Kaua'i

Hello from Wilcox Memorial Hospital in Lihue, Kaua'i.  Yes, of course there was drama.

Before I get into all that, I should say that it was just obviously time for a vacation. I have been on a career-limiting roll lately. In the last several weeks I have:

1) Made a fool of myself in a steering committee meeting by making verbally incontinent comments, which caused me to get embarrassed, which caused my to voice start shaking, which caused me to then slump down in my chair to hide after I realized how stupid I sounded, which caused me to slip off my chair and fall under table, all while sitting next to CIO.

2) Shot the CIO in the back of the head with a moose-shaped ping pong ball gun because I thought the CIO was someone else.

3) Crashed into the CIO while rushing to team happy hour, knocking a wine bottle into the CIO's crotch.

4) Finally, yesterday, I coughed green slime from my lungs onto the CIO who, for some reason was sitting next to me again in an RFP review. The CIO should never sit next to me.

Oh yes, did I mention I have a bad cold? Picked it up in San Francisco last week at leadership training. My lungs are filled with green snot worthy of Linda Blair, my voice sounds like Zuul from Ghostbusters, and my ears are plugged solid. I cannot hear anything, which I am starting to see the benefits of.

A couple nights ago my father called to tell me that if I did not rush to the doctor to get antibiotics I would die on this trip of congestive heart failure caused by my cold. He heard this on Fox News so it must be true. I pointed out that antibiotics do not treat colds. He got angry and said anyone who believes in Climate Change should not be lecturing him about science and he hung up. Thanks for calling Dad.

This cold will not go away. I have been doing Neti Pots for a week. The salty liquid goes into my nose but does not come out anywhere. After seven days of this, the voice of my deranged father in my plugged ear finally got me to call my doctor. I got voice-mail, but he called back and said colds are not treatable with antibiotics and that I should get a Neti Pot.

On Friday my boss told me that I should not fly with my ears this plugged up. When we hit 10,000 feet my eardrums would burst and I would bleed to death and never be able to hear again.

I am so done getting healthcare advice.

Of course my eardrums did not burst at 10,000 feet. The Neti dam did burst though. Right when the seatbelt light when off, seven days of saline solution squirted from my head like Old Faithful. You just don't see that in First Class too often, the head squirting.

So other that the earuption, our First Class flight from Seattle to Honolulu was uneventful. Sitting in row one, we raised our glasses of Veuve to toast the poor during their long, long, long, walk of shame to the back of the plane. (I think it's important to make eye contact with them so they learn to aspire for more in life.) After take off we enjoyed more champagne and a delightful meal of lilikoi scented corn blini with beluga and crème fraiche, smoked salmon with organic purple onions and locally grown organic capers on rye, and an organic free-range air-chilled chicken pot pie with farmer's market vegetables and a goats milk sauce. I enjoyed two episodes of Buffy (season five of course), and then the plane turned to land.

Honolulu International Airport is a sea of wretched refuse yearning to breathe free. Fortunately, as with all Hawaiian airports, there are no walls, so the breathing is easy, but this allows access for large birds of prey that dive bomb unsuspecting tourists, snatching up French fries, nachos, and Buds Light.

Other travelers like us foster their repair after a long journey in the Hawaiian Airlines First Class Lounge where yoga and shiatsu are offered. And champagne.

Soon we are off to Kauai on a smaller yet equally class-segregated plane. While my phone is in airplane mode, of course, I still have received a text stating that our car is ready and waiting in stall 112. No waiting in line to check in is required.

After landing we load up the car and head to the rental house. The Pacific on the left and jagged green mountains on the right frame our drive to the south of the island. It is 75 degrees, there is a rainbow, and chickens are crossing the road, walking the streets, standing on fences, all the while clucking gently. We are in Kaua'i!

Nature embraces us in its glory as we take a left from highway 50 onto highway 520, turning into Kauai's famous Tunnel Of Trees. Five hundred curving eucalyptus form a tunnel of verdant green to welcome us to the south shore.  Then my power steering goes out and the rental car engine dies. Somehow I heroically manage to get us to the side of the road without hitting any chickens. The smell of fried electrical wires wafts through the air. We are able to open the car windows and then all electrical power stops. We are dead on the side of the road in the Tunnel Of Trees.

I ring up Hertz on my mobile. They will send someone to pick up the car, but we will need to take a taxi back to the airport to get a new car. They will reimburse us for $20 of cab fare. As I am speaking to Hertz I see a mosquito land on my left arm. Then two.  Then three. It's a swarm, an attack.  Thousands of mosquitos are eating us alive as Hertz asks if I drove with the parking brake on.

I have to hang up on Hertz as we struggle to get out of the car and run for our lives. Before we can make a break for it I see a red flash. Then another. And another. Something, some things, else are in the car with us. They are clucking. It's chickens. Dozens of chickens have jumped into the open car windows to eat the mosquitos. Not known for their keen eyesight, the chickens are snapping at us too as they gobble up the vampiric insects. I feel like Tippi Hedren.

Bloodied, bitten, terrorized, we grab our luggage and run screaming out of the Tunnel of Trees. A pickup driven by Japanese gardeners stops. "Howzit? Did some chicken got you?"  Apparently this has happened before.

We're getting ready to leave the hospital now. Bandaged, inoculated, humiliated. We'll head back to the airport soon to get a new car. Then we'll be on our way. Vacation awaits!

.........

In the rental house now.

Sunday was a day to sleep in after the attack. A new car, a fabulous house with a pool and hot tub, a giant spa bathtub, a gas fire pit, a gourmet kitchen with not one but two Bosch dishwashers!

Today is all about watching the Oscars. It's the first time in over a decade that Mark has not had to manage the live coverage of the Oscars for the IMDB.

The rental agency has left "a pitcher of Mai Tais" in the fridge. I'm up first. One little Mai Tai won't hurt, will it? It's fruit juice, right? Like a Mimosa or a Bloody Mary.  Right? Wrong. Turns out that these Mai Tais are made with 200 proof sugar cane distilled Hawaiian fire water. After a few sips I am hammered.

The rest of the day is a fire water blur. I think I went swimming, played in the hot tub, and made fish tacos with fresh ahi that only cost $18 a pound, but I am not really sure. It all feels like a fuzzy dream. Did The Academy actually do a retroactive Best Actress Oscar for Annette Bening for "The Kids Are Alright" and apologize for that whole "Black Swan" thing?  Who knows? Sunday blurry Sunday.

..........

Monday needs to not be blurry. After a healthful breakfast of steel cut Scottish oatmeal and locally grown Kaua'i coffee we head down to Po'ipu Beach.  It's beautiful here. The Haupu Mountains gaze down on this lovely butterscotch-colored sand filled with razor-like seashells. The sand jets out into the ocean creating two safe coves for small children to pee in. Hippies at picnic tables feed the dozens of chickens. I have to look away.

After a bit we head over to Spouting Horn, or in Hawaiian, Puhi, which means spouting horn. It's a blow hole in the lava rock at the oceanfront. In the distance we can see some whales breaching. The rock squirts water through its hole. The whales squirt water through theirs. This reminds me of the incident on the plane. I can't bear it, so we leave and head to the farmers market.

At 11:30 AM each Monday morning dozens and dozens of old white people arrive to stand in the sun for thirty minutes with their reusable grocery bags so they can be the first across the starting line when the Koloa Farmers Market opens. They have white hair, many are fat, wearing sweaters and scarves, most have colds. I have to take a picture. The screen on my iPhone shows some wrinkled old fat man with puffy eyes and a runny nose. Oh shit, I had the camera set to do a selfie.  Looking at these people, my people, I feel a sense of community, a sense of Ohana. "Give up on your youth and dreams, join us, join us, there are senior discounts at McDonalds, join us!” I seem to hear them saying through my plugged-up ears.

At 11:55 AM an old man holding a big leaf above his head comes up to the starting line and does a blessing in the Hawaiian language. Then he blows a whistle and the floodgates open. It's a stampede of varicose veins and canes. I knock over several octogenarians and grab fresh corn, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, green onions.  Lynnette gets Moloka'i sweet potatoes, avocados, mangos, papaya, and a pineapple. Mark has scored with dinosaur kale, lettuce greens, and fuzzy rambutans, which are awesome in sake martinis.  Five minutes in we turn to leave, our reusable grocery bags full. Many of the people who were with us at the starting line are just making it to the front of the market. Maybe I am not all that old.

Back at the house we try to barbecue the corn we bought so that I can make a fresh corn salad. Right when the barbecue gets up to temperature this giant windstorm kicks up. The barbecue, now caught in some kind of micro-climate-wind-shear-cyclonic-event is lifted up and flies over the black lava rock wall and onto the golf course, where it careens down the hill. Chickens run in fear. I support this, but then we see the barbecue headed straight for a golf cart filled with old white people. We decide to just go inside and open some wine.

Later, I am cooking some different corn and Mahi Mahi in the house's electric oven when the power goes out. In the distance we hear sirens. We are sure this is barbecue-related, but it is best not to look.

..........

Today we are driving to Lihue to go to the Koloa Rum distillery. Because...well, why not?

En route we have to pass by the site of the massacre. I expect to see it, our abandoned car, covered in bloodstains.  Ferns and vines will just be starting to consume its rusted body, a chicken on the roof clucking maniacally. But no, Hertz must have had it towed. I wonder how long it sat there with its windows open.

What is this?  Somebody else’s car is abandoned about 20 feet from where ours died.  The windows are open and there are bloodstains.

The open windows make me think of my own car back home. Like most people, I keep a cooler in my car so that I can go to Metropolitan Market on my way home each day, pick up whatever I am cooking for dinner, toss in a bag of ice, and not worry about how long it takes to get home.

At some point recently a bag of ice melted and the cooler tipped over. Water flooded the back of my car and got into the trunk. Last week I came out in the morning to a dead battery. When I reached into the trunk to dig out my jumper cables I was greeted with a mushroom garden. The melted ice had spawned a fungi forest of Crimini, Chanterelles, Morels, Shitaki, those stupid white button mushrooms, oh and some Black Death Mold. I hosed down the whole car with Lysol but all this did was make it difficult to breathe while driving.

After a couple days of driving with my windows open, people at work told me I would need to get my car Detailed. A Google search told me that Detailing means you pay someone else to clean your car. I couldn't really see leaving the Black Death Mold to grow while I was in Kaua'i, so another Google search informed me that car Detailing was available at the Sea-Tac parking garage for only $600! And they specialize in mold eradication! With a combo attack of ozone gas and opera arias they promise 100% mold eradication within four days. I did not know that mold hates opera! Perfect!

The car is supposed to be fungi free and waiting for me when we return on Saturday night.

Enough with fungus, on to the rum. Koloa Rum is made from sugarcane. The white rum appears to be the same fire water that caused me to become blurry all day Sunday. There is also dark rum, spiced rum, and coconut rum. I buy my rum loving sister some dark rum for her birthday. We have tiny tastes of the other ones but I am afraid of the fire water.

After, we head to Hamura Saimin for the endemic noodle soup dish. Mystery meats, mystery seafoods, in a broth with noodles, herbs, and an egg. Awesome. Some local old guy starts talking to use about other good places we could eat like a local. Instead of the normal Seattle freeze we actually engage in conversation with him. I don't know what is the matter with us. Maybe it's the weather or our recent near death experience, but we are talking to people we don't know. This is all new for me, but I am so glad we did this because I learn that Po'ipu is pronounced "Po ee poo" like I always thought and that tourists are just lazy. I feel so vindicated. "Poy poo?" Please.

One place the old guy sent us was to a little store in Koloa that sells locally-made-organic-natural-bug-spray, which keeps mosquitos away without the need to cover your skin in pesticide. They don't sell chicken spray. We load up on bug spray, then walk next door to get some wine at The Wine Store, and then we get some just off the boat Ono for dinner at the Koloa Fish Market. How locally-growable-and-sustainable is that? All this along with our local farmers market produce must offset the carbon footprint of all the expensive French wine we just bought, right? Right?

......

My sister and brother-in-law were supposed to come on this trip but they had to drop out because he needed shoulder surgery.  He's a big golfer so he's been asking us what hole the house is on. It took three phone calls to understand that the house is not actually built over a hole, but that the little pole with the flag on it on the other side of the rock wall is sitting in a small hole and each hole has a different number. As I asked more questions I learned that old white people come from all over the world to knock little white balls into these holes. "So all the mowing and watering is just so you people can hit those little balls into holes. Can't you just do this in your back yard?" I am met with silence.

Last night we were watching the sunset. There may have been cocktails. Some old white guy drove by in a little cart and waved. I shouted, "What is your hole called?" He got out of his cart, came over to our rock wall and said, "Eh?" Oh great, one of those sneaky Canadians. You can never tell when one is near till they start talking. "Where are you Yanks from?”  How does he know we are American? Do we have an accent? Is Yank disparaging? 

Turns out his name is Joe, and get this, his last name is Canadian.  Really. Joe Canadian and his wife come here every November and March to get away from Calgary and to hit balls into holes. His wife is in the hospital, something about a golf cart and a barbecue. I don't ask for details, but he offers up that on the ambulance ride over to Wilcox Memorial the EMTs were telling him about "...some Haoles that got attacked by chickens in their car." They laughed. It helped to cut the tension. We laugh too, nervously. Silly Haoles.

......

This morning our house is covered in giant praying mantises...giant praying manti? Several feet long, they stare at me through the window screens with their green soulless eyes. It occurs to me that I have green soulless eyes too.

Even since the centipede attack on the Big Island I have been leery of Hawaiian wildlife. Ever since I was hit on by that beautiful woman in the San Francisco airport two weeks ago I have been leery of females. The combination of giant female man-eating insects crawling all over my rental house is disquieting. Today may be a good day for a road trip.

We head north to Hanalei. This is where the movie South Pacific was filmed. The stunt mountain of Bali Hi is still there, hovering majestically above Hanalei Bay.  Hanalei is also where the song Puff the Magic Dragon was penned.

We have lunch at the St. Regis resort overlooking the crescent bay and mountains that are overflowing with waterfalls. This does not seem real. The prices don't seem real either. $18 Mai Tais, $26 fish and chips, $14 French fries.

There is a great fish store in Hanalei we always go to. Fresh fish, cute fish boys. We get some Opakapaka, some ice, and a little Styrofoam cooler. Yes, I am aware this is fraught with fungi potential.

Before we leave town we get Li Hing Mui flavored Shave Ice and then drive over to the Kilauea Light House to see the thousands of red-footed boobies that nest on the cliffs there.

One the way home we hit another farmers market filled with old white people and several sneaky Canadians. We get more onions, tomatoes, and some freshly made bread.  

The praying manti are gone when we get home.  Maybe there was another little tornado.

Dinner tonight is Opakapaka, cold soba noodles, and bok choy sautéed with ginger and garlic. Awesome.

.........

Today is spa day.  I need to shave because I am getting an age reducing facial and facialists hate facial hair. Also, the sparse amount of a beard I have been able to grow in the last month is just an embarrassment. And it is grey.

At the spa I sit in the eucalyptus infused steam room. At some point I start to see amoebas and other single cell organisms floating over my eyeballs. Apparently I have 20 x 20 vision right on the surface of my eye.  I go soak in the Japanese hot tub for a while then it's time for my massage.

We are outside in a hut. A Buddha statue sits nearby without judgment. I explain I have bulging disks in my neck and that I have been doing physical therapy and yoga. Massage therapist jumps on this with lots of questions. She is some kind of yoga goddess who incorporates Native American healing techniques into her yoga classes and travels the world to teach this.  She pokes, stretches, and chants at me for an hour. I think about how pollution hurts all of us and a single tear runs down my face. Outside a gentle rain begins to fall and I feel all of my sins being washed away.

I am awoken from my snoring and it's time for my anti aging facial.  First they coat my face with acid and let it fry for a while. Then they pull out this machine with two long tubes attached to it. One tube squirts out some kind of acid neutralizing liquid. The other tube vacuums my face like an octopus and sucks off dead skin, recently melted skin, blackheads, and years of character.  As she works the tubes, facialist comments on how attractive my eye lashes are.  I get this a lot. I explain that I am a part time eyelash model.  "Whenever you see a close up of Queen Latifah on a Maybelline commercial you are really seeing my eye lashes", I confess. She's impressed.

Soon it's over. I am hundreds of dollars poorer and I look the same age I did when I went in. But hey -- all that grey facial hair is gone.

.....

It's our last full day here and we are sitting outside in the hot tube in the pouring rain drinking wine.  This is some kind of tropical monsoon, but it's a warm rain.

This morning we headed out to drive to the far west side of the island, the end of the road, as far west as you can drive in the 50 United States.  We got turned back by rain, came home for lunch, and then went out again. We made it to the end of the road. Not much to see right there, but the drive was gorgeous.

We found a shrimp store in the little art gallery town of Hanapepe and got big shrimps for dinner.  So sweet, these Hawaiian shrimps just sautéed in butter, garlic, and lemon.

I like it when it rains on the last day. It makes it easier to come home.  It also keeps the giant praying mantai hiding.

......

I'm sitting in the Hawaiian Airlines first class lounge at Lihue Airport with a bunch of old white people waiting to get on our plane to Honolulu. The women are discussing their hot flashes and the men are talking about how nice Germans are. Good lord! I do not want to be a part of this. Time for my headphones.

I check my Hawaiian Airlines credit card account and I am glad to see that Hertz did not try to charge me for their dead and bloodied car.

On the drive over here today the Kaua'i community radio station was playing opera music. This reminded me of the Detailing work being done on my fungi forest. I hope that was successful.

.....

On the flight home now.  Am drinking vodka and listening to Chaka Khan. 

Am reading Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy.

Am unable to stop writing like Bridget Jones:

Weight: Incalculable
Alcohol units consumed: Incalculable

Am trying hard to not to stand up, flail arms around, and sing along with Chaka Khan. Bought this album in junior high and body has physical memory of jumping up and flailing arms around while singing along. Trying...to resist...but cannot fight it.

Flight Attendant: Captain, some old white guy is dancing to Chaka Kahn in First Class again.

Captain: Which song?

Flight Attendant: He has headphones on. They are Bose Noise Reduction, Over the Ear, of course, but it sounds like "Love Has Fallen On Me."

Captain: "Isn't this the third one this week?  Just let him dance.  He'll get tired soon. "

v.g.

…….

Home now.  Car seems to be fungi free.

Sigh. This was only my 23rd trip to Hawai’i, but I think I am starting to see a trend. Centipedes, chickens, mosquitos, and praying manti aside, I think I like it there.

I made it twelve whole weeks between my last two trips. We'll see.

.