a novel in a couple of months and get a deal.  Some take years and many novels.  Some have MFAs.  Some do not. Some people self-publish and then get book deals, some do not. And so on.

The only sure way to get published someday is to do the work of writing.  Right now. With a fabulous idea whose enthusiasm you can sustain for years. Characters people love.  A plot would be nice, too, in my opinion.

The end.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | March 13, 2010

Words Needed in English

I stumbled upon this list of 13 words or phrases not found in the English language.  Give it a read. esprit de l’escalier  I know I am guilty of esprit de l’escalier more often than I’d like.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | March 12, 2010

Ichthyologist’s Delight

The Bishop Museum, a Hawaiian historical museum/planetarium/natural history museum rolled into one, is a main attraction in Honolulu.

It’s also haunted. One ghost is a woman in white who hangs out on the steps.  A little boy saw her and his mom wrote a letter of complaint, saying that the museum needed to do something about it.  What are they going to do about a ghost?  But that’s another story.

Anyway, the place has a big ichthyology collection.  That’s fish to you and me.

A fellow Scripps alumna I recently met is a curator there and invited me and the kiddos to come visit for a tour because I mentioned what a big fish fan Ethan is.  What a cool morning we had!  Albert, the ichthyologist, knows everything about fish. There are over 40,000 fish in their “lending library.”

The collection consists of fish in alcohol stuffed into jars.  If you get grossed out at such things, you should discontinue reading.  The jars are of various colors, ranging from clear liquid to near-red as the colors get leeched out of the fish and into the alcohol.

Also: no flash photography! That’s why some are a bit blurry. It’s a windowless warehouse and there’s not much light.

Sometimes, there’s not enough room for the whole specimen.  They take part of it in these cases; below is just the head and tail of a shark.  There was also a 70-lb eel in a bucket, with just the head and part of the tail.  The bucket was not clear, so no picture of that.

Specimens are arranged according to type.   There are many eels:

And a blowfish skeleton:

There’s a blowfish bladder someone found while snorkeling in Kaneohe Bay.

We also went in the back to see the crate of Big Mouth, the first Megamouth shark captured.  The crate is made of cardboard (!) and fiberglass and is very leaky; if you have an extra hundred thou or so, send it to them so they can build the shark a new crate, for goodness sake!  We were not allowed to see it.  We were told it would stink.  Yes.  Probably.  But we did see pics.  I’d never heard of a Megamouth.  Arnold said the artist didn’t get it quite right, but he did the best he could based on the pictures.

This fellow looks kind of happy, for being in a jar.  A ray.  There were other rays where just the mouth and the stinger were saved.

Arnold also told us where to go night snorkeling, night tide-pooling, and snorkeling to see eels (off Kahala Beach) AND recommended two great books for young Ethan.  Ethan is funny.  He looks like he’s not paying attention while people talk, but he actually memorizes everything.  It drives his teachers mad!

We completed the trip with a stop at the Circus Exhibit.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | March 8, 2010

Meet Damnbill and Summer Salt

My kids like naming things. Ethan has come up “Butterscotch” for a small stuffed Golden Retriever toy and “Hiro Fishcakes” for our real Siamese cat. Adorable, right? The names Kaiya comes up with are positively– well, sometimes you just wonder where she got it from, and hope it wasn’t from you.

This is Ranger GI Joe. Poor Joe. He’s missing an arm and he has permanent camouflage makeup, plus he’s a couple inches shorter than Barbie. Maybe jumping out of planes made him shrink. How is he going to get Barbie to notice him? Also, the kids lost all his clothes and gear. Mostly because they left it out and it got thrown away.

A couple of days ago, Kaiya and I were playing Barbies. She got out the GI Joe. “His name is Damnbill,” Kaiya said.

I thought I had misheard. “Do you mean Dan-ville?” I said.

“No.” She got angry. “It’s DAMN. BILL. He is Damnbill because he has to go to work.”

Okay then.

I tried to remember if I’d ever said “damn bill.” Did I say, “I must work to pay these damn bills?” No. Pretty sure I didn’t. Pretty sure my husband didn’t, either.

Well, her grandpa’s nickname is Bill. Was someone calling him “Damn Bill?” I don’t think that’s the case, either.

So random.

Also, meet Summer Salt, Barbie’s friend. The Barbie’s name is actually “Summer” per the package; it’s one of those beach Barbie & Friends, but Kaiya added the last name. This is my favorite. She doesn’t even know it’s a pun! Mwahahaha. And there’s a Ken named “Kan Kan.”

Below are two Barbies who look like they’re dressed to be members of the Pink Ladies from Grease. One of them is Wonder Woman.

“Bo” is also now the name of all of Kaiya’s stuffed animals. I don’t know where she ever heard the name, but she’s in looove with it. So much so that she said, “When I grow up, when I’m 17, I’m gonna change my name to Bo.”

Ethan: “You can’t do that, Kaiya. Do you know how expensive it is to go to court? You’ll never be able to afford it!”

A side note: Did you know when you play Barbies with boys, it always turns into a war? Cadillac and Ethan just can’t help themselves; if they are conscripted in doll play, then the dolls must start a fight of some kind. Sometimes Daddy plays Barbie with the girls. Last time, he had to play Damnbill and it went like this:

Barbie: Hey, let’s all be friends!
Damnbill: I’m the toughest toy in the toybox!
Barbie: I’m the toughest toy in the UNIVERSE! So let’s be friends.

Cadillac was mostly impressed that his 4 year old daughter had one-upped him so effortlessly. Take that, toughest toy in the “toybox.”

For your enjoyment: GI Joe picking up Barbie.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | March 2, 2010

Ear Piercing

Back when I was 10, I got my ears pierced. Good times. Not really; mine got infected though I cleaned with H2O2 every day. Elyse has been asking me for awhile to get hers pierced, so last Sunday, we finally did it at Claire’s.

Claire’s, home of the tiny crowded elbow to elbow store. Some woman and her family stopped, chewing gum, mouths open, to watch. The ear piercing station is by the window and there was quite a crowd. Like Romans at the Colosseum, hoping for blood and tears. I took my camera out. “No cameras allowed,” the ear piercing girl said. Whatever. I guess in case something went wrong, they didn’t want photographic evidence. I saw no incompetence, however, except in all the people who wanted to watch. A little girl get her ears pierced! One teen exiting said, “I remember when my ears were pierced. I wonder if she’ll cry?”

The girl noted that using rubbing alcohol or H2O2 would overly dry them and cause infection. (If you know if this is true or not, note it in the comments; I don’t know). Luckily, the earrings came with a huge bottle of ear cleaner, active ingredient benzalkonium chloride.

I wanted to have crowd control come and move them away. Instead I just blocked the people trying to get by, to the exit. “Go around, my kid’s getting pierced here!” I said.

The girl marked the holes in purple and punched the 14 karat gold studs. Elyse did not flinch. “Just a pinch, no big deal,” she said. Elyse does not cry at shots, never did. She used to get allergy shots with the most stoic expression, twice a week, and the allergist told me, “I have this 17 year old boy come in and cry every week. I’m going to tell him about Elyse so he’ll stop.”

The crowd dispersed. I took Elyse to get a Starbucks blended strawberry creme. A rare treat. She deserved it.

“I feel like a grown-up,” she said. “One more step in the long road to womanhood.” Oh yes. She really did say that. I did not make it up for the sake of the blog. I just can’t make up the stuff my kids conjure up.

What will be the next milestone, I wonder? My girl’s growing up. I expected to feel sad, but I’m not. I’m proud and pleased. After all, the role of a parent is to shepherd a kid into adulthood, not keep him or her a child. There’s a new stage to enjoy each time.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | February 27, 2010

Tsunami Blues

Last night, we got to go out due to the free babysitting provided by our friend Jill. A night to remember. A date night. A night which would exceed every expectation I have ever had of every date night previous. Yes. My needs are minimal.

Anyway, it seems like every time we try to go out something happens. Usually, it’s a kid getting sick, or one of us getting sick, or a complete lack of money to really do anything.

We went out to a restaurant called Stage first, where I found out that you can get motion sick from watching a very busy intersection constantly from the 2nd floor, and you should not eat at Stage unless you’re not hungry, because they take 1.5 hrs to cook a piece of salmon. Seriously. I wish I were joking. Now, Cadillac had eaten there before and it also took 1.5 hrs, but he figured the reason was his party of nine.

Anyway, then we went along to the Yelp Honolulu Elite party at a nightclub, where they had free food, Chinese dragon dancers, and free Grolsch beer (you could get whatever drink you wanted). I mention Grolsch because Cadillac noted it used to be sold in 2-packs due to its high quality, but he said it didn’t taste as good as it used to. I had a diet Coke myself.

This is not the point of the story. After our night out and then staying up even later when we got home, having Jill keep the kids up super late, we planned to sleep in.

Not so. At 6 am the tsunami alarms sounded– long and hard, three minutes. “This can’t be good,” I thought, threw on some clothes and met my family in the hallway.

Horrific earthquake in Chile. Tsunami warning here.

We’re on high ground and in no danger, and they didn’t expect anything until at least 11 am. The alarms sounded again at 7, at 9, 10:30 and 11. It gave everyone in the danger zones plenty of time to evacuate.

Cadillac headed to Safeway to get some water. They were out. He waited for Long’s to open in a line. At Long’s, unlike Safeway, no one was rationing water, so all the cases were gone. He bought some quart sized bottles of Fiji (yay! my favorite, but I never get it ’cause it’s pricier) and a couple of plastic water pitchers. Once we filled up our pitchers, our Camelbaks, and assorted Thermoses, we figured we had enough to last until the Mainland sent supplies to one of the four military base airports here.

At seven, my dad called me. “Are you guys okay?” he said. He had also called and asked this during the last tsunami watch, during which I also explained where we live, the tsunami sirens, etc. etc. I know he uses Google Earth so he can see where we live, too. “Nah, we’re going to the beach and getting washed to sea,” I said, smart-alecky. He laughed and said he’d been on duty during the 1960 Hilo tsunami, which had 35 foot high waves or something like that. But now, of course, the tsunami warning system is quite sophisticated and there’s plenty of time to get out of the path. Probably less dangerous to be here during a tsunami– just go to high ground– than to be in San Diego during a brush fire. And the tsunami warning ends more quickly than a fire, too.

The kids were in high dudgeon. They made a “command station” in Ethan’s room, consisting of a floor mattress, fan, and blankets. Elyse was glued to the news. Ethan looked up “Tsunami” in his 100 MOST DANGEROUS THINGS book and they read it aloud. “70% chance of survival!” Ethan exclaimed. Kaiya got so scared she refused to come downstairs, thinking the water would flood her out. I pointed to Koko Head and said it would block all the water.

Thus we waited out the morning. The roads were closed and we were told to stay home unless we were actually in the process of evacuating. At last, in the afternoon, they cleared the warning.

The funny thing was, I’d actually planned to go to the beach today for the first time in a long time.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | February 22, 2010

Lenten Observance

So for Lent, I was taught in my adult CCD class at St. Therese that you are not actually supposed to give up something, like chocolate or coffee.  What you are supposed to do is do something positive, like pray, go to church every evening, or somesuch.

We decided we would go to Mass every Sunday the way we’re supposed to, but don’t always due to the odd Mass times at the church near us and the little kids and whatnot.  And of course the kids were sick on Sunday so we didn’t.

A side note: did you know it’s a Mortal Sin to not attend Mass on Sundays? Well, it is. The new thinking, I guess, of Vatican II or whatever, is to not scare people into attending by telling them they’re sinners if they don’t go, but to emphasize the good if they do go. My MIL disagrees with the new way of thinking and thinks people ought to realize that they need to do things even if they don’t want to. I tend to think that they were right to change if something did not work; whatever way is more effective. Threatening people just doesn’t seem to work. Hmmm.

Anyway, for Lent, I also decided to treat my body to some good exercise on a more regular basis.  I do go to the gym, but I don’t push myself that hard.  I hate the machines, the boring repetitiveness of it all, but the gym is good for when it’s hot or rainy.

Anyway, I went to the gym and they were remodeling it, so I had to make a new plan.

On Saturday, we did a big (for me) hike up and down a steep lava rock hillside.

Today, I asked Elyse to walk 2.5 miles with me down to Koko Marina. Click on the link to hear some rad music.  We went right after Cadillac got home.  There’s only one road to the shopping center, and it’s busy.  It was so busy with da Bus and such that I regretted walking; my nostrils still feel full of fumes, and sometimes we couldn’t hear each other.

Anyway, I like walking with Elyse because she tells me stuff.  Some of it is quite interesting, but I promised her I wouldn’t share her personal business, potentially embarrassing, on my blog.

On the way there, we came across a dog.  It was a medium to large dog, of pearl black grey hue, with green-grey eyes.  It was sitting by its owner.

A Japanese woman who walked in front of us talked to the owner and called out to the dog. It ignore her. I clucked to it.  The dog perked up her ears and walked slowly over to me.

I let her sniff my hand and then lifted my hand to pet her.  She flinched.

The last time I saw a dog do that was because it had been beaten before.

Oh, poor doggie. I wanted to steal you away. But then your owner called you back and made you sit.

Perhaps it was naturally skinny, so skinny you could see all of its ribs and spine. Or maybe old. Or maybe the guy just got it from the pound and it was skinny, but it’s awfully obedient to be a brand new dog. And why would a guy who beat his dog be hanging out with it in front of his house, letting people pet it? Doesn’t add up.

Anyway, we continued on our walk. I dared Elyse to jump up and touch trees. My feet and legs and back hurt. Developed a blister. Ouch.

About 40 minutes later, we got to Koko Marina. Cadillac headed over to pick us up– I’m not quite ready for a 5 mile walk, at least not all at once, not right before dinner. We went into the Price Busters and bought ten-cent chocolate coins, a get-well card for Cadillac’s sister, an ice pop mold, and water balloons. Water balloons were only fifty cents. If I known how cheap they were I would have been getting them this whole time.

Then we drove home and Kaiya told us all about how she climbed Diamond Head with Scooby-Doo and the tsunami can’t get anyone because DH is too high. I told you, the kids are still on about disasters.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | February 19, 2010

Giant Bavarian Pretzels

Rachael Ray and I have had our ups and down.  I still can’t quite forgive her for Christmas 2008 and her Jacques Pepin Smashed Potatoes, which were supposed to cook in just 30 minutes but took more like 50.  Yes, you’re supposed to try recipes first, but I watched her cook it start to finish on her show, so I thought that counted.  Magic of television.  Plus, I tried the recipe twice more, and while the potatoes are delicious, they do not take just 30 minutes.  And I still can’t bring myself to call extra virgin olive oil “EVOO.”  Sorry.  But I do like her magazine and watch her show if I happen to be around and happen to turn it on.  I even watched her True Hollywood story– or was it Biography?– about how she worked her way into a cooking show, nay, an EMPIRE (please think this in a very dramatic voice) through her own hard work and spunkiness.

A week ago, I got a score of free Rachael Ray magazines from the library  and found a Giant Bavarian Pretzel recipe.  Because I owned all the ingredients, save yeast ($1.99 for three packets) and unsalted butter ($4.99, on sale) I had to try it.

Giant Bavarian Pretzels (Rachael Ray Magazine October 2009)

While the oven was heating, I prepared the dough.  This part took so long that the oven finished heating about 10 minutes before I was ready.

I decided to DOUBLE the recipe, because the original only made 6 Giant Pretzels.  Six might not be enough.  We like our pretzels.

I dug out my big mixer and attached the dough hook.

I didn’t have enough white flour, so I used half wheat.

The dough mixed for about 6 minutes and the mixer engine began to smell like it was overheating.  Is my mixer about to die on me?

I separated the dough into 12 more-or-less equal size balls.

Here’s the fun and interesting part.  You have to roll the dough into strings 42 inches long.  Yes.  42 inches! I don’t think I got that big, because I don’t have 42 inches of counter space.  But I did what I could.

You have to dip the dough into a mix of 2 TB baking soda to 2 cups of water for 30 seconds.  I don’t know why, I guess it has to do with texture.  I just do what I’m told.

Also, I didn’t have parchment paper, so I used this Silpat.  I also used a regular baking sheet, but I wouldn’t recommend it because the pretzels stuck.  So use parchment or the Silpat.

It said to sprinkle these things with “coarse salt.” I had both Kosher coarse salt and sea salt.  I used sea salt on one batch and Kosher on the other.  I liked the sea salt better.  Of course, I did not use as much as in the picture, because I’m not a fan of overly salted food.

Here’s a gratuitous shot of our Hawaiian back patio. Look at that view! The dirt! The back of the houses! The hill! Please don’t be jealous of my grandeur. The orchid trio was my Valentine’s gift.  I’ve wanted to farm orchids since I read THE ORCHID THIEF by Susan Orlean (made into the very good and slightly trippy film, ADAPTATION).  But back to the pretzels.

Look at that stack of deliciousness!!

And they were really good.  Even though they were half whole wheat, they weren’t dry at all.  Plus, they’re pretty much health food now!

Another hint: don’t make these right before dinner, like I did.  Unless you don’t want to eat dinner.  In which case it’s okay.  Ethan had two (snuck one!) but still managed to fork down his steak and broccoli an hour later.

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Posted by: mdilloway1 | February 18, 2010

The Change is Happening

No, not THAT kind of change.

A different kind of change.  Today I exited the house as a trade wind blew its chill fingers over me and I shivered, reaching for my sweater.  I got in the car and looked at the thermometer.

78 degrees.

Really? I am COLD when it’s 78 degrees?  How cold is the wind, 50?

So even though I got rid of all but two sweaters when I moved here, um, it looks like maybe, next year, we’ll have to buy some more.  Sweaters, windbreakers, jeans, pajamas with pants for the kids. Not footies, though they do sell those at Wal-Mart and Costco like we’re in the mid west.  No.  I draw the line at footies.

I’m hoping this means when the hot weather rolls around I won’t feel like a volcanic rock is sitting on my chest, like I did last year.  Here’s to hoping.

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