Prepping For Paradise

Thursday

As luck would have it, Mark was able to finagle his shifts to get off work for a nice stretch, and since Ro is on his school holiday, we decided to take a little last-minute winter getaway. Mark was up late last night planning it, so he slept in this morning while Sherry took Ro to the Mount Maunganui Hot Saltwater Pools. She drove even though it's within reasonable walking distance, knowing that convincing Ro to hoof it back home in the cold in a wet swimsuit and rashie wasn't going to happen. The kids from Ro's YMCA group were there today, too, so he had plenty of kids to play with.

Ro ended up playing a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" before Sherry could stop him with a Thai child who looked about the same age as Ro. Sherry and Ro thought the kid looked like a boy, so Ro got a bit of a surprise. Sherry figured it out when she got closer and noticed the pink trim and "Mermaid in training" on the kid's dark blue swimming togs. Sherry also had some big, burly Maori guy hit on her as he surreptitiously poured himself cocktails while watching his four kids. At first Sherry thought his eyes were red from the water, but then she realized he was plastered. The pool staff must have caught on, too, because it wasn't long before he was unceremoniously asked to leave, kids in tow.

Mark is surprising Sherry with their holiday destination. Originally, we were going to go to Fiji, since there's a Hilton there and Mark can use his HHonors points, but the Fijian forecast is for rain all weekend (Mark wishes he'd checked the weather before he spent hours researching the trip). Some other time, perhaps. So, it was back to the laptop grind to arrange an alternate destination on an internet connection that reliably hits a snail's pace after midnight, when the USA starts logging on at work.

Sherry just knows we're going someplace where it's shorts-and-sandals weather. Mark and Ro played at the apartment this afternoon while Sherry went down the street to get a long overdue pedicure from one of Carla's friends, Robin, who owns a new beauty shop. Robin had a student working with her today, and Sherry obligingly let the student give it a shot. What normally takes Sherry's favorite Vietnamese nail ladies back home thirty minutes took this poor girl 2 solid hours. Her hands were shaking, and Sherry asked her if she had a medical condition. "Nerves," she said, never looking up while scraping the bottom of the bottle of nail polish to get the last bit out, resulting in a downright hideous, clumpy nail job that only looked worse when she tried to cover it up with clearcoat. When Robin was done with her waxing appointments, she diplomatically let the girl know the nails needed to be redone, and both Sherry and the girl breathed a sigh of relief when Robin offered to redo them. Twenty minutes later, the nails looked great and Sherry was on her way home to start packing for our next adventure.