At school, they had a year-end celebration in which a shave ice truck came out one day after classes. "It was so awesome! I wanted to bring some of my shave ice home for you to try but I couldn't because it would melt! Can you come next year so you can order yourself a shave ice? I want you to see how great it is!" she bubbled. That is very caring and sweet.

"Thanks for thinking about me, Dear," I said. "Tell me about your shave ice. What flavor did you have?"

"I had half banana, half strawberry, half vanilla, and a drop of tiger blood on top!" she described.

Every time she uses the word "half" it cracks me up because she doesn't get the concept of "half." We've tried to teach her all year but it's not sticking yet. So she uses it to mean "part."

The tiger blood threw me off. So she's Charlie Sheen now?

"What does tiger blood taste like," I asked.

"It's dark red like strawberry but better!" she told me.

Well. That sounds like WINNING! to me.

It looks like it's kind of city property but I have learned it actually belongs to a house above it on the hill, whose owners don't seem to come tend it much. It's a sliver of land that abuts the sidewalk.

Don't get me wrong. It grows nice plants, just a little untended.

Wild cherry tomatoes are pretty popular in my neck of the woods. This plot of land lately has many square feet of thriving tomato plants, which have developed fruits.

Olivia stooped down to pick a nice red one this morning. "Want this, Mommy?" she offered.

I am not a huge tomato fan so I declined kindly. "Well, I'm going to give it to my teacher because I like her, then," she re-gifted. "Plus, I didn't even lick it!"

Awesome requisite for gift giving. The next time I give someone a gift, I'm going to have to let them know this present is made better by the fact that I did not even lick it.

For a couple months, whenever I look in there, there are at least five or six pregnant shrimp with huge clutches - like 15 or 20 eggs. There will be at least a few more that have smaller (half hatched?) clutches.

These numbers are up from early March, the first time I noticed the hatchlings. At that time there were only eight or ten babies and maybe three or four pregnant shrimp at a time.

From what I understand on the limited research, the larvae float vertically using a yolk sac for nutrition for their first ten days of life, then they swim horizontally after that and look like a very miniature version of the adults. I read that they hide in the rocks for a while.

In April I hadn't seen many babies or juveniles and I was wondering if they died, but in early May two things happened. The juveniles came out of hiding so now I see a few crawling on the rocks, and there has been an explosion of larvae.

Every other day this week I've looked in the tank and it seems that a new clutch has hatched - growing the population about a dozen at a time. It's hard to count because they're so small it plays trick on my eyes, but it is a lot.

I could be a lot more detailed about this with notes and exact dates, but I just don't have the time to maintain my hobby that way, so I'll have to go with rough estimates.

Meanwhile, I've started a breeding tank. It's actually a large ceramic pot I got for $8 from Ross and it has no hole in the bottom.

I specifically thought about this vessel because I wanted something that would give the shrimp more darkness in which to mate. The success of my shrimp hatching seems to correlate with me adding more coral rocks to the tank.

I added more rocks in December 2012 and within a couple months the eggs finally started hatching. I had seen berried females for much of 2012 but no eggs hatched.

In this new tank, I've used a different substrate: abalone shells. I had easy access to shells, and I felt that their rough exterior texture would sufficiently mimic the coral rock, plus they would fall into positions that also create many small hiding spaces.

I used about 75 shells and organized the top layer so the iridescent nacre faced up. It's pretty to look at.

Five shrimp are now swimming endless laps in their new home. For now, they're my testers to see if I created the correct conditions for life.

More to come on the breeding program...

I've been working a lot for the past few months. Early mornings, late nights, weekends. I'm not sure why it's so busy. Maybe the economy is picking up so more people can travel or book events.

Claus is a super dedicated dad, but she is a Mommy's Girl.

Apparently, she tells the teacher every day "I want my mommy." She revealed this to me yesterday.

"Every day?" I asked in amazement? She used to do this in preschool, too.

"Yes. Or sometimes I want to say it to her but I can't," she said.

Aww. So young and tender and attached. I felt bad.

I clarified with the teacher that it's only cropped up lately. I pieced together that it's coincided with my very busy work period.

That's the working mother's guilt. There will be periods of work like this. There will be guilt trips like this.

Should I address this with Olivia or should I do something extra-nice for her this weekend?

My favorite portrait of me

When she came home from school on Friday, she presented me a brown bag and some assorted cards. "Open it!" she insisted.

I told her Mother's Day was Sunday, but she wanted me to see it now. I gave in.

My absolute favorite was the portrait of Mom as seen through Olivia's eyes. I have never seen an image of me I like more.

I also love the phonetically spelled note inside: (I love you because) "You let me sleep in your bed. Mom I love you because you help fold my clothes. And you walk me to school."

She wanted me to know it was drawn with NO help from the teacher, and that my hair (which I cut short last week) is heart shaped on purpose because it represents how she loves me. Aww!

There was another, supplemental card, which must have been done with even less supervision, because it's even more phonetically spelled. The guesses at the words is really funny and cute. I LOVE how she confuses b and d, which as you'll see in the photo below, can make it a little harder to translate, even for the parent.

"Dear Mom Happy Mother's Day! I like that you let me sleep in your bed. I like that you cook dinner. I like that you help me when I fall down."

The word for "dinner" is my favorite, followed closely by "fall down." At first I was like, I cook you beer?

This is such an awesome gift. I gave her three big hugs and told her how fantastic she is.

What is your best Mother's Day gift?

It's currently undergoing some restoration and volunteers are needed to help clean it up. I don't know much about this, but as it impacted my weekend, I understand that we were catching only the invasive tilapia fish, and throwing back the other fish that live in the pond.

Therefore, it counts as community service because the owners want to remove invasive species, and we wanted to eat fish from clean waters.

I brought my family out one morning to help do this. The plan was to catch 100 tilapia, clean them right there, and then freeze it for later use for our high school reunion in June. (We had 365 in our graduating class.)

My best girlfriend Jen - who graduated with me - came out as well. I had been looking forward to jumping in the water, but I changed my mind on that cold, rainy morning. Lame, I know. Olivia and I watched from shore as people waded in the mud in the knee-high water throwing nets.

After a couple hours, we had enough to start cleaning the fish. I did not really remember how to clean a fish. It has been years.

I learned from a fireman I once dated (you know the firemen are so nature-y) but cleaning the occasional fish that he'd catch for dinner did not imprint the skills on my brain. I am now an urban softie who buys pre-gutted fish from the store.

However, I saw this as a chance to learn, so I willingly joined the lineup where Jen taught me.

My surprising revelations of the day: You need a very sharp knife to gut it, and gloves are handy because the fins are sharp and the fish is slippery.

The scaling part, I remember how. Pulling out the guts did not bother me, but here is a fascinating discovery. Tilapia are mouth brooders!

Babies inside the fish

I looked in one fish's cavity and saw little babies left in there! It was really interesting for everyone that day!

I must have cleaned 30 fish. I certainly hope I'll remember how, after this.

She came home from school and revealed that she got a yellow light. She gets way too many yellow and red lights.

"Why did you get a yellow light today?" we asked.

She knows she did wrong, and she is always contrite - though my adult brain can never understand why it's so hard to just sit there and be good. "I don't want to tell you or you'll be mad," she replied.

"I think you should or we will get mad," we said.

"I was crawling like a dog," came the answer. "I was trying to be funny." She likes to get laughs.

Here is that part where we try not to laugh so that we look really serious. "You have to stop crawling like a dog in class," I lectured. The things that come out of my mommy mouth.

"You have to listen to the teacher when she tells you to do something, or stop doing something," Claus reminded.

The babysitter happened to be over already. We hire a 21-year-old to come two nights a week. She has a wealth of experience because for a few years she's worked as the after-school program staffer.

While I'm still marveling at the silly things kids dream up, the sitter was totally nonplussed. "You'd be amazed at how many kids crawl like dogs. And how many other kids bark to them in dog language. And how they'll carry on a conversation in barking until we tell them to stop," she offered.

This is a bigger zoo than the real zoo. I guess I was the only one surprised because Claus said, "Sure. Just last week, Olivia and Kira spent two hours pretending they were cats."

Kids.

I guess I will only have to worry when she starts eating the pet food.

No, wait. That's happened already, too.

The nominated story is here: http://smalltalk.staradvertiserblogs.com/2012/12/31/honolulu-candy-makers-resurrect-dying-japanese-craft/

A full list of nominees is here: http://www.emmysf.tv/images/emmy13%20nomination%20press%20release.pdf

More information about this chapter is here: http://www.emmysf.tv

I shot this with my video partner Mr. Tracy Arakaki of Tracy Arakaki Productions. I'm so lucky that he wants to partner up annually to create a video story. We do this as an unpaid hobby as we both have day jobs.

Tracy shooting the Tanakas

We do it because we love the creative process of putting a story together, and all the elements that go with it - the discussion over the direction of the piece, the brainstorming over what visuals are important, the opportunity to meet new people in the community in ways that our real jobs would not allow, the comfortable dynamic between reporter/photographer, producer/editor - roles we once shared together at KHNL.

Us at work, with grip Joe Aikala in background

Tracy shooting Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble for the opening shot

The EMMY® award is presented for outstanding achievement in television by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS). This is the same award you are probably familiar with from the red carpet shows honoring your favorite television shows. This group covers all television programming, including a division to honor news.

There were 674 entries this year, so I'm honored to even be nominated; the winners will be announced at a ceremony in San Francisco on June 15.

She met up with her son, Dillon, who said he wanted to introduce her to his favorite bartender, Danny Higa. "Something clicked. It was the sparkle in his eye, and his engaging smile," said Koki.

Photo courtesy: Susan Koki

It was instantaneous for him, too. The chemistry was intense and fast-acting. "I knew quickly this was someone special," said Higa.

It was mid-April. The two started going out. "By the end of April, I knew this was the man I wanted to marry," Koki said.

Photo courtesy: Susan Koki

Then, she says, destiny stepped in. On the evening of May 4, the two met for a date. Koki was running late, and when she arrived, Higa told her he had a chest cold, was tired, and was going to go home. "My car was blocked in, so I needed to wait for her to come and drive me home," he recalled.

Koki said he looked terrible, but Higa insisted he was fine and wanted to go to sleep. When he jumped in her car, Koki drove him to the emergency room. "She told me I could get mad at her tomorrow if it's just a little chest cold, but I was going to see a doctor tonight," said Higa.

Koki's instincts proved right. Immediately, a nurse noticed Higa's hands had turned blue. He was taken right away into ICU for what became a ten day stay.

Higa had serious heart problems, and the medical team needed to induce a coma. He had a 20 percent chance of survival. "It was so serious, my family was called in to say goodbye. My son even flew in from the mainland," explained Higa.

"Talk about crash course in meeting the whole family," Koki jokes now. At the time, though, it was overwhelming for her - and ironic that two people who were not even looking for love, found it, only to possibly have it torn away all too soon. "How can this be?" she remembers thinking. "I just met my soulmate!"

When it came time for Koki and Higa to say goodbye, "I just kept saying sorry," he said. "I never thought I would be at death's door."

For ten days, she kept vigil at his side, talking to him, telling him of all the things they have yet to do together. When he woke up, the first words he said to her were, "I love you. I can’t live without you.  Marry me now!"

Koki said no. She knew she wanted to be his wife, but not under these rushed circumstances. So they planned a date for the one year anniversary of his hospitalization.

The two are flying to Big Sur, California, to be wed in a small, intimate ceremony in front of family and a few close friends on May 4.

Photo courtesy: Susan Koki

"It's only fitting," explained Higa. "It's not the day my life almost ended. It's the day it began, with the revelation that it was the start of something great with Susan."

It whacked me with enough force to temporarily startle me and to also cause a little scratch. At first, I thought the kids threw something at me - kolohe! - but then I realized it was a big seed because I saw it still rolling to a halt on the ground. It slightly hurt.

If you spend half a day corraling and entertaining small children (which consists of keeping them from boredom, making up games, and mitigating small fights), you will understand that I was very tired by the time we got home. I said a few words of summary to Claus and didn't really say much more about the afternoon.

The next day at breakfast, Olivia pointed to my scratch and said, "It's still red and the blood is dried out." It's on my temple and my hair was hiding it, so Claus hadn't seen it, and I forgot to mention it.

His ears perked up. "What blood? What happened?" he said.

"Oh," I said nonchalantly, "some nut hit me at the park yesterday."

"What?" he said with growing concern.

"Yeah, I was just standing there and I got hit by a nut," I elaborated blandly over my eggs and toast.

"What?! Some nut just hit you?" he exclaimed with half fury and half confusion that I would totally bury the lead. "Who? What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Olivia and I looked at him and started laughing. "No, a real nut. A seed covered by a hard shell. Sorry for confusing you," I clarified.

It's funny, how language evolves. The phrase "some nut" seems to indicate for most people, today, a crazy person. I'm sure 50 or 70 years ago, it really just meant a nut.