Flossie has flopped. That was the most boring hurricane ever. It's windier and rainier on a typical winter day. I was really hoping for some excitement. I wanted to see things fly around. I wanted to hear incessant, relentless, pounding rain. I wanted the electricity to go out so we could huddle around flashlights and listen to the radio by battery power. I wasn't looking for complete and utter destruction. Just a little action. Instead, Flossie fizzled.
The news media sent scores of reporters to cover the destruction. It reminded me of the "team coverage" they employ whenever it rains in L.A.:
"We just spotted three drops falling into a puddle here on Sepulveda. Over to you, Jane."
"Thanks, Bill. Here on La Cienega, the sidewalks are completely wet. People are actually slipping as they try to walk, which they never do here in L.A. Back to you in the studio, Colleen."
So the coverage to me was actually pretty comical. One interview was of a local fellow who lives at Punalu'u Black sand beach. He's a Hawaiian man whose family has lived at that spot for generations, so he knows something about the weather there. Punalu'u is located in Ka'u, the southernmost district of the island, where the hurricane was expected wreak the most havoc. That's why all the reporters were there. So there they were on TV, reporter and local guy, standing in the wind, waiting for the rain that never came. The reporter asks the man, "What do you think of this wind?" The man answers honestly, "It's always like this here." True dat. In fact, I've been to Punalu'u when the wind was blowing so hard the sand felt like it was exfoliating my shins as I walked the shore. It can be like that on any given day down there. It's windy in Ka'u like it's rainy here. The news also featured images of homes and storefronts all over Hilo boarded up with plywood. Shops were closed. Streets were deserted. Reporters stood there in the drizzle with nothing to say. It made me chuckle.
Now, Flossie's gone. Bye bye Flossie. Bye bye, plane. Bye bye. (Wait. I didn't mean it. Please don't kick me off the rock.)
As if the hurricane and the earthquake weren't enough to put this island into a tizzy, this afternoon we heard a tsunami advisory on the radio due to the earthquake in Peru. The advisory was lifted after a couple of hours, but it was all people were talking about in town.
Unrelated to any natural disasters, I recently learned a very important, if painful lesson that I would like to share with all my middle aged friends. Never look at yourself in the mirror with your glasses on. NEVER! (I suppose that applies to contacts, too.) Without the glasses, the face is a bit fuzzy, muted, kind of like being shot by a camera with gauze over the lens. But the glasses bring out every detail, every wrinkle, every line, every blotch and imperfection. Wait a minute.... I guess seeing one's aging face in its true light is a form of natural disaster. Do you think I could get FEMA to pay for Botox?
So the morning after my disconcerting discovery of a face in the mirror that looks not like mine, but more like a page from the Rand McNally Atlas (New Jersey, not Montana), I wake up to find a large, red zit on my cheek. Wrinkles and zits. In the words of the sage, wise and poetic lyricist Justin Timberlake, "Tell me is this fa-a-a-air?"
It's still raining, but that's pretty much par for the course around here. Tomorrow we have to put back all the stuff we put away in anticipation of the big winds. By put back, I mean re-scatter them around so we know where to find things. It's a good system of organized chaos around here. Putting things tidily against and under the house really messed us up. Funny huh? It messed us up by un-messing us up. Life is indeed a paradox. What are dox anyway and why would one need a pair of them? Hmmmmm.... Gotta remember to take my ginko tomorrow. It improves circulation to the brain, so they say. Whoever they are..... Ah, but that's a subject for another day.
A hui hou. Aloha!
The news media sent scores of reporters to cover the destruction. It reminded me of the "team coverage" they employ whenever it rains in L.A.:
"We just spotted three drops falling into a puddle here on Sepulveda. Over to you, Jane."
"Thanks, Bill. Here on La Cienega, the sidewalks are completely wet. People are actually slipping as they try to walk, which they never do here in L.A. Back to you in the studio, Colleen."
So the coverage to me was actually pretty comical. One interview was of a local fellow who lives at Punalu'u Black sand beach. He's a Hawaiian man whose family has lived at that spot for generations, so he knows something about the weather there. Punalu'u is located in Ka'u, the southernmost district of the island, where the hurricane was expected wreak the most havoc. That's why all the reporters were there. So there they were on TV, reporter and local guy, standing in the wind, waiting for the rain that never came. The reporter asks the man, "What do you think of this wind?" The man answers honestly, "It's always like this here." True dat. In fact, I've been to Punalu'u when the wind was blowing so hard the sand felt like it was exfoliating my shins as I walked the shore. It can be like that on any given day down there. It's windy in Ka'u like it's rainy here. The news also featured images of homes and storefronts all over Hilo boarded up with plywood. Shops were closed. Streets were deserted. Reporters stood there in the drizzle with nothing to say. It made me chuckle.
Now, Flossie's gone. Bye bye Flossie. Bye bye, plane. Bye bye. (Wait. I didn't mean it. Please don't kick me off the rock.)
As if the hurricane and the earthquake weren't enough to put this island into a tizzy, this afternoon we heard a tsunami advisory on the radio due to the earthquake in Peru. The advisory was lifted after a couple of hours, but it was all people were talking about in town.
Unrelated to any natural disasters, I recently learned a very important, if painful lesson that I would like to share with all my middle aged friends. Never look at yourself in the mirror with your glasses on. NEVER! (I suppose that applies to contacts, too.) Without the glasses, the face is a bit fuzzy, muted, kind of like being shot by a camera with gauze over the lens. But the glasses bring out every detail, every wrinkle, every line, every blotch and imperfection. Wait a minute.... I guess seeing one's aging face in its true light is a form of natural disaster. Do you think I could get FEMA to pay for Botox?
So the morning after my disconcerting discovery of a face in the mirror that looks not like mine, but more like a page from the Rand McNally Atlas (New Jersey, not Montana), I wake up to find a large, red zit on my cheek. Wrinkles and zits. In the words of the sage, wise and poetic lyricist Justin Timberlake, "Tell me is this fa-a-a-air?"
It's still raining, but that's pretty much par for the course around here. Tomorrow we have to put back all the stuff we put away in anticipation of the big winds. By put back, I mean re-scatter them around so we know where to find things. It's a good system of organized chaos around here. Putting things tidily against and under the house really messed us up. Funny huh? It messed us up by un-messing us up. Life is indeed a paradox. What are dox anyway and why would one need a pair of them? Hmmmmm.... Gotta remember to take my ginko tomorrow. It improves circulation to the brain, so they say. Whoever they are..... Ah, but that's a subject for another day.
A hui hou. Aloha!
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