Girasoli's post about her gecko visitor (http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/girasoli/) reminded me of my first visit to the Aloha State of Hawaii. It was nighttime or early morning to be exact. Arriving home to Kaneohe from a night of 'playing' in Waikiki, I inadvertently kicked something in the front grass while walking from the car to the front door. It jumped, made a low gurgling sound and scared the bejesus out of me. It was one of the largest frogs I had ever seen. Thank goodness we had sympathetic neighbors (in more than one sense) because I couldn't contain a scream. These are the coqui frogs of Hawaii.
About a year later a friend visited from Boston. It was an inopportune time in that two of us had just moved from Kaneohe into a vacant (a/k/a devoid of ANY furniture - very irregular for Hawaii) house in Kailua. The only thing that came with the house was a lanai and a holdout male roommmate. But, this was Hawaii and Joannie's first visit to the Oahu. We hadn't seen her for over a year so it was a great reunion!
Remember my saying this house was devoid of furniture. This means no beds as well. So, being 20-something and full of risks and life, we bunked on the living room floor temporarily until we could get to a swap meet. (Read - poor 20-somethings.) Now, one of the reasons we decided to rent this house was because the entire back wall of the house was an indoor lanai full of lush plants and there were sliding screen doors to separate the rest of the living space from the lanai during rainy season. It also keeps geckos in the lanai area - something we were to be educated about . Well, we kept the doors open for the 'full Hawaii' effect for Joannie. She awoke in the middle of the night screaming and said she felt something walking over her - when we turned on the lights we saw a few geckos. My friend, Denise, leaned over and said quietly, "Whew, I thought it was going to be coackroaches."
In Hawaii, I overcame my fear of creepy and creeping things. Actually, the geckos were cute and quick; the coquis were monstrous and ugly; and the cockroaches - well, what can one say about roaches.
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4 comments:
Good thing your friend was not faint of heart but I agree being 20-something helps out alot. Those were the good old days. I bet it was great times at that apt. Sounds pretty and very tropical. Girasoli's gecko story was hilarious.
Hi Flygirl, I giggled reading this post this morning. Very funny story! Thanks so much for sharing it! :)
I posted the lizard photo yesterday thinking of you and this post :) Read it the other day... just getting around to commenting. Things have been crazy with the school year ending. Thank goodness for long weekends!
I am not sure if I have ever seen a coqui frog but there are huge bullfrogs (or they might have been big toads) in the Kaimuki area that freak me out! I took a sign language class at Kaimuki HS many years ago and they were all over the campus!
I probably would have felt the same way though. Although I would be freaked by having a gecko crawl in me, a cockroach would be much worse! One of the first places I live had huge B-52 cockroaches flying everywhere. I freaked out daily!
I am definitely desensitized now but still not comfortable with geckos and cockroaches.
Thank you all for commenting - still laugh when I think of Joannie's face. Girasoli - love the description "B52" - m
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