Getting the Clunker to Pass Inspection

Here in Hawaii we have to have our cars inspected yearly.

I don't know how many other states do this --I know we had to when we lived in Texas-- but I do know Alabama (where I grew up) isn't one of them. So I don't have a lot of experience with the process.

I just recently had to get the van inspected, and then had to replace a lightbulb in order to get it to pass. But that's our "good" car.

(image from http://www.roadtrucker.com)

Getting my husband's car to pass is a whole other ball game. His car is...special.

One of its main problems is the fact that the windows don't go down. Well, actually, the mechanism is broken so that the windows have to be permanently stuck closed.

This an annoyance on a regular basis, since we live on a gated military post, requiring a checkpoint stop every time you come in. And he works on a separate post. So that's at least two times a day to have to open the door  a little and snake your hand out of the crack for an MP gate guard to look at your ID. And hope nobody thinks you're going for a weapon when you unexpectedly open the door instead of the window.

Worse than the everyday annoyance was the time when his air conditioner broke, turning the car into an unventilated death-trap of a sweatbox if you parked in the the sun.

That was a bad bad scene.

Anyways, last year when my husband had his car inspected the guy wanted him to put the window down.

My Husband: Sorry. The window doesn't go down.
Inspector Guy: It has to go down for the car to
                        pass inspection.
My Husband: Okay. Hold on.

He got out a screwdriver and took the door panel off, loosening the mechanism holding the window in place so that the pane fell down inside the door. He put the panel back on and showed it to the inspector.

(image from http://www.buickforums.com)

My Husband: Okay. The window is down.
Inspector Guy: (making a mark on the inspection sheet) Check. You pass!

So when the time came to have the car inspected again this year, the plan was to have the windows already down when we brought the car in, therefore avoiding the whole problem.

I volunteered to take the car in for him. Which meant my husband took my car and I spent the whole day driving a car with the windows permanently open.

I'll let you take a guess as to whether it rained that day.

Yes. Yes it did.

But did the car pass inspection? Yep. On the first try!

There Are Centipedes in Paradise

I found a curled-up centipede in the dryer.

Fortunately, it was dead. They are hard to kill; you have to really beat them to death, or preferably cut them in half. Ewww.

They have the nastiest centipedes here in Hawaii; it‘s a form of the Vietnamese centipede. They are disgusting to look at, and also poisonous.

Fortunately, their bite won’t actually KILL you. It will just make you swell up and hurt a lot. So that’s some consolation, right?

Here’s a photo from another Hawaiian blogger who has an interesting centipede story as well.



That is seriously gross-looking, right?

According to Wikipedia these things are actually sold elsewhere as “terrarium animals,” but I can’t IMAGINE a less appealing pet.

So far I haven’t had any of these nasty things inside the house, although we’ve killed several outside the door.

And my daughter’s friend had one in her BED. Ewww!

But anyways, Dryer Centipede is the closest we’ve had to one inside, so I think we’re pretty lucky.

Unfortunately, I mentioned the dead centipede in the dryer to the kids and they freaked out, asking if I re-washed the clothes afterwards, and if not, exactly WHICH load of clothes was it, et cetera. (Obviously THAT information was not disclosed.)

So now they are all concerned that there are “centipede germs” on their clothes.

But WHICH clothes? I’ll never tell…

Flat Stanley's Hawaiian Vacation

(image from amazon.com)

A friend from Alabama sent me her son's Flat Stanley so we could take his picture here in Hawaii.

You've heard of Flat Stanley, right? Schools assign this thing as a project; you're supposed to take pictures of your paper Stanley doing various things and/or send him to people in other states so he can be photographed there.

We actually did this once before (for a different kid) in Maryland and took Flat Stanley around to see our nation's capital.

My friend probably thought she'd get some awesome pictures by sending Stanley here to Hawaii.

After all, this one is Stanley on the back porch of our new house. What a view!

However, it's not all sipping drinks with little umbrellas when you live in Hawaii, you know. Most of what we're doing here in "paradise" is pretty routine stuff.

It's been difficult to find real photo-worthy activities for poor Stanley around here, honestly.

I mean, I don't think she really wanted to see "Flat Stanley goes Back-to-School Shopping."

Or "Flat Stanley Helps Fold Laundry."

Here's a nice photo.

We call it: "Flat Stanley Pets the Cat While We Unpack Our Approximately One Million Moving Boxes."

And of course there's the activity that's been occupying most of my time recently.

Any votes for "Flat Stanley Helps Potty-Train the Twins"?

So far Stanley's vacation has been a real drag.

A Romantic Beach Wedding Depends on Your Perspective

I've taken the twins to the beach a couple of times recently. Since we live in Hawaii, it's a fairly easy thing to do.

Well, as easy as taking a pair of semi-potty-trained twin three-year olds anywhere is.

Which is to say, not all that easy, but not really worse than being at home with them all day either.

Anyways, while at the beach I observed no fewer than THREE wedding couples being photographed in all their finery. Right in the middle of all the swim-diaper wearing toddlers, boogie-boarding kids, and skirt-swimsuited moms.

I have to wonder: Do they just photo-shop all the extra people out? Do they shoot the picture super-close so that you can't see the woman in the bikini thong? Don't they feel... well...WEIRD standing there in full wedding regalia while a tatooed guy in a speedo dunks his shrieking kids in the surf?

I'm not the only one who's noticed this, by the way.

Check out the following from oyster.com:

First.... a hotel brochure photo from Riu Palace Punta Cana



...and a real photo taken by oyster.com



Now THAT'S romantic.

Bird of Paradise

Last week I was pleased to able to go out to breakfast with a group of other moms.

We sat outside on the lanai of the restaurant.

(A lanai is a covered porch. Are you amazed by how I use Hawaiian words with ease? Well, mahalo!)

There was a very nice view from the lanai. It really was like paradise.

Until the bird showed up.

No, not that kind of bird of paradise, which is a lovely plant.

A regular brown and white bird, arriving with a whole bunch of other birds to see if anyone had dropped anything on the ground to eat. (Unfortunately, we had.)

This particular bird was perched on a beam above my head.

You can GUESS what happened next, can't you?

Suffice it to say I had to change my shirt when I got home.

Unfortunately, even in paradise, there's still poop.

Soul Surfer: I give it five stars!

Last night I took my older girls to see "Soul Surfer," which I highly recommend, by the way.

That's the one about the girl surfer who had her arm bitten off by a shark and got back on the surfboard with one arm. It was filmed here in Hawaii.

(I was going to give it "two thumbs up" in my title, but I was afraid that would be tasteless.)

This movie had something for everyone: scenery, suspense, a shark attack...

Don't laugh. That shark attack was a big draw for my kids.

I really enjoyed it and came away inspired to be a better person.

No, seriously! It was a very inspiring movie. Even my 14-year-old was unable to be blase about it. We were able to have a great conversation about perserverance.

And it's definitely okay for kids; for a movie that's pretty much ABOUT a shark attack, they minimized the gore big-time.

But the movie was really more about how she got back on the board AFTER the attack, of course, with the help of her Christian faith. I thought the whole thing was really well-done.

It was apparently based on the book Bethany Hamilton wrote about the incident. She is super-cool, as we can see from this photo.

Of course, my kids asked me how they'd made the actress look like she only had one arm for more than half the film.

I mean, obviously, Annasophia Robb still has both her arms. Nobody's THAT much of a method actor.

I told the kids they must have digitally removed the arm from the scenes, frame by frame. Later we looked on the internet and I saw they'd used a green-screen somehow, judging by her greened-out arm cast here.

The other thing I found interesting were the photos they showed of the real people after the movie. It's cool when a movie is based on a true story and they can do that.

But it was amazing how NORMAL the real people in the photos were, as opposed to their gorgeous Hollywood actor counterparts we'd just seen up-close-and-personal for two hours.

I thought the same thing after I watched "The Blind Side," actually. The movies are just so much prettier, and cleaner, and slicker than real life.

I mean, the real people were pretty good-looking to begin with, honestly. But I guess no one in real life can compare to someone with a make-up and camera crew.

So all I need to do now is get a movie made about my life, and Hollywood can pretty me and my family up too!

Do you think Catherine Zeta-Jones might be available to play me?

Flying with The Perfect Couple

On the flight to Hawaii I sat next to The Perfect Couple.

They were young and attractive, both blonde, and from the way they were gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, they appeared to be on their honeymoon.

This is the flight I took with five children and WITHOUT my husband.

So while I was doling out snacks and trying to stop the kids from either (a) dying of boredom or (b) killing each other out of boredom, they were cooing and smiling at each other.

While I was scraping melted chocolate handprints off my sleeve and wiping snotty baby noses, they were sharing earphones on an iPod and beaming at each other.

With increasing jealous irritation, I saw the Perfect Couple do a crossword puzzle together, chuckle over a movie on a laptop, and commiserate over a magazine they were passing back and forth.

In the meantime I was asked, “How much longer is it going to be?” approximately 4,382 times. And then whined at when I answered.

And The Perfect Couple continued to appear to be having the time of their lives on this interminable flight.

I began thinking decidedly uncharitable things towards these people, mostly along the lines of, “Just you wait until YOU have kids. We’ll see how adoringly you’re gazing at each other when it’s 3 a.m. and you’re both covered in vomit!”

When we were (finally) close to the end of the flight, Mrs. Perfect spoke to me, asking how old the twins were. When I told her, she said, “Oh, we have a little girl about that age too!”

I was surprised. “You do?” I said. They nodded their heads in unison.

“And we have an older boy, too,” she added. “But it’s a good thing they aren’t with us on this trip. They would never be a quiet and good as your kids are being.”

Say WHAT? I was astounded. I guess love IS blind!

Also I felt about two inches tall for being mad at these people’s lovey-dovey-ness. Apparently they HAVE been covered in vomit at 3 a.m., and they’re STILL gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes.

I should have been applauding them instead.

So here’s to you, Perfect Couple! I hope your Hawaiian vacation was everything you dreamed of.

And I hope you didn’t sit next someone worse than ME on the flight home!

Post-Halloween Pumpkin Smashing

November first is traditionally Pumpkin Smashing Day around here. We usually carve the pumpkin around the 29th or 30th of October, and then smash it right after Halloween so the pumpkin doesn’t have a chance to get rotten.


Here’s Official Pumpkin Smashing Day 2004, when Boo was a toddler.

She said, "Uh oh! Broken!" It was very cute.

Apparently, prompt pumpkin disposal is even more important when you’re celebrating Halloween on a tropical island, as we recently discovered.

Last year we weren’t able to carve a pumpkin. There seemed to be some sort of pumpkin shortage on the island; I didn’t buy a pumpkin the MINUTE I saw them for sale --it was around October 15th or so, and it seemed too early-- but they were all gone by the 25th when I went pumpkin shopping.

We ended up carving a pineapple. I’m not kidding.

This year I bought three pumpkins on the 15th of October.

We attending a group pumpkin carving held at our church a week before Halloween. We had a nice time carving with everyone else, and I saved one pumpkin intact at home for later carving, figuring the two that we carved a week early would shrivel up before Halloween came around.

I was not wrong on that.

But I hadn’t counted on the effects of a tropical environment on a carved pumpkin.

After only a couple of days, when the pumpkin had started to rot. I looked at it, took a picture, and then forgot about it.

The next day, it looked a LOT worse. (No picture of this. In fact, if you're squeamish, just skip the rest of this story.)

I went to throw it away. I got a plastic bag to pick it up with, figuring it would be a little yucky.

It was a LOT yucky. The top part went up with the plastic bag in my hands, but the bottom dropped off onto the porch with an oozy plop. It was teeming with bugs, almost more black than orange. As I watched in horror, a single roach, a good two inches long, struggled out of the pile of slime, crept over the smaller bugs, and crawled to the top.

Ewwwwww….

And I still had to get this mess off of my porch!

Now THAT’S scary!

Next year we’re waiting until the morning of the 31st to carve the pumpkin.

Where have I been?

If you've noticed I haven't posted anything for a while, well... you're right. I haven't. (Astute observation, by the way.)

It's been really crazy since we got back from vacation, trying to get ready for the kids to go back to school on Monday. And how I am LONGING for that day...

Also I'm having the same problem I had last summer when we first moved to Hawaii; it appears I am allergic to the Hawaiin summer. Last summer it was worse; my eyes swelled shut, my face puffed up, and I had an itchy scaly rash on my face and arms.

I have a photographic memorial of that look too, since my ID expired that week and I had to take a new picture. It now sits in my wallet, ready to mock me at every purchase. So sad.

Last year I ended up in the ER with this allergic reaction, where they gave me helpful suggestions like: "Wow, looks like you're REALLY allergic to something," and "Better take a Benadryl!" Thank you, medical professionals.

After some researching on our own, my husband and I decided it was the mangos. Apparently there's something in the skin of a mango that is the same irritant as the one in poison ivy. And we have a huge mango tree in our yard that produces a lot of fruit in the summer. Every morning there are a bunch of mangos on the ground, and of course they are ripening all the time in the tree. So the air is full of mango here.

Another funny thing about having a mango tree in the yard is how many people it seems to attract. About once or twice a week I'll find some passerby in the yard waving a stick at the tree or throwing his shoes at it, trying to knock down ripe mangos to eat. Locals LOVE their mangos! Apparently I'm the only one who is poisoned by them.

By the mangos, not the locals.

So anyways, this year I knew enough not to peel or eat the mangos, but apparently just picking them up out of the YARD is enough to set my histamines on red alert. As of  a couple of weeks ago, I stopped touching them altogether, but I guess the damage was already done.

I've been popping Benadryl around the clock since the rash showed up two weeks ago, and may I point out that antihistimines DO fog the brain a bit.

And I feel bad every time I see the mangos rotting on ground because I'm not picking them up anymore. But I resist. I know the EVIL that lurks in their lovely golden skins for me.

All this is to say, the reason I haven't written for a little while is that my brain doesn't seem to be quite up to par, what with the Benadryl, and the kids being at home 24 hours a day. Things are a little hectic.

Hopefully I'll perk up by Monday. Unless a mango comes after me.....

I Had A Bad Day, and Daniel Powter Didn't Sing About It Either

I had a bad morning yesterday.

Yes, I know my pretty rainbow picture above doesn't really fit that statement, but it's of the military hospital that will feature later in my story. It's one of the funny things about living in Hawaii, you're living in a beautiful tropical environment, so even the bad days look pretty.


Well, I guess it wasn’t THAT bad of a day; everyone is still alive and all. But still…

I had to take the twins in for their two-year-old check-up. Yeah, I know their birthday was a month ago. I didn’t remember to call for an appointment until the day they turned two, and this was the soonest they had at the military hospital here.

I remember when I had that first child and I was so diligent about getting her check-ups as close to her actual birthday as possible. I also disinfected her pacifier every time she dropped it. Things change, okay?

So I was heading up to the military hospital yesterday. It is absolutely HORRIBLE to go there by the way. The place is a giant maze on a hill with not nearly enough parking. I’ve started just going directly to the farthest parking lot from the building and then heading for the grass and packed-dirt field behind it, because that’s always the only parking left. Then there’s the long walk uphill through three parking lots pushing a double stroller, as a lovely prelude to taking two different elevators and heading to the very back of the hospital to reach the pediatric clinic.

So I thought I’d get a diet coke on the way there to fortify myself for this journey. I took the back way instead of the interstate so I could go past the McDonald’s that has $1 any-size drinks. That’s a good deal anywhere, but here in Hawaii it’s particularly good.

So as I cruised along down the four-lane road on my way to McDonald’s, a police car came up behind me with his light flashing. I pulled over slightly to let him pass me, and he pulled up next to me and said to pull over all the way in the grassy area across the street.

I was like, “Me? He’s after ME?”

I pulled over in the grassy area he indicated, which by the way was someone’s YARD. It was a yard full of parked and/or abandoned cars, in front of a house that strongly resembled a doublewide, but still. Do these people not MIND the police giving out tickets right in front of their door? Or maybe they’ve worked out a deal…. hmmmm…

He said I was going fifty miles an hour, while showing me the readout on his radar gun said “50.” Did I mention this was a four-lane highway? I think fifty is pretty okay; I’d figured the speed limit was fifty-five or forty-five.

I asked what the limit was. He said, “Twenty-five.”

I said, “TWENTY-FIVE?! Are you kidding?!”

The policeman was not interested in chatting about this. He took my license and went back to his car.

Baby Girl said, from the back-seat, “Bye-bye!” in her cheerful voice.

I was like, “I WISH, Baby Girl.”

So while he filled out the ticket --of COURSE I was getting a ticket; he wouldn’t spend all that time writing for a warning-- I had plenty of time to berate myself. “You wouldn’t be IN this mess if you didn’t have to get a diet coke,” I told myself. Myself answered defensively, “Oh, so now it’s a CRIME to want a carbonated sugar-free beverage in the morning?”

I did not, as you notice, berate myself for speeding. Because I wasn’t! Who would go twenty-five on a huge highway like this? People were zooming past us like crazy as we sat there. I could hear someone inside the house watching TV. Yes, I was THAT close to these people’s house. I hoped none of the cars I was blocking in were operable. It would really stink if someone came out of the house wanting to go to work and found me there getting a TICKET!

So finally the policeman came back to have me sign the ticket. I signed, even though I wished I had the guts to check the “Refuses to Sign” box and hand it back to him.

He said I could write a letter if I wanted, requesting a court date and telling “my side of the story.” He didn’t actually make air quote marks when he said that, but I could tell he meant them. Then he gave me my copy and left, ready to go stop another one of the poor hapless motorists breezing past us.

Baby Girl said, “Bye bye!” again.

How much was the fine, you ask?

Well, you know how things are more expensive here in Hawaii because everything has to be brought in by boat? Apparently that applies to traffic tickets too. I guess they take up a lot of SPACE on cargo ships!

It was ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-TWO DOLLARS!

Pardon my screaming in all caps. I was having a mini heart attack typing that.

Well, I guess I saved a dollar though, since I didn’t have time to get my diet coke after all that delay.

Whoopee.

At least I made it to the appointment on time. And the twins are perfectly healthy, plus they only needed one shot this time.

So it could have been worse.

But I would have felt a lot better if I could have made the policeman come with me and push my stroller up the hill from the parking lot. While I told him “my side of the story.”

That might have been WORTH the $182!