Category Archives: Uncategorized

Happy Feet (not)

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Aloha!
Is there anything more delicious than the feeling of summertime, running around in shorts and flip-flops… (known as “slippahs” in the islands)?
I often say that the reason I moved to Maui was because I never wanted to wear real shoes again – – and that wasn’t much of an exaggeration. My feet and I have been at war since day one, since I wear a triple A with a quad heel. Yeah, try finding those on sale at Target. And those shoes had to house an impossibly high arch.

Flip-flops were the solution, and I had happy, happy feet…or so I thought.

As I sat in the podiatrist’s office, he took my bony little foot in his hand and said, “How long in Hawaii?”
Silly me, I thought he was just making conversation. “16 years,” I replied.
“Well, that’s the whole problem, then,” he said. He pointed to my arch, then pushed down on my foot, and it kind of squished out sideways. “Fallen arches. Flat feet…”luau feet”, they’re called here. Comes from running around barefoot, or wearing slippahs all the time. Big problem here.”

The solution is closed shoes and orthotic inserts. Not very island-friendly! In fact, anyone running around the islands in tennis shoes and socks will be suspected of being a tourist.

I had a friend who was about 4’10”, and she wore 4 inch heels her entire life. Then they bought a condo in Hawaii. They spent six weeks renovating it, and she ran around barefoot the whole time. Her arches fell within that amount of time, and she had to have surgery on her feet. Paradise lost!

As Gilda Radnor would say, “It’s always something!”

A hui hou. If you like to stay in the loop, please click the “Follow” button to the right, or on the Homepage.

Aloha, Jamaica

The Lure of the Islands

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Aloha!
“She had loved islands from the time she spent her first summer on one. She was eight at the time. Thirty-four now, she still felt the island aura – – an isolation that made worries seem distant, a separation from the real world that lent itself to dreams.”
From “Sweet Salt Air” by Barbara Delinsky

And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
When I was a sophomore in high school, my family had the good fortune to spend Christmas break on one of the Florida Keys. Having left snow, sleet, and icy roads behind in the Midwest, I was immediately hooked. Why doesn’t everybody live here? I wondered. And when I first came to Maui, I wondered the same thing. But being so far from the mainland isn’t for everyone. Or how slow the pace of life is. Or how hard it is to get things. Or, and this is a biggee…the high cost of everything, particularly real estate.

So what draws those who live on islands to be there? With the pace of life today, I offer another quote, this one from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

So maybe THAT’s what it’s all about. I get letters weekly from people who want to move to Maui and have many questions. Is everyone just really trying to get to the simplicity on the other side of the complexity that our world has become?

A hui hou! If you’d like to stay in the loop, please click the “Follow” button to the right, or on the Homepage.

Aloha, Jamaica

It’s Different Out Here

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Aloha!

For all of you who are snowed in, like my sister near Chicago (Hi Marcia!) I give you this:

Steve Simpson at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners created an ad for Norwegian Cruise Lines, which sails to Hawaii… stay with it…it’s all here, every word true of the Hawaiian Islands.

Beyond the horizon

Beyond heavy woolens

Beyond the hurry

Beyond the nightly news

Beyond the snow

Beyond the dayindayout

Beyond the Saltspray (and the idea beneath)

Beyond the gossip of seagulls

Beyond your regular stock of adjectives

Beyond work, beyond the routine spasm

Beyond the need to explain

Beyond the assumptions that keep you warm

Beyond asphalt

Beyond the northern front of cold Canadian air

Beyond the idea that you have of a fish and a fish has of you

Beyond the equator

Beyond speech

Beyond the trigonometry of the most meticulous mapmaker

Beyond the grottoes of the sea

Beyond the gull’s flight lines

Beyond the wind

Beyond tomorrow and today and yesterday

Beyond the ideologies of the left, or the right

Beyond the looking glass

Beyond where the sleet falls into uncovered souls

Beyond the ordinary everyday vocabulary of 400 words

Beyond talk show hosts who hate you

Beyond “See America first”

Beyond the wave flipping it’s hair forward to dry

Beyond your property line

Beyond the molecules normally thought to compose you

Beyond any hope you’re still reading this

Beyond the one white, single – spaced page of your resume

Beyond all memorized access codes…

Beyond “beyond”

Beyond the advertised attractions

Beyond the identity you put on with your good clothes

Beyond the laws of the land

Beyond a decent rate of return in the mutual fund of Memory

Beyond ambition

Beyond anything the present 353 words can say…

Beyond all that.

It’s different out here.

Norweigian Cruise Line says: “Seven days. Four islands. Two overnight stays. One award winning itinerary – which only Norwegian offers. With the most time in port – nearly 100 hours – you can capture the spirit and soul of Hawaii. And since Norwegian sails roundtrip from Honolulu year-round, you can vacation on your schedule.”

http://www.ncl.com/cruise-destination/hawaii/overview

Why not?…can change everything.

Please stay warm! And never stop dreaming…

A hui hou! Mahalo for reading along. If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Homepage, at the bottom right.

Aloha, Jamaica

Thankful for You

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Aloha!
We wish all of our readers a joyful Thanksgiving, filled with love, family, friends, and heartfelt gratitude for all the blessings we all enjoy.
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Here at Mauidailyescape, we are so grateful to have readers like you, who are interesting, engaged, and keep us on our toes!
Mahalo and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Warm Aloha from the Mauidailyescape.com family,
Jamaica, Mike, and Lili (who is thankful for stuffed mice)
Maui Calico Cat

The Sustainability Issue

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Aloha!

We are dealing with frustrating renewable energy/sustainability issues here at our house. In trying to reduce our carbon footprint and help save the planet, we plunked down a very large sum for photovoltaic panels on our roof (much of which eventually comes back as tax credits) and in true Hawaiian style, we now have panels on the roof, BUT no electricity to them. (Panels are below the tree branches in photo.)

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And along with the panels, we got all these new boxes on our house, for MECO (Maui Electric Company) to keep track of how much energy we are generating:

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First, MECO lost our application. After weeks of that and about 27 emails, the company finally installed our panels. (We used Cliff Ryden at Blue Pacific Energy and were impressed with his services.) So now the sun is shining and we are good to go, except the County of Maui won’t issue the permit, because they are so back-logged! Any idea how frustrating it is to have the capability to save almost $400 on our electric bill, and nothing is happening?? Aaaarrrghh!!!

On the subject of sustainability, a new magazine is coming to Maui in December, called “Living Aloha”, which will also be distributed throughout the United States, including Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, L.A. and New York City. If you live in these places, you can watch for it.

The magazine aims to serve residents and visitors alike, who are looking to promote health, community, culture and sustainabilty. It will provide information on healthy living and green products, offering a broad range of solutions to help reduce our carbon footprint. It will cover yoga and teacher training retreats, massage and massage schools, Reiki, Pilates, tai chi, chi gong, acupuncture, local/organic food, renewable energy, and activism.

To see a sample issue/media kit, go here: http://livingaloha.net/img/demo-2.pdf

This past week I interviewed Maui resident Mark Sheehan for my current screenplay. Mark is a member of “Maui Tomorrow”, and was highly instrumental in saving Big Beach (in Makena) from development. If you have been to, and enjoyed Big Beach (part of which is a nude beach) you can thank Mark for its very existence.

So imagine my surprise when I opened the link to “Living Aloha” magazine, and there was an article by Mark Sheehan. Every day you live here, you realize…

It’s a small island…

A hui hou! Mahalo for stopping by. If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Homepage.

Aloha, Jamaica

Post Typhoon Storm on Maui

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Aloha!
In Maui, with the sameness of the weather, day after day, you find that after a while you
just take it all for granted. But we had a whopping storm night before last, courtesy of the Philipine typhoon, and everything suddenly came to life.

It poured all night long. We woke up to sunshine, clear skies, and vast puddles everywhere. I was also awakened at 2 AM by my niece, who is staying with us. She’d gotten an “alert” on her cell phone saying “Flash Flood Warning” which put her on edge, thinking we were going to be washed away. I sleepily explained that this was only for flood-prone regions, such as the road to Hana, or anywhere near a rising stream.

But hoo-boy, do I miss the way it used to be here. Currently we have been under drought conditions, and the county pleads with us to save 20 to 30% of water daily. And as I’ve shared before, the VOG rolled in and 2008, and has never let up for five straight winters now.

But yesterday was a gift. It rained again, all day! Like it used to rain, the skies were clear like they used to be, it was brisk and bracing and I found myself full of plans and good cheer… as opposed to the Maui sluggishness which seems to infect us all after 10 or so unending months of very high heat and humidity.

Even a HOT shower felt good today. It made me want to act like Joel McCrea in his shower scene in my favorite classic Film, “The More the Merrier”, where he makes sea lion noises and slaps his body bracingly in the shower, as his startled roommates listen from the hallway.

If only this would just keep up, like in the old days, maybe we could even wash our cars if we felt like it. And take a good deep breath not filled with VOG.

Happy Veteran’s Day…and THANK YOU to the men and women who serve, or have served, unstintingly.

A hui hou! Mahalo for stopping by. If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Homepage.

Aloha, Jamaica

Life is Short. Play Hard.

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Aloha!

I met my friend, world – class swimmer Suzanne Heim-Bowen, when she came to Maui to compete in the Maui Channel Swim (Lanai to Maui) a few years ago. Mike has served as an escort boat Captain for the teams every Labor Day weekend for twenty years, and Suzanne and I were seated next to each other at the awards banquet.

Suzanne has set three world records in swimming, all after the age of 50. Recently, Deborah J. McDonald made a lively documentary about her, called “The 50-year-old Freshman” (which keeps winning awards):

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What I find especially interesting is that Suzanne was also the first person to swim the Bay-to-Breakers in San Francisco Bay, a treacherous 10 mile swim in 56° water from the Bay Bridge, across the Bay, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and beyond. She was the first person… And she was 24 years old.

So what this means, is that Suzanne has been setting amazing goals, and reaching them, her entire adult life. She just keeps raising the bar higher.

Suzanne was inducted into the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame, and has swum the English-Channel twice. She’s a polar-bear swimmer in San Francisco Bay, and I’ve sat in the nice, cozy Dolphin Club and watched from a large window as she swam toward Alcatraz in weather that had me wearing a winter coat.

Suzanne set the three world records for women 50-54 in the 200, 400, and 800 meter free. At 50 years old she swam 18:32 in the 1500 M, and broke her own world record by 13 seconds.

Suzanne is warm, funny, and crazy – smart. She is one of my favorite people. Her motto: Life is short. Play hard.

We’ve been talking about dreams here at Mauidailyescape.com. Check out “The 50-year-old Freshman” documentary on Amazon. If you’re a person who automatically thinks “documentary”: dry, boring… This is not. I think you’ll really enjoy it, and even if you’re not a swimmer, it will get your wheels spinning for the next dream in your life…

Note: This Sunday,on the OWN network, Oprah Winfrey interviews Diana Nyad, the swimmer who was 64 when she became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage in under 53 hours. How’s that for a goal?

A hui hou! Mahalo for reading along… If you would like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Homepage.

Aloha, Jamaica

Skinny, White, and Blonde

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Aloha!

Because so many of you write to me with the dream of living on Maui, but you have children, and you’ve “heard things” about the schools here and are concerned…I give you the following:

I’m sure that bullying takes many forms at schools across this country. What I find interesting is that what might get a kid bullied at one school could actually gain them entrance to the cool kids club at another.

Take Jennifer (not her real name), an 18 year old that I recently had the pleasure to meet here on Maui. Jennifer is not only tall and blonde, and white….she is also quite thin. Pretty much sounds like the Hollywood standard for young starlets, doesn’t it?

Jennifer grew up on Maui, but I knew something was “off” when she started sharing how many schools she had attended here (drugs? stealing? poor grades?) Then she told me she had been sent to the east coast to finish high school (pregnancy?)

But no, it was none of these things. “I was bullied in school because I was so white. And thin. And blonde…” she says hesitantly. (As opposed to big and brown?) “I didn’t fit in and it was so bad that I wouldn’t go to school, and cut class. So I flunked out.” Then what happened, I ask. “So I got sent to live with my family on the east coast, but the schools there are so advanced compared to Hawaii, I couldn’t keep up. I mean, I didn’t know ANY of the stuff I was supposed to know. So I flunked out there, as well. I came back to Hawaii and got my GED.”

How far do we think Jennifer will get in life with only a GED? How would she fare in college either here, or on the mainland, if she doesn’t know any of the stuff she’s supposed to know? All because of the accident of fate that she was raised in Hawaii and bullied, versus raised on the east coast with the rest of her family…where she might very well have been the Queen Bee of popular kids because she looked the way she was “supposed” to look, to fit in.

But instead she was ostracized in Hawaii and flunked out of school.

And this begs the question: would those big, brown girls from Maui get bullied at school if they were sent to live on the mainland? Because of the way they look, because they speak pidgin?

I polled a group of my friends, one of whom is a grade school special-ed teacher here on Maui, to find out their views on bullying. I shared that I do not remember bullying going on when I was in school. One woman who is a young 70, commented that when she was in school all of the problem kids were weeded out by junior high and sent to “reform school.” That’s the way I remember it also. Another friend shared that teachers have lost all the power in the classroom (and I also remember teachers being able to use a paddle in my grade school in the midwest, and the THREAT kept most kids in line.) In fact, my father was a teacher, and his gift when graduating from teacher’s college was a paddle carved with his fraternity letters. Something tells me new teachers don’t get those anymore.

I’ve tried to figure out why Jennifer’s story got me so riled. I think it’s because I could finally put a sweet face to a bullying story. How long has bullying been going on in this country at this level? (And I’m talking even before social media, which is so sneaky that kids never have to own up to their behavior). As one friend put it, “Before a kid could only whisper ‘Jimmy’s a fag,’ but now it goes out in giant letters from a social media site around the world in a flash…and those kids don’t stand a chance.”

So, what gets kids bullied where you live? Have your children experienced it personally?

Hollywood has done an excellent job of making people believe that Hawaii is a perfect paradise. So I share this with all of the parents who think if they can just get their family moved here, that everything will be wonderful. One movie that does tell it like it is, is NORTH SHORE, available through Netflix. It’s not just the girls who are bullied; the boys are bullied for surfing in the “locals only” spot, driving the wrong vehicle, dating the wrong girl. And the boys use their fists.

The tagline for this blog states, “Sharing what it’s really like to live on Maui.” And that is what it’s really been like to live here, for Jennifer.

A hui hou! If you would like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the homepage. Thanks for stopping by.

Aloha, Jamaica

Coming Soon

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Aloha!
I want to thank you all for your patience, as I have not blogged much lately… But it will be about another two weeks and I will have my mother’s estate wrapped up. I am back in California, just had the estate sale, and can’t wait to get home and share more of Maui with you all.

I will also have some interesting news to share with you very soon. Thanks for hanging in there with me! It won’t be long now.

Warm Aloha,
Jamaica

Tip for the Day

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Aloha!
I have again been MIA….I had to have surgery on my eyelid (yes, every bit as painful as it sounds) and as soon as all the letters aren’t running together on the page, I will post.

I do have a tip for the day, though. You know how whenever you buy berries and bring them home from the store looking all perfect, they grow fuzz within 24 hours? Well, this has worked beautifully: put the berries, unwashed, in a cardboard box lined with a paper towel. (I put a cover on mine…it was like a small gift box or shirt box.) I put them in the fridge in this box on Monday, and today is Saturday and the berries are still perfect! Who knew?

Apparently, strawberries used to always come in cardboard boxes in the old days. They probably started using plastic because it was probably cheaper. But the old ways can be the best.

Next I plan to try this with raspberries. Imagine, no berries lost to fuzz…I feel emboldened, like I can conquer the world now.

Oh, wait…I’ll be off soaking my eye with hot compresses.

I hope you’re having a good day… Will be back soon.

Aloha, Jamaica

43 Days of Vog and Counting

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43 Days of Vog and Counting

Aloha!

I have written about Vog before–it’s an acronym for Volcanic Organic Gas, and it’s sulfur, so it’s a poison. It is also a particulate which lodges in the lungs. This gas escapes from the volcano on the Big Island, and when our trade winds are working the way they’re supposed to, they keep that nasty stuff over on the Big Island.

Lately, though, the winds have died more often than they’ve blown (climate change?) and we have major Vog here on Maui. 43 days with nary a let-up, but who’s counting? Just because I don’t go outside except to go to the grocery store, and I live in Paradise? I have asthma, and I can’t breathe from it, but it’s more than that. Being a poisonous gas, it causes a variety of problems such as burning, itchy eyes; sore throat, concentration problems, and achiness like the flu. 

Above is a photo of the valley with Vog, and under it a  photo of the valley with no Vog. It’s difficult to photograph because, well, it’s a gas. The most telling feature of this photo is the direction the smoke is blowing from the smokestacks at the Puunene sugar mill. If the smoke were blowing to the left, the winds would be coming from the east. But they are blowing “backwards,” from the south. We call this Kona winds, and they didn’t use to be that big a deal, it blew that way for just a month or two in the wintertime. In fact, winter was known as Kona season.

However, it is no longer “winter” here, it is past Easter, and I am quite distressed. This has been going on for a few years now, ever since a new vent opened in the volcano. The shelf (rim) of the volcano has been a collapsing at the rate of the size of a Volkswagen bus per day. When the shelf hits bottom it goes “pooff” and out comes the gas. Oh, joy.

43 days of being cooped up in the house, and I live  in Paradise. But who’s counting?

A hui hou! If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the Follow button on the Home Page.

Aloha, Jamaica

 

Aloha, Mom

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Aloha,
I just wanted to let you know that I have not been posting to this blog because my mother was in the Intensive Care Unit, post-surgery, in California, and I was at her bedside.

In that pressure cooker of “What if?’, ‘Maybe’, and end-of-life decisions, my mind was getting well ahead of itself and I was stressing out. When the doctor left the room after he asked for permission to turn off the machines if necessary, my mother’s dear friend, Fran, gave me a very good piece of advice. She said, “Hold your hands straight out in front of you. Now put them out to your sides. That space is all the more you can try to control, and all the more you should worry about. No more.”

This was a very good visual, and something I think I will probably carry with me for the rest of my life. We have all been taught that our reach should exceed our grasp, but in a case like this, that would have just made me crazy.

So I was waving my hands around a lot, and telling myself to take a deep breath and not to try to control the outcome.

Sadly, the outcome is that my mom passed away eight days ago.

After watching her struggle in the ICU, and knowing that she would probably never be the same again, I was able to let go of this vivacious woman who loved life. I told myself how much she would have hated a convalescent home if I could no longer care for her. I told myself that the additional surgeries the doctor was recommending would have just angered her.

So I let go. I said goodbye, and her heart stopped.

I have talked to other people who’ve lost both their parents, and they said that even as an adult, you feel like an orphan. I tried to understand that at the time, but you never understand it until you go through it yourself. Just like countless other things in life.

I am the Executor of the estate and there is much to do…so I’ll be back here after the new year.

During this busy season, please give your loved ones a hug, look them in the eye, and tell them how much they mean to you.

Happy Holidays to all of you!

Aloha, Jamaica

Big News

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Aloha!

Big news on Maui. Costco opened their gas station! We who live here have been waiting and waiting for this, we have been gouged on gas for so long… With rumors of price-fixing and legislation trying to get that stopped…But now  Costco has come in and solved the problem.  They dropped our gas prices by a dollar a gallon! Could it be we will no longer have the highest gas prices in the whole nation?

Had to love the letter to the editor in the Maui News on Wednesday, August 15, 2012. Linda Beech of Makawao wrote in and said: “Thank you, Costco, for bringing down gas prices on Maui. Can you please start an airline?”

Well said, Linda!

A hui hou,

Aloha, Jamaica

Hawaiian Airlines Adds Local Food, Free Wine

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Maui Weather Today: High 85, Low 73

Hawaiian Airlines Adds Local Food, Free Wine

Aloha!

This just in: Hawaiian Airlines has added kalua pork and free wine in economy class. Seems my post on ono (good) food was a little early.

Hawaiian Airlines is revamping the service on its mainland-to-Hawaii
routes by introducing more local foods and free wine in
economy class.The airline has started serving foods such as kalua pork
sandwiches and sweet Hawaiian bread with cream cheese and guava jelly in its free in-flight meals. In addition, it’s selling Spam musubi, ramen noodles and other snacks through a new feature called the Pau Hana (quit work) Snack Bar. Economy-class passen­gers 21 and older are being offered a
complimentary glass of red or white wine selected by Hawaii master sommelier Chuck Furuya. The wine comes with lunch or dinner.

Makes me wonder if Hawaiian is feeling the squeeze from Alaska Airlines on its Hawaii flights. Otherwise, in this age when airlines are cutting back and adding fees, why would Hawaiian make anything free? Alaska is using smaller planes (737’s) to move into Hawaiian’s turf, the Pacific Coast to Hawaii. And Alaska’s 737’s are approximately one-third more fuel-efficient than Hawaiian’s new A330’s, so Hawaiian may be offering free services to make sure its planes stay full. At this website http://airlines.findthebest.com/compare/7-13/Alaska-Airlines-vs-Hawaiian-Airlines these comparisons are offered:

Hawaiian Airlines Travel and Leisure Rating was 78.58 compared to Alaska’s 74.24. But wait, it’s about to get interesting with the other fees. Baggage fees for Hawaiian are $25.00 for the first bag, $35.00 for the second bag, and $125.00 for the third bag!–while Alaska offers all three for only $20.00 each. Then, an unaccompanied minor is charged $100.00 on Hawaiian but only $75.00 on Alaska.

But here’s where Alaska will really make a traveler’s heart sing: carry-on baggage. I have to say that when traveling on Hawaiian it’s always frustrating  that my carry-on that I can get into a bin on other airlines, is a no-go on Hawaiian. It just won’t fit in there. Here’s why:

Both have a weight limit of 25 lbs. Hawaiian’s length is 14 inches, Alaska’s is 24 inches. Hawaiian’s width is 22 inches and Alaska’s 17 inches. But Hawaiian’s  bag size cubed was 2,227 inches, while Alaska’s is 4,080 cubed.

Pets were listed at $100. on Alaska and not listed at all for Hawaiian. Cancellation 12-month average was 0.08 on Hawaiian and 0.6 on Alaska. And perhaps most important of all: complaints were at 1.17 per 100k passengers on Hawaiian, and at 0.44 on Alaska.

We are always happy with the service, the leg room, and the food on Alaska. We signed up for the Alaska Awards program because they are a sister airline to Air France and we would love to go see our friends in France by using only points. So our end-game might be a little different than yours.

So I’m curious. Which airline do you use to fly to Hawaii, and why?

A hui hou (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the Follow button on the Home Page.

Aloha, Jamaica

Holo Holo

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Holo Holo

Aloha!

We are off to Oahu…in the islands we say holo holo. If you watched The Descendents, George Clooney’s character said this when his family landed on Kauai and he ran into his cousin: “just a little holo holo.” Meaning “we are off on a little getaway.”

We have friends visiting from France and will take them to the North Shore of Oahu, because Max is a surfer (even though the waves are manini —small, in the summer). And we will visit with Mike’s mom at her house on the North Shore.

I’ll be sharing more of my paradise with you as soon as we return!

A hui hou,

Aloha, Jamaica

Name that Wind

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Aloha!

Many people write to tell me they want to move to Maui. One of the ways to be sure where you want to live is to sleep around (the island, that is). I have friends who came to Maui on vacation numerous times and each time stayed on a different part of the island to get a feel for where they would want to live. Seemed like a good plan. When I met them, they said they had ruled out Pukalani because it has “wind like a freight train.” I just wish I’d met them before I moved to Pukalani.

The Italians have eight words for wind. Vento is one of them. Then there is the French mistral. What we need is a name like that just for the Pukalani wind. Pukalani means “hole in the sky” or literally, beautiful hole in the sky…which means we get lots of sunshine, as opposed to Kula and Olinda (up the mountain) which are often shrouded in the clouds, and I love that about Pukalani. When I met Mike he owned a house in Kula and when you opened the windows up there, the clouds literally blew right through the house. It was beautiful to watch them. The downside to that was that everything he had smelled like mold, and he had bronchitis repeatedly. I said no thank you.

When we built our house in Pukalani, we lived first in a rental, and it was a mile away. Talk about micro-climates…I didn’t know Pukalani had the wind (please name that wind) because the rental was one mile up, toward Kula. (There is also a  wind line in Kaanapali, right at the stoplight at Kai Ala drive. Anything north of there means wind. Like Kapalua.) So we built, and one of the guys we hired to help work on the house casually mentioned the wind. As in “It’s gonna blow every single day because of the convection effect with the mountain.” Seems that the mountain literally pulls the wind up, my guess is from Maalaea (which deserves it’s own special name for wind down there, whatever Hawaiian words that mean “wind from hell’.) I just didn’t realize this was going to be a daily occurance, I thought it was a fluke type of thing.

My next door neighbor said it blew so long one time he thought he was going to lose his mind. I understand now, having lived here since 2002. If I known I would have positioned the overhead garage door differently, it’s just a big open invitation to red dirt every time we open it. That goes for our front door as well as the kitchen door…each time they’re opened everything on the kitchen table, on the counter, on the desk, blows all over tarnation. It’s a paper chase to pin things down, paper weight them. It’s like a sitcom where the same thing happens over and over. And if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I guess I’m insane.

Or need to stop going in and out of my house.

A hui hou, (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the Follow button on the Home Page.

Aloha, Jamaica

You know you live in Hawaii when…

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Aloha!

You know you live in Hawaii when…

  • You find a dead gecko in your toaster in the morning and a slimy black lizard in your bed at night. The lizard was the hardest. I was dead asleep and felt something in the small of my back. Groggily I put my hand under there and it came up full of lizard. The geckos I don’t mind, but those black lizards look and move like snakes. I screeched loud enough to wake Pele.
  •  You get into your closed car on a summer day and your sunglasses steam up when you put them on. Now that’s hot.
  • If the menu lists macaroni salad as a vegetable, you know you’re in Hawaii. Locals go to the mainland and complain, “How come they no get plate lunch heah?” Plate lunches (with minor variations of meat) are: teriyaki beef or teriyaki chicken with two large scoops of rice and macaroni salad. They LOVE their starch.
  • You’re at the beach and there are chickens running around.
  • Everywhere you go people are eating and partying in their garages and car ports, not inside the house.
  • A local family has built a barn, planted a large tree or otherwise blocked out entirely their stunning view, completely oblivious. Meanwhile, the haoles are howling if someone plants a twig in front of a view they paid dearly for.
  • Termites are eating everything you own no matter what “guaranteed” method you used to control them. Our neighbors down the street tore down their thirty-year-old house and built another right on the same spot because the termites were eating it to the ground. Also, there are no Antiques stores on Maui. There’s a reason for that: the termites ate everything long ago.

A hui hou! (til next time). Thought for the day: There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.

Aloha, Jamaica

 

The Art of the Staycation – Part Two

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Aloha!

As I told you in my last post, we took a Staycation to the Wailea Marriott on Maui this past weekend. Here are a few things we spotted on our morning walk:

It is so evident here that Maui is just one big hunk of lava. This is facing the West Maui mountains. Then there were these guys out enjoying a stand-up paddle:

That is Molokini crater behind them, the one that is shaped like a horseshoe, though you can’t tell it from here. It’s good they were out there early, because shortly after this the wind came up and it felt like a hurricane was coming. We exited poolside and headed back to our room. On the way we passed the other two pools at the Marriott, the ones for kids and families:

As far as Staycating, there is a poolside bar and grill here that charges $18.00 for a hamburger. That is simply not in the budget. Knowing this, I shopped then packed a cooler and food for the room. I took everything we would need for breakfast and lunch, plus drinks, snacks, etc. It was a pain to get it all together, but I kept my eyes on the prize: no credit card bill for anything other than dinners out.

I also challenged myself. What would my favorite Food Network chefs do to keep it interesting? I packed a breakfast basket, lined with a good linen napkin, and added Biscotti, and small jars of regular and decaf Kona coffee. I got fresh bluberries and papayas, and blueberry muffins. I put organic yogurt in the cooler, and packed nice small china bowls to eat it from. The point was to not feel cheated by eating in the room, making things pretty and interesting.

I also discovered the beauty of small party trays at Safeway. Instead of having to haul along all the fixings for sandwiches, I got the tray, which had individual packages of crackers, cheese already cut into bite-size pieces, and the honey ham was shaped into small ovals (I don’t want to think about how they do that). All I added was a teeny jar of mustard and a knife. Also a five-layer bean dip, already in a nice sized tub, and blue corn chips. Hummus. Spiced almonds. Things we could eat in the room or take down to the pool.

All in all, it was a lovely time. And we didn’t have to pay the prices at the bar because I’d gotten a nice bottle of Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin at Costco and carefully wrapped champagne flutes in the linen napkins and put them in the basket. I really like the looks of that bar, though. They did a nice job:

FYI: We’ve heard some disappointing things about the “Mala” Restaurant on site, such as bad service, long waits and the food not great for the price. If anyone has had a good experience there, let me know.  It’s a shame because Marc Ellman and his wife Judy own Maui Tacos (nine locations), Penne Pasta in Lahaina and Mala Ocean Tavern in Lahaina. http://malaoceantavern.com/markellman.html Though I find Mala in Lahaina overpriced, the food is good and it sits right on the water. Not so the “Mala” at the Marriott, and it’s curious to me since ownership includes Clint Eastwood and Alice Cooper. Does anyone know if Clint still owns the Hog’s Breath Inn Restaurant in Carmel, California? I loved my dinner there, so cozy with the cool temperatures, yet the fire was blazing outside on the patio…

Okay, I admit it’s been really hot here on Maui and I’m daydreaming of being nice and cool somewhere…

Thought for the day: Apprearances can be deceiving. Riches can be temporary. Look for someone who makes you laugh because sometimes that’s all you’ll have to brighten a dark day. That laughter will make your heart sing.

I have someone who makes me laugh every day, and I am grateful.

A hui hou (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the Follow button on the Home Page.

Aloha, Jamaica

Following the Blog?

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Aloha!

Question: if you are following this blog, are there problems viewing it when it’s delivered to your inbox? I just published a new post (The Art of the Staycation)and put in “full-size” pictures. When I viewed it on Mike’s email it was enormous and almost impossible to read. If you are having issues with this, please let me know so I can try to correct it. Also: if you have tried unsucessfully to sign up for the feed to subscribe to the blog, please let me know.

Can’t fix it if I don’t know it’s broke! Thanks.

Aloha, Jamaica

The Art of the Staycation – Part 1

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Aloha!

This is where I spent the weekend. Nice? It’s the Wailea Marriott on Maui. http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/hnmmc-wailea-beach-marriott-resort-and-spa/. Check out their website for great photos. Anyway, it took me years to convince Mike that there was any value in staying at a hotel on Maui when we already lived on Maui. In fact, he flatly refused to spend the money. So that left me bereft for the days when I used to come to Maui to vacation and just reeellaaaaxx.

In his defense, his parents had a home on the North Shore of Oahu near the beach and we used to go over there about three times a year, so I did have a getaway. Then a few things happened to knock the stuffing out of vacationing over there: Aloha Airlines went belly up and took all of our hard-earned points with them. No more free flights. Grrrr. And what used to be a $25.00 flight interisland became a $50.00 flight, then a $70.00 flight. Mesa  Airlines http://iflygo.com/ started the airline wars in Hawaii and they are the only ones who won. The people who live here can’t afford to “go interisland” anymore because a round-trip is now $160-$190 depending on the time of day. Times that by two people, and suddenly a Staycation was more in the budget than a flight. Mike said yes! Especially after his bout with blood poisoning…he knows I’ve been up to my a%* in alligators around here for a long time. We both were in need of a break.

I chose the Marriott for a number of reasons. Most of all, their Infinity pool

is to die for, and the best part is, it’s kid-free. They don’t call it the “Serenity Pool” for nothing. Also the Marriott is very small in comparison to say the Grand Wailea http://www.grandwailea.com/ or The Fairmont Kea Lani http://www.fairmont.com/kealani/. We took the walking path in Wailea, which is another reason I love to stay down there (Mike can walk again, yay!) and went by the Grand Wailea. It was just wall-to-wall chairs by the pool all the way out to the pathway. Way too crowded for me. I love vistas and open space, but that’s not to say those hotels might not be perfect for you. Here’s the path:

and also the tree in front of the Marriott on the path. What a great spot.

 I used to attend the Maui Writer’s Conference every year here, but they did a major, very expensive overhaul since then. I remember taking my lunch and sitting under this tree when it felt like my brain was going to explode from classes (particularly the Screenwriting Retreat,where they basically locked us inside and wouldn’t let us out!) From that retreat though I met a wonderful writer and true friend, who is now a bestselling author: Graham Brown. http://grahambrownthrillers.com/ Start with “Black Rain” and work your way through. You won’t be disappointed. He’s just a stand-up guy and so humble, and the best part is, no matter how big he gets (co-writing with Clive Cussler now, ahem!) he still reads my scripts! Highly unusual in my business. Thanks, Graham!

Another reason I love the Marriott is it’s within walking distance of the Shops at Wailea http://theshopsatwailea.com/ and that means restaurants, and that meant we didn’t have to get in the car for three days. We discovered too late that there is cart that makes a loop to the hotel and back, which would have been nice to know. I can’t get enough of the Crab Bisque at Tommy Bahama’s Restaurant http://www.tommybahama.com/TBG/Stores_Restaurants/Wailea.jsp Actually, I take that back. I order the cup of soup because it’s so rich. A bowl is too much!

I will be sharing more with you more about this trip in the next couple of posts. People have written asking for restaurant reviews and hotel suggestions, so here you go. All from a local-yokel.

A hui hou! (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Home Page.

Aloha, Jamaica

No Worries

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Aloha!

I’m reading a novel and there’s a character in it that asks, “Do you think people on an island ever worry?” Her father answers: “They fish a lot. How much can you worry if you fish?”

Nice thought. Wish it were true. I have a friend who is considering a move to Maui, but says it’s “the last bastion I have where I truly relax, and I fear that if I move there, that will be that.”

And it is. I used to really be able to relax when I vacationed on Maui. It would take almost a week, far away from my super-busy California lifestyle, but eventually I’d sink down into relaxation, and like most people, I hoped it would carry over when I moved here.

In the beginning, every single time my mother called, she asked: “Are you at the beach?” with this hopeful giddiness in her voice (obviously living vicariously). I hated to burst  her bubble with No, Mom, I’m in the grocery store. I’m at the bank, post office, work…fill in the blank. But she really wanted to believe I was running around in a bathing suit all the time, living the good life. And perhaps if you are 20, don’t own a home (or have any aspirations to), if you are living in a three-bedroom house with five room mates, you could possibly have that life in Maui. But people quickly grow tired of that. Lahaina is a party town full of young people who don’t even own cars, just bicycles. But age keeps creeping, and eventually they wake up and realize they want more. So they move home.

The current state of agitation taking me away from the “No worries” island lifestyle  is a tax issue. (Yes, there really is a tax man everywhere, Virginia). Last year my accountant told me not to make a quarterly payment to the State of Hawaii because I was getting a refund, and she’d just roll it over. I told her this made me nervous, and she assured me she does this with “hundreds of clients!” That little voice inside nagged at me, but I said okay.

To muddle things further, I shredded my bank account statements this year for the first time ever, after reading yet another get organized article that stated “When did you last need a bank statement? And even if you did, the bank could provide it, right?” Yes, of course!

Guess what was the very first thing my accountant asked for when things went haywire with the State of Hawaii tax system? (COMPUTERS WILL BE THE DEATH OF US. Just sayin’.)

So yes, we can dream that life would be very different in Maui. And it is. Just not in the ways we thought!

A hui hou (til next time).

Aloha, Jamaica

Working on Maui

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Aloha!

A picture perfect day on Maui this morning. Sometimes when I ponder what to write, I wish you guys would write and tell me what you’d like to know more about. Daily life? Moving here?

This past weekend I attended a symposium with Maui filmmakers at the college. One of the speakers said he’d like to create a group of people who got together to support each other in their creative endeavors. He’s been trying to do that, but it’s a challenge on Maui. Why? As he said, when everybody’s working two and three jobs, how do you get people together? It makes for a fractured society.

One of the biggest surprises for me when I moved here:  75% of the population works in the hotel/visitor industry. In California, almost every weekend my group of friends got together for brunch, games, or dinners. Here, unless you work a 9-5 job, you are working evenings and weekends.  How do you plan a group dinner when both wife and husband are working the night shift, or weekend shift? I spent a year working at a law firm on Maui.Those people had a normal schedule, but if you’re in the medical field you are on call for nights and weekends. So there goes another big segment of the population. That leaves government or city workers with 9-5 jobs. Otherwise, it’s like Mike and me. He’s a boat captain, so he works the sunset sail and is home around 9 pm. I was a concierge, which gave me 9-5 hours, but I worked weekends. We rarely had the same days off or the same schedules.

There are the waitresses and bartenders, boat crew, massage therapists (quote: “you can’t throw a rock on Maui without hitting a massage therapist),  the hotel front desk worker and housekeepers, the grounds and maintenance guys for the hotels and condos, realtors…the list is endless, and all of them have non 9-5 jobs. And guess what? They all work holidays! Guests come to Maui specifically for holidays, so everyone must work. Again, a fractured society, when families can’t even be together for holidays.

Then there is the phenomenon of being “off-island.” I am part of two different groups of women who meet once a month, and am amazed at how hard it is to get five women together in one place. When you live on an island, as nice as it is, one of the goals is to get off the island. It’s a rock in the middle of the Pacific,and it can get small after a while. Those who can, leave as often as they can. Also, so many people are from somewhere else…and they go there to be with their families. So you call them to get together and they are “off-island.”

The island lifestyle sounds good to many who want to live here. The reality is, you have a heck of a time getting together with your friends.

A hui hou! (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the follow button on the Home Page.

Aloha, Jamaica

Maui Visitor’s Bureau: Got Maui?

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Aloha!

Just wondering, guys and gals, if you need to be “reminded” about Maui. The reason I’m asking: in yesterday’s Maui News, www.mauinews.com there was a letter to the Editor commenting on the battle that is always raging here between those who think we need to spend more money on Tourism (Maui Visiors Bureau, et al) and those who feel we’ve already spent quite enough, thank you.

The letter writer (Bob Pure) stated that “residents seem to forget that 75 percent of all jobs on Maui are directly or indirectly related to the visitor industry. They either believe we have too many tourists or everybody already knows about Maui so we don’t have to spend any more money to promote tourism to our island.” He went on to say that the complaint that the MVB spends too much is “the same logic that says that Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Toyota and Apple should reduce their advertising because everybody already knows who they are. It doesn’t work that way. Vacationers need reminders.”

So I ask you…is that true?

Bob stated that “if we get smug and complacent and reduce our promotional footprint, vacationers, will, assuredly, go elsewhere.”

I know when I lived in California and was coming to Maui on vacations, I was saving my pennies to do so. I didn’t need any reminders that Maui was here. I will say that every time a commercial for Hawaii came on, it just reinforced my resolve to save more.  So, what about you? Does a promtional advertisement with stunning photograpy and the message of Aloha get you off your seat and to the computer to start booking reservations?

I’m interested to see if the assertions of this letter writer are true, or if you already have your tickets to Maui bought for next year.

A hui hou (til next time). If you would like to Subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Home Page.

Aloha!  Jamaica

Castles in the Sand

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Aloha!

Ultimate_Sand_Castle

Castles in the sand…castles in the air…I am daydreaming. Isn’t this gorgeous? They have sand castle contests all the time on Maui. My dad was quite good at it and I remember him making a mermaid when I was a kid that just blew me away.

I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in a while.We thought we had Mike’s foot all healed up and the blood poisoning under control, then BAM, it was back with a vengeance. This is not something you want to mess around with, especially  in the tropics. Friends write with well-wishes and since he’s a boat Captain, say things like “Pirates have peglegs, likely from trying to use crutches on a boat” and “We don’t want to have to call him “Hopalong.” Thanks, guys. :)Then there was the doctor friend who wrote to warn of flesh-eating bacteria in a case like this.

Wow, I hadn’t even GONE there in my head.

Anyway, I am still quite busy waiting on him hand and foot (har, har). I mean, the guy can’t even whip up his own breakfast. So until life calms down around here, this blog will most likely suffer.

Just visit among yourselves and I’ll be back soon!

A hui hou (til next time),

Jamaica

Lahaina Ranks in Top Seaside Towns

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Aloha!

No one that I know actually stays in Lahaina. They just do the “Lahaina crawl”: shopping, dining, taking a boat ride out of the harbor. They stay in Kihei, Kaanapali, Kapalua. As for my years as a concierge on Maui, my favorite dining experiences in Lahaina are: Io Restaurant http://www.iomaui.com/, Gerards (it’s French, he was a master chef from France) http://www.gerardsmaui.com/cms/index.php, and was awarded five stars by Forbes. If you go, ask to be seated on the veranda; the restaurant is in a lovely old hotel. For luaus, my favorite is the Feast at Lele http://www.feastatlele.com/ because the food is fabulous and you can’t get any closer to the beach. It’s small and intimate (about fifty tables) you have your your own table,your own server, and the price includes champagne if you desire. I always told my guests at the hotel that it was a great last-night on Maui celebration place.Be sure to take a sweater or wrap, ladies, it cools down on the beach after you watch that spectacular sunset.

Lahaina Sunset

Here’s the AP article on Lahaina from  the Maui News May 17th:

NEW YORK – Lahaina was ranked 10th on Coastal Living’s 15 “Happiest Seaside Towns.”

The survey is a first for the magazine that covers life along the coast and is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Beach communities from California to South Carolina were ranked as the “best places to live along the coasts of the United States.”

In an announcement of the ranking, the magazine called Lahaina, “the charming gateway to Maui’s world-famous Kaanapali and Kapalua beach resorts to the north.”

“Its banyan trees add a courtly air to the downtown, and its brightly colored Front Street, busy with shops and galleries, keeps things lively,” the announcement said. “Lahaina has nearly perfect air quality, and when you add its dry, sunny climate in a tropical paradise, that makes life pretty ideal.”

There were no other Hawaii seaside towns listed in the survey. The No. 1 “Happiest Seaside Town” was Kiawah Island in South Carolina, followed by Naples, Fla.; and Sausalito, Calif.

“It’s wonderful news,” said Lynn Donovan, executive director of LahainaTown Action Committee, an organization that helps promote the west-side town. “Our reaction is that we are thrilled that this is happening and that we are lucky that we live Lahaina.”

She noted that the honor comes on the heels of being ranked 21 out of 25 island destinations listed in a TripAdvisor survey and Front Street being named one of the “Great Streets of America.”

The Coastal Living ranking appears in the June issue, which hits newsstands Friday.

…So folks, how do YOU feel about Lahaina? Do you look forward to visiting it when you come, or do you avoid it and its crowds?

A hui hou (til we meet again). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the Homepage.

Aloha! Jamaica

Afternoon Delight

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Aloha!

I’ll warn you straight up, this post is not “G” rated. It’s about love between two Jackson Chameleons in my backyard mango tree, with photos included, so brace yourself. Okay, really, it’s more like they’re smitten with each other. He’s the one with the horns (duh) and she is black instead of green because she’s just not that into him. We had a Jackson for many years. Her name was “Lovebug” because she was shaped like a VW Bug, and she lived in a giant habitat on our back porch. She was also visited by a gentleman caller, so we’re fairly certain this is her grandaughter. Jacksons turn turquoise blue when they’re really happy, like when we were hand-feeding Lovebug grasshoppers from the pet shop. I think if I had to choose a color to be when I’m really happy, it would be turquoise blue also. Like the ocean.

Have you ever seen a Jackson? Gotten to hold one? Their little claws look prettty sharp, but they don’t hurt at all as they hold on. Also, they have AMAZING hearing. Lovebug got very excited when we got home because she could hear us, and would cock her head in the direction of the living room, waiting for us to come outside.

In the mango tree

The male is six to seven inches in the body, before his tail begins. Note how she has her tail wrapped around the tree, holding on. After the little mating ritual, Lovebug gave birth to about fifty babies. Only four or five survived. Such is nature, it’s the law of  averages. The babies were about the size of the fingernail on your pinky.

That’s a stalk of bananas that aren’t ripe yet, behind her. Pretty cool picture, huh?

Most people never get to see a Jackson, they are very shy. The only reason I saw this one was that I had gone out to hand-fertilize the vanilla flowers (lots of fertilization going on yesterday) and there she was, quite low on a branch. She was waiting for him. He was on his way up to see her. I intervened with my camera, so he lost interest.

Too bad it couldn’t work that way with human teenagers.

A hui hou (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, click the “Follow” button on the Home Page

Aloha, Jamaica

Stuff you probably didn’t know

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Aloha!

I met my first fan. How cool is that? I was seated on an airplane when the lady next to me asked what I did and I said I was a writer…she asked, “what do you write?” and then she said, “I read your blog!” It was one of those warm moments that I’m sure Jennifer Aniston gets to have about 800,000 times per day (more on the embarrasing way I met her in another blog) and hopes to never have again as long as she lives. http://www.people.com/people/jennifer_aniston/0,,,00.html

I have been MIA from this blog because life intruded in the form of blood poisoning…Mike’s, not mine. I got on that plane in California and left taking care of my mom to come home to Maui and take care of him. The blood poisoning is not unusual in Hawaii. It’s a warm climate and cruddy stuff thrives. Mike’s a boat captain http://scotchmistsailingcharters.com/  and got a splinter in his bare foot off the dock in Lahaina. It festered and the blood poisoning moved to knee-high, as well as a strep infection in the foot. Not fun, and he’s been on crutches for over a week so far.

Another really fun thing that people get in Hawaii is Ciguatera poisoning: Ciguatera (say: “seeg-wha-terra”) poisoning: This happens when you eat a reef fish (any fish living in warm tropical water) that has eaten a certain poisonous food. This poison does not go away when the fish is cooked or frozen. The first symptoms of ciguatera poisoning include abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Symptoms can then progress to headache, muscle aches and skin that is itchy, numb or tingly. You may notice a change in your ability to feel hot or cold temperatures. For example, you may think something feels hot when it is actually cold.

The lady on the plane was named Lisa and she asked lots of questions about what it’s really like to live in Hawaii. I also went to a BBQ while in California, and there was this guy there from Winnepeg. While not one person asked him “So what’s it really like to live in Winnepeg?”,they asked me so many questions about Hawaii, it got to be embarrassing that all the attention centered on me.

As our converstaion went on, I found myself sharing things like, “did you know that when they burn the sugar cane in Maui that they also burn the PVC pipe used for irrigation? Here’s a photo of the burning cane by Amanda Brightbill:

Approximately 32,900 children and 72,700 adults living in Hawaii currently have asthma.

• It costs Hawaii’s economy approximately $43 million each year to control this complicated disease.

• Each year approximately 4,000 people in Hawaii are rushed to the emergency department because of asthma.

• Infants and very young children (0-4 years of age) in Hawaii continue to make up the majority of hospitalizations caused by asthma.

• The asthma death rate in Hawaii remains above the national average.

I have asthma. I did not have it before moving to Hawaii. Just sayin’.

And the people at the BBQ  were surprised that we don’t drink the water. “Why not?” they asked.  “Because all the chemicals used to fertilize the sugar cane and pineapple run-off right into our water table.””And people think that Hawaii is such a pristine place to live,” they said.

I was especially naive when I moved here because I didn’t even know they burned the sugar cane. How could I not know that? Well, they only burn ten months out of the year, skipping January and February historically. Guess which months I had always vacationed  in Maui before moving here?

Well, I have a guy on crutches to attend to. One thing about it, living in Hawaii is never boring.

A hui hou! (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, click the “Follow” button on the home page.

Aloha, Jamaica

Stuff and Nonsense

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Aloha!

All the guys I know on Maui who are homeowners, are hoarders. There’s something about living on an island that does this, and I kept trying to put my finger on it. Now, I know. THE BOAT MIGHT NOT COME IN!

When I first moved to the island and was living at the condo (see the previous “Moving to Maui” posts) I loved that I had brought only my bicycle and one suitcase. I felt free and unburdened from all my stuff back in California.I could really get used to this lifestyle, I thought. Then I met Mike.

I honestly think he kept it from me as long as he could. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” he was hiding from me wasn’t another woman, oh, no…it was his collection of “stuff.” A lifetime’s worth. The detritus of an adrenaline junkie’s sports equipment, to start with: About a dozen surfboards (google “Mike Turkington” or www.imdb.com and you’ll know why). He surfed professionally, and is an acclaimed board shaper. He co-owned “Country Surfboards”, the first surf shop on the North Shore of Oahu. Okay, so I’ll give him the surfboards.

But then he raised me the windsurfing equipment, enough to outfit six people. And the two motorcycles. And the two bicycles. AND a shop full (three bays worth) of tools, board-shaping equipment, and things I don’t even know the name of. I just know it takes up lots of room. What happened to my zen-like lifestyle? Gone, baby, gone.

When you’ve grown up on an island, you have lived through the reality of “the boat didn’t come in”  through dock-workers strikes, hurricanes, etc. You have lived through the infamous toilet paper and rice shortaages. You also know how expensive everything is to replace, so you never, ever throw anything away. In short, you hoard.

I had this illustrated to me personally during one Christmas, when I wanted to bake Christmas cookies and went to Safeway to get butter. I looked all over the store, and finally asked the produce guy: “Where’s the butter?” He answered in pidgin, with a straight face: “da boat tip ovah.” I just stared at him, expecting him to laugh. “No, really,” I said. “Where’s the butter?”

“DA BOAT TIP OVAH!” he said, more loudly than necessary, like I was deaf or something, and mimed a big ship going over.

I blinked. So this was how it was going to be.

Then there was the empty shelf at Long’s in Lahaina when there wasn’t a single envelope to be had. And the Foster Farms chicken shipment that never came in when I had planned to feed Mike’s visiting folks honey-drizzled almond chicken. Lesson learned: always go to the grocery store with a back-up plan. The shelves could be empty, and they often are.

I think I’m missing a huge opportunity here. I should create a new reality show: “Hawaii’s Hoarders”. I’d be willing to bet that the stuff they hoard on an island would be more interesting than the stuff mainlander’s hoard, and the islander’s stuff gets passed down from generation to generation, because they all know that boat might not come in.

Do you know where your backup stash of toilet paper is??

A hui hou! (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the right.

Aloha, Jamaica

Differences Too

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Aloha,

Happy May Day, which is “Lei Day” in Hawaii. The origins of Hawaii’s celebration of May Day as Lei Day date back to 1927, when Honolulu Star-Bulletin writer Don Blanding advocated for the creation of a day dedicated to honoring lei-making and the custom of wearing lei. Blanding’s co-worker at the newspaper, columnist Grace Tower Warren, suggested holding the celebration on May 1 and coined the phrase “May Day is Lei Day.” (HawaiiMagazine.com) Hawaiians stay busy trying to keep all the holidays straight such as King Kamehameha Day, Prince Kuhio Day, Statehood Day ( ironic, since Hawaiians didn’t want to be part of the States to begin with). Employers go nuts trying to decide whether employees should get Hawaii State holidays or Federal holidays off work.

So on this May Day, when I went to put my tennis shoes on this morning, I stuck my foot in without hesitation. I did not pick it up and turn it over, trying to shake out whatever critter might have made a home in there. Critter, meaning the lizard that one time, and the threat of centipedes, always.  I have nightmares about sticking my foot in a shoe with a centipede in it. Don’t judge me till you’ve had one slither over your foot at the dinner table.

The reason for this shoe confidence is that I am in Northern California, not Maui. I’m here taking care of Mom after surgery. So I was reflecting this morning on some of the differences, so far away from home. Home being relative, because Northern California will really always be “home.”  Home is where the family is, and this is where I spent a pretty happy 17 years.

Difference One: stuff dries here in this hot dry climate, unlike Maui’s hot humid climate. I hung stuff on the clothesline at 9 am this morning and it was totally dry by noon. In Maui that takes until 5 pm, and you’re lucky if it’s dry by then.

Difference Two: Allergies. California? Zip. Happy camper. Maui? Whoa. I really should buy stock in kleenex.

Difference Three: Seeing the apricot and peach trees setting fruit on the tree in Mom’s yard. I can’t wait for my first juicy tree-ripened apricot for the first time in years. Don’t ever bother buying a peach or apricot in Maui. You’ll be supremely disappointed. The papayas on the other hand, no contest. One time my stepdad and I decided to do a swap. He sent me a box of apricots and I sent him a box of papayas. We were really hoping they’d get through the post office, but I’m still waiting on those apricots and it’s been four years.

Difference Four: Heat. I’m always in CA in the wintertime (Thanksgiving, Christmas and Vog season in Maui) so I almost forgot what it’s like be hot, yet not sweat. I tool around all day without soaking through my clothes once. Bliss.

Difference Five: A completely different social life. It’s very hard to “break in” in Maui. I wondered why for a long time until my first Maui friend finally explained it to me: “the mainlanders move here and you get close to them, and then they break your heart by moving back. Most people don’t last two years. It’s happened over and over. After a while people just stop trying.” She also told me she’d lived in Maui for 20 years and had NEVER been invited over to someone’s house for dinner. This just made my head spin. Why?? I asked her, as she sat at my dinner table, her first dinner invite. “Food is very expensive here. Maybe someone will do a barbeque pot-luck, but a sit-down dinner, no.” Since I’d been the queen of the dinner party and brunch in CA, this blew me away. But it has held true. The thing I look most forward to when I get back to CA  is getting invited over to my friend’s houses for dinner!

Difference Six: You can get your fashion on here! Women in Maui have no reason to dress up. It’s so casual you can wear shorts to the nicest restaurant, and I mean really, how many ways are there to wear a sundress? Jewelry is just hot and scarves are a joke. And the women all complain that the guys in Maui dress like dirtbags. Surf shorts and ratty t-shirts. When you live in Maui you can spot a tourist because they are dressed nicely. I can practically pick them out in Costco with my eyes closed. Expensive purses, matching ensembles, and nice jewelry (which they will then wear in the ocean and lose. People have metal-detecting businesses in Maui just to recover tourist’s jewelry.) It does get boring after a while that most everybody dresses alike in Maui. So I come to California and get my fashion on.

And lastly:

Difference Seven: Noise and Safety. Maui is so quiet.And safe. I truly love that. This part of CA is a cacaphony of sirens, the boom-boom-boom of car stereos, and even gunshots at night. I’m talking close by, too. Mike worries about me while I’m here. He’s afraid I’ll come home dead.

A hui hou! (til next time). If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button on the right.

Aloha, Jamaica