"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.....

Star-Crossed Putters; Doing Some Fun Normal Things

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

2/26/22

Aloha Everybody!

Well, there is a LOT going on in the world that just plain sucks, but I want to focus on the good things this week.

First off, I did have another eyeball injection last Saturday even though I wasn't expecting it.  This may sound bad but it wasn't.  My retina was in pretty good shape, actually, but there was some edema starting on the periphery that would have gotten a lot worse if I tried to go another 4 weeks.  So this injection undoubtedly headed off some worse problems down the road.  Yet again my doc did a fantastic job of doing the deed and the procedure wasn't all that bad.

On Tuesday our guests arrived and since then we've been doing enjoyable things, like whale watching,

One of Many

hiking to an Hawaiian petroglyph field, and -- get this -- attending a concert *in person.*  The concert was in Waimea at the Kahilu Theater, a venue that holds about 300 and has great acoustics.  The attendance was limited to 1/2 because of you-know-what and we had to show our vaccination cards and wear masks.  Despite these things, it was very enjoyable to experience a live performance *in person* for the first time in over two years.  The group we heard was an internationally acclaimed quartet of Spanish classical guitarists named the Romero Quartet, and given my guitar interests this made it even more enjoyable  -- and very, very humbling.

On Thursday the four of us went to Makalei golf course.  We did some practice putting and driving and

Star-Crossed Putters

then played a "selective" round of golf.  This means we focused on the holes that were the most interesting and scenic, skipping the others.  Think of this as Mar-a-Lago bespoke reality golf.  Karen and I did most of the actual playing, though our friends joined in for some shots. Basically the outing was an excuse to see some beautiful scenery, feed the peacocks and see the nenes, and get some exercise.  I did much, much better than on my last outing, with two pars and a bogey.  One of the pars was on a challenging  par-4 hole, and both Karen and I got pars with some rather amazing putting by both of us.

So far the weather has cooperated for their visit.  It turned much warmer and has remained dry and clear for the most part. We could really use some rain but we hope it holds off until after they leave next week. The pool has now reached 82d -- geezer perfect.

That's about it for this week.  Hope you're guarding your health and sanity ok.  Keep looking for those silver linings -- they're there even though well-hidden these days.

1 Ship, 3 Doctors, 5 Friends

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

2/19/22

Aloha Guys!

I'll be nice and skip the snarky comments about weather, other than to say that in contrast to a couple of months ago, we're getting close to having one of our best solar pv production months ever.

Last Saturday we had yet another visit by a cruise ship -- one of the Holland America line.  Merchants along the waterfront must be delighted with the increased business these visits bring.  Sometime next month our weekly ship will resume, and that's more good news.  Beside the economic shot in the arm for the community, it will make it easier for me to keep track of what day of the week it is --  ship in port = Wednesday.

On Sunday we had brunch with our good friend who teaches in Waimea, and her parents who are visiting.  Her parents are also good friends from working days in Ohio, and are staying with her for most of the winter, escaping from Wisconsin where they are living now.  Their daughter teaches at Hawaiian Preparatory Academy, one of the best private high schools here.  She lives on campus as a dorm counselor (!) and after brunch we were able to visit the campus and see the rather impressive facilities.  It is a very attractive place, and her apartment has an excellent view of Mauna Kea and the surrounding countryside.  Very nice. 

On Tuesday I had my 6-month checkup with my internist.  Everything seems ok (considering), and my bloodwork numbers were good,  perhaps a bit better than last time in fact. Sodium has climbed back into the low end of the acceptable range after I ditched the diuretic.  I'm now trying an alternative that so for hasn't caused any problems.  Later today I'll be seeing my retina doctor, so that makes two physicians this week.  With my skin check last week that means I will have had three medical checkups in the last 14 days!  Isn't Geezerhood fun?!  I think my bad retina is ok for now and I probably won't need another injection.  Most likely we will try to go for another month.

Best Part of My Golf Game

I played golf with Karen and her usual partner on Thursday.  This round was...well..challenging. Let's just say that if I played that way all the time I might part ways with the game altogether.  We did see a Nene family (mom, pop, and three chicks) take a swim in the course lake, definitely a treat and a welcome distraction from my game.

Next week we will be hosting our first guests of the year -- good Ohio friends who have been here several times before.  They are on Kaua'i right now and will transfer here on Tuesday.  We're looking forward to it.  They are the first visitors since early last year, when we hosted twin girls and their grandmother, also from Ohio.

Finally, we have made even more travel plans.  We've put a deposit down on a Viking River Cruise along the Danube from Budapest to a town in Germany called Regensburg.  This will be interesting, since we have tended to be rather cool to this kind of travel in the past.  We'll extend it on one or both ends by traveling on our own in Germany.  We've been there before but it was quite a long time ago, and there are parts we've never visited, including Berlin.  We won't plan many details until we have nailed down the Caucasus trip in May.

That's it.  I seem often to start these missives thinking I don't have much to report and then find it was a pretty busy week.  Anyway, I hope all is well with you.  Hang in there.

 

My Blue Nevus in Azerbaijan

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

2/12/22

Aloha Everybody!

How's your furnace doing these days?  Snicker. We don't have one, as I've mentioned before. Although the nights here have been chilly (60-65d), we've had many sunny days that have finally managed to heat our pool to a relatively comfy 80d.

The big news for us this week was that we heard from our tour company about the May trip to the

Hopeful Itinerary

Caucasus and it looks like it is a go.  They were holding off to see how the Covid situation was developing and what the various restrictions would mean for our itinerary.  The company is combining the May 17 group with the one starting on May 10 to have the minimum number of participants, so we'll be going a week earlier.  To remind you, the company is called Eldertreks and is based in Canada.  We were attracted to them because of their interesting itineraries and because they restrict group size to 16 maximum.  This is the outfit we were scheduled with to go to Ethiopia two years ago until Covid and civil war made it impossible.  Anyway, we're excited to at least have the possibility of going on this trip, and we've been looking into air travel and getting all the forms filled out.  The three countries that make up the Caucasus are Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia -- former reluctant members of the Soviet Union. Russia borders Georgia and Azerbaijan to the north.  To the south of all three are Turkey and Iran. The old saying, "between a rock and a hard place" comes to mind. It's this strategic location that makes the area so historically interesting and worth visiting.

On Wednesday I had my yearly skin check and everything was fine -- including "Ben," my "Blue

My Buddy Ben

Nevus." Ben has done me well in many a Geezer Competitive Complaining contest, and came through again on Wednesday when the trainees observing my exam suddenly crowded around to get a good look when the dermatologist announced that I had a Blue Nevus on my left hand.  Actually, it's a harmless form of a mole, and in my case is quite small.  I've had it for many years, and the variety I have usually doesn't change over time.  I could have it removed but I've kind of grown attached to it (so to speak) and Ben seems like an old friend now. And if I get to Azerbaijan I want him to go, too.

Karen and I went to the Makalei driving range and putting green on Monday, then had a beach picnic.  On Thursday Karen played with her usual partner (*3* pars!) and I went to Planet Fitness. All this exercise puts me in great shape for my extended naps afterward.

That's it.  Enjoy whatever you can.  It's time.