kat, when I moved from Philadelphia to Portland, Oregon, when people would ask me if I missed the four seasons (in the Northwest the seasons are summer and rain), I would tell them, "I only miss two of them, and they weren't very long!" Your friend is welcome to the New England winters! And there are definitely seasons in Hawaii, they're just even more subtle than in the NW. I can handle that. Now I'll be leaving an incredibly beautiful place, that gets an average of 160 inches of rain a year...life is just a series of tradeoffs, isn't it?

The offer for a Mudcat Hawaii gathering is most definitely still open. And if the new owner of my former house and macadamia nut orchard north of Hilo still isn't living there or renting it out, maybe I can arrange for us to have it there after all!

Aloha,
Mark