A Favor for Frida

My sister-in-law just texted me that one of her closest, long time friends had asked a favor of her. Her friend's daughter, Lisa is a doctor who had traveled to Thailand and visited an elephant sanctuary. While there, she spotted a very badly injured dog who had flesh and bones on her hind paws worn away and a fracture of her spine causing permanent paralysis. Lisa asked the sanctuary to care for the dog while she got the proper papers to bring the dog back to California.

There was something about this gentle creature that captured Lisa's heart. She named her Frida after Frida Kahlo who said, "Feet, what do I need you for if I have wings to fly?"

After returning to California, wheels were found to support Frida's hind legs. Then they heard about  Wizard of Paws, Derrick Pampana who can create artificial limbs for animals. A motorhome was rented during the pandemic to travel to the East coast where a special prosthesis was made for Frida.

I have to say I was amazed at the effort Lisa put in to provide Frida a happier life. This must be a truly special furry friend.

Lisa has now entered Frida in a contest to choose the 2021 Hero Dog Award.

I got this from the website:

"The American Humane Hero Dog Awards® are an annual, nationwide competition that recognizes the heroes on both ends of the leash. The category finalists will be honored on the nationwide broadcast on Hallmark Channel this fall. Seven courageous canines will be featured, and only one dog will be awarded the 2021 American Hero Dog title."

If you have time and would like to support them, would you vote for Frida before May 6, 2021.

Here is the link to get you to the site to vote for Frida.

https://herodogawards.org/

And this link will take you to the voting page:

https://herodogawards.org/vote/

If you click on Shelter, it will take you to the canine candidates. You would type in Frida which will take you to her information where you can vote for her with your email, name and zip code. 

Thank you in advance. This was just something fun to do, but now I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them. It would be so much fun if they got selected as one of the seven finalists.

And if they won... WOW!

Our First REAL Dine-In!!!

Whenever we take mom to get her fasting blood test done at Kaiser, we take her out to a restaurant for breakfast. It's sort of a celebration for getting it done. 

(Side note: When we were leaving the Kaiser lab, mom was doing her usual fast walk out of the hospital because she didn't want to keep Art waiting. With my ankle still quite tender, I was hobbling behind her. I noticed some people looking up at us and I wondered if they were secretly chuckling that this little ol' lady was walking a lot more briskly than her supposed caretaker.)

We have not gone to an actual dine-in restaurant in a year, but since we're all fully vaccinated, decided to give it a try. 

Mom loves Zippy's wun tun min.  We'd asked her if she wanted a regular breakfast or wun tun min and she laughed. It had been a year and there was really no question what she preferred.

Although we were nervous about going into an actual restaurant, we saw that they had put a number of safety measures in place. Art had to list all his contact tracing information. There was a temperature check and hand sanitizing station.

They told us that servers change their gloves every 20 minutes. Each booth was partitioned with high plexiglass barriers.

They only allow a certain percentage of patrons at a time. Everything that is passed out is disposable. The unused salt, pepper, half & half and sugars are thrown away. We therefore brought them home to use.

The meal was lovely as usual.

Our favorite server, Nora was there. She said they'd all been trained last October on all the COVID safety protocols.

Nora said she knows we hadn't come for at least a year. She remembered that I always order ice tea, but I told her it would be our breakfast so I would have coffee. She laughed to see that mom, however would be having her usual wun tun min instead of a breakfast meal.

I gave Nora a mask I sewed that I always carry to give to my favorite people. Art and I will be seeing our doctor in a couple of days and yes, I'm giving her a mask too.

Just for the fun of it.

Walking Wounded

 Yup. 😖 It happened AGAIN!

The last time I fell in 2018, I was going up the stairs. People can't understand how I could fall going up the stairs, but alas... I'm talented that way. I was holding my cellphone in one hand and I forget what in the other so I suppose I wasn't able to brace myself and fell on my shoulder instead. I guess. And I broke my humerus. 

In 2005 I twisted my ankle while hiking on New Zealand's Bealy Spur Trail and therefore couldn't do the Franz Josef glacier climb with Art two days later.

Then there was China in 2013 due to a missing pavement tile.

I've also been on crutches after another twisted ankle on the Aiea Loop Trail. I forget what year that was.

Sheesh!

It's getting a little annoying.

I've come to the realization that I must have weak ankles... very weak ankles.

Well, this time we had just returned home from going to Costco. I was holding a rotisserie chicken in a box when I missed stepping on the concrete walkway and fell hard on my hip and side which were fine. I was stunned, but the chicken was unharmed.

My Apple Watch immediately began buzzing as I checked to see if the chicken was doing OK.

A message appeared asking if I'd fallen hard.

I remember clicking on "I fell, but I'm OK."

My hand hurt a little, and my big toe too, but I appeared to have come out of it relatively unscathed.

Of course not.

Skin was scraped off my left knee even though it was under my pant leg. I applied aloe and a bandage on it.

And my right ankle.

Yup. 

Hurt like the dickens and I immediately applied ice for the afternoon. I know the drill by now.

And if that wasn't bad enough. That evening, I felt an itch on my left ear lobe.

Puhleeeze! Did I really need this? Wasn't falling bad enough?

There were two insect bites on my ear lobe. Sheesh!

What an annoying day.

Choosing a New Doctor for Mom

Mom's long time doctor at Kaiser retired last December. If you ask me, he looked awfully young to be retiring, but it is what it is. Dr. Y's mother was from Japan and he understood a bit of Japanese so mom was comfortable with him. I always enjoyed talking to him too. He was always too embarrassed to speak any Japanese with mom so I needed to translate constantly even though I think she understands more English than she lets on (I think). I say (I think) because she often misunderstands Art and vice versa. I did ask Dr. Y if he could recommend a doctor who understood or spoke some Japanese for mom. He said he unfortunately didn't know any doctor at Kaiser that could.

Anyway, Kaiser gave us two choices of doctors to switch to. One was an Asian female doctor born in Taiwan and moved to Hawaii when she was 10 years old.

The other doctor was male and Caucasian. 

I conferred with my brother and we agreed that mom would probably be more comfortable with the female, Asian doctor. True... it was rather a biased decision. I sadly confess that. And yes, mom said she’d like a woman doctor too.

However, even though we figured this female doctor wouldn't be able to speak Japanese, she would be more local looking to mom and she was a woman who might understand problems women have more. 

Well...

We got informed that mom's new doctor would be the male Caucasian. That was a surprise. After a year of her not actually seeing a doctor face to face I tried to set up an appointment for mom. 

However, when I called, they said we could only have a phone or video call for now. 

Dr. K called the following afternoon and I put us all on the speakerphone. When I told him I was there to translate, he broke out in some rather surprising Japanese. Totally blew me away. The accent wasn't all that bad either. However, when mom said something in Japanese, he laughed and said it had been a while since he studied it, and wasn't up to speed with the language. 

The funny thing is because he tried to speak the language with mom, she was comfortable to give him some information on her own in broken English. 

I was astonished. He asked about problems and she mentioned an ache in her knee. Turns out he's got a background in musculoskeletal medicine. 

He noticed in the records that we'd asked for the female doctor and he reassured us that he would certainly understand if we'd like to make a change and could help us with that.

Absolutely not. I told him we were sold on having him for mom's new doctor. He told us to take her in for blood tests and then he  put in a request to assign a face-to-face appointment for her.

Awesome.

I'm going to bring him one of my special homemade masks. 😄

WRONG Way to Freeze Something

Last year was the first time I actually saved my turkey bones to make soup stock. The soup was such a success that I started to make soup stock with chicken bones as well and freezing them in jars.

After freezing more soup stock a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd make some soup yesterday with all the cooler, rainier weather we've been getting.

When I went to get a jar of the frozen soup stock I discovered a line running down the side and bottom of the jar. That was peculiar. I ran my finger along the line and realized it wasn't the frozen soup stock that was cracked. It was the jar. No, I didn't cut myself. Thank goodness!

I couldn't believe it! That had never happened before so I looked online to find out why.

I got the following information from a website called A Better Way to Thrive.

First off, you have to cool your liquid before putting them in jars.

AND you must leave 2-3 inches of headspace BELOW the shoulder of the jar.

Seriously? I had no idea. I figured an inch from the top would do it. Apparently not. 

Use wide mouth jars.

Cap the jars loosely until they are completely frozen. (Uh oh... That's another mistake I made.)

Make sure the jars don't touch each other while freezing. You can even put the jars in socks to make sure they don't touch. (Good grief!)

That's a lot to remember, but I'll sure make a point to be more careful next time I freeze liquid. 

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

I write a blog post for each work day, Monday through Friday. It makes me feel like I still have a schedule and forces my disintegrating brain to work. On top of that, I have some friends and relatives who check my posts with their morning coffee (or so they tell me anyway). Therefore, it's an extra incentive.

Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time coming up with topics to write about, especially since I feel like I've written about everything in the 3,553 posts I've already written.

Well... so here I was during a recent morning walk when I noticed a chicken actually walking perfectly in the sidewalk to cross the street. It reminded me of the times my grandson, JD loved doing jokes beginning with "Why did the _____ cross the street?"

Actually, his latest joke was, "Why did the football team break the piggy bank? Because they wanted to get their quarter back."

Anyway... I digress.

So here I was watching this chicken and thinking I just had to send a photo of this feral fowl crossing the street to JD, but it had already reached the other side.

I had to send Art scrambling to the other side of the street to chase that chicken back onto the crosswalk to get my picture.

Doggone it! It wasn't perfectly right in the crosswalk, but it would have to do because I wasn't going to chase it back to get another photo. Besides, that chicken might wonder about our sanity. 

Hmmm.... now what shall I write about tomorrow? 🤔

Roses are Blue...

A dear family friend surprised us with blue roses a few weeks ago. It was obviously artificially created by having the roses soak up blue dye. The ink used by the florist caused many of the leaves and petals to fall off pretty quickly. 

Art decided to take out three of them to dry in the guest bathroom. Seeing the flowers drying so nicely, I decided to take the whole bunch and dry them as well. Unfortunately, more petals started falling so ...uuuummm... I dropped some Elmers glue at the base of each bloom.

Mom walked into the living room and asked, "How did you get those roses to bloom for so many weeks? And why isn't there water in the vase?"

I told her, "magic." 😁

The Plumbing Saga of the Bathroom Sink

Art's bathroom sink had been leaking slowly for a while. He'd thought of working on it before when he was fixing the leak at the kitchen sink, but that exhausted him so much he decided to wait on his bathroom sink for another time.

The time had come.

He stared at the fixture for a while and then went down to Home Depot to pick up another faucet set. Unfortunately, they no longer made that style so it would be different from my sink but he figured he could just change my faucet fixture also later.

Taking off the cold and hot water handles took all day. They were rusted solid and just wouldn't budge.

I won't go into the terrible lengths we had to go through to get them off.

OK... That was done, but now the spout would NOT come off. Everything was rusted.

That locking nut for the spout was totally rusted to that top plate so the spout couldn't be removed from the sink counter. Art had gone down a second time to Home Depot and bought a basin wrench to try to unscrew that nut. Nope. Didn't work either. 

It was now into the afternoon. Dinner time. Mom likes to eat at 5:00 on the dot so we had to stop and decided to just grab carry-out from Panda Express.

Would you believe that on the way there some giant bird (it had to be gigantic) let loose his bowels on our windshield Unbelievable! 

We figured that was the end to a crappy day.

That evening we texted our problem to our plumber friend who said he could come over to help.

"No..." we said. We can handle this tomorrow.

"Too late," texted his wife. "He's on his way with some tools for you.

Our plumber buddy arrived in 10 minutes with an array of tools and a can of liquid wrench. He also brought papayas from their tree and some homemade kim chee to cheer us up.

More importantly, he gave Art some hints on what to do next. The last resort he said was to use the saw and cut the nut off.

And so our day ended on a high note with our spirits lifted and hopeful. Art used the liquid wrench he gave us to soak the nut and shaft overnight.

The following morning we found that the liquid wrench did not work.

We were now down to that last resort.

Art used a hack saw to painstakingly cut off the stubborn nut.

It took over an hour.

He had turned off the water to work on the sink but when he went to turn the water back on at lunch time he discovered to his horror...

...a horrendous leak at the water heater. We were devastated! Totally bummed! We'd now have to go down to Home Depot and buy a new water heater. Arrrghhh!

I went online and saw that it could be the pressure relief valve. Since he'd had to turn the hot water on and off several times, it must have built up some pressure. Whatever the case, the leak stopped. I have no idea what that all means, but that's what happened.

OK....

So now he's got the entire fixture off and it was time to look at the directions for the new faucet fixture. Could it be the home stretch?

Would you believe....no? The drain stopper would NOT go down flush to the sink bottom. When we compared the old and new stoppers (flange) we discovered that the old flange had a little smaller diameter and therefore could fit in the ceramic sink hole. I felt around that hole and thought I saw and felt a hard metal ring that was the cause of that problem. 

We were feeling pretty depressed and Art had plans to go back to the hardware store for a smaller flange the following day. We gave up and started dinner.

That's when the doorbell rang. It was our plumber buddy. He was checking up on our progress since they were in the area. He told Art that it wasn't metal but a plastic ring to create the mold for the ceramic sink. It can be cut out.

That was hopeful.

Early on the third day of this saga, we discovered that our plumber buddy was totally correct. Good grief! That hard ring could be cut out with an X-ACTO knife.

Oh my gosh! It worked! The flange slid right in and was secured.

As you can see, now our faucets don't match.

Art had considered replacing my faucet so they would match.

He thought about it for 5 seconds and then said, "Let's let sleeping dogs lie."

(Or "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.")

Oh what the heck! Diversity is good.

Saving the Shoe Cabinet

When our neighbor moved several years ago, they left us a cabinet that she was using to teach how to conduct tea ceremonies. I think the cabinet held tea bowls and other supplies.

We didn't need a cabinet but I had this idea to use it as a container for our shoes and slippers on our patio. It has lasted quite a long time and was a convenient place to store our shoes and slippers.

However, with the recent torrent of rains the outside front veneer started to flake off. Eventually, it looked so bad that I just took off the rest of the panels. When we decided to use the cabinet on our patio I'd given the cabinet several coats of polyurethane. I can't remember if I'd painted the front slats too. Probably not.

The thin slat of wood underneath was cracked so I glued it flat. Then I got some old brown caulking we had in the tool shed and smoothed it over the crack.

Art removed the handles. I covered the plastic border with painting tape. I then gave the wood three coats of our exterior house paint.

In between coats, I sealed the paint brush in a plastic bag and stuck it in the refrigerator. When I was done painting for the day I carefully washed the brush and folded it carefully in newspaper so it would retain its shape. My brother learned that trick from a painter and taught me to do it. He also told me to feather paint with just the top 1/2" or so of the brush to get a smooth finish and it makes clean up easier too. You shouldn't stick the paintbrush all the way to the top of the bristles. I do try to remember this.

Yay! And here it is. All done! Funny how the paint color looks lighter than what's on the house. Ah well... I don't care. I just want it to last a few more years. I'm satisfied.

On to the next project.

Handy Dandy Egg Slicer

I wonder if everybody already knows about this egg slicing tool. It's really convenient for making an egg salad sandwich.

We also use this fun tool that we stick in with the eggs when they're cooking. It turns brown as your eggs cook. You pull your eggs out when the brown ring shows Soft (thin brown ring), Medium (thicker brown ring) or Hard (all the red turns brown). 

And now... how to make the darn eggs easier to peel.

I've read that you need to stick the eggs to be cooked in boiling water. I've always just stuck them in tap water temperature, brought it to a boil, simmer and haven't had a problem, but maybe this is helpful.

Once they're done, I take them out and stick the eggs immediately in ice water. That has always worked for me.

Just in case anybody is wondering, we like chopped sweet pickles with our egg salad.

Do you have a favorite way to make your egg salad sandwiches?

A Happy Irish Memory

I don't remember celebrating St. Patrick's Day when we were kids growing up in Hawaii. However, when we moved into a Chicago area with many friends and neighbors of Irish descent, it became a family tradition to always celebrate the day with corned beef and cabbage.

All this brought to mind a happy memory.

I was surprisingly blessed with three wedding showers in 1972. I don't know how that happened but I was truly touched. My aunts threw a negligee shower for me. Oh my! That was tons of fun. My aunts certainly had a wild imagination. 

My friends from work also held a shower for me at The Top of Illikai and it turned out to be on the same day as the shower that my childhood and college friends also arranged at the The Summit in Ala Moana. I therefore went from one shower to the next. It was quite a memorable day.

It was at The Summit that I get to the Irish part.

We were all gathered and having  a truly lovely time when a couple (I hope they don't mind my posting their photo) next to our large table stopped by and asked if they could give me an Irish blessing.

With the raising of our water glasses he toasted:

 "May you live as long as you want. May you never want as long as you live; And may you get to heaven three days before the devil knows you're dead."

It was such a fun, impromptu gesture but here we are 48 years later and I'm fondly remembering that Irish kindness.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody!

Air Travel?

Now that Art and I are both vaccinated with Pfizer along with mom, my first thought was to see our children on the mainland. We've not seen them in a year. We can't leave mom at home on her own so my brother would have to come and stay with her. However, he's scheduled for his vaccination in another week, so a trip in July sounded like a possibility. (Vaccinations in Hawaii is now given to the 1c group. 65+) 

Our grandchildren are growing up so fast in Chicago and Baltimore and we've missed so much! My granddaughter is now about as tall as I am! My kindergartener grandson is reading! My 3 year old grandson is running, laughing and talking! We're missing all that.

When I told my daughter, she was nervous. 

"Are you sure you want to travel so soon?" she asked worriedly. "Have you asked Keola?"

Our son is an epidemiologist and could have a differing opinion than ours on what is safe and what is borderline.

Then I saw this in the Star Advertiser.

Sigh...

This morning I got a text message from my Illinois teacher buddies group saying we should get together in July. Sigh...

According to Dr. Fauci, “Getting vaccinated does not say you have a free pass to travel,” said Dr. Fauci. “Nor does it say you have a free pass to put aside all the public health measures that we talk about all the time.”

So for now...

Traveling shall have to wait.

Sigh again...

Great Aloha Run (GAR) 2021 #13

Art and I have been doing the Great Aloha Run since 2009. This would be his 13th, but my 12th since I wrenched my ankle the day before our 11th GAR and didn't walk the 8.12 miles from the Aloha Tower in Honolulu to the Aloha Stadium in Halawa in 2019. Since I wasn't with him, Art was able to run. (He says he was sad I wasn't with him, but I KNOW he was quite happy to be able to run and see what kind of time he could get on his own.)

The GAR is always held on Presidents Day. The proceeds from the annual Run/Walk goes to various charities in Hawaii.

Due to the pandemic, the need for funds to help those who have been impacted was even more dire. Because the GAR could not be held in person, it was all done virtually online. You were on your honor to complete your 8.12 mile run/walk in one week. Unfortunately, not as many people had signed up so the funds to support the charities was lacking. I'm happy to say several friends and relatives we sent links to did take part in this virtual race.

Gosh... We wouldn't have to get up at 3:30 AM, drive to the stadium, catch the bus into town and walk back to the stadium? We wouldn't have to worry about needing to use the bathroom? Hmmm... sounded good to me.

Still, since we didn't suffer, the euphoria of finishing wasn't as great.

However, there is that satisfaction of helping others and we did just get a t-shirt and a medal in the mail. 

It's fun to look at the 2020 and 2021 medals. Yay!

Getting That Second Pfizer Vaccination... Relief!

 Yes. It is a relief.

Art got his 2nd Pfizer shot last month at a Tripler drive through. It was very convenient and painless literally and figuratively.

My 2nd shot came earlier this week and was a tad bit more uncomfortable.

For one thing, it was cold (for Hawaii) and raining. I was glad we brought umbrellas.

I had a 7:00 AM appointment, but I guess they must have been doing a block at a time. Therefore, that 7:00 appointment was probably 50 people. Felt like it anyway, but we were all happy to be there.

After standing in the rain for a while, they figured out a way to bring us into a sheltered hallway.

We went through several stations to get checked off, screened and then sit down for our shots.

Amazingly, once again (just like my first shot) they ran out of injections so I had to wait for a fresh batch. It just took about 10 minutes. It was nice to think I got another fresh vaccine.

Unlike my first shot where the nurse injected me slowly, this fellow was so quick that Art barely got a photo taken before it was already over.

We then went to Tripler's lab to get our fasting blood tests done. (Art laughed and said, “In one arm, out the other.”)🙄 

Our doctor will be happy that we're finally coming in.

Once that was done we went to the commissary to do some grocery shopping, but had to grab some breakfast. But where?

We laughed to realize that the first indoor dining we would do since a year ago would be a McDonald's breakfast at the food court.

Tables were spaced far apart and there were very few people there.

Perfect.

What a lovely feeling!

Do you have a place picked out to do your indoor dining after you get your 2nd shot? (And before you scold me, I know I'm not safe for 2 weeks.) 

A Pack Rat Cure for Broken Glasses

The other night, I noticed that my reading glasses were tilted. It took me a while to realize that the nose pad on one side had fallen off. Darn! I really liked this pair too. Granted it made me look like a librarian because I could lower it on my nose and bring it up when I needed it.

And then, amazingly, I found the missing nose pad on the floor. It's a good thing I'm far sighted. Unfortunately, there was no screw with which to fasten it. Double darn!

"Don't worry," said Art. "I'm sure I can find a screw."

Would you believe he had a stash of his old glasses that he can no longer use because he now needs prisms?

I'd suggested before that he turn those in for donation a long time ago, but looks like they've been accumulating in his drawer.

However.... he looked through them all and found a screw that would fit my glasses perfectly. So I guess it was good that he's a pack rat.

Ah well...

I can use my glasses again. Yay!

Going Postal

Mage of POSTCARDS is fighting cancer right now and needed some masks with filter pockets. She'd ordered masks online, but unfortunately received masks that did not have those filter pockets. Mage and I have been blogger friends for a long, long time. I knew I had to sew some masks for her.

Although I've started making only 3D masks which don't have filter pockets, I was happy to go back to the Olson mask pattern for Mage. My children on the mainland as well as friends and relatives in Hawaii prefer the 3D for its breathability. The Olson however seems to fit better when you double mask.

I was excited about mailing the masks to Mage on Tuesday, February 16th. I mailed masks for Art's sister, Kay who also lives in California on Thursday, February 18th. (Yes, her name is Kay too which can be confusing at family gatherings.) Anyway, Kay received her masks on Saturday, February 20th. That was pretty darn fast!

Mage did not receive hers. I was perplexed.

I kept tracking Mage's masks and got the same message saying the package was on its way. At the end of February I was noticing no tracking messages after the 20th. 

What the heck!

So I sent USPS an inquiry and got this.

Wrote another inquiry and got the same message.

Finally decided to write to Mr. Locke personally.

Then I decided to try that Missing Mail Search link. https://www.usps.com/help/missing-mail.htm   (By the way, Flat-Rate boxes are insured for $50. If you send your item in a smaller package, you would have to pay extra to insure it.)

I had to describe what I sent and what the package looked like. That wasn't easy but I did the best I could.

Would you believe the next day I got this?

The left is a text tracking info. The right is the email I got. Is it a coincidence that it was delivered to Mage right after the Missing Mail Search?

It's good to know there are options if your package has not been delivered.

A couple years ago we sent a Flat Rate box to our son in Maryland. It didn't reach him in a month. I didn't know about that Missing Mail Search link. Whatever the case, when he got it we saw notations on it that the box had been sent to Micronesia or some other place beginning with M. The Flat Rate box looked like it had been around the world, but most of the items were undamaged.

Whatever the case, it sure is nice to know that if your recipient doesn't get your package, there are options you can try. You just have to be the "squeaky wheel" to get some attention.

I did write a thank you note to Mr. Locke.

POSTSCRIPT: 

I asked Mage if she wouldn't mind sending me a photo of herself wearing one of the masks for my blog. Despite the fact that Mage is suffering the effects of chemo right now, she asked her husband to take photos of herself in ALL the masks. I am overwhelmed with their kindness in sending all these photos to me at this challenging time. 

In spring of last year, I had to cut out aloha shirts that a dear friend gave me, my dress, Art and my son's aloha shirts, sheets, etc. to make masks. Elastic, 100% cotton thread, 100% cotton fabric, cord locks, etc. were hard to find. It's so much more fun now that I can go to the fabric store and get a variety of fabrics that are truly fun to sew.