I didn’t even buy another lousy t-shirt.

But I did buy new sunglasses. I figured my old ones were due for retirement after ten years of service.

I was on vacation last week! With my parents. Because that’s how exciting my life is. We were in Hawai’i--the Big Island--and I now have a tan in January which feels oh-so-wrong and oh-so-right all at the same time. I mean, the tan came from me falling asleep on a chaise lounge and getting broiled while waiting for the Parental Units to show up, so I did accomplish at least one thing on the ‘white girl on vacation’ checklist. I was very crispy for a few days.

But you don’t want to hear about my sunburn, you want to hear about all the fascinating things I saw and did and ate and whatnot!

Firstly, I would like to say that I have a new saved search on Zillow for the north end of the island because it is gorgeous and if I get the chance I’m packing up and moving! The relaxed lifestyle is good for my blood pressure and the hiking and swimming are good for my...everything else. I’m pretty sure I can cancel out all the macaroni salad with excessive amounts of tropical fruits, right? Right?! In any case, this was my first visit to Hawai’i and I’m really pissed I hadn’t made it over there before. (My parents had been before without me. Rude.)

When you fly into the Kona/Kailua side of the island you sort of expect to be greeted by Marvin the Martian--you might as well be landing on the moon. All that volcanic rock is a surprise if you’re not prepared for it. Then again, I was prepared and it was still surprising, so what do I know? On the shuttle ride to the condo my dad had rented for us I learned that the island has herds of feral goats which were introduced in a similar fashion to the mongoose. Also, fun fact, the mongoose was introduced to eliminate the black rat, but the plan failed because no one took into account that with the rats being nocturnal and the mongoose (Mongooses? Mongeese? WTF is the plural of ‘mongoose’?!) being diurnal, their little rodent schedules didn’t align well for hunting purposes. I tried on several occasions to get a photo of a mongoose but failed miserably because they’re quick little boogers. I’m still disappointed about this.

I did make a fantastic discovery on this trip, however, which is that if I snorkel while floating on a boogie board (or similar contraption) I don’t panic! I love marine life--if you’ve ever seen me in the same place as a tide pool, you know just how much--but that whole complete loss of your auditory sense when you’re under the water gives me an instant anxiety attack. You can’t see behind you, but that’s normal enough. The fact that you can’t hear anything that might be approaching you from out of your line of sight just gives me the jibblies. No, thank you. Of course, it’s hard to see interesting aquatic critters if you don’t stick your head in the water, so it was always an internal argument--until now! The fish there are gorgeous and colorful and BIG, holy crap. We had been seeing Moorish Idols (think the angel fish from Finding Nemo) in close to the shore and they were the size you would expect, but it turns out that they can be as big as a dinner plate. That was a surprise for sure. Oh, and we did see a turtle quite close up, but not snorkeling. It was while we were wandering around on the lava rocks. The turtle just happened to be having a snack in the shallows.

I just consulted my notes on the trip to help me remember more things to tell you, but the way I wrote the notes made me giggle so I’m going to give you the original, leaving out the mundane bits.

~~~
Hawai’i 1/5-1/12/2019
1/5
Thoughts upon landing:

• “Welcome to the Moon!”
• Where’s Marvin? (The Martian)
• My nasal passages haven’t been this happy in weeks.
• This is the weirdest airport I’ve ever been to.
• This is also the coolest airport I’ve ever been to.
• People here are nice. And calm.
• OMG COOL PLANTS!
• Saffron finches are totes adorbs.
• I wonder what the real estate market is like?
• Arrived, shuttled, dropped cases, went to beach, did not feed eels, got sunburned.

1/6

• Petroglyphs are porn.
• This Nikon* is complicated.
• GUAVA MALASADAS ARE LIFE.

1/9

• Hilo is kinda grungy, but I kinda don’t care.
• Guava malasadas are still life.
• There is a malachite specimen at the Lyman Museum that looks like a giant green stone dildo.

1/10

• Met a very vocal black kitty on the way back from the hot tub.

1/12
Flight home:

I swear people don’t know how to unplug anymore The guy next to me has his phone and a tablet, and I can see several other devices of varying size and primary duty from where I’m sitting. The in-flight entertainment is all in an app which you can download or you can rent a tablet from them for $10 which is preloaded with movies etc.

People, it’s a four-and-a-half hour flight. Enjoy being off the grid for a while. Read a book. Take a nap. Write. Color. Do word puzzles. Talk to each other.

Good grief.
~~~

I’ll leave you with a weird little experience we shared as a family at a kitschy store on the last day while we were wasting time waiting for our flights. My dad loves Hawai’ian-style shirts and was flicking through a rack when he said, “Oh, holy--look at this!” and pulled out a shirt to show us. Now, back in nineteen-diggety-doo, my...great aunt and uncle(?), TV and Uncle Muck (For real, just go with me on the names, ok?) took a trip to Hawai’i. They brought back a bolt of royal blue fabric with a white Hawai’ian pattern to my grandmother, and she made shirts for my dad and his four younger siblings. The shirt my dad had pulled off the rack, though on closer inspection not a dead-ringer, was eerily similar. The shirt was duly documented for posterity, and someday, when I feel the urge, I’m going to go out to the shed and pull the original shirt out of its box to compare.

I had a nice week off.



*My maternal grandfather was a very decent photographer, and my mom held onto his Nikon after he passed, but she never got around to using it so now it’s mine. And it is, in fact, complicated.