The Worst Place to Retire... Hawaii

I saw this on CNBC last year and kept some of the article.

Gosh!

I was reminded of this article because Art's cousin was here recently and told us how a decent care home here in Hawaii would cost you close to $10,000 a month or more if you are incapacitated in any way.

Homes here are close to a million dollars if it's in a nice area or close to Honolulu.

I'm just grateful we bought and renovated our home 15 years ago.

Prices have skyrocketed. I really feel for young people who are just starting out.

A Breyers1.5 quart carton of ice cream can cost you $6 to $8 at the supermarket.

I've noticed dairy costs a lot more here than in Chicago.

And true... gas costs more here too though maybe not as expensive than in California.

We are also very short of medical staffing.

Finding a doctor is really difficult these days and you have to just hope that your doctor doesn't decide to retire or move to the mainland (like my orthopedic doctor and GP).

On the other hand...

We don't have to shovel snow in January.

We have rainbows.

We have shave ice.

I always expect people to be nice here.

On the other hand...

I remember Hawaii once being on some list as having the worst drivers in the country. 

On the other hand...

We have rainbows and shave ice.

You can go to the beach all year long.

On the other hand...

Houses next to the beach are falling into the ocean due to global warming and ocean level rising.

And so on and so forth.

POSTSCRIPT:

Wait... wait... 

Would you believe I then found another site that said  we're not the worst?

We're not even in the top 10 worst places.

Oh brother!

My daughter lives in Chicago. I'll have to tell her they need to move to Hawaii.

WORDLE War II

OK, I figure all's fair in love and WORDLE.

We have a WORDLE battle every morning with the kids. Our daughter, Tiffany is in Chicago. Our son, Keola is on the other side of the world. Because Keola is almost a day ahead of us, he often gets the WORDLE the day before we do.

I also know that Keola uses the SAME beginning two words that I do. 

ADIEU and STORY

He just does it in a different order than me unless he decides to use another word to throw me off.

Although he claimed to "stink at this" on this particular day, he was able to get it faster than me or his sister. 

Granted, Tiffany is no slouch herself.

I am sad to say I have crashed and burned doing this at least 3, maybe 4 times. If it's more than that, I refuse to admit it.

Anyway, on this particular day I could figure out that Keola probably did STORY first, so I know there's an O and an R. I also know there's an A.

Sooo... knowing that, I tried MORAL. Hallelujah! I got two yellow letters which indicated they were just in the wrong place.

OMG! OMG! I got in two tries. Woo hoo! I could hardly believe it.

Did I lie about it? Of course not, I told my children the truth.

That's my smug dog gif.

....To which Tiffany sent this SUS frog. I had to look up what SUS meant. It means:  "giving the impression that something is questionable or dishonest; SUSpicious."

And Keola agreed.

😁

And the next day...sigh.... 

Never mind.

Cranes, Cranes and More Cranes

A long while back Debby of Life's Funny Like That wrote about trying to make a flapping crane. 

Ooooh kaaay....

I definitely know how to make a crane. I could probably make one in my sleep. I've helped enough friends make their 1,000 cranes to insure a happy marriage.

I'm remembering my son, Keola playing with my brother and sister-in-law's 1,000 cranes which were displayed on a stand a few decades ago.

When it was my turn to get married, I decided to forgo all that work.

But I digress.

Anyway, I figured I could easily make some cranes for Debby.

But then I remembered that word, "flapping." 

Flapping? Sure, these traditional cranes can sort of flap their wings.

Sort of....

So I wrote and asked her about it.

Do you know there are tons of different kinds of origami cranes or birds? The white one is the traditional crane. The purple one on the right is the flapping one that Debby's grandson liked. 

You can find a gazillion origami instructions online. I'd never heard of a FLAPPING crane until I saw Debby's blog post and this video. To be honest, I've only ever folded the traditional crane.

I used a little bottle to roll and curl the wing a little bit to give it a nicer curve.

You pull the tail while holding the bottom of the neck to make the wings flap. I used a slightly stiffer origami paper to give it a little more sturdiness.

At New Years, my aunt in Japan who does the most incredible origami made this crane for me.

Or is it a swan?

Ahhh well...

This brought back another memory for me.

We were in the city of Kochi in Japan in 2012 with mom and my brother.

While riding the bus, I had mom ask the driver if we were headed to a certain spot we wanted to see.

OK, that was the first time we ran into a grumpy public worker in Japan.

It turned out that this fellow with mom in the photo was the president of a company that made these incredible stainless steel origami cranes and he'd seen what had happened.

The bus driver wasn't mean, just a little gruff. 

Anyway, Mr. Ishida felt terrible about mom not being treated with more kindness so he answered all our questions when we got off and even walked a bit with us. Then he handed mom this exquisite teeny tiny very, very miniature origami stainless steel crane. Mom is holding it in her left hand in the photo.

And as for that flapping crane I finally figured out how to make... 

I sent some to Debby for her grandson and she emailed this wonderful photo to me which she gave me permission to post.

Soft Light for Sleep

Mom has been struggling to get a good night's sleep for a while. She says she wakes up multiple times and can't get back to sleep for a long time.

Her geriatric doctor recommended melatonin which I've given her, but mom says it hasn't helped. On the other hand, she doesn't appear sleepy or tired during the days so maybe she doesn't remember.

It then occurred to me that turning on the bright overhead lights might awaken her brain too much and hinder getting back to sleep. We recently bought a softer, but bright enough light for our bathroom so I thought we could try one in hers.

I demonstrated how she didn't need to turn on the overhead light before going into the bathroom, but it's such an ingrained habit that I don't know if she'll remember. 

I guess I'll try reminding her every night for a while and keep my fingers crossed.

Sigh...

Is My Life a Drip?

I'm sorry, but this is just a silly post.

Sometimes, the weirdest things will hook my brain and I just can't help myself.

Since Art cooks more than I do, I wash and dry the dishes every night. We bought a new dish rack a while ago that had a better incline which allows the water to drain easier. It was a Kitchen Aid. Actually, we bought another one for the smaller sink from Sam's Club with an even better incline.

Anyway...

While I was washing the dishes a couple of weeks ago I suddenly got mesmerized watching the drips forming to drain into the sink.

I stopped and stared as the little puddles connected and teetered on the edge of the downward slope.

And there it goes!!!

I know it's crazy to be fascinated by this, but for several nights, I was drawn to watching one of those drips. 

Art saw me doing this the other night and laughed out loud.

But guess what? He watched one of those drips with me too.

I'm sure he thinks I'm a little crazy, but that's nothing new.

POSTSCRIPT:

OK... You can stop worrying about me. After writing this post last week, I don't watch the drips anymore. 

It did add some fun to washing dishes though.

Safety Handles

Mom is still quite ambulatory and moves OK although she's taken some nasty falls and had some really nasty injuries.

After ZOOMing with an eldercare program recently, it got us thinking of more places where we should add supports to prevent another fall.

There is a step down from the kitchen door to go outside. I've seen mom stick her finger by that hinge opening as a support which makes me cringe. I've warned her and warned her not to put it there because she could pinch her fingers or worse, but she forgets. She also sometimes puts her hand on the other side as a support, but I thought the hinge side was worse. 

Art said I should take a picture so he could see exactly where he should put a handle bar. Sooo... I asked her to demonstrate where she puts her hands.

It looked like the hinge side is where the handle bar should go so that's where Art put it although he wasn't so sure. I then had mom try it when it was installed and she said it was good.

HOWEVER... the next day, she didn't use the handle. Granted, I saw that she didn't stick her fingers where it could be pinched either.

I had to remind her and have her practice holding the handle while she put her slippers on.

"You should look where the dirt marks are," Art insisted.

A few minutes later I watched mom and sure enough that's another place where she put her hand.

She goes out to work on her gardening and doesn't wash her hands well enough so it leaves dirt stains on the doorway trim. 

OK, with a bit more practice, she did master the safety handle so we didn't have to add the extra handle. We also showed her how to reverse in while holding the handle so that her slippers would face outwards when she steps down to go outside.

Hopefully, this will work.

Hopefully, she can remember. 🤞

Another Scary Injury for Mom

The first time mom ripped open the skin on her elbow, I freaked out. That time it was her elbow. I called the Kaiser Helpline and the nurse advised me to wash it every day and apply Vaseline. That was in November, 2021.

Last summer (June, 2022), mom fell and ripped up the skin on her hand. We took her to the ER and the nurse said her skin was so thin it wouldn't be able to handle stitches. She applied steri-strips to close the wound. I'd never heard of a steri-strip. However, the wound healed pretty quickly.

And now...

In February, mom said she just brushed her arm against the edge of the wall and ripped up her skin again. Arrrgghh!

I washed it with Sterile Saline Wound Wash that we bought at CVS and closed the wound. 

The skin would lift and I would push it down to close it before covering it with a non-stick pad. However, a couple of days later I couldn't get that one area down. It was stuck. And when I tried to pry it out, it hurt mom.

Too late, I remembered the steri-strips they applied at the hospital and we went to look for it at CVS.

We found it! It's called a Wound Closure.

I now have a full assortment of medical supplies to treat mom's wounds. 

I was really worried about that one open area, but eventually it seemed to close. Mom said it didn't hurt at all anymore. 

None of this freaks her out.

And me... I'm actually almost starting to get used to it.

On March 11th, this is what her arm looked like. A scab had formed and I was letting it air dry at this point.

Mom keeps telling me she knows she heals well because she's happy.

I'd be happier if she didn't get hurt so often.

POSTSCRIPT:

Incredible! After less than a month, her horrible wound is pretty much healed. 

Pretty darn amazing!

Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!

 I was looking out the car window at Wendy's and saw a whole flock of chickens.

Well, actually they were mostly roosters. I've heard that rooster crowing way too early in the mornings have aggravated some neighbors.

This brought me back to wondering why we Americans think roosters crowing sounds like "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo." 

I know that the Japanese call rooster crowing "Koke kok ko." I think that sounds more appropriate.

I wrote a post in 2018 when we were in Amsterdam about a women we met selling her beautiful handsewn creations who said her last name meant rooster in Dutch. She therefore used the word Kukeleku as her brand name. Kukeleku is Dutch for cock-a-doodle-doo.

If you go to the Omniglot website, you'll find how the rest of the world says cock-a-doodle-doo.

And since it's St. Patrick's Day on Friday, I should tell you that the Irish say, "cuc-adiú-dil-ú, a cháich, éirigí éirigí"

May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light. May good luck pursue you each morning and night.

--Irish blessing

Seriously!?!?

We were driving home one day when I spotted this big black truck in front of us in the next lane. On the back window there was a sticker that had me shaking my head.

Is Hawaii under attack? Do we need machine guns here?

I am so tired and fed up with people who feel the need to have assault weapons for everybody.

For some reason, it doesn't bother them to hear of all the mass shootings that seem to be common place in America.

I've read that here in the U.S. we have  120.5 civilian firearms per 100 people!

This is crazy.

Absolutely crazy!

POSTSCRIPT:

What a coincidence! This was yesterday's newspaper poll numbers in this morning's Star Advertiser.

Outdated Currency? Doggone it!

I married a traveler. I should have known better because I met Art when he was in the Air Force. He'd graduated from a university in Illinois. His sister went to a university in the Midwest. In fact, their father even went to an Engineering college in Wisconsin before a ruptured appendix sent him sadly home. They're from the Big Island.

I didn't leave the islands until my Junior year at the University of Hawaii when I visited my grandparents and other relatives in Japan for the first time with a college tour. 

So of course, Art took a job in Chicago a year after we married. Once the kids were older, Art decided we should venture overseas and explore the world. He chose England since ... well... they speak English there. 😁 Our neighbor in Illinois was also from England so he was very happy we'd be visiting his home country. This was in 1991!

I was not happy or excited. I was nervous. Would they be prejudiced there? Would we know how to get around? What should we pack? 

Art? Nope, not worried at all. He figured he already knew how to take the subway system from going to work on Chicago's "L" system. He also felt he could figure out how to drive on the other side of the street. Yikes! 😬

There were a few glitches. Art signed on to give up our flight because it was overbooked. However they didn't need our 4 spaces and said we could still go on the same flight. However, our Economy seats were now taken so they said they'd put us in Business Class. That had us worried.

What's Business Class? 

Art went up to ask if this would be a downgrade. The attendant smiled and said, "Trust me, sir. You will love it." And we really did.

And yes, Art took us everywhere and even drove on the opposite side without too much of a problem. We even went to Wales and saw a huge medieval castle called Caerphilly. It was truly amazing! 

Everywhere we went, people were friendly, helpful and kind. After exploring Wales and Bath and imagining the lords and ladies who often sauntered through the streets, not to mention the Romans who created the baths there, we headed back to London.

The kids were pretty tired by then. They pretty much slept through the musical, Cats but stayed awake for Starlight Express.

Oh dear! I was going to just write about British currency and got carried away.

Please forgive me.

Art and I are planning to go on a trip to England and remembered that we'd had some left over British currency. Yup. We found it! We had 285 £. 

Awesome!

But that's when we discovered those bank notes were withdrawn.

What?!?

Withdrawn?!?

The money won't be accepted?

How can that be? We can use our American money forever, right?

I don't know, but it seems like we can.

Art looked it up.

Yup. Our British sterling pound notes were withdrawn.

Apparently there are different series of bank notes. We have series D.

The English are now on series G.

Sigh...

We were told that you could go to a Bank of England in London to exchange them for series G, BUT there will be long lines. There's also no close Bank of Englands  nearby where we are staying. You mean they don't have banks all over the place like we do?

Arrghhh... 😖

Ah well... Art looked it up and we can mail our bank notes to the Bank of England in England and they will electronically send the pounds to our bank.

Lesson here: Don't save overseas money.

And did we take our kids back to England? Nope. The next trip was to Rome. 😄 

ALEXA was Wrong!

 Wow! ALEXA goofed! 

We like to do the Question of the Day with Amazon Echo's Alexa everyday.

The question a few days ago was: What animal is not a mammal?

• A black penguin (It was some kind of penguin.)
• A 9 banded armadillo
• A hairy woodpecker
• A bottlenose dolphin

I was confused. I knew the penguin and woodpeckers were both birds (never mind the dolphin and armadillo), but I figured she probably wanted the woodpecker.

Sure enough, she said my answer was correct that despite the confusing name, the Hairy Woodpecker was a bird. Duh! 🙄

BUT WAIT! Penguins are birds too! What the heck?

So I decided to ask ALEXA if penguins were birds or mammals. She all-knowingly said the penguin was a mammal.

I decided to see what Siri on my iPhone would say. 

I must tell you that Siri knew better.

According to the World Atlas:

"A Penguin Is Not A Mammal, But A Bird

Using the definition and description of a mammal above, a penguin, despite popular belief, is not a mammal. One of the reasons why penguins are not mammals is that they lay eggs instead of giving birth to young ones. In addition, they do not nurse their young ones with milk. Instead, they feed their young ones with regurgitated meals like krill, squid, and fish. The proper classification for penguins is that they are birds in the Family Spheniscidae and Subclass Impennes. Some of the things that show that penguins are birds include the presence of wings, they are egg-laying creatures, and feed their young ones in a manner similar to most birds. In addition, they have hollow bones, which is a feature that is characteristic of birds, and have feet instead of paws or legs of mammals."

Tsk! Tsk! I tried to tell Alexa she was wrong but she wouldn't listen to me. 😂

Pests in Paradise?

OK... people often say Hawaii is like living in Paradise. Well... I don't know. We have a terrible cost of living here. Home prices are crazy. It's hard to find doctors and nurses. They're even having a hard time finding teachers. Traffic is bananas on Oahu. ETC. ETC.

On top of that, we have pests...year round.  

First we had the pigeons building nests under our solar panels. We had our roof cleaner, Ku take care of that. Then we had our solar panel people come out and put critter guards around the solar panels. Then Art shot ice pellets at the pigeons every time I heard them land and coo about maybe trying to build another nest. Unfortunately, I see a house a distance away now having the same problem because their neighbor is regularly feeding them. 

But yes, it has improved considerably. I think our feathered foes have moved on. We're not getting the horrible bird mite bites anymore. 🤞

Then there was the cockroach problem. We used the Harris tablets and gel. So far, we haven't seen another one. Sooo far... 🤞

But then suddenly, we found worms in the peanuts I'd boiled and given to friends and relatives.

What the heck!

And then we started getting tons of these tiny moths everywhere.

Art took a picture and looked online. He said it was a linen moth. I searched all our closets and none of our clothing seemed to be eaten. We don't even have woolen or linen type clothing and my cotton things looked fine. I also didn't see moths flying around our clothes closet.

We'd be sitting and watching TV and a moth would come flying past us. Annoying as heck! Down in the kitchen, we were getting them constantly. They seemed to be everywhere. We once caught 24 of them in a day. Art used a fly swatter because they were so light that when you tried to slap them, the movement of the air would send them flying out of the way.

But then I decided to do an online search. The worms in the peanuts did not look like linen moths. They looked like pantry pests. I found this on the University of Minnesota Extension website. However, the moths themselves looked similar.

In fact, I learned that clothes moths are often mistaken for grain/food eating moths.

So I'm thinking... could it be?

I went downstairs to look in our closet where we keep some of our dried food. Most are in airtight containers.

When I opened the door, a couple of moths immediately flew out. 

Our bag of rice was closed tight, BUT under it was this! There were lots of rice debris and even some cocoons and dead moths. There were no holes in the bag, but it looks like they got out or in through the stitching. 

Doggone it! I guess we'll be buying smaller bags of rice from now on. 

I was wondering if we should get a large plastic airtight container to hold the rice, BUT how do you know the bug eggs weren't already there in the bags.

Sigh...

Ah well.. Now we know what the culprit is.

Knowing the Time of Day

We were visiting Art's 95 year old aunt at a retirement home where she is lovingly cared for. She has her daughter, son, grandchildren, nephews, nieces and other family members visiting her every day. She had been living independently until she hit her head when she fell one day. 

When we went to visit auntie the other day, we admired a clock that her son had given her. 

Mom keeps forgetting what day it is. I even gave her a LARGE calendar on which she could cross out the days or write notes to keep track of the things she needed to remember.

Unfortunately, she forgets to cross out the days or write anything and is often confused.

This clock seemed absolutely perfect so we found it on Amazon and  ordered it. It is meant for seniors with signs of forgetfulness. Doesn't the word dementia sound terrible? I don't like to use the word. 

The question now is where to put it.😐

POSTSCRIPT:

Art is saying he rather likes that clock so much, he might get it for us. 🙄 

You know he already wears an Apple Watch that tells him all that not to mention anything else he needs to know.

Blogaversary #15!

I began my blog on February 29th, 2008 which was a Leap Year. I can hardly believe it's been 15 years! 

We were getting ready to move to Hawaii. It was hard saying goodbye to very dear friends in my Chicagoland neighborhood and teacher friends who were like family. It was hardest to leave my daughter, son-in-law and new, precious granddaughter.

Dina, my Israeli friend had encouraged me to start this blog and I decided to give it a try with her help.

I met Linda, DJan, Lin, Sherri that first year and some others who have since sadly left the blogging world.

But since then, I've met so many other blogging and commenting friends that make me smile everyday.  Thank you. Thank you.

You have all added so much fun and advice that I have been truly grateful for.

Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for challenging me. Thank you for keeping me company from so many distant places and giving me another interesting point of view. You are the BEST!