Trades are back!

Happy Aloha Tuesday!  After a week of intensely hot humid weather, the cool trades are back along with the Manoa rain!  Yay!!  Feeling much better now …

Things continue to slowly return to normal … September’s been pretty steady as far as gigs go for MDNA.  The group’s been alternating with Alex’s solo performances at the Hyatt’s SWIM on Wednesday, and have been performing at Lulu’s on Fridays and Kani Ka Pila Grille on Saturdays.  I think this is the first time we’ve ever performed 3 consecutive weeks at any venue … we’re usually out on the road or doing special events.  We really enjoy our home gigs a lot and want to send a very special mahalo to Vince at the Hyatt, Nick at Lulu’s, and especially Luana at KKPG for always “having our backs”!  The most awesome people at the best venues in town!  We’re also under the gun to finish up some big projects before we go back on the road next month … and as always, there are never enough hours in the day!

‘IOLANI’s got some big events coming up … starting in October, it celebrates its 60th anniversary with a benefit for REHAB at the ‘IOLANI store.  I want to invite you all to come down for great food from the Original Side Street Inn, lots of giveaways, fashion peeks, and music by Kapala and ManoaDNA … all for a good cause.  Tickets are $30 presale; $40 at the door, and all net proceeds go to the REHAB Hospital of the Pacific … who, by the way, is also celebrating their 60th anniversary!

Last Friday at Lulu’s, the notorious “Hawaii Kai gang” (motto: Never an empty glass!) came down to celebrate a birthday and I have to say, I’ve never seen so many shot glasses in my life!  I know I saw at least 5-6 waitresses with trays filled with shots (15 – 20 per tray) of Crown … and that was in addition to everything else!  It was a great celebration and everyone had a blast (and hana hous!).  Happy Birthday, Wendy … and I hope you guys all recovered!

Saturday night down at the ‘Grille was also fun.  We had a Japanese group celebrating a wedding so we played “If I Ever” for the bride & groom’s traditional first dance.  But instead of dancing together, the bride began doing a hula … so the groom had no choice but to join in and do a hula too!  Talk about unorthodox!  It was actually fun to watch, though, and about halfway through the song they finally realized what the first dance was about and finished the song in each others arms …

And finally, I joined my friends at Shirokiya’s Yataimura for happy hour yesterday … and guess what?!  The cashier made me put on a drink bracelet!  This is the paper bracelet that confirms that you’ve been I.D.’d and that you’re old enough to drink.  This has happened to me a couple of times before and it really pisses my friends off because it never happens to them!  It’s hilarious and they always get so insulted!  Hahaha!!  Oh, and one other thing about Shirokiya … when you buy food from the vendors there, you were always able to get extra chopsticks and packets of shoyu and wasabi at the checkout registers.  Then some management genius came up with the bright idea of making the customer get these extra items from each individual vendor.  Are you kidding me?!  So if I buy items from various vendors, I now have to go to each one and ask for a packet of shoyu?!!  I grabbed some sashimi from the store’s cold display and couldn’t get any of the vendors to give me shoyu or wasabi because it wasn’t from THEIR station … REALLY??  Whoever came up with that scheme ought to be fired …

And on that happy note … Aloha!

“D”