Hawaii Off Line

June 26, 2015

Friday

Pizza was a success, even without the Italian flour. They ran back down the hill to our cottage where someone had left regular flour and Matthew used that. It wasn’t much of a “lesson” since Steven didn’t seem interested in working alongside Matthew in the kitchen. But he did learn a couple of things even from across the room. And he’s never used a pizza peel (still hasn’t) but saw how it’s handy to have, especially getting it on and off the grill.

I made a salad with the napa cabbage we bought which was much like cole slaw. No pictures of anything….wish I’d taken one of the 2 pizzas—salami and olives with cheddar and pesto, eggplant, and mushrooms. Matthew really is good at pizza...and many other foods.

No, not losing any weight on this trip either.

Yesterday was frustrating and boring most of the day. I’m not particularly good about sitting around for long periods of time with a book. Well, I might be okay if I also had some way to connect to the rest of the world too.

Mary says she has a 2-gig a month Internet plan, so she leaves it off most of the time. She had it on for an hour for us 2 nights ago and again yesterday, but since I do not understand how anything other than unlimited data works, I inadvertently updated my laptop because my photos weren’t automatically syncing from my phone and I thought that would help. So when she came out to say we’d used 800MB in an hour and she now thinks she might not make it through the rest of the month on what’s left, I had no idea how that had happened….and then realized it had to be what I’d done. I didn’t fess up because I felt uncomfortable and wasn’t sure that’s what caused it till I asked Matthew, but she pretty much said she hoped we didn’t need to use it again while we’re here. This made me feel guilty and pissed all at the same time.

So here’s the thing….I would never have booked us here if she hadn’t said she had wi-fi and Internet on the listing! I had other options, but chose this one and that was one of the things I look for. Steven has speed and unlimited data for $100 a month just up the hill, so it is possible to have here.

To make matters worse, my phone has one bar here and often says “can’t access the network” so I get nothing. And it runs down fast because of trying to connect and roaming constantly. I can’t believe I’m the only one this bothers and no one wrote about it in the reviews.

Last night, Mary picked up her twin 13-year old grandchildren and daughter at the airport. They’ll be here the rest of our stay and beyond, so this means even less privacy than we already have. Matthew says I shouldn’t worry about something ahead of time…really? He’s been married to me 16 years and hasn’t figured this out yet?

We both agreed that since Steven works mornings and yesterday we didn’t get up to his house until 3:00, we’d go to the Botanical Gardens and the vanilla plantation tour this morning. Unfortunately, when I called, all the vanilla tours were booked. We went to the Botanical Gardens and spent a couple of hours there. It's a beautiful place with many wild orchids and other flowers, plus huge trees, ferns, etc.