Parties and Pumpkins

Noah at the pumpkin toss. He made 2 of 3 tosses --
left-handed, too!

It was the weekend of Halloween parties. We had a school party on Friday night, sponsored by the PTA and a Treat Street party in downtown Kailua on Saturday night. We even had a third one that we could have gone to on Sunday night, but we decided two was enough.

The Kailua party was well organized and we felt more at home at this party. They had live music, games for kids, food booths, and a costume parade. The parade was led by the founder of Famous Amos cookies (and Kailua resident), Wally Amos. He owns a local cookie shop in town called Chip N Cookie. Wally sold his company to Keebler and now focuses most of his energy on literacy and writing.



Waiting our turn at one of the games in Kailua




Tuesday Night
It's the night before Halloween (oooo, sounds like the beginning of a scarey story) and I finally bought a pumpkin today. Noah's been begging for one every day for the last few weeks. I tried to explain to him that in Hawaii you have to buy a pumpkin right before Halloween or it will go bad. After awhile it must have sunk in because he stopped asking. Either that or his mind was onto something else.

One of the stores in town was selling pumpkins for $.39/lb, which seemed like a decent price. By the time I got there they had three left. Two were in sad shape and the third was so heavy I couldn't pick it up. I went to another store and they had a ton of them. No wonder -- they were $.69/lb!! As I looked at the pumpkins I kept hearing Noah's little voice in my head saying, "Mom, can I have a big pumpkin? Mom, can I have a big pumpkin?" It was like a broken record. I knew I had to buy one, even at the ridiculous price.

So, I left the store with one, nicely round, mid-sized pumpkin. It set me back $9.17. I am guessing that same pumpkin would have been roughly half that price back in Idaho. I started to miss our Jack-Be-Little pumpkin patch that we grew in our garden last year.

I commented to Tom the other night how no one around here decorates their front door area (porch, step, whatever) for Halloween like we were used to seeing back home. You don't drive through a neighborhood and see a few pumpkins nicely arranged by the front door. You don't really see any Halloween decorations, either. Since it's so hot and humid here I can understand why they don't put the pumpkins by the front door. A few days later it could be an orange jello substance quivering in the corner. There's enough of a bug problem around here without inadvertently making a delicious pumpkin dinner to entice them.

The pumpkin is sitting on our kitchen counter, ready to be carved. The poor thing went from a nicely air-conditioned store to a warm house. I thought about putting it in the refrigerator, but that seemed silly to me. I couldn't imagine putting one in the fridge, especially since we don't have room for one anyway. I plan to carve it on Halloween afternoon. I hope it holds up when I go to cut it. I can just imagine trying to cut out an eye and the entire thing collapses into a pool of mush. I guess if that happens, I'll be making some pumpkin pies!

Strange sightings on a Saturday

We decided that today was Project Van day. Our van was so filthy you couldn't tell what color the carpet was and the back of it was black. I usually don't let it get this dirty, but it is hard to keep the thing clean when you don't have a fully enclosed garage. Our garage is rather weird. The so-called walls only go up about 3/4 of the way and they don't even start at the bottom. Furthermore, they aren't complete walls. They are wood slats that are at a 45 degree angle. When it rains and the trade winds start blowing, leaves and miscellaneous stuff ends up in our garage. Once a week a group of four guys come to the house to mow, even though I'm not exactly sure why. Our grass is putting-green short. When they are here, they use one of those obnoxiously loud blowers and stir up the black soil. Of course, the black dirt makes its way over and under our garage "walls". And whose car does it end up on? Yep, mine.

I was finished cleaning the outside of the van when Noah pointed down the slope of the side of our yard and said, "Mom! The roosters are here!" Next thing I knew, they were in our next-door neighbors yard, all 7 of them. Tom wanted to know what you call of group of roosters & hens. I told him I didn't know, but I call them a gang. I ran inside to get the camera so I could take a picture of all of them together, but when I came out they got scared and went berserk. Five of them scurried into our neighbor's backyard and two (Rudy being one of them) stayed in the front and hid behind some bushes. I think they were plotting their escape plan because shortly after this I saw them fly on the roof of the neighbor's house and walk over it into the backside. It would have made a funny picture, but those darn things move too fast.

EARLIER PICTURE OF RUDY AND THE GANG IN OUR DRIVEWAY...



Later I was thinking about how none of the locals pay any attention to the chickens around here. I think it's kind of odd that no one thinks to capture one. A few eggs for a week's worth of breakfast. Fried chicken for Sunday dinner. And Hawaiians really love to eat chicken. Maybe it's that they have some kind of a reverence for chickens, kind of like the people of India do for cows. I don't know. It seems like there's so many of them roaming the island, no one would notice if one went missing. Hmmm.....

After we spiffed up the van, we decided we would treat ourselves to a nice hearty meal. We were thinking of going to the Macaroni Grill, which is in the biggest mall in Hawaii. I looked for it in the white pages, but couldn't find it. But I did find a pretty funny name...Celso Macadangdang. And no, I am not making this up!!

We ended up going to a different part of the island, sort of near Pearl Harbor. We went to a place called Anna Miller's. We had read that it served what most people refer to as stick-to-your-ribs food. We were so excited to finally find a local restaurant that serves the kind of food we like. I had to smirk when I saw Spam and rice on their list of side orders for breakfast.

Heading home we saw another humorous, yet very Hawaiian site. We were going down the Kamahemaha highway following a local moving truck that had the back door open. Three guys were standing on the lowered platform. One was sitting on a piece of weight lifting equipment, hugging the padded arms as if it were a teddy bear. In the left lane right next to it was a pimped out blue pickup with a guy in a beach chair sitting in the back and a full-size Hawaiian flag propped into the tailgate. There was another tricked out white pickup in front of it with a guy sitting in the back. Which leads me to the next topic...

HAWAIIANS IN THE BACK OF PICKUPS

Apparently, there is no state law that prohibits people from riding in the back of pickups around here. Drive for more than five minutes in any direction and you are bound to see a loaded pickup truck. I don't know why, but Tom and I find it rather amusing. There's just something about the sight of six Hawaiians sitting in the back of a pickup. Last month we went into Honolulu to watch the Thunderbirds fly over Waikiki. We got stuck in a traffic jam after the show and in the lane next to us we saw a bunch of cops in the back of a pickup. Now that was funny, but it would have been even funnier if they had been eating donuts. As Noah would say, "What the ?"

Tonight we went into town for Kailua's Treat Street Halloween party. As we were were getting ready to go home, a pickup with two guys in the back drove by. But these two knew how to ride in style. They had a couch in the back to sit on. What's next? A flat-screen, high-definition tv?

Where the Streets Have No (Pronounceable) Name

Navigating around a new place is hard enough. Try throwing in streets that have names that you can't even pronounce. Or can pronounce if you want to take one minute sounding out the four vowels that are strung together, like in Ke'eaumoku St. Doesn't quite roll of the tongue, does it?

We live on the northeastern part of Oahu, in the "country" as they say here. We don't have a WalMart, or any store like that in Kailua, so driving to one takes at least 30 minutes. It seems like most of the places where I shop take about 30 minutes to get to. My destination today was the WalMart in downtown Honolulu. And what street is this on? Ke'eaumoku. I can type it, just can't say it.

I haven't even bothered trying to pronounce it. I knew when I'd run into this street simply by memorizing the "Ke'ea" part. When I saw the street sign with a long word with a bunch of vowels on it, I figured it must be the one. My guess was correct and for once, I was in the right lane.

It was only my 2nd time visiting this particular WalMart. The first time was days after we moved here. All three of us went to this Walmart to buy a bunch of things for the house. It was like throwing us into the middle of another country, but somehow they spoke what appeared to be English. We were there in the middle of the day on a weekday. Not usually considered a busy time, right? Ha!

We made the mistake of getting two carts. I don't know what we were thinking because I couldn't even get my cart down the aisle. It reminded me of WalMart in Meridian on the day after Thanksgiving. It was insane. By the time we left the store, I was so frazzled and stressed out that I swore I would never set foot in that store again. Well, as I say, "never say never". I made the mistake of saying it and today I ate my words...again.

One of the weirdest things about this location is that Walmart is on the 1st floor and Sam's Club is on the 3rd. When you want to enter Walmart, you enter the parking lot on one street (you know the one...the one I can't pronounce), and to enter Sam's Club, you just go around the block and enter from the other side. You can also take an elevator from the parking lot of WalMart up to Sam's Club. Strange.

It wasn't as busy as the first time we went in July, but that's probably because unbeknownst to us, we were there the week before the first day of school. We had no clue. I have come to the conclusion after today's experience that this store is always extremely busy. It is like shopping during the Christmas season in Boise. I can only imagine what it will look like in there in December. I shudder at the thought.

I've done my own study and it appears to me that only 10% of the street names are English. The rest are Hawaiian. As I headed back home, I passed street after street with more vowels than letters. Imagine my relief when I finally got to a street I could pronounce...Ward Avenue.

If it weren't for the ocean and the mountains, I probably would get lost. I know that to get home I need to head toward the mountains. And I know the Pali Highway will get me there. It must work because I'm home now on Aloha Oe. That's 5 vowels and 2 consonants. Not that anyone's counting.

70 Spamtastic years

If Hawaiians could change the food pyramid, they would include rice in the fruits and vegetable tier. They love their rice so much here they devote almost an entire aisle of it in the grocery store. If you looked at Noah's school lunch menu, most days they have rice for lunch and even for breakfast. Back in Idaho, if they were serving chicken nuggets, it would come with something like fries or tater tots. Not here. Nope, you rarely see potatoes on the school lunch menu. Anywhere you'd think "potatoes", insert "rice" instead.

Tom was a big rice eater when I met him so at least I ate rice before moving here. Marty and Heather (the couple that moved here from Kansas, he's Tom's right-hand man) weren't rice eaters, but they delved right into the custom and bought a rice cooker. I cook it the 'ole fashion way- in a pot.

They like it so much here they put it with about anything. It's kind of funny, but since we've been here we've been to a few outdoor activities and they always have a booth that sells chili & rice -- a big Styrofoam bowl of chili with rice on the bottom. They also have what's call Spam Musubi (moo-soo-bee), which consists of a slice of fried Spam pressed on a small block of rice and wrapped in a strip of nori (seaweed). You can even buy Spam Musubi in the 7-Elevens throughout the state.

Mainlanders cringe and laugh at the mere mention of the word Spam. Hawaiians take it quite seriously. After all, Hawaii has the highest consumption of Spam per capita than any other state. They love the stuff. They love it so much that in 2002, McDonald's started test-marketing Spam on it's breakfast menu. They started serving an egg, rice (see!) and Spam meal. Tom and I laughed once when we saw a big banner hanging from a McDonald's window promoting a Spam sandwich for breakfast.

Hawaiians don't understand why mainlanders don't like Spam. Maybe it's because mainlanders associate Spam as a substitute for bologna (equally gellous meatious food). Hawaiians never eat Spam cold. They prefer it fried.

Earlier this month one of the daily newspapers ran an article titled "70 Spamtastic Years". Not only do they love eating it here, they like writing about it! I read the article and found out that there is a man who lives in Alabama who loves Spam. He loves it so much that he eats it at least three times a week, has made a Christmas tree out of Spam cans, and even has a Spam Halloween costume. I'm surprised there wasn't an outcry by Hawaiians. What? He doesn't live in Hawaii?

I can see clearly now...

I stepped outside this afternoon and took pictures of our house and surroundings to show you what it looks like with clear skies. It's funny because when my mom was here visiting in September I told her I didn't think Oahu had cloudless days. Now I'm eating my words! The benefit of clear skies is that the temperature drops down at night. It was 71 degrees in our bedroom last night (exciting to us). The flip side is that it is uncomfortably hot during the day.

The Ko'olau mountains that we live near usually have clouds hanging over the top of them. Occassionally we will have a day where we get to see the tops of them, but usually it is only for a couple of hours. Yesterday (Sunday) it was clear like this also. We planned to go to the beach in the afternoon, but I was too tired and Tom wanted to watch the 7th game between the Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians. We haven't gotten used to watching major sporting events in the afternoon. It's not quite the same as watching them in the evening, like we're used to. Tom and I noticed how everyone in the stands at Fenway Park had on coats. We were laughing about it as we were lounging around in our shorts and t-shirts. Then we both said we'd rather be wearing the coats!






Bad, baaad glare here, but at least you get the gist of the skyline. I see the peak of this mountain from the kitchen window. When it rains really hard, multiple waterfalls will cascade down it's peaks. It's beautiful. We are close enough that you can actually see the water flowing! The sunshine has been nice in the house because most of the time it is so dark. We don't have good lighting in the house so the sun is very welcome.

I just checked our bedroom thermometer and it read 83.4. Ugh! I miss central air!

A rooster, a garbage truck and sunlight

It's a Saturday. At our house that means only one thing...no sleeping in. It's our 2nd (yes, 2nd!) garbage day of the week. Today they came barreling up the street at 6:15am. When you live in Hawaii where you keep your windows open year-round (unless you are one of the fortunate ones with central air), your sleep is disrupted by odd sounds. At our house, two days a week our dreams are rudely interrupted by the sound of the garbage truck with its loud engine roaring. This is our life every Wednesday and Saturday.

On top of this, we have the various wildlife that squawk, chirp, and crow anytime of the day or night with no provocation. Last night Rudy, our resident Alpha rooster, decided it would be quite fun to crow at 2:00 in the morning. Did one of the other roosters snore in his sleep? Did Leon, Rudy's cousin, make a move on one of Rudy's hens? This isn't the first time Rudy's done his crowin' business in the middle of the night. I think he's crowed just about every hour, day and night. So, folks, it is a myth, a complete myth, that roosters only crow when the sun is coming up. It took a 2,000+ move to an island for us to debunk that myth.

Let me backup a little here. For one thing, we were quite surprised when on our first day in our house we heard crowing. This was during the day as we were dripping in sweat as we unpacked our boxes. At first we laughed. Oh, how charming, we thought. Our very own "farm animal". Then we spotted not just one rooster, but at least two roaming in our backyard. And with them of course, was a group of hens. We have a gang of chickens that roam the hills that we live in. Come to find out, there are wild chickens all over the island, but they tend to mostly live in the mountains. Drive down the Kamahameha highway going into Kaneohe and you'll see them running amuck in the golf course. Who would have thought? Chickens take over Oahu!!

The entire backside of our house has a lanai (pronounced la-ny -- a balcony to mainlanders) and when you look out into our so-called backyard, all you see are trees and shrubs. It is definitely a jungle. We have quite a bit of privacy, so much so, that we don't have any curtains on the windows facing the back of the house. This leads me to another source of our morning awakenings...the sun. Forget sleeping soundly past 6a.m. It just isn't going to happen unless you are knocked out cold.

So, all of this led to Tom and I asking Noah as we were stuck in traffic on H1, "what woke you up this morning? Rudy, the garbage truck or the light?" We got a different answer each time we asked the question. The first time we asked it was the sunlight. Then he changed tactics and blamed Rudy. That's understood. That varmint is an easy target.

Can you tell I didn't get enough sleep last night?

Noah woke up inspired to be a writer. He had his journal out with his pencil in hand. He is learning to write his letters and to read so that is on his brain most of the time. The first word he wanted to write this morning was "pumpkin". We progressed along to a sentence, "I go to the beach". Tom came into the bedroom as Noah and I were working on this on the bed. He said, "We need to put on that video Bernie & Ert's Wordplay". This led to a roar of laughter, only from Tom, over how he twisted Ernie & Bert, you know, the "ambiguous roommates" from Sesame Street. I think it's Tom that needs to watch the video, not Noah!!

We went into town (that means Honolulu to anyone living outside of the city... no matter what town you really do live in on the island) so Noah and I could see Tom's new office furniture. They ordered the furniture in either June or July and they just got it. That's four months of working on a folding table. That's what life is like setting up a new office. Anyway, the office is green, very green, but with a modern touch. I told Tom it was like the modern version of the green's from the 70s. Ugh. It's not as bad as I'm probably making it seem. The office does look nice and the desks are great. I still don't know how Tom works with the view he has. When we were there a Norwegian Cruise Line ship was in port and the Superferry was puttering along to dock (more on the Superferry later).

It's raining again for the third time in the last 20 minutes. It does rain frequently here, but it only rains for up to five minutes at a time. I don't think it rains for a whole day like it does other places. It can rain so hard here that it wakes me up, and this is without my hearing aides in! Yep, that's loud.

It's now going on 4pm on Saturday and I'm already missing watching the Broncos play. Last time I looked the game against LA Tech was tied at 17-17 at halftime. Hope they win. We are leaving shortly to see Ratatouille (spelling?) at the $1 theatre here in Kailua. Tom is skeptical of a theatre where the tickets are only $1 - in Hawaii. How would you survive on that here? Who knows? We may walk in, look at the place, and end up making an about face. The movie is about a rat. For $1, we could be watching the movie with a rat.

Aloha Mai (Welcome)!

Here it is. My first post on my new (and first) blog. I decided to create this blog because my mind is always racing with all the little things that make living in Hawaii so different than living in Idaho...or anywhere else on the mainland for that matter.

Yesterday was the 3-month anniversary of us landing in the Honolulu airport. When we arrived on Oahu on June 18, 2007, we were ready to embrace Hawaii and all it had to offer. We were excited to start our adventure. We were going to be living in paradise. Bring on the beaches! Bring on the sunscreen, baby!

Ah, how quickly the honeymoon phase ended. Now we are in reality mode and getting the real taste of what it is like to live in Hawaii.

Going from Idaho to Hawaii is like making a U-turn on the interstate at full speed. Well, except they don't move that fast here. It's just that you go from one of the most, if not the very most, white-bred states in the country to one where whites make up about 20% of the population. No one race is in the majority in Hawaii. On the surface, that sounds like that would be a good thing, not having a majority or a minority. But, think of it this way...some of those slices of pie on the "race" pie chart join together to build a noticeable dislike for haoles (whites).

Then there is the climate change. Leaving a dry, hot and smokey (we left Boise during the fire season) area to an island of heat and humidity is like giving your nose a colonic. The constant tradewinds push out any traces of pollution. The air is so pure it almost has a sweetness to it. Your sinuses thank you for the relief. All that nasal discharge and crud that lodged its way up your nose is miraculously gone. Tom and I never blow our nose here. Now, that in itself is living in paradise!!

These are a couple of the obvious differences between living in Hawaii versus living in Idaho. As this blog progresses, I'll highlight more of the funny nuances that make it so interesting here.

Well, it's a late afternoon on a Friday. Noah is taking a nap after falling on the sidewalk at school. We were planning to go to the mall to hang out since he got off school early today, but once he fell he said he wanted to go home and take a nap. Gotta love it when a kids says he wants to take a nap.

Thanks for reading my first post! Make sure to check back as I plan to post often (daily, I hope!). Once I get the hang of it, I'll be uploading pictures, too! Oh, yeah...make sure to insert some of your own comments, too. We want to hear from you!