Monday, May 15, 2006
Chris went to work at the library—he's working half days. Nate went to work to help write a grant proposal. Jen canceled dim sum brunch for this morning—she wasn't feeling well. Breakfast at home: pineapple, vanilla yogurt, Lebanese meat pie, grape juice. Sat in the sun on the deck for about an hour. Caught up on writing journal entries (saved as drafts in e-mail). I sneezed today—the first time since yesterday's blackout episode. It hurts my head when I sneeze, but the sneezes are involuntary! Argh! More sunbathing on the deck. Chris and I went to the pet store, health food store, drug store. We didn't need to go to the pet store, but I wanted to see doggies and we parked in a parking spot for pet store customers only. Turns out the pet store didn't have dogs—only fish and birds. At the health food store, I paid $6 for a tube of Tom's of Maine cinnamint toothpaste! Short nap. Met Chris's family at their hotel. Walked to the Royal Hawaiian hotel for their luau. I can't remember the last luau I was at—probably in my childhood? I pictured it to be low picnic tables with your feet in the sand, bamboo poles holding up thatched roofs covering the tables, a half-sunken clay oven nearby cooking kalua pig. Instead, at the Royal Hawaiian we entered a beautiful, plushcarpeted hotel lobby, waited in a huge line for about 15 minutes, checked in, got leid by a hunky (native?) young man, and got seated at long tables with cloth tablecloths and comfortable folding chairs. A live band played Hawaiian music as we entered, and atop our tables were pineapples—lift the top to reveal chunks of pineapple to snack on while waiting for the show to start. Nate described the general agenda of all luaus, which this luau seemed to follow exactly as he described. They explained the different foods for those who didn't know what things like kalua pig and lomi lomi salmon were. They invited people from the audience to learn how to hula on stage. They played more Hawaiian music and dancers danced. They invited everyone to eat. (I thought it was going to be a madhouse rush for the food, but it was all quite surprisingly orderly.) They played more music and dancers danced more. They asked couples celebrating a marriage or anniversary to stand and be recognized and then invited them to a romantic slow dance. More music and dancing, including fire dancing. Dessert was served—these were not particularly Hawaiian things like chocolate cake and lemon tart. If I can ever get Patrick to come to Hawaii, we'll have to go to this together.