Fluffy white clouds move across the incredibly blue sky.  Waves crash upon the shore just a stone’s throw from my spot on the lanai.   Lean bodies bob in the surf, waiting for the right swell, then rise with the ocean, toes clinging to boards, falling back down as the wave ends in foam and bubbles, only to paddle out to begin again.  Gazing past the palm trees at the scene before me, I sip my lime laced Corona, and sigh.

Sounds good, don’t it?  Well it was really like that, some of the time, but the truth is, it was one heck of a trip just getting my family to America’s Eden in the South Pacific:

It starts out all right on a flight from San Francisco to Honolulu, but things go awry after catching a connecting flight to Maui.  Seems we had more than enough time to make the transfer, but our bags didn’t.  The baggage agent assures me that they will be on the next flight.  Maybe.  Or maybe the one after that.  Or maybe they will deliver them to our lodgings later.  Much later.

Okaaaaay….

Well, the next flight is due in twenty minutes, so might as well hang around for the luggage, right?  The kids are over-tired and out of control, but that’s just another day at the beach for us.  As we wait, the twenty minutes turn into an hour.  We watch in confusion as the arrival screen shows the flight as on time, then late, then on time, then removes it off the board all together.  When we do finally collect our luggage, we figure now we may as well wait for my parents and sister to arrive at the baggage claim since their flight is only another half hour away.

I watch anxiously as weary travelers straggle in from the gates to wait around the carousel where my parent’s flight is listed.  Scanning the crowd, I cannot find my mom and dad.  Worried, I try my dad’s cell phone, then my sister’s.  Surely somebody would have called me if something had gone wrong!  Anxiety turning to fear, I run down the open air concourse in the humidity until I come to the ticket counter, and race up to an available agent.

“My parents were supposed to be on flight 34, but they didn’t arrive!”  I gasp, wiping sweat from my eyes.

The agent looks up, smiles vacantly, tip taps into her computer, and calmly replies “That flight’s delayed two hours.”

“Oh,” I gush with relief, “I was so worried because the screen shows it as on time…”

“That flight’s delayed two hours,” she repeats with the same vacant smile.

Okaaaaay….

So jump ahead in time a little, the relatives arrive, and we help my folks with their luggage cart over to the line for the rental car shuttle bus.  We wait, and as the person before us finishes loading and jumps on the bus, I begin to load the parents’ luggage as quickly as possible, not wanting them to stand in the hot sun.  Neither one walks well, and I want them seated.  At the same time, from the other direction, some bozo starts throwing luggage on, completely disregarding the fact that we waited in line and it’s our turn.  So pushy little broad that I am, I don’t back down, I just keep tossing luggage to the poor driver who’s putting ours in one pile and Bozo’s in another. 

“Why don’t you wait until somebody else is finished?” Bozo says acidly.  “There’s a line here.”

“I waited in line,” I snapped indignantly, “you came from the other side.  And I cannot leave my parents standing in the sun any longer.  They’re handicapped.”

“Not my problem,” Bozo dares to say.

I am on the step of the bus, Bozo is on the curb and he’s sort of a runt anyway, so turning back toward him and leaning in close, I am about three inches from his face when I bite loudly, “You’re an asshole.”  I hope he caught some spit with that.

People on the bus turn and stare, but Bozo shuts up.  At the car rental he shoves his son off the bus before it’s fully stopped, ordering, “Get in line, quick!”  For his efforts with his son’s life, he ends up about four customers ahead of us.  The snaking line positions us directly across the rope guide from each other, but while I check out his lycra encased chubby wife and decide she’d be a candidate for “What Not to Wear”, Bozo carefully avoids looking at me.  Yeah, that’s right, little man.  Don’t mess with angry Greek/Italian women.  We’re mean.

Traffic to our destination is obnoxious, and at one point we consider pulling over until morning to join the jalopies camping on the narrow band of beach next to the “highway”.  We finally arrive at our condos in paradise, and find out the relatives’ expensive condo hasn’t been updated since Captain Cook frolicked with natives.  Fortunately, a pleading call to the property manager solves that problem the next morning, and we are now free to enjoy ten days of carefree relaxation. 

That was a fantasy with no hope of realization.

Did I mention the Greek/Italian thing?  See, vacationing with my family is like skipping off to paradise with some unholy mixture of Chevy Chase’s Griswolds, Cher’s family from “Moonstruck”, and Nia Vardalos’ family from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”  Nothing goes right, we fight, we shout, we cry, we forgive.  We don’t do peaceful very well.

Still, in our chemically unstable way, we have a good time.  And we are together. 

Eventually the trip ends, and we return to our ancient half remodeled fixer, my parents to the family home where I grew up, only half a mile one direction, and my sister to her cute condo, half a mile in the other direction.  We all say we want to return to Maui next year. There is a spot in our backyard where I would like to put a bench.  I like to pause there under the mulberry tree, and look back across the toy strewn lawn to our house.  It looks cheery despite its age from that vantage point.  I can hear the shouting from within, some joyful, some argumentative, some punitive.  I can hear the children’s laughter.  And when I revisited this spot soon after our trip, I smiled to myself at our untidy yard and noisy home, realizing that really, paradise is relative.