An Afternoon at the Honolulu Zoo

I would imagine that if anyone ever bothered to ask me how to keep the ol’ snark skills sharp, I’d tell them to find places that breed snarkiness. For some it might be watching fat people at a buffet, or a gaggle of soccer moms in track suits in a park (question: why are they always wearing work-out clothes, but never working out?) or one of those religious services where people praise the Lord and then writhe around on the floor. You know, whatever get your snark juices flowing. For me it’s the zoo. I mean, there’s the poo throwing, the screeching, the mating dances, and crotch picking galore. And then there are the animals.

One sunny afternoon, not long after Fabio and his man buns had depleted my snark reservoir, I decided to recharge myself and see what the Honolulu Zoo had to offer. I was not disappointed.

I’m not there 10 minutes when I see a guy dangling his toddler into an exhibit. He is trying to put his tiny daughter on the back of an enormous, dusty Galapagos tortoise. This isn’t quite on par with climbing in the pit and trying to hug the Panda or putting your child on the back of an elk in Yellowstone or anything, but literally in front of this exhibit, and there is no way to have accessed said exhibit without seeing this sign which reads “CAUTION: TORTOISES BITE.”

Moreover, the herd (I dunno, do you call animals that move that slowly a herd? I mean, would you say, there goes that freewheeling herd of sloths?) of tortoises are eating leafy vegetables and fruits, and they eat very much the way I do. Locate food, roll eyes back into head, open mouth wide, gulp and swallow, ask questions later. Moreover, there’s half a watermelon, easily the size of this toddler’s head and I mean, could you really blame the tortoise if he did mistake this kid for a melon? Not to mention, these are not particularly clean animals. It’s like someone opened up a college dorm room dustbuster and emptied four years worth of the contents all over them: dust and flies and other bits of refuse abound. Is this really the photo-op you were looking for? Oh honey, remember the time little Jennie got typhus? Wasn’t that fun!

I make a low, disgusted noise in my throat and move on, pleased with this scene, only a tad remorseful that I couldn’t get a pic of Dad, child and the sign in one frame. Just take my word for it. Tortoises bite, okay?

Onto the hippos. I like hippos. A lot. Even after that hippo bit that woman in half last year, I still maintain that it probably wasn’t the hippo’s fault. The Honolulu Zoo has a particular good Hippo exhibit where you can see under the water and on land, and instead of having the normal, fat happy lazy hippos which loll around like uninteresting logs in the water; this zoo has active, playful hippos fighting over a white ball. Did you just get the mental picture? Yeah, I thought so. It’s just like Hungry Hungry Hippos! And these two juggernauts are really going for broke, crashing against the glass in pursuit of this ball. This alone makes the price of admission worth it. I stand here spellbound for who knows how long, until one gladiator-sized hippo soundly trounces the other in the quest for the white ball and the other storms off to sulk.

Feeling satiated, much like a fat, happy lazy hippo, I meander along the random jungle animals exhibits. I approach a little gravel bridge where I can see 3 or 4 snickering pre-teens hunched over an exhibit. This can only mean one thing, for what else would hold the attention of 3 or 4 pre-teens for more than 10 seconds? Obviously, two animals are getting it on. And sure enough, there are two Gharials (nasty looking reptiles that look like crocodiles with pale creepy eyes and elongated bodies. They’re just downright creepy. I mean, even if watching animals get it on were your thing, you wouldn’t pick this species). Of course, I’m not a pre-teen in my hormone heyday, so after eavesdropping on a discussion that walks the line between being naively moronic and deeply upsetting, I move on, decidedly sketched out by the fascination of reptiles knocking boots.

This is a good zoo, don’t get me wrong, it’s big and spacious, but even it can’t escape the fact that its major clientele is children. Zoos are children magnets; I know that, it comes with the territory. And it’s not really the children I blame, it’s their parents. I know that when you were children your parents, much like my own saintly beacons of parenthood, kept you all in line with various methods, maybe threats, maybe little mind games (hey guys, you want to play the quiet game? Starting…now! I was so freaking competitive as a kid, but not too bright, as I always fell for that one), my point is, we didn’t run around screaming like little monsters. We didn’t go banging on the glass of the tiger enclosure or our parents would quietly remind us that it was just a quick throw over the glass into the tiger’s cage.

I dunno, maybe it’s that families nowadays have 2 parents and 6-8 kids (oh hi, did you not get the memo? Earth is overpopulated. Moreover, this is not the industrial revolution and something about your Macy's wardrobe tells me you folks ain’t from a farm, so honestly, why do you need a workforce of children? Keep it nuclear, 2.4 and that .4 can be that weird little fiji mermaid child you keep locked in the attic, that’s fine.)

Then I’m standing in front of the wild Australian dingoes exhibit (yes those dingoes, as in, dingoes ate my baby, dingoes), and there’s a sign that helpfully explains that dingoes mark their territory with urine to let other dingoes know, “hey, I took a leak here, so you might not want to sit there.” Zoo keepers have clearly overestimated the maturity of zoo goers. One need only head over to the gharial exhibit for a reminder.

There is an enormous, fat sweaty man with an even fatter wife and three bloated, sausage-like children, and this enormous, fat sweaty man, clad into a dirty wife-beater, makes an off-color remark in a loud, booming voice about marking his territory. His piggy little wife snickers. I throw up in my mouth a little. In case you can’t tell, I'm not really a fan of this guy. He’s just all around offensive. He is blocking my access way. He is making fun of the dingoes. He and his super-sized family are blotting out the sun and chortling like piglets and generally smelling bad. I try to get around them, but this family has a wonderful way of spreading themselves out over the pathway and loping forward slowly, like a herd of oblivious elephants, so there’s no getting through. So I follow behind them, trapped, listening to Papa Crisco brag about how the tigers weren’t that big (maybe you missed the sign that said, Sumatran tigers, world’s smallest breed of tigers. Snark. Maybe you also missed the part where it said they would still hunt you down and make Kobe beef of you. Snark snark), and then he’s ragging on the “little” alligators (funny, how there were no alligators in the zoo, just gharials, maybe you missed that sign too. Snark snark snark).

I mean, this man is just hating on all the animals, and then from out of nowhere the bushes above our head rustle and the fat man shrieks. I mean really, it’s not quite in the range of helium being let out of a balloon, but it’s enough to send the meerkrats scurrying for cover. From the bushes, a peacock descends, nonplussed, upon Mr. Macho “I ain’t afraid of no pygmy tigers but I scream when I see birds." I snap a pic of this utterly charming avian (see second to last pic) and applaud its good timing. Having seen the peacock though, the man’s reaction is even funnier, instead of being relieved; he’s even more upset that it’s a moderately sized bird and not, say, a Sumatran tiger. He draws his wife in front of him like a shield and babbles on about how peacocks bite. I see my opportunity and sneak by them. Thank you, peacock diversion.

This is yet another stellar feature of this zoo, the grounds have a gang of peacocks roving around, acting persnickety, and looking for hand outs. Before feeding a peacock, I shyly ask the zookeeper at the food pavilion if it’s okay, (or at least its a staff person in a safari shirt, and he says, anything is okay except shaved ice, which does weird things to their poo. Okay, so maybe not a zookeeper, maybe a groundskeeper). I buy a pretzel and plop down. A peacock makes it way over, and looks at me expectantly. It just seems wrong to throw the pretzel bits down in the grass and make him forage for them. He's just too pretty. So I hold out my hand and the peacock takes the pretzel delicately. Although I don’t dig on micro-humans as a rule, I do like well-behaved children as much as the next person, and there are a few around watching me bravely feed the peacock. So to the delight of my little audience, I feed him the rest of the pretzel from my hand, utterly enchanted by his shiny blue plumage, and suddenly I am grinning like an idiot, all those memories of being a goofy, little kid at all the zoos, aquariums, and fairs with my parents comes rushing back and the bad mood brought on by the awful blubbering man dissipates. It's like I'm six years old again dressed in Osh Gosh B'Gosh, life is ridiculously uncomplicated, and all I wanna do is ride the ponies.

I round out the trip with a stroll through the sacred Nene preserve. The sacred Nene, beloved to native Hawaiians, is a pretty, mellow, dark-colored goose which takes me awhile to spot amongst the shade. When I do, it regards me placidly from where it sits upon its nest as if to ask “there, are we all better now?”

Oh shucks yeah.

Don’t get me wrong, I would still throw half of the little buggers running all over to the gharials, given the chance. But I’m just saying. Good times at the zoo. Good times.

Kinda a Big Deal: Part III

Part III: Travis’s mom is also kinda the man

And so begins the final chapter in the Agustin saga...

At some point post luau but still during my bacchanal blissed out state, I had told Travis’s Mom that I’d love to go sightseeing the next day with her, Sarah and Deshie. It never occurred to me that either one of us would follow through with this; until Travis called the next morning to cheerfully remind me of what I had agreed to.

I felt like Death. No, Death would never be this hung-over and slovenly. Death would not have drooled all over its pillow in the night. Death would not have prayed for the end at 4 in the morning when it began dreaming it was being chased by girly men in orange sarongs. Death would have remember to put pants on as it crawled into bed after pigging out at the luau (get it, pig out? Mwhahahahahaha. And yes, Death would have made a better pun there).

So I pulled on the only pair of shorts that would fit and dragged my bloated carcass out the door. I met up with Travis’s Mom, Deshie and Sarah and slid into the backseat praying that I would not become “that weird girl who

booted in the car that time.” Small goals. Baby steps, Jess.

Mrs. Agustin proceeds to not only drive us all over beautiful Oahu but first tells me all about the pertinent island history and then interrogates me cheerfully along the way, alternating her questioning of me with her questioning of Deshie. Before we even reach the Dole Plantation, Deshie and I have disclosed our names, ranks, serial numbers, our status as organ donors, and most importantly, all the pertinent details of our respective love lives. Deshie’s involves a super-jacked college football player, and mine involves…Aaron, leader of the Mobile Irish Car Bomb Unit. I can tell Mrs. Agustin is impressed with my choice and only wishes her little Sarah was quite as lucky.

Eventually, she drops us off at the entrance to the Dole Plantation Pineapple Maze, site of the largest outdoor maze according to the Guinness Book of World Records in 2001.

Let’s review for a second what pop culture has taught us about outside mazes, shall we?

Exhibit A: Take family friendly Harry Potter. Remember the one where Harry’s super preppy classmate gets snuffed out by Ralph Fiennes (sans nose) in the maze? Oh I do. Important lesson for the kiddies: It’s all fun and wizard games until somewhat gets fried and the maze tries to drag them off.

Exhibit B. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Winona Ryder and Jude Law’s ex-wife decide it’s a really good idea to go out cavorting in an outside maze during a storm in their nightgowns and then wham! First they’re making out and then Pow! Jude Law’s ex is being eaten by a hirsuite creature played by Gary Oldman with a bad accent. Not exactly a happy ending for anyone.

Finally, Exhibit C. Reach way back to The Shining. Crazed Jack Nicholson chasing his family around with an ax in the maze until it comes to life and starts chasing them around in a blizzard of bad special effect from the 70's. Good times.

I think we all know where I’m going with this.

Mazes are super fun!

Pineapple-shaped mazes are even more fun when you send in three females in it with no senses of direction and little motivation. We gamely wander about looking for all these bizarre checkpoints, pineapples: palm trees, suns. I climb through holes in the hedges and suddenly I find my inspiration. All I can think about is…Dole whip. Delicious Dole whip waiting at the end of the maze. A glutton to the end. Eventually, I convince Sarah and Deshie that while this has all been in good fun and what not, there is Dole whip to be had and there is no shame in quitting. That’s right, we left the maze early to join up with Travis’s mom (the only one of us smart enough not to go into the maze) and then we all head into the plantation to get Dole whip, a glorious creation that looks like soft serve, but tastes like pineapple divine. (Check out the picture I snapped while in line and decide if you’re as supremely mature as I am).

From there we embark on and all out assault of the beaches: Waimea, Sunset, Pipeline. I am bowled over by Mrs. Agustin’s ability to wedge the car into the most impossible of parking spots all the while explaining to me in the rearview the different characteristics of each beach. These beaches, all strikingly distinct in composition and appearance, all share one thing in common this weekend: The waves are enormous, a parting shot from the most recent storm. The waves are large enough that the lifeguards have posted the “no swimming, no surfing, no going within 25 yards of the surf unless you have a freaking death wish” signs. Of course, there are several morons trying their best to pretend they are illiterate and disregard these signs. A threesome inches closer and then step over the imaginary line drawn in the sand.

The lifeguard picks up his megaphone with a sigh. “Excuse me folks,” he booms, “we’re asking everyone to stay behind those signs at least 25 yards from the shore because of the dangerous undertows.” He puts down the megaphone and reapplies zinc oxide to his nose. The trio edges closer to the shore. The lifeguard picks up his megaphone again. “Hey guys, maybe you missed the signs or misheard me the first time but it’s incredibly dangerous out there today so we’re asking everyone NOT TO GO WITHIN 25 YARDS OF THE SURF. SO PLEASE GET BEHIND THE SIGNS.”

The lifeguard doesn’t even put down the megaphone this time. He hates his life.

The trio makes a break for the shore. “OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. ARE YOU PEOPLE DEAF, DUMB, AND STUPID? DO YOU REALLY THINK I’M GOING TO JUMP IN AFTER YOU AND SAVE YOUR DUMPY ASSES FOR 15 BUCKS AN HOUR? FAT CHANCE! I’M GOING TO SIT UP HERE IN MY LIFEGUARD CHAIR AND LAUGH WHILE YOU DROWN.”

Okay, so the lifeguard doesn’t say this. But man, you can tell he wants to. Instead, his tanned highness descends the lifeguard tower and stalks across the beach to have a private word with the Darwin award triplets. I can only imagine that he is speaking very slowly and using monosyllabicsm to explain the finer points of being dragged under by killer waves.

Now, at this point, it’s about 5 pm and I’m starting to nod off in the sand, but Mrs. Agustin isn’t done with us, we’ve only driven around 2/3rds of the island at this point. As I slide into the car, my head lolling from side to side, I am in deep admiration of Mrs. Agustin. Not only is she a saint for driving us around the island, but she is also the nicest, most energetic person on the planet. And she packed us cookies! She packed us cookies and Capri Sun juiceboxes! She has just surpassed Travis as my favorite person on the whole island. Sorry, Trav.

The rest of the island tour is a bit of a blur to me, the one standout is Chinaman’s Hat, a lush green island rising out of the blue waters. I remember it so distinctly because…well…there’s no way that that can be its real name, right? Not in the age of all things politically correct, right? Oh but it is.

Again, I nod off in the car only to wake up to Mrs. Agustin telling a ghost story about the Pali lookout and how during the great battle to unite the islands of Hawaii, the great King Kamehameha and his men started throwing soldiers off the top of the mountain. The legend goes that at night you can still hear them screaming atop the lookout as they fall. Mental note to self – go back to Pali lookout. During the day. And pack Capri Sun juiceboxes.

When I wake up again, we’re back in Waikiki and Mrs. Agustin is thanking me for the company, as if I did anything other than shuffle around like a detoxifying lump all day. I probably even drooled in the backseat, it’s just dark and no one can see it yet. I thank her profusely. In a single day, Travis’s mom has pretty shown me the entire island and told me all of the good stories you won’t hear on the tour. Plus she fed me cookies made from scratch.

Travis, who is Kinda a Big Deal, had to come from somewhere right? I think we all know that point of origin now. Like I said, Travis's Mom, also Kinda a Big Deal :)

Kinda a Big Deal: Part II

Part II: Travis is still the man.

“So you ready for your first luau?” Travis asks.

Ready is an understatement. I was born for this. There are very few things I do well, but eating is one of them. And Travis has already given me a preview of the menu: “oh you know,” he says offhandedly, “pulled pork, fried chicken, BBQ beef, mahi mahi, coconut cake…”

Travis, you had me at pulled pork.

From the window of his father’s car, he eyes the sky critically. There are dark clouds moving over the island, hardly ideal weather for an outdoor luau. This is immaterial to me. If the sky were raining volcano ash, I would still sit there eating fried deliciousness and you would find my charred ashen remains intact and ready for a Pompeii-style exhibit. You know the one, where people’s bodies were found in various poses, asleep, crouching, huddling. I would be the one with the engorged stomach and one hand with a fistful of meat going for her mouth.

Travis’s Dad drives out to Pearl City, where Travis lives, and we are joined by Travis’s little sister, Sarah and her visiting from the mainland friend, Deshie, but not before Travis’s mom decks me out in a fragrant lei. I feel like family already. Sarah and Deshie are 18, this is what we literally geeks like to call foreshadowing. In case you’ve missed it, they’re underage. This will come into play later in the story.

Travis, who Sarah calls “Trav” drives us up a highway and into an industrial park. I am convinced that Travis is either a. lost or b. a serial killer about to finish us off. He chatters on about gasoline refineries. Something something nothing to do with pork, so I’m not really listening, but looking out the window, the sky is cloudy, but it looks like we may not be eating waterlogged pig at least. Which I would still be okay with.

Eventually, we pull into a beautiful spot, hard to imagine only minutes before we were in an industrial park, right by the crashing waves and a gently setting sun behind clouds. “Welcome to Germaine’s.” Travis grins.

Again, because Travis is the man, he’s already explained some of the finer points of the luau. By finer points, I mean, how to get more alcoholic froofy drinks. Admission gets you dinner and three drinks at the bar, but, if you buy a souvenir Germaine’s glass (8 dollars at the giftshop, folks), it’s like you’re getting twice as much. Guess where I headed first. Souvenir glass? Check.

We stake out eating spots, it’s family style, so we find a nice table with some people from California. At some point, the stage lights come on and a well-fed woman in a red mumu, our lovely hostess, invites us to go watch the traditional removal of the pig from the underground oven. We all mosey over to where the oven is and two burly Hawaiian men clad in (not making this up as you’ll see from the pictures) orange sarongs, like the sarongs that women wear to the beach when they’re feeling all thunder-thightastic, appear with conch shells. They blow on these. I can’t stop staring at the heftier of the two men. His sarong is cinched awfully snug. Two words: love handles. Clearly, someone hasn’t just been removing the pig from the underground oven. Snark snark snark.

Then the fire guy, also in a girlie sarong, comes barreling out to light the torches around the circle. Of course, they won’t stay lit because it’s quite windy by the ocean. (Random disgression time: This reminds me of being a camp counselor and a torchbearer. For Indian Pageant, we would soak these enormous torches and hope to light the four torches without igniting ourselves or the campers. It was good fun, huge risk management issue of course. And maybe one year, my best friend Jane and I overdid the torches for Indian Pageant, and maybe we almost lost Julie B. to the torches one there. I dunno how she kept her eyebrows. But man oh man, did it look cool and getting loopy of kerosene wasn’t so bad either). Anyway, torch man tries to do his thing, gives up, heads off to sulk in his girly man sarong off stage.

Now the announcer explains that the two men have a hard job removing the pig from its underground oven. To demonstrate this, these two laborers reach down, open the lid, shake a fisherman’s net full of world’s most delicious smelling pork. Very hard work. Then one of them reaches down and pulls the pig head out and puts that on top of the pile. Still, I’m not seeing the labor here. You should see my mom stuff a turkey, everyone, including the turkey, are breaking a sweat by the end of it. Anyway, then the men lift up net swinging it little to show its heft, a little piece of pork falls to the sand. I am dismayed at this (this pork could have found a happier home in my stomach, thank you very much) and am markedly less impressed with these two. The announcer invites us back to our seats to get ready for some entertainment. Travis and I hang back. Travis has a new camera and wants some beach shots of the ocean, so imagine my snarky pleasure, when after everyone else has left, a little golf cart appears to truck the pork off. The dudes aren’t even gonna carry it over to the serving table. I point this out to Travis and we have a good laugh and make sarong jokes. Snark snark snark.

Entertainment happens, this involves smoking hot wahines (ladies) in hula attire, green skirts, yellow tops, and bare-chested ripped men. This is fine by me, but it’s tough to concentrate on the hip shaking and the cultural story telling accentuated by chiseled abs because I haven’t eaten since 11. I can smell smoked meat in the air. And I’m two drinks down. Travis assures me there will be more opportunities for cultural enhancement later after food has been consumed. Whew.

Eventually, we get to the buffet table and I pretty much heap anything that is fried, meat-based, or coconut covered onto my plate. I am proud to say that Sarah and Deshie took as much or more than I did back to the table. Alas, one member of our party did eat fairly daintily. Not that I’m calling you out, Travis.

Deshie tries poi (pictured purple goop in cup). Poi is a Hawaiian delicacy. Poi is Hawaiian for “tastes like school paste.” I’ve already done my poi tasting. Travis advises that dumping sugar in it makes it taste bearable. It doesn’t. Then it tastes like sugar covered school paste. Trust me, skip the poi, double up on the coconut cake.

Food is beyond description. I’ll try anyway: It tastes like the best Christmas morning I’ve ever had. It tastes like the time the Red Sox won the World Series in my lifetime. It tastes like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone is invited.

After I clean my plate, go back for seconds, and then for four more slices of cake, I get another lava flow, delicious alcoholic fruity drink. The bartender cards me. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. I get back to table and Sarah is giggling. “Aren’t you like, old?” She asks this having seen the whole thing. How to answer this, I wonder? I think throwing poi on her is out of the question. She is Travis’s little sister. To add insult to injury, Deshie returns to the table shortly thereafter with her own lava flow. An alcoholic one. “Didn’t they card you?” Sarah asked wide-eyed. “Nope,” Deshie says proudly. Triumphant giggling ensues. (see picture, Deshie on the left, Sarah on the right. Would you serve liquor to either of these two and think it was legal to do so?) Great, the 18 year old can get a drink, but little old cobweb-covered, one foot in the grave Snarky can’t get no respect.

The lights go down and the real Hawaiian entertainment starts. I’m better able to concentrate now on the cultural aspect. The dances get progressively more intricate. A line of hula girls appear with poi balls which they whip around themselves like little round ninchucks. Then the fire dancer dude comes out and even though it’s windy, he goes nuts, twirling the fire around until my mouth just hangs open for a good three minutes during his entire act and encore. What could top the fire dancer, one might wonder? Here I’ll help you. Up until this point, the hula dancing has been more chastely animated and less suggestive. Well, that all goes out the window as the music goes slinky and the men start clearing their throats in the audience as one particularly attractive hula girl, lit in only blue light, begins to undulate to the music. She’s facing away from us, bare backed. I know that all of us: bloated snarky blogger, conservative Midwestern bible reader with two children present, greasy ponytail man from Vegas with fake pleather vest, are all thinking the same thing: Is she topless? (And for most of us in the audience, in particular the teenage kid with acne in front of me is thinking, please god, please let her be topless).

Beautiful hula girl turns around. A collective breath exhales sharply.

Of course she isn’t topless, you pervs. This is a family show. She’s wearing red sequined pasties. Pasties, man’s gift and curse. Pasties, the controversial compromise to nudie dancing reached by no less an authority than the Supreme Court.

Well-fed red mumu lady closes down the show. I will refrain from all jokes about things not being over until the fat lady sings. But hey, that’s what happened, okay? Just telling it like it is.

Being responsible, we make Sarah drive us back to Travis’s place where his mom promises to take me sightseeing the next day with Sarah and Deshie. I’m my glorious food coma state I agree, thinking that this is just one of those polite things you say to guests but never act upon, and besides, I have just one thought right now: how quickly can I get into a pair of elastic waist pants?

First luau. Total success made possible again by Travis. Apart from being a total lightweight at the buffet table, Travis turns in another stellar performance as tour guide, gentleman, man of leisure, luau extraordinaire. Still kinda a big deal.

Next up. Kinda a big deal – Part III: Travis’s mom is kinda the man too.