Game Day Surprise, Golf Champ, Stair Railings, Pele's Afib

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

2/15/25

 

Aloha Everyone!

 

We usually look forward to Super Bowl Sunday -- but we don't watch the game.  I'm not a big football fan, and although I enjoy some of the ads, it is easy to see them online without the surrounding hoopla. Instead of watching the game, we take advantage of the fact that Super Bowl Sunday is normally one of the two days of the year when it is blissfully quiet at Costco and we can get our shopping done with minimal hassle. (The other day is when the Ironman Triathlon is being held.)  However, this year we were surprised to find lots of people in the store who apparently were like us -- indifferent to the BIG game.  Any ideas?  Was this match up not interesting?  Was the billed half-time entertainment not as alluring as usual?  Gosh, what an intriguing mystery. Well, maybe not. Anyway, we still managed to finish our shopping fairly quickly, so it wasn't really that bad.

 

Toll Taker

On Wednesday I played more Fantasy Golf, and I had a stupendous, stunningly great, super-stellar, fabulously fabulous round.  In fact, I fantasized  so well I may soon qualify for the annual Seniors Invitational Fantasy Championship Tournament, to be held this year at some very fancy club in Florida, I believe. We saw lots of strutting Peacocks again, including one that barred the cart path to the first hole, convinced the cart was a very large and attractive hen. Karen got a par and a couple of bogeys.  I did not. As the day went along it clouded over and I got really cold. Back in my new Subaru I hit the seat warmer button and that helped speed my recovery a lot.

 

Before

My big house project this week was installing a couple of inside stair railings. These flights of stairs both have only a couple of steps, so the building code doesn't require railings. I put them on as an aid to maintaining balance going up and down -- a geezer precaution.  Anyway, since they are very short flights of stairs, the big challenge was finding appropriate wall studs to anchor the brackets securely.  I was able to do it,

After. Mo' Betta.

but it meant shifting the beginning and ending points of the rails a bit.  After painting the rails to match the walls, I think they will look pretty good and be functional as well.  I only had to employ the SAM technique (Structural Modification and Adjustment) once, when I used a file to make up for a slight error in the angle of the end cut on one rail.

 

The big Geezer Gazette  news this week is that .....there is no news.  Yup, a whole week without a single medical appointment!  Karen was supposed to receive a pair of glasses in the mail that should help her distance vision greatly, but USPS has delayed delivery for over a week. Lately this is not uncommon here and is mainly due to the shipping method being changed to ocean cargo.  This doesn't happen every time, but when it does we may not get something we ordered online for a couple of weeks.  Other times a package of the same size arrives in 3-5 days. It's yet another of life's puzzles. My eyes seem a bit better, but are still very far from where I wish they would be. My heart is still beating -- regularly as far as I can tell from my home ECG measurements. 

 

Speaking of hearts, Valentine's Day was low key.  We went to lunch at one of our favorite open air restaurants along the shore in town.  Then as a gesture of mutual affection we went to our local pharmacy and got our latest Covid booster shots.  We were glad to get them before our newly appointed Secretary of Health decides to ban vaccines ...... I also ordered the latest Apple Air Pods as a present for Karen.  These are upgrades to her current pair, and they include a hearing aid feature.  Pretty romantic, eh?!

 

In keeping with the heart theme, Kilauea's current eruption is exhibiting an Afib pattern .Since December 23 there have now been nine times when a couple of vents in the summit caldera have spewed lava in fountains as high as 200 feet for hours or days, then shut off.  All is quiet right now but the volcanologists are predicting this will happen again in the next 3 to 6 days.  This pulsing pattern is something we haven't seen in our 25 years of living here. However, we have observed that Kilauea is unpredictable and always changing.  Frankly, this is one of the things I really like about living here-- the island is very much alive and in a highly visible way.

Ok, that's it for this week.. Be good to each other and to yourselves.  As always, Carpe Vitam.

Fantasy Golf, Mississippi Cruising, Eyeballs

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

2/925

 

Aloha Folks!

 

Life lurches along here.  Karen and I rebelled  against the forces of Geezerhood in two ways this week. We realize these victories are only temporary wins of skirmishes in the grand battle, but they sure felt good.

 

First, we decided that vision problems be damned, we wanted to return to Makalei golf course, even if it meant driving the cart into a tree, a sand trap, or a water hazard.  We have really missed Makalei.  The last time we played was in August, nearly six months ago. You may remember the reasons we like Makalei are that it is not only 

Gorgeous George

beautiful and unique, it is home to many peacocks and, in season, flocks of endangered Hawaiian Nenes.  This is prime breeding season for peacocks, when the males grow their long tail feathers and make spectacularly handsome displays when they fan them out to impress the females.  We saw a number of these "Gorgeous Georges" including a pure white fellow that is about 2 years old now, and is just hitting his prime.  It was a real treat to witness his display near the 18th green. We also saw a number of Nenes, the vanguard of the migrating flock that uses Makalei as a breeding area in late winter and spring.  It is against the law to interfere with Nenes. since they are endangered.  As a result, they have become quite comfortable around golfers, blissfully unaware of the danger of an errant ball.  In fact, a couple of them calmly watched Karen tee off on one hole, where she had to move from the designated strike zone to reduce the risk of whacking one of

Karen's Golf Fans

them.  My intent for this outing was to just enjoy the course, not to take the game itself seriously,  I accomplished this by playing "Fantasy Golf," where the score is what you imagine it might have been if you had hit the ball well. My performance included quite a few "pretend-pars," "bogus-bogeys," and "fake-fours." This kind of remaking reality seems to be the modus operandi of our newly-elected administration, so I'm sure it's ok, right? Actually, Karen and I had some very good shots, which amazed us given how long it had been since we played.  Karen sank a 20-ft putt, I had some very decent tee-shots, and we both got a real bogey on one hole.  Not bad!  Oh, and despite our visual challenges we only lost a couple of balls and we managed to avoid driving into any water hazards.

 

Our second act of rebellion was to make some long-term travel plans. We were reluctant to do this until the uncertainty of our health issues was reduced, but we've now decided that it's better not to wait.  Things may not get very much better, and they might be worse.  We want to continue traveling as long as we can, though this may mean tailoring the style of travel to our physical reality. Accordingly, this week we booked an October river cruise on the Mississippi, from Memphis to New Orleans.  Cruising is not our preferred way of traveling -- on principle and in practice. (You may recall that we had a so-so experience on a Danube river cruise a couple of years ago.) This Mississippi cruise seems more promising because (a) it isn't physically demanding, (b) it is a small ship (180 passengers). (c) the boat is a charming replica of an historic stern-wheeler, (d) the itinerary includes a number of stops at historic places we've never visited, and (e) it ends in New Orleans, one of our favorite cities with fabulous art, architecture, and food (like the yummy alligator cheesecake, which we love).  Our current plan is to couple this trip with our yearly visit to Ohio.  This is most likely to be after the cruise to give us a better chance of seeing some fall color in Ohio.

 

The Geezer Gazette news this week is all about eyeballs.  On Monday Karen had another follow up exam for her PRK procedure.  The news wasn't good.  Although her eyes are healing nicely, her vision is no better and maybe even a little worse than it was before the PRK.  The "good" news is that her distance vision in both eyes can be corrected to 20/20 with glasses  Prescription reading glasses will help for close-up vision.  The bad news is that she didn't need glasses at all before the cataract surgery. Hmmm.  On Tuesday I saw my retina doctor and as expected I had an injection in my right eye (the left was the one that was operated on last week).  I knew I needed this because my acuity dropped considerably in the last week or so.  As usual, a few days after the injection my acuity has improved noticeably.  Finally, yesterday morning I visited with my surgeon for my 1-week post-op followup. Healing is going well, and my acuity has improved a bit over what it was before the surgery.  However, the problem I've had since last July is still with me. I can cope with it better with increased acuity in my one eye, but I'm afraid this may be with me for the duration.  I'll give it a month then try to see a neurologist.

 

Ok.  Sorry for the delay in getting this to you, but my schedule these days is centered around medical appointments.  Hope you are surviving your winter  The weather this year is crazy, just like everything else.  Remember, when things are tilting to the extremes, the best place to keep your balance is in the center.  Carpe Vitam.

 

Pool Dollies, A.C. Woes, Eye Surgery

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

2/2/25

 

Aloha Everyone!

 

Sorry this is a bit late, but on Friday morning I was in Hilo having my second cataract surgery. My vision made it difficult to write until yesterday afternoon.  By the way, the surgery this time went well again, and my first post-op exam early yesterday morning showed things are going ok. It will now just be a matter of time to see how much, if any, this has helped my vision. So far it seems like there is a chance for a slight improvement because even after this short time my vision has not only bounced back to what it was before the operation, it is a smidge better.  This is my "good" eye and as I've mentioned before, it has a better chance than my other eye to benefit from the cataract surgery.  ll keep you posted with future  Geezer Gazette updates.

 

On the day of my surgery an unusually strong front moved through the state from the northwest to southeast.  It brought high winds and lots of rain -- when we got home Friday afternoon my rain gauge showed a whopping 4.8" total accumulation.  We had some minor flooding and a lot of leaves and other debris in the pool that I had to clean up, but in general we escaped the flooding and wind damage that occurred on Oahu.  Oh, an interesting thing that happened was that schools were closed the day of the storm -- a "rain day" instead of a snow day like we had on the mainland.

A big event early in the week was taking my new Subaru Outback in to finally have the a.c. serviced.  You may remember that last year it went kapoofy just a couple of months after I bought the car ("kapoofy" is a technical term meaning "stopped putting out cool air").  The dealership here has such a lousy service department that it took 1 1/2 months to get the mechanics to try to fix it. They couldn't find any leaks in the system, but the refrigerant was nearly gone.  They recharged it and everything worked ok for awhile. Then last fall the a.c. went out again, and again it took 1 1/2 months to get it looked at. This time they found a leak in the evaporator core -- the main guts of the system, and recommended that it be replaced, This is a very expensive and extensive repair that takes a couple of days.  Fortunately it will be covered by my warranty, which is the good news.  The bad news is that I can't get it done for another 2 months because the service department is so backed up! Later in the week I received one of those automated email surveys asking me to evaluate my recent service department experience.  Guess what I said.....

 

Top & Bottom

On a more positive note, I finished a fun house project that I'm kind of proud of involving a design improvement for my new pool cover reel .  The old reel that I replaced had casters attached to the end stands that allowed it to be moved and turned easily.  I thought the new stands had that feature too, but it turned out that instead of swiveling casters there were rollers that only allowed movement in one direction.  This is worthless for us, because when we store the reel for the warmer months we maneuver it to the side of the pool deck, requiring a change of axis.  I solved this problem by making a couple of dollies from left over lumber and attaching swivel casters to their bottoms.  When we want to move the reel, all we have to do is put the stands on the dollies.  By the way,

Patent Pending

these dollies are readily available in various sizes for moving furniture and other heavy objects, and I probably could have just bought a couple of pre-made dollies that would have worked ok.  However, by making them myself I was able to custom fit them to the reel stands. There's also the fun and challenge of problem solving, using power tools, and stroking my aging male ego.....

 

 Take care everyone, Stay warm, stay unburnt, and keep clicking those Ruby Slippers together in case this is all a dream.....

 

Cloud Forest Walk, Eye Poke, Pool Cover Reel

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. In the last few editions I've related my aging woes to the extent that this might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

1/25/25

 

Aloha Everybody!

 

A Special Place

Last Saturday after I posted my blog, Karen and I joined a group walk through a special place here in Kona -- a "cloud forest."  The forest is on the side of Hualalai, the active volcano perched above our town. "Active" means still alive, bound to erupt again, but snoozing right now.  Not to be confused with Kilauea 90 miles to the south. The forest is a band of vegetation at about 3000 feet elevation. It's called a cloud forest because warm moist air from the ocean travels upslope during the day and meets cooler air at higher elevations, condensing to form clouds.  Trees and other vegetation enhance this process because their respiration further cools and moisturizes the air.  In places where the land has been cleared the condensation either occurs further up the mountain or not at all.  As you might imagine, a

Nature's Artwork

cloud forest is a cool, dim, and drippy place.  The plants love it.  Our guide, Norm Bezona,who is the originator of the 30-acre cloud forest preserve where we hiked pointed out trees that were 100 feet tall but only 40 years old, and plants that in other situations would be small house plants but here were big as Buicks. This is a rich and dense ecosystem in which everything is trying to find its niche and most have the resources to pursue this vigorously.  It was a fun and fascinating adventure to be sure, but I was glad to return to the warmth and sunlight nearer the shore.

 

Not much Geezer Gazette news this week.  Karen's eyes continue to improve but the progress has slowed somewhat.  My eyes are still not so good.  I saw my retina doctor on Tuesday and had a shot in my left  eye, the one that will be operated on next week.  I return in two weeks for an injection in the other eye. My heart continues to behave itself, even on reduced medication.  I feel much better lately, with a lot more energy and stamina.  That's not to say I still don't love a good nap. Or two.  Or three.

My big house project this week was replacing the solar cover reel for our pool. The reel is how we roll back the solar blanket that we use at night to keep the water warm and to reduce evaporation. A reel consists of two stands with cranks that turn a long metal tube between them that spans the width of the pool  The end of the solar cover, which looks like thick blue bubble wrap, is attached to the tube with straps. By using the cranks we can roll up the cover for storage during the day.  At night we just pull the free end of the cover and it unspools from the tube as we walk the length of the pool.The reel I replaced came with the house, so it was at least 25 years old. I repaired the cranks on the stands several times, but parts kept breaking as the plastic/resin became brittle from intense sunlight all those years.  I decided it was time to replace the whole thing and found one online that didn't cost an exorbitant amount to ship to Hawai'i.  The two crank assemblies were pretty easy to put together, but the tube took more work.  It came in several sections, some of which were slightly smaller and fit inside the others. The total length is adjusted to fit the width of the pool by sliding an appropriate amount of the smaller sections into the larger ones.  That part was easy.  To fix everything in place, the instructions called for me to drill holes through both sides of the assembled tubes and thread bolts all the way through.  It was surprisingly difficult and time-consuming to line up the holes and get the bolts in place.  A couple of times I had to resort to the handyman's last-ditch approach which I call the "SMA" technique -- Structural Modification and Adjustment.  This usually involves a hammer, saw, drill, or file and is often accompanied by an incantation of 4-letter words. Some people refer to SMA as the "Stand back, I'll make it fit"  technique. In this case I drilled the holes a bit bigger than specified and the bolts slipped right into place.  Hah! I also employed SAM to fix a problem with one of the cranks hitting the stand as it went around.  This took just a little modification with a file applied judiciously to the spot where the crank hit the stand.  Voila!  The project is now completed and the reel system works much better.

Ok, off to market and to our usual beach breakfast picnic. If there's enough energy left over, we may stop at Planet Fitness,  After that, I plan to return home for one of those naps I mentioned above.  Finally, things may be crazy right now, but that doesn't mean you have to be one of them.  Carpe Vitam.

Cataract Re-do, Heart Beats,Fire, Ice & Political Mayhem

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. In the last few editions I've related my aging woes to the extent that this might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

1/18/25

 

Aloha All!

 

Well, I'd say I'm being vindicated in my negative premonitions about 2025.  Let's see,  we've begun the year mourning the death of one of the most ethical and upstanding ex-Presidents while our President-elect -- a man with neither of those qualities -- threatens to invade other countries, jail political enemies, and is filling high offices with conspiracy theorists and people of questionable competence.and/or obvious conflicts of interest. Tthe year has also started

with horrible devastation from the wildfires in LA, while at the same time historic winter storms are bringing crippling snowfall and cold temperatures to large sections of the country.  Gee, this is a lot  of fun!  What's next!? And this is only the third week of the year!

 

So far there are no disasters here in Hawai'i. Pele went back to sleep and the vog lifted for a while, but around the middle of this week activity started up again.  Unfortunate;y this has brought back the vog, too. Yesterday we had southerly winds, which kept most of the SO2 on the windward side, particularly near the volcano and in Hilo. This is an unusual pattern, because the winds normally are from the northeast. The current activity is the fourth time there has been a pause followed by flowing lava  -- kind of like my nightly routine of getting up to go to the bathroom. We're having a mild and dry winter, though there has been some really honking surf along our side of the island.  Winter storms far to the north and west are the cause -- local weather has nothing to do with surf conditions. In the summer. storms shift to places far to our south and east, so the other side gets high surf while our waters are generally calm. The "cool" temperatures have slightly curtailed our exercise routines. Although Karen and I have been getting to the gym fairly often, we have chosen not to work out in our pool because the water temperature barely matches our ages......

 

There are two main developments to report in the Geezer Gazette.  First, a week ago we flew to Oahu so that Karen's eye surgeon could attempt to correct the poor vision that resulted from her cataract surgery.  I should emphasize that this surgeon is highly regarded, extremely competent, and very experienced, so the problems Karen is having can't easily be blamed on lack of credentials.  In fact, it was the surgeon's reputation among a number of friends here in Kona that led Karen to select her even though it meant ktraveling to Oahu.  Anyway, the corrective procedure is called PRK (Photorefractive keratectomy) and Karen had it done to both eyes a week ago yesterday.  PRK is like LASIK in that it uses a laser to reshape the cornea and refocus where the light strikes the retina.  However, in LASIK an incision is made in the outer portion of the cornea so that it can be folded back while the laser ablates (i.e., fries, zaps, blasts) some of the underlying tissue, which causes it to shrink and stretch into the desired shape.  In PRK no incision is made. Instead, just the outer cells of the cornea are removed (with alcohol, interestingly) then the laser reshaping takes [lace in the same way as  LASIK.  A very large contact is then placed over the cornea to protect it for a few days. PRK is often used for people who have previously had LASIK, as in Karen's case. The surface cells that are removed grow back fairly quickly but it can take a couple of weeks before clear vision returns.  On Tuesday she had the protective contacts removed by an optometrist here in Kona who works closely with the surgeon. Yesterday she went back for a more thorough exam to assess how the healing was going. The verdict was good, though she still can't see terrifically well yet. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this will work.  I'll let you know. By the way, this PRK fix-up was free, which was certainly welcome given how expensive the original surgery was.

My cardiologist had to reschedule my appointment until yesterday to go over the results from my heart monitor because he had laryngitis earlier in the week.  The results showed No Afib during the monitoring period!!  This matches my own daily measurements for the last month and a half, and it means I'm going to have to resign my membership in the Afib Club -- at least temporarily.  The return to normality is particularly good news because it occurred without any more of the arrhythmia medication, which I stopped taking over two months ago. That leaves only my blood thinner and a  low dose of heart rate drug, and my cardiologist felt I could stop the blood thinner.  Wow. what a positive development!  It certainly helps take the edge off the negativity 2025 has brought so far.  The plan is for me to continue self-monitoring, and if my AFib returns I will contact my cardiologist and resume the blood thinner.  Otherwise, I'll have a blood workup in March and meet with him to review the results.

 

That's it for now.  Stay well, stay grateful. And as always, carpe vitam.

Whoopie, It's 2025, Wordle in 1, Waiting Game

 [Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. In the last few editions I've related my aging woes to the extent that this might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

1/4/25

 

Aloha Folks!

 

Well, 2025 blasted its way onto the scene despite my wishing we could skip it.  As I mentioned last time, I didn't set off my usual Costco pack of fireworks because I didn't feel much like celebrating the beginning of '25. Instead we had a quiet dinner with a bit of champagne and then went to bed at our usual time. All

Mind if I smoke?

was well until  midnight.  At the stroke of 12 it sounded like a war zone all along our coast for about 45 minutes.  For some reason, this year there were far more big and loud fireworks, including aerials. These are supposed to require permits and special precautions for storage and detonation, but I seriously doubt there was much compliance. On Oahu police seized a container ship bringing in 75 tons of illegal fireworks, and on New Year's Eve an explosion of fireworks stored at a house killed 3 people and seriously injured 20 others. Hmmmm. Although this was certainly a tragedy, it seems to me there is an element of ironic humor in people being killed in an explosion caused by their mishandling of celebratory fire bombs. For more my observations of questionable taste, see my blog "I'll Be Right Back" -- And Other Famous Last Words."

 

Pele provided her own New Year's fireworks show as she continues to throw up plumes of lava. This has led to some pretty bad VOG along our coast this week -- and some people with respiratory problems are having difficulty. Just to remind you --- VOG is formed when SO2 from the volcano combines with water vapor (H2O) and dust particles in the air to form a visible haze.  Part of VOG is actually sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and definitely not something that is healthy to breathe. There are air quality monitors all along the coast and so far they've been mostly in the "ok-but-elevated" levels. The good news is that our normal downslope breezes at night push the VOG out to sea to give us a break. Somehow the VOG problem seems fitting for the beginning of 2025.....

In more pleasant news,  this week Karen solved the Wordle puzzle on the very first guess.  I've done this once before also, and it is a low probability but much hoped for outcome for those of us who do this regularly.  Her start word was "stare." She is now using a different word as her first guess, and again has selected one that has not been a previous solution. There's no requirement that you do this, but it gives you a chance to repeat your feat.  In fact, Wordle will accept certain words that it considers legitimate words but that are not in the list of possible solutions.  I rotate among three start words, two of which are of that type, and one of which is a possible solution, That way I have at least a small chance of winning in one again.

In the Geezer Gazette this week it's mostly about waiting.  I have to wait until January 15th to get my heart monitor results.  In the meantime, I've now reached one month with only a couple of AFIB readings -- all the rest are 'Normal." I feel pretty good, well enough to get back to working out at the gym several times. Unfortunately we haven't been exercising in the pool this week because we've had cool nights and cloudy/rainy afternoons that have dropped the water temperature below our comfort level.  On the eye ball front, it has now been three weeks since my cataract surgery and my eye is not much better, if any at all, than it was before. This is a bit frustrating and disheartening, naturally.  I sure hope I have a better result with my other eye, but I'll have to wait until the end of the month to find out.  Speaking of cataracts. next week we will be going to Oahu to see if Karen's surgeon can co something to improve her eyesight, which as you recall is much poorer after getting her new super-duper lenses. Note, we'll be there Friday and Saturday, so there won't be a missive next week.

Ok, that's it.  Be happy. Well, at least try. A beer might help....