Fern Posts from Maui

Fern here, here in Maui. Mary gets so hyped up over this place and yet B-16, Hono Kai remains the 70’s cheap build, with dark fake wood cabinets (they don’t chip, they flake hunks of sawdust), Berber carpet (nubby-ness long gone and replace with dark circles), the mauve and blue poster of Hawaiian lady from New Year’s 1981, and the ever-growing yellow stain around the bathtub drain. But she thinks it is great, so here we stay.

The curtain of vine-y jungle that separates this building from the parking lot of the building next door died and has left this unit exposed. It is loud with the coming and going of people, and you know how I feel about obnoxious people. But, the good news is vines provided the perch for all the crazed morning singing birds. The cacophony of their morning wake-ups is thankfully gone. We are left with the sound of coffee grinding in the kitchens of the units surrounding the now exposed parking lot. B-16 would not even make Rick Steeves’ travel book. Resort life isn’t in my resume, and Mary is McGoldrick-cheap.

The regular morning sequence of events has dwindled to two. The sun is comes up around 7:20 over the top of Haleakala and the Whale Foundation boat that spends the night moored in Kihei motors over to the boat basin. The third leg of the a.m. routine has been the swimmer, “shark bait”. This guy was caretaker of an estate a couple of doors down. The house was sold, so the guy’s gig was up. I imagine he is swimming and tempting sharks elsewhere.

The whales are leaping and lazing. They are visible only on these two scenarios. Their most spectacular feat is the full body projectile out of the water, followed with a huge splash and disjointed thump that follows. It is the same delay that separates the flash of lightening and the rumble of thunder. They do love to “pat” the water, slapping their fins and tail flukes. They also laze along the water top, the black triangle of their back moves slowly interrupted with exhaled blow of water that proves their mortality as opposed to being some sort of silent naval secret weapon.

The troop of regular suspects are here. The Alaska crowd are tanned and happy. This weekend, Ernie, the partriarch of the Ketchikan crowd, will host the annual salmon feed. Mary’s friend, Mo, from Comox, BC, arrived Tuesday. They plan to walk the beach regularly and solve the problems of both Canada and the U.S. A. Bobbi, a resident, was happy to see Mary and will update her on the daily life of an aging hippy on Maui. Mary will continue to be envious, but I will slap her back to reality regarding her grandchildren, her children, and the isolation of living on an albeit spectacular rock far out in the ocean.

So life, the three Maui weeks of the Mary’s annual fifty-two, is just the same…sun, sand, friends, Safeway, books, whales, turtles, and sunscreen. I’ve yet to convince her to find the bowling alley, but am happy that she has decided to take this day to work only on her book and her tan.

Aloha,
Fern

p.s. Please note those of you that seem to kill houseplants on a regular basis; the trees in Maui manage to grow them better than you do.