A hui hou!

Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodbye till it be next year. One of the saddest things about returning home to a place as gloriously enchanting as Hawaii is having to leave. Two and a half weeks of my beautiful friends, my kooky family, the rolling blue waves, the warming sun, the unrelenting rain, the sweet kissing wind, the flaming stars in the pitch black sky, makes one turn into a blabbering idiot so that when you have to leave, you wax pathetic poetic. The fact is, no one wants to go from 80 degrees and sunny to 19 degrees and colder than a corpse in storage. The Honolulu International Airport doesn't make it easy on you either. As you approach the gates, you walk across a bridge that passes over the little Japanese Garden that more or less teases you: "Heh! Heh! There you go!" Hawaiians are nice, sure they are.

Once aboard, you can sit and look out the window at the last great view of the island, Diamond Head not too far off. You say to yourself, "You know, I could still leave. I could deplane and try for another flight... in a couple days." But then they do the sweetest thing to you--they shut the damn door and take off... 10 hours back to New York. Whoever invents teleportation is gonna make a killing.