A Mother's Day Adventure and Some Cats

One more day on Oahu and then I fly home with Gary, some photographs and some islandy-looking stuff to try to retain the sense of being in a tropical paradise. Going back in my mind over the past week - only one week! - I feel the same as when I look back on three weeks in normal life, if it is ever really normal, whatever normal is. You know. Who's normal anyway and why let them decide if I'm also normal or not? The average, the median. I'm not. Normal, that is. Who needs that anyway?

I was treated rather royally on Mother's Day by Serena and Clay at the quaint and historical Tea Room in Manoa, which dates back in age about 100 years, I believe. The brunch was scrumptous and lavish. Everywhere, we were surrounded by all manner of very pleased moms and their attentive families. Many of the moms were extremely petite grandmothers wearing old-fashioned muu-muus, which fit into the decor and nostalgic feel of the setting. The Tea Room is set in a lush area filled with flowering trees and shrubs including hibiscus the size of dinner plates. We all ate until our eyes bulged out, having selected virtually all possible choices from the pretty buffet. Clay won the prize for massive consumption, having gone back for what I think ended up to be fourteenths, and he was smiling the whole time. I was absolutely stuffed to the highest possible stuffing point and went into a carbohydrate coma not too long afterwards. It was a good thing we had walked over and would need to walk home again afterwards. I kind of staggered, really, somnolent but content.

Clay and Serena and their two roommates live on a very, very steep hillside overlooking Manoa, which is historic in some way, and certainly looks quaint and charming from their vantage point, the vantage point of an eagle's aerie on a mountain peak. You need to see their driveway to appreciate the true meaning of steep. I recommend having a 4-wheel-drive vehicle with a winch attached to the front end. They have developed a routine where you call ahead to tell them you're coming, that you're lost in the neighborhood, that you need them to send out a Search and Rescue party, which they are happy to do. Once you find their street, they lower a hook on a stout cable to the road below and haul you up as your wheels spin, the gears grind away and your clutch fries to bits. It's nerve wracking to negotiate the street and then the driveway. They just grin away and nod appreciatively as you clench the steering wheel and pray to all gods and goddesses that you will not begin to roll backward. To add to your anxiety, there is a nearly bottomless chasm that flanks the driveway - no guardrail to fend off wayward vehicles - one small miss turn of the steering wheel and you and yours are history. There were the rusted remains of a few cars at the lower reaches of the chasm, all twisted and grim looking, that I took note of as we began the ascent.

Returning to the driveway on foot after the enormous buffet, I visualized myself doing the same tumble as the poor skier on Wide World of Sports did all those years when Jim McKay was the announcer: "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!" he would say as the skier bashed and slammed his way down the side of a ski jump in Kitzbuehl, Austria, or somewhere snowy and painful. I imagined myself, too, pinwheeling wildly through the neighbors' yards on my way to Safeway, landing there up-side down in a heap on a display of Spam. Mothers would yank their terrified kids out of the way and point in stunned amazement at the sight of a large haole woman in a sundress - now barefoot after having lost her sandals after the seventh flip - cartwheeling helplessly down the avenues of plumeria and hibiscus trees.

I was trudging along, stuffed with brunch and felt gravity pulling fiendishly at me while negotiating the hazards of the steepest driveway on earth, but I did manage to appreciate the flora and fauna of Manoa all around me.

Hawaii has a lot of natural beauty, but very little of it is actually technically Hawaiian anymore. For years, well-meaning but woefully uninformed visitors have sneaked their favorite flowering plants or trees to the islands, and every single one of them has run amok. I sat at breakfast in Kona this morning and looked up and down the street. Not a single native plant was anywhere in sight. No native birds. As a matter of fact, a conversation with a merchant yielded the following: There is a group of individuals in Kona who call themselves the AdvoCats whose aim it is to protect and defend all the feral cats in the area. Mind you, there are apparently thousands of them, and they all rush in from every direction like a plague of locusts whenever one of the AdvoCats arrives at feeding time with Cat Food for them. So? I like cats, by the way, quite a bit, as a matter of fact. More than dogs, actually. But, when you defend feral cats who are suffering with disease, injury, poor nutrition, overpopulation, lack of protection from the weather, you also cause a decline in prey species. Also known as native birds. They are virtually gone. The merchant said that a conservation group is very interested in reducing the numbers of feral cats, finding them homes, spaying and neutering them, and reintroducing native birds. The AdvoCats said no, the cats must stay. I'm curious and will research this, but the evidence bore out the story. No native birds to be seen nor heard and lots of furtive skinny and unhappy looking cats.

Yes, I made it to the top of the driveway eventually, and admired myself for having accomplished that. Hey, I was wearing wedge heels and a dress, I will have you know. It's absolutely true that most people would wear crampons and use a hand-axe to fashion hand-holds in the near-vertical surface. The dizzying sight of Manoa spread below us was exciting, glorious, thrilling. Until I realized I was going to have to go down the driveway once more to get back to our hotel. Visions of the Agony of Defeat blazed across my brain. I haven't bought a plot at our local cemetery yet. I do have life insurance. I would have to be cremated if they could find my remains.

Gary offered to drive the car back to our hotel. I handed him the keys, got in, pulled my seat belt on tightly and closed my eyes and prayed all over again to the gods and goddesses, promising never to eat chocolate again - it sounded reasonable at the time - and closed my eyes and screamed. The agony of defeat seemed certain. Clay and Serena waved weakly, hopefully, sadly from the safety of their doorstep as we launched our pile-of-crap Chrysler Sebring rental car into the abyss. Who BUILDS a driveway like that anyway?

You know that weird creaky sound that car brakes make as a car begins to overcome the grip of the brake pads? It's a low grunting creak and means the brakes are about to give a bit and then a bit more unless you stomp the bejabbers out of them and put your foot through the floorboard. That's what the car brakes were doing as we launched. Gary is a big strong guy, but this was a life-and-death issue. At least to me anyway. I wasn't absolutely sure his muscles were up to the test. Hmmm, he looked remarkably nonchalant. I know, because I glanced at him from between my fingers. I had a horrible feeling that the car was going to do an endo and slam down in a grinding heap up-side down on the neighbor's rooftop. The brakes were making that odd and ominous creak. I think the extra 40 pounds we gained at brunch were tipping the scales in favor of gravity and against the possibility that the brakes would hold or even remotely be able to control the car. At the bottom of the 90-degree incline was a sharp left turn that we would also have to negotiate in order to regain the street and then the avenue beyond.

Gary asked me if I was going to stop screaming. He wanted to listen to the song on the radio instead. I took a deep breath and regained my composure, remembering a vividly written short story I'd read in a college English class about a young Japanese couple who commit hari kari after learning of Japan's defeat in World War II. Their faces were composed, beautiful, perfect, even in the face of unspeakable horrors. I would be like that, too. Being around so many small Asian people in the past few days in Hawaii had taught me a lot, I told myself. I, too, could persevere in the face of calamity and remain composed, serene.

The car began rolling and then faster and faster. Gary turned up the radio. "Born to be wiiiiiiiiilllllld!!!" I thought of ski jumpers flopping like rag dolls, perfect Japanese Samurai couples preparing to commit suicide, pancakes and coconut syrup, hibiscus spinning like ferris wheels. It all became a blur. I couldn't stop screaming.

"Hey what was in that mango bread pudding anyway? We made it! I don't know how Serena does that hill on foot every day. I guess I raised a mountain goat.....but she's a good one.