Almost Normal (Not), A Missed Anniversary

 [Note: this is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

6/26/21

Aloha all –

I see that it’s only June and it is already a bit toasty for you.  Crank up that a.c.!  We have stayed mild and pleasant so far, except for our persistent rainy and cloudy afternoons.  Still, the pool is up to 81-82, but we still need a little help from our electric backup for our hot water. Our electric bill shows the

Above 0=we pay

Note 1 pm dropoff

story very clearly with a graph of our monthly usage over the past 12 months.  Most of the time our PV system produces a surplus, but for the latest period we didn’t quite break even. The system itself produces another graph which also tells the story by plotting the power generation throughout any given day.  Many days this past month show great generation in the morning but a dramatic drop when the clouds move in later in the day.  I really like this graph because I can log in from anywhere in the world when we are traveling via the WWW and see what the weather has been like at home at any time. The electric bill graph is only available once a month.

Speaking of traveling, we are struggling to plan for the rest of this year and next year.  The foreign places we want to visit are either struggling with Covid and have severe travel restrictions or are having political and social problems.  We have rescheduled our Ethiopia tour for a year from September, hoping things will be better but that still seems uncertain.  We’d love to return to Europe, but even countries that are open to foreign travelers may be difficult for us to find accommodations and open attractions.  Plus, they are also having a heat wave this summer. A substitute might be to travel in the mainland US, but apparently many, many people have decided to do that too, as photos of National Park crowds illustrate. That may make it very difficult to make arrangements and not very enjoyable even if we can. As I've mentioned before, it is certainly true here that there are too many people trying to do the same thing at the same time). Once again we are SO glad we did as much traveling over the years as we did – at least we have some great memories to relive.

On the home front, we’ve been whacking back our foliage and weeds that have loved the cool, wet weather.  Also, a very positive accomplishment is that my neighbor and I have managed to catch quite a few coquis this week, a total of 12 between us.  There are many more still around, but even a reduction of 12 has quieted things down considerably.  We’ve both become very good at locating and grabbing the little suckers, and once we’re on the hunt for them they are very likely to become coquicicles – that is, frozen solid in the freezer.

We got back to our weekly Planet Fitness workout on Thursday.  Ouch. However, our favorite reward of a Vietnamese lemon grass chicken sandwich at the beach cancelled some of the pain.

Oh, and we were so involved with our guests that we forgot to celebrate an important anniversary -- the day 20 years ago that we finally closed the sale of our Oxford house.  This was definitely a relief, because we had already closed on our Hawai'i house, and the Oxford closing eased the financial burden of owning two houses at the same time. It was also a relief because there had been a couple of nerve-wracking delays to get things settled because of financial complications for the buyers in getting the funds together.  Those were some very stressful times, to say the least.

Finally, yesterday I had my second Shingles vaccination. You may recall that I had quite a reaction to the first one, but so far this reaction hasn't been too bad; a pretty sore arm and a good excuse for an extra nap. No matter how bad the reaction though, it sure beats getting another case of shingles!

Ok, off to farmers’ market.  Take care, stay cool, stay healthy.