sick and tidal of being sick

So...Monday I was still dog sick. I slept out on the porch to enjoy the fresh breeze...it does help dissipate the cloud of ook parked around my head. I managed to get up at 2pm & go to Kea'ua with Cat. I was hoping I could find a Neti Pot at Natural Foods but they were all out. I lasted all of 10 minutes in the car & sunk right back into the land of ill. When I got home I faked a Neti Pot by using a straw... I poured Tumeric Salt water into my sinuses, per Cat's advice. It hurt like a mother but totally worked. I was snot-free within 20 minutes.

I felt a lot better Tuesday morning - thank goodness, since we had our first meeting with Mark. I forgot how much I like first design meetings with new clients. Cat, Mark and I got everything set with his site & house plans, then shot the breeze on the porch for a few hours. Daniel dropped by around 4 and took me to the thermal steam vents. Man, I wish I had known about them over the weekend. My lungs and sinuses cleared right up and I got to sweat out all my sick. The vents are so beautiful...dark dimly lit lava caves covered in moss. The steam condenses on the ceiling & falls back down on you as a gentle rain. There was already one fellow in the vent we chose & we shimmied in the tiny opening to join him. He played harmonica for a while & shared his lavender oil. I crawled out at one point to pick a wild gardenia growing next to the entrance. Lavender & Gardenia is a lovely scent combo, fwiw. We stuck around for half an hour total I think. I'm definitely going back often :) When we got home I threw the 'real' Tri-Tip Fred Steaks on the grill. They've been marinating for 4 days & I couldn't wait any more! It wasn't an exact match.... but damn close and it was cooked to perfection! I think I'm going to bump down the red wine & coffee and add more molasses for the next batch.

This morning (Wed) I finally felt energized...still coughing up a lung, but at least I wanted to get off the couch :) Daniel, Jen, Cristina and I piled into my car & headed to Hilo. We went a gorgeous theater from the 20's called the Palace to see a weekly show called Hawaii-ana. It's hula, singing, storytelling & Hawaiian crafts. Jen and I are going to try to get into Hula lessons before she leaves on July 4th. Next we headed down to the Farmer's Market to do my weekly shopping, then it was off to Wal-Mart to buy Taboo - cuz I'm sick of getting my ass kicked at Scrabble. Turns out Jen LOVES Taboo too. We got home & immediately parked it on the porch playing Taboo with Daniel. We decided to hit the tide pools around 4 & had them all to ourselves. The first fish kind enough to hold still was this lovely Saddlewrasse.

Jen immediately found an Eagle Ray that I swam with for a while...it's nice and slow so I got lots of nice pics!


Then Jen took the camera & got a shot of me swimming with it.

I got foot cramps again so I handed the camera off to Daniel. He has a knack for finding turtles...


When we got home cristina made amazing fried Hawaiian 'donuty things' (Masalata) & Jen and I made Scharfenberger Ganache covered bananas. Poor us. Cat & Robert just made a fabulous dinner & I'm about to head off to bed.