HAPPY belated ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

I LOVE St. Patrick's day! What a random holiday, eh? It's in honor of an Irish patron saint, St. Patrick, who would use a three-leaf clover to explain the Holy Trinity to non-Christians, and the "color of the Irish" used to be blue until the mid 1700s -- I'm glad that changed or I might not like the holiday so much. Believe it or not, my favorite color is green (just check out the blog for confirmation). Isn't it clever of him, Patrick that is, to use nature to describe the One who created it? I thought so. If I was still a missionary, which I suppose I am seeing as "every memeber [is] a missionary", I would use the clover to explain the true doctrine of God - being the Godhead. One day, when the opportunity presents itself, I'm going to try to have a clover handy.

I like to go all out on St. Patty's day, which makes it ironic that I didn't realize it was said holiday until after I had left the house and began my daily doings - and was I wearing green? Sadly, not at all. Even Addi was green-less. But don't fret, I fixed it, and when Case got home we decided to go to Angel's for some shave ice (flavors that are green colored of course) to commemorate this wonderful day. Well, we were waylayed when Laie Chop Suey smelled so good. We decided to have a celebratory dinner (gotta love being pregnant; you can smell food a mile away and it tastes so good) in preparation for our celebratory shave ice. Dinner was great, shave ice turned into ice cream - which wasn't green ... oops - and as we were devouring our delicious frozen delicacies, Casey's work phone rang. Huge bummer because he was on-call last night.

An excited Addi and Daddy running home from Angel's Shave Ice

You see, Case is an elevator mechanic. He installs, repairs, and modernizes elevators. And to those of you who are wondering, yes, Hawaii, and even the little island of Oahu, has plenty of elevators to fix. He and the other mechanics for his company take turns being on-call to free trapped passengers and fix random problems that occur after work hours. Last night one of the buildings in Waikiki had a problem with one of their elevator doors - it wouldn't open (but noone was inside so no drama here, just a stuck door). Case tried to convince them that they would be okay until morning, seeing as the building has 4 elevators, he figured they could live without 1 for 12 hrs. And he even threw in the little "I won't be there for rougly an hour and a half ..." bit, but to no avail. We ran home and put Addi to bed then headed off to Waikiki (side note: we did not leave our child unattended; we gave our neighbors the baby monitor, just so you don't go calling the CPS on us). I was so excited because I got to go along and document this exciting adventure - Woo Hoo!

The adventure began with the drive. For those of you familiar with the Windward side of Kam Hwy. between Laie and Kaneohe, there is a place that can be landmarked by "the cow". There is always a cow there. I suppose it's where the cow lives. It's just north of the Hygeinic Store where Kam Ys into Kahekili. Anyways, at the cow spot, we saw a white Grand Marquis, a dark Toyota Corolla, and a green pick-up engaging in some odd behavior. (Of course you can't blame the vehicles themselves, but rather the drivers are at fault.) So, the Corolla headed the pack following by truck then Grand Marquis. Here's the play by play: Corolla cuts truck off as he tries to speed away down Kam - truck flips around and Grand Marquis blocks him. Truck is now in Left lane headed North and Grand Marquis has pulled right side of road headed south - Truck flips another U turn and speeds towards the Corolla HEAD ON (by this point we had pulled over in the grass and were just hoping no gunfire would ensue). They're both going full speed in the LEFT lane, truck darts to right lane to get around Corolla, and Corolla makes a quick 90 degree turn to the left to block the RIGHT lane with the passenger side of his vehicle. Truck screeches to a halt. There's oncoming traffic - innocent commuters trying to drive home along Kam - unfortunate people. They get caught up in the hooplah as the truck speedily backs up and over to the LEFT lane - Corolla backs to block his passage - innocent vehicle screeches to a hault. Truck goes back in right lane and speeds around Corolla making his escape, but Grand Marquis is back in action and speeds right after him. Corolla passes them both to have the advantage of "leader of the pack" again. It was pretty intense - I wish I could show you a video of it .... Well we called 911 emergency and they seemed to think I was a stupid haole who was overexaggerating the relevance of the event. The officer said, "Kam Hwy is a big road - where are you." This is after I said, "Windward side of Kam by the Hygeinic Store north of Kaneohe." So who's the haole here? (haole: (pronounced: How-leh) in the Hawaiian language means foreign or foreigner. In its current definition it first became associated with the children of Caucasian immigrants in the early 1820s.)

On our way to Waikiki.

Us and the broken elevator. Case had to pry the door open with his bare hands (whoa!). It was mui impressivo.

And we arrive. While Casey surveyed the broken elevator, I watched comers and goers of the apartment complex. I was delighted to see people dressed in various hues of green: green camo, kelly green, pine green, kiwi green, chartreuse ... Gotta love St. Patty's Day!

Case contemplating what the problem might be as we ride the working elevator up to the machine room.

First Stop: the machine room. This is the controller in the machine room. It's the electrical/computer part of what makes an elevator work, like telling the doors to open and close and telling the elevator to stop at the floor it's supposed to, etc. But alas, not problems here.

These are the actual machines that move the elevator up and down. It's basically a complicated rope and pulley system, as you can see.

The ropes on the machine. This is what is holding up the elevator (notice how I didn't end this sentence in the preposition "up" - I almost did, but then fixed it for my English loving comrades)

Casey ON TOP of the broken elevator. May I repeat, ON TOP! Crazy huh! Not as neat & tidy as the movies make it look. He was checking for debris or something that might be blocking the door from opening (there were doors on both sides of this elevator, so he's checking the doors on the other side).

Looking down the elevator shaft.

The culprit: all of this for a loose screw. Case is holding what's called the door give. This little thing is what holds the doors on, and the screw was way loose (the one at Case's index finger), so it was catching along the bottom door jam and causing the door to stick (notice the color - gotta love St. Patrick's day).

So that was our St. Patty's Day - pretty exciting, eh?! Chop Suey, ice cream, and elevators. I just love this holiday - I mean really, who needs an excuse to wear green? To me, green is the color of happy ... think about it ... (but it's likely that your happy color is whatever your favorite color is ... oh well, I tried) Happy St. Patrick's Day!