Yesterday I didn’t feel well (hence no blog post), and I was afraid that I wouldn’t feel well today, which would be a shame, because today was the last possibility of snorkeling – the surf is supposed to be really high for a few days starting tomorrow (the day we were snorkeling in rough surf, the surf was 2-3 feet; tomorrow it is supposed to be 4-6 feet, though one report we saw said 5-7 feet – anyway, we don’t want to be snorkeling in it). But I woke up feeling OK, or at least OK enough to snorkel.

As you know, we have been having a complimentary buffet breakfast every morning. What you don’t know (though some of you who know us well might have guessed) is that we often take a little tote bag to breakfast with us, and stash a couple bagels or hard boiled eggs to take back to the room for later. We had been doing this pretty regularly at first, but hadn’t done it the last couple days, so that today when I took a bag down, we were out of practice – we filled our bag with a bagel, a hard boiled egg and a chocolate croissant, but then forgot it and left it under the table.

(Lis: I wish to take issue with “some of you who know us well might have guessed.” Or else I’m just defensive. The reason we have been having to purloin food is that the food here is OUTRAGEOUSLY overpriced and we need something to snack on mid-morning, Okay, that’s a crappy defense. I guess we’re just tacky food-stealers.)

We were all the way back to the room before we realized we didn’t have our bag. We hurried back to the dining room, hoping to get there before the staff found our stash – but too late; there was my little Snorkel Bob’s Save the Yellow Tang bag sitting on a table behind the hostess desk. Luckily, there were no staff at the hostess desk, so we didn’t have to face anyone – we just grabbed the bag and skee-daddled. I realize that taking the bag without telling anyone probably compounds the faux pas, but I don’t care – I didn’t want to have to claim my ill-gotten-gain-filled bag from an actual person. Tomorrow, our plan is to pretend nothing happened.

On one of our rides in the shuttle bus up to The Lodge, a passenger had told us about a good snorkel spot – he said the visibility was better there, because it was out past where the swells crest. We went out there today, and sure enough, the visibility was very good and the snorkeling was really great. We saw tons of interesting fish, many that we hadn’t seen before, including a little school of sargeant majors – I’d missed them! At one point, we were floating above a school of fish (mostly convict tangs, but a bunch of other brightly colored fish as well) – they were letting the surf move them from place to place, and because we were floating, we were moving with them, and sort of became a part of the school. I started just looking at the colors of the fish and how the school moved with the surf, and then it was later and I started back to awareness – I had become completely absorbed in the movement and the colors, and my mind had turned off for a while. It was very meditative and zen – I was at one with the ocean! Lis had a similar experience, though hers was a little sadder because she’d started to think/feel about her mom. Still, it was really great for both of us.

We had lunch with Roger and Iris on their lanai, and then headed back to our room to just hang out for the afternoon. First, though, we wanted to stop in the lobby, where a painter whom we really liked, Jordanne, was selling her wares until 3pm. We had looked at her stuff a couple times before (she’s there every Tuesday and Friday), and had decided that we were going to buy something today, but we weren’t sure what. She had some small packs of notecards, which we knew we were going to get, but beyond that, we weren’t sure. Our options were traditional prints on paper, or something with a French name that I can’t remember which is a print on canvas (looked really cool), or an original (small).

Lis was nervous about spending money on anything more than a $30 print; I was less so, and enamored of the idea of buying an original piece of art from someone with whom we’d sort of established a relationship (we spent a good deal of time chatting with her each time we looked at her stuff). I’ve been thinking for a while that it would be fun to buy art, but was held back by the fact that I don’t know anything about art – what if we bought the wrong stuff?

When we were looking at this artist’s work, though, I realized that it didn’t matter – we should just buy things that we like. We’re not buying as an investment – we just want to have things that we think are pretty, and it would be fun to buy an original piece.

We hemmed and hawed for quite some time, trying the artist’s patience a little, I think (though she was very kind). In the course of our million questions, she let us know that she could paint us a small version of a larger piece that we liked, and she would do it on the spot while we watched. That sold me – an original piece that we watched being painted? I’m in. Lis was nervous but acquiesed, and we are now the proud owners of an Impressionist-style landscape of Pu’upehe Rock. I feel like such a grown up – now maybe we’ll put pictures on our walls:)

Lis: Mary totally tricked me. She said to me before we walked over there, “Let’s just take the original off the table and assume we’re going to buy a print.” I said okay. Then Jordanne, the artist, started talking about the originals and how much they would cost us and Mary nodded and looked very interested…so much for taking the original off the table. But it was very cool watching a painting be painted for us, and I think we will probably love it.