What a Cool Birthday Gift!

Those who know me well know that I was married on my birthday, so I celebrate my birthaversary each year. Or whatever you want to call it.

This year, for our 20th anniversary, hubby and I celebrated by going to Hawaii. I had wanted to go to Europe, but our friends were headed to Maui and offered us a room in the house they were renting. With arm-twisting like that, who were we to say no?

Since that was a couple of months early, I kind of wondered if we might have some sort of smaller local celebration. As the time approached, nothing really presented itself. No big deal, really. I'm not the kind of girl to kick and scream. I mentally shrugged and went on about my business.

On Saturday night, we went to see one of my all-time favorite songwriters, Terry Taylor. Terry is the front man for Daniel Amos, a Christian alternative band, and the Swirling Eddies, a humorous offshoot. He also plays with the Lost Dogs, a band comprised of front men from other bands. On his current tour, Terry is playing with his son Andrew for the first time, which is fun to see. He's also being accompanied by Steve Hindalong, a recent addition to the Lost Dogs and drummer and songwriter for The Choir, another band I've followed for more years than I care to count. You, dear reader, would know Steve best for his songwriting credits... perhaps not my favorite ("Beautiful Scandalous Night") but probably his most famous ("God of Wonders").

Saturday's show was fun: great musicianship, to be sure, but also wonderful comraderie between three men who clearly were having a genuinely good time playing music together. I had my camera with me, but the pictures were abysmal, so I shall not burden you with them.

Cut to Sunday. I get an email from my friend Angela, forwarded from Terry's manager. Seems there has been a cancellation, and they'd like to schedule a house concert anywhere between San Antonio and Dallas on Monday night. Angela is an apartment dweller, but my house is perfect for such a thing. Angela's birthday is Sunday, and she knows mine is Tuesday. We're both huge fans; what a great gift to both of us! I book the show, knowing I have about 30 hours to pull together a crowd for it.

I invite everyone I know on Facebook who lives in Austin, regardless of whether they might have heard of Terry. One of the people I invite is the sister-in-law of the promoter from the Saturday show. She gets him involved, and he adds another hundred people to the invite. Suddenly, we're talking about a potential real crowd here!

Forty people come to the show. Andrew (Terry's son) tells hubby it's the second biggest crowd they've seen at a house concert. He's impressed we've managed to publicize this well given a little over 24 hours for a Monday night show. So am I.

The crowd is appreciative. Many know all the songs; a few aren't familiar with Terry but come because of friends or because of other reasons. We don't charge admission, but the tip jar fills nicely, and the band sells some merchandise.

Most of the pictures don't turn out, but a few do, so I'll share those. First up: a shot of the band from the back of the room, showing part of the crowd. I counted about forty people, including kids. Not bad.

The guys jamming. From L-R, Andrew Taylor, Terry Taylor, Steve Hindalong.

During one song, Steve shows off his lasso skills: risky business in Texas. It's the only time I use a flash during the show.

After the show, hubby insisted I get a pic with the band. From L-R, it's Andrew Taylor, Terry Taylor, me, and Steve Hindalong.

It's not often you get to spend an evening with people you've admired for so long. The talent and poetry that flows through these gentlemen is hard to describe to the uninitiated.

I asked them each to sign something that would be meaningful to me. Terry signed my copy of the first Daniel Amos CD that I fell in love with. It's from the '80s, and I can't say it's aged best of all his music, but I still love it. Steve signed the first recording of "Beautiful Scandalous Night." He wrote, "On the hillside you will be delivered," which is a lyric from the song.

What did Terry, ever the jokester, write on the Daniel Amos CD? "Don't listen to this."

I *HATE* Fire Ants

I've always been allergic to the little buggies, tracing back to my days at Texas A&M.

Being from Lubbock, I had wondered why no one ever walked through the lush grass on campus. Not the grass at the MSC -- I knew that was a memorial -- but the grass around the dorms and academic buildings. I soon found out why, when I got two fire ant bites on my ankle, which quickly swelled to the size of a cantaloupe.

After a trip to the affectionately named Quack Shack and a few Benadryl, my ankle was back to normal size within a day or two. I've rarely had such a violent reaction to fire ants since.

Until yesterday.

Sing with me: One of these feet is not like the other... one of these feet just doesn't belong!

(And the toenails need to be repainted, but that's an entirely different song...)

We went to dinner at the home of some friends last night. I was blowing bubbles just off their back porch, standing in the grass, when I felt that dreaded bite between my third and fourth toes. I killed the ant responsible for my misery, but the damage was done.

I took two Benadryl before bed last night, but it's even more swollen this morning. I joked that my doctor would have to amputate, but it was no joke how alarmed her staff was at the appearance of my foot. More than one of them commented with alarm in her voice, "That's an ant bite, really?" Um, yeah. Really. Apparently I have a small allergy problem.

My doc is also allergic to the little beasties -- even more than I am -- and was bitten badly enough once for an anaphalactic reaction. Pretty alarming. She gave me a steroid shot in the hip, told me to pick up some Zyrtec rather than Benadryl, and sent me on my merry little way.

She did check for streaks along my legs, since everything hurts all the way up to my hip today, and she asked if I had a headache, which I do.

So if anyone knows of the magical bomb to kill all fire ants worldwide, I'm on board. Lemme have it!

A Tale of Two Shoes

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

With (major) apologies to Dickens, this is the story of my love affair with a pair of shoes that apparently was not meant to be.

When my hubby and I went to Hawaii, we spent our last night on Oahu, on Waikiki. We weren't so wild about the crowds on Waikiki, but we loved our hotel. If the tourist scene is your thing, I highly recommend the Hotel Renew. We weren't the only ones who thought it was fantastic.

While we were there, we wandered around in a few shops, including the Crocs store. I know what you're thinking: they're ugly, they're clunky, they're so three years ago. And then I saw these (cue the angel choir, please):

And I put them on my feet, and lo, they were cute and comfortable and sassy!

Unfortunately, our luggage was full to the bursting point, so hubby and I had a confab. He was confident enough in his packing abilities that he gave me the go-ahead to buy the cute shoes. (Have I mentioned how I love my man?) But I made the fatal call: no, I'd wait until we got back to Texas. There are Crocs stores in Texas, I said. I can get them there.

Bad move, Lisa. Not smart. A pair of shoes in the hand is worth a dozen pairs in a state an ocean away, as I would soon learn.

On my way back from a business trip, I went to the Crocs store in the outlet mall outside Houston. I described my cute shoes with the chunky heel and the cross strap to the manager. She knew exactly the shoe I meant. "No," she sighed mournfully. "We don't get the cute stuff here." Oh dear. Was I going to have a hard time finding my sweet Crocs in Texas?

While I was in Dallas last weekend, I thought, here's a town with style. I looked up Crocs on my handy-dandy phone and found a store in the Dallas Galleria. When I called to check availability, the clerk sounded surprised I would ask such a thing. Of course the shoe was in stock.

The only problem with this plan? The Galleria wasn't exactly on my way out of town, and fighting mall traffic isn't my idea of a good time. "There's this great new thing called the internet," sniffs my sister. Huh, you know, she might just have something there. Not shockingly, crocs has a web site. A few clicks later, I was happily not stopping by the mall on my way out of town.

Ah, but as they say, the best-laid plans of mice and shoe-shopping women drop many mangled cliches into a single post. A few days later, I checked my order status, only to find that my dream shoes hadn't yet shipped. Whaaa? I forgot to call them on Thursday, and of course they took Friday off.

When I called them today, I spent 25 minutes on hold. Naturally, I used the time effectively, finding my shoes on amazon, where I am a member of their Prime program. Free two-day shipping, y'all! So let me get this straight... I could order from amazon over a week later than I ordered from crocs.com -- both with free shipping -- and get my order from amazon several days earlier. Nice.

Once a human finally answered my call on the Crocs not-so-hotline, I have to give them credit: Erin was friendly and professional, even giving me her direct line in case I had further questions about my order. She said it appeared my order was being processed by the factory and would still reach me within the ten business days they decree they have to get you your order.

Ten days? No offense Erin, but that ain't customer service. I'm looking at an order I placed last month, for cryin' out loud, and it hasn't shipped yet.

I hope these shoes are as amazing as they were the first time I put them on my feet. Even then, they may not be worth the wait and the hassle. I'll be ordering from amazon from now on.

My First YouTube Effort

I'm not a video editor. And as you'll see, I'm not much of a camera operator.

However, I had some great subject matter this past weekend when I went to my sister's place for my nephew's birthday party. My sweet niece gave a fun performance on the way back after bowling and putt-putt on Sunday.

My sister is the voice you hear directing her. This is the most responsive I saw her all weekend, which was shocking considering how tired she was. I'm glad I caught it on my little Flip camera!

Sorry for the camera shake and lack of editing skills, but I hope you enjoy the cuteness.

A Fish Tale

If you hate fish, just look away.  Today's post is not for you.

On Friday, I went on a seven hour snorkeling cruise.  There were two one-hour snorkel stops, and we were supposed to see dolphins along the way.  Apparently our day was quite unusual in terms of weather, so that threw a lot of things off, including dolphin sightings, much to my dismay.

Generally the first stop is Molokini Crater, followed by an area close to the island of Lana'i, which is quite close to Maui.  However, that morning our captain had found out that the weather at Molokini was really bad -- very choppy water with one-foot swells, hardly ideal for snorkeling.  He also heard it was supposed to clear off by early afternoon though, and he told us that the timing of our return might be such that we would have the place to ourselves -- almost unheard of in such a popular snorkel spot.

Before I get started on too many details, I should introduce you to my tour, the crew, and the boat.  I went with the fine folks of Pacific Whale Foundation, a non-profit organization concerned with ocean ecology and the plant and animal life thereof.  They were great folks, and I highly recommend their tour.

This was our boat, the OceanVoyager:

It holds something like 149 people, but we only had 77 or so on my cruise -- very comfortable.

Here are three of our six crew members.

From L-R, they are Gabe, one of the two naturalists (sort of like a marine biologist) on board; Juliana, the first mate; and Jenn, all around helpful and cool chick.  I'm missing Jeremy, the captain; the other naturalist, and the food server / bartender (I don't remember the names of the latter two).

When we got to Lana'i (pronounced Lah-neye'-ee), we pulled up to this rock, just offshore. There was a legend about it -- I believe it's called Sweetheart Rock, and they said it's the most highly photographed rocks around Maui and Lana'i -- but I don't remember the story accurately. Something about a lover throwing himself off the top. It didn't sound healthy. But I got you a picture! And since I'm so diligent, I googled it and found you a link to read about it if you're interested.

In the same general vicinity is the Lana'i Cathedral, which the captain told is is the site of many underwater weddings (the wedding party all has to be dive certified, of course).  He said you could find lots of youtube videos on the place, and it turns out he was right.

However, I believe I promised you fish pictures, so I should get on with that.

During the first snorkel spot, I was getting the hang of my new underwater camera and figuring out how to get the best shots of fish underwater.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the best shots occurred at the second site.

Here's a school of stripey fish with a couple of other fishy friends.  Not a great picture, but a lot of fish in one place.

Gabe gave a great onboard fish tutorial and told us the names of most of the fish that we saw, but with my awesome powers of recollection, I've forgotten almost all of them. I do know that almost all the pictures he showed us were butterfly fish, so when in doubt, that's probably what they are. 

This guy? He's a black and red fish. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

But oh hey, if you look in the upper right hand corner of that picture, that's my favorite fish. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't come close to capturing all the colors of this amazing fish.  I actually hunted Gabe down and asked him what fish it was, and it's called a parrot fish.  I took about two dozen pictures of male parrot fish because they're so beautiful. It turns out they travel in schools with one male and several females, including an alpha female. If the male dies, the alpha female actually changes genders and colors over about a week and becomes the male of the group. Nature is weird, boys and girls.

Here's another picture of the elusive parrot fish.  I followed several of these guys around in the first snorkel site and wasn't thrilled with most of my results, but this will have to do (yes, he really is that brightly colored, and actually there are several other colors not captured here).

This pretty little guy is probably a butterfly fish of some variety.  He was quite striking. I called him the orange and white stripey fish, being the poetic sort that I am.

This big blue fella swam close enough to me that he filled up my entire screen. (We're now into the second site in Molokini Crater.)

This black fish is one that I saw all over both sites.  The fish next to him may be a butterfly fish or may be an angel fish; they look almost identical.

This is a sea urchin and a small fish that was tough to photograph.  I was pleased I got a good shot of him -- he was FAST!

These two beauties may be fish that mate for life.  I followed them for a while, and they were definitely traveling together.  I got several pretty good shots of them, but this was my favorite.

This is another fish that I saw in abundance in both sites. I had a tough time getting a good picture of him.  This is about the best one.  He's black with orange spots on his tail, which I believe makes him a type of triggerfish.

Last but not least, this frightening fish is often armed with a photographic device and shoots images of other fish.  In other words, it's me.  =)

Normally I proofread all posts pretty extensively, but I'm checking out of my Oahu hotel in 8 minutes, so I reserve the right to edit this post for content or grammar later!

We're off to the airport to return home.  Aloha, y'all!

Sunset at 10,000 Feet

On Wednesday, we did the classic Maui tourist thing: we went up to the top of Haleakala. Apparently you really want to go at sunrise, where your view is unimpeded by the other mountain on Maui, but it turns out sunrise is early, which is a problem for me and those I'm hanging out with, so we went at sunset instead.

We'd been warned about the frigid weather at that altitude and time of day, so we all took fleeces, windbreakers, or both.  It didn't get really cold until the sun went down, fortunately, and until then, we had some amazing views.

It's not often you find yourself above the clouds.  I think this is what most people think heaven looks like.  I find it hard to disagree.

I almost liked it better when a wispy cloud drifted in front of the sun.  Kind of a surreal look. [Incidentally, all these photos are straight out of the camera; I'll tell you if I mess with a pic before I post it.]

These views were really a bonus; we hadn't expected to see this sort of light magic going on in the clouds (although all of us were snapping photos like mad).

We had hoped to see down inside the crater on top of the mountain, but it was full of clouds too. Still pretty, but not ideal.

And this is a picture of the trail that my hubby went back and hiked today while I went on a snorkeling cruise.  He gets seasick; I don't hike 10 miles at altitude.  I guess we each have our own forms of sanity, no?

Closer to sunset, we got some pictures with actual color in the sky.

And this next one includes the Haleakala observatory.

And last but not least, I'll leave you with one my hubby took of the moon rising.  It's tiny, but you can see the sliver of the moon in the top of this photo.

And with that, I bid you good night.

The Road to Hana

Yes, everyone's favorite part of Maui, the road to Hana. I don't know how people did this back in the days of film cameras: we took over 500 pictures on Tuesday when we drove it. Pretty expensive in terms of film!

I'll spare you most of the craziness and show you the "good stuff," but suffice it to say that if you ever get the chance to drive along this road, you should take it. We didn't even get to finish it because we took so many little side trips. The scenery is amazing. There are many waterfalls, some of which you can see from the road, but many of which you must hike to.

We got much of our information from a book which we found invaluable. There are a couple of things I'd add, but I'll tell you that in this post.

Our first stop is a glorified highway turnout; there was a small parking lot in the Hookipu Park. It's not far down the road. The photo is unretouched in terms of the color of the water, but there is a polarized filter on our camera, which cheats the colors a little. It's fairly true to life, though.

There were some surfers here learning to surf -- the breakers are small and gentle, and they broke for what seemed like a half mile.

The first waterfall we saw was Lower Puohokamoa Falls, or, as we affectionately referred to it, Lower Wannahockaloogie Falls (since the Hawaiian name is so difficult to read).  First the picture, then the advice.

This was the one place we found the guidebook less than completely forthcoming (or maybe it was just outdated).  This waterfall was on private land -- we ended up following some folks through a fence and down a "well-worn path" (quoted from the book) to see it.  In retrospect, we definitely should not have strayed onto private property.  I do wish we'd been warned, though.

Incidentally, there is no sense of scale in the photo above.  This may have been the longest fall we saw all day -- it's 200 feet.  It's just impossible to get that from the photo.

Between the Kaumahina State wayside and the Keanea Peninsula, we stopped at a turnout and took this photo. You can see the road cut into the side of the hill.

We then drove to the Keanea Peninsula, had some of the fantastic banana bread there (sold warm, just like your mama would), and shared our table with this cute little guy.

Then we trundled down to the end of the peninsula, where I took this pic of my honey with the waves crashing behind him.  I'm kind of fond of him, y'know.

This staircase, completely surrounded by dead branches, was at the Wailua State Wayside.  At the top was an overlook where you could see the town of Wailua -- very pretty.

One of the two coolest waterfalls we saw was called the Three Bears Falls, and it's easy to see why in the picture.

This falls is visible from the road, but this shot isn't possible without a good zoom lens.  In our case, we hiked down to the falls (detailed instructions in our handy-dandy book, of course). In many cases, we talked to other people who had the same book and were doing the same things, but in this case, we were the only ones near the falls. It was a challenging hike -- or rather, the first step down off the road was a challenge.  Also, there is no parking near this falls, so we parked at the next turnout up the road and walked back (less than a quarter mile, but apparently no one else was willing to do it).  Well worth it to get the close-up view of this beautiful waterfall, in my opinion.

We naturally had to get a shot of me and my sock monster while we were there.  He was our mascot for the trip.  I will likely do a blog post of just the shots with him since it's turned into such a joke now.

I'm not sure if you can see the stains on the bottom of my pants, but I got those climbing down to these falls.  Follow the instructions; we took another way down and that made it more of a challenge than it needed to be.

Next waterfall was at Pua'a Ka'a State Park.  There is a wimpy waterfall that's easy to see when you walk in, and there is (quoting the book again) an "awkward trail" to another falls father in.  I thought that was a curious phrase to use, but there's a darn good reason it's called an "awkward trail."  It's a bit of a challenge, for one, but it's also not every day you get to walk along an aqueduct!  Just don't look down over the side if you have a fear of heights.

And this is your reward for reaching the end of the trail.  I loved this waterfall.

It drops into a large blue pool.  I was so upset that I wasn't wearing a swimsuit at this point -- it looked awfully inviting.

Here's me and my hubby -- and my buddy the sock monster -- down by the waterfall.

No, I'm not sunburned.  I just turn that color after a hike down an awkward trail or two.

By this time, we were pretty exhausted and waterfalled out.  Fortunately, the last one we came to was right on the road.  Or right under it.  But first I'll show you its namesake road (with my buddy the sock monster, natch).

We were punchy enough by this time that the road and waterfall name amused us to no end. Imagine our amusement when we actually saw the waterfall (photographed from above on the bridge, this is Makapipi Falls).

We hadn't had anything to eat all day other than our banana bread snack, so we stopped at the Nahiku Marketplace, where I got an excellent Kalua Pig bowl (pork and rice, to which I added BBQ sauce).

We then put our tired selves back into the car for the drive back, stopping back at our first stop to catch the sunset, which is where I will leave you, dear readers.  I hope you've enjoyed our photo tour down the road to Hana.  Come again!