Framing Our Travels: Part 3

In April, 2005, my cousin encouraged us to go to Australia and New Zealand.

Art had to drive on "the other side" of the road which was incredibly tricky. He drove through the North and South Islands of New Zealand and it was one of the BEST trips we'd ever taken. We stayed at youth hostels and met the nicest, most wonderful bunch of international travelers everywhere we went. The scenery in New Zealand absolutely blew us away. We spent over two weeks in New Zealand and six days in Australia.

I remember a meringue type dessert called Pavlova that both New Zealand and Australia claimed as their national dessert. It was definitely something I would want to claim. We need to go back there and try it again.

November found us in Turkey on a tour. Our son had gone there a couple of years before and told us that we needed to go. We still think of it as one of our best trips too. There was so much to learn, so much to see and experience!

There was the Hagia Sophia, Aya Sofya, the Blue Mosque, Mausoleum of Ataturk, Cappadocia, Hattusas National Park, caravanserais (caravan stops on the Silk Road), Perge, Pamukkale, Ephesus, Troy and so much more. What made it extra special was the tiny group size. I think it was because of the political climate at the time. We all got to be good friends and I still keep in touch with a few of those wonderful tour buddies.

Art insisted on buying that HUGE and heavy tile piece at the Grand Bazaar to remember this remarkable trip. It took a while to figure out how to display it.

Egypt was incredible! Perhaps it is the dry climate but I couldn't believe how well preserved the hieroglyphics were. We saw the pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx in Cairo, temples everywhere, sailed on the Nile, walked on the sands of the Sahara desert, visited a Nubian school, crossed the Sinai to Jordan and sat in a Bedoin tent, saw Petra (Indian Jones) at night, floated on the Dead Sea, etc. We bought this papyrus print to remember this memorable trip.

I'm glad we went then to see all these incredible places. I don't think I'm brave enough to go now.

Whenever I tell anybody about frames that are more valuable than the artwork, this poster comes to mind. We took a bike/canal trip through the Netherlands and Belgium. We loved the Van Gogh Museum and I figured I'd frame this 10 Euro poster with an inexpensive poster frame. When we got back to the states, we discovered that the poster is a NON-standard size. Of course! I should have realized that. The U.S. is still using the Customary system of measurement while the rest of the world is using the Metric system. Arrrghhh...

My favorite place in the Netherlands? Keukenhof tulip gardens! Absolutely awesome!

We moved to Hawaii in 2008 and began taking mom on trips to Japan and then to Seattle and Canada. Mom LOVED Skagit Valley's tulips and Butchart Gardens in Victoria, Canada. We bought this native art print by aboriginal artist, Maynard Johnny.

In China we bought this folk art that was supposed to have been done by farmers in the area.

We loved China! There was just so much to see and so much yet to explore.

The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Terracotta army in Xi'an, etc. all lived up to their fame.

Although we've done some other travels since, we haven't bought anything else.

We do have this nice big wall yet to fill. Maybe we got tired of having to pay so much to frame our inexpensive artwork.

Whatever the reason, as I look back at these photos, I'm thinking the memories they contain make every art piece priceless.

Framing Our Travels: Part 2

We'd always taken our trips with our children. However, once our daughter was working and our son was in college Art thought it was time we actually took a trip on our own.

It felt weird but we did it. I know the kids were rather wistful about not coming along. We went to Paris during my winter holiday break from school and bought this water color painting at an art stall on the way to Sacre Coeur at Montmartre which is the highest point in Paris.

I remember...

* catching a cold almost as soon as we landed.

* having the best pastries we'd ever tasted.

* eating escargot for the first time.

* having a free American Airlines package deal meal at Les Bistro des Deux Theatres that Art had gotten with the flight purchase. It was the BEST meal cuisine we'd ever had on a trip. It also came with a fruit basket and bottle of wine!
I'd ordered Coke and the waiter was aghast. "No Coke. You in Paris," he said. "Wine!" And he brought us full bottles of red and white wine to our shock.

* Being pick pocketed at the flea market at Marche Aux Puces de ST. Ouen. No, they didn't get anything. They just looked in my backpack apparently.

* Going to see the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Versailles, Musee de l'Orangerie, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, etc.

* the very nicest desk clerk at our Opera Cadet hotel.

* loving every minute.

After Paris, we decided to go to Florence (Firenze) the following winter holiday break.

We bought this watercolor that an art student was selling near the Ponte Vecchio.

We decided to try a gelato for the first time.

We saw one gelato store that had a long line and opted to go to another one across the street. We did note the gelato seemed rather expensive.

To our surprise, we'd managed to buy over a couple pints of gelato. My tiramisu flavor was not as good as Art's pistachio which he ended up sharing.

We loved Florence and saw many of the surrounding towns as well, but we didn't go to Venice because a friend said not to bother.

That was a mistake we had to rectify three years ago.

In January, 2000 Art took a Father and Son trip to Peru. He and Keola hiked around the ruins of Machu Picchu. They had many adventures. Art bought this (Would you believe?) woven placemat for a couple of dollars and then framed it. Yes, yes... It's true. The frame is much, much, much, much more expensive than the placemat.

In April of 2000, Art and I went to Barcelona and Madrid in Spain. We loved walking along the avenue of Las Ramblas gazing at caged birds, flowers, mimes. We were introduced to Antoni Gaudi's incredible art and architecture. They were still working on the Sagrada Familia cathedral. Ten years later we were able to go back there and see the amazing progress they had made. Ummm... It's still not done.

We learned so much history about the Spanish Inquisition, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. I was able to share so much of what I learned during these trips to my students.

In January-February, 2002, Art visited Keola who was volunteering with the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa. Art brought back a wooden grainary door to commemorate that trip. That was the trip where he and Keola climbed Kilimanjaro. For some reason they like to climb high places.

Later that year and into 2003 during my school winter break Art and I went to Portugal. We picked a couple of porcelain tile work. The other tile piece has our name on it and would take a month to get to Illinois. Yes, yes. The shipping cost from Portugal to Illinois was more than the cost of the tile piece. Sigh....

I remember going absolutely everywhere in Portugal. It was particularly interesting because we have many Portuguese people in Hawaii who arrived before the Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, etc. I still remember how to say, "Obrigado," because I goofed once and said "Gracias." Yikes! There's a little rivalry between Spain and Portugal and they don't like you to mix that up. I only made that mistake once.

OK... That's it for today. I'll finish up tomorrow.

Framing Our Travels: Part 1

During many of our travels we have enjoyed choosing artwork to hang on our walls. Looking at them brings back a lovely memory. We have to ruefully admit that with most of them, the frames are more expensive than the artwork. Still, the memories they hold are very valuable and priceless for us. We haven't bought something during every trip we took, but I'll show you what we have collected.

This was the first piece of art we bought together.

We'd been walking around the Honolulu Zoo in Waikiki and saw an art fair going on.

An art student was selling her watercolors and we both liked this piece. It was very inexpensive and too difficult to resist even for poor college students.

When our kids were born, we lived in Chicago and traveled around the U.S. exploring different states.

In Arizona, we took the Thunderbird Canyon tour of Canyon de Chelly on an open air rooftop truck.


We did also take the kids to England in 1990 and then later in 1993 to Rome, but did not buy any artwork to hang.

Here is the open air truck we rode in at Canyon de Chelly.

You can see the truck itself in the background in the bottom photo.

When we took mom to see the same canyon about 20 years later we were shocked to discover that the Thunderbird tour was no longer offered because one of the trucks had overturned and a University of Hawaii astronomy professor had been killed.

We bought that Navajo rug above at the Thunderbird Lodge.

Art was always looking for good travel deals. Cancun was our next place to explore and the kids loved it.

They went up ahead with Art to the top of the Mayan temple while I took videos of them climbing. I followed and made the mistake of stopping about 3/4 of the way up to catch a breath. That's when I looked down and totally froze. The stairs were incredibly steep. I couldn't get myself to move up or down. I wanted to plaster myself to the steps. Art finally looked down and saw me frozen and coaxed me to just look at my feet and go up. I did and then did the same thing going down. I was imagining having a helicopter come and rescue me.

Our happy memento of that travel experience was this Mayan inscription of our wedding date. I thought it would be a good reminder for Art.

I'm still trying to forget the fact that I did get hit by Montezuma's Revenge on that trip.

Now that we managed England, Rome and Cancun we thought it was time to take the kids to Japan to meet some of my relatives and see the country of their grandparents' birth.

We stopped at the Kyoto Handicraft Center where the kids got to try their hand at woodblock printing. We bought a print to remember our first trip to Japan together as a family.

Tomorrow I'll share the next trip which Art and I took on our own for the first time without the kids.

Family in Frames

My Wall Art Gallery continues. This time, it's about family.

Before my brother, Dennis became a Photoshop master, he really was an accomplished artist. He won't draw a thing for me now. When we moved to Chicago from Hawaii in 1974 he mailed the drawings on the right for me so I wouldn't forget my roots. He started to draw Art's family restaurant and for some reason gave it up. We rescued it from his trash basket and framed it. Someday, Dennis will retire and I'm going to chain him to a desk and have him finish it.

I put our kids' clothes in a shadow box to keep a bit of their childhood for us to always hold dear. I've done the same for our grandkids.

We loved printers' boxes at one time and used it to display small treasures. The only downside was the dust it collected. When we moved to Hawaii, we designed a removable plexiglass cover for it. It's so much better!

Our granddaughter, KC drew this picture for us of the time she spent with us in Hawaii. They were at the beach a lot where there were rainbows, boogie boards, spam musubi and mom taking photos under the giant umbrella.

Here's the painting that Auntie Grace painted before she passed away. She is mom's much beloved younger sister.

Every time we look at it, we remember Auntie's zest for life and beauty.

When I retired from teaching in Illinois this was one of the gifts I received from the staff. I can see the windows of the 1st floor room where I taught for 19 years.

Our son and daughter-in-law gave this to Art for his 70th birthday. I wasn't sure what it was at first but Art knew right away. It's a diagram of the Chicago subway system. Art rode the train to work every day.

We bought this poster from the The Art Institute of Chicago when they held the Monet exhibit.

Chicago's art institute is one of the largest and oldest art museums in the U.S.

We often took our children there to develop their appreciation of the arts.

This was a photo our daughter, Tiffany took and developed when she was taking a high school photography class.

Here we copied Jackson Pollock and did this art project with the kids dripping paint on a very large canvas.

Unfortunately we couldn't find a wall big enough to hang the painting horizontally so we had to hang it sideways.

Someday, our son says we may have to cut the painting in two so he and his sister can each have a section.

Too funny!

Friends on Our Wall

Sigh...

Didn't know what to write about and was wandering around the house again. Art must have gotten tired of my pacing and suggested I write about what we have hanging on our walls.

I started looking first at beautiful pieces I've received from friends. Peggy gave me several art pieces through the years and I liked the colorful, happy feeling that this piece represented of those years we spent together in Illinois.

My dear classmate/friend Mavis made this wall hanging quilt for Art when he retired from the U.S.E.P.A. I'd sent her all his neckties for her craft projects and was totally blown away when she sent this at Christmas.

This poster was given to us by our very close friend, Dave Au. He is a professional photographer who has taken all our family photos and even came to Chicago to photograph our daughter's wedding.

This was one of the awards he's won through the years.

Dave is blessed with an eye for detail, angles, color, timing, composition and anything to do with cameras.

Our trip to Turkey in 2005 holds some of our favorite experiences. Whenever someone asks us what our favorite trip was, this is one of the top five. It wasn't just the scenery, history and people, but our tour members who came from all around the U.S. as well as Canada. There were only 18 people and we became good friends. One of them was an artist from New York named Connie. We were tickled pink when she painted this and sent it to us a few months later.

Bill, our anthropologist friend from Chicago often travels around the world to share his expertise.

He brought back this kanji from Paris which is supposed to say "Harmony."

In a place of honor is this sweet drawing that blogger Christine of Canada gave us when we met her and her beautiful family in Hawaii a few years ago.

There are several more wall art from friends but I'm going to move on to some different pieces for tomorrow.

Falls, Pain, a Cold, Meds, and a Son-in-Law to be Grateful For

Mom fell onto a concrete surface and hurt her head and back on March 21st. We took her to the ER. Three days later she caught a terrible cold with hacking coughs and a sore throat. I ended up preparing warm lemon juice with honey and a huge pot of chicken soup which lasted several days.

When the pain and coughs seemed to be too much to handle her doctor (after a phone consult) prescribed Diclofenac pills for pain and Cheratussin for her cough.

Then she fell again and we suspected the Cheratussin's codeine was responsible since it causes wooziness. This time she hit the side of her face and knee and got a swollen, black and blue cheek.

I emailed the doctor and he advised us that unless she had discolored mucus when she coughed, was dizzy or feverish, she should be OK.

Art was not happy with this. Every morning, he'd check on mom and ask her how she felt and then ask me to contact the doctor again.

Finally, for the third time he suggested insisted that the doctor should have a look at her and make sure her lungs were clear and do whatever else he could do to make sure she was OK.

I told mom I'd made an appointment and she was not pleased. She said she did not want to go, did not think she needed to go and was getting better slowly because she was older.

I told her it was Art's idea.

"OK," she said meekly.

I told Art I wanted him to be in the examining room too since he was the one who felt this was important. And he did sit there interjecting when he felt something wasn't clear enough for us. He was quite pleased when the doctor told us that her chest was clear and her cheek did not appear to be fractured (just bruised).

The doctor prescribed a Lidocaine patch for the pain, Azithromycin antibiotics for the cold and Benzonatate (no codeine) for the cough.

OK... So here's what I have to remember.

She'll have the Diclofenac in the morning for pain. If needed, she can have the Benzonatate for cough during the day since it doesn't have codeine which could make her dizzy.

At dinner she'll have the Azithromycin for the next four days. I'll apply the Lidocaine patch after her bath and remove it the following morning after 12 hours. Before going to bed, she'll have the Cheratussin (with codeine) so she can get a better night's sleep.

She'll remember on her own to take her blood pressure meds. I hope.

After finishing dinner, Art raised an eyebrow and said, "Don't you think you should write this down? Maybe you should have mom write it in Japanese too so she knows what's what..."

So I did.

And I guess this is why mom tells everybody she's got the best son-in-law she could ever have been blessed with.

Calling For Help

Mom's rooms are downstairs. Art and I have our bedroom and office upstairs. It affords all of us a measure of privacy. We gave mom a bell to call us from the bottom of the stairs if she needs us however, we couldn't hear the bell from the other side of the house.

Now that she's fallen and something could happen where we can't hear her we've been trying to figure out what kind of option would work.

We thought about an intercom system, but it has too many buttons. Mom is not technologically savvy.

Ummmm.... She's a genius at history and language arts, but anything with buttons mystifies/terrifies her.

Our next plan was to get her a walkie talkie.

But..... hmmmm.... Would she be able to remember how to use this?

My brother suggested just using our house cordless phone's intercom.

We'd never tried using that.

Soooo... I tried to show mom how to press the Push to Talk button, talk, and let go to hear the response.

Oh my gosh....

Somehow it flustered her so much that she wanted nothing to do with it.

Art was talking to his sister in California when she mentioned the buzzer they used to have at their restaurant to signal when they needed more help.

We looked up wireless doorbells.

And what do you know...

We can put the doorbell in mom's area or she can even just carry it with her. She won't.... but she could.

The two receiver chimes can be plugged in wherever you want them. In our case, we'd put them in our bedroom and office.

This is sounding more and more like the best solution. Our son-in-law found this
Sado Tech Model for a mere $19.99 on Amazon. It's on sale! AND it's got 4.7 out of 5 stars.

We shall see how it works.



POSTSCRIPT:

What a coincidence!

The doorbells arrived. I made a mistake though. It was TWO doorbells and one receiver chime. And they work!

I've put one in the bedroom and one in her family room. Those two small button things were the doorbells (transmitter). That bigger thing is the receiver and you can make it really loud.

I've plugged the receiver in our hallway and we can hear it everywhere. Our neighbors say they will plug the receiver into their house when we're gone.  Yay!
Problem solved.

Another Fall

Mom was still taking Diclofenac for back pain from her fall and cough syrup with codeine last week. We told her to relax and not worry about anything because we would take care of all the household chores.

Still, we couldn't stop her from using the Swiffer mop to do some floor cleaning. We let that go because she was getting depressed not being able to do anything.

When we returned home from tai chi last Thursday, she told me she'd had another fall.

"In the house? Where?" I asked.

"No, outside." she answered a little shamefacedly. "It's where the concrete meets the gravel."

She'd decided to put a broom away that she'd forgotten on the other side of the house. She's walked this path countless times without a mishap.

She said she was perfectly fine except for a bumped knee and scratch on her elbow which she said she took care of. She said I shouldn't worry because she was not a baby.

I took her at her word... sort of.

When Art saw her later, he asked to see the bump on the knee which turned out to also be more scratches. He also saw that her cheek had swelled a little and gave her an ice pack. The following day, her cheek looked a little black and blue and was more swollen. She then said she knew she hit her cheek, but it didn't hurt much so she thought it was fine.

Sigh....

It's better now.

We've explained that the codeine is probably making her drowsy which can cause her to stumble more easily. We reiterated that she needs to stay indoors until she's completely well and off those meds.

I think she's more amenable to listening now. I think.

Pineapple Planting Maniac

OK... Here's the deal.

I worked, sweated, toiled for 3 summers at the Dole Pineapple Factory when I was in high school. To this day eating a fresh pineapple will make my hairline break out in a psychosomatic line of sweat.

Art's friend, Morris often gives us fresh pineapples from his huge terrace garden and advises Art to plant the crowns if it's particularly sweet.

I guess it's fine for when the grandkids come and can have the novel experience of harvesting a pineapple. Otherwise, we've just given the pineapples away.

I can see having one or two plants, maybe even three.

But please.... isn't this a little ridiculous?

Organizing Outdoor Storage

We have a shelf on our sheltered patio that keeps a lot of our gardening things... and other assorted paraphernalia. It's always been an eyesore to me. For one thing, with our salt air, anything kept there gets rusted and dusty.

For the longest time, I've said we needed to get some kind of storage unit.

Art felt anything plastic kept outdoors would deteriorate.

Since mom is confined to the indoors for a while longer, I've been staring at that shelf and took it up as a cause again.

I took a Before and After shot of my cleaning up the mess that was on and around the shelf.

Funny how you can hardly tell there's a difference and yet our huge garbage bin was full of stuff I threw away. Honest.

We then looked everywhere at the different sheds that were available.

We liked what we saw at Sears and was going to buy this Craftsman shed. (Found out later that Craftsman sheds are made by Suncast.) It was on sale for $159 down from $197.99.

I asked the sales associate if it was going to go down further on Memorial Day because I'd be really upset if I discovered that right after I bought it.

He checked and admitted it was going to go on a Memorial Day sale the following day for $139.

We went back the following day and bought it and started putting it together.

Now we could put all those little things in there and it would be more protected from the moisture and salt air... sort of.

Aggravation!

We then discovered that it was really, really, really hard to open the doors. They kept sticking. Mom would never be able to open them.

Soooo....

I had this bright idea to stick a small plastic disk at the bottom to raise the door a bit. Art stuck a little wooden shim at the top to raise the roof about an eighth of an inch so the doors could close.

OK... So after a little bit of kludging, our shed is up and working!

Woo hoo! Finally!

Spam Call Cure: Hiya App

I have no idea who told me about the Hiya app, but I really like it. I really hate getting those spam calls on my cellphone. The Hiya app will warn me if its a spam caller.

Here's the link.
http://hiya.com

iTunes stated in its review:

"Best call blocker and caller ID lookup for iOS10. Hiya identifies the important calls you want to take and blocks numbers that you want to avoid."

Google Play said:

"Hiya (formerly Whitepages Caller ID) Call Block Security identifies the calls you want to take and blocks the numbers and texts you want to avoid. Hiya is free (no ads!), and is incredibly easy to use."

Whoever it was that mentioned it on their blog, thank you so much!

Fact or Myth? Marshmallows Cure Sore Throats

Mom's back is still hurting from her fall and she's taking Diclofenac pills. My daughter said her neighbor had brought back an OTC (over the counter) topical ibuprofen gel (Voltaren) that is sold in Europe, but can only be had by prescription in the U.S.  I called Walmart's pharmacy and they said one tube costs $46.55 and you can only get it through your doctor.

I called Kaiser and they said it was non-formulary whatever that means and isn't covered by insurance so it would be very expensive. I called the doctor and he said he'd rather she took the Diclofenac pills. When I talked to the Kaiser pharmacist, she said the gel has to go through skin and fat so wouldn't be as strong. I asked if it might be safer since it wouldn't have to go through her liver. She said, "Perhaps."

Anyway, the pill seems to be working... somewhat, along with a heating pad.

Now she's got a nasty cough! Arghhh.... What to do. Gave her Sudafed and she's taking Ricola lozenges. Where could she have caught this? At the ER?

Then I had this idea. I'd gotten several forwarded emails about marshmallows being a sure cure for a sore throat.

I mentioned it to Art and was planning to buy some. I knew mom would love this cure.

Art said to look it up online first.

Found this on the New York Daily News:

"Dr. Voigt (otolaryngologist) said marshmallows "do not contain anything I would recommend to treat a sore throat." Marshmallows are simply sugar, water, air, and gelatin. Sometimes gelatin-based products, like Jell-O are suggested for sore throats, but there are few scientific reasons for why. So marshmallows won't irritate your burning red throat, but it will go down easy."

It goes on to say this:

"However, there is some truth to the myth. Marshmallows as we know them aren't really the real deal. Marshmallows get their name from the marshmallow root — a plant hailing from Africa, Asia and Europe and a former ingredient to the sticky treat. Cultivators of the root used the plant to, you guessed it, soothe sore throats and stomachs. Over time, the root was removed from the marshmallow treat and replaced with gelatin."

So OK... never mind. It's a good thing we have two lemon trees. I made her warm mugs of lemon and honey.