I am sitting here at work on a cold rainy Tuesday morning. I have a skull-splitting hangover as I went drinking last night with Sandy and my old director from the mermaid. Supposedly Blond Director just turned 50 so there was champagne. Lots of champagne. I got really drunk while they told these hilariously vicious stories about people we hate at the mermaid. Oh, the good old days. They were really not that good, mostly, but sometimes they were a hell of a lot better than this place is right now.
I look around at this place. Grey walls, grey cubes, grey carpeting, grey old men sleeping at their desks. Some are drooling, some aren’t. I am turning into one of these people.
I have to get the hell out of here.
There was this Madonna song last year called Jump. It’s my new theme song:
There’s only so much you can learn in one place
The more that I wait, the more time that I waste
I haven’t got much time to waste, it’s time to make my way
I’m not afraid of what I’ll face, but I’m afraid to stay
Are you ready to jump?
Get ready to jump
Yes, I have reached a point in my life where I am relying on Madonna for career guidance and spiritual support.
Interestingly, I am not listening to Jump on my iPod. No, I am listening to Sandra Bernhard screaming, “Pussy don’t fail me now!” This is cracking me up. I turn it up louder. If any of these ancient Republican fuckheads here had any idea what I was listening to, they would light up their torches, grab their pitchforks, and attack these fabulous red shoes that I am wearing. I think they want to anyway.
As always, when I hate work there is only one thing to do:
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It’s Christmas Eve of 2007 and I am standing on a balcony of a condo overlooking the Pacific in Kihei, Maui, Hawai’i watching the sunset and drinking a Mai Tai with Mark. It's 45 degrees warmer in Maui than it was in Seattle.
As I think about writing this blog I know it's going to be a challenge. This is my 11th trip to Hawai’i and my 7th trip to Maui. I think I have pretty much written about everything there is to do here. I will have to focus on new things to keep this interesting. Apparently that is not going to be a problem as a miracle happens just as we are watching the sun set. Right when the sun drops below the horizon we see the green flash. Yes, that green flash, http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash, the mysterious, mythical green flash that you have heard about since you were a small child but heretofore had only been seen by your parents' drunken friends when they were stationed in some obscure military post in the 1950’s.
We were not drunk. We had not even finished our first Mai Tai. I do not have a photo because I was not expecting this. The sun goes down and then for just a second there is this intense green flash. I am so not making this up. Mark was there! He saw it too! We were both like, “Holy shit, that was the geen flash!”
Here is a slightly doctored-up photo to show you what we saw.
Well, that certainly got this blog off on the right foot.
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I am at Sea-Tac waiting to get on the plane, first. I see my eye doctor waiting in line. He is flying coach. He has to make more money than I do. What is wrong with people?
OK, OK, I won’t write about hating poor people or toasting them with my champagne glass as they walk down that long, long, long aisle back to coach. I know that joke about First Class is getting a little old.
Here’s the lunch menu we got to choose from.
I enjoyed a Duo of Savory Shooters, Fresh Sage Infused Chicken, and Pepper Crusted Cold Poached Salmon. Yes I did.
On the flight I get my free Digi-Player since I am in First Clas...oops,sorry. The Digi-Player is a smallish thing like a laptop. You have a choice of a number of newish movies, TV shows, music, etc., that you can enjoy with your Bose Noise Reduction Headphones. I watch The Simpsons Movie and laugh my ass off while drinking lots and lots of free Champagne.
Time to fill out the required State of Hawai’i form.
I have been waiting to do this one for a couple of years. I finally get to fill in bubble number 7 on question number 3.
I think I will forget to hand this form in and frame it instead.
I am cleaning my hands with a warm Lilikoi-scented hot towel when the plane turns a little and I see my beloved perfect Maui out the window.
Yes, of course I start crying.
Warm! Perfect, thick, warm Hawaiian air!
Grey Clove Head is gone, for now.
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Dinner on Christmas Eve is at Roy’s and it’s on my sister. She insisted on giving me money for this dinner before we left for some reason. We have a great meal starting off with Passion Fruit-infused martinis, then the requisite canoe of appetizers. We get this great bottle of Spanish Albarino. I have Butterfish like I always do and Mark has this really yummy fish from Kona called Kampachi. This is a tropical fish I had not known before. Did you? Fortunately this fish has his own informative web site!
After dinner we head back to the beach for the ceremony. What ceremony would we be doing in the dark, on a beach, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2500 miles from the next continent, on Christmas Eve? Well, a little ceremony for the Goddess Pele, of course!
Here is the deal. In August of 2001 I was on the Big Island. At the Black Sand Beach down near the Kilauea volcano I stole a few pieces of black lava rock and took them home.
I have since learned that taking rocks home from Hawai’i is really bad luck. It pisses off Pele and then she fucks with you. Every year hundreds of desperate people mail their stolen rocks back to Post Offices all over the Islands in an attempt to appease the Fire Goddess.
Since my indiscretion in August of 2001 I have had pretty shitty luck. I fear this could also have indirectly contributed to September 11th, the re-election of W, Buffy going off the air, the abandonment of the Star Trek franchise, and the general increase in cable television rates.
So in an attempt to undo all this back luck, I have brought from home a ziplock bag filled with a handful of black lava rocks from the Big Island, one red lava rock from Kauai, and several distinctly shaped pieces of coral from Maui. I pour the contents out onto my favorite part of Keawakapu Beach, make a circle of them, then say a prayer to Pele explaining that, “I suck, I am sorry, that I won’t do it again, I really, really am sorry, and PS, please don’t let a Republican ever become president again!” A wave roars out of the sea, washes over my little stone circle, and then it’s gone! Pele has accepted my offering....I hope.
More later...
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It’s the middle of the night. I wake up to pee and to get a drink of water. It occurs to me that I might see Santa. But no, I see something much scarier.
I look in the bathroom mirror and there he is, Grey Clove Head. I scream, blink, and he is gone. I so do not need this in Maui.
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Christmas Day in Maui. I'd better say that again. Christmas Day in Maui. Do you hate me yet? It's 70 degrees out and bright sunshine when I get up at 6am Hawaii time because some mynah bird in some papaya tree is screaming just outside the window.
Mark and I start with some locally grown Maui coffee but soon decide to mix some Maui Ocean Vodka into POG juice and stand on the deck looking at the ocean. Standing on the deck...looking at the ocean...on Christmas Day...In Maui.
I don't care if you hate me.
I see on the internet it has snowed in Seattle. White Christmas. Fuck that.I put on some music:
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say,On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day,
That's the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway,
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright,
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night,
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way
To say "Merry Christmas to you."
For breakfast I just make Portuguese sausage with some eggs and fruit. We walk down the beach. Way down the beach. There are so many happy people out walking in the warm Hawaiian sun on this Christmas Day in Maui. We all smile at each other.
Where the Renaissance Hotel used to be there is a big black fence. This hotel had the most beautiful grounds and a great beachside restaurant called the Maui Onion where you could get great onions rings and Mai Tais and usually get your parents to pay for lunch on your first day here. No more. All closed up and being converted into some high-end private resort called Baccarat (because that is such a Hawaiian name). This makes me really sad. What will I do for onion rings?
We keep walking and go farther south than we ever have before – all the way to the Grand Wailea resort. It is so odd to see a Miami-like resort here.
Here is how a normal beach in Hawaii looks:
Here is how the beach at the Grand Wailea looks:
I am against it.
After a very long walk back we have Poke and some soba noodles with sesame seeds and green onions for lunch. Not the most traditional Christmas lunch but it works for us. We spend the afternoon at Ho’okipa beach watching surfers. There are people from all over the world here just staring at the little shark snacks as they play in the water. It's kind of hypnotic. Some French tourists are parlez-vousing. I think about trying out my French to practice for Septemer, mais no, I chicken out.
I suppose it looks cold here but it was 80 degrees.
We spend the rest of Christmas Day playing cards, drinking, walking on the beach, and eating rack of lamb. Let me just say again, this so does not suck!
Mele Kalikimaka!
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So here I am, about 3000 feet up in the air on the side of a volcano in the middle of the Pacific. No one ever believes me that parts of Hawai’i look like Ireland.....
...if Ireland had giant cactus.
OK, a little while ago we did it. We went to Haili'imaile for lunch.
I know I said I wanted to do new things this time, but that did not mean skipping crab dip. The crab dip is the only reason I came back from Italy.
What can I say? There is no way to write about this in a more informative way than I have the last 7 times I have been here. I close my eyes. All sound stops. It's just me, my tongue, my nose, and the crab dip. My hands shake with anticipation. My tongue comes out, slowly, the tip of it lightly dances around the surface. I don't commit, I don't bite. I smell the creamy goodness. There is no place else on earth I want to be right now. Slowly my tongue dives in and then finally I bite. My mouth fills with creamy, salty, magical, crabby joy. I moan, loudly.
At some point later there is sound, light, other smells. Real life again. Boo!
Mark is laughing at me. The hostess is staring at me, but she is smiling.
I feel that dark despair start to come over me, just like when I was done eating truffles in Italy. Don't kill yourself, Troy. There is a reason to go on. You are going to Provence in September. They have truffles there. Also, you have a Sashimi Napoleon sitting in front of you.
After lunch we drive over to the little town of Makawao. There are a lot of galleries here but nothing has changed since we were here last time. We happen to look up and see there are hundreds of giant spider webs running the length of this little town. Many, many, many big spiders are sitting about 20 feet above us. They are using telephone poles to host their giant webs of doom. Happy tourists are walking around gallery hopping, not realizing that death is perched just above their heads. I would have taken a picture to show this, but let's just say we thought it was wise to get in the car and get the hell out of there quickly.
After that rather horrific experience we decide to try to find the Surfing Goat Dairy because, “Da Feta Mo’ Betta”.
We see some goats standing in a field and pull over. Yes, these are little goats playing on a surfboard.
Are these the same thing as lambs? I hope not, they are way too cute to eat. We get several kinds of really good goat cheese to eat throughout the week.
We drive around the side of the volcano to the winery and beyond. One the way we past Sun Yat Sen Park. Strange statues here. They look like my kitten Hyka.
Does this remind you of the movie The Birds but with cows instead?
The Tedeschi Winery is fun. I actually like the wine made out of pineapple. It’s not sweet, it just smells like pineapple, a little bit.
Past the winery we are now in the one part of Maui that I have not been to. See the red line below:
Here's a picture looking down on Big Beach in Makena.
Those French tourists we saw at Ho'okipa drive up and talk to us. They think this area is much more pretty that the Road to Hana. They are fools. The road is closed past here a ways due to damage from that big eathquake near the Big Island in 2006. Some day I really want to drive from Hana all the way around. Not today.
Tonight I just cook some Ahi and long beans and then we go for a walk on the beach in the dark. It's a new moon, meaning there is no moonlight. Down the beach we see palm trees wrapped in Christmas lights, which is kind of cool. We see one little blue glowy in the sand. As we are walking along I see just a glint of something above us. It looks like a single strand of something...something like a spider web! Those giant spiders of death from Makawao have followed us down here and they are going to eat us!! I see their eyes glowing higher up on the beach. Wait, I smell cigarette smoke. Do giant spiders of death smoke? Then I hear "Howzit?" Why is a giant spider of death asking me how I am with a Hawaiian accent? As my eyes adjust I see there are lots of Hawaiians out on the beach fishing. We just walked under their fishing lines. Wow. That was kind of odd.
Later I check on the internet and learn that the new moon is considered a good night for fishing in Hawai'i.
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I wake up to learn that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. This really upsets me. I always liked her and was happy to hear it when she moved back home. I have a friend from work over there right now and I am really worried about her. This makes me think of work. Suddently he's back in my head.
Bleck!
For breakfast I make a goat cheese omelet from our Surfing Goat Dairy cheese and green onions. It’s really good. We try to watch some of the media crisis on TV, but it’s too depressing so we go for a walk on the beach and then head to the I’ao Valley to take pictures of the free range cats that live there.
There is one of those little fluffy cats like Fred here. Just like there was in Italy. These Freds, they really get around. He's too fast so I can't get a picture.
We go to lunch at A Saigon Café in Wailuku. That same goofy little waiter that we always get is here. A Saigon Café does not have a sign on the outside.They have a new sign on the inside though:
This is such a fun restaurant. After lunch we have to drive over to stupid Lahaina to go the the Universal Church of the Life Force so that I can try to buy a mask. Instead of one of the normal women I know here there is some stoned hippy dude working instead today. He is not helpful, but I find this cool little maskish thing from Indonesia to buy. It's like this little guy is saying Stop in the name of love!...or maybe Do not touch me and get away!
(he's down near the bottom back at home now)
We drive north past Napili to this one pineapple field we always go to watch surfers. The annoying French Tourists are here too. Pretty...
Tonight we are not going to the Old Lahaina Luau. This just kind of burns me, but no, we are going to Warren and Annabelle’s Magic Show. http://www.warrenandannabelles.com/
Now if you have been to Hawai’i you know that the Blue Book is a great guide book:
http://wizardpub.com/maui/maui.html The Blue Book really talks up this show, and we want to do something different, so what the hell. Deep in the heart of the Lahaina T-Shirt Shop hell we trot up to a second floor waiting area. We are pushed into this book-lined elevator. We are handed a key and told to just figure it out. Soon someone sees a keyhole in a book. We turn the key and then a wall opens and we are ushered into this piano bar. The idea here is that this invisible ghost named Annabelle plays the piano. She takes requests like "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." As she plays, my pinky, of its own accord, points at the invisible ghost.
This is pretty cheesy, but it’s not as horrible as it sounds. The food is horrible, however. After the very fried food and a couple drinks we all head into this tiny theatre. Soon Warren the magician comes out. He’s really funny, and very talented. I don’t want to wreck any of his magic tricks, so I will just say some of it really is amazing. This is an odd little show, and it’s even weirder to go see this in Maui, but I had a great time. I have to recommend this.
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Now it’s Friday. It's spa day. Yes, we are off to Spa Grande at the Grand Wailea, again. You may recall some graphic and disturbing pictures from last time.
This is our third time here. The guy at the front desk remembers us. He should. Given what it costs here we have probably paid off his student loans and his car.
As usual I soak in the various flavored tubs (seaweed is my favorite), sit under the waterfall shower, have an amazing massage, and get 7 months of “congestion” extracted from my pores. I think it might not be appropriate to mention the super hot guys walking around all naked in the spa, so I won't mention that.
Tonight we want to stick to the whole spa thing so we go to Sansei for sushi. We can’t get a reservation so we sit at the bar. The bartender is this hilarious guy who throws bottles up in the air a la Tom Cruise and sticks bottle caps to his forehead. We laugh and drink sake and eat spider rolls, and spicy tuna rolls, and then laugh and drink sake and eat rainbow rolls, and drink sake, and Sansei Special rolls and drink sake and laugh, etc etc. Soon we have spent $200.
Spa day has helped. I have not thought about work at all.
More later....
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So here is something that I have been meaning to write about Hawai'i for a long time. Everywhere you go, on every island, there are these burnt out abandoned cars. It's weird. I have no idea why these are here or who leaves them....perhaps the Menehune. One day it's there, the next day it's not. Then another car pops up someplace else the next day. Here are the cars from Thursday:
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We are staying at the same condo we always stay at, Mana Kai Maui. Normally we rent through the condo association, but since it's Christmas everything was booked about a year out. We got this unit from the guy who owns this site, http://www.mauimanakai.com/webcam.htm. We’ve known about this little web cam in unit 215 for years. Mark and I both go here frequently in times of emotional, professional, or weather based stress. This rich guy from Silicon Valley owns the unit and you can rent directly from him. It’s a bit more expensive than the other units, especially the ones higher up with way better views, but what the hell, it was available.
Now obviously I knew the web cam was in the unit, but I did not know how much it would bug the shit out of me. I know what I look like....
......but having the giant fatness of me broadcast around the whole world was a icky. I kept flipping off the camera then capturing the image on my laptop 2.1 seconds later. This became a bit of an obsession for me.
Here is the camera:
Here is me:
Here is my bald spot:
Here is Mark not caring that he is being documented:
More later.....
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There is this song I discovered on KCRW a few years ago called “Last Good Day of the Year” by this now defunct band called Cousteau. It’s this amazing magical kind of song that Mark and I have always associated with Maui, especially on that horrific day when you are leaving.
I am listening to “Last Good Day of the Year” on the last good day of the year. It’s New Year’s Eve. It’s actually raining in Kihei, which almost never happens as clouds can’t normally make it over Haleakala. It's OK, it makes it easier to leave if it’s raining.
Before we leave town we are having the world’s most expensive lunch at Mama's Fish House. Oh Mama's. It's so pretty here.
We walk down the path to the restaurant that is made out of gecko stones.
We are seated right at the front.
There is a pretty good storm going on outside. I look up from my menu to see this little waterspout tornado thing go by.
That was odd. Anyway, I have this gin based drink with lime and ginger to start. Then this appetizer of seared beef, onions, and chili’s in a grilled papaya. We get a bottle of Spanish white. I have Ahi crusted in ginger and panko, Mark has this spearfish with Kula onions and tomatoes. He wins. We finish off with this French press of local Maui coffee and coconut cheese cake. Yes, we now have spent like $300…on lunch….but we are flying coach home so we had to eat well, right?
So, this trip is over. When I started this blog in mid December I honestly thought I would be making the jump to a certain large cell phone company when I got home and that I could just leave Grey Clove Head behind, but no, Ma Bell did not cough up the cash. I guess I will just have to deal with Grey Clove Head directly instead of jumping. Insert thoughtful comment about taking your baggage with you here. Maybe I will just dye my hair.
PS - Everyone wanted to know if I would still want to come to Maui as much after Italy. It’s tempting to say that nothing has changed, but that would not be true. Maui is not like going on some grand adventure anymore. It’s really like coming home, like comfort food. It is really fun to show people around here who have not been here before, but it’s also insanely expensive. I don’t think we will be back this year. Maybe we will take the small Chinese children to Hawai'i next year. But for now I have to buy guide books for Provence and Paris. There might also be a little stop over in Las Vegas in May to see Bette Midler. Grey Clove Head is not a Bette Midler fan.
Aloha!
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