Tuesday 5: It's Mostly Wednesday Edition

Surprise! It’s a Random 5! For most of you, it will be on a random day, since it’s Tuesday night here, and Wednesday most everywhere else in my readership.

1. Do you remember those episodes of The Brady Bunch where they visit Hawaii? One of the boys finds a tiki and it brings them all kinds of bad luck. They also have enough near misses to believe it’s a good luck charm. Let’s just say that after our first week or so in Hawaii, I was tearing through luggage looking for tikis. Hotel issues, housing issues, getting those resolved, then moving into a house and having some big items, including a piece of the bunk bed and a wooden shelf, show up from the mainland in pieces, having two of the Little Explorers get a false positive on their tuberculosis tests, were just the major issues. I never found a tiki, and things have gotten better, so I guess I’ll stop humming The Brady Bunch theme song for now.

2. We drove our mini van, Van Halen, from Florida to Los Angeles, as you may recall. There are lots of weird things to see on a cross country road trip. The weirdest thing we saw was a burning mattress on the side of a major interstate during rush hour. Weirder was that no one else seemed to think it was out of place. 

3. I am writing today even though I feel pretty brain dead. The reason? Today I left the house around 9:45 for a quick trip to the post office and to get an out of state permit for my car at the DMV. The International Man of Intrigue already went through this process for his Jeep and assured me it was quick and painless. Let’s just say that I arrived home three and a half hours after I left the house. The wait at the DMV was LONG. Painfully long. Once I got to the window, it took less than five minutes for me to finish my business and leave. 

4. I’ve had some time to reflect, and I think a lot of the misery we felt when we first arrived on island was compounded by outside pressure. Well meaning friends and family back home were constantly asking us if we’d gone to the beach or on a hike or seen Diamond Head or the sea turtles or had shaved ice or eaten pineapple yet. It was adding to our stress levels that had already skyrocketed with arranging a place to live and taking possession of our belongings and our cars and going back and forth to get the Little Explorers cleared for and enrolled in school. Once we took a step back and reminded ourselves that we’d have plenty of time for the fun stuff, it took a lot of pressure off. After all, we LIVE here, we’re not on vacation. We have the next three years to find our favorite spots and see all the things the islands have to offer. We can also let some of the well meaning questions and comments roll off now that we realize there’s a difference between visiting paradise and living here.

5. What are you watching and reading right now, Fellow Adventurers? I spent the last two weeks watching the Olympics any chance I got. I enjoyed it, but I’m glad it’s over. I just started reading “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon. I think I’m going to really enjoy it.