Just Another Emergency Alert in Paradise

Two nights ago we attended a community meeting regarding the tsunami evacuation plans for Honolulu County. Apparently with the last tsunami warning, there were problems. Six of our area sirens are out of commission. Some people were turned back at evacuation points. One person who is disabled couldn’t get out of her house to evacuate to a shelter.
Our legislators were there for the beginning, were introduced, then left.

Ed Teixeira, Vice Director for Civil Defense, was the one who most impressed me. Knowledgeable, responsible, personable. He’s what I’d like all my representatives to be. I wonder if he’s running for office? He’d be good in Washington.

Anyway, the scenario that would cause a high amount of devastation here on Oahu is an earthquake in Alaska that’s over a 9.0 magnitude.

It was a very informative meeting. I signed up for text message alerts from the Dept. of Emergency Management, just in case.

11:30 pm

I wish I could show you what the sky looks like here now. I’m sitting in my folding chair looking south outside my window. There’s a faint line where the tops of the mountains meet the night sky. Every minute or so the flash of lightning beacons over the mountain like a light bulb with crazy wires hanging down under it. It reminds me of my hair here in Hawaii. Where it had been smooth in San Francisco, it’s all crazy, curly frizzy here. I can smooth it out on top but it dangles all wonky below.

And guess what?
I just received a text message from the Dept. of Emergency Management.
There’s a flash flood warning here now until 1:45 am. We’re supposed to take action if we see flooding.

I’ve lived through snowstorms, earthquakes, heat waves…but what action do we take for flooding?

A Reminder to Be Grateful in the Midst of Moving

Don Quijote is a superstore here in Hawaii. We call it "Asian Walmart." Our day began with breakfast at the Hilton, followed by a stop at the UPS store to pick up some of our shipped boxes, then a trip to Don Quijote.

At the entrance to the store, locals had made a banner and signed it for the people of Japan. People mostly wrote prayers and hopes. One boy wrote that he hopes his Japan Mom is okay. It was a reminder of how good we have it here. Every time I complain about a hotel room or the hassle of moving or how hot it is, Mark says, "We could be like the people in Japan, homeless and sleeping in the cold, worried about everything."
It was a good reminder to be grateful and to give back while we shopped. The Red Cross Japan Effort is getting more of my money soon.

With our list of items we needed in order to function in our new apartment, we checked out of Don Quijote with a few bags and drove to our apartment in an area outside of Honolulu.

We took inventory of what we still needed over lunch at a local cafe. My idea was to hit Bed, Bath and Beyond and Walmart for the rest of our items. Mark decided it was time to buy a new car. Yes, we have a rental car for a week. After that, we are without transportation. There's a bus that goes from our town to Honolulu and if needed, Mark can bus it to work, but we decided we still need a car.

Off to Honda Windward it was. Such a great experience. We spent four hours there and felt like we made new friends. Sitting and getting to know people is a big thing here. We "talked story" with the Finance Manager while our car was being readied and the paperwork was being completed. His son had recently moved to San Francisco and needed a good auto mechanic. I gave him the name and number of the best, most honest mechanics in San Francisco - Richardson Automotive (415) 929-1210.

I dropped off my new car in one of our two allotted parking spaces at our apartment complex. We then took the rental to Bed, Bath and Beyond at the Pearlridge Mall.
Don't follow the directions off iPhone maps. We drove around Aiea and Pearl City trying to find the mall. We turned off the phone and followed our instincts and landed in the parking lot at 6 pm.

TWO HOURS and two shopping carts later, we left Bed, Bath and Beyond. Dinner was at Ala Moana Mall Food Court, only because it was quick, there was parking and security to monitor our stuffed car.

We stopped at our trusted friend's place to pick up a few remaining items and drove back to our apartment.

At 11 pm, we were hot, cranky, tired and just wanted to unload the car and get to sleep. Forgetting about the conditions of the people of Japan, I was focusing on my returning sore throat and feeling run down. Mark drove into the parking garage and up to the top level to find his parking space. The painted numbers for each space had been faded by the sun and we couldn't read any of them. We drove around looking for any number we could read, but the spaces weren't numbered exactly in numerical order. I got out and crouched down to try to read the faded yellow numbers better. Mark and I hardly ever get irritated with each other, but this was pushing us. Finally, I stood in a space and yelled for Mark in the car on the other side of the rooftop. We found it!

Tired and cranky, we unloaded what we could and dragged ourselves to our place. We plopped on the bed and turned on the AC unit in the bedroom. It sounded like a sick jet plane ready for takeoff. There was no way to sleep with that on. Begrudgingly, we stripped the bed and brought the sheets and pillows into the guest bedroom. Good thing we got a two bedroom place!

The AC unit was quiet and soothing and we were fast asleep in no time.
I woke up a solid eight hours later to the sound of tropical birds chirping. Mark made coffee and we sat in our new fold-up chairs watching the morning sun over the green mountains of Oahu. Ah, this is why we moved here.

Our thoughts are still with the people of Japan and we hope they recover soon. I am grateful for the new place to live in a beautiful setting with only two beds, fold-up chairs and a small table. I am safe. My loved ones are safe and healthy. All is well.

Honolulu Here We Come!

Location: Honolulu, Hawaii

After two nights at a hotel near SFO, we made it to Honolulu Airport with four suitcases and four carry-on bags.

I'm surprised at what my absolute necessary items are; my checkbook and extra checks, some cash (because I don't have a bank account in Hawaii yet), my journal, laptop, my back up hard drive, two bath towels and two coffee mugs. I had a change of clothes for four days.

We rented a car and drove to our new apartment. We needed to pick up our keys from our landlord. Happy, happy, we were in Hawaii and heading to our new place. Not happy, the place hadn't been painted after the previous tenant moved out.

The Hilton Hawaiian Village became our home for the next three days. We needed to let the paint smell leave the apartment and we had no furnishings.

We lugged our belongings with us, stopping to leave our most precious items with a trusted friend. The Hilton was so accommodating and it was nice to have a place to crash that had everything there.

For dinner that night, I did what every native Californian does - I found Mexican food.

Our new place is unfurnished, and since we sold/donated/gave away all our items, we had to go shopping. I went to bed anxious to purchase bedding and dishes.

Ah, my well-planned intentions were foiled. I woke up with a sore throat and stomach pains. I was sick.

I slept all day in the comfy Hilton bed and I thank God for the Jewish mother who came to Oahu and left her Matzoh Ball soup recipe with C.J.'s Deli in the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Mark made sure I ate my soup and went to sleep. The next day I was able to open a bank account and meet the delivery men for our new bed.

For our last night at the Hilton, we went to dinner on Waikiki Beach. The sunset welcomed us to Oahu.

Remind me to tell you about last night...and our 11 pm tour of the parking garage.

More Letting Go

The movers come in two days. We've been packing and purging and giving away so much, I can't seem to remember what all I had. The items in my place right now are things I need in the next week or are of sentimental value and cannot be given away.
The rest was shipped to Hawaii yesterday or given away to Salvation Army or friends over the past week.

This morning, I donated my car to the local Humane Society. I've had that car for 13 years and we've created a lot of memories together. So far, this is the toughest item to part with.

The other tough part was saying goodbye to my aunt and uncle. They're really my mother's cousin and wife, but they were like second parents to us growing up.
Their home is the only one that's left from my childhood. I hugged my aunt goodbye, thinking I was so okay with this move, when I started to cry.
So, maybe leaving the Bay Area isn't so easy. I've had a lot of loss this year and letting go of everything really seemed impossible.
But I did it.
I have pared down to just the few belongings I will carry with me on the plane to Hawaii.
A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook status today:
You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. ~Jan Glidewell

Letting Go of the Past

Boxes, bubble wrap, tape....My mind runs through the checklist of packing items over and over. Moving across a large body of water is not like moving across land. When I left Washington, D.C. to come back to California, I called a moving company who came to my door, loaded up my boxes and met me two weeks later at my apartment in San Francisco.

Hello Matson Shipping Company. I can ship my car across the Pacific. I can also rent out a whole Matson container for a huge amount of money and ship my belongings across the Pacific and meet up with the container three weeks later in Honolulu. Then I find a way to get it all to our new place.

Oh, never mind, Matson.

I love being surrounded by boxes and boxes and piles of stuff. I find photos of places and people from long ago tucked away in the pages of a book. Ticket stubs from shows and concerts I've seen over the years. Cards friends have sent me for various occasions.

We've tried to organize the boxes into three categories; getting donated, going to storage, and shipping to Oahu.

The lowest price we can find to ship a box to Hawaii is for $60. One box doesn't even hold bedding for one queen bed. Never, ever have I been forced to purge myself of my possessions this drastically.

And guess what? IT FEELS GREAT! I've discovered I can let go of the past. Many of my talismans, books, notes, photos, etc. have held me to a place that belongs only in memories. I do not need to relive past events. They are in the past for a reason. Obviously, the past is not needed today.

Hawaii is a chance to start anew. Why would I want to drag the past with me 2,500 miles across the Pacific Ocean?

I don't.

Hawaiians talk about the 'aina, the land, and the spiritual fulfillment they get from it. The universe allows no vacuums. If I release the past, new experiences will come into my life today and tomorrow.

I must go now to organize a Salvation Army pick up, friends coming over for kitchen items, my car being donated, and to purge that which I no longer need.

The lightness feels good.

A Send Off Sky

We signed a one-year lease on an apartment. It's official, we are moving to Oahu!

Our last night in town before we came home to pack, we saw rain and gray skies. I was disappointed in the weather that was sending us back to the mainland. No worries. I waited ten minutes and the sky was ablaze with color.
I think Hawaii will continue to amaze me.

Coffee Gets Us Five-0

I had to get out of the city, so we took a little road trip to Kailua. Locals say Kailua is on the "other side" of the island. In actuality, it's a 20-25 minute drive from Honolulu. It's up over the Koolau Mountain range and the Pali and down into Kailua Bay. My coffee addiction led us to the General Market there. The cashier peered at me over the register and said, "Hawaii Five-0 is filming at the beach." My eyes grew big. The coffee trembled in my hand. I turned to Mark who looked just as excited as I. The cashier continued,"The eye candy is there, too." She looked directly at me, not at Mark.

We raced to the beach to find Alex O'Laughlin and Scott Caan and their stunt doubles on the beach. In one photo Alex O'Loughlin and his stunt double are running into the ocean at the end of filming. Scott Caan is reaching into a cooler to get water....for his dog!

The background extras were all hired actors, not like when Mark's grandpa was asked at the time of filming to be an extra in the original show.

Walmart and Whole Foods - Hawaiian Style

With everyone safe from the tsunami on Oahu, it's now back to Cynthia's adventures.


A Whole Foods! A Whole Foods in the Kahala Mall! I was so excited to find my gluten-free and organic foods (Yeah, I know, the whole Monsanto thing, but still, local produce!)and it was familiar. I shopped Whole Foods back in the Bay Area.

I was dreaming of their Classic Roasted Chicken for dinner, with veggies and anything but rice.

While Mark grabbed a cart, I raced to the deli section to find my chicken.....Huli Huli chicken? What?...no classic roast with herbs and olive oil? Not here. Sugar, brown sugar to be exact, is the primary ingredient in Huli Huli chicken.

Disappointed, I searched for another type of chicken in the hot food case. I settled on stir fry vegetable mixed with grilled chicken. Mark and I planned to take a couple of pre-made dinners to the beach the following night. While the man behind the counter packed our boxes, I turned to the left to find, attached to the hot case, a plastic container filled with chopsticks. No forks. Just chopsticks. It's a good thing Mark taught me to use those skinny sticks, otherwise I'd go hungry or resort to the gauche finger-eating style of consuming food!

We stopped at Walmart for cleaning supplies before we met Mark's aunt at her downtown Honolulu office. Here's a hotline phone for a cab, covered in fake plumeria flowers. There was a pay phone next to it. I don't remember the last time a saw a pay phone in the Bay Area.

Oh, and Walmart prices in Honolulu are the same as on the mainland.

After meeting Mark's aunt and uncle, we cleaned the condo with our newly acquired cleaning supplies.

For dinner we ventured back to Kahala. We found Greek Food next to the Kahala mall, but they only accepted cash and we were conserving our cash. You see, banks in Hawaii are different than the rest of the U.S. There's no BofA or Wells Fargo. Bank of Hawaii (Bank Oh) and First Hawaiian are the ones seen everywhere.

We kept driving to St. Louis Heights and found a Greek restaurant. This is well out of the tourist zone. Everyone wore t-shirts, tanks, jeans, capris, flip-flops (slippahs) and running shoes.

We were the only ones wearing aloha shirts.

The food was delicious. The meat was grilled without a sugar or gravy coating on it and not a speck of rice was found on my plate!

While eating, I realized I needed to fit in if I was going to live here. Healthy eating I won't compromise on, but clothing I will change.

We went to Ala Moana for shopping the following day.

That night, while wearing my new lightweight shirt and capri pants, Mark and I ate Whole Foods dinners and watched the fireworks on the beach in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It was a great show, but don't be late. It only lasts five minutes.

Next up, our road trip to Kailua!