Mother In Law's Tongue and More...

We were watering Art's friend's plants when they were on a trip and I saw their Mother In Law's Tongue. I was surprised to see flowers! I've had Mother In Law's Tongues in pots while living on the mainland for many years and never saw flowers. I didn't even know they had flowers. Did you?

Isn't it pretty?

I got this from Wikipedia:

Sansevieria trifasciata, also called viper's bowstring hemp, snake plant, mother-in-law's tongue or Saint George's sword (in Brazil) is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to tropical West Africa from Nigeria east to the Congo.

I've always liked the plant because it could survive my brown thumb. Now that I know it has flowers, maybe I should plant some here in Hawaii.

I then noticed other flowers they had. They obviously do not have the same color thumb as I do.

 I often see the ubiquitous purple bougainvilleas all over the place, but I don't see the white ones much.

I see these in pink usually and told Art they were shrimp plants. We used the LikeThat Garden app on my cellphone that identified it as a Lollipop plant.

Art gloated that I'd gotten it wrong, but on line it said it could also be called the golden shrimp plant.

So there!

Bacitracin vs. Vaseline

I recently got a bad scratch on my leg which turned an angry red color. I know it sounds dumb, but I was pulling up my pants and the zipper caught on my leg.

I tend to keloid and scar very easily. The tiniest cut gets me a nasty looking scar. I decided to try my mother's cure of applying the juice from the aloe plant. Then I tried Bacitracin.

Art insisted that I stop that and use petroleum jelly. When he had a mole removed from his chest the dermatologist told him not to use Bacitracin or Neosporin, but to apply Vaseline. They said to keep the wound moist with the Vaseline for a few days to give the skin time to heal without scabbing over.

I took his advice just to see if it would work because his chest wound really did heal beautifully.

My leg did also heal very nicely.

I did a bit of research on it and it appears the reason for choosing petroleum jelly over Neosporin is because some people might be allergic to the antibiotic cream.

This study by the Massachusetts Medical Society says that there isn't much difference between the two if you discount an allergic reaction. Petroleum jelly would be the cheaper alternative for wound treatment. However, they did also say that further studies should be considered.

What do you do?

Wishing you all a peaceful Memorial Day made possible and protected by the sacrifices of our courageous armed forces.

Putting a Stop to It

For some strange reason, Art just didn't want to put a doorstop on the doors.

Instead, he preferred using a block of wood so that the door knob wouldn't bang against the wall and an antique iron to keep the door from slamming shut.

He didn't want a door stop to stick out from the walls or look clunky or be too big or too ugly. He had a million excuses.

I finally insisted on buying a doorstop I selected for my office. I told him he didn't have to put one anywhere else, but I wanted it for my office.

He installed it just to keep me quiet.

It's a strong magnetic type so the wind shouldn't be able to slam the door shut.

After seeing the doorstop in my office, Art was quite pleased with the look so we went back to Home Depot and bought four more for the other doors.

Now what do we do with all the antique irons?

POSTSCRIPT:
I posted the above photo to show you the magnet. I did give it an extra turn so you wouldn't see it and could have a cleaner look.

Fun at Marukai

Mom likes going to Marukai (Japanese grocery store) to pick up vitamins and other Japanese type products. It's a membership store, but I know we have found items cheaper at Don Quijote (grocery store).

There was some Spin-the-Wheel sort of promotion going on along with a sale on sake (rice wine) so Mom wanted to go.

Notice the TWO bottles of sake. That's TWO gallons of sake. It happens to be Mom's hidden flavor in most of her dishes.

Did you wonder why she's smiling in most of her photos?

This is what she got for her Medium prize at the Spin-the-Wheel game. Ummmm.... We have no idea what it is, but it's going in the donation box.

We bought some plate lunches at Marukai to bring home. They weren't very good at all.

Hmmm... maybe they didn't add enough sake?

Proven Wrong

For several years now, Art has battled what he thought was LPR or laryngopharyngeal reflux. It's also called silent reflux. I got this from WebMD.

"At either end of your esophagus is a ring of muscle (sphincter). Normally, these sphincters keep the contents of your stomach where they belong -- in your stomach. But with LPR, the sphincters don't work right. Stomach acid backs up into the back of your throat (pharynx) or voice box (larynx), or even into the back of your nasal airway. It can cause inflammation in areas that are not protected against gastric acid exposure."

He was advised to avoid caffeine and alcohol, sleep with a wedge, not recline for four hours after he eats, etc. Medications like Nexium, Zantac and Prilosec didn't help much.

He was finally sent to a gastroenterologist who put a scope with a camera down his throat and took photos of his esophagus.

What a surprise to learn that his esophagus looked quite healthy! There didn't appear to be any acid damage from stomach acid backing up.

He also had a teeny pH probe attached to the inside of his esophagus and had to wear this pH monitor for a couple of days to see what was happening.

The monitor did not record any acid backing up.

However, Art has been experiencing occasional irritation in his throat and on trips when we ate late, was bothered by congestion and a sore throat in the morning.

His sister has GERD. His mother had GERD and died of throat cancer which is often a hazard of GERD.

So what does he have? The gastro doctor doesn't know. So the good news is that he doesn't have LPR or GERD. The bad news is we don't know what is causing the symptoms.

Well... at least he can drink coffee again without worrying.  No alcohol though since he does have Asian Flush, but that would be another blog post.

Another Anti-Ant Attempt

We were jubilant that we found the solution to keeping the ants off of the Satsuma tangerine tree with Tree Tanglefoot at its base.

Unfortunately.... arrrghhh... They decided to come into our house instead since we'd blocked their way to the tree.

Not just a few ants! Zillions, absolutely zillions of them started a trail into the house. Any food dropped or left exposed got ants.... lots of ants!

Arrrrghhhhh!

We thought we had everything sealed and then found a trail one morning that led right to this sugar jar. (We put it in a plastic bag and stuck it in the freezer.)

We tried a variety of ant baits, but nothing worked.

We finally came across this liquid ant bait. And WOW! It worked! Suddenly the house was filled with dead ants.

When I mentioned it to several friends, it turned out that they all knew about it. I guess I should have asked them first instead of trial and error.

Yay!

I know this is only one more battle. We'll never truly win the war. Nature will provide us with more skirmishes. However, next time I'll ask for advice first.

POSTSCRIPT:  Uh oh! I just read that this is intended only for OUTDOOR use. Oops! Oh well... They sell an indoor one also.

A Very Handy Nephew

My nephew, Cody has been working on his cars at our house the last few years. In that time he's become a very accomplished mechanic although he doesn't want to pursue it as an occupation since he says you're constantly grimy with dirt and oil.

Cody has always said that if we need any help with our car or van, he would be happy to lend a hand.

A few months ago, we had to take our van into the service station to change all the brake fluid lines which were leaking. It was quite costly. The original repair wasn't expensive, but the other things they found which also needed repair were.

Now we were hearing strange and loud noises coming from the same tires.

Art was leery of taking it back to the service station so we asked Cody if he could have a look whenever he had the time.

He came over right away.

He wasn't familiar with the Honda Odyssey so he had to look online to figure out how to remove the tire thingamajig.

Well, the problem wasn't on the driver side.

The passenger side took quite a bit of doing to remove because there was more rust, but Cody found the problem. The pin holding the brake whatchamacallit together had rusted off.

He drove off to the car parts store. Luckily Cody knew where to find what we needed and brought it home. He replaced the broken pin which took some doing.

Our minivan is about 17 years old so things are going to happen. Thank goodness we have Cody around to help us. And the best part? He didn't find anything else wrong that had to be fixed!

Book of Mormons

We went to see the hit musical, Book of Mormons a while ago with friends and we really enjoyed the experience. We hadn't been to a huge musical production in quite a while and this was a treat.
 

I had no idea what it was actually going to be about although I could figure out that it must have something to do with the Mormon religion.

The story is about two young men who go to Uganda to preach their faith and the challenges they encounter there.

Just knowing that this religious satire was written by the same people who did South Park should prepare you for the irreverent humor that is rather over the top.

If you are easily offended, this is not the musical for you.

None of the music was familiar to me though it was well acted and professionally sung.

Still... I wondered how the Mormons felt about this hit musical.

As we were leaving Blaisdell Theater we were met by dozens of Mormon missionaries handing out the real Book of Mormons.

As I said, we enjoyed seeing the musical and are very glad we went.

As for the Mormons, they were all smiling as we passed them outside the theater.

A New Faucet!

Our kitchen faucet has been pretty leaky for quite a while. Art fixed it a  couple of times before with rubber washer things but eventually, it began dripping again. There was a sweet spot that you had to hit in order to make it stop leaking. Unfortunately, there are times Mom is in a rush and hasn't managed to hit that spot.

Moving the sprayer from side to side was also a bit scary for me. It felt like I could break it.

Then we met Craig during one of our trips who happened to be a retired plumber. He lives quite close to us and offered to help install a new faucet.

Craig suggested getting a Hans Grohe which is a little pricey, but is sturdily built and all metal.

And there is a lifetime warranty.

Craig came over and gave Art some plumbing lessons while installing our new faucet.

It took a bit for Mom and me to get used to the new faucet.

It does move across sinks very easily and best of all, it doesn't leak.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this faucet will last forever...

Well... There is the lifetime warranty. Yay!

Little Boys at Heart

Art and his buddy, Morris have been fascinated by the elevated rail construction on Oahu. It has been pretty much a financial disaster, mired in all kinds of (political?) mismanagement. As it stands now, the rail construction will not be as helpful as hoped since it's run out of money and cannot go the distance it planned.

Whatever the case, Art and Morris talked about going out just to see the progress that was being made at night.

Art wasn't sure Morris was serious until one night he called Art and said, "Let's go!"

I could not suppress the chuckle that leaked out of me.

"Do you want to come along?" Art asked.

"Is Jane going?" I asked. I wondered if Morris' wife was willing to go out on this madcap adventure.

"No," said Art, "But you can come, if you like."

Did I go?

No. I felt it was more like a Boys Night Out.

Art came home excited with an iPhone full of construction photos.

He told me they were NOT the only ones out there watching the construction crew. Apparently there were other fellows also out there watching the big cranes and trucks.

They may all be seniors on the outside, but they are still little boys on the inside.

You know what?

If they go again... I think I'll go too.

Potty Paradise

While traveling in Japan, we loved using the Toto bidet style toilet. You felt a whole lot cleaner when you got water shooting up your bum to give you a thorough clean. A shot of warm air then dries you a little. You end up using a lot less toilet paper.

While on another trip, a tour member encouraged us to get one too. They apparently had changed all their toilets to the Toto bidet. There was one problem. You need an electrical outlet by your toilet. We had an outlet outside the bathroom that could be routed to the toilet area through the closet.

Luckily Art's classmate friend, Morris is a retired electrician. He'd always told Art that he should get the Toto first and then Morris would install one also if we gave our seal of approval.

Art was going to do a quick job of it, but Morris insisted that if he was going to do this, he needed to do it right.

He showed Art what to do, then let him take over while Morris gave helpful instructions.

Once the guys were done, I was called in to do the finishing work. We bought a can of wall texture so the patch job would match the rest of the area.

It's rather hilarious since NO ONE is going to see this. It's all behind the laundry basket in the closet.

However, it's now quite pretty.

It's really fabulous to have experts for friends. Our plumber friend, Craig then offered to help us install the toilet. You can see where the electrical outlet had to be installed.

Art and I removed our ADA toilet and set it aside so everything would be ready for Craig.

It was great watching Craig. Like Morris, he gave Art a lot of wonderful time tested plumber suggestions.

We were so grateful to Craig because installing the Toto toilet is a little different from regular toilets.

And here it is! Woo hoo!

It sprays a fine mist before you use the toilet so nothing (ahem) sticks to the sides. It uses very little water and yet everything flushes beautifully. You can choose where you want to be sprayed and how warm you want to be blow dried.

Are we glad we got it? You bet! We use very little toilet paper now. Another great thing... Craig said he could use the toilet we replaced because they prefer the ADA (higher level) toilet with more efficient water use.

A FOND MEMORY:
In 2014 we visited our son in Dhaka, Bangladesh where he was working. This is what his bathroom there looked like.

In Bangladesh, they just used a small hose with a sprayer which worked fine too.

Art actually looked online to see if he might install something simpler and cheaper like this.

Nope. Couldn't do it. You could find it online, but there were so many problems with it that we gave up.

The Toto bidet will have to do and it does nicely, I must say.

Time Flies

We've known Kara since her family moved into our neighborhood in Chicago when she was about two years old and probably barely out of diapers. Living just one door down from each other, we all became close friends. Her parents are world class anthropologists and Kara's older brother was Keola's classmate.

We were delighted to hear last fall that Kara was getting married, but sad that we would not be back in Chicago for it this year.

Therefore you can imagine how thrilled we were to hear that Kara and her fiance, Ish would be coming to Hawaii to attend a cousin's wedding.

Their time in the islands would be short, but they were able to stay with us for a couple of days.

Their walking into the house laden with flowers and coffee gave Mom a huge smile! You know how she loves flowers. They won her over very easily.

Kara and Ish are both successful lawyers. Good grief! Little Kara is a lawyer! Can you believe it?

Their first day only gave us time to visit the Dole Pineapple Plantation and it was a little drizzly.

We spent a lot of time catching up on our lives and reliving memories. It was also a time for us to get to know Ish. We couldn't help loving him immediately as soon as we saw his sweet smile.

The following day we visited the Iolani Palace, but only had time to see the outside and watch a short video on Hawaiian history.

Since it's nearby, we also stopped at the State capitol and took photos next to the statues of Queen Liliuokalani (Hawaii's last Queen) and Father Damien.

Time was a little short, but I remembered that across the street was Ali'iolani Hale. It is the home of the Hawaii State Supreme Court. You can also see it as the fictitious headquarters for the TV series, Hawaii 5-0.

The statue of King Kamehameha I stands in front of it.

Ali'iolani also contains the King Kamehameha V Judiciary Center. How much more perfect can you get for a couple of lawyers?

Of course, I needed to set them up for a photo. Kara could very well become a judge some day. I did send this photo to her parents.

I wanted to take them to the Pali Lookout, but as we neared the area we saw storm clouds coming over the mountain. The Pali with it's strong winds is NOT a good place when it's raining. We changed course and went to the Tantalus Lookout. We were able to see the broad panorama of Honolulu and the Leeward side of the island clearly.

Then the clouds came. Did it follow us?

No problem. Kara treated us to lunch at our favorite Zippy's where we had saimin and somen.

And then it was time for Kara and Ish to get organized and leave for the airport. We couldn't believe how quickly time had flown.

Time truly has flown. It seems like only yesterday that Kara was being carried everywhere in her dad's arms. And now here she is... a successful lawyer and about to get married.

Sigh...

Mother's Day #2: Foster Garden Corpse Flower

Let's face it. We never celebrate Mother's Day or Father's Day on the correct day because we like to avoid crowds.  We usually celebrate the day before or after. Same with this Mother's Day.

Dennis and his family took Mom out for a special Mother's Day luncheon on Sunday. We decided to take her for an outing on Tuesday because we heard on the news that the corpse flower at Foster Gardens was blooming.

The first tree we saw was a giant Bo tree. We always called it the Bodhi tree. This tree is supposed to be a descendant of the tree that the Buddha was sitting under when he was enlightened.

The Quipo was huuuuuge! The soft wood (similar to Balsa) is used in Panama for rafts and canoes.

The Panama Flame tree had these odd flowers growing right out of the trunk.

Alongside the Quipo, the Mocora Palm caught my eye. The trunk would make it hard for anybody to climb.

The Sausage tree has flowers that bloom at night. Baboons, and giraffes like to eat the "sausages."

The Loulu is the only palm native to Hawaii. Coconuts were brought here by Polynesians. This Loulu is over 100 years old.

I always like to visit the Cannonball tree. The flowers and fruits sprout right from the trunk. That's not a separate vine growing on the tree; it's part of the tree. We made sure not to stand under the tree for long since there were lots of cannonballs overhead ready to fall. The flowers were strikingly beautiful.

Heading toward the palm collection area we saw this Double Coconut tree. You can see what the coconut fruit looks like in the insert that was at the reception desk. It's different from the regular palm trees we see in Hawaii.

There were 23 different species of palm trees in this area. Art couldn't resist picking up a palm fruit to smell and show Mom. Ummmm.... Saw this sign later. That's OK, he's alright.

The Kapok tree was impressive! You can see us standing at the base of the tree. Apparently the silky fibers in the seedpod used to be stuffed into life preservers.

I'm always fascinated by the giant Baobab tree. The Baobab provides nectar for bats, fruit for baboons, leaves for giraffes, and bark for elephants. This Baobab was probably planted in 1940.

It was pretty awesome to look up into the Silk-Cotton tree.

I was going to just rely on the iPhone for photos, but it was a good thing I brought my bigger Canon camera. We wondered why this tree was called a Shaving-Brush tree. I took a telephoto shot up into the tree and saw why. It does look like a shaving brush, don't you think? Younger guys probably wouldn't know what that is.

We finally headed over to the orchid house to see the Corpse flower. Doggone it!!! It was NOT blooming yet. The docent said it would bloom after lunch and should be fully bloomed at 4:00. That's when Foster Garden closes.

We saw the Corpse flower in Chicago last year. The Chicago Botanic Garden kept the place open 24 hours while it was blooming. It also gave updates on their website along with a webcam showing the progress. Good grief! They even gave their corpse flower a name. The first was Spike. The second flower was Alice.

There was no way we were going to wait for the Foster Garden flower to bloom. After two and a half hours of walking, we were tired and hungry.

We headed out to Mom's favorite restaurant, Gyotaku and she had her favorite dish, the Gyotaku Lunch Box.

Then we went home and took a nap.

So that was Mother's Day #2.