veiled exuberance

none shall pass.

o. texted me to tell me that he'd gotten some pictures of baby kildeer (PEEP!) and that they were running away from him (as he tried to take their photographs (i only want to make you famous!)) and falling on their beaks.  poor deers.  they are just fluffy bits of birds at this point, i'm guessing.  he hasn't posted the pictures or the video yet.  *hint hint*  anyway.  we had kildeer nesting in the library parking lot last spring.  it was a really bad place to build a nest - too much car traffic, too much people traffic, and then they did landscaping on the nest site.  one of our more concerned employees moved the kildeers' nest when the landscapers came, but the birds were distressed and agitated and eventually abandoned it.  it was a very sad thing.  the guy who moved the nest and the mama (or papa, i suppose) kildeer were really distraught.  the kildeer would regularly do their broken wing dance for us - "oh, i am an injured bird, follow me awaaaay from my nest!"  it was pretty neat.  here is one of the birds rearing up off the nest, ready to lead me away (to my doom!).

posted by: juuitsu at May 09, 2008 12:49 | link | comments (1) |

some photos from hawaii!


this was growing in the botanic gardens that we visited.  it has these little plantlings shooting up from inside the...petals?  i'm not sure what parts of this plant are leaves and what are flowers.  anyway, it's bizarre.


this is another alien flower (hawaii seems to be full of them).  although you can't tell because there's no reference point, this flower was taller than me, and it's leaves towered above both of us.  if you pick something like that, what kind of vase do you put it in?  supah-size me, behbeh.


this tree-lined drive was buried in the midst of the botanic gardens.  i wanted to explore it, but dad's feet were all messed up after our death march the day before, so i snapped this picture instead.  i'm sure there were horrible, um, flying insects back there.  you can see the sun reflecting off their large compound eyes.  just agree with me, ok?


the ferns *will* inherit the earth, you know.  after the horrible flying insects.  this fiddlehead was enormous.  as was the fern it was shooting up out of.  they are bizarre in general.  life cycles are bizarre.  i'd be more specific, but it would require referring to a plant biology textbook that lives with my parents.  i suppose there's always wikipedia (and/or more scholarly sites/information available), but i think we've already established that i'm not terribly motivated.  the kids in the photography club had no idea what this was. 


this is downtown hilo - all the way down and past the town bits (which are behind us).  i like how it came out.  it started raining a little while later.  i walked along the beach last time i was in hilo.  this time, mom informed me that back in the day (when she was a little girl), they used to dump raw sewage into the bay.  so people don't swim there.  oh. good.  i wish i'd known that beforehand.  not that i swam there, but i did put my feet in last time.  ewwwww.


this is in kona (kailua kona) on the other side of the big island.  we didn't go swimming at all while we were in hawaii.  i know that's hard to believe.  many of the beaches look like this, though - not sandy so much as lava rocky and ouchy if you fally-downy.  we were on a public walkway down by the ocean, but around and behind us were all of these very exclusive resorts - the kind you book into for the duration of your hawaiian vacation and never leave.  i find that shocking. 


we were up on a hill when i took this.  the hill is all green and treed/forested, but the landscape around it was obviously flattened and destroyed by the lava flow.  hawaii is full of these kinds of contradictions.


got dad to stop so i could get a non-blurry picture of mauna kea.  most of the white stuff is snow (which i'd have been more excited about if i hadn't just come from a winter wonderland back home).  there are a few white-ish bumps, though, which are observatories.  the change in elevation is enough to make some people queasy, out-of-breath, etc. - the normal stuff you'd experience with sudden elevation changes.  we didn't get to go up there.  there are some tours, though, where you get to hike around, do some gazing, and sip hot chocolate.  sounds good to me.  maybe next time i'm there...

smoky crater in volcano.  there are a lot of steam vents in the park, which i have no recollection of from the last time i was there.  strange, that.  it was rather cool the day we were there, so the venting was a lot more obvious.  i took some video of the eruption at night, but it came out crap, so i deleted it.  alas.  some of the other people i hiked out with got some good photos.  i shall take away only memories.

posted by: juuitsu at May 09, 2008 11:21 | link | comments (2) |

oberon talked me into seeing iron man with him on Saturday night.  i'm glad we went - i really liked it.  didn't expect to - mostly because i haven't been much impressed with superhero movies.  well, not the spider man ones, anyway.  bleh.  i feel like i'm just beating a dead horse when i say, "the dialogue was SO unbelievable!"  but it was.  really.  at least in the first one.  and i really wanted to see that.  i think part of it was the tobey maguire appeal - i'd just seen him in Cider House Rules and was all, "ooh, tobey!"  i'm over that now. 

so, it wasn't really action packed, although there were some explode-y bits, and some tense moments.  what there was, was a lot of character development and back story...and it was just smart.  and robert downey jr. made Stark seem really smart, too.  i think he did an excellent job.  it was witty and entertaining for the most part.  there were some things that just didn't make a lot of sense - like why you would build a big iron suit instead of, oh, i don't know, something more useful, if you were held hostage in the middle east until you built a Major Weapon for a group of terrorists.  and i'm guessing that a lot of the things that the terrorists used against the suit might - in real life - have been rather effective.  iron man was one lucky sonofabitch.  whatever.  i blame the comic universe moreso than the movie.  they did well with what they had to work with.

posted by: juuitsu at May 07, 2008 22:50 | link | comments (3) |

i keep not getting around to things.  or i do, but much later than intended because...well, because of other things.  stupid things.

i went geocaching on saturday with a couple people from work - both of who are fanatical about it.  if you haven't tried it, it's a lot of fun - but more fun, in my opinion, if you go with a partner or a small group.  hunting for treasure in the mud is ever so much more exciting with company.  so, to begin geocaching, you use a gps receiver to search for "caches" by coordinates and clues that people post on this site.  some of the caches are puzzles, so you have to do some work beforehand or en route to actually figure out where the cache is.  since gpses are only accurate to within about 30 feet, once you are "within range" you start looking for likely hiding places.  people hide all kinds of containers - there are ammo boxes, plastic sandwich containers, film cannisters, and tiny itty-bitty micro caches that might just be a magnet stuck tot he side of something metal.  many caches are large enough to hold a log book of some kind, where you can jot down your name and the date that you found it.  experienced and/or serious cachers will carry their own log books with them while out caching, so that they can note their own experiences.  later, people log their finds through the website (and note if they could not find something, or if the container was destroyed, etc. - lots of times animals or people find the caches and make off with the goods).  people will also stock their caches with swag - usually little things that finders can swap for something of their own.  i carried along some glow sticks and wearable pins/buttons to trade for things.

PK sent me coordinates for 12 caches - and we found all of them except for one.  CP had one more in her gps that we were also able to find.  we were out for a good 6 hours and the weather was TERRIBLE.  it was about 42 degrees out, raining on and off, and the first cache we tried for was in the middle of this knotted mess of thorns and brush that was about a half mile trek through a cornfield.  the terrain was listed as a 4 on the website (which means CHALLENGING) and while some people complained about all of the thorns and the lack of any discernible trail into the wilderness, others mentioned a "mowed path."  so, PK thought, "how bad could it be?"  after the rain soaked us to the bone, and the mud seeped into our shoes, and we plowed through the brambles, we were able to say, "oh, pretty bad."  once we got within range, however, it wasn't difficult to find the cache - it was a 5 gallon bucket just sitting out in the middle of the...well, the tangled vegetation.  but it's not like they had done anything *further* to conceal it.  someone had written "stumbled upon this by accident!" in the log book - dated sometime in January.  our response?  how the heck could anyone find this place by accident?  why would you - in January - push your way into an obviously thorny patch of trees and other growth, through several feet of snow?  BY ACCIDENT??  not possible.  unless, of course, they were abducted by aliens and set down *right there*.  whatever.  they lied. 

most of the other caches were easier.  well, ok, except for the one in the pine tree.  the person who hid it must have had a lot of time on her hands and an evil streak a mile wide.  the only reason we found it at all was because CP had located it once before.  barely.  it was a tiny tube, only large enough to hold a small roll of paper, that had been disguised as a pinecone.  it was carefully tied to a branch - next to some other pinecones - with a clear piece of plastic string.  PK and i looked and looked for it.  and after about 15 minutes, CP took pity on us (or got sick of sitting out in the weather) and helped us locate it.  even *she* had trouble finding it and she'd seen where it was before!  it was pretty cool, though.

by the time 5:30 rolled around, i was freezing.  couldn't stay warm, just wanted to go home and sit in a hot bath until everything thawed out.  CP was feeling the same.  PK brought a change of clothes AND socks AND boots, so she was nice and toasty at the end of our day together.  it was fun, but i definitely want to be better prepared for the weather next time.  still haven't logged my finds on geocaching.com - CP asked me if i *ever* do that.  and i realized she'd checked out my profile and was NOT impressed with the amount of caching i'd done.  i'm waaaay more casual than these women.  ;)  but, i'm ok with that.  i had a valid excuse this morning - my dsl was all wonky and it wouldn't load anything for me.  still a bit wonky with downloads tonight, but hopefully it will work out whatever bugs it's got going on.  i doubt any of the AT&T tech support people would be able to diagnose what's going on with it - not, mind you, because i've had any experience with them of my own...but oh, the horror stories of people calling to "fix" their internets.  *shudder*

posted by: juuitsu at May 07, 2008 22:42 | link | comments (2) |

i finally got the jar open. 

i've had this jar of jelly or preserves or somesuch since this past September when oberon and i went on our road trip.  his mom gave us each some homemade preserves to bring back with us.  i'm really slow with the spreadable fruits, and i had to work my way through a smucker's raspberry jam before i was ready for a new jar.  so, a couple months ago i was ready.  my toast was already buttered and steaming, and all it needed was some...i'm not sure what flavored jelly.  it's red.  red is good.  it's one of those double lids (which probably have a name) with the flat circle center that seals the opening in the top of the jar and then a twisty donut-shaped bit that you screw on over that.  you could say it was...jammed.  i made some progress with it when i let it sit on the counter for a few hours (it had been in the refrigerator).  i was able to remove the donut part.  but the other lid was cemented to the jar.  couldn't pry it off with my fingers or finger nails, couldn't get a knife underneath it...there was nothing left to twist off, so using the grippy jar-opener wasn't helpful, so i gave up and ate my toast and put the jar back in the fridge.

fast forward to this morning!

i used the tip of a spoon (the spoon part, not the handle) and pushed the lid off.  it worked.  finally.  when i tried to use the handle of the spoon, it slipped and i got a wrist-ful of scrape (good thing it didn't cut me, or i'd be in the hospital explaining how i was NOT trying to commit suicide with a jar of jelly - SHEESH - everyone KNOWS that shit doesn't work!). 

anyway.  it's tasty!  i wish i'd been more tenacious before.  but, after long experience with me i know that this is generally how i tend to operate.  *shrug* 

posted by: juuitsu at May 03, 2008 11:15 | link | comments (7) |

someone sent me a link awhile back to these great t-shirts that said, "Sometimes I'm glad I became a librarian. Other times I wish I had simply become a ninja." yay.

it turns out that ninjas and librarians needn't BE mutually exclusive (see the above video for some fab ninja moves that can be applied in the library setting)!

posted by: juuitsu at May 03, 2008 07:48 | link | comments (4) |

we have an active group of mostly older adults who volunteer at the library and help out with various tasks.  they're really reliable for the most part, and they save us a lot of time.  many of them are retired and have had interesting other lives - and continue to have interesting other lives apart from their volunteer work, taking classes or traveling the world (on a budget, of course).  so, this woman who volunteers with us called yesterday to tell us that she wouldn't be coming in - she'd just been to a cooking class and they'd made a 4-course meal.  after each course they'd had a glass of wine (paired with the food or to cleanse the palate?), so she'd had four.  she was driving herself home and realized she probably shouldn't be going anywhere because she was, hm, in a state, inebriated, drunk.  "so, yeah," she says, "i'm not going to be able to come in today - i'm too drunk."   *giggle*

posted by: juuitsu at May 03, 2008 07:35 | link | comments |

spam, eh?

every now and then i get messages on okc that just don't sound legitimate.  this one could go either way.  it's either spam, or someone sending the same general message to a bunch of people (could also be described as spam), or someone who just doesn't know how to start a random conversation without bludgeoning you over the head. 

it goes like this:

Him: Hiya :- I felt somewhat lonely so I went online to see what felt going on. I came across your profile page and wanted to send you a little message. I'm searching for something more on the friendly side at the outset and would like to play it by ear. I recently became single again after a long relationship. I carry no emotional baggage so don`t worry! I'm smart, good-looking and in very good shape. I work out often. but I'm not crazy-obsessed about it. I also like watching TV and going to the movies. I also love drinking coffee and hot chocolate. I hope you'll want to get in touch with me. plz,send me your email so that i can mail and tell you more about me
i care"

it irritates me.  enough that i almost responded.  but.  i don't really want to respond, in the event that it becomes grief-ful.  so, instead, i'm going to respond here.  because then i get to, you know, have my say.

Me: This sounds a bit like the spam.  But in the event that it's reeeal.  Thanks for the message.  I'm not looking for anything in particular.  And it really kind of puts me off when people send me messages that lay down what they're looking for instead of, oh, I don't know, having a conversation.  Can't people just talk without declaring their intentions immediately?  You don't respond to anything that's in my profile, which leads me to believe that you a.) didn't read it or b.) don't have anything to say about it (and that'd be weird, because it's way long and takes a good 15-20 minutes to get through).  I never send out my email to people who message me once.  Never, never, never.  Nor do I send phone numbers.  Nor do I do anything I'm not comfortable with.  I don't know anything about you, Mr. Possible Axe-Murderer!   (Not, understand, that Axe-Murdering is not a respectable profession - I *also* have an axe, however, mine's set to Stun.)  Hm.  Actually, your message is all "ME ME ME" and with all of that Me going on there's no room for anyone else.  Anyway, good luck.  I'm sure there are one or two other people on here that have more serious intentions and are more seriously looking to get entangled and involved.  They'd probably be thrilled to hear more about you.  Cheers.

edit: oh, and for those who don't know, okc has a matching system that tries to guess how compatible you'd be with others based on the ways you answer questions, etc. - this is not foolproof.  but, it's also not completely wrong, either.  based on *their* calculations, me and mr. nice are about 35% compatible.  whee. /edit

posted by: juuitsu at April 30, 2008 07:50 | link | comments (3) |

monkeybaby and i went to see the local high school's production of Grease tonight.  the kids in one of my teen groups told me that it was phenomenal.  or maybe they said "amazing" - that's their favorite word this month.  so i decided to go.  now, i haven't been to a hs show since i *was* in high school, and i can't even recall what all i saw back then...but it seems to me that things have changed a bit.  like, you can buy tickets online.  and they're ASSIGNED seating.  in an actual auditorium.  oh, i guess we had one of those, but we also had like 7 different gyms.  and lots of things happened in the gyms, too.  actually, i think i missed most of the drama stuff because i was so busy playing badminton and more badminton and MORE badminton.  i had priorities.  anyway, i wasn't sure what to expect after i ordered up our tickets (for the *best* available seats - what the heck?  are we seeing Cirque du Soleil?).  even monkeybaby commented when we picked up our tix at Will Call - "wow, these are really high class and professional-looking."  they were.  i told her to save her ticket stub for her scrapbook.  "uh-huh." 

i don't remember much about the movie Grease at all.  this is not an isolated incident.  i regularly fail to remember the details of lots of things i see.  i've decided that i must be using my brain for other Really Important Tasks.  i'm just not quite sure i can identify those either.  mostly, i don't want to worry too much about it.  at least everything will be new when i lose my mind entirely.  :)  monkeybaby was able to point out where they'd changed words in the songs to be more...family friendly.  (so, no more 'pussy-mobile' or girls 'creaming' themselves over said pussy-mobiles.)  in my defense, i've probably only ever seen the movie Grease once.  and the musical/play/live-doodley?  never. 

it was decent-ish.  some of the kids were really good and really got into character.  the girl who played Sandy had an excellent voice, but she was so stiff - even when she turned into badass Sandy at the end.  some could dance well, some had the acting bits down, but most lacked the complete package.  the material is really fun to watch/work with though - so many goofy bits (like the beauty school drop out angel scene...hee!).  we had a lovely time.  i was surprised that so many people brought tiny, tiny children - who did not *get* the play at ALL.  and then the adults were horrified by some of the humor.  i think one of the actors mentioned his "buttocks losing their rosy bloom" - in a song all about mooning.  the little girls in front of us kept turning around to stare at us every time we laughed (and it wasn't even the case - this time - where we were the loudest and most annoying people in the theater; although, i can easily see this happening), like we were some kind of exotic and strange creatures. 

anyway.  like i said, enthusiasm was somewhat lacking in some of the performance.  but when i got home, i found the following video on cute overload:

posted by: juuitsu at April 27, 2008 00:53 | link | comments (6) |

i wish i remembered the conversation that led up to this line:

"Thou Shalt Not Get Thine Freak On."

but i don't.  i think it had something to do with Craig's list...and sex toys. 

i really need to get more sleep.

posted by: juuitsu at April 27, 2008 00:22 | link | comments |

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