Paradise Found

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million 1857?

To extract grease from clothes scrape off all the grease that you can with a knife; then lay over the spot a thick brown paper and press it with a warm iron.

The only grease I’ve had to contend with the last twenty four hours was from my plate lunch. Fortunately, it dripped on my Honolulu Weekly, not my writing.  Part of the reason I’m here is to relax with family, research and write. I walked all over Waikiki today, getting my bearings for the Hawaii Writer’s Conference that’s coming and wandered through the historic Royal Hawaiian Hotel. You can sometimes get jaded about Waikiki and what it is, but it is also a place worth honoring for its past and what it means historically to the people of Hawaii.  I get it.

It’s also incredibly beautiful with its white sands, brilliant turquoise water and Diamond Head.  Just ignore the masses out on the streets and the big hotels.  You’re a writer. You can edit them out.

Eventually, I found the cafe I discovered four years ago on my last visit and plunked my writing folder down at the window.  An iced coffee and biscotti and I was ready to sharpen my pencil and revise.  What a life!  I hope to come back to this place often in the next week.

Tomorrow I get the grand tour of Washington Place, the governor’s residence today, but once that of Queen Liliuokulani.  After that, a tour of Iolani Palace, the home of Hawaiian kings and queens and the Mission Houses. All this is history not often encountered by the average tourist and its a shame.  It’s Hawaii’s story and its 200 plus years of contact with the European world. I’m writing about it in my novel Mist-shi-mus that I’m currently revising and fact checking. Hawaii meets the Pacific NW.

So I’m researching, meeting new friends in the museum world and revising. I hope to get back to the window view soon.  Aloha nui loa.

Walking History and the Relief of Feet

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million 1857?

957. The Feet– Should be washed in cold water very morning, and wiped very dry.  Stockings, if too small, cripple the feet as surely as small shoes.  Always be careful to get the foot room enough, and you will be rarely trouble with corns.

I’ve been thinking about feet and shoes and what I’m going to do about them.  I’m leaving for Hawaii in a few days and want to be prepared for a long visit, which includes walking.  A lot.  Manoa Falls, the north shore, the Koolaus.  I’m looking forward to the chance to see again truly historic places such as Kawaihoa Church, Mission Houses Museum, Iolani Palace as well new ones I’ve not seen before.

I worked at the museum many years ago and got my start exploring history with young children. “Where’s the TV?” was the usual question from a second grader.  I showed them lives of children from the past and how they might relate to them today.  Yes, they really hauled in water from three miles away and strained it through coral rock so they could drink.  Honolulu was very dry and dusty then.

There are grand ties there to the Northwest, something that I have always followed.  Going again will help me set the scenes in the NW novel that I’m rewriting.  I will also use the time to introduce my sons to the beautiful places I haunted as a young woman with the love of my life so they will remember too. When I can, I’ll find a spot to write on my own. There’s a great cafe I found last time just right for the muse.

I’m also off to the Hawaii Writer’s Conference where I’ll be volunteering.  And walking as I help attendees.

Walking shoes or sandals? No stockings please.  I promise to wash my feet in cold water every morning.

Catching up

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Millions 1857?

3712.  Prevention of Baldness –Eau de Cologne two ounces, tincture of cantharides two dachms, oil of rosemary, oil of nutmeg and oil of lavender, each ten drops. To be rubbed on the bald part of the head every night.

Just a short note.  Had a fantastic time at the English Encampment 150th anniversary of the Pig War.  Got over on a Friday evening, in time for dinner and set up in a tent, then up early for coffee and breakfast from Dutch ovens and stoves.

The Hawaiian Chief fired off two shots at 8:00 AM. Our battery returned. The rest of day was busy, topped off with a grand ball in a packed barracks and a thunder and lightening storm.  I taught school all day as Miss Lydia. Guests from the British Consul, Mary Gilbert and a representative from the British Royal Navy and his wife made presentations and joined in the dance.

Dinner was a crowd of soldiers, Royal Marines, HBC employees, Fort Nisqually folk, grand and not so grand ladies and the crews from the Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chief, looking somewhat like pirates and very hungry after a day of rowing tourists out to their ships. (Did I actually see someone boarding the Lady Washington on Sunday for a sail dressed like Johnny Depp?)

Home late Sunday evening after two days of visitors numbering nearly 4,000?  The ferry was crowded with tourists and a truck suspicously carrying the wheels and parts to two battery guns.

Ah, history.  I breathe it and write about. A grand research weekend indeed. I now know how a longboat operates. Those oars are heavy!