[photopress:IMGP8398.JPG,thumb,thumb] [photopress:IMGP8401.JPG,thumb,thumb] [photopress:IMGP8402.JPG,thumb,thumb] [photopress:IMGP8404.JPG,thumb,thumb]

Video: Awesome ukulele performance!
I can’t even begin to describe today’s events. I’ll just bottomline it – I called mom at about 3pm today saying “I found your car, and he’ll be there in a few minutes to show it to you!” Mom will be here for 4 months to escape the winter blues in rainy Washington; Pete joined us yesterday as well. We’ve been having a good time getting them settled into their beach cottage. So next on the list was finding a car they could use for 4 months. We turned to Craig’s list first, of course. I took a quick gander this afternoon to see what I could find. I needed a quick mental break from a project I was working on and I have a button on my browser for Craig’s list, ready for me to fire away with whatever random searches I am currently working on…cheap surfboards, free rocks and trees, etc. Near the top of the list was a ’96 Ford Escort LX Wagon. I called, talked to Tim (pictured above), and made arrangements with him to drive the car to meet up with mom and Pete so they could check it out. I rendezvoused with them after buying three surfboards from the Salvation Army (more on that later). Turns out it was in great shape and Tim was super nice, and willing to sell it to them on the spot! As he wrote down his name and address for mom to get a money order, we noticed he LIVED ON THE SAME STREET AS US!!!!! It wasn’t until we looked down the street from our deck that we realized we could SEE HIS HOUSE FROM OUR FRONT DOOR! How totally and completely nuts! Mom and Pete walked down to pick the car up, met the family and drove back. A few minutes later I took the trash out and ran into Tim taking the base decals off as required by the base. He came in and entertained Sam while enjoying a beer with us. How fun! He is a real character (Tim, if you’re reading this, you are too funny!) One final strange coincidence – guess where they’re moving? You’re right – to Washington! Crazy, huh? This is how it’s been for us here. Serendipitous, divine intervention, call it what you will, it’s really mind-spinning.

So, in other news, we’ve been landscaping like crazy. I have learned about antheriums, crotons, areca palms, hau trees, sugar cane (which I almost bought) and many other plants. Sam helped choose plants at the nursery in Waimanalo yesterday. We were lucky, Lettie (also pictured above) was VERY knowledgable and walked me all over to find just the right plants. If you live in Hawaii and need expert advice and good plants – go to Koba’s in Waimanalo. Hard to find, but worth the effort. We’ve been thinking about repairing or replacing a really unseemly chainlink fence. Thanks to Lettie, we now have honeysuckle growing up to cover it, and thanks to Sal’s boutique, four surfboards extend the height of the fence to give us some privacy. I found one when we first moved here, and found three more today at Sal’s – they were originally $150, marked down half, and had been sitting there for a week. Things move really fast at Sal’s, especially gear in this town, so I decided to go for broke and make an offer since these were pretty shabby and hadn’t moved. I offered $75 for all three and got away with them for $100. A little over my intended fence-remodel budget (I was hoping for $25/ea max) but we’re excited to have them! We are hoping brother Steve will paint them for us in a really funky island motif. I have them bungie-corded to the fence so the trade winds don’t turn them into a missile. If they’re still up tomorrow, I’ll snap a picture 🙂