Inching Toward Hawaii

My husband managed to get himself into a townhouse for $20 a day. However, the woman’s kicking him out for a higher-paying short termer on May 5, though they had a verbal agreement until the 15th. Such is life.

This weekend, he tried to rent a car to drive to Kailua and look at a house. This is what he found:

1. Rental car places, except for the airport, close at 12 on weekends in Hawaii.
2. People don’t work on the weekends. The realtor told him they don’t do showings on weekends(!)
3. Buses don’t run to Kailua from where he is on weekends.
4. He has no Internet, and a phone access Internet card would cost $60 a month with a two-year contract. He uses an Internet cafe, which gives you an hour of free time for a cup of coffee.

I presume this is part of the laid-back island life, but still. He was unable to get anything done this weekend at all, so apparently he walked to Costco, bought some dinners, and spent the remainder of his time watching Hawaii Five-O, which (also apparently) is on 24/7 in Hawaii.

I’m glad he’s able to relax in his waterfront townhome. Really. I’m not bitter that I’m stuck here with kids and a bunch of stuff to sell. I think it actually was very frustrating for him this weekend, car-less, bus-less, Realtor-less, when he wanted to Get Things Done.

Meanwhile, how am I doing selling our stuff? Poorly, I might say. I hate Craigslist. I was selling a bunch of Thomas trains and one woman needed to write to me, “I can buy those for $1 each at the swapmeet.” I wanted to respond, “Go ahead. Stop bugging me,” but I follow the Internet creed: Do Not Feed the Trolls.

The good thing, I’ve found, is that I am busy from dawn until bedtime, taking care of kid-tasks and moving-tasks and never finding enough time for both, no matter how much help I obtain through the Babysitting Gods, i.e. my inlaws. They are VERY generous with babysitting and packing and helping, but unless they actually move in and take command, the progress will be slow.

And the lack of Internet-ness is horrible. He did go on Skype at the coffee shop, and we were grinning like fools at each other. But you have to be circumspect in conversation in public places; it still felt odd and wrong.

The kids feel it, too. The little girl had the most trouble adjusting, arising each night between midnight and one to seek out her daddy and wake me up. She’d turn on the light and say, “I gotta talk you, Mom, ’bout Disneyland,” and try to get in bed with me. Sigh. I told her I was gonna turn into the Old Hag from Snow White if she kept it up, showing her my gray bags under my eyes, and she bought it. She hasn’t gotten up since.

I wonder if this is bad. Desperate times, my friends, desperate times.