I’ve been listening to Sarah Vowell’s book The Wordy Shipmates at night. I’ve really fallen into the habit of listening to audio books at night because I find it soothing and it’s a good way to get my brain to shut off before I go to sleep.
Granted I end up with some rather peculiar dreams at times, and I’m certain that the subliminal conditioning that I get is going to manifest itself in a really bizarre way at some point (for instance, after listening to Assassination Vacation for however many nights it took me to finish it I’ve got a trove of really useless, at least for me, information about the Garfield, McKinley, and Lincoln assassinations).
That having been said, listening to audio books is also a nice way to “read” at night without either turning on a light or having to rustle up my glasses both of which I find annoying.

So all this goes back to the fact that I was asleep at some dark hour this morning, got up to pee then stumbled, quite literally, back to bed. Popped in my ear piece so that my brain would shut off before I fell asleep again. Sarah Vowell muttering at me regarding Puritans, muttering, muttering, muttering……..
GA-BLOOSH!
Huhwhat! Whatsis?
I was aware enough to wonder why on earth there was white noise or water effects on my audio book.
Then I smelled the breeze, we’re sleeping on the lanai which is a remarkably comfortable place to sleep this time of year, pulled out my ear piece and realized that what I was hearing was RAIN!

Sleeping outdoors during a blazing rainstorm is really a very pleasant thing.

And I actually managed to sleep until a (somewhat) decent hour this morning. Okay granted it was 0645, but my brain was still telling me that it was almost 10 a.m. I swear I’m going to be right on the correct time just in time for us to have to pack up and go home.

Got up, went for my walk out to Lanikai, I think there’s a Golden Plover nest somewhere close to the walking path through Kailua Beach Park since two mornings in a row now I’ve seen a female Plover in the same spot. She hasn’t done the “I’ve got a broken wing, follow me so I can lead you away from my nest”, but I haven’t gotten close enough to disturb her into that.
And honestly, if I’m going to continue to walk my regular route through Lanikai it might be better if I did continue to get up at dark a.m. because by 0730 or so it’s too bloody warm to be walking that hard.

Then I came back home, ate breakfast and went out to play in the garden. Andrew has been doing his computer thing, not only polishing up his Dad’s machine, but refurbishing a donated laptop for Libby’s school. Being able to play in the garden keeps me from going absolutely stir crazy while Andrew does his computer thing. I can’t imagine why it took us this long to work that out.

Boo-YAH! Planted, pruned, swept, got run over by a brown anole and actually ran across a pair of green anoles which are getting rare these days since the brown anoles breed so much more prolifically.
Gardening in Hawaii is a far sweatier prospect than gardening in Washington. I wasn’t even doing anything particularly strenuous, but DAMN!

Break for lunch.
Actually break for shower first then break for lunch. I was absolutely not fit for human company when I got out of the garden this morning.

Andrew and I spent the afternoon running around running errands. and it would have been very straightforward except that anything involving purchasing groceries for this lunatic asylum is less than straightforward (fr’ instance, you CAN’T find jicama at the Safeway in Kailua) and secondly we were, of course, accompanied by nieces. And Caitlin’s new squeeze, a very worthwhile young man named Mason. Mix Andrew with two doting nieces and then mix the three of them with a besotted boyfriend….. Especially a besotted boyfriend whose sense of humor is similar to Andrew’s. The afternoon could have been weirder, but it would have taken considerable effort.
First and foremost on the list was filling a desperate need for manapua from Island Manapua. One cannot come to Oahu and not get manapua and other okazu from Island Manapua. Such as pork hash. Pork hash is a lovely steamed concoction of pork meatball all wrapped up in a wonton skin. And when we were discussing what to do about dinner this afternoon Libby’s husband Vinnie suggested that we could make deep fried pork hash.
Huhwhat! Whatsis?
Oh lordy, lordy, lordy……
Deep fried pork hash.

Vinnie is a pretty inspired chef, there were some remarkable meatloaf panninis for lunch this afternoon, but I gotta say…. Deep fried pork hash.

Currently about half the household is curled up in a glorious porky coma. The rest of us are looking for the Tums, but it was SO worth it.

Tomorrow morning is going to be a repeat of today, although hopefully with less of me exploding eggs in the microwave (it’s a long story). We’re leaving open what to do with tomorrow afternoon, but I don’t doubt it will be a little strange.

It took me four tries to count to nine properly when setting the table for dinner this evening. I kept coming up with eight napkins and ten chairs, and god only knows how many plates were involved.
My brain has completely left the building and it’s lovely, thanks.

Boy, if I hated the keyboard on Andrew’s laptop, I can guarantee that I’m going to hate trying to write a post on my I-pad.

Yeah, that statement was prophetic. I’ve had to give up on my pad and move to Andrew’s laptop which, while it has an annoying keyboard, at least has a keyboard on which I can type with nine fingers instead of two.

So here we are again. Double time change, standard to daylight, then a switch from Pacific daylight to Hawaiian which is three hours behind the west coast or two depending on what time of year it is. By the clock it’s only 8:15, but my brain is telling me that it’s coming up on midnight and I should be in bed.

I can’t remember where I heard it, but jetlag is the condition that happens when your body moves faster than your soul does and you can’t function normally until your soul catches up with your body. If experience is any guide my soul won’t hit the islands for at least another week.

On the other hand, walking through Kailua beach park and Lanikai at 6 a.m. is quite charming. Seeing the sun come up over the ocean and the sunlight hitting the Pali mountain range…
Beautiful.

We’ve been apprehensive for this vacation almost since the day we purchased the tickets. Andrew’s mom had a pretty severe health scare in early December which culminated in (undiagnosed, but likely) a series of small strokes which accelerated the progression of the mild dementia that we already knew was in progress. So we had these tickets and we had these plans and all of a sudden there’s a question of which Joan is going to be around in March when we fly across half an ocean to visit.
I’m happy to announce that Joan version 2.1 is a little frail and a little vague, but overall not markedly different than Joan version 1.2 has been over the last five years or so.

And Andrew and I are spending, and planning on spending, a lot of time around the house doing little things that just haven’t been getting done because Tony, Libby, an’ dem have been too busy to get done. Fr’ instance, tomorrow I’ve been given permission to go whackitywhack and do some pruning, some planting, some raking and whooping……. I haven’t been able to get much gardening done at home over the last few weeks because my hand has been in healing mode and because the weather has been stinky. Well, my hand is, to a certain extent, still in healing mode, but overcast and rainy (it hasn’t been) or no the weather here is pretty much always conducive to gardening. It’s March, right? When we went to Koolau Farmers’ this afternoon they had tomato plants with actual tomatoes on them.
I couldn’t live here, I’m flat out terrified of cockroaches and always will be and the palm spiders are enough to send me into epileptic seizures. Also the weather is WAY not to Andrew’s liking……..
But I could get used to year round vegetable gardening.

And I’m having time to think. Time to think when I don’t have phone calls to return, when I don’t have patients to worry about, when I don’t have medical puzzles to try and solve. I’ve been wondering about my career path lately, wondering if clinical medicine is where want to spend the rest of my working life. [Note to my boss if you’re reading this: Be cool! I’m thinking about thinking about working towards a change in my career path. If I actually start having any real serious consideration of changing my work life you’ll absolutely be kept up to date. Besides, read the following.]
But this morning I realized that whatever I eventually do end up doing with my degree to keep food on my table…. clinical medicine is going to have to be part of it. Walking through Kailua Beach Park this morning I diagnosed two separate and manageable medical conditions in dogs that were walking past me on the walking path. You can take the degree out of the veterinarian, but you can’t take the veterinarian out of the degree.

Which is not to say that we won’t be having mad, crazy island adventures. We’ll be doing that, especially since Caitlin and Lucy are on spring break and are wild to spend time with Uncle Andrew. It’s just going to take us a while to come up with crazy island adventures that we can do with a 14 and 17 year old.

In the mean time I’ll try to post more often. I’ll at least try to post a photo a day.

Here’s Joan’s 83rd birthday present from Andrew and I.

(click on the image, it’s prettier that way)