"And your books will be due..."

When's the last time you saw one of those in a library book?? It's been over a decade since I've gotten a due date stamped in a library book, but that's how they do things here in Hawaii. At first I thought it was extremely old-school. But the more I thought about it, I realized it's genius. They still scan the books' barcodes into the computer, but they stamp your books instead of printing out a receipt with the due date. This is great for two reasons:

a) It saves tons of paper. Think how many trees are used to make paper for library receipts that most people don't even use? And then that paper goes into the trash, which adds to the already packed landfills. Obviously one reciept in a bag of trash doesn't make a difference, but imagine how many bags would be filled if you combined all the thrown-away library receipts in America in one year!

b) Printed receipts are easy to lose. I often used to end up checking my online account to see when my books were due because I'd misplaced or accidentally tossed the receipt. This way, you always know exactly when your book is due because the date is right inside the cover.

Not many of Hawaii's policies seem to be things other states would want to emulate (Furlough Fridays for example!), but I think this is an excellent idea. I wonder why libraries moved away from date-stamping in the first place?

And here's a picture I just snapped of Conan, lounging with his newest toy. I hate taking his picture with the flash because it always makes his eyes look weird. I wish photo editing programs would come with a pet-eye feature similar to the red-eye feature for humans.

The Tagic Tale of a Warty Squash

You'd think Hawaii would be a great place to grow flowers and vegetables since it's warm all year round. Jarrod was super excited to plant some veggies when we got here and he bought some pots, soil and seed packets in December. Three months later, I'm thinking Jarrod might wish we had never made that fateful trip to Home Depot, because it's just been one problem after another for him. He chose tomatoes, yellow squash and zucchini. The tomatoes had sprouted and were doing great until... they got eaten by birds! They scarfed down plants, as well as the squash spouts, and Jarrod was devastated. So he erected an elaborate labyrinth of string and stakes to keep the birds out, as seen in the first picture.

That worked great -- no more bird attacks -- but then the bazillion ants we have living out back decided the plants would make a perfect habitat. We tried a few home remedies before finally forking over $7 for a bottle of veggie-safe insecticide. That made mediocre progress in curbing the ant problem, but then huge holes started appearing the leaves. Inchworm/caterpillar critters had staged an invasion! They munched holes in all the tomatoes and Jarrod ruthlessly fed live inchworms to the hordes of vicious ants! (I told him that was exceedingly cruel and made him squish the inchworms first.)

Finally, this week we were able to pick off our first completed vegetable, a decent-sized yellow squash. But it's shiny and covered in warts and resembles a decorative fall gourd. Is it edible? We'll find out soon! If it were me, I'd probably throw in the towel and resign myself to buying all our veggies from the grocery store (but I have a black thumb anyway and could never grow veggies to begin with ) but knowing Jarrod, he won't give up until he's raised a crop of perfect, prize-winning tomatoes, squash and zucchini.

Haupia

One of the things we enjoyed most at our first Hawaiian luau was haupia, a type of coconut pudding. The pudding had a consistency close to Jello and was served in pieces about 2 inches by 1 inch. We tried a few haupia recipes and mix packets before finding the perfect recipe. It has the light, delicious coconut flavor we both loved from the haupia at the luau. Jarrod actually preferred the firm, gelatinous texture the luau haupia, but I like this recipe because it's creates a more creamy pudding. It's a LOT of work though. Tons of stirring, but well worth the effort. Here's a link to the recipe: http://gohawaii.about.com/od/luaurecipes/r/haupia.htm

And a word of advice if you do decide to give it a try: dissolve the cornstarch in the cocount milk before cooking. I used a large measuring cup and vigourously mixed 3 Tbsp. of cornstarch with 1/2 cup coconut milk, then repeated the process with the remaining 1/2 cup coconut milk and 2 Tbsp. of cornstarch. Yum!

Hawaiian Centipede

I discovered an interesting visitor in our living room when I woke up yesterday morning. We'd heard about Hawaiian centipedes, but this was our first encounter with one. Other than looking super creepy, they're apparently posionous to young kids and pets. And their bite is supposed to be extremely painful. Luckily, this one was on his way to centipede heaven/hell already so he didn't protest too much when Jarrod scooped him up in a plastic bag. (Yes, I woke Jarrod up and made him come deal with it.) The protrusions off the back end looked like stingers to me, but I later read that's actually just a defense mechanism to fool predators into thinking that's its head. The business end is definitely the front. I've also heard and read that they're extremely hard to kill and no amount of stomping or smashing will do away with one; you have to chop it apart somehow. Luckily, since this one was pretty much beyond fighting back, we didn't have to deal with making a mess on the carpet. (Or, more likely, transporting him outside and away from our yard to go frighten another family.) They can supposedly grow to around six inches long and two inches across. Our 42-legged friend was about four or five inches long.

Plumeria

My neighbor's plumeria tree is full of blooms right now and I took a few pictures of it the other day. Plumeria flowers smell amazing and are very common in leis.