Well today was exciting! It started out innocently enough with mom insisting on going to the beach - no surprise there! I wanted her to take the shopping trolley with me to Borders so I could buy something to read at said beach, but she was insistent that she wanted to go to Waikiki Beach and do some body boarding. We compromised with going to the bookstore in the Hilton Hawaiian Village across the street together, and then she kept going to the beach, I came back to get some stuff organized at the hotel, and then met her at the beach a bit later on.

It was pretty miraculous that we found each other in the first place - I got off on the wrong stop, and then had to hike down the beach, which was FULL! Luckily she spotted me from the water and came to meet me. Then we decided to meet up again in a couple of minutes, so I only left her for a second, to see if the Billabong store across the street had the rash guard I'd been looking for, (it didn't, I think I'm not meant to have it!), but when I got back to her, she was kind of limping, and her foot was wrapped in a good half inch of gauze.

"What did you do?"
"Oh, you know, nothing that a few stitches won't fix"

Good god! Turns out she'd found the only piece of coral at Waikiki Beach, and had a fight with it, ripping off her fin and gashing her foot in the process. I never saw the cut, but I gather its long, deep, and yucky! Poor girl! We ended up taking a city bus which was faster back to our hotel, and then going across the street to the medical clinic, where she did indeed get three stitches - this is why you get travel insurance! Unfortunately, it means no more time in the water which sucks for her since she was well on her way to becoming a beach bum on this trip! Condolence bouquets can be sent to... Haha just kidding - she'll be fine! A couple of Tylenols and Grampa's newly procured cane, and she was ready to salvage the day.

We axed the trip to the North Shore, since we were three hours behind schedule by this point anyway, and went back to the Kohala hotel to check out the dolphins during the day. They are so cool! There's around eight of them, and a couple of them were flirting with us - staying above the water and posing for the camera. We were really lucky to catch them before the last feeding time, so we got to see a couple of tandem flips as they worked for their fish - awesome! We stayed for coffees and then headed back to the massive Ala Moana shopping centre for some gauze and the such. We parked Mom in a coffee shop and then grabbed a few things before heading up to Bubba Gump's for dinner. I have to watch Forrest Gump again! I can't really remember much about it - just the part about the box of chocolates, and 'run Forrest, run!' which is probably about what everyone remembers. The restaurant is pretty fun and themed, and good food - I had a fantastic salad and everyone else seemed to enjoy theirs as well.

After that we headed back to the $1.00 cinema to check out the late showing of 'Employee of the Month'. It was well worth the $1.00, but probably not a whole lot more :) Honestly it was a fun movie, but not exactly thick on the plot or art! Although, with the basic premise being: Jessica Simpson's character comes to work at the local Coscto impostor, and two guys fight for her affections by competing for employee of the month honors, you shouldn't really expect too much I feel. The grandmother was hilarious though, and it all ended up the way you want it to, so I'm happy :)

One weird thing tho - when we got to the movie theatre, I got stopped by the ticket taker who didn't want me to take my backpack in. It was empty except for basically my wallet and a book because I'd been dumping stuff out of it all day, but she was adamant that I not take it in until I went to get special permission from the manager, who told me it was fine as long as I went straight into the movie (which was starting by then). Honestly, what did they think I was going to do, steal something? I should mention that the weirdest part of this was that the sign also says you can't bring in large shopping bags, but Mom had no problem bringing in her absolutely massive/overflowing beach bag/shoulder bag which was FULL of crap. (err I mean important belongings). Ageism? Feeling sorry for the woman with the cane? Not sure, but it was interesting though!

Anyway, after that just headed back to the hotel and set mom up with her 'sitcom ice bag' (the funny blue bags with the top on them that they always use in the movie) and then blogging. We don't really know what's going on tomorrow - it really depends on how well Mom can get around...

Hope everyone else is staying out of the clinic/ER!
D