I'm tired.

I initially signed up for Lavaman over in Kona, a great olympic distance race that was also the Best of the US qualifier for our state.. but I had too much going on here to get away, so Oahu it was for the weekend. Saturday morning I tested out my very bright pink cycling/run vest.. stuffed the pockets with the camera, larabar, cap, goggles and sunglasses and it zipped right up. And it didn't even make my ass look big (my ass, however, may have made my ass look big, but that is not one of my big concerns in life). It seems like the wind has been howling here forever.. look at the windward side below me, all white and choppy:

We rode 30 mi and planned to throw a swim in the middle, but that mission was aborted due to cold ocean.  I think the paddleboarding in the whipping wind was every bit as cold in the end. This is what it looks like when I get dropped off of Waikiki, with Katherine disappearing into the distance:

Sunday morning, the ride to the sprint tri was nearly as long as the race itself and I was tempted to sleep through it, but Derek was driving and it's hard to back out on someone when they're in the driveway ready to roll. So off we went to the Waterfront at Puuloa for the first sprint of the season. It was a 750 swim, 20k bike, 3.6 mile run. The swim may have been a wee bit short (or a lot, whatever) and I tried to hang onto Michelle and Stefan, but they pulled away. I was out third and first out onto the bike, after slipping and eating it on a corner in transition. Michelle flew by while I fiddled with my shoes.  Michelle, 5 months post-baby, was just behind the whole way, holding the same pace and pushing me to go go go. We worked through the men and Ewa Beach and came back into transition in 29 minutes. And then it was on to the good part. The run was long - 3.8 miles, if one were really really anal and, um, mapped it or something, and flat and quick. I ran 24:06 and finally broke out of the 6:30 rut with 6:17/mi. And that includes the time spent running back for my chip when it jumped off my leg. I finished in 1:03, first girl, sixth human. 

Michelle and I, post-race. Excuse the fashion tragedy, but with bangs, it's blow dry em or hide em.

It's funny the things we care about after. I couldn't tell you what my swim or bike pace was, but I know my run pace, and I know my transitions were 23 and 25 seconds.. I am all about keeping it simple in transition.. transition is free time!

My friend Derek did his first tri in 1:15, an awesome 15 minutes faster than he had planned on. And he puked on the run, which I think is the sign of a well-raced sprint triathlon. Some photos:

excited to swim, as always:

An unusual finish.. timing chip in hand, making sure it beeps!

The podium!

Off to San Diego on Thursday.. if I can get all my work done first. Half-ironmans don't hurt as much as sprints, do they?

material girl..

I got some lululemon in the mail today. Sky stole the pink run/cycling vest immediately. I told her to give it back, pronto, and this is what I got:

A view of her little tonsils. And then she stole the shape jacket, which I stole right back and wore to work. And then on my run, and then again, all evening. I'm still wearing it. And I think I smell just fine.

I love all my new stuff! Thank you Kirsten, for taking care of me.

Since it's the beginning of taper time for Oceanside 70.3 next weekend, I have been taking it a little easy. Perhaps too easy.. Friday will be a complete day off, and I rarely do that. I at least ride my bike to/from work most days.. but the coach forgot to send a schedule and I'm rolling with it. Friday feels like a good day to rest.

I'm learning things during the taper. After work this evening, Katja was headed to Murphy's to watch the Duke game, so I went with her. In my run gear, ready to roll out the door and run an hour.. but then I accidentally drank a Tom Collins. After forgetting lunch in the crazy busy work day. One cocktail and I was spinning. I said good-bye to Katja and friends and headed out to wobble through downtown. Luckily it was a state holiday so the roads were pretty empty. I don't run so good drunk. I tripped twice, but no blood was shed. I stretched at Kewalo for so long I started wondering if someone might loan me a surfboard.. aloud. Spring break is teaching me things too, with conversations that go like this:

Hey Sky, how did you get that tape in your hair?

From a credit card.

From what?

I asked Wyatt if I could use his credit card, he said sure, and put the tape in my hair.... But don't worry, I'll cut it out.

And with that, I learned to re-hide the scissors.

I'm expecting a present in the mail today, one that will look a little something like this!

Kristin at Betty Designs whipped it up in a day, from an email, in which I pretty much asked for something pretty, because that's the extent of my artistic description ability. She did pretty! And then Dawn and Ira at Splish made it up and send it my way. I can't wait to try it out in a little sprint this weekend..

Rocks rocks and more rocks.

Last night I picked two rocks out of the gaping mouth-like cut on the ball of my foot. During Tuesday morning's ocean workout there were some hard sprints on just a little rest, and being the good environmentalist that I am, I stood up on the reef in between one set to catch my breath. And took a chunk home with me. Other highlights of the workout included slamming into Stefan when he stopped to look at a turtle during a hard effort in which he had just instructed me to draft off the fastest person I could find. Which is always him. He must have meant the fastest person who doesn't stop for turtles.. which he has a tendency to do during the North Shore Swim Series races as well.

I wore my wetsuit. Not only does it make me feel like catwoman in a girdle, it makes me about twice as fast as I am without it. My sinky runner-legs are all floaty and my total inability to kick no longer matters. My fatigue from 7 miles of intervals on the road during the hour prior to the swim workout chasing Todd and Courtenay didn't even matter, because all I have to do point myself in the right direction and the wetsuit floats me there. I love my wetsuit. When I first got it, back in 2007, I had a hard time taking it off, so I just didn't.

I would wear it to work if I could. I'm up to my eyeballs in rocks and dirt at work. I'm writing the geology chapters for seven volumes of the Guam EIS, with weekly submission deadlines that are next to impossible and warrant 60 hours a week. Want to know about rocks on Guam? I'm your girl. You can find me procrastinating at Jamba eating oatmeal or at Starbucks chatting with my green-aproned friends, approximately six times a day. I'm the girl wearing my office-blanket and not putting weight on my right foot..

They're on to me.

On Friday, Wyatt came home from school all excited and showed me this:

Mom, look what I made. Do you know what it is?

A ball of feces?

What's feces?

Poop.

No, it's not poop.

Are you sure? Because it looks like poop, and it doesn't smell that hot either.

It's putty! I made it out of dirt. Take its picture.

So I take the picture, show it to him, and set the camera by the computer. And then he says it:

Hey, you'd better not put that on your blog.

The gig is up. I am screwed. The kids know that I've been making fun of them on the blog for just about a year now. It occurs to me that someday, they may read all this. Uh-oh.

I think it's officially taper time around here. I got the long workouts in on Fri/Sat because I knew Sunday morning might be rough. Saturday was a four-birthday-party day, finishing with my friend Kerry's 30th at Level 4 in Waikiki.. a club that opens at 10:30 pm, half an hour after my normal bedtime. We danced until 2:30 am.. all the while wondering why the go go dancer on the left was so familiar. She was in full stripper attire, dancing like a stripper.. just not stripping. And, I realized a few cocktails in to the morning, she was my daughter's sweet little ballet teacher. Who, it turns out, is not so much sweet as she is hot.

So today was recovery morning.. which means paddleboarding! Katherine and I went out for a bit, but it was windy and there were some decent sized sets rolling through, so we didn't last too long. Just long enough to see a turtle, run into a few swimmer friends and paddle for dear life when the channel closed out.

Sky stealing the board.. and me, just before I realized that the surf was a little big for a leash-less paddleboard.

I came up this morning in a haze and overhead a conversation in the kitchen between Henry and Ramsey. Dad, what's an essay? and then, without skipping a beat: It's a gang friend. So now the poor kid is probably wondering if he has to join a gang to do his homework...

Save a buck or ten..

I know some of you all out there live in places where you would die if you went outside naked, like the east coast. If you're considering the new half-iron distance Rev3 race, I've got an entry-fee discount for you. It's going to be an incredible race - I mean, it's in a freaking amusement park! And there's a 20k amateur prize purse, 100k for the pros, who are signing up by the boatload, live cameras and online athlete tracking using Trakkers. If you want an early summer half, it's on June 7th in Middlebury, CT, and Iif you register via active.com, use the code NSS151 to save $10 on registration.

Trakkers is a sponsor of the event, and will soon have live athlete tracking via GPS up on their website. (Right now it's just pictures of hot tri-girls Heather, Amanda and Bree - totally worth the click, in my opinion). But what Trakkers means for me is that instead of guessing where the heck I am this year at races and hoping to be on the right corner at the right time, my family and friends can watch me online in real time, and know just where I am. How cool is that? I will have a link for Trakkers-tracking for California 70.3 in a couple of weeks.

And I have a local recommendation as well. If you're local, especially East Oahu local, check out this farm: http://otsujifarm.blogspot.com/ I jumped co-ops because this one is in my extremely overdeveloped suburban hood, right next to the baseball park, our home away from home. It's a last ditch effort to save the four-acre farm. And for $10, I get a giant box filled with veggies - not 90% kale, like the last coop, but bok choy, choy sum, heads of lettuce, daikon, radishes, sweet potato, swiss chard and oregano. The real kind, not the kind you accidentally bought in a baggie in People's Park in college. I didn't even know what oregano looked like.

lululemon Tri Babes

The new clem made her first bike commute today.. and tonight, Tantalus repeats! New clem rides strangely similar to old clem.. The biggest difference I can find is that new clem is a little more fluorescent orange.

I kind of have a lululemon obsession. You may have noticed. At my last job I could (and did) wear 100% lululemon to work. It was awesome. This job requires things that need to be ironed, but I'll complain about that later. Because todayI want to talk about lululemon Tri Babes. Five other lululemon-loving triathletes and I will be running, cycling and swimming lululemon's latest products into the ground. Their speed shorts are my favorite, I no longer run in anything else. Until a year ago, I went out of my way to search for a lululemon store every time I hit the mainland.. and then we got our own here on Oahu. And now friends in less fortunate areas send me on missions to pick them up lululemon gear.. But soon that won't be an issue, because as of April 2009, they're selling online. And while the husband was skeptical when he unwrapped them christmas morning, he now wears his light, slightly stretchy lululemon "khakis" to school most days.. it's not just for the girls.

I am so excited! Not only do I get to run in and talk up clothes I would be running in and talking up anyway, I now get to give feedback about what I love and don't love (ummm, will there be anything?) about my favorite stuff, and try out lots of their new products. Sure, it's just going to feed the obsession further.. but I'm just going to roll with it. Already I'm learning stuff.. like that logo? It's not a 50s hairdo, or a horseshoe, it's a funky A. The other Tri Babes are some cool, bad ass girls, but I'll let them tell you about it themselves. A couple of them are linked over there in fun humans, though.. if you feel like digging through!




And in the spirit of all things lululemon, check out my friend Kirsten in the latest Triathlete magazine doing yoga. She demonstrates 8 yoga moves that she uses post-run to stretch out, loosend up the hamstrings and back, and recover. I started on Monday, and will do them after my daily run and update in two weeks. My hamstrings are not unlike leather belts, so I'm all in hoping this will help. You can find the article online here. on page 167. It's a quick little set, and since time is the limiter that prevents me from committing to more yoga, this is perfect for me. Plus, Kirsten is a babe, so boys, go read.

Merry Christmas!

This was here when I got home from swimming last night:

And inside?

Ask Sky would say, Ta-dah!

I love you, Timex. And Trek. And Bontrager. Yea, new toy! And hey, new fancy travel box too, while I'm at it. While it looks exactly like Clementine the orange bicycle, there are subtle differences. I will tell you what they are when I find them. Both are on their way down to Boca right now for some putting-together and tuning up, and then me and New Clementine are going to hit the road. And Old Clementine is going to head to her new home in Kailua.

I made it into the ocean today for the first time since January. It wasn't as horribly cold as I expected. I ran my intervals first, then wetsuited up (hard to do when sweaty, good thing the swim is first in triathlon) and headed in. The first thing I saw was a moray eel. I haven't seen one of those since my days as a weekly scuba diver, back before triathlon. He was spotted and a little afraid of me and adorable. Then there was a crazy-friendly turtle. And then I went in, because I'm easing back in to the ocean..

Ramsey says no more votes. He started out just losing, which he was OK with, but when people started doubting his heterosexuality.. well, let's just say that I think the glasses are mine now, permanently. Thanks, guys!

Group ride.

Yesterday looked like this.

Day one of the big weekend involved a impromptu trainer ride with intervals that got progressively shorter, until I finally decided just to sit on the couch and eat my lara bars, because it was cozier. Swimming at Ala Moana during floods is like asking for an infectuous disease.. so I had to can it.

This morning called for a 3.5h ride followed by a 1.5h run, which sounded suspiciously like Ironman training, but I try not to question the man. It was a little wet out when I got on my bike at 6 am, but the flash flood warnings were over. As I rolled down the hill Katherine texted that she was not coming because of the weather. Which left me on my own. 

So I rode over to Boca to catch the group ride, to meet all my super-motivated, fast Boca friends who love to ride. When I turned down Cooke I could almost hear the song from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly as tumble-trash-bags blew down the deserted street. Not a soul in sight. I had 3 x 20 min of time trialing to do, so I headed up the Pali for the first one. So here it is: this is the Boca ride in Nuuanu this morning. It was a quiet group.

And here we all are, having a little rest break at a lookout on Tantalus. I attempted to TT up aero, but had to come out for some of the switchbacks. I would have stopped higher up for a picture, but it seemed there were drug deals going on at each lookout. I didn't want to get shivved, so I took this lonely pic of my giant head half way back down.

Out in Hawaii Kai, we all stopped for a snack after the third TT effort. Note the terrible weather. Ahem, Katherine.

I got off the bike for the 1:30 run a little worried. It's been a long time since I've attempted a proper brick, and the run is often sucky. But today I had legs. After 40' of clicking off 7:15 miles, I had 5 x 6' of cruise intervals to attempt. Solo me + intervals usually = quitting early, crazy justifications, etc.. but I got them all.  I hadn't really nailed a long workout in a long time.. and I forgot how fun it could be.

And it wasn't entirely lonely. I caught Pretty Billy going up the Pali, ran into DJ on Tantalus, saw Jack and Justin after they were nearly decapitated by a cooler lid on Kal Hwy, and ran into the long-MIA Joe Zwack in between intervals near the old folks home. 

Now, as previously mentioned.. the great sunglasses debate. They're Oakley Liv. Sounds like a girly name to me.. but like I said, they do kind of make him look like Elvis. Who gets to keep them?

Tooth Hunt

When Wyatt loses a tooth, he really loses a tooth. The first one, about a month ago, fell out of his mouth and down the sink drain while he was brushing. Last night he went to bed with a dangler. And woke up with no sign of it. He thinks it's in his bed. I think it's probably in his stomach. 

friendly fire.

A couple of times a week I'm home early enough to pick up the kids from school. I ask what they learned, and they respond by telling me all the special words they learned at A+, the after school program. Yesterday Henry was down and out. I asked what was wrong, wondering if his procrastination on the big seven-paragraph Indo Report was catching up with him. Let me remind you that for unknown reasons, he speaks with a New York accent, and kind of sounds like he has a clothes pin on his nose. Well, he says to me, right before you came to get me, I got taken out in dodge ball by friendly fire. What? Friendly fire? I ask. Yeah, Justin beamed me in the back. My friend Jhi Quann does a spot on imitation of his clothes pin-nose NY accent that makes me laugh until I cry. Who knew friendly fire was a problem in dodge ball?

This showed up in my inbox today.

The girl has always liked props.

My phone broke this week. It was two weeks old. I went to TMobile for a new one, and they wanted $100 anyway. So I got mad, said nasty things and then told them I was getting an iphone and left. But really, I can't afford an iphone. So I decided I just wasn't going to fix it. I changed my voice mail to reflect the new phone-less status.. and made it about a day before my sister Celia gave me an old phone of hers. It's just like my old one, only not broken. And it has The Office soundtrack for a ring. Now, I generally consider myself of average to above average intelligence. Stop snickering. But I can't wrap my brain around this ring. At baseball yesterday, I asked JQ, do you hear The Office theme song? and then went back to watching the game, never once considering picking up my phone. Tonight I could hear The Office theme while doing dishes. And it reminded me that it was Thursday, and 8 o'clock, and The Office must be on in the living room. Too bad I was the only person upstairs and the TV was off.. oops. I wonder how long it will take?

I just got my weekend schedule.. Fri-Sun = 10.5 hours. Not my standard weekend.. but I'm determined to make it. In the past 16 days I've run all but one day. If only I could love the other two like I love to run..

swim wagon

I'm on, then I'm off, I completely forget to swim for a week.. it's bad. Last night I went to Oahu Club masters, partly because I chose to run over going to 5:30 am UH masters and partly because I thought Oahu Club would be easier. I was wrong. I rode my bike out to Hawaii Kai into yet another crazy rain/wind storm that came out of nowhere, and almost kept going right past the pool just because the thought of the ride home after seemed miserable. But I made myself turn in.. and I was early. Early enough to have 1k in the bank before the warm up started. It was a big crowd, with lots of fast swimmers, and Joe threw me right in with them, chasing Lou and Dean in the fast lane. Oh boy. 

Right off the bat it was a series of 200s. My lane was going on 3:00. Which is funny, because I can't swim 200 meters in 3 minutes. But what do you know, with the fear of Dean lapping me looming, I came in at 2:50. A new world record! For me. I didn't feel fast, I felt discombobulated and like I was floundering around.. after lots of 200s came the 50 m sprints. After four of them, I climbed out at the hot tub end and told the gang that I was at 3500, my pool max. They booed me and lured me back in with promises of a ride home.. and then made me dive in for the next sprint. I don't understand the physics of diving in with goggles on.. but magically, they stayed on my face. For the first time ever in a pool, and only the 5th time in my life, if you count the four times I had to swim it in an ironman, I swam 4k.

I got out knowing that in less than 10 hours, I would be running intervals. Todd called the workout when I showed up at 5:45 am this morning: 16 x 400 on 1:45. I like going in blind - it keeps me from worrying about the workout in advance. My quads did the evil lactic acid buildup thing in the very first interval.. and then totally came around. The rest interval was shorter than I've ever done, but it paid off because the miles flew by. TI in the tights was gone in a heartbeat, but I kept him within yelling distance for every interval and made it all the way through, which often feels like an accomplishment in itself.

An evening of rest (read: I should be on the trainer but I'm tired) gave me time to catch up on a stack of magazines - and I found this very short story that I have to share: Mouse Au Vin. I was sucked in at the end of the second paragraph with I did a pretty solid forward roll. This is why I love the New Yorker. I totally look all edumacated while riding the bus, but really, I'm laughing at mouse jokes.

The camera cord is lost. I'm very sad. Stay tuned for my first ever poll - who gets to keep my new Oakleys. They're very gold, and very girly, but R has a point when he says they make him look like Elvis. He wants to keep them. Photos to follow..

 

Easy like monday morning..

I seem to be in a 6:30 rut. I had a good weekend of training - 15 miles Friday, four hours of ride/transition run on Saturday, and a 10k road race Sunday morning. Our usual 10k course here is kind of rough. You go up Diamond Head at in the second kilometer, run a lap around Kahala, and then up the backside of Diamond Head for kilometers 8-9. I ran the first half comfortably, planning to hit 5k in 20 min and then pick it up. A man yelling splits said 20-flat as I passed and told me I was in 10th place. Just where I wanted to be.. it was time to run 19:45 or so for the back half. But something happened on the hills back up. I didn't run out of legs.. I ran out of lungs. I think the one track workout of the year was just not quite enough! With 100m to go, someone yelled If you beat the guy next to you you're top ten! Which was just the motivation the man next to me needed to drop me. I finished 11th - but 1st girl, in 40:30 (ick.)

Henry is doing a research project on Indonesia for third grade social studies. Last night we had dinner at Heather and Steve's house, and I reminded Henry that Steve is from Indonesia and maybe he should ask him some questions. Henry said that was OK, he was doing research at the library. Steve asked how that was going.. and Henry replied: Pretty good. Last trip, I almost found the I's.

There are good changes happening at work.. a little reorganization that will make my life both happier and a little less foul-smelling. It's 6:30 am and I've got 6 recovery miles in the bank already, plans to swim this evening, Sky chattering my left ear off and demonstrating how to kiss a pillow (she is 5! WTH?) and work is going to be good.. happy monday.

Get out of the mosh pit, sonny.

Some of my friends were appalled at my Jimmy Buffett love. One of my very first memories is sitting in my dad's green and white El Camino, somewhere in Florida, asking him why the guy on the radio lost his shaker of salt. And then he made me steer while he pushed into a gas station. I don't know what the deal was, but I remember my dad pushing the car into the gas station often. He was really good at almost not running out of gas. 

I was a youngster at Jimmy. Tonight, I'm going to be everyone's mom at the All American Rejects show. I'm going to say things like Stop that bouncing off of each other this instant! It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye! and wear something totally age-inappropriate. AAR make some of my favorite running music, I couldn't not go just out of fear of being called Grandma.

Things have been so busy around here lately that all the workouts are  not getting in. Oceanside may be a disaster. But I followed Raul's plan for the week the best I could, and I added in some fun like 200s on the track on 1' with Todd. The interval was like a swim workout, but it was doing a sport I like! Working in the training around work, kids, and law school feels impossible right now. There's always something else going on. 

For example.. we finally have Target in Hawaii. Keri and I went to the Grand Opening pre-shopping fest on Tuesday night.. and were in there past 11pm, going crazy with 100 or so other shoppers, eating, drinking, and stimulating the economy.  And a few days back, my friend Mandy and I did a Lululemon Function Show - not fashion show, thank god, because we were way too dorky to be modeling fashion.. At one point I just lifted the shirt right up to show off the strap for a HR monitor in the Heartbeat Tank.  I love all things Lulu.. and they paid in goods.. I got the long-sleeved shirt with the thumbholes.. 

And I keep my credit card in here.. and my phone on this side..

Sky's friend Em took the last pic of the day.. We considered naming this one Sunny. Like the line in the Paul Simon song, The Obvious Child, that says Sunny gets sunnier day by day by day.. but then we settled on Sky. In this pic, she's my Sunny Sky..

SCY make me dizzy.

I have a new Monday morning goal. It may be harder to meet next week when I don't have my sister's cute little scion like I did this monday morning (and her stinky little dog), but Monday 5:30 am UH Masters is the new plan to sneak a swim in before the week really gets going. Except for one thing - it's short course. Now, I have swam short course yards before, maybe 6 or 8 times. And I get dizzy. And I lose track of the laps because there are just so damn many. Also, flip turns are still ugly here. I come up gasping for air with my first stroke. Today I lost count so many times that it was fortuante Katherine and I were swimming side by side, because I just stopped when she stopped. Did you know that 800 yards = 627 laps? or something like that. It's a crazy amount of flipping around. Also, I knew I was in trouble with the total warm-up totalled as many yards as I sometimes consider an entire workout. This is real swimming. After the swim I ran my way downtown. I've run about 30 miles in the past 3 days or so.. and more and more, I ask myself why I do the other two sports.

At work, I've started calling the corner of Bishop and King Streets my little ant farm. I love my view. A couple of weeks ago I made Todd run diagonally across the intersection to see if I could actually recognize people from 14 floors up. And then I forgot to watch for him. I am such a good friend.

At lunch time, I check the location of the mean Greenpeacies and avoid those corners when I get downstairs. I think the best method for their nastyness is the Heisman Trophy arm. If you answer them, they will yell back something mean. For example:

GPdude: Do you care about the environment?
Me: Yes, I work as an environmental scientist. (still walking)
Nasty GPer: You think that's good enough?
Me: For now, it's all I've got, dude. (come on light. change. change.)
Mean GPer: Well, when you get over yourself, you should make a donation.

If you click on the picture, you can see a blue tshirted GPer with a clipboard in the ewa/makai corner and another cornering some poor innocent on the diamond head/mauka corner. They need to work on their tactics.

Henry hasn't contributed to the blog in a while.. but he bailed me out this morning. There was a little conversation that went like this:

Sky: Mommy, how do the babies get out of your tummy?

Me: That's kind of a long story.

Sky: Tell me half of it then.

Me: The first half or the second half?

Henry: You pee them out.

Me: Thanks, dude.

Shortly thereafter, I heard Henry, out of the blue, from the back seat of the car:

A lot of the time, at school, I can't find my pencil. But then I remember it's in my hand.

Jimmy Buffett Day should be a national holiday.

Saturday night went a little like this:

First, we ran into Jimmy at the Outrigger when we hit the bar for pre-Jimmy drinks. We tried to buy Jimmy a pre-Jimmy drink, but he was going to be late for his own show.

Then, no one confiscated the big bottle of water we brought in to the Shell. Talk about putting my Nathan products to good use!  It did make some parts of the concert blurry. Allison and I decided that if you're a girl, and you're having an ugly day, you should just go to a Jimmy show where all the drunk slobbery dudes in dumb hats tell every girl who passes YER HOTTTTtt. I would answer You're drunk! and Allison, who is indeed quite hot, would answer I know! One went a little too far and yelled Five hundred dollars! at me. My skirt was not that short! And, $500? Puhleeze. Mike tried to cheer me up by reminding me that we're in a recession.

Jimmy and Henry Kapono, our HKai neighbor with an incredible voice:

After the show, we headed back to the Outrigger bar. And at the table next to us? Jimmy and his friends. He grabbed my hand and asked how he did, right off the bat. I told him Jimmy Buffett Day is the best day of the year. I did remind him that I was the girl whose first memory was asking my dad why the guy lost his shaker of salt.. so I'm a little biased. The kids were farmed out, so we hung out and played rock-star after-party. It was awesome.

Allison and I, shortly after emptying the Nathan bottle. I should totally be a professional photographer.