Hawaiian Poge

If I needed a sign to realize I moved to the right place… it came today. 

Those of you who know me well or have shared a freezer with me probably know that I have a love of a little thing called Mochi.  Not real mochi (I’ve just learned since I’ve moved here), but delicious ice cream mochi.

I love it, not only because it’s the most delicious thing in the most BIZARRE flavors I’ve ever tasted, but also because everyone else I know hates them, so they’re always still in the freezer when I want them! (Currently one box resides in my freezer and one is in my mom’s.)

But, I go to a meeting tonight for the MS Walk I’m going to help with (more on that in the future as I ask you all for money I’m sure) and what to my wondering eyes should appear? Mochi! REAL ice cream mochi.  They were the snack for all the participants.  They’re everywhere here!

http://bubbiesicecream.gourmetfoodmall.com

This place was actually featured on Oprah apparently! (Sarah!)

Oh happy day!

I vote NOT. 

If you agree, please post a comment and let my Mom know so that I never have to try this on again. 

Apparently she feels I need a mumu.  She asked me if it fit.  It’s a MUMU! If it didn’t fit, I’d cry.

(Note: This was actually written Sunday.)

Pro Bowl is here in Hawaii every year. I’ve never been here for it before but there’s a ton going on.  There was a huge block party tonight on Waikiki with a bunch of different bands and jewelry booths and food booths and NFL stuff everywhere. It’s fun to see so many people out on the street and so many people excited about the game.   David actually ran into three NFL players at the Best Buy earlier today.  They were playing, get this, football video games.  (For those who know anything about this, they were Terry Romo, Jeff Garcia and Champ Bailey.)

David and Karyn and I were wandering around the block party and then we went to the Yardhouse, this bar I’ve been wanting to check out on Lewers St.  Lewers St.  is kind of a hike from where we live now, but it’s where the hotel is that we always stayed at when we came to visit.  The Outrigger Reef. I love this place. My favorite pool ever and my Dad’s favorite bar ever.  (Those are the things we rated every vacation by.  Chris and Mom would explore the great city we were in, I’d be in the pool the whole week and Dad would be at the bar next to the pool the whole week making sure I didn’t drown.)  

The Yardhouse was packed, but kind of cool. I think it’ll be a good place to hang out in the future. We’ve been looking for a hangout.  It has a huge selection of beers, including…. Franziskaner. 

Long story, but it’s a happy beer from a happy place. 

I finally got those pictures from Mom from when Maggie and and Lorrie were in town. We took a tour around the island. These are some of the pictures. It was a really nice day.

 We stopped at Kailua, a great beach towards the north shore.

There was  a surfing tournament at Sunset Beach (which is on the North Shore). There weren’t the huge waves they get there sometimes, but some of the surfers were pretty good.

This is Mom’s happy spot. We watched the hang-gliders and had a picnic.

Our last stop was at the Dole Plantation. 

This is what pineapples look like when they’re growing. Isn’t it weird? I used to think they were like carrots and you’d only see the tops above the earth.

I was wrong.

This is the Hawaii state flower.

Karyn, David and I went to the Punahou Carnival last weekend. So fun. Punahou is a really good private school here on the island.  Barack Obama went there.  http://www.punahou.edu/  It’s also known for its crazy carnival that it puts on every year.  Lots of schools here put on carnivals for fundraisers, but this one is the best known. It’s really crowded and HUGE.  They had tons of rides and a million food booths (including but not limited to corn on a stick, tacos, teryaki burgers and everything else you could imagine.)  They had malasadas, which they’re apparently well known for. So good.  They’re like hot donuts that taste more like fried dough and pull apart like rolls.  And they’re covered in sugar. (IBK: fast Bauernkrapfen)

This is David, Karyn and I on a ride while it’s moving. 

This is Karyn and I.  We have a picture similar to this, just the two of us, every year for the last 14 years.  We usually only see each other once a year.   This time we’re on a ride, but it’s not moving yet.

This one was definitely moving.

I love the Fun House.  David and Karyn were doubtful, but I talked them into it and it was so fun. Complete with reenacting the scene from Grease.  My chills were multiplying.

My brother once said after his year in France, “Now I’m mediocre in two languages!” because speaking French made his French better and his English worse.  I took French and German in high school and am mediocre in three languages. I am fluent only in Poge-a-guese which is my own special language. It consists of me speaking very quickly in my strange accent that I somehow have though I’m from New York, and people getting about every third word.  I am the only person fluent in this language, though most of you, after years of practice, can understand and read it, but just not speak it. 

This contemplation of languages comes after a very frustrating day at a conference about mentoring.  THAT part- the mentoring part- was awesome, and I’m extremely excited to be included, but I have no idea what’s going on.  I thought Hawaiian was a language that was rarely spoken anymore, and the words that I have heard have been interspersed within English in a way I find culturally interesting, but not challenging as I could always understand them from context. 

Today, I literally understood about every third word.  They would say something like “Welcome ohana to the hukelike.  We appreciate your kokua and look forward to a good hui this weekend.  We’ll start with a mele.”  I’m sorry, what? How am I supposed to learn about mentoring if I have no idea what’s going on? (How can they learn to read if they can’t even fit in the building?)  The BEST part was when I joined a small group discussion and was immediately asked to take the notes because “you look like you can type!”  I have no idea what I was writing about, but there were lots of k’s and h’s, I’ll tell you that.

In all honesty, I think it’s pretty cool, and I love the challenge of learning a language.  I just don’t think I was prepared for it today and I hate not being able to understand things that everyone else does and that I want so much to learn about and discuss. 

I started a dictionary today though, so hopefully tomorrow will be easier.  It made me think of freshman year math class at ND where I had a Calculus teacher from China named Hong Min Yin.  I don’t speak Calculus or Chinese, and Professor Yin spoke  numbers much better than English.  So my friend Nate and I came up with a Yin to English dictionary to get us through the class. 

I might make Nate learn Hawaiian and send me flashcards. I’ll keep you posted.

Hey everyone! See what happens?  I get employed and I disappear.  I’m back.  Picture me with a bad german accent and shades. 

Anyway, things are still good.  I hit two full weeks at work on Wednesday.  I like it.  I suppose I have to say that because, hey, anyone can read my blog, but luckily it’s also true.  It feels very different than the Big Brothers Big Sisters in Boston so far.  In a lot of ways it feels more like Clifford Hoffman when I worked there.  It’s a small office and really closeknit.  The people are so nice.

An illustration: 

Everyone at work signs out when they go somewhere, so that the others in the office know not to look for them if someone calls, etc.   I KNEW when I first got there that it would take me a while to get used to that.  So my third day there I go to shadow a site-based caseworker at one of her sites, but I forgot to sign out.  But I HAD signed out earlier for lunch.  Our office is in an area where a ton of homeless people live and it’s seen as pretty unsafe.  When I didn’t come back from lunch everyone convened and was afraid I’d been abducted by someone while out to lunch, so they called me on my cell phone to check up on me!  So that’s what it’s like. Everyone looks out for each other. 

One drawback of a small office is that it can feel hard to feel like you’re a part of everything.  It’s hard to break into something that’s already well established.  I was a little bit worried about it (that’s what I do best!) but David bet me last Monday that I’d be “fully integrated” by Friday.  He put it in his iphone (he loves that stinking thing) as a reminder.  I felt fully integrated by this Tuesday I think.  So, two days late, but you know, still not bad. 

So that’s my story. I’ll try to blog more often. Don’t give up on me! Since this whole blog was about work I’ll appease you with some fun pictures David took of Waikiki Beach recently. 

This is a view from the Moana Surfrider.

This is one of the oldest hotels in Waikiki. It’s a beautiful place and probably my favorite spot around here.  It’s really peaceful, they have good mai tais and good calamari, and it’s just really pretty.  There’s a huge banyan tree in the middle of the patio.

I love banyan trees. They’re the coolest things.  Those things hanging from the top are branches but they reach the ground and then turn into roots and new trunks! So there’s a tree with multiple trunks. There’s actually an entire park full of trees in Maui all made out of one tree.  So cool.

They actually remind me of baobabs from The Little Prince.  Although, those are evil and these are good.

That’s my story.  I’ll be back soon!