Lava Changing to Snow, Ho, Ho, Ho

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

12/24/22

Aloha to All!  --

How's that snow shovel holding up?  Back ok?  Any frostbite?  Heh, heh.  Actually, the weather reports from the mainland look rather dire, and I shouldn't  joke too much.  Any complaints I make about the weather here are pretty pathetic compared to conditions in many parts of the country.  "Bomb Cyclone" is a new term for my vocabulary. But of course everyone focuses on their own particular circumstance and I'm no exception, so here goes my whimpering anyway.

Last weekend we had a dandy of a weather front come through, with rain and wind continuing on Sunday

Yes, that's a volcano

and Monday.  This was the storm that caused an Hawaiian Airlines flight coming into Honolulu to have such a hard time, with people bouncing off the ceiling and a number of serious injuries.  The storm came in from the west -- a Kona (leeward) front -- so our side of the island took the brunt.  Here at our house we had some rather scary wind gusts and even some lightning and thunder, a rare thing for us.  It dumped a total of 5" of rain according to our garden rain gauge.  All that moisture fell as snow on our two 13k foot-tall volcanoes, and we have been treated to the sight of both of them with snow caps this week.  Yes, it will be a white Christmas in Kona (sort of).  Note, a couple of weeks ago lava was flowing down the side of Mauna Loa, and this week it was dusted with snow!

My eye exam last Saturday went fine and I skipped having an injection.  I'll take that as a nice Christmas present.  I'll return in 6 weeks, sooner if things go south, but for now both my eyeball and I are happy. 

This week has been high-level socializing for us.  Thursday we had our neighbors over for barbecued ribs, just to contrast with all the usual Christmas fare.  Yesterday we went to an annual get-together sponsored by a women's organization Karen belongs to -- the first time since BC (Before Covid) that it has actually happened. And tomorrow we're going for Christmas dinner at another neighbor's house.  Whew! I'm going to do a covid test today and another one around Tuesday or Wednesday just to see if all that close contact hasn't spread more than Christmas cheer. By the way, the test I did last Saturday was negative, which means covid didn't hitchhike back home from the mainland with us.

We went to Planet Fitness *twice* this week, Sunday and Wednesday. This is partially in lieu of playing golf, which we hope to get back to next week. It didn't seem any more agreeable to my muscles the second time than the first. 

Ok, got to get ready for Santa.  We'll do a day-before-Christmas beach breakfast picnic and then "chill" (pardon the expression) out for the rest of the day.  Take care.  Stay safe. Merry Christmas!!!