sionnagh is renting a four-bedroom house on O‘ahu. If you live there and you are a really nice person, you should totally rent one from her! If you don’t live there, but you would like a place to stay for a visit, you should still rent one for her. (At $175.00/week, it’d be a lot cheaper than a hotel, and you’d have access to a kitchen and the company of a very nifty person.) From her post here:

Aloha,

Jay suggested that I post that I still (and again) have a couple of rooms for rent here on Oahu. I'm asking $600 a month, or $175/week. It's very close to the bus line, which will take you around the entire island. If you're interested, I can send pics or more info. I'll probably keep at least one of the rooms for this sort of thing through May.

Hugs,
Tigris

[EDIT: As of December 30, the rooms are still available.]

Had a great last few days in Hawai‘i, including a trip to the water park with sionnagh, our friend K, and her daughter D., and a games night at which I got to meet a bunch of sionnagh’s friends and play Web of Power and Frank’s Zoo.

Oh, and the Crockpot Fairy has visited sionnagh. :-)

I have a very tight connection in LAX, which I made it in time for despite my flight from HNL being delayed. Only now my flight from LAX to ORD is delayed, so my connection in Chicago is now iffy. Wish me luck.

Yours very sleepily,
beowabbit

Thursday and Friday, we went to Mokuleia Beach on the north shore (of O‘ahu). Very secluded and stunningly gorgeous. For sheer natural beauty, it may be my favourite of the Hawai‘i beaches I’ve been to, largely because of the green mountains looking like folds of very fertile fabric that face it. It was a bit windy (pleasantly so) and wavy. We didn’t go out very far for fear of undertow, but we got some good swimming in.

On Thursday from the beach I got to talk to plumtreeblossom on the phone — that was a delight!

Thursday night I also made it to a meeting of the Honolulu poly group.

Today we’re going to a water park and a Mardi Gras party, and tomorrow (my last full day) to a flea market and to a games night that sionnagh organized for me.

Having a delightful time, and loving the time with sionnagh, but also missing my people back home. I’m soaking up sun to bring back with me for you all!

I forgot to mention last night that I have fallen in lust with sionnagh’s car. It’s a 2000 Honda Insight hybrid (a two-seater), it’s comfy (for me, but probably not for zzbottom or docorion), it drives great, and it seems to get around 53mpg. I want one. Evidently 2006 was the last model year they made them, but I couldn’t afford a new one anyway. Not that I can afford a used one, either, but the next time I can spend that kind of money on a used car, which will be, I dunno, maybe 2049, when I will be 82, I’m definitely getting one.

Then of course I’ll need to get a pickup truck to help people move and for camping trips and big grocery runs. The Insight is wee. (And sexy, like certain other wee things of my acquaintance.)

I’m here and happy! On the way home from the airport, sionnagh took me to a Japanese curry house. Two choices of sauce (mild or spicy), a choice of how much rice they serve it with, several bases and toppings to choose from, and that’s the menu, aside from a few salads. Really good; I’d love to find a place like that in Boston.

We got to catch up over dinner and in the car, and then there was a wonderful reunion with all the wonderful dogs!

I slept really well and woke up energetic and happy and hung out with the dogs a bit. When sionnagh got up we went out to brunch and then met her friend T. and two of T.’s daughters (4 and 14, I believe). We went to Chinatown, under the misapprehension that there was a lunar new year’s festival still going on, but we wandered around a bit and ended up having dim sum.

Now I’m hanging out at T.’s house with her kids while she and sionnagh are out at a meeting. Fortunately, the 14-year-old is good at translating what the 4-year is trying to say. :-)

Have I mentioned that I wore sandals, shorts and a T-shirt today? Yay!

After yesterday’s crummy day, today was awesome. I got lots of sleep and woke up to sunshine.

On my way in to work, about fifteen or twenty little kids of maybe three years old (accompanied by a couple adults) came into the subway car I was on, all happy and giggling with each other and polite and friendly and babbling in the baby-talk approximation of some language I couldn’t place, maybe Korean or maybe some not-very-tonal variety of Chinese. That totally made my day.

Work went well.

Had yummy dinner (and gelato, for the first time, I think) with lilbjorn in the North End, and it was great. I need to spend more time in the North End; I’ve almost never been. The place we ate was Caffè Pompei, and the food was very good, albeit a bit too generous.

Oh, speaking of generous food, I stopped in briefly at the gym today, and I actually lost a little bit of weight in Hawai‘i. It must have been the fact that I ate such very healthy food, or that I was eating it in such small quantities. Also, I lifted a little more weight on some of the machines than I usually do, and hadn’t even broken a sweat by the end. I thought I got a lot less exercise in Hawai‘i than I usually do, except for the time in the water (and even then, I was basically just hanging out rather than swimming), but I guess I won’t look gift muscles in the mouth. Maybe sunshine is just good for me.

Stopped by cathijosephine’s on the way home and had a nice time with her.

Next weekend is going to be great! I'm going down to NYC on Saturday, seeing nex0s and eisa, going to the performance of Kala’s resident-artist piece at Tribeca (yay), hopefully spending a lot of time at the Strand, and getting some time with Kala on Sunday. Also might end up seeing gishmi1ish on Monday — gishmi1ish, are we on for that?

And I’m basically just happy and excited about life.

Now to go get some sleep so I stay that way.

So, when my last post was so rudely interrupted by the boarding call for my plane, I’d gotten to...

Friday: As I mentioned, I didn’t get to snorkel at Lanikai Beach, since I couldn’t get my mask to seal properly. Actually, it was fine for the first five minutes and then it developed a weird gap at the temple that I couldn’t figure out how to fix. That also meant I didn’t make the anticipated use of the cheap underwater camera I’d bought, but I did end up taking it out and taking a bunch of pictures while swimming. sionnagh and I tried to take some underwater pictures of each other; we’ll see how those came out. (Getting film developed! How quaint!) I had a great time swimming, though, and sitting on the beach writing cards.

After the beach, sionnagh and I went to a place called Lucy’s Grill and Bar, where we shared the mixed grill for two which was really yummy. It had a lamb shank, chicken, um, some other stuff that I can’t remember, and some really excellent sauces.

Then we went to the waterfront (don’t ask me what water we were in front of, because I don’t know exactly, but there were boats moored there) for fireworks. See, there’s a hotel that puts on a fireworks show for their guests every Friday, and of course it’s visible over a wide area, so people go watch. Every Friday. Fireworks. You’d think I was in Las Vegas or something.

Before the fireworks started, I wandered around and took pictures. My favorite is of the sunset through tree branches. (I’m antsy to get some pictures posted, but sleep might come first.)

Then we ended up at a nice little gathering where I got to re-meet some of sionnagh’s friends I’d met on earlier visits.

Saturday/Sunday: Saturday was mostly about packing and flying, but I squeezed a final order of spam musubi in between them. :-) My return trip was in two legs: HNL→DFW and DFW→BOS. The HNL→DFW leg was long, almost eight hours, and on a crowded plane. I’d been hoping to get some sleep on that flight, but I didn’t manage to. I did nap a couple hours on the DFW→BOS flight, though, but that’s all the sleep I had last night (and I lost six hours of the night to time-zone changes). I think at this point my best bet is to try to stay up until 10 or so and get a good solid night’s sleep tonight.

I landed in a grey, rainy Boston whose weather is almost, but not quite, completely unlike Hawai‘i’s. Evidently it was like this all the time I was gone. I don’t generally mind grey skies and drizzle, but it sure feels good to have dosed up on sunshine.

And that’s what’s been up with me. How are all of you?

PS — Expect new userpics soon.

Well, I have about half an hour before my flight boards, and HNL has public internet kiosks, so I figure this is a good opportunity to catch up on posting about my Hawai’i trip. Pictures will hopefully follow... eventually. :-)

Wednesday: sionnagh and I went to Kailua Beach, one of our favorites. I discovered when I got there that my camera was out of battery, but I took a few pictures on my phone, and anyway I’ve taken a lot of pictures at Kailua Beach in the past.

Wednesday evening sionnagh had arranged dinner at an Italian restaurant, Buca di Beppo, with a bunch of her friends. It was family-style, so we ordered four or five dishes for the dozen or so of us and it was a feast. It was also quite raucous, in a pleasant and festive way.

Thursday: sionnagh and I met our friends K. and T. at the water park we often go to. Usually we have K.’s daughter with us, but she was at school; it was still a lot of fun, though. Then we went to the weekly Pali Paths meeting, which was a bit small but entertaining.

Friday: We went to Lanikai Beach, near Kailua Beach, which I’d never been to before and sionnagh had only been to once. It was great; possibly my favorite beach of this trip. The snorkelling is supposed to be very good, but my mask sprang a leak.

Oops, my flight is boarding; must run! More soon...

I'm in an internet café, because the only consistent net I have at home is on my phone, and the web browsers on my phone have Limitations. So, quick summary:

Sunday: I'm sure it was fun, but I don't remember what we did. :-) Oh! I know I had spam musubi at one point, though, so that was good.

Monday: Lunch with our friends K. and T. from Pali Paths. Then a fun games night at sionnagh's friend Ceecee's place. There were yummy barbecued ribs and meatballs, and a couple neat board games whose names I can't remember, and very good company.

Tuesday: Ko 'Olina beach, where I took lots of pictures and did some swimming. Then dinner at Moshi Moshi Tei, which has been one of our standbys since sionnagh (and docorion) originally moved to O'ahu. Then a Happy Pagan Movie Night at the house of some friends of sionnagh's. We watched Red Dragon, the prequel to Silence of the Lambs, which I hadn't seen and very much enjoyed, although I wouldn't call it a Happy Pagan Movie. :-) Had a great time.

I've had lots of time with the dogs — Hamlet of course, but also his sweet housemates Lakima (an elderly white pit bull) and Star (a young lab). And of course I've been enjoying the weather. Wonderful trip so far.

This social-networking site may lay bare your life and the lives of everybody you’ve ever met in a cavalierly whimsical way, but you cannot resist it, for it is purple. Here I am. (New and improved! Now with working link!)

PS — Yes, Hawai‘i is awesome, although currently I have discovered that being jetlagged, sleeping fifteen hours, and then drinking lots of coffee might not be the wisest course of action.