by Lehua Parker | Feb 1, 2014 | Mainland Living
Lately, behind me in the shadows and corners of dimly lit rooms, Death stalks softly.
I’m uncertain if it’s simply the rule of three—three good things in a row, three bad—or if having my foot in a cast has made me more aware of the inevitability of age and the gradual entropy that all things slid toward. But in the past few weeks I feel like I’ve been confronted with too many near misses—a friend diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, but cured with surgery; a niece in a car accident escaping bruised, but not broken—along with the death of a dear colleague’s spouse from complications of lung cancer and the death of the father of one of my high school friends.
It feels like Death is gliding by, culling whom he chooses, his chill fingers caressing the back of my neck.
Things come in threes.
How far back can I go to round out the threes? How far removed is too removed to count?
As much as I want this grisly set of threes to be done, I know that this trio’s ending is really just resetting the countdown clock. It’s the illusion of completeness that brings a sigh of relief.
One, two…
Three.
by Lehua Parker | Jan 21, 2014 | Mainland Living, Mana'o (Thoughts)
The PiBs are back in town. You can spot them in a New York minute or L.A. heartbeat, the People in Black, dressed for an ice age in 30+ degree weather—a bleak, but chic ice age—walking very quickly and importantly wearing bright Sundance badges, drinking skinny lattes, and talking a little (way) too loudly about Bab, Mark, and JJ on cell phones. They park anywhere they please, cut in line, and will run small children over to get to the counter where they take forever to order because they have to know the provenance of every item on a burger so that they can order a salad, sans croutons and dressing, with an organic cruelty-free lemon-wedge on the side.
Gotta watch the carbs, you know.
To save us all time and misery, I’m telling you upfront that our Heber mom and pop burger joints don’t have dairy-free cheese or sugar-free ketchup or free-range pickles. Part of the adventure of traveling is eating new food. Branch out a little, PiBs. Try the fry sauce.
Like the swallows and Capistrano, for the past 30 years the PiBs have annually flocked to our little town chasing the magic of the Sundance Film Festival. And yeah, I remember the first one—I was a budding director and writer myself attending a nearby university and was bribed with free tickets to point people in the right direction and to keep the riff-raff like me out of dimly lit rooms over-crowded with non-fire marshal compliant rows of folding chairs.
Since those college days I’ve been to some of the big galas and events as both a paying and comp’d guest. Meh. The food’s always pretentious, tiny, and undercooked—something you’d forgive and forget if you were there to stargaze instead of to sample the celebrity chef like I was. I’ve seen remarkable movies—and a lot of crappy ones, too. People forget it’s a film festival, not the Oscars. Best way to tell if you’re in for a stinker? Average the age of the people in the theater around you. Sub-25? It’s really going to suck. You’ve got average at least ten years older for it to be any good.
But back to the PiBs.
Am I glad that they spend money in my town? Abso-danm-lutely. I love to see jets worth the combined GNP of most third-world countries lining the tarmac of our small town airport. I like watching the local fuel truck filling them up and all the taxi cabs buzzing in from Salt Lake City. Our quaint artisanal cheese, jams, jellies, and candy shops sell out. It’s a post-holiday season boon to local ski instructors, photographers, and restaurants. I have friends who rent out their houses and escape to the beaches every January—double score.
I know that the benefits continue when attendees see the quality of our ski slopes, hiking trails, and reservoirs and come back for a vacation when the craziness is over. I’ve even met people who moved here after attending the film festival.
There are clear benefits to having Sundance here, check.
And if it were only about watching independent films, I wouldn’t mind the crowds. We get crowds with all our world-class athletic events, too. My real problem isn’t with the films; it’s with the wanna-bees and their assistants. I’ve actually been in line at Wal-Mart trying to buy the kinds of things Moms need to keep on hand when a gaggle of gel-slick hipster PiBs demanded their own checkout line because they were in a hurry. Didn’t we know who they were?
Seriously? You pulled that line while shopping at Wal-Mart for bottled water, folding chairs, and cheap Park City sweatshirts?
And then there are the people who wail and gnash their teeth in the street, shocked that their car was towed after it was parked under a no parking sign. Once a guy actually called the cops and complained that towing his car was rude and demanded they bring it back.
Yeah, good luck with that. Our sheriffs don’t know (or care) who you are either. They’re too busy making sure the emergency service vehicles can make it down the street.
Now that I don’t work in Park City, most of the time I can avoid the worst of the plague, but this year with a foot in a cast, rocking a knee scooter and a daughter who would rather ski than breathe, I’ve been spending too much time around them. My favorite recent run-in was at a movie theater where my husband and I went to kill some time before dragging the ski fiend and her friends off the slopes. (We were watching a non-Sundance film at a mixed use venue.) I was trying to maneuver through a crowded hall lined with double red velvet ropes that cordoned it down to a narrow one person pathway. (Fire marshal, anyone? Anyone?) A big guy was headed toward me, noticed my predicament, and stepped to the side to let me by. At least five Botox betties and two skinny jean wearing dudes with tasteful grey temples immediately leaped through the gap, blocking me from going anywhere. Big Guy rolled his eyes.
“Can you see me? ‘Cause I can see you,” I said as each person shimmied by.
It wasn’t until Big Guy growled, “Don’t worry. I got your back. Next one I tackle,” that someone woke up from his it’s-all-about-me daze long enough for me to roll by.
Yep. It’s the yearly PiB plague. I much prefer the Olympic athletes and their crew. They always grab a door for me. “Bummer man,” they say with a headshake, “And during prime ski season, too.”
by Lehua Parker | Jan 16, 2014 | Mainland Living
I took a shower all by myself today. Usually, the best you could say about that is how boring and the worst congratulations, did you feed yourself, too?
Well, yeah, I did, but that’s another blog post.
Life lately has been full of small victories and accomplishments that on the surface don’t look like much. When you’ve got a foot in a cast that you can’t put any weight on and are congenitally crutch-challenged, things like stairs and showers and cooking a meal feel like summiting Mt. Everest, swimming the Atlantic, and feeding the 5,000 with a couple of fish and a loaf of bread. You know it can be done—you even remember doing it, but the complications of managing too many things with too few hands and keeping track of things that can get wet vs. things that can’t become like solving a physics problem.
And I never liked math.
Yeah, I knew about the surgery a month before it happened and prepared for all the anticipated things, but of course, it’s what you don’t expect that bites you in the butt. Along with stocking the fridge, I should’ve headed to the gym and built up muscles in arms, shoulders, and gut. I should’ve practiced standing on one leg while the dogs and cats swarmed underfoot. But one thing I did get right was preparing for showers.
Here’re my tips to make bathing with a cast easier.
Waterproofing
This is genius and will work for any cast you can get a garbage bag over. You will need:
- A kitchen garbage bag
- A roll of stretch plastic wrap, the kind that’s used to wrap things for shipping.
Put the bag over the cast and fold it tight against the skin, getting most of the air out. Take the plastic wrap and wrap the edge of the kitchen bag against the skin several times. Make sure you’ve stretched it tightly enough that it creates a waterproof seal. The best part? After the shower you can simply lift the self-sealed edge, unwind it, and reuse the bag.
The Chair
If you can’t stand on both legs, having a place to sit makes it much easier to manage soap and water. A snazzy official chair like this one is really cool, but any water safe seat—like a kitchen step stair—will work, too.
The Nozzle
A hand sprayer is not absolutely necessary, but it does help with getting shampoo out of hair and soap out of all the crevasses. Several years ago we installed a combination hand and wall mount shower in the guest bathroom so we could more easily bathe the dogs. My husband handily swapped it out for the one in our master bath. If this isn’t an option, have a small bowl or big cup handy to fill and strategically splash.
It all sounds silly, I know, but never underestimate the healing power of good salt scrub and freshly shampooed hair. Guaranteed to wake the dead.
by Lehua Parker | Jan 10, 2014 | Mainland Living
Days since heel surgery: 7
Days drug free: 2
Days attention span longer than a goldfish: 2
Books read: 0
Books started: 4
Chapters written: 0
Attempts at writing chapters: 733
Random checks of Facebook and Twitter: 2587
Catan/Candy Crush/Carcassonne games played on iPad: 7256
New York Times crossword puzzles solved: 5
History documentaries watched: 41
Movies watched: 1
Movies started: 15
Real Diet Cokes drunk: 1
Days family filled sippy cup with caffine-free Diet Coke and lied: 6
Ice packs filled: 47
Max number of pillows propping leg: 9
Number of times knee scooter needed but being used by kids doing wheelies: 13
Times ran over own toes with scooter: 5
Falls with crutches: 2
Attempts with crutches: 3
Days to walking cast and being able to sit at desk: 21
by Lehua Parker | Jan 5, 2014 | Mainland Living, Mana'o (Thoughts), The Business of Writing, Uncategorized
So how do you use a laptop when you can’t sit at a table and don’t have a lap?
That’s my most pressing problem right now with my right foot in a cast and needing to be propped higher than my heart. The ice bag takes up what little room I have between my gut and knee and reclining half on my back and leaning on an elbow, I’m at a loss at how to balance the computer and type at the same time. Cocooned in a pillow nest, I’m tired of taping out one letter at a time on an iPad. Serious writing needs ten fingers.
It’s my fault for always writing at a desk with a chair and keyboard and two big monitors in a room where I can shut the door. Like a jock with lucky socks, I’ve trained myself to think that it’s all about the quiet room and the ability to use a mouse. Writing on the living room couch is a cramped affair filled with scraps of other people’s conversations and too loud music.
Adapt or die. Right now death is winning.
Being cooped up the past two days has built up a torrent of words and ideas that want to pour like water over a cliff, but they will have to wait until my foot no longer needs elevation and ice or I master some new yoga poses.
It’s going to be a long two months.
by Lehua Parker | Dec 29, 2013 | Learning ‘Ōlelo
Hau’oli Makahiki Hou
(how-oh-lee mah-kah-he-key ho)
Hawaiian phrase. In Hawaii people say Hau‘oli Makahiki Hou when they wish someone a Happy New Year. It’s a direct translation from the English: hau‘oli means “happy” or “glad,” hou means “new” or “fresh,” and makahiki is easily translated into “year, age; annual.” Like most English adoptions into Hawaiian it works in a Spanglish sort of way.
But anciently makahiki referred to a season that began around mid-October and lasted four lunar months. During this time there was feasting, religious observances and ceremonies, games, sports, dancing, a respite from work, and a kapu on war. It was a time of peace and prosperity in honor of the god Lono.
May you and your ‘ohana enjoy the aloha of the makahaki season all year long.
Hau‘oli Makahiki Hou!
Example
English: Happy New Year!
Pidgin: Hau‘oli Makahiki Hou!
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on
