Great Aloha Run #11

Sometimes, things just don't work out like you planned.

On Sunday, I managed to twist my foot stepping down while distracted. I was walking OK without much pain after that so I hoped and hoped I'd managed to avoid injury. I iced my foot as soon as I got home.

Then I got everything ready for the 8.12 walk. I know Art would love to jog it, but he now walks to keep me company.

Toilet paper for the porta-pottys, hand sanitizer, cookies to take with Advil, hat, umbrella.

I was ready. My foot felt more or less OK.

This would be our 11th year of doing the Great Aloha Run and the 35th year that it's been held in Hawaii.

However, Sunday night was terrible. We went to bed early knowing we'd have to get up at 3:30 to leave the house for Aloha Stadium by 4:45 AM Monday.

Unable to get comfortable, even wrapping my foot in an Ace bandage and then removing it, I got an hour of sleep

I wanted to take an Advil, but not on an empty stomach and I didn't want to wake Art to go downstairs to get me a cup of milk.

I wondered if I'd broken a bone in my foot.

When I hobbled painfully to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I made the decision that it wouldn't be smart to try to take a bunch of pain killers and walk anyway.

Art got up promptly at 3:30 and prepared for the run. He was sad for me that I wouldn't be with him, but I saw that he was now choosing not to bring umbrellas or backpack. I know Art. He was already happily planning to run and see what his time would be.

He drove to Aloha Stadium to catch the shuttle into Honolulu and waited at the Start Line by Aloha Tower.


He texted me photos from the Aloha Tower in Honolulu just before the race started. These photos and the one below of the Start Line are the last photos he sent me. So I knew then he was running and not doing a leisurely walk.

Our time last year was 2 hours 54 minutes 03 seconds. 

True, he did take some quick photos of mile markers along the way, but didn't take valuable time to send them to me.

My daughter texted from Illinois advising me that I should track him on GPS.

I did and was astonished at how fast he was moving.

When he sent these photos to me from the Finish Line at Aloha Stadium, I saw that he'd been running for about an hour and a half.

And this year, they even gave out medals!!!

If I do it five years from now, I wonder if they'll give out 40th year medals.

Sigh...

And Art? He's very pleased with his time.

And my foot? Getting better, I think. Advil is a wonderful painkiller.


POSTSCRIPT 1: 
Art was really lucky yesterday because it's cold and has been raining hard all morning today.

My foot is also a whole lot better today, thank goodness, and I did get a better night's sleep.

POSTSCRIPT 2:
Art was able to get his official stats online. His time was 1:34:26 and he came in #18 out of 149 runners in his age group.

Is he happy? You betcha! And so... in the long run... it worked out fine. He's content and next year, he says he'll walk with me. His doctor will be happy.

Great Aloha Run #11 EXPO

We're doing it again. Art and I will be participating in the Great Aloha Run (GAR) though it's really a walk for me. Art used to run it until his doctor told him, "No more competitive running." It's all for charity with proceeds going to several organizations on the islands. We've done this every year since moving back to Hawaii from Illinois.

The EXPO on Saturday was the time to get our racing bibs, etc.

The GAR is 8.12 miles long from the Aloha Tower in Honolulu to the Aloha Stadium in Halawa.

I think I can make the 1 mile marker fine although it sometimes feels like the longest stretch.

We collected our bibs and information, checked out the route and walked through the exhibits.

This is the 35th year of the Great Aloha Run and we actually know some wonderful people who have done it every year since the start. Unfortunately they won't be there this year and we'll miss seeing them.

While you're reading this, we shall probably still be walking toward the Finish Line. At least I hope I'm still walking...

Fingers crossed.

And Now... The (Im)Perfect Windbreaker

Over a decade ago, I bought an Eddie Bauer windbreaker/raincoat. I used it on a number of trips. And then, on a trip to South Korea, I'd noticed little flakes on my clothes. I thought it was a sudden case of dandruff.

I wrote a blog post in 2016 about the mishap.

When I wrote to Eddie Bauer about it, they replied that the coats weren't meant to last forever.

I resolved never to buy an Eddie Bauer coat again.

(I've changed my mind since then.)

So I decided to spend the money and buy a Northface raincoat which I thought would last forever.

Would you believe it lasted only three years? (And it wasn't cheap.) I'd only worn it on a handful of trips. (Make that ONE handful.)

However, Northface has a limited lifetime warranty. I'd kept all the receipts and information. I wrote to them explaining what happened and sent them photos.

They told me they could try to fix it or replace it after I sent the jacket to them at my cost.

I didn't hear back for about three months and then I saw a Columbia jacket on sale while walking through the NEX.

Would you believe that it was a close-out seasonal sale? This is Hawaii, people don't buy fall/winter clothes all that much.

I got the coat for $19!!! I couldn't believe it.

I joked that it would just be my luck if Northface decided to someday come through on my replacement coat after all.

We laughed about it.

Would you believe this is what was waiting for us when we got home?

Good grief! So now I had TWO raincoats. Art thought I could return the NEX coat since I had all the tags, but after thinking about it, we decided I should keep both since they'll probably come apart again after a couple of years. Besides, that Columbia coat was just too much of a good deal!

I talked to my trekkie son about it and he said these raincoats with that white painted liners tend to come apart no matter what you do.

Sigh...

Well.... I have two to try again and we'll see which lasts longer and we'll see if they also flake within a few years.

Organizing My Drawers

Many bloggers have posted about reading Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Several friends have also mentioned watching her Netflix show teaching the KonMari method of organizing.

When we moved to Hawaii from Illinois 11 years ago, we had to downsize a LOT to ship our belongings to Hawaii which is considered an overseas move.

However, in the years since, we have once again... perhaps... accumulated some things we probably should donate. There is someone in our household who does tend to hold on to things and collect things, and it's not me or mom. OK OK, I collect a few things, but not like you-know-who.

He doesn't want me to organize his things, so I can only work on mine.

And I do like to organize and keep things tidy.

I didn't think I needed to watch another person's method of tidying up.

But lately, I'm hearing so much about Marie Kondo. Then I saw this article in People magazine and also in the Star Advertiser.

Therefore I decided to give it a try. I couldn't quite get the hang of how she folded her shirts according to the diagram in the magazine, so I sort of did it her way.

And I LIKE it!

Darn! I should have done a Before and After photo. It's nice to be able to see all my t-shirts at a glance. I wonder if there will be even more crease marks in them though. Ah well.

I felt really good about that so I started working on my nightwear drawer. It was all sort of piled up on each other.

Now I see that I actually have room for more. There's not that many there. Two are thick pajamas that I brought from Chicago (just in case). Two are 40 years old and I'm not giving them up because they "bring me joy?"


And my socks drawer?

I think it's just fine the way it is.

Now what else can I tidy up?

Overloaded Power Strips?

We were watching the news one night and was alarmed when they reported a couple of fires that had started from overloaded power strips and extension cords.

Well... since I didn't have enough room on the side of my computer desk for a regular plug and I happened to have an extension cord plug that was flat... I plugged in the flat one and then plugged in my power strip to the extension cord. I guess that was supposed to be a no-no according to the news report. Ummm... I also used all the spaces on the power strip (surge protector). It was a surge protector so I figured it was OK.

However, after hearing the warnings from several places, Art and I got two surge protectors with flat plugs and distributed the wires. And we took away the extension cord that they said should not be a permanent fixture.

One more thing to cross off my list.

Colonoscopy Over! Yay!

It's done. Yay! Woohoo! Hallelujah!

I did follow the rules that Tripler Hospital gave me. Five days of no fruits or vegetables, no red or purple things, etc. etc.

Yesterday, I couldn't have any solid food, dairy products, purple or red juices. I could only have clear liquids and clear soup.

I followed everything to the letter since I didn't want to have to redo the procedure.

I put the gallon of Golytely in the refrigerator with lemonade flavored Crystal Light.

I was surprised that I could tolerate the liquid diet for one day easily enough.

At 2 PM, I took teeny 4 Dulcolax pills.

At 5 PM, I started drinking the 8 ounce glasses of Golytely every 10-15 minutes. I was really happy to find it wasn't bad. I'd refrigerated it so it was nice and cold... and actually almost good. Almost.

I was supposed to drink only half but ended up drinking more like 2/3 of it since I knew I'd have to get up at 3 AM to drink the other half. We were going to have to go to Tripler at 6 AM and I was worried I would still be going and going and going. That would not be pleasant to think about.

Then came the going and going part. I was grateful that Art had installed a bidet washlet on our toilet. It was nice to have the stream of water to clean myself and then just pat myself dry.

I set the silent timer on my Fitbit. I set the timer on my cellphone. I was ready for the day ahead.

I got up at 2:47 to a COLD morning! What the heck! It was 61 degrees outside. We don't have heaters in our houses. I got out the COLD Golytely from the fridge and started drinking it. It wasn't difficult, but I had to bundle up in warm clothes afterwards.

More going and going.

And then off to the hospital. The waiting to check in at the Tripler Admissions desk took the longest time. The admitting nurse at the Medical Specialties area was as fun as could be. I asked for the IV to be put in my right arm instead of the top of my hand but regretted it when I went to the bathroom and couldn't bend my arm. Oops!

The nurse showed me the room to change into the hospital gown and meet Art in the waiting room. When I joined him, he laughed and said, "I think you need to remove your pants too." Ummm.... How did that happen?

Soon, it was time to go to the room where it was all to happen.

The doctor introduced himself before the procedure. He was a really sweet, friendly African American doctor. They all asked me for my name, birthdate, why I was there, etc. I think I must have answered those questions about half a dozen times during my stay at the hospital.

The anesthesiologists were a lot of fun and as nice as could be. Perhaps it was because it was early in the morning and they were still fresh and cheerful. I asked if I should count  backwards and he said it wasn't necessary since people usually didn't get past 93. I told him I don't make it past 97.

And then suddenly it was over and I was in the recovery room.  When I saw the time, I was surprised that it must have taken maybe half an hour. It wasn't more than that. I think.

The recovery nurse gave me wonderful orange juice containers (TWO of them) and the best graham crackers EVER!

There was another woman in the next bed who had the procedure before me. Apparently she was still woozy and couldn't be discharged. She told me she knew 7 languages, had been a stewardess, a concert violinist and traveled the world. It was so very interesting to hear about her life.

In another few minutes she was able to leave and I insisted I could too. I knew Art would be wanting to eat something as well since he didn't go down to the cafeteria for breakfast. It was really helpful that Art could help me get my clothes back on.

We were then shown into an office. The nurse said it usually isn't necessary, but this doctor likes to meet his patients, give them a full explanation and answer questions.

The doctor was absolutely wonderful! He told Art and me that everything was very good. He showed us pictures which showed how SPARKLING clean my innards were. Seriously. I did an amazing job with that colon prep. He explained how he'd sent the camera to my appendix and then on out of me and captured all the beautiful images. My daughter said I needn't post photos of it, so... I won't. But they were really amazing. No polyps. No cancer. Clean bill of health.

And best of all. He said this would be my last one. In another 10 years, I should have a virtual colonoscopy.

Ummm... wait a minute. I just looked online. You still have to do the prep. Sigh...

Overgrown Rock Garden

It's been 10 years since we've moved back to Hawaii and let mom tend to the garden. She considers it her domain.

However, some things have just taken over.

When we moved here, the garden was doing OK. It was a pretty rock garden.

While we were not paying attention, the iris plant went wild.

We could no longer see the rock.

I tried digging out the plant myself before Art took over. When did I get so weak?

Oh yes, much better.

And here's another overgrown bush.

I would dearly love to get rid of the popcorn orchid plants and pineapple, but certain members of our household just can't seem to let it go. Sigh...

Ah well, at least I can see the rock garden again. And in 10 years, I guess we'll have to work on it once more.

And oooowwww... my back is killing me!

Sinking a Border

A border of concrete cylinders edge the patio walkway area to the clothes line. It's always worried me that mom or I could trip on it because it was so high. It didn't bother mom before but now that she'll be 90 this year, it's a bit more worrisome.

I finally decided to take the matter into my own hands and started by pulling up three of the rather heavy cylinder blocks, digging out dirt and then sinking the cylinders back into the space. After an hour and getting only three cylinders in place I realized it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be.

When Art came home from delivering his Meals on Wheels, his eyebrows went up when he saw what I'd done.

OK... He was really surprised.

And then he looked carefully and said it still wasn't low enough and the cylinders weren't quite level with each other. He also asked what I was planning to do with all the dirt I'd dug up. OK, so I didn't necessarily think this through.

So the following day, Art got out better digging tools. I asked a friend whether he was still looking for dirt to level out his yard with and got an affirmative answer. Yay!

It's all done! Mom was totally thrilled that it is so much easier to walk over the border now and our friend was also very happy to get the dirt. Win/win all around.

Constant Complaining About Colonoscopy Confusion

Yes, yes, it's true. I have been a big baby about an upcoming colonoscopy. Technically, I had another 3 years before I needed to have one but I have a new doctor who I actually like and she insisted I get one since my grandfather died of colon cancer.

When I had a colonoscopy 7 years ago, the doctor told me I didn't need one for 10 years despite my family history. Sigh...

Whatever the case, I know this is a good thing.

However, to be honest... yes, I'm being a big baby about this. I'm just hating the colonoscopy prep.

I have friends who told me they only had to drink about a quart of the colon scrubbing solution.

I have friends who told me they didn't have to change their diet until the last day just prior to the procedure.

This is not the case at Tripler Hospital. I had to attend a workshop last year. I was given instructions telling me that I needed to alter my diet to remove fiber 5 days prior to the colonoscopy.

This means NO vegetables, fruits, nuts, unrefined bread, etc., etc., etc.

The only fruit I can have is apple juice.  I can have tender, lean beef, fish, chicken, lamb, liver, turkey, shellfish, veal, tofu and other lean meat (which is different from 7 years ago). I can also have WHITE rice, pasta, refined flours, potato, strained soups, mayo, mustard, butter, etc.

Since we eat a LOT of veggies and fruits, it's not easy.

I just wish Tripler would do whatever the other hospitals are doing and give us something easier to drink than the gallon of Golytely and not require the 5 days of the difficult diet.

OK... That's it. I'll stop gripping now.

Maybe.

Improved Charging Station

While we were in Illinois a year or so ago, we noticed that our daughter and son-in-law had a bamboo charging station for all their devices.

Our charging station has been evolving the last few years.

It started as a folding table. We had just one cellphone so it wasn't a problem.

Then we got an iPad and it got a little crowded.

So we bought a Bed, Bath and Beyond towel holder and converted it to a charging station.

Multiple charging wires coming out the sides enabled us to charge several devices.

So now we've added this small bamboo charging station dock that can hold the iPad, cellphones and Kindle.

Looking online there are tons of docking stations.

But so far... this works fine.

$2 Frosty Key Tags

We always buy the Wendy's frosty key tag every year, but this year our local Wendy's ran out and said they wouldn't be getting anymore. Therefore, they suggested I go online to purchase them.

We go to Wendy's once a week as a treat after tai chi.

If you buy the frosty key tag, you can get a free Junior (tiny but just right for us) frosty with every meal purchase.

I had the hardest time figuring out how to buy the key tags. I finally went on their chat line and they sent me the following link.

https://www.davethomasfoundation.org/give/the-wendys-partnership/

It costs $2 a key tag, plus $1.50 for shipping and handling for every order. Therefore, it would behoove you to buy key tags for several people. We just needed two though, so that's what we got.

Procrastinating Burning the Kadomatsu

Art has a very special friend who was his classmate in high school. This friend has given us a kadomatsu to welcome every year.

We were pretty good the first couple of years to burn the kadomatsu after 15 days had passed. But ummmm.... for the last few years we've procrastinated pretty badly.

"A kadomatsu (門松, "gate pine") is a traditional Japanese decoration as yorishiro (Shinto object to attract spirits) of the New Year placed in pairs in front of homes to welcome ancestral spirits or kami of the harvest. They are placed after Christmas until January 7 (or January 15 during the Edo period) and are considered temporary housing (shintai) for kami....
...After January 15 (or in many instances the 19th) the kadomatsu is burned to appease the kami or toshigami and release them."              --Wikipedia

This year, it was on our To Do list so.... Yay! It got done!

And now it's on to February.

Holey smokes! Time is burning away.

Frozen Bubble

I remember really, really freezing days when we lived in Illinois. However, I don't think we had the sort of extra extreme days that my daughter, Tiffany and her family experienced this week.

Tiffany sent this photo to show us what the temperature was on Tuesday. It would only get worse.

Apparently our granddaughter decided to do a science project. She stepped outside and threw some very hot water into the air in order to turn it into snow. She says it worked.

She then got some soap bubbles to see if it would freeze.

It did.

The only problem was the wind kept blowing the bubbles away. They were finally able to get a video of one of the frozen bubbles that got trapped by their front doorway. (I don't know if this video will work.)

Here's what it looked like.

I know it's hard to see. The bubble cracked, but still kept it's shape.

I know it's crazy, but I wish I were there with them. I don't like freezing cold, but this would have been fun.

Getting Ready for the New Year

Getting ready for the new year was a bit of a challenge this year because we'd been on travel too often.

I've shown this cartoon from Ripley's Believe It Or Not before but it explains the custom so I'm showing it again.

Although they say this is the custom in Hawaii, it's also still true in Japan which is where it originated.

We, however, are not strict about abstaining from preparing food on January 1st.

However, I did clean out the two refrigerators and cut everyone's hair. I also finished a few other things from my To Do list.

On New Year's Day we had our kinako (soy bean powder) mochi (glutinous rice). Mom didn't have any. She repeated her warning that some senior in Japan always chokes on it every year. Sigh... We were fine.

We had an incredible New Years luncheon at our friends' home.

It was a lovely way to welcome 2019! We hope the start of your year was extra special too.

Lighting Up Our Anniversary

Our 46th wedding anniversary was coming up when Art saw an article in the Star Advertiser about a Light Garden at Victoria Ward Park in Honolulu. Art doesn't enjoy traveling into town at night, but he thought it would be a nice outing for mom.

We decided to go to one of mom's favorite restaurants, Teishoku in Kalihi where she could enjoy their misoyaki butterfish for dinner.

It really was wonderful and despite the crowd on a Sunday night, the servers were as friendly as could be.

Now came the difficult part.

The Ward area is rather confusing even with GPS.

We parked at the Whole Foods parking complex and then walked out into the street.

While in the elevator, I asked if anybody was going to see the light show.

This is Hawaii. You can talk to anybody.

Nobody was, but someone pointed out careful directions on where to go.

However, even with those directions, we still got a little lost.

I went into a bar and asked the hostess where the light garden might be.

She smiled and walked out of the bar and pointed me in the right direction.

Such wonderful people!

We found it!

The Light Garden was a forest of these flower lights that was synchronized to music.

It was a lovely evening enhanced with a delicious meal and illumination. We went home feeling quite lighthearted. I believe the light show is ended now, but it was fun while it lasted.

Aggravating %?#@&* SPAM!

I started getting these aggravating SPAM from a neha mumbai escorts few months ago. I kept adding it to my spam comments hoping that would signal Blogger into doing something about it. Nope. I tried doing the word verification which then prevented some people from doing any comments on my blog. So I thought I'd try the Help line.

I clicked on the Help and got this window. So I typed in Spam.

The Help line asked me to send them a link to the offending spam site which I did.

I then got a few more of the spam onto older blog posts but I haven't gotten as many and today, nothing.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Seasonal Chores

When we were living in Illinois, Art's cousins from the Big Island came to visit us in the fall. We had chestnut, locust, cherry and maple trees in our front and back yards. That made for a lot of falling leaves. Art's cousins were absolutely in awe of all the beautiful leaves forming a colorful carpet on the ground.

They even asked if they could help with raking the leaves. Did we deny them? Noooo.... We were willing to share that experience with anyone.

As we got older along with many of our neighbors, we hired a landscaping service to do the deed every week for a reasonable cost.

When we visited Maryland last year, raking those leaves seemed like a novel thing to do again.

And yes, it was fun to do that one time. I'm thinking a powerful leaf blower might be a good idea if we ever do this again.

Granddog vs. Vacuum Cleaner

We love our granddog, Mungo, but he is an amazing fur shedder. If you don't keep up with vacuuming, the carpet almost changes color.

While in Maryland, Art decided to vacuum several of the rooms, being careful to empty the canister of fur as soon as it looked close to filling.

After a couple of rooms, there was a burnt rubber smell and the vacuum cleaner stopped working. Our son said the vacuum cleaner was pretty old and probably needed to be replaced.

Being an engineer, Art can never give up until he's exhausted all options. He looked online. He says you can find anything on YouTube.

Sure enough, there were instructions on what to do if your vacuum cleaner stops working.

He took apart the bottom of the machine and began pulling out dog fur that had gotten lodged in  the rubber belt.

Voila! The vacuum cleaner was as good as new... or almost.

Board Meeting Controversy: Neighborhood Cell Tower Construction

A friend of mine informed us that a local church very close by was proposing to allow a cell tower to be built on its property.  My friend had made inquiries with our town representatives whose office told her that it was a done deal. Meanwhile petitions had apparently been circulated around the neighborhood. We had no idea.

Art, my friend and I decided to attend the board meeting where the topic was going to be addressed. It was quite interesting and a novel experience for us.

It began with the pledge of allegiance. It's been quite a while since I've been retired from the classroom and said the pledge.

First came the Fire Department who reported all the calls they'd responded to. His advice for the month was to not overload our outlets and to take care when using extension cords.

The commander of the Police Department reported how many burglaries, accidents, etc. had occurred. He recommended our using designated crosswalks.

A board member complained about someone who was feeding feral cats and insisted the police department had OKed it. "Not so," said the police commander.

Another person said they wanted a No Parking sign on their overcrowded street.

Then came the topic most of us were there to monitor and scrutinize.

A very well spoken fellow stated that their group had garnered almost 500 signatures from residents who were unhappy about the proposed building of the cell tower in a residential area near seniors and preschool children.

The chairman of the board appeared to strongly support the building of the tower citing that this was a good thing because it was a wonderful windfall for the church who would be getting quite a nice cash flow from the company.

The pastor of the church spoke up next. She said they weren't doing it for the money. In fact, they'd been approached several years ago and turned it down because of possible health risks. But now they thought with all the new technology requiring better coverage, this would be a good thing for the community.

The chairman of the board backtracked then and said that it's true we need the cell tower because of dead zones in our area. Ummmm.... really? I've never hit a dead zone anywhere. I've asked others and they haven't encountered dead zones either.

Then the chairman of the board talked about some proposal against flavored e-cigarettes.  OK... I don't know what the town can do about that. Then he stated he wanted gambling in Hawaii to fund education. (We already know how that worked in Chicago. Not so good.)

After a few more unhappy citizens spoke up about the cell towers, it was getting quite late for Art and me. We snuck out.

My friend stayed behind and texted me that someone had later stood and told the pastor that they had a 78 page collection of documents from medical personnel and experts with PhDs who listed dangers associated with cellphone towers.

Whatever the case, it sounds like the application will probably not go through.

It was truly interesting to see how the board worked and I do give them credit for their hard work. Still... it left me feeling a little suspicious. Then again, maybe that comes from living so long in Chicago.