Some of Us Are Just Hard to Please.

Years ago, I worked with a guy who had moved to Honolulu from some place in Minnesota. I passed him in a corridor one afternoon and he seemed a bit grumpy.  So I said, “How’s it goin’, Lou?”

He stopped and stared at me for a few seconds. It was not a friendly stare. Then his expression softened a bit and he looked down at the floor.

“Well, it’s goin’ all right I guess,” he said softly. Then the chin came up and the glare came back and he snarled, “ . . . considering it’s another one of these GOD DAMNED BEAUTIFUL DAYS!”

Lou, you see, missed the change of seasons.

I’ve never had a problem with that. After quitting work and moving to Maui, we welcomed the beautiful weather: mid-afternoon temperature in the mid-80s; trade winds out of the northeast at maybe six to eight miles an hour. A couple of gentle showers during the night to keep things comfortable. That’s what our weather is like almost every day.

But not today. The wind has shifted around to the southwest, blowing at 50 miles per hour with gusts as high as 70. High enough to bring down a couple of our 120-foot eucalyptus trees, one effectively blocking our driveway.

Throughout the early morning hours (and it’s continuing), we have been experiencing little mini-power outages—most less than a full second—the lights just flick off and back on again. If you blink, you miss it. Not very long . . . but long enough to make my computer automatically re-boot itself . . . long enough to lose the two paragraphs I just finished admiring . . . thinking to myself, “Hmmm . . . that’s actually pretty good . . .  then POOF! . . . they’re gone forever.  

I think of my former colleague, Lou, on days like this one . . . wondering if he would greet me cheerfully today.  Of course, I’ll never know. He and his wife moved back to Minnesota many years ago, where—it is my fervent hope—they are freezing their butts off!