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Finding The Best Breakfast Burrito On The Planet In Honolulu At Kono's

4/20/2022

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​​Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888


​FINDING THE BEST BREAKFAST BURRITO ON THE PLANET IN HONOLULU AT KONO'S

...Continued from yesterday:
      My son-in-law had heard from a friend that the best breakfast burrito he'd ever had was at a  downtown Waikiki carry-out called Kono's.
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        Much as we loved our Hale Koa breakfast buffet,
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...there was no turning down the opportunity to have what might in fact be the best breakfast burrito one would ever have.
    So at 7 am on Monday morning we met up in the lobby of the Hale Koa,
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...then set out for Kono's,
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...which, along with the rest of Waikiki, was already hopping by 7:30 am.
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      For being in the middle of a busy city, Kono's had a nice location, opening off the street onto a cute courtyard with tables and chairs.
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     And for what appeared to be a small operation, there were quite a number of choices.
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...including several vegetarian options.
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     And though there were eleven of us, we didn't have to wait terribly long either to place our order or for our order to be filled.
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       One imagined quite an efficient assembly line going on behind that small counter. (Or else it was just our good Honolulu food Karma kicking in again - see previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/good-food-karma-or-the-keys-to-the-honolulu-food-kingdom-at-the-ala-moana-food-court ).
      As to whether this was the best breakfast burrito we all had ever had: Most of us agreed that it was.  Some of us held that our Kono's burrito exceeded even our highest expectations.
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    As for me, ​I had an item called the Wendy's Bomber, which was a warm flour tortilla loaded with seasoned potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheese, a strip of bacon, and roasted seasoned vegetables.
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          I fell in with the group whose highest expectations had been exceeded. In fact, I'm willing to put it out there that Kono's might well be the best breakfast burritos on the planet.     
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Good Food Karma; Or, The Keys To The Honolulu Food Kingdom At The Ala Moana Food Court

4/18/2022

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​Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

​
​GOOD FOOD KARMA; OR, THE KEYS TO THE HONOLULU FOOD KINGDOM AT THE ALA MOANA FOOD COURT

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​...Continued From Yesterday:
   
  My greatest worry over our Hawaii trip - besides the worry that it might not happen at all if the latest COVID variant should go nuclear in the spring – was what we would do about dinner.
      Breakfast, I knew, would be no problem as we could - and  in fact did - meet mornings,
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 ...at the Koko at Kalia, one of the Hale Koa eateries and plenty spacious enough to seat our party of eleven,
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...and where we would dig into the awesome breakfast buffet.
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     The Omelet Station
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     So breakfast was always a breeze to manage and hands down the best meal of the day.
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      Nor, I assumed, would lunch be an issue, as our group would, I figured, break up during the course of the day and if people got hungry they could fend for themselves at one of the on-post eating spots such as Happy's,
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...or the pool snack bar,
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...or venture off-post to one of the many eateries in Waikiki within walking distance of the Hale Koa.
      But it was dinner time that I feared would be a hassle of major proportions.
      Last time we came as a group to the Hale Koa in 2019 the Koko served not only a great breakfast buffet but a great dinner buffet as well, and at the end of the day we could all once again just pile into the restaurant and go for the buffet.
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    However, alas, the Hale Koa has not yet fully recovered from the COVID downturn, and guest numbers still have not picked up enough to warrant re-opening the Koko dinner buffet.
​(The Warrior's Lounge, a bar where one used to able to grab bar-type food, has likewise not re-opened since COVID).
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      So I wondered what we would do about dinner. I imagined trying every night to find a reasonably-priced restaurant in tourist-crowded Waikiki that could accommodate a party of eleven, 
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...with several vegetarians among us. I envisioned us waiting an hour and a half every night to get seated and then another hour and a half to be served. 
     I frankly thought we'd likely end up eating dinner at Happy's, chowing down every night on combo meals with fries,
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...or personal pizzas,
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...or deli wraps and salads.
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          But  it turned out that on this trip we were gifted with some exceptionally good food Karma.
        Our first night there – that is to say, our second night there but the first night that we would need dinner –  the group expressed a general craving for pizza. We knew from our previous trip of a pizzeria called Round Table Pizza located in the mall of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which was the resort next door to the Hale Koa
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          So around 6 pm we walked next door,    
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…to the Hilton Hawaiian Village mall,     
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…and to the Round Table Pizza, where we asked for a table for eleven. Much to our surprise, we were seated immediately.  
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     However soon after we were seated the place began to fill up and by the time we left there was a line of folks at the door waiting for seats.
    But  for us the service was fast and we shared some yummy pizzas. 
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      After dinner we walked around the mall for a bit,
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…then some of us walked down to the beach then back to the Hale Koa,
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​…where we stopped at Happy’s for ice cream,
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…before calling it a night.  
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     The following evening, Monday evening, we were kind of at loose ends so I suggested we try to get a dinner reservation at the Bibas Courtyard Grill, which is a restaurant conveniently located off the courtyard of the Hale Koa that we’d never tried, it being a weence on the upscale-ish side. However we needed to eat and I figured it was either this, another round of Round Table Pizza or Happy’s.
        I called the Bibas  at 5 pm and asked if we could possibly have a table for eleven people at 5:45.
         “Yes, you can,” the friendly hostess assured me.
          And so forty-five minutes later we met up at the Bibas.  
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…where we were given a table with a lovely view. 
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       We all agreed that the food was not only terrific but really nicely color-coordinated..  
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      I ordered a burger that arrived just the way I like a burger: as rare as is legally permitted. Not only was my burger perfect and my fries exceptional,
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...but the bun was fun.
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      After dinner we lingered in the courtyard and pow-wowed over what to do next, 
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..before deciding to head over to Happy’s for ice cream.
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     Afterwards we walked down to the beach, 
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...and  joined the other strollers along the Waikiki strand.  
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     The strand along the beach was lined with enterprising merchants selling little rubber-band-propelled light-up rockets .  
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     And so the beach was bright with whimsical shooting blue lights. 
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     The next day, Tuesday was our grand daughter’s birthday. She requested dinner at Olive Garden. By good fortune there was an Olive Garden about a mile away at a shopping mall called The Ala Moana Center. I called the restaurant to find out if I could make a reservation but was told the best I could do was to call half an hour before our arrival to check if a table might be available for us. So I called at 5:45 pm and asked if we might have a table at 6:15. The answer was a positive.
      As soon as we arrived we were seated at a nice table in an almost empty back room, 
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…with a lovely harbor view.
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       It was on Wednesday that our food-finding karma, which had been holding steady so far, took a great fortuitous turn thanks to a tip from a friend of our son-in-law.
      This friend, who used to live in Honolulu, shared with our son-in-law that the place where the locals eat is the food court at the Ala Moana Center. Once we discovered it, the Ala Moana food court became our nightly go-to-dinner place.
          The mile from the Hale Koa to the Ala Moana Center made for a nice before-dinner walk each evening.
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...through town,
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...and across a scenic canal,
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...on the other side of which was the Ala Moana Center,     
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...inside of which we'd head for the Makai Market food court,
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...where everyone, whether vegetarian, carnivore, or health-food aficionado, could find something they'd like.
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​Thus were we given the keys to the Honolulu food kingdom.
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Rooms With A View

4/13/2022

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- Amazon review of "Equal and Opposite Reactions"
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​Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888


​ROOMS WITH A VIEW

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...Continued from yesterday:
     
 Tom's and my third floor room at the Hale Koa was the standard issue: basic, but perfectly comfortable and more than adequate.
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    But the view from the balcony was five-star.
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     The other members of our group were also on the third floor, but they were located across the hall from us so that, rather than the ocean views, the balconies of their three rooms offered the panoramic land views, 
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      Of course if one happened not to have a room with a view, one need not go wanting, as beautiful outdoor views abound at all the portals of the the Hale Koa.
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    The Hale Koa main entrance/exit:
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       In truth, views abound in Honolulu,
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...and the whole island is rich with them.
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      Mayhaps one could say that all of O'ahu is a room with a view.
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Sleepless And Maskless In Honolulu

4/11/2022

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​Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888


​SLEEPLESS AND MASKLESS IN HONOLULU

...Continued from Yesterday:
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     I made a reservation for the next morning, Sunday morning, for breakfast at the Koko at Kalia,  a restaurant located at the Hale Koa,
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...which opens all around to the outdoors and  beautiful ocean views,
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...and which offers the most sublime breakfast buffet on the planet,
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... at least in the opinion of this family of food critics. 
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​       On this first morning only nine of the eleven of us were present for breakfast, as Tommy and Emily arrived in Honolulu a day later than the rest of us. 
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​      As it turned out, when I made a reservation the previous day for breakfast at 9 am my brain had forgotten about the time differences between Hawaiian-Aleutian Time and all the other time zones  we’d traveled from: there was a six-hour difference for those of us coming from Columbus, Ohio,
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...a five-hour difference for the Chicagoans, 
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...and a three-hour difference for the L.A. crowd. 
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​     Subsequently most of us were up by four am. A few of us had been up since two am. By 9 am some of us were ready for lunch and others of us were three-quarters of the way to dinner. I made a note that I would make future breakfast reservations at the Koko for 7 am, which I did and which worked out well, as within a few days most of us were managing to stay awake until 9 or 10 pm and to sleep until 5 or 6 am, though every morning the first question to go around the breakfast table was, “How did everyone sleep?” The answers varied from day to day and person to person, generally skewing more favorably as the week progressed.
      Besides the time zone changes, there was something else we found ourselves having to acclimate to: going maskless.
      The Hawaii mask mandate had been lifted, the COVID numbers were low on the islands, and we were all at least triple vaxxed, so we decided to cautiously ease into masklessness.
     We also felt encouraged by the fact that the Hale Koa is mostly an outdoorsy venue.

     The lobby is a vast, breezy, meandering open-air terrace, 
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...that overlooks a garden courtyard.
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...in the center of which is a massive tree known as Gus,
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...which at night glows with a beautiful blue light.
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     The courtyard leads to a path that rambles through a botanical garden, 
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...past a small restaurant called Happy's
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...where we enjoyed quite a few noshes,
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...including some most excellent soft-serve cones.
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      The path also passed a pool, 
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...an outdoor bar,
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...and a little further on a much larger pool area,
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...that included a snack bar,
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...​ a children's splash pad,
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...and an infinity pool that looked out over the beach.
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    The path ended at Waikiki Beach.
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       And where the beach began was where the Fort Derussy-Hale Koa  property line ended; For in Hawaii all beaches are open to the public, even the beaches attached to the hotels. 
      Here no one owns the sand and the sea,
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...which is how it should be.
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A Second Once In A Lifetime

4/8/2022

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​Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888


​A SECOND ONCE IN A LIFETIME

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     During the early days of the COVID pandemic, when public health-mandated lockdowns and fear of infection kept us home sheltering in place, missing what used to be the daily comings and goings of life, especially missing our friends and loved ones, I would sometimes find myself channeling my inner Julie Andrews by remembering my favorite things to help me not feel so bad.
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     One of the things I especially liked to remember during COVID isolation was our once-in-a-lifetime family trip to Hawaii in 2019 (See post from April 27, 2019, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/ohana-at-the-hale-koa),
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...when we stayed at the Hale Koa,
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...a beautiful hotel for active and retired members of the military located at Fort Derussy on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu on the island of O'ahu.
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      After watching and re-watching that movie in my mind I got the notion that if and when this pandemic was ever over, someday, someway, I wanted to swing another family Hawaii trip. I wanted a second once in a lifetime.
     In April of 2021, when several COVID vaccines hit the market, cases of the infection were dropping, and there was optimism that we might soon be seeing the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, I decided to go for it. I made reservations for Tom and myself, our kids, kids-in-law and grand kids - eleven of us altogether - at the Hale Koa from April 2 through April 9, 2022. I figured a year later the whole country -  maybe even the whole world - would be vaccinated against the coronavirus infection and our back-to-Hawaii trip would be a celebration of back to life.
     Or so I thought. Who knew that half the population of the United States would refuse the COVID vaccine and half the population of the world would be deprived a supply of it, so that the coronavirus would continue to thrive and mutate in the lungs of the unvaccinated?
      And so by the end of summer 2021 a new and more deadly COVID variant, the Delta, had sent cases sky-high again. By the beginning of winter the hyper-contagious Omicron variant had arrived and by  January of 2022 COVID cases were at an all-time high. The trip I had cheerily planned the year before now seemed like a terrible idea and, if the virus kept growing in virulence and contagion, one that might very well fall apart.
      And then suddenly around the end of January the COVID case numbers began dropping. Then plunging. Another new variant was discovered but didn't appear to be gaining traction. Across the country mask mandates were being lifted. And then, miraculously, on March 26, 2022, just about a week before our trip, all public health mandates - mask mandates, vaccine proofs, pre-entry COVID tests - were lifted for the Hawaiian islands.
       And so on April 2, 2022, we set out from our various domiciles - Columbus, Chicago, and Los Angeles. And that night, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, our Ohana  -  Hawaiian for              family - joyfully met up in the lobby of the Hale Koa, 
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...where began our second once in a lifetime.
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Occurance At Cici's Pizza

4/3/2022

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Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

​
​OCCURANCE AT CICI'S PIZZA

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​      One of my Facebook friends, Chris Sprague,
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...posted a comment on my previous post in which my online girl group, known as the Zoom Posse,
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​...weighed in on the Will Smith/Chris Rock night at the Oscars. Here's Chris's comment:

​     Hello Zoom Posse,
     I agree with you about the wrongness of Will Smith's assault. I like Patty's idea that he could have showed his support for his wife in other ways, such as calling a press conference!
     I just have to add that I would like the rude, even hateful, and hurtful remarks that people throw out about physically different people STOPPED.
   I have worked at a camp for physically different teenagers, I also worked as a special education teacher. You would not believe the things people say to them or about people with physical differences. This happens in stores, on media, subways, buses, etc. They are wonderful people who did not choose their condition. When you get to know them, they are just like everyone else.
    I hope this discussion on alopecia creates a ripple of understanding and kindness.


    My friend made a worthy point, and quite an elegant metaphor in her wish for a ripple of understanding and kindness in what can sometimes seem like an expanse of ignorance and meanness, probably especially to those kind and understanding people such as Chris Sprague whose vocation has been to work with those among us who need extra patience, care and acceptance.
    Chris must know, perhaps more so than those of us who've never worked in her field, of what she speaks when she calls out people who say rude, hateful, hurtful things to or about those whose physical or mental presentation don't fit some prescribed artificial stereotype. 
     In fact her quote reminds me of an encounter I had years ago.
    There used to be in my neighborhood an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet called Cici's,
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 ...which, before the franchise went belly up in Columbus, used to be my favorite nosheteria.
      One day I was in Cici's having lunch when into the restaurant trundled a group of about a dozen developmentally disabled adults being shepherded by a couple of young workers. It was quite a production, with one of the caregivers helping the clients procure their pizza and drinks while the other stood in the middle of the restaurant like a traffic cop directing the people to their seats while helping them balance their plates and cups. 
       The worker who was helping the clients negotiate their way to their seats was a girl who appeared to be in her twenties dressed in overalls over a striped tee shirt. She was small in stature, had a nice face and wore her her dark blonde hair in a long braid. She reminded me of my daughter Claire.
       At that time Claire had just returned home to Columbus after having spent her first year out of college as a Mercy Corps volunteer living in Queens and dong this very type of work with developmentally disabled adults in New York City, including taking them on group outings via subway to restaurants and  ball games.
      Claire and I in a park in her Queens neighborhood during her  Mercy Corps year.
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     Though it was obvious that the girl in Cici's had her hands more than full, still I truly wanted to say something to her.
​       I walked up behind her and said, "Excuse me."
      The girl turned around and gave me a look.  It was a look that said, Do you have a problem, Lady?
​      It hit me that the girl thought that I was going to complain to her about her charges, and she looked so prepared to take me on and call me out that I thought, she must be used to people making remarks and today she is definitely not in the mood. Or maybe she just was up to her elbows and at that moment didn’t need anybody else jockeying for her attention.
         In any case that look made me feel sheepish and embarrassed and I wished I’d stayed in my seat. I half considered saying, “Um, never mind,”
          But instead I began apologetically babbling about how she reminded me of my daughter who used to do the same work as she and her colleague were doing, and I thanked her for her work and, for good measure, asked if there was anything I could do to assist her.
          As I spoke the girl’s face relaxed into a friendly smile. She thanked me and assured me - to my relief - that she and her partner had this covered. Then she asked me if my daughter would be interested in a job in their organization, as they currently needed more help.
         I thanked the girl but told her that my daughter would soon be leaving for Nicaragua where she would be doing a year of service working in a jungle community.
​        One of the houses in the village of Chacradeseca where Claire worked.
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     Claire in the marketplace.
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     Then I went back to my seat and enjoyed my lunch along with the rest of the customers, who likewise appeared to be enjoying theirs.
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The Posse Weighs In On What Went Down At The Oscars

3/31/2022

5 Comments

 

Books By Patti Liszkay
​Available On Amazon

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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​Available on Amazon.

​
​THE POSSE WEIGHS IN ON WHAT WENT DOWN AT THE OSCARS

        Yesterday I got together with my Wednesday morning girl group, formerly known as the Panera Posse,
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...now the Zoom Posse,
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​...to spend a few hours, as we've been doing for many years worth of Wednesdays, discussing,  dissecting, dissertating and group-thinking a plethora of topics ranging from the personal to the local to the national to the global to the cosmic.
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     Yesterday we naturally got around to weighing in on Will Smith's assault of Chris Rock last Sunday night at the Oscars. 
     Though our reactions ranged from disapproval to disparagement to disgust over the whole business, what most vexed one member of our group was that one Hollywood celebrity smacked another Hollywood celebrity and now we're being bombarded nonstop with news updates and video replays and commentaries on the who, what, where and why of it, as if this were the most important event on the planet. Meanwhile Russia continues to destroy Ukraine but we're all forced to turn our attention to what went on among a batch of Hollywood glitterati at the Oscars.
         To which I responded, "But don't you see, it's all part of the same thing going on everywhere! Putin attacks Ukraine! A mob attacks the United States Capitol! Lindsay Graham and Josh Hawley and the rest of them verbally attack Ketanji Jackson! Donald Trump verbally attacks half the world! Will Smith attacks Chris Rock! People have started attacking trans folk with hurtful memes on my Facebook page! Everybody everywhere crosses every line and everybody thinks it's their right to assert themselves however they want over everything!" 
      However, after having had my say, I had to concede that my friend's comment did put L'affaire Will Smith/Chris Rock into perspective: On the scale of global events, it's getting far more publicity than it should merit. 
        One of the other members of the Posse offered that after Chris Rock's joke comparing Jada Pinkett Smith  to the character of G.I. Jane, 
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...Ms. Pinkett Smith should have stood and taken a bow. I thoroughly agreed with this. Taking a bow at that moment would have shown real grace and class on Jada Pinkett Smith's part.
      I then suggested that if Will Smith had wished to show his support for his wife, instead of storming the stage in a rage he should have held his peace until he was called up to receive his award - or if he didn't receive an award he could have held a press conference after the ceremony - and shared his wife's struggle with alopecia, educated the world on this disease, and put in a word for women everywhere who, like his wife, suffer from alopecia. He could have honored his wife by telling the world how fine and brave and beautiful she would always be in his eyes. This then would have put Chris Rock in the position of being the déclassé boor who needed to explain himself and offer an apology. 
    The Smiths could have proved themselves before the world to be a class act. What they proved instead was that wealth, fame, success, and physical attractiveness,
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...in no way equal class.
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       And my Zoom Posse member was right: The thing is getting too much attention. And yet we're still not yet ready to stop weighing in on it.
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A Vessel For Ego

3/30/2022

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​BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

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​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​Available on Amazon.


​A VESSEL FOR EGO

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       Will Smith has apologized publically - if not terrifically contritely - to Chris Rock for hitting him at the Oscars ceremony the other night. Perhaps Smith's tepid apology, even if its purpose was mainly to excuse himself rather than to ask Rock's pardon, did at least serve to sort of glue back together whatever incorporeal, indescribable thing was broken by the world having to witness an act of violence committed by one person against another on live television.
​         But then, as I once read somewhere, a broken thing can be repaired, but it would be better if it hadn't been broken in the first place. And so it is with Will Smith: His apology-extra-lite to Chris rock may serve to somewhat repair the fallout of his misbehavior. But it would have been better by far - for Chris Rock and the rest of us who now have to deal with our own reactions to the incident and all the publicity it has generated - if Will Smith would have behaved himself in the first place.
       But what is it about this time that we live in?  From where came this pervasive moral ignorance that mistakes swaggering machismo for strength? That preaches that whoever can hit the hardest verbally or physically is right and is entitled - even expected - to do so? That it's admirable and  courageous to stomp on the rules of decency and law? 
      That it makes you a hero to assault on live television a comedian who made a joke about your wife's appearance? 
       Said wife, who, by the way, had no reason at all, regardless of Chris Rock's joke about her shaved head, to feel badly about her appearance as, even without her hair, Jada Pinkett Smith looked stunningly beautiful at the Oscars. 
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     Which begs the question: As beautiful as Jada Pinkett Smith is in spite of the medical condition that caused her hair loss, as ultra-successful, super-wealthy, uber-famous, and enormously gifted with talent, good fortune, opportunity and every resource as the Smiths are, why would one little joke from Chris Rock rock their world? 
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       the answer is because, as the whole world learned on the night of the Oscars, along with his great fortune and fame Will Smith also has a gargantuan ego which in fact makes his world a very fragile one. And so when Chris Rock, who gets paid to make jokes, made a joke at Will Smith's famous wife's expense he felt compelled and entitled to publically assault him. 
        Which begs another question:
       Why did Will Smith get away with publically assaulting Chris Rock? Weren't there security guards at the Oscars? Weren't there officials or administrators there who could have called the police? Weren't there hundreds of spectators in the audience and staff in the wings, any one of whom could have called 911?
       Why was nothing done? Why wasn't Will Smith physically escorted out of the venue? Why was he permitted to stay and a short time later handed an Oscar?
         That is what's really causing the public  agita over the incident: That Will Smith did what he did and, so far, has gotten away with it.
       And then we had to watch him be awarded an Oscar and listen to him praise himself in the form of a lame apology for doing what he did out of his abundance of love for his wife and talk about God and weep and call himself a vessel for love.​        
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      A vessel for ego is more like it.
      A man doesn't show his love for his wife by decking a jester over a joke. A man shows his love by being a good, faithful, dependable, kind and loving husband, which, according to the vast accumulation of tabloid reports over the years, Will Smith has not always been to Jada Pinkett Smith. Nor, if these stories are accurate, has she always been the most faithful of wives to him.
      So it's likely that Smith's assault on Rock was merely an attempt to convince the world, his wife, and himself otherwise.  
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The Justice's Wife

3/26/2022

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     Amidst all the terrible front-and center news stories these days,
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​...and the terribly annoying ones,
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...there's been another story lurking on the side bars and second pages that in a different time, a time before half the country could shrug off a violent attempt to overthrow the United States  government, would have left every American shocked to speechlessness.
       Over the past few days news outlets have been reporting the revelation that Ginni Thomas,   
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...the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,
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...was involved in the attempt to overturn the 2020 American Presidential election and have Donald Trump re-instated as President.
​        It was recently uncovered during the Congressional investigation of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol,
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...that soon after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden Ms. Thomas began pressuring  Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was himself instrumental in planning the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally that was the beginning of the attempted insurrection,
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...to take action to overturn the election results.
    Among the documents that Meadows turned over to the Congressional investigators were dozens of emails sent to him by by Ms. Thomas urging him on in their crusade to keep Donald Trump in office:
"Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! ... You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History," 

​"I can't see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences... the whole coup and now this... we just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can't continue the GOP charade."


“Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition. I hope this is true.”

      Among Mark Meadow's responses to Ginni Thomas: 
   
​ 
“I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.”

“This is a fight of good versus evil. Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. 

     
      Ginni Thomas's emails to Mark Meadows also indicated that she was in communication with Sidney Powell, Donald Trump's legal advisor, Qanon conspiracy theorist and purveyor of fabricated voting fraud claptrap:

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“Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.”

 "Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud. Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down." 

       Thomas's texts show that she was also in communication with Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner about supporting her efforts to keep Trump in office:


 “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am,”

       Ginni Thomas was present at the January 6 Donald Trump rally during which Trump directed those present to march on the United States Capitol, the march that turned into an attack on our government. A few days after that thankfully failed event Thomas wrote to Meadows of her disgust with Mike Pence for certifying  Joe Biden's election victory:

"​Most of us are disgusted with the VP and are in a listening mode to see where to fight with our teams."

       
Now, all of the above words and behavior came from the wife of a Supreme Court Justice who, according to the New York Times, once said of his wife, that she works “24/7 every day in defense of liberty.” and that, “We are equally yoked, and we love being with each other because we love the same things."
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   Is it within the realm of believability that a man who, in his own words, is yoked to his wife and loves the same things she does would have had no knowledge of this great personal crusade that she was involved in? That he who is a guarantor of justice and the laws of our land would not have known that what his wife was promoting was nothing short of sedition?
     Perhaps these questions would be less troubling if Clarence Thomas had not been the only Justice on our country's Supreme Court to object to 
the release of the White House documents to the January 6 Commission; if he had not been the only Justice who held that any White House documents pertaining to January 6 should be kept secret under executive privilege; and if the documents he was arguing to keep secret did not contain his wife's seditious emails.
    With the revelation of Ginni Thomas's connection to the attempted overturn of the election, the members of the January 6 Commission are considering whether or not to subpoena Ms.Thomas to testify before the Commission.
         Which begs several questions: Why are the Commission members merely considering ​subpoenaing Ginni Thomas? Why hasn't Ms. Thomas already been called before the Commission to answer for her actions? In fact, why hasn't her husband Justice Clarence Thomas been subpoenaed by the Commission to answer for why he didn't recuse himself from the case concerning the release of the January 6 White House documents?
​          
​Does the one whose job it is to mete out justice to others stand outside the requirements of justice himself?
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​     Is answering before the law for one's wrongdoing not required of the politically powerful and well-connected?
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​    Or is that sort of thing  only required of the fools on the ground?
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References:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-text-messages/index.html

​https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/politics/ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows.html
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A Reflection Upon The Frog Cake; Or, Not To Worry, The Kid In Me Is All Right

3/21/2022

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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" by Patti Liszkay
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http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa      

And Don't Miss The Sequel For Only 99 Cents:

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"Hail Mary" by Patti Liszkay
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3/21/2022 thru 3/27/2022

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​A REFLECTION UPON THE FROG CAKE; OR, NOT TO WORRY, THE KID IN ME IS ALL RIGHT

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      In my previous post I wrote about the yearning of my ten-year-old self to eat one of the green, cream-filled frog cakes my mother brought home from Haegele's, the neighborhood bakery, for the family on St. Patrick's Day (https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-saint-patricks-day-frogs-revisited).
      The reason I didn't - couldn't - eat  my frog cake was because, through inauspicious fortune, St. Patrick's Day fell in the middle of Lent and I had given up sweets for Lent. And so  I couldn't possibly put one bite of that tempting little confectionary amphibian into my mouth for fear of displeasing God, before whom I would have stood terribly ashamed of myself for having given in to temptation.
     Back then I hadn't yet reached the juncture where I began questioning why, 
considering the infinite catalogue of good and evil actions we human beings are capable of, it would matter to God one way or the other what we did or didn't put into our mouths on which days of the week or year. Back then it seemed perfectly logical that what would really make the creator of all space, time, the universe and everything in it happy would be for me not to eat that frog. So I didn't.
       Of course my personal theology nowadays has quite evolved from the catechism that molded my beliefs and those of a good number of my contemporaries back then,       
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....and these days the tale of my uneaten St. Paddy's day frog is just a droll little childhood story, the likes of which everyone accumulates a pocketful of along the way. 
       Still, this story, though meant to bring a chuckle, made some readers sad. Maybe world events being what they are, all our hearts are feeling more easily saddened and sensitive these days, And though I suppose the writer in me sometimes lays the hyperbole on as thick as the icing on my famous rosette mini-cupcakes, 
​
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...or my chocolate cream-filled mini-cupcakes,
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...the truth is, the kid in me truly doesn't feel even the least twinge over the memory of that uneaten frog. My inner child is perfectly fine over the treat foregone all those years ago.
   
  Perhaps this is because over the years that memory has been piled on by the mountains of memorable sweets that I've eaten since then, not to mention the sweets yet to be eaten, Lord willing.
        To those friends and relatives who offered recipes and suggestions on how I might recreate a St. Paddy's Day cream frog in my kitchen - thank you! And if it's not in the cards for me to make the pilgrimage back to Haegele's Bakery in some mid-March, I think that one of these times I may well give a home-made frog a whirl.
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    "Hail Mary"
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    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
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