Hawaii Five-O Gets Blessed

Each year before filming for the new season begins, the cast and crew of Hawaii Five-O gather for an early-morning blessing. They bless EVERYTHING here - shopping mall openings, ground-breaking ceremonies, and the first day of ANYTHING, even the first day of shooting for a TV show...

On Hawaii Five-O's Blessing Day, this is the number one news story on all the local channels. Cute, huh?

Elaine, Matthew, and Jenny Visit!

As you already knew, Jenny Richardson Bone is here on the island doing a work/study program for the summer. (Re: Megan and Jeff Visit)

Her parents, Elaine and Matthew, came to check up on her and celebrate her 25th birthday... and on Friday night, they all came for dinner!

A good time was had by all -- especially Miss Sophie!

Aloha!

Fun with Fireworks ! NOT !!!

You've heard me talk about how fireworks are legal here - even the big stuff that you'd NEVER see for sale anywhere in California. Here's a perfect example of why there is a push to ban the big stuff here in Hawaii.

Around noon on the 4th of July, I smelled smoke and very soon saw this plume of smoke down the hill from my house. It seemed VERY close, and I now know that it was only half a mile away.

You can hear the honks of the firetrucks in the distance. After a while, helicopters arrived and dumped water continuously until dark. At one point, the wind was blowing the smoke up the hill right into my house. We were choking on the smoke, and Sophie had the good sense to know that smoke = fire = bad. With the smoke enveloping us, it seemed much closer than it was and I was VERY concerned! I calmed down when the wind shifted and the smoke was no longer on top of us. 

About the time that the nerve-wracking noise from the helicopters stopped, the sound of my neighbors' fireworks started. Sophie was a wreck! I spent much of the night with the TV turned up loud and Sophie's head in my lap, with my hands covering and stroking her ears. !!!!!!!!!!! The poor little thing doesn't bark at the noise or overtly freak out. She just starts to shiver like she's freezing. 

When the helicopters left, I hoped that meant they'd put out the fire, but I checked several times in the night and could clearly see the smoke cloud still growing. At dawn on Sunday, the helicopters came back and worked until late in the afternoon.

Fortunately it was "only" a grass fire. My personal forensic investigation tells me that it was "kids" shooting off fireworks in the open field behind their houses. Here's where it was in relation to my house:

I'll end this story on a happy note: no houses were burned and we had a gorgeous sunset on Saturday night. These are smoke clouds coloring the sky:

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Sunrise...Sunset...

Need I say more?

Megan and Jeff Visit!

Megan and her uncle Jeff were here for a week. The previous week, they were both on Oahu for separate vacations - Megan with friends celebrating their high school graduation and Jeff doing his own thing. AND a couple of days before they arrived, I got an email from my friend Elaine saying that her daughter Jenny would be arriving soon and spending much of the summer working here on the Big I. All roads lead to Hawaii!

Jeff and Megan kept me busy! Here's a summary of things we did:

• Went downtown to the King Kamehameha Day parade
• Hiked all the way to the Green Sands beach
• Saw a local theater production of Thoroughly Modern Millie
• Saw Jurassic World
• Took Sophie to the dog beach (Jeff snorkeled while Megan and I played with dogs)
• Ate at Bite Me, Lava Java, The Canoe Club, Sansei, Sam Choy's (Jenny joined us)
• Megan and Jeff drove to Hilo and circled the entire island
• Another day, they drove up to Hawi - the northern tip of the Big Island

And here's the Proof in Pictures:

King Kamehameha Day Parade

Green Sands Beach

Dinner at Sansei at Queen's Marketplace

Dinner with Jenny at Sam Choy's

Lantern Floating Ceremony

Each Memorial Day, there is a lantern floating event at Ala Moana Beach on O'ahu. Thousands of people come to inscribe a lantern with memories of loved ones who have passed and float the lantern into the ocean. This year, there were 47,000 people at the event and about 6000 lanterns were released.

The entire event is broadcast live, and it's now my tradition to watch every minute of it. One year, I made lanterns for several of my favorite fur friends and floated them in my backyard pond. I didn't have time to do that this year.

There is much formality at the beginning with a blessing and musicians and a Buddhist priestess performing all sorts of rituals. And then they release the lanterns...

I took these pictures from my TV screen. I'm sure there are better pictures and videos and such online. The official video isn't available yet, but it will be here soon - Lantern Floating.

I guess this is the official beginning of Summer 2015. If you haven't already booked up your entire summer, I'd love to see you here! Megan and Jeff will be here for a week in June, but the ohana is empty the rest of the summer. 

Aloha y'all!

Not to be Confused with the Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight

I've heard that the hugely hyped fight turned out to be more of a "dance."

This is Sophie and her friend Chloe dancing at the beach on Sunday.
They are NOT fighting!

It began like a normal romp in the sand.

Then words were exchanged.

And the dance began!

There was never a bark or growl, and we saw no reason to stop them. This dance continued for several minutes. And then they went back to their normal play. Dogs be crazy.

Aloha y'all!