Crazy

Wow - talk about something you wouldn't expect:

Group urges prosecution of 83-year-old Nazi: Deported woman served as WWII prison guard, married Holocaust survivor

Aloha

That's really the only Hawaiian word that I know, so I'll make good use of it when L. and I fly to Kauai next week! Judging from the names of the places around where we're staying, I'm going to have a fun time trying to figure out pronounciation.

Hawaiian person: "alsmei weoiwei woaifnoai asoidfrneoi aofoafnei woeinei"
Me: "Aloha"
Hawaiian person: "No, weoiwnei hweoiwrnowei wheiewo woanfeowiheoi sdaovcnxieihei"
Me: "Aloha"
Shark that the Hawaiian person was trying to warn me about right before he bites off my leg: "Aloha"

Hee hee hee - if you picture that in cartoon format, it's quite entertaining :)

-or-

Me: "How to you get to the beach from here?"
Hawaiian person: "Start out at woeineeihei, then take a right on yeaoiaowei. Follow that until woeineoeieoijwoeiweoiei, and hang a sharp left onto waoeiwenoweonwoiafdmei. You'll see woeianrfaoiaweonweaieoei beach straight ahead."
Me: "Thanks and aloha."

I have a lot of stuff to finish up at work before I leave. However, my brain seems to have started the vacation without my body. All I can think about is plopping my ass down on a spot of sand next to the ocean and reading a good, non-work-related book. I'm also looking forward to exploring some of the local tourist places, and snorkeling (while hopefully not getting eaten by a shark, but more about that later). Not to mention spending a whole week in paradise with my wonderful boyfriend and his wonderful family!

We were online last night looking for various things to do. I definitely want to do some horseback riding on the beach, and there are a ton of beautiful natural things to check out such as waterfalls, rivers, etc. And of course, no trip would be complete without a luau, so we found one of those, too.

We also came across something called "snuba", which at first I thought it was a misspelling of "scuba". But, I was wrong. It's actually a cross between snorkeling and scuba diving. Your air regulators are attached to long hoses that hook into an air supply on a raft, so you don't have to wear all of the scuba gear. You just wear the mask and the regulator, and the raft floats around with you. Of course, you can't dive as deeply, but that's fine with me. I'm already freaked out enough about swimming in the ocean as it is. After years of watching Shark Week, and the ever-so-interesting dance of "check out these monster sharks eating everything and everyone in sight" to "sharks aren't people-eaters, they just mistake us for seals", I'm a little uncertain. I am, after all, entering their domain. And I'm not sure how flattering I find the comparison of myself to a seal. So we'll see how snorkeling goes. But, snuba is an interesting idea.

I haven't been on vacation to a tropical place in 10 years. The last tropical location I went to was Puerto Vallarta with my family and best friend after high school graduation. It was a wonderful trip until the last day when my friend got rather ill (because she was allergic to orange juice and we happened to drink quite a few Tequila Sunrises during Happy Hour the night before). It was not fun to think about having to take her to a Mexican hospital, and trying to explain to her parents how she got so sick. But, luckily she pulled through.

We were also flying standby, and the flights were completely full, so we ended up having to stay an additional night. The up side of that was that we stayed in a beautiful little apartment downstairs from a woman who worked for the same airline as my family. She felt badly that we couldn't get on a flight and offered the place to us for a song. We all agreed that it was far more lovely than any of the places where we had stayed before. So, it's funny how sometimes the unexpected things are what really become memorable. What a fun trip...

Even Barbie scoops poop

I just saw a Barbie commercial for Barbie and Tanner, who is apparently Barbie's dog. It started out normally, with Barbie in some nice park setting, etc. All of a sudden, they show the dog pooping and Barbie scooping up the poop and disposing of it in a nearby tiny trash can. Is this a statement on the world today, as far as trying to teach kids something that should be common sense in the real world? Or has the fantasy of Barbie ended?

Can you imagine pitching this idea to the people at Mattel? Maybe it went a little something like this:
Guy 1: "Look guys. Barbie's been everywhere and done everything now. It's time to think outside of the box. What else can we do with her?"
Guy 2: "President of the Free World Barbie complete with Air Force 1."
Guy 1: "Nah, we all know a woman can't be president."
Guy 2: "Why not? They make less money than men, so we could save the nation a bunch of money right there!"
Guy 1: "She'd get PMS and take it out on the nation. Or worse yet, get pregnant and take maternity leave. Let's leave those kind of experiments to bigger, more progressive countries, like Sri Lanka or China."
Guy 2: "Fine. How about Trailer Trash Barbie and Wifebeater Ken? Trailer and skanky nightclub with stripper pole sold separately."
Guy 3: "Sex and the City Barbie with Emotionally Unavailable Ken. Complete with cigarettes, condoms, laptop, and limo. Barbie's friends and their diner hangout sold separately."
Guy 1: "Hahaha guys. Seriously..."
Guy 2: (Accidentally pokes his eye with a very sharp pen) "$h!t!"
Guy 1: "Brilliant! Barbie can shovel poop! I can't believe we've never thought of that before!"

All I know, is that my Barbie dolls were far too sophisticated to scoop poop. I mean, what if it got tracked into the dream house or the Ferrari? None of my Barbie dogs pooped. I mean, ick...it would like totally ruin Barbie's manicure and couture. Totally.