Courtenay Brown

But not in Honolulu! Sweet. There’s a reason why I always categorize my Hawaii posts as “i’m moving here”!

My sister arrived today, my niece and her boyfriend arrive from Holland tomorrow night, and my mom arrives on Monday as long as Maryland’s 20″ blizzard doesn’t get in the way.

Yesterday Ben and I wanted to go grocery shopping (two days of one-bonk-per-workout due to no food was two days too many) and also for an open water swim at either Kaimana or Ala Moana, both ~2 miles from my brother’s apartment where we’re staying. He’s got this fancy car that I was very begrudgingly allowed to drive last time I was here, when he broke his collar bone and couldn’t drive, obviously the car didn’t explode or die under my guidance, so hey little brother could we please use it while you are at work today please? Somehow I thought he said I could drive it to Ala Moana and then he’d meet us after our swim and take over from there, so I drove it there, through all kinds of traffic and stress, and called him to say hey we’re here!, and then got in big trouble for taking the car because obviously that was not what I was supposed to do, obviously. This was ‘obvious’ because it’s his car. It was really confusing. So then I didn’t even swim because I was so stressed out about the car, I sat on the beach guarding the car key while Ben swam, then I had to drive it all the way back to the apartment, then my brother found a scratch on it which I swear to god wasn’t my fault because I made sure to drive carefully and to find a parking spot where no one could park next to me and there were no phantom cacti or rosebushes anywhere… I didn’t do it. And by the way I couldn’t even see the scratch unless I was standing just so and shining my phone on it. Then we went to Costco and I got my brother a coke and it spilled inside the car, which prompted a similar reaction to if the interior were on fire.

This was not me-and-the-car’s day. I’m going on craigslist to find a scooter or cruiser. Or basically anything that enables me to not get behind the wheel! But I swear, I am a good driver.