Nuts

So, I got home to the oasis of calm that is the island I live on and then reality came a knockin. Have you ever left your life for almost six months and just wandered off? I did.

So:

The roof was leaking.
The car battery was dead.
The car stereo was flashing weird unfamiliar letters.
My shoes molded.
I had no food.
I forgot which way the hot water turned on and so took a cold shower.
I could not find my spare slippers and so had to wear my brother's slippers which are made to fit my six foot two brother.
I fell in front of a group of tourists who were waiting to buy rainbow shave ice because I was wearing inexplicably gynormous slippers.
I did not call people in the right order and so upset people.
I did not tell some people I was back and then got caught in Foodland.
There was a frog in the pool.
Our wonderful if very sensitive gardener planted orange impatiens and my mother will hate them.
I avoided the gardener and did not confront him today and so did not fix the orange flower problem.
I got the time zones wrong and worked with one of my students on the phone at 445 am.
I have to buy eleven birthday presents this afternoon for the eleven birthdays I missed.

You get the idea. Moral of the story: do not walk away from your life for five months without incredibly good preplanning and organization.

But. On the upside:

I own books that I have not read yet but forgot I owned and so have mysteriously acquired new books.
I am getting to spend time with old friends I dearly love.
After getting up at 5 am to take the car to town to get fixed (an hour drive to the other side of the island) I stopped at the beach on the way home and jumped into the blue, blue sea.
I had 17 packages of research books waiting for me from Alibris.
I got my hair cut incredibly short but then got hit on by a strange older man who kept insisting I wear make up for my author photo--ick on both counts.
Then I was able to drive away from the strange older man as I can drive on this island.
I get to work with my fantastic, brilliant, first student on Friday and will be on island to see him graduate high school and head off to the marvelous college he has been accepted to!
I am here for my dear, dear friend Matt's birthday tonight.
And my wonderful, patient, sweet, gifted friend Naomi took my author photo!

Golly Moses was she patient. I am not good with photos. I looked 'angry' for the first seventy or so. I was trying to look like an author and not like a Priya and I failed utterly. We did it on the steps of a very old green church in Hanalei. First I tried a black dress. Disaster. Then I put on my own clothes. Better.

I was going to not smile, look straight on at the camera, wear shoes, be relaxed, do a close up. Instead I turned to the side, smiled, did a full length shot, wore slippers and panicked. And Naomi was a patient wonderful genius. "It is going to be a one inch picture!" She kept reassuring me. In the end we giggled and giggled and had so much fun. I went to her house this morning and went through them and picked out some that I liked so please, please cross your fingers that they turn out ok!