First full day at Kona

Our first full day in Kona, and, oh boy, has Mom packed it full. The main goal of this trip is to rent out the condo we are staying in, which means, a morning of cleaning and errands and supply runs and go go go. Mom was kind enough to drop me off at Starbucks for about an hour of fast(-ish, let's go with "fast") internet, for which I was quite thankful. I caught up on email, and pondered my weekly and daily lists, chatted with a coworker about the direction I was taking some tests (good direction, slight adjustment to make it better), and downed a short-chai-latte-soy-no-water-extra-hot.

Part of the problem I have with helping with this condo, is that it's real estate. Which means, of course, I want to remodel it, fix it up, buy another, rent it out and good f---ing lord just stop with the real estate already, Kitt. I can imagine all sorts of changes I'd like to make with this place. Not a great place to be, lost in imagination when there's work to do.

So, after cleaning up the place, vacuuming and scrubbing, Mom showed the place to an interested couple. We took off for lunch and errands. First up: thrift store.

Couple things about thrift stores: they're a great place for bargains, and short legs plus cropped pants equals holy crap really bad look. I knew that latter one, I'm not sure why I thought it would have changed on this vacation. We were looking for kitchen towels and lamps for the condo. The thrift store had neither, though Mom did find a shirt she liked.

Next up was lunch at Sam Choy's Kai Lanai. I didn't know that Sam Choy was a big deal. Apparently, he is. I had the Fried Poke Salad, which was mostly amazingly delicious. It was as colourful as it was tasty. Recommended for the food, but not for the view,

Nor the price. $40 for lunch was higher than I was expecting. I don't know why I wasn't expecting that high, I should have been.

The bathroom sink was pretty neat:

After lunch, we wandered to the post office (want a postcard from Hawaii? drop me a note and let me know) for stamps, the supermarket for fish, rice and soy sauce for dinner tonight, then off to Target for weight lifting equipment:

Which is to say, more cleaning supplies.

Despite wanting a cupcake for dessert, we decided not to stop to have one, since the icing would likely melt off the cupcakes before we had a chance to eat them, as Mom expected to leave them in the car while we went to the farmer's market. I'm not sure what Mom was thinking about "leaving" and "in car." My plan was to shove the thing as fast as I could "into" my "mouth" and likely "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" with delight for the 5 seconds that the cupcake survived mastication.

So, after the weight workout at Target (where, incidentally, for the first time in a week, I entered a Target and DID NOT BUY ANY NOTEBOOKS, go me!), we went off to the local farmer's market. Mom adores this farmer's market. As, incidentally, we are trying to get 10000 steps in each day, she parked a long ways away from the farmer's market location and step step step off we walked over.

Here, we learned about the Round All Ass 'nd y'all.

Mom appeared to be less amused about that than I was. At the farmer's market, we found all sorts of Hawai'ian fruits, which was wonderful. Mom has a particular vendor she always goes to, so we went there. Turns out, the avocados here are big.

After the farmer's market, we wandered over for ice cream and had the most delicious ice cream ever. The only "Ooooof." of the day happened there, when I pulled out $2 for a tip and dumped it in the jar, only to realize the inner dollar bill was actually a five, and I just tipped them $6 on a $7.49 order. Upside, the ice cream was realllllly good.

After the ice cream, we bounced back to the condo for another showing. The evening was very low key, with Mom on the phone with prospective tenants, making appointments for viewings and my bouncing between writing this post and watching bundle install work over a 3G connection. Fun times.

Right now, neither of us wants to cook, so an adventure to the local natural foods store is in order for dinner. If I make it to 8pm tonight, I'll be shocked.

Mom says that most people get used to the humidity on the Islands in a couple, maybe three days, so I'm hopeful we'll want to cook by Sunday. Otherwise, we bought a lot of tasty food that's going to go to waste, and that would sadden me.

Today has been a great first day on Kona.