What I Have Resorted To

I keep starting blog entries then deleting them....still sponging up the local scene, the upwards temperature shift, taking note, as per usual when I'm away from my home setting, of the many nuances in human behavior. Primarily, I've noticed that most "holiday makers" (as they say in Ireland), or more appropriately, "hula-day makers", fall into a few categories:

1. First timers, characterized by an obvious goggle-eyed expression and an indeterminate stride.
2. Honey-mooners, goggle-eyed for each other, bound at the hips.
3. The "let's give this one last chance" couples, silent and bored at dinner, blankly staring into their pink-umbrella-topped Mai Tais. Wife almost always with a flower in her hair. Husband generally agitated. Loosen up, folks!
4. The retirees. Most conversations I've overheard from this group concern their most recent cruise."Last month we were in Bora Bora blah blah blah." More like Boring Boring.
5. The pros: they know where they're going, they walk chin-out, chest-forward, they laugh too loud and boom their voices, know all the "rules".
6. People like us, for whom I'm always on the lookout. (I like to believe we defy a category, but I may be mistaken.)


Last year, my first time here, I was in a daze the first few days, and was amazed that I was surrounded by what seemed to be Professional Huladay-Makers. Where had I been all my life?! (I'd been eking out a living, scraping up the rent, inventing a dinner from Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard, penning a poem or two when the muse graced me with her appearance.)

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At Safeway, rambuton (a tropical fruit related to the lychee):


Late afternoon sun viewed from the lounge chair --


Paul's and my alter-ego silhouettes: