My Greatest Weekness

It has been an interesting and exciting week, and we’re very blessed to have had it.

After thirteen months of toil, strife, and a mess of holidays without pay, I finally got my start date! Yes, you read that correctly. It took thirteen months, but I am now officially a state employee, complete with medical, retirement, paid sick and vacation, and paid holidays! What a year!

Tuesday was our two-year anniversary, and we celebrated it in style—okay, so we actually just hung out at home and ordered a pizza, but you know. Does it help that the pizza wasn’t on our new healthy lifestyle eating plan? Either way, it was delicious!

On Wednesday, we stayed home from work to celebrate a Hawaiian state holiday. Held in honor of the great King Kamehameha, this holiday nevertheless takes on the solemnity of your average Memorial Day or Labor Day on the mainland: a few people here are super-excited about it, and the rest see it as a free day off. All my love to Hawaii and its people, but I have to say: I just loved the fact that for the first time in my life, I got me a paid holiday!

Just in case you’re curious, we also have Prince Kuhio Day in March, and Statehood Day in August—two holidays which you working stiffs don’t have, but which we state employees in our cushy state jobs can’t seem to get enough of.

I’m finding that this really is difficult. How on Earth do you make a week sound interesting?

Hmmmmm …

We are having a fried rice contest at work tomorrow. Thirteen different people (Randi among them) have signed up for a shot at twenty bucks, and possibly some admiration from their fellow co-workers—at least those co-workers who get a chance to sample the fried rice before it runs out.

I think it will be an interesting contest, especially given the fact that fried rice takes on the air of your traditional mainland casserole: if you found it in your fridge, and it’s still good, throw it in the wok. I’m sure we’re bound to see spam in profusion, and I know at least one person is planning to add kamaboko—a sort of processed “fish cake” made from the leftover bits of white fish that didn’t make it into fish sticks. Yes, there is a spam for fish!

Just to give you an example: one student is planning to add kamaboko, bacon, Portuguese sausage, scrambled eggs, pork butt (which is actually pork shoulder), green onions, and Hawaiian chili peppers.

We will definitely keep everyone posted on how the contest goes, though we’re not holding our breath. These people have hundreds of years of combined experience in fried rice preparation.

It occurs to me as I think up what else to put into this post that I never told the garlic fries story I promised. It took place a very long time ago, so I hope I have the details right, but a commitment is a commitment.

Some months back, we ordered dinner from a place called the Dixie Grill, hoping for a spot of good barbecue. We realize now that mainland barbecue is quite a different thing from Hawaiian barbecue, but at the time …

As one of our side dishes, Randi and I each ordered a serving of garlic fries, thinking that in the style of Old Chicagos everywhere, we would be treated to a heap of the golden-brown delicacies sprinkled with a measure of garlic salt. (also, we were really craving Lazlo’s at the time)

What we received instead was a heap of soggy French fries liberally coated in raw, minced garlic—the real stuff, not processed. In fact, the garlic was so prevalent that when I pulled the French fries out of my to-go container, scraped all the garlic off, and packed the garlic into a measuring cup, I was able to collect about half a cup of fresh garlic. Can we say overkill?

That’s really about all for this week, or at least the portion of the week that has taken place thus far. I will write more when more happens, or when next Thursday rolls around, whichever comes first.

Thanks for reading (possibly), and I promise the next post won’t be quite so centered around food.

Composition time: 30 minutes

Happy New Year from Honolulu

Ahhh, smell that? It’s the smell of new resolutions on the air… or is that fire cracker residue? I’ll go with choice B. Yes, it’s new years eve, or day by now, but if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was the 4th of July. The big thing to do here on New Year’s Eve is to light fireworks. The Japanese are the big ones for fireworks. They believe to rid their late ancestors of evil spirits they light fireworks in their honor, but these aren’t normal fireworks. You know those small packs of Black Cats you used to light all 20 or so and think it was great to hear them all go off at once? Well, the Japanese light those too, but they come in bricks of 30,000, yeah, they go off for a while. The fireworks started in full force around 7 or 8, picked up around 9, and it’s 1:00 a.m. now and we still here the occasional stragglers.

In addition we have had a few groups of… well…. New Years Eve partiers outside the window. The first group were doing nice college-style cheers and what sounded like drinking games, however, the second group was talking in Japanese so we decided not to go join them, as we had no idea what they were saying.

We sat outside and listened to the fireworks, popped the cork on some Champaign, and recorded the whole ordeal to hopefully give you an idea of New Years Eve island style. Hopefully we’ll have a link up to that as soon as we get it all edited. Oh yes, and before I forget, I turned on the TV about 11:30 and all I got were some reruns and the late shows… darn East coasters stealing all the thunder.

Well, I guess it’s time to sign off for now, but I hope 2007 brought all you hoped for, and I wish you all the best in 2008. Good luck keeping those resolutions, and remember, you have a whole year to get out here to the islands. Start planning early!

Aloha!

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!

I exist!

Remember how three months and four days ago, I said I was horrible at mass emails, and that I was going to try this as an experiment? Yeah … just keep that in mind.

So here I am, exactly 3 months after my last post, and it occurs to me that if anyone is still checking this crazy thing, I’m long overdue for an update.

Randi gave you all a few observations on Hawaii; here are mine.

Do you like Asian food? Oh perfect! Because everything (or almost everything) in Hawaii has an Asian flare! From the rice with almost every meal (even at barbecues), to the omnipresent soy sauce–here called shoyu–to the popcorn seasoned with furikake (a mixture of dried and crushed seaweed and sesame seeds), you’re out of luck if you don’t like the stuff. The only problem, though, is that it’s not mainland Asian food. I have yet to see a crab rangoon anywhere, and if you want an egg roll, forget it. You have to ask for a spring roll, or you’ll get a “Uh … I dunno.”

And while we’re on the subject of food, what’s your take on SPAM? You love it? Oh good, because it’s all over the place, too. Restaurants are happy to serve spam and eggs, spam omelettes, or–get this–spam musubi. For you mainlanders, that’s a block of sushi rice topped with a slice of spam, then belted in seaweed. (See? I told you there was Asian influance.) Even McDonalds serves SPAM in Hawaii, and to make matters worse, they’re engaged in a battle with Burger King, because the latter has started serving SPAM as well.

If anyone would like a good indication of some popular and common Hawaiian cuisine, check out the website www.hawaiianbarbecue.com. It contains–among other things–the menu for the restaurant L&L, a Hawaiian-based restaurant that is carrying on the tradition of serving the basic four Hawaiian food groups–rice, macaroni salad, spam, and more rice.

The food isn’t all bad, though–and even some of the above can be very tasty. Portuguese sausage is in abundance here. On the mainland, we call that linguisa. The Hawaiians have a fine variety of fresh fruit, too, especially pineapple. One cannot neglect macadamia nuts (especially the chocolate-covered ones), and there’s also a coconut custard called haupia which is very tasty.

Here’s just a few more for the fun of it…

Laulau: a serving of shredded, spiced pork, sometimes mixed with butterfish for added flavor, then wrapped up in a taro leaf. That whole assembly is then wrapped in tea leaves, and it’s all steamed for four hours. When the laulau is finished, the tea leaves are snipped off and discarded, and the rest is eaten.

Locomoco: You’ll see this one on the hawaiian barbecue website if you go there. You take a hamburger patty, cook it up like normal, but instead of putting it on a bun, you drop it on a bed of steamed white rice instead. Then, you cover that hamburger with a fried egg, and smother the whole mess in brown gravy. Is it a wonder that Hawaii has the highest incidence of diabetes in the country?

Poi: This is the classic Hawaiian staple. I’ll definitely have to find a picture somewhere, but until I do, here’s a description. They take the root of the ever-popular taro plant, then crush the ever-loving daylights out of it until it forms a paste with the consistency of Elmer’s glue. God as my witness, I’m not being sarcastic, here. That’s really the texture. Poi doesn’t really have much taste, but for the Hawaiians, it’s a real treat–to the point of having religious significance. It’s usually eaten in conjunction with other Hawaiian foods. Not many people sit down and go “Hey, how about a heapin’ helpin’ of poi for dinner!” They do, however, feed it to babies as a substitute for all those delightful little jars of mashed spaghetti with carots and pickles. The funny part about that, though, is that poi starts to go sour very quickly after being made, and when poi goes sour, it ferments slightly. Get the picture? No wonder they’re so laid back here.

So what else besides the food?

There’s really not a whole lot to write when it comes to the weather. It’s always nice! It does, however, rain almost every day here. The weird thing about it, though, is that it’s not a good, hard, mainland downpour. Even when it’s pouring hard here, the raindrops are tiny, like a heavy sprinkle, and even that lasts for a few minutes at most. We have often joked in Nebraska that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes, and it will change. In Hawaii, that statement’s implications are even more drastic. At least once a week, we get hit with a pineapple shower–a steady rain while the sun is out. In Nebraska, we called that devil’s rain. Kind of makes you like Hawaiian optimism, doesn’t it?

Otherwise, it’s sunny and nice all the time. Even on hot days, you have a constant ten to fifteen-mile-an-hour breeze, so you don’t get too hot. Our apartment doesn’t have air conditioning in it, but it hasn’t bothered us yet. We just leave our lanai (balcony) door open day and night, and our ceiling fans on, and we’re perfectly comfortable.

Work is going extremely well. Randi has around 50 clients right now, and I’m teaching braille to 16 students. The work load is pretty heavy, but Ho`Opono is an amazing place to work, so we really don’t notice most days.

The students I teach range in age from 17 to 62, with a healthy mix in the middle. We’ve had everything from a lady wanting to go back to school for a PH.D., to a retired serviceman who now works as a coffee farmer. We even have a student now from the island of Chuuk. Ever heard of it? Me neither.

I realize this one is kind of scattered, but after working on this for over an hour, my brain is kind of cooked. As stuff happens, I’ll be sure to relate it with greater regularity. Remind me to write about garlic French fries.

We miss you all terribly, and when we come back to the mainland this fall, we’d love to see as many of you as possible. Do keep in touch, and check back here for updates. I promise I’ll write them!

My How Time Flies

Okay, so it’s been nearly a month since we actually posted on this blog, and the fact that I have actually received emails from people asking about us posting… that means people actually want to read this… thus I shall give the people what they want. So… we did arrive safely in Hawaii and what follows is the “Cliff’s Notes” version of the last month, but don’t worry, there’s pictures.

So the trip out here was pretty uneventful, the most exciting thing was trying to eat spaghetti on a tray-table with plastic silverware while experiencing turbulence… don’t laugh it’s harder than it sounds, I think next time I’ll opt for the sandwich option. On our way out we had a 6 hour layover in L.A. Ryan’s mom also came out for a week and she had a 3 hour layover, she was to arrive in Honolulu before us. Her mom, Ryan’s grandma, lives in a suburb of L.A. so we met her for lunch and a quick trip to the beach in L.A. Not a bad layover if you ask me. Carole ended up missing her flight, which was a bit nerve-racking, but she managed to get on another one and still got in ahead of us.

So, the next day we went apartment hunting and pretty much settled on the first place we looked at. It was totally furnished, from a couch and bed to towels, silverware, and a coffee pot. We went to look at a second one just for the heck of it, but closed the deal later that day and actually moved our stuff in. Our landlords are super nice and it felt so good to get that hurdle out of the way quickly.

We spent the next few days visiting various governmental offices to become Hawaiian residents or “Kama’aina,” as the locals are known. This means we get discounts on hotels and other services. So, if any of you ever do come out to Hawaii let us know and we’ll book the hotel rooms for you and get the local rate, which saves you at least $50 per night. On Thursday night we had a cookout at the beachside property of some new friends of ours. They have a seawall where we can go swimming without fighting the crowds, and a nice spot to grill out and eat. Let’s just say it was a great time and we’ve been back several times… we’re probably going back later this week. On Saturday we drove around the island, we went up to the north shore, which is famous for it’s 30 to 30 foot waves in prime surfing season, and is the spot where all the large surfing tournaments are held. You can watch a video I took of the north shore at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggtjNG1SYUw. We took a drive around about half of the island and it’s amazing how Hawaii can go from being a city of around one million in Honolulu to farmlands full of pineapple and macadamia nuts to mountains in a span of a few hour drive… pretty cool.

We actually started work the Monday after we got here. I did some shadowing of another counselor then started in on some of my own stuff. Ryan was teaching Braille by Wednesday. They didn’t waist any time, and it was nice to get going right away. The first week we were working Pam and Rolland Allen, the director of the Louisiana Center for the Blind where I got training and her husband, my old cane travel teacher, were here coaching some of the staff at Ho’Opono. It really helped to have some familiar faces around for encouragement and to make the transition a bit smoother. It’s always great to see them again. This week my old computer teacher Josh is here, he’s the last coach coming out to Hawaii, they’ve been having people come out here from various centers on the mainland for the last 18 months to help the staff transition to a more positive and successful center. We have come a long way from what I’ve heard, but we still have a long way to go. We were certainly spoiled by the services and attitudes of the staff of the “Commission for the Blind in Nebraska. Everyone said it wouldn’t be easy walking into a place trying to promote change, but it doesn’t really sink in until you actually get there.

Overall things are going well, we are to get our shipment of boxes from Nebraska tomorrow, we’ve begun settling in to a somewhat normal routine, but we’re still trying to get used to getting up for work at 4:30 in the morning… I’m not sure that will ever become routine… I don’t think that’s when humans are supposed to get up.

The weather here is beautiful. The multiculturalism and diversity is a fun experience, and the beaches and swimming are surely a bonus. It is not so fun being 5 or 6 hours behind everyone else, and I’ve not seen a full sporting event since I’ve been out here, heck baseball games start at 7 in the morning. I’ll have to go to bed extra early on Friday nights before Husker games. Anyway, there’s my short version of things… maybe now I’ll feel caught up enough to begin posting on a regular basis.

Finally for the pictures, you can view our Hawaii photo collection at: www.flickr.com/photos/strunk/ I’ll put a post here on the blog when new pictures are added. I hope you enjoy, and I’ll write again soon.

Aloha!