We’ve been missing our wacky Fasching Parades since leaving Germany. What today’s Aloha Week Festivals parade lacked in wackiness, it more than made up for in island flavor.

There were marching bands…

…in aloha shirts,

Marines pressing hands,

old cars (I love the simple decorations on this one and have made up a full story about the driver of this truck and how he fishes for octopus and hangs out with his friends speaking pidgen and eating smoked meat with poi).

Random surfers crossing the street add the perfect island touch behind this car.

There were lots of Tutus (grandmotherly types) singing on the backs of floats,

and there were Tutus in cars. But, my favorites had to be the Princesses representing each island, decked out in symbolic lei and chanting greetings from their homes (roll your cursor over each one to find out her island).

Bringing up the rear of each equestrian group were designated pooper scoopers. The lady we were sitting next to (who happened to be the principal of Sacred Heart School, and who’s school had an excellent band and float) said that she thought that the pooper brigades were judged as well as the floats, explaining why great lengths were taken to dress them well. While Ni’ihau and Lanai scored high in my book, we all agreed that a volcano poop repository was very fun.

For more pictures, including hula on the street and hula on the back of floats, check out my Flickr page.

This weekend is the American Sewing Expo in Novi, Michigan. One of the exhibits is “Breaking Traditions,” an annual show devoted to fundraising for good causes. This year’s theme is Home, and donations support A Place To Bark, an animal rescue operation in Tennessee. With the theme Home, how could I not participate?!

A while back I posted a detail, but here’s my complete donation:

As an extra, added bonus, I just found out it was selected as Exhibit Favorite, and I won a bundle of awesome prizes! An art quilt book by two artists whose work I really enjoy, transfer papers that I’ve been intrigued by but never tried, and paint that I’ve heard nothing but good things about. I’m so excited!

Here’s another detail:

Last night the kids went to movie night at their taekwondo studio and I had  a Saturday night to myself. I thought maybe I’d go to Waikiki and listen to music at one of the hotels, or otherwise pretend I was a tourist. My go-to parking lot was full though, and at the other end of the strip, I found coin parking, but without a clear idea of what I was going to do or where I was going to go, I didn’t think I had enough quarters. So I went home. I felt like such a wimp.

Today, Sunday, I offered that we go to Hickam Air Force Base to see the airshow, but my heart wasn’t really into hassling with parking and crowds, and besides, my son had been to the show on Friday with school and I’m not that into airplanes. So I didn’t mind when they chose instead to take up a friend’s invitation to play at his house. I said I’d pick them up at 3:00.

I came home and read some blogs, and found out that the Thunderbirds would be flying today at 3:00. Hmmm. The friend’s house is in the Airforce/Navy housing area near Hickam. Hmmm. Their house is next to a large park. I put my camera in my purse and left a little early.

The first plane zoomed by just as I was pulling up to the house. It is impossible not to be impressed by the speed of these planes, and how unimaginably close together they fly. And the noise! It was a bit of a game hearing the planes and then guessing where they’d show up. One flew so close that my camera actually tried to focus on it as it went by, but failed because of the jet’s speed.

I think I’m OK again with taking advantage of all there is to see and do here.

Pun intended.

I’ve been a bad supporter. When I found out about the altered bra project for our local Hawai’i Chapter of the American Cancer Society, I got all excited and made a calabash bra filled with poi and covered in flowers.

But then I dropped the ball on supporting the cause by finding sponsors for my “cups of life.” I posted about the bra about the same time my site was down for two days, and then my project seemed so insignificant and puny compared to all the IBOL hoopla my hubby had tapped into, so I let it sit unloved.

Now I’ve got one week to gather as much support as I can for my calabashes. Look out neighbors! If any blog readers would also like to sponsor my bra and in doing so donate to the ACS Hawai’i chapter, please leave a comment and we’ll work something out.

Mahalo

My latest fabric collage on canvas. Titled simply “Houses.”