Volcano Snow Cones, Heart Echoes, Christmas Pau

[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.]

1/10/26

 

Aloha Everybody!

 

This week some of you got a good taste of coping with the white stuff that is a common part of the mainland winter wonderland.  Early in the week even we had snow, when a storm moved in and coated both Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, our 13k+ volcanoes.  The happens a few times each

Which Way To The Lift?

year, though it most often is confined to the slightly taller Mauna Kea on the northern part of the island.  Our other two volcanoes, Kileaua (the one currently erupting) and Hualalai  (the one we live on), are much too low to get significant amounts of frozen precipitation,(4k and 8k, respectively), though snow has been recorded on Hualalai occasionally.  By the way, the storm this week brought a day of cloudiness that made for a record low 24-hour pv production at our house of just 5.8 kwh -- rock bottom for the 13 years we've had the system.  That's only about 1/4 of our daily usage, Sheesh.

 

Now for a bit of Geezer Gazette news.  Yesterday I had my second echo cardiogram. This was in preparation for my video consultation with an electrocardiologist next week.  There are two types of this test -- the one I had is fairly quick and non-invasive. A technician rubs an ultrasound device on your chest to examine blood flow and structural abnormalities in your heart's chambers, valves, and arteries.  It's one way of assessing the chances you'll drop dead from clogged arteries. I had one of these a year ago September when I finally got an appointment with a cardiologist after being referred by my regular doctor.  It showed some enlargement of one chamber and slightly reduced flow but the overall conclusion was that clogging isn't my problem -- the odds of dropping dead from that cause are very low.  Hopefully the exam I had yesterday will show the same thing. I should get the results in a couple of days. The other form of this test is more sensitive but much more invasive -- the ultrasound device is shoved down your throat. Fortunately they sedate you while this is going on so the experience isn't as bad as it sounds.  Mine was the first type, and I'm glad. I don't want the second kind because (a) I'm a wimp and (b) it means there's some dire reason the cardiologist needs a closer and more detailed look at your heart before the ablation procedure. Next week the Geezer Gazette will include my reports of the test and the consultation.  Stay tuned -- after all, if it hasn't already, this could happen to you some day.

 

By Thursday Christmas at our house was pau (done, finished).  All the decorations inside and outside were back in their storage places until next year.  We managed to wrestle the artificial tree back into its box that we keep in the garage.  This was the hardest task physically.  We learned the first year we had the tree that the three pieces had to go back into the carton in a certain order and a specific orientation.  Plus, each layer of branches had to be flattened and then tied tightly against the trunk or the pieces wouldn't fit into the box.  The second time we put it up I learned that the strings of lights plugged together in a very non-obvious way -- detailed in the instructions which I had thrown away, of course.  Figuring out how to get the whole tree lit again turned out to be a major hassle.  I solved this by labeling each plug and its proper receptacle before I took them apart again.  Karen made a diagram of how the pieces fit into the box, and now it's just a matter of squishing everything tightly enough.  The tree is still in pretty good shape for its age, and hopefully it will last several more years.

Ok, that's it for now. Stay warm, keep shoveling. Another couple of months ought to do it...