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Guam 2020: Post 8 - It's a Bird... no, it's a plane... no, It's Kitesurfers

It is one week since we arrived on Guam and I am feeling much more adjusted.  I'm not even falling asleep too early in the evening anymore.



Today I started back to work, all my tutoring students are online and I will be working with them using Zoom, and sharing my screen so we can do exactly what we do if they were in my office.  My first student was at 7:30 AM, Guam time, 1:30 PM Pacific Time.  I'm so happy that the ethernet was strong enough so we didn't have audio warbles or video freezes.   It is amazing what I can do from so far away now.

When work was finished I drove to town today search for a few items and enjoy looking around.  When we came in last week we were a bit more rushed.

I went to Home Depot, and came out with plants!  Oh my!  How did I not noticed Home Depot's garden department in Guam before.  It is full of all the tropical plants we keep wishing to find at our Washington state home depot. There were orchids, even the really fancy Cattlayas. I had fun just walking around and looking, like I'd never seen a plant before.  I got some hanging baskets with pink bedding type flowers, I'm not sure what they are right now.  I'm going to figure out how to hang them on the porch.  It may require figuring out how to macrame again.  I could do it when I was a teenager, and I'm sure there are some videos online to teach me.  Then I saw my dream plant, a variegated Hoya kerrii.  I had no idea the leaves were so large.  I'll be a happy owner until at least the middle of March.  At that point, I hope I will have figured out how to ship it home legally.



I stopped at Heavenly Veggies for lunch.  What a yummy treat.  Nellie Joy, a nice lady I had met last time, was the cashier.  They serve really nice vegan food with a different theme every day.  Today was Asian day.  There was noodles, vegetable soup, rice, hummus, (I pondered that this dish was not Asian), and veggie sticks.  These were Asian because included in the assortment was bitter melon.  I guess I am not a true Asian, because I have not yet learned to even slightly like bitter melon.  Thankfully there were also carrot and cucumber sticks.

I had to drive around a bit to find the thrift store, but I think I will be able find it easily next time.  There is a beautiful mural of an island lady with pink Hibiscus flowers on the next building.  I was kind of hoping to find a set of curtains for our bedroom window which overlooks the construction site of the new house.  If there were curtains there, I didn't find them, but I did find a nice piece of material that is just wide enough to cover the window.  Thankfully there is a curtain rod there.



After that I stopped at KMart and got paper towels.  Yes, there is still a huge KMart on Guam that does a huge amount of business with the Japanese tourist.  At Cost U Less I found dates, and Craisins.

On the drive home I saw there were a large number kite surfers playing inside the reef, and lessons taking place up in the grass.  How those kites lined up like that in this photo all at once without tangling lines has me pretty impressed.  I wish I could share this photo with whoever it is that is out there.



A pretty, Japanese lady was also walking on the beach with her son.  She may end up in a watercolor or two.



Back in Agat I stopped at the Tuesday Farmer's market.  I got eggplant, sugar fruit, cherry tomatoes, one small jicama, a ripe papaya, and a piece of turmeric root.  I am wondering what I should make with the egg plant.  Do you have any recipes to share with me?

I was craving sweet things all the way through town, but didn't buy any.  When I got home I cut open a small, 5 inch long papaya I had chilling in the refrigerator and cut it into 8 slices.  Then I squirted Calamansi (lime) juice on it.  I ate my half and save half for Rob.  So delicious!  This was one good papaya.  Why is it when you have a treat waiting for him, he comes home later than you expect.  It was all I could do to not eat his half.  (I know there are only 7 slices on the plate.  I ate one before I thought to photograph them.)



After Rob got off work, we walked until until my fitness tracker reached 10,000 steps for the day.  We finished up walking in the dark.

I made smoothies for supper with the dates I brought home today and the frozen triple berries and frozen pineapple I picked up at Cost U Less last week.



After supper I worked on drawing and painting a second Plumeria flower.  I'm getting closer to being ready to paint a large cluster of them.  on today's flower I made the shadows with purple with a titch of yellow added.  Purple makes a much better shadow than the pale blue I made yesterday.  I am much more happy with this one.  But I'll still keep it, because it is part of my painting journey.  I love seeing my journey on paper.

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