Kapa'a Nightlife!

Here on Kauai they have lots of monthly or weekly "Art walks" in various towns around the island. From what I can tell the one in nearby Kapa'a is one of the largest, held on the first Saturday of the month. Stores stay open late and there are vendors set up all along the street and on church grounds, in parking lots, etc. 

I've wanted to attend some of these art walks to do research to try to sell some of my own "art" and when I mentioned it to my friends they all wanted to go too! So it got put off for a bit. Last night we finally made it.

We parked at the library on the north end of town and headed south. The street was packed with cars and the vendors were EVERYWHERE! I had no idea this would be so large. One of the first tables we passed was kids selling Hawaiian sweet bread. The table right next to them had some kind of meat, I don't recall exactly what. It was served in a bowl, probably on top of rice, for $5. There were tons of jewelry, wood art, fabric goods (Aloha dresses, sarongs, etc), glass art and wares of all sorts.


As we walked on one of my friends suggested we stop and have a beer. So we found a place that advertised draft beer for $2.50. That's our kind of price! Unfortunately, they had no draft beer, only bottles. So we bought our drinks and sat RIGHT NEXT to the big speaker that the guitar players were pumping their music through. They were very good musicians but it was a little on the overpowering side for me, with my hard of hearing ears... Then a little local lady joined them for a couple songs and did the hula. She looked nothing like a hula dancer, her salt and pepper hair was cut short and she had a cute sundress on. But she was very graceful, she'd obviously been doing the hula for decades.

There were musicians and food vendors everywhere, so the sounds and smells added to the sensory overload!  We perused a few jewelry vendors and one friend found a beautiful hand tied bracelet made with fresh water pearls for $10, it's beautiful!

We came near to the end of the vendors on one side of the street so crossed over and started down the other side. By this time we all needed to use the restroom and so that became a priority but the sounds coming from the Eastside Cafe pulled us close. It sounded like James Brown was singing, I was looking for his jumpin' and jivin'! The band was called The Quake and they were fantastic! Then as we're trying to look in and see the band another friend from the hall spotted us from inside and dragged us in and bought us drinks. Unfortunately we were once again parked right in front of the speakers. It was a lot of fun but personally, I think next time I'd rather enjoy it from the other side of the glass, along with many others doing that very thing last night.

I did get to do some research along with all the fun. Now I just need to find out how to get a spot.

Aloha Donny

On my first visit back to Hawaii back on '04 we stayed in a beautiful house across the street from my folks', a place called Mahinani. The Mahis are friends of my parents, members of their congregation and they had vacation homes and a tree farm. It was a beautiful visit, a beautiful house. One night Joanna (my friend who came along) made a fantastic chicken curry dinner and we had Don join us, since his wife was working on Oahu. He was a very nice guy, we enjoyed visiting with him.  At one point I remember he was riding his big mower around and I discovered the cattle egret following in the freshly mowed grass, cleaning up the bugs.

About 2 1/2 years ago Don was diagnosed with cancer and began a long battle, which he recently lost. He was loved by very many people here in the islands and on the mainland. He was 64 years old, the youngest of 4 siblings, all of them having survived him. He has 2 daughters, a son and a loving wife. 

Knowing that his memorial would draw a massive crowd the family opted to have a "private" event on Saturday 8/23. They rented a big white tent (same style as the wedding 2 blogs back), invited our whole congregation as well as probably 100 other special, close friends and family. So even though this was meant to be a small memorial it was still rather large. 

One of his closest friends locally gave his memorial talk. A soft-spoken man who seems to have a shortage of self-confidence and was probably fighting back the tears through much of the talk. But he did a fantastic job, his talk was very clear and touching. The family members then took turns telling stories of Don as a child and young adult. 

Per normal Hawaiian tradition there was once again live Hawaiian music, a Hawaiian feast of finger foods (pupus) and late in the evening the hulas began. Unfortunately I didn't stay long enough to see the hulas. Next time I'm sticking around!

Something that was different from the way it's done back home on the mainland - they had his ashes there. They were in a beautiful hand made wooden box draped with leis. Very classy.

Don was quite the fellow and is missed by throngs. We're all looking forward to reuniting with him in the future paradise and he'll be more like the vibrant man I met back in '04.

"Free" Day

Without the parents at home, anyway...

So, what did I do?






I washed all the noni juice containers

Did a load of dishes










Did a load of laundry (that includes hanging it!)

Painted half the kitchen ceiling and caulked a crack in the plywood

Painted some of the strips that will go on the kitchen ceiling

Filled 10 noni juice bottles

And now - - - - 


It's time for a BEER!



Oh yeah - I wrote this blog!

Ku'uipo...

...is Hawaiian for sweetheart. That would be these two, Bryan and Rebecca.

I got to attend my first Hawaiian wedding, or rather, the reception, last Saturday. It was quite refreshing.

It was, as far as I know, 100% witnesses and was in a beautiful setting, one of the many botanical gardens here on Kauai, Na Aina Kai. Everyone was nicely dressed and polite. The kids were well behaved. Although they did serve beer and wine there was no bad behavior or drunkenness. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. I'm sure the young couple were extremely pleased with the way things had turned out.

I enjoyed the total Hawaiianness of the whole thing, the decorations were gorgeous and the food was perfect. They had pupus ready almost immediately. So we all nibbled until the very native meal was ready. We had all the dishes I recall from my youth. All that I loved and those I didn't! At least I already knew what to enjoy and what to avoid!

I'm going to let the pictures tell most of this story.


The decorations were made with ferns, orchids, heleconia and gingers.

A father and two of his offspring were our live entertainment.





Pupus included fried wonton, kalamari, edamame, sushi and salted local fish.



Dinner was massive. What I had (my favs) included poi and lomi salmon, kalua pork, plain old salad, rice and that thing wrapped in a ti leaf, lau lau. Unwrap it and you'll find that blob. It's pork and/or fish salted, then wrapped in spinach leaves, then cooked in the ti leaves. Yum!

Everyone looked so nice and look at how good these potential juvenile delinquents are behaving! The party carried on til after dark (which is only about 7:30) but us old folks called it a night early. Good party!

A New Chapter

Wow - who'd a thunk? I'm 57 and living with my parents again! But it's nothing like being young and living with them, I mean, I'm a GRANDMA now!

I have my little nook in the corner of the house between the bathroom and the carport. It's about 5x6 and I have a bed (futon), dresser, mirror, cabinet, table/lamp combo, all divided from the rest of the house with a folding screen and standing fan. What more could I need?

The day I got here my mom visited the doctor and was told that she needed to put some salt back into her diet. She did and her dizziness and fainting is virtually gone. The day after I got here was another doctor visit and they finally figured out what caused her stroke - it was her racing heart! Now they just have to decide to put in a pacemaker, they're still not determined that that's what she needs.

So mom is getting stronger every day, many of her problems are under control and we're even getting to the beach for exercise, a little swim a couple times a week. Personally, I could do it every day! It's a nice way to end the day! Dad's coming too so he's getting to enjoy his Hawaii and getting exercise too, not that he doesn't get any like mom. He's the lawn man at 2 houses, he gets plenty of exercise!

While I have my nook we're still looking into building a guest room that I could use while I'm here and then the folks can have actual guests stay in it. I like the idea of a room at the same level as the rest of the house, with an ocean view and breeze. Much more appealing for guests (and I'm the first guest!).

I got my car on Friday and it feels so good to have my own wheels. Yesterday mom and I went running errands while dad worked on the corolla, getting it ready to sell. While we were out dad had us stop and pick up a tool at NAPA. All this wasn't possible before me and my toaster got here - that's called progress! Dad was having to do all that by himself.

I haven't done a ton of work around here yet, it's a bit on the warm side and hard to work in. I did get all the bottles for their noni juice sales cleaned, fixed their vacuum, cleaned the deck, installed some drywall and taped some of the ceiling in the kitchen to help eliminate "visitors" from outside. Oh yeah, can't forget the spider sucking!

All in all a lot of improvement around here, some due to my presence, others due to doctors finally making diagnoses.

BUT - I do miss my kids and grandkids. Thank goodness I have a ticket to go home for a visit!

 

2014 International Convention!

I finally got to attend an international convention this past weekend. Maybe some day I'll get to be one of the delegates instead of just an attendee. We heard 50 talks, the two I appreciated the most were on neutrality and anxiety. We saw lots of videos and heard lots of experiences from around the globe. We got 5 (?) new publications and had talks by a very animated governing body member, Bro. Lett. We had 294 baptized, including a brother with one leg who had to be handed into the pool and dunked on a cot! It felt like a scene from the Bible itself! We had 3 sisters from Norway behind us on the last day who were singing in sign! I had nice conversations with a few but the one that struck me the most was from a brother from Puyallup. I spotted his daughter wearing a beautiful costume, snapped a shot of her, approached her to find out where the costume was from, since she was from Puyallup. It was a Nigerian dress, it was beautiful! Then her dad told me they have friends in Nigeria and they brought back costumes for the girls. Then he shared this experience: a 23 year old brother had just been released from prison, doing his 18 month stay for neutrality. He's in great spirits and says they do their time as just part of their "right of passage" you might say. They don't let it get them down, they feel privileged to do it for what they believe in. It's a badge of honor! What a wonderful attitude! It was a great convention, even if I wasn't in a foreign land.
The convention itself was, that is. The venue caused lots of headaches and I hope we never have another convention there.

There's not enough parking at the Husky Stadium to accommodate the number of people filling it (we had between 31,000 and 32,000) so we hired buses to lessen the need for parking. Those that did drive had to park far from the stadium and walk. I'm not sure how far they had to walk but I think it's safe to say there were a lot walking a mile or more. The shuttles that were provided were golf carts so only a few could be shuttled at a time, most people walked.

But we took a bus, me and most of my friends from the Kingdom Hall. We had to board the bus at 7 AM so we could depart at 7:30 to arrive in plenty of time to be there before the 9:20 start, since it's only about a 45 minute drive. Unfortunately this was July 4 and traffic was miserable. We arrived about 10. The second day we took a different route and were there early, as well as the third day. On the second day our bus captain, Kevin Hayden, called the other bus captain, Kimo Sosusco, to let him know that we were at the stadium WAY ahead of his bus! Kimo thought he was fibbing and asked where on the freeway we were! Kevin told him we were in front of the sta-di-um! It was great, our bus was roaring!

Getting home was just as challenging, if not worse. Friday and Saturday we got home about 8 PM. Friday I still had to bake 100 cookies for our congregation's portion of the delegates' hospitality that we were having on Monday! Saturday our bus nearly broke down, we couldn't go over about 45mph and it did break down as soon as it got back to the bus barn in Tacoma! But we made it to the KH safely. Sunday we managed to get loaded and moving quickly so we got home at a decent time. In spite of the long days the buses created I totally enjoyed riding with my friends. And our bus driver, Esther, was an inactive, flamboyant sister who enjoyed being surrounded by all us crazies!

It's an open stadium and this is Seattle so you never know what the weather will do. Well, we hit both extremes, at least as extreme as you can expect for July. It was very sunny and hot (for here) and friends who manned the first aid said people were suffering from the heat. Ambulances were coming and going constantly. Even my newest grandson, Kevin, suffered from the heat and Shirley had to leave early. Then, Saturday afternoon it decided to lightly rain for about an hour even though the forecast had 0% chance of rain for that day! On day 3 we had no choice but to sit up in the nosebleed section and it turned out to be the best seats! We had a great view!

Finally, the corridors would get so packed during the breaks that it was nearly impossible to visit. It may have been more our side of the stadium side that experienced that since it was the shady side. I did manage to work my way through the crowds some and get snaps of some of our colorfully dressed delegates. Our largest group was from Korea. There were over 1600 Koreans but there were also delegates from at least 40 other lands.

So while it had many downers if given the chance, would I do it again? You bet I would!