January 21, 2005

The Best Laid Plans

The lava flow...Over hwy 130 near what was Kalapana

I wonder what the people that owned the lands that you see in this photo were thinking... I know one couple that are retirement age, they own land near here that is under 25 ft of lava...They had planned to build a cottage on the beach and retire here...That was before the volcano destroyed this most beautiful beach in all of Hawaii...and before the volcano of change destroyed their once thriving shoe store in the Bay Area, leaving them bankrupt. They now work 60 hour weeks here running a pair of jewelry stores for a off shore owner...No retirement ever for them.

How does one deal with such a catastrophic change?

I think we all have our ways of doing this... I have finally nailed down and booked Mak and Nani's "airline reservations" ie cargo space...Continental seems to have the highest rated pet shipping arrangements going. Lucky we are flying them as well. While talking to the " Live Animal Desk " in Houston I asked the guy "Hey what happens to my cats once I give them to you. He replied. "Well they are taken in a climate controlled van (while in their travel containers) to the plane and hand loaded into the front cargo area. It is pressurized and climate controlled...but its dark...Not as noisy as regular cargo...We actually have taken video of the area during flights and once the plane takes off, they settle down and go to sleep and most sleep through the whole flight till landing...then they are taken out to Live Animal receiving... We take as good a care of them as we can...but they are all pretty happy to be done with this flying stuff and back with Mom and Dad..."

I found this comforting...There are some logistical hangup most of which are caused by TSA and Homeland Security but I dont kick against that system and we are getting around it all by changing our flight to Honolulu and getting there plenty early... I do worry but it cant be helped and Id be more upset if we had to leave them here to an uncertain future... People are just not too caring about their animals here.

I wish I could sleep all through the trauma,like the cats on the plane. In fact Im sure that they will as that is what they do best...Sleep! That would be the easiest way for me too, I guess. But that is not allowed, One has to hang on and get through it. I know I will be white knuckling it for the kitty babies the whole 12 hours or so between tendering them and picking them up.

We may have someone that wants to buy much of our household furniture. I need to sell it and am somewhat sad as this was the nicest stuff I've ever had and dont feel I've even broken it in. Letting go is hard, I never thought that I would have to.

This was not how I planned it, but I know it is the right thing all the way through...