Mele Kalikimaka Season

That's Merry Christmas, to you. It's crazy enough that the Christmas season starts so early but it's even crazier here in Aloha Land. The town is starting to get covered in green and red and silver and gold. Surfing Santas, Aloha shirt clad Santas and hang-fiving Santas are everywhere. Today I saw a giant, dinosaur-sized Beach Santa (unbuttoned red and white aloha shirt) and muu-muu wearing Mrs. Santa.

But like everywhere, Christmas means shopping, I guess. (Last night, there was an ad for a pet store on tv. "If you're wondering what to get your favorite pooch for Christmas…" or something to that effect. "If you're buying Christmas presents for your cat or dog, maybe you should have a child, instead," I muttered.)

Big Dog and I were in the Ala Moana shopping center yesterday, fighting the holiday shoppers. Well, not really fighting. All we were looking for were beer bargains. In California, we get the best deals at drugstore chains like Rite-Aid and Longs, so we went to investigate the Longs Drugs in the shopping center. There were no bargains there, but shoppers galore, and as we were leaving, so were a gaggle of elderly Japanese women. These over-60 Japanese women are something else, but I'll save that for another entry. These women who were leaving the store with us, were completely caught up in their own conversation and did not stop to let a middle-aged European tourist enter. It was a toss-up, as far as I was concerned, if the ladies were closer to the door than the European man, but obviously the European thought HE should have had right of way. As the Japanese obasans barged past him, he took great offense and said in heavily accented English "Vot do you tink zis is? A jungle? You can't even valk properly…" as he pushed through.

"Hey, man, this is Hawaii. Chill!" I wanted to say, but being Jungle Monkey myself, I was already out of the store.