January in Honolulu

It's a cool January morning in Honolulu.   Sky is overcast and the tradewinds are light, keeping the VOG (nasty version of smog produced by volcanic gasses instead of smoke and automotive exhaust) somewhere else. 

The canoe paddlers have, for the most part, given up the park below my condo to the baseball set.  During the week the Old Men (humphhhhhh ... the retired guys!) play in the mornings while it is still cool.    Today, the PeeWee ball players -- the tiny ones who are learning to run bases by playing tag with dads and coaches around the baselines, and whose gloves are large enough that they seem to overpower the body -- are on the field 13 floors below be, cute as buttons even at this distance.     Ah, new running game -- run as fast as you can to the next base, and don't forget to TOUCH it! 

A miniature left-hander is at the batting tee.  Each fielder and runner has a personal coach at his or her side, "Get ready to catch the ball!"  "Run, run, run!"  All this assumes the batter is successful at hitting the ball and that it travels farther than about 2 feet from the tee!  They are so very little....  

 A Hawaiian Airlines flight from somewhare far away is making it's approach past Wiakiki into Honolulu airport  

There have been assorted tourist boats visible in the splotches of ocean visible this morning between the monster hotels and condos of Waikiki. 

The emergency sirents of fire trucks and ambulances are mercifully quiet. 

An unfamiliar pair of canoe paddle by.  These are gold hulls trimmed in blue, perhaps Punahou School teams.  More often I see the white hulls from McKinley High School, conveniently emblazoned TIGERS so it is clear to which school they belong.   I haven't yet decided who belong to the gold hulls trimmed in red, or the other set -- red hulls trimmed in gold.  My father's beach club, Waikiki Surf Club, sports red and gold, but so does Roosevelt High School. 

The resident pigeons, fervently discouraged by our condo management, have been trying to convince me to allow them to roost on the floor of my lanai.   Had to lower the shade screen to discourage them from hopping through the railing an onto the lanai floor.    Am not sure they are actually convinced, but didn't have this problem until I raised the shades to just above the level where the birds tend to perch.   

A part of our park is used as a dog park.  I see a dog and it's person running on the field well beyond the peewee ball players. Both dog and person move in happiness. 

So peaceful. 

Please pray today for Al.  Pray for Jean and her family.  Pray for water in the western US, and for warmer weather -- without massive flooding -- in the rest of the US.  Give thanks for Christie, who celebrates a birthday this week, and for newborn Kaya.  ...