Posted by Pinky.
Coming back to the desert is always nice (because I do love the desert) but after staying in Hawaii for over a month I guess I'm feeling a little sad. And cold. I don't know exactly why I feel sad but I do. I don't know how long this feeling will last.
We were really busy the whole time we were there so I didn't have much time to 'play' or do anything that wasn't research or production-related. A couple times Bunny or Daisy suggested that maybe I could spend some time looking for my mommy but in the end I didn't do any of that. I wouldn't know where to start and I don't even know what she looks like. As you probably know lots of times kittens don't look anything like their mommies.
Bunny, Daisy, and I all learned a huge amount from the Hawaii-people while we were there. I hope you don't mind if I don't summarize everything we did in Hawaii right now - it's too much stuff to list and my head is crowded with ideas that need sorting. The noise in my head is similar to children smashing Lego with small hammers. I'll just try to bring everything together in the Hawaii episodes we're working on.
On the way back we stopped in Los Angeles and spent a few days there - UCLA's research libraries in the evenings and a bunch of assorted interesting stuff during the days: we saw the Takashi Murakami exhibition at the Geffen (just amazing); visited the National Resources Defense Council offices in Santa Monica (we're going to try to do an episode about environmental racism with them); Museum of Jurassic Technology (again, I love that place) and the Center for Land Use Interpretation (first time for me, I was really impressed) in Culver City (not far from where Bunny and I first met); and we even took a day trip up to San Simeon with our friend Tim to see Hearst Castle (truly nauseating/fascinating).
These are from the Murakami show. Thank you Pam for the lovely buttons.
Oh so ironic to find this parking sign in Los Angeles (the space was empty).
Indoor swimming pool, Hearst Castle.
Traveling can be fun but it's a really wonderful to all be back together in one place again. I missed Mimi and Kim a lot. One nice thing about being away is that while we were gone Kim did a bunch of blogging and decided that it's not so bad. So according to her she'll be blogging "sometimes" from now on. It would be great if Mimi would blog too, she always has an interesting (some might say 'bizarre') way of looking at things. We spent a few days sorting through the mountain of material we brought back from Hawaii and I think we have a pretty good outline for how to proceed now.
I just read through this entry and it's quite a mess with all the jumping from topic to topic, isn't it? I'll try again tomorrow. I think I'm tired; my eyes are throbbing. @.@
Finally, before I head off to bed, I wanted to extend my deepest 'thank you' to everyone that has been teaching and helping us these past few weeks and months: Eiko, Karen, Candace, Callie, Dean, Heijin, Jackie, Lianne, Bianca, Po'ohina, Bunzie, Fran, Daniela, Brian, Kekuni, Terri, Kyle, Joan & Puhipau, Paul, Richard & Nancy, Bok-dong, Nancy, Jon, Teacup, Tinkerbell, Su-Fei, Tim, Maya & Emi, Pam, Tim's Mommy & Daddy, Jon's Mommy & Daddy, Stan, Dennis, Lori, and Lisa. I'm sure I've forgotten to include everyone - my sincerest apologies.
~pinky