Saturday, June 18

I don't have any plans for today. The gals want to try to visit the doctor to have him peek at the kids, and then are going to go to one of the handicraft shops for a weaving lesson.

We started with breakfast in the hotel restaurant, as has become our Cheerio-free habit. While we were waiting, we ran into our birthmother, who was apparently there for some take-out. She stopped by for a visit of smiles and awkward phrases, and to hold Grace. When her order was ready, she gave Grace back and took off with a smile.

After eating, we met up with the other adopting mother and headed out to visit Dr. Pinano. He took a look at the little rash the other boy had on his face, and recommended a little hydro-cortisone cream, instead of anything stronger because it was on his cheeks. He took a listen to Grace's lungs, which gurgle with a little congestion. He said it all sounded good, and was probably just due to differences in humidity between the really humid outside air and the air inside all of the buildings. Well, the buildings that are air conitioned. Otherwise he said she was terrific. We asked if he could quickly throw her on the scale, because she seems to have put on a little weight. She has, weighing in at a hefty 12.5 pounds! At least we know that pudgy belly everyone points out is well-deserved. Even more, he didn't want to bother with any visit fees. In, out, and free.

Since the visit took so little time, the gals wanted to visit a New Hope store they'd seen one of the times we'd gone past. The other mother had been to one of them nearer to our hotel, and while she liked what they had, she wanted different stuff. It seems that when you go into different stores with the same name, there's different stuff in them. I think the only different store of the same name I've been in have been a couple of Payless and a couple of Formosa; and, true enough, they were not only laid out differently, but had different stock.

We took off, not recalling how far it was, but not really caring. What else are we going to do, sit on our couches? We found it just a building or two past the Stonehouse, which is in the first bit of stuff past the bridge, so not far at all. There they found a huge selection of Guams (the dress worn by most of the women here) and other goods and baubles. They both loaded up, and we set our course to the hotel.

After a little unloading and moments of rest, the gals took off to the handicraft shop to get some weaving lessons. Grace stayed back with me, because she wouldn't be very good at it, and I wasn't so interested in doing it. I did a little e-mail checking, but had no feedback from the office. I sent a couple e-mails to some folks and settled into watching some television reruns. The goofy movie channel has been out for more than a couple of weeks, and most of the channels are either in foreign languages I don't understand, or things I'm not interested in (like cartoons). Alas, that leaves re-reruns of Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs and the like. I like those shows, but not really for the tenth time in a week.

During this span, I also found out that the toilets were out...again... For future travelers, be prepared to handle occasional outages of regularly expected services, like television and water. The television's gone out a couple times, usually for moments, but at least once for more than a day. The one really entertaining channel has been out for much of our time here. The power's only gone out once, and it was only evidenced by the flashing clocks on the alarm and microwave; we weren't here when it happened, so it really had no impact on us. And the water's gone out a few times.

The sinks and toilets are on different water sources, it seems. I've not tested the showers when the others don't work, so I'm not sure how they're plumbed. It has happened, though, that after using the toilet, the sink doesn't work. Worse, is finding after the using the toilet, that it won't work. Worse still, is finding out that after using the toilet, it stopped working sometime before the last time it was used.

For those that don't know how toilets work, the bowl water is held in by a simple principle that works because water wants to be level. At the end of the bowl is an S-curve, that in part helps stop sewer gasses from entering through the toilet. When water (or whatever) is added to the bowl, it raises the level a little, and that little will trickle down the S-curve. When a lot of water is added to the bowl at once, that overwhelms the S-curve, creating a little bit of a flow that won't stop until the bowl is empty. The tank provides this lots of water at once, by taking previously stored water and dumping it into the bowl, through a jet at the bottom and the holes at the top. It also provides a little extra after the flushing to refill the bowl enough to refill the S-curve. After flushing, the tank is refilled.

If the tank is full when the water goes off, it will flush one more time. If it doesn't refill, the bowl might be fine, but it won't flush the next time. Of course, a bucket of some kind and another water source offers a solution. Fill the tank with the bucket, and then flush. Oh, and then be kind to yourself (because you'll forget), and fill it again. A tank with water in it won't fill again--that's what that float is for, to turn off the water flowing in when it gets full enough.

That's what I did when I found the toilet didn't work. I filled it with water from the tub spout, since it was closer and faster than the sink spout. Not a real problem, but much better than letting the bowl sit there waiting for the water to return.

I then resumed waiting for the gals to return. Eventually they did. Claire showed me what she'd made and told me about their visit. We went downstairs for some quick dinner with the other adopting mother.

After dinner I made a beer run for the beach day tomorrow. They don't sell beer on Sunday here. I stopped first at the Payless, but they were out of both Coke and Budweiser. I did get some Bud Light and a bottle of Bacardi. I set out for the Formosa store to try to find the other things I'd planned to get. I set out the wrong way, though, not remembering that there's a store closer to the hotel than the Payless. Just a little more of a drive, but they had a full stock, and even better than at Payless, it was all refrigerated. I returned home and put the cold stuff in the little fridge in our room. There's little worse (beer-wise) than warm-shipped beer that's been cooled and then allowed to warm again. I mean, honestly, Budweiser is bad enough, but to then do that to it is almost mean to the people who drink it. The Coke probably could have survived, or at least the flat might have gone unnoticed when mixed with the rum, but there was room in the fridge, and rather than have to warm the Bud Light from scratch, I just kept the soda cold.

Claire was doing stuff on the Mac, so I watched a little rerun television, and turned in to be well-rested for the party day tomorrow.