Falling in the Wilderness (and Everywhere Else, Apparently)

Can you believe I twisted my ankle AGAIN!?

I apparently cannot venture out into anything resembling wilderness without being a bumbling fool at one point or another. I think I have twisted it so many times, the tendons just can’t take it anymore. David has ruled that I can’t go outdoors without a little brace thing for my ankle. Sadly, I’m sure he’s right. How annoying.

Before all the pain and screaming, it was a fun little outing. David and I had just bought a second bike, so we were now free to roam the area together with our trusty sidekick, Lily. I didn’t want to go very far, plus we don’t have a bike rack for the car yet. I'm all about Lazy Exercise. So, we tooled around on the property and took a little dirt road out past the guard house. Here are some pictures from the trip:

At which point I took my eyes away from the rock for 1 millisecond, which is all it apparently takes for me to start weaving like a drunk and fall over. This time, my ankle slipped between two rocks, and my body went another direction. It was pretty terrible, because as you can see, the beach is surrounded by a ring of boulders. (Ok, so they are too small to be boulders, but they felt like them at the time, plus I am tired of using the word ‘rocks’ every other sentence).

After David got me up those as gently as possible, he piggy-backed me out of there and called in the cavalry (Courtney and Paul) to come drive me and our bikes back to the house, where I once again was pitiful and swollen.

Of course, about a week later what do I do? If you guessed ‘twisted your ankle again in a sad and bizarre way’ we were probably good friends at some point. Get this: I twisted my ankle SITTING DOWN. I should probably be embarrassed enough that I achieved this to leave it out of the blog, but I couldn’t do it - it is just too ridiculous. It was as simple as my foot slipping out of my shoe, and not thinking, I tried to shove it back in with disastrous results. I am fine now, but my ankle is still swollen. Brother.


We have since gone back and finished our bike ride – it would be a good place to bike to for some solitude – we want to bring out some chairs for reading on the cliffs, or maybe bust out the easel to do some really terrible artwork I will probably force you to look at.

Almost home - safe and sound. For once.

I also went on another hike, which I’m not going to write about bc it wasn’t all that interesting. I put some pictures from it below. But the important thing here was I didn’t twist my ankle. Woo Hoo!

On the trail

Bear the Gargoyle - or at least I am pretty sure that is what Paul is trying to portray here. I think they are starting to understand if you do anything that could be considered crazy, I'm going to put it on the site. I think that is why there are so few pictures of David being dorky - he has learned to check for the camera first.

Look! Cactus! I almost feel like I'm at home. However, due to lack of predators (cactus have predators?!) they have no spines. Neat, huh?

As you can tell, it was pretty windy up there.

Which is probably why Courtney lost her hat.

They disappeared over that rock, looking for it, for around 15 minutes which was long enough for me to convince myself they have fallen off the rock and needed rescuing. Naturally, I sent David to do it.

At the top - I'm amazed the water was still that blue, even though it was so cloudy.

The main disappointment with this hike is that the whole point was to see whales. It's famous for its endless supply in the winter. We did not see a single one.

I mean, come on - there was a sign and everything.

Here are a lot more people being dissapointed. I decided to entertian myself in the meantime.

We thought the juxtaposition of the Christmas tree and sno-cones was funny.

**UPDATE**


Well, I write these things, and then sit around forever while I try to find the time to actually add pictures to the thing. So, that leaves a lot of time for updating the storyline...which this one keeps getting added to, unfortunately. Which means....

That's right! Oops, I did it again.


I've screwed up my ankle yet again, and this time I'm not even sure how. I woke up and.... surprise! I can't walk without looking like a zombie. Honestly. I was going to start riding again too. Now I have to wait... again.... to be able to do anything fun. They've started calling me 'Grace' at work.

I think there is some sarcasm involved.

Neighborhood Sights

I was home for work early one day, or something, so Court and I decided to take the dogs out for a bit to blow off some steam.

Ah - my kind of afternoon. Sand, sun, and a good book

This is a lagoon right by my house, just off hotel property – hence the dogs. It is nice that we can walk or bike to things like this, no problem. Lily loves the beach. Or, she loves running around like a maniac on it, anyway.

It turns out that Lily runs so hard, the pressure of her pushing off the sand actually splits the skin in between her toes. We didn’t notice at first, but we have to keep a close watch on her now and make sure she keeps the speed level down to nothing faster than a Mach 2.

In this pic, she had run too much already and was resting her paws in the surf.

I think it’s pretty though – it’s crazy to have something like this in your neighborhood.

Partridge in a Palm Tree

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

It has been a weird holiday season for me. The separation from family, combined with the weather and fusion Hawaiian-Christmas music (imagine: The Beach Boys singing ‘White Christmas’ gaaah.) have kind of robbed the holiday from me. I probably should have written this post earlier, before I got used to the Hawaiian weirdness and it no longer bothered me. I spend a lot of time walking around, and I remember my incredulity at the vast differences between the holidays here and at home. I wrote a bunch of funny editorials in my head, and then promptly forgot them. It's annoying. It's like once my brain is done analyzing a situation, it is erased from my head and all I have left is a vague tingling sensation that I've forgotten something important, again.

This is the star of the downtown Honolulu decorations - Santa's big toe is about the size of my head. You could find Santa in various states of undress all around town, enjoying the Hawaiian lifestyle.

I think that is what I will miss the most (other than people) – seasons. The cooling weather, fires, hot chocolate, and home cooking are all missing out here. I just couldn’t get into it, which is saying something as you all know I am kinda Christmas-Crazy. All the aspects are there; Christmas lights downtown, pine trees, shopping hordes…could weather alone make that much of a difference? While I was overjoyed to spend a Christmas with my sister again after so many years, something was missing. The magic. The magic was missing. That sounds like a horribly cheesy tag line, but I'm not sure how else to convey it. Where did it go? As it is something nigh impossible to define, it will remain a mystery. Thank you to everyone who sent us a Christmas card – they were like little lifelines to back home where there was someone who missed us. We appreciated every one.

Heading to David's Office Christmas Party

Decorating the tree later that evening

Christmas Day itself was fun – David and I started out the day with a video conference back to the Dyer household. I do miss his crazy family, even though half the time I’m unsure if I’m being laughed with, or at. We have an evil plan to lure them all our for Christmas next year, which would be wonderful if only it could happen. Here’s hoping. Below is this year’s Dyer Christmas Portrait. They posed with us via the webcam. Pretty cool.

Then we loaded up and went over to Court and Paul’s to borrow their tree, and proceeded to open our presents. The ones who really made out like bandits were the dogs – flooded with the influx of toys, their little brains went hyperspastic. Many a stuffed toy met their end that day, when they (they being Lily) finally quit stealing from each other and settled down with one toy to destroy. I discovered that it is a good thing Bear is the most well-trained dog on earth – she can reduce anything to little pieces in about 10 minutes, if she really concentrates.

The dogs wait to open presents from my mom - I think they got more than I did.

Watch out, fish! Or in this case, Christmas tree.

David's big present was a subwoofer to complete his entertianment utopia.

The dogs rip into their gift

My present from David

Court and Paul are ready for the ocean! In case you were wondering, that thing Court is holding is to suck up fish so you can look at them closer.

Walkin' in a Wrapping Wonderland

David's new tradition for celebrating holidays

After that we headed out to a BBQ dinner on the beach. I had heard from somewhere that it is traditional to eat ahi (tuna) on Christmas, so that is what we had. Usually when I think I’ve heard something ‘from somewhere’ that somewhere is David, and since I’m too lazy to actually look it up myself, I can always point the finger at him in case I’m wrong.

David and I had bought a portable grill for future beach parties, so after a few false starts, it got its inauguration. We had a wonderful time, and after eating headed down to relax on the beach and laugh as Lily went into Beach Mode, which bears a striking resemblance to Freak Out Mode.

Paul tests our new beach grill

That's all you really see of Lily for the first 10 minutes - a blur.

Here we are enjoying one of my mom’s gifts – ridiculously nice beach towels. We all kept remarking that they felt too nice to put on the sand.

After, we crashed at Court’s and watched an episode of Firefly – which if you are a big SciFi dork like me, you will love. If you’re not, pretend that you don't know I am.

Mom sent Christmas Crackers with her gifts, and I thought that was just awesome. Here we are with our prizes.

So Aloha and Merry Christmas to you all from Oahu – I hope you enjoyed and cherished your respective holiday with your families.