I am beginning to feel my normally cheery self slipping away. The rain is beginning to get to me. I expected it to rain here. I did. I thought I was fully prepared.
I also vowed to give this place a fair chance. But it has now been nearly five months, and it is still raining. Except for the first week I was here and fewer than a handful of days that were partly sunny, it's rained. Shoot, even Lewis and Clark knew, when they were holed up at Fort Clatsop enduring the longest, wettest winter of their lives, that Spring would come eventually. Here on the east side of Hawaii Island, I am not so sure. Now, I've always thought of myself as someone who loves the rain. I love the way it seems to freshen the world. I grew up in a place that gets plenty most years. But there's a far cry from 40 or 50 or 60 inches a year and 140 plus inches. Here, we never get that "just after a good rain" smell. That's because it's always raining, so there's no basis for comparison. If it rains here all summer and I lose my summer by having moved to Hawaii (what irony, huh?) then I will have to seriously reconsider my location. Moving to the other side of the island is out of the questions since the cost of housing there is way out of our price range.
I think the worst thing about it is, on those rare days when the sun does peak through the omnipresent cloud cover, we feel compelled to work around the yard rather than go to the beach or the park. So we never really get to enjoy where we are. And if that's just the way it is, why be here? I might enjoy it more if I simply came here for vacation once or twice a year.
I'm even getting sick of the music they play on the local all Hawaiian radio stations. Some of it is really exceptional. There are local artists here who are talented, for sure. But the really good stuff is played sparingly, in between hours of Jawaiian, Paniolo and incredibly cheasy pop tunes. Where the hell is Jawaii, anyway? Jawaiian is just local artists playing raggae music with a Hawaiian slant. And that slant is slight, to be sure. They even sing with a Jamaican accent, (Yeah, mon)which is weird, since they have their own island accent that sounds nothing like the Caribbean. Paniolo, or cowboy music, is Hawaiian country & western. Oddly, it too is sung with a bit of a southern twang. Neither are done particularly well. Then there are those really corny local pop songs like "Big Island Ladies." The chorus goes like this: "I like those B-I-G Island ladies (Big Island ladies)Those sexy body girls they drive me crazy (they drive me crazy)..." That is probably the most requested song around her right now. Or "Your body's just like a Chevy...." Ron likes to sing along to that one with me in the car. They also play a lot of cover tunes performed by island artists. Some are good. Not all. It's about 80 percent bubblegum crap that's all been done before, better. The 20 percent that's good, however, is really good.
If it rains tomorrow, I will have no choice but to jump in the car and drive to the sun. The vitamin D supplements aren't quite cuttin' it. I think I'm beginning to experience the early onset of rickets. Aloha!
I also vowed to give this place a fair chance. But it has now been nearly five months, and it is still raining. Except for the first week I was here and fewer than a handful of days that were partly sunny, it's rained. Shoot, even Lewis and Clark knew, when they were holed up at Fort Clatsop enduring the longest, wettest winter of their lives, that Spring would come eventually. Here on the east side of Hawaii Island, I am not so sure. Now, I've always thought of myself as someone who loves the rain. I love the way it seems to freshen the world. I grew up in a place that gets plenty most years. But there's a far cry from 40 or 50 or 60 inches a year and 140 plus inches. Here, we never get that "just after a good rain" smell. That's because it's always raining, so there's no basis for comparison. If it rains here all summer and I lose my summer by having moved to Hawaii (what irony, huh?) then I will have to seriously reconsider my location. Moving to the other side of the island is out of the questions since the cost of housing there is way out of our price range.
I think the worst thing about it is, on those rare days when the sun does peak through the omnipresent cloud cover, we feel compelled to work around the yard rather than go to the beach or the park. So we never really get to enjoy where we are. And if that's just the way it is, why be here? I might enjoy it more if I simply came here for vacation once or twice a year.
I'm even getting sick of the music they play on the local all Hawaiian radio stations. Some of it is really exceptional. There are local artists here who are talented, for sure. But the really good stuff is played sparingly, in between hours of Jawaiian, Paniolo and incredibly cheasy pop tunes. Where the hell is Jawaii, anyway? Jawaiian is just local artists playing raggae music with a Hawaiian slant. And that slant is slight, to be sure. They even sing with a Jamaican accent, (Yeah, mon)which is weird, since they have their own island accent that sounds nothing like the Caribbean. Paniolo, or cowboy music, is Hawaiian country & western. Oddly, it too is sung with a bit of a southern twang. Neither are done particularly well. Then there are those really corny local pop songs like "Big Island Ladies." The chorus goes like this: "I like those B-I-G Island ladies (Big Island ladies)Those sexy body girls they drive me crazy (they drive me crazy)..." That is probably the most requested song around her right now. Or "Your body's just like a Chevy...." Ron likes to sing along to that one with me in the car. They also play a lot of cover tunes performed by island artists. Some are good. Not all. It's about 80 percent bubblegum crap that's all been done before, better. The 20 percent that's good, however, is really good.
If it rains tomorrow, I will have no choice but to jump in the car and drive to the sun. The vitamin D supplements aren't quite cuttin' it. I think I'm beginning to experience the early onset of rickets. Aloha!
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