Same as yesterday in a way- they snorkeled some more, we went shopping.

Random moment from the day: a bunch of teenagers are standing around with "Help Homeless Keiki" signs on the street.

Me: "I wonder what keiki is?"
Mom: "Girl?"
Me: "No, that's wahine."
Mom: "Maybe it's family."
Me: "No, that's ohana."
Mom: (pause) "Well, if you know all the words, why don't you know keiki?"
Me: "Mom, I know that kane is man and wahine is woman FROM THE BATHROOM SIGNS. I know ohana from Lilo and Stitch. Keiki was not in that movie."

(Ironic, because keiki turns out to mean "children.")

We got to go to one craft thing, finally, the Farmers Market. Yup, got more jewelry. We also made friends with an art gallery lady from San Ramon who said that (a) someone could get along without a car in Kona, and (b) it takes 3 years to adjust to moving here. (She was on her fourth year.)

Incidentally, I couldn't help but notice that nearly everyone we met that wasn't a Hawaii native was from NorCal. Seriously, I met three people the entire trip that weren't (the two East Coasters at the luau and one guy at the pool from Arizona). It just got funny to be asked where you were from and have someone randomly know what your high school mascot was. Clearly there's some kinda exodus going on, or at least people from NorCal aren't likely to be fazed by Hawaiian prices the way others might be.

The bad news was, today was Fight Day. I suppose we did well to not fight for an entire week, really.

We'd gone to the Kona International Market, which is quite cool. It's a bunch of "kinda" buildings that have booths set up within them- like a giant craft fair, I suppose, but it wasn't all craft items.

After two days of me wandering around stores and tracking her down later when I was done- I'm sorry, but I'm a fast viewer and she is slow and I'd rather see everything and THEN go find her when she's halfway through a store- she lost her shit when she couldn't find me at one moment. She was buying something and I told her, "I'm going over there," and she didn't hear it. So after a large amount of sulking (apparently), she decided that yelling for me in public was "embarrassing" and instead she'd just stew and get mad at me for not magically showing up when she wanted me. Now, don't ask me where she got that idea from because merely 45 minutes before or so, she'd been fine with yelling my name and having me yell, "Coming!" and then tracking her down IN THAT VERY BUILDING, but...next time I saw her, she was "the angriest I have ever been with you IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!111!!!!"

I'm thinking, "Well, that's hard to believe..."

Anyway, she lost her shit at me for an hour, and decided to play Mommy Martyr by complaining that we'd ONLY gone to this place to eat (uh, so why did you hit the stores rather than making a beeline for the food stand, eh? Couldn't actually SAY you wanted to eat first?) and now she was STARVING and now she couldn't eat and our restaurant reservations weren't until 8:30. When we got back to the condo she called the rest of them and they said they were down at the King's Shops food court and would we like to join them, but she pouted and said no and then whined about how hungry she was but she had to pack instead. Then she didn't pack. I hate Mommy Martyr Mode.

Instead of staying in that tiny room with her packing, I waited until she took a shower and then left a message for my shrink saying, "Is this behavior normal with all moms? Would your mother throw a shit fit and swear that you'd been kidnapped if she couldn't find you in a store even at your age? I'm not saying I was right here, but must she always jump to "OMG KIDNAPPED MY PRECIOUS" every time?" (My shrink's response two weeks later: "No." My cousin Kristen's response to the same query: "No, she'd just call my name.")

That night, we went to Roy's in Waikioloa. HIGHLY GOOD FOOD. Expensive, but actually worth the money. I had the best shortribs ever- tenderest ever, exquisite, spoiled me for all other ribs in the world. Plus they were combined with mushrooms and really good potato. It also came with poi, which I avoided.

(Ever notice that when people want you to eat poi, it's like, "Huh huh huh, try the poi! *snicker*", like they're telling you to look at goatse? I don't think I need to try it to know it must be bad when y'all act like that.)

Packing that night- OMFG. To her credit, Mom did take some time to mail some flat stuff home, and at my insistence at the amount of stuff we had ended up with, she bought an extra expandable carryon bag and another small suitcase. But I really wished we had mailed more stuff home, like all the free mugs people handed us that we just had to take. Despite all of the new stuff I'd bought, I managed to pack all of them. However, I had problems when it came to packing two things: (a) the tennis shoes I'd brought for doing stuff like hiking over lava (which I didn't get to do), and (b) the two beach towels we'd had to bring, like the condo wouldn't have such around the place. When I'd packed to leave, she'd taken her towel and I'd taken mine, but this time she shoved the two of them on me, and that was the point where I couldn't close it any more. Luckily, Aunt Susan (who had packed AN ENTIRE BAG FULL OF TOWELS AND SNORKELS on this trip) said she'd take one. I barely got it closed then, but those damn tennis shoes have always resisted being packed in a suitcase somehow.

I had brought along a bunch of paperbacks for the trip that I had planned on leaving behind in Hawaii and thus clearing some space for souvenirs. Great idea. Neat thing I didn't know about Hawaii condos: people leave their books behind so you can read them. So while I ended up leaving 8 books behind and reading and returning 3 that were originally there, I ended up taking 4 from the pile at the condo- plus I'd bought five books total on the trip. Er...dubious results there, eh?

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