We're getting to one of those times of the year where the ratio of Fun Stuff Filling My Life to Time I Have To Sit Down And Tell You About It tilts sharply toward the former. So, recap! I shall attempt to be brief. (HA. HA HA HA.)

So Ted's Blues workshop was super excellent and fun; first workshop I've taken as a lead... I feel accomplished! Having Ted and Lea as house guests was super excellent and fun, too. Seriously, best house guests ever, they were swift and sneaky about pouncing on things like dishes and laundry, aside from being polite and thoughtful and just nice people in general. I had a great time playing tour guide with them, too; we had a fun day at the National Park, and a fun day exploring lower Puna (and nice weather on both those days, too, which was a bleeding miracle), and I took them to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory and Rainbow Falls and around the Downtown Hilo shops. And their last two nights we invited Amy over and Ted put on some music (which is largely the same as my music, apparently), and we enjoyed tasty local brews and played Candyland and Apples To Apples and I just barely beat Ted in an excellent game of Stratego and I introduced everyone to the fabulousness that is Bananagrams.

I snuck away on Friday night to go to the HAVO Employee Christmas Party, which was fun. My boss, Mark, was one of the guys in charge of decorating the Volcano House, and he and his buddies chopped down a bunch of faya trees and stuck them in the corners and strung lights on them. ...Morella faya is, btw, an invasive alien species, and one of the top two worst problems in the Park. So. BEST USE OF FAYA EVER. There was also bamboo and monstera staplegunned to the walls and lights everywhere and live Hawaiian music and a roaring fire in the fireplace and small adorable children running around, this is important for the ambience, okay... it was very nice. And Caitlin and I arrived just as the last of twilight was fading, and the view over Kilauea Caldera with the light in the clouds and the silhouette of Mauna Loa and Venus setting over the orange glow of Halema‘uma‘u, and a huge, full moon rising behind us, clear and bright... GOD, SO BEAUTIFUL. ...Anyway, the food was traditional lu‘au fare, all the good stuff, kalua pig and rice and laulau and mac potato salad and chicken long rice and poi and haupia and THE MOST AMAZING TAKO LU‘AU EVER and it was delicious. And after Santa showed up (what a rockstar he is too, seriously, all the dude has to do is show up and wave at people and everyone cheers, everyone's happy to see him, for serious, what a pimp), Caitlin and I decided it was TOO GODDAMN COLD to hang around the main party, so we took our wine and plates of dessert over by the GIANT MOTHERFUCKING FIRE and sort of oooooozed across the couches and just talked for a while, which was nice. ^_^

( And so on and so on, BITCHES DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY TROPICAL RAINSTORMS, sekrit LJ is not so sekrit, plus enjoyable spam. )

I had a dream I was in the south of Oregon–heh, in Paisley, no less–with my dad and my brother and my young cousin, a four or five year old girl belonging to my Uncle Gary's family (this cousin does not actually exist). We were getting ready to drive back up to Portland where my brother and I would be returned to our mother, when wee!cousin DISAPPEARED. We went looking for her everywhere and talked to the sheriff's office and we were thinking of staying another night so we could look for her, and I was freaking out about having to call mom and tell her why we wouldn't be home that night and admit that we'd lost our cousin. ...She did eventually show up. She hadn't gone far.

Then I dreamed that I was in middle school again. WORST NIGHTMARE EVER, Y/Y?

It's raining. Again. Still. Always. It makes it very hard for me to get out of bed. It's so warm in my basement bed.

Two thunder storms in a row here, guys. What even.

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

ETA: NOW WITH WATERSPOUTS OFF WAIKIKI BEACH :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD