A Day in the HK Life
ma’a mau = common, customary
So this blog entry is one that may fall into the “navel-gazing” category, minus any real introspection. I want to catalog and remember a typical day early in our new life in Hawaii Kai (HK). If this doesn’t make your eyes glaze over, feel free to follow along (at least there are lots of pictures!).
I start my weekdays between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. and immediately login to work. I often get on calls straight away, since this is mid-morning in the Central and Mountain time zones where many of my co-workers live, and late evening in India. My body has adjusted to waking up at this time, but it has not yet figured out how to fall asleep at 9 or how to master the power nap. Some days I feel I’m getting used to less sleep while other days I feel very laggy around midday.
I’m relying on caffeine to get me moving, and I’ve switched from tea to coffee. As anyone who knows me will attest, I am not what you would call a coffee connoisseur. I don’t like coffee. I like coffee-flavored things. So my caffeine is Costco-bought, medium quality, macadamia flavored coffee mixed with at least half almond milk and ice. I also try to get my blood going with a 10-minute recurring calendar block for a chair-yoga routine. This has been known to actually occur, but the cats are my only witnesses.
The deck is dark and peaceful at this time of morning, and the stars are still out. The sun rises a couple of hours later, and shortly after sunrise, I often sit in the “egg chair” on the deck and have a snack of Boba pudding (ube flavored, of course. At this point in my obsession, you could sell me a bag of worms if you put “ube flavored” on it).
The kitties believe that since one of their people is awake, they should be fed, so to prevent perpetual feline harassment, I oblige and feed them when I get up. We found a couple of beautiful dragon-patterned saucers at a garage sale a few weeks ago, so they eat on fancy Japanese pottery. It makes the kibble that much better.
Troy wakes up a couple of hours later and makes us breakfast, which is really nice. We often play Wordle, Connections and Spelling Bee on my breakfast break. He’s still recovering from two months of working his butt off (note to self – look up Hawaiian for “butt”) finishing up our house repairs and storing everything away, so he sleeps in, plays chess online, reads, does some light housekeeping, and practices Hawaiian on DuoLingo while I’m working.
I log off work between noon and 2:00. If my body cooperates, I take a nap, but that is a rare luxury at the moment. After a bit of lunch, I move into PLAY MODE. Most days, I stay close to home and:
- Go rainbow-spotting while running errands
- Kayak off the back deck
- Go for happy hour with my dude (e.g., at Tex 808 in Koko Marina)
- Rejoice in the chill vibe of what we’ve adopted as our go-to beach (Waimanalo)
- Have brunch at a local lanai-loving lounge (such as Heavenly)
When night falls, which is rather early since we’re close to the equator and the daytime/nighttime shifts aren’t that extreme, we may socialize a bit with Riv and his friends as they are just hitting their stride, being Night Owl Teenagers and all, before we have a light dinner and I turn into a pumpkin.
So there you have it, the day-to-day “grind” in Hawaii Kai. My skin is soft and supple, my hair tangled and sticky, my eyes perpetually red from salt water or sleep deprivation, and my waistline is expanding thanks to my obsessions with pineapples, mochi, and mai tais.
