2020. 

A new decade. 

A new year. 

A strange start. 

On new year’s day, I woke up hungover and filled with anxiety and melancholy. I felt alienated and lonely and I looked even worse (never fall asleep with a 1920s-inspired headpiece still draped across your hair). 

I stayed in bed all day and watched About Time. I cried into my pillow when the worst happens in the movie and rewound the scene where he learns to live each day taking in the beauty of the world over and over again. It made me feel a little better and I thought about trying to do the same in my own life. 

Then a rooster started crowing outside of my window and I immediately forgot to look for the silver lining and hid my head under a pillow. 

The next morning I felt slightly better. I was working remotely from Hawaii, so I logged onto my computer and started taking care of a few projects and tagging products in some photos. Afterward, I showed my parents Always be my Maybe on Netflix. I really love when my parents enjoy something that I also enjoy (not always the case with a lot of things), so that brightened my day. 

The day after, my mom and I decided to walk along Kailua beach once I was done with work. We drove to the beach, parked, used the not-so-sanitary restrooms, and headed to the sand. I love walking. I find that being in motion always helps me think better and makes for great conversations with myself or with other people. 

As we walked, I noticed a large number of bees were laying dead or dying on the sand. Now, before you think I’m trying to create a metaphor here vis a vis the Robert Haas poem, I’m not. It’s not uncommon to see bees in the sand at the beach. Whether they get caught at sea and are washed ashore or simply fly too close to a wave after buzzing over some Naupaka (or any beach plant), there tends to be an insect or two dead on the sand. 

However, as we walked along the white shoreline, I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be more than usual. I even made a comment about it to my mom as we dodged each tiny body. In my heart, I felt a slight shudder. Somehow, I knew that I would end up stepping on one.

As someone who spent their childhood barefooted (up until the 7th grade when shoes became a requirement at school) as well as a current residency of San Francisco, I’ve always been careful about where I step. You never know when a sharp rock or pile of poop may show up. Even when we went on our glacier hike in Iceland, I had a hard time keeping my eyes up and my shoulders back. 

So, as we turned around in the sand and walked back toward the car—about a thirty minute jaunt—I scanned the white grains of sand for any hidden natural landmines.

Still, I somehow managed to step directly down on a little guy. At first, it was just an odd feeling on my foot. But when I stepped again, I felt that familiar sharp pressure and I knew I’d stepped on a bee. 

I say familiar because this is not the first time I’ve been stung. Nor the second. Nor the third. I’ve been stung many times. Luckily, this occasion did not elicit the screaming reaction that it did when I was a ten-year-old. Still, it did get a “shit!” 

The ironic thing is that I want to save the bees. They’re dying and their homes are being infected by pesticides that we create. And we need them so much! Not just we as human beings but the entire planet. They play such a huge role in the ecosystem of Earth. 

I’m a friend to the bees, not a foe! 

However, I always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and end up spurring on their heroic suicide missions. 

After sitting in the sand and trying to pull the stinger from the bottom of my foot, we slowly trekked back along the shoreline to where we’d parked the car. 

I climbed into the passenger side of my mom’s truck and nodded when she asked if I still wanted to head over to the plant-based “ice cream” shop Banán. Of course I did. 

I enjoyed a hazelnut banana ice cream while she ate an açai flavored cup and we watched the many pedestrians and vehicles race around the busy streets of what had been a small beach town when I was growing up. It was soothing and delicious and the perfect way to counteract the sharp sting in my foot.

The next day was our annual “cookie party.” Every Christmas, my aunties (my mom’s friends) and their kids get together to eat food, do a white elephant gift exchange, and decorate cookies. 

This year, we had decided to get catering from Da Spot, a restaurant downtown. This is really fancy for my parents, so I was shocked and thrilled at the idea. Usually, the party is potluck style. 

A couple of days before, we’d ordered some salads, a delicious sounding vegetarian curry for me, and some kal bi beef and chicken curry for the carnivores. The website asked us to enter in our order, our party size, and estimated budget. Once received, we would be contacted by the restaurant to confirm the details. 

This had all been taken care of earlier in the week, so the day of, we jumped in my mom’s truck and headed downtown. I’d been at Kualoa ranch earlier in the day, so was a bit tired as I climbed in. 

We drove down the street and made a right turn where a sign instructed us to. Parking my mom’s truck in a designated parking zone for the restaurant, we walked over to the restaurant. 

It’s a big open space with picnic tables where other patrons were sitting and eating their meals in white plate lunch containers. We walked up to the counter where the two high school-aged servers were ringing up people’s orders. 

When the queue cleared, we announced that we were there to pick up our catering order. Upon hearing this, it was quickly apparent from the look on the young server’s face that he had no such order on his radar. I picked up my mom’s phone and read her email correspondence with the restaurant’s owner. 

Remember, this is Hawaii. Things are casual and often disorganized and, on top of that, this is my mother. She (like myself) does not always check things thoroughly or follow through on all the steps. This is especially true when it comes to email, which she barely checks once a week. 

I read her last email exchange with the restaurant.

Owner: I’ve put in the invoice for this order. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

My mom had not sent a response. 

Oh, god… I thought, was she supposed to respond to that?? Was she meant to have confirmed that she had no questions? Was she supposed to have done something with the invoice rather than pay in the restaurant?

Oh, god, thought my mom, Bill [her husband and my father, a man who is extremely detail oriented and thorough] is going to be so mad. 

We waited as the poor server ran upstairs to ask his boss if she could fix the situation. He came down and solemnly said that she was in a meeting but that she’d like us to call her later to discuss what had happened. Not exactly a solution for a missing catering order that we needed now. People were arriving at our house in 20 minutes or so.  

Surprisingly, however, I didn’t feel panicked. Something inside me calmly said “shit happens. There’s really no use stressing about this. Just think of a solution.”

I felt more concerned for my mom who was starting to look freaked out as she thought about the fact that we did not have any food for the people who were arriving at our home for the party.

“Okay,” I said to the young server, “can we get some a la cart items to go?”

He loaded a plate lunch container full of vegetarian curry and three plastic containers of a few different salads. He looked nervous and unsure of himself. It was easy to see that he had been told not to give customers anything other than normal a la carte portions. 

But your restaurant lost our order! I wanted to say, you should be able to give us as many salads as we want and as much curry as we want. It’s not like we’re not going to pay for it. And don’t fill a plate lunch container with curry. Add it to one of the salad containers with a proper lid. 

Still, I remember when I was working at a burger joint as a highschooler and the confusion of figuring out orders as a highschooler. So we walked away with a plate of curry, two pasta salads, and one quinoa salad. Though it smelled delicious, this wouldn’t be enough food for everyone at the party. 

But all was not lost! L&L Drive In and Panda Express saved the day (no surprise there). Honestly, these are two fine establishments that deserve far more recognition—and this is coming from a vegetarian. 

L&L said they could whip up a katsu curry (for the carnivores) in just twenty minutes and I was able to order a 12-piece count of veggie spring rolls from Panda Express. 

Of course, nothing could go perfectly smoothly and my mom almost lost the katsu curry order to a man who mistook it for his own. She had to chase him down in his car to get it. 

In the end, it all worked out. We even saved quite a bit of money. And when we arrived back at my childhood home, I was shocked to discover that it was not actually a cookie party. It was a surprise celebration for my 30th birthday that my brother’s girlfriend had thought of. 

There’s almost nothing I love more than a surprise party, and honestly I almost started crying. Instead, I treated myself to a Hawaiian Sun guava juice, chatted with the aunties and cousins, and held my new nephew. 

Once everyone had said goodbye and it was just my family in the living room, my mom received an email from the restaurant apologizing and asking if they could give us anything for the inconvenience, free of charge.

All of this has been a roundabout way of saying that I don’t expect 2020 to go as smoothly as I’d expected. Last year (2019), I opened my horoscope and was a bit peeved to read that it predicted 2020 to be my year. It expected me to face the challenges of 2019 all while looking forward to a year in the far off future.  

So I waited and I really expected this to be my best year ever. 

Then, when 2020 arrived. I was met with a hangover, a bee sting, and missing food. 

However, I also got a restful day in bed (something I haven’t let myself indulge in for quite some time), a great walk on the beach, a delicious meal, and a surprise birthday party. 

Everything good that happened felt so much better because the moments surrounding them were challenging. Each glitch enriched each experience and made for a better story. 

So this is what I now expect from 2020. It won’t be easy. I won’t simply glide from one moment to the next. In fact, there will be quite a few moments that make me feel as though the world is against me. But through these moments, I will discover something more wonderful than before. 

Happy new year, everyone. Hau’oli makahiki ho! 

P.S. I’m headed to Canada next week, so expect some recaps of what that adventure was like coming soon.