To tailors, coasts and mendings

Not all who wander are lost.

Not all lost wander.

Not everyone has butter on their toast, but a lot of people do. Majority I'd say.


I need to write more. I think I will. Later. Perhaps on a better timed evening of blue shades and dancing breezes or in an early morning. Which ever I meet first.

But.

Later.

Tchau bacalhua.

A Yurt in the Dirt

Dear Society,
If there are any objections to living the rest of your life in a larger than life tent than I don't want to hear them. And if you would like to persist and convince us why the idea is less than a stroke of genius than please put it into the suggestion box but if there are no objections to be raised I will tell you about Yurts and why it never hurts to live in a Yurt.

You know when you have an epiphany of some sort? And your heart swells and grows three times too large? That occurred when I realized just a week ago that my idea that I need to live in a house is so wrong, its wronger than wrong. I can live life in a yurt. People all around the world do it. Mongolians, desert dwellers, some star wars characters do it and not to mention nomads and I will one day. They are like those tents in Harry Potter that have an expansive spell put on them to create more space to include beds, a kitchen, a wood fire stove (practical in a tent? yes. Safe? hopefully, fingers crossed tightly on that detail) You can have stories in a Yurt, not only floors, but bedtime stories that change just by the fact that you are tucked up so nicely in a bunk bed and you are staring up through that large window that opens to the stars and stories are being whispered all around, like passing a bowl of popcorn. It's a life long girls camp opportunity with much less estrogen and cat fights. (Fingers also crossed on that one). But Yurts, Yurts, Yurts, they circle my head daily, rugs skip through too, colors like chartreuse and mandarin chase each other around and I just smile at the sky happy in my mind yurt.

So when you are asking yourself, where will Abbey end up someday? I'll be in a Yurt in a parent's backyard with surfboards on the side, blonde babies booking it about, lavender on the side with sunflowers and only a swimsuit with a skirt wrapped around. I'll die of skin cancer, sure, but I'll have lived in a yurt in the dirt. It just cannot go wrong!

Oddie and Arrin (Addie and Orrin)

There's Addie, a wee graduate. 

There's Orrin, the O-man. 

This is simply a nostalgic post, after finding every moment I could set down and run over to the house next door with the drooliest beast and his friends (these are the dogs) who guard the door and extensive amounts of leaping geckos, spotted lizards, and scurrying miniature prehistoric beasts. I would hear screams before I even got inside, they would waft out the screen door, one would be from Addie for Coco and another would be Orrin having a shout because he could! Swimsuits and life-jackets later 

we were swimming, or leaping, or kicking like mermaids, or playing tag strictly in the shallow area, throwing each other all about racing to the side of the pool, climbing out and opening our arms leaping out stomachs aimed for the water because you can always belly flop when you are wearing a padded life jacket. 

More screams let every neighbor know, this is FUN! 

Then when Dillon gets back from work (warning: quintessential family scenario ahead) he hops in the pool and soon there are whirlpools and Erik is flipping up and in too, Orrin gets more deliriously joyful, sometimes jealous and sometimes enraged but these emotions are fleeting mostly and if not we can talk to him and then 

we are in a black flatbed truck with surf and paddle boards bouncing in the back and I Spy is occurring, Addie always smacks her hands and flings a hand motion towards you when you get it right. I taught her to shoot little guns with her fingers, to clap and clap, which is much more darling on her than on me. 

Finally we reach a bay we can take them out in, and we do and its wild horses racing down the waves as fast as they can be picked up, or survivors shipwrecked trying to stroke those lazy turtles that 

Breathe 

sporadically across the face of waves. Feet in the water tingle dramatically as if at that very second they were being eyed like some delicious entree but Oman and Ads are perched far enough on the front of the boards that I don't fret. (even nannies fret). 

Addie loves to demand the horse to go "FASTER FASTER" and then in that critical moment when the wave catches under the feet of the surfboard the screams get higher and higher and I'm barely paddling because my arms are useless to laughter brigades. Completely helpless to all of that. 

And any perfect surf sesh deserves a slushee even for the naughtiest nymph and goblin, or if they were especially good you get a F'Real as an option. I was sometimes so good I got a F'real, for real. 

We all get back in the Sister Walls, Dill's pickup, and cruise down the highway with the two silliest, squirmiest, funniest, gorgeousest babies on the North Shore just telling tall tales of bathroom trips and booger quesadilla's (Dillon may be twenty four but a good booger joke is never lost on him) (I may be nineteen but a good poop reference is never lost on me either). You'd think heads would start nodding, they do, except they aren't Addie or Orrin, Dillon drinks rockstars to keep it all on the road and I just keep my bouncing noggin up with stilts and many supports, including heads of Addie or Oman but I get pushed off quickly. 

Addie and I sing Frozen and Orrin accompanies with more gusto than either of us could muster up, he has hand motions for the drama of it all, he has a sneaky grin flashed when he screams, "be the good girl..." And wouldn't this surprise you? We laugh, boy, does he feed off that quick loud breathes we call chuckles, his practically gummy smile almost falls off his face he loves being funny so much. Those missing teeth, those cowlicks, those heavy breaths out noses when thinking extremely hard. I'm talking about Dillon, not the kids. 

But those two gave me Hawaiian joy. And lots of good lessons. Nannying, parenting, being with little people

it's good stuff! 

Exceptional at best

Jazz music, when sung by a Jay, a wild Jay, has a way of soothing traffics hum and stalling others in mid flight. A little Aretha Franklin, a touch of Etta James, yes'm, it is the golden ears of legend.

If we all have a bird that we can claim, a song bird that sits perched in our chest, that preens itself and considers it self the most lovely thing of all and then when the clock strikes twelve, or the moment hits, we open our mouths and that little bravado of a beast sings forth then I must have a mockingbird. She's kindly. But what she loves is others songs. Especially that of a Jay, sometimes the Jay will stop and sing with this little black tweet and oh how her chest puffs up, she constantly prepares for these moments and attempts harmonies with a glance from Jay sticks to melody and then will break forth with a little soulful improvisation and a few songs later and a whole song album later with many lines messed up or purposefully played with the Jay is singing by herself once more and the mockingbird sits, claps, hums, taps and mimicks whatever she can conjure up at the time. It was fun. Real fun.

Muggle Syndrome

It must be. There is no other reason to explain what is happening. 

I'm a wizard. 

Nay a witch.
And now it is becoming clearer than ever.
Thought you would like to know. 

Sincerely, Abigonnagal 

Just any Day will do.

There is a host of days, official days, that go unnoticed for their worth of celebrating. 

For instance, did you know that there is a National Nutella Day? 

Everyone in most schools will fondly refer to Wildlife Wednesday.

There is a Childrens Day in June. That threw me a spoon. 

Today, January 23, is

National Handwriting Day

National Pie Day (and no not 3.14 Pi, real Pie, the pumpkin kind) 

and

Measure Your Feet Day.

Now why? Why is it the official day to measure your feet? Because there should be at least one day a day year where your small pigs and miniature fingers get recognized for their length and how important that is. Now I have found myself with the ravaged remains of a Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie sitting perched, legs crossed, measuring time with forkfuls of pie and spotify tracks trying to just truly appreciate this moment and the fact that today is for pie, and for me today is for this pie. I am celebrating the work and what I would call love, what others call sugar, that went into this slice of heaven. So I have another proposal (as usual) a proposal, a toast, an idea, that we begin every day with the intent to celebrate one element of this life. 

Beginning with Mother Teresa Thursday. (Hear hear comes roaring out from behind the silken curtains, popcorn is thrown joyously into the air in the peanut gallery, and a few sparkling ciders are broken out just to further toast Mother Teresa and her day. Thursday.) 

We can do one act of service, celebrate the goodness in not walking away, and pretend we all wear matronly veils and try to truly see the true beauty of those all around us. 

(one more cheer? Okay, alright, thank you, thank you. I'll take my bows now) 

Hawaii is doing well.

I went on a swim the other morning, one of those particular ones that get you lost in the depths. Spilling over coral down to sandy pits beneath and spinning through the water it was perffaith. (It's welsh and would translate into something relatively close to perfect). But the best part was that this swim began a new year, a new season, a new semester and a slightly new corner for me to look out on. Upwards and forwards, talleyho! And for some reason this blonde surfer kept chasing me through the waters, strange. But exciting, then I remembered his name is Dillon and that he can hold his breath longer than I can and so I should stop kidding myself that I was going to win the race. But having a friend there in the ocean, appreciating the Pacific and aquaponics. I swallowed some water, deep, salty ocean water. Tasty. Mouth puckering. And it made me cough, then sputter and then snort. Everyone needs a good snort of salt water, it really clears the sinuses. Like hot sauce clears your throat when you naively lick it off your fingers when it spills out. Other things happen when you're out there, you can hear this crackling, bubbling sound. As if a teeny Mr. Magorium was jumping up and down on packing wrap, tapping out an eternity of snap, crackles and pops. This and tortillas. I'll always love tortillas. That's what defines a day to remember.