Kauai did I have to come back?

Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of reasons to come home. One of the best being that I get to spend tomorrow, Thanksgiving day, with my modern family. Thank you, Jacquie, for hosting. It's going to be a great one!

But, really, it wasn't exactly easy to come back from Kauai. I really, really, really, really liked it. It felt quite different than the other islands to me. Super laid back and so, so gorgeous. Mother nature is right in your face, and if mother nature isn't good medicine, I don't know what is.

Another reason for the fun is that we stayed with good friend's of Aquilino's the first 4 nights, so we were with good people who live there full time. It's good to have local hosts/guides.

Let's take a look see.

No photos from our first day/night of travel, beach, then a big table for 8 for dinner at Kintaro's, one of the best sushi places I've ever been to.

The next morning we hit one of the local yoga studios, which was packed (Hmm, The House of Yogi Kauai?), then headed over to Acusport Kauai to check out Suzie's (our host's) clinic set up.

Hey, that logo looks familiar!

Super cute space, 1.5 blocks from beach, right in Kapaa town, so next time you're there, stop in and get a treatment!

After a house call where Aq & Suzie gave one of the Kapaa High's star football players an acupuncture treatment, it was off to climb Sleeping Giant.

We made it to the top!

Pretty view, right?

Turns out we weren't at the top though, so we ventured past the Keep Out signs to the craggy nose? chin? of the sleeping giant. It was windy and high and a little dizzying up there. But an amazing view that I somehow don't have handy.

We cleaned up at Suzie's after and then headed north to Hanalei for some per-concert food and drink. Then to the Church of the Pacific Amphitheater to see Nahko and Medicine for the People, a band we really like and have seen numerous times here on the mainland. Not sure how it worked out that they played during our short stay, but it did.

The next day, a weekend day, Suzie & Jeff took us all the way out Lupe road to a tubing spot. Aq & I were standing in the back of their souped up Suzuki Samari all the way back there. Talk about a bumpy ride.

Yes, please look up our noses.

We ended up with some hip bruises, but they were well worth it.

Once parked, we grabbed our inter-tubes and then jumped in some cold, clean water and set off down two pitch-black tunnels to arrive here:

Hi Jeff! Hi Aq! This might be my favorite photo of the trip.

It took us longer than expected driving in and out of that adventure, so we missed the first half of the Kapaa High playoff game. But we arrived just in time to drink a half-time beer in the parking lot with Aaron (dad of the banged-up star football player and long, long time friend of Aq's) and his friends.

They won! So those boys were headed off to the Hawaiian Islands championships on Oahu the following weekend.

Post-win beer in parking lot.
Hi Aaron, Denise, Tyler, Aaron's mom, Suzie and me!
Can you believe I forgot my very green Kauai Power Yoga hat??

The next morning found us doing more morning yoga, at a different studio in Kailua that was so packed she had people practicing in the retail area. (Hmm, The House of Yogi Kauai?)

We then ventured farther north, again to Hanalei, for some proper beach time.

Then farther north,

Do not touch the rocks on the way into this cave. You will get yelled at!

finally to the end of the road at the Na Pali trail head.

We arrived rather late in the day, so couldn't give it a proper hike this time around, but we did scramble up a bit, enough for some good views. Next time, early arrival, major hike.

At some point I snapped these photos of the yard at Suzie and Jeff's.They live on a gorgeous piece of land that backs up to a mountain. Other than the ubiquitous chickens the place is one of the quietest I've ever been too. Talk about good sleeping.

Another day, I forget which one by this point, Suzie was good enough to drive us around to some total tourist spots.

Wailua Falls

And the Koloa Rum Company. They offer free rum tastings many times daily. We learned how to properly layer rum (think mai tais) and sipped 6 different varieties. If you're wondering, rum tasting gets you more buzzed than wine tasting.

Later that day we bid farewell to Suzie and Jeff and headed to the south side of the island, to Poipu beach.

Two nights of hotel living was pretty nice too.

View from balcony

Oh, wait I do remember what day it was, or night anyway....it was the night of the super moon!  We headed down to Poipu beach, post-moon rise, which was amazingly empty.

Mistah, where are you when we need you with your mad photo skills?

Except for all the turtles who came on shore for their moon bath.

Just look at these lovelies!

This guy was way up on shore. He wanted the full super moon effect I suppose.

After bidding farewell to the turtles we drank beer and did handstands in the moonlight, a super moon to remember for sure.

The next day we checked out the west side of the island, heading off early to Waimea Canyon.

See that thin, high falls back there?

Hi!

Aww. Look at all those babies!
If you've not been to Kauai, well, let me tell you, there are chickens EVERYWHERE! No kidding. These happen to be Wiamea canyon chickens.

We hiked a few miles for the view below.

Worth it!

That afternoon found us swimming or on the beach, or surfing if you were Aq.

Our final morning we took a cruise along the south shore, which is lovely with it's lava rock lined beaches.

All in all, I heart Kauai. Like a really big, fresh flower lei kind of heart Kauai.

Head In The Sand

Here's what I'm doing instead of facing reality.

Hanging out with Mistah whilst he takes photos . . .

And cleaning . . .

Raise that window, Schlecka! 

. . . I cleaned a lot of the north side of our house on Saturday . . .

. . . and it made me feel better . . .

. . .  see?

Nature is helping a lot . . .

. . . like, seriously . . .

. . .  a lot.

And you know what helps the most?

Fire . . . 

. . . and Wine.

Wine by the fire, specifically.

Wine and fire and weekend.

. . . and celebrating Jacquie's birthday from afar.

Wine and Fire and Weekend and Nature and Celebrations.

And *all* the sand from Ocean Beach under which to bury my head.

my favorite story

As long as I'm alive and blogging, I'm going to re-post this one every damn year. I love reading it, and I loved writing it way back in 2008 when we still had our innocence and all that boundless hope and optimism, and we still had our Dad. I talked to mom and dad frequently while writing this post on the eve of my 40th birthday. Mom mailed me page upon page of her handwritten journals and I started writing, then we sent drafts back and forth for fact checking and revision. It's my favorite story. If you click the title you can go back to the original posting and read the comments. I always do:

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2008

Heart and Seoul

When their fourth daughter was born in 1966, my parents were pretty well settled into a place in life that they had worked hard to reach. They had purchased a house in a great neighborhood, Dad was building his surgical practice with a reliable partner and friend, and the girls were happy and healthy. It was a turbulent time for America though, in the thick of a violent mess in Vietnam. Mom and Dad were keeping an eye on things, as a physician Dad was still technically eligible for the draft until he turned 35. By the time they discovered that baby number five was on her way, he was over 34 and they thought they were home free.

Everything started falling apart in June when Joe got a notice from the draft ordering him to active duty! He tried for deferments; he was now 34 years old with four children and the fifth on the way. We wrote to everyone right up to the President, but received the same standard replies – we need him. His orders arrived shortly thereafter – the address was APO San Francisco. I said ‘well, California will be nice,’ but Joe told me that APO San Francisco was Korea – an unaccompanied tour – we were devastated!

Why Korea? Excellent question. Korea was a United Nations Command, and there were 60,000 American troops stationed there at the time, as well as diplomats and civilian dependents, all of whom needed doctors to care for them. So naturally the Army chose a 34 year old father of 5 and shipped him over there for a 13 month tour, which was considered too short a time to transport dependent family members.

Mom had undergone an emergency c-section with her last baby (Julie has always been the difficult one), and with her due date just 2 months later, my parents knew that the next baby would also take the front door out of mom’s prolific womb. The c-section was scheduled for August 21^st, Dad’s orders were to report to basic training on August 22^nd. But the US Army is neither heartless nor rigid; of course they extended his deployment date! They gave him three weeks.

On September 12, 1967, Joe left for M.D. basic training in San Antonio, Texas and I was on my own. We both got through that month –probably the worst in our lives – and he came home for one week on October 10^th. We had a great week… We spent his last night alone, had a candlelight dinner after the kids were tucked in…He was off to Seattle, and then on to Korea. He called me from Seattle and that was it. 

Mom and Dad did their best to settle in to their newly massacred lives. Mom had lots of help from family and friends, Dad had 5 doctor roommates in his “hooch.” Mom and Dad sent each other audio tapes every day. Every. Day. If mom didn’t receive her tape one day, she’d haul everyone over to the post office to see if it had arrived after the postman had left to make his deliveries.

Aside: as kids, we had the scandalous pleasure of listening to some of these tapes many years later. But honestly, all that love and emotion between our parents was just plain gross.

On two distant ends of the earth, my parents were frantically searching for ways to be together. Mom wrote letters. Dad worked the system. There was housing available for dependents, but there was a strict hierarchy about who qualified, and our favorite young doc was relatively low on that totem pole. When a house did become available, first dibs went to all of the senior officers, who promptly turned it down. For them it meant prolonging their stay to two years in order to have their dependents join them, but for a career officer, this cushy 13 month “hardship tour” in Korea was preferable to any time in Vietnam. So it was a no-brainer for them to pass on the house. It was a no-brainer for mom and dad, too. Another year apart versus any length of time, together, anywhere?

It was a golden opportunity for us – Joe volunteered to extend his tour and spend the two years of service there, and for this his entire family would be brought over! This sounds easy on paper, but it took months of letters, phone calls, anticipations, disappointments, and finally I received a telegram on a Saturday morning in February telling me that that we were on our way – start getting the inoculations! I started that very day – took everyone over to Dr. Flynn, our longtime pediatrician, where he started inoculating the girls against plague, cholera, typhus – you name it!

So, mom and the girls got ready to move to Korea! The arrangements were staggering, as was the sheer volume of crap – including a Ford Station Wagon – that would be carried or shipped overseas for the duration. But there was a plan, and as complicated and exhausting as that plan was, the end result was our family, together.

When the day finally came, it turned out that the plan was off to a rocky start. Mom and the girls were scheduled to fly from JFK to Seattle, then to Tokyo, then to Seoul. The first flight was okay, but the overseas leg had been cancelled. Instead of a 3 hour layover at Sea/Tac, they would have to be there overnight. The mob that had gathered to see them off started to strategize. It didn’t make any sense for them to go and then have to deal with taxis and motels and changes of clothes, they should spend the night at Mom’s brother’s home on Long Island and make the whole trip the next day. But Mom had hung her dreams on this departure date. She was coiffed and ready. The girls were ready. The 17 suitcases that they had begged, borrowed, and stolen were packed and ready. It was today. She was going.

My Mom and family were weeping, Sitoo and Uffie (Joe’s mom and sister) were weeping, Dink Brown was weeping – I was grinning from ear to ear!

A motel in Seattle? No problem for mom. A phone call at 2 am instructing mom that she had to file more civilian paperwork before heading to the base for their morning flight? Whatever. They are out of milk for her newborn, infant, toddlers, and kids on this transpacific flight? Okey doke! She could handle anything. She was on her way.

Mom and the girls (ages: 6 months, 18 months, 4, 6, and 7… go ahead and imagine that) made lots of nice friends during these travels. For plane changes, anyone who was “helping” was allowed to pre-board with the civilians, so there were always at least ten soldiers at Mom’s beck and call. It wasn’t easy, but it was forward motion. And by the time they boarded a nearly empty flight from Tokyo to Seoul, they were home free. It was just the family and about 80 servicemen. There was a steward assigned just to help Mom. He made a bed for each girl in her own row of seats. They all slept. Mom had her first peaceful meal in days, and even caught a few winks. She was starting to breathe again.

Suddenly, they were descending! The five girls were in their little beds, there was stuff everywhere, it was cold out and they needed jackets and they probably all had to pee….

Meanwhile, on the ground, Dad was frantic. Communication had been shoddy, he had not received word that their flight had been delayed, so he didn’t know when they were coming. He had arranged for a car and driver and a truck and driver to transport his arriving harem and their impressive amount of gear, and he spent two days driving to Kimpo airport to meet each incoming plane from Seattle/Tokyo. Twice the caravan had to turn back disappointed. On the third attempt he asked to see the manifest and there it was: Corey, Corey, Corey, Corey, Corey, and Corey. They were here!

On the plane: The rules said that the civilians had to deplane first, so the servicemen were all standing by until Mom and the girls could get themselves out the door. “Can’t he come and help me?”

On the ground: Dad was in the hanger, pleading to be allowed onto the plane, but rules are rules…

On the plane: Ellie still needed to be buttoned into her coat, they were almost ready…

On the ground: Finally, a kind-hearted lieutenant gave Dad a nod and let him on the plane…

I looked up and there was Joe – I hadn’t seen him in four months! I left Ellie to finish buttoning her coat and ran into his arms. As we were kissing, I became aware of applause – all the servicemen on the plane were standing and cheering – what a scene!

Exactly 268 days later, mom learned how to play honeymoon bridge, and spent the whole day doing just that with her doctor at Seoul Military Hospital, while the big girls were at school and the little ones played at home in the pink stucco duplex by the golf course. Mom was Dr. Jordan’s only patient, and both were hoping that the pitocin would successfully jump start labor so this baby could be born “naturally”. When there was no progress by 7:00 that night, my parents’ sixth daughter was born via c-section (mom’s third in as many years) on November 19, 1968.

But could someone please check that math? I’m way too young to be forty.

Our two year stay in Seoul was a wonderful family time, made even more wonderful because after all those lonely months, we were all together. Jacquie was quite an attraction in Seoul with her blue eyes and blonde curls – people would literally stand and stare at her wherever we went. We had to go to the embassy in Seoul and renounce her Korean citizenship on her behalf before we left Korea.

Thanks for that, mom and dad. And for being enamored and tenacious enough to live out this story. I couldn’t have done it without you!

I