Happy 4th with Daughtry
Well July marked my official first month with a new living situation. The Pineapple house era has come to close and now I've moved next door with Aunty Sa and Uncle Ila. It's like glamping but without the glamour. But hey, I'm not a fancy man, I do my part, I pay my dues, and I even remodeled my lair with a fresh floor and paint. Who says you can't put lipstick on a pig. Look, I'm just enjoyed the full benefits of closet-living - including the stagnant hot room, an endless array of flies and or roaches and the wonderful sounds of the bathroom just on the other side of the single panel wall. I’ve truly arrived in the lap of luxury. The bonus - having to leave my room every time I need to pee, then go outside and reenter the house through the front door is quite convenient, especially when it is locked for the night. But hey, it beats living in a tent behind the house like I've already once done. The crazy part of it all, it’s just hard to believe that some 10 years later, I find myself right back where I began, living in the same small room I resided in during college. It's affectionately known as 'the closet' but to be fair, it is a walk-in, heck, it's a live-in!
Needless to say, when the fourth rolled around I was looking forward to getting out of the house and enjoying the festivities. You know the typical stuff, food stands, fireworks and live music -it's an American tradition. Only problem was, this was my first fourth as a single man in years! My whole crew moved away, and I honestly didn’t even know who I would enjoy it all with! That however, was the least of my worries. First thing first, I had an 8am show at Aulani to host and guess what time I woke up? Yeah, oh 7:30am and it’s an hours drive to get there. So somehow I slept through two alarms and I bolted out of bed 30 minutes before showtime. I was defecating bricks the whole drive, if you know what I mean, and I hauled it out the door and all the way down the north shore and seriously pushed 100 mph but somehow I made it only 15 minutes late and thankfully they were running late too. I was so relieved that the show went off without a hitch and surprisingly no one was even mad! I breathed a huge sigh of relief on that one.
With the show out of the way it was now time to plan my 4th of July festivities. Seeing as I was an independent man on this Independence Day, I was thankful when the Lord provided. I met up with my hula sister, Kaui and her gang, and we did festive face-painting, donned our stars and stripes and made our way to Scholfield barracks for a 4th of July concert. The featured artist was Chris Daughtry of American Idol stardom, so we jammed out to his music along the way so we could actually know some of his songs and we were surprised at how many we knew!
With a turkey leg in one hand and mango lemonade in the other, we made our way through the crowd and arrived center stage just in time to scream and yell and snapchat our carefree 4th of July fun. ‘Merica the beautiful! We almost had to pinch ourselves, because we were inches away from the Chris Daughtry. Okay there's a hint of sarcasm in there but it was fun, I think we were generally excited to actually catch one of his guitar picks.
After the concert, we ended up next at Zippy’s where, predictably, we were the loud obnoxious table. No surprise there. We seriously died laughing so hard so that our voices were pretty much gone by the time we got to joint base Pearl Harbor to witness the night sky light up with firecrackers. I have to admit, this was a fourth for the books.
