When I was a little girl, like most girls my age, I was a teeny bit obsessed with The Little Mermaid. And pretty much anything else mermaid oriented. Even though I never dressed up for Halloween when I was little, I remember my mom made me a mermaid tail out of turquoise muslin material. Only I guess I was growing quickly or she miscalculated and my feet ended up sticking out by about 6 inches out the bottom. But that was okay.

I had the soundtrack to The Little Mermaid on cassette tape and would play the tape in our basement for hours on end while I sang and danced to every song…even that weird “Fathoms Below” song the sailors sang at the beginning.

I think every girl in some way can relate to mermaids. They’re beautiful and mysterious. And especially with The Little Mermaid- she felt out of place and longed to be part of something bigger. I think that’s a feeling we can understand.

As I grew up I continued to love mermaids. I once photoshopped a picture of myself as a mermaid (picture left). I geeked out when I got to visit Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida when I was 5 years old, and then again in my twenties. I still wonder what it would be like to breathe underwater (top 5 coolest superpowers ever, am I right?) and swim with fish and dolphins like they were friends. To be fair to my husband, the house isn’t decorated with mermaids, but I’ve thought about buying things once or twice with mermaids on them. Especially now that I’m married to a sailor. How fated is that?

When I moved to Hawaii, I had the great pleasure of realizing one of my childhood fantasies: to meet a real live mermaid.

My friend Kariel (yes, that’s Ariel with a K- it’s really her name!) is a mermaid. She lives by the water and she has her very own beautiful tail. I couldn’t stop asking questions when I saw her tail airing out to dry one day on her lanai overlooking the water. I have been a little bit fascinated ever since.

I got the chance to sit down with Kariel and ask her some questions. The five year old me was squealing inside the whole time!

When did you first come up with the idea to create a tail and become a mermaid?
I decided to make a tail about 2 years ago when I moved.  Hawaii is the perfect place to swim with a tail. I had always wanted a mermaid tail since I was about 4, I watched The Little Mermaid in the theater as a girl. I’ve been pretty much obsessed since then. Then I saw Splash! That was a great movie too.
I remember when computers were just getting popular and I would look online, trying to find who made that tail (from Splash) and how to get one. It was around $5,000 as I remember. Which seemed like millions in the 80’s. But that’s the moment I knew it was possible to make a tail that could swim in the water.

Tell me about the tail.
When I first started looking up how to have one, I knew I could buy one online but I wasn’t ready to spend my savings to buy one, especially while I lived in a cold area. 
So when I got to Hawaii I started thinking about it and thought, Well, I’m creative. I could just make one and it would be less expensive, more special and I definitely would appreciate it more. Well, it wasn’t exactly less expensive. And it didn’t take two days to make like I thought. But it was worth it!

So how long did it take you to make the tail?
About 400 hours over about a 5 month period. I sewed it and handpainted all the scales and detail on the tail. I’m working on a pink and gold tail now that’s almost finished too. I started that about 2 months ago. By the time I am finished,  that one will probably have about 200 hours into it.

Where do you hope to go with all of this?
I’d love to travel with it and do shows. I would also really like to create my mermaid-inspired bikini line and for that to be successful. It would kind of be like allowing every girl to be a mermaid at heart. I’ve also written a children’s book. I’d like for most of the proceeds from the children’s book to go toward cancer research. In the end my final goal is to do something gigantic for mankind. Something that makes a great impact! I believe that is my purpose, so I'm using every talent I have, to start!

 Tell me about the children’s book.
I illustrated it with pastel colored pencils. It’s about mermaids, and it’s a self esteem book for kids. I actually got to test it in a classroom setting and they really grasped the moral of the story, which just made me so happy. They really understood what self esteem was and how they can affect someone else’s self esteem.

What made you want to write the children’s book?
My grandma was dying of  Leiomyosarcoma cancer (that cancer isn't even in my new computer's dictionary!), and I was in the waiting room and I always drew these pictures. I thought, you know, instead of just drawing random pictures, why not just create something? I needed something to show for it. I wanted to put everything together and really make something, a book. Some way to help. I felt kind of helpless throughout her experience. I wish I could have done something big to make a difference while she was still alive, to make things easier on her. I promised myself I would do it, finish, sell it and donate the proceeds to finding help and knowledge.

What would you tell little girls that want to grow up to become mermaids themselves?
I would tell them to go for it. Lots of kids email me from my website and from my Youtube channel, and they’ll say, I wish I could do it but my parents or somebody will laugh at me. It just goes back to self esteem- if you have a dream, I say go for it. Even my husband laughed at me for years. But then I had this idea and actually went through and created it. And he is really impressed now. So many people laughed about it and thought I was silly for spending all this time making this tail, but now that it’s finished people are amazed.

You must be a really great swimmer- have you had any scary moments swimming as a mermaid?
Whenever I go under water for pictures I don’t wear a mask. It’s always a little bit scary because I can’t really see. You don’t really know what’s out there. This one time I swam with another mermaid friend so both of us were blind swimming out there and we just saw this big grey thing go by. We were like, “Did you see that? Did you see that? Was it a shark?!” We never found out. That was a bit scary. Yes I am a good swimmer now, before I was only capable of doggy paddling believe it or not. but when you have a dream you must go for it and I wanted to be a mermaid!

You’ve swam with turtles, stingrays, and even dolphins so far.  What else do you still want to swim with?
I still really want to swim with dolphins some more. I’d love to get closer to them! I believe I have a friend- it's a Spotted Eagle Ray. He came and found me multiple occasions and we have swam side by side. That is the neatest experience I have had yet. I can't wait to go to that spot again and see if he joins me.  I think the sea creatures are curious about me.  Some fish even follow me and I swear I get looks as if they are saying, "Who are you?"

What’s coming next for you?
There are big things are happening soon. I’m really excited! The swimsuit line is coming together. And so much more! Either way, you’ll see me swimming around.

Kariel is currently living her dreams as a mermaid in Hawaii. She models with her tail under and above water for print ads and film. She performs in underwater shows in aquariums and lagoons. She also makes promotional and philanthropic appearances. 

Kariel is working to market and sell her children’s book with which a majority of proceeds will go toward funding research to cure cancer in memory of her grandmother. She is currently creating and developing a mermaid-inspired swimsuit line.

You can keep up to date on all of Kariel's mermaid happenings by “Liking” her on Facebook and following her on Twitter. You can also visit her website at www.MermaidKariel.com.

My little girl self is still squealing. :)

While I don’t want to be Debbie Downer and constantly talk about how SAD I am without my hubby and how my life is LACKING without my hubby…I think I need an easy pass just for this first month. Or at least right now.

I just sent an email off to Nick which, well, there’s a good chance it might get blocked from him reading it because the censors who read it before him may think I’m clinically insane and that it will worry him. But hey, worth a shot.

This morning was just a typical Friday. Aloha Friday here in Hawaii where everyone dresses down and you get to smile more not only knowing it’s Friday but it’s “Aloha Friday.” The true meaning hasn’t been described to me but I like to think of it as a mini holiday once a week.

Anyway, the day was normal. Good even. I even got hit on yesterday and today by a guy in the office next to me. I was quick to brush my hand through my hair quite a bit and flash the ring finger. I still don’t think he got it until today when I blatantly told him I’m here because my husband is stationed here. Anyway, it was still flattering was my point.

Traffic today was typical Friday traffic- much worse than any other day this week. But I saw a guy giving the shaka (See My Pieces of Hawaii section if you don’t know what that it- promise it’s not the finger)to someone briefly while inching along- it kind of made my day a little. Especially because only days before I witnessed two different people giving the finger to two different cars within five minutes of each other. (Okay I was one of the cars on the receiving end. I instantly tried to recall if I had done that to someone before and felt horrified and swore it would never happen again. Hey, it’s not my fault the lane was closed and I had to get in front of him. Oh Lord I do sound crazy today.) Meaning of this little rant? It made me happy to see someone giving a “happy” symbol instead of such a mean one. Wait..does that sound dirty..?

My day went downhill when I remembered to swing by Long’s (aka CVS) on the way home to pick up a prescription I’d forgotten to pick up the day before. They didn’t have it. I would have to come back. After I left they called to say I had no refills left despite the refill website saying I had 2 refills left. If I’d known I didn’t have any refills left I would have made a dr’s appt much sooner. So I was left trying to struggle to make a dr’s appt sooner than 2 weeks and/or get a prescription written by people who had never even met me and didn’t have my medical records. Yeah, you guessed right. They don’t do that. Meh.

I was supposed to go over a friend’s house tonight and spend some girl time but just got myself way too stressed about all this and still hadn’t made any food to bring, didn’t know if I could handle going to the hectic grocery store at 4pm on a Friday, and KNEW traffic was NOT going to happen with me at this moment. I did not know if I could give lots of shakas.

After I had a relaxing cup of Vanilla Rooibos tea and a big ol’ slice of garlic beer bread, I walked the dog and checked the mail. Bam- overdue bill with the wrong address on it. It was a third notice of a bill of Nick’s I had been looking for and hadn’t received any of yet. Because they blatantly spelled our address wrong. That’s the fun thing about Hawaii words and people who are not Hawaiian- they (and we) often don’t get them, how they’re pronounced, or how they are spelled. Although our street name starts with a K. The envelope’s street name started with an A subsequently followed by 4 more vowels. Didn’t that trigger questions? Guess not. Anyway.

Then the website I went to immediately pay our overdue bill was not so user-friendly. Fortunately I was able to call and talk to someone and make sure we didn’t get any late charges due to them not having the right address anyway. But I also tried to get our interest rate dropped down- apparently it’s some law that if you go on deployment, all credit card rates and I guess certain loans drop down to SUPER low interest rates. Well, this company apparently needs orders. Which I’m pretty sure we don’t have- not ones saying when and where he is deployed since it’s essentially top secret. Sigh. Now his CO has to write an email from the boat for me to pass to the credit card company. And I subsequently have a headache and believe I will be indulging in pizza, champagne, and Twinkies for the rest of my evening. Vanilla Rooibos Tea be damned- you weren’t cutting it.

You know I think today was destined to not be great. It all actually started last night.

See what you should know about me is that I am a little, teeny, weeny, tiniest bit afraid of zombie movies. I won’t watch them alone. Occasionally they still pop into my head from time to time. I don’t know how that happens…I mean I’d be amazed if Ghost Whisperer triggered something….Well, now that I think of it….

Now, what you should know about Nick- he is a zombie expert. We’re talking he would be the hero of a zombie movie. I mean he’s read books. Done research. Really. (I promise he is a cool guy.)

The bad thing? He didn’t make an appearance in my dreams last night.

I was in this little town. And the zombie virus started taking people over. Not the sort of funny kind like Jenna Jameson in Zombie Strippers. The mean scary kind. They went crazy- tore at each other, their skin decayed a bit. Plus they looked really pasty. Me and some unnamed no face friend ran from them and hid away. After the rage part of the virus died down a bit (haha…died down) the zombies became more toned down but had hot tempers and still decayed looking, pasty white skin. Not my thing for sure. Plus not all of them made it through the rage part of the virus since it sort of made them kill other people.

So this friend and I try to blend in. But hey, I live in Hawaii. I have a tan. We didn’t blend well. The zombies were onto us. They attacked. They chased. I think they even went after my dog. I climbed some trees. I kept trying to get myself to wake up and I think I started to a few times but was so tired I immediately lapsed right back into the dream. The last thing I remember was a zombie pinning me to the ground and dripping its nasty, slobbery, virus-infected spit onto my face in an attempt to infect me.

Yeah, when you spend your night fighting off dead, rage-infected corpses how well do you think your day is going to go?? That’s what I thought.

Oh, look. A glass of bubbly. Good night!