Birthday, Stalkers and Mahi Mahi

Birthday weekend has arrived! May 8th is my day of birth and this year I'm celebrating it on Maui. I just spend the last 14 months locked up with my sweet hubby and kids so taking off without them was a no brainer when it turned out I had to use last year's ticket before June. 

I woke on the big day happy to be healthy, on Maui and greet the day. I slept in to 7 and that felt decadent and luxurious here in the islands. It was supposed to be rainy with thunderstorms according to the weather channel but the day was sunny and clear. Clouds on the horizon and all stuck between the West Maui Mountains. Perfection.

After trying to run and feeling kind of ill, I bagged on that idea and did a speed walk back to the house. My friend Bill, who lives on Lanai in the little town at the top of the island, was coming over to Maui for my birthday weekend on the shuttle boat and I picked him up at the Pioneer Inn at noon. We drove back to Lynn's and made lunch to eat out on the lanai, talking about old times when we used to act and sing in shows. If you read my Acknowledgements in Deadly Resemblance, you'll know that I once had a letter-writing stalker who tried to get me fired from a performing job and Bill was my boss who the stalker appealed to saying I'd taken advantage of him in a wheelchair. Anyways, Bill and I have a long history of working and being friends on Maui and so much to talk about that kept us going all day. 

I'd made the birthday decision to gather a small group of trusted and vaccinated friends to go for an open air dinner on the ocean. I wanted a good piece of fish at The Barfoot Bar with a Hawaiian trio playing in the background, with my toes in the sand under the table. Bill had given me a beautiful necklace and earrings the colors of the sea so I wore an outfit to showcase my new jewelry. My sweet hubby had found someone to deliver me a lei and I had that on as well, feeling properly loved and appreciated. 

Dinner was lovely, fun and happy with our little group and back at Lynn's house we watched one of my favorite Rom Coms "Always Be My Maybe." It was a perfect day on Maui with calls from my kids and niece earlier, texts, tweets and well-wishes along with the launch of my 16th novel, and an ocean swim and snorkel with Lynn in the afternoon
.

Lucky, lucky me.

Flip Flops, Lahaina and Picasso

Warning: This blog is not properly edited or even read back a second time to see if it makes sense. Proceed with caution!

Eating fish tacos at a waterfront restaurant, the nearest patrons 8 feet away, the waiter masked, the table and chairs sanitized just before we were seated is how we do restaurant experiences now. Here in Lahaina, Maui, the restaurants have big PASS signs displayed for all to see that insures patrons they're following all guidelines for Covid and hoping to stay open. I don't know what was more glorious--the mahi mahi tacos with a spicy coleslaw and creama or the ocean breeze coming over the railing from the channel between Maui and Lanai. Or the fact I was in a restaurant on Maui with my dear friend after not seeing her for 18 months! Leaving a big tip was on the menu. 

Maui has been like a mix of a blast from the 90's and an overwhelming realization that I'm out of the house, out of the town, out of state and on an island in the Pacific where I believed in the mid 80's that I would spend the rest of my life as a Kama'aina. I left Maui for many reasons, one being that I fell in love with a man who was not suited to the Maui life and we wanted to raise children in a normal neighborhood, not on an island where blonde kids are hassled. It's different now because there is more than one school on the west side of Maui, and private schools and options but back then when we married and thought about having a family, things fell into place for my husband and I to move to Whistler Ski Resort from Maui and that's where my son was born. Not a normal neighborhood either but he was eventually raised in Redmond WA in a friendly neighborhood with excellent schools. My daughter too.

So here I am on Maui on my (ahem, ahem) birthday and feeling so grateful to be alive, to blessed to be on Maui and so much more healthy than I was six months ago after sitting around at a desk without moving for 8 months. In January, I said "enough is enough" and started a running program on the treadmill. Four months later I was able to run for 20 minutes straight which is a miracle to this woman who has never run in her life! Am I running on Maui? Well, I'm trying. The streets go up and down, the trade winds seem to be perpetually blowing against me and the ocean calls my name when I run by. I try to keep running up that hill and remind myself that I can circle back to jump in the ocean which has worked a few times. And a few times, I just stopped and jumped in, clothes on.

Last night, Lynn and I put on earrings, makeup and went in to Lahaina to Art Walk on Front Street, a place on the waterfront, dotted with world-class art galleries. The first one we ducked into featured Anthony Hopkins work and I was properly impressed with his ability to paint a head! That same gallery had Rembrandts, a Picasso, Dali, Chagall and more super-impressive works. It was like a museum but better because Hawaiian music was playing! Lahaina is known world wide as having top tier art galleries and I mention this in my novel The Dream Jumper's Promise. Tina's husband who's gone missing was a former art dealer, drawn to the Maui art scene from L.A.

Speaking of books, today is launch day of my book DEADLY RESEMBLANCE, a novel about a deaf mom who relocates with her child to a quiet island only to be pursued by a secret letter writing stalker. This type of stalker is familiar to me, having had one of these when I lived on Maui. Read the Acknowledgements and you'll know more. The book launched last night at midnight and I'm proud of how it turned out. I worked hard to try to bring my readers something they'd enjoy and something that wouldn't disappoint them after waiting years for my next full-length suspense novel. 

Today, my birthday, I will attempt a run as a gift to myself then at noon, I go to Lahaina to pick up my friend, Bill, at the ferry. In a nutshell, Bill and I performed in the islands together in theatre, in convention shows, in bars with bands. He's a gorgeous singer, actor and Patsy Cline's great nephew. He now plays Santa Claus at Christmas time in the islands because of the resemblance and I've asked fully-vaccinated Bill to Lynn's house for the weekend. We'll head out to dinner tonight to celebrate me and this birthday, maybe to the Barfoot Bar, one of my favorites. 

Tomorrow, I hope to crash the Hyatt Maui pool, go for a luxurious swim and maybe even sneak onto the curly slide if they let me.

Life is good. Birthdays are a gift itself.

Aloha.

Kim

Turtles, Carbs and Gattica

 Got up at 4:45 for a morning meeting. That may sound early to you but back in LA, it was 7:45 and an 8:00 am meeting wasn't unreasonable. 

As the sky lightened, I greeted the day with a pot of hot Kona coffee and cream that I barely pass over the cup to achieve the perfect color of black on the side of brown. Meetings aside, I set to writing on the lanai as Lynn and JoJo headed out the door in the beat-up Maui Cruisermobile to exercise the little canine for the day, before it got hot.

Trying to make a routine of it, I forced myself to get on running clothes and head out through the neighborhood and down to the lower Honoapiilani Highway, past S Turn to Kahana where I remembered my days on Maui selling timeshare at the very corner where I stopped. Good times, good times. 

Back at S Turn, I removed my shoes and walked into the cool ocean to get my body temperature back to normal and hopefully assist my purple face from over-exertion to returning to a normal color for human faces. The day was cloudy, slightly breezy and the temp was much nicer than the day before for running. 

When I got back to Lynn's house, I was determined to get my friend in the ocean for the first time in over 18 months. Although she lives 2 blocks from the beach, she's been fearful of her fragility after chemo, surgeries, radiation, surgeries and then a year of not leaving the property. At the water's edge she saw a giant green sea turtle and I grabbed my mask, snorkel and fins to leave her fending for herself while I pursued the green sea turtle for a look-see. I ended up way out on the southern point, looking at a group of 5 sea turtles, some with large tumors on their necks and wondered what's happening in Hawaii to the turtles. When I got out, I asked my personal assistant (Siri) and found out that FP is common in green sea turtles. You don't want to know what FP stands for because the name uses every letter in the alphabet and you'll be no further ahead knowing. When I taught diving in Hawaii for 11 years, I saw plenty of turtles and never saw FP but it was concerning to see a turtle with tumors at S Turn. 

Two swims and a lie on the hot beach in the sun (that decided to show itself) later, Lynn and I found ourselves back at home napping. Hey, I was up at 4:45. 

I couldn't sleep maybe from all the Kona coffee and instead watched my saved/coveted 2nd episode of The Mosquito Coast with Justin Theroux. By the end of the episode I was wide awake (if  you've seen it, you'll know why) so I got up and started to make dinner. I'm trying to stay low carb because I recently lost 15 pounds of quaran weight and do not want that slab of fat back. I cheated with a little pineapple.

I made another salad and chicken accompanied by a baguette for Lynn. After Lynn and JoJo returned from their sunset walk, we ate on the lanai, watched the sun duck behind the horizon and went inside to watch a movie. Lynn's friend Bryant had suggested Gattica with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurmin which was strange and wonderful to see them and Jude Law as young adults. I rolled into bed as soon as I saw THE END, passed out immediately and dreamed of rearranging furniture in a house to accommodate turning it into a preschool that included monkeys.

Such is my imagination. Three days until my birthday! Lynn and I plan to have some fun on Saturday!

More tomorrow!

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

 

Floating, Makawao & Salad Recipe!

 Today on Maui seemed three days long!

Woke at 5:30 and worked for hours, thinking how much nicer it is to watch the morning light creep into the night sky on Maui than Seattle. Feeling like I accomplished something, I took a break for an hour to go for a run and there is something so wonderful about running on Maui compared to a treadmill at home. My goal was a beach called S turns and there, I went in the ocean in my clothes (shoes off) to cool off. It was glorious. The ocean here is so wonderful and lovely and rejuvenating. I floated around in my running clothes feeling grateful for having the energy and health to run, then grateful to find the ocean for dip with no one around because it was still early. With shoes in hand, I walked back to Lynn's street, sitting on a grassy spot at the top of the street and put the shoes back on so I could run up the driveway looking like the athlete I am. Lynn was impressed, so my brag goal was met.

We made a brunch of salads, fruit, fresh bakery bread and sat on the lanai eating while JoJo stared at us with his puppy dog eyes because, well, he's a dog. I gave in and fed him from the table because Lynn told me that's his kuleana (his thing). Even though I picked out this little rescue dog several years ago for Lynn at an adopt, don't shop event at the Maui Mall, JoJo doesn't remember me and is scared shootless of me. He has no memory of his first night with us when I took him to a hula show and held him like a baby in my arms daring the cocktail waitress to kick us out for having a newly adopted rescue dog. She let us keep him.

After my run, I grabbed the car keys and took off north to Kapalua to do a little snorkel but at 11 am, the beaches were already packed and parking was non-existent. Where did all the people come from? I drove down the road to Napili Surf to find the next public beach access spot and snagged the last parking spot with Lynn's car that has dents and a door barely hanging off the chassis. It's fun to see people's reactions to this old KIA as I drive by because it honestly looks like the person driving is semi-blind and has been in lots of accidents. I feel like a proper badass.

I walked through the beach access to Napili Bay and never having snorkeled there before, I had little to compare it to but, after realizing I brought the wrong snorkel mask to Maui and did not have the one with the vision corrector diopter built in, I decided to give it a go and see how compromised my vision was with no vision correction. I snorkeled around the bay cursing Climate Change and the lack of live coral, then headed into the beach and back to the car. It was a Wham Bam Thank You Snorkel and soon I was showering at the house to get ready to head "upcountry" with Lynn to cruise the shops of Makawao. Leaving JoJo at home for a few hours, we drove through Lahaina and over to Kahului and upcountry to the cowboy town of Makawao. It used to be you could shop and actually afford a piece of jewelry or a piece of clothing in this quaint town but the price tags were around $300 for a linen top from Italy and browsing was mostly what we did. It rained and we ran between shops, laughing and talking, then back to the car and through Paia to West Maui. 

At home, JoJo had waited for his mommy and pulling up, the awesome twosome, (Lynn and JoJo) took off immediately for his sunset beach walk while I reported to the fridge to make us a salad and to take on Happy Hour alone. 90 minutes later, we ate on the lanai, got into a discussion on diversity in the film industry over some drinks with Lynn's friend Bryant, and eventually called it a day. A wonderful day.

 Here's the salad I made to go with my Michelob Ultra Spiked Seltzer (no carbs!)

Low Carb MAUI Salad

Romaine lettuce - 1 head

Tomato - from Lynn's garden

Celery - chopped

Carrot - stuck in upright (just kidding, chopped or shaved)

Parsley - Lynn's garden

Avocado - Lynn's tree

20 Toasted Almonds

10 chopped Mac Nuts

Shaved Parmesan - a lot1

Beechers Just Jack Cheese cubes - Bought at SeaTac airport

Broccoli

Snow Peas - Lynn's garden

Green Pepper - Lynn's garden

2 Hard Boiled Eggs

Bacon bits

Chicken - Costco Roast Chicken cut in cubes, sautéed in garlic butter and salt

Full Fat Creamy Caesar Dressing with low carbs

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

Getting to Maui during Covid

 Aloha!

If you follow my blog, you might know that I write blogs from Maui every year when I visit.

Last year was a pass because the week I was to fly, we got the Stay At Home order and I took that to heart, being  a rule follower and a good citizen.

I had a free ticket to use before June so as soon as I was vaccinated and past the 2 week mark, I booked the flight and told my best friend Lynn to expect a visitor. She's been on furlough from her hotel job and gardening for a year and boy does her yard reflect the 380 days she's spent there! Yowza. And like loads of us, her little poi rescue dog has gotten so needy and clingy!

To enter Hawaii these days, you need a negative COVID test done 72 hours before departure. That's 3 days for anyone  math challenged. If you want to get your test done at the airport, it's about $150. If you want to have the test done at your neighborhood lab, unless your doctor specifies you have symptoms, it's out of pocket for that same amount (in WA state.)

However, Walgreens does drive through testing for free and even though it took a few days to book an appointment in a town an hour away, I pulled up to the drive through on Sunday, was given a swab thing to do my own test,5 swirls inside my nostril, then sent my swab back through the chute and had negative results right after I arrived home. Then, I uploaded the lab results to Safe Travels as instructed by my airline. 

https://travel.hawaii.gov/#/welcome

I filled out the health questionnaire, got an email with a Q Code to use at the airport, to get my okie dokie wrist band to get on the plane and started packing. All checked in I got on the plane wearing 2 masks and reminded myself that everyone on the plane had had a COVID test in the last 72 hours except the small children who were maskless and several rows away.

 If you're planning on flying, be warned, masks are often worn below the nose by about 10% of the population traveling, even by one flight attendant who kept pulling it up over her nose as she served drinks. Blind faith, hope, and a month past the vaccine carried me to the Valley Isle where Lynn awaited in her Maui cruiser with her poi dog and off we went to Lahaina side to get groceries before we landed at her house in Kahana. As I said, her yard looks great, she has veggies growing everywhere as well as the papaya and plumeria, bananas, lemons and avocadoes. 

We talked almost non-stop until bedtime, even as we drove to Fleming Beach to walk the doggie who mostly meanders around sniffing, then back to the house for dinner on the lanai to watch the sun set. 

Talk continued like two friends who hadn't seen each other in a year, and carried on until 9 pm which was midnight for me) and off to bed we went. It was a joy to sleep with windows open and the cool Hawaiian trade wind floating through the bedroom. 

More from Maui later!

Aloha

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

The RomCom

 I taught a quick class last weekend on how to write the RomCom and ended up going over the 2 hour mark. There is a lot to say about how to write one of these movies, turns out!

However, I just discovered that all you need to know about RomComs is right here in this Tweet thread I just had with Aminah Hughes, another screenwriter on Twitter.

There was a joke going around in screenwriter twitter saying "Hello, I'm the gal on TV driving a car and don't need to look at the road for a full 10 seconds while I talk to my passenger," or "Hello, I'm the doctor in movies giving a shot who wastes half the shot by squirting the contents into the air first" etc.

Funny stuff.

I wrote one and it carried on for a bit with Aminah like this:

Me: Hello, I’m a woman in a RomCom who works at a failing but charming bookstore and I live in an adorably cute cottage in a nice neighborhood on $12 an hour.

Then Aminah Tweeted

Aminah: OMG I think I know you! Do you also ride an adorable old-fashioned bicycle with a basket on the front? I think you were in the first screenplay I wrote in film school! Hi!

Me: That's me I also have a kooky best friend who wears overalls and big glasses that slide down her nose

Aminah: Give her my love! And pass on my best to the grumpy old man with a heart of gold who owns the bookstore. I know how hard it'll be for you when he finally carks it & you have to fend for yourself in the big bad world outside the beautiful bookshop bubble.

Me: Especially because my parents are dead and I look to him as a parent

Aminah: At least his long lost son is coming home for a visit soon and you'll finally get to meet him. Heard he's grumpy like his dad. Probably won't like him at first.

Me: I already know I dislike him immensely because he wants to sell the bookstore! Dang, why is he so handsome?

Aminah: Stupid city slickers, coming into our lovely town with their ... big city ways! You'll soon show him who runs this bookstore! He so rude. Stop LOOKING at him over the top of that book!

Me: I can't help it! We once kissed, kinda by accident when his face got really close and I'd been crying and he was comforting me and it just happened And now I can't forget that his lips are soft!!!!

Aminah: You must remember that he wants to dishonor his father's legacy and take away the only place you've ever loved (and felt safe - remember, believing that you're capable of stepping out into the world & finding your own path is SCARY!)

Me: When I see his shoulders straining against that tight shirt when he puts books away on the quaint rolling ladder thing, I think I might just be able to convince him to give up the corporate job and move to Niceville.

Aminah: Especially when his hair accidentally gets messed up for a second and hangs over one eye.

Me: And when that puppy got lost and scared and he held it in his arms, I could almost forgive him calling me a "naïve small town temptress" at the Niceville Corn Roast and Charity Dance.

Aminah: I just hope he's gone by Christmas. I know how hard the holidays are for you without your parents. Be terrible if he got snowed in and had to stay...

Me: Oh I love Christmas. I hope he doesn’t spoil it for me. I'll probably end up hating him, then loving him and we'll get married and run the bookstore.

________________________________________________

So there you have it. 

A Twitter thread to get you started writing your own RomCom. Make sure you make some substitutions like the bookstore might be a hardware store and the Corn Roast is a Fish Fry, or Aminah and I will have to pursue legal action. Ha ha.

www.Twitter.com/KimHornsby

SCUBA Diving - Yes or No?

When I first thought about trying scuba diving, I had two emotions—terror and wonderment.

I’m an avid swimmer, lifeguarded during high school, but also saw the movie Jaws and didn’t go in fresh water lakes for years after that. Also, I’m a wee bit claustrophobic and wondered if the pressure of all that water on top of me would trigger something that made me want to rush to the surface for fresh air. Rushing up is a big no-no in diving.

Turned out, I loved it. And the feeling was the polar opposite to being closed in. I felt like I was flying. Slowly flying through a dense medium, but suspended and free from gravity and the need for feet to propel me forward.

My first dive off Nassau was spent trying to gain neutral buoyancy and keep up with the group because the instructor had given me too much weight to keep under, but the distraction of swimming alongside fish and floating through coral gardens was not lessened by pushing off the sand every few minutes.

I went on to dive off Maui on a vacation in my mid-twenties and loved it so much that I signed up to take my dive certification class over the next five days. It’s a crash course they offer in resort areas where you can cancel all other planned activities to stay wet for five days learning how to dive safely. I then went home (which was British Columbia, Canada) and took the courses needed to become a Dive Master. Diving in dark, frigid water was much different from the turquoise, clear waters of Hawaii but it made me a better diver. And gave me an appreciation of diving in a shorty wetsuit with no hood or legs!

Then, I quit my job and moved to Maui to take my instructor course and work as a dive instructor. I ended up certifying hundreds of students, making over five thousand dives in eleven years and loving almost every minute of it. I say almost because I did have some moments I could have done without like being on a sinking dive boat in the middle of the ocean, getting trapped inside a dark cave with a shark and having a student lose a finger when his wedding ring caught on the boat handrail and he jumped into the water. Even writing that last sentence makes me cringe.

I did see sharks down there, and they had no interest in me as another large sea creature. I swam with dolphins, saw Humpback whales, had an octopus suction on to my bare armpit, dove caverns, caves, went on night dives with an underwater light, and ran a successful business called Kimberley’s Scubadventures. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

In my bestselling book The Dream Jumper’s Promise, the hero is a dive instructor on Maui and has a fear of the ocean after her husband goes missing while surfing. She can’t teach or even go on her dive boat. When an old boyfriend shows up with a strange way to help, she must decide if she trusts him enough to allow him back in to her life. There are lots of diving scenes in the book and I’ve been told it’s quite thrilling to read them.

Write what you know, and I know diving.

Was it good to push past my fear of being under the water to try diving? Absolutely! It opened a whole new world to me and led me to the fantastic life I now lead, even if I only dive on vacation twice a year now like in these photos of me diving last year at the Cathedral Caverns off Lanai, Hawaii. Conquering fear is a wonderful way to feel good about yourself. And as I always say to my daughter who is very fearful of many things, “It’s not brave if you aren’t fearful in the first place.”

Do you have something on your bucket list you want to try but haven’t because of fear? 

Tell me…

 

Link for The Dream Jumper’s Promise – http://amzn.com/B00AA4FAJC

Kim’s Amazon Page – www.bit.ly/kimamzn