Nothing much of anything.

We're incredibly lucky to have the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (MACC) in our midst, which has recently received a handsome facelift. I've yelled at many a concert, enjoyed countless films and always make it a point to visit the annual Art Maui Exhibit at the wonderful venue.

Art Maui is an juried mixed media exhibit for local Maui artists, who present material that they must have produced in the last two years and not have been shown before. There's never a year without a friend being accepted and for me, that always makes the eclectic show more personal. This year, my lovely neighbor Alysia was accepted for her intricate jewelry piece 'Locket of Dreams'.

Post gallery meandering whist getting into my truck I kept looking around as I kept hearing loud squawk-squawk-squawking. I did a double take upon seeing a massive beautiful parrot on the steering wheel of a minivan, accompanied by three of his mates and a lot of bird shit!

'Tis almost the season again and the mango trees are starting to hang heavy with their scrumptious orbs.

My Uke practice continues to be entertaining (at least for me) and a while ago (like well behaved school kids), we got to have a lesson outside. The tourists were perplexed and happy with their free concert and class swelled the following Thursday with locals and visitors alike.

It's been windy as hell this last week (clearly no handsome facelift here) so I've stayed off the water and peddled, lifted, crunched but mostly lollygagged my way through week. Ciao for now.

Crikey.

Long time no post and the list of apocalyptic craziness that's occurred/ing on our planet since a pregnant praying mantis caught my eye, is very grim indeed. I've donated, I've thanked my lucky stars and as it's easy for me to get overwhelmed with the intensity of it all, I believe the best thing I can do is to keep living a meaningful, joy filled life.

As I was surfing the Web, I came across the Pale Blue Dot photo and then this clip of Carl Sagan's thoughts prompted by it. If I allow the catastrophic headlines to get too close, it re-calibrates my thinking reminding me how totally privileged I am to exist on our beautiful Earth.

With all this fire and brimstone stuff, it probably doesn't help that I've just finished reading Susan Casey's terrific book The Wave. Which reminds me, this footage of the recent tsunami taken three miles off the coast of Japan is really something. The scientific models don't bode well and as our planet heats up, predictions for more earthquakes, volcano eruptions and hurricanes seem to be the inevitable fall out (cue Pale Blue Dot)!

And if the Pale Blue Dot doesn't do it, then this never fails!

So following the instructions for my own prescription on life, today (post Uke lesson) I went sailing bang on 11:00am hoping not to be blown to smithereens. It didn't work and I came in after 20 minutes as it was total pedal to the metal- first to fourth in waaaaay to short a time! I like my limbs and am way too attached to keeping them intact to stay out longer. Still, given the return reading on my iphone, 26 gusting to 41 mph I didn't do too bad!

So I headed to Ho'okipa, as there are always sailors skilled and crazy enough to put on a show in such gusty conditions.

There were some decent sets to make it worth watching (though I didn't get any good pics) and as Francky was in the water shooting, that always creates some good show-off action.

That's him there, the Pale Red Dot.

Eat, pray, love.

I arrived home to find this glorious praying mantis slowly making it's way up the handrail to my front door. It reminded me of a cartoon from The New Yorker magazine that's now been made into a greeting card.

She was so photogenic and it's hard to say which was her best side, this one.....

.....or this one? Any which way, I found it amazing that she could walk on those spectacularly spindly legs when she's so plumply preggers (which she is, as I googled 'praying mantis with child'). She even walked upside down under the railing on those sticky tip toes in an effort to escape my paparazzi lens. I can't wait for the little critters to be scurrying around the place, as they can eat all the crab spiders whose invasion refuses to dissipate.

Speaking of children, the other night my lava lamp appeared to have momentarily spawned Homer Simpson's next baby, d'oh!

And if I eat and drink all that shit in my fridge, I too will be bugling at the belly. What was I looking for again.....? Ah yes, that little treat in the triangle of tin foil on the second shelf.

In the meantime I remain svelte, if not a trifle (no pun intended) sycophantic at meeting Michael Titterton from Hawaii Public Radio. I'm a big NPR & HPR fan and was honored to be invited (by my generous friends Mikel & Amy) to a fabby fundraiser. What a lovely bloke Mr.T is and what a complete twirp I look! However, who cares as he exudes passion and enthusiasm for his cause and that merely brings it to a boil in the rest of us.

Did someone say cheese?