You can have half

      It was around Thanksgiving in Kauai, 2010. Gwyne had been at a work party that I managed to avoid because I’m not particularly fond of forced fun. Also, Gwyne is a FOMO’s FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and I’m a committed  member of team JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out). I was at the beach and when I came home I discovered two equally sized pumpkin desserts on the counter with a note, “You can have half.” So I did. What is half? 50%, right? That’s what I think. But the devil, oh that rascally devil, is in the details.

     When Gwyne came home, she lost it. Because I dutifully followed her directions and had my half. The two *equally sized* pumpkin  desserts were pumpkin pie and pumpkin crunch. So I ate my half. I ate the pumpkin crunch. Gwyne was not pleased nor amused. She said, “I said you could have half! Half of the pumpkin pie and half of the pumpkin crunch.” For those of you who don’t know Gwyne well, she is a bit more emotive than I am. Okay, maybe more than a bit. I said, in what seemed to be an enragingly calm voice, “I had half. There were two desserts. They were the same size. They were both comprised mostly of pumpkin. 50% is 50%.” 

     And we were off! At work the next day, we looked for allies to try to support our competing narratives, of which I still contend is the simplest of simple fractional problems. Don’t let emotions get in the way of the facts. I would frame my question much like the above, if there are two equally sized pumpkin flavored desserts and someone says you can half, does it matter which half you have? Oh, those devilish details. Gwyne would work her crowd and say, “IF there was a pumpkin PIE cut in a triangular slice AND a square pumpkin CRUNCH and someone says you can have half of what are obviously two very, very different desserts, what does that mean to you?” Overwhelmingly, over the years when we pose the question to friends and family, I’ve come out on the losing end. And I get it. Math is tough for some folks.

     Happy Thanksgiving to all and be safe.  

     

Bill

     I took a road trip to Louisiana and I'm not a big fan of driving. Seven + hours, so  I plotted a route along state highways (as opposed to interstates) because I also don't like high speeds and I prefer to stop along the way to see the towns, ville's and burgs and wonder how and why they were established. On this trip, I also tried to puzzle out why they were still there. I explored a few Mississippi Delta towns - Leland, Greenwood and Marks. I know the Blues originated there, and by the looks of the abandoned buildings or dwellings that shouldn't have had people living in them but obviously did, they have a whole lot more to be blue about.

Marks, Mississippi

There were unexpected sights as well. Driving through Europa, MS, as I crested a hill, I saw a cross so enormous I blurted out, "Jesus Christ!" That may not have been the reaction whoever put it up was going for, but there you have it. 

     To help with any anxiety about driving on the way down, I issued a fatwa on the news and just listened to 60's and 70's music. Side note: I rarely listen to music. It worked. I drove part of the way on the Natchez Trace Parkway, a beautiful 444 mile long national parkway that was perfect for loud singing and the occasional juke and head nod. It was perfect because it's so isolated and no one should be subjected to seeing my stunning lack of rhythm, even driving by.  

     The purpose of the road trip was to visit Bill, who I've known since we were four. I called and we compared our safety protocols, always masked up, minimal contact with people outside of our bubble, lots of hand washing and sanitizing so we decided a visit was okay, as long as we continued to be safe. Our lives have some remarkable intersections; Kwajalein, college in Texas, road trips to Mexico, grad school in Hawaii, teaching on outer islands in the Marshalls and visits to Thailand where he lived for 20 years, to name but a few. Despite the many similarities in life, we are very different people.

     We've had a long standing disagreement over the word zori. For the record, zori is both singular and plural. Bill calls them zoris. The spellcheck in blogspot auto corrected zoris to loris btw. Shortly after my arrival, he said, "Let's go take a walk to see the horses." I replied, "Let me get my zori." His response? "Better bring both of them, it's kind of muddy over there." And we're off! We laughed and laughed and laughed, sometimes over past misadventures, other times over our views of life. Bill is a Luddite and revels in the simplicities of life. He still writes letters and uses a paper map when he travels. He boils water in the morning to pour over his ground coffee in a carafe.

Coffee maker. 

I love technology and convenience. I'm looking forward to the new iPhone, love Apple CarPlay in our car and a Keurig is the only way to go first thing in the morning. Bill loves nature and hiking in remote places, I think the outdoors is over rated and am happiest in a city or town where I can walk to a store and buy what I need. When Bill's dad died last year, he gave him his iPhone (6s, 16 gb) and told him to use the damn thing. Bill had resisted getting a smart phone because, well, he's Bill. We laughed about that some more. My Siri has a female Indian voice and calls me Honey. He doesn't call his Siri, he says it's Ian and his has a male South African voice. We're different, and that's okay. We spent time noodling around on ukulele and guitar, singing old songs, laughing and reflecting on getting older. Old people issues. On a road trip to Arkansas, I asked Bill how his hearing was. Because we know each other so well, he asked, "You didn't hear what I just said, did you?" I said, "Well, I heard bits and pieces," and then recounted what I thought he had said. He said, "I'll speak up when I'm driving." Cue more laughter. Both of us are very grateful to have made it to 60 because so many of our family members and friends didn't make it to that milestone. There was so much more (much of it unpublishable) but we ended with this. Bill is more Bill than ever and I'm more me than ever. We are both completely predictable and completely happy and at peace with who we are and where we are in life. And that's a joyful thing.

Worth the trip. 

SBA

      I visited my parents last week. They live in Santa Barbara, we live in Huntsville, AL. So I flew because I loathe driving anywhere more than 15 minutes away and if there is any angle in the frequent flyer/airline status game, I play. Hard. Flying was okay, everyone was masked up from terminal to terminal. On the way back, I noticed more people wearing both masks and face shields. I even saw one couple with a mask, face shield and full on Tyvek HAZMAT gear, for the win! There were a few mavericky mavericks who were clearly wearing their masks below their noses to show either ignorance or their rugged individualism, but 99.8 of people put on their big boy/girl pants and enjoyed the smell of their own breath for a few hours.

     We had some serious discussions, the standard talks about death, some questions about their early life and wondering about what the hell the future holds, for everyone. There was also lots and lots and lots of laughter. 'Cause that's just how we roll.  

     If you are fortunate enough to have parents in their 80's, here is the lay of the land for what may await you on a visit when they reach that milestone:

    1. Their hearing will probably be diminished. If they are not wearing their hearing aid(s), you have to look at them when you speak and TALK LOUDLY.

    2. Their diet will likely have changed. My parents had enough food for breakfast and 2 dinners, but after that, if I didn't want to eat stewed prunes, pitted prunes, bran, high fiber cereal or Greek yoghurt, well then I had to make a trip to Trader Joe's for some food that won't send you trotting to the toilet. 

     3. You may find artifacts in their house like landlines, large calculators and radios. They have a radio in every room in the house. One in the garage too. They also think they're kind of hip because their answering machines are cordless phones that have caller id. They do have an iPhone and iPad though.

     4. You will be their de facto IT representative. Just imagine them speaking into their cordless phone, stating repeatedly, "Representative, representative, representative, re-pre-sen-ta-tive, I WANT TO SPEAK TO A REPRESENTATIVE." That representative will be you, my friend. If I am fortunate enough to make it to my 80's, I'm sure I'll need some young 60 year old to help me with my tech needs too.

The laughter? There was plenty of it. We relived some old memories, like the time my mom bought a box of ice cream sandwiches and within 20 minutes, they were all gone. She came out of the kitchen, completely exasperated, and said, "I JUST bought the large size box, how is it possible that they are all gone so quickly?" Slowly, my two brothers and I and then my dad fessed up to secreting some away in the freezer so we'd have some for later. Food, and particularly treats, went quickly in our house. The kicker was when my mom said, "I see you haven't found the one I hid for myself...yet." And on this trip, my dad and I were sitting out on the grass behind their condo, talking about anything and everything, watching the birds and he tugged on his jeans and said, "You know, I've had these dungarees for about 20 years." I turned my head slowly and said, "Dungarees?" The etymology of dungaree comes from Hindi, dungri in the early 1600's, and later came to be used in the mid to late 1800's as something worn by sailors. But the last time it was used in regular conversation in the U.S. was probably in the 1940's, I'd guess. I said, "They're called jeans these days. I don't think you can walk into a store and say, I'm looking for a new pair of dungarees. Where's the dungaree section?" Later on in the day, he put on another pair of jeans. He said they were my mom's old jeans. I said, "Paradoxically,  jeans that look just like that are called...Mom jeans." 

     I've been coming to Santa Barbara for the last 35+ years regularly and always like to see what's different since my last visit. I’d usually stroll along State Street and downtown or take lovely bike rides down Hollister Avenue on the bike paths to the Marina, it's all so picturesque. There's always something that's still comfortingly the same and always so many things that have changed. But this was not a trip along Santa Barbara memory lane. This time, I only went to Trader Joes for younger people food and took walks out to More Mesa and down to the beach in the early morning during weekdays when I could avoid people. And that's okay.

     We spent a fair amount of time on the patio, whiling away the days, sometimes reading quotes and talking about what they meant to us, other times, just reading or talking about their youth - and mine - and the (mostly fortuitous) twists and turns of life we took that helped us land where we are now. 

     If your parents ask you to come for a visit, you should go, if you can. I did and it was soooo worth it. I hope I can do it again soon.

Joginder

     I got a WhatsApp message from a friend a few days ago asking why I hadn’t been writing anything and I told her I’ve just been overwhelmed with...everything. I have very little to whinge about - family, health, relationships, finances - all good. But I've not found much elsewhere in the world recently to resemble anything that might evoke a twinge of a rainbow unicorn like feeling. In January, all of Australia seemed to be on fire. Then COVID-19 broke out in China and slowly spread. Much of the world went into some form of lockdown/quarantine, some more successfully more than others. Want some good news? The EU is opening up! If you're from Algeria, Morocco, Serbia, Montenegro or Rwanda or one of 9 other countries, you can travel to the EU. But, because some rugged individualists in the U.S. can't seem to wash their hands, socially distance and wear a damn mask and don't seem to want contact tracing, well, we're not on the safe country list. No travel for us! Then there was the recent spate of police violence. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. BLM. Seems like nothing has changed since 1992 when Rodney King said, “Can’t we all just get along?” In other news, locust plagues in East Africa threaten food security for millions, a fourth generation (and that's still just in this year) is on the way. The (necessary) trillions that the Fed and Treasury have flooded consumers and business with, along with the already high trillion dollar+ deficit and 22 trillion+ dollar debt will all have to be paid back sometime, somehow.  It’s been a no good, horrible, very bad year so far. And we’re just halfway through it. So I think and worry about it all. About people who have lost their jobs and businesses that won't be coming back. About people who don't have a familial safety net or transferable skills. About lines, miles long for people waiting for distributions from food banks. In the United States. The uncertainty of it all is unnerving and depressing.
     And then I got an e-mail from a colleague in Afghanistan, Joginder. He and his wife had just had their second child. They were thrilled. There was some hope, some happiness in the world. I felt as if the tip (just the tip, mind you) of a rainbow unicorn's horn had poked out from behind some of the nasty, dark clouds that so far have been emblematic of the year 2020.

     Joginder was always a joy to talk with. He has a PhD in political science, so many of our discussions trended in that direction. There was no subject off limits - arranged marriages in India, Indra Modi, Donald Trump, the aadhaar system to track citizens in India, Republicans and Democrats, value systems, religious and racial tolerance in multicultural countries (mostly India and the U.S. though) and how/what/why a government should function and provide for their citizenry. Not the type of chats you can have with the typical employee in Afghanistan, and I was always very grateful to have these talks with Joginder after work. Okay, sometimes during work too. He seemed to be well versed in so many different areas. But I was so very pleased to hear of his happiness that gave me a fleeting glimpse of the tip of a rainbow-unicorn's horn. So here’s to hoping everyone has some more safety and contentment in life and sees a little bit more of a rainbow unicorn - than just the tip of the horn -  in their future. 

A tale of two meals...

     As I was making my lunch, Gwyne started on dinner and I asked her what she was doing because neither of us like sharing a kitchen when we're in action. She said, "I'm getting ready for Sunday family dinner." I asked, "It's Sunday already?" I looked at my calendar, groused a little about being in the kitchen at the same time and uttered her second three favorite words, "I'll be quick." Her first three favorite words? "You were right." Mine too btw. My sandwich: some seeded bread, a layer of pesto on one side, tofu with Spike, sharp cheddar cheese, avocado, cucumber, onion, tomato, cilantro and broccoli sprouts. Two pickle slices rounded out my snack, it was wonderful.

     Gwyne's dinner? Japanese beef curry and funeral potatoes. It was a bit of an odd juxtaposition of her heritage and background. She discovered Japanese curry later on in life because her mother had it every day in school when she lived in Japan and never made it for her. Funeral potatoes? She went to University in Idaho and was introduced to midwestern fare - casseroles, pot roasts and things like funeral potatoes. After my relatively light lunch, I was feeling peckish around 1600. I tucked into the Japanese beef curry first and it was good. I told Gwyne how much I appreciated it and she said, "Aww, thank you." I'm a bit sparing with my food compliments. Then I had some of the funeral potatoes. And O.M.G. They were fabulous. What was going on? A second, nay, a series of compliments about Gwyne's cooking was forthcoming. Unheard of. I asked her what was in the funeral potatoes dish, she said, "Potatoes, butter, sour cream and cheese." Note: I have familial high cholesterol, so I have to watch what I eat, which may help explain the stream of expletives that flowed from my mouth after hearing the ingredients.

     I've said this many times before, you've never heard anyone eat a bowlful of sprouts and say, "Oh, that was so satisfying." Fat is filling. Bacon is popular for a reason. And that's the same reason the funeral potatoes were so.unbelievably.good. They were filled with fat.
     Gwyne just left to drop off the Sunday family ingredients to Miranda and Mariko. And as soon as she was out the door, I had another bite (or two) of the funeral potatoes. Completely worth it. Thanks Gwyne!

I am a very bad man

     And this blog will prove it. I received a bill a few weeks back from our insurer, Cigna Global. We pay all our bills on time, but this one took me back a bit. Cigna had overpaid the provider and was asking for a refund from us. I called the number on the bill to ask for some more information and was routed to a call center. "Hello, this is Cigna, how can I help you?" He said this in a signature sing-song Filipino accent and I guessed he was in call center in the Philippines, so I said, "Mabuhay, I just got a bill and want to pay it, but need to know where to send the check." The gentleman asked for my Cigna ID number and Claim Number and amount owed to Cigna and I gave him the information, told him I just needed the address and I'd send the check along quick quick. I probably spent about 20 minutes on the phone with him before he dredged up an address. I wrote a check, put it in the mail and thought that was that. It wasn't.
     I got a second notice for the same bill. I looked through our checking account and saw the check that I had previously sent hadn't cleared. Lost somewhere? Cigna gave me the wrong address? Dunno. That second bill, uncharacteristically, sat around for about a week. I was certain we had the funds in our account to cover it, must have been delayed, so I waited. Until today. Because today, I got the same e-mail from Cigna, for the third time, stating they had overpaid the provider and were requesting a refund from us. So I called. Again.
     I started out by saying enthusiastically, "Hiiii, I just got an e-mail stating you’re still requesting a refund from us, I’ve already sent in a check, but it looks like you didn’t receive it. I’ll cancel that and I'd like to pay now please." This time, it was a U.S. call center, and here's where I'm sure you will all agree, I am a very, very bad man. They asked for my Cigna ID Number and Claim Number and then they asked for the amount owed. I enunciated the next words VERY slowly: THIRTY....SEVEN.... CENTS.

     I asked her if we could pay in cash, because we have the money in our Piggy Bank and I’d put the coins in the mail today, but she said Cigna didn't accept cash. There was a long pause on my part until I sighed deeply and forlornly and I asked her if we could pay the bill by credit card. She said, "Yes, but I have to inform you there will be a 3% transaction fee added to the total amount. I asked, "You’re going to add a 3% transaction fee to the total amount we owe, which is THIRTY...SEVEN...CENTS?" She said, "Yes." I followed up with, "So, with the 37 cents and the 3% transaction fee, what’s the total amount we’ll be responsible for?” I was warming to the task at hand. She said she wasn't trained in credit card transactions and someone would have to give me a call back within 2 business days. I said, "Wait, I think I may be able to puzzle this out - do you round up or down if the 3% transaction fee is a fractional amount?" She again said she wasn't trained in credit card transactions and I said, "So you wouldn't be able to tell me if the total amount owed would be either 38 or 39 cents?" She said, "No, someone will call you back with that information." Then she gave me a reference number. I asked why we would need a reference number, she said, “Just in case you need to call back and ask about this case.” Now my 37 cent bill has a reference number! Seems so much more legit now. I thought about asking her if there was any grace period with job losses, Covid-19 and financial difficulties, but I had enough fun/frustration for the day. You can, however, bet your bottom 37 cents I'll engage in a bit more frivolity when someone calls me within the next 2 business days to collect their overpayment...what do you think the odds are of me asking for a payment plan? Prior to making your bet, please refer to the title of this blog.

Stress

     Stress. Pretty sure we all have a little more stress on our minds (and bodies) than we did way back when we were living in more tranquil times - January of this year, say. Ahhh, those were pleasant memories. We all deal with stress in different ways. Stress cooking and stress eating is pretty common. Hell, Gwyne cooked the other day. I do about 98% of the cooking in the house, so it was an uncommon sight to see her behind the stove. She made one of her childhood favorites, something called nikujaga. I stress ate what she stress cooked. There were some carrots in there, but it was mostly Japanese spiced ground beef and potatoes. She called her daughter who speaks Japanese and asked her what nikujaga meant and she said, “Well, niku is meat and jaga means potatoes.” Doh.
     If you’re not on lockdown now, you probably will be soon unless you are essential (and that varies wildly state by state). That’s going to disrupt everyone’s routine and it’s going to be stressful. I’ve done four separate contracts in Afghanistan, where you are mostly locked down. I’ve been on some big bases and some small FOB’s (Forward Operating Bases). On my second contract there, I was talking to a grizzled old vet who gave me some wise advice when he said, “Man, find yourself a routine.” Most of everyone’s routine there is working. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. There was plenty of stress to start with there but the regular rocket attacks added to what was already a fairly difficult environment. I managed to settle into a rhythm there, I’d get up early, call Gwyne, go the DFAC (Dining Room Facility), have breakfast then take a 12 - 18 km bike ride, come back and put in my 12 hours.

Tour d’Bagram. Every morning, masked up.

Part of my evening routine was reading the Economist every week, I allocated certain segments for each day, that’s what I’d do at night. The stress was more tolerable (for me) when I was in lockdown and had a routine.
     I certainly did my share of stress eating in Afghanistan. I have a wee bit of a sweet tooth, and on one contract, you could tell what kind of day I was having by what time of day I was hitting the sauce (chocolate stash). If it was around 0830, then Alan was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. On another contract, everyone in the office knew of my sweet tooth, and in the beginning, I’d casually remark as I rummaged through the candy jar, “Hey, I’m a weak man.” It got to the point where I’d get close to the candy and say, “What am I?” And in Kenyan, Indian, Spanish and Southern U.S. accented English I’d hear back in chorus, “You are a weak man. A very weak man!” Might as well have some fun at work too, even in a stressful environment.
     But this is really different. Most of us are in our own house, hopefully not going out, or if you are, really practicing social distancing. And for those of us who are now on lockdown and have your routine disrupted, try to make a new routine at home. And yes, I know, it’s not easy. Some of us are able to work at home, that’s certainly helpful during the workweek, that occupies a chunk of time. But after work and during the weekend? Figure out what works for you and do it. Wanna stress eat? Go ahead. We can always lose a few pounds later. Some exercise? Go for it. There’s plenty of things you can do, light weights, resistance bands, learn some esoteric yoga exercises. Might help with stress. Reading? You should have plenty of time for it. House projects? There’s always something to do. Binge watch? I couldn’t make it through the first episode of Tiger King, but there’s plenty of other things to watch.
     But I think that now, more than ever, we should all be checking in with family and friends. We’re all in this together. So call them, e-mail, FaceTime, message - whatever. Things will be different when we come out on the other side of this, but for now, take care of your friends of family. That should be part of everyone’s routine now.

Zori

     Zori. That's the word used (or some derivative of it) in the Republic of Palau, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands for what most people from there wear on their feet. The Japanese colonized Micronesia for about 30 years, and that's where the word originally came from.
     I just did a 7 month work gig back in the Marshall Islands, and one of the things I regularly did was to walk on some of the lesser visited beaches on the Eastern side of the islands. I love picking through the flotsam and jetsam that the winds and waves had washed onshore. The amount of plastic and trash that's in the ocean is sickeningly staggering, but there can sometimes be some use there. When I lived on an outer island for a year as I was figuring out how to adult, my soft, sensitive white feet had hardened a bit, but I could never get used to walking on the coral lined paths without zori. I'd  sometimes wake up and find out someone had 'borrowed' my precious zori that I left outside my house. I'd sigh, get some water out of the cistern, strain the bugs and gecko shit out of it and start to boil it for coffee and then go and look on the beach for a mismatched pair that had washed up. There was always a variety on the beach right outside my house and I was on an outer island.  Sometimes, I'd have to walk down a little farther than I'd have preferred to find something that would  kind of fit, but what washed up is what was there. I don't care much now what people think about what I wear, and I cared much less then, if you can fathom that.
     So on the most recent work gig, I did what I always did - marvel at the daily changes on the beach. The sands had shifted from the night before, new pieces of coral, broken shells, high tide, low tide...and every manner of flotsam and jetsam, every day. To include zori. There were hundreds I found and left behind because I just didn't feel a good story in them. But there were some that I brought back with me. Who is Victor? He carved his name in his zori. How did he lose that one? Awwww, those sweet Hello Kitty zori. There were two of those, but different sizes, different colors. What winds and waves washed them towards me? The Popeye zori. Looks like a fifth grader's zori. Each one of those zori could have a fantastic story behind them. How they were lost, what they did to get home with one zori. Here is a link to a great short film about zori, and how terrible it is to lose one on an outer island done by a good friend of mine.

https://www.microwavefilms.org/zori.html

     I want to know everyone's story about how they lost their zori. How long it was in the ocean. What storms and currents brought it where. How it was somehow blown/washed to shore on Kwajalein in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. If anything bad even happened to you or even if you ever lost one of your zori, I hope your story had a happy ending.

 

     

Asshole buddies

      I try to learn something new every day, and the other day, I learned what an asshole buddy is. Typically, I’ll make a conscious decision about what I want to learn, as a few examples, last week, I brushed up on my knot tying skills or wrote for a prescribed period of time every day. Sometimes, I cheat a little by watching YouTube How It’s Made channel and chalk that up as what I’ve learned for the day. Go ahead, watch the one about how hot dogs are made and then let me know if you ever have one again. Other days, I’ll read some of the classics - I’m currently enjoying Guy de Maupassant’s complete short stories. I’ve explored how Bhutan measures GNH (Gross National Happiness), I’m also listening to a podcast that describes the personality and legacy of each of the 45 presidents, I’m up to William Henry Harrison now - that one should be pretty short. But a few days ago, completely by chance, I learned about asshole buddies.
     I’m in Santa Barbara, visiting my parents and we were chatting late in the afternoon about anything and everything.

The man, the myth, the legend, my dad

Then my dad said, “Let me tell you how the guys I lawn bowl with became my asshole buddies.” That got my attention. “Wait - what is an asshole buddy?” My dad seemed surprised I didn’t know what an asshole buddy was and then my mom chimed in and asked, incredulously, “You don’t know what an asshole buddy is?” I swear, this conversation actually happened. I said this is the first time in my life I’ve ever heard the term. My mom said my dad used the phrase all the time, he countered by saying he rarely used it, but it was common Philadelphia slang (where they’re both originally from) and it means you’re really good friends. So we quickly FaceTimed brother Ed for validation. I asked him to give me a thumbs up/thumbs down and posed the question - have you ever heard of an ‘asshole buddy’? He John McCain’ed it perfectly with a slow thumbs down in front of the camera and asked what was going on. I explained the context and then we had some follow on questions about just what an asshole buddy is and isn’t. Some of the questions asked were how does one become an asshole buddy? Do both parties know they are asshole buddies? Do you have to ask someone to be your asshole buddy? At that point, Ed leaned into the camera and seductively whispered, “Will you be my asshole buddy? Is that how it works?” As you may imagine, there was uncontrollable laughter during the discussion. My dad said that blood relatives could not be asshole buddies (really, there’s seems to be some codification on who can and can’t be asshole buddies). I asked him if male/female friends could be asshole buddies, he paused for a moment and then gave a terse ‘no’. I said I thought that was a very, very good call. Cue more laughter.
     The uncontrollable mirth down after a while, but still got an occasional chuckle from me just at the thought of the whole exchange. Later that night at dinner, we were talking about my upcoming trip to Thailand/Malaysia and who knows where else to get an annual physical, dermatologist visit and my 60th birthday colonoscopy. I said, “Hey, do you know who’s going to do my colonoscopy at Bumrungrad Hospital?” They said, “No, who?”  I said... “My asshole buddy.” That was an inaccurate use of my newly learned vocabulary, but we all thought it was pretty funny. 

Alex

     You get what you pay for in general and on Maui? Maybe even more so. My daughter has lived there for 10 years and I just visited her and my brother. She's become a part of the community because she's way more FOMO than I am, and it was so gratifying to see her run into people no matter where we were who she knew, hugs, kisses and this is my dad, he’s just here visiting, blah, blah, blah. Because Maui is not cheap and she’s been mostly in roommate situations, she lives in a crappy neighborhood. If any tourist ever got to the end of the road where she lives, it was by complete accident. So she's been looking for another place to live on Maui, and she answered a Craigslist ad...from Alex. Alex was a huckster of the first degree. He was trying to rent out two 'Ohana' units in upcountry Maui for $950/ mo each. Maui can be a lovely place to visit, but it’s not an easy place to live if you’re working there. If you can find an Ohana for $950 in upcountry Maui, you don't need the type of flowery prose Alex employed or pictures that were not representative of the bed spaces he was advertising, that Ohana will sell itself. Quickly.  Here’s the ad: https://honolulu.craigslist.org/mau/apa/d/pukalani-peaceful-ohana-in-kula-for/7068464609.html

Part of the main house. Where you can't go when his daughter is there. 

     So Ed, Celine and I made an appointment to take a look see because we like pretty pictures and flowery prose too. Yeah. Not as advertised. Alex had a shaved head, waxed mustache, square plastic rimmed glasses and gesticulated wildly as he was describing 'the possibilities' of where an outdoor kitchen might be, or where he could set up the ping pong table, if his daughter wasn't staying in the main house. Right. If his daughter wasn't there, then you could visit the main house, if she was there, then it was verboten. He took us through the property, and said some unusual things. “Look up! Not at the stars (it was about 2:45 pm, the only star visible was the sun), which are beautiful, but look up at the avocado tree! The tree knows when the avocados are ripe and that makes them taste like nothing you’ve ever tasted." Oh Alex. The avocado tree was situated directly above the the detached Ohana. The ripe avocados would have plummeted down in the middle of the night with a thundering BOOOOOOM on the roof of the tiny house like structure that would have raised the dead. Side note: I’ve had avocados that were picked un ripe and avo’s that dropped from the tree. I couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe he could. But he was special.
     You get what you pay for. I remember in my misguided youth after a fairly feral month in Sumatra I ended up in Singapore. I was looking for a knock off Walkman. Google it millennials, and yes, that's how old I am. I was in some mall and asked the proprietor of Indian descent if I could listen to the device before I plunked down my $10, he said with a disapproving wag of the head, "Baba, if you pay $10, you are going to get $10 quality." If you answer ad for an Ohana in upcountry Maui for $950 that ends with: Mahalo, have a beautiful day, and may the Universe smile kindly upon you....you're going to get what you pay for. Alex and his unique personality will be included at no extra charge. 

Maui in 3 Acts

     Act 1:  Maui has a couple of different sides. Visiting Maui typically involves staying in a hotel, when someone else cleans your room, makes your bed and then you lay by the pool/beach while eating food someone else made. When I tell people my daughter lives on Maui, they usually gush and say, “Oh, she’s so lucky!” I remind them (because I’m me) that it’s not all rainbows and unicorns, she works, and you know what she does after she’s done working? She drives home, stops at a store to get some food, cooks, cleans and then maybe does some laundry. You know what she does the next day? The. Same. Thing. Sure, it’s beautiful and there are beach and waterfall days and fruit can be easily foraged. But unless you’re a member of the wealthy elite (more on that later), life on Maui isn’t quite as pretty as those lovely beaches and waterfalls.  One thing that took me aback this visit were all of the abandoned cars on the North (non touristy) side. Brother Ed said there seems to be five distinct stages of abandonment. Stage 1: The car is abandoned in an unusual spot, where you typically wouldn’t park a car but left parked anywhere for a while and your car could be mistaken as abandoned. Stage 2: Tires are removed. Stage 3: Windows smashed in, anything of value on the inside removed. Stage 4: The mechanical guts are stripped and the car is graffitied. Stage 5: Car is torched. Ed and I walked down to Jaws the other day, looked over the bluff and found an abandoned car in the middle of the dirt road on the way back - that wasn’t there 15 minutes ago when we walked the same road. We marveled at the efficiency of that particular abandonment. Those blighted cars are everywhere on this side of the island and it’s crazy.

Just up the road from my daughter’s house. Looks like Stage 3 to me. 

     Act 2: Ed asked if I wanted to plant a legacy tree on their property on Maui, pretty much everyone else in the family already had chosen one and put it in the ground. He has a go to nursery he buys the fruit trees from. When he first went there, he was looking at a dwarf mango tree, the owner of the nursery said, “I have some larger trees, but they are a bit more expensive.” Then he paused, looked my brother up and down and went on to say, “But you look like a member of the wealthy elite, you should take the bigger tree.” Note - my brother looks and dresses like me. We do not resemble members of that class and we had more than a few chuckles about their exchange. But thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. He lives on Maui, is in his early 60’s, doesn’t work and is a haole. That screams wealthy elite, even if you dress like us. A caveat to the legacy tree challenge: there were only two days left in my trip. This is an important decision. I want to ensure that whatever I choose grows and flourishes and provides tasty fruit for years to come. I surveyed the grounds to see what everyone else had planted, which narrowed my options.
     My first choice was to go for sexy. Rambutan is one of my favorite fruits, I thought that would leave a pleasant memory (and taste) in everyone’s mouth. But a legacy tree? Don’t get fooled by looks, folks. Just because that fruit is so pretty and tastes oh so sweet doesn’t mean you want to put those roots in the ground - do the dance, think about the long term match. Is it in the right growing zone? How about the amount of water/sun it needs and how big will it eventually grow - will it block your or someone else’s views? I’ve backed off rambutan and am leaning towards soursop, but want to do my research a bit more. Ed and Celine were trying to bully me into making a decision before I leave, but I can always come back and do it right. Just jumping in the deep end after the good looking fruit tree doesn’t always end well. I’ll come back at the end of the year if I’m short on miles to get to the next status level to plant whatever I decide is both sexy and smart. ‘Cause that’s what we all really want, right?
     Act 3: Ed and Celine. This is the only reason I came to Maui for - family, my brother and daughter - and it’s been a blast. Some people in our lives have tried to domesticate us, and let me tell you, all who have made the efforts have failed miserably. We are more than okay with that. Ed and I would be playing Words With Friends next to each other and he’d say, “I’m interested in herpetology these days.” I look at him and go right to WWF. He’d just played ‘snakey’. I’d snort and say, “Well done!” I make sure to slip in the same type of non sequiturs when we’re playing like, “I think I’m going to the lavatory now.” Not the type of thing I’d ever say, so he looks at his WWF, nods and says, “Good play.” We had a few adult conversations about finances, 5 -10 year plans, what we wanted our lives to look like, but mostly it wasn’t serious at all. There’s just too much wilderness in us and when left unsupervised, it’s a ridiculously funny non-stop show. We relived memories, looked at old pictures, laughed, poked, planned, competed for bed space, laughed, fact checked each other ruthlessly, sang goofy songs, made meals and then laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Straight up silliness, just the way we like it, without any real adults modulating our feral nature. Looking forward to more frequent visits in the near future wherever, whenever. But particularly in off season travel time, because I’m still a Taylor.

Not too far from Pukalani Superette, welcome to upcountry

The master closet

     We Taylors are a competitive lot. At one point, Gwyne said to me, “You know, everything in life isn’t a competition.” I said, “Ohhhh. That attitude explains why you’ve been losing so much.” We both had a good laugh over that exchange. I’m in Maui now, visiting my brother who has a house here and my daughter, who has been living here for 10 years. He has two renters living in his 3 bedroom/2 bath house, which leaves Ed and I to share the master bedroom. And master closet. One of us will sleep on the master bed, the other will sleep on a folding mattress in the master closet, based on a mutually agreed upon competition held during the day. There are no friendly challenges because they are ALL deadly serious, but they are also filled with uproarious laughter and fun, as is pretty much the entire day. My laugh lines are getting a serious work out, ‘cause that’s how we roll.  The first night’s challenge came about organically -  we were talking about real estate and business cycles. He knows real estate, and I know business cycles. We decided on the first challenge to be based on real estate prices in Boulder, Colorado, where he owns a few homes and has lived for 30+ years. Advantage Ed? Not so fast there, buckaroo. He argued prices always went up, I said they were cyclical and said that if he checked, he’d see that in 2008, prices went down. We bickered a bit about the terms. Does a plateau count as a decline? No, the median prices have to dip. As we negotiated the terms of the challenge and finally came to a mutually agreeable conclusion, he did the research. Dip the prices did, and I had a fabulous sleep, blissfully thrashing around on the master bed, thank you very much. Ed enjoyed the master closet. I enjoyed his humiliation as he closed the door to the closet.
     Yesterday’s challenge was geographical - we found a site that had outlines of 197 countries in the world and we had 20 minutes to correctly identify as many of them as we could. The exchanges, or steam of consciousness, were absolutely hilarious. Kenya, Kenya, where are you Kenya? I’d adopt an African accent (which I do fairly well), “Please my Kenyan brothers and sisters, help me, guide me and take me to your ancestral home - YES, I knew you would! Ed would be muttering to himself at the same time and saying things like, “Really? C’mon, I don’t know where St. Lucia is. Is that a real country? AHHHHHH!” I plowed through the Middle Eastern Countries as they popped up, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE, Yemen, Oman and Qatar, as-slalam alaykum my friends and Ed killed it in South America. We both struggled in Africa and the Caribbean and we swore loudly whenever we incorrectly guessed where some of the countries were located. I lost due to a technicality, I accidentally closed my page on my iPad and lost my progress once, we regrouped for the second start and agreed if I dorked it up again, I would be relegated to the closet. And yes, I dorked it up again. It’s so serious, but it’s also so unbelievably fun.

     The first day was all about a visit to my daughter’s house, meeting her cat and picking up the pickled papaya (coco) she made me, then planning out the day’s food tour through Wailuku. I’m not here to do all the Maui things, I’m here to visit them, so they made all the decisions about what we did. We started off at a woodworking exhibition in the Maui Arts and Cultural Center that featured 25 pieces, each one was unbelievably beautiful. Then we started gathering food for lunch, Celine knows her way around the best places to get great food in Maui. They took me to a Foodland where they have a semblance of a live fish market and fresh ogo, seaweed that perfectly sets off a type of Poke, onwards to another old time Poke market and then we passed an Okazuya, a Japanese delicatessen where we picked up a few more treats. We enjoyed our picnic at a Korean pagoda, and wrapped the day up with a hike and a swim in a FRIGID waterfall/river and then dinner. And many, many more laughs.

     Todays gig is simple - a timed Words With Friends game using a chess clock, we haven’t decided the time each competitor will get, we’re still negotiating terms. Winner gets the bed, loser gets...the master closet. But the games in the next few days promise to be more serious. This is an 8 night trip. Taylors don’t like ties. One of us has to win. Ed suggested reviving a version of a game his sons played when they were here, jumping off a cliff into a river, swimming to shore, building a tower of 10 balanced stones and then swimming back to a pre-determined log in the river. The first to touch the log after completing the task(s) wins. This shit’s about to get real. The score is 1 - 1. And btw, the master closet last night was surprisingly comfortable...and Ed enjoyed my humiliation as I closed the door to the closet. :)