Thursday, March 15, 2012

My diamond shoes are too tight! Also, they are full of insects.

At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I'm going to tell you that we just spent a week in Oahu and it was not the greatest trip. I've been to Hawaii once before, to the big island, and it was the most magical week of my life. I might have sobbed at the airport when we had to leave. But this week can mostly be summed up like this:

THUNDERSTORMS
maitais!
rainrainrainrain
HUNDRED YEAR FLOODING
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
maitais!
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
Swimming in the ocean. So nice.
rainrainrainrain

Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
maitais!
Swimming in the ocean. So nice.
rainrainrainrain

Oh my god, what is up with the HUMONGOUS insects?

rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects CRAWLING OVER ME WHILE I SLEPT

rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS CANE SPIDER IN OUR RENTAL
no sleep
no sleep
no sleep
Swimming in the ocean. So nice.
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
Finally one day of gorgeous weather, at a resort no less.
Sunburn
Flight home.

It feels terrible to complain about getting to go on vacation when so many people are unemployed, underemployed, or taking paycuts to keep their jobs, but Greg has been working 60+ hours a week and we were so looking forward to relaxing in the sun.

Pretty but rainy.


We still had a good time but Oahu got hit by hundred year flooding just as we arrived, including a tornado to part of the island, and evacuations in the north. It was still warm out but the water was choppy and our stay on the windward side of the island, in Kailua, was kind of a bust since the weather was extra crappy there. As a bonus, all the critters tend to end up inside when it rains that heavily. So one night I awoke to find what I think was a giant cockroach crawling across my chest.

You guys, my biggest fear crawled across my chest while I slept. The only way it could have been worse is if it whispered, You'll always be alone and your mother's cancer is back! while it skittered over my pillow.

That was the last night I got any semblance of sleep in Oahu. We'd been having problems with ants in the kitchen, despite the fact that there was no food or dirty dishes to be had. I discovered they were camping out in the crumb catch of the toaster. So Greg and I were shaking the toaster, forcing the ants out, when a cockroach popped out!

I called the host and said, "Your toaster is in the yard. Please take it far away." Then Greg turned white, looked panicked, and said, "Baby, please don't look over there." Of course, I looked over there and saw a spider the size of my fist. That artwork on the wall? It's an 8 1/2 x 11.

Heteropoda venatoria

Cane spiders are harmless and they are great predators of roaches and silverfish and all the things that were terrifying me on this trip but shitballs, they are SCARY. Our host kindly took both the toaster and the cane spider down the street for us.

We did have fun. I swam in the ocean (rain be damned) almost every day, which is one of my very favorite activities. We had intended to avoid Honolulu and Waikiki beach because of TRAFFIC, OH MY GOD TRAFFIC, but it had the only decent weather on the island. So we ended up there quite a but. I know I'm supposed to hate Waikiki (tourists! beefcakes! men with trampstamps! crowds!) but I didn't mind it at all. We drank $5 maitais at Lulu's and went swimming in the warm water. On our last day we drove to the driest part of the island and spent the day at Ko Olina, which features four man-made lagoons and a bunch of resorts and I loved it. There were no bugs there. We snorkeled, swam, and felt hot sun on our skin for the first time. It was magnificent.



Then we flew home to spectacularly wet and chilly weather. As we were unpacking Greg looked panicked, then said, "Baby, don't look in my suitcase." He had smuggled home a centipede. UNIVERSE, WHY?

I love Greg. He is a wonderful man but bitch. can't. hustle. He sauntered to find a paper towel while I screamed, "You know what happens if you get stung by a centipede, right?" The island remedy is three days of drunkenness to combat the pain! HURRY UP." He took his sweet time removing it and flushing it down the toilet, telling me that I was being silly. Then he looked it up on the Internet and, sure enough, the sting of a Hawaiian centipede is awful. Go google image that shit if you don't believe me.

We attempted to go to Pearl Harbor but it was closed due to lightning strikes. Instead we hit up the Foster Botanical Garden, what our guidebook called, "The only botanical garden on the island worth seeing." I'll post pictures of that soon, once I quit worrying about what else we might have smuggled home.

On the upside, I slept ten hours last night in my own bed (heaven!) and I dreamed that This Old House showed up at our place and fixed everything that needs fixing in the house. Aside from the fact that Roger Cook wasn't there, it was pretty sweet.

Do you ever lie in bed and debate which TOH contractor you'd want on your project if they filmed at your house? Or is that just me? I can never choose.

12 comments:

  1. I googled it. The HORROR O.O

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  2. Good god you're the second person I know who was in Hawaii for a vaca last week only to be rained and stormed out. THAT SUCKS! As for the cockroach (and the rest) I so get it. I saw my first HUGE cockroach at a fancy resort in Scottsdale AZ, I called housekeeping and they practically laughed at me when I demanded they get up there and make it go away!!! As for that spider....I would have been a screaming hysterical nut case after laying eyes on one that big.

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  3. Thank you for commiserating! I know people can get used to anything but those cockroaches . . . I don't think I could ever be okay with them.

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  4. Oh my god I seriously laughed out loud that whole post. I would have shit in my pants if there was a centipede in my suitcase after that vacation. I am also HORRIFIED of cockroaches. We lived in Austin, TX for a year and they were frequent visitors, much to my dismay. I would literally almost be in tears as I screamed for Chris to rescue me. I can hammer, saw, rip down a wall and laugh and smile the whole time, but holy jesus throw me a cockroach and I turn into a screaming 2 year old.

    And BTW, Norm Abram is practically Chris' hero and I think he have a heart attack if he ever showed up at the house to help out. It would be pretty awesome. I bet he'd help with that damn table...

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  5. I think the only reason I didn't freak out more when I saw Greg's stowaway was that I still had xanax in my system from flying. :)

    In my dream I started making fun of the TOH guys' accents. I was mortified when I woke up. Where were my manners?

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  6. Bummer about the crappy trip. We had one of those once too, to Arizona, when the day after we got there Kellen started running a high fever which lasted for the first five days of our trip, by midweek Rylan and Brett were puking, there was a trip to urgent care somewhere in there and by the last day I had pinkeye. Fun times. Margaritas were our salvation! Thank goodness there were no large, stinging bugs! I guess like us, you'll always have a good story to share. :)

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  7. Oh jeez, that sounds awful! We *did* still have fun, I swear we did! But more sunshine would have greatly improved my outlook on the bugs (which your brother valiantly removed from the place every time we found one).

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  8. Tour post was a howler, and a balm for those of us who opt (or must) stay at home.

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  9. That was one wet, buggy trip! I'm with you about the gigantic insects...well, any insects pretty much. One of the reasons I love living in Portland is that our insect population is about 1.0 on a scale of 0-10.

    Roger Cook, hands down.

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  10. I'm hoping this trip will at least make me less fearful when I encounter bugs here because you are totally right about the bug scale in Portland!

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  11. There is no debate about which TOH person I would like to come to my house. Tom Silva in heartbeat. I would give a toe to have him come to my house. Not really. But almost. Math tricks for measuring complicated things easily! Hammering with the claw side of the hammer! Magnetic safety glasses! Tips for fixing things way faster than you think possible! I love him so much.

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