Hawaii, the land of no windows

It was fully our intention to book a hotel room or condo for our upcoming stay in Hawaii—something close to the beach, with restaurants and everything else good and necessary for normal civilization. Instead we suddenly find ourselves a month away from staying in what appears to be a remote jungle tree house.

Our hosts' names are Peter and Barbara. This, at least, is somewhat reassuring, certainly more so than if they'd been named Mean Dog and Cruella. Their online profile indicates that it is mostly Peter who watches after the place and his visitors, while Barbara commutes to "the mainland."

This gave us pause. The Hero expressed doubts over what, exactly, she commuted for. The profile does not strictly indicate that it is for "work." For my part, I struggle to identify just what mainland one commutes to, on a regular basis, from the Big Island of Hawaii. True, there is my rather fuzzy grasp of geography, but still.

But we are willing to suspend judgment, because really the place does sound quite lovely and adventurous.

Take the windows, for example. Actually, someone must have already done so, because no windows appear in any of the 39 photos of the house that I was able to view. Walls appear to be something of a suggestion.

"So this will be a little different," I said to the Hero. "Things might...move in with us." I trailed off when I saw his face.

A few years ago the media reported the scientific discovery of a giant squid that had eyes described as the size of dinner plates. Those eyes engulfed the smallish submersible where the scientists were filming the creature. This is how the Hero looked upon hearing this news.

"What does that mean?" he demanded.

"Well, the place is kind of...open air."

The dinner plates got a little larger.

"What kind of bugs do they have in Hawaii?" he said.

"Big ones," I said. I based this on a fiction book I'd read some time ago, set in the rugged 1800s, in which insects and creatures of malevolent appearance seriously outnumbered people in Hawaii. And nearly outweighed them.

The website through which we booked our accommodations encourages asking questions of hosts. We decided this topic would give us our first questions: "How large would you say the average insect is around your property? Based on this, which would you recommend: insect spray or armor? Do we need shots? Does your house have windows? Can we come stay with you?"

This encouraging of questions is a practice the website might seriously consider abandoning after our stay.

Given all the lush vegetation surrounding our, uh, tree house, the Hero was concerned that perhaps we wouldn't have much of a view from our lanai, or open patio (a word that means, literally, "yes, you have a wonderful view, but you are also unprotected from huge bugs"). I directed him to a photo of an open window, through which could be seen a fantastic view of the ocean. "See? What more could we want?"

He looked closer at the photo. "Is that a...bathtub in front of the window?"

Okay, so perhaps the best view is from the bathroom. We'll be really, really clean on this trip.

Of course, there is no indication in the photo as to what the rest of the bathroom is like. Is there actually running water? A toilet? Who knows? And who cares? We can see the ocean from it.

No doubt this is exactly the attitude intended by the photo poster, in the hopes of distracting guests from realizing that this glorious view is unimpeded by an actual, enclosed window.

Instead of staying in the jungle tree house, maybe we'll just abandon it to the wildlife, and sleep outside ourselves.

Growing things

Amazingly, our experiment in growing herbs for the first time ever this year has turned out to be an enormous success. This success is defined by several outcomes: At no time did the herbs rise up and lead a rebellion, neither did they completely keel over from my alternating overzealous and underzealous caretaking, AND we even got to harvest a few leaves. None of these were consumed, however, because we placed them, with great reverence, in the Herb Hall of Fame in our kitchen.

Bolstered by such results, I was emboldened to take another step and try growing vegetables. I realize that humans have been growing their own food for some time now. Even after grocery stores began to appear, hordes of people kept on growing stuff on their own. Whereas people like me throughout history, who specialize in destroying anything green, gave up all pretense of trying to feed themselves once they realized someone else would sell them food.

But I had kept the herbs alive for some time—they actually looked heartier when we came back from a short vacation—so maybe there was hope. So, not wanting to ruin my potential protege with a lack of parenting skills, I threw myself into learning which vegetables would be suitable to grow in our conditions. These conditions included:

1. Little sun

2. Little space

3. Even less gardening ability

These restrictions left: the Shanghai rutabaga.

Fortunately this was not actually true. No offense to rutabagas, Shanghai or otherwise, but my vegetable career would have begun and ended right there if this had been the case.

I harbor some vague notions about the whole growing process, such as that everything gets planted in spring. Luckily this particular notion turns out to be inaccurate. I learned that I could start things like kale and arugula at the end of the summer. Moreover, they don't need as much sunlight as many other vegetables, or large tracts of land. I could grow them in pots.

So, kale and arugula procured, the next task was, I felt strongly, the most important part of the whole growing process: obtaining suitably adorable containers.

Planting was thus delayed thanks to the necessity of this task. The newcomers must not think they did not deserve cute homes like the flowers have, so not just any container would do. Books were considered, websites scoured, for just the right pots. Finally, the choice was made: a bright yellow rubber tote and a purple grow bag, which is made out of something like really strong felt. The yellow tote even came with a free spider, which I endeavored to convince to remain behind at the store, to no avail.

(We had intended to include here a photo of the containers, but realized one must first take such a photo before being able to share it. Oh, well.)

At this time the pots are roughly 6500 times the size of the seedlings, so clearly it is still the containers' time to shine—at least until the seedlings get a little bigger. Assuming they DO get bigger.

I'm sure that somewhere on the instructions for the seeds it says, "If you have traditionally had bad luck growing plants, well, let us know how it goes with these. To be honest, we really don't hold out a lot of hope."

But we'll prove them wrong. After all, we have cute pots.

When exercise is dangerous

Experts recommend finding an exercise schedule that works for you and that you can actually follow. After much trial and error, the Hero and I have discovered just that. We now keep a regular workout schedule at our local Y, consisting of about 6 weeks of faithful attendance and exercise followed by a couple of months (give or take) of slacking.* We find that this alternating of working out, not working out does the trick for us. It helps us meet our fitness goals, the main one being basically to not experience too much pain.*

Sometimes, however, despite our best efforts, this goal is thwarted. The other night, for instance, as we headed to the car after our workout, I suddenly developed a cramp in my right foot. Rather than ride home very uncomfortably, I told the Hero I would walk around the parking lot until it worked itself out. He waited in the car, taking advantage of my absence to listen to something very loud on the radio.

I circled the car, the foot felt better, and I headed to the passenger side door. The cramp hit again. Around the car I went a second time, with the same result. Then a third time.

I tried not to think about what anyone who was watching might be thinking, or if someone that very moment was calling security. "Yes, there's, um, a woman in the Y parking lot doing laps around a car with a guy inside."

But if I was lucky, they would simply conclude that I was too cheap to join the Y and use the elliptical.

When I finally returned to the car after my third circuit, the Hero was relieved. “I was afraid you were going to march around the car seven times and then blow a trumpet,” he said.

That clinched it. Clearly, it was just too dangerous for us to continue working out. Time to enter our second phase of the exercise routine: slacking.

________

*Not even thinking about exercising.

**To be fair, the Hero is more into workout pain than I am.