Carefree Travel in Europe

My daughter, Becky, will be traveling to Germany and Denmark soon for a summer session program. 20 days on the continent. Since she started going to college, I kept encouraging her to take a semester abroad as part of her college experience. Now that the travel is fast upon us, I am worried about this and that. This morning, I got up at 4:00 am to pen her a list of things she should be doing, things she should not be doing, yada, yada, yada.

Now that I have completed my list of cautions and advisories, I feel suddenly lighter. In the meantime, I have given her a list of 20 things she should remember.
I wonder if all parents have the same anxieties as they allow their children to spread their wings in Europe?

Parents are filled with anxiety, concern, worry, and the worst case scenarios.

Youth are filled with hope, excitement, enthusiasm, and the desire to capture life.

No wonder we don't see a mass exodus of empty nesters traveling abroad just to explore the world. We are too full of anxiety, worry, concern, and the worst case scenarios.

The irony of the situation is that all of us parents have lived through our "devil-may-care, all-out-adventure" stage of our youth and have survived very well, thank you very much. So why would our experience cause us to shackle our kids with our anxiety?

So to Becky Hughes, I take back my list of 20 advisories and encourage you to have a GREAT TIME in EUROPE!!! Love you very, very much!! Love Mom

May Day is Lei Day

Coming from Lahaina where plumeria were abundant, making a lei meant scampering outside with a paper bag, picking the fragrant blossoms, sitting under the mango tree, and stringing the garland of flowers. A snap!

Plumeria are like gold in East Hawai'i. Living in the mountains, making a lei takes a lot more time and effort. There are the fragile but pungent yellow ginger. But you need to pick the just about to open blossoms about noon time, place them gently on beds of wet ti leaves or paper towels and store them in the refrigerator until you have enough flowers for a lei.

Ti leaf leis are also an option but they do not have the lovely fragrance factor. Ti leaves grown green and abundantly in our area. The simple leis can be dressed up by using the various colored ti leaves, adding in fern or fake maile leaves, or wrapping ti leaf roses. Red leaves, purple leaves, yellow leaves, green leaves...the possibilities are many provided you have patience and ingenuity.

Travel a few miles up and liko lehua lei materials can be found along with the various ferns. Pick the shoot tips, clean the materials, spread out your mat and then spend the next two hours or so wrapping the arrangements of flowers and greenery on a backing. A treasured lei indeed.

But the simplicity of making a lei are gone. To wear a lei for May Day in the mountains takes time and planning. Perhaps that is why the gift of leis becomes more precious.

Avatar, Vietnam, and Eden

Finally got to see the film, Avatar. Although we went to the cheap theater with $1.50 tickets and crying babies, we enjoyed the movie sans 3-D projection and surround sound. The film was a metaphor for the classic movie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. There was the good and the beautiful, the soft and the tender. There was the bad and the corrupt, the greed and the disrespect. There was the ugly, the killing and the wanton destruction. The movie was an onion with many layers to peel, to cry over, to examine in the light.

But some things irk me about the movie. I hated the Ugly American attitude shown by the short guy who seemed to be in charge of the program. I hated the attitude of conquering a region and robbing it of its resources with no regard for the consequences of the indigenous people. This seems to be a recurring attitude of many Western groups: The Spaniards in South America, the whites in our own country, the whites in the Hawaiian islands. Does traveling away from the homelands result in the reckless attitude to the lands and people from other shores? Ugly, ugly, ugly.

I hated the "take no survivors" attitude of the military commander. Things were done by brute force...kill, wreck damage, at any cost. There was no time for peaceful negotiation. Did we not learn anything from history when we try to force our way into other countries...? Try Korea, try Vietnam. Many American lives lost. Lack of support from the people in the country and in our country erode the basis for action. Are we reenacting historical and military mistakes from the past in the Middle East today?

I hated the destruction of a society which was living in Eden. Harmonious existence with the environment seemed idyllic. But then the Seekers had to take what was forbidden treasures. Adam and Eve in the garden were not satisfied with their lives, they had to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. The commandment, Honor Thy Father, was not observed. The Americans invaded Pandora try to steal the precious unobtainium (a pun perhaps)to break commandments: Thy shall not steal, they shall not covert your neighbor's property, Thy shall not kill. Have we not learned anything from our history that sin leads to dire consequences?

I said I loved the movie and then I proceed to write three paragraphs about what I hated. I did love the reaffirmation that there are people who are willing to do the right thing despite the odds against them. The hero, the savior, the brave. That was downright applause worthy. Loved that the helicopter pilot was a female. I loved the love story!

The fantastic scenery of Pandora was breathtaking. The colors used and the special effects were great!! I want to go back to see the movie again. Peel more layers of the movie onion and see if I cry again.

Don't judge a book by its format

I cracked open the book and found that it was a series of letters. Bleah...boring...tedious. But The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was number #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. There must be something to it. Endure...continue on.

Indeed, indeed...this was an enjoyable book with twists and turns, tears, surprises. I highly recommend this book for long airplane trips when you have the time to immerse yourself in the island life in the Channel Islands. It ain't Hawaii but the close knit island mentality is apparent.

Life without cell phones, telephones. People wrote letters in standard English and yet the voice of the each writer was apparent. Tidbits from others in the community painted the characters in 3-D. If only we were privy to see how others see us...would we be glad or disappointed? There were characters I loved and characters who set my teeth on edge. Oh, how I loved the snappy answers and swift (and sassy) rebuttals!!

Worthy, worthy of your time.

Recession...nothing but a hype?

With all of the media hype of how we are doing so poorly economically, all families should be living off of their home gardens, walking to work and school, and eating frugal meals. Yet the traffic seems steady past our house of cars whizzing to and from Hilo...20 miles away. The supermarkets are full of people, even on nonFood Stamp weeks, buying carts full of food and drink. Walking along the highway is the occasional hitchhiker in dreds or flowing skirts. And the fast food restaurants take out lines have snakes of cars with people too lazy to get out of their cars to order food.

At the recent Merrie Monarch festival, the craft booths had a range of products and prices and not all cheap. If you want to buy a handmade lauhala hat, plan on spending at least $100. If you would like a string of pearls, consider $500 for gleaming chocolate pearly baubles. How about $50 for a scarf? These artisans deserve the money to produce these items. What amazes me is the people who have the money to plunk down several thousand dollars for strands of Ni'ihau shells.

The recession must not be as debilitating as the media is reporting. There is still money for the fine arts. Or, are the damages from the economic downfall affecting only a certain class of people? Those that did not have much to begin with?

If scarcity bring clarity, perhaps the scare is good for us to reprioritize what is really important in our lives, make adjustments, and go on living.

Deceptive Appearances

Bread is my enemy!!

I have to rant and rage how unfair it is that delicious food is often riddled with one million calories.

I have to rant and rage how unfair it is to work so hard to get rid of 50 calories by exercising and how easy it is to consume 50 calories in one bite.

Cruelest of all is how calories seem to lurk and hide in waiting for the unsuspecting diner.

Did you know that 1 burrito sized flour tortilla is 120 calories? A premium slice of nutty bread is 110 calories.

Thought that having a tortilla would mean consuming fewer calories so had two wraps of my own making.

Calamity! Disaster!! Tortillas have more calories than bread.

Torillas are my new enemy!!

Relinquishing Responsibility

As parents, we try hard to shelter our children from hurt, disappointment, and rejection. Yet, somehow they need the skills to handle these negative incidents in their lives. What is the balance between our counsel and life's lessons?

Some kids do not welcome sage advice or suggestions from their parents or elders. They need to experience the hard knocks before they can understand what was being relayed. We cringe and feel the pain that they will experience and yet these kids are determined to be on a crash course of their own determination.

Some kids will listen to advice but too often, when they begin to ask for help, it may be too late and some of the negative consequences are inevitable.

Then there are some kids who are afraid to stray from the path of the known. They are cautious to the extreme, fearful of the unknown, and small minded. Of all the kids, these are the most dangerous because they are unwilling to experiment and experience life.

The best thing we as parents can do is to give our children the courage to jump in with both feet and the skills to swim to shore or safety. There is a point in which we have to acknowledge kids' decisions and let them take the consequences of their actions. If the consequences are positive, we celebrate with them. If the consequences are negative, we sympathize and look for ways to help. We cannot and should not do everything for our kids...we only handicap them when we try to do this.
Let the kids live life on their own terms.