SHARKS.

I can no longer sleep when the night is quiet.  I've gotten comfortable with nightly ruckuses - the constant pounding of rain on my roof, incessant screams from lost roosters, the dopey cries of affable, dimwitted cows. Peaceful silence now sets me off, jolting me from dreams of pirate ships and giant whales and tree houses. Last night was far too quiet for a good night's sleep. This morning, as the sun rose and my room slowly roasted, I begged for rain or clouds or harsh winds, anything to rid me of the horrid heat and allow me a few more hours of sleep.  The island heard me, as it tends to, and just as I was sitting up to climb out of bed, "plappity, plap, plap, plap," the sky knocked on my roof.  More than once I've been told, "this island is scary the way it listens."  I've heard many stories of people manifesting certain desires or hopes or fears.  People tell stories of the night marchers, fallen spirits known to march through the night. Accounts of people being trampled by invisible soldiers, waking up with bruises, are common around here.  "Don't manifest it," they say.  Before getting in the water rid your mind of thoughts of sharks because if you don't, you'll manifest one, sooner rather later.  I've yet to run into a shark, but I've also yet to rid my mind of them - I can't help it.  I think part of me wants to encounter the beast.  I know that part of me wants to run into the night marchers - i'm not going to try to manifest them, but I won't exhaust myself in the other direction either.    

There's a man here named Orville Mcallister, but we all call him Tripp. I honestly think he is Santa Claus - red, rosy cheeks, startling blue eyes, short, chubby, and he smiles constantly.  He's jolly but you can tell that he tries very hard to monitor his jolliness.  Tripp is the resident handy man - he fixes everything. However, he has a tendency to start jobs and leave them midway through.  "Hey Tripp," I said to him as he left the kitchen yurt with squinty eyes and a smile. "Howzit?" he returned. i continued on into the kitchen, grabbing two pieces of bread, some kale, turkey, and a tomato that I was going to slice up.  I went to the sink to wash the tomato and I 'tripped' on a giant wrench - a plumber's wrench, three feet long and thick - sitting on the floor in the middle of the kitchen.  I peered into the sink and where the drain used to be, a gaping hole now sat. I ducked and examined underneath - the pipes had been unscrewed, unhinged, unplugged, completely taken apart. Tripp had dismantled our entire kitchen sink and left halfway through.  He didn't even think to say something to me as he saw me walk into the kitchen. And he thought it was just fine to leave his enormous wrench on the floor, the pipes to our sink strewn this way and that - nah, it's all good. We don't need a sink.  No point in mentioning it to him, either. He'll cut you off with his raspy laugh and dismiss it with a smile and his rosy cheeks. You can't stay mad at Santa Claus. It's impossible. It's Orville Mcallister.  

Here's my grocery list from tonight. Aloha.