Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

So, what does your husband do? Really? What kind of degree do you need for that? How much does he make? Wow? Can you live on that? And how much is rent? Seriously, for THIS PLACE? How much would it cost to buy? How many bedrooms? Kids, did you hear that?! That's how much our house is worth! And how much do you spend on groceries? Wow. You guys have a car? Two? How much did you pay for that truck? Amazing. Wow, good thing we live in Idaho, eh honey? Well, nice to meet you!

Can't stand 'em, but Hawaii can't live without 'em. They harass monk seals, they drive erratically while trying to take pictures out of their car windows, they drive up costs and walk around in public places with nothing but their sunburns. But I have to admit, I kind of like 'em. As individuals, that is. I love chatting with the relaxed tourist parents at the beach park as our sandy toddlers chase or ignore each other-- like the grandpa from Minnesota with his grandson-- or the hip and happening parents from Seattle with their adopted Chinese daughter and expensive camera (and no doubt highly frequented blog). But my favorite thing-- and this is a confession-- is being helpful. My pulse quickens when a goofy red chevy convertible with four adults in hats and sunglasses slows down next to me on my walk and rolls down the window. Yes, I can tell you exactly how to get to the airport! The other day I was walking home from the grocery store and overheard a young sunbur...

Uncle Ron is retired and now works dawn to dusk every day driving his little CAT up and down our dirt road. He has colonized the wild hillside with ti plants and tropical flowers for a friend who does flower arrangements for the hotels. He has planted dozens of papaya trees up and down the road-- and tiny hot hawaiian chili pepper plants, and enormously bushy basils. He has buckets of eggplants, green onions, a huge asperagus patch, and a wall of bitter melon behind his house. His cousin catches wild chickens, fattens them up for a couple of weeks in pens, and then eats 'em. Ron even carved a path up the steep hillside and built a pen for his geese and ducks where they honk and hiss and lay huge eggs. Sweet potato carpets all around the pen, and the greenest longbeans you've ever seen climb all the way over it. His longan, mango, avocado, coconut, noni, guava and lychee trees are all fruiting, and the lovely bunches of bananas are all narrow and green. In the winter he had c...