Carrot oddities

At the launch for Melanie Kosaka's Lei Fresh Hawaii-grown food app at Cafe Julia, Whole Foods brought along some carrots for display, including these oddities that look like a pig's foot and claw or bottom of a deformed doll. (More pornographic ones were left behind I was told.)

Everyone needs a little pink dress, right?

This RED Valentino dress stopped me in my tracks at Neiman Marcus, with its sheerest silk chiffon floating over crinoline. Must. Try. On.

Indestructible parrot perch

Persephone enjoys the guava perch built by Leila Fujimori. It's one of the few kinds of wood that can stand up to a parrot's beak.

Island flowers

I don't take enough time to appreciate flowers:

Lizard pose

I  can't believe this lizard stuck around the pots in my yard long enough for me to get this portrait. I took dozens of photos and it was just looking at me, turning its head in different ways to get a better look, which made it look like it really was posing for portraits.

Bird art

A bird started this nest that I found on the ground this morning. I love their handiwork, weaving natural and unnatural materials together including straw, ferns, twigs and polyester. I could do this with my mouth!

Dinner at Asuka Nabe + Shabu Shabu

Had a delicious meal of ribeye and pork loin shabu shabu at Asuka Nabe + Shabu Shabu restaurant in Kaimuki, with sides of lobster balls, mixed mushrooms (shimeji, oyster, king, shiitake and enoki), pork- and-chicken meatballs, pumpkin, choy sum and baby bok choy. Yum, yum, yum. Easy to have eyes bigger than your stomach here.

'Trigger Picasso Energy'

I love the way Carol Bennet's "Trigger Picasso Energy" enamel on glass, photovoltaic cell canopy installation at the Hawaii State Art Museum's new sculpture garden casts color on the concrete bench beneath it. I walked through it after having lunch with Chris at Downtown @ HiSAM.

"Footloose," 2012

While covering the "Boardshorts: A Perfect Fit" exhibition at the Honolulu Museum, had the chance to finally check out Patrick Dougherty's "Footloose" strawberry guava, rose apple, fiddle wood and ardisia installation on the front lawn. Strawberry guava wood is so tough it's the only wood my birds can't chew through in a day.

Date with a princess

At DFS Galleria Waikiki, I interviewed Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, who was in town for the first anniversary of her children's boutique, Marie-Chantal, in the galleria. She spent a lot of her childhood in Hawaii because her father Robert Warren Miller was a co-founder of DFS, with strong roots in the tourist market here.