Lazy Lava, Snowball Blooms, 400 Frogs

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

4/8/23

 

Aloha Everyone!

 

Karma bit me again this week.  As you recall, last time I bemoaned your lousy mainland weather compared with ours.  Well, within hours of sending my email it began to rain and our usual friendly sun didn't reappear until Tuesday.  By then we had accumulated over 2" of rain and nearly lost our tans. Our volcano summits got more snow, adding to the amount that was already there and making this the most we can remember since living here.  Most of the week it has been overcast and rainy in the afternoons, and our recent solar gains have evaporated. Go ahead and gloat.

I might as well go for broke and really ask for it by reporting on our still-quiet Kilauea volcano.  It has remained essentially shut off since the beginning of last month. The lava lake in the summit caldera has crusted over, and the usual earthquake activity signifying magma moving around has dropped to non-eruption levels.  Show's over folks, move along.  Now, just wait --all three of our active volcanoes will erupt and set new records of devastation. As I've said before, Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and this quiet period is the exception and not the rule.

 

Waking Up

One of our signs of Spring here is the reappearance of plumeria blossoms. In the fall the trees lose most of their leaves and flowers and remain bare for about 3 months. When they begin to wake up, flowers appear on the branches before the leaves, kind of like dogwood trees.  For a few weeks the trees look like colorful snow balls.  Unlike other flowering trees, though, the plumeria will continue to bloom for the next 9 months.  This snowball period is just beginning now, and it is one of my favorite times here.

 

This week we got two pieces of good medical news.  First, I peed in a cup and had some more blood sucked for a follow-up test to check my vitamin B12 level.  All good, though in the low range.  Karen saw an orthopedic doctor about a problem she's been having with one hip.  We both foresaw the all-too-common geezer hip replacement coming, but that wasn't the diagnosis at all.  Instead, she has a case of bursitis exacerbated by mild arthritis, treatable without slicing and dicing.  Definitely good news.

 

With our rain and warmer weather, the coquis are getting active and noisy again.  Being the semi-compulsive guy that I am, I keep track of my catches -- dates, locations, sex.  I'm nearing my 400th catch over the past couple of years.  My neighbor has 462.  I can't imagine how loud and obnoxious it would be with nearly 900 more frogs nearby! 

We played golf on Thursday at Makalei.  Not my best round, but I did manage to get four bogies.  I console myself for my overall high scores with the realization that if you calculate the cost per shot, I'm playing practically for free.

 

Ok, that's it for now.  Stay well and warm.  And remember as you contemplate the world scene that there is humor even in the Theater of the Absurd....