Category: Life

HomeWork: Week 27 Which are your preferences? What do you actually have? Carpet or hardwood floors? I prefer hardwood floors – I’d love to have nothing but hardwood through the entire house – but we have a mix. In the foyer and dining room (which we use as a library/catchall room) are hardwooded floors, in the kitchen and bathrooms are tiled floors, and everywhere else is carpeted. Blinds or curtains? We have blinds throughout the house, and that’s what I prefer. Tiles or sheet linoleum? Tiles. Ugh. I hate it. Paint or wallpaper? We have paint throughout the house, but I think I’d prefer wallpaper in at least the bathrooms. Ah well – maybe in the next house!

* * * Is it wrong that this made me laugh until I cried? Been there, done that! * * * From my comments: Hey, have you seen this site? It’s page after page of really creepy pictures! AGH! Damn you! My eyes! MY EYES! Could the Spud have her own cell phone? Just in case? Even though the bus thing is all figured out… She could, but I’m resisting the idea of getting her her own phone at this point, because the idea of a 15 year-old with her own cell phone just screams PRINCESS to me. I know I’m going to have to get her her own phone when she gets her license and a job just so I can keep track of her, but we’ll cross THAT bridge when we get to it. I’m getting a new computer in a few months…..and I’m sure since Fred is building one for you it will be the greatest(because.. well..You Are The Greatest!). So what all did he get for yours? He got… something that will make it really fast and… something else that will make it fast… and something else that he swears will make it so fast my eyes will bleed! But most importantly, I got cool new speakers, an awesome yellow case, AND a yellow keyboard and mouse. I’ll slap up a picture of the whole setup once the new computer’s in place. New computer! Whoo! You know, here in Hell, the school bus costs money, so most of the kids the spud’s age end up getting restricted drivers licenses. Add in the 70,000 college students, and you have a city where the majority of drivers are under 21. DON’T COME BITCHING TO ME ABOUT TRAFFIC. Yeah, yeah, cry me a river. Hee! Actually, that reminds me of the first day of school when I was driving the spud to school, and she said “This will be better when I get my license and can drive myself to school every day!” and I said “Oh HELLO PRINCESS, just because you have your license doesn’t mean we’re going to run out and buy you a car, and you’re not using MY car every day!” I mean, please. Does she think she’s Paris Hilton? Have our discussions about getting a job and saving up for a car (which, of COURSE we’ll help her buy) gone in one ear and out the other, or what? Of course, we’re talking about the child who’s more concerned with what the color schemes in her first apartment will be, than how she’s going to pay for that first apartment. Sony… nice. They’re all I’ll buy. Here’s your camera…and here’s my camera, in case you care. How big a memory stick do you use? When we were looking at buying the camera we have now, we actually thought about buying the camera you got, but size is an issue for us, since we like to carry the camera around when we’re on vacation. We have a 256 MB memory stick, and it holds a pretty good number of pictures and short movies. It’s working well for us now, but god knows in five years we’ll be wondering how on earth we could have thought our camera took clear, crisp pictures, and what a big, bulky dinosaur it is, the way we talk about the pictures our very first camera took! When I was growing up in the Northeast, we had 10 weeks for summer vacation (unless all the snow days got used up – then it was 9 weeks), and we also had one more week of vacation during the year than kids seem to have here in Ohio – we had a week off in February and a week off in April, but here they just get the one week in April. (I think their summer vacation is longer, though – mid-May to late August). Yeah, my nephew has a week off in February and one in April, but here they only have a week off in March. In the last few years, they’ve added another week off in the middle of October (it’s called “Fall Vacation”. I wonder how hard they had to think to come up with THAT one?), and they always get at LEAST two weeks off for Christmas. I swear they spend more time on vacation than they do actually in school! * * * So, I’ve gotta ask – you people in the UK, what’s the deal with the really REALLY short seasons of Coupling? I’m currently watching Season 3, and there are only 7 episodes! Is that how long all of your series are? This is the first Britist series I’ve ever watched, so I had no clue there’d be so few shows in each season. What the hell do you watch when you’re waiting for the next season to start? * * * “Just.. can’t… keep… my… eyes… open…”]]>

* * * Almost everything Fred needs to build our new computers arrived this morning via FedEx. Because I am kind and wonderful (and because I WANT my new computer ASAP), I brought the boxes to him at his office. There, he and Tex will start putting them together. The last of the pieces will arrive Thursday, and voila! I’ll be spending my weekend installing all the programs I need on my brand-spankin’-new computer. Whee! Hm. Ya think I should start backing stuff up? Nah. I’ve got ages to do THAT.

* * * From my comments: I get the notify when you post but now I can no longer just click on the link and get your site. What is wrong with my computer? I can’t ask the company computer guy. Do you mean it’s not a clickable link – ie, you have to cut and paste it – or does something else happen when you click it? Can you get to the main page if you type in the url? If not, I’d suggest that maybe your company has installed a program to keep employees from visiting possible porn (or other “bad”) sites; otherwise, I’m clueless. Wow, your schools start early down there. Up in the Northeast, almost all schools start right after Labor Day. When does the school year end down there. The school year ends toward the end of May here – I think May 20th was the last day of school this year. I would much prefer to have the school year end a little later, and start a bit closer to Labor Day, but no one asks ME. A yellow case? Where in the world did he find a yellow case?!!? Here! Look, it’s clear on the side! Fancy, no? New Computers! Soooo does this mean the old one’s go up on the giveaway page 😉 Heh. Uh, NO. We’re giving one to his parents if they want it, and donating the other to an area school. Just how big is this school? And how many buses are there? I swear we had three minutes to get to class in high school, and there couldn’t have been more than maybe 5-6 buses. Maybe I’m not remembering it right, though, since I went to school when Home Economics was called Home Economics. (What do they call Shop? Wood Dynamics?) It’s BIG. They just added on to it because as big as it already was, it wasn’t big ENOUGH. 1489 kids are enrolled in the high school – it’s the only high school in Madison. I’m not sure how many buses there are, but when I was driving around the school yesterday I saw four buses parked, and another two or three headed toward the school. I have no idea what they call shop these days – I’ll have to look in the spud’s course catalog! In the UK kids have 6 weeks summer holidays. How long do they have in US? Just being nosey… I just went and counted, and apparently she had 10 weeks off for summer vacation! …you’ve probably mentioned this before, but I was curious as to what kind of camera you used to take all the cats’ pictures. They look so good! Our “main” camera – the one we use the most – is a Sony Cybershot DSC-V1 (5.0 megapixels!) Our old camera, the one that I carry around in my purse in case a photo opportunity comes up, is a Sony Cybershot DSC-P50. * * * An illustration of why one of Spanky’s nicknames is “Gomer”. ]]>

* * * By the way, the spud thinks she’ll like all her classes, but especially Family Dynamics. Family Dynamics, if you were wondering, is Home Ec with a fancy new name. The only thing she really doesn’t like about going to the high school is that they only have five minutes to get from one class to the next. I don’t blame her – that’s a HUGE school.

* * * “Yum! Birdies!”]]>

stumpy little bastard was going to start with crickets and grasshoppers, and then move on to bigger things? Sunday morning I was sound asleep and Fred had gone out to get fresh-grown tomatoes at a produce stand down the street and around the corner. When he got back, he dumped the produce on the kitchen counter and walked into the library just in time to see that stumpy little bastard come through the cat door with a baby (well, maybe not baby – more of an adolescent) cardinal in his mouth. Fred took the bird away and that stumpy little bastard expressed his displeasure by making bitchy noises, and Fred carried the bird upstairs to show me, and just before he woke me up, the bird died in his hand. I do love the stumpy little bastard, but I wish he hadn’t killed that poor damn bird. Oddly, just last night Fred and I were standing out back and looking at that very bird, discussing how he hasn’t learned to be scared enough yet, because usually when we go out back all the birds chowing down at the bird feeders fly off; this adolescent cardinal didn’t even seem to notice that we were there. At the rate the stumpy little bastard’s mighty hunter’s skills are improving, he should be dragging a bull through the cat door one night next week.

* * * Catster is up and running! And I put up pages for each of the cats – Spanky, Spot, Miz Poo, Meester Boogers, and even Tubby and Mr. Fancypants. If you have a cat, make a page for your own cat, and add any And3rson kitty as your cat’s friend! They’re not picky, they’ll be friends with anyone. Heh. * * * Today’s the spud’s first day of 10th grade, and I’m nervous as all hell. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but although 9th graders in Madison are still considered to be Freshmen, they have classes in the middle school rather than the high school, because Madison is growing at such a rapid rate that there’s no way the high school could accommodate all four grades. Aaaaaanyway, last week I started getting nervous about the spud catching the bus to the high school – that is, none of us knew where the hell she was supposed to catch the bus. She told me that every year when she’s been waiting for the bus to the middle school on the first day of school, the high school bus stops and the driver asks if she’s going to the high school. We talked about just having her stand at the end of the road as usual, but I’m a spaz and wanted to be sure that the high school bus would be coming by the end of our road. So I made Fred call the high school and ask them, and they said that the spud should be at the end of the road at 6:45 and the high school bus would come along and stop to ask her. Sounds like a plan, right? I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. At 7:40 I was sitting in front of my computer, doing a quick email check before I went to feed the pet store kitties, when the spud walked through the front door. “Oh, shit!” I said. “The bus never came?” “No!” I told her to go get in the Jeep, then put my shoes on and joined her. As we approached the end of the street, a bus was coming toward us, and I said “Oh, I bet that’s your bus! Go stand out there so they can see you.” The bus driver did see her and stopped, but when I looked at the kids already on the bus, I knew there was no way the bus was going to the high school – in fact, they all looked small enough to be going to the elementary school. The spud came to that conclusion too, and came back to the Jeep. I drove the long way through the neighborhood to make sure that the high school bus wasn’t just really late (school starts at 8:00 at the high school), but there wasn’t a kid to be seen. I dropped the spud off at the high school about 5 minutes before 8 and gave her my cell phone so she could call home if she had problems figuring out what bus to take (I told her to ask the bus drivers if they come to our subdivision), and I swear to god as I watched her walk into the school she looked like she was five years old all over again. I wanted to park the car and take her hand and lead her to her homeroom and settle her in at her desk. Except, y’know, I’m not actually into humiliating her to THAT extent. Heh. * * * “UGH!” I said, several months ago. “We need new computers!” “Why?” Fred said. “We just reformatted your hard drive!” “I know, but it’s so friggin’ SLOW. It’s driving me NUTS. We NEED new computers!” “Bessie,” Fred said in the ultra-patient tone that always makes me want to hurt him. “We do NOT need new computers, our computers work just fine, they’re perfectly fast enough. Besides, no computer would be fast enough for you, because you want everything instantly.” “Well, DUH,” I said, and spent the next few days pouting about not getting a new computer. “UGH,” Fred said last Thursday. He had installed some brand-new game on his computer – Doom, maybe? “Look at this! My computer is so slow that I’m getting slaughtered!” “Huh,” I said. “Sucks to be you.” Let it not be said that I’m not sympathetic when the occasion requires. Heh. “We need new computers!” he announced after another half hour of struggling with his game. I took great pleasure in responding with “Oh, baby, we do NOT need new computers!” Guess what? We’re getting new computers. Fred ordered the parts over the weekend, and they should be put together by next weekend. And MINE has a yellow case. I’d be annoyed as hell that when I say we need new computers he shrugs it off but when HE says we need new computers we get new computers, but you know what? I’m getting a kick-ass new computer! I’m not going to complain about THAT. It’s going to have a DVD burner, and I am SO going to be burning all my little cat movies to DVD, you can bet your ass on that. Whoo! * * * Today marks exactly eight years since I moved to Alabama. The spud has lived here for more than half her life. Amazing how time flies. I still don’t feel like a Southerner. * * * Spanky can always be found laying in the sun. ]]>

* * * So, I balanced my checking account last night, and I’m proud to announce that between June 22 and July 22, I only wrote eight checks. Eight! And four of them were to Dominos or Steak-Out. Considering that between April 22 and May 22 I wrote thirty-eight checks, I think I’m doing pretty well. Whoo! I could probably reduce the amount of checks I write even more if we kept cash in the house to pay the Steak-Out or Domino’s guy on Fridays, but that’s just too much of a pain in the ass.

* * * Okay. I’m sorry. I’m going to have to insist that y’all call me Road Kill Willie from here on out. Hee! Road Kill Willie! I’ve been sitting here giggling wildly for five minutes now. Perhaps I need to get me one o’ them thar lives. * * * So, months ago during the first episode of The Swan, the boyfriend (maybe husband, I don’t remember) of one of the contestants said the words “She’s a little average” and then a moment later it struck him what an asshole thing that was to say about the woman you’re supposed to love, and he went on to half-assedly add “But she’s beautiful to me” or something along those lines. For the rest of the life of The Swan, when they introduced a new contestant, Fred would say “She’s a little average…” On the last episode of The Swan – the pageant – they replayed the boyfriend/ husband saying that, and I taped that bit, and I made a wav of it, and I copied the wav to a floppy disk and left it on Fred’s desk with a note that said “Play me”, and he did, and he was not nearly as amused as I thought he’d be. So I took my toys and went home, and copied the wav to my hard drive, and made it so that whenever I have mail, Eudora plays the wav. So I’ll be sitting at my computer working on something or reading something or just generally slacking off, and this man’s voice will come out of nowhere saying “She’s a little average”, which is how I know – without looking down at my toolbar for the envelope icon – that I have mail. Sometimes the man will say “She’s a little average”, and I’m struck with the urge to announce to Miz Poo, “She is. She IS a little average!” But Miz Poo doesn’t care. And then other times the man will announce that she’s a little average, and I am struck with the need to sing that line over and over. Sometimes I sing it like I’m Ethel Merman, sometimes I sing it like I’m Dolly Parton, and sometimes I sing it like it’s an opera. But sadly, that’s the only line in the song, because I for some reason lack the creativity to come up with the second line in the “She’s a little average” song. Hmm. Maybe “She’s a little average/ but she’s married to an ass/ She’s a little average/ But her husband has no class”? Doesn’t really fit. I’ll have to keep working on it. Suggestions? * * * I had to rescue not one but two crickets from Meester Boogers last night. The first was around ten and the second was close to midnight. He’s been bringing crickets and grasshoppers into the house pretty often lately. I have a feeling he’s planning on working his way up. Next, he’ll bring in a mouse, then maybe a bird. By next spring, I’m sure he’ll have worked his way up to bringing possums in the house. Maybe Tubby’s spirit is teaching him how to hunt. It’s a pain in the ass to catch crickets, take them downstairs, and toss them out the door, because although I am no longer actually fearful of crickets, I also have no desire to touch them with my actual hands because ICK. Last night I had to dig around in the trash and find a container I could catch the cricket in to carry him downstairs. And then I had to convince the cricket to get IN the container, all while Meester Boogers and Miz Poo kept sticking their big stupid heads in the way, trying to sniff at the cricket. The morning I wake up and find a cricket in bed with me is the day I start closing the cat door at night, believe you me. * * * I got back the pictures from the disposable underwater cameras I took to Hawaii. I’ll put them all up on a page one of these days, but for now I’ll share my favorites. My parents and Brian in the water at Waimanalo Beach Park. Deb and Brian in the water. A head, bobbing in the water! (That’s me. Also, Debbie’s foot. Heh.) Pretty, no? * * * Hellew.]]>

Dooce’s entry and got a little annoyed at what assmonkeys people are. And then this past weekend I followed links from this entry of Michelle’s and read this entry and my brain exploded. Then I said to Fred, “If I ever get pregnant*, I’ll have to immediately take down my journal and get a new email address, because I SO wouldn’t want to have to deal with the shit.” I mean, seriously. I thought I’d gotten some rude-ass emails from idiots who stumble across my diet journal, but I don’t get anything like the emails some of you mothers get, whether you’re into Attachment Parenting or not. Every asshole’s got an opinion, and they’re always more than willing to let you know when they think you’re a fucking idiot. Lordy. *No, there are no current plans for Fredbyn offspring. In fact, we’re strongly leaning toward “no”, but haven’t definitely made that decision one way or the other.

* * * “Hey,” I said to Fred the day after I got back from Hawaii. “You know what they call flip-flops in Hawaii?” “Royale with cheese?” he said. Heh. (The answer: Slippahs.) * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. * * * Saturday morning, Fred was about to step into the shower when he realized he hadn’t seen Meester Boogers at all that morning. That’s unusual, because after Fred works out, he comes inside and Meester Boogers is usually sitting there waiting for him. So Fred threw some clothes back on and went searching. After some time, he went out back to see Meester Boogers and Spanky sitting by the fence between the back yard and the part of the yard where the driveway is. They were staring intently at the bottom of the fence, and when Fred went over to check it out, he found a box turtle trying to get into our back yard. So he carried it into the back yard to freak the kitties out: “What the fuck IS this thing??” When he left to get groceries, he took the turtle with him, and left him in a section of woods by the nearby middle school, where there’s a stream and lots of bugs – everything a turtle could ever want, in other words. Hopefully the turtle didn’t immediately turn around and head for the road! * * * Down the street from us is a house. When we first moved into the neighborhood, this house had a really crappy lawn. The owners didn’t mow very often, and they had a lot of weeds growing in the lawn, and every time we’d drive by the house, Fred would joke that the crappy lawn belonging to this house was “bringing down property values!” Two years ago, that house was sold to new owners, a retired couple who took a crappy lawn and made it the best looking lawn in the neighborhood. They’re always working in the yard, and every time I drive by and see them out there working in the flower bed, I’m struck with an impulse to stop and thank them for having a lawn that’s such a pleasure to look at. I haven’t yet, but one day I just might. Trust me – this picture doesn’t even come close to doing it justice. * * * “Nyah!”]]>

HomeWork Do you have a supply of unhappy, separated socks in your house? If not, why not? If so, how long do you wait for them to reconcile before issuing a decree of divorce and throwing them out? Any ideas for using odd socks that don’t involve wiggly eyes, felt tongues and woolly hair? Finally, do you have a theory as to where all the odd socks go? I don’t actually have a supply of separated socks – I tend not to find lonely onlys very often when I’m doing the laundry. When I do end up with a single, I leave it on top of my dresser until I’ve done the laundry again, whereupon I declare the matching sock gone forever. For a while, I’d use old socks to dust the furniture, but that didn’t last long. Now when I have an odd sock, I fill it with catnip and toss it to the cats who drag it all over the house before abandoning it under my bed. As for where the odd socks go – the bad ones go to hell, don’t they?

* * * So, we were watching Trading Spouses last night (yeah, I still haven’t taken any steps toward getting a new Tater blog up and running yet. It’s on the list. I’ll get to it one day.) and one of the moms – Lisa, the middle-class mom from Massachusetts – said “I don’t cook.” Whuh? I don’t get that. Who are these women who don’t cook? I mean, I really have no mad cooking skillz, but even I can take a chicken breast and cook it in a way that’s edible. How do people get along in life without being able to cook? Do they seriously order out all the time, or what? Inquiring minds want to know these things, people. * * * Fred read Uncle Bob this morning and followed the link to Find Your Spot. He took the quiz, and the #1 result was Ocala, Florida. Which is funny, because we’ve actually lately been talking about moving to Florida in a few years. Florida because of the ocean, and because it’s warmer down there. I’d be happy with living on the coast anywhere, but Fred can’t abide by even the idea of cold weather, so it’s Florida we’ve been talking about. The #2 result was Brownsville, Texas, which looks more attractive to me because it’s on the water. I’m trying not to get too excited, because if we do move, it’ll be years from now and who know what’ll happen between now and then? But the idea of living close to the ocean ROCKS. * * * From my comments: A thought…just HOW do you know what a “uriney aftertaste” tastes like, anyway? The same way you know that salt and vinegar chips taste like dirty (yet somehow yummy) gym socks. You just KNOW. Hey! I made the cutest little pic of myself from the link you mentioned…but how in the world did you copy it? Now that I made it I can’t figure out how to do anything with it! It was fun, though. (That’s the link to making your own avatar she’s talking about) I think I did the right-click and save-as thing. On second thought, I just went and made another avatar, and didn’t have any luck with right-clicking and saving-as, so I hit the “prt scr” button on the upper right-hand corner of my keyboard, opened Paint Shop Pro, clicked on edit, chose “paste as new image”, cropped the picture down, and saved it. Voila! This is my “Badass” avatar! Robyn, how old is that Bean photo because there is a piece of road working equipment in the background! She’s referring to this picture: The picture was only a few weeks old when I put it up – they were (and still are) working on putting culverts on the other side of our back fence. I should probably point out that I took that picture upstairs, so you can’t actually see the fence, but it’s there! I have cable service and mine slowed to a crawl too. I ran Spybot S&D and when I removed the spyware it found it threw up a message saying it was also “optimizing network connections” and after that things started to fly again 🙂 You might give it a try. The cable company kept telling me there were not any problems. I thought they were liars. (This is regarding me bitching and whining about how slow everything had gotten, internet-wise.) Fred, after spending quite some time on the phone with our cable internet provider, went out and bought a new cable modem (we’d been renting one from Knol0gy), and all our problems were solved. Yay! * * * “How come *I* don’t get bottled water??” ]]>

Jane!!!

* * * Like the new logo? This one was made by reader April. Very “me”, no? Thanks, April! * * * So, the travelogue is at an end. I’ll have more pictures to share once the three disposable underwater cameras are done being developed and I get the pictures back. I have no idea what’s on those cameras – I gave them to my father and Brian when they were snorkeling at Hanauma Bay and told them to take whatever pictures they wanted to. Should be interesting! * * * Last week (Wednesday, I think), the spud and I went to the high school to pick up her schedule for the 2004 – 2005 school year. Sophomores could pick up their schedules between 10 and 2, so we left the house at about 10 minutes before 10. In the past, picking up her schedule at the middle school has taken maybe twenty minutes at the most. We pulled up to the high school to see a line coming out the front door. It was maybe 30 people long, and I mentally bitched and moaned about having to wait, but I figured we’d be out of there in half an hour or so. A few minutes after we joined the line, a high school boy came along, handing out numbers, apparently so that no one would try to cut in line. My number? 135. I eyed the line of people in front of me and wondered how on earth that could add up to 134, decided they hadn’t started at number 1, and continued patiently waiting. Another few minutes later a woman walked along the line. “It’s going to take about an hour and a half,” she said. “Things should clear up after lunch, if you’d like to leave and come back then.” I briefly considered doing so, but didn’t really want to, so I stayed where I was. Besides, really. How on earth could it take an hour and half to pick up a schedule and pay course fees? Really, she had to be exaggerating. With incredible slowness, the line moved toward the door. I amused myself by watching the kids in line, listening to the mother in front of me tell her daughter “If you don’t keep your grades up, that phone is going!”, while the daughter text-messaged with her friends during the entire lecture, and half-listened to the spud OmiGAWD-ing with a friend. After about half an hour, we reached the door, and I sighed with relief. Show proof of residency, pick up schedule, pay course fees, I’d be out of here in no time! And then I stepped through the front door and found that the FUCKING LINE stretched the entire length of the hallway, and there were no tables with people handing out schedules anywhere in sight. Ten minutes later, when we’d inched forward a tiny bit, a teenager walked from the direction of the front of the line, and said to a friend “Oh my GAWD, I can’t believe you’re way back HERE! I was number 17, and I’m just NOW getting done!” WONDERFUL. But I stuck it out, and almost exactly two hours after we arrived at the high school, I had the spud’s schedule in hand and had paid $153 in course fees. If I’d had any idea this was going to happen, I would have dropped the spud off with my cell phone and told her to call me at home when she was about 10 people from the front of the line. Next year, god willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll give her a blank check and she’ll be able to drive herself to the high school and pick up her own damn schedule! She signed up for driver’s ed, but won’t be taking it until after Christmas. Which doesn’t bother her in the SLIGHTEST. She’s such an odd child – I couldn’t WAIT to get my driver’s license, but she doesn’t seem to care at all. She must take after her father, who didn’t get his license until he was 25, and only then because I told him he needed to get his license so I wouldn’t have to drive my own ass to the hospital when I went into labor. * * * The last day the spud and I were in Hawaii, we went to the beach, as you may recall. While we were there, I wore my beach shoes, and got them wet. When we got back to my parents’ hotel room, I put them in a plastic bag and then packed them. Once we were home, I tossed the shoes – bag and all – into the garage. Where they stayed for a week. Last week when we got ready to go to the quarry, I took the shoes out of the bag, and HOLY CRAP they stink. I rinsed them off, and wore them in the quarry and then left them in the sun for a few days, but nothing’s helped yet. I think it may be time for new beach shoes… * * * Spanky lurves a good head scratch.]]>

Written July 21. So I guess we’re going to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling today, once my father gets off work. I feel like I’ve been here for a year – I can’t believe it’s almost time to go home! Whoo! 8:15 am.

* * * Today was absolutely the best day of our vacation. The spud and I checked out of our hotel around 8:30, ran to the post office to mail a few last-minute things home, and then headed for my parents’ hotel. (Side note: At the post office was a beautiful young Japanese girl mailing about ten huge packages to Japan. She was dressed perfectly in a silk suit with a mini skirt that appeared to have been tailored to fit her, every hair was in place, her makeup was impeccable… and she wore nylon knee-highs and sandals. Which might not have looked quite so bad except that she was wearing a MINI SKIRT and the knee-highs only came to right below her knees. What’s that about?) My father got home from work a little after 10, everyone got into their bathing suits, and we piled into the car (4 people in the back seat, while uncomfortable, isn’t quite so bad when you’re not hot and sweaty) and we headed out to Hanauma Bay. We were disappointed to find that the Hanauma Bay parking lot was closed (they only allow a certain number of cars in the parking lot, in an attempt to cut down on the number of visitors, and to protect the bay. For many years, people were snorkeling there, tromping all over the coral, feeding the fish, and basically destroying the reef. The state of Hawaii took over the bay and enacted measures to cut down on traffic to allow the reef to rebuild itself). So we decided to keep driving up the road in hopes that we’d see a beach where we could stop and swim and do a little snorkeling. We passed up a couple of beaches because the surf looked too rough or the water too rocky, and then we saw THE most gorgeous beach, and stopped to check it out. I later found that we were at Waimanalo Beach. The water was gorgeous, the sand was so smooth that we didn’t need beach shoes, and the view was AMAZING. We stayed there for nearly two hours, floating in the waves and relaxing. Once we’d had enough of that (and we only had enough of that because we’d brought no food or drinks with us – otherwise, I think we could have stayed all day), we piled back in the car and headed back to Hanauma Bay to see if the parking lot had opened back up. It had, so while my father stood in line to buy tickets, we bought lunch at the snack bar, then sat through the 9 minute “look, don’t touch!” movie, then took the tram down to the beach. We took turns with the snorkels and masks and snapped two disposable underwater cameras’ worth of pictures. We only stayed for about an hour and a half, then we piled back into the car (me: “Brian, I sure do love you, but I’m glad we’ll never have to sit this close to each other ever again.” Brian: “I feel the same.”) and went back to my parents’ hotel. While my mother hopped into the shower, I checked my cell phone to find that I had EIGHTEEN missed calls, and when I scrolled through the numbers, I found they were all from my home phone number. With visions of dead cats, a house on fire, or any number of disasters dancing through my head, I dialed home. Busy signal. I tried Fred’s cell phone. No answer. I tried home again and Fred answered on the second ring. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Oh,” he said with a little laugh. “I was just bored.” Bastard. We talked for a few minutes, then I took my shower, and we all headed out to dinner at Cha Cha Cha’s, a Carribean-Mexican restaurant. I had the Jamaican-Me-Crazy Enchiladas and they were really good. After dinner, my mother, the spud and I went with Debbie while she looked at luggage and ended up buying an adorable, HUGE suitcase for $40. In retrospect, some five hours later, I’m wishing like hell that I’d bought a suitcase too. I like my duffel bag, but it’s more than a tad unwieldy sometimes and I’ve been thinking that we need a second big suitcase. And a price like that, ya just can’t beat. Now we’re on the airplane, halfway through a 4 1/2 hour flight, and the spud is dead to the world. I think I’m going to slather my sunburned lips with Blistex, guzzle some water, and see if I can’t snooze for a while, too. 12:10 am, Hawaii Time * * * I managed to sleep for a while – maybe 30 minutes altogether. Our flight landed in San Francisco somewhat on time, give or take 15 minutes. We hit the bathroom and then hit the only store in the terminal to find that they didn’t sell drinks – water, soda – of any kind. What the fuck?! So we stood in line at Jamba Juice to get drinks and some kind of muffin thing. Now we’re 3 1/2 hours into a 4 1/2 hour flight, I can barely keep my eyes open, I befouled the rest room twice (Mexican for dinner right before 12 hours of traveling? Yes, please. Can I get extra beans with that?), the in-flight movie was the craptastic “Laws of Attraction”, which I didn’t bother to watch (if it’s not an almost exact replica of “Intolerable Cruelty” I’ll sit in an uncomfortable position for hours on end and annoy the ever-loving hell out of the woman sitting in the seat ahead of me by constantly fidgeting and accidentally kicking the seat 148,963.5 times. Oh, wait! Did that!) and now we’ve hit turbulence. Time seems to be moving backwards. I think I’ve died and gone to hell (saving a seat for you, Nance!). 1:00 pm Cincinnati time 7 am Hawaii time Noon Alabama time * * * Jesus fucking Christ, is there such a thing as a flight that ISN’T stuffed to the gills? Once upon a time, I swear to god, I was on a plane where every seat was NOT taken, but every flight I’ve been on this time around was packed. What the fuck?! THE SPUD DOES NOT RESPECT THE BUBBLE. If she elbows me one more time, I’m going to beat her. 2:45 pm Alabama time ]]>

here. Written July 20th Okay, in retrospect, now that I’m not sitting on a hot bus sweltering, the tour of the island was really pretty cool. We saw the Dole Plantation, a macadamia ranch, Hanauma Bay, and a number of other things. We got a ton of beautiful pictures and learned that Dole doesn’t actually do canning on the island anymore, that outsiders coming to the island have driven up property prices so that native Hawaiians can’t afford homes, that I REALLY want a monkeypod tree in my backyard, and that the manmade rivers carrying rain water down from the mountains make the ocean murky where the rivers run into the sea. Cousin Dave told us that last at LEAST twelve times. Around the fifth time, we started snickering, and somewhere around the tenth time I looked at Debbie. “Debbie,” I said with a perfectly straight face, “What makes the water so murky?”, and she gave me a considering look and then said “I believe the ABC Stores make the water so murky, Robyn.” Heh. There was a large family of rednecks from Georgia on the tour with us, who obviously weren’t listening, because Cousin Dave told us there are no active volcanoes on Oahu, and ten minutes later Daddy Redneck drawled “Now, where’s the active volcano? We gonna see that today?” Like I said, though, it was neat. We made plenty of stops for pictures and bathroom breaks. It would have been better if the tour had been, say, in a stretch limo with a bar and the driver stopping to let us take pictures whenever we wanted, but I guess I’ll just have to wait ’til I’m a multi-millionaire rock stah. I have no idea what we’re doing today. The spud and I have to haul a box to the post office for mailing, and after that who knows?

* * * I realized this morning why exactly it is that I’ve woken at 6 every morning. It’s because that’s apparently when they start up the street construction that involves lots of big-ass trucks backing up and making that ear-piercing BeepBeepBeep sound. Ah well – I sure am glad I’m not on a lower floor! I guess if you get a hotel in the middle of a city, you have to expect lots of loud traffic noises. The spud is having an awfully good time hanging out with Brian. He’s definitely like a brother to her. Too bad we don’t live closer to them! 10:14 pm ]]>