BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART III

 I woke up again in the middle of the night again (damn the time difference) and made a reservation to visit a vanilla plantation!

The guy who did our timeshare thing (you're going to hear about him again, so I'm gonna call him Charles. I don't know if that was his name but humor me) gave us some ideas on what to do on the island after he stopped trying to take our money. He asked if we had heard about the place, and that they did a tour and then fed you a meal where every course had their own vanilla in it. We had not, but the idea stuck, so I found it online and bought some tickets!

Our reservation was at 11:00, so we got up with the sun and then went back to the shopping center to have breakfast at one of the restaurants before we got on the road. We ate at a place called Kona Biscuit Co. and I learned about guava jelly and passionfruit butter. My life will never be the same. 

The plantation was on the other side of the island, so we had about an hour and change to drive to get there. Sorry about the rough nature of this map, and that it isn't to scale or painted:

We started roughly on the far left of that red line, and had to drive to the spot on the right, so it wasn't a terribly long drive, all things considered, but it felt longer because the speed limit all over the island was fairly low. Maybe that's all a part of driving in the spirit of "aloha." Well, that and not giving people the bird when they piss you off. It was interesting, because we started out in bright sunlight and those lava rock fields, going up through hills and grass, and then it got cloudy and drizzly as we made it higher up and found ourselves driving through neighborhoods and small towns. Then the sun came out and we were in thick trees and flowers, and much greener landscapes, so we knew that we had made it to the "wet" side of the island. That was where it looked much more like I had thought Hawaii would, and it was gorgeous! 

Trying to find the Hawaiian Vanilla Company was a lot of driving down one lane roads and through farms of different kinds. It reminded me to trying to find the small whiskey distilleries in Tennessee, but with less kudzu and more hibiscus. We finally found it and found ourselves in this tiny old coffee mill turned vanilla farm. We were super early because we hadn't known if we'd get caught in traffic or what, so we sat around reading and browsing the gift shop until it was our turn to tour.

There were about 15 of us in total, and they served us a delicious lunch before walking us down to their hothouse to see the vanilla vines. Unfortunately the orchids has already bloomed and been pollinated before we got there. The flowers usually only last for about three hours, they said, but we did get to see the vines and some of the beans that they'd left as a visual aid. We were told all about the process, and that this particular farm was the first American vanilla farm, and it was a beautiful walk around the grounds. There we avocado trees just casually on the side of the road, and we were in a place where people lived, so it was small and intimate. It wasn't their main farm, but the one where it had begun and where they taught people about how vanilla is grown, but it was still a neat experience.

On the way back we acquainted ourselves with the beaches that were closest to us along the way. I asked to stop at a state park beach, just to see what it was like. Very crowded, as it happens, and Steve found a very small, but very beautiful black sand beach in a cove in a gated community. Apparently, there are no private beaches in Hawaii, so we were let in without any trouble. 

It was probably the most beautiful beach that we'd seen up to that point. It was small, the sand was more gray than black, but black enough, and it wasn't overrun with people. We walked and took pictures, and I had to physically restrain myself from taking rocks from the beach. My gremlin self really wanted to take rocks, but it's supposed to be bad juju to do so. So I didn't. Boo.

By the time we made it back to our condo, it was late in the day and we were exhausted. I guess we're getting old, because instead of getting cleaned up and going right back out, we just ordered a pizza and called it a night.

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART II

 After the timeshare meeting, Steve and I decided to make ourselves more acquainted with our surroundings since we had no idea where we were. Let me 'splain.

The area where we were staying did not look at all like I imagined Hawaii would. Like any good haole, I always imagined it was all lush forests, palm trees, flowers, white beaches and all of that, but we were in Waikoloa, which is on what we were told was the "dry side" of the island. If you remember me saying that when we drove in that it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, that was both true, and not true. From the Kona airport to where we were, a 30 to 45 minute drive, there didn't seem to be anything other than hills and what looked like giant, lumpy tilled fields. It was like the surface of Mars, if Mars was brown instead of red. It wasn't dirt, though, it was fields of volcanic rock. So basically, we were on the side of the island with the old lava flows. There were beaches and homes/resorts on the coast, but not in the way I am used to. There were no giant, multi-story hotels, no tacky seaside shops, or trashy tourist traps lining the coast there, so from the highway we could just see the palm trees and sometimes the roofs of the houses as well as the ocean beyond. It wasn't obvious, and so well planned that unless you were really looking, it didn't seem like there was anything there.

The resort we were in was a part of one of those types of developments. You'd turn off the highway and see the row of condos. The further in (towards to the ocean) you'd go, you'd see more condos, a big fancy hotel or two, and two small shopping centers with restaurants and upscale resort wear, surf shops, and at least one large-ish market in each. Beyond that was the biggest and fanciest hotel right on the water with a black, rocky beach. It was beautiful and about as unobtrusive as you can get, unless you're standing in the parking lot, of course

We walked around the big hotel, taking pictures and trying to get our bearings. We looked for a beach we could walk on, but it was all just rough surf and black rocks beyond a retaining wall that we couldn't climb over unless we wanted to fall and die. We actually got a little lost walking around this big, sprawling place. We eventually found our way out, and it was almost time for lunch, which was at a restaurant in one of the small shopping centers we'd passed, so we went there and ate and then looked around. 

That shopping area, the market there to be exact, was where we spent a huge amount of our free time and most of our money while we were on the island. It was a grocery store/souvenir shop, but something better than, if that makes sense. Since so many of the nearby places closed early, we stocked up on snacks for the condo and got some supplies that we didn't know we'd need for our trip until we got there. We also got matching outfits for the luau we were going to that night. Well, Steve got a Hawaiian shirt and I found a cheap, matching dress. He was a little horrified, but I thought it was funny! We went back to the room to change and then headed back to Kona for the Luau.

It was quite a drive, and we got caught in terrible traffic (Kona is a biggish city on the island and much more touristy than where we were) but we made it to the hotel where the luau was going to be, got our leis and got seated for dinner. It was all outdoors and the weather was beautiful. We were under palm trees and right next to the water, and they kept bringing around cocktails from the open bar. It was a while before we got to eat, but we did the whole thing, roasted pig, poi, and all! The show was so good, it showed a bunch of different Polynesian dances from all over, and the emcee explained the differences. It was a lot of fun. That night I learned that I don't like Mai Tais or Poi, but I very much like passionfruit and Hula Kane (male hula dancers.)

We went back to our condo afterwards and even though it was still relatively early (we were 4 hours behind our usual time, so early didn't feel early to me) I told Steve to look online and find some stuff he'd like to do, and I fell asleep almost before I was all the way in bed. With the exception of the timeshare part, it had been a fun day. 

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART I

I'm back from my vacation! 

Full disclosure, I've been back for a week already, but I didn't have the time or the energy to write anything because of jet lag, backup of work stuff, and what I can only assume is some kind of radioactive pollen flying around my end of town due to the unseasonably warm weather that is trying to kill me, but I'm back all the same!

Have you been wondering where I went? You'll never guess in a million years. Unless we're Facebook friends, or if I texted you photos, of course. :)

I FINALLY GOT TO GO TO HAWAII!!!!!!  Not an EPCOT version, not a town in Tennessee or Georgia called Hawaii, but the real, actual state of Hawaii. The one in the Pacific Ocean!

Last year, Steve and I went to Florida for Disney (of course) and for a conference, and we accidentally stayed in a Hilton Resort property. I say accidentally because we didn't know it was a resort; we just thought it was a nice hotel until we actually got there and saw it was a full-on condo. While we were in the lobby, a lady asked if we wanted to attend one of their time-share events (we didn't) and if so, they'd give Steve an obscene amount of points on his credit card to raise his status (which he wanted) so we agreed, knowing full well we didn't want a time share. We attended, sat through the torture of the presentation and repeatedly told them we didn't want the timeshare. However, they did give us the option of paying a one-time fee that would allow us to visit any other of their time-share resort properties in the US for a reduced cost to see if we'd like to reconsider. We still didn't want a time-share, but it was a good deal, so we did that. We knew they had some resorts in nice places, so why not?

Part of me didn't think we'd actually use the voucher, but since we paid for it, and it would be our 25th anniversary that November, I made the call that we should use the voucher for an anniversary trip, and I told him I wanted to visit Hawaii. Shockingly, he agreed. The only catch was that we couldn't take the trip on our anniversary because he was traveling for work in November, plus the holidays were right after that, so we planned the trip around my birthday instead.

My job was to pick which resort we were going to visit, as they had different ones on different islands. I initially told him that any one of them would be fine (this is important to remember) but after talking with one of my friends who was in the Navy and stationed out there, who went through the brochures with me and told me what was on each island, I decided O'ahu would be the best bet. Yes, it was touristy, and yes it would be crowded, but I figured that we might as well try that one since it was the one most people visited and we'd see if we liked it. It would have lots to do, and we'd be able to see all of the things we'd heard about, like Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, and the like. So I went back and told Steve to book the resort on that island.

February finally rolled around and it was time to go on the trip. I was peeing-in-my-pants excited, not gonna lie. I even offered to splurge and get the really good first-class seats on the flight from LAX to the island (they were not available on the Huntsville to Atlanta, or Atlanta to Los Angeles flights) which made the last leg of the trip awesome. We were 10 minutes to landing when I noticed something off about our destination, though.

We were watching the flight tracker when I saw we were landing at the Kona Airport. Now, if you aren't familiar with Kona, it is not on the island of O'ahu, it is on the Big Island of Hawai'i. I mentioned this to Steve and he said "Well, they're probably dropping off some passengers there and then going on to O'ahu. Besides, I booked the flight at the airport closest to our resort." However, our tickets ended in Kona. This is how we realized that he had booked a resort on a completely different island than we thought. We had no idea where we were going.

We landed late in the day, and the shuttle took us to the car rental place. As we drove, there was NOTHING around. No lights, very few cars, and it looked like miles and miles of nothing at all around us. I wasn't angry, yet, but I was confused. We picked up the car, headed towards our resort, and checked in. Still, nothing was around us. No cities, no houses, and not even a convenience store. Everything we could see was closed. We were hungry, but the resort restaurant was closed. Our condo was very nice, but I was on edge, which made Steve on edge, and so he decided he didn't want to hear me freak out about not knowing where we were, so he went to bed. I followed. Once I got settled, I cried.

Now, before you say "Oh, you spoiled bitch, you were in Hawaii, but not on the right island so you cried? Boo-fucking-hoo" let me just explain it like this: For 8 months, I'd planned on being in O'ahu. My ex-Navy friend and I had talked at length about the things to do there. What to see, what to schedule once we were there, places to go...all of that. He and his wife even put together and texted a long list of things for us to do and see while we were there. That had been the plan all along. Now I didn't even know where I was in relation to anything, much less all the things that I'd been planning couldn't be done because were nowhere near any of it. It was black as pitch, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I hadn't even looked at the Big Island on a map, and the map I did see on the plane showed nothing that made sense. Imagine booking a trip to New Orleans, making plans to see very specific things, and when the plane touches down, you realize you're in Montana. That's how I felt. I wasn't angry with Steve, believe it or not. We'd sat down and talked about the trip! We talked about the reservations! The biggest problem was that I had told him to reserve any of the resorts to visit, he picked what he thought was the nicest one, I went back later to tell him that O'ahu was where we should go, which he agreed to and said he'd already made the reservation, and the entire time, we both thought we were talking about the same place. A failure to communicate, if you will.

So, yeah, I cried. However, if there is one thing you need to know about me, is that I generally need to overreact at first about anything that upsets me and then I can think rationally afterwards. I have to clear out the panic bugs and then I can move on quite decently! So that's what I did. I woke up in the middle of the night, made lunch reservations and reservations to attend a luau the next day, and went back to sleep knowing that I was going to make the best of this trip if it killed the both of us. :)

We got up, and I told him the plans I'd made. I told him I wasn't angry, just disappointed that we had to retool our plan, and that we'd have to fly by the seat of our pants for the week, which was fine with me. We, of course, had to sit through another time-share thing (which was part of the cost of being allowed to stay there) which we had purposefully scheduled first thing on our first full day so we could get it over with. We respectfully declined the offers, and then we finally got going on our Hawaii vacation!

More to come...

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

Hello friends! Sorry I don't update more often, but I can't stress how little I've been doing! Thanks for checking in, though. I'm glad you are making sure I'm still here.

1) Christmas was fine. We celebrated with Mr. Lee and with my side of the family. With Mr. Lee we grilled steaks and watched a video of one of Steve's Christmas concerts that his dad had to miss. It was nice. We celebrated with my family the Saturday before Christmas because so many of the younger members of the family have kids and babies, and mom didn't want them to have to interrupt Santa time to come over. It was loud, fun, and loud again. I was dressed as an elf. We played games and ate. 

We spent actual Christmas day not doing anything. It was glorious.

2) New Years was fine. We stayed home. I watched Stranger Things and cried at the ending, but I don't know why because I'm not particularly invested. Anyways, I liked it. I don't remember if we stayed up til midnight or not. I think we did? Who knows.

3) Got my haircut.. Actually, I really like it! You can see it in the picture above. It floofs well and is very easy to dry! I didn't actually cut it because of the dye job, even though I threatened to. I cut it because I was drying my hair one day and it got sucked into the intake of my hair dryer and I had to rip a whole wad of my hair out to get it loose. So, that was the catalyst! It was a little traumatizing at the salon (I went to a proper one that I had to make an appointment at and everything) seeing the absolute pile of my hair on the floor, but after I had time to adjust, I've decided I like it. I'm even going back to get a trim instead of waiting another year and a half to get it cut again!

4) Had a routine colonoscopy, and it was decidedly not fine. Not the results, those came back fine, but the beforehand preparation for it was Miserable. There was a time when I would have gone into detail, or at least the more palatable details, about the process, but I'm not going to do that this time. It was traumatizing. I had to take a whole day off of work just for the prep. I wasn't sure that was absolutely necessary to do, but I did it just in case. I'm very glad I did. Let's just say, in the span of 20 hours, I lost three pounds, every ounce of moisture in my body, and my will to live. It was the only time in recent memory that I figured I could swallow a ball bearing and have it drop all the way through me without touching the sides.  I was so dehydrated that my voice cracked and the skin on my freaking arms was wrinkled. Thankfully they let me come in early and get the procedure over with, so I was out of the hospital by 1:00 PM and could go home and eat and drink and try to function like a human again.

Oh, and they accidentally pulled my gown open in the back without closing the door of the room, so everyone who walked by got to see my ass! I guess Mardi Gras got started a little bit early!

5) I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks! A real, non-Disney vacation to someplace I actually want to go! If it goes well, I will tell you about it. I don't want to jinx it. Just know I'm excited. :)

6) Work is fine. It has been busy! Well, relatively so. My job is more about support than anything, but there was a lot of meetings and organizing, and some holiday stuff. My job is great, even if I'm not really doing anything important, but I like the company and I like the people a lot. I'm lucky to work there, I think. Also, they let me be whimsical as long as I'm not causing a ruckus, which I appreciate. 

7) I've been crocheting again after a long sabbatical. I finished an entire, adult sized afghan! It's only the second one I've ever made, and hopefully this one won't be donated to Goodwill, Well, I don't know if the other one was donated, but I suspect it might have been. Anyways, I also finished three baby blankets and some toys, and I'm working on another afghan and doing some other things trying to work through my yarn stash to get it under control. My only issue is that I buy yarn because I like it, but I don't have any real idea what I'm going to do with it. So when I try and use it, I have to go buy more of the same so that I'll have enough to make the actual project, which means my stash doesn't really get any smaller. However, I am trying, and so more blankets and toys will be made. I got a great, creepy pattern for a granny square with an eyeball in the middle, and I'm going to make a biblically accurate cardigan or purse. It will be hideous and I'm so excited.

That's really it! I stay at home most nights and listen to true crime podcasts, which isn't anything to elaborate on. Hope you're doing well and that you have some excitement in your life.

DON'T LAUGH

Ok, so I wrote a song.

Please don't laugh. Also, don't get too excited.

Lemme 'splain...

Steve was playing around with an AI music app, and he was putting in prompts for silly things. The program was doing a great job writing the songs he wanted, so far as an AI program can "do" a great job. It even wrote a song about our dogs that turned me into a snotty, crying mess because I loved it so much. It was fun, but I have complicated feelings about AI.

I think it can be a great help, and a useful tool, but I don't really think people should use it to create things out of whole cloth. I know too many musicians, writers, and artists to feel comfortable stealing from them, especially if that is how they make a living. I do use AI at work sometimes if I need a very specific graphic for something and can't find an alternative, but unless I'm in a hurry, I usually try and use those things as an inspiration or as parts for something I piece together myself. So, while I was enjoying the songs from the app and thought they were fun, they felt a little like a cheat.

He told me that you could put in prompts, or you could put in original lyrics, and the app would give you a song. Now he had my attention!

I can read music, and I can sing music, but I cannot write music. That is a whole set of skills that I do not possess, much to my chagrin. I've always wanted to write music but didn't know how to do it. Anytime I tried, I ended up playing a song that already existed. However, I can do words, and now I had a tool to help with the rest.

I've had this sentence running through my head for a few months that sounded like a line of a song, and it wouldn't leave me alone. I had tried to write something to make it into a song, but nothing worked. I was trying too hard to turn it into music rather than just putting down the words. So, in about 10 minutes, I came up with some lyrics and sent them to Steve and told him to use the prompt "Delta Blues" as the style of music and have a woman's voice sing it. I wasn't expecting very much.

Now, it's very imperfect and there are lyrics I would change if I could. They're a little derivative, and some lines are kind of cheesy, and I would much rather be the voice singing the song instead of the AI lady, but I like what the program did with it. It's more Chicago Blues than Delta Blues (the program emulated the style of Buddy Guy we think) but I'm not mad at it. I work with a musician who heard it and likes it enough that he said he'd learn to play it so I could actually perform it one day. I still know it's cheating, but I can't help enjoying the fact that I can hear a song I wrote "out loud." I uploaded it to SoundCloud so that I could have a way to listen to it easier and realized that I can share it. So I'm going to share it here.

It's ok if you don't like it, it's not great, but please don't laugh!

TaebelleKMP · Burned My House Down

OOPS

It wasn't my fault. Not really. Not this time!

Do you remember how I told you a bit ago that I dyed my hair because it has started to look like I was fading, and how much I hate to dye my hair? Do you know why I hate dying my hair? Because of roots.

I don't think about my hair on a regular basis other than to make sure it's still on my head. I hate getting it cut, I hardly really "do stuff" with my hair, and honestly, I mainly just don't want to be bald. If I look like a swamp witch these days, then I look like a swamp witch.  no one is looking at me. I also have invested heavily in scrunchies to keep it out of my face. Low maintenance in the extreme, as a rule.

However, all that being said, I did dye my hair, and I did look in the mirror about a week ago and realized my roots were showing. On the occasions that I have dyed my hair in the past; I've used semi-permeant dye so that it fades and my roots kind of blend in as my hair grows. However, I didn't look closely at the first dye I bought and got the permeant stuff by mistake. So, OK, that was my fault. My roots coming in were very dark (except for the gray) so I decided to get a color a shade darker than what I'd used before so that when it grew out again, the roots couldn't be seen as easily.

I went to Target and got my new dye (Dark Brown this time) and I went home to do the thing.

I don't have any proof that someone switched the colorant bottles, but I suspect that's what happened because when I rinsed out the dye, my hair wasn't dark brown. It was black. Elvira black.

I've had black hair before. You know that. I had black hair, and I was told well after the fact that it didn't look very good. It was a phase, and I never tried itagain. But now...now my hair is black again and I don't know what to do about it! I'm incredibly pale, so having black hair makes me took even paler!  Now only that, something in the dye made my hair crunchy. I look like I'm going through a crispy goth phase, like Noel Felding! I've tried every kind of conditioner I can get my hands on, but to no avail.

This means I'm probably going to have to get it cut, and I mean, cut short and just start all over. It'll be the December 2000 pixie hair-cut debacle all over again.

SIGH. I don't have any clever way to sign off on this, but I just had to vent. Send thoughts and prayers, and maybe a wig or two. 

HELLO AND MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

Hello again!  

Once again, proof of life, because I know you care!

Of course you care! You're here, aren't you?  Well, either you care or some random string of words in a search engine brought you here by accident and you clicked on the link thinking "This Taebelle fella must know the answer to my query! The Google brought me this link!"

Thing is, maybe I know or maybe I don't, but since we can't chat about it, I won't be able to help this time. However, I've been writing here on and off (most recently off) since 2004, so if you want to look in my archives, the answer could be in there! 

Sorry for rambling. I don't really know what to talk about, but I got the urge to write, so here I am!

Let's see...

1. OMG, I felt so bad. A friend of mine from work made some homemade Asian food for lunch and brought me some to try. One thing I didn't care for, but the other thing was really, really good, so I finished what she gave me. Unfortunately, my digestive system, now sans gallbladder, almost immediately said "Nope!" and I sat there for what felt like an eternity trying to fight my body's urge to violently remove said food from my system. I didn't want her to think her food was gross, or that anything was wrong with it, so I struggled valiantly. Thankfully she was gone from my desk when the fight was lost. I'm just glad she works in a different part of the office. Yikes.

2. For the past three years our office has been having a costume party for Halloween. I've had pretty great costumes each time, if I do say so myself, so I was excited to get my costume for this year. I decided to go as Glenda from Wicked, so I got a blonde wig, the tiara, and a fluffy pink ballgown. Of course, then I find out we won't be having the party this year due to budget restraints, but they said we could wear our costumes and bring snacks! So I put out the call to let everyone know, and we were even going to have the yearly costume contest! So the day comes, and only two of us are dressed up. Two out of a lot.  Well, there were two people kind of "bounding" as characters, but there was me, in full Genda drag, and one of our IT guys dressed as Doctor Strange. So that was a little embarrassing. I mean, I love dressing up, and we had a lot of good food, but it felt weird to be in a sparkly ballgown and tiara while all but one other person was in business casual. Usually, we get a lot more involvement. At any rate, I was very cute and I'm sure you've seen my pictures on FB and Instagram - if you do social media. Please ignore how I look as a blonde, though. That is not a good look on me. 

Silver lining, though, is that me and the IT guy got the costume prizes! So there!

3. I've been trying to write this blog post since October 9th. 

4. Our company has a smart TV in the lobby that is supposed to show the company logo, but I realized a while back that I can get YouTube on it. Usually, I put on nature screensavers or nature live cams, just to give anyone who walks by a little bit on zen. You'd be surprised how well received that is, because people will come and sit on the couch and listen to waves or birds or whatever else I have on. Sometimes I put on fun stuff, like holiday music or a fireplace, or live streams from theme parks, which also gives people a reason to pause and chat for a second. Yesterday I had a Bob Ross Marathon on. It was so soothing that I almost dozed off. Sleeping on the job is a bad look for a receptionist.