Catching Up

I am sitting here in the pre-dawn darkness, waiting for the birds to wake up so that I can capture it on audio.  My body clock is still adjusting to the time change, and though I could have gone back to bed, I forced myself to get up so that I could catch up on some writing, both in my journal and here on my blog, and be sure and not miss "jungle time."  I'll probably regret this later today.  Here's what happened to me Tuesday evening after I'd missed so much sleep the night before (when I had the migraine).

Of course, I can always sleep on the beach.  I commented to Mark yesterday how wonderful it is to sit there and read and, if I feel like nodding off, I allow myself to do that.  To me, that is one of life's little luxuries, which anyone over 40 can no doubt appreciate.  (Anyone under that age, upon hearing that statement, would probably just look at me with varying degrees of incomprehension and/or pity.)

We varied our routine a little bit yesterday and came back into town mid-day to do some grocery shopping, have lunch at the condo and check out a local gym here in Kihei.  Not that we really need more exercise.  I plan to run most mornings, and Mark is swimming laps in the ocean.  

Then there's paddle ball, which I'll have to write more about later.  It's a sort of a cross between ping pong and badminton.  We hit a ball, a little bigger and heavier than a ping pong ball, back and forth with oversize paddles.  I was surprised how much sweat I can work up playing that game.   

We are able to drive back and forth between our condo and the beach in comfort due to one of life's little blessings - you know, one of those instances when the universe hands you something and kind of winks at you?  Upon our arrival on Monday, we proceeded to Alamo to pick up our car rental.  Mark had reserved a compact car.  After all, we were just going to be driving back and forth to the beach; how fancy a vehicle did we need to do that?

Well, as rental car agents are known to do, ours tried to upsell us to a Jeep, assuring us that we would be getting a really good deal.  Mark declined, graciously.  The agent persisted.  Mark declined again, a little more forcefully.  Finally, the agent gave up and directed us out to the parking lot to pick up our car.  When we got out there and told the guy we needed an economy car, however, he informed us that all their compact cars "were being washed."  Therefore, he informed us, we could, at the same price, have our pick of full-size cars or an SUV, including - ready for it? - a Jeep.   A few minutes later, we were driving out of the lot in our silver Jeep Liberty.

• A few other vignettes from our trip here on Monday:As we were preparing to board our plane out of Salt Lake, a flight attendant had rushed up to the gate counter and conferred with the agents there. We gathered that she needed to get to San Francisco to catch up with another flight or something. She was, I would guess, in her early 40's, not overly attractive and 30 pounds or so overweight. As she hurried down the jetway ahead of us, she yelled back toward the ticketing agent, "Tell the pilot I'll give him a lap dance for taking me!" Mark turned to me and said, "Who in God's name would want that woman on his lap?" 
• I had bought the current issue of The Atlantic to read on the plane and, upon reaching my window seat on our flight to Maui, had set it down next to me as I fastened my seat belt and we got settled in our very close quarters. A few minutes later, I went to retrieve the magazine to start reading it, but it wasn't there. To the extent I was able, I tried to look on the floor to see if it had fallen, but this proved difficult because of the sardine factor. After several moments of looking, I was beginning to wonder if I was losing my mind. I knew I had placed the magazine there, and now it appeared to have vanished. Finally, I asked Mark if he wouldn't mind getting up to check under the seat, and in the process of doing this, I saw that the woman in the row behind me was reading Atlantic - my Atlantic. Something was said, and the couple replied, "Oh, we had seen it on the floor, so we'd read it."  Hmmm.
• On our flight to Maui, we had a wonderful stewardess who truly seemed to enjoy her job. She wasn't a stereotypical flight attendant: she was probably in her mid-40's and was generously overweight. But she had a kindly countenance and a sunny disposition. As she was going through the cabin handing out Hawaii agricultural reporting forms, she'd pause and ask how many forms were needed, pointing out that one per family is all that is required. When she got to Mark and me, she smiled and said, "How many of these do we need here?" Mark smiled and replied, "Just one." Such a little thing, but it warmed me because this was, I believe, the first time that Mark and me had been acknowledged publicly as a couple