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Car Registration

It's been awhile since my last post because I have been busy as a bee, slaving away at the office the past week.   To make a long story short, I've had to temporarily carry a full time workload on a part time schedule due to a staff shortage.  In other words, the Boss still allowed me to leave work early on Mondays for evening witnessing and take Friday off for all day service as usual, BUT I had to come in on my own time to do work... you know,  staying to 10:30 at night, going in at 6:30am and coming in on Saturday afternoon.  Not exceedingly horrid since the office is all quiet at those times and I can crank up my internet radio as loud as I like and sing, but it wasn't what you'd exactly call fun either.  Whatever the case was, I'm glad it's over. 

 Saturday afternoon's work
 

Of course, now I'm at the other extreme since my hours have been cut beginning today.   Actually, I was told last week that my hours weren't going to be cut, per say.  They just didn't want me coming in on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.  Per say.   

{Pause and ponder}

Anyway, my first reduced-hour workday worked out pretty well since I had a ton of stuff to do this afternoon.  Well okay- just one.  I waited till the last minute again this year  to renew my car registration and ended up having to fight the crowds down at the local DMV.  I swear, there were nearly 30 people in line in front of me.  Unfortunately, part of the line (the longer part) had somehow been randomly re-directed to a single window, resulting in mass confusion, unintentional cutting in line, complaining and overall noise. 

One particularly vocal woman finally made it known to the whole room that this was JUST NOT FAIR and that she was finding it VERY HARD to be a Christian under the present unjust circumstances.   That brought on sounds of acknowlegement and cheers of "You go, sistah!" from the crowds.  At this point, I was half expecting her to don a white robe and begin singing an upbeat hymn while we clapped in time to the organ music.  Sadly, all her little sermon did was bring out the supervisor who managed to ease the crowds and open another window.  Not quite as exciting as I had envisoned but all the better I suppose.  I hate organ music.

Cad is ainm duit?*

I've always thought the name "S-E-A-N" was  common enough that everyone would know how to pronounce it correctly. 

Of course, the spellings "Shawn" or "Shaun" make sense according to the rules of English pronunciation while my H-less form doesn't, and that's exactly the problem.    The spelling isn't logical in English,  because it ISN'T English.  It's Irish/Gaelic.  Therefore, the clover and today's green font.  Clever, no?

So now you know why my name looks funny.  In Irish/Gaelic, the letter "S" is pronounced  like "SH" when surrounded by the vowels "i" or "e".  This results in names like Sinead (Jane), Seamus (James), and Siobhan (Joan) being pronounced respectively as  "she-NAID", "SHAY-mus" and "she-VON".  And yes, following the Gaelic rules of pronunciation,  "Sean" is indeed pronounced "SHON".  Just so you're aware.  But you can still call me "Shane", "Seen" or "Say-un" if you like.  You can even spell my name with the "H".  I won't get mad.  But don't expect any favors, OK?

Speaking of nominal confusion, check out my latest orchid purchase:

Newly acquired A. basserianum, also known as A. bosseri also known as A. sesquipedale   

The plant label says Angraecum basserianum (an-GRAY-kum  bah-seh-ree-AYE-num) and with the greenish-white star-shaped flowers and the long spur coming off the back of the lip, the Angraecum part makes perfect sense.  But I'd never heard of species basserianum before, and a Google search pulled up species bosseri (BAW-seh-rye), instead.  Angraecum bosseri in turn is no longer correct.  It's now called Angraecum sesquipedale (sess-kwih-PED-ah-lee).  In fact, over the years, (and admittedly much worse than my Sean/Shawn/Shane/Shaun/Shon/Seen scenario)  this poor orchid has been subjected to being called by some 8 different scientific names.  Eight!  But sesquipedale is what's currently accepted, just so you're aware. I'm sure you can still insist on calling it  bosseri or keep misspelling it basserianum if you like, without the plant getting mad.  Just don't, you know, expect any favors.

While we're on the subject of Angraecums, here's another species Angraecum eburneum in bloom outside today.  Pretty cool, me thinks.

  A. eburneum  

  ^*CAD IS AINM DUIT (pronounced cod iss an-um ditch) is Gaelic/Irish and  means "What's your name?".

Ní ábhar mar a fhios agam cé mé."It doesn't matter because I know who I am." 

Cupcake's Been Busy

 Kitty proves she hasn't lost her touch

Parking Lot Rage

Went to Kona today to give a talk and spent part of the early afternoon doing some shopping.  Everything was going well until I got to the Ross parking lot where a man (whom I'll refer to as "Bob"), was reversing out of a parking stall.  He almost hit me as I drove around the corner. Bob was visibly enraged and called me over.

    "Don't you EVER watch where you're going???!" he yelled.

Besides the irritation stemming from the emphatic and overly dramatized use of the word "EVER", I was pretty sure that the person reversing out of a stall is the one who is supposed to watch for traffic coming up and down the row and then yield. But Bob, who was turning redder by the second, didn't seem to be particularly interested in the rules of traffic.

I had a few really good smart-alecky remarks in mind but since it was his quick braking that saved the day, I decided to apologize instead.  Bob didn't seem to want any part of it and proceeded to give me (and everyone else in the immediate vicinity) a small  lecture on how I would be hit if I kept being unattentive, so I apologized again.  Bob was still not satisfied.  He just sat there, car still halfway reversed, motor running, window down, glaring at me.

I really had no idea what more he expected me to do after three apologies.  Go round the parking lot and try again?  Put on a puppet show?  Get down on my hands and knees and give him a pedicure?  Unfortunately for him, I had forgotten my nail file and buffer at home and so I finally gave up and walked away, muttering to myself about this being typical Kona behavior.

Now before all you nice people in west Hawaii accuse me of being prejudiced, what I meant to say is that such Bobesque behavior (ie: stubbornly sitting there in his air conditioned vehicle, whining loudly trying to prove a point and insisting that others sit up and take notice of his personal rights) isn't something I'd ever expect to come across in Hilo.  No sir.  The Bobs of East Hawaii wouldn't even bother with making all of that racket.  They'd opt instead for a more streamlined plan which would entail nicely reparking their cars trucks before coming over and punching me in the face.  You know, more ghetto, less whiny.  Yay Hilo!

All  of this reminded me of a funny clip from Malcolm in the Middle where Lois gets involved in some Parking Lot Rage during the holidays.  The lesson?  Be safe.  Always look twice.  And don't be a Bob.

Tabemasho muchachos!

 
Ralph, Evelyn, Sergio, Isabel, Irina, Misael and I spent a delightfully sunny winter morning in field service, this quiet New Year's day.  Unlike yesterday's rain and mist in Fern Acres, the skies above Volcano Village arched a deep blue overhead.  We found a nice Peruvian couple named Mauricito and Paula and later encountered a new guy from Mexico named Pedro a few miles down the highway.  The morning seemed to end far too quickly.  Of course, the fact that we went to Mickey D's before trekking up to Volcano, and the fact that I took more than a few wrong turns once we got there, might have had something to do with it.  But what can I say?  All the streets in Volcano Village look the same, everyone has tree ferns and camellias in their yard and I only had 5 hours of sleep the previous night due to all the smoke and explosives.  You'd maybe get  lost too, me thinks. 

All of this rambling about my less than pristine sense of direction really has no relation to my post, as you may have already guessed by observing the  Asian-looking squiggly lines above.  Although judging from how many wrong turns I made in the territory, said squiggly lines may actually be a map of the route we followed.  They're not.  But they could be.

No, actually, those kanji characters represent the Japanese word for "dinner" since we are having a Japanese batayaki shindig this evening.  Suzy got me started on this whole batayaki thing after graciously preparing it last week.  It had been years since I had last tasted it and I wanted it again, so Mom and I  are inviting a few innocent, wide-eyed, unsuspecting mexicanos over for their first taste of Japanese butter-fried meat and veggies with a decidedly non-Tapatio based accompaniment of grated turnips and soy-sauce.  Will they still be smiling after seeing what's on the menu?   See the photo set to find out.

PHOTO SET HERE