Sometimes it seems like just yesterday that we found out we were going to be stationed in Hawaii and I started this very blog.

But amazingly enough, this past Saturday was my two year anniversary of my move to Hawaii. It’s been a hectic week. Saturday I attended an awesome outdoors Bob Marley Tribute Concert with a friend from my book club. Our beagle Lili made a new friend...a boyfriend! Monday I had an exciting, very visible scene as an extra on Hawaii Five-0. Nick left for deployment on Tuesday, and Tuesday night I had a very scary incident with my oldest dog Maggie getting poisoned by a toxic Bufo frog in our own back yard. That was probably the scariest, most adrenaline-inducing night of my life, and I think it even passed getting robbed when I worked as a teller at a bank as the scariest moment ever. 

After a frightening 15 minutes of chasing my 45 pound lab mix Maggie around the our yard and attempting several times to tackle her and hold her mouth open to hose out the toxins from her foaming mouth, we ended up having to rush to the 24-Hour emergency vet clinic. There we arrived, her, confused and startled; me, wet and muddy and bleeding from holding her mouth open. She received two shots and the next day I went to the doctor’s and received an overdue tetanus shot and antibiotics.  

My hand was more bruised than punctured, but I guess it’s good not to take chances. Since that was the first day of Nick’s deployment and it was one of the, if not THE most stressful day of my life, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it really doesn’t get too much worse than that. Although I’m not wishing any tsunamis on us (again). 

With the stress of that traumatic day, I’m trying to remind myself how lucky I am to be here, living in gorgeous Hawaii. As beautiful as it is, you can still get sad and lonely anywhere you live. And the fact that we have crazy frogs here that are poisonous to dogs and that I can’t just pick up the phone and call my family to cry when something like that happens (due to the time difference), I get angry at Hawaii sometimes.

So back to the Hawaii Five-0 episode. Back in December, just days after working as my usual Bikini Girl extra position on set, I received a voicemail from casting to come in to take more updated pictures for my casting file. Almost as an afterthought, the casting guy tacked on at the end of the call that the reason they wanted more updated shots was because the director of a future episode had picked me and a few other girls to be eligible for a spot to be a featured extra in a future episode. A featured extra is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an extra that has a featured position in a scene. It could be someone that is zoomed in on. It could be someone that somebody in the scene refers to. Which it was in this situation.

I didn’t hear anything over the holidays since Five-0 was on hiatus. The first week of January I received an email reminding me about working that week on set. I was confused because I hadn’t been called about working. I was still scheduled to work at my other job that Friday. I called the casting department to let them know they must have me mis-scheduled because I hadn’t previously received a call about working. The casting guy laughed and said he was sorry he hadn’t called me before, but the director had picked me for the scene to be a featured extra and he hoped I was able to work! Eeek!

It was an exciting day on set. I got to go through hair and makeup for the first time for Hawaii Five-0. (Typically extras do their own hair and makeup because there are just too many people. They only touch you up or fix you if absolutely necessary. So this was a pretty big deal to actually go through hair and makeup and have them sit and work on you in their trailer.) I found out I was supposed to be a customer at a Fed-Ex type store called The Mailbox Dispatch. The name of my part- Yes! I actually had a name for my part, sort of!- was “Pretty Young Woman.” 

Upon arriving on set, I realized I was in a scene with Scott Caan (who plays Danny/Danno) and one other guy, the “employee” of the Mailbox Dispatch store. I was to be the customer that Danny referred to in order to get the Mailbox Dispatch employee to leave him alone so Danny could read through a suspect’s mail.  

On set, the director of the episode introduced himself to me, along with the 1st and 2nd Assistant Directors, Script Supervisor, and so many more people who I’ve seen on set a lot but never actually met. The scene didn’t take too long- about 2 hours of actual work maybe for probably a minute on screen. The whole time, the guys on set referred to me as “Pretty Woman.” That was nice. 

On the way back to Five-0 base camp, Scott Caan sat behind me in the ride van. His adorable and really smart border collie mix Dot, who is pretty much always on set with him, sat next to me licking my hand. I had a little brief conversation with him about Dot and mentioned that my dog Maggie is also mixed with a border collie. Such incredibly smart dogs - I’ve seen Dot play volleyball on set before. You can actually throw a volleyball at her and she bounces it back to you with her nose. Pretty amazing and she’s really well-behaved too. And a licker. 

I’ve been excited for the last month for this episode to finally air. I knew from their directions on set that the camera sort of panned to me at one point so I was pretty sure I’d be visible in the shot if it wasn’t cut (which can always happen without warning on any show or movie!). Plus I was wearing a noticeable red dress. Unfortunately the timing could have been better for the show to air. It was bittersweet because it was so exciting to watch and I was glad Nick was there to see it, but it was also his last night before deploying so it was hard to be too excited about anything in general.

I got a lot of feedback from friends early that day that I was visible (since we’re the last time zone for the show to air). Thanks so much to my friends on Facebook and Twitter for watching out for me and playing “Spot the Blonde.” It was a really great overall experience and so much fun.

Other things to remind me to be happy for this week: I finally got my first guitar! It’s beautiful. It’s an Ibanez exotic wood guitar in a blonde mango wood. It’s an acoustic/electric guitar and even has a built-in tuner. I’m pretty excited to learn to play it (thank you, Youtube), but unfortunately my hand is hurting a bit too much from the frog incident to try right now. 

I also got more practice in knitting this week. Definitely not perfect but I’m starting to get it. I even got the stitches transferred back and forth a few times though I know I messed up a little bit. Once again, knitting needs to be put on hold until my hand (and aching arm from that darn tetanus shot!) are back to normal. 

So other than those things, I’ve got one other thing I came across to remind me to be happy. 

My mother came across and old ad-lib type diary-type book last year and mailed it to me. It’s the kind of book you have as a kid that you fill in things you like, such as “My favorite toy is” or “My favorite memory is.” I probably filled it out when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I think. I don’t have any memory of filling it out, but I had to laugh when I came across it. Because, as it turns out, Hawaii has always been my destiny. :) 

I definitely didn't remember my hate for Saudi Arabia. No idea where that came from. But thank goodness I finally learned how to spell Hawaii. And that you can't take a limo from Maryland to Hawaii. And I still do like French fries. :)

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PS. Just as a reminder, this article is extremely helpful to read if you or someone you know has a dog and are living in Hawaii. I’m so thankful I had read it and knew what to look for and knew to hose Maggie’s mouth out because Bufo dogs can kill dogs in minutes if not spotted right away.