About Oahu

Four blocks up from the Hilton Village is an Oahu few tourists choose to see.

It's just past the canal that runs through Waikiki, a vessel for rainwater run-off and hotel sewage, that crew teams paddle their boats over. Just past this canal, barely out of range of the luau ukulele, are high rise apartment buildings strewn with strings of drying laundry, with strings of children running up and down the stairways. With skateboarders in the parking lots.

Between these skyscrapers are tiny, flat-roofed huts, upon which mango trees release their fruits that roll onto the dirt. The siding of the huts is plywood and aluminum, and lizards slip in and out of the chain-linked fences.

Piles of trash wait on street corners: stained, saggy mattresses; broken bookshelves. Diapers spilling from opened bags.

In the afternoons, tents sprawl around swings and slides: a city park for the homeless, whose scruffy shoes park outside the door flaps.

There are feral cats and enormous cockroaches and birds who sing above it all.

There are few big gas companies and no "mainland" banks.

Each street you cross has a disabled pedestrian with a tiny arm, a shortened leg, a hunched back. The result of lack of prenatal care? Of alcoholism? Of nuclear fallout?

For these kama aina ("Children of the Land"), Life Cereal is $9. A loaf of French bread is $7.29. It is cheaper to eat a McDonald's Big Mac than an apple. And a two-bedroom apartment costs
$1,200/month.

There are lots and lots of service jobs--hotels, restaurants, shops--but really, no other industry.

And the public schools are irreparable.

You'd think this poverty and collapsed infrastructure would get these natives down.

Not so much.

On Saturdays, they open their trunks and drag their Weber Grills over the sand, and they raise canvas roofs and play the guitar from their tattered Coleman camp chairs. They gather as brothers and sisters and cousins and grandmas, and they grin and flip their ono chicken, and shoot around the soccer ball at Ala Moana Beach.

The sun sets and the coffee-colored babies sleep on turtle-printed towels, and everyone listens to Auntie talk-story about the time before the Hilton Village and the skyscrapers, the time before the '60s. Before Life was so expensive. The brothers and sisters and cousins, they listen. And they eat the bread Auntie has made from the bananas in her yard.

What They Won't See

I leave for the NEH Institute in Hawaii in just over two short months, and if the last three weeks of spring term is any indication, that is going to fly by.

After lots of thinking and looking up airfare and doing yoga, I've decided. The kids won't come out to see me, but if I miss them unbearably, I'll fly home for a quick weekend.

Dave works hard, and he is super supportive of my 5 week study, taking off a whole month from high fire season to shuttle the kids to swimming lessons, take them to the library. We're 19 years into this marriage, he and i, and we've not yet had a long, exotic vacation alone. This is the time.

Yes, I will crave my kids' arms around my neck. I will cry knowing that Dominic can't show me the fort he's built, that Daney can't crawl into my bed and talk about her day, that Rees won't brush my hair.

I will not see my favorite thing in the world: my cuties pulling their suitcases through the airport, that is one thing I'm sure I will miss.

But there are other things I won't see, too, because they are things my kids would have shown me. Like the assassin bug the boys spied in a bush in Cabo, or the morray eel Dominic spotted in the rocks in Hawaii, or the fried chicken place Daney found in Harlem.

With their sharp little eyes and their open hearts, my kids have always seen the things I don't, and I'm sad to know I will blindly pass plumeria and pufferfish and singing kingfishers. And while I'm nose-deep in Asian studies and the art of the Polynesian Cultural Center, I will promise myself to bring my babies back and show them the sunsets, the beaches, the carving in the palm tree. I will show them the best of the best.

Gas & Groceries -- Day Two

I had really good intentions.

I mean, I had logged 300 miles with 3 kids over 8 hours without spending a single penny. I did it, but it wasn't easy.

The second day was going to be easier, right?

We got up and had bagels and went on a long lizard walk (that's where we watch rocks for little lizards perching on them).

Then we had delicious juice spritzers and sandwiches and fruit salad with marshmallow cream at Erika's house in Folsom. We lounged around like the lizards we'd found earlier.

We were happy and rested and full-bellied.

So why did we stop at the fruit stand on the way home and flip 28 bucks for cookies, muffins, and peaches?

And that wasn't all.

Later, for dinner, we took ourselves and my dad to Taco Tree. Another $28. Whoops.

Must. Try Harder. Tomorrow.

Total for Day Two: $56.00

Only Gas & Groceries? Day One

So the kids and I added a little twist to our trip from Ashland, Oregon, to Auburn, California. While Dave stays home raking in the overtime, we thought we'd try not to spend any extra money beyond gas and groceries. Could we make a 300 mile drive without spending a dime?

The way out of town was hardest. I knew I wouldn't have access to Noble Coffee for over a week, and I had to really restrain myself from grabbing a creamy caramel latte. So I conjured up my own concoction -- definitely not as yummy -- and we hit the road.

Our first stop two hours in was Redding's Turtle Bay Museum/Aquarium.We're members of the International Association of Science & Technology Centers, so admission was free. So was the Wild Animal Show.After watching monarchs hatch and painted ladies land in the Butterfly Garden, we had our packed picnic at the Paul Bunyan Park.

A few more miles down I-5, we stopped to sample some treats at the Olive PitRees' fave was the smokey garlic.

Before pulling into my dad's driveway, we'd piled ourselves silly with library books (I still have my card from when I was a little girl).

It was a night of laughing with Erika and Ryan, and chasing around the eight ducks that Mac is raising. And of course, there were Legos. Lots and lots of Legos.

Total Cost for Day One: $0.00!!!

Portland: Some of This, This, This, and of course, These

Dos Gringas, Bombaros, & Anne Frank

The first clue should have been the deserted tunnel that ran from San Ysidro to Tijuana.

It was seventy degrees on the Sunday early afternoon, a sunny day bookended by severe storms.

Yet no one but my cousin's wife, Genny, and I strolled past the graffitied walls, over the bridge and across Avenida Revolucion to the plaza.

My dad had warned me against going into Mexico. My husband kept his phone on the whole time, waiting for the call of how much they wanted to give me back. Neither of my girlfriends would go with me. But Genny would, so we headed over the border in search of skeletons and tin art.

After picking up a poncho and straw hat for Dave and several eskeletos for the kids, I realized that Genny and I were the only shoppers in the alleys. Most of the metal doors had remained shut, and in the last open store, we asked the furniture vendor at what point in the day they would open.

From under butterfly flags, she explained that the stores weren't opening. That because of bad media and the recession, the sellers had gone for good.

She went on to tell us that we were the only "white people" she'd seen in a week. A week!

There were no tourists. There was no money.

On our way back to the bridge, Genny and I visited the Bomberos, our international family of firefighters. There were more engines there than in any station I've ever seen. Do you sell shirts, I asked them. They said they didn't. But one insisted I take his.

Of course, I didn't want to take the man's uniform. He probably only had a couple, if that, and I suddenly felt selfish and thoughtless.

But when the man brought me to the back of the bay, to a room not unlike Dave's in Oregon, and when he pulled a shirt from his bag and handed it over proudly, I accepted with humility.

I thanked the man and hugged him, and as we crossed Avenida Negrete, I held up the shirt to a passing van of policia, who got a good laugh.


In the vast customs building, I looked over my shoulder. Thousands of border crossers were herded like cattle through metal stalls. And not one of them, not one, was "white."

Maybe it's true that Tijuana isn't perfect. Maybe bad things happen there, maybe even to good people. But on this day, the worst thing that happened was that it was tough finding a Diet Coke (Coca Light).

It reminded me of Anne Frank's famous quote: "...Despite everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart."