Sofa No Mo', Lava Golf, Sad News

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

1/28/23

Aloha Snow Bunnies!

I see on my weather reports that the mainland is continuing its wintertime fun.  Here, the storms far to our northwest have sent us a lot of high surf, much to the delight of the expert surfers who ride the really big waves on the north shore of Oahu during this season.  We call them "Eddy" waves in honor of  renown Hawaiian surfer Eddy Aikau who would fearlessly tackle the biggest of them. The popular phrase "Eddy Would Go" refers to surfing conditions that require both skill and courage.  Personally, I have neither when it comes to a giant 20-30 foot wave about to crash down on me.

On Monday we got rid of our old sofa downstairs that I talked about last week. This was no small feat because it was heavy and had to be wrestled up a narrow flight of outside stairs to the driveway. Two of our gardener's helpers managed it without any obvious injuries. We were glad to finally have this project done.  There are a few other pieces of furniture down there that we'd also like to replace, but they aren't as high priority as this one.  The new sofa looks great it is actually pretty comfy.  I haven't yet given it the nap test, though.

On Wednesday night we received news that yet another dear friend passed away.  He had recently retired from Miami and he and his wife had just moved to Seattle.  He had heart problems that ultimately led to complications from recent emergency surgery.  They had visited us a couple of times here, and we were good friends back in Ohio.  He was one of the brightest people I've ever known, and also was a very talented operatic singer. Truly a sad event.

Karen and I managed a workout on Tuesday and 14 holes of golf on Thursday.  The first 6-7 holes were

Seriously?!

very good for me, much better than my last outing.  Then it started to slip, and all those extra strokes on the next set of holes wore me out.  Still, I got a par, a bogie, and had some rather impressive shots and putts.  As long as I focus on the positive I can convince myself to keep playing.  We didn't see *any* baby Nenes or Peacocks, so it is definitely a low year.  Last season was very good, though, so maybe this is just temporary.  There has been a lot of maintenance along the edges of the course fairways this year,  and I wonder if that didn't disturb the usual nesting sites.

Yesterday Karen went to her foot doctor for an assessment of how her ankle is progressing.  The verdict is that she doesn't need to wear her foot brace all the time now.  She should continue to improve, though age will slow the process.  Ironic, isn't it that healing takes longer when your "longer" is in shorter supply.

Later this morning I'll be seeing my eye doctor again. It's been 2 1/2 months since my last injection, which is getting close to a record.  I can't really detect a big downturn, but if there is even a hint of edema building again, I'll opt for the shot.  If there isn't any new buildup, then I'll definitely be going for a new record between shots, because I'll probably have another exam in 4-6 weeks, which would make the interval between shots 3-3 1/2 months.  Whoopee!

This evening we're driving up to Waimea to see a performance by the Giordano Dance Company from Chicago.  This is modern jazz-ballet group that is excellent.  We've seen them before and we're looking forward to the performance.  The event is at the Kahilu Theater, a very nice venue in Waimea that holds about 250 people and has state-of-the-art equipment.  It takes about an hour to drive up there, though, and so we have a pretty high threshold for deciding when to go.  This performance should definitely be worth it.

Ok, off to market and our beach breakfast picnic.  Stay warm. Stay positive. Don't let the crazies get to you.

Bones, Golf, Cable Guy, Couch

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

1/21/23

Aloha Frozen Family!

Unlike last week this one was busy for me.  Of course, back in my working years this wouldn't even come close to a usual schedule.  Mo' betta this way.

I got my bone scan results and they were pretty good.  No significant change overall from 3 years ago, so it isn't likely I'll go back on medication just yet.  However, my status is still osteopenic, which means an elevated chance of back or hip problems in the future.  For now I'll just try to keep doing what I'm doing and see how things progress.  Getting older is just a barrel of laughs, right?

On Sunday Karen & I went to Planet Fitness and on Thursday we played 16 holes of golf at Makalei.  The workout was good, and I even added a bit more weight to some of the exercises.  The golf

Look at ME!!

was...well, like playing the slot machines in Vegas.  I had just enough really positive reinforcement to keep me going rather than throwing the clubs into the lake.  I got a couple of bogies, and on one tough hole had the best score I've ever gotten, plus on another I hit the best tee-shot of my career.  However,  there were quite a few pretty bad moments as well.  Thankfully our minds have a way of burying those.  We saw nearly 30 Nenes, but still only the three young ones we first spotted a few weeks ago.  It looks like this may be a lean year for offspring. By now we would normally be seeing family groups instead of pairs (btw, Nenes usually mate for life).  I'm not sure what the cause of the downturn might be -- hopefully the biologists may identify something.  The highlight of the day, though, was watching the white Peacock do his fan dance.  His tail isn't as developed as older males, but hopefully in time this will improve.

On Wednesday we had a visit from the cable repairman.  I haven't had any major issues with my internet, nor with our tv streaming, but apparently their fancy sensing equipment detected some intermittent issues with our connection and they suggested having a service call to head off any future problems.  Believe it or not the guy showed up right on time, and seemed to really know his stuff.  He cleaned up the connection where the service enters our house, which was jumbled mess of now-useless cabling that was installed 30 years ago at least.  That didn't completely clear up the signal and he replaced the old connector inside the house where the cable connects to our modem.  That helped, but still not aces.  He then checked the connection at the street and found corroded connectors, which he replaced. Still didn't satisfy him, and he wound up totally replacing the cable from the street to the house!  Although this sounds like a lot of work, he was done in 1.5 hours.  I can't see a difference in how well everything is working, but I'm a believer in preventative maintenance, so overall I'm glad we had the call.  Now the only old part of the whole system is the cable from the house entry to the modem, which I may replace myself. No rush, though.

One of the not so great features of living here is that often shopping for things is frustrating because of limited inventory.  We've been looking for a new sofa to replace one in our downstairs guest quarters but nothing on the island was what we liked.  Finally we went online and ordered one last fall, knowing we would have wait for months before it showed up.  Patience is a necessity living here.  Anyway, the sofa arrived on Friday and it looks just fine.  However, we now have to get someone to haul the old one away.  We thought we had someone lined up but they will do it in their spare time -- in other words, more patience required........

While we were playing golf on Thursday we got a call from an old college friend who is visiting the island for several days.  It was a treat to have him and his wife come to dinner last night and catch up on our lives.  We hadn't seen them for maybe 10 years, so it was chance to get reacquainted and rekindle our friendship.  They live near Denver, and we might work out a trip to Colorado this summer to revisit them and other friends, plus enjoy some time in the mountains.

Ok, that's about it for this week.  Off to market, beach, and then a NAP.  Take care, stay warm, and keep your b.s. armor on.

Bone Scan,Vog, Safety Check

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

1/14/23

Aloha Everyone -- 

I hope your week went well.  Mine was pretty quiet, which was fine by me.  Weatherwise it has continued to be dry and cold (62d last night!).  Most mornings, as usual, are beautiful, though we've been experiencing

Our Winter Flowers

a fair amount of vog since Kilauea began erupting. When the summit eruption began, it was spewing about 15k tons (!) of SO2 (the main ingredient in vog) per day.  It still is hard for me to grasp that gas can weigh 15 tons, but there it is.  When SO2 combines with water vapor and particles in the air, it becomes VOG, a whitish/greyish haze.  Besides its unaesthetic aspect, vog is pretty nasty stuff, since part of it is actually H2SO4 -- sulfuric acid. Before you ask, breathing sulfuric acid is definitely not a good thing for your lungs (nor are most other forms of air pollution).  The potential harm varies with how concentrated the vog is and how long it lasts.  Here, we almost always get a break at night, when our winds shift to down slope breezes and push the stuff out to sea. Also, the concentration is less at higher elevations.  Bottom line:  this is something you live with if you live here, part of the price tag of the positive aspects.

The "Kilauea caldron" is still cooking, but has settled down quite a bit.  The latest SO2 measurement was down to about 3.5k tons per day, which should lead to less vog when we can clear out the current accumulation.

In other news, on Thursday I had a bone density scan to check on my osteopenia.  My last scan was in 2019, after being on Tamoxifen for several years.  This one will see what's happened in the intervening years and whether I should go on another round of the medication.  The scan was at the radiology lab that got hacked a couple of months ago, and the appointment had been made back in August for the soonest available slot.  I'd rather have played golf on Thursday with Karen and her friend, but when I tried to change the radiology appointment they told me the soonest available would be several months from now because of the backlog.  So I stuck with it and instead of chasing a little white ball I had my body nuked.

Since I was already out and about, I decided to make good use of my time by taking our suv in for its annual safety inspection.  The best location I've found for this is a place north of town near Costco, in an industrial area made up of a number of large warehouse-type buildings that are subdivided into various businesses.  An enterprising family got a franchise for doing the safety checks and really has a streamlined operation that makes this yearly chore fairly painless. You check in at an open-air desk, then when it is your turn you drive into an open door on one side of the building, get the check done, pay your money, and exit the other side.  Everybody is friendly and upbeat, and the whole thing for me took less that 1/2 hour.  Since the safety check facility is near Costco, I then made a stop there to get some things.  I figure this counted as extra exercise because, like most of these big box stores, it's enormous.  And of course I did a lot of zigging, zagging, and backtracking trying to find things.  I'm sure I deserved my reward of a Taco Bell lunch.  (I admit, TB is a guilty pleasure of mine.)

Ok, off to market and the beach.  Stay warm, stay healthy, and don't fall for false equivalences.

Pele Pops Her Cork, Christmas No Mo', Chopomania

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

1/7/23

Aloha All --

Well, Pele must have been jealous of all the New Year's fireworks and decided to put on a display of her

Pele's Fireworks!

own this week.  As you may know, on Thursday afternoon Kilauea, our most active volcano on the island, decided to wake up again after a brief 1-month snooze.  This has made for some great photo-ops for the news media, and the photos and video make it look like the whole island is once again about to be covered by lava.  Not so.  The eruption is exactly where it was before, in a crater within the summit caldera of Kilauea in Volcanoes National Park, and for the time being it isn't going anywhere. It happened about 4:30 p.m. at the summit, and for a while it was quite a show -- multiple fountains, some reaching about 160 ft. high.  Things have settled down considerably now,  but imagine being a tourist who just happened to be watching at that beginning moment!!  The location is the crusted-over lava lake that was active for about 1.5 years up until December. Lava underneath the crust is forcing its way through cracks in the crust, and that's what produced the fountains. For a couple of weeks there were indications that the magma system was recharging because volcanologists detected a number of small earthquakes and the summit was inflating. Here's Thursday's official description:

"The summit eruption of Kīlauea that began within Halemaʻumaʻu crater just after 4:30 p.m. HST today, January 5, 2023, continues at this time.  All activity is confined to Kīlauea summit region, within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. There are no indications of activity migrating out of the summit region. Multiple minor fountains are active in the central eastern portion of Halema‘uma‘u crater floor; the largest lava fountain is consistently about 10 meters (32 feet) high. Fountain bursts up to 30 meters (98 feet) high occurred around 7:45 p.m. and there were several bursts up to 50 meters (164 feet) high during the initial part of the eruption. Lava flows have inundated much of the crater floor (which is nearly 300 acres or 120 hectares).  As of approximately 7:30 p.m. about 10 meters (32 feet) depth of new lava had been added to the crater floor."

Note, this is all happening far from us -- about 100 miles -- and the worst effect here at our house will be the vog that will be produced from the degassing of the lava. It will take several days for this to happen, however.  Unlike the Mauna Loa fissure eruption, the gases are to the south of us and we are much more likely to be effected by them because of the prevailing wind patterns.  Another example of what it means to live with lava.

Aside from Pele popping her cork,  the first week of '23 was....well, not exactly an auspicious start to the new year in other ways.  I learned another new fun climate term, "atmospheric river" which, like "bomb cyclone" is yet another way to describe really crappy weather on the mainland. Floods, blizzards, high winds, etc. Not here, however, which was sunny and pleasant most of the week, though our pool remains at a brisk 77d because of the cool nights we've been having. I doubt you're shedding any tears for me. Also not boding well is the fiasco playing out in the new congress.  I'm getting really tired of extreme groups on the far left and far right hijacking the country, but it looks like we're in for another year of it....

Back to more mundane matters, all of my outside Christmas decorations are now down and stowed away.  The last to be decommissioned were our two driveway deer, which are a challenge to dismantle and  compactly bundle into their storage bags.  We left our tree up all week to enjoy the colorful lights at night.  However, this weekend it, too, will be taken apart and stuffed into its box until next year. Although I don't enjoy the discombobulation that the holidays entail, this year didn't seem as bad to me, I think because Christmas and New Year's fell on Sundays rather than weekdays.  Anyway, I'm enjoying getting back to a more "normal" routine.

My efforts to whack back the jungle continued successfully this week, thanks in part to my gardener and his super long pole saw and young muscles.  On Tuesday he hauled away a huge pile of limbs and foliage to the green waste dump.  It looks much more under control now, though of course this is illusory.  It will be back in a year or so.

On Thursday Karen played golf and I went to Planet Fitness.  She played with her retired veterinarian friend who, after fighting Covid for two weeks, felt strong enough to play.  They started late and finished 11 holes.  Karen did pretty well and got one par (!), and saw 2 of the 3 white peacocks.  The Nenes haven't yet brought out their babies for public display, except for the family with three that we saw last week. I'll probably go next week and hopefully see more.

Ok, that's it.  Certainly an "interesting" first week of '23.  Hope you all are staying warm, healthy, and away from the crazies.  Off to market and the beach.