Piggybacking for Attention

We've had a rather busy day returning that defective folding table to Targets, dropping off some lettuce at my brother and sister-in-law's place, dropping off fruits for my nephew and his wife who are both ill (no, it's not swine flu), grocery shopping for food and visiting my aunt in Honolulu.

On the ride home, my mother chuckled and told us she was amazed at my aunt's memory. I asked her what it was Auntie remembered and she explained.


"My sister was thanking me again for carrying her to lunch."

"What?" I was surprised because my aunt is only a year younger than my mom. "Why were you carrying Auntie and how could you?"

"I carried her on my back," she explained. "We liked walking to my parents' friend's house for lunch. They had no children, you see, whereas your grandmother was having a child almost every year. My mother had the many duties of the wife of a Zen priest and teaching Ikebana (flower arranging) classes as well. Being the eldest children, your auntie and I often did not get much attention. Therefore, we enjoyed going to this friends' house. Whenever, we went there they would fuss over us saying how adorable and cute we were. They would then sit us on their knees and we would all eat together. We loved basking in all that attention."

"So why did you have to carry Auntie on your back?" I was really wanting to get to the bottom of this story.

"Oh...," recalled mom. "One day, it was blistering hot and we desperately wanted to go for our special lunch. Unfortunately, my sister could not find her shoes anywhere. I loaned her mine and I went barefeet. However, I quickly discovered that my feet were painfully suffering from the heat, too. What could I do? I took back the shoes and carried my sister on my back to have our lunch. You do understand that Auntie used to be chubbier than me in those days so it wasn't exactly easy." She chuckled again at the memory. "I guess we enjoyed that attention and praise so much that we were willing to struggle a bit to have it."

It's funny but I've never thought of my mother as needing attention because I've always pictured her as the eldest child... responsible, stoic, independent and energetic. I enjoyed this nostalgic glimpse of my mother as a little girl and understand a bit more why she and her sisters are so close.

Grouting Through the Day

The alarm startled me awake at 5:30 this morning. It was the day to apply the epoxy grout to our front stoop. We've worked with epoxy grout before and knew how quickly it hardens in the Hawaiian heat. Art has been checking the weather reports and said this morning would have the coolest temperatures for what we were attempting. We chose to use the epoxy grout because it's supposed to be tough; stain, dirt and mold resistant.

We hurriedly dressed and Art very carefully measured part A and part B. We didn't have an electric paddle mixer so Art created a paddle with a paint stick that he attached to his drill. Then he added part C (the color) and the race was on.


I applied the grout and Art forced the soft texture into the spaces between the tiles. Seeing the sun slowly rise made our task urgent because we remembered how the grout hardened too quickly for us when we did the kitchen. The instructions said we'd have 45 minutes. You'd THINK that was a lot of time but it really isn't! We barely had enough grout towards the end.


Then came the cleaning part. We were supposed to remove the residue immediately, before the grout hardened on the tile and left streaks. This was a different brand of epoxy from the last time and we were surprised that it did NOT harden as quickly. Maybe it was the temperature but the grout was still soft... too soft.

We were actually able to go in, have breakfast and come out to do the initial cleaning on the somewhat hardened grout.


Before we did the final cleaning with a bit of soapy water, we had time to go to Target to buy a folding table which we discovered when we got home had a manufacturer's defect preventing it from unfolding! Doggone it! Now we'll have to go back to Target to return it tomorrow which will probably eat up in gas what we saved on the sale price.

I'm reposting this photo from the other day because my Anonymous Commenter asked for a Before Photo.

Ah well.....it's done! We finished just before dinner. Yae!!! Art says people probably won't even notice that we did all this work.

That's OK. We do.

Will This Stop Tropical Bugs from Killing My Plants?

I've been trying to figure out how to get rid of the black fungus on my Ixora. The flowers keep falling off because of all the ants, aphids and fungus that's sucking the life out of it. I planted this bush because I thought it was supposed to be indestructible.

A couple of days ago, the Honolulu Advertiser had an article about Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. The advice was to mix the soap (1 part soap to 5 parts water) with water and spray your plants with it, both top and bottom of the leaves. UPDATE WARNING! (7-04-09) The 1 to 5 ratio was wrong. It killed my ginger flower and has nearly killed my Ixora.


You know....
It did kill the ants on our ginger plant. Sorry about the blurry photo.

We'll see how the suffering Ixora does in the coming days.

I've been reading up some more on the web about Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap and the Southern Nevada Water Authority says 2 Tbsp. Dr. Bronner's (Peppermint!) soap to 1 gallon of water. Wow! I've probably made my solution too strong. I hope it doesn't kill the plant. Well, if this is correct, it's certainly more economical.

Discovery Center, Kakaako Keiki (Children) Swap Meet

I happened to be looking on line and saw that there was going to be another Keiki Swap Meet in Kakaako. Since KC will be here in less than a month, I wanted to make sure we had enough things to keep her busy. Grandpa Art who can never say no to anything for his granddaughter... or his daughter, was happy to take me. Tif said KC was into push toys so we found a shopping basket right away. It scans the groceries and teaches counting skills.

I wasn't really planning to buy a WHOLE lot but for $18.00 we had quite a haul.

I think my favorite buy was the Bristle Blocks which my kids loved when they were little. They also go by the name Krinkles. The father who was helping his son sell his toys said he used to play with them and spent $40.00 to buy this set on line because he couldn't find it at the local stores. However, once his son got them he said he preferred Legos. I do know that the kids in my classroom used to love them so we said we'd buy it for the $10.00 asking price. Funny thing was, he changed his mind as we were chatting and said he'd sell it to us for $8.00. I wonder what his son was thinking. I love the idea of the Keiki Swap Meet because the kids are actually supposed to be doing the selling.

The only thing is.... I could never haggle with a child. Besides, the toys are so inexpensive, I'm more than happy to pay the price.

The first thing I did was to wash everything thoroughly and they cleaned up beautifully. They look brand new. The scanner (after we changed the batteries) works perfectly.

OK! We're ready for KC now. Actually, I'm looking forward to seeing my son, Jon play with the Bristle Blocks. I wonder if he remembers them.

It Started With Little Termites

It started with the termite inspector finding termites in our front screen door. He advised us to get rid of the door which we quickly did and decided to get a steel door so the termites would think twice before trying to take another bite out of the same place. However, when Art installed the door we found that the stoop did not go out far enough so there was a gaping hole at the bottom. Hmmmm... another invitation for termites to enter the house?

Off to Home Depot to buy some concrete blocks to extend the stoop and align it to the bottom of the door. That's when I got a great idea. How about we put tile down to make the entrance prettier?


OK, I admit Art wasn't too keen to start another project but he's so creative and brilliant and amazing with these home projects that I knew he would come around to seeing the rightness of this idea.


We had to go hunting for the right tile which we found at Lowes this time. There was a ton of measuring, choosing the grout and buying more thin set to glue down the tile.


Ummm... OK maybe it wasn't a quick and easy project like I thought it would be. I would have helped more if my foot wasn't in a cast at the time.


And now there's only the grouting left to do and I will help...

Garden Shots

Remember this papaya tree that I threatened to chop down because it refused to bear any fruits?

Well, by golly! We might actually be getting a fruit to eat sometime this year. See that other papaya tree cowering in the back? I'm watching! If that one doesn't do something soon, I may have to swing my hatchet a few times around it to send it a little message.


Here's our "herb" garden that my brother designed and planted. We've got sage, mint, basil and even a couple of pineapple plants.
Art's cousin gave us some pineapples to eat so we ate the fruit and stuck the crown into the ground. I wonder how this will taste.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

The Stop Sign Tree and My New Shoes

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago near my aunt's house of a Koa tree growing right up the Stop Sign. The City and County of Honolulu could pull the tree out at the base but instead they've let the tree grow and come back to trim it every so often. It's rather surprising to see a tree growing up the sign support and over the sign itself whenever we get to this stop. It's even funnier when the branches get bigger.


I wanted to share my new shoes and sandals that Art bought me. The Easy Spirit is nice to wear in the house and provides a good amount of support. I bought a pair like this for my mom before our trip to Japan and Canada and she loved it.

I'd seen several of my friends wearing the Clarks sandals when they had foot problems so I knew just what style to buy. As I was holding the sandals at the shoe department someone came over to me and said, "They're really comfortable and great for traveling. See mine? I wear it all the time. My husband tells me I should buy another one. Buy it!"

So I did and she was right.


P.S. Neither one of the loveseats we saw turned out to be what we wanted. One was actually too big and the other was too worn out. I guess I'm really hooked on Craigslist because it's like a gambling addiction. Sometimes you win and many times, you can lose.

Foot Update

I went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday and he says the X-rays are showing my bones starting to knit. It's not healed completely yet but I can carefully start walking without the bootcast. For the next two weeks especially, he wants me to be careful to put the bootcast back on if there's any pain. I asked about line dancing and he was not for it. However, I asked if I could do it with the cast on and he said the foot would be protected in that case. So we'll see...

Art bought me a pair of shoes to wear indoors and a new pair of supportive sandals for when I go out.

Meanwhile... I'm on another Craigslist hunt for a loveseat. We'll have to go to opposite ends of the island to see the two I've found.

My Granddaughter

My granddaughter is 2 and a half years old. She's the one in pink next to her very good friend. I was in the hospital room when she was born. I'm looking at these photos that my daughter posts on Flickr for us and I can hardly believe how much she's grown in just the 5 months since we've seen her last. We'll be seeing her next month in person and I can hardly wait. My problem is I want to buy up tons of toys for her. Don't worry, I'm not. However, I will make sure there is a water bucket and lots of cups for her. She loves playing with water. I wonder if she'll still be afraid of sand like she was last year. She wouldn't leave the blanket when we took her to the beach last summer. I have a feeling she won't be so easy to contain this year.

Charity Freebees?

I'm cleaning up a lot of the unopened mail that Art has been accumulating now that I'm organizing his office/desk for him. He's busy right now with a tiling project for our home renovation and the pile of papers he's set aside has become a bit daunting for him.
In his mountain of mail were quite a number of charity requests. One was from the Easter Seals. Ummmm... this is what was in the envelope: stationary pad, stickers, Easter Seal stamp stickers, letters, some kind of certificate... Puhleeease. This is even more reason why I wouldn't donate to them. There's obviously too much operating and advertising costs. I'm going to assume just from this envelope that a whole lot of my contribution may not be going where you'd want it to. You know that a LOT of people will just throw this away. The waste. I'm keeping the stickers and stamps for KC to play with next month. I don't think I've ever received mail from anybody with an Easter Seal sticker stamp on it. Why do they do this?

Supporting our Iranian Brothers and Sisters

We've been watching the news on TV about the Iranian revolt against the recent election. I'm so frightened for the Iranian people. I think they're incredibly brave to go against the Ayatollah, the establishment and President Ahmadinejad when they could be hurt and killed at anytime.

Some critics are complaining that President Obama has not come out strongly enough against the Iranian government about the crackdown of the revolt. They forget that our president has to be very careful here. He really can't threaten a whole lot because I can't see us going in as election judges with our armed forces. We don't have enough resources for that right now. We're strained as it is in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There are many middle east leaders who hate America and are looking to blame us for what is happening. If President Obama were to come out too strongly, the U.S. would be accused of meddling into their affairs. They could try to deflect their hatred onto us instead of dealing with the crisis in their own country which is due to their own making.

I think President Obama's careful and measured approach to this is smart. He's letting the world know that the U.S. is against the government's brutality but he's not threatening anything. I just hope Iran's leaders will redo the election and not turn into a dictatorship because that's what it's looking like now.

We really must be grateful that we were able to have a change of government without violence and bloodshed. It's not perfect but at least we're working toward it.

Craigslist Buy in Hawaii Kai: Happy Father's Day

I've been staring at Art's office and I wince every time I see his hoosier (antique kitchen cabinet) that he uses for a desk. He has papers filed on every horizontal surface. So for Father's Day I decided to get him an oak file cabinet on Craigslist that could maybe help him organize his Very Important Papers.

This time we didn't have to go out to Kailua. Instead, we headed toward Hawaii Kai where you can see lots of big estates. Karen was selling her file cabinet because she's moving to Arizona. She says her home sold in 3 days! That's incredible!


I'm so busy chatting that I didn't look close enough to see the big stain on one side. I knew there were the 4 holes but I figured we could deal with it. The stain is problematic. Still... for $30.00, I'm OK with it.


We were going to put the file cabinet on the right side but decided to stick it on the left to hide the imperfections. The cabinet can hold legal or letter size folders. I'm thinking it's pretty darn wonderful.


Happy Father's Day, Art!

And a fantastic and fun Father's Day to all the fabulous fathers out there!

Going with a "Green" Car

We've known for a year that we needed a smaller car because we always feel like we're guzzling gas with our van when it's just the two of us going places. We do need to still keep our van for our house construction but for everyday... what to buy? We tossed it back and forth like we usually do and decided to go with a Honda Fit. It's such a cute little car. I thought it was great!

Then our son reminded us that we needed to be conscious of our environment and think about getting a hybrid. We test drove a 2010 Toyota Prius today.

Our salesperson, Rocky who coincidentally lives rather close to us took us to a hill to see how the engine would charge the batteries when we were going down and in effect be getting a 100 miles a gallon... or was it a thousand? I don't remember.


There was a white Prius in the showroom which for some reason costs more than the silver. We decided against getting white because everybody in Hawaii seems to get white to reflect the strong sunlight. However, I'd never be able to find it in a parking lot with all the small white cars around. That's why I loved my lavender Camry. I could always spot it and nobody...NOBODY wanted to steal it. :-) We gave that car to our macho firefighter son who is NOT enamored of the color.



So there you have it! We've done our part for the environment and the economy although it's cost us a lot of green by going green.

Hawaiian Pot Luck

Sunday was a delightful epicurean day for us. We went from the very elegant table with beautifully prepared dishes for lunch at Gigi's to a Hawaiian pot luck for dinner. Our friends Dave and Diane invited us to a family pot luck. It was so much fun seeing all of their relatives who now feel like family to us. Everybody brought their favorite dishes and we gorged ourselves on one delicious morsel after another.


On the mainland, we often used to set a table and worked our tails off to have an appetizer, main course, salad, cooked veggie and dessert. I was always a bit stressed except with close friends who didn't care what I did. Here in Hawaii you can have a bunch of people over and not stress. You just have to make sure there's a LOT of food. It doesn't matter what, just a LOT of it.



Hmmmm... I guess that's why a lot of people here in Hawaii have two refrigerators.

Craigslist Buy in Kailua

There's this weird thing about the Windward side of the island. Whenever you go there you feel like you're going to the other side of the rainbow into another dimension. The Windward side is the wetter more lush side of the island. I live on the Leeward side about 20 miles away. It's dryer and hotter. Sigh... However, all my friends and relatives live on the Leeward side. It's rather a strange thing about Oahu.


You go through this long tunnel that's cut into the mountain and when you come out, it's like you're in another world.


I think it's the prettier side of the island. I hope nobody on the Leeward side gets mad at me for saying this.


I was actually taking a quick look on Craigslist this morning to see if they had some taller nightstands. Instead, a 6 feet x 4 feet magnetic whiteboard caught my eye. They were asking only $45.00 but it was in Kailua... the other side of the world. Art, always kind to limping people said he would take me to look at it.


When I saw the white board, I was disappointed. It was bent and dirty even though they advertised it as hardly used. However, they were right that magnetic whiteboards are expensive. I'd looked for one a long time ago and large boards cost several hundred dollars. Art looked at it and said I should give it a try.



I must say, I'm really pleased. It cleaned up beautifully after Art straightened it and it filled up the huge blank wall. I can now play with it all I like adding my magnet collection from our travels and moving around our family photos. It's been a happy Monday!

Luncheon at Gigi's Place (Gigi-Hawaii)

I've always been a little nervous about meeting a blogger friend in person because anonymity is sometimes a shield you can hide behind as you reveal every little intimate detail about yourself (sort of) on-line. However, I was looking forward to meeting Gigi of Gigi-Hawaii and her wonderful David. I feel like I'd gotten to know her pretty well online. Well, it was great from the first hug.



We were totally blown away by the elegant table Gigi had set. She really is a master chef. Everything was stupendous! She also presented me with her three published books which now has a very special place on my shelf. I can't wait to start reading them.


Gigi made a fabulous salad, chown mein with char siu and cilantro, scrumptious baked salmon, olives and mango sorbet. We talked about anything and everything and the hours sped by quickly. What fun! OK... I'm ready to go have lunch at any other blogger's house now. Let's see, shall we try, Australia or Ireland or India? Hmmm...

My Computer Got Infected! But We're Not Contagious!

Holey Moley! How many different ways can I get infected or mal-infected or bug infected or whatever.

My poor brother!

First, he had to come over to help us with our termite door and drippy faucet and then last night I got malwared! I've never even heard of malware.

All of a sudden a window on my computer came out and said it was my security system and started to scan my files telling me I was loaded with worms, Trojans and whatnots. It asked if I wanted to remove them. I clicked OK. (Seemed like a good thing to do.) Then it asked what credit card I wanted to use and gave me a Master Card or Visa option to click. Uh oh... my techie son-in-law, Ed had told me before not to open unknown files or click on strange things. I know, I know... OK, I was suspicious then and tried to close it but it wouldn't let me. Eventually all my programs refused to work. I had hot sweats and cold chills go up and down my back.

I called Dennis this morning and he said, "Arrrghhh! No, don't click on stuff like that." He said it was an evil Malware that popped up disguised as a security system and the more I clicked on it, the more it infected my computer. It was a good thing I didn't give my credit card number to remove the problem it had created. That would have potentially caused even more problems.

Dennis managed to somehow isolate whatever it was for now and added another Malware Prevention thing and has admonished me to religiously scan using the Ad-Aware, Malware, Virus check and Updates, etc.

Sheesh!

But.... I'm up and running again... for now.

And to those creepy, nasty, horrible, no good, very bad guys who are making these infections, there is a special hot place just waiting for you...

The Legend of the Naupaka, Termite Wars continued and Leaks

It's Kamehameha Day today which is a state holiday. I'm sure we're missing a parade somewhere in Hawaii. King Kamehameha was the Hawaiian king who united the Hawaiian islands under one rule.

Our first order of business was to go to Aloha Termite in Wahiawa to pick up the door we left to be fumigated. The first thing we noticed was this beautiful naupaka. I love the story of the mountain and ocean naupaka. Click on the word and read the legend of Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes, and why the naupaka appears to be half of a flower.


Back to the termites. We brought our 2 doors in to be fumigated a couple of days ago. They were placed in this shed to have the termites massacred.


The doors are carefully locked because the poison is lethal. We heard of cases where a home was being tented and burglars went into the tenting area to steal while the owners were gone. The bodies were discovered the next morning.


Art was a little leery of walking into the shed to collect our doors. This helper struck terror in our hearts by informing us that the warm summer months are the times that termites swarm, find mates and look for wood to eat. Arrrghhhh!


We brought the doors home where my brother, Dennis met us. He works for the police department and got the day off because of the Kamehameha Day holiday. (They also have Prince Kuhio Day and Statehood Day off.) Oh well, they don't get Casimir Pulaski Day like we did in Illinois.

Dennis helped us to pound termite poop out of the door and patch the rather larger holes than we expected. Then... since we had his help available, my favorite brother helped us fix our leaky plumbing in our bathroom. Doggone it! We've had such bad luck with Moen and then the plumber we had during our construction said to get Delta. We got Delta and BOTH of the faucets in the tubs are leaking! Now somebody said we should get Kohler and even better, Groehe. Ah well... the leak is fixed for now.


Tomorrow, we'll have the front door stoop to work on...

When Did I Stop?

My childhood friend, Joanne called and asked me last night if I would sing a song at her mother's funeral. After I got off the floor, I sputtered, "Whaaat?"

"I noticed you still had your guitar in your office. (I guess she didn't notice the dust.) I can still hear your voice in my head when you sang with Diane," she coaxed. Diane is another childhood friend. "Can you learn a song in a week?"

OK.... now she was scaring me.

The only song I've sung lately is "Eensy Weensy Spider" to KC.

But it got me thinking.

There was a time when music was so important to all of us. We copied lyrics and practiced our guitars all the time. We SANG all the time.

"You and Diane even sang at a wedding," Joanne tried to jog my memory.


Diane and Joanne were both my college roommates at different times. Another roommate, Gail even got a few of us together to form a little singing group at one time and we performed on a campus radio station. OK... it was probably around midnight but hey, we were on the air for 5 minutes. You have to understand that Gail now teaches music and can make anybody who's got vocal chords sing.

So what happened?

Somewhere in time, I learned that I can't really sing well... so I stopped. I used to love to paint but somewhere along the line, I realized that I couldn't really paint as well as I wanted to... so I stopped. I wrote poetry, too... but I stopped.

And I'm thinking now. So what? Maybe I should just go ahead and try doing those things again. What have I been teaching all my students all these years and not done myself?

I think I'll just go ahead and dust off that ol' guitar. I'm going to sing some of those oldies but goodies to KC when she comes next month.

P.S. That's me on the far right with the dopey look.

The Termite Wars

One of the first signs of termites in the house are the termite poop. Just seeing them sends a chill up your spine. Whenever I hear my mother's scream, "Kay, Art, come look!" I hold my breath.

This time she found the poop at our back door. Sorry the photo is blurry. My macro is not the best.

We found poop by this door last year and Art took it down and shot termite poison into it. However, because the door was so heavy, we didn't take it down to patch it. We were going to but got caught up with other things.


We called our favorite termite inspector and consultant, Alvin of State Termite (486-7378) and he came to give us his assessment of our situation. He said we didn't need to tent the house if we keep on top of things. He also said that a new door would probably cost us $700.00+ to have installed. Instead of doing that, he suggested we take the door to Aloha Termite who could gas just the door for perhaps $75.00. Then we could patch and paint the door and put it back up.


My brother came over yesterday since it's difficult for me, and helped Art remove the door. They then screwed on a plywood sheet to prevent burglars and mosquitoes from entering the house.


Then Dennis and Art loaded the door into the car for us to bring to Aloha Termite to have fumigated. I'm thinking we should also bring our other folding door that we also found termites in last month.


On the way out the front door, Alvin also found termite poop on the old front screen door. So Art removed it and bought a metal screen door to install. He's struggling right now to make that metal door fit onto the old frame style of this house. There's a 4" gap at the bottom of the door which means we'll need to come up with some kind of step or threshold.

If we're putting a step in, we need to see if there's something else we'd prefer doing to the stoop. And then, if we're going to do that, what about the door by the kitchen. How soon before the termites attack there while we're distracted?

Alvin says I need to walk around the house and patch any needle head sized holes I see to prevent termites from entering to make a home. He says I can stop them with one foot (stomp on them). Ha! Ha!

I told Art we'd better go buy a crate of caulking because we have holes and spaces everywhere.

Other than this, our electrician, Mariano is stopping by this morning to fix our suicidal electrical outlet in the kitchen.

Home maintenance is so much fun! (How do I show sarcasm dripping from those words?)