After the madness that was a deadline-driven phone system cutover in mid-December followed nearly immediately by losing power for the best part of a week due to an ice- and wind-storm, things are nearly settled down at Marathon Manor. Since we had worked through MLKJr day (a paid holiday at Employer), my work teammate and I each booked ourself a 4 day weekend in February.

Today is day 4 of mine, and I'll be on-site most of tomorrow.

It was a lovely weekend. Friday, I did a bunch of data entry for my two volunteer gigs. (I joined a Grange since my last post, asked a question at the wrong moment, and nearly immediately was elected Treasurer. What even.) In the afternoon, I changed plans from "yardwork and moving woodchips" to "sit on the couch and be warm". Then after cedarfoxy got home from work, we did a little shopping at She Bop, and then had acu-naps at Working Class Acupuncture (highly recommend!)

Saturday I spent most of the morning at various grocery stores, then played MarioKart with Roommate and Son2. Cedarfoxy picked the racetracks until they fell asleep. Son3 was cat-sitting for Son1, so he didn't race with us. I'm better than I used to be, but not consistently placing in the top 3. Son2 almost always comes in first, with Son3 and Roommate duking it out for second.

Sunday morning, cedarfoxy and I loaded our day-packs, refined our clothing choices based on the weather (i.e., 20 degrees cooler than we'd hiked in on the WCT), and headed east to Powell Butte Nature Park. Just getting out of the car changed my mind about which layers were going to be "hike in this" and which were going to be "save for post-hike". The top of the butte is very windy and the wind was very cold. We followed the trail clockwise, and paused to see a couple coyotes in the meadow near a swale within the first mile. Once we got into the trees, the wind was cut considerably, and around mile 3 I was even able to take off my gloves. It was a lovely hike and a great way to get back into it after the two months of 60-hour workweeks.

After the hike, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to visit IKEA. I was pretty tired by the end, but we got away for less than $200, which is impressive. Once we got home, we had a little time in the hot tub and a few episodes of CSI, and then I made stuffed red potatoes with goat cheese. I'm still dialing in that recipe.

Today, I decided the morning would be projects and the afternoon would be just fucking off. So in the morning I got my steps in on the treadmill, and then assembled the three things from IKEA, and enlisted Son2 to help me move bookshelves up and down stairs. I also replaced a light fixture and moved a mirror, and generally puttered around getting shit done and rearranging the office. Then I chilled on the couch, had another visit to the hot tub, and generally faffed about.

cedarfoxy has been meaning to make pierogis, but they're also very busy with a school project, so I made a trial run of chicken tenders breaded with crushed FiberOne Flakes. Not bad -- sweeter than we all were expecting, so I need more cayenne and paprika, maybe some pepper, to balance it out.

It's been a good weekend. I'll be sleeping soon so I start the week well.

Lesson learned: print the fucking map, even if you've been there before.

This past weekend, cedarfoxy and I went on an overnight hike on a popular trail off I-84 at exit 41. We'd done this trail once before, when we were training for the West Coast Trail. This time I made some different choices in planning, and we're both very pleased with the result!

Instead of leaving Saturday after cedarfoxy is off work (and then hiking in the hottest part of the day, and ending too warm to sleep at sleep-time), we stayed home Saturday and got our start Sunday morning. Even with utterly failing to have packed the day before as we planned, we still hit the road in time to reach the trailhead by 10am. Since it was only one night out instead of planned for eight, our packs were quite a bit lighter than they'd been for the WCT. We hiked up the creek with comfortable rest breaks to have a snack and take off our shoes. We soaked our feet in the temperate water at 4 1/2 Mile Bridge and refilled our drinking water. My Snickers bar was, as cedarfoxy predicted, utterly melted, so I didn't eat it at that point.

A few other hikers also paused to get relief from the heat by playing in the water, and we confirmed with them what we'd been debating for the last two miles: how much farther to the Wy'East Campsite. We were excited to learn it was less than a mile farther up the trail, and it was still only 2pm or so. We put our shoes and packs back on and trekked up to the campsite we intended to sleep at.

Being the first ones there, we had our pick of locations, so we pitched our tent and had an early dinner. Then, since it was hot and we wanted to top off the water supply and we hadn't brought any dice or cards, we decided to take our day packs and go find Wy'East Falls. "Wouldn't it be funny if this little riffle was 'the falls'?" is probably going to become my hiking joke. Going uphill, I said that as we crossed a creek and continued searching. When we gave up and turned back and paused at that creek again, I looked upstream and Oh Shit, THOSE are the falls!

"I bet we can get there," said cedarfoxy.

They were right. We bushwhacked our way up the creekbed, ducking around and through willow trees, clambering over logs, and jumping from rock to rock, until we reached the basin at the foot of a waterfall. We clearly weren't the first humans to go past the point where others had left toilet paper (seriously, people, a zippy bag ISN'T HEAVY! Pack the TP out!), because logs had been arranged into seats, and rocks had been piled artfully. We shucked our clothes (except the water sandals) and had a nice scrub (sans soap), after which I put my rashguard back on because sunburns are not a good time. cedarfoxy climbed carefully up on the mossy rocks where the water fell and found that it wasn't nearly as slippery as they expected. After pausing to photograph a snake sunning itself near the pool, I tested nature's shower. As I stood in the gentle drizzle of the boundary of the fall, finding it to be quite pleasant, the wind shifted. Suddenly I was pelted by buckets, and I couldn't see to move my feet safely for the water running in my eyes, and apparently I made quite the face; cedarfoxy bemoaned the fact that their camera had not been at the ready. We tried to recreate the experience, but ....

After enough play time, we re-garbed and descended to the trail and went back to the creek access close to camp in order to gather water to filter (because why carry three liters of water farther than you have to). We settled in, played a little I Spy, cedarfoxy journaled while I played on my phone, and had mashed potatoes for evening snack. Other hikers arrived to share our camp site just as the first mosquitos appeared, and we went to bed to avoid getting bitten as that was easier than putting on bug spray.

In the morning, we had a leisurely breaking of camp and hit the trail just shy of 7:30am. Downhill turns out to require fewer rest breaks than uphill. Even though we deliberately paused for viewpoints (so as to not lose the day to head-down-gotta-get-home attitude), we still made it to the car by 11am.

It would have been nice if the rest of the day hadn't been so busy (two grocery stores and a doctor appointment on top of unpacking and cleaning gear), but it still felt like week-end.

Also learned: don't forget the Tums. Or the dice. Or a book, if the hike is short.

Sometime pre-1995, one of the books I read involved the making of glass beads that would have magical body-control properties if they were made to EXACTLY match the iris of the creature to be controlled. The protagonist was coerced into making a certain bead, possibly to control a magical giant (crab? scorpion? lobster?)

The cover may have been beach near a headland with a human character and a the giant creature-with-exoskeleton menacing the human. Or maybe not.

I've connected it a little in my brain with Ties of Blood and Silver by Joel Rosenberg, but based on the list of books he's published, it's prolly just because I read them around the same time and they both involved adolescents making things under duress.

cedarfoxy and I left the USA and entered Canada on July 4, which seemed vaguely meaningful somehow. For my part, this was made possible by the current administration creating a passport system that could put my proper gender marker on a passport, and without utterly irrelevant "proof of medical transition" that was once upon a time required.

We spent a night with their mom and her partner on Vancouver Island, and then another night camping with same, and then we entered the West Coast Trail for (planned) an eight-day, seven-night hike across 75km of beach and forest.

As planned, we stuck the forest as much as possible, and this was utterly delightful. Many beautiful trees, beautiful ferns, dubious ladders up and down, even more dubious bridges, chainsaw-hewn walking planks, some chainsaw-art, beautiful views of the ocean, and more. However, there were places where the beach was unavoidable. We encountered the first of those places on Day 2.

Now, if the tide was low enough, there was often a sandstone rock shelf to be walked on, if you trusted it. We learned about rock shelves off the east coast of Kauai, which are unlevel, jagged to the point of sawtoothedness, and slippery, so no, we didn't initially trust them. However, the evil of beaches made of 4-inch "river rock" alternating with playground pea gravel (chosen for playgrounds because it literally can not pack) induced me to give it a try. It was surprisingly un-slippery, given the warnings in our orientation! However, the rock shelf was not always available, which put us back on a sloping beach made of pea gravel. Each of our leg is the same length as the other, and the gravel under the downhill leg insisted on giving way more readily than under the uphill leg, so there was a significant unevenness to our gait that abused my patience and cedarfoxy's knee. At the end of Day 2, after 2 km of beach, we looked at the map, and saw there was another 6.5km of that bullshit coming on Day 5, and noped right the fuck out pivoted our plans.

Day 3 began with a cable car crossing, which is a special kind of exercise. It isn't possible to get proper leverage to pull the car along the cable from inside the car, because the rope is about a foot to the outside of your elbow. Furthermore, the person sitting backwards is using different muscles for this endeavor than for literally anything else. However, we made it all the way to the far side of Klanawa River -- with our 85 pounds (combined) of gear plus our own body weight plus the weight of the cable car -- and carried on our way. We trekked through more lovely trees, lovely ferns, mildly suspect ladders up and down, even more suspect bridges, chainsaw-hewn walking planks, some chainsaw-art, and lovely views of the ocean. We even saw sea lions and paused to watch some whales.

We ultimately reached Nitinaht Narrows and summoned the ferry by hollering up the bay.

Now, we had rented a cabin at the Crab Shack at Nitinaht Narrows for Night 3, and there's a water taxi available from there to Nitinaht Village. Back at the end of Day 2, cedarfoxy was able to get enough cell signal to arrange for their mom to meet us for extraction. The water taxi leaves only at 5:30pm unless one wants to pay an additional $200, so on Day 4 we left our big packs on the dock and made a little day venture south and then came back. During our day hike we met some folks who live in the area who guided us to a blowhole we had been looking for (the ferry operator told us about it). It wasn't blowing because the swells were low, but we also got to see petroglyphs, pretty sea shells, and a shipwreck that had washed up there from the Columbia River (yes, the one in PDX). After photos, cedarfoxy and I took our leave, and got directions that basically were "start at that buoy hanging in the tree over there, and just take the path of least resistance." Accurate. The path was well overgrown such that the salal was taller than I by a good margin, but we made it back to the main trail without any issue and went back to the Crab Shack, where we played yahtzee until time to taxi out.

Since we were early back to civilization, I was able to meet cedarfoxy's Canada family in a much more gradual and staged fashion, which was excellent for my face-blind, name-memory-deficient self. Over the next few days, we showered at the local aquatic center, walked a Totem Pole tour, went to Pagliacci's for dinner, spent some time in a park cedarfoxy had played in as a child, went to a street market, hiked to the summit of Mt Finlayson (which required Rock Climbing, what even), spent some time in a hot tub, bought a board game, ate wayyyyyyyyyyy too much cake, and had our wedding reception (where none of the guests had been informed of the reason for the party, so there was quite some surprise when the cake was revealed). I liked all of cedarfoxy's family. I should probably ask whether any of them liked me before I move our annual camping trip to their neck of the woods, but it seems like a safe bet.

On our last day we had Afternoon Tea (at 11am) at the Fairmont Empress, which was a wonderful, fancy, delicious, and expensive experience. I'm super glad we did it, but it will probably be an every-five-years thing, not an every-year thing. Then we took a ferry back off the island and into Washington, and booked it back home to Portland.

9/10, would absolutely do again, but with some adjustments now that we know better.

Cedarfoxy and I spent the last two nights camping in the back yard, ensuring that our sleep systems would keep us sufficiently warm in the at the overnight temperatures we're expecting on the West Coast Trail. Short answer: "yes, but" ... cedarfoxy needed one more layer on their torso, and I added my insulated sleep booties. Luckily, I had a fleece vest for them to put on so neither of us needed to go back in the house. I used my silk bag liner for the first time, too. I determined I would have been happier with one more layer over my hips/butt/thighs, so I'm getting my own copy of the insulated skirt that I got cedarfoxy for the same reason.

We've been quite happy with the performance of our Therm-a-rest sleeping pads and Big Agnes sleeping bags. Every time I think mayyyyyybe I want to try a different sleeping bag, I remember that one thing I like about the Roxy Ann is how it attaches to a sleeping pad, and pretty much all others in that temperature range don't.

We're trying a lot of freeze-dried backpacker meals and meal-on-the-go bars. I wish REI hosted "tastings" for these so I could more quickly try many varieties without feeling wasteful (or over-full, since I'm not turning up my nose at the dinners my housemates cook).

In fannish news, I just finished reading The Binding (Draco/Hermione). I've been cruising through the Dramione tag sorted by Kudos, and texting links to cedarfoxy when I like a story (which is most of them, tbh)

For the long weekend, cedarfoxy and I spent two nights backpacking in the Tillamook State Forest. We hit the trail from Summit Trailhead on Hwy 6, hiked just about 4 trail-miles (closer to 5 when you add in a detour) and camped barely off the main trail Saturday night.

The next day, we packed up and headed another 4-ish miles toward Reehers campground, turned around after playing in the creek a little, and backtracked 2 or 3-ish miles to a lovely campsite well off the trail and down next to the water. After a wee campfire, we went to bed early.

Monday, I was under the influence of a headcold, but didn't really notice until the uphill slog back to the car. I let cedarfoxy sleep in, since they had been struggling with congestion since before we hit the trail, and then we packed up tidily and hiked out.

Things of note:
The kind backpackers who pointed out "the very best campsite on the trail" were simply telling the truth, and they were not secretly sirens looking to devour the unwary.
I should not shop for pouch food alone: the rating on the REI website is not an indicator of whether either of us will like it.
I do not trust our luggage scale.
That family that entered the trail ahead of us were (probably) not going into the woods for the children to make a human sacrifice of both parents. At least, we saw no evidence of this.

Tuesday, I skived off of work and simply sat on the couch pounding hot tea adulterated with Emergen-C Immune + all day. It worked well that cedarfoxy was doing the same, because our energy levels waxed and waned such that we took turns caring for each other. And when at one point neither of us had energy to take the dogs out for potty, a minion was able to do it for us.

In February, we spent a night in Tillamook forest and determined that hammocks are NOT what we're going to take on the West Coast Trail.

Since then, we've been making conditioning hikes and backyard camping and training up our stamina. This weekend past, we started with about 35 pounds each fully packed and hiked up the Eagle Creek Trail. At a wide spot where we rested for a few minutes, a friendly hiker going the other direction asked where we were headed. "Wy'East Campground!" we said. "It's full, and so is Blue Grouse, and everything above it, but there's a single site just past the low bridge that is after High Bridge, just big enough for a couple." We were very grateful - especially since we hit the trail at about 4pm and Wy'East was just over 5 miles from the trailhead (which was half a mile from the car). Carrying on, we crossed paths with another couple who gave the same info. Finally we reached the recommended location -- and there was a couple already in it. Fortunately, it was slightly larger than we'd been led to imagine, and Brit and Jeff were gracious enough to share space and generous enough to lend us their water filtration when we discovered that ours had not made it into a bag during the second re-pack.

Food was delicious, mosquitos were plentiful, weather was hot, and sleep was slow to come, but eventually I fell asleep to the sound of cedarfoxy reading aloud the introduction to "Lip Smackin' Backpackin'".

We rose fairly early the next morning, packed up and headed back downhill, with an added detour to Punch Bowl Falls just so we wouldn't have missed it. We also leapfrogged a cheerful photographer getting pictures of the many waterfalls and some macro shots of beautiful plants.

I've already bought the things I really missed on this excursion, and cedarfoxy is the Keeper of the Notes, so I shan't reiterate all of them here.

So that manager I complained about literally a year ago?
Lost her job yesterday.

The bathroom remodel is finished, and it's fucking GORGEOUS and we love it so much omg.

cederfoxy's recovery from brain surgery was slower than they would have preferred, but steady. Their enunciation may never be as crisp as it was before, and that's okay. They worry about their ability to focus and remember, and that's okay, too (I don't notice any deficit here, but I don't live in their head).

We finished watching White Collar -- and then Leverage, then took a break for some Angel before Netflix lost the contract, and then Leverage: Redemption, and now we're watching Librarians. Why yes, they do admire Christian Kane, why do you ask? Also, with Roommate we just finished what Netflix has of the Great British Baking Show for TV Night, so maybe now it's time to resume Manifest.

I finally got my properly-gendered passport, and we have a reservation to enter the West Coast Trail on July 6. We're conditioning and practicing and building stamina and spending way too much money at REI, but it's going to be GREAT. We're super looking forward to it, though we have contingency plans just in case we get into the wilderness and discover we're not as ready as we thought we were. As part of that preparation, we're backpacking in the nearby mountains as often as we can.

Cheers!

On Monday I had a 1x1 with my manager, and though we're not buddies, I think we're at least better off than we were before. As expected but frustratingly, buried in the apology was how she wished I'd come straight to her. I did not take that opportunity to illuminate her as to why that didn't feel safe. But the good part was understanding the truth behind the rumor about me not working on Big Project any more -- it was just to keep Colleague from dumping a particular large piece of work on me. Ah well.

Bathroom remodel has been going swimmingly, but now we're in a holding pattern until the plumber can fit me in to change the fittings needed for the shower. We hadn't quite finalized that plan when he was here during the first week, and about two days later I finally talked cedarfoxy into showerhead + sliding handheld, which means added diverter etc. But the underlayment of the tile is looking fantastic. I'm super excited.

My manager... ( not so much )

In other news, my partner and I just started watching White Collar (after I showed them Talitha78's songvid. And I'm both reading and watching The Witcher, and we're watching Manifest.

In other other news, We're mid-remodel of my bathroom. There's a LOT of dust.

As a pleasant distraction from the upcoming brain surgery (scheduled for Tuesday) cedarfoxy and I went over to Bridge and Bug's house to make cookies and play a game.

During my lunch break I had staged all the ingredients (except the chocolate chips) for both Spritz cookies and chocolate chip cookies.  Full batches of each.  And we ate SO MANY.

At least it's nearly bedtime so I'll only feel sick for a little while :)

I feel pretty steady, but recent events read like a roller coaster.


cedarfoxy's work hosted a workshop about enneagram and they invited me as their +1.  I'm not generally that fascinated by personality typing, but the description of enneagram types as collections of coping mechanisms developed in response to our environments really resonated, and I'm reading more.  

 On Friday we drove out a narrow, windy road with no shoulders and some rough spots to the Kuilau Ridge Trailhead, and then we hiked uphill a couple miles and then back again.  We recognized some plants that had been shown to us by activity guides (including "shy grass" and "false step") and saw many magnificent views.  It's always neat (though a little weird) to look out down at the back of a flying bird.  It really was a ridge trail, with several sections where the land fell away sharply on both sides.  We got to the bridge where the Kuilau Ridge trail abutted another, but the bridge was too muddy to see if it should be trusted, with leaves slippery and gross.  So we turned back there and made our way with surprising ease down the steep switchbacks to a picnic area, where we stopped for a delicious snack.  Turns out cedarfoxy likes straight mustard powder in tuna salad far more than I do for a ritz cracker.  I do like a bit of mustard in, but I am of the firm opinion that food should not hurt to eat.

After coming back down from the hike, cedarfoxy did their own rum tasting with the little two-ounce bottles we got from the Koloa Rum Company gift shop, and we started our casual, unhurried packing process so we could be relaxed the next morning to catch our flight home.

Saturday (my birthday) I had my first ever First Class flight.  The leg from LIH to HNL was kinda meh, but it was nice to have access to a population-controlled lounge (with free snacks and drinks) during our layover, and the meal service on the leg from HNL to PDX was fantastic.  The seats reclined flat enough that cedarfoxy even took a wee nap.

Then we landed, and it snowed on our Lyft as we went home.

All in all, a super fantastic vacation, and we'll definitely go again.

 Wednesday we went to a chocolate farm.  We weren't really feeling the three-hour-tour, so we didn't even try to reserve slots touring the plantation, and just went to the Lydgate Farms gift shop -- which defied all my expectations, really.  I imagined it would be a wee shop something like the lobby of a Nothing Bundt Cakes shop, with round, multi-tier tabled piled with various chocolate offerings that one may get to sniff before committing a significant number of dollars per ounce to take some home.  In reality, as we drove by the house-like building that was probably the gift shop, a young fellow in a mask standing behind a table on a porch in front of maybe a dozen empty plastic chairs waved at us.  So we walked back to him after parking, and it turned out he was the host of a chocolate tasting.  Instead of a wander and sniff, we got a narrative of how the beans are harvested and processed and cocoa percentages and oh, look they do vanilla too but it's not in season right now.  To my teetotaler astonishment, my favorite was the 75% Dark with Koloa Hawaiian Rum.  We bought a bar and I suggested to our roommate that he get an item for cedarfoxy for giftmas.

We adjourned to the condo for shenanigans and fanfic and possibly a movie, who knows.  It was very chill and relaxing.

Thursday we went Ziplining with the same company that did our tubing four days prior, and it was super great.  We criss-crossed the same valley like 7 times, and it was nice to get to look at the view more than once and from multiple angles.  Toward the end someone in our party twisted an ankle moving from one platform to the next.  There were only two more zips left, fortunately, and others in the party were helpful at providing shoulders for her to lean on as she limped from point A to point B.  Before the last zip I gave her some of my ibuprofen, and cedarfoxy offered acupuncture, which she accepted.  At the end of the last zip we had a lovely lunch, cedarfoxy did a little needling with needles from their emergency kit (we overprepare like that), and then we rode down the super bumpy road back to the warehouse.

After resting up in the afternoon, we tried to get in on a rum tasting at Koloa Rum Company, but we missed the cut-off by staying "just finish the chapter" before we left the condo.  So as planned, we pivoted and went to Kalapaki Joe's, whose happy hour had been pimped hard by all the tour guides.  Sadly, not super impressed our selves with the happy hour deals (25 cent wings aren't awesome if you only eat boneless wings and these aren't) but the cocktail was suuuuuuuuuuuuper sweet and yummy though. 

Then I spent the evening choosing the hike for the next day.

But today was a fairly short day.

This morning we got up very early (okay, about the normal time) and had yummy breakfast before going to the kayak place to rent a kayak and paddle up river a couple miles, then get out and hike another mile or so, to get to the beautiful (not-so-) Secret Falls, where we ate sandwiches for lunch.  On the return trip, we learned that our direction is easier to hold when we put cedarfoxy in front, so when next we do a tandem kayak, I'll remember that.  I'll also remember to front-load the ibuprofen unless I've been doing significantly more regular upper-body workouts (which is to say, any).  We took an abundance of pictures of the native flora and the water features.

As we returned from there to the condo, we stopped at the grocery for frozen berries (smoothies) and garlic (steak) and a few other things.  We also stopped at the shave ice place in the same shopping strip -- because it had been recommended as the best on the island by the tour guide of our tubing adventure a couple days ago.  Apparently they use fresh juices from fruit they get from local farmers instead of commercial high fructose syrups.  Anyway, they were delicious.  I got a "Root beer float" shave ice, and cedarfoxy got a "Lava flow".  They start with shave ice and add the juice, and then for presentation they add one or more add-ons -- mine had a "snow cap" (sweetened condensed milk) and cedarfoxy's had haupia foam (whipped coconut milk).  Annnnd when I looked up their website to see if I could find a menu to get those details, it turns out they have a Portland location!

Then we ate some chicken (finally!) and did a little laundry and watched a few movies and ate some steak (finally!) and sweet potato.  Now I just have to mow through three pounds of tiny bananas in three days.

 Yesterday after breakfast we walked along a shared-use path while the sun rose, and then back again for a round trip of nearly three miles -- it was a bit more than we planned, and we were quite ready for a rest when we made it back to the condo.  So then we played some board games over noms and cedarfoxy prepared a couple lunches while I evaluated the trip budget.

It turned out for the best that they started preparing food at 10 rather than 11, because it took a while and we ended up leaving exactly on time, whereas if we'd started lunch prep when we originally thought to, they would not have had time to finish and eat.

Leaving for where, though?  We went tubing down an irrigation ditch after a very bumpy bus ride up unimproved roads into an old sugar plantation.  The script for the patter as we travel is interesting and informative and sometimes funny.  After drifting through five tunnels, down a 36 inch water fall, and a lovely stretch of calm, we were fed yummy sandwiches of the build-your-own variety before being returned to the warehouse and our vehicles.  Of course I bought some of the photos.

Instead of cooking dinner, we watched a movie on Netflix before bed.  Sleep was so good.

Today after a leisurely morning including some home acupuncture; breakfast of egg, cheese, and bagel; and taking our time at getting out the door.  We drove down to Poipu and hiked along the coast from Makauwahi Cave Reserve to Shipwreck Beach.  We had intended to hike clear to the trailhead about half a mile farther, and then back again, but we were tuckered out and low on snacks, so we summoned a Lyft to return us to the car (first through-hike?).  We dropped off a few items then followed some trails in the reserve before entering the sinkhole to get a guided tour of the cave with its many stories.  It was lovely, but we were both very low energy at the end, so I googled restaurants nearby and took us to Keoki's Paradise, which was open-air and had a lovely view of its garden with water features and magnificent plants.  I had fish and chips and cedarfoxy had a panko fish thing with bok choy and stuff.  Both fish were very yummy.  We finished with way too much ice cream in the form of a Hula Pie before circling the grounds to get a closer look at the amazing trees.

Unfortunately, by this time it was too late to be early to the nearby farmer's market to buy more tiny bananas (and I couldn't find it on the google machine), so we headed back toward the hotel.  But!  We passed a fruit stand on the side of the highway, and we were able there to restock our fruit supplies.  We were both fading fast; only the alphabet game (twice) kept me awake enough to stay on the road.  I basically face-planted as soon as we got in the condo door.

After I got back up (apparently that nap was, like, 10 minutes) we watched a movie and then went to play in the pool and hot tub before retiring to bed.

I'm starting to worry that I won't actually get a chance to cook the steaks and chicken breasts we bought for dinners.  Then again, we do have like five days left....

Did I mention I got married? *looks back at past posts* Yep, I did.

Cedarfoxy and I are in Hawaii - on Kaua'i to be specific - on a vacation planned a year ago with some friends who then couldn't make it, so we turned it into a second honeymoon. This trip has a lot fewer planned adventures than I did last trip (January 2018), but that's what's right for us.

Our flight on Friday was delayed. We were ready to leave the house at 6:30, but I saw an urgent email when I went to order the Lyft, and our flight had been delayed 2.5 hours. And then our second leg was slow to get off the ground because that type of plane requires the engines to start simultaneously, and they needed then second person for the other side to show up. So I wasn't picking up the rental car until 7 instead of checking into the condo at 5 like expected. Instead of doing shopping, we went to bed.

Saturday morning we watched the sunrise over tea from the balcony and took LOTS of pictures. Then we traded for a smaller rental car (the "upgrade" was hard to fit into the parking spots here) before finding the park with the farmers market, which was AMAZING. We devoured a raspberry churro and a nutella churro and picked up filled croissants to take back, as well as teeny tiny bananas, kale, avocados, and rambutan.

Then we went to Target to buy our groceries for the week (and a couple hats). It seems that Target maybe wasn't cheaper groceries than Safeway across the street, but oh well. Cedarfoxy then took a nap while I caught up on DW and read the 100% best "drunk Coulson" fic I've ever seen (You're Where You Should Be All The Time - Laura Kaye - Phil/Clint ultimately).

The "beach" at our location is not sandy.  It's more like tidepools than anything else.  I'm not sure if the material is rock-rock or used-to-be-alive rock.  But the rock is v slippery in places and has very unique erosion patterns, no anemones or things I see in Oregon tidepools, but weird critters I later identified as sea cucumbers.  We gingerly made our way south until we found a public access to the beach (so as not to backtrack) and found we were right across the street from the Safeway.  So we checked out the ABC Store and Safeway to get a last few needed items.

We reheated croissants for dinner and went to bed.  Sleeping can be a challenge here, because omg hot, but Cedarfoxy's bones like it.

Last week was pretty emotional for me.  A stunning combination of household catastrophes and mutual busy-ness that prevented me from connecting with my partner while they themself where bombarded by their own projects left me feeling deeply out of sync an often not far from tears.  Not enjoyable.

However, yesterday while the minions and roommate did a ton of physical labor, my love and I were able to put the entire day toward some heavy emotional work of getting back in sync with regard to what we expect of the minions, Cedar's business goals, the support needed for those goals, my big feelings around their desire to have a baby, polyamory boundaries, what Cedar wants from hiring a personal minion I mean assistant, what my boundaries are around hired folks, etc. and also connected by sharing some stories from our childhoods. 

And at the end of all that, the laundry room that had flooded as a result of a recent downpour was completely emptied and readied for mold mitigating demolition.

A couple weeks before the laundry room flooded, the toilet in the en suite bathroom connected to the Tower was discovered to be leaking into the bathroom of the underdwellers -- a lot.  So much so that the water-mitigating demolition has left the below bathroom with no ceiling and 3/4 of one wall missing, and my bathroom with no toilet and four square feet of exposed subfloor with holes I can see through and identify objects in the bathroom below (don't tell Batman).

So I'm in the midst of my first-ever home insurance claim, the non-covered expenses are racking up because we're like "well, as long as everything's torn apart, let's do this too", and then the french drain in the front hard is found to be catastrophically faulty, and Cedar's up-front business expenses are starting to increase and and and tl;dr I am in a mightily low-resilience space for "hey if I become a millionaire then I could afford to hire enough help that I could have a baby" and bringing strangers into my sanctum sanctorum that is very, very not in a condition I consider "fit for company".  I was a bit on edge and since we've barely had time to exchange kisses as we pass on our way between rooms, I really, really needed to reconnect.

And we did.  And it was wonderful.  And today has been great, starting with a lovely walk in the nearby greenspace, and tomorrow is going to be lovely, too.

I put WD-40 on the springs of the squeaky swivel-rocker, and ten minutes later I gleefully declared "It doesn't noise any more!" 

Anthon Berg Liquor Filled Chocolate Bottles: 64-Piece Box

• Canadian Club (bronze): not terrible. A little hint of turpentine, but not overwhelming
• Sobieski (silver); burny
• Jim Beam (yellow gold) bitter followed by paint thinner with a burn chaser
• Drambuie (gold) a little stingy, not terrible
• Cointreau (copper orange) kinda burny with a stingy after. I think I’m done with these for the night

5 boozy chocolates = upset tummy for jic

• The Famous Grouse (shiny black) mild and goes well with chocolate
• Remy Martin (matte gray) mildly burny
• Galliano (purple) little fruity, mild burn

(Paint thinner tastes a lot like turpentine but with more chemical and less pitch/tree-sap.)