Out of office

It's Friday morning on the island of Maui. And it's raining.

No matter. The air is warm, still fat from last night's storm. It smells of the Pacific and plumeria.

A lone whale and her calf are waking, stragglers in their species' epic migration north to Alaska for the summer. They roll and spout in the near surf, playfully slapping the water with their pectoral fins, nudging each other awake to begin their long exodus.

If it wasn't for that damn Alaskan krill we feed on all summer, we'd stay here, in the shadow of Molokai, they seem to say.

Me too.

And I don't need no stinkin' krill.