Yesterday was my busiest day in a while, and just before I staggered off to bed I saw a newpaper headline about ‘Sheriff Fatman’ by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. The song (which I like) immediately got stuck in my head and unfortunately it is not the type of music that lulls you to sleep. I didn’t sleep deeply and woke many times, and when the Gentleman Friend got up for his work call at 3.30 I woke up too and only dozed for a couple of short passages after that. I did occupy myself for a while by deciding which hiking sandals I will buy from this land of plenty, and have chosen a pair. However, the quest for comfortable bras continues: something in my size (narrow chest but largish bust), a decent shape but wireless and, critically, made of cotton – something, in fact, that I can wear when on long flights. It’s been a multi-year search with little result.
For lunch we decided to go to Ken’s 24 Hour House of Pancakes, the local diner. Along the way we stopped at the Hilo Library to admire the sacred stone that marked Kamehameha’s kingship, and went past some glorious small towm America shops: Blane’s Drive Inn, Kozmic Cones and Yen’s Chop Suey, a kind that I had never really encountered in my years in big city USA.
We approached the diner and then, wisely I think, changed our plans and went first for poke from Suisan. It was delicious, again, and one of those we got was very hot; I think I’m not used to the heat after some time in New Zealand where heat and garlic are added flourishes rather than part of the bedrock of the flavour. One ahi and one marlin, both delicious, with some excellent furikake-sprinkled rice on the side.
The diner itself is apparently something of a local landmark and was plastered with photos of celebrities, many of them wrestlers, and including several of The Rock such that I thought he was linked to the owners in some way, but actually I think not. We ordered a plate of pancakes which duly arrived. I, a coward, gave over 2/3 to the GF and myself had just one, so was not felled by it as he was. On a nearby table of Singaporeans an intimidating taco salad arrived others were having chili etc. It was very much a diner as one sees in movies, perhaps a little self-consciously kitschy because of its fame and I did wonder if I would ever eat at a diner if I actually lived in the US, any more than I ever ate in a London caff. Probably not.