Amy Sumida's Blog - Posts Tagged "hawaii"
Halloween at Moonshine
I just spent a great evening with my friend Krystal up in Wahiawa. It helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of and Krystal has been indispensable in that capacity. She gives me honest feedback and her questions often lead to character development that wouldn't have been otherwise included.
Tonight we discussed several projects I have going on. First is a children's book I'm writing and illustrating, second a dating guide, third a romance novel I wrote years ago, fourth possible topics and characters for my next book in the Godhunter series, and lastly, the current book I'm working on in the Gidhunter series.
I'd informed her that it was about time Vervain experienced another holiday with us and what better than Halloween? I'd decided she'd throw a Halloween bash at Moonshine and had a list of gods who needed costumes. Not only did she help me choose a costume for practically all of them, she helped make the experience into a great memory.
What fun to contemplate the minds of gods and what each character would want to pretend to be for a night. We considered and rejected several ideas for each one, pontificating over why Kirill would want to do that and whether Thor would really be open to wearing such and such, while coming up with whole back stories for their costumes.
Then we walked into Wahiawa for dinner and found the only real restaurant in the town, purely be accident. For those of you who don't live in Hawaii, let me explain Wahiawa to you. It's country but country in the way that a town bordering a military base can be. It's charmingly ghetto country. Safe enough to walk through but stay on the main roads unless you're a local. The main road in fact looks more like the side street of a major city, it's biggest attraction is the Walgreens and the food selection is relegated to Mom and Pop marts and hole in the wall eateries. You're lucky if you find a place that has more than ten tables.
So when we walked into Cafe Olive and the waiter asked if we had reservations, please understand the depths of our confusion. Reservations for a restaurant in Wahiawa? Are you out of your damn mind? Did they know they had only 14 tables in the tiny place and 6 of those were pushed together?
Despite the lack of our reservations(and the mounting internal reservations we were beginning to have for the place) they found us the tiniest table in existence exactly five feet away from a speaker blasting music from the live entertainment which consisted of one local man and a guitar.
We grimaced at each other and contemplated making a run for it but our only other option for cuisine had been the Mexican restaurant down the street which was even smaller and happened to close at 3pm on Sundays. So we patiently waited for someone to bring us menus and hoped for the best.
It was wonderful and I happily declared to Krystal, halfway through my Crab Alfredo that I believe we'd found the only real restaurant in Wahiawa. She agreed, and we both delighted in the meal that cost us individually under $30 each, with tip. The freaky Asian manager who kept hovering near us like a nun with a ruler, was disregarded over the flavor of my spumoni pie.
During dinner we discussed my books some more but we also spoke about other books being turned into movies and ended up having a heated gripe fest over how Hollywood often "F"ed things up. I've recently seen The Mortal Instruments and so felt the need of spewing my great disappointment all over her supper, which she took surprisingly well and reciprocated with her dislike of actors who were being considered to play parts in the upcoming movie version of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels. Now before you criticize me for reading a teenager book, I'd like to defend myself by blaming it entirely on my sister who happens to be twenty years my junior. She insisted I read the Mortal Instruments series even though I wanted to chuck them out the window after the first installment.
Having said that, I did enjoy them as a bit of fluffy, teenager paranormal romance. So I was excited to see what they'd do with it on the silver screen. Sigh. Several characters were misrepresented in my eyes and the story was changed a bit but I won't bore you anymore with that. My evening was all the better for getting my dissatisfaction off my chest and Krystal bore it well. So I'm now prepared to write my Halloween scene and will do it unhampered by movie disappointment or a lack of costume ideas. Thank you Krystal and thank you all for reading my ramblings. Good night.
Tonight we discussed several projects I have going on. First is a children's book I'm writing and illustrating, second a dating guide, third a romance novel I wrote years ago, fourth possible topics and characters for my next book in the Godhunter series, and lastly, the current book I'm working on in the Gidhunter series.
I'd informed her that it was about time Vervain experienced another holiday with us and what better than Halloween? I'd decided she'd throw a Halloween bash at Moonshine and had a list of gods who needed costumes. Not only did she help me choose a costume for practically all of them, she helped make the experience into a great memory.
What fun to contemplate the minds of gods and what each character would want to pretend to be for a night. We considered and rejected several ideas for each one, pontificating over why Kirill would want to do that and whether Thor would really be open to wearing such and such, while coming up with whole back stories for their costumes.
Then we walked into Wahiawa for dinner and found the only real restaurant in the town, purely be accident. For those of you who don't live in Hawaii, let me explain Wahiawa to you. It's country but country in the way that a town bordering a military base can be. It's charmingly ghetto country. Safe enough to walk through but stay on the main roads unless you're a local. The main road in fact looks more like the side street of a major city, it's biggest attraction is the Walgreens and the food selection is relegated to Mom and Pop marts and hole in the wall eateries. You're lucky if you find a place that has more than ten tables.
So when we walked into Cafe Olive and the waiter asked if we had reservations, please understand the depths of our confusion. Reservations for a restaurant in Wahiawa? Are you out of your damn mind? Did they know they had only 14 tables in the tiny place and 6 of those were pushed together?
Despite the lack of our reservations(and the mounting internal reservations we were beginning to have for the place) they found us the tiniest table in existence exactly five feet away from a speaker blasting music from the live entertainment which consisted of one local man and a guitar.
We grimaced at each other and contemplated making a run for it but our only other option for cuisine had been the Mexican restaurant down the street which was even smaller and happened to close at 3pm on Sundays. So we patiently waited for someone to bring us menus and hoped for the best.
It was wonderful and I happily declared to Krystal, halfway through my Crab Alfredo that I believe we'd found the only real restaurant in Wahiawa. She agreed, and we both delighted in the meal that cost us individually under $30 each, with tip. The freaky Asian manager who kept hovering near us like a nun with a ruler, was disregarded over the flavor of my spumoni pie.
During dinner we discussed my books some more but we also spoke about other books being turned into movies and ended up having a heated gripe fest over how Hollywood often "F"ed things up. I've recently seen The Mortal Instruments and so felt the need of spewing my great disappointment all over her supper, which she took surprisingly well and reciprocated with her dislike of actors who were being considered to play parts in the upcoming movie version of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels. Now before you criticize me for reading a teenager book, I'd like to defend myself by blaming it entirely on my sister who happens to be twenty years my junior. She insisted I read the Mortal Instruments series even though I wanted to chuck them out the window after the first installment.
Having said that, I did enjoy them as a bit of fluffy, teenager paranormal romance. So I was excited to see what they'd do with it on the silver screen. Sigh. Several characters were misrepresented in my eyes and the story was changed a bit but I won't bore you anymore with that. My evening was all the better for getting my dissatisfaction off my chest and Krystal bore it well. So I'm now prepared to write my Halloween scene and will do it unhampered by movie disappointment or a lack of costume ideas. Thank you Krystal and thank you all for reading my ramblings. Good night.
The Price of Paradise
All of you who live in Hawaii know that although we are blessed to live in such a wonderful place, the cost of paradise is high. Real estate is crazy, groceries alone are expensive enough to make you starve, and the price of gas has gone through the roof. Along with all of this, we have the pests of paradise. Without the harsh winter cold to kill off or at least hibernate the bugs, we have gigantic cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. It's the latter on the list that I've had a recent run in with.
I live in an old house and we've been battling those wood-munching menaces for years. Lately though I've been hearing them at night, crunch, crunch, crunch. I thought they were in the wall next to my bed but I haven't found any sections of macerated wood. Then, last night, I hear them again. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Ugh! I run and get the bottle of termite spray and sit with my ear pressed against the wall, trying to determine where exactly the damn things are.
My cat Dominic thought this was the best game ever and came over to help me by pressing his face into mine while I sat there listening for the tell-tale munch of the tiny monsters. Finally, I realized that the sound wasn't coming from the wall at all but instead from my bookshelf on the wall. I pressed my finger into the underside of the shelf and lo and behold, it gave way, an avalanche of termite droppings falling out.
Agh! I screamed again. I pulled all of my books and chatzkis off the shelf and redistributed them around my house so I could remove the entire contaminated piece and throw it out. It's better than having the wall infected but now, I ask you, where do I put my collection of Nightmare Before Christmas figures and my collection of Tokidoki Unicornos? Sigh, paradise lost.
I live in an old house and we've been battling those wood-munching menaces for years. Lately though I've been hearing them at night, crunch, crunch, crunch. I thought they were in the wall next to my bed but I haven't found any sections of macerated wood. Then, last night, I hear them again. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Ugh! I run and get the bottle of termite spray and sit with my ear pressed against the wall, trying to determine where exactly the damn things are.
My cat Dominic thought this was the best game ever and came over to help me by pressing his face into mine while I sat there listening for the tell-tale munch of the tiny monsters. Finally, I realized that the sound wasn't coming from the wall at all but instead from my bookshelf on the wall. I pressed my finger into the underside of the shelf and lo and behold, it gave way, an avalanche of termite droppings falling out.
Agh! I screamed again. I pulled all of my books and chatzkis off the shelf and redistributed them around my house so I could remove the entire contaminated piece and throw it out. It's better than having the wall infected but now, I ask you, where do I put my collection of Nightmare Before Christmas figures and my collection of Tokidoki Unicornos? Sigh, paradise lost.
