Got Built?

My sister-in-law, her partner, our 5-year-old niece, my husband, and of course, moi - we find ourselves ravenous at 10 PM in the middle of a very tiny bedroom community - Puako, about an hour from Kailua-Kona, and with no corner store or restaurant in sight.

I rummage through cupboards and find tomato sauce, instant peaches-and-cream oatmeal, crackers, pineapple juice, refried beans, two cans of vegetables and two cans of chili. I nuke the chili with the sauce and the refrieds, find some extra chili spice and pepper, heat up the veggies … dinner. Pineapple juice with icecubes helps wash that down. Amazing what can pass for food when you’re starving.

Another pass at the cupboard yields basmati rice. I cook that up to have with the canned tuna I packed with me. No clue what the others will eat, but I know better than to travel without staples … tins of tuna, protein powder, natural peanut butter - the holy trinity of my world …

I ate rice, chili, and tuna for three days. Supplemented with lots of really, REALLY good ice cream… but I want broccoli so bad I’m actually DREAMING about it!

We arrived in the evening, hungry, tired, disoriented. My sister-in-law arranged the trip, and she’s amazing. Two flights to get here, first leg was to LAX, then on to The Big Island.

On the plane, my husband amused our 5-year old niece while I chatted up a Taiwanese-American businessman, whom I amused tremendously by stealing a bottle of water while the flight attendants were busy.

I amused him that much more when I correctly predicted the time for the “Halfway to Hawaii” game the airline has for the passengers … totally cracked him up that this wild white lady with the pipes managed to beat out hundreds of passengers, including him (”I just don’t see where I went wrong…”), for the grand prize: THREE cans of macadamia nuts! I shared them with the back row. Everybody rides, hey?

Heh. Sure glad I got that math degree… the correct time was 2:28:12

My secret? I took the average of two estimates: the one based on total distance divided by net velocity, and the other based on the expected time of arrival minus the departure time. Half this average scored me the macadamias.