So I get Jake to school right on time on Tuesday May 1. The first of May...for me it means "Workers of the World Unite !"...the struggle of the proletariat....the ownership of the means of production...."the only thing you have to loose are your chains".....blah blah blah
In Hawaii however, the first day in May is Lei Day. Probably because , well, probably just cause it rhymes. I guess it's like how here in the islands, June first is Prune Day, but I'm getting off the topic here.
Now if Kim were anywhere in the Western hemisphere at this time, she would have set us up with garlands of flowers for the kids. But alas, she's moving bombs in Japan (again). Or more precisely, like women have for ages untold, she is telling men where to move things, in this case high explosives. Suffice it to say that while I was reminiscing on the May Day parades of my youth, watching the tanks and missles roll over Red Square, watching waves of soldiers marching to military bands and waving flags*, I SHOULD'VE been making Jake and Lily some leis.
This all became crashingly clear when we got to Jake's room at CHildren's Center, he peeked in at all the other little kids all bedecked and stuff and then the sight all parents dread: the quivering lip.
Jake (heartbroken)- "I NEED A LEI"
Dad (gobsmacked)- "Oh. It's May Day...LEI Day...Well, I, um. You see Jake...why didn't you...Well as Marx would say..."
Only one dialectic at work here - Get a lei or suck. I opted to not suck.
Dad (brightly)- "Well, let's go make one !"
Jake (realizing life will not end) - "Really? OK ! LET'S GO!"
So we spent the next 15 minutes wandering around his school to find enough fallen flowers to make a creditable lei. Thank god for plumeria trees. And, if you don't have a lei needle, or string, or dental floss, or basically anything at all to string your lei, tape will do.
He wore it all day.
Best lei EVER.
*NOTE: Never happened. Well the lei thing did. And Kim in Japan. Just not the Kremlin part.
