zaziel
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I'tr�m breit vula�oz�o ye spalla ei�tlin nel�ffnes pieqi aummit su berwegr'ra'ao.

Ramblin' Men, Part 1

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2003 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

It's hard to believe it's been two months since we were here:

Two months. Two-thirds of my summer, gone, and the autumnal equinox only twenty days away.

The bitty island in the foreground is named Mokolii, Little Dragon (but more commonly known as Chinaman's Hat); according to legend, it�s a piece of a dragon-like fellow killed by an Hawaii goddess, a sister of Pele, who chopped off his tail and tossed it into the sea. Mokolii gave me a scar I carried on my knee for many years, a nip from the lava rock teeth of the dragon�s ghost. When I was ten, my father took me with him to Oahu for a business conference in Honolulu�a big meet-n-greet of petrologists, geologists and petrogeologists�which he only attended minimally, just enough to avert complaints.* But even reduced to the finely calculated minimum, his obligations obliged me to wander alone through Hawaii�s capital for a couple of days. What I chiefly remember about those two days was waiting for the bus. Okay, I also remember a magnificent banyan tree on a lawn near the capitol buildings, the Barnes & Noble in the Ala Moana mall, and eating manapua outdoors at a cement table with Japanese tourists who spoke no English. I remember feeling adventurous and intimidated, not quite lonely, not quite bored, unimpressed with Waikiki and the Bishop Museum, and slightly pissed that I was not allowed to go to the Diamond Head crater by myself. We never did go. When my father finally ditched his colleagues, we only stayed in Honolulu long enough for my introduction to dim sun, and to buy a car. Walking out of the restaurant, she was parked on the street before us, an archaic 2-door Rambler station wagon named Lucy, with a For Sale sign taped to the rear window. The car was not locked, so my father looked it over, inside and out, an inspection that was more than cursory if less than exhaustive, and somewhat embarrassing to me. Pop opined that the rust was deeper than cosmetic, but would not hinder us, and the price�$400�was reasonable. The parking meter showed less than ten minutes, so we waited for the driver, who luckily came into view a few seconds after my father had exited the car. Pop paid him in cash on the spot, we drove him home, met the wife who had named the car Lucy, extricated ourselves with politeness from their island hospitality, and drove off in our holiday jalopy. (A few days later, on the day we left Hawaii, my dad sold it to another chance-met stranger for $100. Years later, when I was more adult, I realized neither of these transactions had involved transfers of registration. I imagine my dad would have simply given the car away, or left it parked somewhere, unlocked with the keys in it, if he had not found a buyer on that last day.)

Adequately motorized, we threw our bags into the back, filled the tank with gas, filled a thermos with Lion coffee, picked up a six-pack of root beer and a box of fresh hot malassadas**, and then we were rattling over the Koolau range, heading for my bloody encounter with a little dragon, my father�s discovery of Punaluu, and three days as roofless, rootless beach bums on the northern windward coast of the island.

~

* My father was only an accidental geologist�it was something he fell into because he was an oilman; he accrued his education sporadically, eventually attaining a Phd from Stanford in his fifties, but he never saw himself as a doctor of anything. He was a wildcatter at heart, born too late.

** Deep fried lumps of dough, Portuguese equivalent to the Polish pacski (pronounced "poonch-key") my grandmother made every year on Fat Tuesday. She wasn't Polish, but her best friend, Bernice, was. Bernice and my grandmother ran a pie and pastry business out of the kitchen that is now mine�that's what gave me the idea for my cookie enterprise. My gran'pa built this house according to his own vision, but the kitchen was the enduring center of my gran'ma's empire. When I inherited the house, the kitchen counters needed to be replaced, and I got new cupboards in a trade with a cabinetmaker, but the stainless steel Sub-Zero fridge, the Wolf double oven, and the La Cornue range named Farfalla Gialla, still stand after fifty years and do their duty as imperial monuments to my granny's ambition. And once a year, on Shrove Tuesday, using Bernice's recipe, we still make pacski for the children and grandchildren of my grandmother's old customers.


The Yellow Butterfly

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

last eleven:

Resurrection - Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Arts and Letters -
Friday, June 17, 2005
Domestic Obsessions -
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
The Kindness of Strangers -
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Gone -
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Coming Back, Little By Little -
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Effing Around -
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Explicably Yours -
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Things Too Innumerable To Mention -
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Mr. Armstrong -
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
The Pope in Our Kitchen -
Saturday, October 2, 2004



<- Z @ D ->

Sa r'ji�o oss�vel meninonceiv �o poshik m�'�nch uscantebatahla o�r musiu o�r muiko.
Copyright � 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by gcs

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