Expandable (Expendable?) Hoses

Ever since mom fell backwards and hit her head and then forwards and hit her cheek, it's taken quite a bit of time to recuperate and she continues to suffer some pain though it is slowly getting better.

At first we told her not to go out and we took over all the cooking. It was difficult for her and making her stir crazy. So we're now having her cook a few stir try veggies and not stopping her from going out of the house to rake leaves every day.

What she's missing is watering her plants every morning. She used to like carrying a bucket and giving each plant a splash of water. The hose is too cumbersome for her.

Well....
July 11th was Amazon's Prime Day and we found one of those flexible hoses.

There were 830 customer reviews and it got 4 stars. It also had a 12 month warranty. We thought this might be the solution for mom. It's supposed to be light and kink free.

We ordered it.

Then Art saw this at Ross for $9.99. It's 25 feet and was supposed to also be good. It's a Sharper Image product.

When we got home, Art looked online and what he saw was not good. It said the Sharper Image hose did not reach 25 feet because it wouldn't uncoil properly. It was more like 10 feet. And it leaked.

We returned it.

When we got home again and was talking to our neighbor, she said they tried two brands of the kind of flexible hose that we ordered on Amazon and both leaked within the month.

Back online, Art checked Consumer Reports and other websites. They warned that the flexible hoses all leak pretty quickly and that warranties are not honored.

Sigh...

Too late.

Our New Favorite Salad

Art and I always get a salad at Wendy's on Thursdays after our tai chi sessions. Unfortunately, every time I get to like a certain salad, they discontinue it. Art usually has their Power Mediterranean Chicken salad and I've been ordering their Fresh Mozzarella salad since they discontinued the other salad I liked so much.

However, we both recently tried their Strawberry Mango chicken salad and really loved it. Now we both order the same thing. I've even started adding mangoes to salads when I make it for pot lucks and even blueberries.

Notice that fine print on the sign though?  Sigh... Limited Time Only! This means I'll have to decide on another salad every Thursday once summer is over.

I saw that mangoes were $4.99 a pound the last time I was at the market! Good grief! I remember a time when our mango tree (50 years ago) produced so many mangoes that we couldn't give them all away. Sigh....

Preventing Falls from Turning Into Medical Disasters

My sister-in-law mentioned a Kaiser Permanente class that was being offered to show how to prevent falls from becoming a tragedy, especially among the elderly. I have several family members who have had worse falls than mom. One is in rehab right now and in terrible pain. Both of mom's sisters had terrible falls and we believe one fall eventually led to the death of her younger sister, Grace.

We therefore decided to go to the class. It turned out that the class was not really about preventing falls or keeping your house safe. It was about PERS (Personal Emergency Response). PERS are the pendant or bracelet monitoring systems to help seniors if they fall and need immediate help.

Kaiser has already vetted a company and was recommending that option. It's definitely a company to consider. However, what we really liked was the cautions on what we should look for and ask before signing with any company.

One woman told us about her neighbor who signed with a company that gave her a "good starting deal." However, after the month was over, the monthly fee was about $70 with a locked in 3 year contract.

Kaiser Permanente had vetted a PERS company called Life Station. It sounded pretty good. You don't have to sign up for a yearly contract, there are various languages spoken and it starts at around $22 a month.

The program is for seniors who:
- age 65+
- are living alone
- have a history of falls
- have outpatient or post-operative
  complications
- use an assistive device to help with walking
  or balance
- take 2 or more medications daily
- have a chronic condition such as a heart
  condition, stroke, osteoporosis, COPD, etc.

I imagine we'll be considering this for mom in the future, but not yet. She's not convinced that she needs to wear a PERS pendant and thinks it will be a bother.

Sigh...

Tabebuia

Art goes on long weekly walks with his high school classmate, Morris. He will often take photos and text them back to me in case I'd like to show it to all of you.

He sent this one a while back of the Tabebuia tree.

Wikipedia:

"Tabebuia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae. The common name "roble" is sometimes found in English.  Tabebuias have been called "trumpet trees", but this name is usually applied to other trees and has become a source of confusion and misidentification."

Actually, a lot of local people think it's a shower tree although it really isn't one.

I love the bright yellow trumpet flowers because it really stands out against the blue sky.

I often take it for granted, but have to chuckle occasionally when I realize that if I were a tourist here, I'd be taking tons of photos of those trees.

Hmmmm....

I just looked up and right outside my window, I've got this huge plumeria tree in full bloom. I suppose I need to pay more attention to the beauty in my own backyard.

Two Mountain Ranges?

We were on our way into town one morning and I did a double take. I knew the Koolau mountain range was in that direction, but I sure didn't think there were two mountain ranges in the same direction.

As we got closer, I saw that a blanket of clouds was hugging the Koolau mountains.

For a while there, my eyes did deceive me.

Total Eclipse Stamps

I wrote a long while ago about the time that we came all the way to Hawaii from Chicago to see the total solar eclipse in Kona on the Big Island on July 11, 1991.

Good gracious! That was a long time ago.

We'd planned to see it at Waikola where the viewing was supposed to be best.

Unfortunately, they ran out of rental cars even though we'd reserved our car a long time in advance. The ironic thing was that Waikola clouded over, but the viewing was best in Kona. We were sitting on the pier with hundreds of other people in total awe of the event.

Here's one of our souvenirs.


And now there will be another total eclipse on August 21, 2017!

One of the best viewing spots is in Illinois. Arrrghhh! And here we sit in Hawaii.

Art went out and bought the Total Eclipse heat sensitive stamps sold by the USPS. When you touch the stamp, the moon brightens and is revealed covering the sun. Unfortunately, because the temperature in Hawaii is so warm, the moon is not completely dark before you put your finger on it. Still, it was pretty darn neat and Art bought two extra sheets to give our kids so they can remember that wonderful experience we shared in 1991.

Another month and we'll have the eclipse in the continental U.S. Hopefully, the clouds won't get in the way again for eclipse viewers.

Fake News on Both Sides

I recently saw the following on Facebook that a friend posted. It sounded so much like Trump that I shared it on my Facebook page.

But then....

I thought about it.

A while ago, I shared something else that I'd seen on Facebook. I later checked it out on Snopes and discovered it wasn't true and immediately deleted it.

After a couple of seconds, I did a quick check on this one and darn! This was fake too.

I deleted it immediately and informed my friend.

I keep thinking that it's only the "other side" that is flooding the Internet with FAKE NEWS, but sorry to say, it's being produced by both sides.

We have to be very careful. I shall/might stick to sharing photography or cute puppy posts from now on, if at all.

Hard to Swallow!

Both Art and I were instructed to take 80 mg. of Lipitor which is a statin because of his irregular heartbeats and my high triglycerides. His heart is just fine now. Art thinks the arrhythmia may have been caused by medications given to treat GERD. Later tests showed he didn't have GERD so he was instructed to not take that medication anymore. Whatever the case, he's fine but he was told to keep taking the 80 mg just in case.

We have a new doctor now who said we should get off such a high dose of statin. However, we have a ton of those horse size pills. She told us we can use a pill cutter until we finish our supply.

OK... I  have not had a problem swallowing those pills or even the 80 mg. which is amazing since I was in my 30s before I could swallow pills without too much difficulty.

Art could swallow anything.

Well, for some reason he started having a really hard time swallowing those pills that were cut in half. He thought it might be the sharp edges. Whatever the case, he'd have to eat something to get it down because it kept getting lodged in his throat. I watched him struggle and was glad I was still able to swallow mine.

And then suddenly... I couldn't.

What the heck! My throat would just close down.

Aggravation! I blamed him for jinxing my throat.

Oh dang it!

Now we both take our pills with food. Somehow eating and then taking the pill quickly fools us into keeping our throats open.

Sigh....

I guess it just shows you how susceptible I am to suggestion.

Photographing Fireworks

I was cleaning out my camera's SD card and found these photos of fireworks on the 4th of July.

I've always had such a hard time taking photos of fireworks, but somehow I've always felt compelled to try to capture that excitement. You'd think I would just give up and enjoy the moment.

This time, instead of waiting for a great shot, I just kept clicking on my Canon with the zoom lens using the Fireworks setting.

I'd perched the camera on my window sill and snapped photos without even looking in the view finder.

Well... I was quite happy watching the fun fireworks displays.

I'm also happy to say I later had fun seeing what the camera was able to capture.

Grinding Away...

We were still working on trying to clean that impossible red dirt stain from the granite lantern we bought from Mari's Garden.

As I've written earlier we first tried to clean the lantern using Simple Green just as they instructed us to do.

We spent hours and found we could only get the surface red dirt off.

Art looked online and tried the hydrogen peroxide/flour and hydrogen peroxide/baking soda paste method.

Nope. It hardly lightened the granite at all.

Someone online suggested that the color of the red dirt was from iron oxide.

Soooo....

We went to Lowes and bought a bottle of Iron Out. It had some good reviews. Nope! It didn't do a thing!

We also bought these coarse brushes and coarse sponge.

Mari's Garden had suggested we be gentle with the granite.

Well...

The time for gentle was over!

The brushes didn't do any good.

Soooo....

Art got out his mechanical sander and started to sand away the stain.

Yahoo...

It worked! (for the most part)

We're making some progress now, but we're still a ways off. There are more challenges. The roof of the lantern has a rougher texture which would make removing the dirt more difficult if not impossible.

I never tell Art anything is impossible. It just makes him that much more determined to solve the problem.

This was initially a project we were doing together, but he's taken it over as a personal undertaking.

Am I upset about not being able to spend a lot of time with him under the hot sun, grinding away at the stubborn granite stain?

Go ahead. Guess.

The Day of the Stone Lantern

After much agonizing and searching we did go back to Mari's Garden and looked again at their stone lanterns before purchasing what we had seen earlier.

Mari's Garden provides lots of materials and options. There was a preschool class visiting when we got there learning about plants and gardening.

They also sell hydroponic gardening materials and equipment.

There were many granite lanterns there and many were stained red from the red dirt that we have on Oahu.


The only lantern that appealed to us must have been the most red stained lantern there.


However, they said it could be cleaned with Simple Green. They cleaned a small spot to show us that it could be done.


And then they also offered a $50 discount because of the staining and a few small chips.


So we bought it. There just wasn't another store on the island that sold granite lanterns with a style we liked.

We brought it home and scrubbed it with Simple Green. A little bit came off, BUT not the deep down stained parts, particularly those parts close to the bottom.

We looked online for solutions and tried a more concentrated version of Simple Green. Nope! It took off the surface dirt, but nothing else.

We tried, soft scrub. Nope. Didn't work.

We tried flour mixed with hydrogen peroxide. Nope.

We tried baking soda mixed with hydrogen peroxide. (Above right) Nope. The part that looks cleaned already was that color.

It was really frustrating, but Art never gives up. Never.

Flowers for a Cousin

Sometimes I can't help being a little superstitious.

There were a couple of times that I brought silk flowers when visiting relatives at the hospital. The practical side of me thought that way they wouldn't have to change the water or worry about the flowers. The silk flowers would remain beautiful throughout their stay at the hospital. In fact, my cousin's husband apparently even watered the silk plant at one point.

Very sadly, Art's cousin and mine both passed away after we brought those flowers.

When my Aunt Dorothy (mom's younger sister) became very ill and was hospitalized we decided to go with cut flowers.

The bouquet of flowers was very beautiful, but after about three days, they looked pretty sad.

And yet, Auntie was able to recover wonderfully, much to mom's relief.

I decided at that point that live flowers was the way to go.

When another of my cousins suffered a terrible fall, even worse than mom's and was in the hospital, we decided to bring potted flowers that I hoped would last longer with minimum care. Our decision came down to these two. I loved the color and originality of the beautiful bromeliad, but the peace lily looked so lush and peaceful.

I took this photo and texted it to my daughter and granddaughter. My daughter said her choice would be the red bromeliad. My granddaughter liked the peace lily better. That didn't help.

In the end, we decided on the peace lily which was also Art's choice since I'd been leaning to the bromeliad.

Which would you have chosen?

Killing of the Albatross

The news about how the privileged young Punahou students who went camping and then slaughtered 15 federally protected albatross at Kae'na Point on Oahu is even being reported on the mainland now. A friend of mine just sent me a Washington Post article that told the whole story.

Here are some facts about the case.

The Victims:
Laysan albatross have an incredible seven-foot wingspan and spends most of its time gliding over the ocean. It's normally found in the northwestern islands but were being moved to the higher levels of Ka'ena Point because of rising sea levels.

10 years of conservation efforts to save the Laysan Albatross and $20,000 in damage lay in the destruction the boys and young men caused.

Many of the birds are females that co-parent  chicks. They lay only one egg and return to the same place every year.

The Perpetrators:
They were six students of the prestigious Punahou School. One alumni of the school you know was Barack Obama.

They brought a bat, machete and a pellet gun with them while on a camping trip and smashed eggs, slaughtered 15 Laysan albatrosses, severed the  bird's feet to collect their ID bands as souvenirs and posted photos on social media of the mutilated birds.

The 8th grade curriculum at Punahou includes a field trip to the protected breeding colony at Ka'ena Point and teach the importance of the site.

Of the six boys and young men, two were tried as juveniles (their records will be sealed) and one pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 45 days in jail, perform 200 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine.

Outrage:
The Star Advertiser posted a survey online and it showed about 75% of the people saying they thought the sentencing was too light. About 25% thought it was just right or too harsh.

What do I think? I think they all should have been sentenced to community service and pay a fine.

What scares me is the thought that these young men were taught what was right and what was wrong and they chose to do this violent, senseless act. Why?

That Last Try for a Stone Lantern

Before we finally bought that stone lantern, I asked Jalna of Photos by Jalna and Honolulu Aunty if they knew where I could find one. Jalna said she happened to be at the Aloha Stadium swap meet and saw exactly what I was looking for. However, she went on a Sunday.

We needed to make a decision before Thursday when we told Mari's Garden that we would be back to buy the stone lantern there.

Therefore we went on Wednesday to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet and Marketplace hoping that the same seller that she saw might be there.

Sigh...

He wasn't.

However, we had a great time looking for things for our granddaughter.

The difficult thing was not knowing what 10 year old KC is into now.

I was constantly texting, calling or facetiming our daughter, Tiffany to ask her if something we saw might be of interest to KC.

Whatever the case, we had fun even if we never found any stone lanterns there.

You can't say we're leaving any stones unturned!

The Agony of Choosing a Stone Lantern

We have a pine tree in our (sort of) Japanese garden in front of our house that is dying.

We've watered, trimmed and fertilized it, but it has lost its will to live. I really felt it was time to euthanize it.

However, we really need to put something in its place and since that area does not get much rainfall or sun, I thought it would be nice to place something that we wouldn't have to take care of.

After the morning at the Keiki swap meet, our friend, Dave said he knew a place in Mililani called Mari's Gardens that had stone lanterns.

And yes! They had a lot of granite lanterns.

Art and I are quite particular in our taste, but luckily we do tend to think alike.

These two were the first that caught our eye. The simplicity of the one on the left was appealing at first. But then it kind of reminded me of a cartoon robot. I don't know why.

The second one seemed a bit boxy and ornate.

We took photos to remember the approximate size.

We then went to Kiso's in Waipahu and saw these pagodas. All of their lanterns were created in cement forms.  You could see the seams in some of them.

We finally decided on the bottom lantern which was more squat at Mari's Garden.

It's funny that both Art and I didn't like that heavy boxy look of the middle layer granite, but this lantern has come closest to what we'd been looking for.

They also said they'd give us a good deal on it.

Now comes the hard part of digging up that poor tree. I guess the lantern will mark its final resting place.

POSTSCRIPT:

They gave us $50 off because of the red dirt stain. But they showed us that it could be cleaned.

Ummmmmm....

We brought it home and discovered that red dirt is actually next to impossible to remove. Arrrrghhhh....

We have scrubbed and scrubbed and it's still stained pink. Arrrrrghhhh....

Sigh....

What Was I Thinking?

One of the items we bought at the Kakaako Keiki Swap meet was this t-shirt for our grandson.

I was looking through the pile of clothes and only noticed the flying koi. I figured it was a Boys Day t-shirt. I liked the colors and seeing Hawaii on it. I didn't really, really notice everything on the shirt.

After washing the clothes we'd bought I finally looked at the t-shirt carefully and saw that it said Kamikaze. Under it were the words go for it. I looked at it as almost encouraging a little boy to commit suicide. It affected me viscerally, perhaps because mom has told me so much about the tragedies of those awful times in history.

Art didn't realize what was on the t-shirt either, but wasn't as strongly affected as I was when he realized what it portrayed. I showed it to my brother and sister-in-law this afternoon and they shrugged it off saying the design was beautiful.

I couldn't understand how something that bothered me so much didn't bother everybody else. It made me understand how our country is so divided right now. We're all looking at things from a different point of view and coming away with a totally different idea of how things look.

I still don't like the t-shirt, but my brother and sister-in-law say they'll take it for their grandchild. It's fine with me.

Keiki Swap Meet

We went to the Keiki (Children) Swap Meet a few years ago and when we heard there was going to be another one in Kakaako, we decided to go. We met up with our friends, Diane and Dave and headed out to town.

Although it wasn't as hot as Las Vegas, it was a very warm day and I'm glad I had my solar umbrella and hat with me.

Remember how I didn't care for the Transformers movie? Art still found a Transformers toy that he thought our grandson would have fun with.

We found that there were a lot more fun toys and clothes for girls than there were for boys.

I wonder why.

Are there more girls in Hawaii than boys?

The swap meet is geared toward having children themselves selling their belongings so perhaps girls are more interested in selling their things so they can get newer clothes or toys.

The boys' clothes tended to be more worn or stained and I think they were a little harder on their toys.

Diane found gorgeous dresses for their granddaughters. I know the girls will love them.

We did not leave empty handed. Granted the t-shirts are still too big for our little 2 year old JD, but I discovered the two pants I bought will probably be too small by the time winter rolls around again. Darn! Unlike Hawaii, I have to remember the seasons on the mainland when buying clothes.

Ah well... I'll bet he'll like the cars and trucks.... and maybe the Transformer toys.

It's Sugar Kiss Time!

I've written before about loving Sugar Kiss melons. They are in season again and we are loving it. Mom says it's just as sweet and wonderful as Hokkaido's extremely expensive Yubari melons. The first Yubari melons of the season goes for thousands of dollars. It's amazing!

My daughter has been looking for the Sugar Kiss in Illinois and they still don't have it, but here in Hawaii, you can find it at several stores.

Some people actually think they are too sweet. It has a slightly soft consistency, but as far as we're concerned, it's just wonderful.

The confusion for some people who have recently been introduced to the Kiss melons are the many Kiss varieties. I've also heard of Honey Kiss, Summer Kiss and Golden Kiss. Jalna tried the Golden Kiss and loved it. I know I've tried the Summer Kiss and Honey Kiss which was OK. However, we really think Sugar Kiss is so wonderful that we don't even want to try the others again.

Have to tried any of the Kiss melons?

Transformers from Two Points of View

Since we have T-Mobile as our cell phone carrier we have an app called T-Mobile Tuesdays. There are offers for $4 movies, reduced prices on gas, Baskin Robbins coupons, Dunkin Donuts discounts, etc.

We usually see movies half a dozen times during the year. However, after missing the $4 ticket offer for Wonder Woman, which Art wasn't excited about seeing, he was ready to see a movie of his choosing. He prefers science fiction or action movies. Yes, we did go to see Wonder Woman and he agreed it was a good movie. He liked Moana and Beauty and the Beast too. At least that's what he told me.

Therefore, when T-Mobile offered $4 tickets to Transformers 3D, he said he wanted to go.

"Really?" I said. "You know it got only 1 star in the Honolulu Star Advertiser reviews."

But no... he wanted to see it.  I told him I wanted a big bag of popcorn.

What did I think?
It was unremitting violence, noise, confusion, bedlam, boredom. My problem is that it was the first Transformers movie I've ever seen and I didn't know what was going on. I know my son used to like the Transformers toys. I think we still have it stored some place. Whatever the case, I dozed several times which really didn't help in understanding the story line. I must have had too much popcorn in my tummy.

What did Art think?
He didn't think it was all THAT bad, especially in 3D. When I told my son-in-law that I would definitely give it 1 star if not less Art said, "No... no... two stars."

Seriously? Two stars?

Sigh...

I'm picking the next movie.

Patriotic or What?

My daughter sent the following ad that came out to advertise the 4th of July sales at the shopping center and asked me what I thought.

Gosh...

It's a cute design...

But... you could be sitting on a modified American flag which some people might consider offensive. An upside down flag could also signify distress. Perhaps it's to indicate distress at the state of our administration right now. Or maybe just distress that the sales weren't as good after all.

Or it's much ado about nothing.

I don't know. What do you think?

Happy Independence Day!!!

Fit(bit) to BE Tied!

Aggravation!

I wrote earlier about my Fitbit HR exercise, sleep tracker that I liked using but was coming apart at the wristband and then stopped working all together. Since it was about a year and a half old, it was past the warranty period by about 6 months.

Since they no longer sell the HR, Fitbit offered the Charge 2 at 25% off.

After a bit of pondering, I bought it in May.

It was working great for a while. Then it started being a bit quirky. The sleep recording on the Charge two is a lot more sophisticated.

On the left you can see how the Charge 2 will give you details on REM, Light and Deep Sleep. On the right is what the HR used to give. The Charge 2 reverted to that same sort of recording.

And then one day, it stopped giving me the sleep recording altogether.

I reset the Charge 2 as recommended and it worked once.

The following day, it once more did not record my sleep.

So I wrote Fitbit since my Charge 2 was only a little over 2 months old this time and well within warranty.

POSTSCRIPT 1:

Fitbit apologized kindly and said they will be sending me a replacement tracker.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts longer than my other two.

POSTSCRIPT 2:

OK...

I got the new replacement Charge 2. It arrived very quickly. After three days it's working properly except for one annoying thing.

Sigh...

The display is pink. What the heck? I can read it, but it's not quite as easy to see against the black.

Sigh...

We've looked online and apparently other people have complained about the same thing. Some say the display is blue also.

Sigh...

ALSO... Arrrghhh.... It's doing the same incorrect sleep graph and if you look on Friday it says I walked up 33 floors. Then on Saturday, it gave me one floor. Come on! My average is about 10 floors a day because I live on the 2nd floor.

POSTSCRIPT 3:

Sigh.... I've written to Fitbit again and they are sending me yet another replacement. Needless to say, I'm losing confidence in their product.