Bishop, Pirates, Parade (in Oahu)
Sep. 30th, 2023 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI get a call today while we're sitting at the airport and it's a Seattle area code, so I ignore it, but then they leave a message and it's some weird thing about them finding a box of my stuff in the woods, with some ARTICLES in it, and I'm like "WTF!?"
So I call up the number and a gentleman walking on the wooded paths around the golf course by our house has found an opened-up box with the ARTICLES HE MENTIONED in it.
And I'm still like "WTF!?" And I'm trying to figure out if somehow our trash has ended up out at the golf course, or worse if someone has broken into our house while we're gone. But I finally get him to tell me what the ARTICLES are, and he says there's a list in the box, and it says "Sins of Sinister" and "Swamp Thing: Green [mumble]". And I *finally* figure out what's going on.
It's a comic-book delivery from Instrocktrades.com that got dropped off yesterday and sat on our porch over night. (The Swamp Thing is Green *HELL* by the by.) And some friggin' porch pirate has grabbed it. And that friggin' porch pirate had indescribably shitty taste because he'd also ripped it open, seen it was some highly anticipated comics, and cast it to the side.
I mean who steals a box, finds they're comics, and throws them aside?
So happy ending that I got my package back, but sad ending that our part of Kauai which I'd ranked pretty darned safe has thieves in it. We're apparently going to have to keep a much closer eye on our packages and/or figure out how to make an explosive confetti box.
==
This morning we went to see a parade. It's a big floral parade in Waikiki that we happened to be in town for.
The parade started at 9am just past the far side of Waikiki and was supposed to continue until noon. So after a quick breakfast, around 10am we headed over to the parade route. I figured the parade started 2 miles away and would likely be going somewhere between 1.5 and 2 mph, which would likely hit our corner between 10 and 10.30.
There were people congregated on the street, but it wasn't a dire crush. We sat down just back from the curb behind some nice ladies who K. talked to about braiding leaves into leis.
We were in the shade, but the sun continued to shift, and soon we were less so. Some of the other people near us retreated back across the sidewalk to be up against the building.
And then we heard another woman, on the other side of us, talking on the phone and she said, "He says, the parade's started."
So we'd kind of thought the parade might be on "Hawaii Time", and that would perhaps mean it started 10 or 15 minutes late. But we hadn't expected at least an hour late. Which by my estimate would put it by us somewhere between 11 or 11.30.
With the sun increasingly beating down us, we decided that perhaps we wouldn't see a parade after all.
==
We had a backup plan. If the parade fell through in one way or another, we'd decided to go out to the Bishop Museum of culture & science & history. So after at last checking out of our room, we hopped on a bus and headed west out of Waikiki.
Just before we passed over the Ala Wai Canal to exit Waikiki, probably at 10.45 or so, we heard the increasing loud sounds of a marching band. And there was the parade, ever-so briefly taking up half the lanes on our road before turning toward the seaside.
As we sat at a stop (where our bus driver talked to a would-be rider and somewhat inexplicably went running after him when he exited the bus) we watched that band go by, then a truck with a single floral arrangement on it, then some other marchers, then a larger floral float.
And then we were off!
But we did see the parade, ever so briefly.
(And I think it indeed wouldn't have hit our corner until 11.30 or so.)
==
Bishop Museum is amazing and weird.
It's a whole campus with at least four major buildings.
We spent the early part of our stay there in the Science Adventure Center, the best parts of which were a big volcano model, a weird underground walk with illuminated displays on the origins of Hawaii, and a talk about volcanoes and the formation of the islands.
We then spent another hour or so in a huge hall full of cultural artifacts from Hawaii (and discussions of gods, which were pretty neat too).
We'd allocated two hours and I don't think we even saw half of the campus, so we'll have to be back to Bishop Museum some other day. It was pretty amazing.
==
I manage to miss a step when coming down the stairs in the Hawaiian Hall at Bishop Museum, just as we were leaving, and twisted up my ankle a bit. Hopefully it'll be better in a few days, but that's unfortunately going to keep me from working on the lawn tomorrow, which has been waiting my attention since before I headed to Germany(!). (Fortunately it's been hot and not too wet so it's been growing slow-for-Hawaii.)
But Kimberly and I got to have his-and-hers limps in the afternoon, thanks to her hurting knee and my twisted ankle.
==
Porch pirates, twisted ankle, and a mostly missed parade.
I don't care, it was still a nice day and a nice couple of days away.
So I call up the number and a gentleman walking on the wooded paths around the golf course by our house has found an opened-up box with the ARTICLES HE MENTIONED in it.
And I'm still like "WTF!?" And I'm trying to figure out if somehow our trash has ended up out at the golf course, or worse if someone has broken into our house while we're gone. But I finally get him to tell me what the ARTICLES are, and he says there's a list in the box, and it says "Sins of Sinister" and "Swamp Thing: Green [mumble]". And I *finally* figure out what's going on.
It's a comic-book delivery from Instrocktrades.com that got dropped off yesterday and sat on our porch over night. (The Swamp Thing is Green *HELL* by the by.) And some friggin' porch pirate has grabbed it. And that friggin' porch pirate had indescribably shitty taste because he'd also ripped it open, seen it was some highly anticipated comics, and cast it to the side.
I mean who steals a box, finds they're comics, and throws them aside?
So happy ending that I got my package back, but sad ending that our part of Kauai which I'd ranked pretty darned safe has thieves in it. We're apparently going to have to keep a much closer eye on our packages and/or figure out how to make an explosive confetti box.
==
This morning we went to see a parade. It's a big floral parade in Waikiki that we happened to be in town for.
The parade started at 9am just past the far side of Waikiki and was supposed to continue until noon. So after a quick breakfast, around 10am we headed over to the parade route. I figured the parade started 2 miles away and would likely be going somewhere between 1.5 and 2 mph, which would likely hit our corner between 10 and 10.30.
There were people congregated on the street, but it wasn't a dire crush. We sat down just back from the curb behind some nice ladies who K. talked to about braiding leaves into leis.
We were in the shade, but the sun continued to shift, and soon we were less so. Some of the other people near us retreated back across the sidewalk to be up against the building.
And then we heard another woman, on the other side of us, talking on the phone and she said, "He says, the parade's started."
So we'd kind of thought the parade might be on "Hawaii Time", and that would perhaps mean it started 10 or 15 minutes late. But we hadn't expected at least an hour late. Which by my estimate would put it by us somewhere between 11 or 11.30.
With the sun increasingly beating down us, we decided that perhaps we wouldn't see a parade after all.
==
We had a backup plan. If the parade fell through in one way or another, we'd decided to go out to the Bishop Museum of culture & science & history. So after at last checking out of our room, we hopped on a bus and headed west out of Waikiki.
Just before we passed over the Ala Wai Canal to exit Waikiki, probably at 10.45 or so, we heard the increasing loud sounds of a marching band. And there was the parade, ever-so briefly taking up half the lanes on our road before turning toward the seaside.
As we sat at a stop (where our bus driver talked to a would-be rider and somewhat inexplicably went running after him when he exited the bus) we watched that band go by, then a truck with a single floral arrangement on it, then some other marchers, then a larger floral float.
And then we were off!
But we did see the parade, ever so briefly.
(And I think it indeed wouldn't have hit our corner until 11.30 or so.)
==
Bishop Museum is amazing and weird.
It's a whole campus with at least four major buildings.
We spent the early part of our stay there in the Science Adventure Center, the best parts of which were a big volcano model, a weird underground walk with illuminated displays on the origins of Hawaii, and a talk about volcanoes and the formation of the islands.
We then spent another hour or so in a huge hall full of cultural artifacts from Hawaii (and discussions of gods, which were pretty neat too).
We'd allocated two hours and I don't think we even saw half of the campus, so we'll have to be back to Bishop Museum some other day. It was pretty amazing.
==
I manage to miss a step when coming down the stairs in the Hawaiian Hall at Bishop Museum, just as we were leaving, and twisted up my ankle a bit. Hopefully it'll be better in a few days, but that's unfortunately going to keep me from working on the lawn tomorrow, which has been waiting my attention since before I headed to Germany(!). (Fortunately it's been hot and not too wet so it's been growing slow-for-Hawaii.)
But Kimberly and I got to have his-and-hers limps in the afternoon, thanks to her hurting knee and my twisted ankle.
==
Porch pirates, twisted ankle, and a mostly missed parade.
I don't care, it was still a nice day and a nice couple of days away.