The Lave Tube Hale #9

“Look baby. At the end of filling the gas tank, I lift the hose like this to get out the last trickle. Every 3 years, that’s a ¼ tank of gas! ….. Most likely less.”

Dear Verna,

I just opened my computer to write to you and there is a rabbit food pellet stuck to my keyboard. It’s funny to think of the babies tinkering around on the computer. Maybe they wanted to write to you!

I’m finally having a day at home and I’m letting the rain do the dishes. It’s been drizzling all day, which has halted today’s outdoor projects, but it’s good timing since I owe you an email. I gauge my ‘time for an email’ with how many stories have begun to stack up on the shelving in my head where your name is labeled on the shelf.  Sometimes it’s a lot of little stories, and I can wait a few more days for some big events to throw their weight on there. Then with lots of big stories, the scales tip, and I’d better get these stories out to you before their shelf life expires and they’ll be buried beneath far more relevant, and hopefully exciting, new stories. 

The biggest new story sitting on your shelf is, HELCO has turned off our electricity. YUP!! They gave it to us, and then took it back. But in their minds, they never gave it to us in the first place. One of their little minons rolled up one morning and said we weren’t a registered pole with HELCO and that she was gonna have to turn us off. We were in the driveway at the time, loading up to head to Kona, and she says we will be accused of ‘tampering’ with the pole. My God. You know me. All my hair stood up on my entire body and I had to take a good amount of time organizing my words to make sure this exchange would result in effective communication and NOT in me handcuffed for assault on an HELCO agent.

And I was looking like a well-adjusted citizen too. I had a cute top on, a total ‘outfit’, all proud of myself that I was able to adapt to the hoop jumping of an organized society and follow RULES for once. Yeah, that all went out the window with yet ANOTHER test. So we talked to ‘Cindy’ for a while, explaining our permit was hanging, our HELCO engineer was Shannon, the pole was turned on, the inspector came down and legalized us, etc etc.  Didn’t change a thing as she ‘knew nothing’ of all that and it was NOT her job to ‘discover’ anything. She left with saying it was our job to figure out what was going on, and she’d give us 2 days to figure it out, which was when she would again be in our district. If her map still didn’t have us on there, she’d shut us off.

Our first call to HELCO was hysterical…. They answered, ‘oh yes… the Kamamalu property??…. We were supposed to do something for that…. But I don’t remember what that was…… let me call you back….’ We called every day and never received calls back. Managers were always in meetings to specifically talk about our case and nothing was ever resolved or even explained. We imagine our paperwork just sitting up in the far corner of someone’s desk so it doesn’t have to be dealt with. We ARE famous in that office though!!! Each time we call, we don’t need to give them our address, OR our problem, OR our phone numbers!!! They already have it ALL.

The last call Hamilton made, I was right next to him and when he finally reached someone he said, ‘Hi! Is this to setup newspaper service???’ I laughed so hard, fell over, and was certainly heard on the other end of the line. After calling 847 times, the run-around is just so old, the only solace we have is in laughter. And HOW that boy makes me laugh!!! His new ‘art project’ is to set up a little table outside of HELCO and sell HELCO technician voodoo dolls. Five bucks.

He’d kill it.

I’d like to have a shirt that says ‘banished to the depths of HEL… CO’

And we’d do it while I’m charging Chanel there!!! Which they totally charge for. Everyone asks me that.

Part of how I’m able to push through all this is because of YOU!! Writing to you has always been so healthy for me. For all these years, no therapist could have been as wholesome an influence, or as healing, as writing to someone whom I wholly respect and adore. At this point, I am constantly responsible for reporting to you (with my hopefully GOOD behavior… tee hee) and that truly has made me a better person. Long ago, I used to be responsible to Grama that way, and we’d have the same funny conversations I now have with you. This is just such an important relationship in my life and I thank you, thank you!!!

So two days later and no forward movement with HELCO after 20 calls, I left a polite hand written note on our gate to Cindy. ‘Dear Cindy, you’re gonna have to turn us off today, and that’s okay. The office still cannot get their shit together to get us legitimately turned on even though all our t’s are crossed and the county has issued us a permit and deemed us legal. They cant figure out who turned us on, since our paperwork is still on their desks. ~Kira & Hamilton’ We got home late at night to no electricity, and found a wet, ink run letter back from Cindy with matched civility. She might not get a voodoo doll after all.

Two days after our electricity was turned off, our fridge arrived. It’s so cute!!! It’s fire engine red and has the look and lines of a vintage fridge. Kona Trans delivered it and I sent a pic to Lover immediately. He responded,

But then it sat there depressed and boxed up for a few days till I had a dream that we used it as a literal old school ‘ice box.’ We unpacked it, put ice in the bottom crisper drawer, put things on the shelves, and that bugger WORKS!!! I was visiting my girlfriend Donna down in Miloli’i the other day and I told her we may never ever plug it in! We pushed it to the way back of the cave wall where it’s nice and cool and that thing is cold when you open it. Somehow, the ice melts slower than it did in the cooler. We are so stoked.

As for the rest of the family, the bunnies are doing beautifully. Vincent has completely taken over as nanny of the bunnies and hasn’t left the kipuka since we got them. He seems to always know where each of them is when they’re having their ‘glen’ time. We put one little baby gate across the pathway and they run all around the lanai, kipuka, and under the house, up the glen, in a totally isolated area that they can’t climb out of. I’m worried we will make them wild with how much space they have to run around but they still don’t run away when we go to hold them, though they also have not much interest in us either. Vincent has a GPS on them constantly, herding them around and always knowing where each of them is from his perches around the lava tube. I tell the bunnies that they are fortunate little munchkins, and that not all Hawaiian bunnies have a kitty ‘au pair.’ I walk around all day asking, ‘Vincent! Where’s your babies!???’

One night, Lover was coming home late and I couldn’t find one of the bunnies when it was time for them to go into the ‘bed-time hutch.’ They have an outdoor hutch for when we’re gone in the day, and they have a night time hutch that’s in the house where it’s nice and warm for sleeping at night. I should have known one was deep in the bushes down in the glen because Vincent was sitting out on the railing in the dark. Watching. Doing what every nanny has done for centuries. Still, I thought I lost one. And when Lover called, I confessed. ‘Don’t worry Baby,’ he told me, ‘they’re only $25 if we need to get another one.’ Oh man, I was so happy and grateful. Whew!!! But equally worried that PITA may have a phone tap on us. 😀 Then 20 minutes later, Vincent herded the lost bunny into the house, finally ready for the bed time hutch. 

So after that episode, everyone got some much needed artistic labeling. I broke out my box of oil pastels and racing stripes were flying! See, the problem was, out of my peripherals, there were just too many white animals all around that looked the same! It was so hard to account for everyone, and constantly getting all their names mixed up trying to talk to one, only to figure out it was the other…

Theo got a blue stripe down his back. Easel got an orange stripe, and Buggie got a pink stripe. It’s funny to finally have to write down Easel’s name because Lover named him Easel, but spelled E.S.L., and with the acronym of ‘Eats Shoots & Leaves.’ I forever will spell him Easel because ESL, in my mind, is related to ‘English as a Second Language’ now and forever. Thank you Kahakai elementary school.

Okay love, time to go. Glad the ‘Verna’ shelf is now cleared off and ready for more stories. 😀

With great Aloha,

KK

P.S.

Here’s a painting I just finished on my last day off. It’s for no one and nothing, just something I really wanted to do. I was shopping in KTA and saw the fish counter full of signs that said all the English names. I immediately wanted to go and change all the names to the local ones- so I did it in oil.

😀

I feel much better now.