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My Last Day in Hawaii Before This Sacramento Realtor Goes Home
Families and children at Magic Sands Beach, Kailua-Kona.
Spending my last day in Hawaii is always a bit sad because I know I am leaving the island. There are people who go stir crazy on an island and can’t wait to get off, but I’m not one of those. It’s such a place of serenity and inner peace. Not to mention, this time I’m leaving our home behind. It’s different. There is nobody following me to make sure all the lights are turned off, the doors are locked and the security alarm is armed. By this evening, I will be 2,400 miles away.
At least I know when I’m coming back. I have a home here now to return to. This is supposed to make it easier for me to leave. But, I’ve never owned a vacation home before. It’s a bit weird to own two homes. Rentals yes, but not two residences. Well, there was that house in Mexico but I never lived in it. I mention this to our new housekeeper. She had to tell me to bring in our outdoor patio cushions before I go. I have arranged for her to clean our house the day before our next arrival date. And again, before I come for my winter residency.
The best way, I figured, to spend my last day in Hawaii was to go to the beach. I wrote about the Kahulu’u Beach Park earlier, as an alternative to Magic Sands Beach, but this time I decided to visit Magic Sands. It’s always a bit crowded. This time I parked closer to La’aloa Drive and walked north toward Magic Sands Beach. I discovered a small path next to a lava wall and wandered down.
A path south of Magic Sands Beach led to these two snorkelers.
There, I discovered two snorkelers in the water without anybody else around. Looks like a snorkeling paradise to me. No kids screeching or banging their boogie boards into you. No splashing water into your air hose.
Snorkeling beach is north of Magic Sands Beach and past the Kapu.
I am a person who enjoys solitude. I can be around other people, appreciate their company and interaction, but I need down-time for myself. Just to be quiet. People who meet me think I am very gregarious, outgoing and a real people-person but that kind of behavior is only available in limited quantities. In fact, I have a t-shirt that reads: Do I Look Like a People Person to You? Strangers approach me when I wear that shirt, and with a big smile on their face make an unsolicited announcement to me, as though I am cognizant of what my shirt says, when I am not. They stop me on the street and say YES. Yes, you do. It always catches me off guard.
I say, well, you’re wrong. And walk away.
Much of my two weeks in Hawaii have been spent lining up new listings in Sacramento. I have plenty of listing inspections scheduled upon my return that I won’t have time to miss Hawaii all that much. Although, last night a seller I had been speaking to about meeting and selling her home in South Land Park sent me an email. She talked about her friends and what happened when she mentioned she is selling. And you’ll never guess what, she says, they referred me to the most wonderful real estate agent!
I stared at that email. What? Am I in public service and don’t know it. Chopped liver? What’s the deal? This makes no sense. Real estate does not always make sense. People don’t often look outside of themselves; too wrapped up in their own worlds.
But you know what does make sense, keeping my lips zipped and knowing when not to speak. I am in an escrow with an insane agent, primarily unsupervised to say the least. I have a lot of escrows right now, and it could be anyone of those, but it’s not. When the agent said to me, I am doing the best that I can, I was very tempted to say the agent has made that disappointing position painfully clear throughout the entire ordeal. It’s not a nice thing to say, though, even if it’s true. So, I don’t.
Magic Sands Beach is a sugar white beach north of La’aloa in Kailua Kona
There is no need to say unkind things to people. It serves no purpose. The truth is painful enough for most people to handle.
The people I’ve met in Kailua-Kona are all, without fail, some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. They have no agenda. They are friendly, warm and accepting. Maybe because we’re all on an island and in this together. There are 185,000 people who live on Big Island. Aunties and Uncles, who aren’t related and a bunch who are. It’s almost like the outpouring of friendship from people in Alaska, except it’s not so cold.
I spent my last day in Hawaii deciding that now, more than ever, I need to make more of an effort to be kinder to others. That’s a worthwhile goal. Well, unless they want to answer my t-shirt. Aloha!
Do You Know How to Grow a Pineapple in Hawaii?
Learning to grow a pineapple is easier than you think in Hawaii.
To grow a pineapple has never been high on my list of gardening activities until I came to Hawaii. Even then, I didn’t quite believe it. The sellers of our house had showed me various pineapple plants in the yard that they had planted, which was an inspiration. So I bought a pineapple from the store. Ate it. Can’t forget eating it. Let me tell you, Hawaiian pineapple fresh from the store is as good as gets. So sweet. None of that bitter stuff.
I’m going off a tangent here for a moment because it seems appropriate. Do any of you remember The Beverly Hills Diet? This was all the rage in early 1980. It started off with mostly fruit for a couple of weeks. A few days, if I recall correctly, were all pineapple, all the time, nothing but pineapple. Which resulted in blisters forming inside your mouth that developed from eating so damn much pineapple. It was also sort of bitter. But I lived in Newport Beach then so maybe I wasn’t getting Hawaiian pineapple at the store.
Back to my story about how to grow a pineapple. Before I ate the pineapple, I sliced off the top. I took that top, dug a little hole in my volcanic ash garden and stuck it into the dirt. I had forgotten all about it.
But look at this photo above! This is the pineapple I planted last year. It is growing a pineapple. This is like the coolest thing. A pineapple growing out of a pineapple. The only thing on par with growing a pineapple in Hawaii is maybe growing artichokes. It’s hard to envision where the actual fruit will appear. It’s not like carrots that grow underground or lima beans hanging off a plant.
I also have a. small taro garden. But it needs a lot more tending. Meanwhile, I can’t wait for the pineapple to mature. It can take 18 months for a pineapple to mature. Can you imagine anything tastier than a pineapple from your own garden?
Avocados grow like weeds in Hawaii.
But wait, there is more. We have avocados, too. The tree wasn’t producing much last year but this year it’s going gang busters. Two things we can’t really grow in Sacramento. Avocados and pineapples. I won’t be here long enough to harvest the avocados. Won’t come back until Labor Day.
OK, I promise tomorrow I will talk about Sacramento real estate and stop chatting about Hawaii. There has been a lot happening on that front, too.
