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May Day in Hawaii is a celebration of Hawaiian history and culture. Our school will officially celebrate it on Friday, May 4. Each class will dance a hula they have been practicing for the last few weeks, there will be ukulele playing and singing Hawaiian songs. And flowers – lots of flowers.

For their dances, each class will dress in various Hawaiian-style clothing, and will wear lei. Andrea has been helping me get things organized for my class, and she suggested the kids make a field trip to the forest to pick palapali ferns and weave them into haku lei (which are worn on the head).

Yesterday, Andrea and I went hiking to look for palapalai. She wanted to get a some fronds to practice weaving them into haku. Her daughter Lihau will work with her, because Lihau is the seventh grade kumu (hula teacher), and she will be helping the kids make their haku next week.

We also found a nice big patch of palapalai for the kids to get fern fronds from next Wednesday.

We were a little confused about the difference in leaf form, but we decided it was only a difference of varieties of palapalai.

I stopped at the grocery store yesterday. I needed lunch ingredients. I have been trying to find a good sandwich bread. I want something soft and spongy and sweet (is that how you spell spongy?). In other words, I was looking for the quintessential American sandwich bread.

Oddly enough, Wonder bread is not available at my grocery store. I’ve tried various brands, but nothing has been quite what I want. Yesterday, I saw a new possibility: King’s Hawaiian bread. I’ve only ever had their rolls, but they actually sell a sliced loaf. I tried a slice last night. It was sweet. It should taste really good with my smoky ham and sharp cheese.

My other discovery was in the flower department. I had decided to get flowers regularly, but have been disappointed with the Oriental lilies I was getting. They just didn’t smell as good as I remember. I figured out why. The ones I was getting before were “Starfire”, not “Stargazer”. For some reason, that’s what they’ve been selling. But yesterday, the Stargazers were back. The smell absolutely delicious!

I haven’t added to my ring collection for a long time. My current interest is rings with stones in them. I browse Amazon every once in a while to see them

The other day, I was browsing Amazon, and saw two rings that I liked. Both were from the same company. One is garnet – I knew what that was. The other is iolite – I did not know what that was. I like both of them.

The garnet looks red, but the iolite looks more black than purple.

It was a day of relaxation and home straightening yesterday. I always have mixed feelings on such days. On the one hand, it’s GREAT to have a bunch of rest, but on the other hand, I always feel kind of guilty.

Today I will spend most of the day at school. That darn paperwork.