*sigh*

A man came in today asking if he could volunteer in exchange for some food.

As is policy, I told him that no one takes food from our facility, and that he would have to seek out his nearest community pantry. I gave him a brochure with all of the pantries in the county.

"But none of them are open today."

I pointed to a couple of them that ARE open on Saturdays.

At which point he uttered some curses under his breath and called me ridiculous and left.

Then I glanced at the baggy of homemmade chocolate chip cookies I had brought for my coworkers and wondered if I should have offered him one.

**********

Do you have a hierarchy of interest when it comes to surfing the web?

On reeeeeally slow days I've discovered this is mine:

My email. Then Facebook. Then Google Reader. Then KSL for local news. Then CNN for national news.

And then... back to KSL to look at the kittens in the classifieds.

...Seriously.

Please be gentle with your mockery.

Catching up on weeks of moments.

Interaction with Stella, 60-ish yrs old, from South Africa, regular volunteer at the food bank:

"Oh Haley, you cannot believe what happened yesterday."

"I can't? What happened, Stella?"

"Yesterday I made myself so that I should have looked like a spookie!"

"A...spookie?"

"Yes, I was with my daughter and I decided I would make an Asian food, and the spices, I don't know if the spices and my body, but I was itching all over the place!"

"Oh no, that's no good."

"Yes, and so I put the white soda and I put it all over my body. And I said, 'Lord in Heaven, if anyone comes in at this time they will be so afraid of me!"

"I can imagine!"

"Yes, I was like a ghost in the day! Heeheeehee..."

...and away she went to continue sorting food.

*******

A boy with Autism came to me with a jar of organic peanut butter in his hands.

His comment: "This looks over-rated to me."

He meant expired. But I wanted to hug him.

*******

Found in the food-drive tote: Chocolate Body Frosting.

Directions:
1. Light candles.
2. Open jar.
3. Offer paint brush.
4. Announce softly: "Dessert's on me."

Discovered by a group of scouts.

*******

Question about doing court-ordered hours at the food bank:

"Can two people's hours count toward the same offense? Can we, like, split it up?"

In case you wondered, the answer is no.

*******

Gregory is a regular volunteer at the food bank. He is near 60 years old, and is assigned to us through the Easter Seals program, which gives seniors a small amount of money for the service hours they provide. He is missing most of his teeth, and just recently found somewhere to live after having been homeless for several months. But I've always been impressed with how sharp he is.

Today I found out that he has a PhD in Philosophy and is a European-trained Master Chef. The only one in Utah, in fact. I didn't believe him at first, but the more detail he gave the more I knew he wasn't making it up. So I asked him how he came to his current status.

His answer: "My ex-wife raped me in the divorce. Never get married."

You're not lost.

It's just me changin' things up a bit.

I've decided that most posts from here on out will be descriptions of little things throughout my regular day that make me giggle, make me sad, or make me think. Hopefully you'll find my life as amusing as I do. If not, we'll reevaluate.

And since I spent most of tonight playing with my new header, I'll actually start posting another day. Till then.

Reconstruction...

Sorry to leave you hangin' guys. I'm in the process of formulating a new theme for my blog. I'm thinking a theme might help me blog more regularly and give me purpose. This current fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants isn't working for me it seems. And, the wireless internet in my new residence in Midvale leaves much to desire in the speed category, which is why I'm mostly pictureless these days.

So I'll get back to you when I have more direction. In the meantime, thanks for still lookin' in. As a reward, take a gander at the largest can of tuna fish you'll ever see:

Fear Factor

Jason's always good for some blog inspiration.

His recent post cited the book Who Moved My Cheese, which I've never read but about which I've heard quite a bit. I guess in this book the author asks the question, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"

To which my initial response was "Pf. I'm not afraid of anything."

And then I remembered the year that there was a yellow jacket nest outside my apartment door and how I got stung on the same hand three times by these stupid Kamikaze bees that would lie in wait for me on places like my pillow and then when I lay down they'd do their damage and fly away giggling a little waspy giggle to themselves, and how ever since then I've been afraid of bees.

Well, I wouldn't say "afraid" so much as "reluctant around" or "more prone to flail uncontrollably in the presence of".

In truth I'm a big bundle of insecurities. But insecure people make other people uncomfortable, and whether I like it or not I have been hardwired from birth to be overly conscious of other people's comfort and ridiculously accommodating in an effort to minimize any discomfort (which is what happens when you're raised by a man who has been in the hotel business all his life.)

So wah-law, here you have cool and collected Haley. You're welcome. Can I get you a drink?

But just for kicks I'll reveal a few things to you that I'd do if I weren't afraid:

• Cut my hair off. I've always wondered what I'd look like with a chin-length A-line haircut. But the fear that resemble the character Alice from the Dilbert comic strip keeps me from doing it.

• Ride the Skycoaster ride at Lagoon. Actual skydiving is completely out of the question, but I could maybe be coerced into riding this contraption if I could get the idea out of my head that I'd inevitably be featured on the next Fox 13 special When Things Go Wrong - Amusement Parks.

• Get a Master's Degree in Public Administration. I love school, but I am terrified of unnecessary debt.

• Pursue a career in parody songwriting. Someone's gotta take over when Weird Al kicks the bucket, right? I have the knack, but for whatever reason it's more socially acceptable for men to get away with being funny than it is for women. Weird Al is funny, Weird Haley would just be weird.

• Say a good number of things to a good many people in my life that I don't have the courage to say. Don't lose sleep wondering if you're one of them. It's hard to imagine that with the stuff that DOES make it out of my mouth that there's even more that DOESN'T make it, huh?

There's my list. If you decide to fess up some of yours and blog about it, be sure to let me know so I can explore your vulnerable side too.

"We see things not as they are, but as we are."

Someone important said that. But obviously not important enough for me to remember their name.

...Alright, I went and looked it up. It was Delbert Stapley. You'd think that name woulda stuck in my brain. I still don't know his significance though.

...Okay, I couldn't let that go either. Turns out Delbert Stapley was a member of the apostleship for the LDS Church at one point. The distinguishing characteristic that wikipedia finds important enough to note is that at one point in the 60's he fought AGAINST legislation in Michigan favoring civil rights. But keep in mind that the man was born in 1896. It then notes that his views eventually changed, and just months before he died he sustained the 1978 action of all worthy men receiving the priesthood regardless of race.

Huh. Now that this quote has some background it makes it even more interesting.

My degree, no matter how useless it might be in the business world, has actually benefitted me greatly in my interpersonal interactions. When studying Family and Human Development one learns a lot about behavior in a family context. And, since your family constitutes your most immediate relationships during your most formative years, a lot of issues people have as adults can be directly related back to how they were raised. Of course, there's a myriad of other variables that come into play as well, and it isn't to say that people can't be trained in our out of good or bad habits, but the things you learn from your family tend to be the things that stick. For good or ill.

What brought all this on, you ask? Is it that I crave school so much that I just decided to crank out a mini-essay on nature vs. nurture just for old times sake? Maybe a little.

But I've recently been reminded of the importance of context. People generally do not set out every day with the goal to be as inconsiderate as possible, or to hurt someone else's feelings, or to engage in other behaviors that are destructive to the relationships around them. But, I also don't feel that people should be spared the negative consequences that are a natural result of these destructive behaviors, because how else will the person be conditioned out of them?

For instance... at one time I was known to be fairly tactless with people about their failings. What justified this? The good ol' golden rule. I would hope to high heaven that if I were doing something stupid and didn't realize it, that someone would let me know so I could correct the behavior. So, I was just extending the same favor to other people around me under the assumption that they felt the same way I did.

As it turns out, most people DON'T like being told what they're doing wrong. Shocker, I know.

So, as I persisted in being the police woman of the universe, I began to notice that blowing my whistle at people started to have negative reprocussions of their own. People weren't comfortable being themselves around me, because heaven forbid one of their weaknesses poke out for me to see and call them on. When I thought I was helping people change for the better, it turned out people were just sucking in their guts until I was gone.

And I'd rather people be at ease around me than good around me.

So I've slowly moved away from that by trying to keep any behavior within context. It has helped me leaps and bounds in the charity department, too. It's a lot easier to love crappy people when you think that their crappiness isn't necessarily something they can control. And heaven knows I have my own set of crappy behaviors that I hope people can shake off until I can shake them off myself.

... I don't know where that all came from.

By way of a life update, I'm moving to Midvale in a couple of weeks. Not being one who likes feeling stagnant in any way, shape, or form, I was offered a room in a former roommate's new house, and I took it. I'm excited for the change and whatever growth will happen as a result.

I still love my job. You know that one restaurant where the buffet line moved and you just had to stand there and scoop stuff onto your plate as it passed? My job is like a moving buffet line of people. I go to work and every day new people come in and out of the volunteer area for me to meet and learn from. More often than not these people are happy to be there, too. I'm sure a prison security worker could also safely say that his job was like a moving buffet of people, but it'd be like a buffet of anchovies and canned peas and cat food and stuff. (For whatever reason, those were the three items that sounded the least appetizing right at this moment.)

There. There's a new blog post. Do what you will with it.

Pass the poi Mahana!

Sorry for the ado. Laptop difficulties.
Without any further, I present to you the magic and mystery of Oahu.

Just for background information, my dear friend Wendy and her husband Dave (who is incidentally also my friend) live in Laie, where Wendy teaches at BYUH. Wendy has a former mission companion named Bonnie who I had met a couple times in passing, and I learned that she had purchased a ticket to visit our common friend. Having been toying with the idea myself without having any real dates in mind, I just decided to hop on the bandwagon.

The flight was long, due to the big fat ocean in the way. But upon landing in Honolulu I immediately initiated my shameless touristy picture-taking by snapping a shot of this at the airport:

While waiting for Wendy and Dave to pick us up, I picked up some pamphlets and studied up on some of the wonders... and hazards... of the paradise I suddenly found myself in.

(I've always had an unnatural fear of jellyfish that almost kept me from entering the ocean at all. Unnatural because I am more likely to be eaten alive by brine shrimp in my lifetime than be stung by a jellyfish.)

Wendy and Dave greeted us and, after a stop at Pali Lookout, we went to our first official Hawaiian dining experience:

I quickly learned that all the names in Hawaii are very literal. For instance, the bus there is called "The Bus". The restroom was labeled "toilet". About every school I saw was simply labeled "school". And, of course, their most popular grocery store chain:

It made me feel like I was in a Sims game of some kind.

I also quickly learned that there are wild chickens everywhere. They were frequently found crossing roads, which for some reason I never ceased to find amusing:

Eventually we made our way from the airport to Laie, where we unloaded our stuff and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Wendy and Dave's apartment is huge! And, apparently the contractor who built it decided to use every single last piece of leftover tile he owned to finish it:

We spent the whole next day at the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is like Disneyland without the rides. We learned to play Fijian instruments, we learned more about Hawaiian songs, and we got some Tahitian tattoos:

We took a break to eat a Shave Ice and watch the floating parade of dancers. I maintain that, given the proper grass skirt, that I could successfully dance almost as well as this Tahitian dancer. Tragically I don't own such a skirt, so it cannot be proven.

The Samoan presentation included this tree-climber guy. I was taking pictures practically right beneath him, so he seem extra conscienscious of keeping his skirt tucked beneath him:

In Tonga-land we made these fun fish toy things out of palm frands:

As the evening pushed on we made our way to the luau dinner and show. It was an ampitheater full of tables, with people finding their seats excited to eat luau food. Or that's the gist I got from the general excitement. Let's put it this way... no one seemed like they were dreading the meal.

As we waited, nice attendants walked around asking if we wanted to purchase the special smoothie drink. Knowing that my chances of ever returning to Hawaii are slim given my current occupation of choice, I decided to pay the money for it. They sneakily stuck this thing in the back of my chair indicating that I had purchased my drink, but I didn't realize it until it caught my periphary vision and scared the heck out of me. For a split second I thought I was being attacked by a tropical bird... and I didn't pay for THAT experience:

Soon I was presented with this delightful concoction:

...Which I happily slurped while waiting for the meal to begin. It was delicious, of course.

Soon enough we were excused from our table to go and load our plates full of luau food in a buffet-style. I kind of suspected that we wouldn't be able to return, which is why I piled my plate so high in the first place (I was right). The purple roll is made with poi, which is okay in roll form, but terrible by itself.

After a night show we went home to sleep, all cultured-out for the day.

The next day we woke up to a rainstorm, but headed to Honolulu nonetheless. While passing through the mountains to get to the other side of the island, the rain was coming down so hard that each little crevice in the mountain became a waterfall. It was beautiful. (My camera didn't work quite right for the rest of the trip as a result of me sticking it out the window of our car in the downpour. So treasure this picture, would ya?)

Our intention was to visit the USS Arizona memorial; however, the heavy downpour I guess made it dangerous for us to walk on the battleship, so it was closed when we got there. It being the only free attraction there, and the fact that the rest of them were outrageously priced ($24 bucks for a submarine tour?! I can watch the Hunt for Red October instead) we moved along.

So we decided to hit the swap meet instead, which is a whole lotta little shacks selling essentially the same touristy stuff lined up all around the stadium in Honolulu. This was the bathroom at the stadium. At first I thought this girl had no arms, but then I realized it's just the silhouette of someone who truly does have to pee really bad:

Their hand-washing technology is light-years ahead of ours.

This is us, holding our cheaply-purchased treasures. We fought hard for them, having to dash in and out of huts made of tarp between moments of torrential downpour:

From the swapmeet we went to the Punchbowl Memorial Cemetary, which is a bunch of WWII veterans buried inside of a volcano crater. It was a very powerful reminder to me of the many fights that have been fought for our freedoms over the years. This is part of a mosaic there:

From the cemetary we stopped and took pictures near this huge Banyan tree:

We then ate at Macaroni Grill, where I subtley expressed my fears once again:

On the way home we stopped at Turtle Beach, where... well... you guessed it. They apparently have a team of volunteers who cover the beach pretty much constantly and ensure that no one messes with the turtles when they come up to rest (hence the red rope keeping me from getting too close.) They had just affixed a transmitter to her shell (Olivia is her name) because her behaviors recently indicated that she was resting up for a long excursion elsewhere.

Then a couple beaches later we stopped just to watch the surfers for a minute, and I was rather amused at this brave man with his metal detector. (It made me wish there were such a thing as a Jellyfish detector.)

My happy feet.

The next day was Sunday, which meant church. (They really do say "aloha" at the beginning of every meeting. It's not just a gimmick. But, the response "aloha" from the congregation isn't ever nearly as enthusiastic as it is here in the states. I guess it would get old.) After church we ate and walked around the temple grounds. The temple itself was undergoing renevations, but the grounds were still beautiful. Here's me with the giant flowers whose actual name escapes me at the moment:

This is me hugging a palm tree. It's not my first picture of me doing this.

We then walked down Hukilau Beach for a bit, where Wendy helped me identify what is not a jellyfish. ("That's a piece of coral, not a jellyfish. ... That's just a leaf, not a jellyfish.")

On Monday Wendy and Dave had to work until that afternoon, so Bonnie and I took advantage of the bright sunny morning and went to catch some rays on the beach that is only a 5 minute walk from where we were.

When they got home we made our way to the North Shore part of the island, which is world-renoun for its surfing. And, for its Shave Ice. (Not shaved, mind you. Shave.)

After our treat we drove out to the beginning of a hike out to Ka'ena point, which is the westernmost point of Oahu. It wasn't a hike so much as an hour-and-a-half-meander down a very rocky, very pothole-ridden dirt road. The last little bit of the walk entailed an Albatross sanctuary, where we observed some behaviors worthy of Animal Planet:

At long last, we reached the point where we intended to whale watch. But, as you can see, we started a lot later than we anticipated, and by the time we got there the sun was setting rapidly.

...Which, as you can imagine, made our hike back pretty interesting. We hadn't brought any flashlights or anything, so we slowly made our way back down the rocky road with only the light from two cell phones to help us navigate around the mudholes and pitfalls (at times unsuccessfully.) It was so dark by the time we found the car that we didn't even know we had reached the car until we were three feet away from it. Here's the picture we took by cell-phone-light in the car once we found it, just to document exactly how dark it was:



The next day we spent the morning at Waimea Bay, where I finally entered the ocean beyond my ankles (after several assurances that the waters were jellyfish-free.) We body-boarded and snorkeled for a few hours. The snorkleing wasn't excellent, but I did see a few fish and actually caught sight of a sea turtle nearby during the five minutes my head was actually in the water (before I gave in to the charlie horses in my feet caused by the flippers.) I was more entertained by the bodyboarding, because being slammed into the beach and getting my swimsuit full of sand was a lot more fun to me.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this excursion. But it happened. I swear.

Then Wednesday morning Bonnie and I woke up and made our way down to the Hukilau Cafe (which, I guess, has been immortalized in the movie 50 First Dates, which I've never seen. It's not the same cafe as is in the movie, from what I'm told.)

It was a tiny cafe, with HUGE pancakes! I ordered the banana pancakes (in honor of Jack Johnson's song), and Bonnie got the coconut pancakes. Very delicious, but entirely too much food. You can't tell from this picture, but each pancake was about an inch thick.

It would be our last breakfast on the island, as we were flying out that night. Wendy and Dave came home from work and we headed out to explore about the only part of the island we'd yet to see, which was the south point. I don't remember the name of this point, but it was the last picture I took. (When I took this picture we were standing next to a couple who had literally just gotten married down at the beach and had ventured up to the lookout still in their wedding clothes to look down on the site of their matrimonial bliss. It took all my strength not to kick one of them in the shin before I left.)

From there we stopped for a meal at Chili's before they dropped us off at the airport. And thus we bade aloha to the island.

It was probably the most relaxing vacation I've ever been on, thanks to Wendy and Dave's hospitality. Having a free place to stay, an agenda already planned, and someone to drive you around (thanks Dave!) made this the vacation to beat in my lifetime so far.

And, notwithstanding the fact that it was no where near Christmastime, the song Mele Kaliki Maka was in my head pretty much the whole time I was there.