Who Me? Worry?

Why is it that as soon as we leave the islands hurricanes decide to attack? Lala attacked a couple of weeks before we were set to leave for Illinois to visit our daughter and family.

And then we heard about Hurricane Lowell that was passing south of the islands suddenly changing its mind and swerving north toward Kauai next to our island of Oahu. What the heck? 

If that wasn’t enough, suddenly there was another hurricane named Karina. We’re reading how sometimes hurricanes will be drawn to each other and become a monster.

And then it seems there was a Marie… Ackkkk!

My brother is taking care of mom in our house and is usually pretty nonchalant about things. He’s not as hyper-crazy like I am when there’s a calamity threatening. However, with THREE hurricanes threatening, my nephew came over to help his dad put up all the hurricane shields for the 1st floor. I had to use a chair to help install the shields. Cody could put up the entire shield without a ladder. It must be nice to be so tall.

I’m writing this while in Illinois. My brother keeps telling me to relax.

But we’ll be watching as the hurricane season, forecasted to be bad this year drags on.

Getting UP After Falling

Terry, our retired nurse friend sent this video to us about ensuring our ability to get up from a fall. Art and I did take a "Fall Prevention" class, but it was more about how to fall. This video shows exercises on strengthening your muscles so you're able to get up if you do fall.

Hmmm.... well... balance is somewhat difficult for me since I suffer from vertigo. 

Our son, Keola was testing us when he visited to see if we could get up from the floor with crossed legs. 😕 And nope, neither Art nor I can do it. But yes, we can if we're allowed to use our hands.

Ahhh well... I guess I'd better practice doing those pushups. 

Please stay safe, everybody.

Trying Hard to be Positive in Trying Times… and Failing a Little

I’m really trying. I really am. I’m trying not to post too much about Trump. Honest.

But I saw this recently and just had to share it.

And then one of my very good teacher buddies sent this to me.

Sigh…

OK, I got it out of my system.

…for now …

Doubling the Bird of Paradise

We've passed this house and seen this unusual sight before. But this time I just had to take a photo. Growing up in Waipahu, many people had the Bird of Paradise flower in their gardens. 

I think. 😐

I just know we had two large plants. 

I think. 😗 I'll have to ask my brother. But I do know I never saw anything like this.

It's another flower growing out of the original flower.

It does bring to mind the shape of a bird, hence its name. Granted... it would be a two headed bird. 😊 

POSTSCRIPT: We went by the house again several days later and found more birds of paradise blooming. Most of them looked like they were going to do this piggy back type flowers. I guess it must be a new variety of Bird of Paradise.

Remembering Dolly

I've always admired Dolly Parton and loved her music. She was not only mega talented, but was also an incredible person who cared about others. I was amazed to learn she has donated $500 million to so many different causes such as wildfire recovery and vaccine research.

But as a retired teacher, you know I loved how she started the... 

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five, through funding shared by Dolly Parton and local community partners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Republic of Ireland.

She really seemed like such a kind, friendly person and that was evident when my cousin, Arnold sent this photo to me. 

Arnold was a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines. This photo was taken in 1990 or so. He said the cabin crew were all making a fuss over her and he went back to welcome her and say he was one of her fans. She insisted he sit on her lap for a photo and would not take, (I'll bet it was a weak) "no," for an answer. He says Dolly really is as nice as everyone says. Well, Arnold's a sweetie, too! Isn't this just the coolest thing?"

 

 It's really wonderful to know there are famous personalities who are just super nice people and care about everyone.

The world has lost a beautiful, fabulous, human being and we are poorer for it. However, we can count our blessings that she was part of our world for this short time.

All Important Back-Up Power

Hurricane Lala was a wake-up call for us. We've had several storm misses and after a while... you might get a little complacent. 

But this one was definitely scary. Trees were downed in quite a number of places and I've read that 200,000 customers lost power during the height of the storm. My brother was lucky. They never lost power at his condominium.

The Big Island caught the brunt of the storm and the south side will take several years to get back to normal again.

We lost power twice. Luckily, we'd bought a back up power battery called EcoFlow Delta 3 Portable Battery Power Station a year ago from Home Depot. Art always keeps it partially charged.

It's not very large at all and it's quiet. And it did keep our refrigerator running for about 9 hours. Granted, the second time we lost power, Art had to drive the power station to my brother's house to charge it and by the time he returned, power had been restored again. 

I'm thinking we need a back up for the back up for the next time a hurricane comes too close.

And then there's our computer. 

Our son-in-law had set up a UPS system after a brown-out fried both Art and my computers. 

I always thought UPS was United Parcel Service. But no... it also stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply. 

However, when it started beeping and beeping and I still had a blank computer monitor, I figured it wasn't working so I pressed all the different buttons to turn it off.

When I told my son-in-law about it the next day he said there is a MUTE button I could have pressed.

Oops!

Also when I took a photo of the back of the UPS, he said the monitor plug was not in the right place which is why we couldn't see anything and power down our computer. 

The UPS is to give you time to close your computer apps safely before turning it off.

Oops! 

OK... I think it's OK now...

I think.

We'll have to see when the next hurricane come close to us. 😩

We were using flashlights that we put everywhere, but discovered it wasn't the best for mom. I set up a flashlight in her bathroom when the power went off in the evening. 

I decided to get these lantern/flashlights which I hope will be helpful. They can also be charged with sunlight. But if there's a hurricane, will there be sunlight to charge the lanterns? 😳

Sigh...

Scam?

We recently got 2 or 3 letters and postcards addressed to a Helen. No one named Helen has been living at our address for at least 25+ years.

We first got a letter which we didn't open. We just wrote that no one lived at this address by that name and returned it to our mailbox for the mail person.

A couple of days later we got this postcard addressed to the same Helen.

And we sent it back out again.

But this had me suspicious and I looked up that phone #.

This is what I found online.

I could swear we got another postcard saying Helen won something and that she should call an 888 number, but I can't find it.

Anyway...

Good grief!

I guess if it sounds too good to be true... you'd better check online because it could be another scam.

It's a scary techie world out there.

Hmmm... I wonder who Helen is.🤔

Saimin Surprise!

We'd taken mom to get a blood and TB test at Kaiser a week ago. After having quite a few vials of blood taken, we thought we should give mom a treat and take her to our local Zippy's restaurant to get a bowl of her favorite saimin noodles. I don't think we've been there in a year. Maybe.

We also ordered an extra serving of char siu, fish cakes and vegetables to add to the soup for each of us.

Although we ordered the small size, we were surprised to see how much food there was. Mom told us it was too much for her so we reassured her that she didn't have to eat all of it. 

I then texted a photo of her with her saimin noodles to my brother, Dennis. I keep him constantly updated on everything we do with her since he lives rather far away from us and is only in our area when he comes to visit her several times a week.

Imagine our shock when he suddenly showed up and sat next to her! 

Apparently he never comes here because Dennis and my sister in law go to a Zippy's closer to their home. However, they just happened to be in this area because my sister in law was picking up something at a store near this Zippy's and they decided to just grab some take out lunch to bring home. Standing in line for their order he got my text photo and decided to check where we might be and surprise us.

Mom has dementia. When he suddenly appeared, it wasn't that much of a shock since she does periodically see him. So she calmly accepted that he was just there.

And her bowl of saimin noodles?

Uuuummmm.... she finished it all and proceeded to try to drink up most of the broth. 

I then showed her the photo I took of her and Dennis. 

She was shocked! She had completely forgotten that he'd stopped by to say hello.

I had to have Art finish my noodles. It was too much for me. 

Art paid for the meals and we headed home.

Upon arriving home, I assumed that she would have forgotten where we'd been and that she'd had a huge bowl of her favorite saimin noodles.

Imagine my surprise when she turned smiling to Art before going into the house and saying, "Thank you very much for taking me everywhere and getting me the saimin noodles."

This all reminded me of the family mottos that my Buddhist priest grandfather had instilled in his children.

My aunt, Chikako was telling me what the family motto was. Those are her words on the left.

My mother is Hiroko. 

My aunt Machiko is remembering the letter my grandfather gave my grandmother before being drafted into the war.

The amazing thing is that even with dementia, my mother's Japanese handwriting is incredibly beautiful. She is always careful to not waste anything, always humble and to this day is always grateful. 

Will Lala Hit or Miss Us?

I am writing this post on Saturday, several hours before Hurricane Lala is expected to pass south of our island of Oahu. It's grazing some parts of the Big Island right now.

I'd asked my classmate/good friend on the Big Island how they were doing and she said it was OK in Hilo. In fact, her neighbor had shared a photo with her with the funny caption "Only in Hawaii."

And then my cousin on Kauai sent me the same photo! Apparently she found it on Facebook.

Whatever the case, with all the dire warnings several days ago with threats that it could be another Hurricane Iniki which happened in 1992, Art and I decided to siiiighh... go ahead and put up the hurricane shields on Friday afternoon. 

After 2.5 hours, we were exhausted and we still weren't done with everything.

But we gave up, saying it probably won't be thaaat bad anyway. 

But in the afternoon, the governor and mayors on all the islands warned on TV that this was promising to be bad and emergency crews would be on stand-by.

It rained all of Friday night and the hurricane wasn't even all that close to us yet.

Then on Saturday morning, we saw this and more warnings.

Arrrrghhhh...

So we went out and put up the rest of the hurricane shields.

I texted my cousin, Lorna, "I'm exhausted putting up hurricane shields. We figure if we prepare, Lala will fizzle out."

She texted back, "If it fizzles, it will be all due to your efforts! Thank you." 😂

I've got all my fingers and toes crossed that Lala will blow away from us, and then I'm going to ask my brother to come and help us take all this hurricane stuff down. 

POSTSCRIPT: (Written on Sunday night)

Well it's been pretty darn awful! On Saturday night around 7:30 PM the power suddenly went out! And the winds began to blow and rain started to pummel the windows. The branches of the tree next to our sidewalk broke off and fell on the neighbor's fence. I could feel the wind buffeting the house and I worried the shingles on the roof would blow off.

Art? Slept like a baby even though our bedroom is next to the mountainside where the wind hits hardest. 

I moved to my office and fell asleep around 10:00. And then was rudely awakened at 10:30 when the lights suddenly came back on.

The next morning I was happy we had power. But at 6:00 AM or so the power went OUT AGAIN! 

Our compact power generator for our refrigerator started to lose power around 3:30 PM so Art brought it to my brother's house a distance away to charge it again for our fridge. Dennis (who never lost power) loaned us a power bank for our phones. 

And then suddenly... the power was back around 4:30 PM! What a surprise! 

It's been quite a few eventful days. 

Uh oh... my poor cousin just texted that he still doesn't have power at his house. If it doesn't come back by tomorrow morning, I've told him to bring it over to our house.

And I'm hoping we will still have power....😬

Mite Bite or What?

When I was watering our lemon tree a few weeks ago, I was stunned to see all the flowers and young leaves covered with little bugs.

I just stared at them for several days hoping they would magically disappear.

I also noticed that every time I watered under the lemon tree I ended up with bites on some part of me.

Then one evening Art did some watering and came in with bites also. He found a teeny tiny black bug on him and looked online to figure out what it was. It said the bug was a mite.

Well...

I went onto ChatGPT and uploaded one of these photos and this is what it said:

From your photo, these are black citrus aphids (likely Toxoptera aurantii), which are common pests on lemon, lime, and other citrus trees.

You can tell because:

• They are small, soft-bodied, black insects clustered tightly on the flower buds and new growth.
• Many have the characteristic pair of short "tailpipes" (cornicles) sticking out from the back of their abdomen.
• They gather on tender shoots where they suck plant sap.

Your Meyer lemon is flowering, and aphids are especially attracted to this fresh growth.

What they do

• Curl and distort new leaves and flower buds.
• Weaken young shoots by sucking sap.
• Produce a sticky substance called honeydew, which can lead to black sooty mold.
• Attract ants, which protect the aphids from their natural predators.

How to get rid of them

1. Blast them off with water.
   • Use a strong stream from a hose in the morning.
   • Pay special attention to flower buds and the undersides of leaves.
   • Repeat every few days.
2. Spray with insecticidal soap if the infestation is heavy.
   • Thoroughly wet the aphids.
   • Spray in the early morning or evening, not during the heat of the day.
   • Avoid spraying open flowers as much as possible to protect bees.
3. Neem oil can also work, but avoid spraying open blossoms when pollinators are active.
4. Control ants.
   • If you see ants climbing the tree, they are often protecting the aphids.
   • Reducing ants helps ladybugs and lacewings naturally control the aphids.

Should you worry?

Your infestation looks fairly heavy, especially around the flower clusters. I'd treat it soon to prevent damage to the new growth and reduce flower loss. Fortunately, aphids are usually one of the easier citrus pests to control if you start early.

If you'd like, I can also explain how to get rid of them without harming the bees that are pollinating your Meyer lemon.

What are the tinier brown bugs?

Looking closely at your photo, I think there are actually two different stages of the same infestation rather than two different kinds of pests.

The tiny brown bugs are most likely:

• Immature aphids (nymphs) that are brown to reddish-brown before becoming darker, or
• Aphid shed skins (empty, papery exoskeletons) left behind after the aphids molt.

The larger black aphids are the adults. Aphids molt several times as they grow, leaving behind many pale tan or brown "ghost" skins that often stick to flowers and stems.

One way to tell:

• Live brown nymphs will have legs and antennae and will move if disturbed.
• Shed skins are dry, hollow, and remain attached where the aphid molted.

I don't think they're ants or another insect because they're mixed directly into the aphid colonies on the flower buds, which is typical of a thriving aphid infestation.

If you can take an even closer photo (using your phone's macro mode or by zooming in on one of the brown bugs), I can tell you with much greater confidence whether they're living nymphs or just shed skins.

So OK. I blasted it with a strong spray of water and it did remove a lot of them.

Not all, but most of them.

But then I looked further to see if aphids bite humans and it said they don't.

Hmmm....

So what the heck is biting me and where did Art get his mite bites? And is that what is biting me too?  

Arrrghhh!!! 😫