My cousin who used to be a public prosecutor here has since October become a public defender. Apparently, the benefits were better and she was not getting along with her boss, so it was a good move for her.

Her claim to fame which made the island paper, "The Garden Island", was she prosecuted a mentally retarded beekeeper for cruelty to animals and the judge threw the guy in jail for 8 months. My cousin wanted a year.

Here's the story. A nine-year old girl was walking her two dogs with her friends. The dogs got out of their leashes and entered into the beekeeper's property, which by the way was fenced off. The beekeeper had chickens and the dogs were chasing the birds around, so the guy got upset and got some kind of stick and started chasing the dogs around. One of the dogs escaped, but the other dog wasn't as lucky.

The beekeeper hit the dog in the head and rendered him unconscious, and then just kept hitting the dog. All in front of the nine-year old girl who was screaming the whole time. The girl got cited for a leash violation, and mentally slow beekeeper appealed his conviction but was thrown in jail anyway.

My cousin had all kinds of story about the kind of people she's seen come through the Kauai courts. Two women in their 60's bought some hippie lettuce from some guy at the beach. They smoked a little of it, and then put it in their suitcase to take back home. They were busted at Lihue airport for possession of hippie lettuce.

Kauai has zero tolerance for marijuana possession. My cousin has prosecuted people on possesson because they had left over resin in their pipe. Memo to hippie lettuce smokers coming to Kauai. If you want to enjoy hippie lettuce, buy it here and smoke it here. Don't be stupid and get caught with it on the plane. Airport security goes through and opens up everything. My cousin told me people still transport their hippie lettuce in film containers. DUH! That is such an old trick. Everyone stores their hippie lettuce in film containers. Find a new place! They used to be dogs at Honolulu sniffing through the luggage for hippie lettuce. Well, now they have dogs here sniffing out hippie lettuce carriers.

Hippie lettuce is apparently very easy to buy here. You can just walk on the beach at night and people will ask you if you want some. It's just like in New York, when you used to be able to buy joints in front of the public library.

But hippie lettuce for the locals is a drug only the kids do. Crystal meth is in, so in, that on Kauai they regulate the amount of cold medicine you can buy in the drugstores here. Cold medicine is a main ingredient of crystal meth. My cousin said it is very cheap to make and incredibly addictive. There was a crystal meth lab in some old bakery I remember in childhood here, which eventually exploded. Some motel in Lihue call the Tip Top Motel is as rumor at the courts would have it, is the place to buy drugs galore on Kauai.

Kauai also apparently has zero tolerance for drunks and speeders. Too many people, tourists mostl, getting killed in car crashes here and suing the heck out of the county and the state. If you go over 30 miles above the speed limit, you can be cited for reckless driving. Get a DUI on Kauai, and it's $1,000 fine and five days in jail. Worse yet, if you get convicted for a DUI the court has the right to look at whatever arrests you've had in all 50 states. If you had DUIs in other states, they will sentence accordingly and may suspend your license. The limit of alcohol on Kauai you can have in your blood is 0.08. I have no idea what that means, but apparently in California our alcohol tolerance is higher.

All these DUI laws make me laugh because at the interisland terminal in Honolulu while I was waiting for my flight to Kauai, I saw people tanking the cocktails away before their flight. My cousins says there are a ton of tourists who get DUI convictions on Kauai. Some vacation huh?

My third day on Kauai. Yesterday, my aunt and cousins took me to the Hyatt for brunch. I thought it was the Sheraton that had the good brunch, but I was wrong. It's the Hyatt. The brunch they served wasn't as good as when I was there a few years ago. Oh well, it was better than most. There was an omlette chef who made them anyway you wanted them, and a crepe chef as well. This brunch, probably because of all the japanese tourists, had sushi and tempura as well.

One thing I noticed about the brunch here at the Sheraton and at the Hyatt, is that they always have miso soup. You'd be surprised at how many non-asian people eat miso soup with floaty bits of tofu for breakfast.

There are alot couples here and it's interesting to observe their breakfast routine. Some couples just eat an don't say anything. Some couples read the paper. Some couples are very chatty and chat the whole time. The one time M-Square and I went out to breakfast, we were the chatty couple. The longer we stay together, I wonder what kind of breakfast couple we will turn into.

I'm in the lobby of the Sheraton Kauai hotel and blogging on one of their computers. They have four computers set up for people to use in an area, where you can also read the paper. I might not even have to use my laptop to log into my room.

My room is great. I can't see the beach close up, but from the balcony I can see the ocean and it's very quiet. I think the hotel is pretty empty. My flight getting here was very empty as well. People were lying down and taking naps in the seats.

For dinner I had this excellen taro encrusted snapper with a mixture of sweet and regular mashed potatoes. There was also some kind of yummy brown and cream white served on the side to go with it, along with some delicious wilted greens. I love hotels with good food.

I ordered a banana and pineapple tropical smoothie with icecream for dinner, but when it came it tasted too sweet and strawberry. And I was like, whatever. I guess I'm not ordering this type of drink at this hotel. Two of the hotel staff afterwards came up to ask me if I was okay, because I guess I was like the only person dining by themselves in the restaurant. But then the waitress came over and told me that she had mistakenly given me a drink called "menehune magic". So I was like drinking some disgustingly sweet cocktail instead of my smoothie. She said I could keep the drink after she brought over my smoothie, but I told her to take it. And thank god, my smoothie was delicious. It tasted like a pina colada without the alcohol.

I'm exhausted. I've been up since 5 am and and it's around 10:45 pm Cali time. I think this vacation will be very relaxing for me. My room is great and the bed is huge, and I just M-Square was with me to share it. Someday.

My aunt and cousins are coming here to meet me for brunch tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to seeing them. Did I mention my cousin is a DA here on the island? She wants to be a judge someday, and will probably end up mayor of the island as well. At least that's what my aunt and uncle want. I think my cousin just wants to be a judge. Although I don't know how she's going to be a judge when she's got a star trek tatoo on her leg.

Aloha! I am blogging from gate 49 at the Aloha Airlines terminal waiting for my flight to take me to Kauai. I saw this internet kiosk charging 15 cents per minute, and I couldn't resist sticking five dollars into the slot just so I could blog from the airport.

It's 81 degress and cloudy. When you're outside the weather is great, but inside of the airport which keeps more and more smelling like a bar to me, they keep it cold. So I am in Hawaii but I have my sweatshirt on because as an island girl, I hate air conditioning! Everyone else is walking around in flower leis, shorts and t-shirts, and all manner of tacky hawaiian wear.

So I left rainy San Francisco about 7 hours ago and I'm still not at my destination. I guess I could have taken an earlier flight, but I wasn't sure how long everything was going to take. Oh well. I had a kahlua pork sandwich at the only decent place to eat inside the interisland termina, which was the bar. There people were knocking back huge tropic drinks. One drink even came with a complimentary back scratcher. The drinks are about a foot tall and chock full of booze.

I was good and had a ginger ale because I have to drive to my hotel. But I guess this resort I'm staying at has a mai-tai free cocktail hour. I told my family I would stop by as soon as I checked in to my hotel, so no sipping cocktails tonight while watching the sun set.

I managed to get some writing done on the plane, but not much. I read my latest New Yorker and listened to the music on iTunes on my laptop. I loved listening to "Scarlet Begonias" while flying hight above the Pacific ocean.

I spoke to M-Square this morning and he told me what he missed the most about Hawaii was the smell of plumerias. They are such fragile blossoms, I don't think they would make it if I sent some to him. I'm going to check with a florist on Kauai just to make sure. I want send him a maile lei, which is a flower lei made out of a sweet smelling vine that is native to Kauai. The last time I was here, a florist told me they were trying to grow some on the Big Island but the smell is different. But M-Square doesn't really remember what a maile lei is. Getting one was such a big deal when I growing up, but then again I did live on the island that it's grown on.

I will write more later. Till then as everyone says here "Aloha and Mahalo".