Back where I started

Last night was fun, and this morning came way too early.

Yesterday I got to have pho one last time in Hilo, had it as a late lunch. I didn't realize the absolute authenticity of the place until I read the little red tag that was attached to the porcelain cat with a raised paw.

Verbatim: "Fortune cat brings you very best wishes may happity and happy hocks be with you forever"

I have no idea what "happity and happy hocks" are, but apparently I'm supposed to have them. Forever.

After a decent little nap I started pre-packing my bag to try and save time in the morning. I realized that I had some rum left and this was a bit of an issue; I couldn't really take it with me, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna waste perfectly good rum. This happily coincided with the fact that I had some cans of diet Pepsi that had a likewise disposition. So, once I was off duty, the disposal of said adult beverages commenced in earnest.

Once I was properly buzzing, I went over the see Lilly the gremlin dog and have dinner with her owners (one of our pilots and his wife).

A very buzzed me and Lilly dog (just to clarify, Lilly was sober).

Dinner was awesome; a spicy Asian affair with chicken and tomatoes, and rice on the side. Lilly waited patiently for me to give her a bite, but it was really good, and I wasn't abut to not eat all the awesomeness that was on my plate.

Lilly was not amused at the lack of handouts.

The rest of the night was fun, spent watching Glee, playing Bad Company 2 on the PS3, and playing the couch game with Lilly (we run back and forth across the front room, she treats the couch as her personal obstacle course). Before I knew it, I was good an buzzed, and the time was approaching eleven pm. I bid my farewells, and headed back to the crew house to pack a few things, down a half gallon of water, and get some sleep.

The sleeping part was awesome, done on the couch with a blanket and one of the best pillows I've slept on in a while, directly in the air flow from the window unit air-conditioner.

The part that was not so awesome was getting up at a quarter till five am for a six-fifteen flight. I don't know how I managed to get my shit together, but I was able to get all packed up, tidy up the crew house, and drive to the airport . Unfortunately, as speculated, K-hop was a no-go. But I suppose it's another thing I have to justify a future visit to Hilo.

Once on the plane, things went fairly quickly. I managed to score an aisle, exit-row seat for both of my flights and only had to wait about fifteen minutes to board. I was doing the half-asleep, bobble-head thing shortly thereafter. In HNL I had a whole twelve minutes to get from the arrival gate to my connecting gate. This worked out fairly well, as I was able to get right onto the plane and fall right back asleep.

Once in Lihue, I hitched a ride with a fellow Hawaii Life Flight pilot to the crew house. Luckily I was switched from days to nights for the next few days, so I didn't have to worry about getting a call for a flight. This resulted in my crashing for three-and-a-half hours.

After getting up it was off to the grocery store, where I got to learn the hard way that groceries locally in Lihue are more expensive than in Hilo or Kona. However, I should be dining out less, since I'm on the night shift and not too many things are open late enough at night around Lihue to suit my needs. So hopefully the money kinda balances out between more grocery cost and reduced dining out cost.

I was also able to have a chat with one of the medics here and find out a good place to get loco moco here, as well as some fun things to go check out when Stacey arrives in four days. Now I get to try and stay up as late as I can to adjust to a night schedule, just in case I get one of those four-thirty am calls in the very near future.