The Brawlin' Broad and the Smokin' Blokes

Ok, so first the backstory with my life. On Wednesday this week, after work, I caught the bus to Waikiki to spend a day with Sydney and friends. Sydney's dad was awesome enough to use his points at the Marriott Hotel to check out a room for the week, so Sydney, Ali, Kaitlyn, Kylie, and Jessica have been there since Monday, with other people like me rotating in and out. Pretty cool, yeah? Anyways, got there on Wednesday, enjoyed an awesome meal at the Cheesecake Factory (birthday splurge; 3 of us have our birthdays next week- the 20, 21, and 23), played around in the hot tub at the hotel and learned the butterfly stroke from Ali in the pool (or, perhaps more accurately, laughed at ourselves attempting it) and then stayed up way too late watching a movie. Thursday was spent at the beach, where I tried surfing for the first time. Let's just say I need a lot more practice, lol. Anyway, I planned on going home that night so we went to the mall for dinner and I was just going to catch the bus from there. But... I got an invite to attend a show in Waikiki the following night, and I didn't really want to ride the bus, so... I ended up just staying. Had a good night at the mall, then went back and went to the hot tub with Jessica where we just talked for a while, before going back to watch a movie with everyone else. Well... they had all fallen asleep, so no movie. Still not ready for bed, we went out on the balcony to talk, but we witnessed an entire drama unfold on the street below for almost an hour. This is that story.

The Brawlin' Broad and the Smokin' Blokes
Jessica and I sat on the balcony, talking and enjoying the Thursday night life of Waikiki at 11:30 pm. From our lawn chairs seven floors up, we had a clear view of the beach just a block away on our right, the mountains a mile away on our left, and a little, unremarkable street corner below us. An ABC store still had its doors open wide as it catered to the last few tourists seeking a snack or a Hawaiian trinket. At first we paid little attention to any of this, and merely enjoyed our conversation.
Then our first character appeared on the scene.
This woman, whom we subsequently named Veronica, the Brawlin' Broad, was a sight to see, even from our height. Tall, black, loud, and wearing high heels and a dress not only too low on top but also too high on bottom, quickly caught our eye. It didn't take long for her to capture our rapt attention.
At first she seemed little different from all the other passerby as she waited around in front of the store, presumably for a ride. She loitered about, chatting on her phone... then something happened. We still have no idea why, but she started to get angry. Her phone conversation rose steadily in volume and her pacing grew more bullish. She began walking in and out of the store, her temperature rising along with her voice. Words began to become distinct, most of them unfit for publication. Within minutes she was worked up into a frenzy, though we couldn't tell if she was yelling at the phone or someone in the store. In retrospect, likely both.
By now Veronica had earned more than just our passing interest, though the situation still seemed relatively within the bounds of normal.
Enter the towel-lady. Veronica was creating quite a bit of noise, so it was not too surprising (though certainly amusing) when a woman appeared on a balcony across the street (about four floors up) to investigate. In true form, she was wearing nothing but a towel. Despite her unprepared appearance, she still proved capable of altering the story dramatically when she leaned over the railing towards Veronica and called in a rather horrid, screechy voice, "SHUT UP!"
Veronica was loud enough herself to not notice at first, but, after three or four repetitions of "SHUT UP!", she, like a poor-sighted but infuriated rhino, turned her full attention to the towel lady and unleashed her devastating anger. "Where you at? Where you at? I'll kill you! Come MAKE me shut up! I don't give a blankety blank blank blankety blank about your sleep, you blankety blank! I'll kill your whole blankety family! BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!"
I was reminded of the quote from the beloved film, A Christmas Story, where the narrator says, "In the heat of battle, my father wove a tapestry of obscenity that as far as we know, is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan," though the words "my father" and "Lake Michigan" should be substituted with "The Brawlin' Broad" and "Waikiki Beach". I'll admit that up to this point in my life, I have always considered swearing to be a low and unimaginative form of expressing oneself. Veronica, however, proved me wrong- one can be extremely creative even with a vocabulary limited to five or six words. Who knew?
Well, towel-lady soon threw up her hands (or, more accurately, hand. One was already holding up her towel) in disgust and disappeared into her room. Jessica and I asked ourselves how long it would be until the cops showed up. Veronica, meanwhile, was on a rampage, verbally assaulting passerby, the ABC workers, and the no-longer present towel-lady. "You hear that? You hear what she say to me? What would you do! You'd whoop her blankety blank blank blank blank! Don't you look at me like that! What's yo problem? You got a problem with somethin'? Thas right, walk aWAY!"
A police car soon pulled up. Surprisingly, instead of fleeing or calming down, as I assumed she would do, she made a beeline for the man. "Officer, you know what they been sayin' to me? Uh huh, they..." At this point she began to drop in volume, and much of their conversation is lost to us. We could only watch and speculate. I was impressed with the officer's handling of the situation. He gave her exactly what she wanted- someone to listen to her story- and she calmed down. Still, another police car pulled up, then another, and then another... four in all. Volume began to go back up and I began to wonder how they could possibly arrest her without losing whatever shred of modesty she had left. An officer had already had to point out once that she had bounced out of her dress just from walking in a fit of agitation (thank goodness it was dark and she was far away); I couldn't imagine a full take-down.
Nevertheless, the officers proved wise and a policewoman soon sat down to talk with her in some 'girl-time' while the other police checked the premises and entered the store. Veronica calmed down and soon she and the officers were laughing together. It looked like a happy ending...
At this point, a gigantic tour bus started to pull of the tiny side-street and turn right, past the entire scene. Well, the bus was long, the corner was small, and three police cars were blocking the way. The bus pulled out, hesitated, then parked and came over to talk to the officers. We could see his waving arms and easily conjure up the meaning of his words as he pointed to his bus, the police cars, up the street, at the bus, the police cars... Since Veronica was mostly taken care of, the officers obliged and moved out of the way, though they stuck around. The bus driver got back in, pulled forward... and an enormous crunch split the night. The bus paused and everyone began to search rather frantically for the source of the noise. Only Jessica and I, from our bird's eye view, found it: the bus bumper was caught on a support cable for a pole holding up electrical wires.
Erroneously assuming the worst was over, the bus driver continued forward. CRUNCH. The bumper bent backwards. The power lines rocked back and forth. People on the street fled every which way. The police began to yell.
At the cost of a bumper, the bus pulled free. The bus driver exited to examine the damage with the officers and figure out what had happened. This crisis, too, seemed over, until traffic (stopped by the tour bus blocking the street) began to hank and protest in anger. Taxi drivers yelled, the bus driver yelled back, and the police tried to calm everything down. Within a few minutes the bus had pulled over, the road was open, and the overabundance of police officers wrote out a citation for the bus driver and continued to comfort Veronica. All was well. Soon, the bus left and Veronica began to wave goodbye to the police officers as they too went on their way.
Meanwhile, our final characters made their entrance. Two men, hereafter described as the smokin' blokes, had come to the corner to watch it all go down. They stood, watched, talked, and went through cigarette after cigarette. They saw the end of Veronica's first fit, the arrival of the police, and the bus incident. They watched the officers leave and observed her happy dance as they did. They stood by and smoked as she continued to wait for her ride, eventually sitting on a crate in a pile of goods including towels and inflatable rafts outside the ABC store, which by now was getting ready to close for the night. At long last, as their smoke wafted around the corner, they began to interact.
In typical fashion, Veronica started it. Talking to herself about who knows what, she suddenly went into a rant about the nastiness of cigarette smoke and forbade the blokes from coming anywhere near her. She was as gentle and tactful as always, so we were astonished when the blokes reacted to provoke her. One of them walk right in front of her, pretending to eye the store goods, then flicked a cigarette butt at her feet. Thirty minutes of good police work came undone in an instant. "What you doin' that for? You KNOW I told you how nasty that is, you little blankety blank!" This time, Veronica became angry much faster- the bloke, after all, was retorting, and she would have none of that. We couldn't hear much of what he said, but we could guess from her colorful replies. "I'll sit and where whatever I want! Oh? You could't afford me, blank! You come over here and MAKE me shut up! My daddy's a police officer; he taught me well and I'm ALWAYS packing! Got a charged tazer right now, blank! Thas right, try something!"
At this point, the blokes began to back away, even if they continued to make snide replies. What's more, the ABC store was closing and needed to pull Veronica's seat inside. She of course verbally abused the workers until a big Hawaiian guy came out and spoke her language: "GET THE BLANK OVER THERE!" She resisted, but she moved. Finally, to ice the cake, towel-lady reappeared. "SHUT UP!" she wailed. Veronica erupted. She was simply bursting at the seams in every way- popping out of her dress, boiling over with anger, and exploding with profanity. Everyone and everything in sight was seared with her words as they echoed through the man-made canyons of the city. Towel-lady came back out on her balcony with a phone and we began to count down the time until the police returned.
Then, for no apparent reason, a taxi pulled over. Veronica went over, opened the door, and blasted the man inside. "You hear what they're sayin' to me? Blank blank blank!" We watched in confusion as, after a minute, she disappeared inside and it pulled away. Perhaps she sensed that the police would not be so forgiving a second time around. Perhaps she had given up on her ride and called a taxi. We'll never know.
What we do know is this: after she left, the blokes laughed. Towel-lady stayed on the phone and tried to take down the taxi number (ok, maybe we don't know that, but we can suspect). The ABC guys locked their doors, then a bloke picked up a large, pink, inflatable raft abandoned on the side of the store. He took it to the window, where they gestured at the garbage can. He dutifully complied, stuffing it straight in to the undersized public bin. A minute later the cops arrived. The blokes left fast, moving in opposite directions. The towel-lady disappeared, finally able to get some sleep. The cops got out, looked around, then patrolled the area for the next thirty minutes.
It was 12:39 am, and the only remaining vestige of drama was the neon raft.

Graduation + Catering = Pouring Orange Juice for an Apostle of the Lord and Moving a Twenty-Five Pound Butter Elephant

It's been a little while since I wrote, so I'll just hit the big things. First of all, general conference last week was amazing. As always! Super good. Also had a fabulous choir concert on Saturday; I really think we did well. Anyway, this week was finals and graduation and moving off campus. Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday were the last days of class and were fairly enjoyable. I finished reading my first-ever book entirely in Chinese, called "The Lady in the Painting" (Huar Shang de Mei Ren). We'd been reading little bits in class all semester, but when last Friday we were only on page 30 of 80, it suddenly became homework to finish it up if we had time. I made time and pulled it off! I'll admit I was pleased with myself. Also went to an awesome potluck at Dr. Ford's home (my peacebuilding/mediation teacher). Had a lot of great dessert (students tend to bring sweets over real dishes) and played some Rock Band with classmates and the Ford children. Ended up just kind of hanging around late talking with his family and playing their piano- it was so great to be in a family setting that I didn't want to leave. Really good day.
Thursday, I had nothing to do but everything to do. That is to say, I had nothing official like class, but I had a lot to get done- pack, study, print final papers, say goodbye to friends, go to the beach... hey, that is a need, sometimes. I hadn't been in forever. I can prove it by showing how sunburned I got after just two or three hours in medium sunshine. Yikes, I can't believe I'm still getting sunburned here. Waaay too much time spent inside. But no more! Class is over, and by the time I come home, I will be tan, blond, and generally beachy-looking. Have to take advantage of it before my mission. But yeah, a good day outside, once the work was mostly done. Then, that evening, kind Tessa Brady (aka Zaneeta Shinn from the Music Man) had me over and we made crepes and watched The Newsies. Like I said, good day.
Friday: the madness started bright and early with my first final at seven am. Terrorism. It took me just over an hour to do all the essays, then I hurried back to the Hale to get a haircut from a friend. I then studied a little more Chinese (in fact, that's pretty much what I was doing in every spare moment I had all week) before going to the library to use up my print funds printing copies of sheet music for the men's a cappella group. Of course, the printers were all broken except one, so I felt bad when I went over to pick up my stuff and realized I'd majorly stalled printer traffic by printing off 180 pages. Whoops. Oh well, we have some great music... anyway, finished that just in time to pop over to the stake center for my Book of Mormon final. Pretty sure I aced that, so I enjoyed my lunch at the caf. After that, an afternoon of, you guessed it, studying Chinese! Reviewed grammar, vocab, and how to write the 200 or so characters we might be tested on how to write. Again, finished just it time to head over for my final. It was the big one, Chinese itself. I went in slightly anxious, but feeling waaaay more prepared than I did last semester. Sure enough, I rocked it. Not to brag, but I had worked hard to be ready and I was ready. It paid off and I feel great about it. Didn't have much time to celebrate though, as I needed to head straight for work. We were doing a graduation dinner for about 750 people, but, hallelujah, it was busy but not hellish as we did buffet lines and disposable dishes and cutlery. Wise decision. I was at a drink station pouring water for an hour. I like the job, but I have to admit I almost get annoyed when people come and take cups, thus ruing the geometric formations I have tried so hard to complete. lol, oh well, what can you do? Because it was so busy, it actually went by really fast. Still, with cleanup and prep for the next day, didn't get out of there until about eleven. Straight to bed, because...
Saturday: Up and at 'em early again, with work at 7:30 am. Got a breakfast ready to go for the important people in graduation- the university president, the VP, the deans, etc. Well, the speaker for graduation this semester was Elder Quentin L. Cook, so yours truly got to man the drink station (I'm getting good at that) and pour him orange juice at his request. I did ask him about Laramie and my dad, since he was there recently, and also mentioned my mission call. He smiled and said, 'Oh yes, I think I'm the one who assigned you." I thanked him... and didn't know what else to say, so I handed him his juice. Not much, but pretty cool, all the same. Well, they enjoyed their breakfast, and then after they left, we enjoyed their breakfast... important people eat well, and so do their caterers. Once we had cleaned almost everything up, we realized that the chef had left his centerpiece on the table: a twenty-five pound butter elephant sculpted for an Indian culture night. After much deliberation, we decided to just return it to the freezer ourselves, so Katy and I each took an end of its cutting board and away we went. Disaster almost struck twice, once when we almost tripped and a second time when someone swung open a door we were trying to enter, narrowly avoiding smashing me in the face and killing the elephant. Fortunately for all, we averted danger and successfully completed the journey. Once that was done, I actually needed to leave and join the choir in singing the final number at graduation. That went well, though the ceremony was a bit long-seeming after a busy week. Finally, finished that (went super well) then dashed back to the Hale to throw the remainder of my things into boxes and bags before having a final meal at the caf. In full irony, it was terrible. The kitchen staff has been pretty swamped with things to do, so the cafeteria was neglected. I did not leave the place full of regret, I'll say that.
Last, big thing: moved out of the Hale! The Checketts, the people I'm renting from, came by about one-thirty to pick up Michael Potter (my new roommate) and I and dump off our stuff at the house before making a Costco run. I had not previously realized how much junk I have, but let's just say I made more than one trip from my room to the car. We dropped everything off, then went to the store so that we could stock up on food, as we are no officially taking care of ourselves. Once in Costco, we grabbed a cart, looked around... and I called my mom. She wasn't around, but my dad helped me think of things to by and eat. First time I've ever shopped on my own for real. Things went well, I suppose. We have a shelf full of rice, oatmeal, Ramen, pasta, and tomato sauce, so we may be malnutritioned but we won't starve! Ha ha, jk. We'll be hitting up the farmer's markets soon to get produce. We came home, unpacked, and I cooked our first 'free' meal. We are independent just in time to learn that food isn't free, lol. We are now comfortably installed in a beautiful house with an awesome family. I'm sitting on the couch right now. Delightful.