Last weeks little moments.

I can't be trusted. With my dear friend Cheyenne, (the owner of the Paia Meditation) on the mainland, I'd been nominated as an official time keeper for a twenty minute morning meditation session. As any good facilitator would, I arrived with 10 minutes to spare but was suddenly grabbed by the thought "wouldn't it be funny to send Cheyenne a photo of me taking my facilitator duties seriously"? Well clearly I thought so, as I set the self timer and started to leap.


Close to our start time of 7:30am, Eric arrived and being the good student that he is, joined right in! With minutes to spare we plonked our smiley energized selves onto cushions, sat cross legged, b r e a t h e d deeply and proceeded to start our practice. I think it took me the whole twenty minutes just to get my heart rate down! You too can come and rest you mind any time (minus aerobic workout), simply check the schedule at paiameditation.com

Describing my mother as a 'ferocious reader with an addictive personality' is (I'm sure she'll agree) an accurate statement. This is a good thing for her sharp and intelligent mind, but not so good if you have limited storage space in a small flat. Above is the latest culling of her all-new-read-once collection of books. The lucky recipient of these black bin bags exploding with words will be the local charity shop... unless anyone fancy's a surprise box of books in the mail?! I've often wondered if I should try to convert her into the book electronic arena?

Like these Kindle people! Though I confess the new ipad looks infinitely more appealing. Mum, would you miss turning the page & the smell of a new book?

Talking of words, today I bought some mushrooms with the lofty claim that they are 'more fun than a pickle', then I thought "I'll show you fun"....


...."check out the giant asparagus growing at my neighbour's house"!

You tube fest.

I have no life right now as I'm redecorating. The delirium of paint fumes and my partiality to hamsters makes these snippets particularly entertaining.




And in case you're the last person on the planet to have missed seeing the Otters, here they are.

Self amusement.

This poor little chap had fallen in my recycle bucket and I extracted the price of a photo shoot for his release.

Ah the guillotine, those were the days! This pici just makes me chuckle....

As does this one.....note to self, must buy larger swim goggles.

"Mr.Cammarota, the Doctor will see you now".

Five things I witnessed at the gym today - plus one...

1. Lots of small dark skinned men in the Hawaiian uniform of all male work out dudes….sneakers, tattooed legs, board shorts, neon yellow Maui cement t-shirt & pod.

2. Courageously over weight people taking the steps to shed some pounds….but why of why do they wear spandex?

3. Lots of male body language, the secret hand shake & one shoulder arm clamp hug are two of my faves.

4. Older man (miuns underwear) wearing flimsy waaaaaaaaaay too short shorts.

5. Me – the only freckled haole in there (proper) laughing out loud listening to the #1 podcast in the UK “Russell Brand on BBC Radio 2”.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, I'm shallow and judgemental, but people - it's a 24 hour feak show out there………

And on another completely random other note, hands up all those who have laughed outloud inappropriately . Fantastic.

Stand Up Comedy.

A few weeks ago there were no waves at all, which made premium conditions for me to catch what ever little ripples randomly appeared and people ....catch them I did! The crap conditions were perfect for my induction into stand up hall of shame.

I'm a natural.

When it comes to water sports, a gifted athlete I’m not! In spite of this handicap, I still manage to have heaps of fun playing in the shallow end and at my own speed.

Going....

Going.....

Gone!

Sea and biscuits anyone?

You lucky bastards.......

When I first moved to America my friend Jules and I ate and drank right through our two year traveling savings in one month! Ah yes, food-the great grounding cord. Interestingly, I once heard it said that when people emigrate the last thing they let go of above all else (even ritual & language) is food. Which I guess would explain all the Paki shops in England, but I digress....

I can attest to this piece of random trivia because even after 27 years just the thought of good crumbly Cheshire cheese and a pikelet makes me salivate. I recently discovered a shop on Maui that stocks real Heinz baked beans (the staple diet of all British kids) and greedily grabbed six (yes six) large cans as if bloody rationing had just ended! I even called Meesh to let her know I’d hit the mother load but simultaneously felt mildly concerned that the more people who knew about the stash, stocks may be drastically depleted. Lord knows that would be a scene, having gorged myself on can number six only to find the store shelf empty and only having spilled the beans (as it were) to ONE person!

Anyway, my Mum has always been gracious enough to ship my food parcels half way around the world like a conscientious Red Cross volunteer. She even was kind enough recently to ship said crumbly Cheshire cheese which unfortunately (though not surprisingly) arrived in my warm climate as a curdled unappetizing mass. As a treat she also includes a bicies.

So back to our lucky bastards at the beginning of my tale. Bad weather in UK (surprise) caused a ship to hit a sandbank off the Blackpool coast in England and spill some of it’s cargo into the briny which washed ashore. People...this is not just any ordinary freight, this is the mother of all choccy bicies, the McVities digestive!
With thanks to the Lancashire Evening Post for their pithy headline and report on the choccy horror show! Said one man in Leeds 'McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestives now come with added salt'.

Never apologize for your art!

So who's on your fridge?

Toilet training.

Jules putting a happy spin on a grim loo moment.

If only she'd known about the toilet paper genie!

Playing dress up.

One of my favorite aphorisms is "a wasted weekend is not a weekend wasted" and while that actually does not apply to the last few days (or few years now I think about it) I imagine the pictures below indicate otherwise! Happy Halloween :-)

Kiss of the Spiderwoman.

Anyone who knows me is well aware of how jumpy I am. I’ve lost track of the number of times that a poor unsuspecting friend has jumped out of their skin because of my reaction to ‘the thing’ which, (more often then not) was a stray hair or paper clip cunningly plotting to scare me to death.

So now I’ve clarified my disposition; let me take you to Café Mambo in Paia on Friday night. It was lively, full of happy patrons and I’d just finished a good dinner with friends and was taking a moment to look around to see who was out and about. As I started looking over my left shoulder I was not expecting to look into the eyeball of a HUGE cane spider......ok-it wasn’t that big but it was ‘right there’ where nothing alive and crawling is ever supposed to be.

I became an Olympic champion on every banned substance known to man and simultaneously screamed, grabbed the nearest bicep and started yelling (as one does) “GET IT - GET IT - GET IT OFF ME - GET IT OFF ME”!

The bicep moved into action and the deadly finger flicking was swift and accurate as the spider was sent hurtling toward its doom, but not before it bounced off Michelle’s arm (a body part clearly not to be messed with) plummeted to the ground, bounced off the tile floor and came to rest...officially D.O.A.

Dear God I think I gave more than one person a fright with that little escapade, but madafuka, hands up all those who would have behaved differently! Of course as with all interactions involving man verses beast, the poor spider was the only true victim and I can only hope he didn’t know what flicked him.

No spiders were harmed in the making of this reenactment!

This is not a dress re-hears-al!

Once upon a time I heard that the most stolen sign on Maui was that at Hookipa Lookout or as it’s often graffitied.... Hookipa, lookout! As I’ve frequently seen the sign cleaned up and the size change, I have no doubt this is true.

Today’s version (for me) was a classic. The subplot is not exactly hidden, some frustrated surfer feeling territorial of his precious spot posts a message for all to see. Unfortunately his spelling (or lack there of) is also on display, which makes the whole thing rather amusing to a UK eye, as we only know this word with two 'l's! 'Kinel, I guess this is in the same family as 'travelled' and 'traveled'...but I digress.

A while ago I’d pointed out a hearse to Giampaolo (I have no idea why) and his response was ‘I wonder how many boards I could fit in that thing'?! So today at Hookipa when I saw a hearse pull in, I knew some canny surfer had had the same thought as the Itai.
I was sitting in my car and got my best image via the wing mirror, but imagine my surprise as the car drove by and I saw the undertaker! (gotta double click on the pici to find out).

Most people send flowers......

My friends Floyd & Michael are not 'most people'! These are the contents of my homeopathic get well parcel.Suffice to say I'm having a lot of fun sipping my honeybush, whilst eating my spotted dick and playing with my new snatch!

Sign of the times.

Gosh, recuperation isn’t all bad. My days are effortlessly filled amusing myself (see exhibit A above), religiously napping twice a day, reading “Middlesex’ which is the best novel I’ve read in a while, watching a bit of BBC America, eating healthy food, chatting with friends, catching up on Posh & Becks via ‘Hello’ mags (thanks Mum), walking s.l.o.w.l.y. around my house and most importantly figuring out if I’m swanky, skanky or cranky!

Now this might come as a bit of a shocker but the quiz says I’m swanky…. it must be the drugs because all I can think of when I look at this photo is ‘anyone for Penrith’?!

I've got to get out, ferns are beginning to grow on my brain............

Throwing myself under the bus for a laugh; Part 47

What the hell, as we all know ‘wet’ is not my best look so I decided I might as well go all out and add a swim cap & goggles (the Jean Claude Killy design are particularly fetching). All together now...GORGEOUS!

I took the little gopro to the pool for a swimsuit addition of my own and had a blast. I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t learn to swim until I was 39 and I only bring it up again to validate my crappy technique! The filming part was easy, the editing part.....not so. Bloody hell, I spent way too much time on this little thing and finally decided for forgo perfection for what you’re about to receive. May the Lord make us truly thankful it's a once in a while past time!

So without further ado......ladies and gentlemen, may I present (drum roll please) ME in the Pukalani Pool!

PS:Niki Viva la cuffia!


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A pair of old Queens.

The invitaion was simple and read like this:

People,
This weekend will mark the 28th Annual celebration of my birth. Parties are planned in London, Rio, Paris and Paia. Please join me & The Queen* in celebrating at Jaques on Saturday night from 7:30 onwards.
Ian
*Not confirmed

Well as luck would have it, not only was the Queen free, but her dearly departed Mum returned from the grave to make Ian's birthday one he would remember! He's a man of hidden talents as earlier this year he and Danny showed up to my birthday as Morris Dancers, frickin hysterical. So we knew if anyone would apprceciate our efforts if was Sir (as he's now known) Ian Haywood.
When the children of the parish asked if I was really the Queen of England, I replied “I course I am children and would you like a Jaffa cake”! I figured the fact that the sell by date was March ’07 would be lost on their young American taste buds!

Details of note, Meesh’s marigold gloves and ‘screen’ netting, plus my 'curtain pull 'gold thingy and recycled wedding dress from 1989!
The granny boobs were another stroke of genius. By the end of the night they'd had just about everything thrust between them including the birthday boys head!. People kept on walking up to Meesh with a pair of stray socks as her stuffing fell out and tweaking her nipples (I think you can see why) as they left. 'kin hysterical.
Typhoo on the left, Earl Gray on the right.
And so to the real gift, a visual he’d rather not have but the laugh was so good I know we’re forgiven. Sir Ian and the Queens……….
As the night wore on, the wigs came off . Wiith a weak (and unheeded) facial plea for help ‘the other Morris dancer’ Sir Danny Kivel not only receives his knighthood but is the filling for the delicious Queen Elizabeth butty!

What a brilliant evening, Meesh & I had so much fun we decided bugger the birthday part, we'll just randomly go out dressed up more often! To wit Maui replies, "We are not amused"!

Flower power.

There once was a lady from Leeds
Who swallowed a packet of seeds
Within a short hour
She pee’d a big flower
Giving pollen on tap for the bees.

My talents know no bounds!

Did you get my good side?

I knew if I took the gopro waterprrof camera sailing with me the results would be hysterical, but I wasn’t prepared for how frickin’ funny these shots would be. Here is a little montage that captures my struggle, surprise and alarm whilst having fun at Kanaha!

Honestly, if you can’t laugh at yourself………

Profanisaurus Rex.

Michelle’s bro Mark, (while drinking cocktails between shifts as a pilot for British Airways) likes to work on keeping his announcements cutting edge with his handy Profanisaurus Rex. Mark gifted one of these 'must haves' to Michelle, who gifted one to me, who gifted one to Jules because lord knows, we could all use a few more rude words & phrases in our vocab!

Here's a few mild beginner samples that you can easily drop into your conversations this week.

‘To do a Beckam” v. To fail to score despite every opportunity to do so.

“Agatha Christie” n. A silent, putrid fart committed by someone in this very room, and only one person knows whodunit.

“Strike Oil” v. When doing a duty on the lavatory, to eject a feeshus with such force that its impact causes a vertical spout of water which hit’s one squarely in the balloon knot.

“King Canute” n. An enormous turd that blocks the bend and holds back the tide of the flush, causing the toilet to overflow.

“Snatch worms” n. Tiny pieces of tightly rolled toilet paper that lurk in the labial folds.

“Spin cycle” n. The final frenzied stages of a gentleman’s act of relaxation, when the floor starts to vibrate and nearby crockery starts to rattle and fall off shelves etc.

“Swiss movement”n. A poo dropped in the pan with almost nazi-like precision by a person with disciplined and regular bowel habits.

So if you're ever on a BA flight in Europe and hear "Ladies & Gentelmen please bring your seat backs into the upright position and stow your tray tables. We will be landing as soon as I’ve had my curtain call (a return to the lav for an encore dump)........" you'll know who's at the helm!

and now a word from our sponsor....

Imagine my surprise when this little nugget showed up via my inbox!

What can I say, if need anything branded, marketed, created or irreverently exposed then I have the man for you. Paul Chamberlain does it all, including a magnificent line of greeting cards that are the antidote to any Hallmark moment.

Now if Michelle can just get her new product manufactured, guess what we're all getting for Christmas!