Weekend Recap

An Unusual Experience at the Barber Shop

On Saturday, we had lunch at the NEX, then LW went to the Commissary while I took the boys to get haircuts. In case you haven't been there before, the NEX barber shop in Pearl Harbor is HUGE. There are probably twelve barber chairs in there, usually with about 9 or so barbers working during the day. The waiting room has enough seats for about 20 people to wait, and they're normally full in the middle of the day.

The parking lot was PACKED, so we were expecting the worst (both in the commissary and the barber shop). I opened the door to the barber shop and did a double-take. Not only was the waiting area half empty, but the people that were sitting in the seats were all wearing barber coats! They didn't have any customers! The waiting area had transformed from an area for customers to wait for barbers into an area for barbers to wait for customers. Very bizarre.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Worst Restaurant Experience on Oahu (so far)

After church on Sunday, we decided to forego our favorite Zia's and try one of a handful of places in Kailua that an acquaintance had recommended. First we tried going to Moke's, but there was a line of people waiting out on the curb. We were starving, so we skipped Moke's.

Instead, we tried going to the Mexican place next door to Boots & Kimo's. I think it was called Cisco's Cantina. We walked in, and it smelled pretty darn good in there. There were about twelve tables in the place, and only three of them were occupied.

Hindsight: I guess maybe that should have set off alarm bells in my head since Boots & Kimo's next door had the usual line of people waiting outside - why weren't people lining up to take the empty spots in THIS restaurant???

There were no employees anywhere in sight. We noticed that there were menus out on each of the tables, so after a minute or so of standing there we just decided to grab a table. Eventually a waiter came out of the kitchen and delivered something to one of the other tables. He made eye-contact with me and said, "I'll be right with you." Okay, cool.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes, it became apparent to me that he was the ONLY employee working in the front half of this restaurant. Heck, for all I know, he was the ONLY employee working there PERIOD. He could have been doing the cooking in the back for all I know. In that time, he visited our table once to take our drink orders and LW asked him if they had a kids menu. He said yes and that he'd "be right back."

Yyyyyeah, not so much.

After several minutes of watching him visit each of the other tables, he did bring back our soft drinks with some chips and salsa, but that was the last we saw of him for about another ten minutes. Maybe he was cooking in the back, who knows. We were starving, and LW had a hair appointment for 3 p.m. that she was NEVER going to make at the rate he was going.

We had consumed ALL of our soft drinks and very nearly ALL of the chips and salsa and he still had not come back with the kids menu much less taken our food orders. LW and I decided we had waited long enough and it was time to abort. We left a few dollars of cash on the table to cover the soft drinks, packed up the kids' coloring books and stuff and left.

We went back to Zia's. Their special today was a papaya seafood salad with shrimp and fresh ahi, and it was delicious. The speed of their service wasn't super fast, but I have no doubt we got out of there a heckuva lot quicker than we would have over at the Mexican place. As it was, we barely made it home in time for LW to hop in the car and leave for her hair appointment.

Anyway, the whole point of this was that I couldn't remember the last time (if ever) I went to a restaurant and actually got up and left like that because nobody was serving us.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Family Movie Nights

One day on vacation, the boys caught a few minutes of Around the World in 80 Days on TV and wanted to watch the rest of it. I picked it up at Blockbuster and we watched it for Family Movie Night on Friday. Little did I realize, this would be the boys' first Jackie Chan flick.



My first Jackie Chan flick was Rumble in the Bronx with Jud in NY. I had never heard of Jackie Chan before Jud took me to see that movie, and WOW what a lot of choreographed action!
Around the World in 80 Days was a pretty good movie. ES and I enjoyed it at least. YB wasn't able to follow the storyline so well and he ended up playing Webkinz on my computer while we watched the movie.

Saturday night we had another Family Movie Night and watched Back to the Future. ES really liked it a lot. I wasn't sure YB would understand it or like it, but he did sit through the whole movie.





* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hooray for Recycling!

We just got a notice that they are going to begin curb-side recycling pick-up in our housing area on April 22nd. Finally!!! Almost in time for Earth Day, eh? I'm so glad I won't have to feel guilty about tossing recyclables in the trash anymore.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Blast from the Past

I meant to include this in my post about scuba diving on Thursday. My guys got a good laugh out of seeing the photo on my scuba certification card.


Just now, as I was adding the photo to my blog, YB saw it and asked "Who's that?" I told him it was Daddy. He smiled. I asked him, "Doesn't it look like Daddy?" He smiled and vigorously shook his head NO. NO?!?! Common, I don't think I look THAT different, do I??? Okay, so that was almost 19 years ago...