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In Which I End My Second Month in Hawaii with Some Busy Days
Friday was a tough day. I woke up early to attend a meeting about the status of RWOT10. I expected to be hearing from our attendees whether they were still planning to attend, but instead the leadership team had to announce that the workshop was already cancelled, because the Argentinian government had given into FUD and is advising against meetings of ten or more people, believe it or not, if some of the attendees are foreigners.
Then I helped write a letter to our attendees letting them know the bad news.
Then I had to get to one of our Skotos games that was crashed.
Then I heard from Kimberly that some tests had suggested she needs to go on antibiotics following her recent surgery, which means that we needed to rush into Lihue as soon as we were done with the work day.
Then I heard the the antibiotics were $180.
(Fortunately, Kimberly got that squared away before the end of the workday, and got a nurse to call in a script for a $4 antibiotic rather than a $180 antibiotic; I often don't understand doctors' willful ignorance about drug pricing.)
And then I realized that because of all the crises, I hadn't yet filled out the forms and cut the checks for Skotos' local taxes, which were due at the end of February.
But I managed that, and we got out of the house, and we got to the post office just before it closed to get some stamps, and we got out to Lihue and back before traffic got terrible.
But it was a frustrating, bad day.
Until the evening. We were just thinking about dinner when our awesome realtor for our Berkeley house called with our offers. There were some we were very happy with, and we gave her the OK to write a counteroffer, and then we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate.
(I'd like to write more about the offers, but I think Kimberly is right in saying we shouldn't talk about details until we close, so I'll put a pin in that, and hopefully remember some of the interesting bits in a month, which is when we'll hopefully be all done.)
We haven't had any truly nice dinners since we got to Hawaii, so this was a pre-house-sale extravagance. We went to a place called The Dolphin in Koloa at The Shops at Kukui'ula. It was one of a few restaurants that we'd considered as a possibility when we did a walkthrough of The Shops in January: it was seafood and sushi. So I had a great crab roll called a Flyin' Hawaiian and Kimberly had a lobster tail, and much fun was had by all. Kimberly had amusingly never had a lobster tail before, so I had to show her how to eat it, and there was much waving around of utensils, and my discouraging the use of a knife, and I was several times afraid the lobster would end up on the floor, but it never did.
So, bad day, good evening.
Saturday was a fine day, albeit busy.
We were still working with our realtor on the offers. We were happy to hear that the counteroffer had been accepted, which it should have, as there was just some bureaucratic cleanup. And we also had to work with her on signing off on a backup offer, which everyone had agreed to by Sunday morning.
My dad came over at about 9am, and we planned to spend a good portion of our "bonus day" (February 29th) together.
The morning was spent working on my shelves. This was, I think, the fourth day we've spent on the project. At that point, we'd basically got all the wood for the shelves, cut it to the right dimensions, and then we'd affixed a bit of red oak (red pine? red something.) to the front of each sheet of plywood, so the front will look nice. And we routed it all to get it all level.
So on Saturday we started putting the shelves together. We got all of the holes measured and drilled and then put the top board and the next to bottom shelf in place, which gave us a frame. It was all affixed with glue and screws, and at that point my dad wanted to let it dry, so that our carefully measured, mostly 90-degree frame would stay in place.
So afterward my dad and I went for lunch (Taco Bell! In Lihue!) and then a bike ride on the Kauai Path, along the East Shore in Kapaa.
It's been years since I'd been out on the Path, and I newly discovered how beautiful it was, seeing all that beach and all those waves, right alongside the path.
Unfortunately, it was very windy. We knew this before we headed out there, and I told my dad several times that if the wind was too much for him, we should turn around. After 10 or 15 minutes or riding, we did.
He was totally winded. (Hah!) Meanwhile, I discovered that I do still have most of my biking muscles, because I was barely noticing the wind. In fact, I later discovered that my Fitbit didn't even credit me for exercise. So, yay. Except the lack of exercise.
One downside on Saturday: Kimberly revealed that her foot has been hurting for the last few weeks like she's had another stress fracture in her bad foot.
Which is as awful as it sounds. She's scooting around the house again on Jeeves (the scooter), and being much more careful about using her foot.
I suspect we're going into Lihue tomorrow, either to the doctor's office or the ER.
Today we largely spent the day with my dad and Mary: a social trip to Costco and some time eating and hanging out at their house.
And that was the busy last few days.
So, it's been two months that we've been out here on Kauai.
We've definitely settled into a routine, and it's a very busy one. Work during the day, running errands or working with my dad in the afternoon, visiting with the folks on Sunday.
My gaming on Thursday at 8 Moves Ahead is quickly becoming a part of the routine, though I'm still waiting to see how it shakes out: specifically if we have a critical mass of eurogame players.
Our work on the house has mostly stalled out, other than the work my dad and I are doing on shelves. But, those will help a lot, and after we finish these first two for my closet, we can then decide what to do with shelving for the rest of my office and for the family room, which should get much of our things out of boxes.
When the Berkeley house sells, we'll also be able to finish up the furnishing of our house. And invest in some solar panels. And buy a murphy bed. And maybe terrace the back yard. But we're going to carefully limit how much of our money we spend, as most of the proceeds of the house are intended for savings, so that the interest can help pay our bills.
I'm still not quite figuring out how to get my regular exercise into this busy routine, but I'm not worried about it because everything is going to change (again) in April. But I do now have a dance pad and a few games I can use it with on my Mac, and that's helping a little.
There's one last month of this transition period. When it ends, our Berkeley house will (hopefully) have sold and my work with Skotos full-time (hopefully) will be done, and I can (hopefully) see how life here really settles down, with some contract tech writing and more time for my own writing and more flexibility in my schedule ...
Whew, it's coming up fast!
Then I helped write a letter to our attendees letting them know the bad news.
Then I had to get to one of our Skotos games that was crashed.
Then I heard from Kimberly that some tests had suggested she needs to go on antibiotics following her recent surgery, which means that we needed to rush into Lihue as soon as we were done with the work day.
Then I heard the the antibiotics were $180.
(Fortunately, Kimberly got that squared away before the end of the workday, and got a nurse to call in a script for a $4 antibiotic rather than a $180 antibiotic; I often don't understand doctors' willful ignorance about drug pricing.)
And then I realized that because of all the crises, I hadn't yet filled out the forms and cut the checks for Skotos' local taxes, which were due at the end of February.
But I managed that, and we got out of the house, and we got to the post office just before it closed to get some stamps, and we got out to Lihue and back before traffic got terrible.
But it was a frustrating, bad day.
Until the evening. We were just thinking about dinner when our awesome realtor for our Berkeley house called with our offers. There were some we were very happy with, and we gave her the OK to write a counteroffer, and then we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate.
(I'd like to write more about the offers, but I think Kimberly is right in saying we shouldn't talk about details until we close, so I'll put a pin in that, and hopefully remember some of the interesting bits in a month, which is when we'll hopefully be all done.)
We haven't had any truly nice dinners since we got to Hawaii, so this was a pre-house-sale extravagance. We went to a place called The Dolphin in Koloa at The Shops at Kukui'ula. It was one of a few restaurants that we'd considered as a possibility when we did a walkthrough of The Shops in January: it was seafood and sushi. So I had a great crab roll called a Flyin' Hawaiian and Kimberly had a lobster tail, and much fun was had by all. Kimberly had amusingly never had a lobster tail before, so I had to show her how to eat it, and there was much waving around of utensils, and my discouraging the use of a knife, and I was several times afraid the lobster would end up on the floor, but it never did.
So, bad day, good evening.
Saturday was a fine day, albeit busy.
We were still working with our realtor on the offers. We were happy to hear that the counteroffer had been accepted, which it should have, as there was just some bureaucratic cleanup. And we also had to work with her on signing off on a backup offer, which everyone had agreed to by Sunday morning.
My dad came over at about 9am, and we planned to spend a good portion of our "bonus day" (February 29th) together.
The morning was spent working on my shelves. This was, I think, the fourth day we've spent on the project. At that point, we'd basically got all the wood for the shelves, cut it to the right dimensions, and then we'd affixed a bit of red oak (red pine? red something.) to the front of each sheet of plywood, so the front will look nice. And we routed it all to get it all level.
So on Saturday we started putting the shelves together. We got all of the holes measured and drilled and then put the top board and the next to bottom shelf in place, which gave us a frame. It was all affixed with glue and screws, and at that point my dad wanted to let it dry, so that our carefully measured, mostly 90-degree frame would stay in place.
So afterward my dad and I went for lunch (Taco Bell! In Lihue!) and then a bike ride on the Kauai Path, along the East Shore in Kapaa.
It's been years since I'd been out on the Path, and I newly discovered how beautiful it was, seeing all that beach and all those waves, right alongside the path.
Unfortunately, it was very windy. We knew this before we headed out there, and I told my dad several times that if the wind was too much for him, we should turn around. After 10 or 15 minutes or riding, we did.
He was totally winded. (Hah!) Meanwhile, I discovered that I do still have most of my biking muscles, because I was barely noticing the wind. In fact, I later discovered that my Fitbit didn't even credit me for exercise. So, yay. Except the lack of exercise.
One downside on Saturday: Kimberly revealed that her foot has been hurting for the last few weeks like she's had another stress fracture in her bad foot.
Which is as awful as it sounds. She's scooting around the house again on Jeeves (the scooter), and being much more careful about using her foot.
I suspect we're going into Lihue tomorrow, either to the doctor's office or the ER.
Today we largely spent the day with my dad and Mary: a social trip to Costco and some time eating and hanging out at their house.
And that was the busy last few days.
So, it's been two months that we've been out here on Kauai.
We've definitely settled into a routine, and it's a very busy one. Work during the day, running errands or working with my dad in the afternoon, visiting with the folks on Sunday.
My gaming on Thursday at 8 Moves Ahead is quickly becoming a part of the routine, though I'm still waiting to see how it shakes out: specifically if we have a critical mass of eurogame players.
Our work on the house has mostly stalled out, other than the work my dad and I are doing on shelves. But, those will help a lot, and after we finish these first two for my closet, we can then decide what to do with shelving for the rest of my office and for the family room, which should get much of our things out of boxes.
When the Berkeley house sells, we'll also be able to finish up the furnishing of our house. And invest in some solar panels. And buy a murphy bed. And maybe terrace the back yard. But we're going to carefully limit how much of our money we spend, as most of the proceeds of the house are intended for savings, so that the interest can help pay our bills.
I'm still not quite figuring out how to get my regular exercise into this busy routine, but I'm not worried about it because everything is going to change (again) in April. But I do now have a dance pad and a few games I can use it with on my Mac, and that's helping a little.
There's one last month of this transition period. When it ends, our Berkeley house will (hopefully) have sold and my work with Skotos full-time (hopefully) will be done, and I can (hopefully) see how life here really settles down, with some contract tech writing and more time for my own writing and more flexibility in my schedule ...
Whew, it's coming up fast!