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After a breezy, blue-skied morning in field service, the group decided to head on up to the mountain to have a decidedly nippy lunch under the descending fog and the pine trees. What?! You mean we ran away from the sunshine to go TOWARD the clouds and cold? Yes. Brrr/Yum.
Short winter days and too many treats at work are making me feel sluggish and under the weather. Part of the problem is that I've been slowly helping myself to one particular container of brightly colored sugar cookies that no one else seems to like. So I'll have, you know, a cute green one with a cup of tea in the morning while sending out presciptions. And maybe another fancy red one mid-afternoon while looking up the medical code for Hepatitis. And don't get me started on the biscotti and caramel peanuts which have been arriving in the breakroom by the truckload.
The other part of the problem (i.e. the short winter days) will begin to resolve itself in a few hours since today officially marks the shortest day of the year and the day the earth's axis will be at full tilt away from the sun. If the rain clears up (and you all know it won't since we are currently under a flash flood warning) you'll notice the sun only reaches a quarter way into the sky at noon today before heading back down toward the horizon and ushering in 2010's longest night. Bleah/Yech!
To combat the wet, dark grey winter soltice blues, I'm treating myself to some sweat-inducing, lip-peeling, face-scalding, fiery-hot Lamb Vindaloo from Akmal's for lunch. Cause you know, there's nothing quite like a stomach-cramp inducing meal to brighten up a dull day. Nom, nom, nom! I feel better already!
As if all this astronomical/gastrointestinal wonderment wasn't enough, something weird was going on with the moon last night too. If you haven't heard, we had a total lunar eclipse between 9:45 and 10:50pm.
Which means that at said hour, the entire moon passed through our earth's shadow, turning it an eerie red. Cool? You bet. Awesome? Uh huh. Rainy,overcast and zero visibility? But of course.
I rushed on home after a nice, productive 3 hours in evening witnessing (Aaron, Josh and Dorien's studies all worked out!), my excitement waning quickly as the rain started. And so the only eclipse I got to see last night was Luke. Not that that's a bad thing, but still.
Being that the weather obviously wasn't going to cooperate and let me take any awe-inspiring photos of the full, red moon, I figured I'd do my best to maybe post a photo of something else with the same basic shape and color for those of you who missed it:
If you open up the image full size, turn off all the lights and hang your monitor from the ceiling, I imagine it comes pretty close. You're welcome.
Despite the flash-flood watch and exciting forecasts for thunderstorms for the end of this week, all we've had so far is one breezy, but clear and sunny Thursday, and an overcast and moderately rainy Friday. Yawn. It's was your typical local hodgepodge-leaning-toward-muddy end of the week. Wet, but far from unusual.
However, there must have been some kind of significant invisible atmospheric activity or whatever, since the morning broke clear and crisp with this: (Ready?)
TA-DAA!
No, no, not Diane's old house you dumdums! The mountain! The mountain! Capped with our first winter sprinkling of Hawaiian snow this cool, clear Saturday! Yay!
Apart from all the time spent staring glassy eyed at the mountain, our car group had a nice, productive morning. My study worked out despite a last minute change in our appointment time, the Jodz had a Jack-in-the-Box breakfast coupon that we of course put to good use (of course), folks out in the territory were pleasant and took literature, Suz found her business territory RV (a new-found Spanish speaking woman who works near the downtown farmer's Market), AND we had parking close to the market entrance. Could it possibly get any better than this?
It did, actually. The nearby Nutty Guys candy shop is getting rid of all their inventory this week, including all of their 5 tier metal display shelving units. I reserved 2 of them as they'll be perfect for my african violet collection.
I am so happy, I think I'll go take a nap.
It's not Chinese New Years. I don't smell any microwave popcorn in the breakroom. And no one's snapping their gum. So what in the world is that loud, popping noise here at work? A BB gun? 2 BB guns?
Oh, it's just Mom. And Fed Ex has just been here with a package.
So now you know. Mom, for all her small and dainty looks, turns into some sort of frenzied wild woman when put face to face with bubblewrap. And she's unfortunately discovered a big sheet of the stuff whilst unpacking a big box of vaccines at the office. I do realize that bubblewrap has some sort of strange universal allure which lends itself to us reaching over and squeezing out a few satisfying snaps, but this woman will not let go until she pops every single blasted bubble on the entire sheet.
Even the big sheets like the one in the vaccine box today.
The other nurses find my look of disgust funny.
Mom's cool-headed response to my annoyance is:
"Well, YOU crack your knuckles."
She's right you know, although in defense, my knuckle antics don't last anywhere near as long as the time it takes to totally demolish a sheet of bubblewrap. Wait, hold on...
Yep, just as I thought. Only a few seconds.
I'm not saying I don't have any strange habits/idiosyncrasies of my own. I do. But mine don't make noise. Take for example my issues with:
TOILET PAPER RE-ORIENTATION.
I am very fussy (bordering on OCD) when it comes to toilet paper placement on the dispenser. There is, in my mind, nothing quite as disturbing as seeing toilet paper on the roll going the wrong way. In the unwritten law of SeanCentral Janitorial Ethics, TP should be placed with the free end coming up over the top of the roll (like in hotels) so the roll spins toward you, like this:
I am somehow definitely disturbed by seeing the roll going the other way, like this (shudder):
Why does it bother me? I have no idea. It just does. And if this little peek into my mind isn't sad enough, I'll also admit to having taken rolls out of a dispenser and reinserting them to my liking, (even if my visit to the bathroom at that particular moment required no use of said toilet paper roll.)
I suppose this weirdness also forces me to warn you that one day when you least expect it, you may find your own toilet paper roll mysteriously switched around from Dangling-In-Back to Up-And-Over-In-Front. So there. If you ever find your own personal roll mysteriously switched at your house, it was probably me. That being said, I just know that some of you clowns will load up your TP going the other way on purpose, and then invite me over and tell me to go into the bathroom and see what's new. You see, this is why I started cracking my knuckles in the first place.
On the positive side of things at work, the saintpaulia leaves that I've been trying to propagate under my grow-light next to my desk, are finally sprouting little plantlets. Looky:
It's pretty ironic if you look closely, at what i am using to line the bottom of the plant tray to ensure proper drainage. Yes. Bubble wrap.
And no, I am not writing this post on company time.
Postponing some physical food for an hour to enjoy some spiritual food is always well worth it...especially when the generous friends have decided to prepare a feast for us after our year-end pioneer meeting! Thanks guys!
Although we've almost always managed a steady count of 20 or more RP's, we are currently holding fast at 17... which, mind you, is not bad. In fact, even though 4 of our RPs moved away the past year, we've rebounded with 5 new ones, and with 9 on the servant body serving as regular or continuous auxillary pioneers, it's been an encouraging and high octane year as usual. Vroom, vroom!
It's no wonder then, that despite being incredibly hungry, we still manage to appear vivacious, cute and/or hunky in the following photo...especially those two seated in front. (What? Are you saying they're NOT?)
Then we notice Edna is not in the picture and that Ralph is hiding behind Michi so we try again.
Of course now, half the people are looking the other way.1
As far as the meeting itself went, Mark and I had the privilege of developing the outline and I think we did pretty well. There was excellent, heartfelt participation and everyone seemed tuned in and attentive through the whole thing. Maybe a little too attentive, since Neal took the initiative to notice that Mark and I looked like Checkers and Pogo sitting in front of the room. Those of you growing up in Hawaii during the 60's and 70's can probably see his point.
I am taking the Checkers and Pogo Poge observation as a compliment since those two were both wholesome and entertaining characters back in the day. I am also guessing that Mark's the bigger one with the hearty smile and I'm the stumpy one with the loud, flowered vest and funny hat. Thanks Neal.2
1 Actually, they're looking at Adrian's camera so you can maybe ask him for his photo. Of course, I suppose there would still be half of us looking the OTHER, other way.
2 No, I really mean it. In fact, I think Pogo is wearing one cool vest! If i had a shirt or tie with the same print, you just KNOW I'd wear it. Um, but that hat's gotta go.
So while everyone else in my group was obediently turning in their time for November last night (I'm so proud of you guys!), I discovered to my chagrin, that I had left my field service calender at work. Not wanting to grieve Oly more than necessary, I promised myself to email him my time from the office first thing this morning...that is until I discovered that someone had tossed my calendar. That'll teach ME! Sigh.
So now, I'm little bummed. And it's not even because someone threw my calender away . It's because I've suddenly realized I can remember my service statistics for the whole month even without a calender...which should give you a hint of how my service for the month went. Okay, it wasn't what you'd call horrible. In fact, it really didn't look all that bad on paper but for my purposes, it wasn't exactly fantabulous either. Blame it on "NOVEMBER."
November was one of those months that came and went in a blur of activity. Not all necessarily horrible activity, mind you. There was the Special Day Assembly with the subsequent prep for translations and an interview, the KM school in Honoka'a, houseguests, and 2 public talks. But there was also cruddy stuff like extra work days. Which has left me feeling a tad bit, oh I dunno, burnt out, perhaps.
At this point, ninety-eight point twenty seven percent of me wants to get off this rock reaaaal bad for a mini vacation, just for a day or two, while the other 1.73% of me says to stay put this early in the service year and get some more work done. I've mathematically figured out all the details of this dilemma and after hours of measuring and calculating, came up with the following flowchart:
Looks like I'm outta here! I'll send you a postcard.
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