Lightning Show

The other morning Art went out to get the paper and came in excited saying there was an amazing lightning show outside. We called mom and the three of us stared out the window at the spectacular sky.

We had the worst time trying to capture the lightning bolts.

Taking burst shots didn't help much.

We finally ended up taking videos and hoped to get some shots from the videos that I could use for this post.

Not the best, but it captures a little of the awesome fireworks that nature provided us before the sun came out.

Our Favorite Celebration Meal

This past Christmas we had a fabulous meal that we loved so much, we repeated it for Valentines Day. Now we're thinking it's going to be our favorite celebration meal from now on.

It all started with our splurging on sea scallops at Sam's Club. It was a bit pricey, but we decided to get it since scallops is one of her favorite food.

I was a bit nervous about cooking the scallops since we tried once before and it was a bit tough. This time we looked online first. Good grief! I discovered what we did wrong the last time. We OVERcooked it.

The recipe I saw online said you're only supposed to pan fry the scallops in butter or olive oil for 5 minutes at the most. It made all the difference.

We bought the same sushi (S Nigiri) from Kozo Sushi. That green lump on the plate is wasabi to dip in the sushi. Mom made miso soup with daikon and okra. I made the green salad with Italian dressing. Another very important part of the meal was the sake (yes, it's true) that my brother and sister-in-law had given mom for Christmas. It was wonderful and complemented the meal perfectly.

Dessert was fruitcake with whipped cream.

There were NO leftovers!

Great Aloha Run #10

The day came for the GREAT ALOHA (Charity) RUN/Walk.

I got up at 3:00 AM. The timer was set for us to get up at 3:30, but I must have been too anxious. The forecast now said cloudy until 7:00 and then scattered thunderstorms.

Doggone it! We packed our two umbrellas and got plastic bags to line the car seats.  We figured we were in for a drenching.

We left the house at 4:55 and arrived at the stadium by 5:10. Traffic was moderately heavy to get to the Aloha Stadium.

When we got to the stadium we saw that the parking lot was already getting full. We walked to the shuttle buses.

As we were boarding the buses, an on air radio station announcer asked who had done the Aloha Run for 5 years. He then asked who had done it for 10 years. We raised our hands. He asked what our secret was. Would you believe Art pointed at me? The announcer called out, "Happy wife, happy life." He then advised the crowd to follow the "veterans."

Tsk! I didn't have the heart to correct the situation and tell him it was all Art's doing.

We boarded shuttle buses to take us into Honolulu.

We arrived in Honolulu in about 20 minutes.

The many lines to the bathroom were super long!

We then met up with our friends, Al, Kris and Eleanor. Remember how I mentioned that this is our 10th Great Aloha Run? They have done it for 30 years!!!

We'd met them there last year so it was fun to see them again in front of the Aloha Tower.

The GAR announcer boomed out that there were over 19,000 people running or walking the course this year.

A little before 7:00 the Star Spangled Banner and Hawaii Ponoi (our state song) was sung.

The military and ROTC then marched in formation.

I'm all for this sort of military parade. I wondered if they actually marched the entire 8.15 miles to the Aloha Stadium.

The starting line was in sight as we inched our way forward.

And then the race (sort of) began.

Governor David Ige waved as we walked passed his bus.

We could look back and see the Aloha Tower in the distance along with some tents of the homeless. It was a sobering sight.

I don't know why getting to that 1st mile seemed to take as long as it did. There were high school bands along the way to keep us entertained. I don't think there were as many as last year. They might have stayed away because of the expected thunderstorms.

The bathroom lines here were just as long as before the race.

We've almost always gotten to the Watanabe Floral store too late to receive a rose. I was waiting for one and they ran out, but Art found another lady who was passing them out and got one for me and for Al. They gave out a plumeria clip also which I put on my hat.

Balloons really added a festive feel to the race.

The race course is laid out well because once the sun starts to get higher in the sky, most walkers are under the viaduct.

First aid stations were available at intervals and there were medics along the way who were keeping a sharp eye on all runners and walkers.

I love walking under the shade of the viaduct.

Well... maybe not love, but it's better than walking in the sun.

I didn't see a lot of costumes this year.

There were these two guys who might have been Ghostbusters?

Then there were these ladies who show up every year with their t-shirts that spell out ALOHA. This year they spelled 2018 GAR ALOHA. They were being interviewed in that top photo.

 AT LAST!

We got to the 5th Mile marker.  I took an Advil for my knees along with an energy bar.

Taiko drummers banged joyfully away before we had to leave the lovely shade of the viaduct to walk out into the sun again.

More radio stations were along the race course.

Art had to carry our roses in his backpack so we wouldn't have to hold them.

Our two mountain ranges could be seen clearly.

Ummmm.... not a thundercloud in sight.

Cars on the freeway honked at us as we walked over them.

I've seen this wonderful fellow before pushing his grandmother in a wheelchair. It was so touching!

Seeing the 10 K sign is great fun, but it's really only 6.2137l miles. There was still a ways to go.

There seemed to be a LOT of water stations. I know I should be drinking more water, but I passed most of them by because I didn't want to need the bathroom.

We passed the rail where it ended near the stadium. It starts in Kapolei.

And then, there it was! The ALOHA STADIUM!  I didn't get overly excited though. I knew better. There was still a bit of a walk.

However, I was able to let my brother and sister-in-law know that we were safe so they didn't have to be our standby emergency  contacts and could enjoy the rest of the day. (Thank you, Nancy and Dennis!)

FINALLY!

There's the 8 Mile marker.

We walked into the stadium to get our bananas, water and Powerade drinks and FINISHER t-shirts.

We stopped at Applebees to grab a celebratory lunch before returning home.

The rose and flower clip are my trophies for taking part in the race.

And Art? It's all about that t-shirt!

Preparing for Our 10th Great Aloha Run (Walk)

I groan every year as we prepare to do the 8.15 mile Great Aloha Run on Monday (Presidents Day). For the first 7 years I always told my brother and sister-in-law to be prepared to pick me up if I'm not able to finish. On the 8th, I expected to finish. Now that I'm at the 10th... I hope I finish. Once I have this walk (no, I don't run) done for the year, I feel a sense of relief that I have another year free again where I don't have to think about it.

Why do I do this? I'll give you one guess.

Yup. Art. He feels that so long as we are doing this I would feel like I need to keep fit.

I am writing this post on Saturday. When you read this I'll already be getting up to go into Honolulu for the walk. I'll post about the actual walk to go up on Tuesday.

On Saturday, we went to the Blaisdell Center for the GAR EXPO to pick up our race/walk bibs. There were a lot of happy, excited people and everyone seemed to be in high spirits.

There were lots of booths selling items for serious runners. Ummm... We passed them by. Well, I did anyway.

The route runs from Aloha Tower to Aloha Stadium.

We have our racing bibs pinned to our lucky shirts. Art is planning to carry this light backpack with all our supplies. I packed some snacks, Aleve for my knees, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, hats, umbrella, and light jackets for the cool morning.

Fingers crossed that all goes well.

Uh oh... Forecast is for rain in the morning. Arrrghhhh...

Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year, everybody!

According to Wikipedia:
"Lunar New Year is the first day of a secular, sacred, or other year whose months are coordinated by the cycles of the moon." 

Actually, a lot of Asian countries celebrate the lunar new year. Mom likes to celebrate it just so she can have Chinese food which she loves. It's embarrassing to admit, but we pick up Panda Express which is also one of her favorite take out meals.

I recently saw an article about lotus root in the Star Advertiser. It stated:

"In Chinese culture, the lotus is a symbol of endurance, persistence and hope. Its beautiful flowers and the useful plant grow out of adversity — mud."

I didn't know this.

Mom always prepared lotus root (hasu in Japanese)  as kinpira (sort of a teriyaki type sauce).

Art insisted that he preferred it like his mom used to make with vinegar, soy sauce and sugar, but he didn't have a recipe. He asked his sister and although she remembered the dish, she couldn't remember the recipe either.

Well, Art searched the web and cookbooks and came up with something that he thought would taste like what his mom prepared. Mom and I loved it!

He made so much sauce last month that he'll be using left over sauce to cook these roots for lunar new year today.

I told him to find the recipe so I could put it on my blog, but try as he might he couldn't find it anywhere. I hunted for it too and somehow, it's gone. He really needs to write these things down.

Instead he came up with this song.

" MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh no!"

Very funny!

Blogger Error!

Have any of you (Blogspot users) been getting this message from Blogger when you click onto your website?

When I refresh my page, my blog does come back. Sometimes, I have to refresh my page twice to get my blog back, and it's annoying.

Whatever the case, I just backed up Musings on Wordpress and then made it Private for only my eyes.

Juuust in case.

Staying Together

Art and I were at the City Hall satellite station waiting to pay for our property tax. Yes, I know we could mail it in, but for some reason Art likes to pay it in person. That way, we can do some shopping and maybe go out for lunch later.

After about a 20 minute wait, we got to the Express counter. The young woman was very efficient. While she worked stamping all our paper work, she asked how long we were retired and then said, "I hope my husband and I are like you guys in another 20 or 30 years."

We were rather taken aback and asked why.

"Look at you guys," she said. "Here you both are together and you look so happy. I want that."

Art and I don't hold hands. I wonder if we ever did. We don't say, "I love you." We're just happy and comfortable together and wouldn't know what we'd do without the other. So I guess, even without the public physical confirmation, she somehow picked up that feeling of comfort and affection.

 Art and I left the building and smiled at each other. It was nice.

We are wishing the same contentment for the sweet young woman and her husband too.

And ummmm.... when she said she wanted to be like us in another 20-30 years, it would have been more accurate to say another 40-50 years.

Happy Valentines Day, everybody!

Mattress Solution?

Our mattress has been showing depressions in it and my sleep quality has been going down. I have no idea if it's tied. It's only about 8 years old, and they say that you should change them between 7-10 years. Seems crazy since my mother has a mattress that must be 20+ years old and there are no depressions in it.

When we bought our previous mattress, it showed depressions within a month. American Mattress did replace it with a Serta Vera Wang. However, within about 5 years, it started to show depressions as well. I've gone to mattress stores and laid down on them and it's never been a guarantee that it would still be great in a week or a year.

I checked online and saw that you could order a much cheaper mattress although it would still run us about $900 at Tuft and Needle. It seemed to have good reviews.

HOWEVER... before I did that, I wanted to try a mattress topper. The Airbnb we'd stayed at had a topper and it felt great.

I decided to order one from Costco. It cost $160 for a King topper.

It arrived in less than a week.

The topper is 3 inches, and online websites warned that toppers would not remedy depressions in an old mattress. The toppers would just sink into the depressions.

Soooo.....

I had this idea.

I folded up a couple of beach towels and stuck them in the depressions.

Then we put the mattress topper on it.

Next, I put our original mattress protector (from American Mattress) on it and then on top of that I put on the cover that came with the topper.

The mattress topper cover has a supposedly cooling fiber thing in the middle. Foam is not great for people who sleep hot. That's Art. He was dubious that just that strip would keep him cool.

On our first night, we both slept a little over 8 hours (according to my Fitbit). The previous two nights were in the guest bedroom while we let the topper air out.

Whether this trend will continue... we'll see.

If the depressions show up again, we can always replace the mattress as a last resort.

We'll think of the options and sleep on it.

POSTSCRIPT:

OK... the depression formed again under the mattress topper so we went to Ross and bought thicker beach towels to which I added some smaller old towels that we would have gotten rid of.

Then I noticed a ton of little flakes all over the place. Turned out the American Mattress  protector had deteriorated and flaked all over. Sigh....

So back to Ross to buy a mattress pad. One Serta pad ($28) said it would fit a 15 inch mattress. It didn't come close. Our mattress is 10 inches and the mattress topper is 3 inches. So back to Ross to return it and on to TJ Maxx where instead of paying $28 we ended up paying $50. Sigh.

However, this Hotel Luxury Linens (West Pacific Home Fashions) pad fit beautifully and the depression is gone. I hope.

OK... Total cost.

$160 for topper, $26 for two beach blankets, $50 for mattress pad. So it's a total of $236.

I'm thinking it's worth it. For now. If the topper goes bad in 5 years, I can just replace it instead of paying $1,000 for a new mattress.

Winter Weather

It was freezing when we got up in Hawaii on Friday morning.

Art sent a photo to our daughter in Chicago. It not all that often that we get hit with 60 degrees in our area. It was also quite windy so brrrrr.... I'm sure the windchill made it much worse.

Art sent this photo of the outdoor thermometer to our daughter.

She sent this photo telling us it was a balmy 28 degrees in Chicago.

Schools in the area were designated a Snow Day  since they got between 6 to 12 inches of snow.

I can see that my granddaughter was having a ton of fun. She did tell me before that winter was her favorite season.

In a handful of years she's going to have to drive in this weather. I wonder if it will still be her favorite season.

Apple Battery Replacement

I was able to make an appointment at the Kahala Apple Store Genius Bar to have my iPhone 6s battery replaced for $29 instead of the $79. I'd noticed that my cellphone kept running out of power pretty quickly. While we were in Japan last year, the iPhone died twice during the early afternoon.

Therefore I decided to take the opportunity to replace the battery. When I called Apple, I was told that so many people were coming in for battery replacements that it takes time to get an appointment.

I agreed to the 4:30 PM time even though it's smack dab in the middle of rush hour. Art decided we should go early, walk around the mall, drop off the iPhone, grab dinner, watch a movie and then come home after the rush hour was done. Our Oahu rush hour is more like 3-4 hours between 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM. We figured we'd be home around 8:30 PM.

We got to the Apple Store around 3:30 PM and asked if I should check in to let them know we were there.

A very sweet and friendly Apple genius named Mark said he could start me early. He took my cellphone, made sure I'd backed my information in the cloud and turned off the Find My Phone app. He then ran my phone through some sort of diagnostic machine that could check to see if everything was working properly. He discovered that yes, my phone did shut down and wasn't working properly. And guess what? He said I therefore qualified for a FREE battery replacement. How awesome is that?

Since it was going to take three hours for the battery replacement, we grabbed a fast dinner at Taco Bell and then rushed to the mall theater for the 4:10 showing of Jumanji. It was fun! (We were actually hoping to see The Shape of Water or The Greatest Showman but they were playing at 5:00.) Art loved Jack Black. I like Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. The movie ended just in time for me to pick up my cellphone.

And we were home by 7:00. Awesome!

And my iPhone? I don't know. However, this new battery is definitely better and I don't have to charge the phone anymore in the afternoon.

Mark said I have 90 days to bring it in if there are problems. So far, so good.

Then There's the Apple $29 iPhone Battery Replacement Thing

I've been hearing about the whole Apple iPhone battery throttling thing. I don't understand much of it. I get it that Apple has been purposely slowing down the batteries of the iPhone SE, iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, iPhone 7, and 7 Plus. Apple was sued so they've agreed to replace the batteries of these phones that are normally $79 for $29.

As a matter of fact, when we were in Japan last fall, my iPhone 6s did die on me in the early afternoon twice which really surprised me. I was always careful to make sure it was fully charged every morning so it was really strange.

The thing is, the iPhone battery life has been shortening so slowly in the last two years that I didn't notice it as much although I find myself charging it in the early afternoon more often. It wasn't until that trip to Japan that it surprised me.

Still.... I wondered if it was necessary for me to shell out another $29 for a battery when I might upgrade in the next year or two. Who knows, right? Then I started to read about it online and decided to go ahead and do it. Most experts are agreeing that you should get it done.

Just remember if you have one of these iPhones and you want to take advantage of the offer, you need to do it before the end of the year.

It's either that or upgrade now. 

Dunkin Donuts in Hawaii

When our children were little in Chicago we'd often go to Dunkin Donuts as a treat on the weekends. As we got older, we realized that it wasn't exactly the healthiest thing for us to do so our visits became less and then we didn't go at all.

Well Dunkin Donuts is now in Hawaii! There was a Grand Opening yesterday and Art thought it would be fun to just go for the nostalgia of it.

We had to repress a chuckle when we saw this policeman and security officer in front of the store. I'm assuming they were there to make sure no burglar decided to steal donuts. How did police officers ever get the reputation for wanting donuts all the time?

It was very festive in the store and though we were planning to buy only three, we did ummm... buy just a few more to share.

Mom was thrilled to try her very first Dunkin donut.

She said she enjoyed the Boston creme donut (300 calories) but thought it was much too sweet. My blueberry muffin (460 calories) was topped with large chunks of sugar and I wouldn't order it again. Art says he had a coffee cake muffin (590 calories) and he felt it wasn't too  bad. We were surprised that the muffins were much more calorie filled than mom's sweet donut.

Would we go back?

No, I don't think so, but it was good to try it again for old time's sake.

Waterproofing My Merrells Moc

Now that I had my Scotchgard waterproofing spray, I was ready to do my shoes. I'd bought the one for auto fabric and carpeting. I figured it would be heavy duty for my shoes.

I brushed the shoes off first to get rid of dust and debris. Since I was doing my new Merrells Mocs, I figured I'd give my old pair another coat. It had come apart a little on the way back from Maryland, but Art had Shoegooed it back together. I really liked the gray color, but they didn't have it so I had to settle for taupe.

Once I got started, Art asked me to do his shoes too. I did the first coat without a mask which was a mistake. Even though I held my breath, I still inhaled the fumes and couldn't get rid of the smell for a couple of hours.

When the first coat dried, the suede fibers seemed a bit stiff. Ah well...

I got a mask and decided to do a lighter coat the second time.

They're done now and I hope they repel water and snow OK.

POSTSCRIPT 1: I should have done this BEFORE I started this project. I looked online again for waterproofing spray so I could write this blog post and look what I found! Darn!

There's a spray that's actually designed for suede and nubuck! Arrrghhh!

I have this strange feeling it's what I used before. Double darn!

POSTSCRIPT 2: I definitely used the wrong spray. I've been wearing the new Merrells to break them in and they show every scuff mark on the suede. Triple darn!

Walmart Online vs. Walmart Brick and Motar

My new Merrells shoes arrived and I decided to waterproof it. I did this before with my first pair and it worked well. This was several years ago.

I looked up Scotchgard online and found this at the Walmart website.

We found it at the store but the sign said $6.76.

When I showed the cashier how it's supposed to be $5.88, she said that was the online price with free shipping to the store.

I went to customer service and asked if it's true that I could order it online and pick it up at the store for the online price, they said yes.

I know in past that if I showed the online price at Target stores, they would give that price to me.

What the heck! I just paid the store price and I had something to write about.

Learning to Clean Fish

A good friend of ours gave us some huge Akule he'd caught the night before. Akule is the Hawaiian name for Bigeye Scad. You'll see how they got their name.

Mom hasn't had to clean fish ever since my brother and his wife stopped fishing so I decided I would do it even though I had no idea how. Art knows how, but he somehow thought it would be fun to watch me do it.

I knew there was some kind of tool to scale the fish but I didn't know what it looked like. Art found it and gave it to me.

I was about to start and he stopped me saying I should lay some newspapers down first so I could catch all the scales to make clean-up easier.

"Why don't you do it?" I said again.

"Nope," he answered. "This will be interesting."

So I started scraping with the tool, but the scales weren't coming off easily.

Mom walked in then and smiled. She showed me the  proper way to use the tool. I could swear she was thinking, "Watch and learn, Grasshopper."

Then she showed me how to gut the fish.

Yuuuuuck! I could never be a nurse or doctor. However, eventually, I got the rest of the fish cleaned and gutted.

Later that afternoon, mom cooked the Akule for us and we all enjoyed a wonderful dinner!

Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse!

This is something that hasn't happened in 150 years. It's being called a "trifecta" which is a celestial event that has three things happening at once.

It's called Blue because it's the second full moon in a month. It's a Blood moon because it will appear red and it's Super because it's closer to the Earth and will appear bigger. Oh... and it's supposed to be an eclipse as well. Totality was going to start at 2:51 AM. Arrrghhh!

Oh.... and on top of that it was going to be an overcast night with a chance of thunderstorms. Do you think that would stop Art?

"I'm going to set my timer to just wake myself up," he reassured me. "You can sleep and I'll just wake you if by small chance we can see it. Just think how great it will be for your blog."

I figured it was going to rain anyway so I had nothing to worry about. Have I mentioned that weather forecasts in Hawaii are notoriously wrong?

Sure enough, he got up at 3:00.... and woke me saying, "There's a chance. It's not totally overcast."

Sigh...

I got my robe on and went outside. Yes, it was more or less overcast but there were these holes in the clouds when the moon would come through.

Ummmm... the moon was somewhat larger, but not all that much since it was high in the sky and not at the horizon.

We had to bring a tripod outside to steady my hand to take the photo.

And here it is.

The Super Blue Blood Moon!

Yay!

I'm going to need a nap.