Give Me Your Tired

We're back in Honolulu.

Taking a holiday when you are retired may seem a bit self-indulgent, and the truth is that it is very self-indulgent. I mean, what am I doing? Giving myself a break from not doing anything?

Sure, LK and I do some work at home - she cooks and washes the clothes; I clean the house. And when we are on holidays, LK cooks and washes the clothes and the housekeeping staff cleans the place. So I guess I am earning my holiday rewards faster than she is.

For people who like to travel so much, LK and I aren't travelling all that well lately.  Returning to America, I suppose it's appropriate that we live up to the lines Emma Lazarus wrote in her poem, now inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired . . ."

Shirley's with us on this trip to Honolulu, and none of us slept much on the 9 1/2-hour flight from Sydney. We were pretty tired when we landed a little before 7am.  (And there is an argument to be made that I also qualified for that other line in the poem - "wretched refuse of your teeming shore.")

Figuring we had to kill 7 or 8 hours before we could get into our room, we rented a car once we cleared customs. Shirley had never seen Pearl Harbor, so we decided to drive there and be among the early birds. Of course, most of the people who care about World War II are older than we are, so we weren't even in the first wave of early visitors despite getting there before 8am. (That average age might also explain the long lines at the loos near the entrance, I would guess.)

Anyhow, the first chance we would have to take the tour that includes the Arizona Memorial was the 10:45 tour. Not to worry as we thought about killing the time: there was a museum to wander around, a snack bar to give us our caffeine and a beautiful sunny morning if we wanted to roam the grounds.  You won't be surprised to know that less than an hour later I discovered LK and Shirley sitting on the wall at the museum entrance and questioning whether any of us really, really, really wanted to wait for the 10:45 tour.

The answer to that was pretty easy. LK and I had done the tour several years ago. Shirley hadn't, but then again it was Shirley asking if we really wanted to wait around. By 10 we were at the hotel, prepared to sit around the pool until our room was ready.

And nearly weeping with joy when they told us our room was already available. By the time the Pearl Harbor tour started, LK and I were sound asleep in the bed.

Once we finally dragged ourselves back to the land of the living, we did what every tourist comes to  Honolulu to do. The three of us went shopping at the Safeway.

Shirley and I were responsible for the week's allotment of beverages, while LK set about choosing food for our meals. I did extra duty and got chips and crackers to make sure we had something to eat with our booze that did not qualify as healthy.

The best part was that I remembered to bring my Safeway Club card with me. This is the loyalty discount card that I got the last time we were here. When we checked out, LK - the veteran bargain hunter - was ecstatic, pointing out that it saved us more than $105 on our purchases. Since about $60 of that savings was from the vodka and wine that Shirl and I got, I suggested that we were better shoppers than LK.

But we all know that's not true.

Anyhow, that's enough work for today. After all. I'm on holiday.