red mud on my shoes

Yesterday afternoon, our last day in Hawaii, Jerry wanted to go to a state park located remotely near a mountain neighborhood overlooking Honolulu, so we picked up some take-out KFC and headed up the mountain for a picnic lunch. A lovely park, lots of tall trees and good views, nobody there but us and a few chickens. Cannibal chickens, as we found out when Jerry tossed some leftover KFC chicken their way (By the way, it's very eerie eating chicken when there are a bunch of chickens standing next to you watching).

The dirt in this park was very thick and red (as is a lot of dirt in various parts of the Hawaiian Islands) and it had rained earlier in the day, so walking around was a little icky. Not a big problem until I got back to the condo in downtown Honolulu and realized I was tracking red mud onto the carpet. Jerry went to work cleaning my shoes (not an easy task, it doesn't come off very handily) and worked on them even more when he got back home to Minneapolis because they still had some crud on them. These are the only shoes I have that are good in snow, of which we were greeted with much on our arrival this morning. They're still not spotless, it might take a while. I guess it was just my way of bringing part of Hawaii back with me.

here we go, aloha-ing again

To me, the hard part about living in Hawaii would be the isolation way out here in the South Pacific, the fact that it is so far from the rest of the world.

But the great thing about being here for a two-week vacation is the isolation way out here in the South Pacific, the fact that it is so far from the rest of the world.

I do have a conscience, though, and would feel guilty if I were to complain that this is the day we have to go home. The people that I know and love back home have been putting up with the miseries of an early winter -- low temperatures and wind chills, ice, snow, dreariness in the past couple weeks. I know we were lucky to have this time here. My way of justifying it all: Now and then you need to step away from your life and take a look at it from far away and see how it all shakes out. The issues back home don't go away while you're gone, but maybe you're better able to handle them. I do have a Dilemma Number One (which I can't discuss in these pages) that I feel better able to face plus some of those other more minor nagging problems. My head feels cleared. A Hawaiian brain enema, maybe that's what it all was.

The plane leaves at 6 this evening. I'm going to go enjoy the day.

hawaiian sunburn

No, I don't have a sunburn, a little pink maybe... When I go to the beach, I tend to mostly stay under this umbrella; otherwise, I'd be burned to a crisp, and that's not a pretty sight.

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I actually spend more time on the extended patio outside the condo (in the shade, mostly) reading and/or listening to my iPod. A delightful existence -- and without sand between my toes. Jerry spends a lot more time at the beach than I do, snorkeling and developing a beautiful tan, of which I am envious but unable to attain.

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The "Hawaiian sunburn", actually, was the name of a wonderful fruity drink I had last night at a place called Cheeseburger Waikiki... Vodka, raspberry, pineapple, I'm not sure what else -- all very Waikiki. Good cheeseburger too!

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Back to the patio now, as the days dwindle down to a precious few.... After a stop-and-go start, I've really gotten into the book I'm reading now, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

surfing is harder than you think

Jerry, always ready for a new adventure, had never been surfing, and surfing in Hawaii of course is a way of life, so he went, along with a new friend of ours named Steve, for a surfing lesson yesterday on the east coast of the island. They had a young, 25-ish, blond surfer for an instructor, who made it all look easy. It wasn't easy.

Jerry came back to the condo exhausted and in major distress, having used muscles he hadn't known about before. His back and neck were in major pain. He cried out for his chiropractor, who of course is thousands of miles away in Minneapolis. The new friend Steve, a 58-year-old guy visiting from Vancouver, also had some new muscles making their presence known. Apparently (for them, at least) the hardest part of surfing is lying on the surfboard, paddling out into the ocean to catch a wave. Or maybe, if you're going to be a surfer, you just need to start at a very young age.

I took Jerry on my long morning walk this morning, and that somehow seemed to help his back and shoulders sort of get back to normal. They're talking about going surfing again on Monday!

2000 light years from home

My body is still on Central Time, so I was awake early jet-lagging. Since he's been here two weeks already, Jerry adjusted to Hawaiian Standard Time long ago, so he slept in while I went for a walk exploring the neighborhood. Walked over to Waikiki area, where I found a Starbucks and had coffee while I read my Keith Richards book, which I love.

It was a good airplane book too, made the time go fast. Between Minneapolis and San Francisco, there was a woman next to me with an Amazon Kindle, which she says is great. I haven't been able to make the switch from paper books to computer books, but who knows where I will end up on that topic. I never say never. One thing I did notice -- when we were taking off and landing, when they tell us to turn off all electronic devices, she had to turn off her Kindle, while I kept reading.

Then between San Francisco and Honolulu, there was a super-nice kid next to me, a sophomore at San Jose State, on his way to the football game (today) between San Jose and the University of Hawaii. He was reading a tedious-looking book for school and would rather have talked the whole flight, but my nose was buried in the Rolling Stones story. It's going to be one of those books that I'll hate to see end.

back at the big city diner

First day of a two-week vacation in Hawaii, spending it so far just hangin' out, slowly recovering from the long trip, the four-hour time-zone change, a cold, and a stressful last few days at the office trying to be able to be gone for a whole two weeks.

Jerry found us a very nice rental condo in a neighborhood close to Waikiki. Our one venture outside the building so far today was driving our rental Volkswagen Beetle over to the Big City Diner for breakfast. The Big City is one of our favorite haunts here, although it's not that big a deal, come to think of it -- it's just a Honolulu tradition for us.

The next big stressful decision is whether to go to Hula's for Happy Hour. Mai Tai, anyone?

MSP to SFO to HNL

The phone rings at 6 a.m., and our land-line phone has this weird music it plays instead of a normal ring, and I can't wake up enough to know that it's the phone and not the alarm (even though I knew I hadn't set the alarm).... So I played with the alarm, trying to turn it off, and when I finally woke up enough to realize it was the phone, it had stopped that annoying song and I worried about what the call might have been that I missed. It was Joan, my sister, and she called back a few minutes later... Her cat had not-being-able-to-pee issues and was in distress, and we needed to get him to the vet asap. So I headed to St. Paul, on a rescue mission, and I'm hoping that by now after was probably a very unpleasant experience for him, the cat is free-flowing once again.

That's how some days start, and then they end up in a totally different scene. In a couple hours, I get on a plane to Honolulu, Hawaii (with a stop in San Francisco), and when I'm in that warm other-worldly paradise tonight, it will be funny to think that my day started with a plugged-up cat.

packing for a month away in a distant time zone

Hawaii is five time zones away from Minnesota. It's an eight-hour plane ride from here IF you get a non-stop flight.

... and it's Jerry's favorite place in the world.

He leaves Tuesday for a month of R & R there. I follow in a couple weeks to spend the last two weeks with him.

But planning and packing for a month away is no easy chore. Meanwhile, he's cooking an elaborate dinner for our friends Diane and Tony, who are coming over to watch the Vikings-Patriots game that starts in a few minutes, and dealing with work stuff that keeps his phone ringing even on a Sunday afternoon.

"I'm overwhelmed!" he just said.

He needs to be on that plane waiting for take-off.

my competitive brother

My brother Davy, who generally splits his time between San Antonio, Texas and Shanghai, China, called me on my cell phone yesterday from an Air Force base in Indiana, waiting for an Air Force military hop to Hawaii. He retired from the Air Force about twenty years ago and still has the benefit of getting cheap/free? military flights (as long as he doesn't mind no frills and being on standby indefinitely).

And why Hawaii, you ask? Well, first of all, Hawaii is Hawaii, and everybody should see Hawaii sometime. But also because Hawaii was one of the seven states that Davy had never been in, and I'm realizing that he and I are suddenly in a competition to see who visits all 50 states first. I have three to go, and now he will be down to six, and later this month he is coming to visit us in Minnesota with the intent of taking road trips from here to North Dakota and Iowa, which will bring him down to four.

So do I start booking flights to Oklahoma City and San Antonio and Portland, or let him win? Am I as competitive as he is? :-)

hawaii five-o

Blame it on the HDTV that we bought last spring, but I'm finding we spend more evenings than we used to being Couch Potatoes. We've gone from knowing zero current TV shows to knowing a few of them.

Now the "new" TV season has started, and we actually found ourselves looking forward to a couple shows last night -- the season premiere of Two and a Half Men and the series premiere of the re-make of Hawaii Five-O. It's kind of scary that we even knew what time they came on!

And even though the original Hawaii Five-O was on TV all those years, I didn't realize until yesterday that the "Five-O" part of the name was because Hawaii was the 50th state. Anyway, this remake is well done, although we probably mostly enjoyed seeing familiar Hawaii scenes in High Definition. We're going back to Hawaii for a visit in November, you know, but I'll save that story for another time.

something's gotta give

I thought I handled my busy season so well this year, but the stress must have been silently building in me. That suppressed stress was followed by a death in the family and trips across the continent. It all caught up with me, and my body has started acting its age. I've seen more doctors in the last week and a half, both in Hawaii and back here in Minnesota, than I generally would see in a year and a half. There is nothing I hate more than seeing doctors and taking medication and being reminded of mortality.

Oh well, I'll be fine, one way or the other, although my flesh, after all these years, might be meeting a scapel. I was planning on flying down to North Carolina to spend a long weekend with my sister, but that had to be postponed. I guess I need to slow down a little. Jerry is taking good care of me, as always.

Change of subject. I've hardly watched any television since February, and I turn on the news now and they are still over-reporting this silly Presidential election! It looks like I somehow have to get excited about Barack Obama, if I can, because, after all, have you ever seen a more lame candidate than John McCain? I do think Obama should offer the VP slot to Hillary, but I bet he won't. Somehow he needs to figure out how to win the big states. In the primaries, he has done great in states that he has no chance of winning in November. Plus, he needs somebody to show him how to be President, if he somehow wins!

the waves

I've been back in Honolulu for several days, heading home to the reluctant Minnesota spring in two days. The condo unit where we are staying here is 14 stories up, right on the ocean. To my right as I sit on our balcony is Waikiki, to my left is Diamond Head, straight ahead are the surfers riding their boards. Quite lovely.

The trip back to North Carolina was hard, ten hours each way of flying time and dealing with the difficulty of the situation. My sister Nancy, who in some ways seems so fragile to me, is showing amazing strength, dealing with the waves of sadness as they come, sometimes sparked by the slightest memory trigger. If you've been through this, you know what those waves feel like and how it feels to ride them out.

These tend to be the worst of times, but also the best of times for a family. I feel sorry for families that are estranged from each other when they need each other most.

Dave

Not sure how to write today. We arrived in Hawaii three nights ago for a two-week post-busy season vacation. Early the next morning, I received the horrible news that my brother-in-law Dave (see my post of March 17th) had died. He had been sick and in the hospital for a couple weeks, but his death was unexpected.

We are a very close family, my five siblings and myself, even though we are spread all over the place, so we are a family stunned and sad. Without question, this is a time to be together, so this afternoon I am leaving Hawaii for a few days, flying to North Carolina to be with my sister and the rest of the family.

As I write this, I'm overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a perfect early morning in Honolulu, but my thoughts are elsewhere. There are times when it is hard to reconcile the beauty and the harshness of life.

We'll miss you, David. You were an irreplacable part of the family.