Birthday Tradition

Art and I both have summer birthdays. We go to Starbucks once a week when we go to the mall with friends for our weekly walk and refresher drink. I therefore have enough stars (200) in my account to get a free drink.

So we did it again. We've been doing it since 2017 when the barista told me about it in Washington, D.C. He told me I could have any flavor, any size. I actually wrote a blog post about how I got the Midnight Mint Mocha Frappuccino. I loved it... but I haven't seen that flavor offered since.

Ah well... I ordered my usual birthday Mocha Frappuccino and got Art a free Matcha Frappuccino. And yes, I got the ventis. 

And then we went to our favorite spot under beautiful shower trees and savored the treat.

I happened to look out the window and saw this bird pecking away at the fallen shower tree flower petals.

I've seen them a lot and figured they must be in the cardinal family just from the head shape with the red feathers. But there was a cardinal with a brown head too. I told Art it was probably a female. He felt it must be a juvenile.

Soooo... I asked ChatGPT what kind of birds they were and if the brown headed bird was a female.

This is what I got:

These are Red-crested Cardinals (Paroaria coronata), a species native to South America that has become well established in Hawaii, especially on Oahu and the Big Island.

The difference in head color is most likely due to age, not sex.

• The bird on the left has a vivid, bright scarlet-red head and crest. This is an adult, whose red feathers have fully developed.
• The bird on the right has a duller, brownish-red head. This is most likely a juvenile (young bird) that hasn’t yet molted into its bright adult plumage.

Male and female Red-crested Cardinals look very similar, so the intensity of the red isn’t a reliable way to tell males from females. Instead:

• Adults of both sexes have brilliant red heads, white cheeks and throat, gray backs, and pale underparts.
• Juveniles have browner or orangish-red heads and generally look less sharply colored until they mature.

From your photo, the left bird appears to be carrying a small flower petal or leaf in its beak, which they sometimes pick up while foraging. They mainly eat seeds, fruits, and insects.

It’s a nice capture showing what is probably an adult and a young Red-crested Cardinal together, which is common during the breeding season.

It was nice of ChatGPT to give me a compliment about taking a nice photo. 

And sitting next to me in the car, I looked up at Art who was looking quite proud of himself. 😎

Is Alexa Always Listening?

With the upgrades we've had with the Alexa or Echo speakers, I've noticed some pretty big changes.

For one thing, her voice is not as mechanical. She seems to have more emotion when she responds.

In the past, she would only respond if you prefaced it with "Alexa." Several weeks ago I asked about something and automatically said, "Thank you" to the machine. Yup. I did.

I was startled when she said, "You're very welcome."  I hadn't said, "Alexa, thank you." 

I've found that she now keeps listening for a few seconds after a response. Once when I asked her to add something to a certain shopping list, she said, "You've already added that to the list." And when I said, "Thank you", she responded with "You're very welcome, happy shopping."

We have Alexas in several rooms. I have one in mom's room to wake her in the morning. Alexa tells mom, "Time to wake up, Hiroko. Time to get ready for Senior Club."

We have them in the bedrooms and kitchen. I can tell her to remind me to put something on my shopping list. I tell her to remind me to do things at a certain time. I tell her to time me in the kitchen.

And sometimes, for fun... I ask her to tell me a joke or to play me a song. I've also changed her name to Echo and turned her into a man in one of the rooms. I like Echo too. 

But is this something to be nervous about? 

I got this on AI Overview:

 Yes, Alexa is passively listening to pick up its wake word, but it is not constantly recording or sending your conversations to the cloud. [1]

It uses short, localized audio loops to detect the trigger word. It only begins recording and sending your audio to Amazon's servers after it hears the wake word or detects a sound like a smoke alarm. [1, 2]

You can control and manage your voice history anytime: [1, 2, 3]

Review recordings: Listen to what Alexa has saved in the Alexa App under Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History.
Manage deletion: You can set your account to automatically delete voice recordings after 3 or 18 months via Amazon Alexa Privacy Setting.

And here's more information from Wirecutter's website: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/amazons-alexa-never-stops-listening-to-you/

OK... I guess I'm alright with this for now.

And then cameras. Yes we have cameras inside and outside the house. The cameras are to keep watch over mom. No, it's not in the bathroom, but anywhere else she might be, we have cameras hidden. Since her rooms are downstairs and we're upstairs, it helps us keep track of what she's doing or if she needs help.

With the scary acceleration of her dementia we need to keep closer watch on her condition. 

So I guess although we worry sometimes about the intrusiveness of technology, it sure does make life easier for seniors.

Really Eccentric Lemon

We've had a high producing lemon tree for a couple of decades. My brother actually planted it and it's been very bountiful which is great because he loves to make lemonade and now I've been making it too.

The tree seems to be getting tired now but at one time it was producing a ton of lemons. 

This photo is from about 10 years ago.

Now that it's older, it's not producing as much and ants are bringing colonies of aphids onto the poor old exhausted tree.

And then...

I saw this really weird lemon. I've seen it sitting there for over a couple of weeks now and it's starting to ripen.

Lemons always grew in bunches at the ends of thinner but strong branches. This lemon was close to the trunk of the tree. And there was just this one lemon. Weird as heck!

Before posting this, I wondered if someone was playing a trick on me and poked a lemon onto a branch, but no. It really was growing there. I sent the photo to my more agricultural minded brother and he was stymied also. 

I guess even fruit trees get a little eccentric as they get older. 😄

Toilet Trouble and the Many Uses of Vinegar

We have two toilets downstairs. One is attached to mom's bedroom. The other is part of a non-functional teeny guest bedroom which is now just a room to house a dresser and refrigerator. It's a weird house. 

Anyway, that guest bathroom toilet is not used very often except when we have family/friends get-togethers.

The other day, I was noticing a hard water ring along the waterline. The awful problem is that you are NOT supposed to use anything abrasive or chemically damaging on a Toto toilet and bidet which is what we installed.

I forgot to take a photo of the BEFORE (of the guest toilet) so I just took one of mom's toilet which I'd better work on too.

I was warned by several people that those Hawaii hard water rings are terrible and pretty much impossible to get rid of. Sigh...

But I looked online and saw this suggestion.

OK... I can give it a try.

I cut up a very old Trader Joe's kitchen cloth, dunked it in vinegar and laid it on the hard water ring. It said you should leave it on for an hour or two or overnight. I left it on overnight.

Well... it's not absolutely perfect, but unless someone sticks their head super close to the bowl, it might be difficult to see.

Maybe.

And then...

My daughter said that my son-in-law had cooked a very delicious Korean dish that unfortunately ended up smelling up the kitchen. 

She tried this method but said that she found online that it should be 1 part water to 1 part vinegar which is what she did. And she said it worked perfectly.

I need to go buy more vinegar.

Luncheon With Friends

We have long time friends we met at our tai chi class many years ago. We've traveled together to Europe and had a wonderful time. Our next trip together will be to China in April if all goes well.

We had a luncheon at our house last week which made it even more comfortable than a restaurant since we wouldn't have to worry about a time crunch and we could move around easily.

Cal and Myra picked up all the bento lunches for the group. Kay (yup, another Kay) and Calvin brought over a fruit plate and even shared dragon fruit ice cream that Kay made for all of us. Terry and Craig brought a huge box of fun Samanco fish shaped ice cream sandwiches. 

Myra and Cal also brought a huge watermelon for us and a pack of mochi for mom. 

And oh yes! Mom loved having those desserts for several days after dinner. She was in absolute dessert heaven.

And that watermelon?  (I know I mentioned this on Monday’s post.)

Art noticed that it didn't have a yellow patch at the bottom and wondered if it would be good.

But when Art cut the watermelon a couple of days later, he discovered it was VERY good indeed. It was fresh and very sweet! 

So I guess the guidelines I wrote about earlier is nice, but it doesn't mean you won't get a good watermelon if you don't follow those rules.

It was a wonderful get-together of good friends and needless to say mom will love our hosting another friends luncheon as well.

Picking a Good Watermelon

Art has always preferred getting a watermelon for his birthday instead of a cake. His parents owned a mom and pop restaurant when he was a kid and he feels he had enough sweets then to last a lifetime.

However, he has always loved watermelon. 

It was therefore rather ironic that his favorite daughter (OK, only daughter) Tiffany is allergic to it. 

This photo was from 2014 when Tif was visiting us with her family.

It's now watermelon season and Art has started seeing watermelon in huge bins at Sam's Club.

Art and his sister who also loves watermelon learned all the tricks to choosing the perfect watermelon.

This year, my brother's wife texted this chart for us to look at. And yes, we've always followed those guidelines except #2 and #4. We didn't consider the dullness coloring or the webbing. We'll have to try to remember that too next time.

Whatever the case, the watermelon we chose was perfectly sweet and wonderful.

I wonder if they make watermelon cake.

Just kidding... 😂

POSTSCRIPT:

Our friends brought over a watermelon that didn't have any of the requirements and it was fabulous!

A Gift of the Past

One of our dearest friends, Terry passed away last year in Illinois. It was an absolute shock! She and her husband, Jim were surrogate auntie and uncle to our two children, Tiffany and Keola since our own families were all in Hawaii.

Jim was Art's closest friend after meeting each other at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago where they worked. Whenever we needed help in anything, Jim was there. Terry took Tiffany for her first beauty shop expedition where she got her first professional haircut. The photo above is when Jim and Terry took us for a sail on Lake Michigan. You can see Chicago in the background.

We got a surprise package from Jim a couple of weeks ago. It was filled with lots of photos that Terry had taken of the kids. I imagine Jim is downsizing from their large home now.

They were photos Terry took of fun moments in our lives... in our children's lives. What really hit me was that the photos were not posed. 

Right: Yes, I have a few (very few) photos I took of natural moments of Tif and Keola when they were little... but very few. 

I wonder if Tif wanted a sister since she used to dress Keola in her clothes.

So these photos from Jim really hit me.

The ones on the left are what came. They were pretty yellowed with age. So I scanned them and then put them through PhotoShop.

It really captures how Tif and Keola have had this special bond since they were very, very little and it warmed my heart.

We're missing Terry now... and we'll see Jim when we return to Chicago to visit Tiffany and family in fall.

I texted Jim right away, thanking him for this gift of the past and all they did for us then.

POSTSCRIPT:

And those two kids? Here they are again several decades later.

This photo was taken during a family trip to Japan.

Remembering the Past?

When we took mom on the Skyline (Hawaii's sort of new rail system) for the first time, we were able to pass the town of Waipahu. 

We'd move to Waipahu when I was about 7 or 8. My brother, Dennis is 3 years younger. Because we were isolated in a more distant location away from many playmates prior to the move to Waipahu my brother and I were and are very close and did everything together.

Anyway, as Art, mom and I passed through Waipahu, we looked out the window and saw what used to be that sleepy plantation town.

It bothered me when I saw that lone sugar cane processing company smoke stack. 

We'd been living in Illinois for 35 years when the sugar plantation closed down. So much on the island of Oahu has changed. It is the most populated of all the islands in Hawaii.

But gosh! I could have sworn there were TWO smoke stacks.

And then I saw this newspaper photo from 1960 that I'd kept on my computer a long time ago. OHO!!! There's the two smoke stacks!!!

So I texted Dennis.

OK...

He's always been known to have a much better memory than me.

Then I recalled another memory of my mango tree climbing days. I thought I'd often climbed up that tall tree.

So I texted him...

And this is what he said.

I disagree. I can picture myself climbing out our living room window onto the garage roof and then onto the mango tree limb and up the trunk.

I really do.

I really really do.

I think.

Tomato Quandary

I guess we're still going to plant tomatoes.

We bought the Akoya tomatoes in April. We'd gone to Home Depot and they didn't have any tomato plants. Well, I think they had a few but they were dying. 

City Mill had only the Akoya variety so we bought it.

However, the small plant did start to produce rather larger sized cherry tomatoes pretty quickly. At last count (Yes, Art counted 😂), we'd gotten a little over 90 tomatoes from it.

But as you can see...it's dying. 

The leaves just slowly dried up no matter how much water I gave it.

However, now Art liked the idea of growing our own tomatoes. So we stopped at the Navy Exchange garden shop and checked to see if they had tomatoes. And surprise! There were a LOT of DIFFERENT kinds of tomatoes in different sized pots. 

So there we were checking online with our phones to see what kind of tomatoes there were. Art's sister is an avid gardener and had mentioned something about an indeterminate vs. determinate tomato variety. Sheesh! I'd never heard of that. I just knew bigger tomatoes vs. cherry tomatoes.

So we looked it up while standing there in the garden shop. And this is what we found on this Homes and Gardens website: 

Determinate Tomatoes:

Determinate tomatoes are generally smaller than indeterminate varieties. They are more compact tomato plants that grow to a fixed size and do not continue to grow throughout the season. This growing habit does impact their fruiting, which happens during one period rather than continuously throughout the summer, and earlier than indeterminate types.

Indeterminate Tomatoes:

Indeterminate tomatoes make up the majority of tomato varieties. They continue to grow taller throughout the season and continually produce fruits all the way through to when the frosts hit.

The plants can get very tall, between six and ten feet, and need sturdy supports as they grow. Whereas determinate varieties have shorter and wider growth habit, indeterminate types grow vertically and need to be trained as tall and narrow plants. 

Trouble is there was only ONE kind of Indeterminate tomatoes. Only one and it didn't look very healthy. It was called Husky Red VFA. 

I got the following from AI Overview.

The Husky Red (often Husky Red F1) is a dwarf indeterminate tomato that combines the compact habit of a determinate plant with the season-long production of an indeterminate. Reaching 3 to 4.5 feet tall, it is perfect for containers, patios, and small spaces. 

Key Growing & Care Info

• Container Size: Requires at least a 5 to 10-gallon container to allow for full root development and maximum yield.
• Support: Despite its short stature, it features sturdy central stems with thick foliage and still benefits greatly from a tomato cage or stake.
• Harvest Timeline: Produces 5 to 7-ounce, globe-shaped slicing tomatoes in about 68 to 78 days.
• Disease Resistance: Known for its high tolerance to Verticillium Wilt, Fusarium Wilt, Gray Leaf Spot, and Alternaria Stem Canker. (This is what the VFA signified.)

OK... so we'll nurse this Husky Red tomato in the pot until Art is able to count the last Akoya harvest and then we can transplant the Husky Red in the same place after I compost the soil.  Fingers crossed the Husky Red is able to grow a longer period that the Akoya.

We shall see. 

Marauding Herb Rabbits

Our daughter, Tiffany often calls us on her way home from work.

The other day she mentioned that our son-in-law who is a master of the kitchen had been growing Thai basil in a backyard planter. 

The basil had been growing very well and he'd been watching its progress happily each day. But then... one morning, to his horror... the basil was gone!

And yes, they knew who the culprits were.

Rabbits. 

And then... they discovered that the rabbits weren't sticking to their usual diet. They were also now eating the hostas! 

What the heck! I've never heard of them eating hostas before.

OK so they're eating whatever is available in the backyard.

But as you can see... they're now in the front yard. I don't think it can see Tiffany's Thai basil because it's in a taller planter. I've read that rabbits do have a keen sense of smell, and basil does smell doesn't it?

They have a lot more summer left in Illinois. How long before they find her basil and how long before they decide the hostas in the front might be edible too? 

Uh oh... I just looked online and it says rabbits LOVE hostas. 😕

POSTSCRIPT:

I saw the cartoon in the morning comics several days ago.