This is one of my favorite songs.  It was released after Anna died.  She would have loved it, too.  She lived this way. 

Like You’ll Never See Me Again

 If I had no more time
No more time left to be here
Would you cherish what we had?
Was it everything that you were looking for?
If I couldn’t feel your touch
And no longer were you with me
I’d be wishing you were here
To be everything that I’d be looking for
I don’t wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don’t wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
‘Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So every time you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you’ll never see me again
Every time you touch me
Touch me like this is the last time
Promise that you’ll love me
Love me like you’ll never see me again

Oh oh oooh

How many really know what love is?
Millions never will
Do you know until you lose it
That it’s everything that we are looking for
When I wake up in the morning
You’re beside me
I’m so thankful that I found
Everything that I been looking for

I don’t wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don’t wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
‘Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So everytime you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you’ll never see me again
Can you do that for me baby
Every time you touch me
See we don’t really know
Touch me like this is the last time
See everyday we never know
Promise that you’ll love me
I want you to promise me
Love me like you’ll never see me again
Like you’ll never see me again

Ooh oooh oooh oooh oooh

–by Alicia Keys and Kerry Brothers, Jr.

Saturday is Anna’s birthday.  I want to celebrate her life, to be proud of what she accomplished, to be happy for the time that she was here.  I AM grateful for her love and friendship.  

So why am I crying and missing her so much?  Why am I still angry at her for dying?  Why does it still hurt so deeply that it feels like my chest will cave in with every breath?  Why can’t I just let her go and accept that she’s an angel driving the big rig of her dreams? 

It comes and goes.  Most of the time, I’m fine.  Every now and then, I’m an emotional wreck. 

Today is just one of those days.

I’m a pack rat.  I hesitate to throw things away because "I might need it someday." 

I have almost half a closet full of evil plastic grocery bags.

It’s been coming to this for quite a while.  I am running out of space in the small hall closet and it is becoming increasing difficult to squish my vacuum cleaner and supplies in there without conking myself on the head and starting a small avalanche. 

With my rather large family, I can easily fill ten shopping bags per trip if there’s a good sale and I’m not careful.  We recycle the bags as trash can liners and rubbish bags.  I try to go "bagless" if possible and use my pretty, purple Chico Bags.  Still, the accumulation of bags in the closet is staggering.  What can I do with all these evil grocery bags?

The internet to the rescue!  There’s a site called My Recycled Bags.com and it has all sorts of ideas for turning the bags into nice looking purses, totes, wristlets, pot scrubbers, rugs and such.  The author cuts the bags into strips and ties them together to form "plarn."  Plastic yarn.  She then crochets the plarn into her fabulous creations.  Even better, this lovely lady "Cindy" or "RecycleCindy" shares her patterns for free!  How eco-consciously cool is that?! 

Making the plarn is easy enough.  My challenge is remembering how to crochet.  My grandmother taught attention deficit me to crochet and do embroidery (Okay, okay, she tried to teach me!) when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and I actually crocheted a hot pink poncho some time thereabouts.  I attempted a baby blanket when I was in my 20’s and didn’t finish it. 

So here I am.  My goal is to cut a bunch of plarn and crochet something out of it.  I hope to make a bag but may start with something smaller and do baby steps.  I’m sure I can find a "How to Crochet" vid somewhere to help refresh my memory.  Either way, I’m making room in my closet and easing my eco-guilt. 

After all, I can’t just throw them away!  What if I need them later?!

Okay, I know I’m not the only one that does this.  I really like to look at other people’s houses, yards and garages.  Not in a peeping Tom or stalker way but as I drive by, sometimes I catch a little glimpse into the lives of the people who live there and it’s interesting.  There are families sitting around the dinner table laughing and enjoying what I imagine to be a fantastic meal, Tata patiently pulling weeds one by one out of an immaculate front yard, six custom Harley Davidsons all lined up in the driveway, huge garden filled with colorful petunias, Sponge Bob on a  big flat panel TV, fishing poles and huge ice chests in the garage, homemade picnic tables and benches underneath a double wide tarp, big trampoline with an enclosure, hunting dogs in kennels next to pickup trucks — the nice list could go on without end. 

Every now and then, though?  I like to hear my neighbors yelling at their children to clean their rooms or see a dining table piled with papers or boxes stacked in the garage threatening to overflow into the driveway or an overgrown jungle of a yard or a rusty roof or a house painted an off color.  Why?  Purely selfish reasons!  I like to see that other people also love their children but sometimes want to hug their offspring really, really hard . . . around the neck. Other folks have problems with clutter.  We’re not the only ones who need to save money to replace the roof.  Someone else out there picked the perfect paint sample in the store only to find out that it looks 10 times brighter on the house than in the store, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging anyone or taking joy in the misfortune of others or sending out bad vibes.  I guess what fuels my voyeurism is I want to remind myself of the good things that I already have and that are to come in the future and to also have the assurance that we’re all only human.  I’m not the best or the worst or the only one to take missteps and make mistakes.  We all do.  It’s a common experience.

I signed up with the user name “paradiseali” for a Twitter account a little over a month ago just to check it out and see what the buzz was about.  I started out following a few Hawai`i people that I remember from back in the day and it just expanded from there. 

And guess what?!  People tweet about family, what they’re eating, about traffic and weather and surf, share cute things about their children and pets, confess that their house or office is a mess, that they unclogged a toilet, where to go for KC Drive Inn waffle hot dogs or sushi or Hawaiian food and then some. Sometimes these tweets are linked to audio/video clips, pictures, books, event sign ups, and all sorts of juicy online tidbits. 

The best part is . . . I get a peek into other people’s houses/yards/offices/cars/lives without getting into my car and taking out a loan to cover the price of gas! 

I haven’t watched American Idol since Fantasia was on in Season 3!  Got this clip of Jason Castro performing the Israel Kamakawiwo`ole version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” via Neenz via Twitter.  I think he did a good job!  Probably won the hearts of many Hawai`i viewers.  Since when do they let the contestants play ukulele? 

When I was growing up we had a “hippie garden.”  Guess that was the unofficial local slang for organic?  I remember a lot of digging, long rows and rows of all kinds of vegetables and my folks weeding and fertilizing and watering and picking off any insect brave enough to snack on their crops.  To this day, I’m not sure if they gardened out of necessity and made it seem like an enjoyable hobby or if they truly enjoyed the hard work and the whole process.  I suspect the later.

A few years ago, the previous renters of our old house left an empty raised bed garden.  I planted mostly herbs like basil, thyme, lemon grass, rosemary, Thai basil, lemon basil, fennel, several types of mint, oregano along with the ever present green onions.  Once I planted them, they just grew like weeds on their own.  No maintenance.  It was gorgeous and the aroma wafting on the breeze was heavenly.  I didn’t really know how to use all of those herbs but I gave it away to friends and neighbors and savored what I could.  Now, I wish I would have grown vegetables.  I thought it was too work intensive and you know I was a couch potato back then.  But I digress . . .

The soil in my backyard is poor to nonexistent with lava rock patches here and there so I knew I’d have to do up another raised bed.  I started researching it and found this method called “square foot gardening.”  What I like in this method is that it utilizes a raised bed, there’s very little weeding, watering or fertilizing, and you can grow more in less space.  No need for those long row plantings my folks slaved over!  According to “All New Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew, it uses (for the most part) only six inches of a growing medium called “Mel’s Mix.”  The garden can be placed in small spaces like on  an apartment lanai, on a patio, in boxes on steps, even on a table to allow for gardening while in a wheelchair.  How cool is that?!  There’s an official site, too.

I’ve started the string beans by a window in the laundry room and we should be able to transplant them and be up and running with the garden this weekend.  (Crossing my fingers and toes for good weather.)  We’ll see how it goes! 

April 2, 2008 And here she/he is! This was taken at about 10 weeks. Ultrasound technology sure has improved since my childbearing days. Not that those days are ancient history or anything. What a difference a decade makes.

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It was fairly accurate with the transcription! I’m impressed. The only parts that were not right are bolded with the corrections in parenthesis.