That’s The Way the World Goes

While I miss the green of the Island, I am much reminded of the words of Sir Walter Scott when he wrote in “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
“This is my own, my native land!”
Whose heart hat ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!.....

There is more … of course, it is one loooonnnnngggg poem, but you get the picture.

We started the trek home by having “Uncle Milty’s” firm let us know that we would be leaving an hour later than scheduled. No big deal except that meant that getting through customs and on to the connecting flight would be unlikely and you all know how I feel about the YVR airport – in case you’ve forgotten, the ONLY good thing about the place is the fact that one is usually going somewhere else.

Predictably we missed the flight by a mere 10 minutes. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t much as we were booked on the next plane out. HOWEVER, how does it come about that the 767 that we spend five hours on had ordinary seats and the one that was used for the shortest leg had wonderful lie-flat dealies with all kinds of adjustments. It really didn’t seem fair, I mean seriously there was only a digit different between the two models of Boeing (and probably a hundred years! …. OK an exaggeration BUT …). One plane was a 767-200 and the other a 767-300 of some version or other

May will see some interesting changes in my life as I’ve the opportunity to become more involved in aviation in a very practical way. More about this as things become more clear and defined. Stay tuned … oh and by the way? Anyone on the market for a couple of tickets to “The Big Whoopty” I have a couple at the bargain price … and yes Captain Tara, I have yours and will see if I can enlist CanaGal’s assistance in getting it to you.

Stay tuned to this space for further announcements!

Up and Attem

We are packing, putting stuff away, covering furniture, all those things that indicated that we are leaving. It has been good, weather, so-so but not snow so can’t complain. Today I managed to screw up my back and I’m not happy about that. Hey man, I’m here for the heavy lifting! In fact, I think I strained the muscles leaning over the computer and disconnecting my camera stuff.

We went to The Point where we exercise, on Wednesday for the last time,


followed quickly by a cappuccino at the Sundry place – now does that make sense? It did to us!

Last evening we were invited by a local friend to hear a duet performing in one of the hotels. The music was terrific and decidedly Hawaiian although they did throw in “Canadian Sunset” for the likes of us haoles!

Guess Who Is Coming To Breakfast

One would think that awakening in Hawaii would be to the pleasant cooing of the morning dove:

...more often than not it is the irritating beep-beep-beep of a sanitation truck who is in the process of reversing. You have to wonder why, on a street that is basically very straight, why these behemoths would need to shift to reverse – the gear that activates the beep-beep-beep. No matter, waking up and knowing there will be no snow is reward enough.

As a special treat the other day we had this little bird come and stand on the lanai rail:

The Great Cookie Caper

Well, I wanted to write yesterday about “the great cookie caper” but the job wasn’t finished until today.

Having obtained suitable nourishment at JJ’s – chicken potpie is devine, off we went to try to secure specially hand made doggie biscuits. The shop, Hawaiian Doggie Bakery and Gift Shop use to be located at a very popular shopping centre, Victoria Ward Like a lot of retail space, the rent probably went up and the shop left for the less touristy and more difficult environs of, not quite suburbia, but for sure, not the city centre. Along for the trip was one of my local buddies (NEVER, NEVER refer to the people who live here as “natives” as in “Are you native to this island?” Always use “local” as in “Are you a local?”). You would think with local help this should be a snap but, no joy in sunville until I stopped at a Vet hospital – as in critters, not former armed services personnel, near where I “thought” the place might be. They gave me specific directions and I was able to track down the ever elusive peanut butter mutt bar! Well, that isn’t really the name of it but I think that that is very cool. As I said the work wasn’t complete until today as they are only open Friday, Saturday, Sunday and wouldn’t you know it, even today, we were too early as their day doesn’t start until 11:00AM and ends at 5:00PM.

Other events of the day included a rather mundane trip to CostCo for some pineapple that was already chopped up, a visit to “Wally-mart” with the Wally-mart queen for some staples and some serious reading of Guadalcanal by Richard B. Frank …. yes, that REALLY is the author’s name. A small tome of only 766 pages including notes … probably take me longer to read it than it took the US Marines to take it!

As an aside, I DID get a comment from a local about the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies (APC) – see blog comments for blog entry titled “Wednesday April 18th 2007 . It was kind of funny in a way as she apologized to me, for my seeing it as “spooky” and went on to say it was an active centre of learning and had NOTHING to do with the CIA …. too, too funny in away as I have just finished watching “The Good Shepherd” just before I came down – excellent movie by the way … yes of course APC has “nothing” to do with the CIA … of course not …. yes ….

Today we moseyed around on some concrete and then over to the Hale Koa The Hale Koa is interesting in that it was constructed with funds and is dedicated to the men and women of the American Armed Forces. If you have ever read a novel where a Vietenam Vet left the front for R & R, in all likelihood they spent their time at the Hale Koa. It has a huge banyon tree in the lower court yard and an excellent restaurant … yummmmm salmon!
The path home goes right past the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies I always think this place is sort of spooky and I wonder if the CIA is lurking behind every palm busily taking photos – so I took one of my own.

Usually I’m not much of a flower picture taker, much preferring aircraft. However, today, one of the trees was so spectacular in it flowering it deserved a special moment.

Fun With “The Girls”

It seems I cannot stray too far from aviation. Yes indeedy the opportunity for a pot luck with some of the local WAI ladies. What a blast, catching up on what everyone is doing and finding that some folk are in their dream jobs and others are just embarking on the trail. The level of energy, intelligence, commitment and courage never fails to impress me at these gatherings as I observe people coming to terms with the challenges life affords.

Cindy was so gracious offering her home for the potluck and the other members, so welcoming to a couple of Canucks who wandered in among them. This group of ladies has always been most hospitable. Whether or not it is the Aloha spirit or just simply their nature matters not, it is simply there.
Today’s adventure included a delightful stop at a French style bakery on Waialae Street, JJ’s Bistro http://members.tripod.com/Inprany/jj/index.html The products were absolutely beautiful in their presentation, almost too good to eat – mind THAT would not stop me. Imagine, the aroma of good coffee, not bitter like Starbuck’s, but warm smelling coffee and a beautifully prepared rum-walnut tort . Yummmmm I’m recommending

I'm Here ...

So … is there anything more intimidating than LAX at night when you have to travel from one terminal to another? My travel connections, this time, courtesy of aeroplan, were not the most convenient. Try YYC, YVR, LAX and finally HNL. My layover in LAX was something like 12 hours BUT encompassed the 12 hours from 10:00PM to 8:00AM the next day. The gate agent in YYC was not enthused about checking me through to HNL because the flight was the next day and in fact refused to get me a boarding pass. Fortunately for me the gal looking after the Maple Leaf lounge in YVR was much more disposed to the “service” part of service agent and she went to the effort of getting me the Boarding pass which turned out to be a vital cog in the wheel.

There is something terribly, terribly intimidating to getting off a plane in a busy airport at night, knowing full well that you will be staying at the airport. As soon as I de-planed I looked for an information board that might tell me where my next gate would be. No luck, so I approached a gal who seemed to be directing people somewhere but believe it or not, she had no idea as to where United Airlines (UA) practiced their sorcery of moving people from one place to another on the planet. She suggested that I call the 1-800 number – that seemed totally ridiculous to me, especially since I didn’t have US change in my pocket. As I was exiting the terminal I asked a security officer how I might get to a different terminal, knowing in the back of my mind that there must be a shuttle system. The security officer told me to take the escalator “down” and I followed directions and I found myself outside the terminal in a milling crowd of what seemed like hundreds of people who all knew where they were going, plus five lanes of traffic. - All very intimidating.

Next stop – police officer who told me to go to the median, stand under a blue sign and wait for a shuttle bus marked A. After a few minutes a large bus stopped, opened their doors and I hopped on. “Do you go to terminal 7?” “Yes”, in heavily accented English. Nestling down in the plastic seat with just my back pack I began to relax until I realized that I had been in a similar situation and the bus driver had given me similar assurance BUT had not bothered to inform me when the destination was reached, resulting in me making three full circuits until he realized that I seemed to have taken up permanent residence on his bus.

Leaning forward I asked: “Will you tell me when we are at the correct terminal?” … “Yes”. In a few minutes we arrived at the correct terminal, I jumped off the bus into the seething, roiling mass of humanity, only to find myself in a hoard of people seeking their luggage from various carousels. No ticket agent, no one identifiable as an authority of airline. I wandered a bit until it dawned on me that what I needed to do was get to the level where passengers passed through security to various gates – clearly I needed an “up” to match the “down” of terminal two.

The escalator led me to a bank of sever self-serve ticket machines, no agents. Finally I followed a ribboned corridor to a series of agents standing beside scales and yet, interestingly, there was no invitation to approach the various agents for assistance. Finally, in a very un-Canadian way I simply stepped up to a counter and said “Excuse me can you tell me what gate UA 081 will load from”.

Horror of horrors the flight didn’t leave until the next day (I knew that already). Not only was the agent unwilling to provide a gate because “it might change by tomorrow”, she strongly advised against going through Security as my Boarding Pass was for tomorrow – they would not let me through. Best I sit on the formed plastic bench at the departure ticket level near the doors.

Being a good littlie “do-bie” and Canadian I docilely sat down … for about five minutes, thinking “Man … all night here … this really sucks” ….. Up I get, to the Security line I go, they look at my Boarding Pass, note that I am “early” and I am whisked through in no time. An electric cart later, I find myself at the 70’s gate, thinking to myself if the plane leaves from the 60’s it will not be a big deal to slip down another chute. My flight was not listed until around 3:00AM but I have to say there was something much comforting being by big windows where I could watch a number of flights land and leave than sitting on a sleazy, formed plastic bench just off a busy, busy road. So my trip to HNL began …. 36 hours between sleeps, maybe longer but … I’m here!

Tonight I am off to a Pot Luck with some of the local Women in Aviation gals – should be a good time!

OCD or ... The Lone Re-arranger

Today I thought I would share some of Spook’s peculiarities, of which she has several. Now this fierce jungle cat, this paragon of bathroom bravery – insists on visiting me when I am trying to take a nice, relaxing bubble bath, this cat of rescue cats is has OCD . Yes, you read correctly, OCD. Now ordinarily one might think that OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, one of the myriad of disorders listed in the DSM . Close, but no cigar as they say.


OCD in Spook’s case refers to the fact that consistently tampers with anything that is framed on the wall and within paw reach. She has Obsessive Cat Disturbance. It seems, poor thing, she cannot bear that things be “squared”. Many of the “other” OCD types try to square things. Spook spends her life, reaching up with her little paws to dislodge and disturb pictures and the like. Making this more annoying for me is that fact that there is a picture in my room that she can just, just get at and at night she seems to think it is particularly good sport to rattle this rather large framed picture around. Not so smart if the darned thing falls on top of her. Sometimes I try to think of things to throw in her direction when she is doing this but “thinking” and just waking up don’t belong in the same sentence for me. At least I have the sense NOT to heave anything of significant weight and thereby damage MY stuff and have Spook laughing all the way as she dives under the bed! Now I’m not sure if the fact that things are square disturbs or distresses her or whether she things there might be some kind of secret path out of the house under the framed object d’art but I DO know that she knows she is NOT suppose to be doing this stuff as she moves really quickly when I go to grab the camera. Even now, as I type this, I see her eyeing the frames with a wistful look.

Copy Kat

Stolen From Coffee ... I googled the images of the following:

First Car:

Place I grew up and where I live now:


My name ... doesn't look like me at all! Who is this person?!?

Grandmother's name ... for shame, I've NOT A CLUE what her first name was!

Favorite Food:
Favorite Drink
Favorite Book:










Favorite Smell-Spring Rain:


Favorite Colour:

Time Flies ... (and I'm a Little Jealous 'cause I'm NOT!)

Wow, I can’t believe that it has been so long since I last made a note in this blog. Since the pictures of the “girls” at the screen we have had winter at least three more times! My big sister is almost ready to return from Singapore and oh, yeah …. Pella the window people are STILL around.

Now remember, this process started, I think, back in October or November, with the need to book a date for the window replacement. By window I mean casing et al. The window and casement have been installed but there have been issue after issue. The most recent issue being, the inside trim. Did you know that the portion of the horizontal window ledge that sticks out into the interior of the room is called a window stool? Nah, me neither …. who knew a window even got tired and needed to sit down, anyway? At this point I know more about windows than what I need to given that I live in a condo because I DON’T DO REPAIRS! OK, the pine, which the installers originally installed has all been pulled and was suppose to be replaced by oak and it was SUPPOSE to take place in one day … nope, somehow the wall board/gyprock needed to be repaired and it will take TWO days …. They promise me that they will finish the next time they come BUT, the change means that I have to have the fellow doing the stain return as he will now be working with OAK & PINE as the inside frame of the window remains pine, only the head jamb and side jambs as well as the stool remain pine. The staining, I already know, will take two days of noxious odor. Sssshheee!

The cats hate being confined to my room while these guys are working and today I asked if I could leave them free the next time they came by. The team lead assured me that there would be no problem. The cats were released from kitty-jail and not two minutes later the team lead left the door wide open. Fortunately for me (and the cats) they were still sulking upstairs and missed their opportunity to escape. In fact, I was discussing the very fact that I have two kitties with them and proposed the following remedy: