I Don't Care Or How To Get Vivian to Take Responsibility

I interrupt the Hawaii vacation posts with breaking news. Vivian can be responsible.

On Saturday, while Ava, Cade, Evan and I drank IPAs and ate pizza at the Pint House, Jo dropped Vivian off to her friend's birthday sleepover. I went to get her on Sunday morning. The girls stayed up till 1:30am. I expect some level of grumpiness for the rest of the day.

So, after second breakfasts at the Shah's, I suggested that Vivian take a nap and then do some homework. She started sobbing. That's when Jo left the house for a meeting with some Magellan mothers and took Evan and Cade with her. I fed the girls lunch, got into bed with my book and told Vivian she could do as she pleases. She and Ava turned on the TV. I didn't yell. I didn't let loose with sarcasm. I just read my book.

About two and a half hours later she came up and asked me to help her select pictures from magazines for her English homework. She had apparently napped for an hour, read a book in Spanish and answered questions, and had told Eleanor and Ava that she couldn't play because she needed to make a collage about a chapter book for English.

That's when I assumed I had picked up the wrong child from the sleepover this morning.

My dear child, the question is: can you replicate your responsible take-charge behavior without requiring me to act like I don't care at first? Because I do.

Resting

Jo and I are both under the weather. Runny noses, body aches, the feeling before you are officially sick. And the weather turned. It hasn't rained since we got here. Everything is unbelievably lush and the mountain hovering over our heads is among the wettest spots on earth. So we knew it was going to rain sometime and that time is now. But it isn't a constant rain. It pours and then stops and you get some blue sky. So we walked down to our beach.

Vivian truly loves the ocean. Evan - he's more of a beach guy.

Vivian and I get a fresh ahi roll each at Sushi Girl along the way and the rest get Hawaiian grilled cheeses for lunch in Hanalei. Then we go to Pink for ice cream and Vivian picks Kona Mud - loaded with coffee. It's her pre-birthday treat. She's almost nine - old enough for a spot of caffeine. Then we drive eastward along the North Shore to the town of Kilauea and the lighthouse beyond. The point marks the northernmost point of the inhabited Hawaiian islands though the chain continues for another twelve hundred miles north westwards.

Na Pali

Happy Valentine's Day. Jo decides that we need to give our love to the Na Pali coast on this lovely Sunday morning. Before the crowds get there, we drive to the end of the road and park. The signs at the trail head indicate that it is a dangerous trail with all kinds of hazards. So Jo and I start hiking along with Carol and her fake knee and two hyper kids who often trip on flat floors.

It isn't fair to say the the Na Pali coast is stunning because that simply falls short. We get to the 1/2 mile point pretty quickly. Carol and her fake knee have done very well. But she decides she has had enough and finds a nice spot on a flattish rock. We tell her we'll be back in a few hours and continue up the trail. This is what a tiny sliver of view looks like from Carol's rock.

The kids do really well. Our destination is "the beach". It is only one and a half miles from where we have left Carol but the trail is never flat. Evan steps into a puddle of mud at one of the smaller creek crossings and his shoe is covered in mud. At the very end where we start climbing back down to sea level, Vivian decides she can't remember how to walk and falls about four times in four minutes, but always without any danger of serious injury. Just before we reach the last creek we pass this sign that says that 83+ visitors have died in the water. "DO NOT GO INTO THE WATER". We don't.

We rest where the creek enters the ocean. Breakers pound the rocks - waves splash 40-50 feet high and a haze of pulverized mist hangs in the air creating rainbows wherever you look. It is a magical sight. But the trail is crowded and that makes it less fun. It continues on the other side for another 11 miles and we occasionally see serious campers headed all the way. I would like to do that on my next trip here. But for now we hustle back to where we had left Grandma on a rock. We make it back in good time, sit around for a bit more, and then head on back down. Vivian and Evan find a vine at the bottom to play on till Carol and Jo catch up with us.

Today we don't do much after the hike. We drive back down to Hanalei and eat shave ice and island barbecue and go to sleep early. We are so tired the roosters don't wake us up. Or may be they are tired too.

Hanalei

Today is special. It has been twelve years since that icy morning at Cibolo Creek Ranch when I got down on one knee and asked Jo to marry me. Thank you, sweetheart. Here's to the next few dozen.

In one of those weird coincidences, Justice Scalia passed away in his sleep at the very same place exactly twelve years later.

By the way the fucking rooster doesn't care that it's our anniversary or that Scalia is dead. The foul fowl started crowing at midnight. It's a very good thing we don't open carry in the rainbow isles.

Deep breaths. We start the day with a walk down our beach. The ocean is calm today. It almost looks like a different place. The kids write on the sand with pieces of driftwood and climb their favorite tree.

After breakfast we meet Jen and Travis at yet another beach close by. Hanalei is the last town on the North Shore. The Kuhio Highway runs through it with the grocery store, shave ice place and barbecue joint on one side, and the Hanalei school, it's soccer grounds, and taro fields on the other. The Hanalei River is beyond picturesque and meanders through it all. On the ocean, Hanalei Bay is an almost perfect semicircle facing due north with lovely wide shallow beaches lining the bay from about 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock. Looking up from the beach you see the unbelievably lush but jagged mountains rise up, occasionally shrouded in clouds.

As the ocean is calm today, this beach is like a bathtub. Even Carol ventures in till she decides that the water isn't warm enough. The kids float around on their boogie boards and ride the gentle swells. Vivian can shoot up the beach on her board, riding the surf all the way to the dry sand. We have been warned that the beach will be crowded today - it's the perfect weather on a Saturday during a long weekend. Every tourist and all the locals are out. So we only have about a hundred yards of empty sand on either side of our umbrellas (we have two today). These guys should go to Narragansett if they want to see crowded.  

There's a bit of a stir because Jen spots Gaby Reece on the beach. Her husband Laird Hamilton is out there surfing. I need to quietly check with Jo who these people are.

Later we go back home and grill fresh monchong for dinner. It's the Hawaiian name for pomfret - my all time favorite fish growing up (mmm - I can close my eyes and taste the crispy skin, silky fatness and white light flakey goodness of pomfret bhaja). We try to finish our stock of wine because Jen and Travis are leaving for Austin after dinner but we woefully fall short. Travis and I retire to the smokers lounge (the far end of the deck) and smoke a couple of very nice Island Prince cigars from the Kauai cigar company. And there goes another day in paradise.