HAWAII FUNNY TOP-10 (Crazy laws & stuff)

by Lorraine Brodek | Sep 18, 2014 | Blog

1. Hawaiians are not allowed to put pennies in their ears.  

I wonder if this law was passed when Hawaii discovered that their coins were disappearing and they knew not all of them were ending up in the slots in Las Vegas. Also Hawaiians were becoming hard of hearing. There’s a rumor going around that magicians are starting a petition against this law.

2. It used to be illegal to leave home and not know where you were going.

If you are in your mid ’70’s, this can happen a lot, so just make something up like, “Oh, I’m going to the dump.” That’s a favorite destination in Hana. That way you can claim that all the junk you’ve forgotten to remove from your back seat is really trash. But be sure this only happens between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. And if you’re confused about which holiday it is, don’t go out because the dump will be closed anyway.

3. All residents must own a boat or face a fine.

To be safe, that’s why we have two boats in our living room. Okay..one is a canoe.

4. Hawaii consumes the most Spam™ in the U.S.–maybe even the world.

The ingredients of Spam™ are: pork with ham (a redundancy?), mechanically separated chicken (meaning it’s separated unconsciously?), water, modified potato starch, sugar, potassium chloride, salt, sodium phosphates, sodium ascorbate, sodium nitrite (for a total sodium content of 49% and saturated fat of 30%).  The instructions on the can suggest that it’s easier to eat Spam™ than swimming across the ocean. Hey! With that salt content, you can just float across. But be sure to wait 1/2 hour after eating. I also think it might be better not to read the ingredients. Better yet, “eat Spam™ in a boat..that would be cool” the can label suggests. Which means that we could just make Spam™ Musubi (fried spam on top of rice and wrapped in nori)..then sit in our boat in our living room and enjoy. Not.

5. Question #93 on the Hawaiian Drivers’ Test reads:

You may drink alcohol beverages in a vehicle on a public highway:
1. As long as you don’t drive.
2. Only if you ride in the back seat.
3. Only if you ride in the back of a pick-up truck.
4. It is against the law to drink alcoholic beverages on a public highway.

The answer is #4, but this seems to apply only if you’re staggering along the highway or sitting on a road cone with a Brewski. It doesn’t mention the old law that states that you can only have one alcoholic drink in front of you at a time. Wonder if that includes the dashboard.

6. Question #118 on the Hawaiian Drivers’ Test reads:

Small children when riding in a vehicle:
1. May be safely held by a strong adult.
2. Will be safe if standing on the floor in the front or back of an auto.
3. Will not be hurt in an accident because they are small.
4. Must never be allowed to ride standing on a seat.

I think someone had two alcoholic beverages in front of them when they wrote this. The answer is #4. In addition, if you’re over 12 and all seats are taken inside of Uncle Kimo’s pick-up truck, you can ride in the open flat bed in the back just a long as it has sides and the tailgate is up. This does not apply to parades where everyone in the family can sit anywhere including the dogs and tūtū (Grandma) who can be propped sitting on top of the rear seat of the red convertible. Just don’t brake or accelerate suddenly.

7. Men from Hawaii’s Orakama tribe are not allowed to eat their second wife. 

So I’d really be sure you’re the second wife and not the first. I don’t know if there are search engines to help you validate this, but I’d certainly verify first, then trust until death due you part and be wary if he buys two BBQ’s.

8. Billboards are banned. 

But you can post funny signs on trees and posts.

9. You cannot annoy any bird within the limits of a public park.

However, it appears that you can heckle or hide birdseed or poke birds if they’re outside park limits. Birders might want to take this on as part of a national cause. “Protect Our Birds Outside Of Parks” or POBOOP. Rhymes with pigeon poop.

And speaking of pigeon, that leads us into..

10. Pidgin is the unofficial language of Hawaii.

..or the language of the people and their emotions. It is a combo of Hawaiian, Creole and English-speak from all the immigrants who have arrived on their shores since the 1800’s. In fact, the Pidgin translation of Christ’s baptism appears above the baptismal space at one of the hundreds of  Christian churches dotting the countryside throughout the islands.

And I wen say, den dat’s da Top 10!

TOMMY, TYLER & THE KIDNEY’S STONE

by Lorraine Brodek | Aug 30, 2014 | Blog

As I may have mentioned, Tom and I are on hiatus for a month in California frolicking with friends and family and meeting with orthopedic people about his bone-on-boney knees. Bad knees have become his biggest handicap during his weekly pasture golf game–besides the bulls. Please see my blog on Pasture Golf (4-14-14).

So midst appointments with the “knee guys,” we took time off to join Marianne and Ron and their fun family at their spectacular camp in the Sierras. It can be the highlight of our year..enjoying the out-‘o-doors to the max: picking berries, skeet-shooting, bocce-balling, riding on top of ole Smokey horse, driving golf balls, swimming in the lake, BBQ’ing on the campfire, not to mention their “Bear-verage Bar.” So after our first day there, we were totally relaxed and buzzed into a sort of a rocky mountain high..which quickly morphed into a stoney mountain low.

Our second night in our cozy, rustic cabin, Tom awakened me moaning with mortal pain. This was not his usual “stubbed-toe-on-the-bed-frame” pain, this was the “Grave Digger-monsta-truck on-his-back” kind of pain. “My back is IMPLODING!” he agonized. “I’m SICK..throwing up EVERYTHING!” In Hawaii, we refer to this de-fooding condition as “calling the whales.” In the woods, it’s “calling the bears.” Or..how much upchuck could a woodchuck upchuck when a woodchuck upchucks in the the wood?

Since we were in the boonies of beardom, I had to grab my flashlight, take a chance while helping Tom to the outhouse, trot over to Marianne and Ron’s cabin (which was about 350 bear tracks away) and ask where the nearest ER was. Hosts love that! They live for being awakened at 2 a.m. Then knowing that you’re going to get totally lost, insist on providing a middle-of-the-night field trip to the nearest ER which, of course, is more than a one hour’s drive down a dark, winding road where deer leap in front of cars and all manner of road-kill happens. Nothing good ever happens after midnight. That’s when ERs are the busiest.

Marysville Rideout Hospital was no exception (no, it’s not a drive-through) and the staff is fabulous. They even worked Tom in before the shirtless/shoeless guy whose eyes were spinning and who was talking to the waiting room wall and calling her “Babe.” In the exam room, the intern took his fist and pushed it into the right side of Tom’s lower back. “Arrr-ghh-ohhhh-sh*t!” he exclaimed as he doubled up in pain. The intern asked, “Did that hurt?” Then for fun, he repeated his fist bump on the left side. Fortunately, the room was sound-proofed. The intern queried, “Have you ever had a kidney stone before?” Now in total agony and with hardly an ounce of energy left, Tom mumbled, “No.” “Well you do now,” smiled the intern as if Tom should get a gold medal. After lot$ of test$, the diagnosis was confirmed, an IV was started followed by a morphine chaser. The male doctors ALL said that a kidney stone is as painful as childbirth. I don’t know how a guy can channel that pain for comparison. I think only a female mom who has also had a kidney stone would be a more reliable source–maybe like Michelle Duggar. But I don’t know if she’s had one. I know that Tom hopes this will be his only child.

A gazillion thanks to our incredible friend, St. Ron (who is now on a par with St. Christopher in our eyes), we got back to camp with enough pain meds to carry Tom through the next few days’ activities and a little sieve for him to pee through. It was important for him to catch the stone when it passed. Describing this process was a challenging one for Marianne when her cute, people-wise, 9-year-old grandson, Tyler, asked, “What happened to Tommy Tunes?” (their name for Tom). The conversation went something like this:

Marianne: “He was in the hospital.”
Tyler: “THE HOSPITAL! Why?”
Marianne: “He has a kidney stone.”
Tyler: “Huh? What’s that?”
Marianne: “Its a stone in your kidney.”
Tyler: “Where’s your kidney?”
Marianne: “You have two of them and they’re in your lower back. They’re like little waste disposal dump trucks in your body. Helps you get rid of stuff.”
Tyler: “Well–how did the stone get there? How did that happen? Did Tommy swallow it?”
Marianne: “No, it kinda just formed in there like an ice crystal in Frozen.”
Tyler: “How big is it?” (Personally, I think Tyler might be showing some promise as a medical reporter.)
Marianne: “It’s kinda big. Over two centimeters.” Knowing that Tyler’s next question would be ‘how big is a centimeter?’ she continued, “A centimeter is about the size of a Skittle or an M&M. So Tommy’s would be the size of an M&M peanut, a Dum Dum or a quarter.” Brilliant grandmothers always explain in kid-speak.
Tyler: “Well–how does he get rid of it?”
Marianne: “Um-mmm, that’s the hard part.” Fully aware that her explanation was going to take a boy into a world even more shocking than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, she took a deep breath and explained, “So..the stone has to travel down a tube from the kidney to your bladder. Your bladder is kinda like a bagpipe bag. It holds your pee.”
Tyler: “WHAT? So this stone has to go all the way down to Tommy’s pee bag?”
Marianne: “Yep. That would be correct”..hoping that the next question wouldn’t come, but of course it did.
Tyler: “Then what happens? Does it melt?”
Marianne: “Nope. He has to pee it out.” She braced herself.
Tyler: “WHAT? NO! HE HAS TO PEE IT OUT?” Unbelieving, his eyes had already been wide-open with this agonizing thought. Now his baby blues were the size of Blueberry Tootsie Pops. “ARE YOU SURE?” The awful realization had sunk in. To pee it out meant only one thing: “IT HAS TO COME OUT HIS HOO-HOO?” Tyler grabbed his crotch and bent over in pain with the thought. “OO-OOO-OOOH-HHHH! Poor Tommy Tunes! OH-HH. Not his HOO-HOO! I’m going to go give him a hug. Ohh-hh.” And off he ran, still holding his crotch.

Tom showed Tyler the sieve that he had to pee through so he could catch the stone for analysis. Tyler wanted to keep it but understood that it had to go to Tom’s doctor in Los Angeles. When the time came for the “stone passage” it turned out to be a boulder the size of Plymouth rock. It required an extra weight charge for his carry-on baggage. The expression “you can’t get blood from a stone” was proved totally false that day. 

MAKANI ULUULU (HURRICANE) or…

by Lorraine Brodek | Aug 11, 2014 | Blog

A LULU OF A BIG BLOW

Nothing can interrupt a writer’s thought train more than when her caboose is being blown right out of the station. A category #1 hurricane can do that. Back in the 70’s, a couple of guys: structural engineer Herb Saffir and his buddy, meteorologist, Bob Simpson (who was Director of the National Hurricane Center in Florida) came up with a scale from 1-5. The higher the number on the scale, the more neighbors’ roofs that blow off, the bigger the trees that topple onto Toyotas and the more water that pours down or surges into basement man-caves.

Now I have to admit that husband, Tom and I had just left Maui this past week to return to Los Angeles for a month, so we missed the actual events. Thank goodness that friend Sandi became weather watch commander and provided all of us “mainlanders” who have Hana homes with continual updates. So far she is still afloat and emailing from her closet. Hana has never experienced a hurricane category number..a tsunami maybe, but not a hurricane.

So when it was announced that hurricanes Iselle and Julio were on their way and headed toward Hawaii, the natives started paying attention. At first I thought when I heard the names that they were that dance duo on Dancing With The Stars. Where do these guys get these names? Up until 1979, all hurricanes were female. Of course, that figures. We got the blame for everything in those days. But then the first male hurricane was named and it was Hurricane Bob. Really? I betcha anything that it was named after good ‘ol Bob Simpson, Director of the NHC. And he turned out to be bad Bob..a category 3.

And so it is no surprise that coming up with hurricane names is as political as congress trying to pass a bill before Christmas vacation. All names must be approved by Region #4 Hurricane Committee of the World Meteorological Organzation. This group is made up of reps of all countries affected by the hurricanes in their zone or area. Why can’t they just draw names out of alphabetical and gender appropriate hats. That would be way more fun. Why take the time to vote by committee? Geez!

Friends Mike and Larry decided that they should go up to our house and move all our lanai furniture indoors. I know Allstate appreciates that. It could get expensive if our bamboo and all-weather-wicker with the Sunbrella fabric blows to Oahu. However, Mike reports that our open floor-plan is no longer open and looks more like Furniture Warehouse.

And speaking of warehouses, CostCo in Kahului has now had a serious run on toilet paper, rum, beer and Doritos..not to mention ice. This is probably because one of the favorite Hawaiian drinks is appropriately named “The Hurricane.” Just to keep you in the mood, here’s the recipe and you might want to pick up some juice while you’re at it. Then chug-a-lug and literally let the world fly by:

Ingredients
1 light rum
1 dark rum
1 1/2 fluid ounces amaretto liqueur
6 orange juice
6 pineapple juice
1 dash grenadine syrup on top after drink is poured
Don’t forget the little paper umbrella with the cherry

Mix all ingredients well and pour over ice into a hurricane glass (hopefully unbroken).

So the good news is that Iselle could have been a lot worse. She got herself into a tropical mood and morphed into a “storm.” Now we just have to hope that Julio continues to hold the stage way-y-y out in the Pacific far from the islands. Otherwise, think of the great business start-up we could have..where we can share plants and lawn furniture and “recycloned” materials by air with our island neighbors at no freight charge. Then we can hold a humongous blow-out sale!

GECKO POWER

by Lorraine Brodek | Jul 21, 2014 | Blog

Most sounds in Hawaii are melodious and soothing…the ocean waves slapping against the sandy shore, the enchanting bird songs of the thrushes and cardinals and cooing of doves, the splashing of the cascading waterfalls and/or the rhythmic surf beat of palm fronds blowing in the tropical breeze. One sound that is not soothing, however, is the shrill chirping of the house gecko.  It usually happens at about 2:30 a.m. as he calls out to find a gecko gal. It can best be described as the same sound your smoke alarm makes when the batteries are going dead in the middle of the night (smoke alarm batteries never die in the daytime). It’s sound-barrier breaking. High octave. Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

This wake-up chirp usually happens above your bed because the gecko can sprint up walls and over your head faster than Lionel Ritchie singing Dancing on the Ceiling. The startling sound is yet another reason to make you “climb the walls” and join the gecko.

Now there are many who think the house gecko is good luck–almost sacred. I’m not a gecko worshipper, but I admit that we do have a gecko etched into glass on our front door and gecko tiles on our lanai. Mainly because our grandson loves them. Since geckos eat other invasive critters like cockroaches, mosquitoes and various unsavory bugs, they are welcomed into many Maui homes. We encourage ours to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. The main reason being that if anything free-range poops in the jungle, it’s also going to poop in your house. So cover your furniture and your Mai Tai’s. Yes indeedy, that happened one night when we were at a friend’s home for a pupu (pronounced “poopoo”–an unfortunate Hawaiian word for hors d’oeuvre) party. This friend loves cute geckos and a dropping plopped right into my drink just missing the tiny paper umbrella. I immediately switched to vodka.

There are some interesting features about geckos. They are usually nocturnal—thus the chirping at 2:30 a.m. Most lack eyelids and don’t blink—giving them excellent night vision. They might even be able to see through your pajamas. The house gecko (the fifth in the species to thrive on the islands) arrived in Hawaii sometime after World War II. One is not sure if they stowed away on something that can bob in water like a boat or suitcase or some people I know. Yet some gecko experts say that it’s possible the eggs might have landed on shore because the tiny round white-shelled balls (the size of Tic Tacs or a Lego apple) can also float in salt water.

But the most amazing thing about the gecko is its little toe pads. Some attribute its speedy climbing ability to teeny-weeny suction cups on its feet. Then others say it’s the intermolecular attraction between the ceiling that the gecko is walking on and the tiny pad hairs (said to be about one million per gecko). But hold the Shock Jock! A new study has just come out from Hadi Izadi (I love rhyming names), a researcher from Yale. Hadi says that static electricity is why geckos stick to the ceiling and in his words: “By measuring the magnitude of the electric charges, together with the adhesion forces that gecko foot pads develop in contact with different materials, we have clarified for the first time that CE (i.e. contact electrification) does contribute effectively to gecko adhesion.” Hmmm..so the way I understand this is that the gecko is in positive charge mode when electrons leave its feet and since the wall that it’s climbing is doing nothing, it’s negatively charged like a husband in a Barcalounger, but glued to the football game.

Here’s something to think about. What if we harness the hot-footin’ power of the gecko. Give them all a free-range grid where they can skitter around like crazy, thus generating electricity that their little feet give off. And if we have electric cars, I bet we could get a discount from Geico insurance if it’s “Powered by Gecko.” Then in addition to solar panels and windmills, this might just be the next best energy source for those living on the jungle isles..except for the #$%*ing chirping.

The Geico Gecko has eyelids. Some say if you click on him, he might blink.

KI’I (PICTURE) = 1-K WORDS

by Lorraine Brodek | Jun 29, 2014 | Blog

A few things have caught my eye (of the camera) around our place (and beyond).

The first is our Tiki God who is the serious watchman at our front entry. Like others we’ve known, his diet plans aren’t working:

Next we had a few chicks running through our garden who also had a dietary question

One of my favorite pictures is of Cisco, the calf that Beth and Larry rescued. He thought he was family:

And while on the subject of the smaller free range ones in the family..it’s all about life’s lessons:

Usually hard-working boots gather no moss. It can grow under and over your feet if you’re at the beach too much. Tom calls this “Boot Hill”:

It’s summertime and a photo-op paradise around here. Be grateful that I spared you the vehicle repair shots. They’re not as pretty.