Kīlauea and The Curse of The Hula Girl

Saturday, October 12, 2024. Volcano Village, HI 

Today’s card is the Four of Swords, reversed. This seems like a reference to the actual process of vacationing and rest. I will admit that at times, usually in the middle of the night or at stray points, I would find myself fixating on work.


Earlier in the week, we had texted The Child to remind him that we were actually out of the state and in Hawaii. When Mark asked him if there was anything he especially wanted from Hawaii, The Child texted back, “Bring me back a Hula Girl.” While I was smacking my hand to my forehead, Mark was laughing about the Burridge Hawaiian Curse. About this time, The Child texted, “Can I use the car while you’re gone?”

We’re staying in a funky motel; it’s clean and dry and has odd amenities (limited hot water and no screen door). The grounds are cluttered with unused, overturned flower pots. The covered porch area needs sweeping. There apparently used to be a hot tub, but we can only see the impression where it was on one end of the porch. It’s possible a hot tub used to be in an empty rundown shed at the end of a little path. The motel is overpriced, but staying in Volcano Lodge would have cost more, even if we wouldn’t have had to buy water and good coffee. The Hilton condo, with its kitchen, dining area, and living room, was nicer—if a little Disney.

Today we visited the steam vents of Kīlauea at dawn; I felt like I had seen them before, especially the concrete lined vent with the pipe railing around it; but maybe there were similar vents somewhere in Oahu back in the 1970’s. Then it was a six mile hike along the crater floor; I couldn’t help but think of Frodo and Sam’s march along the plain of Mordor as we walked along a dusty trail between lava rock cairns leading over lava flows. This was like hiking into (and out of) Crater Lake, only without the water. There was lush vegetation on the crater slopes: yellow iris-like flowers—Mark enjoyed the red lehua blossoms especially.

Then we toured through a lava tube, which was lit dramatically, but overrated. And filled with school children. The most interesting feature was near the end, where you could see how high the lava had gotten within the tube before it drained out.

Parking for lunch was an adventure in itself. There weren’t any open parking stalls next to Volcano House. The secondary parking lot filled. The rangers redirected us to a third lot, which was also filled or reserved for tour busses. The rangers there told us to park at the vents, which was about a half-mile away. Mark drove back to Volcano House and cycled through the first half of those. “You’re hungry, and it’s hot; you wont’ survive the walk from the vents back here. I’ll drop you off.” I protested a little that I could make it. Then a stall opened up as I was getting out. “It’s parking karma!” Mark proclaimed as he nabbed the stall.

We ordered lunch, which continued the meal trend of costing about $60.00. Mark asked every staff person he met if they had seen an eruption and they all had.

There was a gift shop in the Volcano House, in which we successfully found a dish-towel with an image of a 1950’s pin-up style Hula Girl. (Yes, there was a discussion about getting an image of a totally ripped Hula Dude, but oddly, there didn’t seem to be any for sale.) Due to strategically placed hair and arms, it was only a day or two later that I realized—hey, wait a minute!—that this was a topless image.

Afterward, we walked over to the Volcano Art Center (https://volcanoartcenter.org) filled with tasteful and expensive locally produced art. Mark liked a pyrogrphic piece; I saw a wonderful rendition of Pele, “Pele Sleeps” by Nelson Makua. And there were more of the birds from the restaurant (https://volcanoartcenter.org/product-category/prints/marian-berger/ ).

Fortune Cookies and Dreams

Today is my first day back at the UO English Department as a technology consultant.  I'm looking forward to re-joining the team because they appear to still have a friendly esprit de corps.  Coincidentally, I got a fortune from a cookie last night which seems apropos: "You will be soon be part of a team.  Work cooperatively for success."  (Yes, there's an extra be in there.)

Last night's Chinese food probably is the source of the non-stop dreams I had...


I was working on a play.  All I can remember at the time was that I had written it, it involved a mailbox, and I'm guessing that it was supposed to teach astronomy.  I was working under a deadline, throwing all sorts of things together, and I needed an iMac with which to print the script for the rest of the small cast and also 3D print the mailbox.

The iMac I wanted to use belonged to another IT department (this was an amalgam department, which, now that I think about it, was housed in the rocky foundation of the Very Large Gazebo (which was possibly also a library or bookstore).  There was a kind of hand-shake agreement that I could borrow iMacs, but someone in the other department made a sudden decision that I wouldn't be able to.  I was furious.

So, I had to improv my one-man play (OK, there was an assistant).  Without a 3D printed mailbox.  I gave a lecture about the rotation and orbit of the Earth and how it produced the seasons, spinning a large multi-colored umbrella for the earth while I walked around my lovely youngish female assistant who held a beach-ball sun.  The lecture was delivered in Mock-Swedish, ala The Swedish Chef.

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There was a break. I was climbing a mountain with Mark (or at least it started out Mark, but over the course of dream events we changed into other characters).  We got to the top, and it was snowy.  I don't recall why we were there: if it had started out as a regular hike, or if we were exploring a jungle, or if we had crashed on an island or what.  We decided to rest, and spent a lot of time trying to find a comfortable position to sleep (I wonder if I was tossing in my sleep, as the rocks and snowdrifts weren't all that cold, and seemed too easily moved; sort of like pillows).

Presently, there was someone singing "Where Are the Simple Joys of Maidenhood." and the upshot was that I was alternately a disembodied third-person observer or a twenty-something beardless man with longish curly hair.  There were two women climbing the mountain, an older matronly woman and a younger maiden.

I don't recall, but somehow we ended up in the roaring river which was suddenly there.  I guess I must have recalled that we were supposed to be on a mountain, because after flowing through some mountainy-mesa-y valleys, the river plunged over a cataract (one of three) and into a pool.  The matron was swept over the cataract, screaming, and into a clear blue pool in a very deep caldera.  Oddly, she wasn't drowned or smashed to pieces.  The waterfall, it turned out, was pouring over a lava vent, so there was hot lava at the bottom of the pool, and ash collecting on its rim.  Oddly, she didn't boil to death; so the water temperature must have been just right (snow run-off plus hot lava equals ashy hot-tub?)

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Another break.  The maiden and I (as twenty-something) were in a wooden kind of house built into the side of the cliff next to the waterfall.  We were looking for someone.  I am not sure if the matron was with us, or stuck in the pool, or if we were trying to work our way down the house so we could get to the pool, or if we were trying to find a Dr. Livingston character.

In any case, the twenty-something went downstairs, where jungle natives blew air-darts into him.  (I must have dreamed about blow-darts earlier, because they seemed familiar somehow.)  He passed out and woke up with everyone in an overgrown, bushy, scrub-oak jungle.  There was a voice-over about gentle natives meeting brutal Europeans, the resulting conflict, and now how the gentle natives were angry vindictive natives who shot people.  Cue the parting bushes.  Cue a rifle barrel point out...

And I woke up.