Recruited off the island is so much better than being booted, yes? I came to Maui in May with a plan: I’d make my first off island foray in mid-October. No way I would I be caught alive in Hawaii or anywhere else in the world that month with a third grandchild’s birth in Portland and my mother’s 90^th birthday party in Boise. But unborn children, I’ve learned, love to rearrange one’s schedule – a bit of practice for their earthly debut.

 
It seems our little one has raised such a ...

I have successfully survived for five months without the one eligible man who has been in my life since 1990: Trader Joe. Some women still have the house or the child of a bygone relationship. I am left merely holding the bag. It’s that red-on-red one appropriately strewn with Hawaiian flowers and bearing a round white circle featuring bread, cheese and wine. Perhaps you have one too. Love those canvas handles!

I take my “Joebag” along to my current grocery store, the famed “Mana”...