Lisa Scottoline - Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog - The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman

Hawaii.

The excitement started before we even got there, because of Michael McDonald. Please tell me you know that Michael McDonald sang with the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, who made the soundtrack of your life, or at least your freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, circa 1974. I spotted him in the airport, recognizing him instantly from my fantasies. You know you’re getting older when the grayest head in the place is the one man who does it for you.

Of course, I made Francesca go over to him with me, which she did, and I introduced myself and started gushing, though she pulled me away before I suggested anything untoward.

Who raised this kid?

So then of course I have the best luck ever and Michael McDonald shows up on our very flight, which lasts like 29,373 hours so I can stare at him as he watches the movie (Prince Caspian) and gets up to go to the bathroom (only three times).

I like a man with a strong bladder.

And then how great is it that when we get our baggage, the only luggage left is his and mine, which shows that we were meant to be, if you don’t factor in his wife.

What a fool believes, a wise woman has the power to reason away.

And then Francesca and I end up on Maui, which is ridiculously pretty, if only I could enjoy it. Because all I like to do on vacation is sit on my butt and read in the sun, which is what distinguishes a vacation from a staycation, wherein I sit on my butt and read in the sun for much less money.

But Maui offers so much to do and Francesca is the adventurous sort, so in no time, I find myself snorkeling in its teal blue water, watching green-striped eels and spotted manta rays. By the way, I can’t swim, a fun fact about me you may not know. So I’m the only adult in the Pacific wearing an inflatable vest.

Six-year-olds point and laugh.

At one point, I have to struggle out of the water to shore, so I do my best doggy paddle while Francesca waits on the beach for me. She tries to be patient but by sundown, it gets old. She says, “Dead bodies wash up faster.”

I cannot disagree. Glug.

Then we sign up for the snorkeling cruise, which means that we spend two hours on a catamaran sailing to the island of Lanai. In case you don’t know, a catamaran is a two-hulled boat that causes you to throw up, which I do.

The next day we are scheduled for a horseback ride down the crater of Haleakala. FYI, Haleakala is a dormant volcano that rises 10,000 feet into the air, and another fun fact about me is that I’m afraid of heights. I’m too terrified to drive the road to the summit, which snakes along various lethal cliffs, so I pay an extortionate rate to be driven there, only to realize that I cannot pay anyone to ride the horse down into the crater for me. So I suck it up for the next five hours, over trails that go up and down for three thousand feet, over lava rubble and coarse sand. Francesca tells me it was starkly beautiful-a rust, black, and green landscape that looks like Mars, dotted with unusual silver sword plants that grow only in Hawaii-and I’m taking her word for it.

My eyes were closed.

I survived only by placing my trust in my sleepy old mare, who can do Haleakala with her eyes closed, just like me. Her name is Princess, so there’s something else we have in common.

Much later, back at the hotel, I order drinks that are also found only on Hawaii. The Lavaflow, a pina colada with strawberries, and a perfect Mai-Tai, and the next day I am sitting happily on the beach, reading James Michener’s Hawaii.

Now that’s a vacation.

Okay, I’m officially confused, and it’s not rocket science. It’s about my latest trip to the food store.

Here’s what happened:

I shop at Acme and Whole Foods, because I can’t buy everything I need in one place. Acme doesn’t know from wheatberry salad, and God forbid that Whole Foods sell Splenda. I even have to go to a third store for pet food, but that’s not the point.

Back to Whole Foods.

We all know it sells hippie food at designer prices, but I love it for all its crazy and delicious choices. Also, the samples are incredible. Whenever you’re hungry, you should go directly to Whole Foods, walk around, and eat anything attached to a toothpick. Better yet, grab five and put them in your pocket.

The cheese cubes travel better than the chicken quesadillas.

But to stay on point, Whole Foods has every fruit possible in its produce department, where you can choose from organic or “conventional.” I always buy conventional because I am conventional. Also it’s cheaper, and I like my apples pretty. If they sold plastic apples, I’d be happier, but either way, I appreciate Whole Foods for its euphemistic “conventional.” They could have called it “for people who cheap out on their family” or “for people who choose style over substance” or “for people who think a little DDT never hurt anybody.”

But they didn’t.

So I went to Whole Foods with my shopping list and was happily collecting mangoes and multigrains when I came upon an endcap that showed an array of mysterious plastic tubs, each larger-than-life. The labels read: whey protein powder in natural vanilla flavor and whey protein powder in natural chocolate favor.

I blinked, bewildered. The only whey I’d ever heard of came with curds and a spider.

Next to the whey powder were big vats of soy protein powder, also in chocolate and vanilla, then next to that were tubs of Green Superfood Berry Flavored Drink Powder and Green Superfood Chocolate Drink Powder, made with “organic green foods.” All of the powder tubs came with a 28-ounce “Blender-Bottle,” like a sippy cup for grown-ups.

It was dizzying. They were clearly some kind of meal replacement, so I was looking at a wallful of drinkable food. Just add water. That’s my favorite kind of cooking.

I spent the next hour squinting at the labels, comparing the nutrition facts and deciphering the language, such as “includes Free-Form Branch Chain Amino Acids.” Now, I don’t know about you, but when I want to cheat on my diet, I head straight for the amino acids. Especially if they’re from the branch and not the main office. Which is so not free-form.

There was even a big white tub of MegaFood, which immediately got my attention. If I were going to put any prefix in front of the word “food,” it would be “mega.” Except, of course, for pizza. I looked but couldn’t find any MegaPizza-Food, which would have made my day.

I bet Acme has it. Next to the Splenda.

Instead I had to settle for the DailyFoods Organic Greens Dietary Supplement, which billed itself as “revitalizing greens for women over 40.” It promised “detoxification,” but I wondered how I became toxic. Was it merely the act of turning forty and being a woman? Or maybe it was those frozen margaritas over vacation. Or that time I ate all the Snickers out of my daughter’s Halloween candy. Which happened for the entire ten years she went out for Halloween.

Amazingly, the tub of girl powder had vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K, which I didn’t even know existed. It also had riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, and 19 mg of chlorophyll, which is the powder equivalent of eating your shrubbery.