Prejudice

The Singer: Sitting on the veranda in the evening listening to the singer at the piano in the lobby of the hotel -- her voice was good, a bit unusual, singing standards and the odd Hawaiian tune. Formed a picture of her in my mind: perhaps a tall young Hawaiian girl. When we went in, saw a short rather unattractive person seated at the piano, crew cut and beard. Unisex clothes. We couldn't tell if it was a man or woman. The voice was clearly (?) female. Bearded lady? Someone in transition? Definitely not the picture in my brain. Couldn't get the new picture out of my brain!

The Pirate & the Barkeep: On the Big Island, trying to cram new experiences into the last hour of our visit (more about this later) we went to a kava bar. I'd read about kava, a mild intoxicant favored by Pacific islanders, so decided to venture one glass, er, coconut shell. The Bartender looked like he had long experience of global intoxicants, but was a friend of our host, so more or less trusted him. The story he told us of the ritual of drinking kava, all about bonding with friends, contrasted totally with he story we were later told about kava symbolizing the subservience of women, having to be administered by a virgin, choosing a bride, etc. The drink tasted rather nasty, and turned my mouth numb, and (I'm told) made me slightly giggly, but no other ill effects. The Pirate walked into the bar (This is not the beginning of a joke). I'll try to get the photo of him from our friends. He had quite a snazzy and reputedly home-made leather pirate hat, flowing sleeves, vest, the requisite whiskers, and a friendly flirtacious manner.  Appeared to have all his limbs intact. No parrot! We weren't missing any wallets when we left.

The Ukelele Player on The Bus: We took the bus from the airport after we returned our rental car to save money after being ripped off by Disney (another story). Mostly friendly people on the bus, many tourists, many locals. This guy had a toy uke, wore scrubs,  and displayed the uninhibited manner of a mental patient off his meds. He tried to engage everyone in conversation and entertained (?) us with renditions of popular songs with  the words changed to scurrilous versions, sometimes funny, sometimes embarrassing. He bragged of having done every drug there was, claimed to be a veteran, had opinions on everything that reminded me of an internet webite devoted to  conspiracy theories. Much eye-rolling by fellow riders. Great relief when he finally got off before our stop. The bus driver said he was a regular, one of the harmless ones. Actually we didn't see many homeless on Waikiki -- I wonder why?!