IMR: Entries: 2002: January: 29

IMR: Entries: 2002: January: 29 — Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Four and Counting

It's for the kids. That's what you have to keep telling yourself.

Family and friends brave Chuck E. Cheese's. Katie gets a gift from Mr. Cheese himself.
Dad gladly gets into the birthday spirit. Katie and I await the big song and dance.
The candles on her giant CostCo cake are lit. Katie makes a wish (perhaps for a clean shirt).
Katie can't resist a dip in the ball pit. Uncle Todd helps Katie win some tickets.
Mom catches up with Ted & Sets. Todd and Eathan race as dad and Diana watch.
Cousin Jennifer helps son Trevor play. Trevor's sister Alyssa visits the Teletubbies.
Bernice and Brian size up "Metal Slug." William and Robert in the heat of battle.
Back at mom's house, it's time for presents. Art toys turn out to be the theme this year.
Katie completes a Magna Doodle masterpiece. The Madeline Tea Set is her favorite gift.
A disposable camera goes with Katie to school. Katie swoons as classmates sing "Happy Birthday."
The birthday girl admires her special crown. The festivities end, but the crown stays on.
Katie's fourth birthday has come and gone. But I think I still have a lingering headache from the party at Chuck E. Cheese's. The place is essentially a tornado strike at a carnival, only marginally controlled chaos, that only small children (and teenagers that refuse to grow up) really thrive in.
The irony is, after choosing the venue to be able to invite and accommodate all the small people on both sides of my family, most were unable to make it (the one-week notice was probably a factor). Adults outnumbered the children four to one.
In a sick and twisted way, I still enjoyed myself. (Jen didn't.) I think Chuck E. Cheese's appeals to the same part of me that likes to watch people lose their minds at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. It's so ludicrous, it's funny.
Despite the noise, crowds, and noise, the place usually runs like a well-oiled machine. But that's if you know how everything works — ordering pizzas, getting drink cups, doling out tokens, and other little rituals. As it turns out, I was completely ignorant of the Way of Chuck, frequently confusing the Chucksketeers, and the members of our party were flagged more than once for violating Chuck E's rules ("You can't use those paper plates, just these paper plates!").
Eventually, though, we got our bland, floppy pizzas, and got our watered down punch and watered down Pepsi. The smart adults among us even got some decent eats at the surprisingly okay salad bar — in some cases, too much. We hollered to each other over the din, talking "shop" (in this case meaning parent stuff) and catching up. Katie's party was the first time in years mom had seen dad's brother Ted and his wife Sets. And Bernice, who's absence from my office is being sorely felt, was there with her "three boys" — her young sons and her husband Brian. In the day's most impressive display of Hawaii's famous "Small World" effect, Bernice and Brian are very good friends with Uncle Ted's daughter Debra.
Unlike me, Bernice's sons, William and Robert, were Chuck E. Cheese veterans. If there was a CECCSE certification program, they'd pass with flying colors. They had the meal cycle down pat, and knew exactly when they could run off to play video games, and when to come back in time to catch the big song and dance and birthday cake bonanza.
Soon enough, all the Chucksketeers filed in to teach each birthday table Chuck E's Cheer, and to teach each kid how to do the birthday dance. The curtains opened, the lights flashed, the music blared, and animatronic mouths started flapping. "We say 'Happy,' you say 'Birthday!' Happy! (Birthday!) Happy! (Birthday!)"
By the time all the madness started, though, Katie was grumpy and impatient to dig into her cake. So I did all the dancing (and followed the choo-choo train around the room) while carrying a fussy Katie in my arms.
When the candles were lit, fortunately, Katie's mood similarly brightened. Somehow in all that noise and excitement, there was a magic moment or two. She danced in her seat as the last refrains were sung, then leaned so enthusiastically forward to blow out her candles that she wiped out half the cake's frosting with her shirt.
It was a CostCo cake. There was a lot of cake.
Finally, like animals released to the wild, all the kids were allowed to relocate to the game area. Even though she's probably a bit too old for it now, Katie's first stop was the toddler corner, where she took a ceremonial dip in the ball pit. Then, with Todd as her guide, she made the rounds of the games, collecting a fistful of paper tickets. Trevor and Alyssa, my cousin Jennifer's kids, also tore up the place. Little Robert and William, meanwhile, spent the whole time fixated on "Metal Slug," a basic Army-themed shoot-'em-up game. (They were required to take occasional "non-violent game" breaks, though, Bernice leading them reluctantly to the "Tortise and Hare" stomping board.)
Right on schedule, the adults were tossed out of the dining room 75 minutes after they arrived. Some of our guests proved to be braver than I, opting to remain with the kids on the other side. But grandma Henderson — and I, frankly — had gotten pretty worn down, so we hugged everyone goodbye and headed all together out to mom's house.
There, Katie opened her presents.
She got more clothes than toys, but fortunately, she's still too young to see that as a bad thing. And the toys she did get were all winners. Even without any hints or prodding, "art" and creative toys turned out to be the theme, from magnetic drawing boards to Play-Doh sets. She also got a couple of dolls (including one that looks a bit like her — if she were a troll), and an extraordinary, real ceramic Madeline™ tea set.
It didn't take long for us to realize the tea set was her favorite. In fact, this week alone, I've probably sat down to tea with her five or six times a day... in the morning before work, and before and after dinner (and before bed).
I don't mind, though. Even if it's unfounded — after all, love is not a finite resource — I'm greedily savoring every moment I spend with Katie now more than ever. In four months, she'll have to share the stage with her little brother... and he won't be ready for tea for a while.
Katie's birthday celebration, actually, started early this year.
Since we knew that the video games would be as big a star as she was at her "family party" at Chuck E. Cheese's, and because, frankly, she's closer to many of her classmates than to her young cousins, we made arrangements for a little party at her school on Friday.
Mom was the real mastermind behind it all, shopping all over for favors to give all the kids, then sorting out all the goodies and personalizing each of the 26 bags. All I had to do was make sure I had all the kids' names, and pick up the cupcakes she ordered from Liliha Bakery that morning.
And it all went much better than I'd hoped. I was expecting something simple all around. So simple, that I bought some sprinkles to put on cupcakes that I thought were going to be too plain). Instead, all of the cupcakes were decorated with frosting and sprinkles and little plastic happy faces. I also left a disposable camera at the school, looking for a shot or two of the kids eating. Instead, Ms. Joyce Pien — a new teacher there, but someone who so clearly loves kids and her job — basically documented a "day in the life" for me... something I was daydreaming about doing someday anyway. And they didn't just hand out the cupcakes. The pictures revealed that they pulled out a candle and birthday hat and had the class gather 'round and sing "Happy Birthday."
She was so happy this weekend, I was afraid she'd explode. And now, she can't stop talking about everyone's birthdays and how they're "coming soon, okay?" (Not something Jen really likes to think about.)
I swear, four might very well be the perfect age for birthdays. Old enough to understand (and remember) what's going on, but young enough to see everything as magical.
As it turned out, Katie's birthday was an important day for the entire neighborhood. Well, sort of. It was the day of the special election to replace City Councilman Andy Mirikitani.
(Seems his website hasn't been updated to reflect his felony indictment, his insistence on continuing to serve on the Council thanks to a legal loophole, his last-minute benefit-snagging marriage to his co-defendant, and his his sentencing and subsequent resignation.)
City Council elections aren't usually very big deals, but there was a lot of attention paid to this race given the conditions under which the previous councilmember left. And a whole gaggle of folks entered the race — fourteen candidates in all. Some familiar names, but many not — an artist and tree trimmer, an elementary school counselor, a university professor and a stuntman among them.
Jen and I thought Sam Aiona had a good shot, as he's always running for something, and seemed to have good name recognition among our neighbors. He almost got Jen's vote, too (in part because he's a member of the Sacred Heart congregation). But I reminded her of his unusually strong conservative leanings (he spoke out against same-sex marriage, and according to the Honolulu Weekly harped an opponent's sexual orientation in a previous campaign), and his broader reputation as a bit of a punk.
The other front-runner was Ann Kobayashi, a former state senator who had the support of most unions. In Hawaii, that's usually enough.
Our mailbox was frequently filled with mailers from the candidates, but I didn't bother to read many of them. I did take the time to look over the flyer from attorney and former judge Richard Lee, though, who took the award for "Oddest Candidate."
It always irked me that his print advertising (and even his office on Kalakaua Avenue) seemed to take design cues from used car lots, and now he injected that same spirit into his campaign. He always had a gimmick, top among them the claim that he'd work for free, refusing his City Council paycheck. But what took the cake was his claim that a vote for him would strike a blow against the state's hugely unpopular traffic camera system. His sign wavers always got lots of energetic waves and honked horns for that one... even though the City Council has nothing to do with (and certainly no authority over) a state program, and that the city as a whole essentially took a stance already, refusing to allow the speed vans to do their thing on city streets.
Being a populist, I guess, requires pandering to the lowest common denominator.
One other interesting (and annoying) result of such a crowded race was that busy streetcorners were at a premium when it came to sign waving. They had to share. And the intersection nearest our building was hands down the most popular. As many as six different sign waving squads would descend upon it every day, and if you wanted to walk on the sidewalk or cross the street? Good luck.
Anyway, Ann Kobayashi got our votes, and Ann Kobayashi won handily. She had twice the votes Aiona did, and did since the start thanks to absentee ballots. (Ironically, Aiona tried mailing absentee ballots to voters, and got busted for it.) No one else made a decent showing.
Whew. All that fuss for a partial term that ends in less than a year. To serve on a spineless, controversy-ridden council (I can't think of one member that isn't under investigation for something) that's just about as objectionable as the mayor whose coattails they're now just riding into the sunset.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Comments

Nice MOOOSTACHE papa!!!
—lisa (January 30, 2002 1:48 PM)

E kala mai! Comments have been disabled due to overwhelming abuse by spammers. Please click through to any of the video hosting services linked above to leave a public response, or feel free to send an e-mail. Mahalo!

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© 1997-2008 Ryan Kawailani Ozawa · E-Mail: imr@lightfantastic.org · Created: 13 November 1997 · Last Modified: 14 January 2008