A New Pastime...

You've been seeing it on my Facebook posts - my new friends have a routine of going "swimming". I wondered what exactly that meant and now that I know I'm all for it! What we do is go to our favorite, fairly calm, reef-free area and stand out in the water, talk and fight the current!

I've been invited to walk down to the beach with some of the friends that live right nearby. I've turned down their invitations, though, because the walk first heads away from the ocean, then leads down a dark, narrow, curvy road with barely any shoulder on one side, a hill on the other and is riddled with potholes. It's downhill so once we're all relaxed and maybe tired from all that "swimming" it's a long walk uphill. I used my asthma as an excuse. What I should have said was "Ain't gonna happen!"

So there's 4 of us most of the time:

Kathy Gay is a recent transplant from the mainland, a stage 4 breast cancer survivor, has outlived 2 husbands and is a great-grandma already at 60! She has crazy energy and has sunk a ton of money into the funhouse so she'll be living off her investment for the next couple years.

Leslie Fabiana is a local girl who lives on her family's Hawaiian homestead land with her husband and lots of relatives in neighboring houses. She's been on Kauai for something like 30 years and knows everyone and every place on the island. She's the oldest of our group, is a grandma and one of her sons is a photographer.

Leslie Proffitt is an adorable southern belle from Kentucky, also recently transplanted here. She has a husband back home, selling their property there, and a 39 year old son here that she's living with. She also has custody of her grandson, Lachlan (sp?). She found a property here with 2 houses on it that her family will be living in and it's nearby, less than a mile away!

Every now and then Diana Mahi joins us. She and Leslie F have been close for decades. She's a recent widow, has 3 kids and a few grandkids. She lives on her land with rental properties (one that I stayed in ten years ago) and a tree farm or something like that, a beautiful property where a previous blog "Aloha Donny" took place.

So we like to go and stand in the water and, if it's late enough, we bring drinks and pupus (snacks), usually hummus and nori and chips. After we got out of the water they all drink wine and I bring a beer or 2. Diana's been bringing battery-powered candles so we have a nice glow after dark. Last week I left around 8 and after I was gone some people showed up to lobster hunt using snorkels and underwater flashlights!

We had a full moon party a few weeks back, the full moon was supposed to be huge, orange and coming up at sunset. We had a real nice group that included some kids, I think there were 10 all together. One girl had just been at her ballet lessons so she ended up dancing on the beach in the moonlight.

So I have a new pastime to spend with my new friends! When it's time for me to leave the beach (when I'm getting chilled) they promise to bring a jacket for me so I can stay longer the next time. What a great bunch!

Kapa'a Nightlife!

Here on Kauai they have lots of monthly or weekly "Art walks" in various towns around the island. From what I can tell the one in nearby Kapa'a is one of the largest, held on the first Saturday of the month. Stores stay open late and there are vendors set up all along the street and on church grounds, in parking lots, etc. 

I've wanted to attend some of these art walks to do research to try to sell some of my own "art" and when I mentioned it to my friends they all wanted to go too! So it got put off for a bit. Last night we finally made it.

We parked at the library on the north end of town and headed south. The street was packed with cars and the vendors were EVERYWHERE! I had no idea this would be so large. One of the first tables we passed was kids selling Hawaiian sweet bread. The table right next to them had some kind of meat, I don't recall exactly what. It was served in a bowl, probably on top of rice, for $5. There were tons of jewelry, wood art, fabric goods (Aloha dresses, sarongs, etc), glass art and wares of all sorts.


As we walked on one of my friends suggested we stop and have a beer. So we found a place that advertised draft beer for $2.50. That's our kind of price! Unfortunately, they had no draft beer, only bottles. So we bought our drinks and sat RIGHT NEXT to the big speaker that the guitar players were pumping their music through. They were very good musicians but it was a little on the overpowering side for me, with my hard of hearing ears... Then a little local lady joined them for a couple songs and did the hula. She looked nothing like a hula dancer, her salt and pepper hair was cut short and she had a cute sundress on. But she was very graceful, she'd obviously been doing the hula for decades.

There were musicians and food vendors everywhere, so the sounds and smells added to the sensory overload!  We perused a few jewelry vendors and one friend found a beautiful hand tied bracelet made with fresh water pearls for $10, it's beautiful!

We came near to the end of the vendors on one side of the street so crossed over and started down the other side. By this time we all needed to use the restroom and so that became a priority but the sounds coming from the Eastside Cafe pulled us close. It sounded like James Brown was singing, I was looking for his jumpin' and jivin'! The band was called The Quake and they were fantastic! Then as we're trying to look in and see the band another friend from the hall spotted us from inside and dragged us in and bought us drinks. Unfortunately we were once again parked right in front of the speakers. It was a lot of fun but personally, I think next time I'd rather enjoy it from the other side of the glass, along with many others doing that very thing last night.

I did get to do some research along with all the fun. Now I just need to find out how to get a spot.

About Me

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After 2 unsuccessful marriages I spent 12 years as a divorcee, only to fall prey to another man's wiles. We had a fun 5 years together and then he decided he wanted more freedom so once again I'm single.

So I'm freshly divorced at 57 and have 5 great kids and now 7 grandkids. My kids are still a major part of my life but I'm busy helping my aging parents on Kauai.

I've lived in California, Hawaii and Oklahoma before finally settling here in Washington. I love Washington and come back to visit family, friends and take care of my garden often but will be temporarily a resident of Kauai.

I've moved 30 times in my life (no, my parents weren't in the service, at least not since I was about 2) and finally planted roots when I got my little house that I've owned since '91.

My family are Jehovah's Witnesses, I've been one since '72.