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My View for Dinner on the Hawaii Island of Lanai
To talk about how I had to call housekeeping up to my room to push the button on the coffeemaker seems so incredibly insignificant to what’s happening with the winter storm in Sacramento. I’ve been reading the live news feed from the Sac Bee until I can’t look anymore at the downed trees, flooded streets and stalled cars. My email is piling up, yet I can’t avert my eyes. From where I sit at my hotel on the Hawaii island of Lanai, it looks like the polar opposite.
The woman in the room next to me is probably not from northern California. She went out on her balcony yesterday afternoon, just as the reservation people had left my suite, and started complaining at the top of her lungs. She didn’t spend all of this money to be staring at another building. I glanced in her direction and sure enough, my room has a spectacular view and hers definitely faces a building. If only she had been given the room one door down, she yelled. I closed my balcony door so she could hear it.
She seems to still be there this morning. For a hotel that is often booked solid during the holidays, there are not very many people out and about at the Four Seasons in Lanai. I’m not sure where they all go, but at some of the resorts, it’s common not to see people. The guests are generally invisible. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, because I know where hell resides, and it resides at the Hilton on the Big Island.
If you want to swim with the dolphins on the Big Island, you go to the Hilton. It’s like Disneyland. Tram cars take you to your room, down on the lower South 40. You have to wait in line to get on. People are elbow-to-elbow. Thousands of Texans all in one place. Does that sound pleasurable to you? It’s kid oriented, so maybe that’s another reason why it’s on the bottom of my list of places to go because screaming kids aren’t any better than that woman next door screaming about her room.
I guess the worst part of the storm in Sacramento has not yet arrived. Room service has though, and it’s time for breakfast. Then, I’ll probably take my iPad to the beach so I can monitor the storm and cross my toes that everybody is OK.
Hello Hawaii and Goodbye Sacramento Winter Storm
There is a huge monster winter storm heading for Sacramento tonight that I will miss because this Sacramento REALTOR will be sipping a Makers Mark at The Four Seasons in Lanai, Hawaii, when it hits. This is just the first leg of my solo 2014 winter vacation. The photo on this page was shot by my team member and friend, Barbara Dow, when we enjoyed a 10 days in Maui for my birthday this past June. You can see the island way off in the background, and that is the island of Lanai, where I will be later on today. This is my personal reward for a year well done.
Supposedly it will be dinner-time in Lanai about the time the Sacramento winter storm blows its way into town, and I hope it’s not a disaster. The last really horrible storm we survived was in January of 2008 when a tree fell on our home in Land Park. We lost all power, most of our fish died, and we wandered around Pancake Circus on Broadway dressed like homeless people.
Now we have no fish anymore because I flushed the last one down the toilet. I waited forever for that angel fish to kick the bucket. It refused to give up the ghost. After months and months of hanging on and waiting for that last lone fish to croak, I finally decided that was it for the fish tank. It required a lot more work than I had time to devote. I would take matters into my own hands. I scooped the fish out of the tank and dropped it into the toilet. I stood there for a few minutes and watched it swim around. I reached for the handle. The minute I depressed the handle, I changed my mind but it was too late. The fish got caught up in the swirling current. He was gone. I felt awful. Very sad. Tears. But you know, it had to be done.
We don’t have any birds, either, who could freeze to death when power goes out during a Sacramento winter storm. We gave away all of our birds, found better homes. Not that my husband minded much because they chirped and sang all the time, which I enjoyed and he did not. It left an empty hole in the house without the birds because I’ve raised birds — cockatiels, parakeets, canaries — for 30-some years. I love their songs and nestling my nose into that warm feather scent, as odd as that might sound. But there was nobody around the house to take care of them when I work so much, so we had to make adjustments to our lifestyle. It wasn’t fair that the birds didn’t even have names. They deserved better.
But our cats, well, I make time for them. No matter what. Cats are essential to my well being. I could not envision a life without cats in it. My husband already knows the drill with the cats for a winter storm in Sacramento because we’ve talked about a plan. Stuff them into pillowcases if one must and run for the hills if the house is about to flood.
My husband lives by the Boy Scout Motto, so I’m confident he can handle whatever can come up while I am gone. Still, it doesn’t mean I won’t worry about him, the cats and everybody else in Sacramento.
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
