Lady Optimistic

Spelling ability notwithstanding, I must write. I have no training. I grew up speaking English. I did well in English class. By the end of my freshman year of high school my biology teacher, Sr. Dominica, declared that I had finally learned to write an essay. So, going off that, I write. I correct other peoples’ writing, and I dream of being an editor.

Anyway. 2015 has but one resolution. I must write. I listen to music that takes my mind to so many wonderful places, I have every confidence that I can write about them. And I think these thoughts may even be interesting to a handful of others.

In August of 2013 I read about the idea that the Olympics are in four years (2016 – it must have been something that was about a year old 🙂 ) and challenged others to ask, where do you want to be in four years. I have my goals in my notebook. I still think that those goals are where I need to head.

So, rather than this constant talk about what I want to do with respect to writing, I will write.

I will go to those places in my mind and share them and be thankful for auto-spelling correction, and just let the rest of the spelling go.

And so, here we go!

I totally forgot to post quite some time back.  But I am back.

So the Zoo.  In a word:  Fabulous!

The zoo is a beautiful place.  Its just the right size.  The gardens are amazing.  The animals are charming and their enclosures don’t make you want to weep and cut through their bars…  The people are pleasant.

Going to the zoo was, perhaps, the highlight of my time with my children.  Zeus was conferencing, so we went without him.  It was threatening rain, and we were sprinkled on once, but that didn’t slow us down.

We took the bus to the zoo.  It only took about 20 minutes.  They have a lovely park area in front of the zoo, which is across the street from a gorgeous beach.  The park is home to huge banyan trees.  They must be ancient.  The kids climbed and swung from the branches like little monkeys.  It was fun!

There is a statue of Gandhi in the park.

I took a photo of the kids with Gandhi.  The history of India, and its independence is very much relevant to Pakistanis.  But that is another post 🙂

We enjoyed the park for quite some time.  Then we went in to the Zoo.  $26 for all three of us.

Of course, the gift shop is immediately to your left.  Go to the gift shop.  Their stuff is cool.  Its not cheap, but its different and good.  I would easily have spent $200, but…  We went to the gift shop as we were leaving.  I found a lovely gift for my BFF.  I let the kids choose something each.

Hey, that was a great thing, too.  I made a deal with them that if they did the Sherpa work, I would buy then something.  This was the first visit anywhere with my children ever that I was not, at any moment, the Sherpa.  It was lovely.  No strollers, no kid strapped to my body, do diapers, changes of clothes, umbrellas, cameras, rain ponchos, all hanging from various parts of my body.  It was a joy to just walk around.  But I digress…

We had a map and planned out our attack so that we would see everything.  Regrettably, the reptile house was closed for renovations.  No reptiles.  I was not crushed 🙂

They have lots of tortoises.  Of every size from pocket sized to boulder sized.  They were so awesome.  The mid-size ones were running around in their enclose and they were fun to watch.  The huge ones were kind of slow, but they are actually moving about, too.

I loved the zoo.  I took tons of snaps of the kids, and I will use one on our New Year’s card.  If there’s a place in Honolulu that I would go to again, it would be the zoo.  Maybe they could build me a cage and keep me there.

On that last note, I believe its time to hit publish and move on.

My kids and I had a great time at the memorial.  Its a somewhat somber place, but it is nicely done, and the crowds weren’t bad at all.  We were there until about 2PM.

When we arrived we had to check our back paks.  You can’t take in any sort of bag.  So I carried my wallet and camera.  You must pay $3.00 to check your stuff.  Cash only. Then we went in to the site.

Tickets for the Arizona Memorial are free, but you must get one.  The ticket has a time on it and that is the time when you can go to the theatre and see a short documentary about the attack.  We had to wait approx. 30 minutes.  During that wait we were lucky enough to meet a gentleman who was a survivor.

The documentary is very well done and very interesting.  My kids and I learned a lot.  After the movie you exit directly out to a boat that takes you out to the memorial.  Once inside, you have about 15 or 20 minutes maybe to look around and appreciate the whole thing.  Its lovely, somber and quite moving.  There are rangers present to answer questions.  You will be herded out to leave if, like us, you loose track of time.  I would have liked to stay out there just a little longer.

We purchased the audio tour, for $7.50 each, and it was great.  It really hammered home a lot of the history.  It helped to pace my kids. 🙂

There are sites along the water where you can read interesting stuff, and the audio tour walks you through a bit of that.  The audio tour is strong at the Memorial itself and in the two small museums – explaining lots of things as well as commentary from survivors.

After we got back from the Memorial itself, we walked the rest of the grounds and went through the two museums.

There are gift shops and there is a snack shack. On the other side, you can go visit  a submarine.  The cost for that is $12.00 per adult and $5.00 for kids.  The cost of the ticket includes an audio tour.  We did this.  It took about 20 minutes.  It was cool for my kids to see a submarine, as this was a first for them.  There actually is one in San Francisco, but we never go to the city if we can help it 🙂

There is at least one other memorial that you can see, and pay for, but we were done in after the submarine, so decided to head home.

Be sure to have hats and sunscreen as you will be outside mostly and there’s not much shade.  Near the submarine is a proper place to get some lunch, but I was too cheap 🙂

The bus ride back took exactly an hour.

A little trick I figured out about the bag thing is, go to the gift shop first and have them put your item in a bag 🙂  Lots of people were carrying gift shop bags and had put other stuff inside, too.

Overall I am very pleased that my children had a chance to see this place and spend so much time listening to and appreciating this aspect of the history of WWII.  The people were respectful and it was very powerful.  And even though Elvis Presely made the initial principal donation that made this memorial possible, he is mentioned nowhere at the memorial.  They will tell you what he did, but that is the only mention.  Truly classy, IMHO.

Anyway, I’ve gone on and on, but I sure hope it helps!  Tomorrow we are off to the zoo!

How about that?!?!?

For some reason I am just not bouncing back.  Vacation was absolute bliss, as I said yesterday.  In fact, I guess I need a new category or tag… Bliss…  I am immediately exhausted.  I am happy, but exhausted.  I just can’t quite get going.  Proof of this is that I still haven’t so much as gathered together the laundry, let alone approached the laundry room with so much as a good intention…  This is not me.  I am the goddess, no The Goddess of laundry.  I do laundry every day.  I squeeze it in no matter the madness.

And what do you get from me writing two days in a row…  a pathetic, whiney, poorly written paragraph about laundry…  That ought to teach you, and me!

Furthermore, if I publish another ellipsis, I will also publish my home address so that you can come to my house in the middle of the night and slay me while I am sleeping.  After all, if I can’t commit to some actual, definitive punctuation, that is what I deserve!

I have been so late for work, I might as well not even bother coming in, but to my credit, I have arrived each day for a bit.  I sure hope the boss doesn’t catch on before I catch up  🙂  (That smiley is real punctuation!)

Enough whining.

Tomorrow is N0-Whining-Friday (actually its Haiku Friday, but I may or may not have the juices for that.  We will see!) so I will start with Diamond Head.  Or maybe just my overall opinion of Honolulu, Waikiki and the Island of Oahu.  Actually, as I think about it, I’ll do the opinion piece last (ellipsis temptation again, but I won’t, I just won’t!) as I think the opinion will be better formed and expressed once I have written about the individual experiences.

I loved my vacation.  I spent all my time with my kids – who absolutely rock.  Some day they will be grown and I will be alone and I will miss them dreadfully.  They are so much fun to hang out with.  This vacation especially was just so great with the hanging out and just talking.  Especially at the Honolulu Zoo.  That day with them was absolute magic.

Tomorrow’s post:  Diamond Head, or The Woman who Climbed Up a Crater But Came Down a Mommy

Monday:  Absolute Magic – The Honolulu Zoo

Tuesday:  Holding Back the Tears – Pearl Harbor – The Arizona Memorial

Wednesday:  Driving  Mr Zeus (and family) – The North Shore and Windward Side of Oahu

Thursday:  Summary Thoughts (Gotta get a more catchy title for this bit, huh!?)

Thanks for stopping by.

Today is September 11.  This has been a special day for me and my family for over 30 years.  Its my cousin, Super Teacher’s birthday.

ST is awesome.  She’s put herself through graduate school and teaches HS English and Drama.  She also works with the teens to stage productions.  She works very hard.  She’s engaged to be married in about another year.  I am very happy for her.

Today is also the eleventh anniversary of the Terror Attacks.  My shock is as raw as it was that fateful morning.  Living out west, I was asleep as things began to happen.  My radio came on to wake me and I thought I was dreaming as the story broke.  Then I sat up in bed.  I turned on the TV.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I called Zeus – we weren’t yet married – and he thought I was crazy.

Its true.  I will never forget.  Not. Ever.