Holiday Humor and Reflections

So it’s been, let’s just say, a while since my last post and if anybody is still reading this… thanks for being more diligent than me. I guess the biggest news of the last month or so is that I am now an official state of Hawaii employee as opposed to being an independent contractor. I am doing the exact same job, in the exact same office, but now I get paid holidays, sick and vacation time, and health insurance. Oh yeah, and I have to go back to school, boooo. But on the plus side I got paid on Christmas day, and I plan to get paid to watch a lot of football this Tuesday.

The holidays are sure different out here for many reasons. First there’s the fact that we’ve missed all of you back home, and all the gatherings, food, and other holiday traditions. Second, it’s not cold here, and all I hear of in Nebraska is sub-freezing weather and snow… and somehow, a white sand Christmas isn’t the same. Third, we had a “company Christmas party” of sorts, it was really a big party where we each signed up for a dish and played games and things. Let’s just say we brought two casserole type dishes, and that’s about all I had to eat. I have never seen so much Asian food in my life, and especially around the holidays. NO TRADITIONAL DISHES! My co-workers were like, “Did you find anything to eat?”

To stick with the food topic for a second, I must digress to my “first day,” that is my first day as a state worker. We always have a coffee hour for the new employees and inevitably there’s always Asian food, some form of Spam, etc. However, they are slowly learning, because my coffee hour had potatoes, no rice, chocolate chip muffins, and no trace of Spam. You can teach old Hawaiians new tricks.

Now back to the holidays, we went over and had dinner with some friends. We went swimming in the ocean on Christmas day, which is kind of cool, and somehow really strange at the same time. We also got into the spirit of the season at work, with a door decorating contest. The “Gold” winners got 4 hours of time off. I, as is customary for me, chose to go with a sports theme. The University of Hawaii is in the Sugar Bowl this year, their first BCS bowl game ever, and it is quite the talk of the town. So, I covered my door with green wrapping paper and made a giant football field out of my door, complete with yard lines, Hawaii and Georgia written in their respective end zones, and a Allstate Sugar Bowl logo at the 50… needless to say I’m using the four hours when Mom and Dad come to visit next week. I’m sure glad my boss, the judge of the contest, is a sports fan. Thanks Dave!

I think this is about enough rambling for one night, but if you do end up reading this we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email, leave a comment, or give us a call… just not too early, we’re still 4 hours behind central tine. Seriously though, we have missed all of you during this holiday season, and we hope you had a very merry Christmas, and all the best for 2008.

Aloha!

The twelve Hawaiian days of Christmas

There’s the traditional version, the red neck version, the twelve pains of Christmas–even Bob and Doug McKenzie got in on it. So of course, you would just have to expect that there is a Hawaiian version of the Christmas carol, too, wouldn’t you? Well I didn’t, so back off!

Anyhow, while at the Christmas party of a friend this past weekend, we were treated to the full version of the song, and I just have to post some of it here. I am, however, going to operate under the belief that reading the entire set of lyrics of the twelve days of Christmas is just as painful as listening to all of them, so I will post the final day, and you can determine the rest for yourselves.

As a sidenote: the pigs have been added up at day twelve, so while there are normally five, there are forty in this last verse. In addition, the pigs’ descriptive adjectives are “beeg” and “fat” ordinarily, but have been changed in verse twelve. If this is all too confusing, you can click here
for the full set of lyrics–and if I find out you did, I’ll name you a masochist.

So without further aloha…

Numbah Twelve day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Twelve TELEVISION, eleven missionary, ten can of beer, Nine pound of poi,
eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin’, Seex hula lesson,
FORTY steenkin’ peeg,
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An’ one mynah bird in one papaya tree!

I’ll post more Christmas stuff soon!

Mele Kalikimaka!