“When I reincarnate, I want to come back as one of the gnats in your wine.”
Dear Verna,
Your shelf of the things I need to tell you has overflowed. There are memories littering the floor. The shelf is sagging. :-/ (forehead slap).
A zillion things have happened since I last wrote to you, and before I forget all the good laughter, I must rewind waaay back to where I left off. I’ll have to pretend you’re still on your vacation. I’ll pretend we haven’t yet left on ours. I’ll pretend I’m still preparing for our house sitters, and we’re still fixing the roof on the shed. I’ll pretend we haven’t yet celebrated the 3rd Anniversary of Gertrude’s with a ‘white’ party. I’ll pretend we haven’t decided to open a pop up atelier for the KK clothing line for a few months this winter, and that we haven’t had the Harry Potter Art Dinner for Halloween.
So rewind to Bug-A-Boo’s birthday. Vincent was invited of course, but only Easel came. It was a birthday breakfast (because it’s our family tradition) and was a hat party (because I’m her mother).
Then later we went to Manuka park for a run in the grass and a nice nap on the picnic blanket. We’ve been best friends no for 11 years now. ELEVEN YEARS!!!! The fact that we’re not quite so young anymore has been confirmed. And not just by birthdays. The other day I was called ‘Aunty’ by someone who I’m SURE was older than me. She had to say it a few times to get my attention since I obviously was not accustomed to answering to it!
So after the best birthday ever, we overcame one of our biggest hurdles ever. That week I had mounted the solar, turned it on, and it actually worked. I know!! (insert shocked face emoji) I had finally finished the shed roofing, giving it a new coat of paint, WHITE, (to aid in the global warming cool down effort- not to think that even a tiny little 16×20’ shed could make a bit of difference, but it was one of my paint choices so there you have it). Lover requested a plaid painted roof… I did roll my eyes at the amount of work that’d be, but then thought it truly was the best idea ever. Maybe argyle?
Too bad I had such a quick deadline. The roof had to stay full white. I was aiming to get the solar up and the entire house running on it in time for the house sitters to take over when we left.
The setup was quite complicated. I read each manual for every part of the solar system back to front and front to back and still didn’t know SHIT. So instead, I stopped trying to understand it and just set the dang thing up. The directions read as if talking to an electrical contractor so THAT was hilarious. I did a lot of ‘talking back’ to those direction booklets.
Low and behold, we turned it on and there was a light on in the fridge. You know how that fridge light drove me nuts never coming on whenever I opened the door? Knowing FULL WELL it was a vessel for block ice and wasn’t even plugged in? Well goodbye icebox and helloooo civilized fridge!
We still are horrible figuring out the watts and amps going in and out. You’d think we’d be great at it since we have an electric car, but nope!!! So just like in the car, we keep the system on ʻpercentageʻ of energy available and with a good amount of finger crossing and wood knocking (the ʻwood’ being your own actual head of course) and we’re flying by the seat of our pants.
The plan in Nov was to head to the mainland and see the new digs of Hamilton’s parents in Tucson. Nov. has become an anniversary month for everyone in the family and since we were already hopping across the ocean, it was the perfect opportunity to add on a vacay. I fought the inner pragmatist screaming at me that what we really needed was a car!! It was buy a car, which we needed badly, or go on vacation, which we needed badly. And with Lover at the helm of organization, vacation won! The couple weeks before we left Lover would explain, ‘yeah we have to save up some money. So we’re going to Europe for a couple weeks.’ It got roaring laughter especially from those who complain of the cost of living in Hawaii. 😀
Lover really wanted to hit up Berlin if we could find a good deal on tickets. It’s currently hailed as the capitol of art in Europe and the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall was the week that we would arrive. Germany not being a cheap city, we’d have to find another place to bounce to that was economical so we’re going to Istanbul! I’d always had an interest in going to the gateway of the silk road ever since reading The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk many years ago. The author took me through the streets and homes of these two characters experiencing first love. The tea shops full of old men laughing and arguing, woman at the market in hijab, and the call to prayer singing out over the city from over a thousand mosques. I discovered Pamuk while I was in Geneva, making my weekly pilgrimage to the international bookstore. It’s been such fun always picking travel places based on books I’ve read. It’s fun to match up the imagined city streets, buildings, and people with my own experiences. I see how accurate or waaay off I was in my imagining.
Overheard @ The Butcher Shoppe:
– This week the names of fish are changing. Did you hear? It’s now Mahi mahi mahi and Ahi ahi.
– Customer: How is the lady? Is she painting? Hamilton: Yeah. The roof!!
– New sign: ‘we’re on our wurst behavior’ With a picture of a wurst sausage.
– “What’s in the B/IT/CH sandwich?” “Oh that’s Beer, Italian Truffles, and cheddar.”
– “What’s in The Bridal Shower sandwhich?” “That’s beef cake.”
So now that we’ve flat out refused to be a victim of HELCO, we’re doing great! Still need to get a bigger system for car charging, but we’re well on our way. 😀
I’m so glad our atelier spot is just a pop up because I LOATHE going to pay an electric bill. Yuck.
So, pretending time is linear, I’m finally caught up on everything I wanted to tell you! We’ve reached the vacay shelf, and so continues my life of traveling around the world, buying purses. ;P
Time to get going. I’m typing this in bed and Bug is laying next to me with all her legs outstretched against Lover’s back like Sisyphus rolling the big rock up the hill. Ha!!
Love you so much!!!
KK
