Tsunami... Again

This going to encompass my whole weekend, so hang on – the tsunami stuff is coming…


On Friday the original plan was to go see Shutter Island which we were sure was going to come out at our theater that weekend. I was heading into town early since I was going to do some work in the sweet A/C of Carl's Jr., and discovered to my horror that Shutter Island isn't on the "list" that is set for the Island, so instead we got Copout and STILL have Valentine's Day. Wow… thanks for the awesome movies… This put a few kinks in the plan but I headed to Carl's to get the work part of my plans done, but that also was foiled (not that I minded) by the fact that Rosemary and Jessie were already at Carl's to work. Needless to say none of us got any work done, but we did have some very fun hours of chatting, and I do mean hours. We didn't end up leaving Carl's until about 9, and we decided to walk to Jessie and Julia's instead of cabbing it which took us about 40 minutes. It was a nice walk and once we got to their house we just chatted for a bit more, and then decided to watch an episode of Glee. After infinite more talking about philosophy of education, international education, and such we headed to bed. 


Just as we were about to fall asleep, around 2am we heard the Sa bell ringing, in a kind of strange pattern. Immediately Rosemary thought about how her friend from Japan had called to tell her about a huge quake in Chile, and we wondered if it was a tsunami warning. We figured it didn't really matter if it was because Jessie and Julia's house is way far from the ocean and decently elevated. Back to sleep we went… Mere moments after nodding off Jessie got a call from Brandi confirming that there was indeed a tsunami warning, which we acknowledged and then went again, back to sleep. At 5ish AM I was awoken by my dad calling to let me know that there was a tsunami warning. His concern was nice, and I thanked him and assured him that I was safe. Just as I was heading back to bed (I walked outside so I wouldn't wake people) and getting snuggly in Julia's A/C'ed room my phone rang again. This time it was my mom telling me there was a tsunami warning. I assured her I already knew, again, and asked if she and dad were at home. She said yes and then I asked her if she knew he had just called twenty minutes before. Apparently he said he was going to call later. Really awake now, but filled with the knowledge that my parents really love me, I called some friends just to make sure that everyone was ok, and found out that many people were at John and Cynthia's house up the mountain. Julia was now awake (I talk a bit too loud) and we decided that if we had wait for a possible tsunami, we might as well do it with friends. 


Half an hour later Julia, Jessie and I were on the road walking up to John and Cyn's house in Mapusaga Fou. The walk took about 35 minutes and was actually very interesting. As we were in safe areas the whole time, we could see all the people from the lower areas arriving to hang out with their families or at their church that was on higher ground. It was strange because the whole scene reminded me of a giant Fourth of July picnic. There were people grilling and chilling in the back of pick-ups in their family's front yards, people had blankets and lawn chairs spread out, and all the kids were playing while the adults chatted. 


Once we made it to J&C's house we found a few awake and a few asleep friends, and Sandra's kids Leo and the newly adopted, and utterly adorable two month old Pikasone. Turns out Sandra and her hubby are in Hawaii and Scott and Taylor picked up the kids and a few other family and brought them up the mountain too. We hung out and chatted, and I eventually napped and before you know it it was same to head back down. I snagged a ride back in the truck and promptly took a nap in my powerless house. 


That night we refused to let a lame tsunami ruin plans, so we met for dinner at Jade and then headed to the Karaoke Bar in the airport (it's Samoa, just go with it…) for some nighttime amusement. WE ended up having a redic fun time at singing at the karaoke bar, especially since the only other people there were a group of friends there for their fa'afafine friend's birthday and they were nice enough to even share some fruit and cake with us. It didn't hurt that they weren't great singers and didn't give a damn, it gave us some confidence. After some "Baby's Got Back", "No Scrubs", and "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" we called it a night and caught a cab home. 


Sorry there are no pictures yet, all the one we took are on Julia and Cyn's cameras!