Unemployment mutes my keyboard, largely because I haven't been near it

So, I haven't been here for about a week. Not sure why, but I just felt internet-ally quiet. Didn't feel like coming up with funny stories about my day, or even like booting up my computer. Mostly I've been enjoying being un(der)employed in Hawaii. I figure if I'm ever unemployed again (and God willing, I won't be), it won't be on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I've been doing alot of surfing with my similarly un(der)employed husband, hanging out with my baby, and hanging out with my friends that came to visit last weekend.

In fact, I've discovered that it's really fun to live here if you can act like you're on vacation all the time.

Being with Kathleen and Michele turned me into something of a tourist. Friday we went up to the North Shore to check out a surf competition, one of the legs of the Triple Crown of Surfing that was being held in Hale'iwa. We hung out on the beach and watched awesome surfers rip up the waves. Part of the attraction was the waves themselves. The day before we were there, a huge swell and come in from the north, and the waves on the North Shore were 22 feet (yes, you read that right). By the time we got there, the swell had dropped off some, but the waves were still pretty impressive, about 6-8 feet and perfectly formed.

The scene at a surf competition. Usually there are more people, but these were the early rounds and it was a bit cloudy. All the pros hang out under that white tent. Saw a bunch of famous surfers.

With the girls on the beach. We're trying to download a YouTube video of some guy kite-surfing into a whale's tail.

(I don't know who this is, but this is one of the competitors executing a nice snap-turn off the top of the wave.)

After the surf competition, we went into Hale'iwa to get shave ice at the world famous (sez them) Matsumoto's. This is something I had never done before in almost two years of living here. But I'm a tourist now. It's what we do.

(I had root beer and vanilla ice over vanilla ice cream.)

We spent the rest of the weekend going to the swap meet to buy souvenirs and trying to get rain-free beach time. It's been uncharacteristically rainy, and it seemed like every time we hit the beach, it would start out sunny but then clouds would roll in and it would get windy, cold and rainy. The last day they were here, we ended up huddling under an umbrella at Makaha Beach. It would be sunny, and then rain would roll in from the mountains behind us. Then it would stop and the sun would come out, and we would feel like we had dodged a bullet. Then 5 minutes later the clouds would roll in again. This happened 3 times before we finally packed up our soggy towels and left.

(That grey mist behind us is heading in our direction. I'm huddled under a towel, freezing. And I'm thinking, "I live here. I don't need to sit on the beach in the rain. I can go to the beach whenever I want. Why am I doing this?" But the tourist mind-set had me trapped.)

I actually had some work to do two days ago, so I didn't get to surf. But yesterday Jason and I went up to watch some of the later rounds of the Triple Crown competition, which was still going on (the waves had died out early in the week, so they postponed the comp until another swell came in). We watched a couple of heats and then went to a nearby break to catch some waves ourselves. The waves were about shoulder high and really fun.

Then we went to get Zeke from daycare before heading home. One the way we saw this:

(Note the poor dogs having to hang out under a giant boar carcass. Blech.)

Only in Hawaii, folks.