Alternatively...

If Europe isn't your thing,

One Week

Find someone to pick me up from the Logan Airport:  Check.

Find a place to stay before I can move into my summer sublet:  Check

Out-process from work:  Half-check

Finish packing and sending stuff:  Probably should start thinking about it.

Like my time in Hawaii, my to-do list is getting shorter.

Restaurant Review: Cheeseburger in Paradise

The pineapple wedge is a nice touch.  Scurvy prevention with a side of burger.

I'm wrapping up my search for the best burger in Honolulu as I am leaving quite soon!  I was in Waikiki buying a hard case for my ukulele and decided to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise, right across from the beach.  I was going to go to Cheeseburger Waikiki, but it was farther away and it's owned by the same people so I'm guessing it's the same thing.  I had heard good things about it, so I was pretty excited, probably too excited.  First of all, like most things Waikiki, it's very tourist-friendly.  Lots of gimmicky Hawaiian things to cater to the Jimmy Buffet crowd.  I don't mind touristy if the food is good, however.  I can't say I was huge fan of the service.  It was a busy Saturday evening, I'll grant them, but it took quite a while for my server to get my order.  May I just say how much I dislike when servers call you "sweetheart" (or "doll" or "love", etc.)?  If I'm at a crusty old diner and there's a matronly woman named Flo taking my order, she can call me "sweetheart," but some blonde, tattooed early-twentysomething named Holly can keep the pet names to herself.  Maybe I'm "overly sensitive" but I find it slightly condescending.  I can't be too angry, however, as she did keep the Diet Cokes coming.  I ordered the basic cheeseburger and a side of sweet potato fries.  Here's how the burger fared in my grading rubric (that maybe I've only used once):

• Structural Integrity:  A.  The whole thing stayed together and only a few lettuce bits fell out.  They call it a "five-napkin burger," and I was worried when I was only given two, but it was much less messy than I'd expected.
• Burger-to-Bun Ratio:  A.  Probably the best B:B ratio that I've seen!  One thing I'll note is that they used one of those "Hawaiian" buns which is a bit denser than a normal bun, which probably also contributed to the structural integrity.
• Topping Quality/Distribution:  C+.  Lettuce, one poor little tomato slice, and some onions that were all stuck together.  Where the frack were the pickles?  I missed pickles the most.  I don't even think you could request them extra on the menu.  The cheese was good, but the sauce wasn't plentiful enough to make the burger moist and flavorful.
• Burger Patty:  C.  Meh...it was okay.  It was cooked medium-well, which combined with the Hawaiian bun and the lack of condiments made the whole thing rather dry.  The flavor was decent, however.  
• Fries:  A.  Sweet potato waffle fries are a terrific creation.  They were perfectly seasoned and crispy.
• Overall:  B-.  It was fine, but not really worth the $20 I paid (after tipping Holly), especially when I could have gone to Teddy's just down the street and gotten essentially the same thing much more quickly and for half the price.  

If I could do it all over again...

I often have little moments of regret.  Maybe not 'regret' in the purest sense, but more in the "here's what I would do differently if I could start over again" sense.  So on this day, for no specific reason (even though this very day, the sixth of June, has rightfully earned reasons for me to want to look back and reassess), I present a list of things I would do differently if I had to start the whole Hawaii thing from scratch.

• Don't ship all of my books to Hawaii.  I mean, I would have taken some books (how could I survive without a copy of East of Eden at my side?), but not all of my enormous heavy ones.  I thought, "oh, I'll need all these textbooks!" but I didn't realize that the lab would include a giant library that would have all of the same books and I wouldn't need to touch the ones in my personal library.  I could have stored them and saved the hassle of shipping them back and forth.
• Live somewhere different.  Like in my current building which is so much more awesome than my old building.  Maybe this one couldn't have been helped, as I moved out here the weekend before starting my job and I just took the first place that was offered me.
• Buy a pedometer.  I walked so freaking much this year; it would have been nice to keep track of exactly how much.  I'll walk a lot in Boston, though, so maybe I'll get one there.
• Become friends with this awesome couple in my branch sooner.  Normally I don't hang out with couples because most couples are lame, but then quite recently I spent time with these two, both separately and together, and I was like, why haven't I been hanging out with you guys this whole time?  They're really cool, and, unlike 99% of people in Hawaii, they like some of the same music that I do!
• Go kayaking earlier, because I like kayaking!  Actually, I'm okay with just going kayaking the one time.  I got a pretty bad sunburn from the kayaking trip, but it's only the second bad burn I've had here.  More kayaking would have probably meant more sunburns and a higher risk of melanoma.  So never mind on this one.  And there's a river in Boston; I can totally kayak there maybe.

I know I could think of more things, but I'm pretty sure that they're little things, like knowing where to buy the good curry paste and stuff.  But did you notice how not one of these things was "don't move to Hawaii"? Even though I shattered various aspects of my world by moving here, and even though there was much about this year that sucked beyond the telling of it, if I had to do it all again, I would.  This year has been very good for me.

Cat Lady

"Kirk's always been a cat person; he's just never had a cat"
-Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls, "A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving")

I live with a cat now.  His name is S.J., short for Simba Jack.  I'm fighting my horrible habit of renaming other people's pets, but I kind of want to call him Darwin.  He used to be wary of me, but we've bonded now.  See?

Not the most flattering picture of either of us, but it's hard to tell a cat to hold still so I can take a webcam picture.

He likes to snuggle.  And also use my arm as a scratching post.  And lick my feet.  Maybe it's not bonding so much as him biding his time until he tries to kill and eat me in my sleep.

Tolerable Cruelty

"There's a breeze off the Hudson, and just when you think you're sick of living here the memory floods in..."

("Finale," In the Heights)

I have two weeks left in Hawaii, so obviously things have stopped sucking so much.  I daresay, in the past few weeks I've been liking things, having almost-fun, socializing, hugging (men!), and even wishing I had more time!  Life is cruel.  But I wonder, are things going well because I know that I'm leaving soon, or is this just how long it takes me to adjust to a place well enough to actually enjoy things?  I remember that I lived in Boston for over a year before I really decided that I wanted to stay there.*

The quote above is from In the Heights, which has kind of been my 'theme musical' for the past year (I saw it for the first time a few months ago), although my favorite line used to be Vanessa's from It Won't Be Long Now:

As I sweep the curb, I can hear those turbo engines blazing a trail through the sky

I look up and think about the years gone by

And one day, I'm walking to JFK

And I'm going to fly!

Kind of funny how things change like that, huh?  I guess I can be a little bit sad to leave Hawaii, but only a little bit, because I'm going back to my favorite place ever.

*It was actually the ward campout that made me realize I wasn't ready to leave Boston, which is strange, because I find camping dreadful.

On the Rocks

This is a post where I let my willingness to prove something overpower my self-consciousness about my body.  Behold, a picture of me and my pasty, not-as-toned-as-I-might-like legs in a bathing suit in front of a bunch of really sharp and dangerous lava rocks.

Look how precarious those rocks look!

I went kayaking with a bunch of people last Monday.  It was pretty fun--I saw a turtle!  But we kayaked out to this island that was kind of a "bird sanctuary" with a really tiny trail and then all of a sudden, it turned into rock climbing.  Thank goodness for my Tevas as my poor feet wouldn't have survived otherwise!  I was so scared and I wanted to turn back so many times, and there were definitely a few "Jesus, take the wheel" moments, but I did it!  I climbed on the rocks and didn't fall off of any cliffs.  I'd say that this was definitely a good life experience.