Freaking Out

It was a normal, mundane Sunday afternoon until it took a turn into the dark side. The day started innocently enough. It was rainy and cool (for us) and we were taking advantage of this by having baked potatoes for dinner.

We had a bag of baking potatoes left on the counter from the last time we used them. I opened up the bag and pulled out two potatoes. My eyes focused on the second one because it has a lot of sprouts on it. Then all of a sudden one of the biggest spiders I've seen in recent memory crawled over the potato, across the counter and into the abyss of our cluttered play room. This thing was a huge mama -- literally as it was carrying a sack of babies on its underside.

Now I'm not one to scream at little things. I really don't even scream on roller coasters, it's more of a hysterical laugh. But when the thought that this spider was thisclose to me and that I actually reached into the bag and might have even unknowingly touched it finally sunk into my shocked brain, I let out a scream.

Then I yelled out something like, "Come here! Huge spider, huge spider!" Tom and Noah, who were in the office, came running into the kitchen. Now the level of hysteria was threefold. We all put on shoes and crept into the play room.

I was fully prepared to go into the creepiest battle I've ever experienced. I figured that spider ran for its life and just kept going until it got into a nice hidey hole (an opening between Noah's plethora of small Happy Meal size toys). I was ready to start pushing things aside with a long stick until something moved on its own.

To my pleasant surprise, Tom spotted the mama hanging upside down on the edge of the counter. Noah, being a typical 5-year old boy wanted to get a close look. We had to keep pulling him back. He was trying to find a sufficient toy to wrestle that spider. He grabbed his bug vacuum, but the batteries were run down and the opening was not big enough.

Then Tom said, "Get the vacuum."

I have to admit, I wasn't sold on this idea at first. But I knew what motivated him...using the vacuum's hose would allow for a sufficient distance between he and the 8-legged monster when contact was made. He doesn't like spiders any more than I do.

I prepped the vacuum. The canister was emptied so we would be able to detect if our mission was a success. The cord was plugged in, the hose extended and handed to Tom with a surgeon assistant's precision.

Then I noticed the size of the opening on the metal hose. "That thing is not going to fit through this," I said.

"Oh, yes it will. This Dyson has a strong suction and the force will pull it through." My stomach tightened at the image.

"Here we go!" he exclaimed. "Watch the canister! Watch the canister!" (note: hysteria in his voice).

He pushed the purple 'on' button and we immediately heard a vlump! The spider was sucked up and took a 2 second ride down our 4-foot vacuum hose. I was amazed at how much sound that sucker made as it traveled into the bowels of our vacuum.

At first I didn't see it in the canister, but I knew it had to be in there somewhere. We shone a flashlight on it and there in the back was the stunned monster lying on its back. Its remaining legs curled inward and its torso shined in the light. The egg sac had been obliterated on the ride down the hose and the spider lost a couple of legs.

We relished in our success for a few minutes before we emptied the canister into the kitchen garbage can right on top of a Wendy's soda glass. Now, if I had been thinking clearly, I would have taken a picture. A victory picture, so to speak. But it wasn't until after Tom disposed the garbage bag into the outside trash can that it donned on me that I missed a big photo op.

I might have been freaking out with my heart racing a mile a minute, but I was still able to realize a blog-worthy picture moment had slipped away. It would have been a wonderful image to capture -- a dead spider upside down next to the very potato it crawled over. Wait a minute...you weren't expecting me to eat that potato, were you?

Goodbye Aloha

If you go to Aloha Airlines website, you will receive a message that I find kind of chilling: "Sorry....after more than 60 years of serving Hawaii, Aloha Airlines is no longer operating". This might not be big news on the Mainland, but it has occupied much of Hawaii's news this week.

So what does this mean for Hawaii? It means 1,900 people lost their jobs. Some of the people who lost their jobs were married with small children. It means thousands of stranded travelers scrambling to find a way to their destination. Four days after the announcement the newspaper showed pictures of people still waiting to fly home. It means Hawaiian residents now only have two airlines to choose from when flying to the other islands. One of these airlines, go! Mesa, has been struggling financially for a long time.

The other surviving airline here is Hawaiian Airlines, which is the #1 airline serving the Hawaiian islands. When Aloha announced they were closing, they stepped up and allowed travelers with Aloha tickets to fly standby with them. Since priority was given to these individuals, that meant that any Hawaiian employee who wanted to use their benefit of flying free via stand-by were out of luck. This unfortunate set of circumstances affected our friends, Marty and Heather. Heather works for Hawaiian Airlines and they had arranged for Marty's parents to fly stand-by from California to Honolulu for free. When news of Aloha's closure was publicized, they had to fork over $1,000 to fly them here. Ouch.

The last flight operated by Aloha was from Kahului, Maui to Honolulu. The news camera showed people coming off the plane with leis and tears sliding down their cheeks. When I watched this on tv I couldn't help but think that this could have been us. We flew from Kahului to Honolulu just eleven days prior. What if we had been some of the unfortunate ones stranded in Maui for days? I suppose there could be worse things.... after all, it's not like being stranded in Chicago during a blizzard.

And now ATA is closing down. Unlike Aloha, they didn't even give a warning that this was coming. I felt bad for all the people who were flying with them and got the news from a posted letter at the abandoned check-in counters. I saw on the news that a couple had to pay $2,000 to get home. They might have had a fantastic time here in Hawaii, but those memories will forever be tarnished because after their wallets were emptied from vacationing here, they had to dig deeper in their pockets just to leave. The way ATA handled things left me with a bad taste in my mouth. They might have flown into Hawaii, but they certainly didn't have Hawaii's aloha spirit.

Inter-island Hopping

Check out my 1st video clip! It's a short
video of some fish at the Maui Ocean Center

Am I the only one that can't believe that tomorrow is already the first of April? It seems like it was only three weeks ago that we got back from our visit to the Mainland. It's been a long time since my last post and I will try very hard to not let that much time go between my future postings.

My mom came to visit (her 2nd one!) for two weeks. I took her to a few places she hadn't been to on Oahu, like the North Shore. She even had her first experience with Matsumoto's famous shave ice and she liked it. The waves weren't as high as they were earlier in the winter, but they were still pretty impressive.

Noah had two weeks off for spring break and we took off for Maui during the first week. My mom had been to Maui about 18 years ago, but it was a first for the rest of us.

We arrived hours before we could check into our condo, so we drove around and checked out the area. We stayed in Wailea, which is the southwest part of the island. You could also call it ResortTown as it really isn't a town as much as a lineup of one resort after another.

We drove into Kihei. You could tell it was definitely spring break. There were "kids" (you know when you get in your 40s, anyone younger becomes a kid) everywhere in their swimming suits running across the street. The road was right next to the beach so the traffic moved s l o w. Unlike Wailea, it was a town, but you couldn't help but wonder what percentage of the people were local and what percentage were tourists.

We nicknamed this guy Scruffy.
He serenaded us during lunch, but
we couldn't hear him from our lunch
table. He was very passionate
about what he said.

Tom and Noah under the main
trunks of the Banyan tree

We headed into Lahaina the next day. The most popular tourist attraction here is the banyan tree that is so large it occupies an entire block. The tree was imported from India and planted in 1873. At the time, it was only 8 feet tall and now stands over 60 feet high. Banyan trees are an interesting site to see. Roots descend off limbs and start new trunks so it sort of looks like there are several trees when it is actually only one. When we were there, the town was having an arts festival under the tree in the area known as courthouse square. It was a nice reprieve from the hot sun.

Maui is known for its humpback whales that make their homes there from December to April. We took a two-hour whale-watching boat ride off the port of Ma'alaea. We were excited to see some whales since the day before we had seen some off in the distance at a lookout point. There were quite a few whales that breached (came out of the water), but they were all quite a ways in the distance. The law does not allow you to get closer than 100 yards, unless of course the whales decide they want to get closer. I think we went on the ride anticipating some friendly whales that wanted to see us as much as we wanted to see them. In that regard we were a little disappointed, but it was still a thrill to see their tales breach and slap the water. Tom and I even saw the huge splash of a whale that completely breached. Even though we were a long ways away, the splash it made was enormous.

Noah enjoying the bright fish.

The same town that we sailed on our whale-watching adventure is home to the Maui Ocean Center. The day after our boat ride we went back to visit the aquarium. I've been to a few aquariums and this one was one of the best ones I have seen. Maybe it's because I have a special love for the green sea turtles that you see here in Hawaii. They are called Honu in Hawaiian (pronounced hoe-new). There was an entire tank of them and I exhibited my love for them by taking way too many pictures! I won't bore you with them all so I picked only one to share.

Crush! Is that you? (if you've
seen Finding Nemo twenty
times than you know who he is).


The highlight of our visit was the last tank that had all sorts of bigger fish in it. You walk through a tunnel as Stingrays and various kinds of sharks swim around and over you. My favorite ones to watch were the spotted stingrays, which are actually called Eagle Rays. Later I heard a story about a freak accident that happened in Florida that involved one of these creatures. One jumped out of the waters off Florida and hit a woman that was sunbathing in a boat. The strike to her head killed her and the Eagle Ray instantly. All I can say is I'm glad there was a thick layer of glass between me and that thing (not to mention all the sharks, too!).

A bad case of the measles. At least
they are pretty. It looks like this
guy is trying to talk to me.

Oops...I told too many lies.

A time of celebration

Noah going down the Spiderman Slip-N-Slide

Last Thursday marked 100 days of school for Noah so all of the kindergarten classes at his school decided to do what they do best - party! They celebrated with food, games and fun. They had two Slip-N-Slides, a sprinkler, and a big tub filled with water that the kids could dip glasses into and throw on each other. In Idaho it would have been a sledding and snowball-throwing party.

Noah didn't have school the next day so I took him to the zoo in Honolulu. The zoo is located right across the street from the beach on the edge of Waikiki. It is a very busy area with people walking all around, carrying surfboards, body boards, coolers, etc., but once you get inside the zoo all the noise seems to disappear.


Miami Vice anyone?

The elephants were playing when we saw them.

It was a treat to get the rhino and
zebra in action together.

It is easy to forget that you are in the middle of a big city. There are so many trees and shrubs that it's not until you look up and see a huge apartment building that you realize where you really are.



As anyone who has been to a zoo knows, there is no guarantee that an animal will be somewhere you will be able to see it. This was the second time we visited the Honolulu zoo and we still did not seen the lions. As a matter of fact, I'm not convinced that they truly have lions. How do we know it's not a big marketing ploy to get people to visit? Noah was a little disappointed that once again he was snubbed by the big cats, but at least the chimps made up for it.

The chimpanzees were in spirited form, to say the least (take a look at the picture below). One male, who made it very obvious he was a "he", was enjoying some down time in a bed of hay. At one point he put a long stick in his mouth and inspected his left foot, but for the most part he just lay there with one hand behind his head. It was a hilarious site to see. I tried to get a good picture of him, but it's hard to take one through pexiglass.

Our uninhibited chimp.
Quite the life, eh?

We took a break from the animals so Noah could play on the playground equipment. I noticed a tv camera crew across the walkway at the tiger exhibit. I couldn't figure out what they were filming since the tigers were just laying in their cage. Nothing too exciting about that. A very pregnant lady with a microphone interviewed a zoo visitor, and then the tv crew filmed and spoke to a man who looked like he was probably the zoo director. At one point the cameraman turned around and filmed kids playing in the park.

When we got home I recorded the news and we watched it the next day. Come to find out, the story was about how the male tiger had escaped from his cage very briefly. Apparently, a zoo worker went into the cage and forgot to close the gate. The tiger walked out of his cage and into a holding area where the walls are only four feet high. The worker realized what happened and notified all staff immediately. Thankfully this all happened before the zoo opened and I'm sure most visitors knew nothing about it.

At then end of the news segment the camera panned over to the park. And would you believe it? Noah was on tv again. He was at the top of a slide and they filmed him going all the way down. We've been here 7 months and that kid has been on tv twice. I think I need to get him an agent.

Huge movie screen on the beach
across from the zoo. They really
do show movies on this, but I don't
know when or how often.
Pretty cool, huh?

A view of Waikiki in the distance
and the famous Royal Hawaiian
Hotel (the pink one)

Just When You Think You've Heard of Everything

Last week I was reading the paper and an article caught my attention. It was about a Kailua man who died in a freak accident while at work. He was doing maintenance on his roll-off truck when two rails came down and crushed him.

It was a tragic accident and the paper had a sizable write-up of the whole event. It had quotes from family about how he was a hard worker and about his character. Then they had a quote from a lady that met him through, and I'm not making this up, pigeon racing. I had to read that paragraph again because I wasn't sure if that was a typo. But then again, what letter could they have omitted or added to come up with the word pigeon anyway?

This brought out the curiosity in me. Pigeon racing? Is there really such a thing? Maybe I've led too much of a sheltered life. There isn't a huge pigeon population in Boise like there is here on Oahu so maybe it's just that I never had the opportunity for pigeon racing. So, I did what most curious people do these days...I Googled "pigeon racing".

I was surprised to get 197,000 hits. The first item that popped up was from the website pigeon.org. Wow, pigeons even have their own website. And here all along I thought they were referred to many as rats with wings. If the darn things only knew that they have their own website, they'd really start taking over the world. Gee, do other, say, more lovable birds like penguins have their own website? I'll leave that search for another day.

There were all kinds of websites devoted to the topic of pigeon racing: pigeonracing.homestead.com, speedpigeon.com, racingpigeondigest.com and my favorite... racing-pigeon-fancier. Like, fancier than horse racing?

After devoting just fifteen minutes of my time I found out more about pigeons than I have to say I cared to know. One website was loaded (too much actually) with "buttons" of topics that you could click on to get more information. There were "buttons" for message boards, a place for people to show off pictures of their prized pigeons, and one called pigeon milk. I kid you not. Apparently pigeons produce crop milk while the parents are brooding the eggs. And as if that information wasn't enough, they broke down the milk to discover it is 70% water and the other 30% is fat and protein. The website goes on to say what vitamins and minerals are in this wonderful protein. Hey, it even has more vitamin A than cod liver oil folks!

If I was really desperate for a new hobby I could join the American Racing Pigeon Union and subscribe to Racing Pigeon Digest, The Thinking Person's Journal of Racing Pigeons. Uh, I think I'd rather be known as a non-thinking person in this case.

Potholes

I remember several years ago, probably more since I have been in a time warp for the last fifteen years, the state of Idaho was thinking of changing the license plate slogan from "Famous Potatoes" to something else. People had a chance to submit their ideas in writing. One person suggested that the license plates say "Famous Potholes". At the time that slogan would have been a perfect picture of Idaho, or at least the Boise valley. It seemed like the roads were much worse years ago than they are now.

After living in Hawaii for almost 7 months now, I can let it be known via this wonderful blog, that the Idaho does not have the worst streets in the nation. I read in the paper that according to some experts (maybe it was AAA), Hawaii holds that claim. And having driven all over the island, my van can attest to this claim as well. The article in the paper also said one man had to have tires replaced on his car four different times. Ouch, that hurts -- for the car and the pocketbook.

We may not have grooves so deep in the interstate you'd think someone had tried transporting a Boeing jet from Boise to Caldwell, but there are holes, layers of pavement missing (where did it mysteriously go?), and big metal plates in scrupulous locations. It will be a miracle if we don't have to replace a tire on one of our cars, or maybe other parts that might fly off when we hit a hole going 60+.

The sorry shape of the roads around here is a joke to everyone, just as it was in Idaho back in the 80s (or maybe it was the 90s). I remember when I was in college it seemed like they were doing major road construction every where you tried to go. I guess some things don't change, eh? One of my buddies and I used to joke that they weren't really redoing the road, they were merely moving some pipes around.

One thing I am thankful for that Hawaii doesn't do yet Idaho seems to love doing is tar and feathering the road. Or, maybe that's not it. Oh, yeah...it's called chip and sealing the road. I guess calling it what it really is -- tar and laying rocks-that-will-inevitably-land-on-your-windshield, was too much of a risk for ACHD and the transportation department.

Running on Empty

Eating out in Hawaii, especially in Kailua, has it's challenges. One thing we have noticed is that there are a ton of fast food restaurants, but they tend to be the same ones over and over and over. The most prevalent fast foodies are McD's, KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell. You won't see Carl's Jr. at all, and only a few Arby's, Burger Kings and Wendy's on the entire island. And like the rest of the world, a Starbucks is on almost every corner in downtown Honolulu. You'll find a plethora of Korean BBQ places, Chinese, Hawaiian, sushi, etc. restaurants. But, you won't see very many recognizable (franchise) sit-down restaurants either. There are two Outbacks, Chili's and Denny's, but you won't find any of these in Kailua. And I also must mention since we are talking about what you won't find in our town...no hotels. I'll save that topic for another time.

It's strange how some of the fast food restaurants operate around here. We found very quickly after moving here (since we have a 5-year-old...meaning "person with small bladder") that many of these don't have public restrooms. We went to the KFC in Kailua shortly after arriving and not long after we dug into our meal, Noah announced he had to go to the bathroom. Oops, they don't have one. Needless to say, we ate the rest of our meal very fast and headed for the closest bathroom we could find.

One day we pulled into the Taco Bell parking lot and drove to the back to get into the drive-thru. Hmm...where's the drive-thru? We couldn't believe that a Taco Bell didn't have a drive-up window. By this time we were starting to get a very clear impression that things are done quite differently in Hawaii.

Not only that, the quality of what is produced is quite different here, too. Case in point...I went to KFC after work the other day because I had only 20 minutes to scarf down something before my hair appointment. I chose KFC partly because I knew there'd be no line in the drive-up (yes, they do have a drive-thru window!) and partly because I really like their Tenderroast sandwich. So, that's what I ordered along with a drink. I parked under a tree in the parking lot where my hair salon is. I was looking forward to my savory sandwich since I don't eat out as much as I used to. It was going to be a real treat. I pulled the wrapper off and took my first bite. Let's say I attempted to take my first bite. I don't know what decade that bun came from, but it wasn't this one. I couldn't even sink my teeth through it. The bread was so tough I got confused at first and thought it was the meat that was causing the problem. I ended up tossing the top bun into the sack. Have you ever tried to eat a sandwich in your car with a sloppy mess of tomato, lettuce and sauce as the top? It's not easy. After a couple of bites, I was so repulsed I threw the whole thing away. There went $5.80 down the drain.

After my hair appointment I didn't have enough time to go home before picking up Noah from school, so I thought I'd make amends for my terrible lunch by having a McFlurry at McD's. After waiting 15 minutes in the drive thru (see Taco Bell...it's not really a novelty), I finally got to the order window. I ordered an Oreo McFlurry and the lady said, "I'm sorry, we are all out of ice cream". ARGH!!! This was turning out to not be my day for eating out. Since there was no way to escape the drive-thru, I ordered chocolate chip cookies. I figured I'd waited so long I deserved to have something.

By now you're probably thinking, "okay, so you had a bad day with fast food, no big deal". Well, this is not that unusual. We have had numerous experiences eating out where they've run out of something or the food was absolutely atrocious.

Running out of food is a problem in Hawaii. I've gone to the grocery store for milk only to find them completely out of stock, except for the lactaid free kind where they charge like $6 for a half gallon. This has happened more than once.

When I was getting my haircut, my hair stylist and I had a discussion about this topic of food shortages. She said, "what would we do if there was a terrorist attack that affected the shipping of food to us?" I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear this. No, I'm not that sick. I was relieved because I thought I was the only one that had these warped thoughts. Usually it's when I'm at the grocery store and they are out of milk. But, seriously. If terrorists were to hit the main harbors in California, where most of the goods to Hawaii come from, we would be in a world of hurt. Farm land in Hawaii is drying up as developers look for more areas in which to expand. The last dairy on Oahu is closing down. I don't know how it survived as long as it did because the milk prices on their products were outrageous in comparison to those that were shipped in. Go figure.

So, the next time you mainlanders go grocery shopping with your ample supply of food on the shelves, think of us. The next time you go to Taco Bell, be glad you can go through the drive up window. And, if you have little kids, think of us the next time you are in a restaurant and they say in that high-pitched voice, "Mom, I gotta go potty". Especially if they are no longer in diapers and you don't have a change of clothes in the car.