Sensory Perception/Deprivation Fun

I TOTALLY want to go to this restaurant the next time I go to London.

www.danslenoir.com

Dave speaks

Last Friday started out just like any other day. The sun started to rise so I went in to the bedroom and started singing. I love mornings, I love to sing, and I love Ashleigh. So in the mornings...I sing about Ashleigh...

"I love you Ashleigh, run away with meeee.
I love you Ashleigh, let me scratch your flea.
I love you Ashleigh, let's swim in the sea.
I love you Ashleigh, we can both climb a tree."


I wrote that all by myself. It has more verses but I'll save it for some other time.

So, I'm in the bedroom singing, hoping that that woman will wake up and serve me some food. I was starving. She had me locked in her room all night and I couldn't get to the food bowl. Well, she got up and went towards the kitchen and shut the door in my face. What the hell is up with that? I thought that she had done this by mistake so I hollered for her or Ashleigh. Someone had to notice that I wasn't there to tell everyone what's what. (That's my job, you know. I'm kinda the boss around here.)

I waited and waited and that woman never opened the door. Just when I thought I was going to starve to death she came back in to the room and picked me up. "This is more like it", I thought. "Room to room shuttle service." But she walked right past the kitchen and brought me in to the living room and tried to stuff me in to a purse! I was sure she had lost her mind so I made myself as fat as possible and stuck my legs out all over the place. There was no way she was going to get me inside of a purse. I don't care if it had windows or not...I was not going in and that was final. When she realized that there was nothing she could do to get me inside of her purse she totally lost her mind and just shoved me in there and zipped up the top as fast as she could. She picked up the purse and took me outside and put me in the car. Uh, HELLO! No one puts Dave Navarro in a purse!
Huh! I tell you what....we hadn't even made it to the first stop sign before I squeezed out of that stupid purse. I love to ride in the car but if I can't see anything then what's the point.
I will sit right here in the back window THANKYOUVERYMUCH.


La la la la la. I have the best seat in the house.


The back window is nice but I think there is more action in....

the front window right in front of the steering wheel! I LOVE the freeway!

That woman wouldn't let me sit on the dash in front of her simply because she's mean. DOESN'T SHE KNOW WHO I AM? I'll show her who's boss...

Nothing to see here....just..passin by....

HA! I sat on her head. And for good measure I bit her head. But then I felt bad so I gave her a shampoo and tried to give her an updo, but she was carrying on telling me that this was dangerous. Dangerous? PFT! Danger is my middle name!

We stopped at this place that I'd never seen before but I'm pretty sure I knew what it was. It was a beauty spa. I haven't had my nails painted black or had my goatee trimmed in forever, so this was going to be tres chic!

When we walked inside I tried to tell the woman that I would have "the works". I thought it would be cool to have a hot stone massage, mani & pedi, shampoo,, creme rinse, trim...and maybe when I was finished she could pick me up at the pool if I wasn't gettin' busy. (if ya know what I mean!)

For some reason they kept calling me Lorenzo. I kept telling them that my name was Dave, but they acted like they'd never heard of me. I had to gain some control of this bunch of people so I ran in to the first room I could find and I peed all over the cabinet. I have such good aim that I peed right in the middle of the doors and I managed to get some inside the cabinet, too. I ROCK!

Someone came in and wrapped me in a blanket. Yay! Fun time has started at last! "I prefer tepid water and I'd like to request....hey, hold up. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I DON'T WANT TO GO IN TO A CAGE! This is no better than being stuffed in to a purse! THIS SUCKS. GET ME OUT OF HERE."





I guess my private room wasn't too bad. It was a two room suite with a private bathroom and a wet bar.

I had a pretty cool neighbor. He didn't have too much to say, but it was nice to have company.

These jokers were across the street. They par-tayed 24/7. They never sat still. We exchanged digits and the next time they are in the hood they're going to drop by. I know Ashleigh and the kids will love them.




It seemed like I was never going to get my turn at the spa so I just hung out and shot the breeze with my peeps. After I'd been there for about 2 hours someone finally came in and got me. I was all ready for my treatment and do you know what happened? I'll tell ya what happened! Someone lifted up my tail and stuck a thermometer where the sun don't shine. What kind of a beauty spa does something like that? I made a huge ruckus and they took it out. They tried to sweet talk me but no dice. Nobody is going to do that to me and live to tell the tale. The last thing I remember was plotting their demise....


I woke up and I was kind of groggy. Wow, what a nap. I didn't even remember falling asleep. I tried to get up and stretch but I couldn't really feel my hind legs. I must have slept funny. I gave my legs a minute or two to get with the program and I thought I'd take a quick bath. And THAT is when I discovered MY TESTICLES ARE GONE. Just like that! I go to sleep and they are there right where they belong and I wake up and they are gone. Oh. MY. God. I am NEVER going to this stupid beauty spa again. I never got my mani & pedi, I do NOT like the food they serve and I take a nap, wake up and my nads are missing. I think I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to someone.*

This is from Tami:
*Dave is no longer speaking to me so I will finish this post....
This is Dave sitting on the floor of my car, between my feet peering up at me from the hole in the steering wheel. The hole he tried to climb through when I was driving.

As I write this Lorenzo is one week post op. He's doing just fine and the surgery didn't slow him down one bit.

Blogger-blogspot makes my ear bob!

The title of this post goes way back to when Andrew, who is now 23, was a little boy. Instead of my sister telling Andrew that he was making her mad she would always say, "This is making me irritated". One time something was going on and Andrew was as mad as a wet cat and he screamed, "THIS IS MAKING MY EAR BOB!" I have no idea how he got "ear bob" out of irritated but it's been a family favorite catch phrase ever since.

I post my blog on this site because it is free and because it used to do a very good job. It was easy to learn and I was proud of what the blog looked like when I published it. But now for some reason...the spell check will not work and the spacing functions will not work.

I would like to thank anyone who reads my blog for their patience and for not printing my blog and sending it back to me corrected in red pen.

Hopefully I will learn to spell and the spacing problem will work itself out.

Hawaii 2008

For most of last year my sister and I worked diligently trying to convince the extended family that it would be more fun to take the family to Hawaii for Christmas week than to partake in the annual gift giving orgy that I wrote about in my last post. My mom was all for it. If Amanda was healthy enough I knew she'd love to go back to Hawaii. (That poor girl is sick every Christmas and this year was no different.) Bek thought it was a great idea. Hannah doesn't really remember the summer we spent in Hawaii because she was only 4 years old at the time so it took her a little while to come around to our side. Jake doesn't even know what Hawaii is so his vote didn't count. Paul thought going to Hawaii was a wonderful idea until it was explained to him that he wouldn't be getting a bunch of gifts Christmas morning. That was a horse of a different color and Paul didn't like it one bit! I knew that I could show him pictures of us in Hawaii and he would remember how much fun he had and then he would say, "Off to HAWAII!", but then when we got there and there were no Christmas gifts he would be furious. Paul doesn't really know how to compromise. His idea of compromising is to agree with what ever is being offered to him but then expecting the outcome to include the bargain and whatever it was he was supposed to give up in the compromise.

Our only holdout was my brother in law. He really wasn't a hold out. He was just not able to commit to a trip because when we wanted to plan the trip he was scheduled for non-stop work filming a TV show in Canada. He liked the idea of fun in the sun because he was up to his knees in snow. Then the writers strike came around and really put a monkey wrench in the works. While this would have been a good time to take a vacation....everyone in the industry has no idea when their next pay check is coming so planning a family trip to Hawaii wouldn't have been a very sage idea. It was decided the trip would have to wait for a better, financially stable moment. The kids were a little disappointed but I think Paul actually breathed a sigh of relief.

I really wanted to go to Hawaii so I told my mom and Amanda that I'd pay the expenses for them to go to Hawaii with me. My mom was packed in no time and Amanda had to bow out. She was just on the end of a bout with colitis and just the excitement of the possibility of going to Hawaii made it flair up again. Acute Chronic Infectious Colitis...the gift that keeps on giving. So it was just me and my mom.

I had a town car pick us up and my mom got a huge kick out of that. This was my mom's first experience in a chauffeured town car and she got a huge kick out of it. This picture is blurry because I took it with my cell phone.

We made it to the airport with time to spare so we lived it up and went to the LAX Starbucks. Of course I managed to slop coffee down the front of my jacket and since we all know that a coffee spill is a gift that keeps on giving I had the coffee stain on my jacket through out my entire trip.

We had really good seats for our trip over to Hawaii. Mother got the window seat and I had the middle seat. The girl in the aisle seat was friendly and quiet. That, in my opinion, is the perfect stranger/seat partner.

Before we even took off I decided that I wanted my reading light turned on. I pushed the button and turned it on but it seemed to be shining on my mom so I reached up and tried to adjust it. Below please find the results: I quickly put it back where it belonged but it didn't quite snap back in to place as I had hoped it would. Please note the gap in the middle of the fixture that is not present in the fixture to the left of it:

I didn't tell anyone that I had broken the plane. I figured that this was on a "need to know" basis and I didn't think anyone needed to know.

Once the plane was leveled off in the air they made all of the announcements about "deplaning" in the event of a water landing, where to find the barf bags and where to find the exits. Then they announced that there was no food included on this 5 hour flight unless you wanted to purchase it. It's a good thing I wasn't hungry because I wasn't about to pay $6.00 for a small can of Pringles. Along with the food they were selling head phones. I purchased two sets of head phones and mother and I put them on immediately. There was no sound. When the flight attendant came back toward our seats I told him that our head phones were not working. He told me that the head phones probably worked just fine...but the audio on the entire right side of the plane was out. Of course, we were sitting on the right side of the plane. I sat there dumbfounded for a minute and then when the next flight attendant came along Mother asked if there was anyway we could get a refund on our head phones. It was, very heavy sigh, explained to us, rolling of eyes, that the head phones were not for purchase ONLY for the use on the airplane, they were for use anywhere we could find an antiquated 2 prong outlet. I convinced Mother that we could use them on our flight home and the exasperated flight attendant could go back to the very important and highly trained job of attending the flight. The girl next to me slept and mother and I read magazines, did cross word puzzles and ate Cheese-Its.

We arrived in Hawaii at a little after 9:00 PM. I breathed a sigh of relief because I felt like I was at home. I. LOVE. HAWAII. We had to wait a little while for our luggage to come off of the plane. It was no surprise when my mom's make up bag was the very last piece of luggage to come down the pike.

From the luggage carousel we walked to the car rental agency. Thankfully there was no line to wait in and we were helped immediately. My heart sank when I was told that they had a Hyundai saved for us. I asked them if they had any convertibles available. They said they did and then asked us if we had any luggage. (No. I come to the vacation capital of the world and I don't bring luggage.) I told them that my mom and I each had a suitcase and then they wanted to see it. I asked them what this was all about and they said that they were afraid that our luggage wouldn't fit in a convertible's trunk. (Apparently they thought we were going to put our imaginary entourage in the back seat.) Once they decided that our luggage would fit in the trunk they gave us a Mustang. We paid the extra amount so that we could have a GPS system.

After driving my tiny little 4 cylinder Mitsubishi...when I started driving the Mustang it felt like I was driving my house. It was very heavy but it would go very fast when I just barely hit the gas. Mother was in full backseat driver mode before we even got out of the airport parking lot.

It took me several times behind the wheel before I learned how to listen to the voice on the GPS. And oddly enough I mistakenly drove us to the same vacant parking lot on at least 3 occasions.

When we got to our hotel we thought that it looked nice enough and were anxious to get in and get unpacked.

They gave us the room keys and I sent Mother up to the room while I finished checking in. When I got up to our room Mother was standing outside of the room in the hallway. "Our room is really small.", she said. It couldn't be that small I thought and besides we were only two small people and we were only going to be in the room long enough to sleep so what would it matter. Then I went in the room.












This was the total sum of our room. There was a teeny weeny bathroom just beyond the left corner of the bed and that was it. No couch, no table, no desk. There was a small dresser with a nice flat screen TV and that was the extent of the accommodations.

I went back down to the lobby and begged them to put us in a bigger room. For 5 minutes the clerk insisted that there wasn't a bigger room available but then one magically appeared. Even though the hotel was "non smoking" the previous tenant had smoked in the room and the lady who had just checked in to that room deemed it unacceptable and was moving out. I told him, "WE'LL TAKE IT!"

The new room was only a couple of feet bigger but at least it had a couch and a coffee table so it felt a lot roomier. I washed my face as Mother started to unpack. I could barely hear my mother speaking over the din of the water but she got louder and louder. She was cussing. Apparently Mother had packed nail polish remover. It was in a tightly sealed bottle and put inside two plastic bags that were tied closed. When her bags were being inspected they opened the bags and opened the bottle and then didn't put the lid on tightly nor did they re-tie the bags. There was nail polish remover on every piece of her clothing and, oh boy, did it smell up that tiny little room. We rinsed out as much of her clothes as we could and then we laid the rest of her clothes out to dry. Welcome to Hawaii!

I can't remember the order in which we did the following things in the next 4 days but here are pictures of the highlights of our trip:

This was the view from our hotel. Waikiki Beach was on the other side of that wall, (and down a couple of blocks):

The turtle pond at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Bashful flamingo at The Hilton Hawaiian Village














The beautiful new wedding chapel at the Hilton Hawaiian Village:













Penguins at the Hilton Hawaiian Village:

Water Lily at the Hilton Hawaiian Village:

Melekelikimaka!

Two Mustangs at Diamond Head. Ours was the blue one. Guess which one I tried to get in to when we were leaving Diamond Head?

You can't really tell how far it is from the street level to the water level...but it's a very hefty descent. I'm proud to say that Mother made it all the way down, helped me look for sea glass, and made it all the way back up and didn't expire. She counted the steps up and it was somewhere around 700 steps. This is Mother at Diamond Head not having a heart attack. (She was actually watching for the mongoose.)
And she found one! This is Riki Tiki Tavey at Diamond Head:
This was my 5 th trip to Hawaii and the only time I saw more than just the flick of a tail of a mongoose. Yes, this is the south end of a north bound mongoose but just the fact that I got a picture of this guy amazed me.

The Lighthouse at Diamond Head:

The ocean view from a gully at Diamond Head:













Roosters and a hen taking a dirt bath at Diamond Head:

We went on a whale watch luncheon cruise and Mother got sea sick. She never hurled but she sure didn't feel very well. I stood on the very nose of the ship waiting to see the whales. There were two whale tail sightings but they were so brief that I didn't really get to see anything. I was walking back to the side of the ship to check on Mother when I saw a pod of spinner dolphins. Some of them had pink bellies and they were all jumping and spinning and generally looking like they were having a lot of fun.
We went to "Samira's Country Market" to try out their shave ice. We figured it couldn't be any smaller or funkier than Matsumoto's. We were wrong.

This was the entire dining room. I was standing in the door way when I took the picture. My kitchen at home, in my single wide mobile home was bigger than their kitchen. This is a mom and pop place. Mom is sweet and nice and accommodating. Pop is a total grump. I had a coconut shave ice with sweetened condensed milk drizzled over the top. It was pretty yummy but when I got to the middle of it there was no syrup. :(

You can always tell a fancy schmancy place by their fine linens:
(They gave me a Kleenex.)

Or by their hoity toity menu:














We had an early dinner at Haliewa Joes :

I had a spectacular pasta dish and a lovely glass of merlot and Mother had prime rib. When the sun was shining we could see the Haliewa harbor, then when the sun went down the yard surrounding the restaurant was illuminated by tiki torches. I LOVE tiki torches!

Our dinners came with orchids:











Can you imagine growing something this pretty in your front yard? There were butterflies and humming birds all over these flowers.

On New Years eve we went to the Clock Tower Mall and went shopping for a couple of hours and then had a very sensible dinner:

We listened to "Kapena" for about an hour before we headed back to Waikiki.

Kelly Boy from "Kapena" on New Years Eve at the Clock Tower Mall:

We tried to visit my mom's boyfriend but he wasn't home:

Pretty fuzzy purple flower in someone's yard:

Breakfast! (Gee, can you tell that I didn't get very much sleep during my vacation?)

The trip was a whirlwind of shopping and adventure. It was over waaaay too soon. We had to be at the airport by 12:00 for our 2:15 flight. The picture below shows what time we actually got to get on the plane. We had to sit on the plane for another hour and a half with no explanation as to why we weren't going anywhere.

This time our seats were in the bulkhead. At first we thought it was kinda cool because you have leg room for days...but then we discovered that while the rest of the plane is watching tv on screens that are almost the size of a mattress...we would be watching tv on a screen that was this big:

In the end...we needn't have worried. This time the entire entertainment system was down and NO ONE had access to the movies or the music. I'm happy to report that Mother didn't strangle anyone with her useless headphones.

We arrived at LAX almost 3 hours late and then had to wait for another 2 hours for our baggage to arrive on the carousel. I got home after 2:00AM and in to bed around 3:00AM. After 3 hours of sleep the alarm went off and I got up and went to work.

All in all...I'd rather be in Haliewa.

Something to look at while I continue to work on my post about Hawaii

Portrait of a Weenie

Tori took this picture of Jake. He has just spent a life time, or 15 minutes, watching his big brother, Andrew, get his picture taken at a photo studio. Previous to taking this picture he and Paul were playing with the baby toy in the studio lobby. (note of explanation to those who might not have their score card handy: Jake is 4, Paul is 21 and mentally handicapped.)

Another family came in and their little girl wanted to play with the toy, too. It took Tori and I over 5 minutes to convince Paul to get out of the chair so that a real baby could play with the baby toy. Knowing that these particular toys are some of Pauls very favorite toys in the world I bribed him with everything I could think of but it was all to no avail. (food, candy, soda, "I'll tell you a secret", 5 minutes in a video store, another toy, "BECAUSE I SAID SO", etc.) Tori finally whispered something in his ear and he reluctanly got out of the chair so the little girl could play with the toy. (I have no idea what Tori bribed him with but I was actually a little bit relieved to find that he wasn't the one driving the car when we left the mall.)

Tori and I were deep in thought and discussion trying to pick the best picture of Andrew when a certain squeeky voice caught my ear. I turned around and discovered Jake giving the mother of the little girl a tongue lashing because she got his big brother in trouble and now he couldn't play with the toy. I. Couldn't. Believe. My. Ears. I jumped off of my stool and said, "JAKEY!"

This got Tori's attention and she heard what Jake was saying and she, too, jumped off of her stool. We both dove for Jake while trying to tell him that the lady was innocent of all charges but that just made him talk louder and faster. "And we were playing the game and you came in and..." "JAKEY!!! STOP TALKING!" I thought Tori was embarassed enough when Paul wouldn't relinquish the seat but this event bested the previous award winning moment. We wrestled Jake over to our table all the while trying everything short of stuffing a sock in his mouth to get him to stop talking.

We are very fortunate that the mother was very friendly and actually seemed to be amused by being told off by an angry 4 year old. She kept smiling at us and telling us that it was ok...but I promise you...the next time I go to the mall I'm going to bring the duct tape.

Note: The spell check on Blogger is not working so if there are spelling and punctuation errors it's their fault, not mine.