About a year ago, my friend Gabe moved away to live and work in Yosemite National Park. I miss him dearly, but I am also extremely happy for him because he is living out his dream! I'm very grateful that Gabe and I are still in touch over text and long distance calls, I always enjoy the updates he gives me.

Something I've gotten to hear a lot about is this new character in his life named Robin. Robin is a local from Fiji and brought the cuisine over to Yosemite. Gabe often sends me pictures of the authentic Fiji foods him and Robin would make together.

Robin is much more than just a chef however. This man is a modern day philosopher. Gabe would oftentimes send his wisdom over my way. My first experience with this wisdom was when I was still in X-ray school. College was the second worst experience of my life and I needed all the wisdom I could gather to make it through the rigorous X-ray program. One random depressing day doing clinical rotations out in the middle of nowhere, I got a message from Gabe. The message read, "I be needing fresh green chilies." - Robin. This was my first Robin quote, and I applied it to my daily life. I would often look over at my classmates with a blank expression and say "I be needing fresh green chilies". I even went as far as making my phone wallpaper a picture of fresh green chilies. During the high stakes stupid radiography quiz bowl competition the last thing I said to my teamates of team six before going up on stage was, well you guessed it, "I be needing fresh green chilies". This quote cured 57% of my chronic depression.

This man has many other quotes like "never fall in love with a hammer" which is equally applicable to life, but here lately his most influential lines of speech are from a single voice recording.

I'm pretty sure this is just a grocery list, but by the time I heard this recording, I had been going through a rough Tuesday every week. I mean it just seemed like every Tuesday these intense and complicated situations were falling into my lap and taking tolls (this is regarding my MRI shift). I don't know if you caught it, but towards the end you can hear Robin says "Tuesday will be bad, but Wednsday will be alright". For me, this was a reminder that there's a light at the end of the tunnel and sure enough my Wednsdays are almost always better than my Tuesdays, despite Wednsdays being pacemaker days. When Paisley asks what we should do for dinner I always quote the recording and say "foods from the Fiji shop" and I say Fiji shop really fast just like Robin! She likes to associate this quote with some raw rooster I found on an online Fiji shop.

This is about all I have to say about Robin and Fiji as a whole. Just remember, fresh green chilies make a valid side dish, and always eat your lamb chop!