Sunday, June 26

Today the girls have a “girls-only” lunch planned. I have been tentatively considering going to the party beach, but given my leg and general lethargy, I've decided to pass, instead planning on a day filled with fun, like doing laundry.

Before Claire was up, we got the car back. We'd been debating, but decided that we had enough running around to do and that if yesterday was any kind of example, there would need to be better to manage (on a whim) transportation than relying on random luck with the taxis. We're hoping to be going home this week, so it shouldn't be too much more of a rental commitment. The brother-in-law (or some such) of the guy who's car we're renting stopped by, dropped the key, and left. I settled in to try to coax Grace back to sleep. She'd been awake, but evidently decided that her day had begun.

We started with a bit of breakfast; of course, in the hotel restaurant, of course. We ate with the other adopting mother and her son. We learned that the kemmen was moved from the pool area to the hotel's conference area. Evidently the all-day rain made them consider the patio less than friendly, so the conference room was chosen. When the other mother went down, it was already crowded, and much of the party seemed to be happening in the hallway outside of the conference room. She'd run into her birthmother, and exchanged pleasantries with the birthday boy's mother, and then retired to her room. Her birthmother apparently went in and out of the room, socializing with both groups, getting food, and that kind of thing. This lasted until, as the other mother put it, “very late.” That turned out to be about 11PM, which is a pretty late event for anything we've done since arriving on the island. I think we've made it to that hour only a handful of times since we arrived.

After breakfast, we returned to our rooms where the gals got ready for their lunch date. I thought to run quickly to the Payless before I lost use of the car. The hardware store across the street isn't open on Sunday, and we had no laundry soap. I also grabbed a few cans of soda, and a couple (two-dollar) candies; a bag of M&Ms and a 3 Musketeers bar. The selection of laundry soap is pretty slim, compared to what you'd find in the aisle at a Target, for example. They do have a few different brands, and powders or liquids. I considered a bag of not-brand-name powder, but decided for the extra $2 to instead get the small, resealable, liquid Tide, making it a $9 purchase for what claimed to be 30 loads on the container..

Maddy, the birthmother liason (for lack of another title) was going to fetch the birthmothers, and the gals from the hotel and the kids would meet them at the Tide Table, the restaurant at the RRE hotel. It seems “island planning” is not unlike “island time,” or as we've experienced, “island space.” The other mother's birthmother wasn't to be found. We speculated it might be something like recovering from the birthday party last night, or that she was still at church, or something else Sunday morning.  She lives near the RRE, and it turns out she was just going to make it there on her own, as she'd arranged with the other adopting mother last night. The girls left, and I didn't see them until dinner time.

Grace was gone, and I found myself alone in the hotel room with nothing to do for what was probably the first time since arriving. There have been little errand trips, or short visits between hotel rooms, but generally they aren't all-day affairs. Of course, since I'd decided to rest up one more day, letting my leg get its last bit of healing done, I'd suggested it would be an easy day to do laundry. I could bring the Mac with me, continue my editing and maybe do some other stuff, and wait for the machines to do their thing.

I'd just finished sorting darks and lights, when housekeeping knocked on the door, asking if we needed a clean today. I threw the things in the basket, filled my pockets with quarters, grabbed the Mac and soap and basket, and left for the laundry room in the other hallway of the hotel.

I found the laundry room empty, and started filling it with my colors. I had dumped my Tide in, before loading the clothes, and someone else came to the door with a bag full of laundry. She saw my basket, and that I was just putting stuff in the washer, so she smiled, waved, and turned the other way without a word. Not that I wouldn't have chatted with her, but neither of us said anything and that's the way it went. I finished loading, put my ten quarters in the machine, and opened the Mac on the dryer.

My plan had been to try to just sit there on the machine with the laptop on my lap, but it was so hot and windless in the room that I instead went into the hallway and put the Mac on the top of the half-wall. The hallways open to the world, so there's plenty of airflow there. It's still hot and humid, but the breeze and shade made it not intolerable. A chair or stool would have been nice; there's a stool outside our door, which is used to gather around for late night chats as whoever it is does nearly every night.

The wall is a healthy six or more inches thick at the top, nice and level, so I felt comfortable with the Mac balanced there. I set to editing my running document some more, making more passes at correcting grammar and typos and inserting the occasional image. I was just getting into a groove when Uncle Sam walked up the stairs.

Uncle Sam's room is literally across the hall from the laundry. He greeted me heartily, and gave me a little pity when he learned I was doing chores. He invited me in, but I declined, citing a desire to catch the machine as soon as it was done, and to try to avoid interruption, as had happened to Claire when she did laundry last time. He understood completely, and offered me a chair to sit on anyway. I accepted. We wrestled a chair into the hallway, and then proceeded to stand at the wall chatting anyway. The Mac rested on the chair the rest of the time, and we stood at the wall.

The washer finished, so I moved those clothes to the dryer, selected the coolest setting (to avoid shrinkage) and put ten more quarters in. The feeder stuck a little, but Uncle Sam beat it into working. It seems there's a timing that needs to be done just a little rougher than I want to bang on someone else's equipment. Pushing the coins in far enough allows them to drop, and the machine starts. I put the lighter clothes in the washer and filled its coin slot, picked the “small load” selection, and set it to washing.

While I loaded the washer, Uncle Sam went into his room and came out with a couple of ginger ales. We chatted at the wall for a while longer, until the washer was done again. Afraid that opening the dryer door would stop the cycle, I left the clothes in the machine while waiting for the dryer to finish. After what seemed like way too long, I opened the door to check. The clothes were mostly dry, with a hint of damp at the stitching. I pulled out some shirts and shorts and other light things and tried to restart it with just a few heavier things in there. Sure enough, it wouldn't go. I put the wet clothes from the washer in the dryer, added ten more quarters, and beat the coin feeder into starting the machine. I quickly folded the shirts and such, and returned to the wall for more chatting.

The other laundry-seeking woman returned, but didn't put her things in the open washer, instead just leaving because the dryer was going. I stopped her and said I was done with the wash, and Uncle Sam said he didn't have any to do, so she went back in and filled the washer, started the machine, and left. We chatted some more, and when the dryer was done, I pulled the clothes out and bid my farewells, returning to the room.

I'm not so good at recounting conversations. Claire finds this rather annoying. I used to be much better at it, but I find that while I'm pretty good in the moment, I'm much better at remembering the concepts than the phrases. As such, I've skipped over what we talked about, because I didn't want to get any kind of misleading conversational flow in the monotony of recollecting my chores.

We chatted again about being in the service, I in the USAF in the 80's and Uncle Sam in the Marines starting during the Vietnam war in the 70's. He reminded me that his drill instructor was none other than now-famous Marine R. Lee Ermey. He also told me that after he'd been deployed to Vietnam that Corporal Ermey joined him there, but that by that time he outranked Corporal Ermey, so the tables were a little turned. Only a little, though, as Ermey had the fear factor on his side, and they weren't in a chain of command that gave Uncle Sam any kind of order-giving power over the corporal.

He also shared some experiences he had when working in law enforcement. Experiences that led him back to the Marines, as the real world world works so much differently. There was one case where he and a partner were chasing a couple of thugs. He'd caught his, but his partner was still giving chase. Their cruiser evidently didn't have the cage separating the back seat from the front seat, so instead of securing his prisoner inside the vehicle, he handcuffed him to the car door, where the good criminal sat down and awaited his return. While Uncle Sam was out trying to find his partner, his partner had finally caught his thug, returning to the vehicle. He put his guy in the back seat and set out in the cruiser to find Uncle Sam. The prisoner who was chained to the outside of the car was waiting there unnoticed, and evidently didn't make the other guy aware of his presence, until the car was in motion.

There was another case where he'd apprehended his thug, but rather than wrestle with him back to the cruiser, he handcuffed him with his arms hugging a telephone pole. He returned to their cruiser, and distractions apparently got the better of him, and he forgot his criminal for a number of hours. Long enough for the news to get wind of it and put the poor guy on television.

We chatted a little bit about his retirement an experiences living in the Philippines. Apparently things are so inexpensive there, or at least from a retired U.S. person's perspective, that he has a penthouse and bodyguards and housekeepers and gardeners and cooks, all on a military retirement. He also bought his in-laws some land and had a nice little house built on it, for the tidy sum of about $2000. In it he put a nice television and refrigerators and air conditioning. Apparently his in-laws knocked out the screens, because they'd rather have the breeze than the protection from bugs. He told how shortly after finishing the home he'd visited to find the floor covered in water. Apparently they thought to save electricity by unplugging everything when the slept or left the house, including the refrigerator. This, of course, thawed the block of frozen fish he'd set them up with, so they could eat for about a whole month. They also chose to continue to burn oil lamps, in the house, rather than run electricity to bulbs, because they were concerned about the radiation coming from the wiring in the walls.

He's full of stories, and we were there for a very long time. I'm also tempering the stories a bit, as you might imagine; he's an old Marine, with some old school ideas, and some colorful language and concepts to go with it.

Leveraging my experience as a computer guy, he told me another tale about a time when he was trying to learn some computer stuff. Urged on by his also computer-savvy son, he thought to experiment with chatting in an on-line chat room. He thought he was getting on just fine with whomever he was chatting, when the other chap commented on how slow he was to respond. Uncle Sam explained that he wasn't good at typing. The other fella agreed, but used a phrase with which Uncle Sam was unfamiliar, so Uncle Sam terminated the session right there. Later, he learned from his son that the other guy wasn't seeking male companionship, but that his “hunt'n pecker” meant he was looking for keys and hitting them all with the same finger.

In another computer related tale, he told how he'd been steered to peruse an on-line dating site. He found the women were all attractive and had nice things in their profiles. Curious what his competition was like, he thought to change his preference from “women” to “men,” and was shocked to find that all of the men were showing their junk. I had to explain it a few times that those weren't images of his competition, but of the fellas he could try to meet. It took a few cycles for him to understand that those weren't his peers, but his “man seeking man” choices.

He's going to be on the island for a while, and although retired, has done a little dabbling in real estate. That's part of why he can afford his lifestyle on his retirement. We were both eyeballing the three-story office building across the street from the hotel. He pointed out that it's the former U.S. Embassy building. He was thinking he'd try to acquire the building, by purchase or lease, and re-invent the top floor as a condo for his family. He'd then renovate the second floor as some office space to rent, and possibly open some kind of shop on the first floor.

I shared with him my vision of using the building as an IT off-shore endeavor. Providing bandwidth could be secured, and enough equipment imported, and any talent found or also imported, and the island could probably fairly easily get fifty to a hundred people working there doing IT work, from help-desk an other phone support, to network and systems administration, and even augmenting development. We chatted about some of the people I've met, and he seemed to agree that with contacts like those, I might have a chance. I just need to find some backing in the U.S., and then some talent in the RMI.

There were more stories, and a lot more detail and color. Those are just surface-scratchers, and really, they're not really my stories to tell.

After I returned to the room, I set out the not-quite dry clothes and hooked the Mac back up to the power supply, not in that order. I spent a few minutes, uh, freshening up, and then thought to escape the room again. I went to the restaurant, thinking to catch a snack. It was well past lunch, but if I knew the gals, they'd return and want to at least try to get some dessert later.

I wanted a little ice cream to help cool down. Unfortunately, they have been out of ice cream for a few days. I've just been to Payless, and there's plenty of ice cream there. I know that retail is a bad way to buy supplies for a restaurant, but really, given the mark-up, having to drop retail coin to keep your menu available is better than turning away business, isn't it? I mean, a gallon of ice cream is like $6 at the Payless, and they charge like $3 for a scoop of it at the restaurant, so two scoops is all you need to make up your cost, the rest is (operating costs notwithstanding) profit.

They did have pumpkin or lemon or blueberry pie. Or at least the new waitress thought they did. I said “I'll have a slice of the pumpkin, unless you're out of that, in which case I'll have the lemon.” She brought me a half-slice each of pumpkin pie and lemon meringue. Of course, I was charge for two full slices. That and an iced tea, and I was set, and did a little more editing. Not moments after she'd cleared my pie plates, and Claire walked in after having stopped by the room and found me absent.

Claire sat down and ordered a piece of pie and iced tea as well. I tended a happy and awake Grace while she had her pie. Then she started telling me of their adventures away.

They had had a nice lunch, until the drama hit. The two adopting moms met Maddy and our birthmother at the restaurant, pretty much on time and as planned. There was a little trouble as Maddy's car apparently broke down as they drove, so they had to finish their trip in a taxi.

They sat and ordered and ate, I guess, while they waited for the other birthmother to arrive. I didn't quite get the detail of whether she arrived and shared lunch, too. I think so, because of some of the other conversation, immaterial to the drama. Of course, the drama, already dropped bait-like on the paper (or whatever other mixed metaphor makes sense for your reading medium), is of key interest.

An observation had been made that she didn't look quite right. A little, well, post-party ill. She had apparently returned to the birthday party after leaving the adopting mother's room the last time, and, it seems, the party was more than we expected for a one-year old to have. There was speculation, in fact, that she might not be just hung-over, but may still be a bit in the bottle.

After some time, the other adopting mother excused herself to visit the loo. During this time, the birthmother was tending to their son. When the adopting mother returned, though, the birthmother was no where to be seen. She had been comforting the boy, walking about in the restaurant, which is not uncommon. No one paid the right kind of attention to this, and continued the conversation at the table, as has happened plenty in the past. Our birthmother took off after her, and returned after a bit of looking about outside. It seems she saw or otherwise discovered that the other birthmother had hopped in a taxi with the adopted boy. Of course, this is totally wrong, and made the other adopting mother appropriately frantic. The group jumped into our car.

They made furious phone calls, and after some driving and calling, found he was at their home. She wasn't feeling well, and believes she told someone that she was going home, and since she was holding the boy, just went with him. His bubu had gotten him away from her, and was holding him waiting for his adopting mother to arrive. All was well, and he was safely returned. He was crying, and soothed when adopting mom got there and scooped him up. If I heard the story right, the birthmother wasn't around, probably off hiding after realizing what she'd done.

I think her actions may have led to some conclusions that were in place before I heard any of the story, but if their impressions of it were correctly indicated, I probably would have come to the same conclusions.

During Claire's retelling of the day's events, the other mother had joined us and filled in some gaps and other perspectives. They had eaten, and frankly had no more appetite, but I hadn't, and did, so I ordered a burger while they chatted. We returned to our rooms when I was finished.

We settled in, tending to Grace as needed until she fell asleep. We plugged in another The Big Bang Theory and watched a full disk. Somewhere in the middle we snacked on cheese and crackers, as Claire got a little hungry. Done with video, we turned in.