I saw a young man on campus this morning with a severely silly haircut whose upper arm was completely covered by an elaborate, colorful tattoo which read I trust you, Mom and Dad. Grief. I doubt I could muster much enthusiasm for the gesture were I unfortunate enough to be one of those trusted parents.

Well, so much for locks. In the almost ten months I’ve lived there, I’ve only twice arrived home to find no one to let me in. I just sit on my favorite front-porch chair and wait. When it happened recently, Sister arrived with an older ladyfriend. I was much surprised to learn that lock-loony Landlady doesn’t even trust her own sister with a key. No matter. Sister just removed the glass louvers from the bottom section of the window and climbed in, cautioning me not to mention it to anyone. It’s very very unlikely the Landlady will ever see these things, so I can tell the tale.

May Long’s thrive and prosper. They put Steel Reserve on sale again. Most unusual of them to make the offer again so soon. But whenever they put the stuff on sale the supply is quickly exhausted. Not really a surprise, with it a little more than a dollar cheaper. If I were someone who loved it as much as I do and had transport, I’d definitely take advantage of the limit of five, would probably put that in my car and go back in to a different checkout and get five more.

When I returned the following day there were none, as expected, and I had to make do with Olde English which was happily also on sale. It falls a little short of Steel in both taste and potency but still isn’t a bad brew. For that second foray I raided my coin bag. Whenever I arrive home with excess change in my pocket I put most of it in a plastic bag in my cupboard. Unfortunately I regularly remove the quarters to give to the Landlady for laundromats but there was still about five dollars in dimes and nickels.

Yes, the Landlady does my laundry for me, a service I hope continues when Blue Water rules requiring it are no longer applicable.  Another service I also certainly wouldn’t mind continuing is the providing of food. She’s an excellent cook and is wonderfully inventive in devising varied menus. With the exception, that is, of plain white rice which is almost always a part of the meal. Is there anything more boring than boiled white rice? Well, except for tofu. She still tries to sneak that stuff into my diet now and then despite my determined resistance. “Give it to Mary” I say, because the Old Lady is a human garbage disposal and will eat anything.

What a pity the Philippines weren’t colonized by the Irish and they all grew up eating potatoes. She knows of my preference for them and does sometimes include them, boiled or baked. When I switch to fixing my own meals a bag of potatoes will be high on my first shopping list.

That switch may come soon because the representative of Blue Water will make her monthly visit tomorrow and I plan to tell her I want out of the program. I won’t mind if it takes another month to be accomplished because I can’t say I’m looking forward to parting with an extra eighty dollars each payday.

And even though I know the arrival of that check doesn’t really make that much difference, I surely am hoping it won’t be late this month (as it was last month).

It was indeed a sad week for Hawaiian music. Not only did we lose the much-beloved Auntie Genoa, but the slack key master, Raymond Kane, has also died. Hey, enough of that, dear Dame Fortune, enough already.

This morning’s headline reads “singer personified Hawaii’s spirit”.  That she did, and she was surely one of the most loved musicians ever to grace these islands.  There’s a country song that says the most important things are those you leave behind.  In that respect, as in so many, Genoa Keawe was a true champ.  There are more than two hundred children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren who are, I’m certain, joining me in feeling honored to have known such a gracious lady and in feeling grateful for being able to treasure the memory of her special hugs.

For years a weekly highlight of my life was spending early Thursday evenings seeing Genoa in Waikiki, followed by Willie K and his band at the long-gone Pier Bar.  Those were the days, my friend, those were the days.

I have to admit that my interest in Hawaiian music has waned, although I was always really more interested in the musicians than their music.  I still rarely miss the three-hour Sunday kanikapila on Public Radio, and deeply regret that I missed Genoa’s final performances. In the past year I’ve only gone to the annual slack key festival and to a gig by the ever-delightful John Feary. I just don’t get around much anymore.

Speaking of days, only three more before payday and man, have I been counting them, grateful to old Gregory for having made this a short month. Alas, he made next month a long one and I must be extra cautious, I really must. I won’t have game peddling to bail me out although I have to admit I could part with three of my remaining four-game collection since I continue to be totally occupied by Rune Factory, am now playing it from the beginning for the fourth time. I keep expecting to get bored with it but it hasn’t happened and I doubt it ever will.

Goodbye, dear Auntie Genoa. Eighty-nine years just wasn’t long enough.

It’s splendid to sit on the front porch with my coffee and smokes under a clear predawn sky with the big Fool Moon shining down on me.  During my first month there I was awakened early one morning by a bright light and grumbled about my next-door neighbor who I thought had turned his back porch light on.  It was that far more distant neighbor, the old Man in the Moon, shining directly on my pillow.

During the summer I sleep with my head facing north, in the winter facing south, since the window is directly over one end of the bed.  Most of the windows in the house are the horizontal glass louver variety often seen in the islands.  They are in two sections and either the top, bottom, or both can be opened.  Only twice in all the time I’ve been there have I had to close both sections, almost always have the top section open even during the night.

During this full moon’s appearance I was treated to my very favorite neighbor making one of her rare excursions into our front garden.  Across the street, at the Toothbrusher’s house, they have two dogs and five cats.  The cats of course instantly gained the top of my favorite neighbor list, especially one who was then still a tiny kitten.  I loved watching Mama making sure she didn’t venture too near the street until I guess she decided it was finally time for her offspring to take its chance.  She still watched carefully, though, for some weeks, as did I.

The kitten instantly reminded me of the most treasured cat of my long life.  Whenever I visited Felix, Egypt would immediately leap into my lap, curl up and go to sleep, not budging for as long as I would stay seated.  Felix always said it was because I was the only person who would sit still that long, but I knew it was because Egypt loved me as much as I loved her.  The strength of our attachment was proved years later when I woke one morning in India with tears running down my cheek certain she was gone, a fact that was verified a few weeks later by a letter from Felix.

Egypt was the best acid trip companion I ever had.  At the time both Felix and I frequently consulted the I Ching, especially during a trip. I used three large Tibetan coins which were identical except that one had a tiny star on it, the other two a sliver moon. Whenever I tossed those coins, Egypt would reach out a paw and touch the one with the star. She never failed to be right. It was one time I could definitely use that Sixties phrase, it freaked me out.

Well, it has been games to the rescue. I knew that Game Stop buys and sells used games so I took some down to peddle, left the shop $51.20 richer. Of course I originally paid four times that but no matter, I needed the money far more than I did those long untouched games taking up space in my cupboard.

The games were those I was tired of or had never much liked in the first place and ones which had me completely stymied. In the latter group were Zelda (the worst version of that saga I’ve ever played), Nancy Drew (couldn’t manage to disarm the fifth bomb and hadn’t a clue how I’d done it with the first four), and the adventure game, Eragon.

I enjoyed and finished the Advance version of that geme, and the boys are working away at it now. The DS edition is very different from the Advance version, heavily dependent on the touch screen. That device is used well in a few games (Rune Factory, Sim City) but when action sequences rely on it I find it quite awkward. The Final Fantasy series doesn’t use it at all, fine with me since the calluses developing on the sides of my thumbs give witness to my preference for pushing buttons.

After my peddling expedition I went to Hamilton for awhile and then down to the Gold Gate Lounge. Despite the boon of being able to have beer at home, I still enjoy greatly that strange place with its apparently very loyal group of regulars. I am reminded of when I first embarked on the homeless life and quickly realized I was meeting and living with people I never otherwise would have encountered.

If it weren’t for that stupid law against sleeping in parks I’d no doubt be tempted to resume that life when Spring comes. But I don’t know, maybe I’ve just become too used to sleeping in a bed to return to park benches?

My landlady was happy on the weekend.  She acquired (or rather, re-acquired) yet another lock.  A bit loony about locks, that woman.  There are four locks on the front and back doors, locks on all bedroom and bathroom doors, even two locks on the door leading from the house to the garage, despite the rolldown garage door usually being closed.  Recently she went further and installed a gadget with a padlock on the gate to the front porch.  Especially absurd, that one, because it’s very easy to just climb over the gate.  (If someone used it to break in, she reasoned, they’d be able to get fingerprints.  Hmmm.)

Sister, Older Son and I frequently climb over the gate rather than bothering to go back inside and get the key, hanging on the kitchen wall.  Those lazy boys always peek out the door in the morning, see it’s locked and go back for the key.

Well, a couple of weeks ago the lock in the front doorknob jammed.  I was the first to discover it but everyone in the house (except the Old Lady) had to have a go at it, from both inside and outside, with and without the key.  After several days of us all having to exit and enter via the garage, Husband just removed the entire doorknob.  I thought he’d quickly get a replacement.  He didn’t.  So the Landlady finally lost patience and summoned a locksmith.  All better now and we can sleep more comfortably at night again.

I asked her if she’d ever heard of anyone breaking into a house in the neighborhood.  She hadn’t.  Hmmmm, again.

But she and several others in the house were also not too happy with one of the recent developments.  Handsome Son received a rejection notice from UH-Manoa!  I’d thought a Damien grad would almost automatically gain admission.  Not so.  What’s the use of going to a posh establishment like that if you can’t even get into UH.  Well, he’s now  thinking about going to Washington State.  He will be missed if so, and I’ll especially miss the fun of seeing him on the Manoa campus.  It’s not fair, not fair at all.

Speaking of not fair, I suppose I should just keep silent about things political, despite it being utterly inescapable this year.  And, sigh, still so many months to go.  But I am especially irked by Hillary’s current strategy of slurring Obama for being a good speaker.  Hell, he’s not just good, he’s great.  The best American politician with speeches since Kennedy.  Maybe Obama, like JFK,  just has a knack for attracting fine speechwriters.  But the delivery is as important, perhaps even moreso, than the words used.  Give one of Obama’s best speeches to Bush2 for delivery and prepare to cringe. 

Okay, I’ll try to keep my political rants to a minimum.  Readers would no doubt find that as boring as my continuing rambling about games.

There’s a new country song, a young woman plaintively singing, dear Mom and Dad, please send money, I’m so broke that it’s not funny. I sympathize with the poor dear. I got spoiled last year. While I was in the hospital, all those SocSec checks just stacked up so I coasted through almost the entire year without even having to think about money. Definitely my favorite relationship with the stuff. Now it’s back to living within my monthly income and as another song says, it’s not easy.

That happy condition last year accounts, of course, for the arrival of Game Boys in my life. I would have been happy anyway, but because of games I was even more happier with the news that the Senate had added us old folks to the upcoming handout and Bush2 signed it. That’s one of the few things he’s done in his unfortunate presidency which I thoroughly approved.

Afraid I won’t be doing much to achieve the intended purpose, though. I’ll be contributing more to the Japanese economy than the American one since a Sony PSP is at the top of my list. Final Fantasy I and II are available for it, hurrah.

I played (and finished) IV and V for the PC so was quick to grab III and VI for the Game Boy. These games keep track of the number of hours played and when I finally saw The End on the VI screen, I had clocked up over NINETY HOURS. Ye gods.

Alas, I am stuck in III, just can’t defeat the final monster (“We are the Dark Cloud”). It’s a very very long lead-up to the final encounter and you have to defeat four major critters on the way. After their defeat they agree to join you and although they don’t seem to be much help, without them absolutely nothing hits that damned Cloud. Ridiculously, there’s no save point anywhere in the final scenario, unlike earlier in the game where there was one before each major encounter.

I haven’t totally given up, even after numerous attempts, but if I manage to get XII next month that should keep me busy until the handout, and the PSP, arrive, expected sometime in May. So who knows if I’ll ever get back to III. And just think, I’ll only have 7-8-9-10-11 to go!

By the way, that song ends with the singer becoming a star and writing again to Mom and Dad, this time sending them money. I doubt my own script has such an ending.

These DS games are mostly entertaining, often amusing and sometimes even educational [whisper so as not to scare off the youngsters who seem to still prefer the hack-and-slash varety].

An overt example of the educational is The Age of Empires where you play six historical leaders, each with six campaigns. These often include settlement building (or rebuilding), maintaining supply lines, etc., in addition to the military strategy.

It’s a very cleverly constructed game with the first campaigns led by Joan of Arc. They function as a tutorial, with an advisor outlining possible strategies and predicting the likely outcome of those chosen. Dear Joan must first get supply wagons through and relieve the seige of Orleans, then has to take Rheims and rebuild the cathedral there. This is accomplished in two days, certainly a true architectural miracle. Then she must locate a lost relic required in the ceremony and escort the Dauphin to the restored cathedral for his coronation. A task made more difficult by his escorts who are such wimps they can be (and were in first attempts) defeated by peasants wielding hoes. It is vital that the relic be obtained first. I once got the silly git to Rheims but hadn’t yet found the relic. He threw up his hands in disgust and withdrew.

When the game departs from historical fact it clearly explains the discrepancy, as in Richard the Lionheart recapturing Jerusalem from Saladin. In fact, Richard was within sight of the city but was unable, or unwilling, to actually attack it. Oddly, I completed all but two of the thirty-six campaigns and one of those was Saladin taking Jerusalem from the Crusaders. I’ve tried numerous times but just can’t manage that one. Someone was more successful, obviously, considering Richard’s effort to retake it.

Another similar game is The Settlers with a myriad of locales and scenarios where a shipwrecked crew with limited supplies must establish a colony and eventually fend off invaders (some of whom were there in the first place so are well advanced). I’ve played it many times but have only won one game outright, and similarly lost one. Most ended in a stalemate or else it was so hopeless I abandoned it.

Meanwhile, while those gather dust on the little table in my room, I remain engrossed with Rune Factory. My third farmer is wonderfully successful much earlier in the game and is only waiting for the traveling salesman (really a prince in disguise and possibly even the brother of my amnesiac farmer) to offer a double bed, as he eventually does. Then I’ll have to see if I can find a wife who will supply something more interesting than a daily diet of corn-on-the-cob.

My neighborhood is almost entirely Filipino although there are Samoan families living in a new house across the street to one side.  Like many Polynesians, most of them are quite large but there is one notable exception, a slim brown lad who definitely gets my attention when he strolls around shirtless in his wraparound skirt.  A parau, I think it’s called.  A Hawaiian friend once offered to give me one but I declined, told her only slim young fellows could get away with that.  I have to admit, though, that a couple of the older men in that house also look quite elegant.  (I say families because there are at least two, maybe three.) 

It’s a very new house, was still being finished when I arrived.  A pleasant two-storey house whose effect is somewhat tarnished by having the entire grounds paved over.  It turns out to be quite practical, though, considering the number of vehicles they own.

Everyone in the area except the very young and very old has a car, van or truck.  Our next-door neighbor even parks a huge earthmoving machine in his drive now and then.

There’s another eyecatching young lad directly across the street.  I love watching him parade around in nothing but a large towel as he washes and brushes his teeth in the mornings.  He must have quite healthy teeth because he brushes for a very long time.  Well, unless he’s wearing away the enamel.

Everyone in our house, save me and the Old Lady, is fluently bilingual but English is used exclusively except between the Landlady and Husband when on their own.  It’s funny when they argue because they insert English comments when they want to be especially insulting.  They’ve had a couple of major spats, even went so far once as to take out divorce papers.  I naturally found it rather alarming the first time but began to see it’s just part of a pattern, letting off steam, I suppose.

I’ve not lived with dogs since I was a child, having always had feline companions.  But I am enjoying the three dogs who are now part of my life.  Alas, poor Sparky has been banished to the back of the house after squeezing through the fence and chasing the little girl who lives next door.  Of course, he was just being friendly but she was terrified and went running.  Her daddy was not at all pleased (despite having two massive canine brutes of his own), so Sparky was sent into exile.  I took him around on a visit to the front garden once but the other male dog isn’t fond of him and we have to pass by him, making it a very difficult task.

Blackie, the female dog, is totally delightful and does a most amusing little dance when she sees me.  And she carries on a dialogue with me, little woofs mixed with minor howls.  I could be feeling very low and she would unfailingly cheer me up.  She’s not at all the favorite of the family and I don’t quite understand why.

Believe it or not, I’ve started Rune Factory from the beginning for the third time. Well, once you become a multimillionaire there’s just not much incentive to carry on. I did take the second round to the point of getting married, which I’d avoided the first time. The silly woman gives me lunch every day as she sends me out to the fields and it is ALWAYS corn-on-the-cob. Maybe I’ll discover a way to find out what each  available candidate provides as lunch if I get married this time. I mean, I like corn-on-the-cob, but every day???

THE YEAR OF THE RAT

I wrote in a recent email: I was there [Chinatown] for one of the afternoon street parties.  Hotel Street and several adjoining side streets were closed to traffic and filled with lion dancers, food vendors and, of course, the inevitable tee-shirt stands.
 
I did buy one although I don’t really have much sympathy for that calendric animal.  I’m told that folks born in a Rat year are clever and resourceful.  That’s certainly true of every Rat I’ve known, two-legged or four-legged.  I’ve never had any problem with them though.  No Rat in its right mind would go up against a Dragon.

True, very true. The new year certainly got off to a soggy beginning but it has returned to what we more often expect on this beautiful island, blue and sunny skies, gentle tradewinds, temperatures hovering around 80.  I do thank Madame Fate for having brought me here, often tell how I came for a two-week layover on a flight from Tokyo to San Diego.  And now I’m entering my twentieth year.  I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be living than on this mountaintop.

I was pleased to see in the comment from a reader that Harvest Moon had been released for the DS and went off to Game Stop to buy it.  A difficult choice because Final Fantasy XII is also now available.  I made the wrong choice.  I can’t imagine why Natsume classifies the delightful Rune Factory as part of that series.  Moon is a totally different style of game, arcade-like where you rack up high scores with quick reflexes, the kind of game I find boring almost immediately.  Oh well, the good news is that Rune Factory II is coming soon.

The other good news in recent days, really good news is that the Landlady told me I can have beer at home.  I was waiting until I change to a regular tenant before raising the subject, but she brought it up unexpectedly.  As I suspected, she revealed that her father had been a drinker, evidently a heavy one.  But most Filipino men drink, don’t they,  I asked.  Yes, she admitted that is true.  Husband even indulges in a beer now and then, once went a bit overboard and was quite jolly and a bit wobbly.

In any case, for the first time in over seven years I can sit in my own room and enjoy a beer.  Long’s joined in the celebration by putting Steel Reserve on sale for $1.99.

Such luxury.
 

I heard several times that the stadium in Arizona had a retractable roof which could be closed if the Weather Gods dared to rain on the game.  They needn’t have worried.  Those guys were too busy over Hawaii to mess with the Super Bowl.  That nasty weather we had in December was echoed by a mini-monsoon in February.On the third day of almost incessant rain, I grabbed an umbrella and headed for the nearby shopping center, since I’d reached the dire point of only four cigarettes left.  It’s a decent place, with a large Long’s (as big as the Ala Moana store) and an even larger Star Markets.  There’s a McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and, of course, a Starbucks.  There’s even a Radio Shack.  But there is no bar nor do any of the restaurants there serve alcohol.  Too bad.  It would be an ideal place to open a bar and they’d certainly have at least one faithful customer.

As it is, the Cove Bar is closed for renovations.  I heard that the Mai Tai was also planning the same process but haven’t walked up there to see if it has actually begun.  It would be strange if so, leaving Ala Moana with no bar, although there certainly are plenty in the nearby neighborhood. 

So I’ve been hanging out at a really seedy place on Hotel Street in Chinatown called Gold Gate Lounge.  The bartenders are Korean ladies of a certain age (and rather too certain hair color) and the beer is only six dollars a pitcher.  Almost no one leaves a tip so they are quite happy with three dollars.

Well, Sexy Sadie is gone.  Despite the initial enthusiasm of the Beatles, I was never much interested in the Maharishi although I did go to see him several times in London.  I am grateful to him, though.  Without his influence I would never have discovered the beautiful mountaintop village of Mussoorie, since I headed in that direction to visit the Maharishi’s ashram in Rishikesh.  Unlike the wonderful Mussoorie, that place was a nightmare, a garish Hindu Disneyland of temples and ashrams.  And more flies than I’ve ever seen in one place.  The whole time I was there I ate nothing but hardboiled eggs since all the food was covered in flies.  Yeukh.

Your tiny hands are frozen.  That line came to mind as I was sitting on the front porch with my predawn coffee and cigarette.  This has been the coldest winter in all my years in Hawaii although of course it would have been considered a balmy spring morning in most parts of the mainland.

My favorite spot in the neighborhood is the small bridge over Kalihi Stream which I cross on the way to the bus stop (less than a five minute walk).  It is ordinarily a clear, gentle creek but following a heavy rain definitely changes its character.  After the nasty period of weather we had in mid-December it became a raging, muddy torrent.  Small boulders littering its path are  testimony that it was once much more forceful.

A little way downstream it forms a small pond, and I think how grand it would be to have a little hut there.  I doubt though that I’d have Mister Thoreau’s success were I to write On Kalihi Pond.

A State inspector came to call this week, the first time one has visited since I’ve been there.  The Landlady was itchy about it for days beforehand.  Fortunately I didn’t see him.  I, the Old Lady and Sister all fled out, leaving the Landlady to the mercy of the Bureaucrat.  Evidently all went well, although he did tell her my Medicaid subsidy would soon end because I’m now too healthy to qualify.

She is getting six hundred a month from Medicaid, she tells me.  $1,020 is a generous amount for that small room, but of course food eliminates some of the profit.  She says I can rent the room when the subsidy ends, and once I leave the Blue Water program, she can take on another client in the ground-floor bedroom which is not now being used.

Even five hundred is generous for the room and I could undoubtedly get somewhere cheaper if I got on a waiting list for the subsidized senior housing that is available.  But I like living where I am, enjoy the family (especially the youngsters) and am no doubt much happier there than I would be in a building filled with old people.

One way or another, it looks like I’ll be there for some time and I’ve absolutely no complaint about that.  (Errr … dear Landlady, since I’m now just a normal tenant, do you think I could have beer at home now and then … ).