Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Story Continues... Hawaii Circa 2000



Once I got to Hawaii, I was immeadiately happy. That place is so beautiful. Not to mention, 6000 miles away from the stalker.

I had decided that because I was alone, I should stay at a youth hostel. That way I could meet lots of people. My plan worked.

The first day in Waikiki, I went to breakfast and met a couple of dudes from Seattle and a girl from Quebec Canada, and they invited me on a tour of the island. From that moment on, I never got any time to myself.

The place where I stayed was called The Banana Bungalow. It was a great time. Parties every night. I was real sad when they closed a few years ago. I guess they had hired too many illegal aliens to work there, and had been shut down. But it sure was fun while it lasted.

I was hanging out with my laptop in an Internet Cafe, that was in the the lobby of the Banana Bungalow, called The Fishbowl. The owner and I became friends. He asked me if I wanted a job. I told him no because I was on vacation.

My original time I was planning on staying in Hawaii was only about three weeks. I was having so much fun, and I felt so safe being so far away from my stalker that I kept extending my stay. I ended up extending it to six weeks.

Chris, the owner of the Fishbowl told me if I worked for him, I wouldn't get paid, but I would get a shared room with some of the other staff memebers. The job was easy enough, I could surf the Internet for four hours a day and have a free room. Sold, I took the job.

I got to go to the beach, hang out with new friends, and go to parties at night, it seemed perfect.

There were a lot of people coming and going. It was nice to have my roomates Debbie from Germany and Gus from Brazil. They lived there, they were not just passing through. Debbie is German, but her mother is American. Gus, he is half German half Swedish, but he is Brazilian. That's me and Gus in the photo, at the front desk of what was The Banana Bungalow.

Debbie didn't like to do sports so much, but Gus did, so we mostly hung out. I wasn't interested in him in anything other than a friend. Gus is an interesting guy. His parents and brother died in a car crash when he was eleven years old. Gus had been at his Grandparents house, and his family was in the car on the way to pick him up when they were killed. It was pretty tragic.

I also found Gus interesting because he had been dubbed "The Forest Gump of Brazil." Gus walked the entire coast of Brazil. He admitted to me that he wished he didn't make such a fuss over it, because then all of the newspapers were there documenting it, and his feet hurt and he just wanted to quit. Because of all the news coverage, Gus did it, he finished his walk and earned his new name.

Another intersting thing about Gus is that he was trying to break the Guiness Book of World Records for traveling to the most countries. We had lots to talk about, and I thought he was a good friend.

We decided to take a trip together to Kauai, and that's when it all unravelled.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Thank You For Being A Friend

Right now I am in San Juan, the only working that I am doing is on my tan. I am taking a break from blogging while on vacation, but I wanted to drop this quick post before I forgot the details.

I was so excited to meet Rue McClanahan on Sunday. You know the slut from the Golden Girls?

I was on the plane, doing my best Tina Turner impression, and I think she caught me singing and dancing. Oops! Oh well, she must have liked me because she said, "Well Hello!" And I started jumping up and down and said, "I'm so excited to have you here!" Rue said, "Well, I'm so excited to be here!"

It took all I had not to hug her. She is so sweet and cute. Some celebrities are full of themselves, but not Rue, she is a real Southern Lady.
Monday, October 09, 2006

I'm Only Serious About Safety and Security

Yesterday was a hideously long day. It started when I checked in at at the duty desk at 7:45 in the morning, and I wasn't finished until late that night.

Days like that, I'm thankful I'm not one of those flight attendants that work alone.

A first class passenger got out of his seat when we were taxing, because he wanted to use the bathroom. Me, I would say to him, I need you to take your seat. If he didn't, I would let him use the bathroom but I would call the captain to stop the plane. I don't get in the way of a person and a lavatory.

Well, the lead flight attendant, I'm going to call her "T" she was strict! She told the guy to "PLEASE take your seat!" His wife said, "He needs a drink of water", and T said, "I will get him a drink of water if he just sits down! We are on an active taxi way." I'm watching, thinking, he better sit down before she gives him a smack down. His wife then says, "He needs a sick bag! Can you get him a sick bag?" T says, "There is a sick bag in the pocket of the seat, if he would just sit down, he would find it!"

The forward galley flight attendant says, "He's sick he needs a drink. I'm going to help him." T told her, "He should have thought of that before he drank that wine." Then I'm in feeling in the middle, and I put up my hands to say, "Don't look at me, I'm just giving out drinks on the way to my layover." Then I got a piece of gum from another passenger and walked away.

I like working with the public, but I don't fuss too much over them. They are always trying to get away with something. They try to hide that they are listning to their iPods, or are using some other electronic device when they are not supposed to. I'm there to have fun, and to make it fun.

Most of the passengers on the plane were from Japan, and didn't speak English. I am pretty good at figuring out what people are trying to communicate to me, but do you know how much coka and coki (coffee) sound alike? The teacher in me immediately comes out, and I'm demonstrating to half the plane how to pronounce coffee. You say "Coke" for this, and I hold up the can. And "Coffee" for this, and I hold up the pot of coffee. I said, look at me, and I was teaching them to bite their bottom lip to make the sound of the "F". When someone would get it correct, everybody would start clapping. We were having fun.

I was on the bar cart with T, and she wasn't enjoying my English lesson. Her advice was, just give them tea, and then don't make eye contact afterwards, if they're thirsty they'll drink it. She taught me some good tricks to work smart not hard.

It was a long fun day.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Note To Self: Don't Leave House With Laryngitis

A few summers ago, I went to Musikfest with Chanin. Musikfest, is a giant music festival that takes over downtown Bethlehem for about ten days. You can listen to just about any kind of music, and the food is not bad either.

This particular time, I didn't want to go. I had laryngitis. I could not speak one word, not even a whisper. Chanin and I both know how to spell in sign language, so she convinced me it would be OK. I reluctantly agreed to go.

Once at Musikfest we went to grab dinner, the place was packed. There were a few seats open at a table with a rabbi, and a few of his friends. Chanin asked if it would be alright for us to join them, because seating was so limited. We had never seen these people in our life. I nodded my head hello, and they had no idea that I did not have a voice.

We enjoyed our food in silence. The rabbi and his friends, continued in their own conversations. All of a sudden Chanin taps her watch and says, "It's time to get you back to the institution!" The rabbi and friends look at us intently, I open my mouth to object, and all that comes out is a "squeak". Then Chanin proceeds to say, "Don't start to get violent, I will give you that tranquelizor by injection, you know I have done that before." Then she tells the other people, "She's prone to voilence if she doesn't get her meds on time. I need to get her back to the psychiatric unit quickly." I'm waving my hands like crazy trying to communicate, to sign, and the strangers at our table are quickly gathering their things to run away.

They were scared. If you could have seen the looks on their faces. Everything I did just made the situation worse. They quickly left, and Chanin laughed and laughed. I didn't think it was funny until about three days later.

The Lengths Chanin Will Go To For Attention

When Chanin and I were still friends, we went out to the club. At the time I was living in Hawaii, and I had come home for a visit.

I was downstairs by the pool tables while Chanin was upstairs dancing. I had a crowd of about 10 people around me because I told one person I lived in Hawaii, and then they were telling everyone else. Everyone was asking me questions, and I was having fun answering.

I don't smoke, but someone offered me a cigarette. I despise cigarettes, but for some reason I started to smoke it. It was stupid I know, but I did it.

Now Chanin, she is very verbally aggressive. She would never hit me or anything, but believe me she talks about it. It's part of her boisterous personality. It fits her, and is somehow her charm.

Growing up, I always told her, "Girl, you have the mouth of a truck driver!" Then I would always go on to say, "You could make a truck driver blush!" Do you know what her job is now? She's a truck driver. And she has made one or two of them blush.

She's like me with travel. We definitely have that in common. We have to travel. She drove her truck up to Canada, from Pennsylvania to California, and all the way down to Mexico. Making friends and enemies the entire way. She is very loved, and very hated all because of what comes out of her mouth. She is brilliantly funny, but it's always at someone elses expense. Not everyone likes that.

Back to the club, Chanin comes walking down the stairs, and sees me with my little crowd of people, and she wants in on the action! Chanin has to have more attention than I do. It's like a competition for her.

Chanin sees me smoking that cigarette, grabs it out of my hand, throws me down on the couch and grabs me by the back of my hair. She puts the cigarette up to my eye and says, "Do you want me to burn your (cuss word) eye out! Do you? Do you? You are such an idiot." She used some other words that I would rather not mention. The people were aghast. One of the guys started to jump in and help me.

It didn't hurt me at all, she didn't want to hurt me, just humiliate me, and I was doing my best to keep from laughing. I knew she was mad at me for smoking, but mostly she wanted the attention. I played along like I was real scared, and she kept ripping into me. The guy that helped me said, "She's from Hawaii!" Chanin said, "She's not from Hawaii, she's from Pennsylvania!" Then she called me some four letter words and a name that ended in "hole". I stood up and composed myself.

I had to pull out my drivers license to prove I lived in Hawaii. There was the rainbow, my picture, and my address ending with Honolulu, Hawaii 96815.

Chanin was trying to make me look bad because she wanted the attention. I know her so well that it was actually fun. I would never do something like that and it felt like I was in a movie.

I don't know if Chanin was listening before she started her antics, but I do know that fake burning someones eye out sure tops Hawaii to the crowd!

She had more than double my crowd watching her antics, and we laughed about it all the way home.

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