I'll be posting on my writing blog now through the end of November.

I hope you'll join me there.


Tropical Screamer Writes

Re - tail - er

I don't discuss religion, but...

Since when is a piece of someone's "heel" a relic?

I always thought of "relics" as objects.

And what happened to "rest in peace?"

Saint Damien's heel arrives in Hawaii.

More information about Saint Damien.





P.S. - This isn't about any one religion. I feel the same way about archeologists unwrapping mummies and museums keeping bones in displays. And I even feel the same way about releasing movies to get the last dollar out of dead singers. I'm just saying...

Tuscan melons ahoy

Today we bought a package of two Tuscan melons at Costco. I'd never heard of them.

Here's a link to the company that grew them:

Dulcinea Farms

And here's a link specifically to the Tuscan-style Cantaloupe.

The company says that the melons are always ripe at the store. There are just degrees of ripeness.

The melon we ate today had green stripes which means it's ripe, but firmer. That's true. It was good, but not quite as sweet as it could have been. I'm going to try leaving the second melon at room temperature and see if it'll ripen a little more. The danger here, though, is that it'll cook on the counter before it ripens. You just have to love the humidity.



I also got some lovely mini sweet peppers in green, red and yellow. There were some wonderful vine-ripened local tomatoes. And I grabbed some Japanese cucumbers. They're going to end up all together tonight with a splash of lemon juice.




I bet Amelia is cooking something great tonight. Her menus always make my mouth water.

Two lawsuits

Lawsuits filed to halt Hawaii teacher furloughs

"HONOLULU — Two groups of parents angered by the prospect that Hawaii children will be in school nearly three dozen fewer days over the next 20 months have filed lawsuits seeking to halt teacher furloughs set to begin Friday.

One of the suits, filed in federal court Wednesday, is a class-action case representing all Hawaii public school students.

It alleges furloughs will break the state's obligation to provide 180 days of schooling, five days a week. It also contends furloughs disproportionately affect certain classes and racial groups.

The institution of "furlough Fridays" demonstrates the state's "utter failure in allowing a statewide system to adopt draconian measures to breach the promise of providing a certain standard of educational service to thousands of parents and students," the lawsuit stated."

Read more at the link at the top of this post.

What a mess.

A friend of mine, who is a teacher, says she thinks I'm nuts for even thinking about stepping into a classroom now. I think that they're going to lose so many of the current teachers that someone has to step in and try to help. My family is grown so I can afford to take a lower salary and put in more hours. I'm also immune to a lot of the stress since I was stressed by experts in my previous lives.

Still, what a mess.

Sending good thoughts to all the fine teachers, administrators and students who are living through this nightmare.