Plethora of Plumeria, Piano Magic, Travel Plans

[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.

3/25/26

 

Aloha Ohana!

 

We don't have big changes of seasons in Hawai'i.  Some people who move here from the mainland 

Gotta Love It

miss this.  Not me. That's not to say everything is perfectly constant.  For example, there are several signs that it's time to say it's "Spring."  One sign is that the Plumeria trees, which lose their leaves during the "Winter," begin to bloom again while the branches are still bare. This produces what I call "snowball bloom," though some of the trees have blossoms that are shades of red and yellow. It is a spectacular, fragrant treat when we do our morning walks in the neighborhood.  Branches that overhang the street are fair game for collecting blossoms for small flower arrangements that we deploy in our house.

 

Another sign is the exodus of our winter visitors from the North West -- Humpback Whales and Snowbirds.  The whales go back to their summer home waters off Alaska, and the snowbirds migrate back to various home destinations along the west coast, with a few returning to the Midwest and East. This makes the next few months a sweet spot for living in Hawai'i -- the lull between summer and winter tourist seasons, when we enjoy less traffic and better stocked shelves in the grocery stores.

 

Besides enjoying "Spring" this week, we also went to a performance by Jim Brickman, a fabulous piantist/vocalist who is one of our favorites. He was touring the islands and our theater in Waimea booked him for a couple of shows last Sunday.  A real treat.  Tomorrow the same theater is presenting a traveling circus troupe from Australia called Human 2.0 that is kind of like a mini-Cirque du Soleil.  Waimea is a 40-mile drive from home, and normally we don't like to do that at night.  However. both of these are/were during the afternoon, so we jumped at the chance to attend.

We are now returning to our travel plans for late summer.  You may recall that we booked an Alaskan cruise in August on a small ship (80 passenger) operated by the same company that does the Mississippi River cruise that we enjoyed last year.  Now we're booking airline tickets, hotels, etc. We've decided to extend this trip by flying to Denver at the end of the cruise and taking the scenic train from there to Glenwood Springs, about a 5-hour trip through the Rockies.  Glenwood Springs is an historic hot springs resort town that should be fun to visit.  And of course, I'm a real train fan, particularly one that goes through mountains.  We'll spend some time before and after the train trip in Denver to see friends and relatives. 

 

Not much to report in Geezer Gazette news.  I saw my retina doc on Tuesday -- same old same old.  Yesterday I saw my cardiologist for the first time since he referred me for an ablation.  All good at the moment.  My ECG was, in his words, "about as normal as it gets." The plan is to wait until June, 5 months out from the ablation, and then do a 2-week monitoring session with a paste-on device that measures heart activity 24/7 and produces a very detailed report, much more thorough than my FitBit can do.  If that looks good, then I might be able to stop my blood-thinner medication.  That would be very welcome.  Even though I'm on a very low dose, my forearms look like the hide of a pinto horse and I bleed if I touch my skin with a feather. 

 

Ok folks.  It seems like we're living at a time when insanity, narcissism  and sociopathy are running amok, but surely there will be a day of reckoning, right?  Take care.  Carpe Vitam.

Return Home, Good Trip

[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.

3/14/26

 

Aloha Everybody!

 

We got home last Sunday after a lonnggg journey from Colombia of about 26 hours.  We left Cartegena about 8:30 p.m., so add another 10-12 hours to the total hours of being awake (ish). We flew first to Bogata, then to Houston, then Denver, then non-stop to Kona. Not exactly carbon-frugal routing, but we were at the mercy of airline scheduling. We had a fairly tight connection in Houston.  This was a concern because that is where we had to deal with Immigration and TSA screening. Zipped right through, thankfully. No delays at all.

 

It was a good trip, despite some geezer challenges.  Panama was a very interesting place.  Every major imperialist country in the 16th - 18th centuries wanted control of the shortcut between the

Quetzal

Atantic and Pacific that the isthmus provided.  Spain was most successful at this, but not without being repeatedly attacked by other powers, mainly the British.  British pirates and privateers often attacked Spanish coastal cities, particularly those that were staging points for shipping exploited loot back to Spain and therefore offered a rich prize to any successful attacker.  We spent several days in three different locations, including a town in the highlands of western Panama called Boquete.  It was here that we did some outstanding bird watching, thanks in large part to our private guide.  She was an excellent bird-spotter, very knowledgeable and was very facile at quickly setting up a spotting scope and attaching her cell-phone to the eyepiece so that on the screen we could see the target clearly, despite visual challenges.

 

The river cruise in Colombia was enjoyable, but not as much as our Mississippi trip last year.  The Colombia operation is just a year-old, and still has some kinks in the itinerary and activities that need to be worked out.  One of the best parts was interacting with local people, for whom our visits were as interesting to them as they were to us.  The ship was small, holding just 60 passengers max.  The

Cruise Booze

majority of our cruise mates were Canadian, and there were  a few Australians and Europeans as well.  They were all very congenial and had interesting histories, including one Canadian man who was an expat Indian whose family had been living for years in Uganda before Idi Amin expelled them. They arrived in Canada penniless with only the clothes on their backs.  Despite the setback and immense challenges, he eventually founded a very successful computer company that was recently bought out for megabucks.  Literally rags to riches.

 

While we were gone the abundant rain produced a garden jungle that we have been whacking back this week, but it will take some time. I've also have to do some cleanup from the big storm that we had right before we left. This will involve hiring someone to cut up some fallen tree limbs and haul them away. There just wasn't time to do this properly, plus tree trimmers were overwhelmed.  It should be easier now. 

 

In Geezer Gazette news, I had my 2-month video consultation with my ablation surgeon (actually, her PA).  So far so good.  The side effects from my anti-arrhythmic drug have abated somewhat, and I feel much more energetic and I have more stamina.  My Fitbit has recorded only a couple of brief Afib episodes.  The video conference confirmed, though, that it is ambiguous as to whether this is due to the ablation or to the residual effect of the drug, which I stopped taking just a month ago.  The next few months will tell -- I just have to wait and see.  The PA repeated what my surgeon told me before the procedure, that an ablation isn't a cure for Afib, despite what most people believe.  Rather, the goal is to reduce the "load" or frequency and duration of episodes without the use of drugs.  I'll take it.

 

Coming up next week will be a round of encounters with the medical establishment -- appointments with my dentist, retina specialist, internist, and cardiologist.  Maybe I should have scheduled a visit to my dermatologist just to do a complete round. Sheesh!

 

Ok, that's enough for now.  Take care and enjoy your Spring.  Carpe Vitam!