Not that I haven’t been stung before. Or that I didn’t know about the influx. But even ocean safety officials were surprised by the unusual amount of stinging critters along south shorelines yesterday.
This was taken about two hours after I had been stung.
This was today. Less painful, more itchy.
OK, here’s what happened:
I’ve been stung so many times by box jellyfish, I don’t tend to worry about the monthly influx. So, like other months, I paddled out on Saturday — no rashguard — to Queen’s.
We had noticed a bunch of jellyfish washed up on the shore outside the lagoon fronting lifeguard tower 2C. But none of us thought much of it.
By the time I had paddled out to the lineup, I had already gotten stung once on my right hand. About 15 minutes later, I got stung again on my leg. Then, as I was paddling back to the lineup after catching a wave, I stuck my left hand right into a box jellyfish and pulled it out of the water.
Wait. It gets better.
A set approached. I turned my board around to get ready to paddle for it and laid down right on a big box jellyfish. I was pulling it off my torso while riding the wave! It was insane!
It only took about a minute before I started to feel the extreme pain. My stomach muscles started to seize up. I could hardly move, I could barely tolerate sitting on my board. Luckily, an off-duty lifeguard spotted me and paddled over on a rescue board. He paddled me back to the beach, where I spent about an hour hunched over in pain. He sprayed vinegar on the sting to neutralize the toxins and gave me a bunch of heat packs to relieve the pain. The guys I surf with came in, one got some Benadryl, the other kept a towel over me to keep me warm. (I was shaking uncontrollably.)
I didn’t go to the ER, like dozens did yesterday. I just waited it out.
Lesson? Wear a rashguard. And be really nice to lifeguards.
As you all know, I’m moving — and today’s the big day!
So here I am, in the too-early-to-think hours of the morning, worrying about whether my desk can fit in the living room or if there’ll be enough space outside for my two bikes and four surfboards.
I’m sorry I’m so preoccupied right now to blog about anything else — and yes, I know it’s FUUD Friday! — but I promise when I’m wrapped up with moving later today, I’ll post something more meaningful.
I hope you understand!
So wish me luck and I’ll write you all later.
Cat
PS: Thanks for all the well wishes yesterday! What would I do without you all? (Except maybe eat out less!)
***
In the meantime, let’s pause for a moment to ponder weird Japanese game shows.
A fan favorite: The Human Tetris. Six million views and counting!
A woman I recently met — single and thirty-something — is desperately looking for a nightclub where she can dance, meet cute guys, and not feel like the oldest person in the room.
Then she complained about something that made me actually stop and think: “What’s with the guys? They don’t ask girls to dance. We ended up dancing by ourselves and the guys just watched.”
I’ve noticed that about Hawai’i nightclubs: The women will hit the dance floor — together — and groove while the guys stand around the perimeter and gawk, Heineken in hand.
Is this just a local thing? Or did this only happen at Ocean’s?
I wasn’t sure, so I called a perpetually single guyfriend of mine and asked him, “What gives?”
He said guys actually do ask women to dance — but only after trying to strike up a conversation and maybe getting her to agree to a drink. No way are guys going to just ask someone to dance. And get shot down? In front of his friends? I don’t think so.
The thing is, I’ve never, ever been asked to dance. At least not since the eighth grade! And neither have my girlfriends.
And what’s with the Ninja dancing? Ladies, help me out here: Don’t you head to the dance floor with your gal pals and, somewhere between “Baby Got Back” and “Umbrella,” a guy starts to dance near you, then around you, then right behind you? I never understood why guys think this tactic works. Because with my girlfriends, this has never, ever worked.
And I don’t count that as “asking a girl to dance.”
In his attempt to defend his gender, my guyfriend said men really do ask women to dance, even at nightclubs, even when the girl-on-girl show on the dance floor may be better than trying to get involved. In fact, more times than not, he said, women ask them to dance.
But I (respectfully) beg to differ.
Anyone can prove either of us wrong? I’d love to hear what you all have to say!
***
Some of you have been asking about my relationship — why I’m moving, why I’m talking about empathy, why I’m putting together a list of break-up songs — and, as many of you have pointed out to me, I’ve been avoiding the topic. (You guys are observant!)
So let’s just say, yes, I’m newly single, but I’m not really ready to talk about it just yet. So I apologize if I’ve been avoiding the conversation. (I was!) Thanks for your kind words, your support and, above all, your friendship through this. It’s meant a lot.
After two years of living in this little cul-de-sac in Hawai’i Kai, I’m moving.
Not that I want to. It’s more circumstantial. But nonetheless, I’m leaving.
The sad part is, this is the sixth time I’m moving in about seven years. Not that I can’t stay in one place. It just sort of happened that way.
See, I was renting at the height of the real estate market, when people were unloading their rental properties to make extra cash. Four units I’ve lived in sold, one sold twice while I was still a tenant. I left my first rental because the landlord wanted to rent it out to her nephew. And another one, well, you’ll have to watch the YouTube video to get that story.
I hatehatehate moving. I really do. It’s time-consuming, tedious, strenuous, annoying. And, in this case, it’s not something I want to do.
I love the place where I’m at. I love my landlord and her family. I love the kids in our neighborhood. I love playing basketball with my neighbors, riding my bike around the loop, walking to 7-Eleven, stealing rides to the nearest surf break with my landlord’s son on his zodiac, watching people walk their dogs and push strollers from my kitchen window. It’s a great place to live, and I envy the next tenant.
But, as they say, life goes on. And I found a great place in a quiet neighborhood with a landlord who I’m sure I’ll get along with.
It’s just sad to leave — and scary to move on.
So — if you watched my video — I’m asking for your horror stories about moving. Anything! Freaky landlords, disgusting apartments, ridiculous rentals. Misery needs company!
And if you have any tips or advice about moving, I’ll take those, too!
It just seemed like a no-brainer: who, in their right mind, would sympathize — or empathize, my new word! — with a bunch of teenage girls making a pact to get pregnant? Who does that?
OK, here’s the story: Seventeen girls at Gloucester High School, located in a quaint Massachusetts fishing town, are pregnant — more than four times the number of pregnancies the school had last year. (Mind you, there are only 1,200 students at this school.)
Lots of blame was cast: Maybe it was just a freak coincidence. Maybe it’s a trend started by movies such as “Juno” that seem to glorify — to some — teen pregnancy. Or maybe, as Time reported, there was a pact.
Yes, a pact. Kinda like how we used to make a pact we’d all go to the same party so we didn’t leave someone out. Except not that life-changing.
According to principal Joseph Sullivan, several teenage girls — none older than 16 — were frequenting the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. Upon hearing the results, “some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were,” Sullivan said. Apparently, they had made a pact to all get pregnant at the same time so they could raise their babies together.
How sweet.
Then the story got weirder: Some were impregnated by a “24-year-old homeless guy.”
But NBC’s “Today” reported that the principal is now “foggy in his memory” of how he heard about the pact, according to Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk at a press conference.
“There was definitely no pact,” said 17-year-old Lindsey Oliver, who’s five months pregnant. “There was a group of girls already pregnant that decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together. I think it was just a coincidence.”
What the heck is going on?
It seems there are a few issues here:
* Who’s responsible for the rash of pregnancies at this school? According to an informal poll on Time.com, 62 percent of respondents blame the girls, 35 percent point the finger at the parents and 2 percent say it’s the school’s fault.
* What do these teenage pregnancies say about our society, our standards, our education system, our access to birth control? Are teen girls living in a fantasy world created by celeb-reality? Or has this been a long-standing problem that’s just now getting a lot of media attention?
* And what’s with the recanting by the principal? Who came up with the notion of a pact? And should we be alarmed, much less care?
