[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]
3/2/24
Aloha Everybody---
March already! Can you believe it? Next thing you know it will be time for hotdogs and fireworks...
This week we've been having fun spending time with our friends from Ohio. The schedule has been low-key, with several beach picnics and some surprisingly good whale watching. This year has been a very good season for sighting the Humpbacks that are spending the winter here before returning to Alaska. The numbers seem way up compared to the past few years, and for some unknown reason more whales have been active just off our coast rather than the northern part of our island. Anyway, we've enjoyed watching them with our friends -- there aren't many whales in Ohio.
I had the panic experience of losing my cell phone this week. It happened Wednesday afternoon and was a dramatic reminder of how overly dependent on this little hunk of technology I've become. We went to a seaside restaurant for a sunset drink and when we left my cell phone didn't -- I must have left it on the table, a puzzling and dazzling example of obliviousness. Usually I try to do a quick inventory -- hat, billfold, credit card, sunglasses, regular glasses, cell phone, wife. I thought I did that this time, but the evidence is now clear that I didn't. Anyway, we got all the way home before I noticed I didn't have it. We tried calling the number in case it was somewhere in the car but it didn't respond. This is an Android device, and just like Apple phones, there is a way of remotely detecting where it is, as well as locking it and even erasing all of its contents. I decided to return to the restaurant as quickly as I could to see if I could retrieve it before taking any drastic action (the restaurant wasn't answering their phone). Sure enough, the phone was waiting for me at the reception desk -- the person bussing the table had found it and did the honorable thing by turning it in to the hostess. Crisis averted, but the whole thing was sobering because it illustrated how a momentary lapse in usually taking care not to misplace something can have an unwelcome outcome.
On Thursday we had a very pleasant get-together with two other friends from Ohio who are visiting their daughter in Waimea -- she's the one who teaches at a private school there. All of us were friends back in the olden days at Miami and it was remarkable how easily we rekindled our connection. Of course the b.s. flowed quite freely.....
Our current guests will leave this evening to return to Ohio, and on Tuesday we will welcome two more old friends for a short visit. These are college friends from Colorado who we haven't seen for a number of years and it will be great to get together again. They will continue on to Kauai, where they have a condo. We are really looking forward to our reunion.
Ok, that's about it for the week, other than to report that the pool temperature has nearly reached our minimum. We should be able to take a dip in the next day or two, the first time since before we left for our Ethiopia trip. Take care, stay warm, don't strain yourself with that snow shovel......
5 comments:
Thanks for your misplaced phone tale. Of course it reminded me of mine. About 6 months ago, one evening I realized I didn’t have my phone. I backtracked in my head and concluded that I must have left it on my desk at work. I work on the first floor of a city hospital. My husband used his phone to determine that my phone was located about 3 blocks from my office in a field, in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood. I assumed that somehow, someone got hold of the phone and dumped it in the field because it was locked. I was puzzled. A key card is needed to get into my office. The next day I drove up to the field to take a look. I decided I wouldn’t start searching in the field (what a job that would be!) until I first checked my office. It was on my desk! My husband was puzzled as to how the technology was so far off as to the correct location.
Oh, and about the snow. We have been so far off our normal snowfall in the 12 years we have lived in Buffalo, that my husband has finally given up skiing. Also, I just read in the Washington Post that our average winter temperatures have risen 5 degrees F since 1980. My childhood here was full of fun winter activities. No more. Thanks, climate change.
Coleen -- 3 blocks is quite a bit off. I know it sometimes jumps around depending on which cell tower or gps satellite it's referencing. Just glad you didn't lose it!
Our weather here has been consistently cooler than usual, but we also haven't hit the usual low, either, nor has there been as much snow on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Crazy.
Friend of mine dropped/lost his phone in the parking lot of a supermarket on the west side of Cleveland. It was tracked to an address on the east side, a neighborhood where not necessarily just anyone would want to venture. He, with support, knocked on the door, and, through negotiation (subtle threats) and a reward to the finder, was able to get it back and make a hasty retreat. My problem is just forgetting to pick it up off the counter when I leave home.
We had a similar experience several years ago when Karen left her phone on a beach picnic table. We tried to track the location but whoever had found it immediately turned it off. We set the lost phone options to display a message to call our home phone number whenever it was turned back on. After an hour or so we got a call from someone who said a homeless man had found it and they had given him $100 for it (we doubt this was true). We arranged to meet at a nearby gas station and got it back for $100 -- it could have been more, so we were happy. The phone was worthless to anybody who found it -- it was locked and we would have wiped it clean once it came online again.
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