Monday, November 15, 2010

The State of Aloha Kugs, kinda.

It has been a while since my last column. I’ve been off the grid for a bit dealing with a number of things. That is not to say that I didn’t have things to write about, rather, that I’m not able to write about them in this space and format, for a variety of personal and semi-professional reasons. Suffice it to say that things have been equal measures of aloha and angst. I’m sure Steinbeck could put it better, but I never liked him that much anyway.

So, I thought we could play a little catch-up. These items are in no particular order. Enjoy the stream of consciousness.

-The kids are doing well. The twins are in Kindergarten and enjoying it a great deal. They’ve acclimated to their new school and love their new teachers. They are excelling in the classroom and making friends. They both played soccer this fall, their first team sport experience. They both had a lot of fun, and even scored some goals. Some of those were even in the correct goal and on purpose. They will turn six on Saturday, but I will touch on that in more detail in my next column, hopefully.

-The bear just turned four. She’s in preschool three days a week and loving it. She’s made a lot of friends in class and continues to be, as someone’s Irish grandmother once said, “Entirely herself, to be certain.” She’s a riot most of the time. She and her sister still share a room in the new house and most nights it has been fine, though last night they were up for about 3 hours after bedtime playing “Dragons” and flying around their room in the dark.

-The kids-and my wife and I-are cold. We’ve clearly not yet acclimated to the temperature differential between Virginia and Oahu. It’s only November… the bear started wearing her winter coat in September. I myself was recently shopping for colder weather clothes, and spent 20 minutes staring at the racks in a store trying to remember what I used to wear in cold weather. I just had to put away my shorts and T-shirts. My only real pair of shoes is my Crocs. But, I found a sweater the other day that survived the great purge of 2007, so that’s something I guess. We have a fireplace that has gotten a tremendous workout already this season and, while I do rather enjoy the cooler weather, it is definitely an adjustment.

-I have some edits to make of a few newer re-writes, but outside of that, the novel is as done as I can make it. When the edits are complete, I will likely print and bind a few copies and then set about the tedious job of trying to find a literary agent or a publisher or both. In addition, I’ll likely enter it in some “first novel” contests that I’ve learned about. With that project waning, I am revisiting a short story project that I shelved when I started the novel in addition to returning to work on the children’s picture book I wrote-I’m going to try and learn to draw…that should be interesting. Stay tuned on that front. That said, I feel some accomplishment regarding the novel project, and while I have notes and some chapters written on a follow-up to that story and its characters, I’ve decided to shelve it for now, possibly for ever. Time will tell on that one.

-The wife is doing remarkably well in her work and is enjoying it quite a lot. She exudes awesomeness in all she does, but as she’s a big-time DC muckity-muck now, that’s about alls I can say ‘bout that.

-The Phillies failed to advance to the World Series. Blech.

-Football and hockey continue to be a consistent source of both joy and pain.

-We’ve all had strep throat at least twice since we moved. Add in a few ear and sinus infections and all told, mainland germs are having a field day with the lot of us.

-Mount Vernon, the Smithsonian Air and Space, American History, and Natural history museums are great. We’ve enjoyed them a lot. The Air-Space annex out near us is perhaps even better than the one in DC, and not just because of the R2D2 mailbox.

Beyond that, there’s not a lot to report. I realize this is not the thought-provoking column that I usually aim for, but I figured I should catch up before I write another one, which I am planning to do this weekend regarding the kids birthdays. I was going to write that today but wanted to revisit earlier topics and journals on the topic before writing. So hopefully I’ll have something more substantive in this space this weekend.

The lack of a more substantial column now is not due to a lack of things to say about the events and activity of the last few months. It is due more to the fact that this space is, regrettably I think, not at this time suitable for some of the issues I’d like to comment on. It doesn’t mean I’m not writing about it. It just means I can’t share it here, yet.

So, with that, Aloha. Check back soon.