Come Back To Me

I'm back and ready and raring to post. Hopefully I haven't lost you all with my week long sojourn to Hawaii. It was a trip filled with much rain and turmoil (hubby landed in the hospital) and more but overall here are my impressions of Oahu (all apologies to those who live it and love it): it's so touristy that it's hard to find truly good food or good shopping or much good. The North Shore was only slightly less touristy because at least there we were able to find lovely gorgeous stretches of sand with not so many people on them, but that was only because the waves were uncharacteristically huge this time of year and we couldn't get within a few feet of the water. And with all that tourism, we still had crappy internet access at best. I was able to get online one day. One lousy day. If I'm not gonna get online, at least give me the quiet solitude of an island vacation. Eventually we did swim (tourist beach!) and we did eat well (conveyer belt sushi!) My daughter even ate sushi finally (cucumber, natch, but hey she ate it!) I think the conveyer belt pulled her in, it was just too fun to see food skootch on by her, she just had to eat it. Can you tell? That was the highlight for me. That, and seeing Willie Nelson, who seriously rocked the Waikiki Shell, but who played way too short (they had him on a tight schedule). Still, he was so fun and he really got the crowd grooving. My daughter, and the gaggle of girls she made friends with, all loved Jack Johnson. And when "Upside Down" came on they went crazy like little retro Beatles' fans. Me? I get the whole "we're hanging in a park and grooving to the mellow but upbeat tunes of this dude and his guitar," I get it, I do. And if I'm in a park or on the beach, it seems like a reasonable choice for the ol' iTunes, but otherwise, give me Wilco. Or the Flaming Lips. Or Sufjan. Or Willie. Or any of the thousand or so bands I love...

I have a bunch to post, all sorts of good stuff from bands who have sent me lovely CDs, to a handful of kids' CDs with a few good songs to just plain good music, so come on back to me folks.

A taste...

Haunani Kahalewai, "White Ginger Blossom"
The Pokipalas, "The Hawaiian Wedding Song"
Balafon Marimba Ensemble, "Caderas"
Pavement, "Blue Hawaii"


PS- the photo was taken at about 7:30 in the morning (hey, it was 10:30 to us, we'd been up for hours!) and that is Diamond Head in the background. Okay, I admit it, it's a purty place and we did have many good times. Sorry to be such a whiner. Um, mahalo.