This will be the last post on IslandArtCafe.com. Sad, but true. I’m leaving Hawaii and moving back to the mainland. I have more details on this here.

I had a great time living in Hawaii. I really only saw a fraction of the Big Island. Any drive off the usual beaten path resulted in some new discovery. Plus I never did see a damn sea turtle or whale, and that was the WHOLE POINT of moving to a tropical island. To commune with sea creatures.

I will certainly be returning to the island for vacations, sunshine and relaxation. It’s a magical place. When you first arrive, step off the plane and breathe the tropical air, it instantly makes you happy. A bathing suit, flip flops and a towel are considered acceptable clothing to do just about anything.

I owe a lot of thanks and gratitude to Lil and Gary for sharing this adventure with me. I would not have been able to have this experience without them. Thanks, guys. As it turns out, they are quite gullible. So if you tell them you want to open a business, they might let you live with them In Hawaii. My old room is open.

So my adventure soon continues in Portland, Oregon, a new city I have only briefly visited and where I know not a soul. Crazy, huh? I know it may not be a vicarious a fantasy as Hawaii, but I hope that you will continue to read at my new blog, mile73.com. I do hope to eventually open a business in the future, and it may be interesting to read. Especially if I join the circus. Or become a hooker. Or join the hooker circus. The trapeze act is *amazing.*

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and who has supported us. Mahalo.

Happy Holidays!

Then are you ever in for a treat!

Click on the photo!

The other day I drove down to South Point which, shockingly, is not only the southern-most point of the Big Island, AND the Hawaiian chain, but ALSO of the entire United States. I’ve driven by a number of times and saw the distant windmills perched atop the black cliffs.

Turns out, the majority of the windmills are broken. It was a parade formation of dead windmills, silent and rusting. Almost silent. I actually heard the lonely whistle of the wind through barbed-wire fences. The sad ghosts of windmills past.

Some of the windmills were turning some distance away. It was like some broke, and they just built new ones, and then those broke, etc. As you’d imagine, it was quite windy at the end of the island. It was also very green and full of cows. A happy, supple carpet of waving grass, sharp blue horizon, billowy clouds, fresh black rocks. It seemed too saturated to be real.

The road went some distance further towards the ocean, but there were numerous “Kapu” signs. Kapu means “forbidden.” I saw other tourists barreling past the signs, but I decided to turn around. I was low on gas, and this would not be the place to breakdown. The windmill zombies might come alive and snack on my car.

Also, some news. Go here: www.mile73.com.

1. Lil and Gary were out of town for a while. Lil was gone on business, then made an emergency trip because her dad was in the hospital. He’s fine now.

I don’t know if you know this, but Lil’s dad George moonlights as one of those Flying Elvis guys. They dress up as Elvis, then they go skydiving over Vegas, or something. Crazy. Anyway, something went awry, but George is fine now. He’s up and about and will be jumping out of planes dressed as Elvis again very soon.

Lil and Gary got back in time for Turkey day, Hawaiian style. We went to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the water in Kona. This is because the knob broke off the oven and we have no way of knowing what temperature it might be. It’s usually adventurous to cook in our kitchen, (see apple brown betty, below) but it’s hard to go all Martha Stuart on Tom Turkey when your oven be all broke. So someone else cooked, and we had dinner with mai tais, pina coladas and foo-foo umbrellas. It was 81 degrees.

2. While Lil and Gary were gone, I baked some Apple Brown Betty with some Massachusetts apples (thanks Mom and Dad!) It was absolutely de-lish. Here is a photo of the Apple Brown Betty:

I know it looks like chicken wings with vanilla ice cream, I assure you it is not. I have had moments of creative food desperation in my bachelorette life, but clearly, chicken wings get CHOCOLATE ice cream.

3. I’m in the midst of planning a whirlwind trip to Seattle and Portland next week. I’m trying to coordinate planes, trains and hotels without an automobile. I’ve never been to either of these places. I don’t even have any real cold weather clothes. I am crocheting myself a scarf as fast as I can.

4. I like plants. Here is a photo of the little succulent garden I have outside my door:

5. Also, today is Keiko’s birthday! She’s really cool! You should wish her a happy birthday!

I apologize to our dear readers for the lack of posts. Lots going on. More soon!

“I am not amused by your amusement.”

Some kitty shit in the shower this morning. It was probably Dinger, but sources also speculate that Pico is a sometimes shower-shitter. I do not have a photo of this.

Also, Jet, The Action Dog:

She was able to keep her balance and ride a few waves into shore. All the while, not letting go of the precious, Precious Tennis Ball. Gollum was a cuddly fruit puff compared to this dog.

Gary and Lil are on the east coast, and I work odd hours, so the dogs haven’t been receiving the regular attention they get when Gary takes smoke breaks to visit with them. They live on the lanai, sleeping in the comfy chairs, barking at other dogs, barking at people, at mongooses, at cars, neighbors, noises, birds, cats, leaves, air.

Although they live together mostly in harmony, at feeding time they must be separated because they fight bitterly in the presence of food. Their bowls are on opposite ends of the lanai. As they eat, one must stand in the middle and enforce a demilitarized zone between them.

I was reminded of this on the second day of feeding. I turned my back for a moment, and though they each had their own food, they desperately did not want to OTHER dog to have THEIRS. There was snarling and yelping and gnashing of teeth. And even after I separated them, they were no longer interested in food. They just wanted to kill each other. These are Jack Russell Terriers, so I am slightly bigger and more imposing than these dogs. I tried to get all Ceaser Millan on them, but these (sorry Lil and Gary) are mindless little creatures.

After the food was eaten, things calmed down and they mingled back together. I was about to go back in, when I saw something from the corner of my eye. Turbo calmly lifted his leg, and quite accurately, pissed in Jet’s food bowl.

Mindless, indeed.

Today is Lil’s Birthday! She is in Tennessee with her family. And she doesn’t eat sweets! A Birthday Banana seems a little bit of a letdown, so below I’ve posted a photo of a group of people I’ve never met, celebrating someone else’s birthday.

Don’t they look like they are having a nice time? Happy Birthday Lil!

Also, Islandartcafe.com wishes a speedy recovery to Lil’s dad. No more skydiving for you, George. Feel better soon.

On my days off, I have a limited amount of time in which to get my regularly scheduled caffeine dosage before my head splits open and I become exceedingly unpleasant. I begin to conjure “other” reasons to go 25 miles into town so that I can just “pop by” work to get a venti-quad-shot-white-mocha. We are out of band-aids? Low on tin foil? I won’t waste another moment! To town, I ride! I wasn’t addicted before, because it’s a silly amount of money to spend on coffee. As a point of reference, if I now wanted to buy my drink of choice for myself and a friend, it would take an hour’s worth of wages for me to buy them.

We have been conducting a constant survey of the various coffee shops in Kona. We do this as a way to get familiar with the area, see what the “competition” looks like, and to search for the perfect cup of coffee. Sadly, on the whole, we have been disappointed.

Coffee grows here on the side of the road.  There are 600 Kona coffee farms. Coffee farming is a culture and a way of life here. And it’s not an easy life. Despite the high price of Kona coffee, there are no coffee farmers getting rich. There is no real way to automate the process. It’s all done by hand and it is back-breaking. By the time it gets to market, it’s easy to see it as a seemingly-overpriced commodity in foil-wrapped bags.

So it’s a surprise to me that, in the midst of this celebrated coffee culture, it has been this hard to find a good cup of coffee, and a comfortable environment to enjoy it in. We have had coffee that is quite awful. It shocks me every time. Many of our would-be competitors serve coffee as an afterthought. These places are more like trinket, postcard and coffee bean outlets, with a dusty espresso machine in the corner. I have driven in search of a cafe to sit for a spell, read the paper, hava cuppa, and found no such place. There are a few breakfast places, or restaurants with table service, but no place to Sit and Drink Coffee.

In a business sense, this is either great, or this is terrible. It could mean that we are filling a neglected niche. Good coffee, comfortable environment, art on the walls, little nibbles, etc. As I write this, it’s a rainy Sunday afternoon, and I would give my right arm for a place like that right now! Okay, maybe a toe. A little one.

On the other hand, maybe there are no coffee shop concepts like ours because there is no such niche! (cue horror music!) Maybe we are the only ones! For such a famous place with such a famous product, there seems to be little in the way of “educated coffee consumers.” This isn’t Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco. It’s not an urban center, where you pop into your favorite local espresso bar on the way to the theater, art open, poetry reading, or whatever else dainty, NPR-listening, city-folk do. This is a small town! We have cows in the road! Gary done shoo wild goats off our property just this morning! Goats!

However, we find the no-niche scenario unlikely. First off, there are likely to be more people like us on the west side of this island. Transplanted mainlanders looking for a place to hang out, drink good coffee, do work, socialize, start artThinks, whatever. South Kona, like the rest of the west side of the Big Island, is booming. There are new developments going up all along the belt road.

Second, there are a lot of businesses right in the area where we want to locate our shop. There are two high schools, a hospital, a court house, a shopping plaza with a university extension center, plus a bunch of other little touristy places just down the road. There are a lot of people.

Third, there are a lot of tourists with cars passing by. We have gotten adept at identifying rental cars. No one buys a Chevy Cobalt on purpose. They either lost a bet, or it’s a rental. The location we are looking at is on the south-bound side of the road, on the way to all the Adventure Activities: volcano, kayaking, snorkeling, beach. We also know that further south, there are no real places to stop and grab a to-go lunch. If you are hungry on the 100 mile drive to the volcano, you can either get a candy bar and a bag of chips at a gas station, or test your luck at a no-name diner in the middle of nowhere, if you can find one.

So we plan on having To Go Lunches for the mobile, adventure-set heading south. Fresh sandwiches, a cookie, maybe chips or fruit, wrapped up water-tight if needed. We’ll probably have a few convenience items like sunscreen and maps. If we get them in the door, I want to have so beguiling an environment that maybe they would return later to have a cup of coffee and check their email.

There are dozens of angles to explore, and we are looking at all of them. We’ll have buy-one-get-one-free coupons and launch a whole marketing campaign. We’ll have gallery events for featured artists, open mike nights, writer’s groups, stitch-n-bitch gatherings. We’ll coordinate events with the fab little bookstore next door. We’ll sponsor community events and have Gary coach a little league team.

I can’t wait to open so I have a place to hang out.

The drive for me to get to work is 26 miles. I allot myself an hour to get there on time. For my own amusement, I divide it into roughly one-third segments. The first third is rural, twisting mountain road. Then small-town through-fare with banks, police station, groceries. The last third is upgraded, wide, higher-volume road.

On days where I report to work at 4:15 in the morning (those days when west coast friends, three time zones ahead, are still tucked into bed and dreaming of flowers, ice cream and ponies) it’s dark, no one is one the road, and I can cut my commute time down to half an hour. How I am able to do this is actually quite technical, and I won’t bore you with the details. I can assure you it has NOTHING to do with SPEEDING on voluptuous, curvy, mountain roads in a car that is hilariously fun to drive. Nothing at all.

This early in the morning, I tend to see more things smooshed in the road. There are a lot of cats and unleashed dogs, unfortunately. Also, the mongoose, which I understand, are GOOD to hit. No one likes the mongooses. They were imported from Jamaica to help control the rat population, but they ended up propagating and eating the eggs of the flightless and not-too-bright Hawaiian State Bird, the Nene (pronounced nay-nay.) So the nene almost went extinct, and so we are supposed to hit mongoose with our cars. Yay!

Also known to roam on the big island are turkeys, goats, wild boars, some type of yak creatures? Maybe? I saw something with horns once. And the centipedes here are supposed to be big enough to eat a man whole. I will gladly hit a centipede if I see one in the road.

So I’m NOT speeding to work this morning, and I come upon a creature by the side of the road. It’s dark and from experience with animals in the road, I first think it is a dog. A very large, stationary, dog. A Great Dane? It’s…a…cow?

A cow. A little one, by cow standards. Hanging by the side of the road. It’s either midget cow, or it’s young. Chillin by the side of the road, in need of a shampoo, probably worrying its mother, hangin out late with the bad kids.

I stop and we contemplate each other. It actually looks at me, which implies a level of awareness uncustomary with most cows. Maybe it’s a genius cow. Of course, I’m in a machine that makes noise and lights up. And it IS by the side of the road, next to a rocky bank in the hillside, so I’m not sure how it got there. I’m not sure how it will get back to where it needs to be.

It’s not IN the road, so I keep driving. But I wonder, it’s sort of a youngster. And it is sort of trapped there. I drive and wonder about the possible realities that may occur with a cow, in the dark, by the side of the road. Schrodinger’s Cow. I have to get to work, and I can’t imagine turning around, getting out and, what, herding the cow? I mean, we shared a glance, a moment together, but what would I do?

Is this a reason to call 911? Do I need to call the police? The cow is not wielding a blow torch, or hurling a brick through a 7-11 window, or beating up his wife. It’s standing by the side of the road. But is dangling on the precipice of destruction, a potential danger to the next car on the road, just a couple steps onto the asphalt. I call 911. They pickup on a second ring. God, I love small towns.

“Hello, this is not an emergency. I am in South Kona. There is a cow in the road.”

“We have an officer already en route to for a cow in the road at mile marker 100.”

Wow! They already knew about it! Go Kona PD! Then I wonder what THEY will do with the cow. Knock on doors? “Um, yeah, is this your cow?” Do they have leash laws to enforce? Can you imagine being woken up in the middle of the night, by a police officer with a cow?

You guys keep the cows safe and I promise to slow down a little. A little.

You should watch Merv Griffin’s Crossword on November 1. Friend-of-Blog-Foe-of-Kayaks Sean will be a contestant on the show! It taped a few weeks ago. He signed into silence until the show aired, so that he has not told us the results. No matter how much we poked him!

So check your local listings and watch!

Did you watch it? You should! Congrats, Sean!

I have a bunch of photos up from Sean’s trip here. Almost none of these are mine. They are almost all taken by Sean. I was going to come up with a snarky comment that the GOOD ones are mine, but no, they are Sean’s also.

These wild adventures could be yours to experience also! Come visit!

See the rest here!