CAUGHT IN THE ACT
Made a rare trek to Waikiki last night for a corporate awards banquet (a substitute for the Christmas party that seems to be a thing of the past, not that I miss it).  I was hoping that the skies would have cleared so I might see the second night of the Wolf moon through palms over Diamond Head, but it was not in the stars, so to speak. I wasn't prepared to bet on it; I certainly would have lost. It was still cloudy and rainy, even in Waikiki, where the sun is usually shining on days that are bad on the rest of O'ahu.

I got back home early enough to go to bed at a normal time (while most of my co-workers were still drinking and playing pretend casino games at the hotel--real gambling not yet legal in Hawaii**) and without disrupting my weekend routine too much.  (A night at the opera was enough really for one weekend.)

The only award of personal note was for our enthusiastic little qigong group, which won second place in the heallthy habit program. We received a wall-plaque with a half-eaten apple on it and some Starbuck's gift cards. We were lauded for our promotion of martial arts. "That's okay," I said to my co-amateur-shifu, "let them think it's martial; it may be to our advantage."

Woke at 5 a.m. for a bathroom visit and the room was unusually bright.  I went to the lanai where in the west, the moon was shining bright in a cleared sky, with Mars still dogging it off to the right. The Yellow Emperor and I enjoyed it for a while before returning to the mink blanket, me under, he on top. Still we managed to catch that elusive moon, a day past its prime, but you'd never really know without instruments of scientific measurement.

**Gambling, a potential revenue enhancer and tourist attraction which comes up regularly in legislative discussion in Hawaii, hasn't yet been approved as any sanctioned sort of Atlantic-City activity here.  Although there is LOTS of illegal betting and gambling going on.  Ironically, the most popular tourist destination of people who live in Hawaii is Las Vegas.