Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!

Teresa Fannin, reader, writer, gardener, chocolate fan & tea drinker

Author: teresafannin (Page 34 of 56)

shopping

05/13/2013 /

A vocation, avocation, hobby, addiction, call it whatever you want, but I can not resist shopping. There was a time when I bought, but what do I really need to accumulate? Now I just look. It’s not the big IMG_0019department stores that are so much fun, you can find that stuff anywhere, it’s in the little shops that you find the nifty stuff. So we went to the Macadamia Factory. I wanted to go to a farm, but no. You can’t do that, the macadamia farmers–growers?–keep their property personal, private. So. Okay, and, oh, yes, chocolate covered macadamia, 70% cacao, ah, love those anti-oxidants.

The Bamboo The Macadamia Factory is on the north eastern shore of Hawaii, the big island, at Waikoloa Beach. Today, after we recovered from the flight, had a nice breakfast, because that can set you up for the whole day, and we had moved fully into a time zone six hours from our own, we decided to head north along the only road that traverses the eastern side of the island, We went north to Hawi Town, to The Bamboo, a lovely little restaurant in a former hotel for the Chinese brought into work in the sugar plantations.

IMG_0024 I had a lovely fish, ono, with a fresh fruit chutney. I love chutneys, I love the flavors, the mixing of tastes and colors, well, wow. So then we walked around the town, it’s now a historic property. In one shop we came across had these baseball caps, with hardwood visors. Cool, but not for the price.

IMG_0048Then we drove. It’s one of our favorite things to do. We do long-cuts. Never short-cuts because theyIMG_0047 are much less fun. Long-cuts, there should be more about this in the English language.

Anyway, after a roundabout long-cut, we ended up back in Waikoloa Beach, and The King’s Shops. With, are you ready? the smallest Macy Store ever. Yes, it is that small. So, now we can say, we’ve been to the IMG_0050largest Macy store, in New York City [ha! where else?] and to the smallest. I like the symmetry, the stores being at either end of the United States, like bookends. Sort of fits in with my shopping.

Hawi Town

05/12/2013 /

Nice trip down to Kailua-Kona, saw the coffee farm, couldn’t find Captain Cook, had lunch, came IMG_0043home and took a nap. We knew there was a catholic church just outside of Hawi Town. But since we believe in the journey as much as the destination, and, I’m sitting, now,  with a cup of Camomile Tea and a chocolate covered macadamia nut well, here’s what happened next.  We went north. It’s a strange drive, first you pass acres and acres of lava, it’s desolate and bleak.IMG_0046 Then you drive a bit longer and there is the beginning of green, but just the beginning and there’s scrub, reminds me of chaparral in the high desert, and these trees, looking like hands, reaching out of the ground and I though of you, Gretchen Griffith. And the more north, the more green and then you think, ‘yeah, this is tropical.’ IMG_0042   So, back to the catholic church. IMG_0040 Around 4 pm we set off, everyone said it would take about an hour. They lied. It took about thirty five minutes. We prayed for them.

We drove in and out of rain. We saw the sun rays peek through huge clouds and shine a spotlight on the ocean, like that was the perfect place for those rays to be, finally arriving at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

A lovely IMG_0092beige wooden structure, above the road, looking very old, with a grotto to the Madonna. It was IMG_0090starting to rain, yet again, and so we ducked inside. Beautiful stained glass windows, made me think of Villa Cabrini and the way the light used to come through the colored glass. Cushioned pews, saintly statues, fans gently whirring above, that not unpleasant odor of calm,  defintely an old church. As we get to the doorway a woman approached us with two leis of puka shells, hand tied, and a note attached, Sacred Heart Parish. The woman places the lei over my head and hugs me. “Welcome to Sacred Heart.”
Then to Tom. And she invited us into the church. We celebrated the Ascension at Sunday mass.  Father gave a lovely homily focusing on IMG_0096the ascended Lord, and then mass ended with a blessing for mothers on Mother’s Day. As we exited the church there was a rose and a bag of candy which Father said was non-fat :-). And so we came back to our condo. A full, satisfying Saturday on the big island.

 

coffee and Cook

05/12/2013 /

Kona. Think Kona and you think coffee.  So, today we drove south past the Kona airport to Ka’iminagni Drive IMG_0075and turned left. Like lots of places on this island when you turn away from the ocean, you go up. In no time, we were up 1500 feet above sea level. We were looking for Hula Coffee Company and they were closed. We drove a bit further, took an ‘s’ turn and came to Blue Sky Kona Coffee. We watched a video, not the best part but, then we got a sort of tour. The company is over a hundred years, farms five hundred acres and is still in the same family. IMG_0072Coffee beans start out pretty flowers, part of the gardenia family with a faint aromatic perfume. Then as the flower IMG_0067begin to fade, the beans start to grow. The bushes bloom from January to June and the beams are picked when they turn red. There are three beans, all from the same tree, the peaberry-small, less bitter [great with dark chocolate], the Ohana-a medium size bean and the Estate-the largest bean. Fact: the darker the roast the less the caffeine. Coffee was brought to Hawaii by missionaries, not a huge surprise if you know your history. Coffee labeled Kona must be grown within the Kona region, an area twenty miles by two miles and between 1200 and 1600 feet above sea level. IMG_0074
IMG_0080

And just to make this more interesting, here is raw chocolate! Yes, cacao beans, when they are pumpkin orange, that’s when they should be picked. Sad, all this chocolate going to waste. Boo! After the coffee farm we drove back down to highway 11 to find the Captain Cook IMG_0084monument. No such luck, we drove twice through Captain Cook Hawaii. On the way down Kamehameha Road to sea level, at a lookout we spotted this hedge of IMG_0078flowers, and a view  and the Kahalu’i Beach Park and the Catholic Church, Saint Peter’s By The Sea, a little small, but right there on the beach next to the surfers. We found a Humpy’s AleHouse by the Sea in Kailua and had lunch, outside, fish and chips, and a perfect view of the ocean. And we got home in time to take a nap!

Well, yes, this may well be paradise.

 

resorts

05/11/2013 /

IMG_0006We’re on a different planet for the next ten days. It felt that way after the trip here. I mean, four and a half hours to Phoenix and then six hours to Kona? Would it take that much longer to get into outer space? LOL, it’s not so bad, I mean just look at these pictures. Greenery, flowers, waterfalls, IMG_0009lots of waterfalls, pools, long, lovely pools, that meander from one side of the common area to the other and slides, there are three. If you are going somewhere to just be, then this is as good a place as any.

But. There’s something about being in paradise. I grew up in Paradise, yes, there was a capital P. The San Fernando Valley, 1950-1969. And my urban geography professor IMG_0010at Cal State Northridge said that we were living at the end of PERFECT! Right then, my senior year in college, it was quite a blow. The end of perfect. That’s was it, and there was me, a twenty-something, who feels immortal and, well, twenty-something,’cause that’s the way it works.

But every time we go to Paradise, any paradise, Disney World, Hilton IMG_0007Head and now Hawaii, well. I really don’t want to do perfect or paradise. I’d rather earn it, and I think we earned these ten days. I wouldn’t want to live here permanently. Because then you begin to see the flaws behind the magic of paradise.  S’matter of fact, I get nervous around perfect. I look for the flaws, the blemishes, the hiccups.  Maybe it was because I saw it and now it isn’t. Yep. That’s it.

grown

05/03/2013 /

Grown. Growing up. Some have it difficult, maybe not enough food, or not a stable home, maybe an insane parent or guardian, maybe there’s a war going on outside your door. I get that, and not for the first time think that if we have to be licensed for cars, and guns and maybe even to vote, we should be licensed to have kids. Maybe pass a test or take a course, or something so that when a child is brought into the world they are loved and cared for, treasured for the future they promise and to, somehow, make good on that promise. I’m also talking about the angst, the Catcher In The Rye angst, the disaffected, totally egocentric angst. Did I not have it, or, was I not allowed to have it, which seems all the more likely. Not that my parents were strict, they were and they weren’t, but I was brought up in a stiff upper lip and stand tall, be tall kind of world.

I’m writing about a girl, her brothers and a stranger. First off, I didn’t have brothers, just sisters, two very alike sisters, and I was the odd one out. Sometimes more odd. But, siblings are siblings. Are girls more wicked than boys? I have no idea, but I know that the stereotype is not what I want to write. I wonder how much I knew about my sisters. I look at them now, what they are as adults. It’s a strange world out there. I’ve said before, I was an unconscious person, more interested in plot, setting and voice than character. Strange when I write that, because in the history I studied, it was the main characters on stage; Elizabeth I, Charlemagne,  St. Thomas More, that fascinated me the most, that I couldn’t get enough of those characters that actually made a difference in the world.

Ha! An epiphany and maybe a help. It’s not the character that fascinates me, it’s the relationship the character had with the world. Elizabeth defining her age, much like her successor Victoria. Or Charlemagne defining what it meant to rule an empire. How a Twyla Tharp changed the world of dance, or Ayn Rand changed our view, maybe, of corporations and communism.

Hmm…I’m going to have to think about this. So, maybe it’s not that growing up is tough. It’s that growing up is a constant in the world.

 

 

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