We were able to watch the NCAA Women’s Championship game from a home with a stunning view of Honolulu and the ocean. The Iowa Hawkeyes played a good game but the LSU Tigers were “on fire”. After the game we got some Korean takeout with the intent of going up to the Punchbowl park for a picnic lunch. We knew there was a chance of rain but it had looked overcast all morning. Within a 10 min drive we went from no rain to monsoon like rain to a degree that made driving visibility challenging. Terry knew the route up the mountain well as she used to live up there in college. After we got to the top, we turned around and came back to her condo and ate our lunch. As she had indoor parking we did not need to get soaked. The storm lasted an hour. The temperature dropped and it was windy. It is raining again now.
The Luau was cancelled so we had more time to drive around outside of Honolulu – we drove east and north following the coast and then cut across the mountains back to Honolulu. We saw some whales in the distance at one of our scenic stops. We are near the end of the season but hopefully there will be some slow pokes when we go whale watching on Tuesday. We stopped at a drug store to get something I was missing as well as some bottles of water for our room and a few postcards.
Terry was a gracious hostess for the day and we look forward to joining her for dinner tomorrow evening with a friend of hers for dinner before we leave Honolulu. Tomorrow we are up and out early for the Pearl Harbor tour.
We have docked in Honolulu. My former colleague from NIDDK, Terry, who lives in Honolulu is going to pick us up and take us to her house so we can watch the Iowa play in the NCAA Women’s Basketball finals. I was able to reschedule the Pearl Harbor Tour for tomorrow instead. After the game we will do a driving tour of the island and then get dropped off at the Paradise Cove Luau at 5 PM. Terry has graciously offered to transport us back to ship after the Luau. We will meet up with her again tomorrow evening for dinner at one of her favorite restaurants. Go HAWKS!!
Aunt Carol was the Iowa coaches first grade teacher in Marion Iowa so this is extra special for her.
The ship anchored outside of Kona and we took a life boat into a pier. We started with our Atlantis submarine tour and went down to a depth of 100 feet – as far down as the ocean goes in this location. That is below the coral reefs and it looked a bit like snow on the floor. After that we waled around the town a bit and stopped for some Thai food. I had Pad Thai and experience “happy mouth”. Carol had some spring rolls. We walked back to pier and got on next boat back to ship. Carol was pretty tired and is now nappy on the warm humid balcony. I have showered and intend to stay in the air conditioning until later. I fully intend to take in the entertainment at 730 PM tonight.
This is sea grass at bottom. It is responsible for creating about 5% of the white sand- fish droppings is responsible for the other 95%.
The roots on these trees seemed to be mainly above ground. Carli may need to learn to stand on a paddle board. Tomorrow is day 1 of Honolulu. We will do a tour of Pearl Harbor in the morning and a Luau in the evening.
I got James and I ancestry kits for Christmas. My results became available yesterday. I was kind of hoping to find something surprising – at least a tiny bit of Mediterranean ancestry but alas it is nothing very exotic.
I think Parent 1 is my mom as her father was German and her mother was German and English. We knew that my father family had been from England at some point but they also have an equal amount of Swedish/Denmark DNA.
I will likely spend a fair amount of time on the cruise seeing what else I can learn from the ancestry.com site. I am pretty captive. I am also going to spend some time trying to learn more basics of Polish. I have been doing Duolingo to learn Polish since the end of October. I had hoped to go back in May but that did not work out. I hope to go back – perhaps next year. It is a very difficult language and while I learned a lot of words, I don’t really understand the rules behind stringing them together into sentences. I found a website that I think will give me some of that background. Hopefully that may take some of the mystery out of it.
We were both wide awake at 4 AM (really 3 AM with time change). I decided it would be a good time to do the hot tub – perhaps relax us so we could get back to sleep. Carol reluctantly agreed and we got into our suits and up to the 16th level only to find they put nets over the pools over night. BUMMER. We sat out under the stars for a bit and then came back to room and fell back asleep. I did the hot tub when I woke up again at 730 AM and met a nice women Annie from San Francisco. She has attended the singles and solo mixer at 6 PM and has made some acquaintances. I will likely go this evening and check it out.
Carol’s eyelashes fell off and we lost one. We ate some left over chocolate mousse birthday cake for breakfast and Carol is on the balcony reading – her bliss.
Yesterday we talked about Carol’s birthdays during her childhood that she remembered. She first indicated that birthdays were not that big of a thing in her family because her mother put the emphasis on Christmas. She doesn’t really remember birthday gifts but her mother gave her several parties. As they lived in the country, one year her mother had arranged for everyone to get off the bus at their farm and have cake and ice cream and another year, they had birthday in the town hall and her entire class was invited.
Her birthday her senior year of high school (after her mother had died) she was able to invite all of the girls in there class to a slumber party at the farm. Her dad was downstairs and all of the girls were upstairs in the 4 bedrooms.
She recalled that her father did not have a curfew for her in high school but when she returned after her first year of college, he did give her a curfew. He didn’t have a good explanation why. She never tested it anyway – there was not that much to do.
He always told her to not do anything she would be ashamed to have him find out she did. When I asked her what she did that she would have been afraid for him to find out, she told me about a time when she and 3 girlfriends went with some guy friends to a strip show. Apparently prior to the strip show starting, they played 3 Stooges movies. The girls left after the 3 Stooges and never saw any of the strip show so I don’t really think that counts.
Several fellow travelers we have met during meals have suggested that now is a good time for Carol to stretch herself and try new things; that you do not have to be set in your ways at 80. I think she has heard it a bit and is trying. Last night for dinner, she had Black and Blue French Onion soup (black for Jack Daniels and blue for blue cheese). Her initial reaction was not to try it because it had alcohol and she had never tried blue cheese, but she ordered it and enjoyed it.
We have another game of cards this afternoon which does help to pass time. Perhaps we will have energy to see a show tonight.
Tomorrow is Kona and we will get off of the ship. Hopefully we will have cell service so I can spend time helping her learn how to use her phone. The Android does not do text messaging via internet and the delay in the internet with email is BAD on her phone. I got an email this morning that I initiated from her phone on Tuesday.
Veteran cruisers know that internet via ships is not great. I was not expecting it to be this difficult – now I know.
The slowness of this internet makes it difficult to upload images and once they are uploaded they seem to disappear so hopefully they come through….
We were both up to go the bathroom around the same time so Carol got her first “Happy Birthday” song at 3AM. We had breakfast in our room and then went off to get Carol’s hair done.
While Carol was getting her shampoo, I went to Customer Service to make sure I could get her cake delivered to or table at dinner in the Crown Grill where we will have a lobster dinner. The officer who helped me was Rosa who what the one that had to deal with me on Monday during the documentation fiasco. She remembered me and was very nice. While she was making sure she had everything arranged, she asked if I had paid the upcharge for the specialty restaurant which I had. She then proceeded to arrange to have the amount refunded so the dinner would be on her. It was such an act of kindness that it brought me to tears. Rosa came around the desk and gave me a hug. I think I finally stopped holding my breath and accepted that this was going to be an wonderful birthday for Carol.
Meanwhile back in the salon, Vish asked what time our dinner was – 620 PM. It was early at the time I scheduled it but it turns out it is a good thing because Carol is ready for bed by 8. We are now 4 hours behind our normal time. Vish said if we could come back at 530 today she would do makeup for Carol so she could really be queen for a day. That almost brought me to tears as well as I was going to give it a go, but I suck at putting makeup on anyone else. I barely get it on my own face. We ran out of time to finish the hair style so she will finish that later as well. She was terribly sweet and made Carol feel very special.
We then walked around the shopping level and I got a soft long sleeve shirt that will be good for being on the deck. We then heard a lecture on Effy jewelry and helped to win a pair of diamond studs but didn’t. Carol really liked their rings but found them a bit pricey. It was interesting that they were willing to take 50% off suggested price as the starting point if you showed hesitation. We left without a ring and went to lunch. We had a window seat by the water and Carol had a cheeseburger which she thought was really good.
We ambled back to the room which had been decorated in the meantime.
The room decorations brought tears to Carol and I got another big hug!!!
While I cannot get the picture to upload, Carol finally had a chance to sit on the balcony (with a warm jacket), watch the water, listen to the waves and read.
I didn’t even take any pics today. Temp this morning was in the 40’s. It was still windy but the skies were mostly sunny. Carol has been sleeping really well. I am sleeping OK. We had breakfast in the room this morning and discovered that when you order bottles of water with breakfast, there is no additional charge but later in the day, there is a charge. We watched the Greatest Showman this morning in the room and The Gift before dinner.
I went and walked around the deck for about 25 minutes before lunch. It was breezy but better than I thought it would be. We shared a table for lunch with a mother and daughter from Bend OR, a couple from the East Bay and a couple from across the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone encouraged Carol to use the cruise as a time to try new things on the menu but she is not very adventurous.
We played cards with two women from Fort Worth this afternoon which was nice. We did not keep score.
We discovered the dining room tonight that serves the same food but that you can walk in to. In spite of it being a formal night, we went pretty casual as tomorrow is our big dress up day – Carol’s 80th. It will start with breakfast in our room. Her hair appointment is at 9 AM. The room will be decorated while we are gone. We are going to play cards again in the afternoon. I have not decided when to have the cake yet. It is a huge cake and we will not eat much of it so I think I will try and have it delivered at dinner and then share it with others int he restaurant.
We spend some time discussing family history – mostly just getting the main players all outlined. We will be moving more into interesting stories soon.
Carol described herself as living very much inside the box and I spent much of my adult life living outside of the box. Perhaps that is a reason besides the fact that I was no longer living in Iowa that we drifted pretty far apart over the past several decades.
It will be much better when it is warm enough to spend time out on the deck or on our balcony. I am glad to have the extra room of the mini suite. Without it I think I would be feeling pretty claustrophobic.
Tomorrow is the big day. Carol never thought she would make it to 80 but it appears that she will. So celebrate we shall.
Last night I went through and made us reservations in the sit down dining rooms for all of our nights on the ship. Some nights we got a private table and some nights we will share a table. Tonight was scheduled as a private table. I practiced putting a bit of make-up on Carol tonight – mascara, eye-brow pencil and lip stick to get ready for Thursday. It was pretty minimal but it seemed like a lot to her. She told me that she spent one year putting Mary Kay makeup on every day. It took her about 30 minutes and after the year, she decided it didn’t make her look better so she stopped. I thought the little bit I did made a nice difference. My self-esteem about my appearance was damaged by my older brother and she said her older sister Betty did the damage to her confidence in her appearance. She did not want to wear the sweater with this top because the top was longer in front than the sweater. This is so not a big deal now but was a real no no when she grew up. It was too cool to go without the sweater so she wore it.
She admits she is rather stuck in her ways and likes things certain ways but she is not fighting me on my suggestions too much and I think she does sort of like some of the changes I am suggesting. When we get home she can do whatever she wants, but until then she is going to continue to stretch herself a bit each day.
The reason that she does not want to wear her hair back is because she can see the the clear loop other hearing aide when she looks in the mirror. I cannot see it when I look at her face to face. But she knows it is there and it makes her feel old to see them.
When we arrived at the dining room about 15 minutes early, the couple ahead of us was in some distress because they had changed their reservation to be seated with others to a private table earlier in the day because today was their anniversary. The hostess was struggling to accommodate them so I suggested we switch reservations so the couple could have our private table. They had to wait 15 minutes and we got to eat earlier with a couple from Bend OR who have done a total of 18 cruises. This was their 3rd to Hawaii. The people at the table were a mother and daughter. They had lived in Alaska for a while. Now the mother was in Knoxville, TN and the daughter in Atlanta.
Carol tried lamb for the first time. The salmon was probably very good. I could not taste the shrimp bisque at all nor did I get any flavor from the cheesecake for dessert.
Tomorrow is supposed to be another gray, cold day, but the sun is supposed to come out midday Thursday – Carol’s birthday.
Tamara Unleashed 