A History of the State Flower of Hawai'i - The Hibiscus

At my parents' cottage on the Big Island at Kaloli Point, there were some amazing flowers called hibiscus, some as big as saucers. The 3 hibiscus above are flowers that I photographed in their garden in January 2009. Hibiscus are generally well-known flowers, but the tidbit I found on-line below explores the history of the hibiscus in Hawai'i:

The hibiscus is the official state flower of Hawaii. All colors of hibiscus flower were adopted and given the official title in the early 1920's, when Hawaii was a Territory rather than a state. The yellow hibiscus is native to the islands of Hawaii. It was officially selected to represent Hawaii as the state flower in 1988. Because the official selection did not occur for many years after statehood, you may see pictures from Hawaii with all different colors of flowers, which would be historically accurate for the time.

The hibiscus flower of Hawaii is said to originate in the Pacific islands and Asia. It is believed that only five species were native to the Hawaii islands. Later, imported varieties were introduced, with hybrid growers working to produce the different sizes and colors, which are found today.

An ornamental flower in Hawaii, the Hawaiian hibiscus is moderately popular due to the short flower life. A hibiscus bush will produce flowers every day or every other day, however, the flowers will last only for one day in the best of conditions and while still on the plant. The delicacy of the flower means that it is virtually impossible to create any sort of floral arrangements using them. It is difficult to give them as gifts because of the way that they swiftly deteriorate. That is why it is very rare to see any true native yellow hibiscus flowers anywhere else but in Hawaii. Sadly, the destruction of the environment has reduced the natural habitat of the Hawaiian hibiscus and, consequentially, it has become endangered.

The scientific name for the yellow Hawaiian hibiscus is hibiscus brackenridgei. It is also known as the Pua Aloalo, and in the Hawaiian language, it is called ma'o hau hele.

Each of the main islands has a separate representative flower for Hawaii. The island of Kauai, for example, is the pink lokelani, or pink cottage rose. The Big Island claims the red ohia, often used for leis, and is said to be sacred to the Hawaiian volcano goddess.

^{(Info from: http://www.flowerhawaii.net/)}

Life Is Full of Choices...

...Remove Your Shoes or Scrub the Floors...

For mainlanders, it's common practice to walk in your home with your shoes on. Few people think of it. In fact, it's a constant struggle in my own house to get my hubbers to take off his shoes when he comes in the house from the garden. I always get grossed out when I think of all the yergh that makes its way into our carpets from the outside; I mean, when you think of all the things that end up on the ground, it can make one feel faint. Things like dog poop, cat poop, bird poop, dead bugs (earwigs, beetles, spiders, potato bugs, ants, bees, etc.), worms, roadkill, grass clippings, car oil, french fries or hamburgers or soda pop, bubble gum, hair, pesticides, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

In Hawaii, I have never entered a home where people wear their shoes. It just isn't done. It's rumored that the Japanese brought the custom with them when they immigrated to the islands. But when you look at customs, they more often than not have a practical reason behind them. I'm not certain of all of the practicalities that create the history explaining why Hawaiian residents take off their shoes before traipsing through their homes, but 2 things I noticed on my last trip there:

The red rock of the roads in many of the areas of the Big Island stick to the bottoms of your shoes like burrs

The ants will come in droves if you should bring into the house on the bottom of your shoes some tasty morsel, like food or bug remnants. Cockroaches are also fans of the same things ants like, but I never saw any of them critters at my parents' house.

It makes sense to take off your shoes to avoid the drudgery of cleaning up rocks or cleaning up ants. [SIDENOTE: I tell you, the ant colony portrayal in the movie Antz ain't got nuthin' on the ant action on the Big Island. Watching those bugs, you could almost swear you can hear little bugles keening, guiding the formation of the troops.]

So, when planning your Big Island adventure next year, prepare to bring easy-to-remove shoes. Or go local-style, and just buy some slippahs at the Hilo Longs Drugs store for 3 bucks. Or if you want to be even more prepared for your trip, order yourself a pair on-line at DaSlippas.com.

Stay in Luxury! Only $10,000 per night...

In searching on-line to find vacation rentals that people can rent on the Big Island of Hawai'i while they stay here for my birthday bash, I've come across all sorts of differents kinds of homes. Some homes have nice features, location is good, price is right. Other homes look like someone's grandma may have lived there and they never updated the furniture and you wonder how in the world they think they're going to get that price from any sane person. And then there are other homes in a completely different realm altogether. A realm in which one loses a million in one's retirement portfolio which may make one flinch a bit, but one continues breathing rarified air and living in homes across the globe, having one's children tutored by a Harvard graduate with a PhD.
The home I came across recently is one that exists in whatever realm that is that I just described above (in the 80's and 90's we used to refer to it as "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" with Robin Leach and his champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but perhaps more fitting to theme is "Big Kahuna Lifestyle").

Imagine paying $10,000 buckaroos PER NIGHT to stay in a place that offers the following:

• 11,500 square feet of living area
  
• 2 master suites, each with out-door oversized spa whirlpool
  
• 5 guest suites, each with private baths
  
• Home theater with HDTV, CD and DVD
  
• Fitness room
  
• Kids' play room
  
• Formal dining room for fourteen
  
• Professional chef's kitchen
  
• a private swimming pool with infinity edge and spa
  
• hand woven carpets
  
• Asian antiques
  
• A private chef may be hired to grocery shop, or to prepare and serve up to 3 meals per day
  

The dining room of this place is what blows me away. It looks like the boardroom of some insane corporation, especially with the 2,500 square foot covered lanai right off the dining/living room area. 2,500 square foot...can we imagine that for a moment? The patio square footage of this house is BIGGER than most people's entire home. Holy Toledo!

And let's kibbitz a bit about the view for just a moment...


OK, done kibbitzing. It's so far out of MY non-Big Kahuna realm that I shan't think about it any longer. Because at $10,000 per night, that's $300,000 per month, or $3,600,000 per year. Perhaps they give a deal if you rent it for the whole year, like a million off. That would be a slammin' deal for shuuuure.

Save the Date Cards on the Way!

I am Sleepless in Sonoma, awakened by a 2-year old who will no longer sleep in her room and now has to sleep with her mommy and daddy. She sandwiches herself between Dave & I, flinging her arms and legs willy-nilly in her sleep. I'm told I was similar in my sleeping habits when I was little. Ah, the vengeance with which our own genes haunt us in our children is frightening...

Dave is snoring away happily and Gretchen is thrashing around beside him.

These days I find when I am awakened in the middle of the night, I often can't go back to sleep again. I am kept awake by all the things that didn't get done, or need to get done, or should have been done differently. I think this is yet another sign of getting older.

So, rather than laying in bed listening to my husband and daughter sleep while I am unasleep, I figured I could finish addressing the Save the Date cards that should be hitting a mailbox near you shortly! I found the cards whilst browing on-line one weekend at a neat website full of Hawaiian prints, both contemporary and vintage. Their vintage line of cards and postcards is fantastic! I highly recommend checking out IslandArtStore.com for a great selection of Hawaiian themed merchandise. And their customer service was extraordinary. They telephoned me when one of the cards I'd ordered was unavailable, but offered me another choice of cards at a discounted price. Niiiiiiiiice!

Vacation A-Ha Moment

I came back from Hawaii in late January. I was there with my daughter (who was nearly 2 at the time) and my parents for 4 weeks. My husband came for 2 weeks and my sister replaced him for the last 2 weeks. I realized it was probably the first 4-week vacation I'd had since grade school because I've had a job ever since I was 14. While in Hawaii, I didn't have to work, for the most part. I got phone calls from the office, but I didn't have to be there in the day to day of it all, gnashing my teeth or putting out a fire. And I didn't have to be home either, where the laundry piles up, or the dishes pile up, or where resentments can pile up if you're not careful to spend enough time with your family.

Four weeks of "Getting Away from It All." It was amazing that it actually happened since taking time off always feels too indulgent somehow, like I haven't earned it. But I got a dressing down from my doctor about needing to offset the stress of a new business, so I took her professional advice and took off!

I didn't do anything amazing - I didn't swim with dolphins or walk through the middle of a rainbow. I went to the Farmer's Markets, I cooked a lot, I bought art for my office, I read, I learned how to use one of the game functions on my cell phone. I went to the beach where I watched Gretchen hit the ocean for the first time. I visited family. I got sick. But I wasn't in Sonoma, entrenched in the things that can bog me down.

It's often not until you go somewhere else that you realize 2 things almost simultaneously:

1. the somewhere you're from has it's own set of wonderfulnesses but
2. somewhere-elses are good to get away to every once in awhile
   

Turning 40 doesn't need to be a big ordeal. But it often is, especially for women. I wish I could say I'm beyond all that and it doesn't matter. But it does. And it matters for reasons that aren't even cosmetic. Those are in there, mixed in with everything else. But it's other things that are subtle and make you realize you've gotten older. Like singing in the elevator.

I probably can't escape the inevitable - I will probably continue tapping my foot when Billy Idol comes on overhead, mouthing the words to "Rebel Yell" as an 18-year old next to me pauses in wonder at the spectacle of a getting-older-quickly lady rocking out to some unknown rock 'n' roll relic. But I can escape from my everyday every once in awhile.

Maybe you need to do a little of that as well. Maybe you haven't made time for your family, or for yourself, or for Fido. If you're feeling the pull and need to "Get Away from It All," why not come help me celebrate getting older as I take off for the Big Island of Hawai'i to party on? (<-- that begs a Wayne's World reference, or perhaps a his-name-used-to-be-Prince-before-he-named-himself-after-an-unpronouncable-symbol song reference dating back to 1999, but I shall desist...)