Slice of Life
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.
- The caress of humidity and the weight of bushy, bushy hair.
- The way the elderly security guard’s curt aloha changes when you catch his eye and say, “Oh, ovah dere? Eh, mahalo, Uncle. I get ‘em now.”
- How his smile now reaches his eyes.
- Breathing after saltwater goes up your nose and finally clears decades of desert from your sinuses.
- The newly sharp scent of everything—plumeria, red dirt, garbage, gecko dust, keawe smoke, laundry soap, and coconut sunscreen slathered on pink skin carrying big Matsumoto’s rainbow shave ice.
- When driving along Kamehameha highway, wave as you slow just enough to let cars merge or turn in front of you because giving them two of your seconds now can literally save hours for others later.
- Quick car beeps are for howzit; long honks are from the mainland.
- Modesty and respect are mindsets and not measured in inches.
- “Where are you from?” and “Where did you go to school?” are the first steps in an intricate how-are-we-related dance.
- ‘Ohana means EVERY TIME you walk past a certain bakery, the owner chases you through the parking lot and gives you loaves of his amazing bread because you are friends with his cousin’s cousin’s friend.
- Nervous tourists constantly approach you with questions because you seem to know things like how to get places, what to order, and where bathrooms are. You have to remind yourself to switch off the Pidgin when you respond.
- It’s “locals,” not Hawaiians, unless they are kanaka maoli.
- Don’t ask cashiers and security guards where’s a good place to eat. Ask them where THEY like to eat. Kalua pork wrapped in luau leaves and cooked in an imu is a thousand times better than in an Instant Pot, crockpot, or oven. Real plate lunches have poi as a side option. Real haupia tastes like coconut, not cornstarch.
- Kids and teachers give you side eye when you first walk through the door. You can almost see the WTF thought balloons over their heads. But five minutes later they are calling you Aunty and laughing. They never ask how to pronounce Lehua or Niuhi. Their burning questions are all about ‘Ilima, the dog who obviously isn’t just a dog.
#homeagain #amwriting #HawaiiStories #OneBoyNoWater
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
When the college kids first moved back home, device chargers and cables started disappearing. I stomped around the house, ticked that I suddenly couldn’t plug in my phone or tablet while on the couch or in the kitchen or at any place I was used to.
There was much grumbling and stink-eye flying on my part and some non-committal shrugging from the rest of the adults in the house.
After a couple weeks of this, I didn’t have to look anymore. Great, I thought, people are leaving my stuff alone.
Nope. I found out this weekend that my husband has a hidden stash of chargers and cables. He’s been secretly replacing the ones that go missing before I realize they’re gone. For a YEAR. 🤣
#truelove #don’ttouchmystuff #HomeU #keepMomhappy
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.
On the eve of the release of Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, I’ve been thinking about my Star Wars boyfriend.
I first saw Star Wars at the Kapiolani Theater in Honolulu, late summer 1977, when it was called Star Wars and not A New Hope.
Mom was working, so Dad decided to take us to a Saturday matinee. The lines for Star Wars were hella-long, so at my father’s urging, my younger sister and I wormed our way to the front of the line and bought tickets. Dad sent me in to find seats while he and my sister stood in line for snacks. Kapiolani Theater was huge, about 800 seats, and only showed one movie at a time. I found good seats—not too close, not too far, and in the center of the screen—and sat down.
Somebody plunked down right next to me.
Startled, I turned to find Mike, a kid I knew from the YMCA after school program in Kahala. He went to Hahaione Elementary. I went to Kamiloiki. I was in 6th grade. He was in 5th. At the YMCA, he and I played basketball with the other 5th and 6th grade boys, running full out, barefoot, on sun-baked asphalt courts with loose gravel on top, the reason the bottoms of my feet were like leather.
Can’t run fast in slippahs, yeah?
“Hi,” Mike said.
“Hi, Mike.” I looked around. “Where’s your family?”
“I’m here by myself,” Mike said.
This blew my mind.
“Alone? Fo’real? That’s not safe,” I said. “You better sit with my family.”
Mike nodded. “Thanks. There was a skebe guy in the bathroom. He followed me from the bathroom and sat by me before I moved and sat by you.” He sucked his soda straw, the ice dregs rumbling. He shook his cup. “I’ve seen Star Wars fifteen times.”
“No way.”
“Way. This will be the third time today.”
Nobody has that much money, I thought.
“Shibai,” I said.
“It’s true. Just before the credits roll, I go hide in the bathroom. I close the stall door and squat on the toilet so nobody can see my legs. When they start letting people in for the next showing, I come out and get a seat. Nobody notices a single kid. Well, the skebe guys do.”
Genius, I thought. And totally scary. What’s wrong with him? Movies by himself and hiding in the bathroom? Lucky we came along.
About this time, Dad and my sister appeared, carrying three small sodas and one large popcorn to share. “Hey, Dad, look who’s here. It’s Mike from YMCA.”
“Hi,” Mike said.
Dad didn’t bother acknowledging Mike, but his disapproval poured down on me like a tidal wave of ice. When Dad handed me my soda, I was shocked it was still liquid.
The lights dimmed. Star Wars sucked me into a world that delighted and sparked my imagination, starting with the very first line: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Suddenly, hiding in the bathroom to see it again seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The story, the scenes, the characters—all magical—despite Mike whispering to me that this next part was the best, watch for this, watch for that, (seriously, dude, shut-up), and despite the wrath I knew was waiting for me when the credits rolled and Mike slipped away again to the bathroom.
Over the years, my friends and I would discuss our theories about Luke, Leia, Han, and the Force. We broke down the story, looked for hidden meanings, and pondered the power of the Force. We cast ourselves in various roles. Others were always Luke, Leia, and Han; I was often cast as Admiral Ackbar—blah and a little bit creepy, but better, I thought, than friends who were assigned to be Jawas or Stormtroopers.
We were working with a story universe we created from two movies and one crappy holiday special that just confused us. (Life Day? This feels like a bad Andy Williams special. And no way Chewbacca has a son named Lumpy.)
In my mind, I made up my own character, a badass Jedi outside of the Skywalker clan. A cousin, maybe. We anticipated the next movie with all the zeal that my future kids would have for the next Harry Potter book. We debated, dreamed, and hoped.
We’re shaped by the stories we think about. Star Wars certainly changed how I viewed the world.
It also changed the way my father viewed me.
Later, no matter what I said, Dad never believed that I didn’t plan to meet Mike at the theater. In his mind, I ruined his special family movie by inviting an interloper, a boy, and played my father for a patsy in a burgeoning pre-pubescent romance. If Dad had stopped to really think about it, I never had time or opportunity to tell Mike when we’d be there. I didn’t know myself. More importantly, as any kid knows, there was never going to be a romance between an obey-all-the-rules 6th grade girl and a snot-nosed 5th grade boy with a dubious moral code, especially since I was a head taller and a much better basketball player.
Fo’real.
Things changed between my dad and me that day, although I didn’t understand or recognize it at the time. I was now Suspect and Boy Crazy in his mind—pretty hilarious since all the guys that I went to dances with in high school except one (Hi Larry!) eventually came out of the closet. I never had a boyfriend until I went away to college, and that one I married. June marks our 33rd wedding anniversary.
Looking back, Dad should have known that the too-loud, awkward, bookish tomboy, all elbows and knees, was too busy competing with the boys or reading books to have time for romance.
Tonight I have tickets to the last Star Wars movie in the nine story arc. At the end of a 42 year journey, things are different. This time, near midnight, I am going to sit next to my boyfriend, in heated deluxe loungers, with reserved seats—no waiting in long lines except for popcorn and soda–which I probably won’t drink because I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll have to miss any part of the movie.
We will hold hands.
Maybe even smooch in the parking lot.
Can’t wait.
One day Mom called me in from playing. She gave me a tuna fish sandwich and some carrot sticks and said there was a brand new TV show just for me. I don’t remember eating lunch, but I do remember a big yellow bird and a monster in a trash can.
For years, Sesame Street kept me company while I ate lunch. Later, when it switched to late afternoon, I knew when it was over, Dad would be walking through the door.
I haven’t watched Sesame Street in decades. My kids seldom watched it, probably because by the time they were born there were so many shows—entire channels!—just for them, that Sesame Street was lost in the crowd. But last night I watched Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on PBS.org, streaming it when convenient, freed from my childhood angst of clock-watching to be sure I didn’t miss it.
I knew when it started that things could not be the same, but I was still shocked to hear Not Big Bird’s Voice and Not Grover and Not Kermit and Not Oscar.
Seeing Bob made me tear up. He’ll always be in his thirties and forties to me.
There were no palm trees or beaches on Sesame Street, and that in itself was endlessly fascinating. Kids wore shoes ALL the time! They lived in big brick buildings with gigantic concrete steps they could sit on. They could walk on sidewalks to Mr. Hooper’s Store where there was not a single crack seed jar in the joint. And while kids were shown running and playing on grass in the opening song, I never saw kids doing that on Sesame Street.
No wonder they wore shoes all the time.
A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.
How did anyone buy a single stick of butter? And why a container of milk, not a carton? Didn’t mainland milk come in a waxed paper cartons with Lani Moo or hibiscuses on them?
So many questions!
50 years later, people still remember the songs, sketches, characters, and the promise of Sesame Street. Muppets and humans in all shapes, sizes, ages, abilities, and colors were portrayed as family, and by extension, so were we. Sesame Street created a television community that stretched from Hawai’i to New York and beyond. In a time when people are theoretically more connected than ever, there’s no show like this one that rallies children from all walks of life into a community. There are simply too many choices now.
A little ironic, don’t you think?
It happens to all of us. You have a great idea for a story. You sharpen pencils. You plot. You get excited. And then…
FIZZZZzzzzzzzz.
Writer’s block.
I think in my case it’s a trifecta of summer, life changes, and I just don’t wanna.
But I gotta.
So for all of us in the same boat who really need to paddle, but would just rather drift, here’s a clip from the musical Starkid Firebringer. Sing it, sister.
And now back to the grind.
I got a deadline and this story won’t write itself.
Sigh.
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.
