The Storm

Last night, Hawaii experienced a storm that was, to quote one weatherman, "almost hurricane level." The winds at Schofield (which is somewhat in the vicinity of Mililani) were clocked at 70 mph. At roughly 3 am, Lynn and I were stirred awake by the sound of raindrops pelting and wind rattling our second story window... the wind was so strong that the rain was actually hitting the house horizontally (incidentally cleaning the screens which after a few years had built up a lot of dust; right now, it's all in clumps against the outside of the glass).

Of course, I had only recently done some replanting in our yard... Because I'm such a bone-head stubborn landscaper, I actually planted a couple of ficuses in the front yard about a year ago. If you don't know, ficuses are bad news. They grow fast, and well, and aggressively. If left unchecked (and there are few effective ways to check a ficus), the roots will actually buckle concrete and asphalt. So, after repeated "advice" to remove the trees, I finally capitulated, and replaced the two with Podicarpus trees. Now, the two ficuses are in large temporary pots, placed towards the back of the house on the concrete sidewalk, where they likely won't do much harm.

I was deathly afraid that the fierce winds would slaughter the Podicarpus (or is it Podicarpi?), but my jerryrigged staking somehow worked... I know my next door neighbors (some day I will write about them, as revenge; they are probably the inspiration for Frost's statement, "good fences make good neighbors")- I know my next door neighbors were waiting anxiously to see my newly planted trees split at the trunk from the terrific winds (after all, they have little else to do with their pointless, "persnickedy" lives)... What redemption to see the trees still standing tall this morning!!! It's almost reminiscent of a certain song: "Gave proof to the night that our [tree] was still there..."

What the winds DID do was: topple the potted ficuses (even when the pots were surrounded on all sides by several cinder blocks), move the plastic play kitchen set in our backyard a few feet away from the house, damn near drown our new "stolen" pet, Algernon, the white mouse, in his little fish tank... All, fortunately, recoverable damages. The only major complaint I had about it was the blackout, which lasted until about 2 pm this afternoon...