So since any number of things didn't happen to prevent the disaster yesterday, we had to have a march. Conveniently the Women's March was having one in town, and in a stunning "how have I never noticed this before," the capital is a block from the car people, and two blocks away from my dentist. This solves the question "but where do I park if I want to do something downtown?" The dentist. Park at the dentist, it's $3 all day Saturday. Anyway, up super early, head downtown, get ready to walk a bit.
I got there a bit early. People were still in the "making signs" stage of things.
I didn't have a sign, and didn't know what I'd put on one if I did. I did the best I could think of, and changed my phone wallpaper.
Sure, it requires a bit of knowledge, but I'm also not likely to be showing many people my phone.
Montage of things I saw, with people blurred out, because when fighting fascists, it's best to keep people safe.
This was a good sign.
A good dog.
Iolani Barracks.
Some signs during the march.
More signs.
Iolani Palace. This was the old method of blurring people before I switched to the large area method.
Fancy angle Aliiolani Hale.
I took three pictures of this, and they're all blurry.
There was a big crowd. I think the news claimed 8,000.
And it was super rainy, too, so I'm sure that kept the numbers down.
Another good dog.
Michelle Obama doesn't get blurred.
And by then they were ready to get started, after having a comedian warm up the crowd while everyone finished and got back to the capitol. She had a few good jokes, none of which I seem to have remembered. Partially because moments later, this happened:
Is that Della Au Belatti?
"Who?"
She's only my state representative! I've voted for her like, four times now? I really need to do more research, because she's the co-chair of the Oahu branch. Guess somebody has to sit down and write a thank you letter to their elected official.
I think I missed one of these signs.
And who is that all tiny on the left?
It's Kirk Caldwell, the mayor!
I've voted for him twice, and even though there are many things I think he could do better, he's still doing a decent job.
Pig is the obscured word.
There were speeches, including one from the minority leader in the Hawaiian House, Beth Fukumoto.
I will now amend all previous and future statements suggesting that all Republicans are garbage to exclude Beth Fukumoto, a good and decent person.
See, I think there's one more.
More speeches. The Hawaiian Planned Parenthood director, the Local 5 Union leader, a number of other people who I don't remember because it was occasionally raining really hard.
She was like five, and was dressed like Supergirl.
It was about at this point where I heard a sound to one side (since I'd had my hood up due to the rain), and turned around to see that the planter I was leaning on had three ladies standing on the rim to watch. They had signs that the rain hadn't treated well, but one labeled them as Wicked Wahines. I asked to make sure I wasn't in their way or anything, and they were super cool, and we even exchanged high fives when they left.
Signs.
Rainbow flag Lady Liberty.
Rainbow flag rainbow umbrella.
I did see two people that I knew, but I'm not sure they saw me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I agree, but we still need enough states to pass the stupid thing. Basically all the blue states (Hawaii included) have already done so.
Yep.
I hope she's in public even more.
A good sign.
It was about this time that they took a break and had a folk singer take the stage. I also decided it was time to take a break and see about getting lunch.
Most of the crowd had left by this point anyway.
It was convenient that I left when I did, as I saw this sign, and had to ask her if I could take a picture.
Because this is literally me. Me in sign format. Thank you for making this sign!
Then I walked back to my car, thinking that after a cold windy day, a big plate of delicious curry would be the best solution.
And I saw a Random Panda on the street. Was the Panda at the march? I didn't see one. Is it just "Panda day downtown"? Maybe? Chinese New Year celebrations kicked off in Chinatown today. Maybe that? Just someone being awesome, dressing up in Panda kigurumi? Sure. Way to be awesome, Random Panda.
And this is where the day took a turn. What I didn't know (because why would I look it up) is that there was a water main break on Ainakoa Avenue. "I don't know where that is." I didn't either until I looked, but it's basically the last cross road on Kalanianaole Highway before it turns into H-1 heading to town. I didn't realize how big of a problem it actually was until seeing the pictures on the news.
Mapping that picture back, it looks like the sinkhole that opened up due to the water main break is further up H-1 than I had thought, so I guess their solution of "shutting the highway down" was the right thing, as I had originally assumed that it was further down where they could have just looped traffic back westbound.
In any case, shutting down H-1 fucks up everything everywhere. Getting curry at Kahala mall wasn't going to happen, and after being stuck forever, I eventually made it to my backup of ramen. Except the parking lot at ramen was completely full. At 3 on a Saturday. I saw so many people getting into their car (and having the space stolen by another car) with stupid Starbucks that I decided to do anything else.
I still wanted soup.
The La Tour parking lot was also super full. WTF? And yes, it would have been far simpler to go here directly from the march, which is what the group at the next table had done (they were talking about it).
This just to get the Twitter sticker.
Dang it.
This dog was supposed to be way up with the rest of the march. A fluffy good dog.
When writing that statement above about Beth Fukumoto, I did a quick check of her campaign page. Ok, I disagree on a few things, but statement seems to be confirmed. Good and decent person.
Flipbelt. I saw this earlier in the week, and took that trip to BB&B on Thursday to buy one. They only had up to large, and an X-large would probably fit better, but since it's stretchy, I had no major problems. I wanted it because my new shorts have junky shallow pockets, and I didn't want things to fall out during today's march, or just in general while walking. The pockets don't "close", but due to the stretchy and the design, they don't really pucker open either. The instructions even suggest wearing it with the pockets inward to be double safe. Still, this was a super comfortable way to carry my phone, a subset of my keys, a subset of my wallet stuff in a mini wallet, USB battery and cable, headphones, wipes, kleenex, tiny dragon, and pocket THING_I_CAN'T_COME_UP_WITH_BECAUSE_I'M_BLANKING_ON_THIS_MADLIB.
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