It’s nearly noon on yet another quiet, lovely day in my little corner of paradise.
It wasn’t quiet last night though. As expected, the sounds of distant (and not so distant sounding) explosions went on and on, till well past the designated hour for ringing in the new year.
Happy 2019! Yay!!
For the last few hours leading up to and including midnight, the rapid rat tat tats and resounding boom boom BOOMs gave me the feeling that there was a pitched battle going on just down the road. It sounded like a war zone over there. I’ve gotten used to the way this place celebrates with all these explosions (and it even used to interest me) but I’m glad I didn’t have to go out in it this year.
I usually work through all the holidays and since I’ve been on the late shift, I’ve had many occasions to see some pretty awesome scenes from the oh-so convenient perch of my Handi-Van driver’s seat.
Driving though the various neighborhoods of Honolulu (and its suburbs) that are most active with their private (and now quite illegal) firework displays, I’ve often had to stop and wait for them to die down before I could pass safely. This video shows a mild version of that. I took it ten years ago (before dash cams were in the vans) and it was long before midnight so the folks were just getting started. They were still legal then too.
In 2010 they passed a law making all but firecrackers illegal. It slowed things down for a year or two but it didn’t take long for local people to realize that it wasn’t going to be enforced. Now this annual cultural cacophony is bigger and louder than ever.
Still not back to work as I’m waiting on the return-to-duty paperwork, I was happy to drown out the din watching videos and making smoochy smoochy on the phone with my sweetheart.
With the time difference, we didn’t connect on either of our respective midnight hours but… so what?
We make out own damn holidays.
Baby.
Blessed…
m(___)m
