Weirdness....

I had an "interesting" night the last couple of nights. As usual, Brian left for work at about 8PM on Tuesday night. I was in the living room, working on my laptop. It was pretty quiet. All of a sudden, at 8:30PM, I was startled by loud, knocking on my door, followed by the doorbell ringing, followed by the sound of my gate rattling. The knocking was weird, too. It was patterned: knock-knock-knock, knock-knock-knock, knock-knock-knock-knock! It was really freaky.

I was afraid to look through our peep-hole. The peep-hole is really weird because if I have the lights on inside and I look through the peep-hole, the person on the other side of the door can see through the peep-hole that the light is being blocked by someone inside. Also, I'm too short to see through the peep-hole, anyway. I need to grab our little step stool to get a good look.

Anyway, I grabbed my cell phone and ran to the back of our unit and hid in the master bathroom. I quickly called Brian and asked if he was knocking on the door, thinking he may have come back home because he forgot something. I was being optimistic. No such luck. Brian was already on the freeway, halfway to work.

Then, I called my little brother, Steven. He was in Kapolei at the time and I told him what happened and that I was a little freaked out. He offered to come by and check on me, but I told him, "Nah, no need. I'm okay." I calmed down a bit and we hung up. A few minutes later, he called back and told me he was coming over. I felt a lot better when he arrived and after he checked around outside for me. He stayed for about 30 minutes. We tried to rationalize what happened. It was too late at night for it to be a salesman, right? And what kind of idiotic deviant would mess around with people in a townhouse complex where people are in pretty close proximity to each other? So, it must have been someone who accidentally mistook my unit for someone else's, right? Okay, whatever.

Last night, after Brian left for work, I was watching TV. Suddenly, at 9PM, someone knocked AGAIN! At this point, I was really freaked out and scared. I waited about 30 seconds, turned off the TV and lights, grabbed my step-stool, and looked through my peep-hole. What I saw was some guy wearing a light-colored T-shirt, shorts, and slippahs, making his way over to my neighbor across the walkway. In the words of Frank DeLima, I can only describe him as a "Blalah". He knocked on my neighbor's door and my neighbor talked to him through his lanai screen sliding door, which is right next to the front door. Then, I saw this guy wander upstairs to the units above my neighbor. Weird!

I waited another 15 minutes or so and mustered up the courage to go outside. I ran across the walkway and asked my neighbor who that was. I told him about my concerns because strangers have been coming by the last 2 nights in a row, all unreasonably late at night. My neighbor, Grant, said the stranger from Tuesday night was some college-looking girl trying to sell magazine subscriptions and she seemed desperate. SCAM!!! Grant said the stranger from last night was some guy, randomly knocking on doors, trying to find his friend. He said this alleged "friend" lived in some gray townhouses. Um, our townhouses are all pink. Honestly, what kind of person would just randomly knock on doors in a townhouse complex, trying to find someone? Sounds 'effin shady to me.

I live in a good, friendly, quiet neighborhood. This is the first time something like this has happened in the 3-1/2 years we've lived there.

If something like this happens again tonight, I think it might be time to call the cops? I mean, I know I don't need to open the door, but why are these people sniffing around our townhouse complex? Are they "casing the joint"? Aaah, stay tuned....

Dry Embossed Notecard Shout-out!

Evonne Wong of Events by Evonne, my friend and wedding planning extraordinaire, gave me a nice little shout-out on her company's blog! Click HERE to see the shout-out.

I've been making dry embossed note cards in my free time and was inspired by Evonne's company colors and orchid theme. I found paper in just the right shades of dark brown and chartreuse and a great little orchid stencil at Creations Unlimited, located in Wahiawa. Here's the end-result:

Dry Embossed Note Cards

Hawaiian Quilt

Bamboo

Bird of Paradise

Phalaenopsis Orchid

Plumeria
I learned a thing or two about Dry Embossing while using this technique to make our 80 wedding invitations back in 2006.

I'm not really sure if this will turn into anything more than just a hobby, but I know I need to ask the stencil company, Stencil With Style, if I intend to use their stencils to make a product to sell.

I miss the tradewinds

I've been MIA from the blog for the past week. The hustle and bustle of work left me completely wiped out at the end of the day and I just didn't feel like even turning the laptop on!

We also had no tradewinds (or any kind of winds) this past week. Without the tradewinds to blow all the vog and pollution out to sea, a thick haze loomed over Oahu all week. My allergies started acting up, complete with itchy eyes and sneeze attacks. Today, I have a sore throat. I'm hoping it goes away without turning into a full-blown sinus infection. I'll never take our tradewinds for granted! They are supposed to return tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed!

The Paradoxical Commandments

I've been struggling with work lately and my friend, Terry, loaned this book to me, Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith. (Kent Keith has ties to Hawaii, BTW.) I've read most of it, but am having a really hard time believing and accepting it. These concepts are so simple, but it takes a lot more to actually live them, especially when the going is tough and you're dealing with seemingly illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered people. It becomes difficult to focus on doing what is right and good and true.

You've probably seen these before, but read them again and ponder....

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

Remembering Grandma Kikuchi

Grandma Yoshie and Grandpa Ichiro Kikuchi's Wedding Portrait c. 1934
(Photo revitalized by my brother, Ryan)

Grandma Kikuchi and Me

Grandma's favorite flower, the King Protea

Grandma's silver butterfly brooch in my wedding bouquet


Grandma Yoshie "Alice" (Matsumoto) Kikuchi, born on November 14, 1913, passed away on February 20, 2007. I remember that it was the Tuesday after the President's Day holiday. Grandma was a strong woman, who persevered through many hardships throughout her entire life, including being widowed at the age of 39 years old and raising 7 children (ages 5 to 16) as a single, working mother. I strive to be as resilient as she was. I can't believe it's been 1 year already.

Why "The Bamboo Village"?

Why did we decide to name our blog "The Bamboo Village"? We tossed around many ideas that included using some combination of our first names and something Hawaii-related, but every blog name we came up with was already taken! We settled on "Bamboo Village" which is the English translation of our last name: take- means "Bamboo" and -mura means "Village". Bamboo was also a main theme of our wedding, along with Chrysanthemum, which is the English translation of part of my maiden name, kiku-.

Honolulu Advertiser Strike

I've mentioned to some of you already that the union workers of The Honolulu Advertiser have been working under a contract extension since their contract expired last June. Negotiations have not gone well.

Yesterday, union workers voted 358-17 to authorize a strike. This means that the union workers are united in striking if an agreement with Gannett cannot be reached. Hopefully, this shows management that the union is serious and some quality negotiations can begin.

Check out the full Breaking News Story.

Our Upcoming 1st Anniversary: Cake!

I'm thinking of ordering a replica of the top tier of our wedding cake for our anniversary. We broke the tradition of saving the top tier and ate it shortly after the wedding. My baker said it would taste kind of funky by the 1-year mark. We kept the top tier in the freezer for a couple of months and then caved. Good thing, though, because it was already kind of tasting "different" at that point.

Our wedding cake baker, Tiers of Joy, offered me these 3 options. All would be in our white chocolate raspberry flavor:
- 6" round plainly iced cake (no decorations) for $15
- Square with candy bamboo only for $45
- Square with candy bamboo and flowers (as shown above) for $55

Seems like a no-brainer, right? I thought so, too, but the thought of having a miniature cake that looks exactly like our wedding day cake is so tempting! My irrational, indecisive bridal wedding planning brain is turning on again! I need help! What do you all think?

***UPDATE: I'm glad I posted this and got some responses. I agree with Dior...it's gotta be all or nothing. That said, I think we'll just do the $15 round non-decorated cake. It's not like we're having a big party or anything for our anniversary. It will just be us, at home. If anything, I can probably go to a flower shop and see if they have any white cushion mums and green button mums and decorate the cake with my own flowers. Even if I did that, I'd put the flowers on, take a picture, and then take them off so we can eat the cake. That just sounds silly. Okay, plain, naked cake it is.

Our Upcoming 1st Anniversary: Ihilani!

We're still over a month away, but I'm getting so excited that I thought I'd share already! Our actual anniversary day lands on a Tuesday and Brian has to work that night. Therefore, we've booked a celebratory weekend of indulgence at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort, a.k.a. "The Scene of the Crime," for the following weekend. Included in our weekend of indulgence are dinners at Ushio-Tei (where we had our rehearsal dinner) and Azul (which is where we had dinner the night after the wedding and where we also celebrated our 4th dating anniverdary). I also see some Lava Flows mixed in at some point. We have many fond memories of the Ihilani. We can't wait!

Aerial View

Guest Room

Ushio-Tei Japanese Restaurant

Azul Restaurant

Benny and Chester

Here are the 2 kings of The Bamboo Village, Chester (top) and Benny (bottom). You'll probably see many, many photos of these 2 throughout the blog. They are brothers and are almost 8 years old. Chester is completely deaf, but I constantly talk to him anyway. For the most part, they get along, but I think they're becoming grumpy with age. They "wrestle" a lot, but I think they're secretly trying to kill each other sometimes. :P

You can see more photos of them in my fauna collection at my flickr site.

Welcome to The Bamboo Village!

Hello family and friends! Welcome to our very first blog! Hopefully, we'll be able to share some interesting things with you. Feel free to leave us comments, too!