At Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu, there are three great surf shops that I love; Island Snow, Hawaiian Island Creations and Town and Country Surf Hawaii.

HIC and T&C have been around since I was in high school, and Island Snow is relatively new. The stores carry the latest in surf, skateboarding and snow board fashions, as well as equipment and accessories for the various sports.

While in Honolulu, I saw so many people carrying "DaKine backpacks", I just had to have one. They looked so trendy there, and even my chiropractor today told me I had a really cool looking backpack. Check the site out, DaKine.

Da Kine is hawaiian pidgin english for the phrase, "the thing" or "that sort of thing". People say "you know the da kine", then they would go on to explian what "da kine" really means. It's like a catch all phrase, like "whatever".

Anyway, so I bought a "varial" pack, which can be found under Skate packs. Like supposedly, if I had a skateboard I could attach my skateboard to my backpack. Like whatever. It was the cutest, coolest looking and most reasonally priced backpack in the store.

Another idea for a new story from read a book on greek and roman mythology.

Apollo, roman and greek god of the Sun. Also manifested in Egypt as Amen-Ra, god of the sun. Although Apollo/Amen-Ra don't exist, their spirit lives on. Didn't Star Trek find some planet where Apollo lived? My cousin is a serious trekkie, who just had the logo of Star Trek tatooed on her leg and attends the convention in LA every year.

Apollo keeps track of all his followers in their various incarnations. The story takes place in modern day. A dark aspect of Apollo takes over the family of one of his priestesses, and causes havoc and health problems. Apollo uses human bodies to experience life, but the use of a human's body causes harm to the person health and their mind. Apollo can only be banished by an ancient greek exorcism ritual, and the young people in the family travel to Greece to learn how to exorcise Apollo from their family. But of course, he's a god and he's not going to leave without a fight.

Someone in the comments was asking if I had come up with new story ideas, and I did.

While on vacation, I was reading about "devas" or nature spirits. This the name for gods or goddesses who rule over things, usually nature type stuff.

Story idea # 1
Title - Living in the Glass

A story about a woman who is married to the deva (god) of glass and light transmission. The deva of glass and light transmission rules the world of light tranmission. The deva of glass and light transmission has the ability to steal souls of spirit who use light to transmit themselves. Think of the transporter from Star Trek. That's a form of light transmission.

Story Idea # 2
Title - Lady of the Tiger

A story about a woman married to the deva of the saber toothed tiger. Through marriage, she acquires the tiger's ability to sense danger and predators. But the deva of the saber tooth tiger is cruel, he lives in darkness and not in the light. The deva of the saber tooth tiger takes over an unsuspecting tiger and has the tiger kill people. The life of the lady of the tiger is spent avoiding curses put on them by the angry people and other natural tiger predators.

The first day back at work is always difficult.

I typed my password in and I couldn't log into the system. I was on on hold with the IT help desk before I remembered that windows xp is case sensitive and the first letter of my password is capitalized. DUH!!!

After reading a ton of email, I had two conference calls to attend and an analysis to put together. I know I shouldn't complain. At least I came home to a job and I'm busy at work and not looking over my shoulder wondering if I'll get canned.

Open enrollment happened while I was away on vacation, so I had to call HR to get some forms faxed to me. Luckily, I was only two days past the deadline. I wanted to change my health plan to a cheaper version. The company ended up changing insurance carriers, so new beneficiary forms had to be filled out by everyone.

I know about these things now since I've had to deal with they dying stuff at my grandmother's funeral.

Note to everyone. Put all your important papers in one place and mark it clearly. When you die, it will make things much easier for your family or whoever will be going through your stuff.

Cleaning out my grandmother's house made me realize very clearly that when you die, you don't take your stuff with you. Someone will have to throw it all out or sell your things. The less stuff the better. It's all going to end up at a charity, in someone else's house, or most of the time in the trash. Get rid of it now and save your family the pain of throwing your junk out after you die.

I got invited twice to go to Stern Grove for a picnic and to see the San Francisco Ballet perform. It would have been nice to sit in the sun and eat and watch the ballet, but I turned them down.

I went to the gym instead and started work on those 10 pounds I picked up on vacation. I definitely don't need to gain anymore weight by eating picnic food.

After working out, I shopped for food and things for the apartment. I bought a new mouse, because the Barbie mouse a friend gave me one christmas is driving me insane. I have no idea what I did with my old mouse. I bought a logitech mouse for $20.

Then I went on a hunt for this organic room freshener that I found. It comes in a can and the scent is called "desert jasmine". It's the best smelling and the only room freshener I've found that actually smells like a real flower.

I had to go three Targets to find it, but it's so worth it. It smells so good!

Then I came home and watched tv all night. I didn't watch tv while on vacation, so it was kind of fun to just sit and relax and flip channels all night.

I'm back at home tonight, checking email and getting caught up on my fave blogs and other news.

I meant to blog a bit more, but once the relatives started arriving on Wednesday things got very busy. Then I flew to Honolulu and spent time with one of my sisters who is the process of moving back to Hawaii.

I'm glad to be home. It's way too hot and humid in Hawaii for me now, and the fog in SF is so refreshing.

Spent way too much money as usual. Some of it was to buy presents for nieces and nephews and to help my sister get set up to live back home, but I did buy a bunch of stuff for myself.

I'm going to spend the next three months paying off my trip and trying to lose the 10 or so pounds I gained on vacation. I really went overboard with the eating and the no exercising thing.

I'm glad to be home, but sad to be leaving the islands. SF is my home now, but Hawaii will always be home too.

Greetings from Kauai. I'm blogging from the Hanapepe Public Library. For $10, I signed up for a 3 month visitor card, good for 50 minutes once a day of internet usage. It's probably cheaper than logging in at the internet cafe, which I still haven't found but which I'll probably look for anyway. Why not? I'll be here for 9 days.

I tried to log in with my baby laptop from home, but my connection kept dropping. I'm going to try to research the problem today.

There's a rosary every night at my grandma's house at 6:30 pm. People come and say the rosary and then everyone brings a dish to share and we all eat.

I'd forgotten how hot and humid Kauai is, especially on my side of the island. It's about 80-85 degrees, but there is a slight breeze. Still, it's way too hot for me.

Most tourists are in hotels on the north shore at Hanalei or Poipu. I live on the exact opposite end of the island, where there are no hotels, at least I haven't seen any so far.

The only people who live on this side of the island are the ones who actually live here, or are visiting friends and family. My West Virginia friend who visited with me in 1998, loved that my side of the island was tourist free.

I've been cleaning up my grandma's house, and threw out six bags of old clothes. I saw a shirt she had of mine from grade school. There is so much old stuff in the house. I need to clear out as much junk as possible before the other relatives arrive.

One of the few things I miss about Hawaii is the food. The fish here is so fresh, caught in the early morning in the ocean and sold at the supermarket later a few hours later. YUMMY!

My goal as always when I visit home is to eat a pound of raw fish a day, they call it sashimi here. Or, eat it prepared hawaiian style which they call poke. In fancy restaurants in San Francisco, they call it tuna tartare. It's just raw tuna fish, tossed with fresh seaweed, onions, and sesame seed and oil. It's totally heavenly.

They also have a similar poke dish made out of salmon and baby octopus. I just can't get food like this in San Francisco, so I have to take advantage.

If I figure out my internet problems from home, I may blog later tonight.

I've been busy all weekend trying to get ready for my trip home. I bought a new travel sleep pillow, not sure where my old one went. I bought some waterproof thing to keep my stuff in when I go to the beach.

Urinetown was great by the way. It was such a funny musical, very irreverent, riffing off a ton of old broad musicals. It was kind of like Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Every thing in the play referenced some familiar broadway musical. My friend from New York who's seen them all got all of it, I hardly got any.

An opportunity for me to possibly buy a place in San Francisco came up on Sunday in an informational meeting. I'd be living downtown at South Beach underneath the Bay Bridge. It's not the neighbourhood I would have liked to live in, but you can't be choosy when it comes to buying a place in the city and county of San Francisco. It's two blocks from Pac Bell Park and two blocks from the Bay if that helps you think of the neighbourhood.

The opportunity for housing is coming through an affordable housing project, something I thought I could never apply for because my income was too high. But they've raised the limits so now I qualify. Yeah for me!

It's a lottery system, and who knows if I'd get it in, let alone qualify for a home loan. I wanted to buy a place, but not till after 2004, and not until after my car and other debts are paid off.

A friend bought her place through an affordable housing project, and waited 5 years before she could get into a place and buy it. She told me it was good to start now, just to get my name out there and into the pool of people looking to buy property.

The meeting was valuable just as an informational tool for what it takes for me to even qualify for a home loan. This home buying thing is so far ahead of the schedule I set for myself, but my friend convinced me that opportunity is knocking and I need to answer the call.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog from Kauai. I found an internet cafe 5 minutes from house, and I'm my taking my baby laptop as well, so it's not like I won't have the opportunity.

I just know if I'll be in any kind of mood to blog much. I'm going to play the blogging thing by ear. Kauai is so out of it technologically wise, I think. It might be kind of nice to unplug from the world for a couple of weeks, and enjoy my birthplace.

My brother called and said my grandmother's funeral is scheduled for Saturday July 19 at 1 pm. He's going to have an orchid flower arrangement made for our branch of the family with all of our names. My brother is so very good at taking care of the things like this, and I am very grateful.

I'm going to the play "Urinetown" tonight, which has been on my schedule all year since I'm an ACT subscriber. "Urinetown" got a great review, and its run has been extended, so the show should be good.

I'm meeting a friend at California Pizza Kitchen before the show, since she also bought a ticket for tonight. The friend I'm meeting tonight was planning to go to Kauai with me later in the year to meet my grandma. She wanted to meet the woman who partially raised me. As they say, the best laid plans often fail.

The postal service delivered some natural healing remedies that I ordered last week to take to Hawaii for my grandma's recovery. I guess I'll just take them myself now. I don't think it will hurt me to take all the heart remedies I bought, since heart disease runs in the family.

It was weird to open the box and to see what I had bought. I was really looking forward to sharing my natural healing knowledge with my grandma.

Things I remember about my grandma

She was beautiful
She was smart
She wore ball gowns
She liked wearing spikey three inch heels
She loved to dance and was a great dancer
She made me watch wrestling and Lawrence Welk with her
She always wore pearls, and was a jewelry freak
She taught me how to tell good diamonds from bad diamonds
She loved Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdink, Jack Jones, Don Ho, The Commodores especially Lionel Richie, The Police especially Sting, ABBA, The Temptations, and Barry Manilow
She was very emotional
She love Hong Kong kung fu action movies and has an awesome video collection
She loved Bruce Lee but thought Jean Claude Van Dame was a dud
She was a typical suburban housewife who popped valium, diet pills, drank sherry or vermouth, and for a time became a darvon (painkiller) addict
She was painfully catholic and we had giant crucifixes in every room, plus statues of Jesus, Mary, and a shrine to the Infant of Prague
She loved me

Things I remember about my biological mom:

She was beautiful
She was tall
She was smart
She was always laughing
She was always melancholy
She loved Jim Morrison and the Doors, and was freaked out when Morrison died
She adored Cat Stevens, Brenda Lee, Al Green, Bette Midler, and Maria Muldaur
She smoked hippie lettuce or tripped on acid while listening to the Doors
She had a thing for pretty boys (this must where I get this trait from)
She loved me

I've heard it said that you have "other worldly" experiences when a loved one dies. So here's mine.

I'm lying in bed crying thinking, "why didn't grandma wait for me, she knew I was coming to take care of her in a week?" I felt like moans were coming from deep inside of me somewhere and I hurt all over.

I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling and I saw this really bright light. First I thought it was the sun making a reflection through my window, so I closed my eyes again and went back to crying.

Then it occured to me that maybe I had seen some kind of vision, some kind of ghost. So I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling, but the light was gone. So much for ghostly visitations.

But then the light appeared again, and it was so strong it hurt my eyes. I kept looking at the light, and it was like a door had opened, and someone was peeking in at me.

People who have near death experiences say that when you die, you see this really bright light and the end of a tunnel.

Then the light and shadow faded like a door had closed. So I'm thinking maybe grandma died because she couldn't resist the light, she couldn't resist the heavenly light of god's love.

I'm sure she was thinking, "why come back to this world and my frail old body and few more months of life, and the loneliness I've felt these last 10 years after my husband's death. God's light and love is so irresistable, how can I not go?

I know I have loved ones who want to see me, but God's light and love seem so comforting. I can't resist, I have to go, it's too strong, and the only thing keeping me here is seeing my family.

But they'll understand, they'll know I couldn't resist the light, it's too strong, too inviting, too peaceful. I am tired, I am tried of fighting my body, I am tired of living, I want to go home, home to where I came from, home to God."

I know my grandma is happy where she is, wrapped in God's love and surrounded by angels and other loved ones who have also passed. I know she probably couldn't resist the light.

From a fave astrology site - forecast for Wednesday July 9:

"Mars is about to come closer to the earth than at any point in the past 73,000 years. Between now and September, it will be brighter in the sky than it has ever been before. Traditionally of course, Mars is the war planet."

Is this why the world is going on a helter skelter ride right now?

When it rains, it pours. Like we're talking monsoon here.

Just when I have to deal with my family thing, my work life goes bonkers (bonkie)!

I have back to back conference calls tomorrow morning starting at 9 am, and if I end up flying home on Thursday, I have a conference call an hour before my airport shuttle arrives.

I hate this! My life is stressing me on all sides. As an old boss used to day, "it's just another nail in my coffin."

My grandmother died a couple of hours ago. I am in shock. When we last spoke, she was very happy that I was coming home to take care of her and that we would be able to spend some time alone together.

The doctors put a stint in her heart today, and a few hours later she died.

So much for best laid plans and plans for a short future.

My only consolation is that my grandmother and I made our peace together many years ago. There was nothing I needed to say to her, nothing hidden, nothing unsaid that I needed to tell her before she died. Except "I love you, thanks for taking care of me, and goodbye." Things I'd already told her over the years many times.

At least I got to talk to her. Perhaps her last thoughts of me were that I was coming home to take care of her, and how happy this made her. I'm hoping for this at least. It makes the pain more bearable.

From the LA Times, a fun article on Trader Joe's; In the aisles of Trader Joe's, a culture all its own.

I love Trader Joe's. I've been shopping at this store for years! I remember telling my friend in Portland, Oregon about Trader Joe's years ago, and her husband didn't want her to shop there because it was "low-rent".

Now Trader Joe's is so trendy. What a laugh!

This is how the ex-catholic brother in my Sunday christian education class talked about the liberal christian scholar Marcus Borg.

"Borg theorizes that Jesus was just an ordinary man who was crucified by the romans. The early christian church used Jesus' death to create the metaphor of resurrection to break away from the absolute rule of the jewish temple. Borg says that he can't imagine resurrection being real because 1) he can't imagine Jesus as an ordinary human being could give himself up to death that way and 2) a man rising from the dead, come on."

I spoke to the ex-catholic brother about his Borg theory afterwards, and I told him that Borg made Jesus sound like an dupe, a doofus, an accidental saviour, a pawn of the early christian church established by Paul.

Borg is also an apologist for the christian religion, and the guy has obviously never read the journals of soldiers, who go into battle knowing they are facing death, but go anyway for a higher purpose.

What underlies Borg's whole theory of Jesus is back to what Jesus asks his disciples in the gospel; "who the people say that I am, and who do you say that I am?".

Borg doesn't seem to have much of an opinion of Jesus as a person, if he can't see Jesus in the model of a soldier dying for a higher purpose. And what really pisses me off about Borg is he must essentially reject the notion that "Jesus is fully human and fully divine."

The ex-catholic brother agreed with me, and said Borg angers him as well, but he does have good things to say for newcomers to the Christian faith (if you want a watered down politically correct jesus I suppose) and if you were like many people, abused by religion as a child by overzealous adults.

And I'm like whatever. Marcus Borg is a freak, with no imagination. An apologist I suppose, but a prime example of how the age of enlightenment and rationalism, and my personal favorite evil - political correctness, has harmed religion and the idea and practice of faith.

Faith cannot be proved scientifically. Faith cannot be researched historically. Faith is the Kierkegaardian leap of faith into the unknown.

Faith in the context of the christian religion goes back to Jesus' question: "Who do you say that I am?" The answer to this question is the lens (to borrow from Borg) through which you will view your faith, your religion, and your spiritual journey.

I just checked the US Census Bureau on Income; Money Income in the United States 2001.

The median income in 2001 for the US was $42,873. Alaska, Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota and New Jersey had the highest median incomes. Alaska had the highest at $55,246.

Maybe we're in for a longer recession than I thought; Finance: the Downscaling of America.

Can't wait to see what other economic watchers have to say.

An unbelievable quote from the article:

"Middle income households, which in 2001 earned between $33,315 and $53,000, earn 14.6 percent of American income every year."

I can't believe middle income household salary range is that low, because that's not a lot of money. In San Francisco, the median income is $60,250.

I didn't end up going to the bullfights for the Fourth. I cleaned house, and then a friend called and he came over with food and we watched the fireworks on TV.

He'd just broken up with a longtime girlfriend, so he was as emotionally messed as I was. We sat around discussed each other's mutual woes. My friend's dad recently died so he understood.

It was nice to spend time with my friend and just be all weepy and emotional, because he was feeling the same way too. Plus, he brought over some great store bought fried chicken and potato salad, and he remembered that I liked diet pepsi. Got a love a guy that brings over good tasting food and remembers what kind of soda you drink.

Good thing too, I stocked up up on beer and wine because the boy can sure drink a ton.