Waikiki on a Sunday night
Copyright © 2019
by Ralph F. Couey
Normally my offerings here are of the single subject variety, but while I have a box full of random thoughts, none of them were really expandable into a single essay, So, I decided to offer a collection of some of those random thoughts.
Working nights is, for me anyway, a royal pain. It impacts the rest of my life in so many negative ways that it's kind of sucked the fun out of what is a very interesting job. I do have days off, but rotating to a day schedule in order to interact with the rest of the world is tough. I get off Thursday morning and just stay up until sleep grabs me by the eyelids, usually by mid-evening. Last week, I retired about 8:30 pm, and slept for an unbelievable thirteen hours, not even getting up once to attend to the urgings of my prostate. But that much time spent horizontal left my back all stiffened up, and a week later, I'm still dealing with that pain.
But one of the benefits is being exposed to life that exists during a time I would normally be in bed. I wrote about this in the previous post, but I wanted to include the one thing positive I get out of being on this schedule.
My commute used to take me along Interstate H-1 through downtown, almost to Kahala. But the Hawai'i road crews have been working on some overpasses and that has created some annoying traffic. So instead, I take Nimitz Highway along the harbor to where it joins Ala Moana Boulevard, and eventually becomes Kalakaua, the main street through Waikiki.
There's something that fascinates me about city streets at night. Here, I think it may be that with the sun gone for the day, the air sorta cools down and people are out walking the streets. In Waikiki, that means the tourists. I enjoy watching them, knowing that for most of them, this is the vacation of their lives, a special week or two that will stay with them forever. Even on a late weeknight, they're out having fun, wanting to spend as little as possible time on something as wasteful as sleep.
Vegas at night is also fun to experience. As you drive along the strip, you are blasted from several directions by loud music and enormous video boards hung on the side of the hotels and casinos. Waikiki, in contrast, is very quiet. There are only a few places where you'll hear music, and most of that comes from street performers. I think that this is because Waikiki is not just exciting, it's also romantic, and that requires a certain amount of peace and quiet. If you're on the south side of the sidewalk along the beach, the ocean is an indefinable black mass beyond the palm trees. But you can hear the regular wash of the surf hitting the sand. It's both relaxing and mood-enhancing. Walking along like that hand in hand with the love of your life...just doesn't get any better. I see those couples, and their happiness makes me smile.
At Kapahulu, the Aston marks the last of the strip hotels, along with the last of the ubiquitous ABC stores. Across the intersection, to the north is the zoo and just beyond that is the wide open greenspace of Kapiolani Park. Kalakaua now narrows down to a one lane one-way street. To the right, darkness shrouds the grass that goes down to the water's edge. It's a startling transformation, going from elbow-to-elbow high-rises to wide open space. But at night, the park on either side of the road is in darkness. The only lights lining the street illuminating a stately corridor of palm trees.
I'm not sure why this drive has such a beneficial effect on my mood, but I've learned that sometimes it's better not to analyze, just enjoy.
******
On Thursday night, my Chiefs played the Denver Broncos, a game that in the past has been fraught with playoff implications. But Denver has been epically bad this season. Not that the recent run by the Chiefs has been impressive. Two straight losses in which the defense folded like a wet newspaper and Pat Mahomes looked...well...human. Things were going sort of good, but then in the second quarter, Mahomes stuck his nose into the line in search of a critical first down. As the players unpiled, we could see that something was wrong. Very wrong. Incredibly wrong. Mahomes face mirrored a great deal of pain as he pointed at his left leg. Looking there, you didn't have to be a medical professional to see a damaged knee. I wouldn't have been surprised if the National Weather Service had noted a sudden drop in air pressure in Kansas City as a million people simultaneously gasped.
This was to be The Season. The year when the Chiefs would return to the Super Bowl for the first time in a half-century. Now suddenly, that hope was being turned into ashes. True, the kneecap was popped back into place quickly and Pat was walking almost normally as he left the field. He'll be out at least three games, and perhaps one more. We saw this once before in 1969 when Len Dawson went down with a knee injury and sat out for five games. But the team forged onward, going 4-1 in that stretch and winning Super Bowl IV. This time is different, in that the defense today is a shadow of that unit in '69, and despite their smothering performance against the Broncos, as fans we have to be careful about our optimism because (1) it was against one of the worst teams in the NFL and (2) these are the Chiefs, after all, a team that for its fans has defined the term "crushing disappointment."
They got ten days off to prepare for the intimidating Green Bay Packers who are playing phenomenal football right now. Everyone expects the Chiefs to lose, and lose big. Mahomes' replacement Matt Moore is a 13-year veteran. But he's not Mahomes. Clearly, the rest of the team is going to have to step up and step up big during this stretch. The question is, will they?
We shall see. Meanwhile, Chiefs fans are feeling a different kind of anticipation for the Packers game than was originally expected. I'll bet the network carrying the game is also dreading the next-day numbers. This was to be an epic meeting of two of the best QBs in NFL history. Now...not so much.
******
I just watched the final trailer for the last Star Wars movie, due out on December 20th. I thought about that for a moment and had a fleeting moment of mourning. After all, Star Wars has been a part of our culture since 1977, 42 years. That's a lifetime, or at least a sizeable portion thereof. A big part of that has been the sense of anticipation that existed between the releases of the soon-to-be nine episodes. Now, after Christmas, there will be no more movies, no more anticipation. Makes me a little sad, but also awed by the staying power of the franchise. We quote from the movies often in our conversations and the characters have become part and parcel of our pantheon. Once in awhile, I'll run into someone who admits they've never seen the movies, and that's shocking. But then, I"ve never seen Downton Abbey, either.
Still, this is essentially the passing of a giant, and a watermark of cultural history. May the Force be with you.
******
My mother-in-law's memory is getting worse by the day. She rarely knows what day of the week it is, and has trouble remembering even simple things, like when was the last time she ate. The other night, she took two baths because she forgot she had taken the first one. There are times now when I talk to her that I see her eyes searching my face, as if she is trying to remember who I am. The terrible day we are all dreading, the day when she will have to move into managed care is obviously coming a lot quicker than any of us really want.
This has been hard on all of us, but particularly on Cheryl. For her whole life, her mom has been a kind of superhero. There was nothing she couldn't do or organize. She was strong beyond comprehension and possessed of iron principals. To see her mother reduced to this current declining state is tough on a daughter. Also in the background is the dark thought floating there, will this be me at some point? We all love her dearly, and this makes us all sad.
This situation affects Cheryl and I not only personally, but in what it portends for our immediate future. Cheryl has a little under a year left on her current contract. The plan was for her to retire at that point, at least from nursing. But now, we're having discussions about what lies ahead. It's painfully obvious that we can't afford to live in Hawai'i. So we have to start thinking about where we'll go from here once we finish our caregiver responsibilities. We still don't know where we want to settle. This list is long and inconclusive. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Provo, the Shenandoah end of Virginia, even Maryland. For most of our lives, we have enjoyed being vagabonds. But that has left us feeling now like no place is really home. We were hoping for the space to come up with an answer to that question, but the future, as it so often does, is racing towards us and demanding us to make a decision sooner rather than later. Right now, it's a long tunnel lacking the revealing light at its end.
Random thoughts are like sheets of paper blowing down a deserted street. But for now, I've cleaned up a little of my mental mess and my thoughts are clearing up. I enjoy writing, and I know it's good for my brain health. But my times of writer's block come more often, and more often insurmountable. But I'll keep plugging along. At least until I no longer can.
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