"Eh! This Ms. Wong?"
Me: "Yes sir, how can I help you?"
Dude in heavy pidgin accent: "I don't like da way you talkin' to my boy."
Me: "I'm sorry, what was that sir?"
Dude: "I say, I don't like da way you talkin' to my son!"
Me (totally not calm under fire): "Sir! There must be some mistake, I'm not sure what you are talking about!"
Dude: "Dis one Miss Kristen Wong?!?!?!"
Me: "Yes, but I'm sure I never talked to anyone inappropriately." (This is a lie, I know that what I really said was a flustered, stammering mess.)
Dude: "I hear you usin' dat word to my kids again, I'm gonna come and..."
Me (rising panic and can only think of the 2 times I even talked to kids): "Sir, I swear, I don't even talk to kids!"
Dude (laughing): "HA HA - Gotcha!"
Me: "Who is this?"
Dude: "DiCarlo!"
Me: [INSERT COMMENTS NOT EXACTLY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FRIENDLY HERE]
Jim DiCarlo is a special education teacher I mentored last year at Ilima. He owns 6 acres of land in Kurtistown, about 5 minutes from my school. He was in town to check up on his land and we made plans to catch up.
That Sunday Jim came by with his "lady friend," I think her name was Summer. We hung out and talked for a long while. Summer is currently studying at UH in a Hawaiian Masters in Teaching program. She starts her first teaching experience soon and is a little nervous. Jim is also pursuing special education studies at UH. It was really nice catching up with an old friend...except for the one part where I put my foot in my mouth - how typical. We were talking about siblings and Summer mentioned how she grew up with two brothers were ate a lot. I enthusiastically added, "Oh yeah, that's right they played volleyball for UH!" I was so proud of myself for remembering this personal detail. Then I realized that Jim was shooting me this look and motioning me to stop talking. Summer looked confused, so Jim said helpfully, "That's my ex-" Yeah, awkward. Of course I made it better by saying, "OHHHHH! I thought you were really short when you walked in the house!" Anyway, I did get teased about that for the rest of the night. I guess DiCarlo and his new lady love are a recent development.
After some more catching up, we decided to grab some food. By that time it was 9pm and of course, almost everything in Pahoa was closed...including the 2 bars...go figure. Luckily the Thai place agreed to serve us even though they closed at 9. We ordered a feast of pad thai, panang curry, tofu salad, thai basil chicken, sticky and brown rice! Yum!!! It was really good and the service was a lot of fun since we knew the waitress as the one who serves Chris' curry every time we go to Maku'u farmers' market.
Jim told us the funny story of how he booked the campground he and Summer were staying at. It was called something like Rainbow Paradise. Having lived in Hawaii long enough, I still made the mistake just recently. One day I was flipping through channels when I saw "Rainbow Pride" on the cable guide. I was all excited that this was a gay pride concert of sorts, but when I turned to the channel it was actually a UH athletics event...oh, duh. Well it turns out Rainbow Paradise campgrounds IS actually the kind of rainbow you think of! It's a gay friendly campground. Jim was telling us about the great amenities like wireless, showers, etc. He made the pitch that it was really awesome and family friendly, aside from the random nudity. Thinking of all my friends with children, I'm not sure random full-nudity counts as rated G among the real family crowd.
Unfortunately, the night ended before we could trade more stories and we were all ready for bed at the late late hour of 10:30pm (Ugh, how pathetic have we become?). I'm hopeful we'll see lots of Jim in the future. It was pretty awesome having our first guests over to the house to visit!
ME, JIM, & THE NEW GIRLFRIEND!
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