Got more details on our upcoming trip to Hawaii. Looks like we’re going to leave on January 27th and return on February 2nd. This is a good time to go because it’s between holidays yet still pretty chilly here, especially at night.

As I told Tammy and Nane, normally I could take or leave a trip to Hawaii. I always found traveling more of a pain than fun, though I do love to fly. Well, so long as I don’t have any kids screaming in my ear. I’ve been all over the country as well as to other countries, and have lived nearly half my life in warm climates. Seeing palms, cactus and wearing shorts with open windows in December is nothing new to me. Still, Hawaiian winters have got to be a lot nicer than NorCal winters. Also, flying first class and staying in a hotel that’s over $500 a night has a way of making it much more appealing!

It will be nice having not only fewer people flying in the first-class section but sets of 2 seats instead of 3. That way we don’t have to have anyone sitting with us. Hey, two’s company, three’s a crowd. :) As always, I get the window seat! Not gonna be able to see much throughout most of the trip, but the Pacific down below.

I guess they give you a tablet with movies and stuff like that and free drinks, including alcohol, which even I may sample a bit. I never smoke and I almost never drink. But if someone’s going to pay for a week of drinking, why not? I don’t think I’d like or could handle anything too hardcore, though. You get a full meal, snacks, and that sort of thing. It’s gonna be about a 6-hour flight, much like crossing the continental US.

The weird part is that we won’t be going on one of the pretty Hawaiian planes. Instead, we’ll be on Alaska Airlines, believe it or not, with the ugly guy on the fin. I guess they go to Hawaii, too. I Googled “Alaska Airlines first class” and clicked “images.” This way I could see the seats, meals and some of the amenities.

Anyway, instead of flying into Honolulu and then taking a jumper plane to Maui, we’re flying straight to Maui. That’s why we’ve got to fly Alaska. Don’t know if we’ll be greeted at the airport with leis, but it’ll be nice having our own personal concierge to serve us with whatever. One thing they’ll be setting up for us is the catamaran sail from the western side of the island we’ll be staying at called Ka’anapali to Lanai. I thought it would be a big hotel with 15 or more floors, and it would’ve been on the big island, but on Ka’anapali, we’ll be staying in a resort that only has 4-5 floors. Don’t know the name of it, but we’ll probably be on an upper floor with a full ocean view. That’s what I’d prefer anyway, as opposed to ground-level rooms that go for about a grand a night. I don’t expect to be in the room much, but I also don’t expect to be frying in the sun every minute either, and there’s only so much shopping we can do, too. Tom cracked me up saying, we could be out all we wanted since we weren’t paying for it, but if we were paying for a room that expensive, we wouldn’t leave it for a minute! LOL

The trip has been adjusted to the 7K voucher and we’re just $100 over by adding the catamaran cruise that sets sail early in the morning and returns in the late afternoon. We’ll probably still spend thousands anyway, knowing us. Not sure what we’re going to do on Lanai Island, but that’s a problem will have fun worrying about and figuring out soon enough. :) Hee hee!

The catamaran sails about 35 people and isn’t very big. Not sure how long it’ll take to get from one island to another, but I don’t see how it could take very long. That alone, though, is going to be sooo cool and sooo much fun! Having seen the ocean since the Caribbean cruise I won in January of 2007. That was the Atlantic, of course.

sighs sadly I’m gonna miss winning like this. But all the competition out there these days has forced me to retire from my job as a professional winner. Oh well. I’ve still got my other job, which I can’t talk about. It’s not as exciting and it doesn’t pay much, but it’s a job. Part-time, but still a job. Maybe I should go back to writing stories people only want to read if they can get a copy for free. If I do, though, it’ll be for me. Deciding to share copies with friends will merely be an afterthought.

Anyway, that’s all the trip info I have right now. Not sure if we’re going to shuttle to and from the airport here in Sacramento, or leave our car there. We’ll probably shuttle. The sailing excursion is weather permitting, of course, and if there’s ever a time I won’t want to see rain that will be when we’re there unless it’s at night. Sure miss it here, though.

Later…

Did my second workout of Fitness Blender’s 100-rep workout where you do 50 in the morning and 50 more later on. Supposedly you get more toning and calorie-burn that way, but I think I’ll be forever stuck in the land of Fatville no matter what. At least I’m pretty fit. Yesterday I walked around the circle here. Wonder if it’d be quieter if we were on the other side, but Tom said we’d never want to be a few houses down. He’s got no doubt in his mind now about someone there being a woodworker. He said he could hear what sounded like a router running when he was picking up the mail. Even he thought it was annoying as hell.

IDK, I go back and forth, as I was telling Nane, from saying, “Eh, just let yourself be the way you are. If you weren’t meant to be big, you wouldn’t be.” Then I switch to, “Well, it’s too disgusting to puke your guts out after eating, not to manage highly damaging to your throat and stomach, so just starve your fat ass, will ya?” Dunno what I’m going to do yet. I just know that my body isn’t responding to diet and exercise. I lose a little bit but that’s it. I doubt I could stand to starve. Besides, if I do that then I won’t have the energy to do anything. No working out, no housecleaning, no nothing but lying in bed weak, tired and hungry. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday.

I’m more worried about a couple of friends of mine than I am for myself right now. One has breast cancer for the second time even though the odds of it returning weren’t very good at all, and another has ovarian cancer and also hasn’t called.

Alison’s the one with breast cancer, and sadly, she ended up beating the 14% chance she was given that the newest lump in her breast would be cancerous. God has been so, so cruel to her pretty much ever since I’ve known her. I mean literally one thing after another. Just when she’s beaten one thing and things are finally looking up for her, God beats her over the head with a new issue. Sometimes it’s money, but usually it’s her health. Skin issues, sleep issues, depression, cancer… it just never ends for her! :( And these are circumstances out of her control. It’s not like it’s anything she’s doing to herself like smoking cigarettes or abusing drugs or anything that she herself can control.

As has been the case with me and my weight or when things have been rough for me, praying has done her no good. That’s just a dream and she knows she’s on her own. Still, we both can’t help but wonder why these types of things don’t happen more often to the Kims, Kathys and Mollys of the world. Nonetheless, she’s in Stage 1 and is going to go through an aggressive round of chemo with a friend who’s currently fighting Stage 3. What’s scary is that she too, has dream premonitions, usually of a negative nature. Before learning of her test results she had a dream she was at the grocery store. It was Thanksgiving and she was looking for a turkey when she caught sight of her reflection in a window and saw that she looked sickly and had lost hair. She had hoped it was just her worries spilling into her dreams, but I’m living proof that sometimes our worst nightmares really do come true. Or close enough anyway.

14%, though. Damn! But hey, if we could make 12%, she could make 14%. I thought of this when she quoted percentages. Just 12% of Cali was on unemployment during the worst of the economy, and while that may be a huge number, how much is 12% compared to something like 80%? Not much, right? But we just had to be that 12%. God just couldn’t look out for us after already having been through enough shit. No, He had to see us dragged through the mud yet again, and eventually, I’m sure He’ll find a way to take us for yet another ride.

Just remembered the dream I had where Andy called and told me he had cancer. Was it really Aly in the dream? Right issue, wrong person? Weird how one friend tells me he’s got cancer in my dreams and another one actually gets it. Even stranger is that Aly’s latest cancer is in the breast they already removed!

As for Paula, I called, got her machine and left a message. It’s not at all like her not to return the call. She’s been calling the cell, and no, I don’t have its ringer on, but I check it for messages once a day. She said she’d be ok once she had the hysterectomy done, but I’m starting to wonder what’s up. Maybe she’s just too sick to call due to the treatment.

I know it’s just a matter of time before one of us gets hit with a serious enough disease. One we won’t be able to live with or hide so easily. I’m just enjoying every healthy moment that I can and so is he. I still wonder about my thyroid at times, but if I had to guess I would say it’s fine. Most of us that are older are heavy and if we could just diet and exercise it off, we would. Most of us would, anyway.

So much for thinking this would be a light period like last month. This one’s making up for it, alright.

Memory foam toppers are notorious for making people overly warm in bed. Been sleeping with a body pillow wedged between my knees to help keep pressure off my hips. Wonder if being in a “bowl” like that adds to it? Gonna do without it tonight and see if I feel any cooler. I just feel like I shouldn’t have to sleep with the fan on when the room’s only 70° like it usually is at night lately.

I aired the place out a bit earlier. Putting the central fan on sort of acts like having an evaporative cooler set to fan. I open a window in each bedroom and two on either side of the living room and it pushes the old air out nicely.

I keep hearing scattered car doors thump shut, but I never see anyone coming or going, so where are they all coming from? In back? There are no windows in back, so I couldn’t say for sure. They’d have to be in the street, though, as there are no driveways in back. I’m surprised no one’s been to see the house across the street.

Tom walked up to me this morning and said, “You’re gonna be pissed at me.” I looked at him and he said he thought the MagicJack expired in the spring. Well, it automatically renewed itself just the other day. I was pissed at first, but as he pointed out, the $30 is worth the convenience of getting email alerts and then playing Tammy’s messages online. Maybe we’ll look for a thing that will allow us to use it without the computer without so many damn problems. I don’t have it activated right now, so she or Andy or whoever could leave a message and I wouldn’t know it without that email alert. I don’t know if I’d be alerted, though, unless they left a message. For now, people can call the MJ and I can call out on the cell.

My iced tea brewed much better this time now that I had enough ice in it. I want to get regular ice cube trays. I had these rubber things that make long skinny pieces of ice. They’re too much of a bitch to get out of the trays. They’re for putting in bottles anyway.