Escape From Paradise

And their kinfolk said, “Better move away from there, California is the place you ought to be, so they loaded up their truck and moved to Temeculie. (Temecula that is, no swimming pool and no movie stars that I know of.)


You know about centrifugal force, and if you let go of the bucket it sails into space? Whap, a tree, Bang, a boulder, Ping, Pong, Bonk. It rolls to a stop.

Hawaii: July 21, 4 am. Get up, shower, leave at 5 am, whoops 5:30, you know me. I say Good Bye to the house, it looks good, the kitchen is great, new cabinets, new paint, new flooring, candles on the cupboard, new plates decorating the backsplash, artificial orchids. You know I like real, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I grouted the lanai flooring two days ago—to the wire you know. The living room has a desk, more candles, a basket, a decorative pillow. The bedroom box springs—courtesy of the previous owner—covered with a turquoise sheet and a Hawaiian throw decorates the bed room, oh yes, bamboo on the ceiling—a new towel in the bathroom. Cute house. I like it. What a change from the house we moved into seven months ago with its cracked ceiling, gray kitchen floor, plywood lanai floor, white throughout, but not that clean, cracks, mildew, water damage in the cupboards. We did good. Bye house.

We load two dogs, two cats, nine suitcases, Baby Darling, Daughter Darling, Husband Darling, and me into a van.

We’re off to Kona on the other side of the island where Bear, DD’s Newfoundland dog, can fly United, the same plane as us, a direct flight to LA.

WHAP! About 40 miles out of Hilo we encounter a road-block. A tanker rolled over, and it will take about a half a day to clean up the mess. Okay, turn back to Hilo, take Saddle Road. Bear needs to be at United Cargo by 9 am. Everyone is silent for awhile while we worry.

We arrive on time. From the car I see the fork-lift driver shaking his head. More talk, more head shaking.

BAM! Bear’s kennel has been modified, they will not take it. (HD made a stretch limo out of it by bolting two kennels together. It met Continental Airline and Aloha’s specifications, when we traveled to Hawaii initially. United, however, refused to be responsible for a modified carrier.)

Okay, we go to Pet Co, where—miracle—they have the largest kennel available.

Back to Cargo. It is 1 ½ hours before the flight, time enough we think, No, they will not load him. He must go that night at 8 o’clock. THUD!

We go to ticketing where a nice man changes all our tickets to the 8 pm flight, we go back and rescue Bear from confinement and heat.

Be back at 2 pm. Okay, we’re back, deposit Bear, and go into town with the other animals in tow. En route we get a phone call. Our flight has been canceled. We’re scheduled to leave in the morning at 10:00 am. PING, PONG, BONK! (No hotel in Hawaii will take animals. I envision a hot night in the car.)

Back to the airport; wait until 6 pm as no person occupies the ticketing booth until then. There we encounter other passengers who got the same phone call.

ROLL, ROLL! GEORGOUS GRASS AHEAD! An exquisite woman by the name of Karen, changes all our tickets to another plane with a stop-over in San Francisco. We leave at 8:55 pm, arrive around 9 am in the morning, HAPPY DAY! She calls to have Bear shuttled over to that plane, gets all four animals aboard, checks our carry-on’s, but doesn’t charge us, bumps us up to first class, and we are off.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We’re in first class, food for the family, wine for me, we relax. What is that sound we hear? From beneath us, from the bowels of the airplane comes a recognizable yap. It is Peaches, our dog, our poodle, “What dog? I don’t hear any dog.” We sail out over the grand Pacific Ocean to the tune of, “Yap, Yap, Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap...”

Aloha,

Joyce

P.S. More about Hawaii later if you care to read it. I haven’t mentioned Hawaiian Hula…

Leaving the Island

Zoom Zoom finally got off my desk.

We packed it from beneath him.

Zoom Zoom is our cat, and he would, under duress, leave the desk to use the litter box, or to eat if we didn’t put the food next to him. To him that big outdoors was like a trip through an alligator infested swamp. Those wild pigs you know. Although we do not see pigs on our property, they live a stones toss away and he might sense them.

We like seeing the pigs. They appear often on the road at dusk or at night. Big ones, little ones, and ones in-between. We have healthy-looking pigs here on Hawaii. Maybe that shows the value of fruit in one’s diet, for they live next to Papaya orchards, and Papayas drop to the ground, and pigs eat Papayas. These long legged stealth pigs can run as fast as a dog, but normally they just saunter off the road. To our dismay, hunters use dogs to chase them down. I hate that. And then a dog will get on a trail and the hunter loses his dog. And to see a lost dog is heartbreaking. The only thing you can do is call the phone number on the frequently posted flyers.


We wondered when we first arrived on the Island why people were so afraid of dogs, now we know. There are many macho dogs such as pit bulls, and Dobermans for watch dogs, and then the hunting dogs. There are little ones too that people carry around like babies, and if I take Peaches with me anywhere people go gaa gaa.

I’m thinking about the animals since we are going to ship ours again, and we spent 3 hours at the Vet’s office yesterday getting medical certification for the trip back to the mainland. It is easy going back, not like coming here. Don’t know why it took 3 hours—Island time I guess. Hope, DD’s cat, is cool. She loves being outside. Talk about stealth, she runs up the trees, onto the roof, jumps off, catches mice, comes in for a snack and a love and is off again. Bear has endeared himself to the neighbors who had never known a Newfoundland dog before. BD is wonderful with him although a Bear’s tail wag can send him sprawling.

New territory is coming up for everybody--Southern California. We are leaving Wednesday, that is July 21.

The shipping container is loaded—the other day while stuffing it I thought, It seems I just did this the other day. That was 7 and 1/2 months ago. We visited and bought the property last July, that was one year ago. We moved December 1, 2009. Our disconnection to the island came the day we visited Disneyland and DD got it that she wanted a career off the island, and we realized that there was no future here for her. None for Baby Darling either. The crowning blow came with Husband Darling’s heart situation, and they said the Big Island was not for him. The island called us and now the island is pushing us off.

For some islanders living here is a badge of honor, an endurance test, and they have passed it and if you are hearty enough you can do it too. DD says, “Why?”

I have spoken before how this island “calls” people, as it did us. This has been called “The dirty laundry island” for whatever issues you have will present themselves. It’s a blessing really, for if we are carrying baggage we need to let go of it---oh, oh, Joyce, think of all that stuff you stuffed in that shipping container. But it’s good stuff.

Did I tell you the truck driver got the shipping container onto our property? He jockeyed a lot making our corner, skidded up the slope, grumbled, but he did it, and I greased his palm with silver so he would come back. Yea! We packed our belongings right here in our front yard, not as we unloaded it 2 miles down the road and pickup trucked it to the house those 7 ½ months ago. No wonder we were fried when we came here.

My friendly carpenter and his son loaded the heavy furniture onto the container including two washers and two dryers we never used. We packed the boxes--many had never been unpacked since we came here, so that made it easier. That same carpenter is going to be a care-taker for the property after we leave. Please, if you care to do it, hold a high thought for us, that this property sells quickly, easily, and for its asking price. Thank you. Thank you.

And now as though we have been in a bucket and the Great Spirit has twirled us around and around, we are still spinning, but I feel the rope slipping through her fingers…

What's It All About?

Why or why--oh I know you never do this, but tell me--why do we have clothing in the closet that is never worn?  It’s like those little do-dads that nobody knows their use, we don’t even know what they are, so we throw them into the junk drawer—they might be useful someday…

The great thing about moving is you clear out drawers, closets, etc.

We got the house together, sort-of, and our Realtors, a husband and wife team, came last Monday. Shannon took pictures, and we listed the house for sale.

Two days later I’m packing.

Oh the irony of it all.

On her last trip Darling Daughter found a house for us to rent in Southern California. It is located on three acres, a better transition for us than being plunked down in the heart of Los Angeles.

Here we live down a long 2 ½ mile unpaved lumpy bumpy road, yet there exists about a city block from our house an orchid farm. I called the owner and we visited his exquisite spread, acres of green with a manicured park-like setting, palms, all planted by him, a rock wall, an iron gate, spreading green populated by 3 dogs, 3 horses, sheep somewhere I didn’t see, and pigs who play with the dogs and sleep clean and sleek under the palms. They were wild pigs Joe told us, but born on the farm, so it was home to them. “Isn’t that what a farm is about,” said Joe, “having animals?” Joe, the owner, sells orchids wholesale which was the reason I called.

When he moved there the land was raw, he bulldozed it and planted everything. Now it is an oasis, a house, a tree house maybe 100 feet in the air, a packing building, and rows of shade-cloth covered growing structures filled with flowers.

Considering all the work that goes into growing orchids I’m surprised they aren’t more expensive. Joe was breaking open bottles, square on the diameter, about one foot long, filled--like a ship in a bottle--with little green squiggly sprouts growing in a jell substrate that in 2 years will become blossoming orchids. In Taiwan planters didn’t throw seeds in the bottle and shake them up, but painstakingly with a long tweezers placed the seeds in three rows. Once sprouted they fill the bottle like bean sprouts. Joe smashed the bottom end of the bottle with a hammer, poured the babies into a bucket of water, and two young women carefully placed a single sprout into a one inch size peat pot.

Perhaps we will become an orchid importer for Southern California. From the Big Island with love. The climate here is perfect for orchids, and they are healthier than orchids raised in a green-house. The name of the farm? Alohilani. As best as I can determine it means “Bright Sky." I better ask the owner to make sure.

As I was preparing to leave Joe said, “You eat pork don’t you?” He opened his refrigerator took out an entire pork shoulder and thrust it into my arms.

A parting gift. What a guy.

On the same Monday as the house listing, we drove to Kona to place Husband Dear on a jet plane back to Oregon to work on an optic instrument. Rather than drive back that night DD, BD and I stayed over.

Morning dawned magnificent, clear, sun glistening, aqua-marine water of picture post card quality, palms swaying. We swam, had breakfast, but by afternoon the Vog rolled in and everything turned white, or more accurately gray, the sky and water barely distinguishable from each other. Apparently that is typical of the Kona Coast these days.

Normally I don’t relish a COSCO store visit, but that day seeing well-stocked shelves gave me a taste of the mainland. We bought file boxes to pack, and white utility towels for packing, and were on our way.

This island with its variation in landscape, topography and climate never ceases to amaze. Instead of driving the coastal route as we normally do, we drove through the middle of the island, from Kona to Hilo over Saddle Road that runs between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two volcanoes. It is like driving through Texas, the hills look shaved, barren, a few cattle on dry grass, a few goats, oh, and wild turkeys, didn’t know they existed here.

There are tales about Saddle Road, of an area 51 sort of situation, of trucks secretly going up the mountain, of a military base, legends of UFO sightings, of men in unmarked cars and plain clothing, but with the tell-tale cropped haircut of the military, who show up behind your car should you venture off the road. There are even tales of ghost warriors who appear, at night usually, and scare the bee-jeeses out of unsuspecting souls. We, however, cruised over the high elevation, down the dips, over one lane bridges, cresting the summit, and getting 100 miles per gallon down the other side, with no legends, warriors, or military appearing.

In parting, consider these:


“Your expanded self is driving the bus. You can’t make a mistake, mess anything up, or blow it. You just trust your Expanded Self and flow with what you feel inspired or motivated to do, moment to moment.”
—Robert Scheinfeld

“The High Self is an utterly trustworthy spirit self who is there to guide and help us when we ask—but —Pila of Hawaii

“There are two way to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
—Albert Einstein.