Spring Break in Hawaii

This seems to be my year for short, fun-packed vacations. My tan has not faded from our Spring Break visit to Hawaii and neither have my memories. It was a vacation and a mini-family reunion all wrapped up together like lau lau in a ti leaf.

               My brother Bob and his wife Kathleen flew in from Maui. They had us cracking up constantly. My sister and her husband Bruce cooked a delicious meal for all eleven of us, and helped me add to my teapot collection at their favorite antique store. Mom and Dad led the two-van caravan for the around-the-island tour that included stops to be awed by high surf at Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay, to see Dole’s pineapple fields, and check out where LOST was filmed. Before our trip to the Bishop Museum, my Dad reviewed our extensive family genealogy with us, giving us clues to look for at the museum and helping the kids get back in touch with our Hawaiian culture.

We also got back in touch with the warm Pacific Ocean spending many hours boogie boarding at the same beach where my brother learned to body surf, and where my father saw a barracuda latch onto a body surfing classmate’s calf during his boyhood days. John and the kids also surfed at Waikiki while I soaked up the sun and a Chi Chi, too relaxed to bother to walk a few feet to watch the St. Patrick’s Day parade march down Kalakaua Avenue.

We savored the almost endless list of special local treats we crave from Hawaii: malasadas, Chantilly cake, saimin, crispy gau gee on cake noodles, mixed plate lunches, green tea ice cream, and shave ice. My son and his girlfriend managed to catch the bus to a luau at the last minute after being stuck in an excruciating, traffic jam on H-1, part of everyday life in Honolulu. We all got to giggle while holding onto our clothes and hair at the Pali Lookout, and take in the spectacular view of the Windward side between gusts.

We re-lived family memories that covered a century, so many relatives, so many places infused with significant family history. We caught up on what aunties, uncles and cousins are doing now, and learned about some serious family health problems. The absence of some of the things I used to always do when I visited made me a little sad. None of my grandparents are alive, and a favorite auntie and uncle have passed away. No more calling out “Hui!” as we climbed the steps to visit them anymore. I missed them. My grandparents’ beach house in Hauula where my parents honeymooned, and where later my mom, brother, sister and I lived when my father was in Vietnam is gone. The mango and avocado trees at my house had to be cut down. The missing reminded me that time passes, and that the Hawaii I grew up in is gone.

John and I pointed out to the kids our first tiny, cramped apartment in a rough neighborhood where we spent a lot of time circling the nearby blocks in search of a parking space because we were too poor to pay for one at the apartment. The sagging family-owned store, built in the 1930s, that we’d walk to to pick up some bread or eggs was still there, jammed between other apartment buildings. We showed them the bike-lane that John rode his 10-speed bike, and later his mo-ped on, to get to the University of Hawaii. Then we pointed out the high-rise building that we ended up in, on the sixth floor, with a parking space, a block from the Ala Wai canal with a view of Diamond Head. There’s no way they could appreciate what an accomplishment that was for us.

But back to the present. Even though there were lots of funny moments, including my mother substituting a wooden calabash on her head for a hat, I think I accidentally provided the funniest vacation moment. It happened at the Dole Pineapple Center. After our long ride, we got in line to buy soft-serve pineapple ice cream cones, to be exact, four waffle cones. The girl behind the counter, obviously very experienced, deftly handed all four cones into one of John’s hands. Four cones in one hand! It made me really nervous!

While my family and other customers looked on, I anxiously tried to be helpful by taking two of the cones. John, sure that he had all four cones under control, apparently wanted me to take only one. Looking like two lumberjacks on either side of a saw, we pulled back and forth. After a few urgent tugs, I managed to pry two cones away from his unwilling hand.

Oh no! One started to topple! I wasn’t about to let it hit the floor! So, I lunged, and bent backwards like I was doing the limbo. The now empty cone remained in my right hand. The ice cream plopped, cold and sticky, onto my right boob.

So, I did the only thing I could do. I shot an accusing look at John, like it was his fault. He boomeranged that look right back at me. My daughter shook her head, called us immature, and took the intact cone from my left hand. My brother snickered, “Nice catch!” I started laughing as I took the empty cone, and scooped the ice cream off my chest back into the waffle cone where it belonged. There was no argument over which cone was mine. I swabbed my t-shirt and hair off with a napkin, and ate my doubly refreshing pineapple ice cream cone surrounded by laughter. My new family nickname is “Pineapple Boob.”

Six days full of family, fun, food, Hawaiian beaches and sunshine flew by. It wasn’t easy getting on the plane to come back to Washington, leaving so much behind. It never is. But I know that we’ll go back again. And I can still smell the fragrant ginger, plumeria, and tuberose leis scattered throughout my home here.

Laura Keolanui Stark is still thinking of more things she wishes they’d done in Hawaii. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Home Alone

            When my husband goes out of town on business trips, without fail, weird things happen at home. This time, the dogs spent the early hours of the night barking viciously upstairs while I was trying to get some quilting done downstairs. They take their jobs seriously when John leaves telling them to protect me and guard the house. At midnight I decided to go to bed. The dogs settled down for the night.

            At 3:30 in the morning, I felt someone breathing heavily on my face and looking at me. T-Bone, our Labrador/German Shepherd mixed dog was sitting beside the bed staring intently at me through the darkness. His little buddy, Suzy the dachshund was with him, but since she’s short, she wasn’t breathing on me. She just kept shaking her head to get her tags to jingle.

I’d like to say that my dogs are like Lassie, trying to warn me of an earthquake or other impending danger, but the last time T-Bone did this, it was because my cell phone was beeping as the battery went dead.

Before I could switch the light on, I heard a little chirp. That meant it wasn’t my cell phone dying. It was a smoke detector, one of seven in the house, or the carbon monoxide detector. Great! Why don’t these things die in the daytime? Why is it always between two and three in the morning when the batteries start to fizzle out? I stumbled around in the dark, fumbling for lights. T-Bone pranced and smiled proudly following me.

            Another chirp, ok, the culprit was downstairs. The dogs followed me down, acting like this was the most exciting thing they’d ever done, maybe a milk bone would be forthcoming. I stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting for another chirp. Chirp!

It wasn’t the carbon monoxide detector. Of course not, that was plugged into an electrical socket and easily accessible. It was the smoke detector up on the ceiling. I pulled a chair up under it, climbed onto the chair and reached up. I couldn’t reach it. I’m sure John would’ve been able to.

            I looked around and spotted a bar stool.  I clambered up on top of it, noting that it probably wasn’t the safest plan. I’d left the cushion on the 9” circle where you normally sit.  I was sleepy, and now I was wrestling with the smoke detector over my head. I warned myself not to be startled when it chirped again in my hands. As I twisted and turned, losing circulation in my arms up over my head, struggling to get the cover off, it dawned on me that if I fell, my husband wouldn’t be home to find me until dinnertime. It occurred to me that the “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” commercial didn’t seem so stupid now.

            I was getting impatient. Lefty loosie! Why wouldn’t this stubborn thing come off??? And then it did. But not the way the manufacturer intended. The whole thing came off; plastic anchors, ceiling plaster and all. Then it chirped again, cheerful to be free. I got off the precarious stool, not gracefully, but successfully. I pried the dead batteries out and left the whole mess, guts and all, on my sewing table.

            The dogs were satisfied that they’d saved me from the mysterious chirping, almost like when Helen Keller’s dog saved her from a fire in her house. I read an extra chapter in my book trying to get back to sleep. My husband will get to try out the new drill that he got for Christmas. It’s a win-win-win situation.      

Laura Keolanui Stark still appreciates smoke detectors, even though . . . She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com

Sew Expo Hangover

          The Sewing & Stitchery Expo ended yesterday, and today it feels like the day after Christmas: empty shopping bags, empty wallet, but a lot of really great toys to play with.

          This year I went for three out of the four days even though I initially planned to go for only one day. When I started scheduling seminars, Plan A flew out the window, Plan B was a mere flash, and I sent in Plan C. Plan D is what I got. Some of the seminars I’d requested had sold out, so they’d substituted my alternate requests. But, I’m pretty sure that I hadn’t listed a couple of them at all. Looking at the tickets they sent, I felt the same way I do sometimes when I reach my destination on a trip, and open my suitcase---who the heck packed this stuff?

          As it turned out, the surprise classes were pleasant surprises. In 50 minutes, Dr. Bob unwound all my thread problems in his Thread Therapy class. He explained thread characteristics, which needle to use with different specialty threads, and told a great story about how his 14 year old son used water soluble thread on bathing suits to liven up a pool party.

          It wasn’t all fun though at Expo, within 15 minutes of entering the gates, I got in trouble, my modus operandi. My offense this time was stepping over the chains to get into a seminar instead of winding around through an utterly empty maze. I just can’t seem to stay between the lines. The seminar was worth the scolding. It was “Japanese Design Basics for Quilters.” June Colburn talked about the differences between Western design in artwork and Asian design. I will incorporate many of her insights into my quilts, and finally cut confidently into some of the gorgeous Asian fabrics I’ve collected.

          In between seminars, I shopped, and shopped, and shopped some more, severely testing my creed, “Never buy more than you can carry.” Every year I tell myself that I don’t need to buy anything else. I have mountains of fabric, notions, and books. Yet every year, I add to the mountain. I blew my budget, and until next payday, my meal planning will revolve around whatever I can forage from our pantry or freezer. I’m thinking of it as a kind of creative scavenger hunt. Dr. Bob had a piece of valuable advice on what to say to our husbands when their eyes bug out on seeing what we haul home from the sewing expo. He told us to say these magic words, “There was a drawing.” And, there was a drawing at the end of each seminar. We just don’t have to divulge whether we won or not.

          By far, the best part of this year’s expo was a gift from my friend Carol: tickets for three of us to see Eleanor Burns in a Quilter’s Night Out. Eleanor Burns is one of the top quilters in America, and has her own show, “Quilt in a Day” on PBS. For years, Carol and I (and apparently a lot of other quilters) filled out suggestion slips asking Sew Expo to get Eleanor Burns to come. 2010 was the year our pestering paid off! We each got to chat with Eleanor and get her autograph at her booth. She is as delightful in person as on her show. At Quilter’s Night Out, she wowed us with her quilt show, reminisced about 30 years of taping her show, shared bloopers that had us laughing until we were in tears, introduced us to her family, and got hundreds of women up on their feet to do the chicken dance.

          Expo was crowded. Some people were rude. Some days it rained. Scones fueled me when my energy levels sagged. One day I slogged a half a mile through the parking lot to my car while packing my shopping booty with me. Overall, this year’s Sew Expo lived up to its billing of “the biggest sewing party in the country!”

Laura Keolanui Stark is starting a new quilting project! She can be reached at lkstark@yahoo.com