My dad’s 45th high school reunion is this month. He went to Kamehameha, a school for Native Hawaiian children. Yes, only for children with native blood. It was left to educate Hawaii’s youth by the royal family. Private, subsidized, funded by a royal trust that owns most of downtown Waikiki. Military. It was a boarding school on Oahu back in the day, when my dad went– now it’s expanded to other islands and there are day school branches.
I don’t know if everyone who went to Kam School is this crazy, but my dad’s class? They have a reunion every year. And it’s not just a four-hour luau in someone’s garage. They take cruises together. They go to Las Vegas together. Trips. With your high school class.
This year, because it’s the 45th, it’s special: it’s eight days long. YOU HEARD ME. My dad says this may not all be his class’s doing– every year, all the classes celebrating 5-year anniversaries get together and there are planned events: golf tournaments, beach picnics, etc. Of course, this doesn’t account for the 10-15 emails he’s getting a day about just the things his class will be doing. A bus field trip out to this beach, their own class’s golf tournament, etc.
Guess where they stay: in the dorms.
Boarding school experiences are weird.
Pretty sure I’m going to have major ambivalence about spending four hours at my high school reunion (two years from now), much less eight days.
I just got the save-the-date for my first high-school-friend’s-wedding. It’s not in Seattle, so I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be able to go. All I can tell you is that my first thoughts were A) I better look hot and B) If I’m still living in my parents’ house by then, I’m lying.
Of course, now I’ve just put that on this blog, so I’m screwed.
Look, I just graduated from graduate school, and the economy sucks, and I went to art school– not exactly career-oriented in the best of times. I didn’t have a lot of reasons to stay in San Diego– it’s nice, I like it, it’s not my place, Seattle is my place– so now I’m back in Seattle. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a place to live, it doesn’t particularly make sense to find a place to live before I have a job (or a plan). What if I sign a lease and then get offered a great job in Portland? Or even, what if I find a place in Ballard and then get a job in Capital Hill? That may sound dumb, but if you live in Seattle, you just shuddered.
So I’m living with my parents for the foreseeable future. And “exploring my options.”
