Amnesia

Sunset on the North Shore of Oahu. Why did I leave, again?

There were so many legitimate reasons for leaving Hawaii. Not the least of which being that we simply couldn't afford to stay. We would have lost our house.

And there was the isolation. It's so, so far away. I hated being 13 hours of travel (at least, assuming no delays) away from my family and friends on the East Coast.

And the insane cost of living.

And the provincialism and racism and general closed-mindedness of so many of the people there.

And the traffic, which was so crushing that it often made me feel trapped and claustrophobic.

But right now, when my head is throbbing from sinus pressure, and everyone in my family (except Josie, miraculously) is coughing or hacking or snurfling in one form or another, and it's cold and winter will be lasting at least a few months more, and I have to scrape the ice off of my car before I go anywhere...

right now, when the thought of being able to drive 5 minutes, like I used to, and be on the beach, feeling warm and healthy and relaxed, with my children happily playing in the sand and my husband and me taking turns grabbing a few waves on the longboard...

right now, all of those legitimate reasons feel very difficult to comprehend.

White Plains Beach, our local beach in Hawaii, 5 minutes down the road from our house

Aloha, Denver

Yesterday Jason and I were in the car, driving back from dropping Zeke off at school. We were stopped at a light, and an older lady was crossing in the crosswalk. She looked at us and smiled and said "Welcome to Colorado" (she must have seen the California plates on our rental car).

And that's pretty much what it's been like to be in Denver so far.

We're living in this incredibly cool intown neighborhood, about a 10 minute drive to downtown, with an elementary school across the street, funky little shops and restaurants around the corner (including a wonderful yarn shop -- all the more reason to get back into some serious knitting -- and an ice cream store that has become a daily stop for us), and super nice neighbors. We'll be walking down the street and people will stop and chat us up. Jason said at one point, "will someone just be a prick to me, already? Am I going to have to be the neighborhood asshole, just so there is one?"

This is the kind of aloha spirit we expected from people in Hawaii, but never really found.

And while Jason definitely misses the surf, and had a hard time his first Sunday here (Sundays were his regular surf days with his buddies), on Monday he went snowboarding at a great mountain about 45 minutes away, and came back feeling rejuvenated and excited about living near the mountains.

In so many ways, this moving is looking to be a good one for us:

• We live about a 5 minute drive from a Super Target, which happens to be the highest grossing Target in the country. And in addition to having the expectedTarget-y goodness oozing from its brick walls, it's got a full grocery store, so we can do all of our shopping there, and for unbelievable prices. The first time we went, on the second or third day we were here, we filled up a grocery cart. In Hawaii, the bill would have been $300, easy. In Colorado, the total was $113. We practically wept with joy. And really, the cost of everything is similarly reduced -- gas, rent, utilities. It's such a pleasure to not feel constantly ripped off.

• The horrendous traffic in Hawaii was a constant source of stress and aggravation for us. When Jason worked on jobs in Honolulu, it used to take him 2 hours to drive the 25 miles between our house and work. It would take me 40 minutes of sitting in bumper-to-bumper crap to take Zeke 4 miles up the road to his school. Now, we can get downtown in the heart of rush hour traffic in about 10 minutes, making green lights all the way, and never sitting in any of the stand-still shit that makes my blood pressure rise just thinking about it.

• There are so many choices. For everything. All different kinds of ethnic foods. A million different retail establishments. In Hawaii, if we wanted to go out to eat, we'd be spending at least $100 for just the two of us, and that was at someplace like Chili's or Outback. Here, there are diners and cafes and little neighborhood bistros, all reasonably priced, that make having a social life an economic possibility again.

• My parents came to visit last week. Instead of having to travel for 13 hours and deal with the jet lag that comes from a 6 hour time difference, they hopped on a 3 hour flight and didn't suffer significant exhaustion as a result. Next month my brother's band has a gig in New York City. If my work schedule permits, flying in for the weekend to see it is an actual possibility. It's just so damned nice to be closer to everyone I care about.

• Everyone here looks so healthy. In Hawaii, we got so used to seeing so many morbidly obese people everywhere we went -- entire families where no one was under 250 pounds, including the kids, bellying up to the buffet line for more barbecue and spam and sugary sodas. Here they all look like they stepped out of an REI/North Face/LL Bean/Land's End catalog, with their ski racks on their cars and trailers on their bikes so they can tote their kids around while they do their errands.

• It's such a pleasure to have friends here. We became friendly with our neighbors in Hawaii, but only really felt truly simpatico with one or two select couples. Here I've got my cousins and friends from college and friends from high school and friends from Atlanta, not to mention Kathleen and Rich. Zeke will be able to grow up with their kids (they came over last night for a pizza party, and ran around so wildly that after they went home, Zeke was practically begging to go night-night), and with his cousins, and with the children of our other friends. And they're all smart and literate and politically astute and fun to hang out with.

There are definitely things we miss about Hawaii. It is a beautiful place, and it was fun to be so close to the beach and to be able to surf all the time and to just have the experience of living in a tropical paradise. I loved being able to do things like drop Zeke at school and head up to the North Shore to watch the Pipeline Masters. But it's not a bad substitute when tomorrow, we're going to drop Zeke at school and drive a mere 45 minutes to go skiing.

And the hits keep coming

I'm beginning to think that someone's trying to send me a message, the message being that I need to get out of Hawaii.

Um, point taken. Loud and clear.

I woke up this morning at around 7. Zeke was snuggled up with me. He had woken up when Jason left for work at the crack of dawn, so I brought him into my bed and we got cozy and slept some more.

As I opened my eyes, I remembered that Obama was going to be sworn in at noon on the East Coast, i.e., any minute. As Zeke stretched and yawned his way awake, I turned on the TV. Two minutes later, Chief Justice Roberts was administering the oath. Zeke and I sat there in bed and watched. I cried a little bit.

We got up and got dressed as we listened to the inaugural speech, which was wonderful. We got in the car and headed to school. Zeke was wearing his cool Obama shirt. All was well.

We arrived at school at about 7:55. I took Zeke inside. We chatted with his old teacher from the infant room for a minute or so, and then I took him to the wobbler room and gave him a kiss goodbye. I ran into one of the moms I know, and we chatted for another minute or so. At 8:01, I walked out the door....

...to discover that in the short time I had been away from my car, in broad daylight, in a busy parking lot with parents coming and going and dropping off their kids, some asshole had smashed the front passenger window of my car and grabbed my purse, which was sitting on the floor of the car.

I know, I know. I shouldn't leave my purse in the car. But I do this every day, running in and out in a matter of minutes. It's always light out, there are always tons of people around, not to mention the shop keepers who look out onto the parking lot through big glass windows.

So now I'm out all of my credit cards, my driver's license, Zeke's passport, a wallet that I really love that was a gift, my purse (which came from Target, but I still like it), and a couple of bucks. I cancelled the cards right away. I can get a new driver's license this afternoon. I called my insurance company and I'll have a new window for my car tomorrow morning. But I still feel violated. I had never been the victim of crime before moving here. Since moving here, we've had cars broken into and wallets stolen twice. And they broke my pretty car. Fuckers.

And you want to hear the kicker?

The car wasn't even locked.

Slightly breezy with a chance of stupid

We've been having forecasts of winter "storms" blowing in from the west (unusual, since most weather here blows in from the northeast), bringing massive surf and high winds gusting up to 50 to 60 mph.

And that's it. Maybe a little bit of rain, but no major precipitation. Just big surf up on the north and west facing shores, and wind.

And yet, everything, and I mean everything, on the island is shut down. Because of a forecast of wind. All schools are closed, including Zeke's daycare, all government jobs have the day off, trash collection cancelled, beaches closed, everything.

The decision to close the daycare was made sometime early this morning, so I didn't find out until I pulled up to drop Zeke off. I asked why the school was closed, and the director said, "because we don't know what the weather is going to be like later."

Um, true enough. But given that the school has walls and a roof, I'm not sure why wind would be such an impediment to staying open. Maybe it's me.

Anyway, true to the forecast, last night and today are windy. But no more windy than your average windy day. And this morning, we went up to the north shore to check out this allegedly giant surf. The water looked rough and churn-y, but nothing earth shattering.

So many people, when they find out I live in Hawaii, get all gushy and "oooooh, you're so lucky, paradise la la la."

And I'm all, yeah, the weather's great and it's fun to be able to surf all year and never have to put on anything heavier than a long-sleeved t-shirt, but there are plenty of things about this place that make me crazy.

Like today.

Looking back, and waiting

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm back. I missed you.

The Denver trip was good. I got to spend time with Kathleen, hang out with my cousin and her family, and catch up with an old college friend who lives in Denver and whom I'm really looking forward to seeing on a regular basis.

The interviews went well. But interviews are like first dates. You're all anxious and excited beforehand, then they seem to go OK, everyone appears to be enjoying themselves, and then they're over. And you're left with the "well, I felt good about it, I think they felt good about it, but are they going to call me" feeling. I should know something in a couple of weeks, but until then I'm in limbo. My least favorite state of existence.

Over the past few weeks, all I've seen every time I turned on the TV or opened a magazine was a year-end list of bests and worsts, or some similar retrospective. In that vein, it's been a weird year for me. Highlights would be my friends all visiting for my birthday in February and having time off to spend time with Jason and surf. Watching Zeke grow and learn, and helping him along that path, has also been great.

But mostly I feel like the past year has been tough. My grandmother died. Jason and I both are out of work. The year has brought trials and tribulations for close friends and relatives. And as much as we can point to positive aspects about this adventure of living in Hawaii, the truth is that it has ruined us financially. Two years ago I lived in a nice little house in Atlanta with a relatively low mortgage, and I had a steady job that allowed me to live comfortably and well within my means. I am now in a house that is worth less than I owe, with a mortgage payment that is crushing me, and which I will not be able to pay after this month unless I either get a new job or borrow from my parents, or both. And since there are no jobs in Hawaii, the only way to live is to leave here and start over.

I am trying to be optimistic about the Denver interviews. They seemed to go well, and I have hope. But if they don't pan out, I honestly don't know what I am going to do.

The moral of the story is, don't ever, ever travel with me

I am the queen of the travel fuck-up.  If it can go wrong in the course of air travel, I have experienced it.  Massive delays, flight cancellations, missed flights because of gate changes that went unannounced, lost luggage, emergency landings because of equipment failures, you name it.

But I have never experienced anything quite as ridiculous as what caused me to arrive in Denver 12 hours later than I was supposed to.

My flight on Friday night was to leave at 11 pm.  So Jason was going to take me to the airport at around 9-ish, and we recruited a neighbor to come and sit with Zeke, who would have been asleep at that time.  We're sitting around watching the news or something at around 7 when all of a sudden the power went out.  

No biggie.  We were experiencing some weird weather, lightening and such, so power flickers happen.  

About half an hour later, the lights flickered on, but only at about half power.  

"That was probably someone trying to fix the transformer and getting fried," Jason observed.

Then the lights went out for good.  All over the island.

Perhaps you heard about it.  Seeing as how it made the national news and all.

We went outside, where the neighbors were all congregating.

"I bet your flight's cancelled.  Last time this happened, it shut the airport down," said Kyle, one of our neighbors who has the tendency to be the voice of doom.

We turned on the radio, which was broadcasting emergency information.  All grocery stores and convenience stores were closed.  Waikiki was in total gridlock and people were fighting in the street.  Everyone wondered how Obama was doing and whether he had power.

"It's going all Lord of the Flies pretty fast,"  I observed.

Another neighbor walked up and told me that he had heard that the airport was still open and that flights to the mainland were leaving from gates 14, 15, 24, 25 and 28.

"Did you happen to hear whether United flight 42 is still taking off?"  I asked, only half joking.

"Nope, they didn't mention that," he grinned.

After much back and forth, we decided to just go to the airport and try it out.  If in the meantime an announcement was made that flights were cancelled, then we would just turn around.

So Kyle stayed with Zeke and Jason and I left for the airport.  

When we got there, there was some hustle and bustle, though most of the airport was dark.  Jason dropped me off at the United terminal and I got in line.

The line didn't move.  Looking inside, you could see that agents were doing the agricultural check (you can't take plants in or out of the island) and security screenings by hand.  It looked totally chaotic. 

I kept checking the monitors for information, all of which listed my flight as still taking off, still on time.  A couple of other people in line did the same.  We all got friendly.

Finally, at about 10:25, a lady came out and announced that all United flights out had been cancelled.  She was a fellow passenger, and was making the announcement because the United agent inside refused to come out and tell anyone in the long line, which snaked around the building, what was happening.  He told the lady that he figured that if people wanted to find out what was going on, they would eventually make it inside.

Everyone started clamoring around the lone agent inside at the desk.  I called United on my phone, learned that the flight would be taking off at 10:15 the next morning, and called Jason to come and get me.  

A number of people have asked me if I was all pissed off and irate.  The truth is, no.  The one thing about constantly experiencing travel problems is that it's made me very Zen.  

At least I had a bed to sleep in, unlike the poor bastards who had to sleep on the floor of the United check-in area, which, like the rest of the airport, has a roof over it, but is otherwise outside.  

And I'm in Denver, safe and sound now.  I had 7 hours on a plane during which I didn't have to deal with a squirmy toddler.  The flight was largely empty, so I had an entire row to myself to lie down and read an excellent book from cover to cover.  Kathleen picked me up at the airport and we stayed up 'til late shooting the shit and drinking champagne.  

So really, it's all good.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

The Shaka Santa display at the Honolulu City Hall

Let me start by saying that I'm not Christian. I'm Jewish. I don't celebrate Christmas, and until I married a man who is (nominally) Anglican -- though he claims to be a Jew by virtue of being married to me -- I never had a Christmas tree or any of the other trappings of Christmas. When I was growing up, Christmas was a day to go out for Chinese food and go to the movies, or do something cool like go into DC when there was no traffic and everyone else was home celebrating and walk around the empty monuments and memorials on the Mall.

Don't get me wrong. I think Christmas lights and Christmas trees are lovely, and when I lived in Atlanta, I had my own Christmas tradition of eating Christmas dinner with Kathleen and her family, but in my own house, I lit my Hannukah menorah and said my Hannukah blessings.

Let me also say that I'm not trying to piss anybody off with this post. I know that many of my readers on the mainland are freezing their bollocks off in unbelievably shitty weather, and I'm not trying to rub it in when I say that Christmas in the tropics just doesn't feel right.

It doesn't feel like Christmas. Even though it's not my holiday, I always liked driving through my old neighborhood and seeing all of the pretty lights up on the trees and bushes, knowing that everyone was snuggling up with sweaters and cups of cocoa by the living room fire.* The Christmas season felt distinct because of the change in the seasons and the discernible onset of winter, even in Atlanta's relatively temperate climate.

In my neighborhood here, you see some half-hearted attempts to put up lights on the front of the garage or around a palm tree or two, but it doesn't work for me. The big blow-up snowman on my neighbor's roof just looks weird when it's 83 degrees out. And because it's pretty much always 83 degrees out, nothing about this time of year feels any different from any other time of year.

So in addition to all of the other positive things about moving to Colorado, it'll be nice to be able to experience the Christmas season and have it feel like Christmas. I'm finding it odd that I feel this way, but there it is.
__________________________
*Of course, being Australian, Jason has never experienced a white/cold Christmas (our first Christmas in Atlanta after getting married he went home to visit relatives), so this feels very normal to him.

A lesson in appreciating what you've got

We've been in Hawaii for almost 2 years. There are things about it I've liked - the weather, the physical beauty, the ability to go to the beach 365 days a year - but mostly I've been wanting to leave. I hate being so isolated from the rest of the world, including what I obnoxiously think of as the "real" America (so very Sarah Palin of me). The expense and time it takes to travel anywhere (other than another Hawaiian island) is depressing. The public schools suck academically, and the local culture promotes an attitude of anti-intellectualism that drives me insane. The cost of living is astronomical. The provincialism and racism makes it hard to make friends. The traffic is horrendous all the time. There's no Target.

But -- and I've said this before -- it is a wonderful place to be unemployed, especially if you can put your kid in daycare. The past two months, Jason hasn't been working and I've been working only sporadically, so we've had lots of time to play.

We go surfing at least 3-4 times a week.

Our tans are fabulous.

(My tan is rockin'. Zeke's, not so much. I may be an unemployed bum, but I'm still a responsible parent with the sunscreen.)

We take naps in the afternoon before going to pick up Zeke at daycare. We've hosted visitors and had time to show them the island.

(With Andrea at Waimanalo Beach)

We've seen Kelly Slater, the best surfer in the world, win the Pipeline Masters surf competition, which is on every surfing fan's list of things to see before you die.

(A competitor takes a steep drop on a huge wave --
the face of that wave is probably 15 feet. Yoiks.)

Basically, it's been an extended vacation in paradise, which few people ever get in their lives.

But we know we have to leave soon, because we can't afford to stay. So I've been job hunting in Denver, and I've got two interviews there at the end of the month. The odds are pretty good that I'll get an offer from at least one of the firms, so the end of our run here is becoming more and more discernable.

And it's making me a bit sad. Living in the cold, having to go to an office and do actual work
every day (*shudder*), giving up all of this fun and relaxation -- it's going to be a shock to the system.

I know that Denver will be a great move for us. I will loooove being close to Kathleen, having Zeke grow up with his cousins, being a short plane ride away from everyone I love.

But the prospect of actually leaving has brought all of the things that have been great about life here into sharp focus. It puts a lump in my throat.

Oh, the tables, how they have turned...

This morning Jason and I dropped Zeke off at daycare and drove up to the North Shore to see the final rounds of the Pipeline Masters surf competition. Yes, we're those kinds of assholes. But it's Pipeline Masters! The Wimbledon of surfing!

So as we're driving up, I'm talking to a friend about our little episode at Tracks the other day and also about how Jason is having a bitch of a time getting the local electrician's union to recognize and give him credit for his credentials. He want to take his electrician's license, but his manager couldn't get his act together to certify Jason's hours in time, and then the union gave out bad information about the deadline for filing the application to take the exam, and then of course, there's the question of whether the union will even allow him to sit for the exam because he got his training in Australia instead of in Hawaii. No matter that the training in Australia is a million times harder than what Hawaii requires, or that half the guys Jason works with couldn't find their way out of a hatbox with a map.

My friend laments the crappy attitudes and racism we had to endure while surfing. I point out that racism is affecting Jason's job as well, and that there's a good chance that the electrical board overseeing the exam will be harsher on Jason's application because he's a haole.

My friend responded, "well, then maybe another good thing about going to Colorado is that at least there white people might have a chance to get ahead."

And that, my friends, is a sentence that I never thought I'd hear uttered.

It took me 10 minutes to stop giggling.

Localism

Surfing is one of the most joyful sports I've ever done. There is something quite magical about being out in the water on a beautiful day, getting exercise as you paddle around, keeping an eye on the peaks approaching from the horizon, and finally being in the right position to catch the wave and ride it.* And it's a very zen experience, and one which focuses your mind utterly on the task at hand. When you're paddling for a wave, all you're thinking about is your paddle strokes and whether the wave has "caught" the board and popping up in the right place and angling the board to take it down the line and on and on.

Plus, if it's a decent size wave, i.e., as tall as I am, like the waves I was trying to catch yesterday, there's always the prospect of being out of position and having large, heavy waves crash on your head and hold you down, or being on the wave, only to have the nose of the board shoot down into the water, sending you tumbling while heavy waves crash on your head and hold you down. Surfing is fun, but there are many ways to get hurt, so you need to focus.

Which is why it sucks when localism rears it's ugly head.

Localism is the tendency of locals to be aggressively territorial about a particular wave or break. Most of the time, if you practice the rules of surf etiquette, i.e., yield the right of way to the person already on the wave, don't sit out waiting for a wave in a spot that will nose in on someone else also sitting nearby, etc., you'll be OK. Respect and the aloha spirit will win the day.

But sometimes not.

Last week a couple of huge swells came in from the north, creating massive waves on the North Shore (one day the waves were 30 feet at Sunset Beach) and smaller, ideal conditions on the west side of the island, which gets "wraparound" swell. So Jason and I headed out to a break on the west side called "Tracks" where we've had fun in the past.

We weren't the only ones with that idea. There were at least 75 people out in the water, all locals except for one lonely haole woman sitting out behind the waves. I was instantly intimidated, and vowed to myself to stay out of everybody's way, hang back, and only catch a wave if I was truly and indisputably the only one in position to catch it.

So I paddled out and sat behind the waves, watching where they were breaking and where people were positioning themselves to catch them, smiling at people when eye contact was made, and generally doing my damndest to avoid offending anyone. A couple of times I tried to go for a wave, but was out of position and didn't catch it.

Turns out, this wasn't just bad luck on my part. It was a deliberate effort by the locals to block me off the waves. I discovered this in two ways. First, I finally, finally was in perfect position to catch a gorgeous wave, about 5 feet (or almost as big as me). I had it, I was on it, and I was about to pop up and ride it. When all of a sudden, this little shithead kid races around me and dropped in on me, i.e., cut in front of me on the wave so that I had to pull off to avoid hitting him. As I said, "heeeeey!" really loudly at him, he looked back at me and laughed. Fucker.

The next wave I tried to catch I was out of position and got pounded, so I decided to call it a day and head back to the beach. Jason stayed out to try to surf some more.

As he paddled around, he overheard about 4 guys talking to each other and conspiring to block his access to waves or drop in on him when he caught one. And that other lonely haole girl that was there? They were doing the same to her. So he finally gave up and we went home.

It was one of the most frustrating surfing experiences I've ever had, and the first one that left me so angry that I would wake up in the middle of the night stewing about it. And not stewing as in, oh, I should have said something or done something. There's nothing to say or do. I doubt anyone would have laid a hand on me if I had raised a stink, but they definitely would have gotten in my face and tried to scare me, and they definitely would have laid a hand on Jason, so it's not worth it to start something.

It's more stewing along the lines of, surfing is supposed to be so much fun, there are waves enough for everyone, why can't people just practice this aloha spirit you hear tell about so much in Hawaii? Why the bullshit aggression? And for God's sake, there's enough going on in your head when you surf without having to worry about getting the shit kicked out of you because some aggro punk doesn't like the color of your skin.

Enough time has passed that I've calmed down about it, but that day, I was thinking that Hawaii would be really great without most of the Hawaiians. I know I sound like an asshole, but it's how this place makes you feel sometimes.


*Much of the pleasure for me is attributed to being out in the sun and warm water -- I don't get the guys who put on 7 mm wetsuits with booties and hoods to surf dark, angry looking waves in places like Iceland or wherever. Though my brother has to suit up to surf in New Hampshire, and I guess if it's all you've got, you do what you've got to do. But the pros who travel to places in northern Europe to surf in the freezing cold are nuts.

Sometimes it's a good idea to just admire from the beach

(A surfer rides a 25 foot wave on the North Shore, December 2, 2008 -- photo taken by Bruce Asato for the Honolulu Advertiser)

There are huge swells coming from the north, so the surf on the North Shore of Oahu is firing. Like, over 25 feet in some spots. Around here, big swell is a big deal. People head up north just to look at the waves, and surfers take great pride in saying they rode huge waves. But in all of the hullabahoo, sometimes we forget how dangerous those waves can be.

One of the surf spots that Jason and I like to surf is a point on the North Shore that usually doesn't get huge when it's really big elsewhere on that side of the island. Something to do with the way the current wraps around a particular point, the deep channels nearby, whatever. So yesterday we figured we'd go up and check out the huge waves, and then maybe look at our favorite spot to see if we could handle going in.

When we got there, I took one look at the waves and knew it was more than I'd be able to handle. Usually the waves there are gentle peaks that crumble at the top rather than curl over in a heavy barrel. Also, they tend to break to the left, which is my preferred route, being a goofy-foot. But yesterday, they were breaking to the right, and were huge and heavy. There was also an obvious strong rip current that looked incredibly difficult to battle. Plus, the only waves that were really breaking with any consistency were way out off the back of the reef, and they were easily double-overhead or more, i.e., 12-15 feet. Way beyond my level.

(That's a huge wave called Avalanche breaking out in the distance. If you click on the picture, it'll blow up to a large image, and you should be able to see surfers towing in to the wave. It's about 20 feet high)

I told Jason I'd hang on the beach. He decided to paddle out and give it a shot.

The surf was so rough that it was difficult to see the surfers out in the water. So I tried walking around to the tip of the point to see if I could see Jason. I couldn't see him, so after about 15 minutes I made my way back to the beach to wait for Jason to come in. As I was walking back, I saw him standing on the shore, with half a board in his hand.

It took him at least 15 minutes of hard paddling to get out to the waves -- usually it takes about 3. Then before he could even catch a wave, he got caught inside a set of breaking waves, and got pounded. His board, which is a 10 foot epoxy longboard that floats like a barge, got pushed down into the water and started to crease. Jason was getting held down, and worried that his leash would snap, leaving him out in the crazy surf with nothing to hold onto, so he wrapped his arms around the board in a bear hug and just tried to hang on for dear life.

Another big wave broke over him, pushing him and the board down into the water again. He felt the board flex and then snap in two, and the top part of it shot away from him, scraping the hell out of his arm in the process. He managed to "ride" the back of the board back into shore. We later found the top of the board about 500 yards down the beach.

He was pissed that his favorite board broke. He was bummed that he had to go through all of that tumult, and didn't even get to ride a wave. But mostly, he was happy to be alive.

At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if he developed some bizarre flesh-eating disease

These are the times that try a mother's soul.

In the past week and a half, while dealing with the stress of traveling across the world for the holidays, and everything that that entails -- jet lag, being around lots and lots of unfamiliar people, dealing with cold for the first time in his young life -- my poor son has been afflicted with a veritable grand slam of baby maladies.

An ear infection. An inflamed, painful skin infection on his stomach. A bronchial virus. And the real kicker -- a horrible diaper rash that developed suddenly and spread like wildfire over his delicate loins, making every diaper change agonizingly painful and uncomfortable. The rash was exacerbated by persistent runny poops, undoubtedly brought on by insane doses of antibiotics to treat his infections, which also created, notwithstanding my efforts to spike his bottle with probiotics, the perfect conditions for the growth of yeast.

So everything is cleared up now, except that my little monkey is now battling an aggressive yeast infection that is now covering not only his penis, but all of the surrounding skin. He looks like he's got mange all over his balls.

I am not a nervous parent, as anyone who reads this blog understands. But having a sick baby, particularly where the hits just seem to keep coming, is getting me down. I feel like I did something wrong, or didn't take care of him properly, or was somehow negligent. Logically, I know that it's not my fault. As soon as there was a discernible problem, I took him to the doctor, including multiple visits to the emergency room when I couldn't get to my regular pediatrician in a timely manner. But he's so helpless, I feel responsible for every bad thing that happens to him.

Luckily, I can provide the one remedy that every giver of solicited or unsolicited advice has offered over the past number of days: get him to the beach, and get him naked.

Unemployment mutes my keyboard, largely because I haven't been near it

So, I haven't been here for about a week. Not sure why, but I just felt internet-ally quiet. Didn't feel like coming up with funny stories about my day, or even like booting up my computer. Mostly I've been enjoying being un(der)employed in Hawaii. I figure if I'm ever unemployed again (and God willing, I won't be), it won't be on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I've been doing alot of surfing with my similarly un(der)employed husband, hanging out with my baby, and hanging out with my friends that came to visit last weekend.

In fact, I've discovered that it's really fun to live here if you can act like you're on vacation all the time.

Being with Kathleen and Michele turned me into something of a tourist. Friday we went up to the North Shore to check out a surf competition, one of the legs of the Triple Crown of Surfing that was being held in Hale'iwa. We hung out on the beach and watched awesome surfers rip up the waves. Part of the attraction was the waves themselves. The day before we were there, a huge swell and come in from the north, and the waves on the North Shore were 22 feet (yes, you read that right). By the time we got there, the swell had dropped off some, but the waves were still pretty impressive, about 6-8 feet and perfectly formed.

The scene at a surf competition. Usually there are more people, but these were the early rounds and it was a bit cloudy. All the pros hang out under that white tent. Saw a bunch of famous surfers.

With the girls on the beach. We're trying to download a YouTube video of some guy kite-surfing into a whale's tail.

(I don't know who this is, but this is one of the competitors executing a nice snap-turn off the top of the wave.)

After the surf competition, we went into Hale'iwa to get shave ice at the world famous (sez them) Matsumoto's. This is something I had never done before in almost two years of living here. But I'm a tourist now. It's what we do.

(I had root beer and vanilla ice over vanilla ice cream.)

We spent the rest of the weekend going to the swap meet to buy souvenirs and trying to get rain-free beach time. It's been uncharacteristically rainy, and it seemed like every time we hit the beach, it would start out sunny but then clouds would roll in and it would get windy, cold and rainy. The last day they were here, we ended up huddling under an umbrella at Makaha Beach. It would be sunny, and then rain would roll in from the mountains behind us. Then it would stop and the sun would come out, and we would feel like we had dodged a bullet. Then 5 minutes later the clouds would roll in again. This happened 3 times before we finally packed up our soggy towels and left.

(That grey mist behind us is heading in our direction. I'm huddled under a towel, freezing. And I'm thinking, "I live here. I don't need to sit on the beach in the rain. I can go to the beach whenever I want. Why am I doing this?" But the tourist mind-set had me trapped.)

I actually had some work to do two days ago, so I didn't get to surf. But yesterday Jason and I went up to watch some of the later rounds of the Triple Crown competition, which was still going on (the waves had died out early in the week, so they postponed the comp until another swell came in). We watched a couple of heats and then went to a nearby break to catch some waves ourselves. The waves were about shoulder high and really fun.

Then we went to get Zeke from daycare before heading home. One the way we saw this:

(Note the poor dogs having to hang out under a giant boar carcass. Blech.)

Only in Hawaii, folks.

Aussie Word of the Day: Unemployment Edition

Aussies tend to abbreviate everything. No frequently used word remains intact for long. The two main forms of diminution are by shortening the word and then tacking "-ie" or "-o" on the end. Thus, "afternoon" becomes "arvo." "Petrol" becomes "pettie." "Beverage" becomes "bevvie." Jason's brother Dean becomes "Dean-o." "Sunglasses" becomes "sunnies."

My favorite of these is "smoke-o," short for "smoke break."* Smoke-o falls at about 11 in the morning, between breakfast and lunch. For those that don't smoke, it can be used for morning tea or a snack. When Jason was working, he would call me every day during smoke-o to say hello. In fact, he set an alarm on his watch to remind himself.

This morning Jason and I went for a surf after dropping Zeke off at daycare. There's a nice swell coming in from the northwest, so we decided to head up north and hit one of our favorite breaks. The waves were nice and clean, about 3-4 feet, with an offshore breeze. There was a good 5-10 minutes in between sets, so we tended to bob around on our boards waiting for the waves to come.

A side view of the wave

During one of the lulls, I looked out at the waves just in time to see, about 50 yards away from me, a dolphin jump out of the water and spin around before diving back in. There was a huge pod swimming and playing, and the younger ones were showing off to each other, flying out of the water and flipping around. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a giant turtle surfacing not to far from where I was sitting. He poked his head up, looked at me for a couple of seconds, and then went back under and swam away.

There's something so magical about being out in the ocean and encountering beautiful sea creatures willing to share their habitat. And it was a gorgeous day, sunny, not too hot, not too cool, blue skies. I may not love living in Hawaii, but on days like today, it's hard to beat. There
are certainly worse places to be unemployed (or under-employed).

So there we were, enjoying the day. I caught a bunch of really great waves, including one that was about as perfect a ride as I've ever been able to produce. As I was paddling back out to the line-up, I heard Jason's watch beep.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Smoke-o!" Jason laughed.

"Well, thank God. I certainly need a break from all this...perfection."

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*For full Aussie effect, say the word with as nasal a voice as possible, and pronounce it "SMAU-kau."

Done and done

Jason's back from his bike trip in Colorado. Big fun was had by all.

And he's sold on moving to Denver. Not only did he really love the city, but he (unprompted by me) started echoing the sentiments about getting off this island that I have been feeling all along.

That it will be wonderful to have close friends and family in the same city. Being able to head over to Kathleen's house on a whim to have a glass of wine and a chat, or to watch Project Runway or some other stupid reality TV show. Jason and Rich being able to plan a last minute bike ride or ski/snowboard session, or decide to get together to watch a football game on the Fiddy.* Getting together with my cousins and their children. Having Zeke grow up with his cousins and with the children of my best friend -- children whom I love as if they were my own.

He also marveled at the ability to drive for 5 hours out in the country and be in such beautiful, open land.

"I didn't realize how much I was suffering from island fever," he remarked.

The mainland is so huge and diverse. Hawaii is beautiful, but it's small, and limited (and limiting) in so many ways -- culturally, intellectually, geographically. It's hard being so isolated.

And then there's the cost of living. Kathleen and Rich's last electric/gas bill was about $70. Ours was $520. I can find good work in Denver, that utilizes the expertise that I've been developing for the last 9 years. I can't do that here. So not only is the cost of living here choking us, but we've got almost no money coming in.

I can't deal with the stress of it anymore. And neither can Jason.

So last night we were talking, sort of dancing around the issue of, "should we make a definite plan? Should we wait a few months to make a decision?"

And we decided to make a definite plan.

My law school course ends in May. Exams are in mid-May, so I'm assuming I'll have to get the finals graded and the grades turned in within a week or so of that. Jason finishes his union course around the same time. So it looks like the end of May/early June is our departure date.

There's so much to do. I'm still terrified about not being able to make it financially until then. But we'll figure it out.

I can't wait.


____________________________________
* Our obscene 50-inch flat-screen TV.

Busy busy busy ... feh

My parents arrived for a visit this past weekend, and it's been a bit of a whirlwind. Sunday was a chill day, but Monday we were off and running. My mom and I exercised in the morning (separately -- she did some kickboxing DVD, and I did shoulders, arms and abs as part of P90X), and then we went grocery shopping, and then we played with Zeke, and then we made lunch, and then "hey! let's climb Diamond Head!"

Diamond Head is a relatively short (it only took us 25 minutes, but we were booking) but intense walk/climb up a winding rocky trail, in and out of the military bunkers that the Army installed during WWII, and then culminating with 271 steps up to a lookout with an incredible view of the ocean and the back yards of very rich people.

(The view east. Jason and I surfed that break when we were here in February 2005 for me to take the bar exam. You can see the Diamond Head lighthouse down in the lower right corner. I think Oprah owns a house along that coastline. Super ritzy real estate down there.)

(looking west toward Waikiki and Pearl Harbor)

I was sweating my ass off, but I guess I shouldn't complain, since Jason did it with Zeke on his back and set a much faster pace that I would have set (but we had to keep up with him, because if he's going that fast with a 22-pound kid on his back, then we're pussies if we lag behind).

(Jason and Zeke. Jason not only hiked with Zeke on his back, but he was barefoot, natch.)

(I took Zeke on the way down. Try to ignore the unfortunate placement of the chest strap on the backpack, making my boobs look like they're plummeting over a ledge. That's my mom behind me.)

I was so exhausted driving home that I was practically nodding off. But then, so was everyone else.

Yesterday I had some work to do in the morning, so we took Zeke to school for part of the day. Mom and I got pedicures, went to the grocery store (I love it when they visit because our fridge is always packed), and then came home to get some stuff done. We picked up Zeke at about 2 in the afternoon and headed straight for the beach. Having another set of adults there was lovely, because it meant that Jason and I could surf together, something we enjoy but don't get to do very often. The waves were kind of small and mushy, but we caught a few good ones and had a good time.

(Zeke puts his face in the sand to see what happens. What happened was the expected -- a face full of sand.)

(Having a snooze using Daddy's shirt as a blanket)

When we got home, we all went to dinner at this great Hawaiian barbecue place that we always take visitors to. The food is amazing and it's a casual, fun atmosphere.

The problem is, it's technically a bar, so they don't have high chairs or booster seats. Meaning that we had to have Zeke sitting in the booth with us, and of course all he wanted to do was grab everything and crawl on the table and knock over water glasses and bang his chop sticks on the plate and wave away the apple-blueberry puree that I had brought for him to eat.

So by the end of the evening, I was cold and wet because my jeans were soaked with ice water, and my white t-shirt now has big blueberry apple stains all over it.

We're not taking him to a restaurant again until his language skills are better and I can explain to him what's going on and what's expected of him. Or unless they have a high chair. Not that he was bad, but it's too much stimulation for him to process without getting crazy excited, meaning that I spend my meal being super-vigilant over every last thing he might want to grab or knock over, taking a minute here and there to shovel food in my face, and then demanding the check and bugging out as quickly as possible. It's just not fun for me, and since I'm the one he's gravitating to right now (he's going through a BIG "mama mama mama" phase), I'm the one that ends up dealing with the bulk of it.

The topper is, we came home and within a couple of hours I started feeling sick. It's not food poisoning, because we all had the exact same thing and everyone else is fine. It's the same stomach bug that's been going around that Jason had last week. So I spent last night throwing up and trying to find a position to lie in that didn't cause my stomach to churn.

I have the house to myself for a little while because my parents went scuba diving and Jason took Zeke to school. But not before Zeke spit up on me.

Sigh.

Resignation

It's been a roller-coaster-y couple of days. One minute I'm crying and feeling despondent, the next I'm cheerier and looking at the bright side. Some of it is the situation itself, some is depression fucking with my head a little bit, making the bad stuff seem worse.

But we're doing OK. We've resigned ourself to the fact that the Big Hawaii Experiment is looking to be a failure, and that unless I can get a big fat lawyer job here -- which don't appear to exist, as far as I can tell -- we're going to have to leave. So when we can, we're going to Denver.

Hawaii Cost of Living, 1: Armstrongs, 0.

We need to stick around through May, at least. May is when Jason finishes the stupid training course that the union made him do, even though he's 457 times smarter than anyone else on the jobs he works on and he's been working as a master electrician for, like, 12 years or something. Plus if he gets a Hawaii license, it makes it easier for him to go to a new jurisdiction with some credibility, rather than having to explain, again, "I'm licensed in Australia and I've been working as a journeyman/master for over a decade, but I don't have a U.S. license." And I don't want to dick over the law school, so we'll stay through the spring semester so I can teach my course.

In the meantime, we're going to try to enjoy the benefits of being here. The truth is, I haven't loved it here, but there are things about it I will miss. Beautiful hikes, surfing, great weather.

We started this weekend.

(Zeke in his Cadillac of a hiking pack, getting ready to ride Daddy's back up the Kuli'ou'ou Ridge Trail, in Hawaii Kai)

(Ever the Aussie, Jason hikes barefoot. Crazy mofo.)

(The view of Hawaii Kai from partway up the mountain)

(Zeke enjoys playing with his toys at the beach.)

(I manage to catch a wave in the teeny tiny surf)

The real me

One of my most pronounced personality traits or characteristics or whatever is my ability to project supreme confidence in myself and competence in what I'm doing. In fact, to characterize it as an "ability" is misleading because it suggests that it's something that I can turn off and on. In reality, it's just how I apparently present to the outside world.

And it's something of a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, if I'm in some kind of confrontation with someone, it tends to give me the upper hand because I always sound like I know what I'm talking about and people get intimidated. That obviously benefits me as a lawyer, too.

But on the other hand, people tend to assume that I actually feel as competent and confident as I seem.

And the truth is, I rarely, if ever, do. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Which is why, in the face of so many well-wishes and expressions of "atta girl! you're gonna kill it!" from my family and friends -- and I so appreciate it, I really do -- I spent last night unable to sleep and sobbing on the phone with my mother at 1:30 in the morning. In fact, just typing those words makes me choke up all over again.

Because for the first time in my life, I'm really and truly terrified about my ability to succeed.

And I feel like the choices I've made in the past couple of years have been colossal mistakes, because I went from having a good job and no debt and living in a house with incredibly reasonable mortgage payments to being out in the middle of the fucking Pacific Ocean with my family and friends a million miles away, with a mortgage payment that I'm choking on and daycare expenses that I'm choking on and a $500 monthly electric bill, a mountain of debt, and no steady income. I want to have another baby, but don't feel like I can afford it. I've got two businesses, one of which (Baby Boot Camp) I know I can make successful, but which won't cover all of my expenses, and a solo law practice that, if I could get a steady client base, I could be fine, but I'm kind of flummoxed as to how I'm going to actually get that steady client base that will provide a consistent stream of billable work.

I'm trying to take lots of deep breaths and make lots of "to do" lists and stay positive. I talked to a guy from an online law portal (www.Findlaw.com) to see about getting my name in a directory so that if people are doing an online search for a lawyer, my name will come up. And there's an opening for administrative law judges at one of the state agencies, so I'll submit an application. And I'm trying to let everyone I know that I'm here and available to work.

But my stomach is killing me and I can't sleep and I feel anxious all the time.

The one positive point is that when I'm really nervous, I totally lose my appetite, so this could be an opportunity to get really skinny.

Forgetting the distance

I'm sitting in a Starbucks right now, waiting to meet my boss. He's in town because he's been hired as an expert witness in a special education lawsuit that the Hawaii Department of Education is involved in, and he's enlisted me to help him work out the issues he's being asked to opine on, and to write his expert report.

Last night Jason and I met him out for dinner at a local dive for some yummy Hawaiian barbecue. It was the first time I'd seen him in 14 months, since we did the oral argument last June in California, a realization that shocked me. Because I talk to him fairly often, and we communicate by email, and I work for him, after all. So my days are spent creating work product for which he pays me.

He was talking about how long the plane ride was, and how you forget how far away Hawaii is until you try to get there. It's so true, and something that I do my best to block out. I spend so much time online or on the phone, feeling connected with the world. Technology and modern communications do make the world so much smaller. I can get on Skype and have a video conference with my friend Elizabeth in Norway, and we can chat and look at each other as if we were sitting across a table having coffee. I can get on Facebook and know what friends on the West Coast and the East Coast and everywhere in between are doing, not to mention the folks in Israel and Paris and India that I also keep up with. I talk to my mother every day, and to my grandparents and brothers almost every week. And then there are the Australia relatives, who we also keep in contact with via email and telephone and Skype and what have you.

So I forget. I forget how far away I am from them, and how long it's been since I've seen them, and how long it's going to be until I can see them again.

Because when I think about that, it hurts.

Residency has its privileges

This may seem obvious, but one of the nice things about living in Hawaii is not just that you've got beautiful beaches close by, but that going to the beach becomes an easy outing that doesn't require so much effort. Back on the mainland, when we went on family outings to the beach it was a huge ordeal requiring piles and piles of gear and hours and hours of commitment. Hours to get ready, hours to get there, hours to drag your shit from the car to your "spot" and get stuff set up, and then an obligation to stay for hours because the effort to get situated was so enormous.

But here, we can look outside at the breezy, sunny, 83 degree day, have no particularly pressing errands to run, and say, "hey, let's take Zeke up to Shark's Cove to swim in the tidal pools. But let's not stay too long, because I want to be home in time to go to a matinee." So Jason plays with Zeke for 5 minutes while I make an extra bottle or two, round up a couple of towels, and toss the chairs, umbrella and sunscreen in the trunk of the car. Zeke takes a nice nap in the car for half an hour, and when he wakes up bright and chirpy, we're here:

We walk about 50 feet from where the car is parked to set up under a palm tree. Zeke plays with some toys, and Jason enjoys the view:

We go for a swim:



After swimming, we relax in the shade while Zeke enjoys some naked baby time.
In a move guaranteed to result in years of therapy for him, we crack ourselves up staging a picture called "Zeke has crabs!!":

We chill out for about 45 minutes, and then go home with plenty of time to make a movie or go to the grocery store or nap or fix Jason's bike or watch crappy movies on HBO.

I know I bitch about Hawaii from time to time, but I'm not an idiot. Days like this obviously don't suck.