Tag Archives: Maui

I Wish You Peace

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Aloha!

Many of you have written to ask where the blog has been. Thank you!
To answer, this last half of 2015 has been stuffed full of stress, not the least of which was Mike’s mom being diagnosed with stage – four cancer, then passing away.

Because our plates have been so full, I have been trying to uni- task, instead of multi-task. Can you remember back when we all gave something our full attention instead of scattershot one-eye-on-the-ball attention? I do. I remember that feeling in the distant past… and I’m trying to find it again.

I also know (from taking care of my ailing parents and being Executor of their estate) that it really only takes one major incident for life to slide off the plate. The last five years have been like a fire drill for us, in that four parents passed away… and we really need to regroup. Interestingly, this has been the same time period since I started writing this blog.

I really appreciate all the interest you have shown in the blog. Thank you for writing, for asking, for caring. I will get it back up and running when life calms down a little.

Because no matter what, no matter what the movies would have us believe….no matter how beautiful the scenery is on “Hawaii 5-0”, life on Maui and on all the islands, is still REAL LIFE. A friend who lived here for six years, and then moved away, made this comment: “People really have themselves talked into believing that if they could just move to Hawaii life would be PERFECT. No more worries, no more stress, just a kicked – back lifestyle where life is just really good. But that’s not the reality. People still get really sick here, people still die here, people lose their jobs here, people get eaten by sharks here!” (I had to laugh about that last part!)

So wherever you are during this holiday season, I wish you peace. I hope that you can stop for a moment during this busy, busy time and truly appreciate what you have been given…particularly those you hold dear.

May 2016 bring you joy.

Aloha, Jamaica

Hawaiian Snow in June

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Aloha!
Nope, it’s probably not what you think.
Hawaiian Snow is what the locals call the ash from the sugarcane burn. Makes a mess, gets all over everything… your car, your driveway… Inside on your garage floor, on your porch furniture, your sidewalk….your clean laundry on the line. Then if it’s on your car and you open the car door, it blows inside and now it’s on everything inside your car: the seats, the dash, the car mats.
It’s black and greasy and sticks like a son of a gun.

We had Hawaiian snow today. I had to get Mike to the airport, and we didn’t have time to scrub the porches or wash the car before leaving. So as I ran errands after dropping him off, the ash continued to blow inside the car every time I opened the doors. It actually stained the seats. Grrrr.

The snow I pictured in Hawaii was white and you could ski on it, on the Big Island. Not black, tar-like and all over my stuff.

This email arrived today in my inbox:

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Summer school, anyone?

This notice appeared in “Maui Time,” which bills itself as “Maui’s only locally owned independent newspaper” this week:

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They’re getting ready to burn the sugarcane field behind our house in the next few weeks– then we’ll really notice the fallout. Stay tuned for photos of the burn. It’s really quite something to see.

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

The Home Fires Burning

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Aloha!

Ladies and gentlemen, start your air purifiers. It’s the 143rd year of sugarcane burning on Maui.

We had just barely, barely pulled out of VOG season (cough, cough) and they began burning. I am on the email list from the HC&S sugarcane company, and they send these lovely notices the night before they burn:

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This is so we will know to sleep with our windows closed. My sister was here visiting us from Indiana, and she could hardly believe that we live in HAWAII and have to keep our windows closed, either from VOG (volcanic organic gas) or cane smoke. And we will wake up in the morning to “Maui snow”, the sticky, black ash that covers our cars, porches, and sidewalks.

Then there is this notice. Guess they can’t make up their minds:image

Last week, someone purposely set one of the cane fields near our house on fire. It was touch and go for a while as to whether they would have to evacuate the houses, but luckily the wind stayed in the right direction.

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As I always say….never a dull moment when you live on Maui!

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

An Entirely Different Point of View

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Aloha!

A reader sent the following letter in regard to this blog. Could be they didn’t read past the Homepage, because in many of my posts I do talk about the hardships on Maui, and the downsides. This reader feels I make it sound like all rainbows to live here…and yet another reader wrote to say I talk too much about the negatives. I do work hard to present a balanced opinion. Here’s the letter:

“You seem to have left a lot out. I lived there for 4 years. It was great, but you sound like a concierge selling the island as usual. You didn’t mention hardly any of the hardships that most everyday people and locals experience… almost everyday. …Yes, Maui is amazing, but you have illustrated an almost whimsical reality. I’ve traveled quite a bit, especially in the states, and everywhere has it’s ups and downs. What you speak of sounds like the ultimate paradise, as if all dreams, goals, and aspirations will occur simply because you moved there. I’m a realist. I have lived there. I love it. I have some great friends, but the reality is, that not everyone’s experience has been so great. Many a local are not simply comforted by having sunshine everyday, or the ocean. In fact, many feel plagued by it at times, as if there was no escape. Many people can’t find the time in between work and family to start the business of their dreams. Many people don’t have union jobs that, let’s face it, are very hard to get released from. Many people look for love on Maui all day long and never find it. Many people work 2-3 jobs, can’t find descent (sic) housing, and get ripped off by the slumlords. Overworked, underpayed, overwhelmed, and overpopulated is just a little something that my local friends want to add into your blog, especially for the newbies. Aloha:)

So, let me know what you think…particularly if you have lived on the island and left. (Some people move here, then leave…then move back again. Sometimes multiple times.) I spoke with my niece’s teacher on the mainland who said, “I used to live in Hawaii. I was so over it by the time I left. Six years was plenty!”

Looking forward to your letters.

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Everybody Wants a Do-Over

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Aloha!
You may have noticed I've been absent. That's because everyone in my household has been sick with the coughing crud that's going around. I sound like a cross between a squeaking door that needs oiling and a bullfrog that got slammed in that door. (And yes, Virginia, they do get sick in Paradise.)

It's that time of year when people think about new beginnings. On a recent episode of "The Mentalist," characters Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon were discussing their future and how maybe they needed a change.
Lisbon said: One of us could get run over by a bus tomorrow.
Jane said: Not if we were on a beach in Polynesia. Buses can't go in sand." (Note how "starting over" seems to always involve Hawaii, Polynesia, or any place with white sandy beaches.)
Lisbon: But we could get eaten by a shark.
Jane: Not if we don't go in the water.
Lisbon: That sounds pretty boring, don't you think?
Jane: They have palm trees and hammocks and cocktails and pineapples…
Lisbon: And endless boredom, sunburn, and bugs the size of helicopters… Hey, I've been on vacation!
Jane: Then we could buy a boat and sail around the world.
Lisbon: Fine. Other than pirates and storms and scurvy. Besides, I get seasick….

Talked herself right out of a new life, didn't she?

So many people write to me every week saying they want to live on Maui or are makings plans to move. So tell me, what is the one thing that makes you feel you would want to live in Hawaii? (The weather doesn't count, perfect weather is a no-brainer.) Or you can share more than one, of course…

Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! (Happy New Year!) Pronounced Hau’oli — “how-oh-lee” Makahiki — “mah-kah-hee-kee” Hou — “ho”

A hui hou, and Mahalo for reading along. If you'd like to stay in the loop, please click the "Follow" button on the Homepage, or to the right.

Aloha, Jamaica

You Know it’s Christmas in Hawaii When…

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Aloha!

You know it’s Christmas in Hawaii when…

You’re Christmas shopping and it’s 88° outside.

Your Christmas tree is decorated with starfish and mermaids.

Your friends and family hope you’ll send Kona coffee and macadamia nuts as Christmas gifts.

So many people want to stay in your guest room, you could sell lottery tickets.

You have to run the AC while cleaning for said guests, or you’ll drip sweat everywhere.

People here get more excited about Bing Crosby’s song “Mele Kalikmaka” than his version of “White Christmas.”

You jump every time the fire crackers go off in your neighborhood, as locals rev up for their New Year’s Eve extravaganzas.

The geckos are nestled, all snug in your bed.

You can’t wait for Santa to arrive… by canoe!

Instead of snow, you get flash floods, and warnings going off on your cell phone (happened all night last night)…

Mele Kalikimaka! (Merry Christmas) and happy holidays to all of our mauidailyescape readers. Thank you so much for being part of our lives.

If you live here, please share the things you would add to this list! Mahalo.

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

Hawaiian-Style Christmas

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Aloha!

Remember the line in the movie “Moonstruck” where Cher slaps Nicholas Cage’s face and says “Snap out of it!” ? Good. Hold that thought.
We had a Christmas party at our house this past weekend with a group of longtime Maui friends. I cleaned, cooked, baked, wrapped, fluffed and planned party games. Everyone arrived at the appointed time and we sat down to eat. So far, so good.
Then it happened. (A Christmas party by any other name….would not be a Christmas party on Maui…) and someone brought up their rat problem.

These friends have a fairly new commercial-grade 6 burner gas oven, and a rat took up residence in it. She said, “Our whole oven smells like rat piss!” (At this point I reminded myself not to eat any baked goods from their house anytime soon). Then she told us of the cure for the rat piss smell: “Basically, you build a fruit salad, add lots of cinnamon sticks and bake it for a really long time.” At first it didn’t work, so they had to start over. I don’t know why these friends have such bad luck with rats, but their last oven also had a rat in it and they ended up throwing it out. (The oven, not the rat.)
Then the conversation turned to cockroaches, and what latest potions and poisons would work to kill them. Before we knew it we were on to centipedes, and the fact that two people at the party had Bug Man and Terminix, yet still get centipedes in their houses all the time. Donna said, “The bug guy was JUST out and I had a centipede in my hall THIS big this morning!” and she splayed her hand as wide as it would go. “Was it the blue and yellow kind?” Amber asked. Because we all know the many varieties, you see.
Then the conversation really got heavy as we moved onto the coqui frog invasion on Maui. Google “Coqui frogs” if you aren’t familiar with this terrible invader. They have basically taken over the Big Island of Hawaii, and then hide in the plants that get shipped out of there from the nurseries, so they encamp to Maui and other outer islands. My friend can’t sleep at night, as the extremely vocal coquis have invaded the gulch by their house. “And do you know that when we call the county to come out and spray, those frogs are smart enough to shut up?” she said.

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Go here for “Coqui frogs up close and loud” at youtube.com
www. http://youtu.be/pxBSQ7sah3I

By now the conversation was just out of control. And I said, “Guys, do you think a Christmas party on the mainland would have any one of these topics?” and they all murmered polite versions of hell no. And I was glad I didn’t have to say, “Snap out of it, it’s supposed to be Christmas.”
But that was our version of a Hawaiian-style Christmas party.

And as we were washing platters and wine glasses and packing up the leftover food later that night, Mike turned me and said, “Now do you see why Hawaiians just have a barbecue and sit around in their garages drinking beer for their holiday parties?”
Good point, Mike. Good point.

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Tropical Storm Ana: Maui Shuts Down

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Aloha!

A Reader wrote to say they were due for their first trip to Maui and wondered if they should cancel (without penalty.) We said yes. It certainly won’t be any fun to not be able to go to the beach, and to get blown around. There will be no boating activites and helicopter and air activities will most likely be canceled.

Here’s the latest:

Tropical Storm Ana is packing sustained winds of 65 mph and is 375 miles south–southeast of Hilo. A tropical storm watch has been issued for the Big Island and Maui County’s leeward waters, the Alenuihaha Channel and the Big Island’s windward waters.

Before the heaviest winds arrive, south and south-east facing shores could see surf of 10 to 20 feet with storm surge of 1 foot, possibly 2 feet, on south-eastern shores.

Rainfall of 5 to 10 inches with locally heavy rainfall of 20 inches or more will precede the strongest winds. A flash flood watch statewide began at noon today.

Here are the area closings/changes:

Island Air halted flights to Maui and Lanai on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
Fliers ticketed for travel on Island Air from today to Monday will be permitted to change their flight online without charge at http://www.Islandair.com or by contacting reservations at one 800–652–6541, which will maintain extended hours of 6 AM to 9 PM through Sunday and return to regular hours of 7 AM to 6 PM on Monday. Changes must be made prior to the departure of originally scheduled flights, the commuter airline said.

A host of local events are either postponed or canceled. Check the Maui News for the schedules.

On Molokai, there is gas rationing with purchases limited to $20 per vehicle, because the next shipment of gasoline to the island is not expected until next Thursday, due to Ana. At $5.33 a gallon for regular unleaded that comes to almost 4 gallons of gas. “When people panic, they fill up not only their cars, but gas cans and drums. Everybody wants to be prepared after seeing what happened to Puna, and that’s understandable. However, we need to make sure we have enough for everyone as well,” said Lori-lei Rawlins-Crivello of Rawlings Chevron on Molokai.

County parks and recreational facilities will be closed Saturday with camping grounds closed today, the county Department of Parks and Recreation announced Thursday. Camping permits issued for tonight and Saturday night were canceled.

State parks on Maui and Molokai were closed today, until further notice. Campers in remote coastal areas have been notified to leave.

Forest reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, natural area reserves and Na Ala Hele hiking trails and game management areas are closed until further notice. Haleakala National Park Summit closed at noon today. The park will remain closed until managers can assess the safety conditions of the roads, trails, campgrounds and visitor centers. In anticipation of Ana, the park stopped issuing backcountry camping and cabin permits Wednesday. Existing weekend backcountry permits have been canceled. For the latest closure information, go to the website http://www.nps.gov/hale.

The state’s small–boat harbors will be closed at 4:30 PM today, until further notice, the DLNR said. Those include Maalaea and Lahaina small – boat harbors.

Interisland shipper Young Brothers updated its shipping schedule Thursday, anticipating that Kahului Harbor will not be closed, but that the port of Kaumalapau on Lanai and Kaunakakai will be shut down by the Coast Guard today. For updates, go to http://www.youngbrothershawaii.com.

Visitors are urged to heed warnings from lifeguards and public health and safety officials and warned of rip currents and contaminated shorelines due to run-off.

Fuel your vehicle. Store and secure outdoor objects and loose, lightweight objects. Prepare to cover window and door openings with boards, shutters are other shielding materials.

Stock up on bottled water, toilet paper, rice, and essentials.

Fo those interested in shelters, the county said Thursday that locations, including pet–friendly shelters, will be announced as needed. The MauiBus will Shuttle residents to shelters for free if needed.

Lastly, be safe out there. Hurricane season lasts until November 30!

(All information sources from the Maui News, http://www.mauinews.com, as of Friday, October 17, 2014.)

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

The Psychology of Place 2

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Aloha!

Our friends in Sonoma, California met a girl who moved there from Maui, and she complained, “There’s nothing to do here! I’m used to going to the beach every day.” Well, that may be, but if you move to Sonoma, California, you’d better be prepared to like hiking, biking, wine, and excellent food (and have the money to support that lifestyle.) Otherwise, why be there?

When we are on the outside looking in, thinking about how great it would be to live in a place, the dichotomy is that we can’t really know a place until we live there. To know the “psychology” of the place.

Vacationing in Maui doesn’t count; even part – time residents who own a condo near the beach and “play” the whole time they’re here, can’t really know.

It’s the people who work two and three jobs, long, long days to support a family on an $8 to $12 per hour salary while paying $7.00 for a gallon of milk, who know. Any place can put its best face forward to visitors – particularly if those visitors rarely venture outside the pristine, landscaped, hotel/restaurant areas where all the other visitors are, who look and act the same as them. A place doesn’t announce its ills, its economy, its prejudices or its wounds to the visitors it counts on for its life blood. All of that is kept under wraps – it’s best foot forward, always.

That is why the weathermen call the VOG (volcanic organic gas) here “haze.” As a boat Captain, Mike talks with tourists who think the VOG is just fog. And they have no idea that the sugar cane is burned, because it’s done at 4:30 am and far away from their hotels in Wailea…

The psychology of any place is a mix of history, change, job opportunity, education (or lack of it), racial tensions, shunning outsiders or accepting them, feeling agitated or at peace with where you find yourself in the world… and Maui is no different.

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Reader Asks About Electric Costs on Maui

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Aloha!

A reader wrote to ask:

My husband and I just returned from our visit to Maui. We have been tossing the idea about of just moving there. We live in Northern CA where it reaches above the 100 mark. It was warmer this visit, but not unbearable….we had left where it was up to 102+. Although there are some costs that are not real out of the ordinary, the electric is three times what we pay here. My question to you is…..if you have the solar or photo-voltaric (sp?) what would the average cost be for an average 1200 sq ft home in upcountry or kihei? Thank you 🙂

Answer: If you follow this blog, you know that we had a photovoltaic system put on our roof at the end of last year. On the news yesterday they said we have had over 90° heat for 15 out of the last 17 days in Hawaii. And for the first time in many years, I feel like I can run the air conditioning. (Thank goodness, because otherwise I would be Miss Crankypants that no one would want to live with.) Before the photovoltaic, our electric bills were running almost $400 per month, and that puts a dent in anyone’s budget. (We just didn’t run the air conditioner.) Add to that the high cost of food, the high cost of gasoline, and the high cost of housing, and living in Maui can become a luxury that many people decide they can’t afford.
As far as the cost for the system, loans are available. They charge by the panel, based on your electrical useage. Our home needed 19 panels, at $1,000. per panel. Our friends, who have two small houses on their property plus an art studio, paid $36,000 for their photovoltaic system.

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But here’s the caveat: even with the state and federal tax breaks, it takes 3 to 5 years to break even. So our bill has dropped to between $18 and $30 per month, and our friend’s base rate is $36 per month. This is supposed to be the rate to “tie-in” to the system.
BUT, and this is a large but: Hawaiian Electric Company on Oahu has seen their intake drop dramatically due to homeowners putting in these systems. They are now asking for a rate hike to a minimum of $50 per household, even for those with a photovoltaic system. So essentially, private homeowners are funding their own electricity, and now the electric companies want a piece of that.

How long can it be before Maui Electric company follows suit?

Also, you are fortunate if our electric rate (killowatt per hour) is only three times higher than what you pay. Where I came from, Maui was five times higher. Living in Kihei is hotter than Upcountry. But the higher you go up Haleakala mountain, the colder it gets…

Haleakala Mountain, note the VOG!

Haleakala Mountain, note the VOG!


and then you end up figuring out how to HEAT it. There is no natural gas on Maui.

For those planning to move to Maui and rent, ask about the electricity costs, if it is not included in the rent, because you are definitely going to want to budget for it. I make it a practice to ask to see the electricity bills when I buy a house, too.

Thanks for the question, and thank you for reading along!

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Movers and Shakers

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Aloha!
You forget how slow the lifestyle really is in Hawaii, until you spend some time on the mainland. I have lived on Maui almost 15 years, and didn’t realize that Starbucks is now the center of the universe on the mainland. (Just kidding… sorta). We rarely go to Starbucks in Hawaii, it’s just an added expense. But we are away from home, near San Francisco, and we’ve been hitting Starbucks for 3 PM coffee time. It certainly is different here.

We sat outside on a perfectly still, sunny day sipping coffee, observing the Starbucks customers in a San Francisco surburb. (I wrote “still” because the wind is always blowing on Maui. Also, there is no humidity here. How could I have forgotten that? I hardly know how to act.)

Across from us there was a 20–something with her $1,200 handbag and expensive shoes, working her laptop and iPhone simultaneously, trying desperately to buy a house. We could hear everything she was saying, and every word involved stress. (As I read the other day, a CLOSET costs 5 million dollars in San Francisco.)

Then here came a 30-year old, striding purposefully into the shop, or her phone, trading stocks. Loudly.

All this commerce, this striding purposefully, the guys in suits and sports coats, the women dressed to the nines…this doesn’t happen on Maui. People in Starbucks on Maui are there simply to drink coffee. They aren’t trying to change the world, or even their own world.

People can fall into a groove on Maui. They work as waitresses, bellboys, or in a surf shack. They know life isn’t likely to change or improve. That it isn’t likely they’ll ever be able to afford a house. They have settled into dead-end jobs just so they can go surf or swim every weekend. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it removes some motivation. It removes a certain amount of razor-sharp wit and intelligence needed just to keep a good job in other parts of the country.

Often, they moved Maui only to find out it’s much harder than they ever thought it would be. They end up working two or even three jobs….And if they grow weary of that, they move back home.

Sometimes, I miss the striving. Just sitting back in Starbucks and watching this smart/swift/sharp group of people navigate life here is a revelation. Eat or be eaten.

In Maui, the sharks are in the water.

A hui hou. Mahalo for reading along. if you’d like to stay in the loop, please click the “Follow” button on the Homepage, or to the right.

Aloha, Jamaica

So You Want to Honeymoon on Maui

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Aloha!

A woman named Cheryl wrote asking about things to do on Maui on her honeymoon:
“I was wondering if you had any recommendations for our visit to Maui for our honeymoon. If there are great places to eat that aren’t so bombarded by tourists. We will be staying at the Westin Resort and Spa, so we are in the middle of all that is tourist. If you have any recommendations for food or just daily activities (must sees) that would be wonderful!”
Thanks, Cheryl

Answer: Aloha Cheryl,
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage and honeymoon!
As a concierge, I would always first find out what people like to do. The door is pretty wide open for activities. There is horseback riding in Kapalua, there is parasailing, zip-lining (Upcountry), and lots of water activities: snorkeling, diving, dinner cruises, and sunset sails. I of course favor the “Scotch Mist” out of Lahaina Harbor (http://www.scotchmistsailingcharters.com/) where Mike is a boat captain. But Captain Mike is getting his knee replaced (too many surfing wipeouts and motorcycle jumps– he’s had a great life) in August, so don’t look for him on the boat anytime soon.

As far as restaurants, Merrimans (http://www.merrimanshawaii.com)in Kapalua is lovely, but not cheap. People seem to really like Mala in Lahaina, (http://www.malaoceantavern.com) but it is very small, and loud unless you get to sit outside on the water. ( Also not cheap!) I personally love Gerards French food in Lahaina ( http://www.gerardsmaui.com) but please note that it is not on the water.

As far as entertainment, The Feast at Lele is, hands down, my go-to luau. $110.00 per person for a five-course dinner and the show. (http://www.feastatlele.com).

For an inexpensive dinner, you will have to wait in line with everybody else to get into the barefoot bar at Hula Grill, oceanfront in Kaanapali. (http://www.hulagrillkaanapali.com). Worth the wait, with the live entertainment and fabulous view. So relaxing, too.

As far as just grabbing a quick, cheap bite in Kaanapali, The Comfort Zone and The Cantina are both right on the highway in a strip-mall just north of the entrance to Kaanapali.

Upcountry, I would suggest Haliimaile General Store restaurant (http://bevgannonrestaurants.com). Yes, it is an old general store, and quaint. And of course, Mama’s Fish House (http://www.mamasfishhouse.com) in Paia can’t be beat. Get your reservation now, before you even get to Maui!

Have fun, and congratulations.

PS: The best thing you can do is call ahead and be very nice to the concierge at your hotel. They can help you pre-book everything and walk you through what activities are best served suited to your interest level.

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Why Are There So Few Places to Live On Maui?

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Aloha!

Some friends recently moved to Maui, and commented on how hard it was to find a place to live. They asked, “Why are there so few long-term rentals on Maui?”

The answer is simple and complicated at the same time. A typical landlord can pull in much more per month renting a condo unit out by the week in a rental pool, than by the month. Of course, he/she has to keep it rented.

If you are the condo owner, you probably want to use the condo a month or so in the year– or let the kids and grandkids use it. You can’t kick a long – term tenant out, but you can block out a month for yourself– which means it’s a vacation-rental only.

So now you, the landlord, have yourself a place to vacation on Maui, plus it’s pulling in money the rest of the year. Pretty much a win – win, wouldn’t you say?

Yes, for everyone except the locals, who are pulling their hair out trying to find a decent rental for a decent price. And be warned, what is out there for rent is rarely in pristine shape. One of the first places I rented on Maui was a condo in Honokowai. It was built in the early 70’s and had dirty, worn Pepto-Bismol pink carpeting throughout. Plus a pink toilet, a pink sink… just lovely. (Not). Nothing had been replaced or upgraded.

When I moved in, the new owner/landlord hadn’t even had it cleaned after taking it out of the rental pool. When I asked him to clean it, he acted shocked, SHOCKED! that he wasn’t going to get to be a slum-lord with no out-of-pocket expenses. And then he found the two lowest priced local girls to come in and do the job, because I’d never seen two people move so slowly and get less done in that amount of time.

I cleaned the whole thing over again, which was fruitless, because there were holes so big in the “natural” rock walls that the cockroaches had a freeway going from the outside in. And red dirt blows right through jalousie windows, even when they are closed.

For this, I was paying an exhorbitant price. And this was the beginning of my real education on Maui: the landlord mostly wins.

Now that I’m a landlord, I vow never to be that way. And I don’t vacation-rental it. I save it for a local, who is tired of the rental war.

I was once that person, you see.

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

Aloha, Jamaica

To Reflect on the Sea

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Aloha!

Today we pause to reflect on the sea, from as essay by E.B. White (author of “Charlotte’s Web”).

“The sound of the sea is the most time – effacing sound there is. The centuries reroll in a cloud and the earth becomes green again when you listen, with eyes shut, to the sea – a young green time when the water and the land were just getting acquainted and had known each other for only a few billion years and the mollusks were just beginning to dip and creep in the shallows; and now man the invertebrate, under his ribbed umbrella, anoints himself with oil and pulls on his Polaroid glasses to stop the glare and stretches out his long brown body at ease upon a towel on the warm sand and listens…

The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: ‘So soon?'”

From the essay On a Florida Key

A hui hou… if you’d like to stay in the loop, please click the “Follow” button on the right. Mahalo for reading along.

Aloha! Jamaica

It’s Aloha Friday!

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Aloha!

“It’s Aloha Friday… No work till Monday!” Drive around the islands on a Friday, and you will no doubt hear this catchy tune on the radio. To listen, click here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yZjDPAzx_I8

image

I’ve never really understood it, though. Maui is a 24/7 society. The sugarcane workers work on the weekends, all hotel workers work on the weekends (except the GM of course). So that leaves office workers. Maybe this song was written on Oahu, with all the high-rise office buildings…

So I go to my source for all things Hawaiian, the guy who sits across the breakfast table from me every morning. “Can you shed some light on this?” I ask Mike. Did they sing “It’s a Aloha Friday, no school till Monday” when you were in school?” He said no. “So when do you remember first hearing the song?” I asked. He gives the reply that always makes me smile: “We didn’t have radio reception on the North Shore of Oahu.” So, no reception, no song. But lets’s not forget, he was too busy surfing and having fun in life to care about radio reception.

“I do remember singing along to it when I got a job as a carpenter hanging doors at a condominium in Kailua,” he said. (Apparently they have radio reception in Kailua.) “On Fridays four or five of us would pile in a pickup truck after work, turn the radio on, and sing along to the song…” (Which features beer predominantly.) “And we would stop and buy a sixpack.”

I wonder how much beer that song has sold?
And by the way, riding in the back of a pickup truck is still legal in Hawaii.

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad this week is almost over. It’s been the week that would not die.

Dang, now I can’t get that song out of my head. Oh well, Happy Aloha Friday, wherever you are!

Next post, the history of the Aloha Shirt….

A hui hou! Mahalo for reading along. If you’d like to stay in the loop, please click the “Follow” button to the right.

Aloha, Jamaica

Affordable Housing in Maui

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Maui Weather Today…More of the same.

Affordable Housing in Maui

Aloha!

People write to ask me about living in Maui, and how to afford it. One of the ways that many locals make it work is to build an Ohana. “Ohana” means family in Hawaiian, but in this case refers to a living space, technically attached to the main house. Like an in-law unit.

When we built our house we added an attached ohana. It’s one-bedroom with a nice sized covered lanai, and it shares one wall with our part of the house, which makes the main house more like a duplex. This is a smart move in Hawaii, as many people can’t afford to buy, so it’s a win-win for everybody.

Until it’s not. We got spoiled with our very first tenant, a woman with a big Labrador. She also loved our cat, Lili, and was in fact a vet tech.  “Auntie Amy” as we called her, was heaven sent: she was quiet, clean, and loved to take care of Lili if we had to leave the island (and even took it upon herself to vacuum the house because Lili has allergies to dust and red dirt). I am not making this up. Auntie Amy was with us for five years. I kinda hoped she’d stay till she was eighty.

But then Auntie Amy got cancer and was down for about a year. Then it came back, and she decided she had to move. That’s when we found out about Crazy Tenants.

Crazy Tenants are people who look good on paper but in fact will make you question your own sanity for renting to them.There was Bernard, the old Japanese carpenter who was from Oahu and wanted a temporary place to live while he built a house on Maui. He signed the lease and the next thing we knew he had covered up all the windows with brown paper grocery bags and the place was emitting a very strange odor, like fish left out for two weeks. Then Mike came around the corner and found Bernard changing the locks. A no-no, and against the lease (how can a landlord get in if there’s a fire or a dead person in there?) He muttered something and Mike realized he was paranoid and possibly schizophrenic. His daughter threatened to sue us because there was a spot in the sidewalk that was raised a quarter of an inch and he might trip on it. Bernard moved out.

Then there was the Maui fireman (Mike was a fireman, so we figured this was a sure bet) who lived in the unit for almost six weeks. Then, when the yearly influx of German cockroaches began (it was a  particularly bad year) he accused us of hiding them from him. Um…so we were like keeping them in a cardboard box and only released them once he’d lived there six weeks? Another one moved out.

Then there was Crazy Katie. She promptly moved a boyfriend in (breaking the lease) and then got a cat without permission. We are animal people…we just told her she’d need a pet addendum to the lease. She refused. She started sending strange emails and quoting landlord/tenant code to us. About the time it appeared she was going to spin out, she moved. We breathed a sigh of relief.

After that came a girl who shall remain nameless because she was so scary. I thought I was going to spin out with that one. And each time we said, “We sure miss Auntie Amy.” And we surely did.

These people all appeared normal and looked great on paper. Appearances are deceiving.

This last go-round, we gave up on Maui people and imported a couple from Alaska. Mike teases that he had to import me from California…so we figured it could work with tenants, too. They are a joy. They are quiet and polite and we are happy. They tell us they are happy too.

Affordable housing in Maui? An ohana really only makes your mortgage more affordable if you aren’t putting up with Crazy Tenants.

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

End of an Era

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Aloha!

If you follow this blog, you know that I worked part-time as a concierge/Activities Coordinator at the Maui Kaanapali Villas (http://astonmauikaanapalivillas.3dhawaii.com/ for about ten years. I loved my job. I was good at my job. I really enjoyed meeting tourists from all over the world, and the best day ever was meeting some folks from France whom I invited up to the house, we became friends, and then they invited us to France. We went and it was fabulous. Wow.

I began my job at the Villas in 1999. The main reason I took the job was to have someting to do while I built my interior design business in Hawaii. Also, with that job, we’d get to do the Activities on Maui for free (a major perk). So about once a year we could go do something fun with each company, and we’d also get a discount for our guests who were visiting. This job was totally commission-based and that’s something people need to understand about jobs in Hawaii. They are low-paying or commission unless you have a great office job, or a job in the medical profession, law profession, etc.

There are also instances of people being private or sub-contractors, which is what Mike is as a Captain on the Scoth Mist out of Lahaina. He doesn’t make a great wage and then must pay self-employment tax on that. So people like him, in edition to waiters, waitresses and bartenders, rely on tips.

At my job, two things happened: the first was September 11th, which absolutely froze tourism to Hawaii. My take-home pay dipped dramatically. Very slowly people started coming back to Hawaii, and then we got the second hit: the stock market plunge of late 2007. No tourists. When they did finally start coming, we saw a shift: people who before would have stayed at a resort such as the Four Seasons were looking for less-expensive places to stay. Or, people were coming who were getting killer deals on airlines that wanted to fill seats, and these people just wanted a place to stay.

But people weren’t coming to Maui to spend any extra money, so my pay dipped again. And again. By the time it was all said and done, I was making one-half to one-third what I had been when I started there. At the same time our gas prices on Maui shot to the highest in the nation, so it was no longer feasible for me to drive all the way to Lahaina for what little pay I was making. I simply couldn’t stay in a job where I was making less than the kid at McDonald’s.

In these low-paying Maui jobs, you hope for tips. But I can count on ten fingers the number of times I was tipped in ten years, and I was someone who bent over backwards for people and always has a smile on my face. I made sure people were going to have the time of their lives in Maui. So why didn’t people think to tip? Because they assumed I was getting a per-hour wage.

I addition to what has gone on in our nation’s economy, Hawaii’s economy is tourist-based. We also took some very hard hits as both Aloha Airlines went under, and then Maui Land and Pine. I have a friend who worked at ML&P for years and retired with the understanding that she would have health insurance forever. When they went under, there went her health insurance.

When you come to Hawaii and are wondering whether to tip, consider this: hotel bellhops and Skycaps at the airport see turnover all day long. We know a Skycap who owns a large house on Kaanapali hillside, he does so well.  But I would spend a minimum of an hour and and a quarter with guests planning their vacations, sometimes two hours. In an eight hour day, how many people could I really serve? When things slowed down, sometimes I would sit all day with no one. Tips would have helped bridge the pay gap, but I served far fewer people than most tip-related jobs. Every once in a while a guest would ask “Am I allowed to tip you?” and I would say “Of course!” So if can afford to tip when you come to Maui, please do. Please realize that workers here depend on it. If you can afford to tip well, all the better.

I will now get down off my soap box.

As it turns out, the company I worked for all those years just lost their contract with that hotel. Owners bid on the opportunity to have thier Activity company at a hotel, and if they have a monopoly of many Activity Desks in hotels, they can bid more. That’s what happened. So sad to say, the company will no longer be there. And the women I worked with are now out of jobs, because the new company has their own workers. Takeovers happen even in Paradise.

I am sad for my former co-workers and can’t really believe that an Activity company that has been there for 30 years is no more.

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

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

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

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

Language Skills

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Aloha!

If you’ve been to Hawaii, you know that there are only thirteen letters in the Hawaiian alphabet. So they had to get really creative and repeat the letters, which led to each word being about sixteen syllables long. Street names you eventually get used to: Kamehameha, Lahainaluna. The language itself and how it’s used casually was another thing entirely when I moved here.

For instance, at the end of my first day of work at the tennis courts, my boss showed up and said, “You’re all pow.” I’m what? Is this a way of saying I did a good job? I’m fired? What?” I must have had a stupid look on my face because she repeated it. Again, me, with the stupid look. Boss: “Pow. Pow. All done.”

So after work, I asked an aquaintance. “The word for all done is Pow? Like, bang, zoom?” She laughed. “No, it’s P-A-U. All pau means “all done.” Pau hana means “work is over.” Hana, like the town? Oh my, this was confusing. Then the next day my boss said she was going to run the marathon on the Pauley, and to be prepared for extra traffic. Okay, I really suck at this. This time I just asked her, because she apparently was going to just keep speaking this foreign language and expecting me to keep up.

Pauley was actually Pali, and it means “Cliffs” in Hawaiian. So the place on the road into Lahaina (where the tunnel is) has cliffs on either side of it. So that’s the Pali, the name of the road. There is also a Pali on Oahu, but there it goes over the mountain, and the superstition is: “You don’t take pork over the Pali after dark, or something bad will happen, like you’ll wreak your car.” Okay, so I guess you need to get your grocery shopping done and high-tail it back over the mountain pass before the sun goes down.

That, or you just don’t eat pork.

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

Is Hawaii Worth It?

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Aloha,

In the brand new issue of “Honolulu Magazine” that just hit newstands here, the cover asks this question: Is Hawaii Worth it?

It then cleverly lists the pros and cons:

Sunshine……………………………..$5.00 gallon milk

3rd Safest City in the U.S………Solid Gold Electric Bill

Mangoes from Neighbors……….Living w/ your parents till age 35

Surf’s Up!…………………………….You just can’t get there from here (anywhere!)

Then: “I Stay Broke” (local pidgin for I’m always broke!)

And: Median Single-Family Home Price: $597,000. ($625,00 Honolulu). Cost in Witchita? $155,200. In St. Louis: $126,800.

From Editor A. Kam Napier’s Page in Honolulu Magazine, Titled “Paying the Paradise Tax:

“Unlike the residents of 49 other states, who can only dream of living in Hawaii, we actually know what it’s like to live here. While there’s much to be grateful for, we know that Hawaii is not always a bed of roses, or even a lei of plumeria. Mainly, this is because we have what a friend of mine calls America’s “most expensive ordinary life.” According to MetroTrends, an online publication from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Urban Institute, Honolulu lost more residents between 2004 and 2010 through out-migration to other U.S. cities than it gained from in-migration. (Top three places to which Honoluluans fled: Los Angeles, San Diego and—shocking, I know—Las Vegas.) We also earned a D grade from MetroTrends for economic security, mainly for housing unaffordability.”

 So what do you think? Is Hawaii really worth it? Would it be worth it to you?

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Does ‘Oprah’s Farm’ mean Winfrey’s moving to Maui?

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Aloha!

Oprah Winfrey’s Maui house is just fifteen minutes from mine. She built a pretty unassuming farm-style house in Kula, after buying out the rancher.

Kula is in “Upcountry” Maui, on the slopes of Haleakala mountain. In January, several websites quoted a story in the National Enquirer saying that Winfrey had joked that she’d move to the Valley Isle to run an organic farm if her new cable channel didn’t work out. An article at:http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/blog/2012/04/does-oprahs-farm-mean-winfreys.html also commented on this. Interesting. Oprah also had land in Indiana, not far from where I grew up, which she sold. The last issue of her magazine said she loves to cook. I wonder if she’ll start showing up at the Upcountry Farmer’s Market that we frequent at the crack of dawn every Saturday morning, selling veggies and herbs? Well, sure!

Doing the drive up to see Oprah’s house has become “the thing to do” for tourists. Oprah should have someone sell tickets at the gate and charge for tourists to snap photos. She’d make a bundle.

Oprah has hired celebrity chef Bev Gannon of Hali’imaile General Store(www.bevgannonrestaurants.com) to cook for her on occasion when she’s here visiting. I know this because my friend Wendy knows Bev. A saying you hear all the time on Maui is, “It’s a small island.” This means rumors fly, and also that you’d better mind your P’s&Q’s because someone you know just saw what you did.

The reason for the low (almost non-existent) rate of rape and murder on Maui? Because whatever you do, your Auntie or Uncle or “cuz” will know about it. And let’s face it…there’s no escaping off an island. They just simply shut down the airport.

It’s a small island. So how come I haven’t run into Oprah?

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Copyright Jamaica Michaels 2012. All rights reserved. May not be reblogged or reprinted without express written permission of author.

Moving to Maui, Part Three

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Aloha,

So I now had a part-time job on Maui and a place to live, at the Aston Maui Kaanapali Villas, which is a combination of hotel and condos:

I had brought along one suitcase and my bicycle. The condo I was renting had four plates, four forks, four glasses. Life was simple, and I was discovering I liked it this way. No boxes of unorganized Christmas decorations haunting me from the attic. No closet full of winter clothes. No grandmother’s china gathering dust.

Actually, my design clients in Maui tell me that that’s the very best part about a vacation home on Maui: no stuff. So if that’s what we all aspire to, why do we own so much stuff? The truth is, it owns us…

Anyway, I was settling in, and deciding what to do about my life back in California. Condo life was agreeing with me. Until, that is, the night of the infamous late-night condo cleaning incident. I’m pretty sure they still talk about it at the front desk there.

Here’s the scene: it’s HOT in Maui. So once the sun went down and it cooled off, I decided to do a little cleaning. I put on a thin white t-shirt. And that was all. Get the picture? Hold that thought.

I opened the door to the condo and tossed out the throw rugs to shake later. Now there are fire codes in hotels, and safety codes, and these all conspire to create self-closing doors. Big, heavy, metal self-closing doors. A huge gust of wind blew through and WHAM! The saying “don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out” was suddenly reality.

Except that now I was out. Locked out of my condo on the outside walkway three floors up in nothing but a see-through t-shirt.The only thing that could have made it worse would have been if I was out on a tiny ledge, like in the movies. If there was ever a time I wished to be beamed up, Scotty, it was now.

What to do, what to do?

I yanked my t-shirt down over what  I could cover, got into the (now functioning) elevator and rode downstairs. I moved like a lady in a too-tight skirt, mincing my way to the front desk. I stopped just short of it and called around a support beam: “Hey, excuse me! I’ve lost my key and I’m locked out.”

The night clerk was named Mary. Mary was suspected of doing a little nipping at the bottle she kept stashed behind the desk (actually, a lot of nipping) because the boss wasn’t there at night to know the difference. Mary looked over in a fog and tried to focus on me.

“Who’s that? Who’s there?”

I called out my name. I told her which condo I was in. But Mary didn’t know me from a tourist.

“Well, what do you want? I can’t hear you. Come over here to the front desk!”

I sighed, clutched my shirt, and began my slow journey into the middle of the lobby. At just the same moment that a tourist couple entered and wanted to check in. I sidled up to the front desk, turned my back to them and whispered loudly,  “I’m locked out. I can’t get in. Do you have a spare key to my apartment?”

“Well no, of course not. I’ll have to call the maintenance guys. I don’t know who’s on duty.”

The maintenance GUYS? Great. Just great. The gods who had come out of the sky in my deux a machina moment and given me a great apartment and a job were now extracting their pound of flesh. Literally. I was sure I could hear them laughing up there.

I yanked my t-shirt down as hard as I could as the tired tourists glared at me. I steeled myself for the moment my Savior With a Key would get his eye-full. Luckily he was a gentleman, and pretended that it was common-place for him to have to have to let stranded women in see-through t-shirts and no bottoms into their apartments. Let me tell you though, I made sure he walked ahead of me on my walk of shame.

Like I said, I’m pretty sure they still talk about this at the front desk, because let’s not forget, I NOW WORKED THERE!  And I know I made the maintenance guys’ Hall of Fame for stupid guest tricks at the hotel. Except, that is, that just the week before I had dropped my key down the teeny little crack in the elevator shaft and they had to rescue me from that.

What are the chances? And how could a woman who was smart enough to own a home and manage a business keep pulling these incredibly dumb stunts? Deux a machina.

And the gods laughed.

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Copyright Jamaica Michaels, 2012. All rights reserved. May not be reblogged or reprinted without express written permission of the author.

The Smell of Chicken, Not Frying

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Aloha,

That’s Tallulah and Moose above. We interrupt our normally scheduled programming to ponder how it was that today I found myself drying a chicken’s butt with my blow dryer.

Actually, I know the answer to that. There was a time that  I worked as a veterinary surgical tech. I thought I wanted to be a vet, so I assisted in animal surgeries. Good thing I test-drove that career first…if the science tests hadn’t killed me, my allergies to animal dander would have. I could barely get my work done, I was so busy blowing my nose.

The point is, I know my way around animals pretty well, and Tallulah has been sick off and on for eight months now. She’s been to see Dr. Allan Kaufman, Maui’s chicken vet (Okay, so I know that some of you have stopped reading because you think I’m crazy. Who takes a chicken to the vet?) You’d be surprised. In addition to providing breakfast eggs and garden manure, they are ace pest and bug control agents. And chickens are like dogs. They have distinct personalities and you get attached. Moose is a brat and Tallulah is loveable and likes to be held:

And she gets so relaxed, she’ll fall alseep in your arms…

But last August some wild chickens, the “Wild Women” we called them, showed up on the property and it took us three weeks of running all over the place to catch them, because they were expert at survival and hiding in the bushes. And Hello, chickens can FLY! If they got cornered, they just flew up to the roof and sat there and laughed at us. We finally nabbed them with a swimming pool net on a pole, of all things. In the meantime, they infected our flock with some kind of crud. Just about the time I think I have them well, it starts all over again.

A bed in a box in the garage. A hot water bottle. Antibiotics administered with an eye dropper that look and smell like bananas. They love bananas, but do you think they’ll take the medicine without a fight? Noooo. Hand feeding, hand-watering…I’m exhausted. So why won’t they get well?

Today Tallulah got a warm bath. Again, not crazy, you can google it. Sometimes an egg gets caught in the chute and that can make them sick. The bath is supposed to dislodge the egg, except there wasn’t one. But who knew that chickens won’t dry once they’re wet? It’s hot, it’s Maui, I thought what the heck? But by bedtime, she was still soaking wet, so out came the blow dryer. She was not happy about going to the beauty parlor and I got pecked for my efforts.

Let me tell you, the smell of chicken, drying, is not something you want to live through twice.

A hui hou!  (til next time)…when we’ll pick back up with the move to Maui. If you’d like to subscribe to this blog, please click the “Follow” button to the right.

Aloha, Jamaica

Copyright Jamaica Michaels, 2012. All rights reservevd. May not be reblogged or reprinted without permission of the author.

Moving to Maui, Part One

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Maui Kaanapali Villas

Aloha!

Would you like to move to Maui? Ever wonder what it’s really like?

Here’s how I got here: I fractured my tailbone and then had a small stroke. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

An acquaintance owned a lovely condo at the Maui Kaanapali Villas, www.astonmauikaanapalivillas.com  with a little bit of an ocean view and a short walk to the beach. Her mother on the mainland had cancer, and she needed to go care for her. She asked me if I’d like to stay in the condo and pay her mortgage (there are no free lunches.)

I was running my interior design business in the San Francisco Bay area and wearing high heels to work every day. The first thing that happened was I fell down a full flight of stairs. A client’s carpet was worn out (duh…part of why I was there) and my slick heel slid off the top step and I flew through the air, legs over my head, to land at the bottom in a heap. Result? A fractured tailbone. The doc said the only thing he knew to help that was to swim in warm salt water. Reason to say yes, #1.

Then I was leaving another client’s home and things got a little wonky with my vision. I chalked it up to fatigue and stress. The next thing I knew, I was driving on the sidewalk on a very busy main thoroughfare. Oh, this was not good at all. I could have taken out a light post; heck, I could have taken out a pedestrian, several, in fact.

I shakily drove on to the store to order furniture for my client, and when I opened my mouth to speak to the salesman, gibberish came out. Needing to recuperate from a small stroke: reason #2.

So I found myself on Maui, basically in the lap of luxury, see above. (Except for the pesky elevator that broke down and they had to bring a guy in from Oahu to fix it, but he kept not showing up. Little did I know this is how EVERYTHING works on Maui. In other words, it doesn’t.) Then, they raised the condo fees to pay for the elevator, so my acquaintance raised my rent. But the beach made up for it:

I talked the guy at the  beach shack into renting me a chaise lounge by the month, with two pads instead of one, for my poor tailbone.I spent every day at the beach. I walked, swam, sunned, ate, and slept. I got better. I contemplated my life back home and saw that I’d been driving myself into the ground like a crazy person. You know the old saying: self-employment is where you go from working 40 hours a week to 80 hours a week for half the pay? It’s so true.

I started thinking about running away from home. Permanently.

But how in the world would I make a living?

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

Aloha, Jamaica

Copyright Jamaica Michaels, 2012. All rights reserved. may not be reblogged or reprinted without written permission of the author.

It’s Whale Season!

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It’s whale season here and I promised you all some photos. Mike took these while Captaining the “Scotch Mist” out of Lahaina Harbor. Come visit Maui and enjoy these magnificent creatures. Aloha!

A Blow

                                                                                                                               

A Pec Slap

A Breach

Whales and Chocolates for Valentine’s Day

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When I started this blog, my intention was to write and post every day, thus the name “Maui Daily Escape.”

But we all know what the road to hell is paved with, and my particular road got paved over when I got The Call. The one no one wants to get, saying their parent is dying of cancer. So I got on a plane for the Mainland and I have been gone five months. I just got back, and I have been considering the things I missed about Maui during five long months, and also the differences between California and here.

First, there’s the sticker shock. I had to go to the grocery store as soon as I got off the plane and I just stood there in the aisle alongside the tourists, muttering.

“Seven dollars for orange juice? Four dollars for a loaf of bread?” Get real!”  I got spoiled on the Mainland in five months’ time, being able to bop into Trader Joe’s and fill my cart with all sorts of enticing, healthy things for very little cashola. (BTW: if you get any group of women together in a room who have moved to Maui, and ask them what they miss the absolute most about the Mainland, the answer, with a moony look in their eyes, is always the same: Trader Joe’s and Target.) Those ladies will lust after their favorite Trader Joe’s food item the way a teenage boy lusts after Jessica Simpson’s assets.  For me, it’s those thin, little cheaper-than-dirt rice crackers. I crave them every day  at lunchtime. Same type of crackers on Maui? About six bucks.

    For those of you who live on another planet, Trader Joe’s is this cool, inexpensive food store that’s kinda gourmet and kinda hipster at the same time. There are NONE in Hawaii. www.traderjoes.com And to think they have the nerve at Joe’s to have their employees wear those Hawaiian shirts! If you go to their website, here’s what they say about that:

QUESTION: “Why do you guys wear those Hawaiian shirts?”

ANSWER: Fun or fashion faux pas? It may not be runway model attire, but our Crew is unafraid to make a bold fashion statement. We wear Hawaiian shirts because we’re traders on the culinary seas, searching the world over for cool items to bring home to our customers. And when we return home, we think grocery shopping should be fun, not another chore. So just relax and leave your worries at the door. We’ll sail those seven seas, you have some fun with our finds at your neighborhood Trader Joe’s.

And Trader Joe’s will be coming to Hawaii about as soon as Costco puts in a “ten items or less” checkout aisle. People would flip out at what Joe’s would have to charge in Hawaii because of the shipping to get it all here. And Costco? My Stepdad was in a hospital bed next to a Costco Big Wig. So he asked him, “When are you guys gonna put one of those fast lanes in?” His answer: When hell freezes over (and the Eagles stop touring to squeeze every last dollar out of their Baby boomer audience.) The reason is that they WANT you to have to stand in line, “so you’ll buy more, to make standing in line worth it.” He actually said that, and also that it’s the number one requested thing in the “Suggestions” box. Ain’t gonna happen, folks, so just stop asking.

So, here was the minus side to coming back to Maui:

Grocery sticker shock. And gasoline sticker shock!!

My house and yard looked like one of those houses in a scary movie where the new tenants move in and you just KNOW bad things are going to happen. All that was missing were the giant cobwebs to tangle up the heroine and make her scream. But the yard became a jungle (even with someone keeping it up a little) and the house was filthy. There isn’t a window made that can keep out the Maui red dirt. (We have Andersen double panes. The dirt still stacks up in neat little heaps on the windowsills of the closed windows.)

And here was the down side to California:

The grey winter skies. I was just jonesing for the sunshine and warmth.

The crowds of people. And traffic!!

The godawful bridge tolls. It’s enough to make you not want to go anywhere. $5.00 a pop! Really?

The upside? All the restaurants my little heart could desire.

And Napa Valley. I’ll say it again. Napa Valley!

The sheer number of choices: Restaurants. Stores. Shoes. Experiences.

But here’s the thing that hit me, once I was back. Maui: it’s like no other place.

Mike came home from work (he Captains the “Scotch Mist”, a sail boat out of Lahaina) and told me this story: he was working the evening sail full of tourists, the “Champagne and Chocolates” sail.  It’s whale season here (December through March) and a mama whale came right up to the back of the boat. Mike has been on the water his whole life, and a Captain for 22 years. He said she was the biggest whale he’d ever seen, mainly because of her girth. She was about fifty feet long and twelve feet wide. He was blown away by her sheer size and figured she must be reeally old.

As the whole boat full of tourists looked on, the mama surfaced with her baby balanced on her nose. Almost like she’d been paid to put on the show. Mike could have leaned over and given her a kiss, she was so close. As everyone ooohed and ahhhed, the mama whale moved to the side of the boat and she and the baby just hung out for about fifteen minutes.

I think maybe she was waiting for someone to offer her a glass of champagne.

“You got pictures, right?” I prompted hopefully. “Lots of pictures?” And the reason there are no photos posted here of this event is because just like anything else in life, Mike takes the whales a bit for granted now. Only the tourists have cameras. It’s old hat for him.

Trust me, the camera batteries are charging as we speak. In the meantime, I will leave you with a photo my niece Laura took when she last visited Maui.(Photo credit: Laura Langendorfer Schuster)

Aloha till next time! Wishing you champagne whale kisses and chocolate caviar dreams.

Copyright Jamaica Michaels, 2012. All rights reserved. May not be reblogged or reprinted without express written permission of the author.