Unconditional

Berto, my eldest son, asked his younger brother Danny frankly, "Who do you think would win in a fight: you or Booey? I think you would, Danny."

Maybe Berto just assumed all boys, no matter how big, can take girls in a fight. Maybe he felt it was his duty to stand in his bro's corner of the ring, even though Danny is more than two years younger than Booey.

Danny had no such loyalties - to himself or his sex.

"I bet Booey," he said.

We burst out laughing.

*******************

I was explaining to my son Berto that his sister Ana just doesn't get in fights.

"Well, maybe it's because she doesn't stand up to people when they're being bratty and rotten to her," he answered stridently.

"Maybe it's also because she's not bratty and rotten to other people," I rejoined.

I had him, and he knew it. He gave a gorilla cry and raised a plastic basketball hoop against me with that devilish grin on his face, proving my point.

"Look," I began philosophically to my children, gathering them around. "We don't have favorites. We don't love Ana more, because she doesn't get into fights...our love for each of you is constant and unconditional. We don't love you more, Booey, because you're spunky and energetic. We don't love you more, Berto, because you're a great athlete and a great leader, too. We don't love Danny more because he's our little apple-schlapple-mapple." (At which vague, saccharine description, Daniel tilted his head and smiled winningly at me; he knew what I meant even if I didn't.) "Nothing you do or say can change our love for you. You might make us frustrated, irritated or angry, but our love for all of you is constant and unconditional."

Five minutes later I recanted as they were running - including Ana - screaming through the house, chasing each other with couch pillows and slipping on plastic grocery bags.

"Never mind!" I yelled above the din. "I change my mind. Our love is only unconditional when you're on the moon!"

*******************

Ana, Booey and I snuck out to the store one day during Daniel's naptime. Danny woke up and joined his brother at the computer for a bit, but presently he wandered back out to his papa and, in a concerned tone, asked, "Papa, where's Ana and Booey?"

"They went to the store with Mama."

"Oh."

Suddenly Matthew was curious.

"Hey, Daniel...what's Booey's real name?"

"Booey."

"No, that's her nickname. What's her real name?"

Daniel, confused, reiterated, "Booey!"

"No, her full name."

"Booey..."

The little fellar had bestowed that nickname on his big sis and, by George, he was going to stick by it. He didn't know that it had all begun with me calling her Ella Boo; Papa shortening it to Boo; and then he adding the -ey when he was just a tot. Matthew reminded him of his sister's real name, and Daniel pronounced the long, pretty name slowly, but he has never stopped calling her Booey. I just hope she doesn't balk at it when she's a feisty teenager. Otherwise, we just might get to see that fight Berto was predicting.

A Day in the Life of Oahu: Makapu'u Point

I'm afraid I've sounded ungrateful. Okay, yes, I can just see a few of you nodding your heads...

When I really, truly realized that our family of six was going to have the fantastic privilege of going to Hawaii all together, I was stunned at our good fortune. I was deeply grateful to my in-laws for paying for their grandchildren's plane tickets. I was amazed that my kids, not of a wealthy family, would have the honor of saying, "We went to Hawaii on summer vacation!" I was so glad my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had invited us to their exotic nuptials.

I just forgot there would be traffic in Hawaii - especially on heavily populated Oahu. I forgot there would be large cities and all the mess and disarray that crowds of human beings living in proximity entail. I didn't fully understand, I guess, that all of Hawaii wasn't a strand of lonely, wild Polynesian islands. I didn't contemplate the fact that less than grand hotel suites exist everywhere - especially not at those prices!

But do you think I lost my sense of good fortune? Well, okay, maybe that first afternoon....but it quickly returned, I assure you.

It returned when we drove out of Waikiki that very next day. I said to my husband, "Wow, it feels like we can finally breath - just being out of the city."

And my man, a city man all his life, answered, "I know, right?"

Even he had felt suffocated by the traffic and the tall buildings of greater Honolulu.

We arrived at Diamond Head and hunted for parking. (Trust me, you must get there by 7 or 8 in the morning if you hope to find any.) My husband began to drive into a large tunnel cutting through the rim of that volcanic crater to more parking on the other side when we were startled by a blaring, insistent horn. It felt as if we were in a movie, our car rattling down railway tracks toward a train that was guaranteed to crush us in the gloom, but it wasn't a train; it was a tour bus. I'm amazed my husband didn't cuss, locked in its narrow path...or maybe he did, and my mind had blocked out everything but the gaudy, brightly-hued colossal that hadn't slowed down one bit. Matthew hit the gas and reversed in such a way it rivaled any pretty boy maneuvers in some spy thriller. Tour buses in Oahu can be black-hearted villains beneath all that bright paint. When we had to enter the tunnel once more, because all parking was full, Matthew fled faster than the 15mph speed limit, getting through that tunnel in lightning speed to avoid any more behemoths filled with fellow tourists.

But I digress. We joined up with Matthew's parents and brother Robert after parking in a community college lot. We risked the tunnel on foot and entered the crater for our hike. Diamond Head was an experience - at times a scary one as my four-year-old walked too close to the path's plummeting edge or climbed winding stairs with but one high rail to contain a fall - but an experience. The sets of steep stairs will test the integrity of shins and knees; the dark tunnels will test your love of daylight; the crowds in cramped spaces will test your love of  fellow man; but the vistas will reinforce your love of nature. And the number of people hiking in dresses and flimsy sandals with no drinking water will confound you.

Our day was not nearly done. After eating a fortifying lunch at McDonald's, we drove to Makapu'u Point. I was hoping for more hiking, but the lookout itself was so beautiful, we were satisfied. And we'd left the crowds behind.

This was the Hawaii we had envisioned, and the color of the water was all that we'd heard it was from people who had actually vacationed on beautiful islands before.

We wanted a dip in that water, just to tickle our toes. Obviously, we weren't so spellbound that we forgot we weren't surfers, but we felt sure we could have a nice wade in the sea from that beach down below.

Matthew told the kids, and by default me, "Don't get wet above the knees - just to the knees, hear me? We didn't bring a change of clothes."

Unused as we were to the prospect of a beach day, we had neglected to bring swim suits, but that didn't impede our fun at all. As soon as that surf swirled about our ankles, we were lost in Neverland - eternal children, awestruck and giggling at our good fortune and our bravery. My father-in-law was holding my purse like a true gentleman. Grandma and Uncle Robert linked hands with Daniel, Ana, and Ella. I closed the link, and my girls and boy in turn jumped into the incoming water, squeezing the hands of their adults, and then the kids and I squealed as we pulled frantically back from the powerful surf and receding tide, dreading being pulled out toward the surfers who we must then rely on to save us. My wonderful mother-in-law reminisced about her childhood near Galveston and doing just this exercise of surf splashing all the time as a little girl. It seemed to go on forever, and we didn't notice at all that we were venturing farther and farther out, the water marks on our clothes advancing well above the knees.

When I finally found my feet on dry sand, Danny was playing in a little pool of ocean water in a broad dip in the sand. Some little boys there had boogey boards which they generously offered to share with Ella and Daniel. I forgot Matthew's edicts, and let the kids go full-belly, full-tilt into the little pool.

"Honeeey..."reproved Matthew. He had resisted the allure of the surf. Poor guy, he so often has to be the adult. I remember too well the temptations of childhood to restrain them as I ought.

It was time to clean up as best we could. We didn't even have towels. Daniel rode back to Waikiki in underwear, poor fella, and the rest of us sopped our seats and created a terrible sand apocalypse in our rented vehicle. I'm still surprised we haven't gotten a letter from the rental car company informing us that the van was irreversibly sand-ridden and salt-water smelly, and we must pay a hefty fine or buy the thing outright, paying for shipping cross-Pacific.

But we didn't, and I'll never forget that great, full day. We were thrilled to be in Hawaii.

 

 

Ah, Waikiki...

We stayed in the Waikiki area while on the Island of Oahu for a family wedding. It is the perfect place to stay if you are energetic; thrive in crowds; love shopping at Gucci, Tiffany & Co or Prada retail stores; and if you are an avid walker. However, with a young family and a rented minivan for which to find perpetual parking, well…it wasn’t quite ideal.

I said to my husband one day as we walked the two blocks from our hotel to the parking garage, “It feels like the buildings here are torturing the plants.” – all those high rises and their tiny entrance lawns with flowering bushes and palm trees. I wondered what the island had looked like, how wild and free, before the advent of city life and tourism.

Still, I appreciated the relatively peaceful stroll to the parking garage, believe me. Driving Waikiki is no fun. My poor, brave husband! All you see is the six-inch wide, winding lanes on crazy, congested one-way streets with houses and businesses pressing on one another. There is no parking anywhere except the zoo, it seems, and that fills up at 9am.

The first afternoon was a rough awakening, an adjustment of expectations. Then in the evening we went to my husband’s brother and sister-in-law’s house, out of Waikiki. There was a bright rainbow in the sky on the drive there. When we arrived at the welcoming home of our relatives, we saw a miniature lawn, a beautiful tropical garden, a stream tumbling under a culvert and a (for that city) huge green park across the street in which stood a massive and ancient tree. And we breathed, exhaling all the stress of a family that had just been dropped out of the wide southwest into contained island life. I took the kids to the park to run as soon as possible, and my brother-in-law took us all for a drive to a lookout above their home from which we could see the vast ocean and iconic Diamond Head State Monument and, alas, the city sprawling to the edges of both those natural wonders. The rainbow was still there, arcing in friendly clarity above the vivid landscape of this strange, diverse place.

Our gratitude for that drive amid mostly uninhibited plant life and for that caper in the park was also due in part to the great relief we felt in being somewhere other than our hotel - so great a relief, in fact, that I hugged that ginormous, old tree.

 

treehugger

 

Now I have always said that when you’re staying in a beautiful locale, the hotel room is just a place to sleep before you go exploring. But the moment my husband and I walked into our suite, our mouths dropped and our shoulders sagged. I swear never again to look at a hotel that advertises kitchenettes for families, because it also means - without a doubt - that the carpets will be sticky, the futon mattress will consist of metal rods and old newspapers, the shower will be scary and poorly lit, and the railings on the six-floor balcony will be at least 15 inches apart to accommodate your four-year-old’s dardevil spirit.

The hotel suite had five doors leading to the general walkway and the balconies. All the latches on the sliding glass doors were coming apart from the flaking walls and one was completely broken. That first night my husband and I slept apart to guard the children against anyone who might pry their way in from the walkway or against any Dracula-like being who might decide to scale the exterior walls and balcony partitions. It was an irrational fear, but Oahu had rattled me.

I needed some perspective, and I got it that night when I found my oldest boy crying into his stale white pillow.

“Berto, what is it?”

“This stupid hotel room is going to ruin our vacation of a lifetime!”

Or his stupid mommy might. My belly dropped. Someone – and I knew who – needed to stop complaining about the rooms that were, in fact, just for sleeping and start concentrating on all the wonderful things her family was going to experience in the next few days. Besides, there are people in this world who spend their whole lives in slums. I could certainly survive a short time in a dump on beautiful Oahu.

After that Waikiki grew on us. We started walking most places, and I realized just how clean that part of the city was with all its fancy storefronts and crowded but still inviting beaches. At one of those beaches, our children and their many cousins had a blast swimming with aunts and uncles, collecting shells and burying each other in the sand. Our family began to frequent the ABC Store on the corner where a tourist can get just about any vacation essential her heart desires. And I stopped thinking the trees and other plant life were being tortured by people and their tall buildings; they seemed to have adjusted to the frenetic environment.

One of my favorite memories of Waikiki began when my son and I decided to leave the rest of our tired family vegging in the hotel room and go exploring on our own, not wanting to miss the chance at any new experience. On a street corner we found a beautiful tree - one of the special things about the Hawaiian climate being its huge trees with broad, happy leaves - that had enormous branches growing into and winding around each other in a mind-blowing arrangement. We also discovered two nicely manicured city parks. We ate chocolate and yogurt on a bench, chatted as we people watched and then learned a bit of local history from the parks’ many statues, monuments and plaques – just my son and I.

And I didn’t complain anymore – hardly ever. I was too busy having fun.



Today you can also find my piece, LOST: A Hawaiian Family Vacation, at humorwriters.org. Thank you for publishing me again, Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop, and thank you for supporting me, my friends and readers!

 

A Post in Pictures: Diamond Head, O'ahu

Diamond Head towers over Honolulu - pic by Matthew

A writer writes - except when she just got home from two whirlwind trips to exotic locales like O'ahu, Hawaii and San Saba, Texas to be present at two very different and quite beautiful weddings. Tired and distracted by a stomach bug her kids no doubt picked up at the public pool, she's too busy running between the bathroom upon command and the laundry room to write a dreamy travel piece to make her friends green with envy. Still, she can try and post pictures with witty - no: informative - captions.

I have so many photos and so many experiences of which to write that I'm breaking up the posts by location as evident from the title of this post. Our whole family journeyed to Hawaii early this month, and we couldn't quite believe it was happening...until it did.

 

Our arrival on the island of O'ahu the afternoon of July 2nd smacks of a humor post to be published later (I'm hoping). By that evening, however, things had improved a good deal in spending time with extended family. The next day, on the advice of my well-traveled in-laws, we hiked to the summit of Diamond Head, an iconic volcanic crater once used for defensive purposes by the US military, towering near Honolulu. The hike is not an easy one. From the floor of the crater, you must climb through multiple switchbacks on the trail, up dozens of narrow, steep steps and through at least one long, dark tunnel. The views from the lookouts and seeing old military bunkers and equipment along the way are worth it. Our children did very well, but I would not recommend this hike with children younger than four. 

 

When we descended once more, the kids had shave ice, and we all rested in the volcano's lovely crater with its large trees, picnic tables and tall, waving grasses. The kids climbed the trees with large canopies and followed around brightly-crested birds - both extremely rare in our Phoenix environs. Then we gawked at what I thought to be, hampered by my poor eyesight, a cross between a freakishly large squirrel and a drab, furry lizard. It turned out to be a mongoose.

 

The view into the crater below the brave explorers.

 

Peaks on the rim

 

Diamond Head Lighthouse and its beautiful turquoise waters 

Mongoose: creature of lore

 

One more look back into the welcoming crater