Election thougths and news on the 'hood

If you're looking for balanced coverage on the candidates that actually discusses and contrasts their views and policies, as opposed to what Sara Palin's wardrobe says about her (yes, I found an article like that on some American news site... *sigh*) , try www.economist.com. They have a lengthy briefing on the American election that I found very useful.

Now for some more info on the general neighborhood where we live. We are in the middle of Oahu. We’re surrounded by lush mountain views, though in places we can also look down to the Pearl Harbor area and see some ocean. In off-peak traffic, Waikiki is abt 45 minutes away. If we drive about 10 minutes north, we can start to see the North Shore coastline, and in 20 minutes we can be at those beaches. (In case those facts are of interest for any prospective visitors…)

We’re also about 12 minutes from work, and just 1.5 miles away from the Town Center shopping area. We’ve got a lot of convenience right nearby, and it’s not a bad trip to go do something more fun. And there’s so much beauty around us. There are a couple of places on the way to work that are just breathtakingly gorgeous with mountains and trees. It’s a nice way to start the day.

Our particular neighborhood was built in the mid-70’s, so most of the houses are 30-35 years old. Ours has been added onto over the years and completely remodeled in the last year, so it looks like a new house. We have almost 2300 square feet, but the houses were originally built with about 1100. Most are one-story, though some people have remodeled and added a second floor or a garage.

Most of us in this neighborhood have carports instead of garages, and most of them seem full of cars! With living here being so expensive, and with Hawaiian family tradition, a lot of people seem to live in one house! And they all seem to have a car. We have a different one parked in front of our house every night. Sometimes it’s a white Mercedes. Today it was a blue Lexus.

The age and condition of some of the houses made me a little nervous about our neighborhood the first time I saw it, but the nice cars were reassuring that we weren’t moving into a dicey area. Still, we’re one of the few houses that only has two cars in its parking area. Many have three or four crammed into the carport. And of course most people seem to have a big fancy pickup, too, another way in which we are behind the neighbors…

One of our next door neighbors has one of the worst looking houses. The one redeeming factor is the cute family of dogs that they have, though we never see anyone pay attention to the dogs, besides me. I hang over the fence and say “hello” to them. There’s a mom, dad and 3 half-grown pups. They’re sweethearts and rarely bark, but the owner doesn’t keep up after them. Dog poop is everywhere all over the back yard, and the grass is almost non-existent.

The neighbor doesn’t have much in the way of grass in the front yard, either, but the other Saturday he was up at 8:30 with a weed whacker. We couldn’t figure out why he was disturbing our morning… They also have an old Toyota truck parked on the street that never moves, complete with blocks under the back wheels.

We don’t have central a/c in our house, which is fairly common for Hawaii (also a fact any prospective visitors may want to note…). It can get warm in the afternoon, but there's always a breeze and the mornings and evenings are very pleasant.

But the one thing about living with your windows open all the time – you hear everything that goes on! We know when our neighbor goes to work every morning. Early. Another neighbor likes to party and has a friend or relative with a really, really annoying laugh.

And of course there’s the pool when you need to cool off! I was swimming at night a few days ago, and still can’t quite believe we have this wonderful pool. Even when we’re not in it, it’s great to just sit here and enjoy looking at it.

But all our houses are close together, so I probably won’t be doing any skinny dipping. There are usually fences between each house, but they’re not really high. We have a back fence, too, that hides us from the main road, but people can see over it.

We live right across the street from a small strip shopping center. It has a Safeway, a Longs Drugs, several takeout places, a nail salon (Chris often comments on the number of nail salons in Hawaii), and the Palace Buffet Korean BBQ (which mars our view of the mountains. *sigh*) But I’m lovin’ the convenience of having those things so close by!

I walked up to the Town Center for grins to see how long that took on foot, and I was there in a leisurely 27 minutes. There’s a larger grocery store there, a WalMart, several sitdown restaurants including Chilis and Ruby Tuesdays, and lots of small shops, several banks, and several doctors. The main bus pickup point is also there, and I might try that sometime to get to the big fancy mall, to see how that is instead of fighting the traffic myself.

And for those of you who look forward to my weekend football report, UT won, Vanderbilt is a historic 5-0, the Titans are also 5-0 and as I write, Dallas is beating up on Cincinnati.