I’m easily delighted. It’s one of the benefits of driving as much cynicism out of myself as I can. Cynicism is a kind of cowardice, in that it seems to consist of a morbid fear of being delighted. Screw that. Dare to be happy; it doesn’t hurt that much!
Case in point: The morning after we arrived in Honolulu, Carol and I took a walk around the immediate vicinity of the Hilton, looking for a breakfast that wouldn’t cost us $20 a head. McDonald’s might not have been my first choice, granting that I have a fondness for Egg McMuffins. But I like their iced coffee a lot, so when we stumbled on a McDonald’s, I ducked inside to get an iced coffee.
OMG: They had a spam and eggs breakfast plate!
We ate at McDonald’s. I was delighted. Their breakfast plates are a Hawaiian thing. Hawaiians of Polynesian ancestry seem to like spam, and whereas I have no least trace of South Seas blood, I too find Spam delightful. I didn’t have it every day (though I had it a lot) and now that we’re home from Hawaii, I probably won’t have it again until the next time we’re there. That way I won’t get tired of it, and it will retain its power to delight me.
Immediately adjacent to the Hilton Hawaiian Village is the Fort DeRussy Military Reservation, which these days is an R&R facility for current and retired military. This includes the Hale Koa Hotel, which is limited to military and retired military personnel, and several restaurants and bars, which are open to the public. I bought a tube of Pepsodent at the PX before I understood what the store was, and in doing so may have violated their policies; not sure. Their little outdoor fast-food restaurant (I forget its formal name) was spectacular, and the lunch I had there consisted of the largest and juiciest deep-fried chicken breast I’ve ever had. Like the Pepsodent, it was lots chapter than it would have been elsewhere.
I observed a phenomenon that I’ve observed before, and seems to be getting more common: talking on your cellphone in public as though no one else can year you. Granted, I was walking behind the young woman in question and there was no one immediately in front of her, but sheesh–we were on the grounds of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. I wasn’t really listening, but at her volume it was hard not to hear: “…yeah, and I scraped my f—ing pedicure off on the sand!” I only had to twist poor Bobbie Burns a little:
Oh wad some gift the Giftie gie us,
To hear oursels as ithers hear us!
“Americans and Their Cell Phones”
“Don’t bother me, I’m on my phone. One in five smartphone owners (20%) say that they have used their phone to avoid interacting with people around them in the preceding 30 days.”
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2083/cell-phones-texting-internet-photos