I suspect that many of you have engaged the services of clipper yielding folks to get a pedicure. I’ve one that, too, at the insistence of my first wife. When she went to get her toes done every 6-8 weeks she would make an appointment for me, too, but that changed last Thursday when I met my new friend Alisha.
What’s special about Alisha is that she caters to old people. Now, I don’t personally know why, because I didn’t ask her, so I’ll have to peculate a little here.
Foremost in my mind is that she just likes to help people out by tending to their toes. That sounds most like Alisha.
Then there are those who wonder if carving off the crispy ends of their toes would help with sock longevity. My experience in that area is profound as I could not get my socks started without bending my toes down to prevent snagging them on my toenails.
I’ve lost a lot of nice socks that way and Diane was getting tired of replenishing my sock supply. Socks just aren’t as cheap as they once were.
I met Alisha at the St. Helens Senior Center at the appointed time. Inviting me in to the work space the center provided for her, she asked me to undress, from the ankles down. I did that.
Then she draped the towel I brought over her legs and went to work on my right foot. Regarding the towel – you must bring your own which makes perfect sense as the room she uses does not come equipped with a washer. All of her work is done on dry feet.
She has the quietest toenail grinder I’ve ever heard. It was battery powered and, truly, didn’t make a sound. It’s amazing and I want one of those.
While she worked, we talked about all kinds of stuff. Mostly, I talked. I believe she encouraged that because the fear in my eyes was no doubt easy to see and she didn’t want me running out the door, waving my hands in the air, screaming. That wouldn’t have been good at all. I alerted her to my previous pedicure experiences where I was injured. That’s a story for another day. I was diagnosed with PTTD which is just a bit different from PTSD but the symptoms are the same. I was so traumatized that I lost weight. Not a bad thing, really, but still disturbing because I kinda like to eat.
I just ran out of time for getting this done. Diane’s hungry so I must venture out and fetch something for us to eat.
To end this, I encourage you to give Alisha a call, or shoot her an email, if your feet are giving you trouble.
Today is a travel day so we had to get up early. Diane packed all our suitcases and other carry on bags yesterday so all we had to add anything dirty that we may have worn after the packing was done. That worked really well and I especially liked the part where Diane told me to “to go away and leave me alone.” I was just hanging around in case there was something I could do to help. Obviously, there wasn’t, so I finally left her alone. She only had to tell me about three times. I didn’t believe her the first two times.
Oddly, we both had a very comfortable night even though we each woke up about every hour or so to make sure we didn’t oversleep. Kind of ironic, huh? I’m not sure what times Diane woke up but we had a 9am departure from the hotel scheduled but I was cognizant of time at 5, 5:30, 6, 6:30, 6:45 am and finally got up at 7am. I was quiet like a mouse until Diane woke up. Don’t remember when that happened. I was more concerned about having the coffee ready when she woke up. That’s my job. Every day.
We hurked all our luggage to the lobby then I went to get the car. The last thing I did before leaving the room was put the car keys in my pocket. We got all loaded up on my return then headed for the Pearl Harbor Naval Base gas station to fill up before returning the car. It cost us $32.
The tram ride back to the departure gates was uneventful but, like it was planned, we were dropped about as far away from the check in counters as you can get.
The first line we were put in was to just weigh our luggage to make sure it wasn’t over weight. I already knew one of them was. I found a handy scale in that line and put them at 51.5 lbs and 56 lbs. The 56 was too much. Diane kept our place in that line while I went to talk with a nice lady working the crowd at the kiosks. I’d tried them once to get baggage tags but they wanted $30 each which I didn’t understand. We didn’t have to pay for bags coming over. It was like a trick, to get you here for free, then charge you to go home. I was more concerned about the over weight because because that would be $50 extra for each of them that qualified.
After talking with the agent, getting the tags after paying $60 for the two bags, she took us to another line where we could check the bags then head for gate C-1 which was about 1.5 mile walk. She said she’d take care of us in that line, and she did. There ware already 2 agents working the line but there was another station closed. She fiddled around doing “stuff” as we progressed up the line. When we were next in line she opened the closed station and waved us over. Just amazing. She ignored the overweight fee and sent us on our way. That one act of kindness sold me totally on Hawaiian Airlines.
Another thing I like about Hawaiian Airlines is how they deliver their safety lecture before take off. It’s a video that uses Hawaiian employees giving all the information in a suburban setting, and even some young children for some events, like always wear your seat belt when you’re in your seat. Pretty cool.
This guy took off just in front of us to protect us on the way back to PDX
We got off the island on time and headed for PDX.
Arrived before 7:30 pm and checked in to our hotel as planned. Needed supper so bought a couple of noodle cups.
Got up and ate breakfast then Jeff and Baylee arrived to pick us up at 11 am.
On the way home we stopped at Ichabod’s for lunch in Scappoose.
I was right. Yesterday was Monday so this must be Tuesday.
We actually did some sightseeing today and Diane were able to get in some extra miles driving around the island. Me? I got some extra steps in getting the car back to the hotel.
First, let’s talk about my extra steps. As I’ve reported previously, to avoid compromising Diane’s iffy knees and hips, whenever we are ready to call it a day, she drives back to the hotel and goes to the room then I drive the car to the parking garage. You’ve heard this before. It’s not a complaint, it’s just information. Me driving a rental car on vacation has never happened previously because it used to cost more money to add an additional driver. This trip is different for some reason. Maybe the rules have changed. Whatever changed, I get to drive this time without paying more. So, Diane goes to the room and I take the car to the parking structure and walk back to the hotel. For the next trip I walk over, bring the car back, let Diane in the driver’s seat, climb in the passenger side, set the GPS and away we go.
It’s been working just great until this morning. I walked over to get the car, was almost there, and couldn’t find the car key anywhere on my body. That meant one of two things. 1). We both forgot the key in the room; 2). Diane had the key and intentionally kept it, letting me walk 2 miles to punish me for some reason; or 3). Diane had the key and just forgot to give it to me. OK. That’s 3. I realized right away and could have corrected it up front, but didn’t want to.
So, which was it? Of the three choices I’m only complicit in one of them, but bottom line is I should have made sure that key was stuffed in my pocket before I left the room. I take full responsibility.
I got my keyless self back to the hotel and Diane was shocked that I was carless. She dug around in her purse and saved the day.
With the key in my pocket I went back, got the car, drove back and got Diane. Then we drove to Pali Lookout on Highway 61.
The final destination was actually Kailua Beach Park, but Pali was on the way so we stopped. I was disappointed that the wind didn’t seem to be blowing as hard as I remembered. It was actually very nice up there staring down at Kailua and Kaneohe. While we were up there a large group of army men and women showed up and assembled on the lower section of the lookout. We wondered what it was all about so stuck around for a bit and discovered that a staff sgt. was reenlisting. He must have been an important soldier because in attendance were at least 3 bird colonels and a Brig. General. We left before the ceremony but applaud his decision to re-up.
Back at the car I set the GPS for a place to eat in Kailua but uncharacteristically made a mistake and chose a place in Honolulu. I have no idea how that happened, but Diane followed the GPS until I admitted my mistake and reset it to take us to Kailua.
The atmosphere was tense for a little while as we made our way back up past Pali Lookout and down the other side. On the trip we decided that we didn’t need to stop anyplace to eat because Diane had packed a bunch of snacks that we could eat while sitting on, or near the beach in Kailua Beach Park. So, that’s what we did.
The parking lot at the beach was pretty small and there were a lot of vehicles circling like vultures waiting for a spot to show up. We got lucky when someone pulled out just before we got to them and got parked having gone only halfway around the lot. We viewed that as serendipity. We were supposed to be there. Karma works.
Diane was prepared for the beach visit wearing pants with legs that easily rolled up. I was supposed to have shorts but they were left behind. I should have changed to them before we left. So, I was left with skinny jeans with no rollable pant legs. I did it anyway, to my knees. They weren’t really skinny jeans. I don’ have any of those.
All of the above and a pretty bird to boot.
… and, or course, chickens. They are pretty much everywhere away from Honolulu. I think the reason for that is because they taste good.
From Kailua we decided to continue on around the island, through Waimanalo to the east, instead of returning the way we came. We’d done that a couple of times already this day. It was a pleasant drive with a few stops.
The first stop was at Makapu’u Lookout that looks back to the way we came. A stunning view.
When we drove into the lot there was a paraglider sailing around the area.
He was fun to watch but the sea grabbed our attention and we lost track of him until he did this …
I noticed a minor commotion behind me and turned to see this …
He came in for a landing on a narrow walk of the lookout. Pretty skillful guy as there were a number of people around us but no one had to move as he landed.
Having seen that happen we decided the events of this day couldn’t get any better so we decided to leave.
Walking down toward our car there was some more commotion outside the guard rail toward the sea so we went to look and here was this guy getting his lines all untangled for another launch. I speculated that the only reason he landed was so he could use the restroom, but that wasn’t possible because there weren’t any at the lookout. Having discovered that, he rose gracefully into the air and sailed away to look for another one.
The next stop was to see the Halona Blowhole along the Kaiwi State Scenic Shoreline.
From there it was a surprisingly short trip back to the hotel.
Temporary Sanity ... 