Reports from Earth: Agent Zynt Recovers!

 [Message from Intergalactic Council:  The following messages were received as a burst relay after we had lost contact with agent Zork Zynt stationed on subject planet "Earth" in a political unit named "USA." We feared for Zork's safety when he went dark for many cycles after a final message describing his possible symptoms of our experimental pandemic virus. The transmorgified bodies of all Earth agents should have been immune, of course, but something apparently went wrong, a matter currently under careful investigation.]

 Encrypted Transmission #017 Agent ZZ to IEC Local Date 11.15.20 

Tell the bio guys I take back all my previous kudoes, and that I'm going to kick them in their sperm-buds when I get back! Human body completely shut down from virus for at least 14 Earth cycles.  Lost consciousness and woke up in a puddle of body fluids, weak and without any body fat left and a very bad pain in digestive organ called "stomach." Felt better after a dozen Krispy Kremes. What happened to our special immunity!!! This assignment gets more and more dangerous -- both from the humans and now even our own kind! You idiots!

Encrypted Transmission #018 Agent ZZ to IEC Local Date 11.16.20

So, the pandemic experiment protocol hadn't planned on the ineptitude of human response, particularly in my zone.  Current leader denies it's real, ignores facts, encourages followers to ignore measures for curbing viral spread, claiming they violate something called "constitutional rights." Situation completely out of control.  Casualty count way more than we wanted. This isn't going well at all.

Encrypted Transmission #019 Agent ZZ to IEC Local Date 11.18.20 

Almost sorry I woke up.  Election in US zone now over, but these humans are still self-destructing and acting even crazier than before I lost consciousness. Leader and his followers claim victory, yet challenger received 6 million more votes and many more of votes of "Electoral College," a strange part of election process left over from days when citizens here enslaved each other.  Losers claim election rigged, but can't point to any evidence that holds up under scrutiny.  This is almost as bad as my assignment on Castix 4, where the inhabitants wound up eating each other....

Tastes Like Chicken, Send The Outrigger Ark

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

11/28/20

Aloha Everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you had a safe and pleasant Thanksgiving.  Ours was quiet, just the two of us, but we tried to enjoy it, all things considered.  Our turkey looked and tasted like a Costco rotisserie chicken.  Hmmm.  Anyway, it was good and we watched a Christmas movie afterward. Earlier in the day I put up a few Christmas decorations outside and I’ll do more this weekend. Feels kind of weird this year, though.  I usually have an ambivalent feeling about the Holidays and it seems particularly strong this time around [see Bah, Humbug! (Sort Of)].  The idea of Black Friday is for me a glaring example of the struggle between the desire to make money versus the desire (and need this year) to spend as little of it as possible.  I’m staying as far away as I can.  Then there is the emotional roller-coaster of anticipation followed by despondency, fueled by relentless Muzak and Holiday entertainment specials.  Somewhere in there I do find a warm fuzzy feeling or two, so it isn’t all bad.

The Impostor

This week has been wet. An understatement, I think.  Thanksgiving day was very nice up until about 4, then it began to sprinkle, then to rain. Hard. All night. Buckets. Our pool overflowed (there’s a special drain for that, so there wasn’t any problems) and the coquis in the neighborhood were very, very, happy.  That night’s total was 3.2" preceded early in the week by overnight dumps of 1.1" and 1.4" for a total of 5.7 inches. Santa arrives here each year in an outrigger canoe, but this year he needs to come in an outrigger ark with central heating and load us up. It has also been downright chilly at night – 66d!  Karen had her heating pad on Thursday night to keep her feet warm, and for the last two mornings I’ve had on my sweat pants instead of my usual shorts.

Karen played golf Tuesday and escaped the worst of the rain, and Planet Fitness was very quiet yesterday, though for some reason everyone seemed to be trying to use the same machines.  We handled this by varying our routine and using machines further away. Received one of the estimates for our termite tenting, and it was much less than I feared, though still big bucks. The other company’s estimate should come any day, then we’ll see how far out their schedules are. May not get it done until June. Still waiting for my new phone from Amazon, so no movement on my project to cut the landline.  I did take advantage of Costco’s sale on a new system and I’ve been playing with it while waiting on the new phone, One new promising feature is that it automatically screens calls not in your personal phonebook and asks the caller to enter a code.  If they are human and can enter it, the phones will ring (you can still block the caller if it is a telemarketer). If not, it hangs up but keeps track of the number and if by chance it was a legitimate robocall, say from your pharmacy, you can whitelist it for the future.  We’ve been getting a lot of non-legit robocalls lately, and this should stop them cold. I’ll keep you updated.

That’s about it.  As far as the national scene, reality seems to be getting the upper hand, but not without serious damage from deniers. The legacy of this mess will be long-lasting and very negative, I fear.

Take care.  Hang in there.  Stay healthy and warm.

Hawai'i Snow! Cutting More Cords, Drive-Through Doctoring

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

11/21/20

Aloha All –

Well, we’re definitely heading into winter here.  More mainland refugees are arriving for the season, and Christmas decorations are prominent in the big box stores (actually, stuff appeared at Lowe’s well before Halloween).  Our neighbors across the street put up an artificial tree a week ago, and live-but-soon-to-be-dead trees are now on sale at several places (ours come in refrigerated shipping containers from the mainland and some sellers, like Costco, only put out a few to choose from at a time).  We saw the first poinsettias for sale today and quickly bought three.  We’ve learned here not to dilly-dally – things sell quickly and won’t be restocked. Not sure what happened to Halloween and Thanksgiving this year – oh, that’s right, Thanksgiving is next week, isn’t it.....  One thing missing this year is the arrival of cruise ship repositioning cruises, for obvious and very good reasons, of course.

Another seasonal sign is that last Saturday we had a big influx of moist air and “cold” temperatures that deposited the first snow on our two 13k foot volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  It wasn’t much, but it certainly looked nice, and it was a bit unusual to see it on both at the same time. Even though it didn’t last long, it was a diversion from the news these days.

Got my landline telephone bill early this week and noticed they have increased the amount for standard service...again.  I’ve been considering dropping it altogether for about a year now like many other people have done – seems like a lot of money for nothing.  We can’t make long distance calls without extra charges, it doesn’t have caller id, call blocking or any other features that a cell phone does. We kept it because it seemed like a good idea to have a backup to cell service, and the number is one that we’ve given out as our primary contact in all kinds of places. This includes the many cases where we didn’t want to be called on our cell phones.  But the latest price increase can’t justify that anymore.  My plan is to buy a cheapo cell phone and assign it the old number, then link it to our current cordless phones that are arrayed around the house.  The new cell phone would remain near the cordless base unit and be dedicated just to receiving house calls, the same as our landline is now.  I can get an additional cell plan for $15 per month, and a decent phone for $70. In the first year alone this will save me nearly $200, including the cost of adding a few new cordless handsets. Plus, I get a new techno-toy to play with.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Karen and I go to the same internist here.  A few months ago I had a video conference with him to go over my routine bloodwork.  Doing this remotely was a response to the pandemic, of course.  Yesterday Karen needed to have him examine a cut on her leg that isn’t healing properly.  In her case she had the "interesting" experience of drive-through-doctoring.  She arrived in the parking lot and called the office.  The doctor came out in full hazmat gear and made her stay in the car while he took a look and did a quick swab of the wound.  I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how he could do this from outside the car. Anyway, she got an antibiotic prescription and was on her way.

I won’t comment on our current political scene nor our mainland health crisis, other than to say that reality always wins in the end, no matter how much someone says it isn’t true. But the cost of denial in this case is terrible.

Hang in there.  Stay safe, sane, and warm.

Mainland MIssive: Return of The Two-Legged Roof Rat, Termite Treatment Saga Continues

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

 

11/14/20

Aloha Everyone –

Hope your weather is as boringly beautiful as ours, but somehow I doubt that it is (snark, snark).  We did have about .5" of rain last night starting about 2:30, hard enough I had to get up and shut our skylights. It is still raining lightly here at our house, so we may have to adjust our morning plans a bit.

On the political mayhem front, I’m still waiting.... On the pandemic front, we are averaging about 20 new cases per day on our island, which seems to be leveling off, unlike the skyrocketing numbers on the mainland.  The new cases aren’t related to the 1k or so visitors per day we are getting, and I admit I was wrong in my earlier assessment that letting them in too fast would be a major problem.  However, this shows the effectiveness of the pre-test requirement and our masking/distancing requirements.  The on-arrival second test is being reduced to a random sample of 25% of the travelers because out of 12k tests only a handful were true positives.  Businesses are still struggling of course, but it is definitely more hopeful.  On Thursday Karen and I did our part by driving north to Waikaloa, a resort area that is showing signs of stirring again, and ate lunch at Macaroni Grill in one of the shopping areas there.  The restaurant was taking very careful measures to spread people out and reduce exposure to wait-staff.
                                                
My handyman delivered the new screen frame early this week and I have repainted it and I’ll re-screen it today.  Hopefully I can get it back up today, then take a break from my roof rat impersonations for a while. Also got the repainted fan up in the bedroom and it looks great, if I do say so myself.

I forgot to update you last week on the termite tenting efforts.  The first company that came turned out to be the one that did the job 20 years ago.  The owner is retiring soon and has been reducing the size of his crew so that he turned down the job this time because it was just too big (!).  I still have an estimate scheduled from a 2nd company for Nov. 23rd, and I called a 3rd who will come next week.  Notice the delay in just getting the estimates.  Scheduling the actual job will probably put this project into May or June next year.  This is the kind of thing that you have to get used to as part of living on a remote island.  If you don’t have patience you won’t survive.  Those of us who are still here after 20 years feel the trade-off is very much worth it.  BTW, it also illustrates how some businesses are thriving right now, supporting people who don’t have don’t have megabuck stock portfolios (they, of course, are doing great as well) and don’t need cash income to make it day-to-day.

Ok, that’s all to report for this week, other than the usual – Karen played golf on Tuesday, and we had a good workout yesterday at PF followed by a lemon grass chicken sandwich and home-made cole slaw at the shore. Gotta keep rewarding the physical effort!

Take everyone.  Hang in there – sanity and reality may yet prevail, but it will be a bumpy road.

Want To See Some Championship Turkey Poop?

I thought that in the spirit of our post-election mayhem it would be fitting to talk about ..... poop, crap, sh*t.

If you are reading this you and I may share a bit of mental derangement.  We both have a very odd interest in excrement.  The evidence in my case is particularly well-documented by some of my past Snow Crash posts:

• Cleaning Up Poop In Paradise
  
• How About A Fecal Transplant?
• Fabulous Synthetic Poop! 
• At Last! A Poop Museum! 

Here in Hawai'i creatures still defecate even though it is close to paradise.  Some of the biggest culprits in our neighborhood are wild turkeys.  They are not only biggest in terms of size but also in terms of the amount and disgustingness of their poop.  Like many things here, turkeys are not native and the most prevalent variety was introduced in the mid-1900's for food and "sport."  Again like many other things, they really liked it here, and have thrived because of the climate, the abundance of food, and the absence of any natural predators.

I learned early on that you don't want flocks of turkeys wandering in your yard and walkways because you'll soon be up to your nose in droppings.  These calling cards vary in appearance from big splatto's to dollops of something a bit like a big Hershey's kiss, dark, smooth and shiny.  I have trained the local turkeys to stay off our property by brandishing a broom and yelling as I chase them away.  However, they occasionally challenge the rules and my vigilance with quick incursions.  That's what I think happened recently when I discovered a poop specimen in my driveway.  This was a version I haven't seen before, but it has a number of tell-tale features that convince me the culprit was indeed a turkey, even though I didn't actually witness the expulsion process.

Here are a couple of photos I took to give you an idea.  What's unusual is the upright nature of nature of the poop and its rigid consistency.  The sheer size of this thing reduces the likelihood it was of some other bird, and the placement in the middle of the driveway is unlike a dog or cat (besides, there are no loose dogs in our neighborhood).

Anyway, appreciate nature's artistry and be glad you don't have to smell it or clean it up.

 

 

 

 

A Two-Legged Roof Rat, A Ladder Too Far

 [Note -- this is another in my series of blogs based on weekly emails I send to my family on the mainland.]   

11/7/20

Aloha All –

This has been an “interesting” week. Well, “interesting” if you think watching dangerous social manipulation at its most extreme is interesting.  I’m trying hard to filter out the election mayhem and wait.  My life is too short and potentially enjoyable to allow it to be hijacked by this stuff.  I like the way columnist Michael Gerson put it recently: “In a divided nation, Americans need to defend a space in their lives where cable news does not reach, where social media does not incite, and where the basic, natural tendency is to treat other people like human beings. This offers not just the prospect of greater tolerance, but the hope of healing.”
                           
Ok, now let’s talk about ME. I spent quite a bit of time this week on my roof.  Far more than I planned, dealing with one of those one-thing-leads to another house projects.  This started out as a simple matter of removing the vent screens in the high gable of our bedroom so that I could wash them. Turns out these (2 of them) were custom made to fit the triangular openings in the gable.  The screws holding them on were on the outside, so I had to reach them via the roof.  Thankfully the screws were not too rusted and I was able to get them loose.  This was progressing nicely (well, after several trips up and down to get more tools) when I discovered extensive termite damage in one of the screen frames. This will require completely remaking the wooden frame, then re-painting and re-screening it before putting it back. I  have assigned the skilled carpentry part to my trusty handyman and I’ll do the painting, screening, and remounting.  Estimated time for this 20-minute job is now about a week and considerably more expensive than a bit of water. Oh, and working under the cramped gable led to a dramatic demonstration the next day that the most wonderful workout machines in the world don’t necessarily use the muscles employed in house projects.
                           
All this started when I decided to wash the ceiling fan blades in our bedroom and I happened to get a closer look at how filthy the nearby screens were.  I also got a close look at the rust on the fan and decided to get it down and repaint it, like I recently did to the other two a few weeks ago. However, this one hangs above the middle of our bed, suspended from a beam that turns out to be the highest in the entire house.  My ladder just wouldn’t reach – at least not without the possibility of a trip to the hospital in the attempt –  and so I got my handy man to bring over his extension ladder and get it down for me.  I’ll now sand it down and refurbish it like the other two, then I’ll have him put it back up.  I love this guy – he’s been working with us since we moved here and he is very, very, good at all kinds of things.  Unfortunately, he’s now making noises about his own retirement in the not-too-distant future.  

Planet Fitness yesterday was again not crowded. No post-exercise lunch outing this time, though. We had to get home so Karen could get ready for a book club meeting.

Ok, off for our usual routine.  Hang in there everyone.

The Calm Before the Storm, Terminating Termites

 [Note -- this is another in my series of blogs based on weekly emails I send to my family on the mainland.] 

10/31/20

Aloha Everybody –

When I joked last week about your mainland “yo-yo” weather, I didn’t realize just how much on target I would be in the case of Colorado.  Geez, you guys go from fire to ice in a matter of hours! A 6-12" snowstorm on top of rampaging wildfires is pretty wild, even though I recall that extreme swings are common there.  Anyway, I hope you find a middle ground and that the fires will be brought under control soon.

About the most extreme weather event here this week was that one afternoon I heard thunder (very rare) a couple of times, and on Tuesday it rained about .5 inches during the afternoon and evening.  Karen played golf at her usual course that day and had good conditions until the last 3 holes when they got a little wet.  She did well again, by the way – 3 pars and 3 bogeys.  She keeps wanting me to play with her but this isn’t motivating me much.  As the bird mating season progresses though, I may go just to see the Nene chicks and the peacock displays.

As Election Day gets nearer our mail-in voting system seems to be going very smoothly, unlike what I see happening on the mainland.  I mentioned that we have about 6 drop-off boxes in secure locations spread around the island for a population of about 180k.  This contrasts rather glaringly with the Texas approach of one box per county, which in one case is one box for several million people.  I’m frankly dismayed by the obvious attempts to go well beyond trying to ensure the integrity of the voting system and instead to suppress voting altogether for certain groups of legitimate voters. This IS the USA, right – the country that claims to represent to pinnacle of Democracy?!  Ok, stepping down from my soapbox now.

This week I’ve made arrangements to get estimates for “tenting” our house for drywood termites.  This was last done when we bought the house 20 years ago.  It is a standard practice here whenever a house is sold and when (not if) infestations start to appear.  This past spring we had clear evidence during what is called the “swarming season,” a few weeks when the winged versions of the termites emerge and try to find a new spot to munch on.  Anyway, drywood termites are very, very common here and it isn’t a matter of “if” you will have to treat your house, but rather “when.”  We’ve done very well to go as long as we have, mainly because I was coached early on by a neighbor who used to work for Terminix on how to spot treat small infestations on you own and I have been pretty diligent over the years in doing that.  Anyway, we’ll get our first estimate on Tuesday and it will be interesting to see what the $$$ will be to do this.  BTW, drywood termites aren’t the same as the subterranean variety, which will quickly eat your house in no time.  Ours are slow but relentless, and though they can do considerable damage, the current building codes require that house be built using strutural lumber that has been pre-treated to ward off termites. The treatment doesn’t totally prevent damage, though, and sooner or later you have to fumigate.
                   
Our workout at PF yesterday was again well-timed.  Very few people and everybody followed the mask and disinfect routine.  Afterwards we had a small pizza, salad, and a nice beer at Kona Brew Co.’s outdoor restaurant. The beer made for a rather deep nap later.

Well, that’s about it for this week – no major house projects but of course still whacking back the jungle. Things are starting to slow down a bit, which is welcome.

Take care everyone.  Steel yourself for what may come for the next few weeks.