Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


12.27.2004  

The Misses

For twenty-three years, I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's in Hawai'i. Twenty-two of those years were spent without the knowledge that I'd be getting on an airplane in January, and flying away for only God knew how long. I've now spent two years away from home, and I consider myself a seasoned veteran of spending Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's away from home.



Pfft. Yeah, right :)



I still miss home far more intensely than I'm aware of. It's the little things I miss...



I miss taking Kayla and Kyle to Starbucks with me. We'd sit there, playing checkers with rolled up pieces of brown Starbucks napkins and white folder paper; I would be drinking my coffee, they'd be drinking their hot chocolate. Kayla would ask if Uncle Brian would be coming to hang out with us, 'cause Uncle Brian was always at Starbucks with Uncle Johnny.



I miss picking up my dad. I was always late picking him up, but that was mostly due to the fact that I was almost always out surfing before I had to go pick him up. Add in the fact that I'd usually be out surfing with Andrew, and my tardiness was sealed, because Andrew and I would always run on the same time back at home: Hawaiian Time :) Hawaiian Time, for those of the Caucasian pursuasian who are ignorant of such a term, is the time that those from Hawai'i seem to run on, which is fifteen minutes later than what the actual time is. Hawaiian time does not affect me up here, but it does run in my veins when I'm at home...especially when I'm with Andrew. My dad knew this. Whenever he'd get into the car, he'd make a big show of looking at his wristwatch, take a sly sidelong glance my way, and then let a slow grin spread across his face. After that, I'd start laughing, and then he'd join me in my laughter.



I miss Christmas at home. Since Kayla and Kyle were born, we seemed to have two sets of kids: the big kids (us), and the little kids (Kayla, Kyle, and now Kason). You'd think that in our tradition of opening presents at 2 am Christmas morning, the little kids would be the ones waking up the big kids. Not so. We, the big kids, would always drag the little ones out of bed, no matter how tired they were. We'd tell them that they'd have to smile when we took our traditional picture in front of the Christmas tree, 'cause if they didn't, we'd have yet one more thing to tease them about at their weddings. (Oh, the joys of being an uncle!) After the picture, we'd all stake out a spot somewhere, and then Mary would go and pass out the presents from under the tree. Lisa's pile was always the biggest; for some reason, though, half of her presents looked as though they'd already been unwrapped and wrapped up again. Hmmm. The labels that read, "do not open 'til Xmas!" didn't seem to help, either. Hmmm. In fact, those seemed to be the ones in particular that showed signs of tampering. Hmmm.



I miss New Year's. In the good days, back before they regulated the fireworks being brought in, the whole island would go up in smoke :) My cousins would somehow "acquire" the five and six-inch festival balls (the types you'd see being launched at professional shows), and we'd launch them from the end of the driveway. You could be standing a good hundred feet away from the launching base (comprised of a thick tube in packed sand), and you'd feel a deep, booming vibration in your chest cavity. That was cool in a dangerous, "oh my goodness what sort of idiotic practices did you participate in, you dummy!" sort of way :) Everybody had fireworks, and everybody was playing with them. It was nearly impossible to see very far on most neighborhood streets, especially if the tradewinds weren't very strong. The New Year's of 1999 - 2000 was particularly memorable, if only because that was the last year when fireworks were freely available. *Sigh*...I think the best part about New Year's was the eating. It seemed we always had sashimi. The good thing was that we lived close enough to Tamashiro's that we could run down there and get more fish if we needed to, 'cause with me and Leonard, you never really had enough fresh (Caucasians: when I say "fresh" fish, I mean raw fish, prepared Japanese style, as sashimi...only the highest quality fish is considered "sashimi-grade") fish. Ahi, Hamachi, Saba, Kajiki...oh my...I'm salivating...gotta stop this.



I miss youth ministry with the FCF youth staff. Wow...it's been a while since we've been together. Our staff was one of those groups of people that only God could bring together, 'cause there's no way we would've chosen ourselves. Jon, Amy, Andrew, Jeff, Im, Lisa, Jenn, Aya, Sean, me, Cindy, Troy...together, we truly were greater than the sum of our parts. The great thing about our staff was not what we did, but that whatever we did do, we did together. After running a youth camp, unpacking all the gear at the church office, waiting for the last of the kids to be picked up/taken home, trekking up Aiea Heights to Jon and Amy's house to have our little debriefing/sharing time, you'd think the only thing on our minds would be bed. Not so with FCF's youth ministry staff :) We'd invariably go out to watch a movie, no matter how horrible the movie selection was. We just wanted to be together...ironic, considering we just spent a considerable length of time in one another's proverbial hair.



*Sigh*...yeah, I miss home...

posted by Bolo | 1:37 PM
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