Teen Dogs

The Big Surfing Competition has been going on and now there's only one day left. We're in the last of the three competitions, the Pipeline Masters, and have just one more day left of it. This series started on the 8th and will go on til the 20th, but all that means is that the organizers get to pick 3 days within that period. The waves have to be big enough, good enough, coming from the right direction, etc. so they can't make the call to do or not do the competition til 7am each day. There's a number to call to see if the show is happening but after calling several days in a row and being told that it's been postponed, you start to forget about the whole thing, and then, bam, it's back on. Thus, I already missed out on Days 1 and 2 of the Pipeline Masters and am waiting for the final Day 3.

I am wishing we were staying in the North Shore area instead of Waikiki. Because we'd decided not to have a car this time, we were limited to the Honolulu area. Distances are shorter and everything is within easy bike access. But the North Shore is a ways away (too far for Big Dog to bike) and the buses take a bit longer, so by the time you find out if the competition is on, then get your act together enough to ride the bus out there…you might have missed most of the action by then. Still, since Jamie O'Brien who had a fantastic first day at the Pipeline Masters (beating out Kelly Slater!) is Shaula's boyfriend, I'd really like to get out there on Day 3.

Shaula is our friend N's daughter and we saw her for a while the other day after she'd gotten back from a modeling stint in Tokyo. I couldn't help but be impressed with her sunny personality. In so many ways, she's much more mature than I was at her age, and yet she has a charming, girlish innocence, a carefree-ness that I never had at 20. I had the world on my shoulders. Well, not the world. Just a family to support, a mortgage to pay and school to get through. I was like a 45 year old in a 20 year old body! No wonder I feel like I'm getting younger all the time -- I just have a backwards life.

And in this backwards life, Big Dog and I are living like teenagers whose parents have gone away for the weekend. Or dogs left in the house with no human supervision. We're normally such anal retentive people, it's funny to see the place strewn with discarded clothes, half-read magazines, unorganized junk scattered everywhere… And like a teenager, I'm learning how to surf.