Spartan Race 2022

My resolution to be aggressively supportive with the fitness stuff came to a head this Sunday, when I became the water/snacks/supplies pack horse at the Spartan Race, where Mike and Zenny were both competing.

From Kualoa Ranch, we boarded a fleet of trolleys shutting athletes up the valley to a city of tents filled with thumping music and vendors selling fruit, shave ice, baked potatoes, and turkey legs. The activity kiosks had chin up bars, rope climbing, and a deadlift challenge, just to try for fun between heats of the race. The man standing next to us at the kids’ race was proud to point out that #2 on the deadlift leaderboard was his 52 year-old mother, out-lifting a pack of marines. Right on.

Kualoa Ranch, Ka’a’awa

Steady roll of trolleys kept people from having to wait, well planned

Sports nerd city

 

The adult registration packet came with a warning of imminent death. (They try not to kill the children.)

Zenny had been practicing 1-mile running, crawling, and net climbing at the park, but we should have added jumping neighbors’ fences and dragging abandoned tires to that routine. She hit all the obstacles with no experience - javelins, sandbags, rope pulling - and got through them really well.

It was this moment I remembered she had surgery only 3 months ago and panicked a little bit

Drag the tire up the hill, roll it back down 

Jump the thing 

She did not like this one because the net moved around while the other kids climbed 

Afterwards I dumped a shave ice down her, and as she cooled down she said she wanted to do it again next year, but with strength training. Who’s child is this? I was just there for the potatoes.

proud dad

The potatoes were $20, but the girl was body-hungry and my snacks weren’t doing the job. Damned if it wasn’t the best fire-roasted potato we had ever tasted in our entire lives. She ate up every scrap of the crispy skin.

Looks terrible, tastes like heaven

Mike did the 10k with obstacles in 2 hours and 10 minutes, coming in 14th out of 142 for his group. One guy’s knee popped off, and he needed to be airlifted off the mountain to the ambulance (they had several standing ready). I did not know knees could actually do that. Use your knee tape, folks.

Shots by the official event photographers 

 

Cramp!

Fall off an obstacle and you have to do 30 burpees (worst kind of push-ups, should be illegal)

What garbage cans look like at a sports event

Post-race, about 45 seconds before his legs stopped working and dumped him on his ass

They've already signed up for next year. Better start putting money in the potato fund.

For my part, I finished the 6 week beginner program on Centr with weights/cardio, and just started the 6 week intermediate program. Stepped on the scale to check on my progress, and I have lost ZERO POUNDS. Goddamn it. But that is not to say there have been no results - arms and waist are smoothing out, and my butt is looking better after a million squats. I am rewarding myself for finishing the first program by buying those scrunchy workout pants that go up your crack and make it look like your butt cheeks are flapping free in the wind. Over the next 6 weeks they can go from comedy pants to TRIUMPHANT pants. And if that doesn't work out, I can threaten to wear them to parent/teacher conferences if my kids get bad grades.

 

 

Kitten tax!

 

left behind

The kittens were safely dropped off at the Humane Society, the trap returned. It was such a relief to have the 3-day rescue operation over with, I was even in a good mood about going to the elementary school open house and seeing all the other parents I normally avoid. School events are great opportunities to teach the kids about one of my favorite things: the Irish Goodbye. Before the other families even got to their cars, we were halfway home and high-fiving. And then I glanced out the window at the rescue site and saw a kitten sniffing at the remains of the dead cat (which I did not move, because it kept the kittens in one spot and also I am a massive weenie). WE MISSED ONE. I pulled the car over, found a piece of garbage to serve as a dish, and dumped out my water bottle so she'd have something to drink until I could get back.

All evening I sat in the bushes with a rudimentary trap made out of a carrier rigged with string, but the kitten was too cautious to step inside to get the food. Gave up when it got too dark and the drug dealers started cruising slowly up and down the road, probably thinking about fire-bombing my car.

In the morning I was back at it with the carrier, and again the little cat was too scared to go inside. I came home for lunch, tired and frustrated. Mike felt sorry for me and bought a humane trap at Home Depot while picking up lumber for the deck. I hurried back to the road and found a drug dealer sitting in my spot, maybe thinking I had established the new pickup location. I pulled up right behind him and got out, and he panicked and sped away. I win.

 

The trap worked in less than 10 minutes. 

This little kitten is the sweetest. She was scared in the trap, but she sighed in relief when I picked her up, let me bathe her, and fell asleep on our laps. The kids are in love, she was a lot of work to catch, and I feel bad about leaving her behind, so we’re keeping her.

If the pendulum ever swings the other way and the universe starts sending me dogs the way it sends me cats, I’m going to have to move to the Yukon and start a sled team.

rescuer of small cats and mongooses

On the way to work on Saturday, I spotted some kittens on an empty stretch of road (one of those rural spots where people dump garbage/furniture/bodies and set fire to abandoned cars) and pulled over to help them. They did not seem interested in rescue, so after wading around in the thick bushes for a bit, I continued on to work.

Driving home in the afternoon, I kept a lookout for them and was sad to see a dead cat wearing a collar, but no sign of the kittens. I hoped the kittens had already been rescued while I had been at work.

They had not. The kittens were eating their dead mother when I drove by on Monday. I pulled over with food and water, and they scarfed it up, but I couldn't get my hands on them. Reinforcements were necessary, so I dropped a pin to the Humane Society, and they sent a very nice officer out to chase the kittens around with a net on a stick. She failed. The next morning she tried again, with bigger nets and humane traps, and failed again. Frustrated, she called to ask if I could drive down to Honolulu and pick up a heavy-duty trap and have a go at it, which I did.

And that is why I spent yesterday evening hanging out on the side of the road for 3 hours with a dead cat, hoping not to get hit by a truck or murdered by a maniac. 

 

I managed to catch one kitten and one very angry mongoose. The mongoose did not want to pose for pictures, so I just let it out and jumped back before it could eat my face. I counted three more kittens creeping out for food, but the trap wasn't sensitive enough for their tiny bodies and failed to deploy. I gave up when it was too dark to see.

This morning, Mike greased the trap and we caught two more. There is still one skinny baby left to catch, but he managed to eat enough food that he wasn't interested in taking another chance on the trap, so we'll try again in a few hours. The three little rescued kittens are snoozing in a carrier together until they're ready for delivery to the Humane Society. They're a bit traumatized, but they let me hold them and pet them, so there is good hope for adoption.

Now I smell death on everything; catching whiffs of it in food, on the breeze, on my well-scrubbed hands. And I'm angry at people who dump their pets, and throw away kittens, when surrendering them to a shelter is free. That poor little house cat did not deserve to die on the side of a rural farm road. 

I would change careers and become an animal rescue agent, except that I would immediately be in trouble for punching animal abusers in their fucking faces.

But let's be glad for the babies who lived. I hope they have long lives filled with soft laps and sunny windowsills.

Update: caught the last kitten! He’s the smallest, skinniest, and hissiest. Feeling satisfied that everyone is accounted for.

time is a wheel

When I was 14, I shared a traumatic event with a boy who was drowning. His trauma was that he drowned. Mine was that I pulled him out of the water and dropped his head on the concrete a little bit before the EMTs resuscitated him. We have stayed loosely in touch for the rest of our lives since then, without ever actually talking about it.

Last night, I took the family to see that boy perform at the Bishop Museum. 

Kanoho spotted me in the audience and said, “Holly! This girl here saved my life when I was thirteen!”  And he told the whole story. “Sorry to say I did it again a few years later in the ocean.” Kanoho! Your family is going to make you wear arm floaties.

I feel proud of the talented, good person he grew up to be, as if I had any hand in that other than smacking his head off the pool deck when we were kids. I'm glad he's alive. And I'm glad he's not a super villain I now need to destroy.

The kids are glad I splashed out for a yearly family membership to the museum, so we can go any time and bring guests for free. There will be a lot more evenings listening to music under the stars at the museum, and so much inspiration for painting. Solid spending decision.

Each tiny butterfly was a marvel

Never not impressed by the life-sized whale poised to crush all the museum-goers

The special exhibit, Taxonomy, with so many cool dead things 

This moving air wall has been up since I was a kid, and it’s still fantastic

BLACK LIGHT

Petition to make buildings like this again please 

What does it meeeeean?

POW! WOW! street mural is still up on part of the building 

In other news, my tickets to Chattanooga are booked, my hotel is haunted, and I’m all set to go on a librarian adventure in 4 weeks. Feeling good about things, which is a feeling I distrust. Wish for the best, but shop for personal self-defense accessories, as Napoleon said.

Leif turns 14

My youngest son is now a 14 year-old high school student with a job application in his backpack (he will do anything to avoid signing up for sports, and at least pushing a mop counts as exercise in my books). 

Love this kid. He got all his genes from his great-grandfathers and somehow has zero of my features, but I’m taking all the credit anyway.

The kids managed to bring home a non-covid travel bug, and spent the first week of school passing it between each other before it finally got me on the morning of his birthday. Threw down some Tylenol and made it happen anyway. 

The boy’s requests: cosmic bowling, homemade cheesecake, and dinner at the outdoor sports bar that serves good hamburgers (and where people smoke weed publicly despite it not actually being legal in our state, which at least means it’s less rowdy, as sports bars go). Leif is still a Lego fanatic, and while I was not willing to splash out $300 for the Stranger Things kit, I was willing to splash out $80 for the Strange Matter kit on aliexpress, and it was WORTH IT. 

He had a fantastic day, even though his brother broke his brain with a triangle-pieced Rubik’s cube (he can solve the regular ones in 10 seconds because he’s a cheater who memorized the algorithm instead of struggling and getting mad and throwing them like the rest of us).

Now I can lay in bed with a box of tissues while this 24 hour bug finishes with me.

How’s the fitness cult coming along?

Sticking to the program, stubbornly, even with a head cold. I've been cramming my workouts into the early and late hours, and faithfully following the meal plan (birthdays notwithstanding). Upping the volume of veg for 5 people has the fridge absolutely packed with produce, it’s ridiculous. 

My body is going through the deflated-bread-dough phase, and I’m feeling kind of bad about it. Trusting that it’ll adjust and I’ll look like a pro wrestler by Thanksgiving.

Wahiawa hills trail

The kids came home, tanned and jet-lagged, and threw a tie-dyed Led Zeppelin shirt at me. It's great having them back, and Billy came out from under the bed to apologize for thinking I had traded the family for a rotten kitten. We’re all sad about Sookie, but relieved to be back together.

The next day I was sitting by the Wahiawa water tower, posting this:

I am not a hiker. I am the decomposed remains a hiker stumbles across. After losing him, it only took me 30 minutes of picking my way down the steep mountainside and ending up in a stagnant stream bed to realize I was absolutely the kind of person who would trip on a root and break my ankle and get washed away by a flash flood, so I turned around to head back. On the way, I missed a turn and ended up at the mouth of a dark, overgrown cave. It was the kind of cave that would 100% have a dead body in it, and if anyone had been with me I would have gotten inside to have a look around, but I did not want to be the next dead body on the pile, so I did not do that.

The murder cave I did not investigate and end up skeletonized in

For about an hour, I sat at the trail head, contemplating widowhood and trying to decide how long to wait before calling a rescue helicopter.

He finally made it out, muddy, dehydrated, and suffering from heat stroke. He drank a gallon of water and had to soak in a cold tub to get his temperature down. 

This is the official trail:

 

This is the trail he went on:

 

Let's just zoom in on this bit:

the straight lines are where his phone lost connection completely

 

Hiking is silly unless it ends in a waterfall you can swim in. I want payment for my foolishness.

It is pretty, though. My corpse will leave a beautiful camera reel.

 

Trail?

 

this tree stump had nice hair

beautiful pool of magic milky water, probably full of amoebas

Trail?

 

Trail! 

(it was not the trail)

From here on, sticking to more popular routes, with lots of people to follow around/get carried out by.

… Except maybe to go back and find that cave with a big flashlight.

Sookie

Our sweet old fat cat died last night. She wasn't feeling well, so in the evening I sat with her, brushed her, and wiped her crusty nose. At bedtime she started having trouble breathing, got up to waddle under the bed, and collapsed, crying. I tried to help her, but she died as I ran to the car with her. I don't know if she couldn't breathe or if her heart gave out. We had a quiet ride to the emergency vet, and I made it all the way to the front doors with her before the crying caught up with me. Spent a long time saying goodbye, and went home alone at midnight with an empty towel. 

The kids come home today, I'm so sorry they missed her. But I'm glad they didn't see her go.

Sookie's story

14 years ago, I was giving birth to Leif on Maui around the same time Sookie was born on Oahu. Her mother was scared away by noisy construction workers mid-delivery, leaving two kittens behind. Those kittens were found by a teacher, who bottle-fed them for several weeks. When her dog killed one of the kittens, she was very upset, and brought the surviving kitten to her co-worker, my mother. My mother took the kitten to Maui to visit her new grandson, where I named her Sookie because I was reading Charlaine Harris books at the time, and she stayed with us. Sookie was a cuddly kitten who tried to nurse everything, and she'd make horrible slobbery noises in your ear, trying to get hold of your earlobes while you slept. Once I woke up feeling alarmed that something was wrong with my baby, and found her laying across his face, trying to push him off the boob while he flailed his little fists (she was DENIED). 

Leif and Sookie at 2 months

4 months, going for my mom's eyes

 

As she got older and rounder, she could sense when someone sat down on the floor in another room, and she'd come galloping out like a fat pony to climb on their lap. She was sweet and affectionate, and set the standard for how large our Thanksgiving turkeys needed to be, based on the "turkey shouldn't weigh less than the cat" scale of measurement. She was glorious. 

I will miss you so much, Sookie. 

Thwarting my vacuuming efforts last week