IMR: Entries: 2002: July: 11 — Thursday, July 11, 2002

Sleepless I've been home sick the last couple of days. I'm pretty sure I'm skipping work tomorrow, too.   Bre and Katie wait for the parade to start. We're issued official "G.O.P. Hawaii" shirts. Small world! Carolyn Golojuch and her son. Katie really gets into the spirit of the fourth. The campaign team follows Katie's lead. Full of energy, Katie walks most of the way. A stampede of giant foam elephants. Candidate-in-waiting Sam Aiona. Linda Lingle networks with future voters. Debbie, Bre, Lacene and I model our shirts. The 4th of July fireworks off Ala Moana. Even two miles away, a pretty good show. My dad's office becomes a Nigerian Mansion. The temporary fence made some locals nervous. Zac is not as fond of cameras as his sister is. Yet another Friends of the Library Book Sale. Katie quietly rifles through some titles. Zac, meanwhile, sleeps through it all. Katie, looking sly, at the local park. The swing never swings high enough. What started off Tuesday morning as an ugly stomach bug has fortunately subsided to more of a persistent fever and all-over aches. As exhausted as I've been, though, I just can't get to sleep. I drug myself and put a pillow over my head, but all I can think about is how my heartbeat is throbbing in my ears. That and how unsatisfying a diet of soda crackers and lemonade is by the second day. Jen and the kids, fortunately, have escaped this round of yuckies and are all snoring soundly. And I mean soundly. I don't know how we're getting off so easy, but for the most part, Zac is already sleeping in five- to six-hour stretches. We've had a couple of nights where he only needed to feed once between 9 p.m. and sunrise. Prior to this week's crash, it has been a pretty busy July. Katie has gotten back into the swing of school, and heads in each morning with a mission to create something to bring home to Jen or Zac (with whom she has continued to be wonderfully infatuated). Lacene's campaign is shifting from first to second gear — much to Jen's chagrin — and our tiny apartment is becoming the de-facto headquarters for matters on this side of the Ko`olau mountain range. And Zac is thriving, weighing in at a substantial ten pounds, ten ounces at today's well-baby check, letting out a hearty, primal shriek when he got his first month's vaccination shot. On the Independence Day holiday, while Jen and Zac bonded at home, Katie and I headed over to the Windward Side for the annual Fourth of July Parade in Kailua. While the parade, a fun tradition going back half a century, would have been a draw on its own, we were there not to watch it, but march in it. As Republicans. There we were, Bre, Debbie, and myself, essentially the core of Lacene's campaign team, wearing "GOP Hawaii" T-shirts (they didn't come in extra small, to Katie's disappointment), lost in a crowd of identical shirts (next to a larger crowd in Linda Lingle shirts), holding red, white and blue balloons and standing behind a "stampede" of giant foam elephants. Now, while Bre and I are quick to say we don't subscribe to any one political party's viewpoint or platform, it would be safe to say that we considered ourselves at least a tad to the left of center. Thus, it took a little while to get comfortable with where we were. We frequently had to huddle and encourage each other, reminding ourselves that we were there not specifically as advocates of any agenda — conservative or otherwise — but more as agents of change. As challengers to the status quo. Which, in this Democrat-controlled state, we certainly were. There were quite a few familiar faces. Sam Aiona, who once represented the district I live in. Dalton Tanonaka, former CNBC Asia anchor, now a candidate for Lieutenant Governor. Ed Case, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, even breezed through to shake hands. (I personally think he's the best candidate on that party's now badly battered ticket.) And, of course, Linda Lingle, who was relentlessly introduced as "our next governor." I even ran into Carolyn Golojuch, a talented writer during my Ka Leo days and head of the local PFLAG chapter (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). She was there with her son, Michael, who carried a giant pride colors flag and a sign that read, "Proud Gay Republican." "Now that I didn't expect to see," Bre remarked. "The times, they are a-changing," I replied. Just as I thought Katie, strapped for over an hour into her stroller (to prevent her from being run down by the various large dogs in attendance), was about to have a meltdown, it was time to march. So we did. And Katie insisted on walking. So she did. Lacene, as a candidate, was placed at the end of the pack, and she ran about handing out flag stickers. Debbie, Bre, Katie and me were part of the general G.O.P. contingent, and were required only to smile and wave. Fortunately, since it was Kailua, we got a slightly-better-than-lukewarm reception. And Linda Lingle, behind us, inspired more than a few cheers. Along the way, I spotted an "Internet Radio Hawaii" tent and a familiar face with a digital camera. I stepped out then for a second to shake hands with Robert "Rabbet" Abbet, a grass-roots Hawaii web revolutionary who was once kind enough to republish the local news updates I put out years ago. What made the whole, strange experience worth it for me, though, was Katie. Used to being one of the kids on the curb watching all the colorful people go by, she was just thrilled to suddenly be part of the show. She marched proudly ahead of us, waving her American flag like a champ and calling out, "Happy Fourth of July!" Even in the heat, she (and her blinking Lilo & Stitch sneakers) kept going and going for most of the three-mile procession down Kainalu Drive. The parade ended at a local school, where the Republicans had a live band and some hot dogs and watermelon waiting. We all changed into our "Terri for State Senate" T-shirts and — since everyone in the area was with one political group or another — we opted against passing out the campaign literature I'd assembled for the event and just mingled. Lacene, spotting some old friends, even trotted over to the Democrats tent to catch up. Lacene's mom and dad soon arrived, and pulled us under a nearby tree where they unveiled a substantial picnic. The watermelon and hot dog were great, to be sure, but the sushi and somen salad and chips and soda weren't bad either. After stopping by Lacene's dad's place to fix a couple of computer issues, Katie and I headed back into town, arriving home exhausted and somewhat burnt. Jen, spotting the G.O.P. T-shirt, rolled her eyes. "You and politics," she said. "I guess it was inevitable." That evening, Katie and I climbed up to the top floor of our building to watch the not-quite-annual Fourth of July fireworks show off Magic Island. Katie was in one of her "abstract art" moods, and compared various firebursts to her, her brother, and her parents. "That blue one looks like you, dad!" While some lucky folks got Friday off, I certainly didn't, and went into work to join my equally unmotivated coworkers. For lunch, I trotted over to my dad's (new) office at the State Judiciary, located in historic Ali`iolani Hale (across from `Iolani Palace). I was somewhat surprised to find a giant wrought-iron fence with imposing stone pillars being erected in front of the place. Dad called me over from a lunchwagon on Mililani Street. "Hey, what's with the fence?" I asked. He looked at me as if I'd just asked what year it was. "Sorry, I thought you were all up on this stuff," he smiled. "It was in the Star-Bulletin a few days ago." Ah, that's right. Awareness of local and world events. That's the first thing out the window with a new baby at home. Turns out the giant fence was only temporary, a convincing prop for an $80 million, yet-untitled Bruce Willis action movie filming in town. (A "refugee camp" was apparently built out in Waialua.) While the inside of an empty post office building next door got a lavish makeover to serve as the interior of a Nigerian mansion, dad's building was only playing its outer facade. Hence the fence. And presumably, the famous King Kamehameha statue will just be digitally removed in the final print. Before I even asked, dad confirmed that local historic preservation and Native Hawaiian groups were a bit uneasy about the fence, and the use of the building in the first place. The moviemakers were gracious enough, though, filming over the weekend and taking the fence down and cleaning up in a matter of hours. On Monday morning, all that was left were signs reading, "Mahalo! Hawaii's Film Industry." On Sunday, we continued a family tradition by heading down to McKinley High School for the annual "Friends of the Library" book sale. Zac wasn't terribly impressed, falling asleep as we walked through the parking lot. And Katie, while always a fan of books, certainly noticed the infamous heat in the non-airconditioned cafeteria. So Jen and I resolved to make it a quick trip. The crowd was as thick as always, and circulating within it we stumbled into former neighbor Tina and her family. Even though I've barely read ten pages out of the books we picked up last year, that didn't stop us from buying several more. In fact, we walked out with a whole box of hardcover books, spending a whopping $18 — a record for us. I just finished the copy of "The Nanny Diaries" I picked up last month at CostCo, so I guess I was feeling ambitious. This year's take included Carl Sagan's "Contact," Paul Reiser's "Babyhood," one of the Sue Grafton murder mysteries (I think it's "H"), a couple of Southern cookbooks, and a handful of books for Katie — including what turned out to be her second pristine hardcover copy of "The Little Engine that Could." I may never read these books either, of course. But I'm building quite a library.

Comments Welcome back to the land of the writing. Hehe. Sounds like you & your family have been busy! Just wanted to say that "babyhood" is hilarious. I highly recommend it!! But then again, I'm a big fan of Mad About You, and his first book, "Couplehood". I read babyhood while we were expecting, and found it funny then, but then read it again after our son was born, and boy could I relate a lot more! It still kills me that Paul Reiser named his son Ezra. —Cliff (July 11, 2002 9:00 AM) Hope you feel better soon! Wish I'd known you guys were going to be in the parade- I would've gone to watch! If you're feeling up to it, hop on the chat sometime tonight- I have a couple questions I wanted to ask you, and I know better than to try via email ;) —lisa (July 11, 2002 11:44 AM) you sound so trite on your stupid blog! and so does cliff! —Viva (March 11, 2007 7:28 AM) 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! < June 16 · July · July 26 > © 1997-2008 Ryan Kawailani Ozawa · E-Mail: imr@lightfantastic.org · Created: 13 November 1997 · Last Modified: 14 January 2008