Pigeon War II

Friends have suggested all kinds of things to get rid of those pigeons on our roof. Our good friend, Dave sent us a YouTube video of a fellow with the exact same pigeon poop/debris problem as us on and under his solar panels. This fellow showed how he'd rigged a hose and camera system on his roof so that whenever he spotted the pigeons on his video he could turn on the water from below. 

Ummm... he'd only had it up for a week, so I'm dubious.

Other friends suggested CDs and owl balloons.

We had those set up to scare the bulbuls and mynahs who attacked mom's orchids. It worked for maybe... maybe a week before mom said she could swear the birds were laughing at her.

Well, Art has been spraying the pigeons for a week and they keep coming back.

In fact, we really think they're so smart they're just landing on a part of the roof that he can't see from the ground. Yes, it's true. Birds can learn and figure out how to outwit you.

So OK... Art is now climbing to a lower part of the roof that is relatively safe. And Dave loaned him a stronger hose sprayer that can reach farther.

I also came up with an excellent idea (if I do say so myself). Uuummm... I am taking credit for spraying the birds too, by the way.

Ice pellet ammunition! 

Our daughter had bought these trays to make tiny ice pieces for her slim neck thermos which couldn't fit big ice cubes. 

I figured these little pellets wouldn't hurt the solar panels but would startle the pigeons.

We have studied those pigeons and know they now like to come at dawn or dusk so Art got up on the lower roof and threw a few of those ice pellets in an area he thought they might be.

Good grief!

We had no idea there were THAT MANY pigeons on the roof. Where were they hiding? 

Sheesh!

Art will be varying his startle weapons each morning and dusk to keep those birds on their toes... or wings, that is.

We're keeping our fingers crossed. 

POSTSCRIPT: 

After about a week of the ice pellet/water spray surprise attacks we didn't see as many pigeons in the evening. We'd counted about 28 pigeons who were calling our rooftop their home before. 

HOWEVER: This morning we happened to look at our neighbor's roof and saw this.

Arrrgghhh...

And then.... about an hour later, guess where they went?

Arrrgghhhhhhh....

Making more ice pellets now.

What Surprises Me Most?

A long time ago, Red of Hiawatha House asked the question:

Which part of your life surprises you the most and why?

I guess it would have to be Art.

When we initially met through a mutual friend, he must have thought I was an unworldly, naïve, young girl. I was a student at the University of Hawaii. I am five years younger and at the time had only been off the island twice, once to Kauai when I was about 10 years old and then two years before on an Art and Architecture college study trip to Japan. I was fine with not traveling. I'm semi-agoraphobic, I think. Art on the other hand was in the Air Force, been stationed in New Hampshire and California and loved travel and new situations. He'd also gone to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

I did not think we would be anything serious, but 5 months later we were engaged.

When I think about it, I'm still amazed. 

But there were some things that made it feel like it was meant to be.

Our birthdays are exactly two weeks apart.

He has one older sister. I have one younger brother.

We both appreciate artwork.

Hmmm... OK, that's it.

There are more differences. 

He loves math and figuring things out. I don't. Math was always my weakest subject.

He hates to write. It's something I enjoy.

He likes science fiction. I prefer fantasy, (OK fine... romance) or regular fiction.

He loves traveling. I'm willing to go along, but don't ask me to plan anything.

I love dark chocolate, he doesn't love chocolate. Why? How can that be?

There are more differences than similarities. 

However, it surprises me that I've been so lucky. His parents were absolutely the best and I loved them both dearly. He was willing to pull up roots in Illinois after 35 years of living there to return home to Hawaii so we could take care of my mother after my father passed away. He encouraged me to broaden my horizons, go back to teaching and work in Illinois and welcome new experiences. People often thought my brother, Dennis was his brother in the early days and not mine because they did so much together while we lived in Hawaii.

So I guess, yes. That's what surprises me most. I've been awfully lucky.

And you know what else? His sister's name is Kay too. You see? It was meant to be.

Fiona in Canada

We've been hearing about the devastation Hurricane Fiona caused through Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland after hitting Puerto Rico and Bermuda.

It seems like there's one awful natural calamity after another lately. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for Hawaii. 

This brought to mind our trip to Canada in 2004 when we were celebrating Art's 60th birthday. It was one of our happiest experiences. We love Canada and Canadians. They have been invariably friendly, helpful and kind. This trip through Nova Scotia, PEI will always stay in my mind as one of our best... especially because of the people we met.

We stayed at one bed and breakfast where the husband was off on an errand but saw us in the breakfast room and just had to spend a half hour or more chatting with us about American politics. I was embarrassed that I didn't know much at all about Canadian politics, but he knew more than me about our American system.

Another bed and breakfast suggested going out to Balancing Rock. I've written about this before, but Hurricane Fiona brought it to mind because it's in Digby Neck in Nova Scotia.

It wasn't heavily advertised so we didn't even know it was there until the friendly couple told us about it.

We couldn't believe it! I don't know how it can just balance there like that with waves crashing below. It looked like someone could just cough and it would blow over.

Well I looked it up and was relieved initially but this might have been earlier information.

I hope everyone is OK and can recover quickly and I hope that rock is still balancing. Perhaps one day, we'll go back there and see for ourselves.

Two Very Rich People Who Made Very Different Choices

I'm not a big sports fan, but I have heard of Brett Favre. Have you heard the latest news about him? You already know he's a big time millionaire football player, right? (Uuuummmm.... He's also a Trump supporter.)

This was in USA Today:

The State of Mississippi is suing former NFL quarterback and Hall of Famer Brett Favre and others, alleging they misspent millions of dollars that had been allocated for welfare.

Newly-revealed text messages from 2017 indicate that former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who left office in 2020, was aware of the arrangement, and that the money that was intended to help low-income families. After being funneled through a nonprofit, it eventually went to Favre to help build a volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, the lawsuit alleges.

 It was also on CNBC that: 

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, his spouse and two adult children are giving away their ownership in the apparel maker he started some 50 years ago, dedicating all profits from the company to projects and organizations that will protect wild land and biodiversity and fight the climate crisis.

The company is worth about $3 billion, according to the New York Times. (This photo is from The Seattle Times.)

So there you have it. Two very rich people and what they did with money. As for Favre, it wasn't even his money. He actually stole from the poor to give to himself (to build a volleyball arena for his daughter's college) and then said he didn't know what was happening even though there are text messages that prove he did.

It's really darn pathetic. Really, really pathetic.

Cooing Me Crazy! (Pigeon Wars I)

We have been plagued by pigeons (sometimes 20+ of them) living on top and under our solar panels. We could hear them skittering on our roof constantly. What the heck! How heavy can their little feet be? And the cooing.... cooing... cooing! You might think that's lovely and loving, but it gets annoying and would you believe... LOUD? Our neighbors even mentioned that they could hear them. Then we started getting bites which another neighbor suggested was from bird mites.

One neighbor had been feeding pigeons a couple of houses down. Another neighbor, Steve and Art went together and asked them if they could please stop because Steve was aware of the pigeon bird mites from his workplace. Thankfully, the pigeon feeders kindly stopped.

Then another person who lived much farther away was actually coming to our street to feed the birds while on their walks. Why our street? Why not at their own house? I asked them to please do it elsewhere and they have. (This is Hawaii. There's always something for birds to eat.) But it was too late. 

When we had our roof/gutter cleaner, Ku come to wash down our gutters and solar panels, he said he didn't like to touch under the panels because he didn't want to get bird mite bites. 

We contacted our solar panel people but it took months before they could come and install critter guards and a bird deterrent netting on top of the panels.

It was great that the solar company knew how to remove the panels to clean underneath it. Our microinverter was covered in bird poop.

The roof was covered with bird poop. There was lots and lots of nesting material under the panels and even a dead bird.

Three workers were up there all day and they collected two huge bags of nesting material and poop. Art took these garbage photos at midday so I think they added to it.

The guys then worked really hard installing the critter guards and bird netting onto the solar panels.

The next day, two pigeons came back and kept walking around and around the panels looking for a way in.

But they didn't leave. They sat in the gutter instead.

The day after that, there were half a dozen pigeons.

Arrgghhhh!

I looked up pigeon problems online.

They confirmed what I already knew. The cooing can get very loud and annoying. It's also a sign that they are loving our roof and loving each other.... if you get my drift... thus the nesting for their babies. The website mentioned how you have to make the birds uncomfortable and not like your house.

Uuuummmm..... Hoooow?

So Art started looking up water guns that he could shoot onto the roof from the ground. The kids and I have forbidden him from climbing onto the roof.

Today, I told him to just use our water sprinkle to startle them so he gave it a try.

Would you believe a strong splash of water had a CLOUD of pigeons go scattering into the sky? We actually couldn't count them because there were so many pigeons. We had no idea there were that many pigeons up there.

So I guess our plan now is to go out two or three times a day and splash them. But will they learn that it's just water and that our home is still their happy cooing place to be? 

I hope not because I can only keep Art off the roof for so long.

Weird Blogspot Problem... Again.

Looks like Blogspot is having ANOTHER problem. I've tried to check on several bloggers' websites (on my sidebar) and have gotten this weird thing showing up.

This is worrisome. I hope my blog is not showing up like this when you come to visit me. 

I saw this right now when I clicked on Red's Hiawatha House.

But then I checked his website address and it was showing up as:

http://hiawathahouse.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

What the heck!

So I took away the feeds/posts/default and it took me to the proper site.

So then... I'm thinking... could something have gone awry with MY Layout. Maybe I should redo Red's (and others) addresses on my Sidebar Layout.

I clicked on Design and then Layout and got this.

Dang it!

Sigh...

I guess I'll just have to wait until Blogger technicians fix whatever went goofy!  Sheesh!

POSTSCRIPT:

Dang it! I tried to manually fix the problem on Layout by removing that "feeds/posts/default" the day before so I could click on the link and not get that HTML mess. So now that Google has fixed the problem everything was still at the bottom. Arrrghhh... Even though I could access the site. Soooo.... now this morning, I had to UNDO everything I did and put back that "feeds/posts/default" addition. Now it works properly again. This will teach me to just be patient and wait for the Google techies to fix the problem eventually.

An Abundance of Outlets

We recently had a problem with electricity fluttering and sputtering for a good 2 hours. I should have turned OFF my computer right away, but like an idiot kept waiting for it to start working again. Luckily, my computer did not die. I did not lose everything. My back-up drives did not get fried from power surges.

However, I realized that our surge protector outlets were jam packed and old. Sooo... I checked out Amazon and found this. Wow! 22 Outlets! Woohoo! And 6 USB ports! 

But you know what? Those AC to DC electrical converter plugs take up a lot of room. Sooo... I do still have room, but not as much an abundance of space as I'd hoped.

Then I noticed the 2100 J on the box and wondered what that was. It's JOULES. I found this explanation on the Tripp-Lite website:

A joule is a measure of energy released over a period of time. For example, an average lightning strike releases about one billion joules of energy over a fraction of a second.

A surge protector joule rating indicates how much energy it can absorb before it fails. The higher the number of joules, the greater the surge protection provided. Keys to determining the amount of protection needed include the type and value of the equipment to be protected.

So do I have enough joules? I didn't even think to check that. This is what the website said:

A unit with up to 1000 joules of surge protection is adequate for these small electronics. Some components have sensitive circuitry requiring protection, but don’t store extensive data. Units with surge protector ratings of 1000 to 2000 joules will provide sufficient protection for power tools and office equipment such as printers, copiers and routers. Consider the highest joule ratings—2000 and above—for home theater components, gaming consoles and any computer that stores important data… anything from customer lists to financial information to irreplaceable photos and personal records. 

Fingers crossed that I have enough. Then again, we don't get lightning strikes much. I think. 

The main thing is... I will try to remember to turn off my computer quickly the next time we get some kind of Hawaiian Electric problem again.

A Day of Comfort

After a very long illness filled with suffering, my mother's sister, Dorothy passed away last week. She was bed-ridden for much of it and it pained us all to see her that way.  We would visit her once a week and mom would try to massage auntie's legs to provide more circulation and read letters to her from their sister in Japan. When the end seemed imminent I was able to thank auntie for all her kindnesses toward me and my baby brother throughout our childhood and when Art and I returned to Hawaii. I'll always remember her smiling. I can almost remember her laughter. Mom couldn't say goodbye. She couldn't find the words.

When my cousin texted to let me know that auntie had passed away a few days later, mom was relieved for her sister. She knew her sister's suffering was at an end.

But then... there was sadness. She said she'd lost all her friends and her sisters (here in Hawaii). And yes, at almost 93, most of her close friends had passed away. 

She then felt forgotten... and I realized the pandemic had made it seem as though a lot of our family had forgotten her. The fact that she doesn't speak English makes things hard too and we haven't had any family gatherings for 3 years in order to protect her from COVID.

So.... first things first... we decided to take mom to a garden. We gave her choices and that's what she wanted to do.

We took her to Foster Gardens in Honolulu. It has been a long, long time since we'd been there. In fact, the last time was with Auntie Dorothy and with Auntie Grace who passed away seven years ago. Everyone was full of health and energy back then.

We were captivated by this palmetto palm.

There were baby palmettos growing alongside its bigger companions.

It was the leaves that caught our eyes.

They're split half way down the middle forming a little V.  We'd never noticed anything like that before.

Art went back and asked for a leaflet written in Japanese for mom which she really enjoyed looking at.

We love this cannonball tree and always look for it. It's branches make it look like there are vines growing on its trunk. The flowers are beautiful, but we are careful to stay away from any falling cannonball fruit.

There were a lot of trees, shrubs, flowers to look at before we headed for the orchid house. Mom loves to look at orchids.

We had one surprise in the orchid house though. I don't recall ever seeing this pitcher plant before. Flies must fall into the pitcher flower, be digested and have the nutrients go up that stem that is dangling from the midrib of each leaf.

We were walking through Foster Gardens for quite a while so mom was ready for a big lunch. We went to Zippy's where our favorite server, Nora was happy to see us. Goodness! She remembered what we liked to order even after 3 years. Granted we pretty much order the same thing all the time. Mom LOVES their wun tun min noodles (with extra vegetables).

A few days later, I gave mom a haircut.

AND.... we've decided to have a family Thanksgiving this year. I will ask everyone to test themselves before coming. I'll open all the windows and turn on all the ceiling fans.

And cross our fingers. 🤞

Checking Your Facts and Checking it Twice

Art received the following FORWARDED message a while ago and told me I should put it on my blog. Hmmmm.... I don't like to put misinformation on my blog so I checked some (not all) of the facts. He sent those fun facts to his sister and I hope she doesn't pass it on. I put what I checked in red.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better. 

OK... I find this is true with Art and me. He can read much smaller print that me, but yes, I can hear much better than him. But is this true of others? I don't know.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

Nope. Not true. I checked SNOPES and got this:

"The original formula called for caramel to give Coca-Cola its rich brown color, and although the recipe has undergone some changes through the years, none of them affected the ultimate color of the product."

It is impossible to lick your elbow. 

The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska 

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% 

The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38% 

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $16,400

The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour: 61,000 
 
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter, Tom Sawyer
It appears this one could be true.

The San Francisco Cable cars are the only Mobile National Monuments. 

Apparently true.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: 

Spades - King David 

Hearts - Charlemagne 

Clubs -Alexander, the Great 

Diamonds - Julius Caesar 

Apparently true.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987, 654,321
(look at the numbers…) 

I did this on my calculator and got this answer: 1.234567898765e16 Hmmm... I don't know what e16 means.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. 
If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died because of wounds received in battle. 
If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. 

Geee... I thought this was true but when I researched it on National Classroom, it said:

 "While there are plenty of statues that follow the “rule” of the hoof positions, particularly with statues commemorating Gettysburg soldiers, there are at least nine instances where the rule does not hold for Gettysburg statues.

Subsequently, most historians do not believe the myth."

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. 

Hmmm... I don't know about this one. I got this from the National Constitution Center website:

"Once the Congress approved the actual Declaration of Independence document on July 4, it was sent to a printer named John Dunlap. About 200 copies of the Dunlap Broadside were printed, with John Hancock’s name printed at the bottom." So I don't know about Charles Thomson.

Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace 

Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested? 
A. Obsession 

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you
would find the letter 'A'? 
A. One thousand 

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers have in common? 
A. All were invented by women.  

Hmmm... I just looked online and it said:

The bulletproof vest was invented by: Casimir Zeglen who was a Polish priest who invented a silk bulletproof vest. At the age of 18 he entered the Resurrectionist Order in Lwów (today Lviv, Ukraine).

The fire escape was invented by a woman though: Anna Connelly.

As for the windshield wiper well.... the earliest patent was by George Capewell in 1896. Mary Anderson however patented a form of it in 1903.

The laser printer was invented by Gary Starkweather in 1969 at the Xerox research lab in Webster, New York.

Ahhh well...

Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil? 
A. Honey 
But what about sugar and salt?

Q. Which day of the year are more collect calls made than any other day of the year? 
A. Father's Day 

According to AT&T, it's true.

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. 
When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase . . . 'Goodnight , sleep tight' 

Sigh.... I looked this up too. This is another theory that's been debunked. I looked it up and got the explanation in the DREAMS website. You can click on this link to get the whole explanation. 

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his new son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon. 

Hmmm.... I don't know. I looked this up too and found this on Wikipedia:

Today, honeymoon has a positive meaning, but originally it may have referred to the inevitable waning of love like a phase of the moon. In 1552, Richard Huloet wrote:

"Hony mone, a term proverbially applied to such as be newly married, which will not fall out at the first, but th'one loveth the other at the beginning exceedingly, the likelihood of their exceadinge love appearing to aswage, ye which time the vulgar people call the hony mone.

— Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum pro Tyrunculis"

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them 'Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down.' . . .
It's where we get the phrase 'mind your P's and Q's'

Hmmm... I checked SNOPES and got this:

"At the time the saying became part of the English lexicon, beer wasn’t vended in pubs by the pint or quart. Instead, it was drawn from kegs, with patrons charged by the glass or tankard. Vendors therefore would not have utilized chalked tote boards scrawled with p’s for “pints” and q’s for “quarts” in an effort to keep track of who owed for what." 

The bottom line is that they don't know the origin of Ps and Qs though some people think it was from teachers admonishing their students to be careful of their p's and q's.

I guess this is a lesson for everybody to CHECK before you send off forwarded mail, or you would  merely be spreading more misinformation. Sorry, that's the teacher in me, I'm afraid.

Aha! Did you just try to lick your elbows?  🤣

Throwing Away Hard Work

I think I spent pretty much all of 2020 stuck at home just making masks for everybody. I'm pretty sure I sewed almost 500 masks, some of which were donated. I also gave many away to health care workers, etc.

N95s or KN95s were difficult or impossible to find back then.

However, we now have an abundance of masks. Drugstores, Sam's Club, Costco was even giving away free masks.

Our son and daughter sent boxes of N95s and KN95s to keep us safe this past year. Then a good friend told me about the Honeywell N95s that she said was even more comfortable so I bought that too. Our nephew's wife brought a box of KN95s back from Japan that she said might be a better fit.

I was looking in my mask drawer and saw these early prototypes I'd sewn. I'm afraid they're in the garbage bin now, but it feels rather sad to discard what I worked so hard creating.

However, when we go out these days we see too many people waltzing around without a mask. The Health Department issues COVID numbers each week, but you KNOW the actual COVID infections are much higher since many people have an abundance of home testing kits at their disposal.

Well, I'm just looking forward to having the updated COVID immunization that will target the Omicron variants better. 🤞

Living Longer in Hawaii?

The Star Advertiser printed a story a couple of weeks ago about how people in Hawaii are living longer than people in the rest of country. 

Women in Hawaii have a life expectancy of 83.8 years. Men might live to 77.6 years (hopefully longer since Art is now 78.)

GRANTED, this is at birth in 2020.

Hmmm... could it be because we don't have to shovel snow like we did when we lived in Illinois?

Yes, I've heard of people getting heart attacks from shoveling heavy snow.

There were a lot of interesting facts presented. The article said that the leading causes of death in Hawaii in 2020 were:

1. Heart disease (3,698)

2. Cancer (2,478)

3. Accidents (673)

4 Alzheimer's Disease (562)

5. Chronic lower respiratory diseases (372)

6. Diabetes (338, Yikes! That's me!) 

7. COVID-19 (322)

8. Influenza/pneumonia (239)

9. Suicide (184) 

10. Other respiratory diseases (165)

They also noted that more affluent groups had the highest life expectancy. I imagine they can afford to see the doctor when they need to. Sadly, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have 7-10 years less in life expectancy than other groups.

The article also referenced a graph listed on the CDC website. (You can check out this link to see where your state falls.)

The article also says these numbers are for people who are born in 2020. 

It says that for a man who is 65 today, he could have a life expectancy of 19 years. So that would put him at 84. (I can just see Art thinking he needs to plan another trip before.... well... you know.) 

A woman can have an additional 22.7 years. 

And the reason for the longevity? They attributed it to the warm weather, outdoor lifestyles (Oops! I'd better get off my computer.), low obesity, low smoking rates and near universal health care.

Yay!

OK... Fine... I'd better get moving.

My All Consuming Magnum Opus

I started another photobook project last year just around this time, but it sure feels like I've been working on this for ten years instead of just one.

I scanned just about all our family photos in 2011. And then I gave copies of the photos on flash drives to our daughter and son. 

Many bloggers are writing about approaching the end of our life journeys. I'd started thinking about our family memories and how the kids will have forgotten so much of it. 

And that is how I became consumed with creating photobooks of Our Family Memories. I'm thinking it will be my magnum opus to leave our children and grandchildren. As of now, there will be five photo books covering from 1972 when Art and I met until 2021. 

I've used all the journals I've kept through the years to write down the details of so many of our family events.

One problem, however, is getting photos ready for printing. Costco tends to cut off edges of pages so I have to be careful not to put heads or important things close to the edge. 

This means I have to use Photoshop to clone (create) more image to the edges to certain photos that are in danger of being cut off, especially the spine.

If it's just a matter of adding more wall, grass or fence, it's not a problem.

However, some things are more complex.

This is me and Tiffany looking at her new baby brother over 40 years ago.

I had to add/create image all around the photo including even my arm.

The photo below is Tiffany and my techie son-in-law in front of Notre Dame in Paris many years ago. You can see I had to add more scarf and straps for both of them and sky as well.

It's a whole lot of work, but I'm very grateful to my super artistic brother who taught me a lot of these Photoshop techniques. I've asked him to design the covers for each of the family volumes.

I'm hoping to finish this project by the end of the year. I can then send it off to be printed and also make digital copies for the kids. They will also, of course, get hard copies as well.

I don't think my magnum opus will be done though. I'm figuring there will probably be a Volume 6 to the set eventually.

Six Degrees of Separation

If it's one thing I know about Hawaii, it's that we all probably know somebody who knows somebody you know. That's why they say there's a rule here where the first question you might ask someone new you've just met, "What school you when grad?" (Translation: What high school did you graduate from?) 

The other day, my cousin texted me that I might want to tell Art that his cousin who happens to live close by my cousin had passed away. 

At tai chi in a different town, a friend I met there happens to be the neighbor of a classmate/good friend of mine.

Another very good friend of mine has a brother who said my brother had really helped him many, many years ago.

And it just goes on and on. 

But then, quite a while ago, we were watching TV and who did I see?

What a shock! 

There was my blogger buddy,  Honolulu Aunty!

As if that wasn't enough the next news story had Art's cousin being interviewed.

How fun is that? (Oops! Sorry. That was my pidgin leaking through.)

So yes, according to the 1929 short story by Frigyes Karinthy that the world is connected by just six degrees of separation, in Hawaii... I'd venture to say it's three or who knows? Maybe less.