Vaxed to the Max, Toe Troubles, Coqui Caviar

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

4/16/22

Aloha Everybody --

Well, our weather this week was kind of yucky at times, but no blizzards or tornadoes like parts of the mainland. We are definitely back in our rainy pattern, not just afternoon showers, but cloudy and misty for good chunks of the day.  My solar system is sucking air, but I've got a big enough surplus from past months that I'm not really too upset.

On Wednesday we both got our 2nd Pfizer boosters. No great reaction this time, though Karen had a bit of a sore arm, and I felt puny on Thursday afternoon, with some joint aches for a couple of hours Thursday night. The latest large-scale research shows that the effectiveness of 2nd boosters for totally preventing Covid drops to normally boosted levels after just 3-4 weeks, but that the increased protection against a severe case continues longer.  I'm fine with that.  The remote possibility of a bad reaction to the vaccine is much, much, less than having bad consequences of getting Covid.  Anyway, we're now set for our trip, though Azerbaijan still requires a negative PCR test result 72 hours before arrival, so we'll have to do that right before we leave.  

Fortunately we're not leaving right away, because a week ago Thursday Karen hurt her foot when some cans fell out of our garage storage closet and targeted her toes. One toe seems to have lost part of the nail, and both it and the one next to it have cuts that she's taking great care not to get infected. She's much better now, but it has meant she had to skip golf this week, as well as our morning walks.  She was still able to make use of the pool, though, and we managed to do a light workout at PF despite her toe and my vaccine wonkiness. Looks like another week or more for her to get functioning again, and probably longer for the nail to grow back.

Mom, Dad & Caviar

The wet weather has been a boon for the coqui frogs.  I caught 15 this week, a number of them female.  Although the females don't sing and therefore aren't obnoxiously loud, they are very good to catch because each one can produce 25-30 eggs every two weeks. After a female finds a male and lays her eggs, she takes off and the male broods them.  They hatch in just a few weeks and then the juveniles are on their own,  reaching sexual maturity in about 9 months. As I said, the females find the males, zeroing in on their calls.  The ones I caught were in the process of doing just that, but it turned out not to be the kind of romantic evening they were looking for.  At maturity the females are much larger than the males and often their swollen egg sacs are visible on their sides.  One night this week I grabbed both a male coqui and the eggs ("Coqui Caviar") he was guarding -- the first clutch of eggs I've found because they're usually well hidden in small holes and in leaf litter.

Finally, this was an historic week for the town, because on Wednesday the inter-island cruise ship resumed its weekly stops -- first time it has been in port in 2+ years. The merchants love it, of course, and I do too because it's not only picturesque it also helps me keep track of what day it is!

Ok, off for our usual Saturday morning routine.  Hang in there.

Bad Clutch, Spray Paint, and Super Goo

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

4/9/22

Aloha Ohana!

More maintenance adventures this week here in near-paradise.  First up: car clutch problems. On our way home last Saturday the Miata's clutch started acting funny -- as in not working!  If I pushed in the pedal more than a couple of times it would get real soft and I couldn't change gears even with it all the way to the floor. Fortunately we were close to home and got there ok,  I found that if I just let the car sit for a short time with the clutch out, the pressure would return enough for a few pushes.  My trusty auto

A Kona Style Stop

shop was closed for the weekend by the time I called and I had to wait until Monday to talk to them. This is a garage I've used many times before because they are actually honest and do good work. Bless'm, they said if I could get it to the shop they'd try to work it in as soon as they could. I managed to drive it there by staying in 2nd gear and timing my turns and stops.  By about 3pm they called and had diagnosed the problem as a failed "clutch master cylinder," a relatively simple and "inexpensive" fix they were able to do that day!  So, a mere $280 and some angst solved the problem surprisingly quickly.  It turns out that Miatas of this age frequently have clutch problems, but usually it is something called the clutch "slave cylinder," located on the transmission itself.  Ours seems to be ok for now, but like geezer problems in humans, it's just one more issue to look forward to in the future....

Another maintenance project is in the "One-thing-leads-to-another" or "Whack-a-Mole" category. While I was on the roof last week removing the ventilation screens I looked in through the opening and saw the light fixtures in our bedroom closet, which are mounted at about the same height. They were a mess of rust and peeling paint and in desperate need of replacing or repainting.  A check of price$ for replacements quickly convinced me to repaint.  I got them down, sanded the bad spots, and got a couple of cans of spray paint.  Since they are mounted high up on the wall and thus prevent close inspection, they look pretty good now -- from a distance.  

A third project is still in progress because it has been too wet this week to finish.  One of the pool lanai railing 4"x4" posts has some rot at the base.  It is a major hassle to replace these (which my handyman and I have done), and in this case the rot could be cleaned out and patched instead.  My favorite product for doing this is in the same category as duct tape and super glue -- Bondo.  I call it "Super Goo." I think it was originally developed as filler for auto body repairs, but it will stick to anything: metal, wood, glass, stone, and of course, skin. It's an epoxy putty that you mix with a hardener cream and then apply.  Within 10-15 minutes this stuff is rock hard and can be sanded, painted, or drilled. I figure when the archeologists go through the ruins of my house they won't find much --- except blobs of Bondo all around.  I cleaned the rot out of the hole and it's waiting for its Super Goo, but it should be dry to do the job right -- maybe next week.

No golf this week, but I went to Planet Fitness twice.  Karen and I went on Tuesday, and then I went again on Thursday when she was playing golf. I know this sounds very energetic of me, but I assure you I make sure to counteract the positive effects with a nullifying nap. 

Ok, off to market and the beach.  Take care.  And remember, "moderate," "middle," and "center" are not bad things....

Screen Spring Clean, Booster Boosts

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

4/2/22

Aloha All!

Hope you're thawing out.  Weather here is nice, despite having a fair amount of rain this week. One day it totaled .7" and last night we got at least half that again.  If it keeps this up our pool level may reach the overflow drain!

My eye exam last Saturday went very well.  No edema build-up so no shot needed.  However, the real question is if I can hold off having another injection until near the end of the month, so that I'll be ok during our trip in May.  Although I'm sure health care in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia is ok, I'd rather not have to find an eye doctor while we're traveling. The plan is to wait until April 23, another 4 weeks from the previous shot -- maybe a bit of a stretch, but so far so good.

My big house maintenance project this week was to honor the tradition of Spring Cleaning and wash the ventilation screens in our master bathroom.  These aren't your usual screens.  They were custom made for the large, triangular openings that are very high up in the eaves, and don't just pop in and out like regular screens.  To take them out requires a trip to the roof and loosening the 6 or so screws that holds each one to the frame.  I was the roof rat and Karen washed each one in the driveway as I took it down and put a clean one back up.  They were filthy.  Remember, these windows are never closed because they have no glass in them, and our Kona breeze carries through the house almost constantly.  Anyway, it was a fairly big job and definitely needed doing.  There are a few other smaller ventilation screens, but they'll just have to wait.

Our travel preparations are progressing.  We were relieved when it was announced this week that 2nd boosters have been approved.  It will make us as protected as we can get during the trip. I scheduled ours for April 13. This should allow enough time before we leave for the "booster-boosts" to have maximum effect, and also enough time so that any temporary reactions to the shots don't interfere with our usual last-minute preparations.  Our Covid situation is very good at the moment -- few hospitalizations and only about 120 active cases on the island.  It will be interesting to see what happens as this new, even more contagious variant becomes dominant, but for the moment we're enjoying the more relaxed restrictions.

Kona "Daffodils"

On Thursday I played golf with Karen and two of her friends.  I did so-so, and even got one par.  It didn't compensate, though, for the more frequent less-than-stellar shots of the day.  We got rained out on the last two holes, which was fine with me because I was getting pooped. Golf isn't a very physical game, but after roughly 140 strokes and quite a few do-overs, it can still be challenging. The course was looking much better after the rain we've been getting.  Saw quite a few Nenes and Peacocks, but no white Peahens.

Ok, off to market and breakfast.  Enjoy your change of seasons.  Try to withstand the buffeting winds of cruelty, extremism, power-mongering, selfishness, and greed we seem to be confronting these days.

 

 

"Kona Snow," A Pole Cat, & Smoke No Mo'

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

3/26/22

Aloha Everybody!

Well, I see from the weather reports that you're lurching toward Spring -- roller-coaster-like.  Here in

"Snow"in Kona

Kona another sign of Spring is the annual blooming of the coffee trees.  The blossoms are white and all the trees bloom at once, which is quite a sight in an orchard of hundreds or thousands of trees.  From a distance it looks almost like there is snow in the orchards -- "Kona Snow" is what the locals call it. By the way, coffee trees are related to gardenias but they don't smell nearly as sweet.  They also aren't very attractive trees, more like scrawny shrubs.  People have sometimes asked if we have any in our yard so that we can harvest the coffee.  Absolutely not.  The work it would take to turn the coffee beans into actual coffee wouldn't be worth it for the amount you'd get, even though pure Kona coffee sells for $18-40 per pound.  We only drink Kona coffee if someone gives us a pound or two -- otherwise we buy bags of Starbucks for a whole lot less.....

Karen's friend from Oregon left on Tuesday.  They got in one more round of golf on Sunday, this time at Makalei.  They saw the white Peahen twice!  Some people think that there are two different birds on the course, but it isn't clear if anyone has seen both at the same time, so this is still a bit of a mystery. From what they could observe, the one(s) they saw was well-accepted by the other females.  Not sure what the Peacocks think. While Karen played golf I went to Planet Fitness and worked out. Yet again it wasn't crowded at all.  They are still requiring masks, but this will end today.

We got more rain during the week, and the coquis have been going crazy.  My neighbor caught 8 and I caught 4 for a total of 12 this week.  Our hope that the numbers were down because of the dry spell was pure wishful thinking.  But I figure it's like controlling ants -- you know you can't get them all, but you certainly try to eliminate as many as you can.  I estimate that the two of us have killed around 300 coquis or more -- that's a lot of noise and negative environmental impact we've stopped.

Yesterday was my 28th Anniversary of the day I quit smoking. To celebrate still being alive, we went to Planet Fitness, had a burger and a beer at a surf-side restaurant, and then I took a long nap. I note this anniversary every year to remind myself of that very difficult accomplishment.  I was truly addicted, having smoked for over 40 years and trying to quit for about 5 years.  In fact, it's unlikely that I can live long enough smoke-free to equal the length of time I smoked.  I'm certainly glad I quit, of course, but there are residual, progressive effects that can't be reversed and that the advertising crusades for quitting didn't mention, like emphysema.  Certainly all the more reason not to start in the first place, but an argument that would have been lost on the I'm-invincible-and-will-live-forever kid that I was when I began.

Finally, I had a good week befriending one of the neighborhood cats we encounter on our morning

"Pole Cat"

walks. It was sitting on the top of a big post that was part of a garden display by the side of the street -- a "pole cat." What a treat -- I even got to pet it!  I'd love to have another cat as a pet, but we've decided it would be too difficult as long as we keep traveling as much as we do.  So I enjoy these kind of encounters and this one really made my day.

I have an eye exam later today.  My vision seems pretty good so I think the last injection is holding well.  The issue at the moment is how to coordinate the next injection with our trip in May.  It would be ideal if I could hold off until right before we leave, but that will mean a long time between injections.  I'll see what my doc thinks and update you next week.

Ok, that's it for now.  Off to market and breakfast.  Take care and enjoy your spring!

 

Waking Up Coquis, Pumping Iron

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

3/19/22

Aloha All!

Well, my rain dance worked.  Last Friday night we got .3" (I guessed .25" but my rain gauge showed more).  Then on Sunday night we got another .5", and on Wednesday a whopping 1.2", making a total for the week of 2 inches.  So at least here in the neighborhood we had a break from the drought.  This woke up the coquis, of course, who promptly started singing to make up for lost mating time.  I caught a couple and my neighbor did too, both of us finding them in new areas.  Our theory is that while it was dry the frogs stayed in place, particularly if it was somewhere where there was moisture from irrigation, and then when the rain came they decided to explore new territories.  At the moment, though, there seem to be fewer males singing than before the dry cold weather started.  We're hoping, probably with much too much optimism, that a number may have not survived the unfavorable weather.  Yeah, right.

It was a pretty quiet week.  Our Oregon friend arrived for her short visit on Sunday.  She's Karen's golf buddy who used to spend a lot of time here with her husband until his health made it necessary for him to remain in Portland.  On Tuesday she played golf with Karen and her current partner at Makani course, further up north than Makalei.  I wasn't invited, so I went to Planet Fitness instead. Might have overdid it a teense, and my muscles let me know it the next couple of days.  Despite the lessening of covid restrictions (though masks are still required at PF) and only a few new cases, the number of people seemed about the same -- that is, very few given the size of the venue.  

Spring Blooms

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by having a corned beef dinner with our Oregon friend at our house.  It was a very pleasant evening, and we were even able to eat outside by our pool.  Our signs of spring, which most visitors don't notice,  are getting more pronounced.  One is that the snowball bloom of the plumerias that begins down slope has now reached our neighborhood.  This is where the flowers appear on the bare branches before new leaves develop.  The flowering will continue until next fall, when the trees become bare again.  The reason most visitors don't notice this change is because stuff is blooming here all year around, and very few kinds of trees lose their leaves.

We're proceeding with our travel plans for both the Caucasus trip coming up and for the Germany trip in the fall.  We were in contact with the company running the Caucasus tour this week and as of right now it's still going.  After the tour (about 3 weeks) we've made arrangements to stop over in Chicago for several days, which should be fun. We haven't been there in many years and we're looking forward to it.  We'll also try to see an old friend who lives near Chicago and also spend a couple of days in Rockford, where Karen's Swedish relatives emigrated and where her mother is buried.  As I mentioned last week, all these arrangements can be canceled without losing anything,  just in case germs and/or autocrats go berserk again.

Ok, off to market and breakfast. Take care and be sure to notice whatever is positive that comes your way. It might be easy to miss in the avalanche of bad stuff these days.

 

How To Put Screws and Little White Balls in Holes

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

3/12/22

Aloha Everyone!

Spring yet?  The signs here are getting clearer:  our pool temp made it up to 84d this week, another cruise ship visited, and the plumeria around town are starting to bloom again, as are the Silver Oak and Jacaranda trees.  Oh, and the snow birds & whales are starting to leave.

Our Covid situation has continued to improve and restrictions are loosening.  In a week or so our indoor mask requirement will be discontinued, and the vaccination/testing procedure for visitors may be dropped.  It's almost like normal times, though I'm probably jinxing it by saying that.  This virus is still around and will be with us in less disruptive form for a long time, like the flu or colds.  What's not so normal here is our continued lack of rain that is leading to some serious drought conditions in certain areas.  Usually at this time of year we get afternoon showers at least, but I haven't measured any significant moisture for a couple of months now -- until last night. We finally had a decent rain starting around dinner time -- I haven't checked my rain gauge yet, but I bet it was .25" or more.  Both humans and coquis are happier.  The forecast is for more this afternoon and evening, but the predictions are notoriously "iffy" here.

I got my holes drilled for the new bathroom hardware I told you about last week.  The first one took a long time and a lot of effort, even though I thought I had the correct drill bit for going through stone tile.  Then I searched online for "how to drill holes in stone tile," and learned that there is a difference between a masonry drill bit (for brick and concrete) and a special bit for various kinds of tile, including marble and granite.  Quick trip to the toy store and the rest of the holes were fairly easy.  The hardware is now up and looks good. However, this is one of those projects where I'm the only person who appreciates the difference.

On Thursday I was called into duty as substitute golf partner when Karen's usual partner had other

White Peahen

plans. We both did pretty well.  I managed to get 4 (!) bogeys and 1 par, even though the first three holes were lousy -- I just couldn't seem to hit the ball.  My excuse is that on those holes we saw a lot of Nenes (11 on the very first hole) and the Peacocks were really active doing their mating dances, which is spectacular to see.  Karen's friend played later in the afternoon and saw a pure white female, something that is very unusual.  She snapped a photo and sent it to us. Other golfers have said they've sighted her in the past, but Karen never has.  We must have passed right by the spot where she hangs out but we didn't see her.

We made our flight reservations for the Caucasus trip, which we hope will still go despite current craziness.  At the moment we're convinced there isn't any reason to cancel, but if enough other people on the tour back out then the company may have to cancel it.  We'll see.  There's no problem with the plane tickets -- we can shift the credit to other flights without penalty -- but we really don't want to.

OK, that's all for this week. Off to market and to our usual beach breakfast picnic.  Take care. Get those shorts ready!

 

45 Lbs of Poi & A Set of Metric Hex Keys

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

3/5/22

Aloha Ohana!

March already!  Can you believe it? What happened to January and February?  In fact, what happened to the last two years?! 

Our friends left Tuesday evening after a week of good times.  One of the most interesting things for us was discovering the changes to tourist spots that have occurred since the last time we saw them.  For the most part these were positive, but in a few instances they were more mixed, like a cloud forest hike that used to have a short route but now is a fairly long slog  (also, this one ended in a trip to the drug store for extra bandages).

Here's something in the "only-in-Hawai'i" department. On Wednesday our local newspaper devoted

Poi, Anyone?

nearly the entire front page to a story about a record-breaking taro plant. The Polynesians brought taro with them when they arrived in the islands about 1200 years ago (taro root is what poi is made from).  A farming couple down south has apparently grown the largest taro root in the world, weighing about 50 pounds! According to the article, this sucker would produce about 45 pounds of poi and feed about 180 people. Thatsalota poi!!  They've submitted it to the Guiness Book of World Records and should know soon if it is accepted.  The previous record holder was a measly 7-pounder grown somewhere in China.  Take that, Xi Jinping!

My house maintenance project this week was to replace the pitted towel racks and toilet paper holder in the guest quarters where our friends stayed.  I had tried to do this before they arrived but I couldn't get the old ones off.  If you've ever installed or replaced these you know that they are held onto their brackets with little screws that have indented hexagonal heads. The tool for tightening or loosening them is called a hex key, aka "Allen" wrench, named for the Connecticut tool company that invented it.  I have a set of these but none of the different sizes would fit.  After a bit of frustration it occurred to me that these particular ones might be metric. So a quick trip to Lowes' toy ...ur... tool department and the problem was solved.  Of course, I'm still working on the difficulty that the brackets for the new ones are slightly different and will require drilling new holes in the stone tile covering the wall. What could possibly go wrong?  I'll let you know.

On Thursday Karen played golf but I opted to follow my "quit while you're ahead" philosophy after my good round last week and went to the gym instead.  Not as picturesque and certainly not as pleasant-smelling but a whole lot quicker.

Ok, that's about it.  Take care and think warm Spring thoughts.....