Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. Those of us who stubbornly cling to counterculture ideas and allegories mourn him as best as our jaded and cynical hearts will allow.
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
Show us a family heirloom.
Submitted by Places Unknown.
Hmm, most of the heirlooms are still with my parents--the 165 year old book of Shakespeare, my grandma's wedding band, and the rocking chair are still there. However, I have got this lamp. It's not a "real" heirloom--my parents got it from my dad's mom when they got married, which was about 30 years ago. Seven years later, they put it in their baby's room, and it's been mine ever since. Ever since I can remember, the top of the lamp was chipped, and the last time my parents moved that top shade piece broke completely. I can hardly ever turn it on anymore--Wes calls it the Light of Doom and bitches any time it's on--but it's one of the only links I have with my grandma any more. It's been a part of my room every day of my life.
Living in the city, I often don't notice the quirks of living in Hawaii, but this weekend Wes and I went on our much delayed trip to Kaneohe. First, let me say the drive is amazingly gorgeous. I grew up in southern MO, and they're not slouches in the scenic drive department (Springfield to Branson in October is just extraordinary), but the drive to Kaneohe is surreal--green mountains march straight up away from the road most of the way, and then there's a turn immediately after a tunnel which gives an amazing clear view of the town and the ocean beyond it. That part of the day was great.
And then there was the rest of it.
The whole reason we went there was pretty much because there was a yarn store there. This is the website for said store. What would probably have been good information to have on the main page would be "We will be on vacation until April 3," which I discovered only upon walking to their closed and shuttered storefront.
With that shot, Wes and I thought we'd go visit the Haiku Gardens. I would have taken pictures, but upon reaching the entrance after a couple-mile long walk, the park was closed and locked for a wedding, so instead all I got was sore. And hungry.
As for quirks--Anna had mentioned they kept seeing chickens along the road. Real chickens. I've occasionally heard a rooster around our housing area, but hey, my parents live in farm country--it's one of those sounds which I never pay much mind to. In Kaneohe, we saw a rooster walking along the side of the road in front of us on our way to the Haiku Gardens, just as proud as you please. Why'd the chicken cross the road? 'Cause I was gonna EAT it.
We did manage to have a nice lunch at IHOP before getting back on the bus, and I also picked up SSX On Tour for the XBox, and Clubhouse Games after trading in some of the crappiest games on the DS (I refer here to the totally sucky Lego Star Wars II). Now comes the part of this story where I end up with a pissed off husband--when we got off the Kaneohe bus and walked over to our stop to get home, we arrived just in time to watch 9 and 40 drive off. The next bus to arrive was 52, and I thought I remembered 52 going near our house. In a geographical sense, this is absolutely true; as we sped along on H1 towards Wahiawa, I got a brief glimpse at our neighborhood. One by one, all the landmarks I knew faded behind us as Wes's grip on my shoulder got tighter and tighter. The first stop Bus 52 made was some 18 miles away from home.
Well, shit, sir.
On the upside, just in case of such emergencies, I do carry a route map on me while traveling, and we finally discerned that it was actually Bus 62 I remembered seeing near our house. Fortunately, Bus 62 also ran in Wahiawa, so we waited at the stop and planned to go directly home.
Naturally, Wes got us on the wrong bus this time, and we wound up taking 52 all the way back to Dillingham Ave. in Honolulu. Finally, another bus came along (ironically, Bus 62) and we got home a full 2 hours after we should have been home.
Oh, and when we got home, we found out SSX On Tour is not compatible with XBox 360s. I've bought this game twice now, and I'm getting a little pissed.
Thus, our adventure. This week, I think I'm sticking close to home, working on more furniture, decorating plans, and the ever-unpleasant job hunt.
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