One of our longtime Kailua friends - Harrison - picking up recyclables the day before the City/County pickup so he gets the good stuff on max volume day. He works so hard, riding around Kailua on his bike in this same "uniform" which he wears every day.

It has been a full court press to get the house ready for showing on Friday. I know you can imagine if you’ve ever seen our garage (mom – no laughing!). So as we cleaned stuff out I would put a post on Craigslist saying “free shelves, 7 folding chairs, etc.” and literally within minutes a pickup truck would pull up asking about the items, saying “you the ad on Craigslist?” I met the nicest people. Herb, a former shipyard worker who is now retired, grabbed 7 wooden folding chairs and hung out to talk story for a bit. I asked what kind of life the chairs would be having with him and he said they were to host family and friends around his imu, which he had going that day. I said “Oh great! Can I come?” and he replied “Sure!” What a nice guy. Dave had his doubts about how much I’d help him because every few minutes I’d run in to go to the bathroom, or talk story to someone else. I had my reasons though… One of the funniest memories of the day was when a girl came flying by on her bike, eyeballed the stuff and was like “Ah! Cool! You getting rid of this stuff?” She had a dog in her backpack and wheeled around to take a look. Turns out she was very interested in all the flea control stuff I was giving away because she lives in an apartment where the owner has a cat with fleas and she’s getting bitten all the time. So I boxed up the stuff and took it to her today. The next day (yesterday) I bumped into her on the beach, too. Such a small town really. So funny. She’s from southern Russia and has the same mentality as I do about things – no need to dress nicely, friendly to everyone, easy laugh. She was great. So happy she now has tons of flea control stuff! Hopefully she is resting easier tonight. We went to dinner and on our way back we saw the silhoutted forms of people walking down the street, one with a huge set of shelves for a head and the other with a wheelbarrow and shelves on top. We had about 7 huge black pressboard shelves find new homes literally within 50 yards of us. Dave thought I was nuts putting all this stuff out for giveaway but it was gone in 2 hours. I don’t believe in garage sales here – I just put stuff out and talk story with all the nice people I meet. Great way to get to know your neighbors.

All that said, I am continuing to have a really hard time leaving here. It is an understatement to say that being Hawaiian is a state of mind, a state of being. I realized today that although I am a haole (white) girl, I am Hawaiian under this fair skin. There is an openness, goodwill, kindness of spirit, generosity that is just how people are here for the most part. Many of the mainland imports bring their mainland selves, but it is easy to find kindred spirits among those who embody the aloha spirit in their everyday lives (i.e., not when they’re trying or on stage, but truly in how they go about living). Above pictured is Harrison. He has been a fixture in our lives for 5 years and gave me one of the biggest bear hugs today. He will miss us as we will miss him. He has been a model for our boys about hard work.

Dave wants to know if I’m telling an embarrassing story about myself. Well, I guess if I don’t he will do his first guest blog post. He seems to want you to know what ridiculousness brought me an urgent trip to the dentist last week. I saw a tooth turning grey. Then my dear friend who shall remain nameless (T!) researched it for me and concluded it is possibly a root canal waiting to happen. Great. That’s what I need to schedule right now. I am so slammed with moving stuff, listing house, searching for new home, work (yes work continues through all this as if I had nothing else going on)…so anyway off to the dentist I go. It was a crazy day anyway with going to May Day at Sam’s school, running home to meet up with an electrician, then racing back to dentist. After tapping and probing, my dentist (who knows me well and what a nut I can be) said “well, I am not sure what to tell you, I don’t think you’ll believe me…” and toyed with me for a bit. Finally he said it was a filling that you could see from the side! I had a filling there and didn’t know it! After tearing up from laughing so hard I told him that I guess for all the good work he does filling my teeth, I try not to pay any attention to what is going on in my mouth. Like taking the truck to the mechanic – just fix it, pay for it, and hope for the best. Try to forget what you just paid $1200 for. Try to pretend it never happened. I’m that way in the dentist chair – mouth agape, numb, trying not to feel anything or think about what is going on. When he’s done, I close up my mouth and move on. Some people I guess spend more time looking in the mirror. But I don’t much like what I see because I’m funny looking from head on. I look like humuhumunukunukuapua’a (the trigger fish that is Hawaii’s state fish). I have a long narrow face, and increasingly bucky teeth. He is a super cute fish, but not so cute close up or head on. I hope Dave keeps an eye on me from the 3/4 angle because that one is not half bad. But only from the right side – that left side has the slightly visible filling.

Thanks for reading and sharing the zaniness of the last week with me tonight. I’ve enjoyed writing to you and connecting with you. Love and aloha to all family and friends near and far. Know that we are thinking of you.