Captain Cook

Probably my last post about Hawaii - though it's now two weeks since we left. One morning while Jo took the kids to our neighborhood Manini Beach, I drove to the top of Napoopoo Road and then clambered down several hundred feet to the Captain Cook memorial. In the panorama picture below I stitched four different photos together. And at the leftmost end, above the bluff you can make out the distant finger of land at the other end of the bay. Jo and the kids were frolicking on a beach there.

Most people arrive here in kayaks and SUPs and tourist boats from the pier about half a mile down from Manini beach. It's a sad decaying spot where one of the greatest explorers the world has ever seen first landed in Hawaii and then was killed a couple of years later.

She's not my mother

Here's the menu for this year's she's-not-my-mother feast.

white corn chips and salsa

grapes and cheese

jalapeno poppers

bison and wild boar sausage

grilled scallops

rosemary salmon

sweet corn with paprika

Spanish rice (leftovers)

chocolate dipped strawberries

chocolate chip cookies

Five years ago Nicolle asked me what I was going to do for mother's day - Jo's first. I have a severe allergic reaction to Hallmark Holidays. So I replied "She's not my mother".  And in honor of that indiscretion, every year since I cook a mother's day lunch or dinner for the Clark-Perry mothers in the neighborhood. Four mothers and now eight children in one sitting. This year all the kids old enough to help pitched in. And Vivian staged a puppet show. Damn Hallmark.

More birthday pictures

We are into the second day of Jo's birthday celebrations.

Happy

You've woken up on more than four thousand mornings with my smiling face next to you. And then you've flapped the sheets.

Law school. Austin. Kids. Travel. Salmon. Broccoli. And that's not even the half of it. And you are still here. We've sheltered two lovely cats and a couple of kids at some time or another. And today and yesterday and for the next several days we'll celebrate your birthday - the twelfth one together. Every time, a hundred times a day I hear Evan and Vivian ask for their Mamma and I feel this surge of love and affection because they have a wonderful Mamma. And then I want to tell them that their Mamma is mine. All mine.

The road goes on forever. And the party never ends. Wish you a happy birthday. And that the cakes get bigger to hold all the candles you ever want.