Holiday Spirits

A miscellaneous Tuesday in late March doesn't sound like a holiday, but there it is. It should be clear to anyone, I think, that our spiritual traditions are linked to the cosmic clock, or at least the one that keeps time in our own tiny solar system. So, Day 15 of the Second Lunar Month: a full moon, which I have come to associate with monthly direct reports with my supervisor; I thought I was done with somewhat unpleasant monthly cycles. But as it is a state holiday, I have the day off and the DR is postponed. So since it is not only the day honoring a Hawaiian prince (in the only state in the union that has official days honoring royalty), but also the birthday of Laozi and a festival day for the San Qing, the Three Pure Ones, I am off to Chinatown.  I need some good Chinese soy sauce to complement my stash of local Japanese-inspired Aloha brand, and I may succeed in my ongoing quest to find statuary of the San Qing, not really for myself, but for a FB Tao friend in the midwest where such things are harder to come by.

I am going to escort another friend, a French woman who shares my interest in Chinese painting, on a little walking tour of the shops and sights in Chinatown.  (I'm thinking of this as a dry run for actually escorting a group of like-minded folks in China itself.) Thirty years ago, this neighborhood was strange to me, when Popo, my aged Chinese next-door landlady took my arm for a tour, said "Call me Popo", and introduced me to her best noodle shop, her best duck shop, and her best bun shop.  She told the proprietors,"This is my friend, take care of her."  Popo liked us as tenants: "God always sends me Episcopalians," she said, weirdly. She was an Episcopalian, and we visited the Chinese Episcopal parish a few times.  A Hakka woman, likely first generation in Hawaii, she shared a lot of old Honolulu and China with me.  It was a blessing both ways, I guess. I used to answer her calls for help sometimes when her husband, seriously afflicted with Alzheimer's, had fallen or she needed something from Longs.  It only occurs to me now how horrible it would be to denounce your landlord. She was a shengren, really. We lived in her ohana house only for about two years, but it was a crucial part of our Hawaii adaptation.

Laozi, the San Qing, and the Anglican/Catholic Holy Week to boot!   Passover too, but that is not really part of my heritage (I think, although, one never knows, do one?), except in the Catholic echoes. I have Good Friday off as well, working for a Catholic institution as I do.

Popo would be proud. I will think of her today, surely passed on by now, an ohana ancestor, as I meander the old neighborhood. I am sure I will tell my French companion of things that have changed since Popo's tour.

I missed this year's New Year festival in Chinatown, but here are some images from 2012.  I don't think too much has changed in a year, but over 30, probably quite a bit.

Popo probably saw this building when it was first constructed.

Actually, I think Popo's grandchildren live in one of those high-rises in the back.

Protecting tradition.  That low building is probably worth several million bucks.

Week 3 of Batty Observations

For more than three weeks I've been watching Charlotte in her web.  I concluded that it is "Charlotte" because the Wizard observed, "It's probably female...males are tiny, and she's probably eaten her mate by now."

Charlotte, decorating for the season.

The seemingly fragile rigging she inhabits is still well intact.  I knew the silk was strong, but it really does have a tensile strength equal to steel.  When I searched for this info, of course I found all manner of Halloween costume ideas based on spiders and their webs. So in a way, I consider my lanai decorated for the holiday.  If I add a real pumpkin, I can consider it a totally natural decor. All I need is a bat to complete the look.  I wasn't sure there were bats in Hawaii, but indeed there are.  This one looks like a leaf.

Hawaiian Hoary Bat

More than 30 years ago, my son's first Halloween costume request was to "be a bat." It was a cute costume, created with wicker ribs and the black plastic you use in gardens.  (Next year, he wanted to be a flying squirrel. It seemed unimaginative and repetitive, if inspired, and I expected him to grow up to be a glider pilot. Which he didn't.) It was with some delight that I enjoyed a humanoid bat flying around in the upper reaches of the stage at Die Fledermaus, which we went to see a couple Fridays ago.  The Wizard thought it was tacky, but it took me back to a time when helping a small child pretend to be a bat was the greatest joy of my life.

In the meantime, Charlotte can continue to enjoy the view from her place on my balcony.  Gives a whole new meaning to hanging out and enjoying the sunset.

Starting to Begin Again

I once edited a monthly progress report for a scientist I worked for who had written the astonishing and confidence-building reassurance, "We are starting to begin the preparations to plan the event, an activity that will continue for several months." I don't know if that satisfied the government agency funding the project, but it did make the subsequent editing easy: I just struck out a level of planning each month until the event happened all by itself. That seemed ludicrous to me then, but now, on Gregorian/Solar New Year's Day 2009 it seems like a great approach. I will be using the next three weeks to get ready for the next New Year's event, Chinese Lunar New Year, beginning Jan. 26.

This is a grace period during which I recover from the festivities and feasting and fund depletion that started at Thanksgiving. The solstice happened (all by itself) while we observed our wedding anniversary with a dinner at a favorite restaurant at our favorite table. Later I started shopping and creating gifts for the girls in the office: I made 52 pairs of earrings, most of which look like hippie-styled Christmas ornaments. (Well, they are, really.)

I added a pan to the Wizard's All-Clad collection, but had the most fun on Christmas Eve at the hardware store. Here comes a suggestion to women who are stymied by their SO's practical nature. What to give a renaissance man who loves soldering irons and socket wrenches? (My artist friend says that tools for guys are the same as makeup for gals...you can never have too many brushes or eye shadow colors.) I had tried to go to our local hardware store, the venerable and charitable 100-year-old City Mill (eschewing Home Depot and Lowe's, those carpetbaggers) the evening before but arrived just at closing. The clerks were moving all the outside displays into the already darkened store. I asked what the hours were for Christmas Eve. One of the guys looked at me compassionately and said, "If there's something you NEED right now, I can still get it for you." If my toilet was running or I needed a new deadbolt, he would have made the effort to help me. I told him I was just planning to browse the aisles for guy-stocking stuffers, but I would be back next day. I believe had I been at one of the big-box stores I would not have gotten that genuine concern. That's why I like to shop local.

So next day I spent an hour pulling all kinds of odd weird cheap things off the City Mill racks--colored cable ties and etching tools and some Dremel bits, drill stops (a BIG hit!) and various glues. I had to ask for some assistance, and it may have been from the same guy I talked to the night before. Boy was he impressed with the haul in my cart! "Lucky guy," he said. And, now I know my way around City Mill! I got this notion because the Wizard usually loads my stocking with office supplies, the funny kind things you never buy for yourself, but eventually come in handy. Colored paper clips, map pins, post-its, hi-lighters, strange tapes and pens. He probably goes to Office Depot, but I forgive him: he also includes mini-bottles of single-malts and chocolates.

On the first day of Christmas I was delighted to find something under the tree I hadn't ever received as a young girl, not being quite in the right demographic at the time for a Barbie Doll. And there it was (I had pointed it out to Santa because it was so funny), Tippi Hedren, Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" Barbie, complete with attacking crows and nice stiletto shoes. Now I want a custom Barbie, "Baroness Counting Kolea." She will come complete with a white Mazda Miata (license TAO 61), 32 makeup brushes and an mini-nano-Barbie iPOD.

And last night, New Year's Eve, and the 7th day of Christmas (yes, the 12 days of Christmas come AFTER Dec. 25) my true love gave to me an obscure and hard-to-find Alibris-sourced book which I regrettably discarded when we moved to Hawaii: The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe: An occasionally indecent exploration of the sexual history of feet and footwear, published in the U.S. by Penthouse Press, but originally by a British house (it figures) in 1976. (I had discarded the Penthouse version; now I have the British one.) Written by William A. Rossi, a podiatrist who one suspects was also a bit of a foot fetishist, it is a fascinating treatise on the largely erotic significance of shoes, with sections on Chinese footbinding, stilettos, biker boots, and the people who love shoes. Since I always notice shoes, and have quite a collection of footwear, I was delighted to have this book back. (I would be even more delighted if I could still wear my Ferragamo stilettos and restore the black patent leather on my 3.5 inch Bally's; alas chronic plantar's fasciitis quite likely caused by those beautiful shoes obviates my indulgence. I am doomed to protect my Bubbling Well point with Tevas, Chacos, Crocs and Naturalizers! All very fine and comfortable, but utterly sexless shoes. Well, some of the Naturalizers are cute.) The ironic thing, I was a little late getting home last night because I had stopped at Macy's (which used to be the venerable and local Liberty House) to buy...some shoes. And I have an appointment this weekend to get a pedicure.

So this morning, after another of the season's dramatic series of dark and stormy nights (Dec. 26th's responsible in part for the power outage that made national news only because Obama was on-island) I am considering The Resolutions. No more extravagant shopping (which is why I bought all those shoes last night), eating right, getting exercise (walking in the Tevas), meditating to mitigate all these worldly desires, treasuring my friends, working smart, clearing clutter (yeah, right, see Yin post, A Perfect Mess). This year, which is coming to a close but not today, the Year of the Earth Rat, was the appropriate year for me, the Fire Pig, to start fresh. And I did. But today, anticipating the approaching Year of the Earth Ox, I start to begin it all again...an activity that will continue for several months.