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A Cat Jigsaw Puzzle for Those Rainy Day Hawaiian Blues
A cat jigsaw puzzle like Cat-Ology Leonardo can push the boundaries of sanity.
We never set out to undertake a cat jigsaw puzzle. When my husband was in Hawaii with me over Christmas, we decided to pick up an umbrella I have never yet opened because it was raining pretty hard at the time and hasn’t since. We were early for the Rogue One movie so we bopped into K-Mart to look for an umbrella. I think we are incapable of entering a place of merchandise without drumming up other things to buy.
For example, there were no wine glasses at the house. In all of Macy’s, where I went earlier to buy a down pillow because the pillows were too hard, I couldn’t not find wine glasses. The best I settled for was a set of 6-ounce crystal and one of those four glasses was broken. I asked the clerk to prorate the purchase and she could not, if her life depended on it, figure out how to deduct 25% off the price. When you’re on an island, you go with the flow.
Yet, hooray, K-Mart had a set of 4 wine glasses. Granted, they were not the chardonnay glasses I had hoped for but they were for white wine, again, you go with the flow. Also at K-Mart we discovered the evil world of puzzles, specifically a cat jigsaw puzzle. It has 1,000 pieces. Cat-Ology Leonardo.
My husband had the entire frame built out by the time I finished my emails. But the cat jigsaw puzzle would engulf many hours of labor since. After a while, your neck begins to ache from the strain. You stand up, move around the table, change chairs, nothing helps. It sucks you in.
When he left to return to Sacramento, the cat jigsaw puzzle was not finished. The cat’s head was in place, but the body, and all of that fur was not. I was determined. I worked on the puzzle off and on between calls about Sacramento real estate. Tuesday night, I watched a movie about Janis Joplin until 9 PM and thought to myself, “Oh, I’ll just place a couple more pieces before retiring.” Next thing I knew, it was midnight! I was still out there on the lanai with the geckos. Three hours later.
This is what an insane person does. But at least I recognized the trait, so I’ve got that going for me. I have not completely lost my mind. I finally placed all of the pieces, except one right in the center of the cat’s body, yesterday afternoon. Oh, no. A piece went rogue. It does not count if one completes 999 pieces. I grabbed my cell, turned on the flashlight, got down on the Futura pebble surface and searched like the crazy person I am for that missing puzzle piece.
Maybe it was never in the box. Maybe I should call the manufacturer and complain? Yeah, they could ship me the missing piece. Just as I was about to text my husband to ask if he had a cat jigsaw puzzle piece in his pocket or if he was just happy to see me, I found it lying next to a chair leg. I live to face another day at our house in Hawaii with the knowledge the cat jigsaw puzzle is completed.
Back from Maui and Aloha Time
At least I was wise enough to schedule my in-person appearances a day after my return from Maui Aloha time, because no sane person should stare at me at this point except for my husband. My hair is a wild mess, and my face looks like a pillow was glued to it. It is really difficult coming back to Sacramento after a long trip to the islands in the first place because you’re not only coming off Aloha time, like some long drug-induced trip, but the time change is enough to knock one off her feet.
I’d sort of like to say excuse me while I go back to bed, but being a Sacramento real estate agent means I must go to work. I have listings to sell, offers to negotiate, clients to update and new listing appointments to establish. Just thinking about all of that stuff is beginning to energize my brain. I’m excited to be back to work.
You know how I can make that transition from Aloha to Hello Real Estate? Because I have another vacation on the horizon for this winter. I will work like a dog for the next 5 months so I can take time off over the holidays. This winter I will stay at a few of the smaller Hawaiian islands, Molokai on my way home and Lanai on my way out. In between the two will be a couple of weeks at a small island in the country of Vanuatu.
So when people in the know ask how I can be in the real estate business going on 40 years and remain such a happy go-lucky individual, especially after putting up with the frustrations, challenges and let’s call them fabulous opportunities for growth to learn how to calm down the occasional group of screeching monkeys, it’s because of goal setting. Without goal setting, I’d be drifting aimlessly in an un-personed lifeboat like that guy in the Life of Pi, hoping for trade winds to blow my craft toward land.
And that’s just not me.
Photo: Barbara Dow at the Grand Wailea in Maui, by Elizabeth Weintraub
