Chaos Attraction

Christmas Hula Concert

2013-12-22, 1:48 a.m.

Today had some false starting, but ended pretty well. And it definitely did not end in vehicular death, so there's that.

Mom wanted to wake up at the crack of dawn today (here that is around 7:12 or so) to watch the sun rise over the ocean. I thought this was kind of an insane plane after how late we got back last night, so we were tentatively agreed that I wasn't coming. Except of course I woke up freakishly early for no good reason once again, so I went. Though it seriously took us about a half hour to find a beach (the sun had uh, risen by then), the view was still pretty spectacular. We hung out on the beach, though it was too cold and dangerous to go swim in, for about an hour. Did some shell collection, took pictures, listened to the roosters crow, wondered why these dudes were doing long-range fishing in the ocean without a boat. It was fun. Then we went back to the condo-thing we're in to change clothes and eventually leave to go other places. Oh yeah, and go pick up more Hawaiian Christmas music because Mom kept hearing Numbah One Day Of Christmas (a.k.a. 12 Days of Christmas, Hawaiian Version) on the radio and wanted it, but it wasn't on either of my CD's.

We first headed back to Lihue and hit the Hilo Hattie's there. It wasn't as exciting or large as other ones we've been to, but I did find two very nice dresses, one of which I'm wearing tomorrow. They do seriously pressure you to get a pearl and then buy a setting for it literally right when you walk in, which is annoying. (They do it at all the stores if you go over to the jewelry counter, but this one didn't want to let you into the rest of the store first.) I refused to get my free pearl because I did not want to spend my bucks on buying another pearl setting, because god only knows whatever happened to the ones I had before.

However. It turned out to be a Sunday. This is bad enough when you are on vacation and mix up the days as is, but I forgot that it was Sunday, ON A SMALL TOWN ISLAND....which is to say that Mom and I agreed to go back to the town with the bookstore and about 90 percent of the town was closed for Sunday, including the bookstore. WAH. Then we tried to go to a few other places....which were also closed. Feh. We finally ended up at Bubba's Burgers for lunch in Kolua (where there were still things open), and that was tasty. Then we rediscovered Old Koloa Town, which was somewhere we went back in 2007 and liked, and we spent a pleasant hour shopping there. I got a Kauai ornament--an angel made of shells and it's brightly painted in red glitter. Hah. I kept looking for the T-shirt store that had a "Fountain of Couth" back in the day (the owner, like me, is annoyed by people who spit and that's why I found it delightful)--I think I found the store and it's still cute, but there's no longer a fountain. Sigh. There was, however, a splatted Santa on the wall. Hee.

After that we headed back to Lihue and their mall to see the "holiday light show," which was...well, it was too light to really see that very well. Oh well. I got a brief dinner--Mom was, as usual, too full to eat--and then we headed off to tonight's hula concert. Which had a craft fair taking place before it, so good for me. I ended up getting another flowered hair clip and another book on lei making--this one is incredibly damn complicated leis, but also talks about making clay flowers, so I like that. I had a good time talking to that lady, who is into crochet and told me where the yarn store is and gave me a free pattern for a bag while she was at it. She was telling me about making bikinis when she lived in New Jersey, of all things.

Amusingly enough, in the show we were sitting near the guys we were sitting next to at last night's parade. They were kind of weirded out why Mom was waving to them. And the lady in between us and them was a Canadian who moved here nine years ago, and she's still happy about it. Her story was similar to some of the other women we've talked to--she got a caregiver job that she moved here for and then it fell through, but she didn't care and stayed anyway. That job was just to get her to come here! She commented that some people are just meant to end up on the islands. I wonder if I am one of them.... okay, probably realistically not.

While I am here, I keep thinking about moving to Hawaii. While I am here, it seems more possible. I keep thinking of what I'd like to do and how I'd handle moving...if I had a jillion dollars, right? I know that in a couple of days, i.e. Christmas Day, I'll be crashing hard on reality and remembering that once again I can't do it, there's just too many practical obstacles to handle that are way beyond my mental and financial capabilities and all that crap. But while I'm here, I daydream and it feels like it could happen. Too bad that feeling is easily killed by the anvil of reality that is living on the mainland.

As far as I can tell, the concert was put on by this lady who is a performer (has 5 CD's) and also runs a hula school. So she had a mix of singing and dancing going on, with a lot of Hawaiian versions of Christmas songs and lyrics in Hawaiian. It was very pretty, albeit kinda long. The show started late and then had intermission about 45 minutes in...and then there was about 40 more minutes of intermission (I went back out to shop and talk to the crochet lady again), and then the show ended right before 10! Oy!

But it was entertaining. There were two troupes of hula dancers, adult ladies and the little kids, as well as the lead lady singing, and her dad, and her kid at one point, I think her husband got up towards the end....and the mayor of the town, and a ventriloquist guy who had his puppet sing the whole time. Damn. There was a mentor lady from New Zealand who was doing a Maori-style dance with the adult ladies. There was the dad running off the list of all of his grandchildren....in a giant mumble of Hawaiian names with a random "Patricia" or "Scott" or "Sophie" mixed in. He sounded a bit annoyed that the most recent kid is named Parker. Heh. I liked the Tahitian dancing and the routines done to "Rudolph" and "Numbah One Day Of Christmas." And the line about how "we can build a ... sandman...." Hah.

I wish I was better at recapping this, but it's near midnight here as I am writing this and I need to get it done and get ready for bed, dammit. But we did get home without any major incidents, thank goodness.


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