Musings: Doggie Dress Ups and Hauntings

Koko and I slipped out for a walk under mostly gray skies this morning, although one big cumulus cloud was entirely pink, with a distinct male face.

I like being out on the weekends, as traffic is generally very light. Koko exchanged greetings with the hunting dogs in the back of a pick-up truck — a Saturday morning regular — and lunged and barked at another truck going way too fast. I can’t imagine where she picked up that “give ‘em” attitude.

Nor can I imagine the doggie boutique in Waipouli will be in business for long. While waiting for our food at busy Monico’s last night, a friend and I wandered through the shop, which was filled with clothing and German dog food priced at $3 a pound.

The lady tried to sell me a $23 collar for Koko, which seemed a stretch, considering I use a piece of cast-off twine for a leash. I’ve yet to see a dog dressed in clothes on Kauai, except for the two little mutts a crazy lady used to push around in a stroller in Kapaa.

But maybe tourists missing their dogs do pick up a new outfit or two for Fido while on vacation. I suppose Koko would put up with it, but it might spook her friends in the neighborhood if she pranced by in a frilly pink and feather frock.

Apparently some folks are getting spooked by the goings-on at the Waipouli condo resort, across from Safeway. I’d heard a few reports of unusual events, and then Brian at the post office, who always asks what I’m working on, suggested yesterday I might want to write about how the place is haunted.

He said he’d been hearing stories of doors opening and closing in the night, furniture moving around by itself, strange noises. “But it might get some people upset at you,” he cautioned.

“Well,” I responded, “other people already got pretty upset when they dug up all those bones at the site and built those condos.”

A number of Hawaiians tried to block construction there after the burials were discovered, but didn’t prevail. For a while the iwi were stored on site, in a cargo container, and I’m not sure where— or even if— they were eventually re-interred.

Anyway, it seems like the original inhabitants are making themselves known.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned I didn’t know Lee Tepley, the man who was circulating an email questioning whether the Superferry had hit a whale. Dick Mayer of Maui informed me that Lee is a retired scientist/engineer on the Big Island, who has a website that delves specifically into how the boat will impact whales.

Meanwhile, The Garden Island is continuing to follow the story on the possible impacts that Syngenta and its pesticide applications are having on students and staff at Waimea Canyon School.

It was especially interesting to note in yesterday’s story that Syngenta has finally got a PR person — after years of mostly dodging press inquiries — and that the Dept. of Education declined to back Sen. Hooser’s bill restricting pesticide applications around elementary schools.

Now why do you suppose they wouldn’t support something like that?