More

I thought I'd expand for anyone who was interested in the details. I better get used to the: You're moving from Hawaii to Edmonton, what the fuck is wrong with you? questions.

So, I went to Edmonton earlier this month because I was traveling on the mainland for work, and thought I'd make a little stopover to visit Ye Ol' Hometown. The plan was to put in time with the family, say hi to friends, then get the hell out of there before it got too cold for my spoiled tropical acclimated ass. My parents did their standard guilt trip of wouldn't it be nice if you and Nate moved back to Edmonton? But this time, accompanied with the stories I was hearing about how incredible the Alberta economy was, I decided to do some research. I made some phone calls, went for an interview at an environmental consulting company that deals with the big oil companies and asked for an insane amount of money, just for the hell of it. (Because this is the kind of fun I like to get myself into when I'm on vacation.) They agreed to the number I threw out, plus a few K more to seal the deal and an extra $4,000 for relocation expenses. I talked to The Husband, and we thought long and hard over whether it was worth it to sell the house, give up the beaches and the year-round warm climate, give up his job, and start over in a new (old) city, and go through the immigration paperwork to allow him to live in Canada just for the extra money I'd be making... and we decided that yes, it was worth it. Nate has wanted to go back to school for awhile now, so he's thinking of applying for the MBA program at the U of A, which means I will be his Sugar Mama for the next 2.5 years, but I'm OK with that.

Within the week I accepted the job offer in Edmonton and found an overpriced place to rent at The Garneau on Whyte. Now all we have to do is sell the house here, pack our shit and work out the logistics of moving all our worldly possessions from an island in the middle of the Pacific to Canada, but what the hell-- my parents will be happy. I haven't lived in Edmonton for 6 years, I may end up hating it and realizing this was the worst decision I ever made, c'est la vie!

shake rattle and roll

The earthquake shook us up a bit, but we're fine.

In other news, we're moving to Edmonton in the middle of November. (For reasons completely unrelated to the earthquake.)

Yeah.

SICKY SICKY SICK

"Only boring people get bored." Yeah...

I called in sick this morning. My throat is still sore, and my ears are starting to feel funny, but really, I just wanted to use up some of the 21 days of sick time I earn a year. Seriously, who is sick 3 weeks out of a year? But now it's only 9 a.m. and I am restless and bored. There's nothing on T.V. and I don't feel right about actually leaving the house and doing something. I can't go to the beach- coming in to work tomorrow with a tan would look bad. I have no books. No movies. Just the company of 2 dogs and a cat, and they seem more interested in chasing the geckos in the yard than entertaining me. I always feel like I don't have enough time in a day, but now that I have nothing but time, I don't know what to do with myself.

I think I'm going to make chicken soup from scratch.

Then I'm going to watch some Laguna Beach reruns.

Then I'll take a long, hot bubble bath.

Then it will be noon, and I'll be back to being bored.

Oh, hey! Here's some news: My video iPod screen cracked awhile ago. I was pissed off. Didn't drop it, didn't mishandle it in any way. It just started cracking in the upper left hand corner, causing funny horizontal lines to appear on the screen. Went to the Apple store, and they told me that LCD screens are not covered under warranty, but if I'd like to trade it in to buy a new iPod, they'd give me a $10 credit. #@W()$*@()#%&#*(@$@(#I looked at the Apple "Genius" guy with a look that I hope said: ARE YOU SERIOUS, YOU LITTLE ASS CLOWN? And then I walked out of the store. I've been listening to my iPod with the cracked screen for months now, but it's getting worse and spreading, and I miss the video feature, so I did some research. Turns out that cracked LCD screens are really common for iPods. There are hundreds of message boards with people all claiming they did nothing to their iPods, but they started cracking or showing an "oil slick" effect on the screen. Some nanos have been recalled, but not the videos. Luckily, there are tons of places that will fix an LCD screen in your iPod, but it costs about $100 and you have to ship your player away, so you run the risk of it getting lost in the mail or damaged in transport. So, I ordered a new LCD screen on ebay for $40, downloaded a manual for how to open your iPod, and I'm actually going to try to fix it myself. If I pull this off, I will have newly instilled confidence in my technical abilities. If I end up throwing my iPod against a wall in frustration, so what, it's a lesson learned, and I'll leave everything up to "professionals" from here on. This reminds me of the time I thought I could save a few bucks by trimming my own bangs....shit. But this is different. How hard could it be?
...

9:10 a.m.
...

It seems like when someone needs to fly to the mainland to represent the state, everyone looks to me. I think the logic goes, Tamara has no children, thus she is transportable on a moment's notice.

I'm missing out on one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. I didn't dress up last year, but the year before, a few of us put together some last minute costumes and went out to people watch in Waikiki. This year, I'll be in Dallas, bringing my travel total up to 6 cities in the next 2 months. For you mainlanders, this wouldn't be a big deal. But when you take into consideration that any trip from here to anywhere is at the very least 6 hours long, (2500 miles to the West Coast, 5000 miles to the East)...it's going to be exhausting. Going somewhere used to be fun. I used to like sleeping in hotel rooms and eating fancy meals on the government's dime. Now, it's a chore.
So starting on September 1st, I'll be going from Honolulu to Las Vegas to Denver to Estes Park to Denver to Las Vegas to Honolulu to Minneapolis to Edmonton to Honolulu to Dallas to Honolulu, finishing up November 3. Actually, put that way, it doesn't sound so bad.

Floaters

This is my confessional. I'm not Catholic, so a Blog Confession is the best I can do. Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned.

Our secretary was on the news. She pulled a dead body out of the water at Ala Moana Beach Park over the weekend. Unfortunately, her kids were at the beach with her and witnessed the whole ordeal. I go over to her desk this morning to ask her about it. She describes the body, pale and bloated. There was foam bubbling out of his mouth. She says he was face down in the water. He smelled like a fish. He was middle-aged, Chinese. She says did you know that men float face down, and women float face up because of their chi-chis? We laugh. She describes the body some more. No prayers for the deceased, instead we "ew" and make grossed out faces.

This was someone's son. Likely, someone's father, brother, coworker. And now we laugh at how funny his body looked, bloated with seawater. My defense: we laugh because we are scared. Because we don't like to be reminded that life is fragile.

It's not really funny.

We die. Sooner or later, we all die. It is the only constant, the only guarantee. I think about death a lot. Maybe too much for someone who is healthy and in her late twenties. My husband calls me morbid. But I want to be prepared. As prepared as anyone can be. I will be cremated. My ashes thrown into the ocean. (Although a good friend tells me, the ashes don't look like the fine powder you see in the movies. When her grandmother died, they cremated the body, and to their horror, found chunks of Grandma in the urn.) It's OK if it's not glamorous, a perfect casting of ash into the wind. Put me in a container and drop me over the side of a boat. [Cue Paul Schafer]....Will it float? Will it float? I think of David Letterman. See? Ha, ha. Death=scary. Let's laugh instead.

Suggestion Box

First things first: Hubster got a job! Here! We ain’t goin’ nowhere, bitches.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the birds are chirping...it's a fanfreakingtastic day in paradise. Today, the soundtrack in my head is Jimmy Buffet, Jack Johnson, and Bob Marley. I'm thinking of throwing a big 4th of July BBQ at my house. Everyone's invited! (Even you.)

So. Bloggity blog blog. I need a theme or something if I will write with any regularity. And I want to write, I think it’s a useful exercise...I just need a little direction. I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I’ve noticed a key difference between male and female blog writers. Men write funny editorials, light commentaries, the kind of stuff you’d read in a magazine or newspaper column. Movie and book reviews, politics, current events, etc. Women pour their hearts out and write about emotions. Their blogs are their diaries. It’s a much more personal thing. I haven’t found my blogging niche yet.

I could write about celebrity gossip. But that theme seems a little tired. I could use my blog to document what’s new and exciting in the environmental world. But I want readers. I could rant about liberal nuts and how they’re destroying North America. I could have a fake blog and create a fictitious life that is much more exciting than my own. Or I could pull together something really artsy fartsy...a photojournal, sketches, etc. I dunno. Suggestions welcome.

Secondly, I think I need to post a warning.

Disclaimer: (This should really be on the front page somewhere)

I do not intend to offend, but I am not very PC.

If it starts turning into one of my favorite catch phrases, chances are it is offensive, derrogatory, or pejorative.

It started with "jip." That's how I thought it was spelled. I was walking around saying things like, "$45 for that T shirt? What a jip!"I didn't know "gyp" was a reference to "gypsy" until my Hungarian boyfriend with real, live gypsies in his family brought it to my attention. Apparently the word has something to do with the stereotype that gypsies are adept at cheating people--thus the potential for offense.

I also used the word "bastard" a lot until I called my boyfriend a bastard, in a joking, light hearted way. (Different guy-Italian boyfriend, not the Hungarian boyfriend).Turns out, he really was a bastard, and he got offended. He said "You had to go there, didn't you." I stopped using the word. He called himself a "wop" all the time, but of course, I would never consider referring to him the same way.

Then came "Oy vey." Not particularly offensive, but I was overusing it. Everything was "oy vey" if it was mildly surprising or amusing. Then, somone told me that it's generally a term used to express exasperation, and it shouldn't be used like, "Oy vey! That's fantastic news!"

Oh yes, then there's the Uncle Bob incident. This was maybe10 years ago. Uncle Bob is gay. He was at my grandmother's house with his partner, and I was watching T.V. with my sister. She turned to some show with Tom Green, and Tom Green was being his usual obnoxious self. I told her, "Change the channel, this is gay." I had been calling everything gay as a synonym for "bad", but all of a sudden, saying it in front of my dear, gay Uncle Bob, I felt deeply ashamed.

Lately, I've been saying "What a maroon!" a lot. Everyone is a “maroon.” George Bush, my dog, the FedEx guy. I honestly don't know where I got this from. I think I heard it on T.V. and it kind of stuck with me. It only dawned on me today that it is probably an offensive word. I looked it up. Yes, it is.

"Maroon": It is a word used in the former French Colonies for mixed blood slaves... The prevailing attitude was that they were generally less intelligent [etc.], thus "What a Maroon!" is a racist slam. When Bugs Bunny cartoons started using the term, a lot of terms denoting racial heritage were in common use. This one may be getting past a lot of modern folks because it wasn't a term commonly used in the States.

Whoops.

While I am not a slave, but indeed "mixed blood," I probably would not appreciate being called a "maroon" if there are some racial associations there. My apologies to President Bush, Keilani and the FedEx dude.

I really need to expand my vocabulary to include some new sayings and insults that are only mildly offensive.

Again, suggestions welcome.

Updates

This is the kind of day that makes me want to bang my head against the wall. I am really getting sick of this shit.

So, updates on various:

Husband- Still no job.

Location- Hawaii for now, but it is becoming more and more likely that we are going to have to move to The City. My feelings on this are mixed.

Work- is work. I like my job, unchallenging as it is. It may not be wildly exciting, but it's comfortable and predictable (kind of like marriage! ha!), but if relocation is unavoidable, I suppose I better start sending those resumes out.

I'm trying to stay positive. So. On that note, things to look forward to:

-Massage appointment tonight. Oh, sweet Ashley. This woman has some amazing hands.
-Tia's 1st birthday party on Sunday. Chuck E Cheese's. Skee ball + pizza = Good.
-Wedding cafe afternoon tea with Heather. Not sure if this is actually something to look forward to or not. Having had a very simple wedding with 12 guests, I never really got into the girly wedding crap. But I will make all the appropriate ooohs and ahhhhs when looking at dresses.

That's all I got. There's always the beach, a cooler of beer and a stack of trashy celebrity gossip magazines to make me feel better.

How about that Lindsay Fire Crotch Lohan, eh?

Popozao

I am fascinated by Asian tourists. I’m in a good place for having such an interest. More than 6 million people visit the state, with nearly a quarter of those visitors being from Japan.

People-watching was one of my favorite hobbies when I lived in Korea. I’d take a book to a local coffee shop, grab a seat by a window and pretend to read while studying people (in a subtle, un-creepy way of course.)

Reoccuring themes (and excuse the sweeping stereotypes and generalizations here):

1. Koreans, especially Korean women, are very concerned with the way they look. I know plastic surgery/dieting/exercising is a national obsession in the U.S., but there are still plenty of women who just don't give a shit what they look like when they leave their house. Yours truly included. In Korea, it is very rare to see a woman without makeup, and without being dressed to the nines. Even if they’re just shopping for groceries.

2. Same sex physical affection between friends is commonplace. Women holding hands with other women. Men holding hands with other men. It’s a beautiful thing, really.

3. An obsession with cleanliness. Or is it fear of disease? Or a consideration to others? Face masks and white cotton gloves are everyday accessories. And it has nothing to do with emulating Michael Jackson. (I think.) There’s your standard drug store variety surgical face mask- white or light blue, paper or light cotton material- and then there’s the high-end fashion masks- Burberry print, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci. I admit, for a few weeks, I sported a nifty little blue number. But it was during the Gobi yellow dust storms, and even if the mask didn’t filter any crap out, it had a positive psychological effect. I felt better wearing it. But we have some of the best air in the world in Hawaii, and I still see people (tourists from Asian countries) sporting the face mask. And occasionally the white cotton gloves.

I’ve had the fortune of running into some real characters lately. Not just tourists, but locals too. I’ve made it a habit of carrying my camera with me everywhere, and sometimes I secretly take pictures of people without their consent. Which may or may not be legal, but I figure if paparazzi can get away with stalking Paris Hilton and taking photograph after photograph without her permission, it can’t be that different if lil ol’ me takes pictures of random whack jobs on the street or at the beach. What they don’t know can’t hurt them. As soon as I can figure out how to make that little black bar over the eyes, I’m going to post the pictures. Maybe start a new blog dedicated to my new hobby.

I know, I know. I suppose this does go over the line of subtle un-creepy people watching.