Newly volunteered

It's been quiet around the Grove, but that may just be because everyone is chilled to the bone. The sun's zenith today barely nudged the thermometer above 55 degrees. I have on a turtleneck shirt, a fleece vest, a fleece jacket and warm pants. I am setting my furniture on fire to keep my home warm and huddling near it, remembering Hawaii.

The joke on residents here in Fungus Corners is that homes are not built with insulation. The average temperature is 54 degrees. The ocean is the same temperature. The only way you can tell you're in your living room versus being in the ocean is kelp. It's kind of like no one in Florida having a fan in their homes or any snow shovels in Minnesota. I put my shoes out to dry from my walk on the beach last weekend (six days ago) and they were still wet today when I needed them again. One day last fall when it was actually sunny, I became especially frugal and conservation minded and decided to hang my newly washed towels out to dry on a line out in my back yard. In the sun. They never got dry. The sea air, you see, is very moist, and even when it's not foggy, it still feels foggy.

I've been looking for some way to exert some effort in behalf of Mother Nature in spite of her insistence on chilling me to the bone in late May and sending her minions (gulls) to shit on my car. I still love her and her eccentricities in spite of all that so I signed up as a volunteer to monitor pollution spilling into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. A notice appeared in our local paper, so I got myself organized and sufficiently curious to find out just what was going on.

About 25 grizzled old people a.k.a. Baby Boomers and one young, pretty Millennial showed up. What is a Millennial anyway, you ask? A person raised by a Baby Boomer who has been taught that they are to follow their passion in life, they are winners, they are destined to succeed, they are special and also to work hard in school so that all that their parents expect of them and they expect of the world will be possible. That is, they will be CEOs a week or two after they graduate from Harvard.

Boomers, a group I am added to by virtue of my age, are inherently intent on volunteering for everything under the sun as long as it involves understanding the sun, ascertaining the spiritual nature of the sun, decrying all manner of energy use except that derived from the sun, and reminiscing about embroidering emblems of the sun, daisies and rainbows on their cutoff jeans back in the 60s. Boomers begat Millennials and fomented all their neuroses. Boomers are the ultimate helicopter parents, hovering around their newly adult children as they praise their every intake of breath and successful completion of dressing, brushing and flossing. Boomers are also now monitoring the slow but steady decline of their parents - the very parents they derided so vigorously for being conformist and dull as they plodded their way out of the 50s with Gin and Tonics gripped tightly in their hands at cocktail hour every day. Millennial are the generation who tried to escape their parents on Facebook and now realize, to their horror, that their parents have embraced Facebook like a long-lost commune.

So, we all gathered in the parking lot of the Marine Sanctuary offices in New Monterey yesterday, we Boomers and the one Millennial. After signing up we walked off to San Carlos Beach, which literally crawls with SCUBA divers every weekend. I noticed the Monterey Chamber of Commerce employees (sea otters and other attractive marine life) were practicing their cute poses, frolicking winningly and posing alertly for cameras. One came astonishingly close to shore and seemed about to step up on the sand and begin dancing for us. A few gulls idled by, probably digesting a late lunch and building up a supply of guano to blast at parked cars. They had that bored, the-world-is-full-of-shit look on their faces and, as usual, were just too happy to prove it with gusto. I considered putting a Diarrhea Curse on them, but obviously that would be counterproductive. I need to learn a Constipation Curse for them because everything they eat produces the opposite effect.

We learned about measuring pH, testing air and water temperature, measuring flow width, moisture width, flow depth, describing the appearance of the area, and detailing information about the instruments used for each test. We learned the secret names of outflow pipes we were to monitor during the dry season. Names like Steinbeck, Twins, Congress and others. We felt thrilled by the induction into a nefarious secret spy society, even if all we were to do was collect data on street runoff. We felt cool. I wanted to wear a Fedora and Ray Bans, carry a really clicky pen, snap the clip on my clipboard and stare into the dark vaults of offending storm drains accusingly.

The cities of Monterey and Pacific Grove use the data we Boomers and One Millennial will gather in order to deter illegal use of gutters for dumping. They need to prove to the EPA and some other pollution control government agencies that they are trying to detect and thus prevent pollutants from getting to the bay. I'm all for it. Deterrence, that is. I am thus pitching in and helping to produce data for the various agencies and entities to mull over.

Feeling smug and elite with our newly gained skills, we disassembled and went our various ways, Boomers to save the universe and Millennial to text her friends. I ambled along Cannery Row a little ways. The surf swell amounted to about four inches. It could have been a lake out there except for the perky heads of sea otters popping up in the kelp beds now and again. The sky grew rosy between wisps of fog that had floated overhead from the Pacific Grove Perpetual Fog bank. It was the time at last when the sun drags her petticoats over to the horizon and sighs heavily as she sets herself on down for the day. The streetlights winked on and the tiny wavelets shushed the laughing insolent gulls.

Salt is always caked on my shoes, my fingers are stiff from the chill air, but the Groove is cool now and again.

Hawaii and Oahu recommendations

As a mental note to myself and for you who want the short version of my recent vacation experience:

Oahu favorites:

Town restaurant in Kaimuki
Satura Cakes - three locations in Honolulu
Leonards Bakery (malasadas)
Spices (Thai and Asian restaurant)
Haleiwa Cafe for breakfast (get there before 9)

Big Island favorites:

Hapuna Beach State Park (best swimming beach, not so good snorkeling) north of the airport
Splashers Grill (gigantic burgers, huge breakfasts, right by seawall in Kona)
Kilauea Lodge in Volcano village
Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort veranda/lanai
Kahalu'u Beach for great snorkeling near Kona
Keawe Kitchen in Volcano village (best salad, thin crust pizza)

Surfin' to Starbucks

Hawaii is pretty. The air is soft, the pace is slower. Actually, it isn't any slower than here in Pacific Grove, but since it's not blustery and cold, it feels slower. Here, you peer hopefully out of your window, considering your possibilities. You see sun, bobbing flowers on vines, and all seems quiet and calm. Then, you step out onto your front porch. You notice kids playing on playgrounds are shrieking with cold, not happiness. Birds overhead are flying sideways or backwards, not floating lightly on a freshening breeze. Whitecaps stack up like folding chairs, smashing to bits on the shore. The average ocean temperature is about 52 degrees or so. A romantic stroll on the beach becomes a Frankenstein-like staggering lurch on frozen bowling ball feet. For me, as a resident of The Groove, the most shocking thing, the most stunning, is that when I venture into the ocean in Hawaii, I come out alive. Better than that, I'm smiling and I don't want to ever leave.

You don't have to wear a wetsuit in Hawaii. Locals do everything in the water there. Eat, play, sleep, swim, surf, watch TV, you name it. Sick of traffic? Jump in the ocean! Tired of work? Go swim! Just waking up? Go surf! We stayed at the Beachcomber Hotel on Waikiki at the end of the week, which sounds romantic and was to a certain extent. I'll leave out the part about roaring rooftop air conditioning units, traffic noise, police sirens, loud music from a karoake bar. Our view from the 18th floor looking at Diamondhead was spectacular and the room was fresh, comfortable and new, but what really struck me was seeing surfers paddling out at 6 AM. (I was still on California time I think). It's the best Waikiki Starbucks location. Paddle out, catch a dozen waves, paddle in and go off to work.

It's tempting to think I can adopt a Hawaiian lifestyle here in the Groove, but I just step out on the front porch and reality slaps that happy little dream right down. Conditions here make the heart grow fonder for conditions there in the islands - water conditions anyway.

A Mother's Day Adventure and Some Cats

One more day on Oahu and then I fly home with Gary, some photographs and some islandy-looking stuff to try to retain the sense of being in a tropical paradise. Going back in my mind over the past week - only one week! - I feel the same as when I look back on three weeks in normal life, if it is ever really normal, whatever normal is. You know. Who's normal anyway and why let them decide if I'm also normal or not? The average, the median. I'm not. Normal, that is. Who needs that anyway?

I was treated rather royally on Mother's Day by Serena and Clay at the quaint and historical Tea Room in Manoa, which dates back in age about 100 years, I believe. The brunch was scrumptous and lavish. Everywhere, we were surrounded by all manner of very pleased moms and their attentive families. Many of the moms were extremely petite grandmothers wearing old-fashioned muu-muus, which fit into the decor and nostalgic feel of the setting. The Tea Room is set in a lush area filled with flowering trees and shrubs including hibiscus the size of dinner plates. We all ate until our eyes bulged out, having selected virtually all possible choices from the pretty buffet. Clay won the prize for massive consumption, having gone back for what I think ended up to be fourteenths, and he was smiling the whole time. I was absolutely stuffed to the highest possible stuffing point and went into a carbohydrate coma not too long afterwards. It was a good thing we had walked over and would need to walk home again afterwards. I kind of staggered, really, somnolent but content.

Clay and Serena and their two roommates live on a very, very steep hillside overlooking Manoa, which is historic in some way, and certainly looks quaint and charming from their vantage point, the vantage point of an eagle's aerie on a mountain peak. You need to see their driveway to appreciate the true meaning of steep. I recommend having a 4-wheel-drive vehicle with a winch attached to the front end. They have developed a routine where you call ahead to tell them you're coming, that you're lost in the neighborhood, that you need them to send out a Search and Rescue party, which they are happy to do. Once you find their street, they lower a hook on a stout cable to the road below and haul you up as your wheels spin, the gears grind away and your clutch fries to bits. It's nerve wracking to negotiate the street and then the driveway. They just grin away and nod appreciatively as you clench the steering wheel and pray to all gods and goddesses that you will not begin to roll backward. To add to your anxiety, there is a nearly bottomless chasm that flanks the driveway - no guardrail to fend off wayward vehicles - one small miss turn of the steering wheel and you and yours are history. There were the rusted remains of a few cars at the lower reaches of the chasm, all twisted and grim looking, that I took note of as we began the ascent.

Returning to the driveway on foot after the enormous buffet, I visualized myself doing the same tumble as the poor skier on Wide World of Sports did all those years when Jim McKay was the announcer: "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!" he would say as the skier bashed and slammed his way down the side of a ski jump in Kitzbuehl, Austria, or somewhere snowy and painful. I imagined myself, too, pinwheeling wildly through the neighbors' yards on my way to Safeway, landing there up-side down in a heap on a display of Spam. Mothers would yank their terrified kids out of the way and point in stunned amazement at the sight of a large haole woman in a sundress - now barefoot after having lost her sandals after the seventh flip - cartwheeling helplessly down the avenues of plumeria and hibiscus trees.

I was trudging along, stuffed with brunch and felt gravity pulling fiendishly at me while negotiating the hazards of the steepest driveway on earth, but I did manage to appreciate the flora and fauna of Manoa all around me.

Hawaii has a lot of natural beauty, but very little of it is actually technically Hawaiian anymore. For years, well-meaning but woefully uninformed visitors have sneaked their favorite flowering plants or trees to the islands, and every single one of them has run amok. I sat at breakfast in Kona this morning and looked up and down the street. Not a single native plant was anywhere in sight. No native birds. As a matter of fact, a conversation with a merchant yielded the following: There is a group of individuals in Kona who call themselves the AdvoCats whose aim it is to protect and defend all the feral cats in the area. Mind you, there are apparently thousands of them, and they all rush in from every direction like a plague of locusts whenever one of the AdvoCats arrives at feeding time with Cat Food for them. So? I like cats, by the way, quite a bit, as a matter of fact. More than dogs, actually. But, when you defend feral cats who are suffering with disease, injury, poor nutrition, overpopulation, lack of protection from the weather, you also cause a decline in prey species. Also known as native birds. They are virtually gone. The merchant said that a conservation group is very interested in reducing the numbers of feral cats, finding them homes, spaying and neutering them, and reintroducing native birds. The AdvoCats said no, the cats must stay. I'm curious and will research this, but the evidence bore out the story. No native birds to be seen nor heard and lots of furtive skinny and unhappy looking cats.

Yes, I made it to the top of the driveway eventually, and admired myself for having accomplished that. Hey, I was wearing wedge heels and a dress, I will have you know. It's absolutely true that most people would wear crampons and use a hand-axe to fashion hand-holds in the near-vertical surface. The dizzying sight of Manoa spread below us was exciting, glorious, thrilling. Until I realized I was going to have to go down the driveway once more to get back to our hotel. Visions of the Agony of Defeat blazed across my brain. I haven't bought a plot at our local cemetery yet. I do have life insurance. I would have to be cremated if they could find my remains.

Gary offered to drive the car back to our hotel. I handed him the keys, got in, pulled my seat belt on tightly and closed my eyes and prayed all over again to the gods and goddesses, promising never to eat chocolate again - it sounded reasonable at the time - and closed my eyes and screamed. The agony of defeat seemed certain. Clay and Serena waved weakly, hopefully, sadly from the safety of their doorstep as we launched our pile-of-crap Chrysler Sebring rental car into the abyss. Who BUILDS a driveway like that anyway?

You know that weird creaky sound that car brakes make as a car begins to overcome the grip of the brake pads? It's a low grunting creak and means the brakes are about to give a bit and then a bit more unless you stomp the bejabbers out of them and put your foot through the floorboard. That's what the car brakes were doing as we launched. Gary is a big strong guy, but this was a life-and-death issue. At least to me anyway. I wasn't absolutely sure his muscles were up to the test. Hmmm, he looked remarkably nonchalant. I know, because I glanced at him from between my fingers. I had a horrible feeling that the car was going to do an endo and slam down in a grinding heap up-side down on the neighbor's rooftop. The brakes were making that odd and ominous creak. I think the extra 40 pounds we gained at brunch were tipping the scales in favor of gravity and against the possibility that the brakes would hold or even remotely be able to control the car. At the bottom of the 90-degree incline was a sharp left turn that we would also have to negotiate in order to regain the street and then the avenue beyond.

Gary asked me if I was going to stop screaming. He wanted to listen to the song on the radio instead. I took a deep breath and regained my composure, remembering a vividly written short story I'd read in a college English class about a young Japanese couple who commit hari kari after learning of Japan's defeat in World War II. Their faces were composed, beautiful, perfect, even in the face of unspeakable horrors. I would be like that, too. Being around so many small Asian people in the past few days in Hawaii had taught me a lot, I told myself. I, too, could persevere in the face of calamity and remain composed, serene.

The car began rolling and then faster and faster. Gary turned up the radio. "Born to be wiiiiiiiiilllllld!!!" I thought of ski jumpers flopping like rag dolls, perfect Japanese Samurai couples preparing to commit suicide, pancakes and coconut syrup, hibiscus spinning like ferris wheels. It all became a blur. I couldn't stop screaming.

"Hey what was in that mango bread pudding anyway? We made it! I don't know how Serena does that hill on foot every day. I guess I raised a mountain goat.....but she's a good one.

Not in the Groove

I realized a couple of days ago that I was in Hawaii. Hmm, I said, this is not my usual groove, but I like it. Writing has been interrupted, thoughts misappropriated and my pace altered lately, but at least it's not the swine flu.

While I've been away, I saw Berkeley through the music of Van Morrison, who levitated on the Greek Theater stage for two and a half hours and then disappeared in a long white limo from stage left while his band was still playing. I don't know if he has ever visited the Grove where I live, but he might like it. The golf links may remind him of Ireland. Certainly, the cold ocean would do that. He wears a hat all the time and dark glasses and he makes sudden swatting motions toward band members as he sings, but you can't tell if he's doing some sort of musical direction or if he just needs to express himself wildly. Probably both. No telling though. Anyway, he played a song at the end and taught us all how to spell Gloria really well. The audience seemed thrilled to have learned how. They all stood up and clapped like mad. Also, his drummer fell over backward, but he's okay, during the changeover from one song to another, but I don't think Van noticed.

Then, I went to brunch with an exuberant Swiss man, Leander, and his beautiful wife, Kress. Gary joined in and we talked about airports and management and sailing in the Bahamas, which is where the Swiss and his Mrs are now. Sailing a 40-foot boat for 10 days in order to relax. They've been close to the Grove before and survived it pretty well. They like Monterey better, as do most people, because it's warmer and has a few dozen picturesque adobes built by early Californios. At some point along the line, we transitioned from being Californios to Californians, but I don't think it was during brunch that day. Probably earlier on in our history. So, after brunch, which by the way was at the Lafayette Park Hotel, we went home through miles of lush, flowering landscape. Spring has been unusually abundant with flowers, and I am renewing my pride in being a Californian, even if many other residents are throwing cigarette butts all over the place. The only thing I approve being discarded willy nilly is glass, but it must be thrown into the ocean so it can become sea glass.

No sooner had I arrived home than I went to a cardiology conference on Cannery Row, which has not one cannery on it anymore. There's a new gigantic hotel on the Row called Intercontinental The Clement or some odd contortion of words. It's very modern, the staff is very good, very well trained and they hand out warm cookies during breaks at conferences like mine, but I think that was because doctors were in attendance. You notice quite a bit of difference between conferences that doctors attend and those that humans attend. Doctors are lavished with delicious coffee, gourmet offerings of all sorts and many accoutrements too numerous to list. Nursing conferences give out stale bagels and Folgers. Nurses may be too tired to notice for the most part. They work hard and like to dream about what they would do if they won the lottery. They probably would not be attending conferences with doctors.

The conference was good, mostly because it had good food, but also because cardiologists talked about ablation, ST segment elevations and algorithms to determine candidates for surgical procedures. It made me appreciate the fact that they are up to their eyeballs in that material all the time and I am not, so I am very happy. But I am happy mostly because I am not at that conference but lived through it and consider it a miracle.

Next, I took a look around Specific Groove and could tell summer was getting closer again, just like it had a year ago. It's the worst time to spend time in town because it literally has the coldest average daily temperatures. So, I decided to follow through on plans to head off for Hawaii, which is when I noticed I was already in Hawaii. Jet lag you know.

Hawaii is more than that island. On this trip, it has been Oahu, too. I noticed I got taller in Hawaii right after I noticed I was actually here. Many people here are very short. They also like to be known as diminutive, but that word is not short - it has four syllables - so I prefer to call them short. Not only are they short, but they are Asian. I have resigned myself to being very visible by virtue of the fact that I can see the tops of so many heads wherever I go. I am sensitive to the fact that I need to use plenty of Kleenex when I am surrounded by seas of short people. The food servings are smaller because Asians seem not to embrace the concepts of hefty, gross, avoirdupois, or ginormous. Asians, more often Japanese in Hawaii than other nationalities, think in non-temporal terms. You, me eating. No past, no future, only now. It's very different than the Arabs who trust all in Allah at every moment. I wondered about that when I was surrounded by shuffling crowds on Kalakaua Avenue. One car entered an intersection hesitantly and then stopped. The driver looked up at the signal light, to the right, to the left, up again. Someone in the car unfolded a map. Another car zoomed crazily toward the same intersection and that driver seemed to be glowering darkly. He was dark and swarthy. I imagined he was on his way to midday prayers at the temple. He invented his own lane, did not bother with his brakes.

Hawaii is being overrun by English sparrows, who scream loudly for attention beginning at 5 AM, hoping for crumbs from tourists at cafes and park benches. If every English sparrow would just turn into a Hawaiian dove and coo sweetly instead, the world would be a much better place. I think W's entire cabinet will be reincarnated as English sparrows. Either that or cowbirds. More likely it will be cowbirds because they lay their eggs in host birds' nests, sneaking them in like CIA operatives. Then the hatchlings hog all the food that the adult birds bring home, eventually shoving the weaker nestmates out and grow up to be large, ugly and pigheaded.

We left Oahu and all its screaming invasive species as well as a pretty hefty amount of cash and went off to the Big Island. Paradise (aka Hawaii) is very relaxing until you realize how much money you are spending very rapidly. Then you wake up suddenly from one of those falling dreams, consider screaming for help and realize Specific Groove really has its merits. I shopped at Ala Moana all afternoon on Mothers Day as a sort of re-enactment of mother-child interdependence. It is also the mother of all malls (at least of those I have been to), which made it especially appropos. It has all of the exact same very expensive stores Kalakaua Avenue does except they are all right next to each other in one exorbitantly rich concentration. The Avenue is very long and there are various other business concerns interspersed along it that dilute the impact of buying $500 scarves and $1,200 purses. Ala Moana in comparison has 240 stores to tempt you. I resisted all but about three. Then I left the island.

I floated and bobbed and frolicked at Hapuna Beach until I could feel my sunblock falling back for reinforcements. I noticed a man who, if he had been dressed well in an elegant city like Paris or Milan, would have looked perfectly normal. But, he was overdone, just like a piece of beef jerky wearing running shorts.

I thought of tsunamis and earthquakes, lava flows and Pele demanding chickens be tossed into her calderas. Hawaii is a big new island compared to Oahu. I'm not sure where to get the chickens yet because we just got here, but I'll let you know. Maybe she'll accept English sparrows.