TRIPS WITHIN TRIPS

Today. 

It's been a week since my salute with a surfboard and the day the doc said I could get my eye dressing wet so I feel like I'm ready to talk about the the part of the Kauai trip I ignored in my last entry.

Where do I start?

Growing up I loved being up to bat.  I couldn't wait to swing at that softball just to see what would happen.  It was different every time.  For me, waiting for a wave is like being up to bat all over again.

Ouch.

The first trip to the emergency room was kind of funny.  The second trip was embarrassing and the third trip was stupid.

'That's right.  I do remember hearing that.'  I nodded to myself in hindsight. 

Rule #1  Never let the surfboard get between you and the wave. (no kidding!)

Rule #2  When you're underwater and separated from your board cover your head with your arms.

...so much to keep track of.

After the #1, I got right back on the board like nothing had happened.  I was a bit concerned when my left wrist started to swell but was able to get out to where I wanted to be if I  paddled mostly with my right arm.  Because the board wanted to go in circles with this one arm technique, I had to head off in the opposite direction I wanted to end up.  My new knee pain, easily tolerable in the water, made walking nearly impossible once I got out.  The good thing was I was able to forget about all of my blisters because my knee pain completely overshadowed the blister pain.  I was sure my wrist was broken (what is that lump?) but didn't mind being wrong, FOR A CHANGE, when the x-ray told me it wasn't. 

Leading up to the #2...'The instructor told me I was ready to learn to turn.  Flattered, even though I wasn't tired of going straight yet, I hoisted a board up on top of my head and staggered to the beach trying to make it look like my knees weren't about to buckle and then followed the young surf instructor/good salesman and Vince out farther than I maybe should have.  I'd been practicing my turning about 2 hours when the board snuck under water and whacked me in the face.  In typical 'Kathy' fashion I surfaced as if the board hadn't snuck under water and whacked me in the face.  I was pretty sure blood was coming from somewhere on my face since the drips on the top of my board were a watery pinky-red but I continued to paddle out with my right arm anyway while splashing my face with sea water almost continuously.  

"Is that blood all over your face?" a nosy surfer called out while sitting on his board waiting for the next wave.

I glanced around.  'Could he be talking to me?'  "Is it coming out up here? " I pointed to my eyebrow, "or here,"  I pointed to my nose. 

 He leaned toward me squinting,  "Both."   

'OK I give up.' I thought, bummed I wasn't able to pull of pretending nothing had happened.

Looking in the mirror at the emergency room I was trying to decide if my nose was broken or it had always hung a bit to the left when a 40 year old emergency room doc with sand in his hair came in and glued the gash above my eye shut* assuring me it would heal every bit as well as the one he pointed at in his eyebrow, "Coral."

We left for Vermont the next day.  Ten minutes into our flight from Honolulu the stranger next to me turned and said "You look familiar.  We're you at Hanalei Bay yesterday with a bloody towel and ice pack over your face?  

*Feeling guilty and embarrassed for me, my sweet little surf instructor, that probably had a soft-spot for his grandmother, kept telling me how easily that area above the eye splits 

Happy New Year.

Free Bag Checking and Priority Boarding

After 4 hours of watching rain falling at 2 inches an hour, I figured it was too late to run out and roll up the windows in the rental car.  Instead I continued to sit in our studio apartment where nothing was drying and see if our Kauai guide book had any bright ideas for things to do on a rainy day.   I could shop (yuck and who wants to drive around in a wet car?) but decided to wait in the room and hope the rain would let up.  It didn't but the traffic by our hotel window pretty much stopped when the road into town washed out.

 It was back in mid-October when I realized we had to fly 15,000 air miles by the end of the year to maintain our silver status on US Airways* (admittedly ridiculous obsession).  Vince was born in Rio and hadn't been there since he was 1 so going to Brazil seemed like a good idea.  We could fly to Rio and take a couple of flights and buses and taxis to that bulge in South America where there is a cute little town (Itacaré) that time forgot with a mellow enough surfing beach.  Round trip to Rio would give us 11,000 miles, then we could go to Mesa, AZ to visit my Dad for Christmas and viola.....*free bag checking and priority boarding. (so much for cost benefit)  So that was the plan...we were going to go to Vin's old stompin' grounds, Brazil.  That is, until mid November when I read somewhere that we needed visas which required sending our passports away to get them.  Not enough room for error with a December departure quietly sneaking up on us so we told Brazil she'd have to wait.

Now where?  It had to be somewhere that was 11,000 round trip miles away.   Costa Rica would be good.  I could practice my Spanish**.  But it wasn't far enough away unless we went twice.  Kauai had numbers that worked so we planned a hiking, snorkeling, surfing, riding, paddling trip to Hanalei forgetting that Hawaii could have lousy weather.

What a long trip.  Pretty much 24 hours. (and all for 'possible' *free first-class upgrades?)  A few days before we left I heard Vin telling someone that he wasn't looking forward to the 11 hour flight it would take us to get to Kauai.  I didn't correct him (like I usually do) and hoped he wouldn't look at the itinerary too closely.  Not sure where he got 11.  I didn't tell him 24 but I didn't tell him 11 either.

Getting ready for a trip like this used to take about an hour and meant packing a duffle bag.  For this trip I had 2 cortisone shots (1 in the left knee and 1 in the right knee) 6 Supartz® shots (a roster comb derived (sorry) lubricant...3 in the left knee and 3 in the right knee), 4 pediatrist appointments to excavate a plantar wart from my left foot and an MRI that determined my right rotator cuff had only a 'get-better-on-its-own' partial-tear...over-riding the ultrasound that said it had a 'you-need- surgery' full-tear.  And then I still had to pack a duffle bag....

Here's something really dumb.  You know all of the preparation I just told you about......the shots, the tests, the foot?  Well, I got here feeling pretty young.  A playful new skirt that is too big (any tips on how to order clothing online and have it fit?), couple of organic cotton camis....and the cutest pair of new shoes that I wore for the first time the morning we got here.  NEVER do that!  A 5 minute walk to town and both feet were covered in blisters....or enough blisters to quickly-gradually bring me to a complete stop.  We entered the first place we could which happened to be a cafe' with four different big screen TV's playing 4 different football games.  So, after all the effort I put into getting ready for the trip....now I couldn't walk.

So cute, but a wolf in sheep's clothing

Ugly comfort

Discovering that as long as the shoes were off I could make it to the beach, Vin and I decided to take a surf lesson.  Even with wool socks duck taped to my feet (I have my quirks), the salt water 'irritated' (understatement) my blisters (insert scream here).  Here comes my first wave.  I'm up and the only person more surprised than Vince was me....

p.s. Is there a good way to tell if you have a broken nose?

It actually doesn't look too bad here.  More on that later.

 p.s. again.  Max turned 10 today

and decided to sleep in

*US Airways Silver Preferred Status-see * above

**Having never learned another language other than the few Dutch swearwords Vince taught me, I decided to see if picking up Spanish was as easy as picking up that Dutch.  I've been trying with the Spanish, but it's really not taking.  For a couple of classes I felt like things were really clicking but the guy teaching the class kept adding more words.  Ever see the 'I Love Lucy' episode where Lucy and Viv worked in the chocolate factory and the conveyor belt kept moving faster and faster?  That's me.  My brain seems to be purging an new Spanish word for every newer Spanish word and I don't know how to make it stop doing that.