Grumpy Old Grunter

My parents have been out of town this week, which meant I had the house to myself. I was excited for some quiet time and to be able to set my own rules. Instead I had to make sure I was home enough to walk my dog and take care of my kitty, who is recovering from a 105 degree fever that had him pretty much knocked out and looking terrible. Just as I am finally getting back on a regular sleep schedule, my parents decide to take a flight back from Florida that arrives at midnight. The last thing I want to do is stay up until 1am, but I know they would do it for me.

My friend Rory says he only laughs while reading my blog when something goes wrong. Nothing bad has happened lately (hopefully that stays true through my trip to Brazil next week, [knock knock]), but as I was backing up the files on my computer I did find a journal entry (before I blogged I wrote emails to massive lists of friends or typed it into a journal) from my first day in Hawaii, back in August of 2005. It’s amusing.

Day 1

After sleeping on the plane for almost the entire 6 hour journey, I awoke to find that I had Grumpy Old Grunter sitting right behind me. As we landed he grumpily grunted, “move your seat up.” (a nice way to wake up). Then, a woman with her panic stricken granddaughter came pushing up the aisle (as politely as possible). Grumpy Old Grunter stood broadly across the isle. Frantically the woman gasped, “Excuse us, my granddaughter has an emergency.” Another Grunt, then, “Nobody’s moving, we’re all waiting too.” The woman at this point so taken back she has no idea what to say, instead she drives an elbow into his soft abdomen, squeezes by with the young girl clasping her trailing arm for dear life, and finally reaches the bathroom door where the embarrassed child disappeared, until long after we had deplaned.

The Hodel house tour was quick, there isn’t much house here. Seems typical of Hawaii because it’s so nice outside all the time, why would you ever want to be inside? [It should be noted that only a few months later it rained for 40 days straight, at which point I found out why you would stay inside.] The house is right on the water of the north shore, with a rock path down to the beach. Immediately after the tour Uncle Carl and Boomer took me surfing for my first time. I was riding this huge board they called a tanker, but I didn’t know the difference. I rode a couple of waves laying down, then got up on a knee for one, then I stood up. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I was expecting, but I still have no idea how to spot a wave, and how to turn the board in order to ride the wave correctly.

We went for a jog in the area that is used to film the show Lost. It’s much smaller than it looks in the tv show, and I’m surprised they can use such a small place for the entire show. It is pretty cool though; the park that is. There’s an old runway there that is apparently the only place that planes were able to take off during the attack on Pear Harbor. They sent up three planes, which were able to shoot down just ten enemy aircraft (out of hundreds). Apparently the general in charge of the island’s runways thought that parking the planes on the sides of the runways would risk sabotage by people on the ground, so he had them parked in the middle of the runway. The Japanese planes were able to take care of an entire fleet of planes just by shooting down the runway. I bet that general felt like a dumb ass.