Mainland Living
Last year, at the start of the pandemic, we took an unused corner of our property and built a huge garden–14 raised beds, each 30′ long and either 18″ or 3′ wide, with a drip irrigation system, climbing trellises, weed barriers, and gavel between the beds. Over four of the beds, we built a greenhouse to extend our growing season. Everything was designed by Kevin. We harvested enough potatoes, carrots, onions, corn, tomatoes, squash, and other veggies and herbs to feed a neighborhood. I say we, but in reality it was College Son and Kevin who did 90% of the work.
College Daughter: Mom! My anthropology professor wants to know the provenance of our poi pounder. What’s the story?
Me: (takes deep breath) Circa 2003, Waimea, Big Island, local craft fair. Composed of ceramic red clay with fake stone flocking.
CD: WHAT?
Me: It’s not real. If it was, it would be 20 times heavier and in a museum. And the koa poi pounding board underneath?
CD: Yeah?
Me: Acacia serving tray from Target. I bought it two years ago.
CD: Noooooooooo!
Me: Yeah. Sorry to pop that inheritance bubble.
#Didn’tyoueverpickitup? #holeinthebottom #fauxHawaiiana #Istilllikeit
For a while now, my style has been best described as tropical middle-aged frump with a side of at-least-I’m-not-naked–a.k.a. old fut titah-rella with shoes. But there was a time when I wore smart business attire, cocktail dresses, and even formal wear. I’ve kept all the classic and timeless pieces in my closet, waiting for day the when I’d need them again.
Y’all, this closet is chocked full and the size of a kid’s bedroom. In the original house plan, it was an office.
But since October, I’ve lost some of my fluffy, so much that I have to get new everything. Apparently, my family thinks it’s a problem when my yoga pants fall off as I walk upstairs. This is the result of a permanent lifestyle change, not a diet. These clothes are never going to fit again.
It’s strangely hard to purge my closet. Some of it is fear–what if I need these clothes again? Then there’s the memories attached to certain things. And the freak out at the waste that I didn’t comprehend until it was Marie Kondo’d in front of me. (Still tags on this? Really?! What was I thinking?!!!)
It’s taken me days to go through it all, and I had a couple of minor panic attacks where I temporarily “rescued” a few things.
But I then I thought about the woman having the right kinds of clothes for a new job. I thought about the plus-sized teen needing something for a special dance and the grandma that would love to wear bling-y palm trees and pineapples to bingo. These gently/only once/never-worn clothes are going to be put to good use, far better than faux soothing any hoarder-anxiety.
And me? I’ll still look on-brand as a middle-aged bag lady author. I’m holding onto a bunch of hoodies, a couple of pairs of jeans that I can keep up with a new baseball belt–a truly magical invention–and a few t-shirts. They’ll be easy to find among the rows of empty hangers.
#notallgoingtofitinthecar #donations #onlypantswithbeltloopsfornow #newclothesinsummer
College Daughter comes home for the weekend and discovers a massive new dog pillow in front of the fireplace.
You know how Boy Scouts are supposed to do a good deed each day? A couple of days ago I was the little old lady that got helped across the street–and the stakes were way higher than getting across the road.
I run on Diet Coke. It’s no secret–and cans are hands down the best. There’s an ongoing canned soda shortage in Utah. Right now canned Diet Coke is almost impossible to find and more valuable than gold to those who drink it like water.
So I’m in Costco. I know there’s no possibility that they have any, but it never hurts to check, right? I get near where the canned soda is kept. It’s right near the end of a row, but I’m on the wrong aisle, so I follow their stupid flow patterns and go ALL the way around until I’m in the right aisle coming from the “approved” direction. I’m almost there when a mom with two strapping teenage sons comes down the wrong way and stops at the soda.
I watch as one son loads cases of Mountain Dew and Sprite while the other son rummages and pulls up a case–35 cans!–of Diet Coke. “Hey, Mom!” he says, “I got the last one!” He puts it under their cart.
I call out, “Lucky!” Just teasing a bit.
“Oh,” he says. “Did you want Diet Coke?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, you can have it,” he says, picking it up again.
Oops. This was not my intention. “No, really,” I say. “It’s fine. I was just teasing a little.”
“No, take it,” he says, walking over.
His mother is staring daggers at me. I’m pretty sure she’s buying things for a Super Bowl party. Teen boys don’t drink Diet Coke, but she probably does. The kid’s not oblivious to the waves coming off Mom.
He glances at her, a bit confused. “What? It’s just Diet Coke.” He chucks it under my cart.
One of the sample ladies magically appears. She nervously says to the mom, “Go up to the front and tell them you want Diet Coke. They may have some in the back.” Sample Lady gets the stakes. Maybe over the past few months she’s seen blows over this and is tired of mopping up blood.
“Oh? There’s more in the back?” I say.
The mom and I both know that there’s no way there’s some in the back, but I’m thinking it’s a graceful out for me. I can just say, “No, you keep it and I’ll talk to somebody up front.”
But the kid is undeterred in doing his good deed. “See,” he says to his mom, “We can just ask up front.” He turns to me, face shinning with the good manners he’s been taught, and I see that doing this is very important to him. It’s cementing a pattern of thinking of others before himself.
Yeah, it’s Diet Coke, and it doesn’t mean much to him. But refusing it might make him feel less like helping others in the future.
I look at the mom and tell her she’s raised good sons with my eyes. I smile at the kid beneath my Covid mask and say, “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
He grins and says, “No problem,” and turns to grab regular Coke.
And I hele’d out of there so fast smoke was probably coming off my sneakers.
It was 35 cans of Diet Coke after all.
#amwriting #musejuice #GoodDeeds #Momisstillprobablypissed
Mom was frugal. She ran a tight ship when it came to things like paper towels, milk, and cereal. A lot of it came from how she grew up. There were times when her town’s steel mill closed over union disputes, and, like all their neighbors, they lived on the things they grew in their summer garden and canned for winter.
When I close my eyes, I can still see the rows and rows of mason jars, each labeled and dated, on Grandma’s shelves in her cool, dark basement, the scent of damp cement, potatoes, and rich dirt tickling the back of my throat.
And spiders. Can’t forget the *^%^&%!! spiders!
As a kid I hated cold cereal with milk, not because Sugar Smacks or Wheaties tasted bad, but because I HAD to drink the nasty cereal milk left in the bottom of the bowl. Dumping it out in the sink was tantamount to burning money, making me the most shameful, wasteful child of all. Because of this, I became a math prodigy who could calculate to the gram the perfect ratios of milk and cereal.
Probably should’ve pursued a career in chemistry instead of word alchemy.
Mom had a specific way she insisted we cleaned the bathrooms. If you did it right, you could clean the whole thing spotless using just one paper towel, a scrub brush, and a toilet brush. The one paper towel trick only worked because you went from relatively clean (mirror) to progressively dirty (underneath the toilet seat).
You started with sprinkling Comet in the tub, toilet, and sink. You used the scrub brush on everything except the toilet—that’s where the other brush came in—to swish around the bowl and scratch under the rim.
Done with the Comet, you sprayed Windex on most things and carefully used your one paper towel to first clean the mirror, then to shine the sink and tub’s faucets and drains, then ran it along the baseboards, until finally, you folded and folded the soggy scraps to use on the toilet sides, back, and seat, saving the most germy parts for last.
Heaven help you if things didn’t sparkle or Mom spotted TWO paper towels in the trash. The only thing worse was if she caught you mixing up the order. We all thought we’d die if anyone went mirror-toilet-tub-sink. And we would have, just not from germs.
Mom’s cleanliness standards were surgical. In her house, you didn’t worry about the 5 second rule; you could eat a whole meal off the floor at any time.
When I look at my own house through my mother’s eyes, I know I’ve fallen short. We all make choices and pick our battles. I decided early on that I would give up perfection if it meant my kids and husband did some of the chores. Mostly, I’m okay with it.
But there are times when it’s hard to give up those ingrained patterns. The pandemic seems to have shifted my anti-waste sensors to overdrive.
My husband grew up in dairy country where milk was like water. It makes me cringe every time he dumps the last quarter ounce in his glass down the sink. Yesterday, my grown son tore THREE or FOUR paper towels off the roll to clean just ONE kitchen counter.
I think I deserve chocolate for not taking his head off.
Instead I explained that there was a new fangled invention called a dish rag. Unlike a paper towel, you use it, WASH it, and use it again.
But not to clean a toilet. That’s still paper towel territory in my book.
Okay, MoviePass. I really liked your original offer—for $10 a month I could see up to a movie a day in a theater. It was a great opening line, and it made me want to get to know you better. Over the last seven months, you and I have been on 49 dates to the movies. We’ve seen blockbusters, small art house flicks, and quite a few flops that would’ve made me really annoyed if I’d paid full price. But because I wasn’t, I took a chance. We’ve patronized big theater chains and also small-town Mom and Pop theaters and independents.
And I always bought popcorn and drinks.
Milk Duds, too.
Always.
In the beginning, you were great. If I loved a movie, I could see it again with another friend. But then you got jealous and said I could only see a movie once.
That wasn’t what we originally agreed to. Going into this relationship, you said a movie a day. You know and I know it’s impossible to see 30 new movies a month—there simply aren’t that many released. But when I pointed that out, you whined about the cost and then accused me of being ungrateful. If I wanted to continue our relationship, you said, you had to rein me in.
Fine. I stopped seeing a movie with my son and then again later with my daughter or husband. Fewer movies meant less money spent on over-priced concession snacks for theaters. I also stopped dragging my friends who don’t have MoviePass to movies I’d already seen, even though I knew they’d love them and wouldn’t go on their own.
See what you did there, MoviePass? You’re such a wet blanket.
We won’t even talk about the nightmare it was when I broke my phone and had to get MoviePass set-up on a new device. Due to your minimum of a month on a device rule, I’m still dragging an iPad around to the movies even though my phone’s fixed now.
But back then our relationship was still new and full of promise. It was easy to ignore a few hiccups.
Next you insisted I send you a photo of my ticket. If I didn’t, I’d be in trouble. Your app hijacks my phone’s camera like an overzealous bouncer confronting a teenybopper at a night club.
Controlling much? Just what did that inconvenience prove? That I had a ticket in my hand to a movie I could only see once? Do you have any clue how small-town theaters work? Most of the time they don’t give you a ticket. You pay at the door and simply walk into the theater to see the one movie playing that night.
Now when I go to my local theaters, I’m the pain-in-the-butt who holds up the line while the cashier asks her dad, the owner, how to provide me with an actual ticket and not a credit card receipt. He has to stop filling bags of popcorn to figure it out himself.
That’s two lines of people inconvenienced.
Thanks for that.
And now, now you’ve shown your true colors.
Today you rolled out Peak Pricing.
Basically, Peak Pricing is a way for you to charge me more for showings and movies you think are in high demand. You get to decide which showing of which movies are flagged as Peak. You can’t or won’t explain how that algorithm works. But if a movie is Peaked, you’re going to charge me an additional amount to see it, somewhere in the $2-6 range. I won’t know for sure if a movie is Peaked until I’m standing outside the theater, ready to purchase my ticket. But I’m not supposed to worry. You’ll just automatically charge the additional fees to my credit card which you have on file. You also say this program is rolling out nationally and will affect EVERY theater you serve.
And this is where you prove that you’re really not the hero on a shiny white horse, but an abusive, really bad boyfriend, couching your atrocious behavior as being for my own good.
Out of the 49 times I’ve been to theaters in the last seven months, only twice was the theater sold to near capacity. Twice. In my neck of the woods, blockbusters on opening night, prime ticket times, fill a theater maybe one third to half full. There is no reserved seating at any of the six theaters in a 30 mile radius of my home. Movies are offered no more than twice a day during the week and maybe three times a day on weekends and holidays as a matinee and two prime time. We’re not talking multi-show multiplexes here. So, because you decide the demand is Peak in New York or California, I’m forced to pay a surcharge to sit in an empty theater.
Brilliant.
And, yes, I’m aware that matinee movie tickets are cheaper than evening showings. But you knew this going into our original agreement. If you wanted to restrict when I could see a movie, you should’ve told me upfront and before we got involved and you led me on. And unlike your business model which now charges a surcharge for seeing a high demand movie at a convenient hour, theaters DISCOUNT matinee showings from their regular ticket prices. They also don’t charge you—or anyone else—more for seeing a movie opening night than on the last day of its run.
So really, Peak Pricing only costs me more money. It doesn’t give the theaters more money or even save you per ticket; the only way you save money is if I don’t buy a ticket.
How crazy is it that you’re incented to save money by making your service impossible and inconvenient to use?
You think you’re in control because you think I’m hooked.
I’m not.
I’m not going to pay for a service that’s inconvenient to use. I already pay for Netflix, cable, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. The attraction, MoviePass, was to see first run movies in a THEATER once a day. If I have to wait to see a movie until you decide Peak Pricing is over, I might as well wait another week and stream it.
Seriously.
You’re driving me to cancel because of the hassle.
How’s that going to work for you?
Besides, there are other fish in the sea.
In no week did I ever see more than three movies. Cost aside, there’s just not that many movies I want to see or have time to spend in a theater. At $20 a month, AMC’s version of a subscription movie pass is a better deal. It allows up to three movies a week, you can see them all in one day if you choose, you can see the same movie more than once, it includes 3D and IMAX movies, there’s no “peak” surcharge, AND you get a discount on concessions and tickets for friends. For me it only takes one “peak” surcharge movie a month and a large popcorn under MoviePass to come out ahead on AMC’s deal.
And that’s too bad. Because the only ones who are going to suffer are the Mom and Pop independents and the indy/art house theaters and movies.
And the makers of Milk Duds.
Sigh.
Oh, MoviePass. It was fun while it lasted, but you’re all talk. Too bad you couldn’t walk the walk, too. The first time I pay Peak prices to sit in an empty small-town theater, it’s over.
Hasta la vista, baby.
I am sitting in a too small hospital gown thinking about Schrodinger’s cat. There are two possibilities before me. Empirically, only one is true, but at this moment of unknowing both are alive in my head.
I’ve been here before.
Job/no job. Scholarship/no scholarship. Pregnant/not pregnant. Broken/not broken. Like the cat in the famous box, each time the verdict was already decided; I just didn’t know it yet.
When I say I’ve been here before, I really have. I know the mammogram drill. With a mother as a breast cancer survivor, I don’t fool around. Yearly check-ups. Seven initial years of suspicious call backs for a second series of images, followed by three years of one painful smoosh visit each and done. As mammogram imaging improved and with my previous records to compare, the chances of false positives were drastically reduced.
I cheered.
The seven previous times I came back for a second, more thorough diagnostic mammogram ended with the technician popping back in the room to deliver the verdict: “You can get dressed. The radiologist reviewed the new images and says it’s light refraction/dense tissue/a blur on the original —there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll send the results to your doctor. See you in a year.”
I always nodded and thanked her and got dressed after she left. I learned early not to wear buttons. Too hard to fasten when your hands are shaking.
In the early years I asked, “What happens if it’s really something?”
“We do an ultra sound, then a needle biopsy.”
“And then?”
She sighed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?”
I don’t ask anymore.
This year, after three years of passes, I’m back for a second diagnostic mammogram. Before we begin, the technician shows me the images. “See this? That’s what we’re going to take more images of. You can see it in this view and that one, but not this one.”
In the middle of mother roundness is a hard little white spot on the screen. “It’s about here?” I point to an area near my nipple.
“Yes,” she says. “It could be a refraction. But I wanted you to see.”
Seeing it makes it real.
She looks at me and pats my shoulder. “I’ll have the radiologist check the images as soon as we’re done. I’m not letting you go home without an answer.”
I nod and we start.
She’s gentle, but the machines hurt. She pauses after the usual three shots and says, “I want to take a couple more.”
This is new.
“You think the radiologist will want another view,” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
“Better now than later,” I say. When I am already dressed and waiting, I don’t say.
“It’s quicker if I have it when he asks,” she says. “Besides, why not if I can?”
No one takes more images than they need. She’s seen something.
“Let’s do it,” I say. This time tissue is rolled and twisted before flattening. I suck air through clenched teeth and try not to think. What I wish is to not feel.
“Be right back.”
The cat is in the box. It has been since before I climbed into my car to drive to the hospital.
How many times can you beat the odds? The average woman’s lifetime risk is one in eight, and I am not average. I count friends, family, and acquaintances in multiples of eight. The math tells me the odds are not good.
I also know that these odds don’t matter. At the individual level, it’s zero or one hundred.
I remind myself that I am crap at statistics. It’s voodoo mathematics.
I look at my wedding and engagement rings and wonder if I should leave them to my son for his someday bride and give my diamond solitaire earrings to my daughter. But what if my future daughter-in-law prefers her own ring instead of one weighted with a mother’s love? Maybe I should give my daughter my ring, too, and leave my daughter-in-law one of my gold bracelets. Granddaughters! I need to figure out which heirlooms to reserve for them. I guess I could have each pick her favorite on their sixteenth birthdays. Sounds complicated, but fair. I better leave a note with the jewelry in the safe.
Memory books!
I have tons of photos and scrapbook memorabilia stashed away in drawers and folders, none of it organized and waiting for the day when I finally get my act together to create books for each of my kids. I calculate how many good vs. bad chemo days there are in the coming months and realize I need to get cracking. No one, not even a future loving stepmother will do this job the way I will. I hold the memories, after all.
Closets. Dejunk and de-clutter. No one should have to deal with those messes. Empty the downstairs freezer.
In the box the cat both paces and lies dead. My eyes flicker from the closed door to the images left up on the screen.
The air conditioning’s a little cold. I clutch the ends of the gown closer, forcing them to meet.
When the door swooshes open, the technician thrusts her thumbs up. “We’re good,” she says.
I remember to breathe.
“Come see,” she says. She shows me the new images, how in one the spot appears, but in the titty-twister, it doesn’t. “The radiologist says it’s a milk gland. Nothing to worry about.”
Seeing makes it real.
I nod.
“You can get dressed. I’ll see you in a year.”
I thank her as she heads out the door. I zip up my shirt. The cat jumps out of the box.
It’s Disney’s Moana. That’s really what it comes down to.
A couple of years ago, when Disney announced that in the tradition of Aladdin, Mulan, Pocahontas, and Frozen, they were bringing to the screen Moana, a Polynesian princess tale, I was excited. When I learned that the story involved the demi-god Maui and ocean voyaging, I thought here was a movie I could take my kids to where we could talk about ancestral knowledge and what it means to be a literal descendant of the historical Maui and his sons.
And then I saw the trailers. Maui didn’t look anything like what I imagined the real Maui looked like—frankly, he didn’t even look human. And he was kind of an egotistical jerk. And a buffoon. And what was up with the nonsensical bits of crap around his neck and the random leaves for a malo? None of the sets and costumes seemed to belong to any particular island culture. I saw elements of Maori, Samoan, Tongan, and Fijian cultures—and precious little that was clearly Hawaiian. It was like someone had taken Pasifika and mashed it into a blender and—
Oh.
Moana is no more an authentic reflection of Polynesian culture than Mulan reflects China, Aladdin reflects Arabia, Pocahontas reflects Powhatans, or Frozen reflects Scandinavia. All of these stories are set in an alternate world—let’s call it Disneyland—that borrows heavily from real-world cultures to tell very classically western stories in the archetypical hero’s journey or mono-myth form. These stories follow specific patterns that start with a call to adventure, followed by an ordeal, a transformation, and an eventual return.
Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Lion King, and Disney Princess movies like Moana and Frozen all follow the same basic hero’s journey storyline. Like most mono-myth stories, they are set in a world that is similar to, but slightly askew from the real world. Sometimes this new world has magic or talking animals or objects that are cursed. Most of the time the audience simply goes along with the fantastical elements because they are part of this kind of story tradition. Do we really know how the Force works or if House Elves exist? No. And when the goal is entertainment, it doesn’t really matter.
That’s another key: entertainment. As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, children and adults go to these kinds of movies to be entertained, not educated. Disney knows this.
The unfortunate disconnect was that so many people with deep Oceania roots wanted something different, something that was an authentic reflection of indigenous island culture and storytelling. What we got instead was a western pop-culture mono-myth story set in Disneyland’s Polynesia. It’s like going to a luau and being served rice and teriyaki chicken instead of kalua pork and poi—really disappointing, I know.
I still took my kids to see Moana.
I thought the story was amazing, even though it’s not Polynesian in form or content. I liked that Moana’s gender wasn’t a limiting factor when it came to being a leader, solving problems, or persevering when it was easier to quit. I liked the ideas about the importance of self-sacrifice for a greater good, the love and influence of family that stretches beyond this mortal plane, and the conflict between following your heart and fulfilling what you think is your destiny.
Above all, I liked the way the ocean was animated. The colors, shadows, currents—all beautifully articulated. And while the voyaging canoes didn’t look very much like the great wa‘a I knew, my heart did leap to see them soar across the ocean. I loved the brief moments about wayfinding by stars, currents, water temperature, and marine life.
Moana did start conversations with my kids.
We talked about the elements in the architecture, traditions, clothing, etc., and which island’s cultures probably sparked the designs. We talked about the great trade routes, ocean currents, social and political factors, and migration patterns that settled Polynesia from Asia and the Americas and back again, and how new genetic evidence is proving that ancient people traveled farther and more frequently than we realized.
Well, than western scholars realized. In Pasifika we have our own stories, genealogies, and histories. More on this in another article.
But the most important things my kids and I discussed were the concept of stories. It’s very simple.
Our stories define us. Moana is not my story; it’s Disney’s. It doesn’t define my Hawaiian heritage any more than Frozen defined my Scandinavian ancestors. Nothing Disney does defines me or changes one iota of who I am.
Despite all the uproar over cultural appropriation, I think the average person knows Moana is set in Disneyland—not living, breathing Oceania. Cultural appropriation is not a western thing; it’s a human thing. I’ve experienced it all over the world. Every culture in contact with another borrows what appeals. Like Tamatoa the crab says in Moana, it’s glam, it’s shiny, so I’m going to stick it on my shell and make it a part of me.
The big take away is this: If we do not write our own stories, we cannot be surprised when outsiders attempt to write them. With no other voices in popular culture, these stories become the truth for the majority, and we soon find ourselves living in a world enamored with Bobby Brady’s tiki curse, hip-hop hula, and coconut bras.
If we want to change the popular cultural narrative about what it means to be Hawaiian, Samoan, Maori—we need to tell our own stories in our own voices. It means supporting our Pasifika artists, musicians, dancers, and writers with more than our applause and appreciation.
Otherwise only those with Disneyland resources will fill the void—and the narrative—with what appeals to the masses.
Shiny.
Poho, that.
When it comes to electing the President of The United States, your vote doesn’t matter.
Really.
Growing up in Hawaii, this point was hammered home every election year when the new president thanked his supporters hours before our polls closed.
Just think about that for a second. In Hawaii, you heard both the concession and victory speeches in your car on the way to the polls. It’s tough to get fired up about choosing a president when you know your candidate will win or lose regardless of your support.
Americans tend to think our federal government is a simple democracy; it’s not. It’s a constitutional republic with an electoral college. Not all votes have the same weight. Statistically, your single vote does nothing to elect a president. Maybe the reason American voter turnout is so low has less to do with apathy and more with a growing sense of futility.
But here’s how your vote does matter.
In a Presidential election, you fulfill your civic duty by voting. It’s a responsibility you accept as a US Citizen. When it comes to civic duty, for whom you vote isn’t nearly as important as the act itself.
For this reason, I believe voting in a presidential election is less about electing a president than it is a statement of character—our votes define what we value. Even the decision not to vote is an act that speaks to an individual’s character.
To vote (or not vote) is to act, and just like any other deed, we’re accountable for our actions. First, to ourselves, then to our families, our neighbors, and our country. In my faith tradition, I’m also accountable to God. Regardless of your personal beliefs, imagine a moment where you are asked to explain your vote others. Now imagine those future people are living with the consequences of your actions.
For me, that’s sobering.
In the 2016 US Presidential Election, I’m not advocating a particular party or candidate. That’s not the point of this article. I’m just trying to provide a little perspective.
If you set aside the idea that your vote actually elects the president and instead consider your vote as an conscious act of aligning yourself—your character—with the person you most believe is fit to lead our country, you’ll care more about issues and less about party lines. It becomes less about shouting down others—whose votes also matter just as little as yours—and more about defining what you stand for.
Can you imagine a country where every citizen ignored the fear mongers, spin doctors, salacious reports, and voter polls? What if people focused instead on truly understanding who they were choosing to align themselves with?
That was the intent of our nation’s founders, by the way. They believed in the power of the aggregate, that whatever a majority of good people believed to be best would really be the best.
Let’s validate the faith they had in us. Let’s think of the future. On Election Day, let’s make sure our votes matter.
The Niuhi Shark Website.
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growing up in Hawaii
isn’t always paradise.
even out of the water,
you’re not safe.
about Zader is a lie.
