Times, they are a'changin

As someone who has to fly fairly regularly, I'm not a fan.  I used to love it; When I flew to Europe in high school, it was clear that our pilot was new.  He decided to follow up a 7-hour flight by practicing some landing drills.  I'm sure it was more complicated and technical than that, but we're just gonna go with landing drills.  So we flew about 500 loops around the Frankfurt airport while swooping up and down, up and down, and I was giddy with excitement.  As I watched the other passengers turn green and reach for their barf bags, I pumped up the volume on my walkman, rolled my eyes and haughtily chewed my gum. 

Oh, kharma is a mo'fracker.

Not that I believe in kharma.  But if I did...

As fate would have it, I didn't become anxious about flying until I lived in a place where even the shortest of flights was 5-6 hours long.  Typical flights ranged from 9-11 hours.  Some demonic creature reached into my brain, flipped a switch, and my in-flight sanity went out the air-compressed window.

In my mind, this:

turned into this:

No joke.

From the time the aircraft taxis down the runway until we reach 35,000 feet, I resort to what I call my PleaseGods.  I pretend to act sophisticated, flip through a book or something, while on the inside I'm going, and I quote, "PleaseGod PleaseGod PleaseGod PleaseGod PleaseGod."  No need to get more specific than that.  God is fully capable of translating my prayer into something more like, "PleaseGod don't let us explode into flames and crash into the city/ocean/forest/mountainside.  Don't you dare let me go out like that."  Etc.

This went on for years, people.

I'm sure if I had more spiritual eyes, I would be able to see Jesus perched on the seat back in front of me saying his ItsOks.  ItsOk ItsOk ItsOk You'reOK You'reOK You'reOK.  But alas. 

And wouldn't you know, as quickly as this anxiety came on all those years before, it's starting to fade.  I'd like to ascribe this to some sort of new-found spiritual maturity, but honestly I have no idea what's going on, why it's now leaving me alone.

I'm just hoping I don't wake up tomorrow scared of breakfast cereal.  Or rabbits.

Because that would suck.

Hope

My Papa died almost exactly a year ago, this week.  I came to the realization yesterday that even if I could have him back and fully restored, I wouldn't.  Because he's infinitely, unimaginably better off where he is now.  And that's not simply a wishful thought to help me deal with my grief - it's an example of what it means to live by faith.  I'm realizing that when the Bible instructs us to live by faith, it means that we are not expected to live in full knowledge at all times, nor will we ever be able to put all the puzzle pieces together and find full meaning here.  Because, we don't have all the puzzle pieces.  Some of us don't even know what the puzzle picture is supposed to portray.

Therefore, faith becomes not a thing to have but a way to live.  Every day.  Faith restores hope, and gives meaning, and comforts us in the dark, and shines a light (sometimes bright, sometimes fleeting) on the path ahead.  Though you can't see faith, you can feel it, and once you have it, you'll trade anything for it.  Like the man who stumbled on the treasure in the field, and sold all he had so he could buy that field.  I see why it's worth more than gold.

Jonathan Edwards once said something that makes me think of Papa, and of this journey we Christians are experiencing:

The bad things will turn out for good,

The good things will never be taken away,

And the best things are yet to come.

Cleaning House

Some of G's extended family has been in town this week, so we've been frantically cleaning our house.  This is a rarity - I'm talking about his family visiting, although you could say it applies to the cleaning frenzy as well.  They came over last night for dessert and coffee, and we all had a great time.

After they left, G said, "Wow.  Our house is clean.  I mean, not just by our standards, but even by normal peoples' standards!"

That about sums it up. 

TGIF, people!

Summer Reading

Unless you live in a cave, or are as behind-the-times as I tend to be, you have probably heard of the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  I'm at the end of the last book and am violating my personal policy of not recommending a book before reading the whole thing.  It's that good.

No spoilers, so feel free to read on...

It's set in the desolate future of America, now a Capitol and 12 districts.  In order to prevent uprise and rebellion, each year the Capitol chooses one boy and one girl from each district to be a tribute in the hunger games, where they undergo extreme conditions in a real-world "arena" and fight to the death. It's written for a teenage audience, which is only somewhat apparent.  Collins tackles extremely sophisticated ideas of government, freedom, choice, love, and courage in such a way that, if your imagination is anything like mine, you can quickly run with it and forget that it's supposed to be PG13.  If you know what I'm sayin.

I like certain aspects better than others, but suffice it to say that her ideas are novel (pun intended) and I haven't read a kid's book that was this good since the Harry Potter series.  Since most of the books I read are soooooo high brow and sophisticated, like me.

You are what you eat

My carpool buddy, M, and I got into a bizarre conversation the other day.  It happens when you are in the car together as much as we are, which is like a billion hours a day.  I can't even begin to recount the chain of topics that brought us to this one, but I told her that if she were a food, she would be a certain traditional dish that her family serves at Passover.  She has raved about this dish a lot, and I told her it fits her personality:  it's traditional, spicy, fun, meaningful, exciting...

We laughed, and she immediately said that if I were a food, I would be an artichoke because I'm very structured and organized.  That's it.  I tried to act too cool for school when I prodded a bit.  Structured?  Organized?  That's supposed to describe my entire personality?  She looked at me blankly and offered, "Oh...and artichokes are also...um...interesting?"

How convincing.

TGIF, people!

Good grief

Around this time last year my Papa died.  I come from a very small family.  I mean, count-all-the-people-on-one-hand small.  My grandparents were such an integral part of my life (they had just turned 40 when I was born!) that whenever I think of my childhood, memories with them are the only things that come to mind.  Although I've always been closer to my Gama, I inherited the defining characteristics of my personality from Papa:  love of adventure, love of animals and all things outdoors, belief in God, love of reading, sense of humor and practical jokes.  To this day, my Papa is one of the most fun-loving and hilarious people I've ever known. 

A couple of years ago, Papa found out he had Alzheimer's, which runs a mean streak in our family.  At first, its effects were gradual.  He would wander off in the middle of a conversation, then catch himself, the shame visible on his face.  It didn't take long until he would automatically smile at the people he knew, but no recognition would come.  The last time I saw him, he could still move on his own, and every time I came in the room, his eyes would flash and his mouth would open in his trademark grin.  Every visible reaction was the same as it had been all my life - but then there was the awful truth that he just didn't know who I was.  It was like he was operating out of sheer muscle memory or something.  After gradually fading into the distance, he disappeared over the horizon forever.

When he died, my foundation shifted and everything toppled.  A year later, I've just begun to sort through the rubble.  Not a single day has gone by that I haven't thought about him.  I can still hear the sound of his voice and almost exactly what he would say about certain stories I wish I could tell him.

I've come to appreciate the grief, though, as unwelcome as it was.  It has taught me that only a very strong (and biased) love can lead to such sadness.  It has taught me that death can take Papa away, but it has no power to take away the good times we had and all the lessons he taught me.  Love is stronger than death, than grief, than all the emotional turmoil.  Love is a force to be reckoned with, and it will always prevail.

TGIF, people!

Perspective

The Jungle

Hawaii is fun to explore by land and by sea.  We've hiked all over it and we decided to do one of our favorite jungle hikes on the recent vacation.  It's an 8-miler that winds through partial canopy jungle and scales a serious mountain.  We like it for its variety:  plants with leaves bigger than we are; waterfalls; pockets of bamboo forests; ground that is literally made from tree roots so large and prolific that the hike takes twice as long as it would on flat ground; wild flowers; warbling birds that sound like visitors from another planet; and great views of both the city and the country. 

Another highlight to hiking in the islands is that there are no predators.  No snakes to watch out for, no bears to fear.  The only semi-dangerous land animal they have is the Hawaiian wild boar, which easily weighs in at 300+ pounds and has a nasty temper.  Not to mention that they travel in packs of 10-20.

I'm not sure who originally brought them to the island, but they've become a nuisance because they dig up the jungle and eat tree roots, which kills the trees, which then kills all kinds of other parts of the eco-system.  To keep the population under control and to protect the unique tropical environment, the state sponsors wild boar hunts a few times each week.  This trail is one of the places they hunt. 

We didn't think twice about it because we've hiked for years and have never seen even a sign of a wild boar.  Know what that sentence sounds like?  Famous Last Words.

You know what's coming, people.  ROUS's, like in The Princess Bride.

G and I are slogging through about mile 6.5 of 8, chit chatting away, listening to the birds, when we hear it about 200 feet below us in a ravine.  EEEK EEEK EEEK.  I was like, that's a pig.  G was like, yep.  And we kept walking.

Then the single, almost cute-sounding squeel doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled in number and in decibels:  EEEEEEK EEEEEK EEEEEEK EEEEEEK EEEEEEEK!

Then:  WWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGG!  The loudest, meanest, longest growl I've ever heard in my life.  And then all wild boar hell broke loose, echoing through the jungle.

My first thought?  The Black Smoke Monster from LOST.

Let me just say that there's nothing that will put a spring in your step faster than hearing loud roars, followed by all kinds of pain-filled EEEEEEEK-ing, surrounding you on all sides.  As we high-stepped our way through the forest, the noise got even worse.  It was still coming from below us (and behind us) in the ravine, but this ain't the first time we've been on a hike, people.  And we are hardly strangers to how it works in the wild.  Animals conserve energy - that's like Rule #1 in their Handbook.  And how do they do that?  By taking the trail whenever possible.  Why hack your way through the dense jungle brush when you can just follow this nicely carved slick of mud? 



Somewhere behind me, I hear G panting something about throwing out our meager lunch leftovers if "things go south."  Those are three words you just don't want to hear someone like G say.

Still high-stepping it, I grunt out that we should get a stick or a rock or something.  But we see nothing because it's all a blur and who wants to, you know, stop running???  And then I hear G shout, "There!"  He's pointing off in the distance.  "That BEAT STICK!  It's MINE!"  He tears off after something reminiscint of Fred Flinstone - a club covered in moss and I don't even know what else.  He wields it, while scurrying through the jungle, in a way that only Russell Crowe's character from Gladiator can fully appreciate.  At that point, the humor of it doesn't even occur to me, as I'm glancing at the trees and wondering if I could climb them in a hurry, using G as a step stool...

After a few minutes, the roars die down and then all is silent for a while.  We gradually slow down, start to breathe again, and after a mile or so, we start to pass other hikers.  Which means we're approaching civilization once more. 

They eye G's club precariously and we just smile. 

EAT BOTH SQUARES PLEASE

If the title means nothing to you, go here immediately.

In Hawaii, we did a swimming-with-the-sharks experience.  It's actually a cage, made mostly of bars and plexiglass.  Because he's certifiably insane, G did this a few years ago, back when...let's just say things were more primitive.  You know, back in the day when they would first attract the sharks, then throw the cage out in the ocean (tethered to the boat by a string of dental floss), then tell the people to skip over the dorsal fins into it.  Seriously.  G jumped over open ocean, full of hungry sharks, into that cage.

Um, no thanks.

When we decided to go to Hawaii, the first thing G said was that he wanted to do the shark cage again.  His insanity has not diminished over the years.  At first, I ruled it out, but they've changed the way they do business, much to the sharks' chagrin, and I decided to tempt fate and try it.

This is how it works.  They take the boat three miles off shore to where the sharks are already waiting with bibs around their necks and forks in their fins.  The cage is now fastened to the side of the boat, and we are able to climb down into it like civilized human beings.  We put a snorkel on, and are free to swim around the entire cage and see them from many vantage points (or simply cleave to one corner for dear life and crane one's neck around in every direction, like I did).

We were scheduled to go out at 10:00 a.m. but due to very high winds, they asked if we could come at 7:00 a.m. instead.  The winds are more calm (supposedly) first thing in the morning and they were pretty much canceling the rest of the appointments for the day.  This meant that I was up at - I'm not kidding - 3:30 that morning, in heart-felt prayer and fasting.  I'm not too proud to tell you that I was perhaps the teensiest bit anxious and that the thought of an untimely demise had crossed my mind once, maybe twice.  I told G not to be surprised if Jesus showed up in the cage with us.  G said, Hmmm, I wonder if he'll show up in the pictures.  He didn't, but I know he was there.

It was a breath-taking experience.  One that I would do again, for sure.  There were about a dozen sharks, mostly Galapagos and Sand sharks, between about 8 and 12 feet long.  The Hawaiian word for shark is Mano, but mostly sharks are referred to as "the men in the grey suits" and "the landlords."  As in, the landlord's comin' fo da rent, bra. 

Here are some pics G took with the underwater camera (keep in mind there's no zoom or special features on it):

In honor of our experience, we shared one of the Snickers bars on a hike later in the week.  With wild boars.  But that's a story for another day.

TGIF, people! (A series)

Da Kine Peepo

When we were on vacation, we had the serendipitous chance to meet up with some good friends.  Fun, fun times!

I present to you, Da Kine Peepo & their keiki: