All posts by Genevive Bjorn

Random

Happy music from sunny places

Grunge could never have originated in Hawaii, or Rio for that matter. There’s just too much sun and vitamin D making people happy. Likewise, samba or slack-key couldn’t have started in London or Seattle, where rock, punk and trance have found deep followings.

When sun-kissed people are sad or angry, it often comes out sounding at worst melancholy, at best still happy. After all, when you’re surrounded by gorgeous beaches, blessed with abundant rain and blue skies it’s hard to hate life enough to scream into a microphone all night.

Environment

Brazilian trees in Hawaii

Rio looks a lot like Honolulu on a bigger scale: turquoise ocean surging against long stretches of white sand beaches flanked by strings of high rise hotels and condos. Steep mountains shrouded in mist abut the city. There’s a lot of traffic, tourists from all over, and vendors hawking sarongs and fresh coconut water. Theft is a serious problem, albeit Rio’s muggers make those in Honolulu look like kindergartners. But it’s the trees that seem most familiar. Many species of Brazilian trees were introduced to Hawaii over the past 100+ years. They have taken root, so much so that we now perceive them as our own.

Jacarandá de espinho

Ornamental and flowering species are the most obvious. Jacarandas line Kula Highway on Maui and Waimea on the Big Island. Their fragrant, purple blossoms announce spring’s arrival each year. Other ornamental trees, including the banyan and shower tree, adorn many beaches and lawns providing much needed shade and gathering spots. The quintessential Hawaiian flowering shrub, the bird of paradise, is native to Brazil.

Many food and fruit trees from Brazil feed locals in Hawaii. The apple banana is probably the most popular and ubiquitous. Other Brazilian fruit trees are common and well-loved, including mango, avocado, acerola cherry, jackfruit and jaboticaba. There are many others, included the dreaded invasive Christmas berry originially planted to stop erosion on sugar cane land. Loved or hated, many of Hawaii’s common trees and shrubs seen today originated in Brazil. Like almost everything and everyone residing in the islands, they made the long journey across the Pacific and now make Hawaii home.

A good link:

Guide to Brazil’s native tree

Family

My dying dog’s final weekend

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I adopted Mahina, a Great Pyrenees, eight years ago when she was five. Her former family was moving from 2-acres in Maui to a tiny apartment in Malaysia — no place for a large dog bred for guarding flocks of sheep in the mountains.

Mahina, our best canine pal

She came home with me, and the first thing she did was jump into my landlord’s lap pool. He was not pleased, and we soon moved into a house of our own. But she lay around like a fluffy white carpet, and that worried me; health problems would likely ensue if she didn’t get more exercise. So we got her a pal, Poky, and then another, Mishu. That’s when the fun really started. When it came to playing chase and wrestling in the grass, there was no stopping them.

We then moved to a large piece of land (~90 acres) on the Big Island with streams, waterfalls and forests. Mahina and her two canine pals romped day and night. They became expert swimmers and, eventually, crack wild pig hunters. Oh, the adventures we had! There are too many to list here, but suffice it to say that Mahina and I bonded while exploring every hill and gulch on that land. She was nearly always at my side.

We’ve since moved back to Maui and gone through many changes, mostly good, like bringing Adam in as co-pack leader. But we faced some challenges, too. It was hard to adjust to living inside a fenced yard, for both of us. Still, we’ve continued to walk every day and swim in natural pools as much as we can. Poky and Mishu try to wrestle with Mahina, even though she can’t anymore. Those two dogs have helped to keep us all from taking ourselves too seriously.

But all those happy years of roaming, exploring and playing have finally taken their toll on Mahina. She has spinal arthritis that has been gradually worsening over the past nine months. Her time on this earth is almost up. Last April we realized that the medicine we’ve been giving her was only buying us a little more time with her. Come Monday, that time will run out.

So to honor the amazing life we’ve had because of and with Mahina, this weekend is dedicated to her; no blogging, no twittering, no working — just time with our beloved dog. We’ll take her on a final swim in a natural pool and spoil her like crazy with treats and rubs at her going away party. In the quiet moments, I’ll steal glances of her laying in the grass out in the yard. Just knowing she’s still nearby is a quiet joy that I want to savor as long as I can.