Tag Archives: humor

Culture, Health, humor

5 Steps to Release Stress…Maui style

The Deepak Chopra Center publishes monthly an inspirational newsletter called “Agni”. Today’s tome contains “The 5 Keys to Stress Release”, something people in Maui (read: hippies, trust fund hippies or just old-fashioned doubters of authority, depending on the neighborhood) know quite a lot about. Many of us are fans of Deepak. So here’s a Maui-fied version of his article:

The 10-Ton Thought — More like the 10-Ton Bong

(Moving down)

Choices that Relieve Stress — I think it’s called moving to Hawaii or maybe eating more fiber. Anyway, let’s continue.

1. Connect to your body — Very important, almost first thing after 10-ton bong. Donate all heavy winter clothes and show off skin, every day. Seriously consider buying a Brazilian bikini and laser hair removal. Get at least one sarong/pareo. Doubles as drapes, too.

2. Meditate — Easy after emptying the 10-ton bong. No need pay somebody for help you.

3. Understand your unique stress response — Try, understand every single little detail about yourself, your world, your body, your relationships, your astrology, your numerology, your baggage, and why you still get wrinkles even though you spend lots of money at the health food store and cleanse regularly.

4. Practice yoga — With lots of other stinky people living in the jungle. Anywhere is good, even if it’s your rooftop and the neighbors can see your okole. Or better, do the hot kine yoga in Paia during summer. No AC, no deodorant. Da killah wiffahs. But watch out. I’ve seen yoga turn regular kine hippies on the lamb from religion into hairy zealots. It’s ugly.

5. Learn the skills of conscious communication — Whatever that means, but we like to talk while awake or baked or waked-n-baked. Anyway, we still let people make left turns in traffic and wave at strangers.

Culture, humor, Travel

Six weeks of vacation

4 Comments

Normally, I work whenever I travel, part of the job of a freelance journalist. But for the first time in my adult life since leaving school, I took a long vacation. Six weeks to be exact. No, I didn’t turn socialist and move to France (although I did gorge on fresh croissants at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport). I left my computer at home and took time off work, as in no money making activities. Occasional blogging and twittering don’t count because they’re fun, and I don’t get paid.

I went to the Mainland, South America and Europe….for fun! Sounds suspiciously bourgeois, I know, because few self-respecting, hard-working Americans would contemplate going so far away for so long unpaid. Best to save that amount of time off for new babies and illness. (But I also hate ketchup and ranch dressing, so there’s reason to be suspicious.) Continue reading Six weeks of vacation →

Culture, humor, National Parks

Volcano Viewing Etiquette

There is an etiquette to watching the spectacle of molten lava flowing into the ocean (as described in the post “New Vents in Kilauea Volcano Spout Fountains of Lava”). Here are my top five tips for good volcano viewing manners:

  1. Come prepared. Walking out to a recently hardened field of lava to watch another, active field of lava is about as rugged as terrain gets. No one is waiting there with a tray of cool towels and cocktails. Bring your own water, snacks, sunscreen, hat, jacket, tushie cushion, and wear sturdy shoes.
  2. Down in front. Crowding up to the front of barrier erected by the park service seems like a good idea, but it actually just blocks everyone’s view. A lava field isn’t stadium seating. Plus, all those flash pictures of your partner in the dark with the lava flow a mile in the distance will still be dark, even if you take one more.
  3. Aim your flashlight at your feet. Pointing your flashlight up into other people’s eyes does help you to see them, but then they are blinded. If you really want don’t want to trip and fall into a deep crevice of sharp lava, aim your flashlight on the ground just in front of your feet.
  4. Don’t throw rocks. This may seem obvious, but just in case it’s not, lava stones are sharp, jagged and could easily take someone’s eye out. That could put a real damper on watching Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, in action.
  5. Pack out what you pack in. Leaving trash, empty bottles and soiled toilet paper on newly formed land is pretty insulting, as is taking home pieces of it for souvenirs. According to local lore Pele will find you, and in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s pretty powerful.