Ailantha - Blog

I, Maddie. Or Maybe Penny.

5/14/2025

Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"   http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
   "Hail Mary"    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
"Tropical Depression"       https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

I, Maddie. Or Maybe Penny.

...Continued from yesterday:
One Wednesday evening we were out having dinner with our visiting relatives at the food court at the Royal Hawaiian Center in downtown Waikiki.

One middle-school-aged member of our familial group decided they would like some Raising Cane's.

I offered to take our youngster to get their Raising Cane's. The line was a mile (a figurative mile) long, and when we finally reached the front of the line I could see that the counter was a beehive of activity, an efficient assembly line of young workers busily and noisily bustling to and fro, some taking orders, others churning out parcels of chicken fingers, side fixings and drinks.
"Name for the order?" asked the counterworker after my youngster ordered their chicken fingers and Texas Toast.
"Patti," I replied, evidently too softly to be heard above the buzz of fast food workers and customers.
"Maddie?" asked the worker.
"Patti," I repeated.
In due time an order that I thought must be ours arrived at the pick-up counter.
"Maddie?" called the announcer of order arrivals.
"I guess I'm Maddie," I joked with my youngster, and we both had a little chuckle.
The following day a couple of us accompanied Tom on his daily trek to the Barnes and Noble at the Ala Moana Mall to get a copy of the New York Times. It seems that the Ala Moana Barnes and Noble is the only spot in the Waikiki vicinity where one can acquire a copy of the New York Times, and it's always a day late. However, as my mate Tom likes to say, "These times demand the Times." Even if the news therein is a day late.
And so we all headed out on the pleasant mile walk from the Hale Koa to the Ala Moana.

Our first stop was at the Barnes and Noble to pick up the New York Times.

We then left Tom off at the food court to have a cup of coffee and read his paper,

...while we strolled around Ala Moana, the largest open air shopping center in the world.

...the top floor of which offers a panoramic view of Honolulu.

We stopped in a few stores, including It's Sugar,

...a most beautiful candy store,

...that sells all kinds of sweet treats,

...and where all around the store there are charming sea sculptures made out of candy.

Then we returned to the food court to meet Tom and get some lunch.

My young relative decided they'd like another round of Raising Cane's.

While we waited in line I jokingly asked if I should give my name for the order as "Maddie." My youngster opined that I should. So I did.

"You know, though," I said to my young relative, "I really don't think 'Maddie' suits me. I'm not a 'Maddie.'"
"No," they agreed. "You're more of a...Penelope."
"Penelope?" I thought about that name for a moment. Penelope. The wife of Ulysses in "The Odyssey." Evokes things classical. Cultural. Kind of arty. Slightly strait-laced.
Yes, I agreed with my youngster, "Penelope" would be a good name for me. "Penny" for short. “Penny” is nice. Kind of mellifluous and understated, though the "y” at the end bespeaking a capacity for humor and lightheartedness.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt “Penny” was a more suitable name for me than “Patti.”
Well, all right, maybe not really more suitable. I guess I just like “Penny” a lot more than “Patti,” which, in truth I’ve always accepted as merely the least awful of the several iterations I’ve tried of my legally given name, “Patricia Ann,” or - as back in middle school my friends loved to gleefully make me aware - the present tense of “Patrasha Can” (See post from 1/30/2014, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/ill-tell-ya-whats-in-a-name).
So anyway, though I think I’d like it fine if I could be a "Penelope/Penny,” I expect I’ll be a “Patti" (but please don't ever call me "Patricia!") 'til I cross over the rainbow bridge.
But if there's such thing as reincarnation, I guess there's always hope to be a "Penny" on my next go-round.

0 Comments

Kulu Kulu Honolulu, Purple Yam Ice Cream, Playing At Kono's And Other Memorable Food-Related Experiences.

5/12/2025

0 Comments

Kulu Kulu Honolulu, Purple Yam Ice Cream, Playing At Kono's And Other Memorable Food-Related Experiences.

...Continued from yesterday:
One day while we were in the elevator at the Hale Koa a group of several of our fellow riders were discussing among each other where they would eat dinner that night. One of them then turned to the rest of us on the elevator and quipped, "When we're on vacation all we think about is eating."
He was speaking in jest and we all chuckled, but we knew what he meant: When you're on vacation eating is part of the experience, often a memorable part.
Like our breakfasts at the incomparable Hale Koa breakfast buffet, which make breakfast the most sublime meal of the day.

And yet, even on top of a glorious Hale Koa breakfast, when lunch time rolled around, there we were thinking about eating again, often at Happy's, the Fort Derussy short-order take-out eatery, where one time, grabbed by the delicious aroma wafting from behind the counter, I succumbed to the temptation of trying the fried chicken and French fry combo, to which I developed an immediate lunch time addiction, the French fries being so hot and crispy, and the chicken being equally hot and crispy on the outside, and oh, so juicy on the inside.

Tom, on the other hand, more prudently developed a lunchtime craving for the seafood salad, a doubtlessly healthier option,

...though I usually gave him a bite of my fried chicken.
We had some good dinners as well at Happy's, especially the Easter Dinner Special, a platter of steak, potatoes and vegetables that was so generous that we split one meal.

On Friday, April 11, our daughters Claire and Theresa arrived along with a few other relatives to spend a week with us in Honolulu.

After their long flights and with their body clocks being six hours later than Honolulu time, they were ready for bed by 7 pm. But then I suggested they join us in going out to the Royal Hawaiian Center for our daily cream puffs from the Kulu Kulu Honolulu bakery,

...which helped them find their second wind.
So we all walked into downtown Waikiki to the Royal Hawaiian food court and joined the Friday night crowd there.

After looking over the wares in the Kulu Kulu Honolulu display case, Tom and I planned on getting our usual cream puffs, and Claire chose a tiramisu pastry.
Theresa, however, decided that, rather than a pastry, she would like a shave ice from the Island Vintage Shave Ice stand on the street in front of the Royal Hawaiian Center. In fact, a shave ice sounded good to me, too, so I decided to go with a shave ice instead of a cream puff.

So Theresa and I went out to the shave ice stand and joined the long line of folks who, like us, were also in the mood for a shave ice.

However, this was quite an efficient operation, and so the line moved fast,

...and soon we had our shave ices,

...and the others their tiramisu and cream puff.

Then we walked back to the hotel through the enchanting lights of Waikiki.

However, switching out my usual cream puff for that shave ice was sort of an epiphany that opened my eyes to the other possibilities I could be seeking out at the Kulu Kulu Honolulu instead of staying locked in my cream puff habit.
And so the next time we went to Kulu Kulu Honolulu I considered trying something new. The bakery sold soft serve ice cream as well, and I found myself intrigued by a purple-colored flavor called ube.
One of my daughters, who had tried ube ice cream on a previous visit to the island, told me that ube was a purple Hawaiian sweet potato, that it made a delicious ice cream flavor, and that I should try it. But I wasn't sure I wanted to try sweet potato ice cream. In fact, I was more sure that I didn't want to try it than did.
"Oh, come one, try it," said my daughter. "You'll like it."
Now, one had the option of buying an ube ice cream cone, or an ube-vanilla twist. This being my first time, I decided to cautiously try the twist.

It was delicious, just as my daughter promised, though I couldn't very well distinguish the purple part from the vanilla part, the two flavors rather melding together.
Still, on our next visit to the Kulu Kulu Honolulu (by which time I was now on familiar terms with the server, who would greet me with, "Hi! You're back!") I decided to jump into the deep end, so to speak, and try the fully ube cone.

I also decided I would try to figure out exactly what it tasted like. I closed my eyes as I began licking and concentrated on what this taste could be compared to. It was not exactly vanilla, but...butter pecan. That's what ube reminded me of. Butter pecan. And so from now on, if I'm ever again given the opportunity to eat ube ice cream, why I'll do so without fear.
One night when all the other members of our family group had scattered to do their respective things for dinner, Tom and I decided to seek out some food at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, an outdoor mall located next to our hotel where there were a variety of shops and restaurants.

We came across a place called Blue Water Shrimp that we decided to try,

...where one ordered one's food at the counter, which would be brought, when ready, to one's table,

...in the cute dining area.

The food turned out to be fantastic, and the portions ginormous. Tom had the grilled salmon,

...while I had the grilled rib eye. Deelish!

The restaurant also served beautiful pineapple smoothies in a cored out pineapple,

...as well as ice cold coconut milk in the coconut.

We knew we now had a new go-to dinner place to add to our list of Waikiki go-to dinner places.
Another night one of my daughters came up with the idea of going to Kono's for dinner, Kono's being a terrific burrito place about a mile from the hotel that we discovered a couple of years ago.
And so we walked through town to Kono's.

There was a courtyard next to the restaurant with tables and chairs,

...and I noticed a piano sitting in the courtyard.

It looked as if it were there for anyone to play,

...so I did, briefly.

To be continued...

0 Comments

Water, Water Everywhere, But I Don't Like To Swim

5/9/2025

0 Comments

Water, Water Everywhere, But I Don't Like To Swim

...Continued from yesterday:
At the Hale Koa, the military R&R hotel in Fort Derussy, Honolulu where Tom, I, and a few days later, a few family members stayed,

...there are two pools.
There's the adult pool, set back in a secluded tropical bower.

And there's the meandering all-age pool,

...that includes a kids' splash pad,

...a water slide,

...and an infinity pool,

...that looks out over Waikiki Beach.

Then, where Fort Derussy ends, Waikiki Beach begins,

...with its clear, gentle, blue water.

And then there are the lovely blue water beaches beyond Honolulu, that we visited during our trip:
Ko'olina,

...Hanauma Bay,

...and Shark's Cove,

And then there's me,

...who doesn't like to swim. Or sit around by a pool. Or on a beach.
In truth, except for the shower, I really don't like to get into the water much at all. Especially the ocean. Maybe it's because I never learned to swim.
In any case, to me the ocean is scary. It moves. And there's, you know, things in it; things that might be alive and might, I don't know, sneak up on you and...bite you; or sting you; or touch you and you won't know what it was that just touched you. None of which seems worry everybody else.

And yet, here's the paradox: though I don't much like getting into the water or sitting around on the beach, I do like being at the beach and looking at the water. I love the beauty, the natural wonder of the landscape and the seascape, especially of Hawaii. And I enjoy walking along the margin of the water and snapping pictures of that beauty,

...and of everyone else enjoying the sand and the sea,

...which seems so appealing when I watch other people enjoying it that I kind of wish I could, too. And which, on every trip to Hawaii, I swear I'm going to try, as I once again swore I would on this trip.
Our visiting relatives, who would arrive on Friday, unlike me love the water and were looking forward to snorkeling at all the beaches we were planning to take them to during their time here. And so I had reserved snorkeling gear for them at Snorkel Bob's, a popular snorkel shop near Waikiki.
Snorkel Bob's

On Friday morning, the day of my relatives' arrival, I woke up at 5 am (not out of necessity but rather out of residual time zone jet lag). But it was so very pleasant sitting in the Hale Koa lobby, enjoying the breeze and the beautiful Hawaiian music playing over the speakers, watching the light mosey up and the pink-blue sunrise sky.

It occurred to me that maybe the sun and sea on the beach soothed others' souls the way the breeze and music in the Hale Koa lobby soothed mine.
Still, later that afternoon when our family arrived and I took them to Snorkel Bob's to pick up their gear, I thought I'd see about picking up some snorkeling gear for myself and then giving snorkeling one more try, even though the last (and first) time a few years ago that I tried snorkeling I lasted under the water for about fifty-nine seconds: The sea was too cold, I don't know how to swim, I couldn't stand putting my face underwater even with a mask, I didn't even like being in the water, and being that close to live fish gave me the creeps, even the beautiful exotic fish swimming among the coral reefs.

In the end it was the memory of that last time, and especially of being that close to the fish and the thought of them being that close to me that made me back off from renting any snorkeling gear for myself.
And so, during our snorkeling trips to the beaches beyond Waikiki (our strip of Waikiki Beach being, they tell me, also a great snorkeling spot) I was happy to walk along the surf, snap pictures, and watch our stuff so that everyone else could enjoy being in the water and watching the fish.
On Saturday we went to Ko'Olino, a lovely beach west of Honolulu.

After our morning at the beach we went to the nearby town of Kapolei,

...for lunch at restaurant called Monkey Pod,

...where the music was lovely,

...the chickens friendly,

...and the food delish!

The following day, Sunday, we went to beautiful Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, where one must make a reservation in advance, as only a limited number of visitors are allowed each day, and where visitors are required before visiting to watch a video laying out the nature preserve rules to follow in order to protect the delicate coral reef ecosystem.

Hanauma Bay. The dark areas are the coral reefs where snorkelers find a magical kingdom of tropical fish,

...unless, like me, they prefer to stay on land,

...where there were also some enchanting sights to be seen,

...including a sea lion also enjoying the beach.

On Monday we travelled up to the north side of the island,

...to Shark's Cove,

...where there is a rocky tide pool where at low tide one has only to step into the shallow water to see sea creatures darting about the rocks below.

And so here I did wade into the shallows,

...since I needed only to stand in water up to my knees and look down to see the fish below, a few of which I managed to snap as they swam by.

Those who ventured out deeper and closer to the reef,

...told of seeing more fascinating things: sea turtles, a little octopus, and a humuhumunukunukuapua'a fish that nipped the leg of one of my family members for for getting too close.
I believe for me getting bitten on the leg by a fish would be too steep a price to pay. Even to see a humuhumunukunukuapua'a go swimming by.

0 Comments

On A Mission In Chinatown

5/5/2025

0 Comments

On A Mission In Chinatown

...Continued from yesterday:
My mate Tom needed a new watch. Well, in truth, all he really needed was a new battery installed in his old watch. However he'd have settled for either an inexpensive new watch or a new battery in his old watch.

We were in Honolulu, though, and, while there were some upscale jewelry stores in the area where he could have procured a high-end watch if he'd wanted a high-end watch, neither the Target at the Ala Moana Mall nor the Long's Drug Store in Waikiki had a watch department. We figured maybe it was because most people simply don't use watches to tell time anymore. They use their phones. Tom still likes his watch.
However, I came up with the idea of looking for a watch or a battery replacement shop in Chinatown.
Chinatown is an old historic part of downtown Honolulu near the waterfront. The Chinese laborers who emigrated to Hawaii in the 19th century to work on the sugar plantations eventually left the fields and many gravitated to this area to become merchants and entrepreneurs. During our visits to Honolulu Tom and I always visit Chinatown.

We like getting a sense of Hawaii and its history beyond the beaches. And this time we were also on a mission.
And so on Thursday morning we started out from the Hale Koa,

...and walked a couple of blocks to the bus stop,

...from where we took a bus to downtown Honolulu.

We then walked to the heart of Chinatown.

We looked in a few shops, but without any luck at finding a watch,

...until we came to this shop, which carried watches.

But, alas, all the watches, even the men's watches, were glitzy, glittery affairs with rhinestone faces and shiny faux silver or gold bands that Scoutmaster Tom wouldn't be caught alive wearing. Nor would I.
We went next to the Maunakea Marketplace,

...where we came across all kinds of interesting things,

...but no watches.
We entered one place that looked like a consignment store.

We asked the elderly woman who was tending the shop if she sold watches. She appeared not to understand English, but called from a back room a young man who translated for us. She then smiled and nodded and gestured for us to follow her.
She led us out of her shop and down the street...back to the glitzy watch store!
We decided to abort the watch mission and go visit the Kuan Yin Buddhist temple.
We walked several blocks along the river,

...past men playing cards and board games,

...and the Japanese Izumo Taishakyo Shinto shrine,

...until we came to the Kuan Yin Temple.

Behind the temple is located the Foster Botanical Garden, which we next visited.

After our walk through the garden we decided to seek out some lunch at our favorite Honolulu Chinatown eatery, a Thai-Lao restaurant called Olay's,

...where the dining room is set in a charming garden,

...with a koi pond,

...and yummy food. Tom and I both ordered the Pad Thai.

Though the restaurant was crowded when we arrived, by the time we left most of the lunchers were gone and the place was quite serene.

After lunch we decided to head back, so we walked back to the bus stop,

...and caught the "E" bus to Waikiki.
We actually got off the bus a couple of blocks early. Just because it is such a nice walk to the Hale Koa hotel.

That evening we walked the mile from the Hale Koa to the Ala Moana Mall,

...where we ate at the food court, a place we discovered a few years ago when it was revealed to us that this was a favorite eating spot among the locals.

We tried a place we'd never tried before called L.A. Brisket,

...where the beef was out-of-this-world tender and delicious, and the portions so large that we split a meal.

After dinner we walked back to the Hale Koa. Which was also a nice walk.

0 Comments

In Search Of Hula, Part 2

5/1/2025

0 Comments

In Search Of Hula, Part 2

...Continued from yesterday:
I couldn't believe it. The final performance of the Kilohana Hula Show was exactly one week previous. If we'd come to Honolulu one week earlier we'd have caught the last show (see previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/in-search-of-hula-part-1).
Tom and I sat at the Kuhio Beach Hula Mound for a few more minutes while I nursed my disappointment and we tossed around what to do with the hour we had been planning to spend watching the Hula Show.

Not that there was any lack of things to do.
We headed back down Kalakahua Avenue in the direction of downtown Waikiki, passing what there was to see along the beach and the avenue.

We decided to pop into the International Market, a nice mall,

...except for the Cat Cafe Moff, which we visited last year and, I'm sad to say, in no way approve of (see post from 5/18/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/a-tale-of-two-cat-cafes).

After the mall we decided to revisit Duke's Alley (see previous post).

Then, since we were near the Royal Hawaiian Center, where there is a pretty grove, a mall, a food court and a cultural office,

...I got the idea of stopping into the cultural office and asking if they knew of any other hula shows in the area. Even if it wasn't the Kilohana Hula Show, I still longed to see some hula.
As it turned out, we learned from the very friendly young guy working in the cultural office that there were, in fact, hula shows on the stage right there in the Royal Hawaiian Grove every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday evening from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. We were in luck: It was Wednesday.
So Tom and I returned to the Royal Hawaiian Grove that evening about 5:15 pm, by which time the area was already crowded with folks who, like us, had come in search of hula.

However, we were able to find ourselves a nice sitting spot on a long flat rock.
Tom in front of our rock.

The performers were a troupe called the Pu'uhonua Trio and made up of three singer/musicians and three dancers, all of whom, we would learn at the end, were related: mother, daughters, sisters, husbands, wives.

(At one point one of the performers joked that if one spends enough time on the island one realizes that everyone is related).
Now, not having seen the Kilohana show, I can't compare the hula we saw at the Royal Hawaiian Grove to the hula that we didn't see on the Hula Mound. But the hula we saw at Royal Hawaiian was wonderful.
The dancers performed to traditional island songs sung with beautiful Hawaiian harmonies. One could not but be carried away by the music and the singing,

...and by the dance,

...performed with so much beauty,

...joy,

...generosity,

...and with such graceful, flowing movements.

Here are a couple of clips of the Pu'uhonua Trio dancers and musicians:

We saw one more hula show at the Royal Hawaiian Grove, a Tuesday night show the night before we left Honolulu. This was a performance by the Kawika Trask Trio, a troupe of three musicians and four young dancers who performed an enchanting and captivating mix of traditional as well as ancient hulas brought over from the South Seas by the earliest seafaring people who migrated to the Hawaiian islands.

Here are some clips of the Kawika Trask performers:

At the end of the show the troupe's front man thanked us graciously and profusely for watching show and for visiting Hawaii.

He also asked us to consider for our next vacation returning to Hawaii and invited us to come back again and see their show.
Lord willing, we will.

0 Comments

In Search Of Hula, Part 1

4/29/2025

0 Comments

In Search Of Hula, Part 1

...Continued from previous post:
A few days after Tom's and my arrival in Honolulu some family members would be joining us. Everyone had something they really wanted to do while in Hawaii. Some wanted to go snorkeling.

And some had a hankering to play some beach volleyball.

And we all couldn't wait to hit the great Hale Koa breakfast buffet.

As for me, I wanted to see some hula.
I love hula, the beautiful, expressive dance brought to Hawaii a thousand years ago by the first ancient sea voyagers to arrive on the islands and still alive and present today. Every year that we've visited the island I've try to catch a live hula show, and if we happen to be there the week of the Merrie Monarch Festival, a cultural celebration held every spring in Hilo on the Big Island, then I watch the hula competitions at night on TV.

This year the Merrie Monarch festival happened not to fall on the week of our visit, but this year what I really had my heart set on was seeing the Kilohana Hula show.

The Kilohana Hula Show was inspired by the iconic Kodak Hula Show, a popular free Waikiki attraction that ran from 1937 to 2002 and was sponsored by the Kodak Camera company.

Kodak offered the hula show as an incentive for tourists and locals alike to buy film to take photos of the colorful dancers - which they did, by the millions. According to Kodak officials, only Disneyland and Disney World sold more film than the Kodak Hula Show.
I heard about this new, re-envisioned version of the old Kodak hula show last year when Tom and I spent a few days in Paradise Bay on the lush windward side of O'ahu (see post from 6/9/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/adventures-in-paradise-bay-part-1-valley-of-the-temples-and-other-wonders). We were told about the new Kilohana Hula Show by Danny, a golden-voiced singer of Hawaiian songs who played and sang every night at Paradise Bay.

And so on our next trip to Honolulu, seeing the Kilohana Hula Show was number one on my list of things to do, especially when I learned that some of the Merrie Monarch dancers would be among the performers. I also wanted the whole family to see it, as this was a slice of authentic Hawaiian culture.
Except that I couldn't quite figure out where and when the show took place. I thought that Danny said the show was in Kapiolani Park. I wasn't sure where Kapiolani Park was, but I knew it was somewhere in Waikiki.
But as the time for our trip approached and I looked up the Kilohana Hula Show online I found conflicting information. One site said it was located at the Waikiki Shell, another at Kuhio Beach Park. I wasn't sure where those places were, either, but I figured if I knew which place I was looking for I could find it.
One reputable-looking site called experiencekilohana.com gave this information:

When we arrived at the Hale Koa I asked the worker at the front desk if they knew where the Kilohana Hula Show was, but they didn't know. So I decided I'd do an advance reconnaissance before the family arrived, starting with the Hula Mound at Kuhio Beach, wherever that might be.
The following morning, Wednesday, April 9, we started out the day with breakfast at the Koko at Kalia,

...the Hale Koa breakfast eatery,

...with a beach view,

...and a vast breakfast buffet,

...which included a waffle station with all the fixings,

...and a terrific and terrifically friendly omelette chef.

After our glorious breakfast we headed off in search of the Kilohana Hula Show. According to Google Search, Kuhio Beach was a mile away from us and a 20-minute walk. As we wanted to get there in plenty of time we started out at 8:40 am, crossing DeRussy Beach Park,

...to Kalakaua Avenue, which runs parallel to the shoreline all the way to Kuhio Beach.
Walking along Kalakahua Avenue makes me think of walking through New York City,

The beautiful Bank of Hawaii building

...but with palm trees,

...and with the ocean on one side,

...and mountains on the other.

We reached Kuhio Beach at about 9:10 am,

...and came upon what looked like a mound, mayhaps the Hula Mound, where folks were sitting, mayhaps waiting for the Hula Show,

...so we sat there, too.

By 9:20 am there was no activity around us, which made us wonder if this were not, in fact, the Hula Mound.
We saw some workers nearby so I walked over and asked them if they, by chance, knew where the Kilohana Hula Show was.
One of the friendly workers told me that normally the Hula Show was here where we were, but it hadn't been here all week, though he didn't know why.
This was perplexing. And troubling. I pulled out my phone to try and find out what happened to the Kilohana Hula Show.
I had to scroll down a good ways before I came across a local news article from which I gathered that the Hula Show came to a sudden end the week before. Apparently the original venue of the Kilohana Hula Show was the Waikiki Shell, which is located in Kapiolani Park. But when the Shell went under construction the show moved to the Kuhio Beach Hula mound, which was meant to be a temporary location. However, when the Waikiki Shell reopened the free Kilohana Hula Show was not permitted to return, as the new plan was that the Shell would be used by the Hyatt Regency Waikiki to offer a luau and hula show package with a ticket price of $179 per person.
The Kilohana Hula Show then opted not to continue at the Hula Mound and its members are looking for other performance space options.
I was, to say the least, bummed.
To be continued...

*"Everyone is welcome" is, I think, approximately what this phrase means.

Reference:
https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/kodak-hula-show/

0 Comments

Feeling The Aloha Again

4/26/2025

0 Comments

Feeling The Aloha Again

This year once again the sun, moon, stars, finances, and all the other key elements fell into an auspicious alignment, and on Tuesday, April 8, my mate Tom and I were once again on our way to Honolulu, where a few days later we would meet up with some members of our Ohana - Hawaiian for family.
Our flight left Columbus at 6:30 am and two hours later we landed in Minneapolis where we had a two-hour layover, which gave us plenty of time to catch breakfast. Luckily for us Minneapolis, rated the best airport in the whole U.S.A., apparently ranks at the top among airport food options, as well.
We found a cute Tex-Mex place called Zona Cocina,

...that served up a yummy breakfast with the fluffiest, buttery-est eggs.

(Note to self: on the future trips, remember the food and try for layovers in Minneapolis).
At 10:09 am we boarded our next flight and nine hours later we arrived, most gratefully, in Honolulu, with its open-air airport, balmy breezes,

...palm tree views,

...and welcoming message of Aloha, the Hawaiian greeting of peace, love, and friendship.

As soon as we retrieved our luggage we headed over to the car rental area. We'd made a reservation with Enterprise, where the line was considerable.

However, I noted that next door at the National desk there was no line at all. (Note to self: Next time rent with National).

Heading out from the airport it's always a little thrill for me, though I can't explain why, to see the sign, set against the velvety mountains and palm trees,

...with names of places once so far away and exotic, places that once existed for me only in my imagination, but that are now real places to me, places I've been before and where I'll soon be again.

But the best feeling is arriving at the Hale Koa,

...the hotel for active duty and retired military set on Fort DeRussy in Waikiki,

...A U.S. Army post which was once a defense artillery site.

...but is now home to the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies,

...a beautiful beach front park that's open to the public,

...and the Hale Koa.

The best feeling of all is stepping into the Hale Koa lobby, a breezy open-air lanai,

...that looks down over a courtyard,

...where there's a massive and well-loved Indian Banyan tree named Gus;

...and hearing the lovely streaming Hawaiian music,

...and feeling the aloha.

Our 5th floor room,

The view from our room

(And the view at night):

After we settled into our room we followed the conventional wisdom of jumping right into one's time zone. And so, though we'd been up since 3:30 am Columbus time, and it was now 11 pm Columbus time, we nonetheless jumped into Honolulu time, which was 5 pm.
We walked down to the courtyard,

...then strolled the botanical garden on the vast hotel grounds.

The botanical garden opens into another courtyard, where can be found
Happy's Fast & Fresh,

...the Hale Koa short-order eatery where the food is, as promised, fast and fresh,

...and always quite tasty, as well, and where we generally had at least one meal a day out on the pleasant patio.

On this night I had the Tuesday night special, which was delicious pork in mushroom sauce,

...while Tom had an equally good seafood salad.

After dinner we walked along the path to where the Hale Koa grounds led to Waikiki Beach,

...which is open to the public here and all along the shoreline.
In Hawaii there are no private beaches, even beaches that touch hotel properties. All beaches are open to the public, and hotels must allow beachgoers access through their lobbies to the beaches that they open up to.
On this night Waikiki was crowded with folks watching the sunset,

...and the boats,

...and the volleyball players, Tuesday night apparently being a big night for beach volleyball, as I learned from a couple of the players with whom who I chatted.

We walked along the beach,

...towards diamond Head.

Then we cut over and headed towards downtown Waikiki,

...which was busy and lively as ever on this Spring Break evening.

We walked to Kalakaua Street, the main thoroughfare through Waikiki,

...to the food court at the Royal Hawaiian Center,

...where we had our first double cream puffs of the trip from our favorite bakery, the Kulu Kulu Honolulu,

...where the pastries are exquisite.

...and the cream puffs the best.

After our cream puffs we walked a little way up Kalakahua Avenue,

...then crossed the street and came to Duke's Alley, a narrow passageway that we stumbled upon during a visit a few years ago that opens up into a hidden gem of an open air market where one can purchase souvenirs and island-made crafts at discount prices.

Then we headed back to the Hale Koa,

...where, no matter how many times we come,

...we still feel the aloha.

0 Comments

Sideshow Donald's Theater Of Cruelty

4/15/2025

0 Comments

Donald Trump, geriatric showbiz thimblerigger with ideations of self-grandeur, now President of incompetence and chaos,

...is putting on the spectacle of his life, a sensationalistic global extravaganza of economic calamity with his colossally foolish tariffs and the trade war he's declared on the world, a trade war which, according to political observers and historians, could well lead to a killing war.
And there is Donald Trump’s supporting cast of characters who've hitched their hopes for power and attainment to his star, making statements to the media in support of his economic insanity as if everything were going smooth as Jell-o and Dream Whip, as if his actions were ushering the world into a new era of prosperity and peace instead of setting the world on the brink of catastrophe.
Among these members of Trump's troupe are Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Scott Bessent,

...economist and former Trump advisor Peter Navarro, who went to prison rather than testify against Trump,

...Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins,

...Harvard PhD and Trump economic advisor Stephen, greatest of Trump's tariff cheerleaders.

...and others.
I’ve heard these people speak. Listening to them one would say they're serious people, Ivy League educated, highly intelligent and knowledgeable, top experts in their field, people to be believed and trusted.
And yet it's clear they're no more to be trusted or believed than the marionettes they are. I say this not because their opinions fly in the face of the opinions of every other reputable economist on the planet; after all, who knows, maybe they do in fact honestly believe in their own prognostications, and who's to say that it's one hundred percent outside the realm of possibility that Trump's tariffs and trade war just might turn out splendidly as they're telling us they will?
No, the problem is that while these Donald Trump's leading men and women are giving ovations and rave reviews to his performance on the economy, Trump is simultaneously producing and directing a horrific sideshow in which innocent people are suffering cruelly.
Under Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has turned into an American Gestapo whose officers have been using flagrant terror tactics against lawfully documented immigrants, trampling on their legal and human rights.
There was the incident on March 25 in which Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Tufts PhD student in the U.S. on a Fulbright Scholarship,

...was jumped on the street by a group of ICE agents in black masks, seized,

...and whisked away to a detention center in Louisiana where she is still being held. Though she has not been charged with any crime or illegal activity, her visa has been terminated because last year she wrote a letter to the Tufts student newspaper sympathetic to the plight of the Gazans.
There is the shockingly shameful treatment of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent green card resident married to an American citizen, who was arrested on March 8 and also taken away to a Louisiana detention center for having led peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year. Khalil has not been charged with any crime or illegal activity, but his green card and legal status have been revoked and few days ago a Louisiana judge ruled that he could be deported, even though as a Palestinian refugee whose family fled to Syria then later from Syria to Lebanon he has no real homeland to go back to.

Then there is the cruelest, most heart-wrenching plight of them all, that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year old Salvadoran refugee with protected legal status, husband of a U.S. citizen and father of three, who was mistakenly targeted by Immigration as a Venezuelan gang member and seized on March 12 by ICE agents.

Abrego Garcia, who is guilty of no crime nor has broken any law, was sent to a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison crowded with violent gang members. And even though the Trump administration has admitted that Abrego Garcia was arrested and deported because of a clerical error, not the least effort has been made by Immigration or the State Department to have him released from that brutal prison and returned home to the United States. A judgement handed down by U.S. Federal Court has been flouted by Donald Trump.
In fact, yesterday Donald Trump hosted President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele, who calls himself the world’s coolest dictator, at the White House. The two dictators, who got along swimmingly,

...jovially agreed that Kilmer Abrego Garcia would not be returned to his home and family in the U.S., but would be kept incarcertated in the Salvadoran prison. Trump meanwhile floated the idea of paying El Salvador to build more prisons to which American criminals could be sent, "criminals" meaning anyone Donald Trump doesn't like, such as, for example, the former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor,

...whom Trump has accused of treason for writing a letter during Trump's first term to the New York Times that was critical of Trump.
Nor has Trump's Republican Congress emitted a breath of protest against these outrages or similar outrages perpetrated against other innocent legal immigrants by Donald Trump's Departments of Immigration and Homeland Security.
And here are these Trumpian players on the world stage,

...singing Donald Trump's praises, delivering their lines as if Trump's economic show existed independent of his horror show of human rights abuse, as if the horror show didn't exist at all, as if his theater of cruelty were not intertwined with his theater of the economy, as if the two were not part of the same spectacle.
And as if these people didn't understand that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit any more than a good tree can produce bad. Or as if they never pondered what it profits them if they gain the whole world and forfeit their soul.

References

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/12/politics/trump-krebs-khalil-taylor-crackdown-dissent-what-matters/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/us/rumeysa-ozturk-detained-what-we-know

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/04/us/maryland-father-el-salvador-immigrants/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/13/us/mahmoud-khalil-deportation-ruling-appeals/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/us/immigration-detainees-trump-ice-students-visa/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

https://www.msn.com/en-in/autos/photos/stephen-miran-the-harvard-trained-economist-behind-trumps-tariff-strategy/ar-AA1CEYQF

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-miles-taylor-treason-chris-krebs-doj-investigate_n_67f7024ce4b0148714528bcf

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-orders-probes-two-former-officials-defied-rcna200523

0 Comments

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

4/8/2025

0 Comments

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

...Continued from yesterday:
And so, not really knowing what else to do, I did as Matti, the hapless LG customer service worker who had the misfortune of picking up on my call, instructed me to do: I ate lunch. (see yesterday's post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/abandon-hope-all-ye-who-order-an-lg-dryer-online).
In truth, I did not expect LG to call me back after lunch with an offer of compensation for me having to take care of the installation and haul away service LG had advertised (falsely) on its website,

...and had claimed (falsely) to have completed on the post-delivery paperwork I was given.

By that time I had ceased expecting a call or any compensation from LG (and to this day I have received neither).
Rather, I needed to turn my attention to the botheration of getting our old dryer hauled away so that Tom could install the new one himself.
We considered asking a big, muscular young do-it-your-selfer-type guy we knew and his big, muscular brother if they'd take the job.
"Don't ask the big, muscular do-it-your-selfer and his brother to do the job," said my daughter when she called me that evening for an update on my dryer drama.
"Why not?" I asked my daughter.
"Because," she sad, "if they're not bonded, if they don't have workman's comp and they get hurt..."
"Right," I said.
"But look," she said, "I'm sure there are lots places that haul things away. Just look on the internet."
So I took my daughter's advice and looked on the internet. I scrolled around and came upon a promising-looking outfit called Lug Stars.

I called the number on the website and talked to Dave, the friendly young guy who owns the business.

Being all talked-out on the subject of my dryer installation woes from having over the past week recounted it nine times to nine different LG customer service reps, I gave Dave just the bare bones of my story: that I needed the old dryer hauled away and the new one pushed against the wall so that it could be installed.
Dave then asked me if I'd like him to install my dryer, as before he started Lug Stars he used to install appliances. His offer was balm to my worn-out-from-b**tching brain, and I jumped on it.
Dave was able to schedule my old dryer haul-away and new dryer installation for the following day, Friday, March 28, at noon. However on Friday morning a thought that had been drifting around the back of my mind for a while drifted to the front of my mind: the thought of getting rid of an ancient vanity desk that had belonged to Tom's great aunt and had been bequeathed to us over 45 years ago.

I called Dave and asked him if his crew might also be able to haul away the old vanity desk. He said yes, they could do that, then he told me that as a matter of fact they were at that moment in the area of my neighborhood and he wondered if they could come over and do the job now. Like, in fifteen minutes.
For me, who had spent much of the past week on the phone on hold for far more than fifteen minutes waiting to be connected to a service rep, this felt like winning the lotto. "Yes!" I told him, "Yes, come now!"
Now, there was one hitch to the crew coming over now as opposed to the agreed upon time of noon, and that was that Tom wasn't home. He was out at a breakfast get-together of his old work friends. But to me this was only an itty-bitty hitch. True, Tom is savvy as can be when it comes to plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, and all the household infrastructure and repair issues, and he knows how to talk the lingo with the maintenance people. I, on the other hand, tend to be in general ignorant as a mushroom about such things. Still, I figured that this would be a pretty straightforward undertaking which I could handle on my own. So I told Dave to send his crew over now. What could possibly go wrong?
I found out when I led Dave and his crew of four likewise friendly young guys down the basement to where the dryers were. "Ohhh..." said Dave when I showed him the old dyer. "This is a gas dryer. I assumed you meant you had an electric dryer."
Apparently I had neglected to mention when making the arrangements for haul away and installation that these were gas dryers. Apparently installing a gas dryer is akin to a federal project which Dave's crew was not equipped to undertake. I did not know that.
I asked Dave if he could just cap the gas line (I did know about capping the gas line; see yesterday's post) and haul away the old dryer, and Tom, who knew from gas dryers, could install it later. Dave gave me a definite maybe. Unless he was 100% sure that the gas cap I had would fit the gas line, he wouldn't disconnect it. And he wasn't 100% sure. For that matter, neither was I. He could, however, disconnect the line at the dryer...provided I was 100% sure that the gas shut-off valve was good and tight and he'd have to do a bubble test first. What did I think, he asked me. I thought I didn't know what he was talking about. And I was starting to sweat.
I absolutely hated calling Tom while he was at his work friends breakfast, but my inner lost three-year-old was now in ascendance and so I called him anyway and made the mistake of putting the phone on speaker.
What's going on? Why are they there now? Weren't they supposed to come at noon? Didn't they tell you they could do the installation? Let me talk to somebody! So barked my mate into the phone, unaware that Dave and his crew of young guys were right there listening. I sheepishly handed the phone over to Dave, who didn't look like he much wanted to take it, but did anyway.
Dave explained to Tom his hesitancy to disconnect the dryer, not being sure of the state of our gas line. They spent a few moments discussing some inscrutable gas line esoterica, then Dave handed the phone back to me.
"What should we do?" I asked Tom.
Tom let out a long sigh. "I'm coming home."
After I hung up Dave said, "Your husband sounds mad."
"Oh, no, ha, ha, no, he's not mad, ha, ha," I babbled on nervously. "See, he just, uh, he has a, you know, a big voice. But don't worry, he's a really nice guy, ha, ha. Why don't I show you where that vanity desk is?"
While Dave and his crew were upstairs taking apart the vanity desk I stayed downstairs and called Tom again. I asked him to please be nice to the Lug Star guys, as they were nice guys and young and it wasn't their fault I didn't tell them about the gas dryer and then told them they could come early. Tom laughed and told me not to worry, of course he was going to be nice to the Lug Star guys. I asked him what about his breakfast? He said he told his friends to watch his food for him, he'd be back.
By the time Dave's crew finished moving the vanity desk Tom still hadn't arrived home. At that point the Lug Stars would have been within their rights to be on their way; they had a busy schedule, and one of the workers was checking on the couch and refrigerator job that was next on their agenda. But they patiently waited until Tom returned in hopes that they might yet succeed in hauling away our old gas dryer.
While we were waiting Dave handed me a photograph his movers had found in the bottom of one of the drawers. It was an old forgotten picture of me (on the right, in the poncho and red slacks) with my Chinese Cambodian friend Sin, left, and my French friend Guenael, center, when we were in Granada, Spain during Easter of 1972.

"Looks like that was taken in Europe," said Dave.
"Yes, it was," I said. I asked Dave if he'd been to Europe.
Dave told me that he was stationed in Hanau, Germany when he was in the army. I then told him that Tom, also Army, was stationed in Babenhausen, Germany, and that I worked as a Department of Defense Civilian in Aschaffensburg, Germany. This got us to talking about Germany, which settled us into a nice spirit of gemütlichkeit.
When Tom arrived he and Dave in fact hit it off, chatting for a minute about their army days - Dave with Air Defense, Tom with the Field Artillery.
Here's Tom back in around 1973 on a field exercise in Grafenwöhr, Germany.

Then we all, Dave, Tom, the Lug Stars and myself, headed down to the basement to see if there was a fighting chance of resolving our dryer issue today.
Tom and Dave hovered over the dryer gas line conferring about caps, valves, bubble tests, exhaust vents, connections, tools, and such. Tom was sure that the gas cap he'd bought would fit over the pipe and, though Tom no longer had his pipe wrench, having lent it out sometime or other to someone or other who never returned it, he thought he could probably detach the old dryer from the gas line using a utility pliers I kept in a kitchen drawer for the purpose of getting a grip on recalcitrant soda bottle caps.
My soda bottle pliers did eventually do the trick, though it took Dave holding the gas pipe steady while Tom yanked and yanked at the nut that attached the dryer's flexible tube to the gas pipe. After much substantial steadying and yanking, the gas pipe finally separated form the dryer tube, all the while Dave's crew standing by like a group of attentive young medical residents gathered around to watch and learn from two experienced surgeons at work.
And so, with the gas line detached from the dryer and safely capped, the Lug Stars were at last able to do what they'd initially come to do, that is, haul away our old dryer and push our new one from where it had been left at the foot of the basement stairs over to its rightful spot next to the washer where it would soon be hooked up and fulfilling its intended purpose. Then Tom zipped off to rejoin his friends and his breakfast which, he later informed me, was waiting for him and still warm.
As for Dave and his helpful Lug Stars, far from being put out at having had to spend more time than allotted on the job I'd lassoed them into, Dave left me a coupon for $20 off my next haul away job.
And as he was leaving Dave turned back to me and said, "You're right. Tom is a nice guy."

Here's the Lug Stars website in case anybody in the Columbus, Ohio area needs some hauling: https://lugstars.com/
And here's their number: 614-816-5865

 Epilogue:
After he returned from his breakfast Tom got to work hooking up our new dryer to the gas outlet.

The job took him most of the day, including two trips to Home Depot due to this model of dryer requiring some special connectors.

Having now a better understanding (in theory, if not in practice) of what a gas dryer installation involves, it's become clearer to me why neither LG nor RXO wanted to touch installing my dryer. Of course, they were wrong to advertise that they would send someone out to install my dryer for free if they weren't intending to. Still, considering the know-how needed to remove and install a gas dryer, I'm grateful they didn't.

0 Comments

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

4/6/2025

2 Comments

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

On February 28, 2025, our 15-year-old gas dryer crossed over the bridge to wherever the souls of dead appliances go.

That same day Tom and I (below, in a considerably more carefree moment),

...girded our loins, so to speak, and immersed ourselves in the task buying a new dryer.
"Where should we go?" I asked Tom. "Lowe's? Menards? Home Depot?"
"Wherever you want," he replied.
I looked out the window at the bleak, wet February day and thought of an aptly descriptive quote from Sinclair Lewis's novel "It Can't Happen Here": a gray trickle of cold dishwater from Heaven's kitchen sink."*
"Say," I said, "what if we just stayed home and ordered the dryer online? People order appliances online all the time, right?"
"Whatever you want," said my accommodating mate.
So we spent the afternoon on an online dryer hunt and eventually bagged this LG 7.3 cu.ft. Rear Control Gas Energy Star Dryer with Sensor Dry.

In truth, the main draw of this particular model was the free delivery, installation, and haul away that came with the purchase.

I even read the small print, just to be sure:

As we didn't have any hardwiring, side venting, water line extension, propane conversion, or and other installation issues that we knew of, I figured we were good to go. Although in retrospect, mayhaps that last line, There may be some additional work or parts required that are not included in this service was meant as a broader umbrella statement than I imagined at the time.
But at the time all seemed in order. We placed our order for our new LG 7.3 Rear Control etc, etc, etc, Dryer on February 28 and were given a delivery date of March 19. Fine, we thought, we could go three weeks without a dryer. In fact we went into what I christened "Little House on the Prairie" mode, hanging up the laundry all around the house to dry on these cold, wet, winter days (see post from 3/18/2025, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-day-nothing-was-working).

About halfway through our wait time Tom received this assuring text from LG:

...with a drawing of the correct outlet needed for a gas dryer, which we had.

On Wednesday March 19, our dryer arrived as scheduled, delivered by the LG contract delivery service, an outfit called RXO. However, the RXO delivery kid, who looked to be in his 20's, informed us that he didn't have the gas hose in his truck that was necessary to install our dryer. Nor could he haul away our old dryer without putting a cap - which he also didn't have on him - over our gas outlet. He advised us to go to Home Depot and buy the necessary 6-foot hose and then call LG and tell them to call RXO again to arrange for an installer to come back out to our house.
Now, we probably should have realized on the spot the sketchiness of that directive. But alas, we were at the front end of the journey, and so Tom zipped out to Home Depot, bought the hose and, just to be safe, a gas outlet cap and a few other dryer installation supplies.
In fact, Tom knew how to install a gas dryer himself. He once replaced the gas valve and hose (whatever exactly that involved) on our old dryer. But what Tom couldn't do on his own - obviously - was haul away the old dryer and move the new dryer, which had been left at the bottom of the basement stairs, up against the wall where the connecting outlets were. Besides, Tom no longer had his pipe wrench - having once lent it out after which it was never returned - or the fittings needed for the installation. And better to leave the job to the professional. Who, per our agreement with LG, was going to come back and do it, anyway. Even though our post-delivery paperwork stated that the dryer had already been installed.

But we trusted. So on Wednesday, March 19, per the instructions of our RXO delivery kid, Tom contacted LG about rescheduling the hauling away of our old dryer and the installation of our new dryer. Tom was asked to please answer a survey afterwards.
The next night, Thursday night, March 20, Tom received a call from RXO, the delivery service, from someone with a foreign accent, informing him that RXO was not going to install our dryer and asking him to please answer a survey afterwards.
The next day, Friday, March 21, I called LG. I talked to a very nice lady with a foreign accent who told me - that is, after about a combined 45 minutes of waiting in line then waiting while she tried to sort out my situation - that RXO was not, in fact, going to install our dryer but that LG would reimburse us $50 for us to arrange and pay for on our own installation and haul away service.
To which I, normally a most non-confrontational soul, replied, "$50?! We already spent $33 on the gas hose! And besides, there's no way I could get someone to come to my house and do that job for under $200!"
The nice lady had me wait a while longer while she conveyed my response to...whoever...then returned to tell me that I would be hearing from RXO right away, and in any case to call back if I didn't hear from them in 48 hours. I was asked to please answer a survey afterwards.
48 hours - which would have been Sunday, March 23 - came and went. So did Monday, March 24. On Tuesday, March 25 I called LG back and got a nice guy with a foreign accent. After much waiting and back-and-forthing the nice LG guy with the foreign accent told me I needed to call RXO myself. I was asked to please answer a survey afterwards.
I called RXO, and after much waiting my called was picked up by a nice lady with a foreign accent to whom I schpieled my story. She told me to stay on the line, she'd transfer me to someone who could help.
The next person I talked to was - glory be - a hale, hearty, friendly guy who sounded like he was from right here in Columbus, Ohio. "Don't you worry," he boomed, "we're gonna fix you right up!" He told me to stay on the line, which I did, and I was transferred back to LG. I mean back to square one, "press one for this and two for that" square one. When a nice lady with a foreign accent finally answered I had to start my story all over.
This nice foreign lady had me hold the line while she checked with...whoever...and after a long hold she returned and she assured me that I would received a call from RXO before the end of the day to schedule the installation of my dryer. And could I please answer a survey afterwards. That was Tuesday, March 25.
It was on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 26, after nobody from RXO had called me back and my dryer had been sitting a week in my basement, still pre-born and uninstalled, that it hit me:

...This outfit is not going to install your dryer. Ever. You got baited and switched.
I was somewhere along in the five stages of aggravation - denial, anger, hair-pulling, b**ching and more b**chng, that one of my daughters called. I proceeded to bend her ear with my tale of dryer woe. My daughter was sympathetic and soothing. But she also pointed out something that had already occurred to me, that all these customer service workers, probably sitting in cubicles thousands of miles from me and from one another, didn't have a clue what to do, or the power to do anything anyway, about my dryer. And then she brought up something that hadn't at all occurred to me: maybe they were even slave or subjugated labor, forced to sit in those cubicles and field questions all day from Americans ticked off about their appliances.
I then wondered if the beleaguered workers would be fed if they didn't earn their quota of positive survey answers.
Anyway, I accepted that my dryer issue was not going to be taken care of by LG or their proxy, RXO. Still, I felt I needed closure. So the following day, Thursday, March 27, I decided to call one more time, this time to RXO, not to demand that they install my new dryer and haul away my old, but only to find if they are in fact strictly a delivery service, if installing and hauling is something they even do.
So on Thursday morning I called RXO, was put de rigueur on hold and eventually connected to a nice foreign lady who assured me that she couldn't discuss what I was asking her about, that I'd have to call LG. I repeated that I wasn't asking for service, that I only wanted to know if RXO did, in fact, ever do installations. She politely transferred me to LG, where I was connected to another nice foreign lady.
Well, as long I was on the line with LG I figured there was no harm in giving it one last shot. I started from the beginning and told the nice lady my long tale of dryer installation woe, from the promise of free installation and haul away that had initially lured me into buying an LG dryer which was still sitting uninstalled in my basement over a week after delivery, to the seven customer service reps I'd talked to so far, eight counting her, and everything in between.
After I'd finished my exhaustive jeremiad the nice foreign lady sympathetically informed me that she was parts and repair, but that she'd transfer me to online orders.
It was definitely not Matti's day, Matti being the nice young foreign guy to whom I was transferred (I changed his name, just in case, even though the name he gave me surely wasn't his, anyway). I was telling Matti my story for the third time that day, and my mood had definitely not mellowed. After I finished Matti politely told me I needed to call RXO.
Be kind, I told myself, don't take it out on Matti, who might be chained to his cubicle just trying to get a good survey so he gets fed that night. Anyway, I took a deep breath and told Matti that I'd already called RXO. That it was RXO that transferred me to him.
"Oh," said Matti. He then left me on the line whilst he went off into the ether to try and find the answer to what to do next with this livid, fat cat American lady and her dryer.
When Matti returned he told me he had someone from RXO on the line joining our conversation who would explain to me why my dryer couldn't be installed. I then found myself listening to someone who sounded just like Matti and, for all I knew, could have been Matti. Anyway, this RXO Matti sound-alike didn't really explain in any manner that I understood why RXO couldn't install or haul, just that they couldn't.
I'm sorry to say that I then went off on Matti Sound-Alike, telling him that this was fraud, that I'd been tricked into buying this dryer on the promise that it would be installed, that if I'd known it wouldn't be I'd have gone to Lowe's, that this was dishonest and wrong, and now what was I supposed to do?
Matti then informed me that Matti Sound-Alike had left the conversation. "Okay," I said, "so what am I supposed to do about my dryer?"
Matti sadly informed me that I'd have to take care of the situation myself, and he offered me some Byzantine logic to the effect that since the installation and haul-away services had been free, LG couldn't refund me anything. Because I hadn't paid anything for the service. Which they didn't provide.
I then did a repeat performance for Matti of the rant that I'd laid on Matti Sound-Alike, who might have been Matti. After I finished, poor shaken Matti told me to hold the line, probably needing a moment to himself to cry. He then came back and told me that LG would compensate me for the cost of taking care of my dryer situation on my own.
"Fine," I snapped (which I shouldn't have), but I don't want to be offered any $50. Tell...whoever...that I'll need at least $200 to have this dryer installed and the old one hauled away.
"Yes, yes," said Matti. "I'll tell them. Now," he crooned in the most dulcet and soothing tone, "you go and have some lunch, and after lunch you'll be contacted about your compensation."
Poor Matti. He was probably wishing he could go and have some lunch. I hope he did.
TO BE CONTINUED....
*I highly recommend that every American read "It Can't Happen Here," a novel by Sinclair Lewis written in 1936. In view of current events, it will, I promise, blow your mind.

2 Comments

<<Previous

I, Maddie. Or Maybe Penny.

I, Maddie. Or Maybe Penny.

Kulu Kulu Honolulu, Purple Yam Ice Cream, Playing At Kono's And Other Memorable Food-Related Experiences.

Kulu Kulu Honolulu, Purple Yam Ice Cream, Playing At Kono's And Other Memorable Food-Related Experiences.

Water, Water Everywhere, But I Don't Like To Swim

Water, Water Everywhere, But I Don't Like To Swim

On A Mission In Chinatown

On A Mission In Chinatown

In Search Of Hula, Part 2

In Search Of Hula, Part 2

In Search Of Hula, Part 1

In Search Of Hula, Part 1

*"Everyone is welcome" is, I think, approximately what this phrase means.

Feeling The Aloha Again

Feeling The Aloha Again

Sideshow Donald's Theater Of Cruelty

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

Archives

Categories

​​I, Maddie. Or Maybe Penny.

​​Kulu Kulu Honolulu, Purple Yam Ice Cream, Playing At Kono's And Other Memorable Food-Related Experiences.

​Water, Water Everywhere, But I Don't Like To Swim

​On A Mission In Chinatown

​In Search Of Hula, Part 2

​In Search Of Hula, Part 1

​*"Everyone is welcome" is, I think, approximately what this phrase means.

​​Feeling The Aloha Again

​Lug Stars To The Rescue!

​Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

Archives

Categories

I, Maddie. Or Maybe Penny.

Kulu Kulu Honolulu, Purple Yam Ice Cream, Playing At Kono's And Other Memorable Food-Related Experiences.

Water, Water Everywhere, But I Don't Like To Swim

On A Mission In Chinatown

In Search Of Hula, Part 2

In Search Of Hula, Part 1

*"Everyone is welcome" is, I think, approximately what this phrase means.

Feeling The Aloha Again

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online