Well Hello!

well, no pics in this one because i am on a public computer, but this wandering soul who currently resides in Kihei, Maui, Hawaii is coming home for a visit to the beautiful city of San Francisco! and nothing would please me more than to spread myself as thin as possible in order to see as many of my wonderful friends as i can...hell, i only work two days a week in Maui (I know you're jealous), so i can come back here and relax when i'm done! Hee he!

Anyway, this post is just to say hello to everyone, to say that i hope you are well, and that i will try to post pics soon so you can see my bright and shining face instead of just looking at this stupid computer type :)

Can i see you sometime between Oct 3-6 or the 9th-13? Are u going to LoveFest or Decompression? Can u have a beer with me @ the Cheiftan or perhaps ribs @ Oola or maybe some tacos @the Blue Light? can u stay up til all hours of the night, talking and laughing and partying? Can u have breakfast @ Dots, or perhaps a 4am burrito @ some taqueria in the Mission? Whatever fits your schedule, let's make it happen! Besides work will be there tomorrow...hee he.

If you want to write back, the best way is andriamiller50@yahoo.com or call me! Counting the days and hours and minutes...hope you are healthy and happy and loved.

Missing you!
Andi

Ok, so it's been over a month since I've posted...

...and i'm sorry, i've just been super busy moving into my new place on the other side of the island.

No photos yet (i'm working on it), but here's the scoop (very condensed) of what has happpened since i last wrote (for those of you who care)...

Left Hana, Maui (eastern side of the island), moved to Kihei (southside near Wailea), got two bartending/serving jobs, found a fantastic roommate (Stephanie), landed a cool condo with a lanai that has a view of the ocean and a comfy couch, paid an outrageous sum of money to have my electricity turned on (mind-blowing, seriously), live about 300 yards from the beach, have an awesome scooter to get me around, have started paddling outrigger canoe for the Kihei Canoe Club, and am just wondering how I can still visit Hana and SF as much as possible.

I really miss Hana.

I really miss San Francisco.

Wishing i could write more, but can't keep my eyes open...just worked 11 days in a row, partly to cover for people who were stranded on the mainland from the Aloha and ATA airline shutdowns...so tired.

Miss you so much. Please write or call. It would make my day.

Pics coming soon...

Aloha!

Little Update...

Hey y'all....

this is the beautiful Venus Pool/Waioka... a great time of day to be there...and notice, it's not raining!

so, things have been much better since i last wrote. Thanks to all of you who emailed, called, and sent messages, I can feel your friendship and love for me, and i know that you are all pulling for me as i plan this new venture here in Maui. I spent four days last week getting ready to move to the other side of the island (Kihei area, above Wailea is southwest Maui), gave out a bunch of resumes, had about four interviews, and am looking at two possible apartments and three possible jobs. i found a roommate, a really cool girl named Stephanie, who is from San Diego but who used to live in Kihei and is moving back. I need to have a certification test from the Maui Liquor commision to serve or bartend on the island, and i missed the cut-off last week (oooh, frustrating, but that's another story...i might already be working, but oh well, everything happens for a reason, right?). So i am taking that test tomorrow morning, which i will hopefully pass and then go and tell all the employers i talked to that i am available and ready to work. I will also be meeting with my prospective roommate and looking at another apt, and hopefully we will figure something out before she comes back on the 8th of March with all her stuff (she is here right now, and then will fly back to SD and then turn around and fly right back to Maui). i am hoping to work at this really cool place called LuLu's, which is all open air and a fun atmosphere and seems like cool people, but first things first, I've gotta pass that test! Pray for me!

Among other interesting news, the sun came out for a week straight...it was literally cloudless...A-MAZING (Ananda, that's for you), and all i wanted to do was go to the beach...it was insanely gorgeous, which did wonders for my perspective. I also got a scooter and have been running around all over the place now that i have wheels...Maui feels like a new place! Man, so cool (Rachel, that's for you)...oh, and for those of you who know your famous big-wave surfers, I also met this guy...

woo hoo, Laird Hamilton! I actually had another picture with him but i was so nervous after i took it that i shut my phone without saving it and f***ing erased it! So my hand is shaking in this one because i had to ask if I could take ANOTHER picture with him--I'm retarded. But it was pretty cool...he was really nice and friendly.

welp, that's about it...please keep me in your thoughts, and prayers, and call or email if you get a chance, i love hearing from you...

Pictures, Pictures, and more Pictures...

Aloha!



Alrighty then...



Let's get down to business...this post is for those of you who only want to see pictures and never read the blog anyway...(i've actually been going through quite a rough patch, but if you really want to hear about it, just email me...kind of depressing, and not as fun as pictures)...



So here goes...


my dearest and best friend in Maui, Ananda, recently packed up herself and her dog and drove across country with her friend Eric (pictured) to move back to Portland, Maine...about as far away in the US from me that she could possibly be...i miss her terribly. We used to go over to the other side of the island and eat pizza...

...and go to Big Beach...

and visit her friends, Jared & Kitty, who are engaged and live in Kihei...

...and the one nice thing about rain is it brings rainbows...

...this is from my cabin...

...and when it was dry out, I would go running...i have a little loop down to the airport, and one day...

...i met this Austrian guy named Hans. He's great. He and his partner own a small glider plane called an ultralite...and one day...

...they gave me a ride up in the sky. Tiny, tiny plane. Lots of wind. Mildly scary take-off and landing...

...but the views...

...were definitely...

...worth it. Amazing. And it wasn't raining!

These clouds came out after one long, long, long day of rain...

...but the pictures don't do them justice. They were like a painting. It was incredible.

But alas, they don't call it rainy season for nothing, and after about THREE WEEKS of not seeing the sun...

...or blue sky...or even having a break...(it rained for nine days straight without a break...like, all day, and all night, without end)...

...I was about ready to put myself on a minor suicide watch. Seriously, it looks like fog in the pictures, but that's just how hard it was raining. I was going stir-crazy, to put it mildly...

But FINALLY, after I thought of just quitting my job and buying a plane ticket home, the sun finally broke through...and what an awesome day it was. i had just finished a long day of baking and could see blue sky, when a friend from the other side of the island stopped by with their dad and rescued me.

We drove around, jumped in the water......and laughed til our insides hurt.

it was probably the best therapy i've ever had in my life.

The scenery didn't really hurt either.

It was an absolutely fantastic day, and it was good for me to remember...

...that you don't get waterfalls like these without the rain.

my friend gave me this sand dollar before i left the city, and it reminds me of some great times.

And even though I live in a place where i can go to beautiful, amazing beaches like this, even those don't make up for the fact that i just lost my best friend here and my housing arrangement and my job, and now i have to start all over...

...my favorite candy is NERDS, and sometimes it cheers me up (I can never get them in Hana, so this was a rare occasion that i found some at the gas station). But not much is going well, so if you feel like sending me a big box full of NERDS, or maybe just a picture or a letter or an email or a phone call, that would probably help me tremedously. i am moving out of my cabin this afternoon, so wish me luck!

Love you all, and Mahalo for your love for me....i know this is all gonna work out somehow, and i'm looking forward to the results....

Chasing the Sun...

Ah, the feel of the sun on your back...



Especially when it's been freakin' raining for 3 1/2 weeks straight, and you decide to make a run for it to the other side of the island while you have two days off...oh yeah, baby, in search of the sunlit lands...



So, this weekend, Ananda and I and her friend Eric made a break for it to "the Other Side" as we call it here. We got a bit of a late start on Sat morning (Eric made sushi for breakfast and you just can't rush something like that), but made it to Paia (the first real town past Hana, about an hour and a half drive--at least) around 1-ish.



We headed straight for the beach, and after basking in the sun for a couple hours, made our way to this place called the Flatbread Company, which makes awesome pizza. Yum. No plate lunches for us today! We then headed around to the southwest side of the island toward Kihei and Wailea to hang out with some of Ananda's friends, Jared and Kat.



After crashing at their place for the night, Sunday morning we went to a place called Big Beach in Makena, just south of Wailea, and planted our tushes on the largest stretch of naturally occuring white sand beach in the world (or something like that...it's HUGE).



ALL DAY LONG.



I mean, yeah, we went to Kihei Cafe for breakfast, but then it was straight to the beach, and it was great. Really great. Just lay in the sand all day long, swim in the amazingly clear turquoise water, and wonder how you got so lucky to have absolutely no agenda but this.


This is me, still smiling at 11 at night, all salty and sandy and sunned from a fantastic weekend in the sunshine. Hooray. (oh, and I cut my hair).



This is the newest addition to the farm...a puppy! That is Paul holding our new little girl who doesn't have a name yet. She is absurdly cute. I can't take it.



Um, not much else, trying to stay dry and mud-free (today was actually really beautiful and I spent the entire day at the beach, but at this moment it is currently raining). I got an awesome package from my friend the other day (my first package in Hana!) and he sent me homemade marshmallows--can you say AMAZING? Yup, it was great...and I got this fantastic card from my So-Cal photographer friend Troy with a picture of him and his two boys in their Santa hats and red Rudolph noses...so cute. So it was definitely a good day at the post office with 2--count 'em, 2!--pieces of personal mail. Woo hoo!



Welp, miss you all, hope you are well, and drop me a line if you get a second...

Floods, Phones, and a New Year

I wish that this picture was true...(that's my toes at Red Sand Beach)



Unfortunately, it just started raining as I write this...the rain has been insane since I returned from the mainland. There is a reason they call it "the rainy season" here in the jungle...it freakin' rains all the time. Hana averages about 200" of rain a year, and LaHaina (on the other side of the island) averages like single digits of rain...it's crazy here.


On New Year's Eve, I had been baking all day, and the rain had been so intense for the last three days that the dry creek bed on the property had become a raging stream. It also happens to go under the driveway, and it had flooded and was going over the driveway and was threatening to go down the drive and flood the area where the banana bread stand sits. For a while, they couldn't get the truck back up the hill, and I was literally stranded at the top of the hill. Just me and the dog, flooded out on New Years--nice.



Luckily, they were able to dig some trenches and clear away some debris to redirect the stream to it's bed, but the driveway is completely trashed. We have all pretty much given up on our flip-flops (or slippahs as we call them here) and have resorted to knee-high rubber boots, which is about the only thing that helps with the endless mud. It also prevents any kind of outdoor projects or gardening, so as soon as it clears up, there will be lots of outdoor work to be done. The only thing is, it probably won't "clear up" until the end of February!



The upside of all this rain is the regular occurence of some beautiful rainbows (which I can actually see from the window right now over the water...so amazing), but it's really not helping with my tan :)



I just lost my phone on Christmas Eve (see last blog), but luckily, I am getting my new one...TOMORROW! Yippee...my friend told me I was addicted to my phone and this was a good way for me to chill out for a while, but I disagree. First of all, people don't just have house phones anymore, and some don't even have that, so a cell phone becomes a necessary means of communication (oh, great, it just started raining really hard again...nice.) Secondly, I live on a tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific, which makes me feel isolated enough already, so a cell phone is a means of attachment to the rest of the world. Thirdly, it housed all my pictures (well, a lot of them anyway), and those also are used to share parts of my life with people...not that I am all that interesting, but it's nice to be able to show someone a crazy three-horned chameleon or a spider instead of just telling them about it. And lastly, that's just life...I don't just have the post office and a landline anymore...I have email, cell phones, video messaging, text messaging, picture messaging, a high-speed internet connection, AND a landline, all of which I use to keep in touch and the loss of one is...well, i'm not going to tell you how tragic it is because you are probably already sick of my excuses about how much I adore my cell phone--my phone can beat up your phone! Ha!

Just kidding.

I'm a big dork.

So, New Year's was fun, we went to a party at a friends house with food, a fire, some champagne, and surf movies outside on the big screen, and then we went over the the Hana-Maui Hotel to watch some fireworks and toast to the New Year...the subdivision near town looked like a war zone with all the kids lighting firecrackers in the street, and you heard loud pops all day and night long, into the next day, and I even heard some today! The hotel is the only thing in town open past 7:30pm, and it also employs most of the town, so any big holidays are sure to bring a crowd of locals there, so it was very festive and fun, and luckily I didn't have to work until 2 the next afternoon, so I got to sleep in...

Um, I think that's about it for now, I sent out some banana bread today to a few people, so some lucky bums should have yummy bread in a couple days :)

I performed an amazing trick of brains-over-brawn tonight when, going stir-crazy from the rain, I came up to the cabin to say hello to everyone and there was a shot glass stuck in a jam jar that looked permanently embedded in there (it supposedly got stuck in there during a rough washing machine experience). Marty said it had been there forever and was impossible to remove, and I had it out in about 30 seconds-woot! Ha ha, it was our diversion for the evening, and I got rewarded with the shot glass filled up with tequila...not a bad day's work :) I mean, I am a bartender after all, I had to uphold my rep :)...anyway, it was pretty funny...

Oh, I also cut my hair ridiculously short (actually my friend Mo, who is in some of the pictures on the bottom cut it--yeah, not a stylist, but it didn't turn out too bad), so I will try to put up some pics when I get my new phone tomorrow, yea!

Anyway, Hope you all had a fun New Year's celebration, I hope you told some people how much you love them, and I hope you are only making resolutions you can keep--Ha!

Write, call, email, or send me some cool stuff...or come visit...well, maybe after the rainy season :) Miss you and love you!