Use It or Lose It - Domestic Territorial Wars

"I absolutely have too much storage space." Said No One. Ever.

Even when you have enough space, you can always use a bit more. At least I can always use a bit more. Doesn't matter whether it's a closet or a drawer, I can aways make use of a bit of extra space.

I don't think there are any empty drawers in my house. If there are, I will fill them. From time to time, the man who shared my house prior to Mark would leave a drawer empty. When that happened I filled it with my stuff. Well, why not? My stuff was crammed into a drawer. If I moved half of it into another drawer, then it wouldn't be all smushed and wrinkled when I took it out. I saw my chance and I took it. Sometimes my stuff would have occupied the drawer for a month or more before he noticed. When he did notice, he would want his drawer back. That was decades ago and I truly can't remember whether I gave back the territory or not. If you don't use it, you'll lose it.

That was then. This is now. I was re-organizing my closet. I had that closet purge a few months ago. In addition to all the clothes that were given to charity, I filled a large shopping bag with shoes. Yet my shoe racks remain full and some of my shoes are on the closet floor. At least a half dozen pairs are on the floor! I was thinking that I'd need to move the little bench seat in my closet and buy a shoe rack that could fit in that corner.

Then as I was putting my husband's laundry away I noticed that he had one of those "over the closet rod" shoe containers that was completely empty. (He has two of them - but one was completely empty.) Just what I needed. I have three of those things, but I could make room for one more. My problem was solved! I just couldn't get it down and moved into my closet without going to get a step ladder. No problem, I'd just ask Mark to get it down for me.

Later that evening as we were sitting on the back porch I pointed out that he had a shoe rack that he wasn't using and that I could make use of it if only he would get it down for me. He didn't actually say anything but I didn't expect him to jump up and do it that moment. I expected it to get done the next day.

Well, that didn't happen. Furthermore, I looked in his closet and he had reloaded all his shoes into the shoe rack that I wanted. Apparently, he did not want to give up any "territory".

"I guess since you put all your shoes back in that empty rack that you don't want me to have it."

I won't really go into the conversation that followed. Let's just say it was good natured and focused on how I needed to have fewer shoes rather than more shoe storage. That's probably not going to happen, but it's okay. I know where they sell those things. And I will buy one. This week.

Family Friendly and the First Amendment

Is there anything more annoying than a screeching child in a restaurant? Maybe. But I couldn't say what it is.

I'm becoming more and more disgusted with places that bill themselves as "family friendly". Back in the olden days when I was a parent, this meant that your well-behaved child was welcome. Seems it means something entirely different now. Children are welcome to screech, run around other tables, crawl under tables, and even splash about in the restroom sinks.

We were in Macaroni Grill. There were two children, one was probably three, the other was about seven. They were running amok throughout the restaurant - the little one screeching as he was being chased by the older one. At one point as they flew by my table I told them to use their indoor voices. Apparently they "told" on me. A teenager came out. As they screeched by again, I suggested to the teenager that she might try to get them under control.

Well. That brought out "the mom". She came looking for the people who dared to speak to her children. It seems that in her opinion we had "no right" to speak to her children "like that". Since we'd been listening to her child screech for 20 minutes Mark told her that she was useless as a parent. The people at the table next to us applauded but the manager, (who was probably all of 19 years old with no clue about child behavior) came over to ask if there was a problem.

"Yes. There is absolutely a problem. These children have been running around screeching for the last 30 minutes and I've had about enough."

She said, "We're trying to be family friendly." (Emphasis on "trying".)

What does that mean? I wondered. "Trying to be family friendly?" She explained that there was a large group in the private function room and the children belonged to them. Fine. Why didn't they keep the little darlings in the room with them? Why had they been running around unattended in the restaurant for the last half hour?

"If this is what you think family friendly is, you can have it. I don't have to come here. And I've had as much of it as I can stand."

We got up to leave. But as I was having the conversation with the "manager" I didn't see that the group in the private function room had left. Six big guys and one grandma were waiting for us when we got outside the building.

"Are you the people who said my wife was a bad mother?"

"Not the words we used, but okay."

Then we were told that we had "no right" to speak to either the children or the parents. I suspect that they had no idea what rights we did and didn't have because they were more than likely not citizens.

They got right in Mark's face - literally inches from his nose. I think the intent was to goad him into throwing a punch. I was afraid. There were six big men. All young. And they were spoiling for a fight. I feared Mark would oblige them. We just wanted to go home. Dinner had been a miserable experience. They kept pressing in closer and closer. Mark didn't throw a punch, but what he did do was put his hands up to protect his face and of course one of them bumped into his hand. Well that got them going.

"Did you see that? Did you see that? He touched me! That's assault! Call the police. Call the police!"

To which I said, "Yes. Call the police." I figured if they called it would save me the trouble of calling them myself. Seriously there were six big men and they had us surrounded and wouldn't let us leave.

I was afraid Mark would throw a punch if they kept on so I insisted that he get in the car while I waited for the police to turn up. I could hear bits of their phone conversation with the police- "a British guy...no weapons."

The police turned up. Three patrol cars. When the police came, they spoke first with the manager. I have no idea what she said because I wasn't standing close enough to hear. Some of the men who were harassing us tried to interrupt her but the officer told them to "go stand over there" and assured them that they would get their turn to talk.

We were up next. Mark handed the officer his license. "They're making a big deal of me being British, but I'm an American." Then the officer asked us what happened. We told him and he assured us that exercising our first amendment right to free speech was certainly not a crime. After talking with one of the other officers he came back and told us we were free to go.

I asked if a patrol car could follow us home because they had followed us to our car and photographed our car and we were afraid they would try to follow us home.

"Don't worry about them. They're going to be here with us for quite a while. Go ahead home."

And so we did. But I think I'll be avoiding family friendly places for awhile. I don't need that much drama and excitement in my life.

Decompression

Lots of people would have headed for home right after the cruise was over. But not us! We really felt like we would need to decompress a bit before we went home. After all, we'd been on a whirlwind tour of the islands. What better place to decompress than Turtle Bay on Oahu's north shore?

It was fabulous! Such a beautiful place. All rooms were ocean view. Fabulous pool. Great beach. Nice restaurants. I wish we'd had time to play the golf course.

We were a bit confused when we arrived. We arrived on Saturday and thought we were to check out on Tuesday for a total of three nights. That's when we found out we'd only booked two nights. Mark was all set to call it a screw up and blame it on hotels.com but I thought that before we had them book us in for an additional night, we should probably check to see when our flight home was. As it turns out, our flight was on Monday, not Tuesday. Two nights was correct. Glad we checked. Much as I would have loved to stay in Hawaii, missing your flight is always a pain in the butt. Even though I could have used one more day, it was just the amount of time we needed to relax before heading for home.

Substandard??? No!!!!!

When cruising the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, Mark would never consider cruising with Norwegian Cruise Lines. He was convinced that we'd be fed nothing but cold fish and that the staterooms would be very austere.

I'd cruised on Norwegian once before Mark and I were married, and while I could vouch for the food being okay, I had to admit that the stateroom consisted of a very tiny space with bunk beds. Austere. But also a long time ago.

But the cruise we wanted, the one that leaves from Honolulu and cruises around the islands for the week and returns to Honolulu, is operated by Norwegian. Only Norwegian. You can cruise with Princess and a couple of the others but you're leaving from Vancouver, or Los Angeles, or some other city on the west coast. Then you're spending three or four days getting to the islands, stopping at a couple of ports and then heading back. We thought we'd rather spend more time seeing the islands than "at sea". Norwegian was the only option.

I was also told that the food and service on this particular cruise was substandard. Reason being that it was run "by Americans". I heard this from several people. But truthfully, I had a hard time with that comment. Still do. Substandard service because it's run by Americans??? Where do you go for better service than you get in America? Certainly not Great Britain. Certainly not France. Where do you go to get better food than what you get in America? Again, not Great Britain and not France - not even Italy serves food that's better than what's available here in the US. We were pretty sure the food and service would be absolutely fine.

And it was. Fine. All fine. The food was fine. The service was fine. The stateroom was fine - not austere - it was actually well-appointed and comfortable.

I highly recommend this cruise. You get a taste of four different islands without having to spend time packing and unpacking and fooling around with TSA agents in airports.  And there's really nothing substandard about it.

Cruising the Na'Pali Coast

This is where that balcony would have been worth it if it had been on the other side of the boat. We went up the coast where we could see from our balcony but we were a bit far away.

When we started the journey back down the coast we were much closer, but we had to go up on deck in order to see.  This is so fantastic they should go up and come back down following the same path so that everyone with a balcony can enjoy these stunning views without having to go up on deck.

The Fern Grotto

The last day in Kauai was going to be a short one. We were sailing around 1 PM. We didn't want to rent the car for the second day because 1. there was no place to park it and 2. it was going to be a short day and we didn't want to risk not getting back on time.

So instead we booked the Fern Grotto tour. (We booked it early the day before so it wouldn't be sold out.) Our bus driver took us to a couple scenic overlooks so we could photograph some of the waterfalls and then we took a boat trip on the Wailua River to the Fern Grotto. The Fern Grotto was the site of royal Hawaiian weddings in times past, as well as some more recent Hollywood celebrity weddings. There were enough ferns to impress me, but as I understand it, many of them were ripped out by a hurricane that went through a decade or so ago - the same storm that was responsible for freeing the chickens that now run around the island.

The boat ride had some entertainment - musicians who played Hawaiian music. (Someone requested Sweet Home Alabama, but they declined - said they had to play Hawaiian music or risk being fired.) It seems the older guy is something of a local legend. He was in the Elvis movie, Blue Hawaii and also worked at one of the hotels and as legend has it, could tell you stories about Sinatra and other big names, but he prefers to just sing and play his ukelele a few days a week on this tour. Good fun! We had another hula lesson. And it rained really hard on the trip back from the grotto - glad the boat had a roof.

We had a stop by the beach before being returned to the ship. Here are some of our photos.

Grand Canyon of the Pacific

The Waimea Canyon is known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It is grand! Waterfalls and ocean vistas - and when you are in your own car you can stop at every wide spot in the road for a Kodak moment. (Just don't wander off into the state park for lunch. Slow service and mediocre food - not befitting the environment!)

I'll let the photos tell the story.

Book it Early

We opted not to rent a car in Kona. What Mark really wanted to see was the memorial to Captain Cook but our research told us that this was virtually inaccessible by land - especially for someone (like me) with an injured knee. The best way to see it was going to be by boat.

The day before we arrived in Kona we decided we'd take the Land and Sea tour offered by the cruise line. It included a bus trip through the town and then a short cruise out to where we could see the memorial. The shore excursion folks were out when I filled in the request and dropped it in their box. I assumed they'd get to it. But when I hadn't received anything by dinner time, I decided to go check. (It wasn't out of the realm of possibilities that the tickets had been delivered to the wrong stateroom. Someone else's tickets had been delivered to us on the first day of the cruise.)

That's when I found out that it had sold out. We were on a waiting list. Number three on the waiting list, to be precise. The odds of getting on this excursion were slim and none. If we wanted the land part only, that was still available. But the very helpful gal at the shore excursion desk told me that everything was in easy walking distance and easy to find. (Code for "you don't need to waste your money on this tour.") While it was a bit disappointing, it did provide us with a reason to go back one of these days.

So we just kicked back and relaxed. Had a leisurely lunch and went looking for a fish plate. Here are some of the photos we took in Kona.