My Canine Moment

I acted like a dog today. Our car has no air conditioning and features convenient protective guards on the door frames that are designed to keep the rain out if you're driving with the windows down. Well, they also keep the air out all the time. So it was hot. So I stuck my head out the passenger's side window, far enough out to get a breeze. And my visor blew off, obviously. We pulled over and I jogged back to get it. I put it on and returned to the car, determined to act more human.

At least I wasn't panting or wagging my tail.

Achievement

Readers, I did something today that you learned how to do when you were six, but that I'd never done before. I'd always been embarrassed that I couldn't do it and scared that I would hurt myself trying. Yes, I dove. Into water. Without belly-flopping. And it was easy and it felt good.

Unreal

I came outside to do some work this morning. I plopped down at our picnic table, under a canopy tent, and a few minutes later it started to rain. Well, now it is POURING. And I'm sitting outside with my laptop, dry for now. POURING. Wireless internet is cool.

Answering My Own Question

This article by head conservative Grover Norquist answers my question about why so many people support Bush, and Christ is it scary.

News Flash: Rock Stars Like Kerry

Rolling Stone asked a bunch of rock stars what they thought about the election, and no surprise, all of them are supporting Kerry. Some of them had interesting/funny things to say, though.

Jeff Tweedy, Wilco: "When people ask why this election is so close, I can't explain it. It's like trying to figure out how Billy Ray Cyrus sold 10 million records." I'm with you, Jeff. Both are inexplicable. How can there be FIFTY MILLION people who like Bush? It blows my mind. I know there are supposed to be two Americas and all that, but how can people make decisions so differently?

John (formerly Cougar) Mellencamp: "The polarization caused by this election is not good for anyone. I played "Pink Houses" at an Indianapolis Colts game recently, and people booed. This is in Indiana! I've never been booed there in my life." If Johnny Cougar is getting heckled in Indiana, civil war can't be far behind. It's like Sen. Douglas getting pelted with rotten apples in Virginia in 1859. Or something.

Bob Weir, Grateful Dead: "Ralph Nader is the most arrogant and narcissistic guy I've ever met. I had a meeting with him in the early Nineties. I was jazzed going into the meeting, and I was disgusted leaving. I don't think I've ever met a bigger asshole. If he hadn't run in the last election, we wouldn't be in Iraq and thousands of people wouldn't have died needlessly. And still he's well pleased to go in and be the spoiler again!" Nader is a puzzle. He's not getting the press this time, but he's still out there, and he still could leach off 2% of the vote in a bunch of states. I tend to agree with most things I've heard him say in the past couple of years, and I don't think what he says is that far out into outer space, but I think all rational people need to understand that it's time to unite behind a single non-evil candidate.

The Uneasy Truce

For nearly a month, we had peace. I didn't menace them and they didn't menace me. When I saw one under the hammock outside, it didn't touch me, and I let it go to the grass in peace. When there was one in the car on Friday night, it scuttled under the seat and out of sight, and we let it go. We even got in the car and took it into town. But this is too much; a bridge that cannot be uncrossed, a wound that cannot be uncut, a stone that cannot be unthrown. They've come into the house. Three of them now. They're large, they're fast, and they're Raid-resistant. How large, you ask? About the size of the infrared mouse your right hand is resting on. How fast? Quick-twitch reflexes that would put a cat to shame. How Raid-resistant? Spray them and watch them wave their antennae at you in mocking glee.

Yes, the cockroaches have come inside. It's time to put away my fear, swallow my girlish squeals of horror that seem to erupt every time I see one. The uneasy truce is over.

Recreational Limitiations

Readers, we have quite the array of recreational games here at the Gray-Colton estate, Lalakea, Hilo, nearly all inherited from the previous tenants (Eisa's family). We have outdoor pool and ping-pong, the latter a homemade and hand-painted but surprisingly true-bouncing affair. We have bocce ball and golf clubs. We have frisbees and basketballs and tennis rackets. We're in the market for a badminton set. We have the ocean for swimming and meeting local characters. We have a cabinet full of fishing reels, snorkels, and boogie boards, though I haven't used any of those yet (and frankly, they intimidate me). It's a fantastic chance to play in the sun and get a little exercise.

[BREAKING NEWS -- biting red and crawling on my laptop screen. I can't remove it without mashing it into the screen or risking an irritating itch. More later.]

So anyway, I'm doing a fair amount of playing silly games outside, and I've noticed a disturbing trend. Now, I was never much of an athlete. In basketball, I was famous for being told by the coach "Jeff, you'd best not dribble" after the team had elected me to lead them out of the lockerroom, with a ball, for warmups. My other basketball innovation was the shoulder-shot, a shot where I tried to take the ball back behind my shoulder before shooting it, even though at 76 3/4 inches I should be able to shoot over most anyone. I have further graceful exploits that I won't get into here (I made my nose crooked by hitting it with a tennis racket; I can't squat down without falling over, etc.), but I like playing sports, and with a little persistence I can generally hold my own and have a lot of fun.

But now something terribly frustrating is happening. I start out playing the game, whatever game it is, decently well, at least by my standards. Let's make this specific and talk about golf, because golf is a great example if you're going to talk about something annoying -- I've played twice and been to the driving range once since I've been in Hawaii. So in golf, "decently well" for me means hitting the ball straight and in the air two or three consecutive times. Both times I played, I started out doing that. I hit the ball straight, if not far, and even chipped rather effectively, if not terribly accurately. Putting felt natural, and I was having fun. But then, around the fourth hole, both rounds, things went to hell. Shanks, whiffs, tops, hitting it off the toe, the heel, chipping over the green, losing balls, you name it. For the last fourteen holes -- and that's a long time -- I couldn't do anything. I went from passable novice to never touched a golf club before, and I did it in a couple of holes, and when I went bad I stayed bad. This happened both times I played golf, and at the range.

But, lo! It wasn't only golf. It happened at ping-pong, where I rallying around I felt natural and smooth, and even beat Aidan in the first game. Then I started losing to some ladies who shall remain nameless, but really aren't very good table-tennis playerettes. Then I played Aidan again, and got skunked. And it didn't feel natural anymore -- I couldn't hit the table, couldn't serve. The same thing even happened to me, can you believe it, in bocce. By the third game the other day, I couldn't get within a menehune-length of the damn target ball.

So forgive the boring litany of evidence of my recent athletic struggles (I even got a little bored writing it), but there is an interesting phenomenon at work here that I want to understand. How is it that after warm-up and practice, and before I can get tired (ping-pong? bocce ball? they do not make you tired), my small amount of skill can disintegrate so quickly. Other people warm up, I freeze up. Other people learn to repeat their successful moves, I drive them out of my brain with great gusto. I want to understand this; it's plaguing my stress-free existence. Okay, it's not really plaguing it at all, but I'm pretty curious.

[BREAKING NEWS UPDATE -- biting red ant squished, no damage to squishing finger or monitor. Heavy damage sustained by ant.]

If We Talk

If we talk while I'm here in Hawaii, and I hope we do, please don't expect any news. Reflection, I got plenty of that. News, not so much. And I'm pretty happy with that state of affairs.

Lost -- Addendum

The tiny plot of land from my last post was even tinier than I thought, given that we found a well-travelled path that goes right through it, effectively from my house to the beach I was trying to reach.

Better news is that swimming at that beach yesterday we came within three feet of two honu, or Hawaiian Sea Turtles (thanks to Stacie H. for the diagram). They're very big.

Lost

Labor Day was a lazy day for us in Hilo, so Eisa, Aidan, June and I decided to take an evening stroll. June knew about a small waterfront park less than a half mile down the road. It was not obviously marked, and none of us had been there before, but it was a lovely jaunt. We started by stealing some lilikoi from the neighbor's driveway. Aidan taught me how to crack the skin open, and we sucked down the tart little seeds as we walked. The park was small, but had a nice easy path through the jungle out to the water. We climbed around on the rocky shore, and saw a sea turtle, an eel, and some sea slugs. We could also see, just a couple hundred yards away, Four Mile Beach, its parking lot chock full of holiday BBQers. We decided to scramble down to the beach, and then take the short walk back home along the road.

Sadly, we ran out of shore pretty quickly. Surprisingly dense jungle pressed right up to the water. We waded across some short and shallow channels, thinking that each one would let us stroll unmolested to the beach. Aidan was wearing a swimsuit and flip-flops, but the rest of us were wearing normal stay-dry clothes, and I was smart enough to bring my wallet. I have legendarily bad balance, so I went last, at one point tossing my shoes and my wallet across to dry June, so that they didn't have to make their way across the slippery channel with me. We crossed a few times, each fording a little deeper and longer than the last. In one little channel, an enormous tortoise swam by right after I'd crossed. Eventually, 100 yards from safety, we ran out of real estate. Aidan easily swam across to the beach, and ate passion fruit while he watched us struggle to figure out what to do. June tried to wade across on slippery rocks, and ended up soaked up to the neck. Eisa thought she saw a better wading lane, but she ended up just as wet, in white clothes to boot. I didn't want to swim, and I was tired of awkwardly stepping across slippery rocks, so I backtracked a couple of steps and convinced myself I saw a rough path through the jungle. The "path" ended in 10 feet, but once a scrambled over a dense patch, I ran into a dry stream bed. I was following it when I heard Eisa call out from the water. "I'm fine," I called back. "Making good progress".

The stream bed didn't last long, and soon I was slogging through dense jungle. I didn't think I could be far from either the road or the beach park, so I pressed on. It only, as is obvious to me only now, got thicker and darker. There were thick vines so tough that I had no chance of breaking through them, forcing me to climb over or slither under. There were plants with leaves as big as my torso, completely obscuring the roots or sharp lava rock or muddy mess below. There were hills. There were dense bamboo patches and dense ginger patches. And it was getting dark.

I should point I was in a pretty tiny jungle, in a city, an eighth of a mile from a beach with hundreds of people on it and a half-mile from our house. I had one brief moment of panic -- what if I get lost? -- but I swallowed that with a recitation of how safe I actually was. I kept my sense of direction pretty well, and knew I was drifiting away from Four Mile. I sucked it up, and veered back right through the thickest patch yet. Under a block of vines. Over a fallen tree, but under a dense leaf canopy. And then...light. And after that...Aidan's voice, presumably from outside the jungle. And I was out, twenty minutes after I plunged in. Sweaty, filthy, exhilarated, and out.

We met up with Eisa and June just down the road, where they had gone on a suspicion about where I might emerge into the clear. Eisa said she had been calling my name for ten minutes, but I only heard her once -- scary how fierce the jungle is. I joked that the headline in the paper the next day could be "Illinois Man Declared Lost In Half-Acre Jungle", and I was quite pleased that I hadn't required rescue. Jungle, you'll have to wait for another time to claim me. Plus, next time I go for a new walk along the ocean, I'm going to leave my options open and leave my wallet behind.

I Get It

I was hungry after dinner, so I had a Clif Bar, an energy bar. The word "organic" is in the ingredients nine times.

Cockroaches

I am really quite afraid of bugs. Eisa had a playmate when she got into the shower last night -- a large roach that flew at her when she pulled the shower curtain back. Large roaches are bad enough, but large flying roaches are unholy, proof that the armageddon is near and that good has lost its battle with evil.

I thought of this because I'm sitting outside working on something and I large bug lands on the picnic table right next to my laptop. Am I scared? No, because it's a nice bright green bug. I actually tried to get a little closer to it to see if it was camouflaging itself as a leaf, but I scared it away. This begs two (2) questions.

1. Why am I afraid of roaches? They're not going to hurt me anymore than this cute green guy could?

2. Why do roaches have to be black and shiny and slimy-looking and so, so revolting?

We have geckos in the house, too. They really chirp loudly.