Not in the Groove

I realized a couple of days ago that I was in Hawaii. Hmm, I said, this is not my usual groove, but I like it. Writing has been interrupted, thoughts misappropriated and my pace altered lately, but at least it's not the swine flu.

While I've been away, I saw Berkeley through the music of Van Morrison, who levitated on the Greek Theater stage for two and a half hours and then disappeared in a long white limo from stage left while his band was still playing. I don't know if he has ever visited the Grove where I live, but he might like it. The golf links may remind him of Ireland. Certainly, the cold ocean would do that. He wears a hat all the time and dark glasses and he makes sudden swatting motions toward band members as he sings, but you can't tell if he's doing some sort of musical direction or if he just needs to express himself wildly. Probably both. No telling though. Anyway, he played a song at the end and taught us all how to spell Gloria really well. The audience seemed thrilled to have learned how. They all stood up and clapped like mad. Also, his drummer fell over backward, but he's okay, during the changeover from one song to another, but I don't think Van noticed.

Then, I went to brunch with an exuberant Swiss man, Leander, and his beautiful wife, Kress. Gary joined in and we talked about airports and management and sailing in the Bahamas, which is where the Swiss and his Mrs are now. Sailing a 40-foot boat for 10 days in order to relax. They've been close to the Grove before and survived it pretty well. They like Monterey better, as do most people, because it's warmer and has a few dozen picturesque adobes built by early Californios. At some point along the line, we transitioned from being Californios to Californians, but I don't think it was during brunch that day. Probably earlier on in our history. So, after brunch, which by the way was at the Lafayette Park Hotel, we went home through miles of lush, flowering landscape. Spring has been unusually abundant with flowers, and I am renewing my pride in being a Californian, even if many other residents are throwing cigarette butts all over the place. The only thing I approve being discarded willy nilly is glass, but it must be thrown into the ocean so it can become sea glass.

No sooner had I arrived home than I went to a cardiology conference on Cannery Row, which has not one cannery on it anymore. There's a new gigantic hotel on the Row called Intercontinental The Clement or some odd contortion of words. It's very modern, the staff is very good, very well trained and they hand out warm cookies during breaks at conferences like mine, but I think that was because doctors were in attendance. You notice quite a bit of difference between conferences that doctors attend and those that humans attend. Doctors are lavished with delicious coffee, gourmet offerings of all sorts and many accoutrements too numerous to list. Nursing conferences give out stale bagels and Folgers. Nurses may be too tired to notice for the most part. They work hard and like to dream about what they would do if they won the lottery. They probably would not be attending conferences with doctors.

The conference was good, mostly because it had good food, but also because cardiologists talked about ablation, ST segment elevations and algorithms to determine candidates for surgical procedures. It made me appreciate the fact that they are up to their eyeballs in that material all the time and I am not, so I am very happy. But I am happy mostly because I am not at that conference but lived through it and consider it a miracle.

Next, I took a look around Specific Groove and could tell summer was getting closer again, just like it had a year ago. It's the worst time to spend time in town because it literally has the coldest average daily temperatures. So, I decided to follow through on plans to head off for Hawaii, which is when I noticed I was already in Hawaii. Jet lag you know.

Hawaii is more than that island. On this trip, it has been Oahu, too. I noticed I got taller in Hawaii right after I noticed I was actually here. Many people here are very short. They also like to be known as diminutive, but that word is not short - it has four syllables - so I prefer to call them short. Not only are they short, but they are Asian. I have resigned myself to being very visible by virtue of the fact that I can see the tops of so many heads wherever I go. I am sensitive to the fact that I need to use plenty of Kleenex when I am surrounded by seas of short people. The food servings are smaller because Asians seem not to embrace the concepts of hefty, gross, avoirdupois, or ginormous. Asians, more often Japanese in Hawaii than other nationalities, think in non-temporal terms. You, me eating. No past, no future, only now. It's very different than the Arabs who trust all in Allah at every moment. I wondered about that when I was surrounded by shuffling crowds on Kalakaua Avenue. One car entered an intersection hesitantly and then stopped. The driver looked up at the signal light, to the right, to the left, up again. Someone in the car unfolded a map. Another car zoomed crazily toward the same intersection and that driver seemed to be glowering darkly. He was dark and swarthy. I imagined he was on his way to midday prayers at the temple. He invented his own lane, did not bother with his brakes.

Hawaii is being overrun by English sparrows, who scream loudly for attention beginning at 5 AM, hoping for crumbs from tourists at cafes and park benches. If every English sparrow would just turn into a Hawaiian dove and coo sweetly instead, the world would be a much better place. I think W's entire cabinet will be reincarnated as English sparrows. Either that or cowbirds. More likely it will be cowbirds because they lay their eggs in host birds' nests, sneaking them in like CIA operatives. Then the hatchlings hog all the food that the adult birds bring home, eventually shoving the weaker nestmates out and grow up to be large, ugly and pigheaded.

We left Oahu and all its screaming invasive species as well as a pretty hefty amount of cash and went off to the Big Island. Paradise (aka Hawaii) is very relaxing until you realize how much money you are spending very rapidly. Then you wake up suddenly from one of those falling dreams, consider screaming for help and realize Specific Groove really has its merits. I shopped at Ala Moana all afternoon on Mothers Day as a sort of re-enactment of mother-child interdependence. It is also the mother of all malls (at least of those I have been to), which made it especially appropos. It has all of the exact same very expensive stores Kalakaua Avenue does except they are all right next to each other in one exorbitantly rich concentration. The Avenue is very long and there are various other business concerns interspersed along it that dilute the impact of buying $500 scarves and $1,200 purses. Ala Moana in comparison has 240 stores to tempt you. I resisted all but about three. Then I left the island.

I floated and bobbed and frolicked at Hapuna Beach until I could feel my sunblock falling back for reinforcements. I noticed a man who, if he had been dressed well in an elegant city like Paris or Milan, would have looked perfectly normal. But, he was overdone, just like a piece of beef jerky wearing running shorts.

I thought of tsunamis and earthquakes, lava flows and Pele demanding chickens be tossed into her calderas. Hawaii is a big new island compared to Oahu. I'm not sure where to get the chickens yet because we just got here, but I'll let you know. Maybe she'll accept English sparrows.