Recycled Flowers

After making those leis for KC, I had leftover artificial flowers that I didn't know what to do with.

The small flowers weren't necessarily that attractive since I bought them with only leis in mind.

Then I remembered a rose tied with a ribbon that I still had from a table arrangement at my dearest friend's wedding some 40+ years ago. I was her maid of honor.

I think it turned out quite nicely. In fact, mom walked over the other day, smiled and said, "Very pretty."

Super Roses

When we did the Great Aloha Run last Monday, we passed by Watanabe Florist where every year, their staff will pass out roses to runners who go by their building.

We were early enough that they still had roses and we were able to get two of them which Art carried in his backpack.

I snipped the stems, added some floral fertilizer I had and put them in water.

Over a week later they are still going strong! I've had other roses that have died within a couple of days but these roses are still beautiful and not only that, it's sprouting branches!

I've never had this happen before. No, there are no roots coming out. I checked. But it's still astonishing that they are doing so well. I'm just wondering how long they will live.

Do you know how long cut roses usually last?

Leis for My Granddaughter

Even though we had just been to Maryland and Illinois in December, we needed to return to Chicago this month to watch our 13 year old granddaughter dance in an ensemble performance. I'm always amazed at how KC is able to remember and perform intricate sequences when I can hardly remember the few steps in Zumba that we've been doing for many months now.

KC has received lots of beautiful bouquets of flowers after all her yearly performances. I wanted to do something special for her, but bringing fresh flowers on a 9 hour flight just didn't seem like a good idea.

I decided to make leis for her with cookies, candies and ahem... a bit of cash.

A very good teacher friend of mine in Hawaii had lei making kits she'd bought before she retired and gave them to me. She said it would make my life a lot easier. I also got some artificial flowers to add to the leis as well as Hawaiian cookies and chocolates.

All I needed to do now was to enclose the candies, cookies and cash into the tubes and tie them with flowers and ribbon.

I can hardly wait for her to see what I've made for her. I can hardly wait to see her dance.

POSTSCRIPT:

We're so happy we went to see KC dance. I keep thinking of her as a little girl, but she's now a teenager with a grace and maturity that stunned us.

How in the world do they remember all those nonrepetitive, difficult steps? Another grandmother sat next to me from Austin, Texas. Her granddaughter and mine were both doing a tap dancing duet together. She placed her hand on my arm as our granddaughters danced and smiled proudly at me.

KC did eight dances in all and I never saw her falter.

OK... I'll stop. I'm so proud of her.

And the leis? Oh yes. She was very happy indeed and they got quite a bit of attention.

These kinds of candy, cookie and cash leis are usually given at graduation in Hawaii. I told my daughter that I'll have to make more for her high school graduation. Tif smiled and said, "KC will also be graduating from middle school, you know."

Flying Home on United Airlines

We returned to Hawaii last week.

Our daughter Tiffany told us that we missed the extremely cold temperatures that swept in the day after we left.

Tif sent this text to us.

Yikes! That's brutal, but that's Chicago! Tif said it hurt to stay outside to shovel snow.

Our United flight to Honolulu from O'Hare Airport was relatively painless.

Tif took us to Subway where we picked up a sandwich for the 9 hour flight home.

My granddaughter, KC had recommended I watch Abominable because she loved it.

We were thrilled to find there was an empty seat next to Art. I had the aisle seat. (Yay!) United was testing complimentary sandwiches (chicken or veggie), dental kits, ear plugs and eye shades.

Seriously? An airline giving free meals again? We were pleasantly surprised. We chose to test out the sandwiches instead of having our subways (which we ate at home for lunch the next day). How were the free sandwiches? Not good at all. The baguette tasted stale. My chicken sandwich had chicken cold cuts and soggy ground up arugula mixed with brie. Art's veggie sandwich was basically a cold cheese sandwich. I still liked the Biscoff cookies though. Ah well, kudos to United for trying.

I was surprised to see that Parasite was offered on the United movie app. Mind you, I usually only watch happy movies. If I want to be sad, I'll read the newspaper. Still... It did win the Academy Award for Best Picture so I thought I'd better give it a try. My son in law said it was excellent. Several friends in Hawaii had told me it was well done. So I watched it.

Arrrrghhhhh....

NOT my kind of movie!

I watched Abominable next as recommended by KC just to get the yukky feeling to dissipate.

I loved Abominable!

I then watched Awkwafina in The Farewell which I also liked.

We landed in Hawaii an hour early which was really wonderful! Mom had dinner waiting. It was nice to be home again.

2013 Bird Flu (H7N9) and 2019 Corona Virus (COVID-19)

As we hear more and more about the Corona Virus I'm reminded of our trip to China in May of 2013 when Bird Flu had been reported in Shanghai and Anhui. We'd already booked our tour well before the epidemic hit and I asked my epidemiologist son if it was safe to travel to China. He told me that China is a very big country and we should be safe. So we went.

Our Air and Sea tour group was very small with just 15 travelers because so many people had dropped out.

I looked back at our album of photos and saw that we were in the Wuhan region briefly.

Wuhan was very foggy or smoggy. We flew from Shanghai to Wuhan where we were transported on a bus to Yichang where our river cruise boat was docked on the Yangtze River.

The river boat could fit 350 passengers but there were only 100 travelers due to the bird flu and economic problems in China. We were thrilled to accept the upgrade in rooms for a very, very low price.

There were more crew members on the riverboat than there were tourists and very few Chinese people.

We were told that because of the bird flu, vendors around China were not allowed to display any bird life in front of their stores.

Luckily, after the March outbreak, there were very few incidences of bird flu by the time of our May trip.

That was one of our favorite trips and we had hoped to return to China soon. Now... I guess we'll wait.

By the way I just saw this on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website.

This is in the U.S.! Isn't it amazing? Everyone at our house got our High Dose flu shots this year.

Have you?

POSTSCRIPT 1:

Oh dang it!

Art has caught a cold! He's very rarely sick so this is a surprise. We thought it was the dry air in Illinois, but nope. He's sneezing, has a bad sore throat, congested and just feeling lousy.  He seemed fine Monday when we were walking during the Great Aloha Run, but sigh... I guess we'll go into Tripler to see our doctor today.

For now, here's my cure. A rather giant pot of chicken soup and no... that's not beer.

It's hot green tea with organic agave honey. He says it's quite soothing.

POSTSCRIPT 2:
I'm hearing that N95 flu masks are impossible to find in Hawaii now. Prices are jacked up on Amazon. Wow! I asked our daughter to keep an eye out for us in Illinois and she found some at Walgreens, but they were out of them at Target and Walmart.

Diamond Princess

We've sailed on the Diamond Princess twice.

The first time was to Alaska in 2011.

This was one of Mom's favorite trips since she got to have her sister, Grace with her.

The stewards and dining staff treated them like they were their favorite aunts. Needless to say, Mom and Auntie Grace reveled in the attention.

We were startled to discover that we were on the same ship when we sailed around Japan last spring with Mom for what she said would be her last overseas trip.

Again, the wait staff in the dining room were incredibly attentive and treated mom as if she were their own mother.

Dante was our main waiter and he truly made our dining experience first class. He made sure mom always had everything she needed and even cut some of her food for her as soon as he saw she could use some help. Dante is from the Philippines and he was making an effort to learn some Japanese phrases which mom really appreciated.

When we heard that the Diamond Princess was being quarantined, we worried about all those wonderful people who took care of us.

We saw this article in the paper last week and right away recognized Dante.

It was lovely to see him again, but hope he can stay healthy through this crisis.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that we can all get through this health crisis safely.

2020 Great Aloha Run #12

This is the 12th time Art has done the Great Aloha Run, but my 11th since I wasn't able to do it last year after twisting my ankle the day before. I was rather disappointed last year after seeing Art's huge medal. It just happened to be the 35th annual GAR race since its start in 1985 by Carole Kai, Jack Scaff, M.D. and Buck Buchwach. The Great Aloha Run held every Presidents Day is a charity event that benefits over 100 non-profit charities around the islands. It was Art's idea to join the race ever since we moved back to the islands in summer of 2008.

I wasn't thrilled to do the race just because I don't love waking up at 3:30 in the morning, having a light breakfast, emptying my digestive system of everything and being out the door by 5:00.

However, once again we were out the door and followed the endless caravan of shuttle buses to the Aloha Stadium.

Once we parked our car, we took photos of our space so we could be sure to find it after the race.

The line to board the shuttle buses seemed never ending.

Our driver was rather a speedster and got us into Honolulu in about 20 minutes.

However, he let us off pretty darn far from the starting point which didn't make me happy.

I was already not confident that I could walk 8.12 miles since I hadn't exercised in about a month while I was in Illinois and recovering from the jet lag at home. (That's my excuse, and I stand by it.)

I'm tacking on almost another mile of walking to get to the Aloha Tower starting point.

At 7:00 the Star Spangled Banner and Hawaii's state anthem, Hawaii Pono'i were sung. The military ran alongside us as the race started. Mayor Kirk Caldwell stood on the sidelines encouraging everyone. There were 18,000 runner/walkers.

As we began our walk, I saw a lot of homeless encampments along the street.

I hoped the GAR proceeds would also be going to help all these people who are in need of assistance.

There were LONG lines at all the porta potties.

Just seeing it made me think I needed to go... but no... we kept walking.

Art coaxed me saying, "Don't think about."

Crane operators started beeping their horns at all the walkers and the mood was jovial and happy.

We passed the fire department where firefighters sat and watched while a high school band played.

We always enjoy getting free fresh cut roses from Watanabe florist as well as artificial plumerias which I tied to my hat later.

Art carried the fresh roses in his backpack. I hoped they would survive our walk.

I'm always happy when we get to walk in the shade of the viaduct.

I was rather disappointed this year not to see many fun costumes like we've seen in the past.

There were a lot of water stations along the way where volunteers kept us hydrated. I took a couple of ibuprofens because my knees were starting to hurt. And yes, I brought cookies to coat my stomach too.

There were also medical personnel stationed in intervals along the race course keeping a close watch on the health of all the participants.

You can see the rail is STILL in the process of being built. Sigh...

We left the cover of the viaduct for the last couple miles, but it was wonderfully cloudy. Yay!

In fact, it was cloudy with an occasional light shower during the entire race which made it very pleasant.

Ahhhh....

Finally! We could see the Aloha Stadium!

There were mile markers all along the course which was encouraging.

I was so relieved that I'd finished the walk.

What a humongous surprise to find medals being passed out to all finishers!!! Can you believe it? I got a medal! Yay!

And the roses? They survived beautifully and perked up when I cut the stems and provided some water to revive them.

I can hardly believe I finished and even more of a surprise... I got the second best time since we started doing these walks. My time for the 8.12 mile was 2:34:56. Art's time was 2:34:57 since he had me pass through the Finish Line first.

Our finisher t-shirts are a lot of fun! "Pau" in Hawaiian means finished or done.

Hmmm.... Now what shall I do with my medal? It's rather heavy to wear to Zumba. Juuust kidding!

POSTSCRIPT:
Record of my times since I started walking in 2009.
2009  2:56:12
2010  3:01:21
2011  2:42:44
2012  2:46:12
2013  2:48:32
2014  2:35:55
2015  2:35:24
2016  2:29:05
2017  2:36:30
2018  2:54:03
2019  Did not walk
2020  2:34:56

Preparing for the Great Aloha Run/Walk #12

I didn't do the Great Aloha Run last year because I'd twisted my foot the day before. Art was sad for me but I suspect he relished the opportunity to jog the 8.12 mile course. We usually take almost 3 hours to do the walk. Art managed to do the run in 1:34:26. Was he happy?

Ummm... oh yes indeed. It turned out that this particular race was the 35th anniversary of the Great Aloha Run so they got these rather awesome looking medals for finishing. Sigh...

This year, we needed to go to Illinois to see our granddaughter dance in an Ensemble performance (mixture of hip hop, contemporary, ballet). I'll be writing about that later.

However, Art made sure we would return in time to do this annual charity walk. I am filled with quite a bit of trepidation since I didn't do the walk last year and I haven't been exercising much in the last month.

We went to the GAR (Great Aloha Run) Expo on Saturday to pick up our bibs and packets. I was startled to see this giant gorilla balloon in the middle of the Blaisdell Center. Turned out it was advertising shave ice (Hawaiian snow cones).

As in previous years, there was a wheel you could turn after you got your packet to try your luck at getting a prize.

Would you believe I won something?

But ummmm...

I couldn't quite figure out what this was.

I didn't think you would put a can of beer in a box.

When I got home I discovered there were 5 reusable plastic cups inside. The lid of the can was a bottle opener.

Art got a lavender bottle opener (bottom photo).

Hmmmm.....

Interesting....

I'm writing this post on Sunday. The GAR is always held on Presidents Day. When you read this I'll be getting ready to walk or already walking.

I've got my lucky t-shirt, my light windbreaker, hat, snacks, ibuprofen, umbrella, toilet paper for the porta potties, hand sanitizers.

Fingers crossed.

Blog Hiatus

Yes, it's true. No sooner when I got caught up with my routine at home in Hawaii than we need to leave for Illinois again. My granddaughter's dance ensemble is having a winter performance.

KC has become such a graceful dancer and we haven't been able to attend any of her shows. In fact, there is a friend who has been standing in for us as "surrogate grandparents."

I've been wanting so much to see a performance instead of just a video all these years and this time, we're going to do it!

Despite the snow and freezing cold we are going back to Illinois and I can hardly wait to see her, our daughter and techie son-in-law as well as many of our dearest friends.

I shall be back to blogging in a couple of weeks. Until then, stay warm, stay happy.

Baby Brother Taking Over Again

We'll be leaving again for Illinois and my "baby brother" will be taking over for us. While we were living on the mainland for 34 years, it was Dennis who was always on call for our parents.

Dennis is one of those people who will drop everything to help out when needed. There were several trips where he came along with us to help care for mom. It made it a lot easier for us, especially when mom hurt her knee and needed a wheelchair. Mom treasured those times because she could have him to herself for a short while.

Dennis now comes to stay with mom while we're gone because at 90 and getting more forgetful and unstable, we don't want to leave her alone.

Mom is loving it.

Dennis has inherited her alcohol resistant genes. While Art has Asian flush (alcohol is detrimental to his health) and I don't care much for it, Dennis and mom both enjoy their sake and wine.

When we're gone, mom says Dennis gives her wine (just a little cupful she says ) undiluted. And they both enjoy ice cream together. I always give her 1 part wine/1 part sparkling water every other day.

Art and I are grateful because he has also fixed up the garden. He happens to be a wonderful gardener.

I want to give my sister-in-law, Nancy a big thank you for sharing him with us so we can take our trips with confidence. They have the days together, but she goes home during the night to take care of their granddaughter and spend time with my nephew.

Hmmm... we'd better go out to get some beer for Dennis... and mom.

Celebrating a Life

We recently attended the funeral of a beautiful, kind and gentle lady we met on our tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand several years ago. Mary and her husband, Ron are the kind of warm, personable people you instantly connect to. We liked them as soon as we met and spent quite a lot of time together. Since Mary also suffered from GERD, she and Art traded suggestions on how to alleviate the symptoms. She even shared some of her medication for him to try.

Mary's funeral was beautiful. It wasn't very long, but it gave us a deeper glimpse into her adventurous early life and we were charmed by her loving and accomplished family. The music and eulogies added a glow allowing me to imagine her smiling down at all of us.

Ron told me he wanted to bring a photo of Mary to Singapore because that was one place she'd hoped to visit, but hadn't been able to manage. That love and pain in Ron's eyes made me realize how precious our time was with our loved ones.

Art is a year older than Mary was. Another friend from that same tour also passed away a couple of years ago.

I looked at Art and suddenly... time stood still. We've been married for 47 years. I don't know how to be without him.

I guess all we can do now is to appreciate every day we have together and not take anything for granted.

Shower Drain Cover Problem

We have a different kind of floor drain in the shower stall of our guest bathroom.

My daughter and granddaughter have very long hair that we would like to make sure does not clog our pipes.

I tried turning upside down and flattening a kitchen sink net to solve that problem. It worked, but wasn't comfortable if you stepped on it.

We've looked everywhere and couldn't find anything that would fit into the recessed circle.

Then I found this on Amazon.

It was still actually just a little too big to fit into that circle, but it had a pin (see arrow on bottom photo) that would drop into the middle hole to keep it in place.

There it is.

Fingers crossed that it does the job.

At least it won't hurt anybody's foot.

High School Reunions

When I graduated in 1967, there was only one high school in our area. Therefore students from two towns attended our high school. Students from the other town were somewhat better off than those in our town. Although we became friends with everyone, we tended to stick closer with those who lived in the same area.

Through the years, I've sadly only kept in contact with a handful of those friends. The fact that I went away and lived in Illinois for 34 years exacerbated that outcome.

A group of classmates from our class of about 400 students get together each month and for milestone reunions. I think I've only been to a couple of those reunions a long, long, long time ago. That button below was from one of those events. I was grateful for the buttons so I could identify classmates that stopped to say hello. And yes, that's Art's high school photo.

As the years pass, I'm even more reluctant to go to any reunion because my memory is so bad and I feel as though everyone has moved on to different lives or have kept in contact and know each other well.

My friend and classmate, Diane and I are both reluctant to go to these reunions. Her husband, on the other hand attends and enjoys his reunions regularly. He reminded us that those classmates who organize and host the reunions work very hard to try to get reluctant classmates like us to show up. Sigh... It's true. We know....

Art meets with his small group of high school friends every few months and they enjoy their time together updating each other on their lives and reminiscing about their high school days.

Still....

I'm reluctant. I'm such a gutless wonder.

Do you attend your high school reunions? Do you keep in contact with high school friends?

The Joy of Memories

Mom has a lot of memories from her teenage years of fear, deprivation and loss. However, she says she's happy because having known the depths of despair, her joys are that much greater today.

I've read somewhere that objects can't give you lasting happiness. Therefore buying a lot of things won't give you continuing pleasure. However, happy experiences are the treasured memories that will give you precious lasting contentment.

Ever since mom lost her beloved sister, Grace a few years ago, she looks back at the photo albums we made for her to relive the happy times we shared during our travels.

We took mom to Seattle and Canada twice. She even got to meet bloggers, DJan and Linda!

I've written before how mom loves to look at the photo books of the many travels we've done together. I think it's what made her decide to take one more trip to Japan last year to celebrate her 90th year.

Looking at the books and remembering the details of the fun times always makes her smile. She likes to remind us of things we might have forgotten.

I truly believe keeping these happy memories alive keeps her in a joyful frame of mind. I also know it's what makes me work so hard to preserve these memories in photo books. Some day Art and I will be looking at these books to remember our joyful times.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I wrote a blog post a while ago about how my granddaughter, KC had way too many stuffed animals and decided to donate most of them to a classroom.

Because she wanted to remember them, KC took their photos listing who gave them to her and what she named them. She even wrote the names showing their personalities.

Well, I was looking through some old photos and came across this.

These were Tiffany's stuffed animals. Yup. KC's mom was also a fan of stuffed animals. Oh my! See that giant Harcourt Brace koala? I won that at a teacher's workshop. No, I didn't have to do anything amazing to get it. They gave the stuffed koala to the teacher who had the closest birthday to the day of the workshop or something like that.

Gee... I wonder if Tif still has that koala. I wonder what she did with all her stuffed animals. I wish she'd done what KC did so she could remember them too.

Daiso Chopstick/Straw Keepers

While we were looking for those Petit Blocks at Daiso the other day, I happened to run across this black and blue chopstick keeper.

Hawaii has passed a law that will forbid one time use plastic items like straws and styrofoam cups or plates by July, 2021.

Yes, I confess I felt guilty about using a straw but I was never quite confident that all the workers who handed me the soft drink cups had washed their hands carefully.

Therefore, I started carrying my own straws with me. There's two because Art and I often share a drink and use two straws.

The clear plastic straw holder once contained traveling chopsticks which we don't use.

It's not easy to find the shorter straws, but I found these years ago at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Anyway, I found that these chopstick keepers from Daiso also fit my plastic straws.

I'm thinking of asking my daughter if she'd like to carry them too.

A couple of times now, people have asked me where I got my straw container. I wish I could tell them about the Daiso straw/chopstick keepers.

Don't you think some company will come up with convenient straw keepers soon? I do see a lot of different kinds of straws at Ross or TJ Maxx but no straw keepers to carry with you. Hmmmm... and what about small forks and knives too?  Hmmmm...

POSTSCRIPT 1:
Darn! I bought that set of 6 reusable plastic straws above from Bed Bath & Beyond years ago. They no longer sell them. I checked.



Most of the reusable straws now being sold are too long for my chopstick holder. I was planning to give a set to my daughter. They need to be 9" long.

Those that are 9" long have a that circular knob which makes it too big to put into the straw container.

Sigh...

Back to the ol' drawing board.

POSTSCRIPT 2:
Double darn! That Daiso chopstick holder also doesn't stay shut. It slides open whenever you tilt it so it isn't convenient to keep in your bag. Like I said before, "Back to the ol' drawing board.

POSTSCRIPT 3:
And then I was really excited to find exactly 9" long plastic straws at Walmart that was just what I wanted. 24 of them for under $4! HOWEVER, when I was washing them, they felt rather sticky. Weird, slimy sticky? What the heck! I returned them.

POSTSCRIPT 4:
I found 8" bamboo straws that are supposed to be biodegradable, sanitary, etc., etc. So I'm giving these a try. We shall see.

Omiyage Quandry

Omiyage is a way of life in Hawaii. It's a tradition brought over from Japan. Whenever a group gets together, almost everyone will bring a little gift happily wrapped. You never know what someone will bring and it can be a lot of fun. It can also cause a bit (or more) of pressure when you're trying to figure out what to bring.

When my Zumba group used to meet for holiday parties or just once a month get-togethers, we would be inundated with gifts. I have to admit I rather enjoyed it, buuuut....  we finally decided it really wasn't necessary and it put too much pressure on everyone.

However, if somebody still wanted to share something really badly, they were welcome to do it with no expectation on anybody else to do the same. It took awhile for us to all be comfortable with this.

However, whenever we go to visit friends/family in Japan or on the mainland, we would feel naked if we didn't bring something to share. It's just ingrained in our nature, in our very DNA.

All this brings us to poor Art and his high school buddy, Maurice who meet with their other alumni once every few months.

For a while neither of them wanted to meet up with their classmates because they couldn't figure out what to bring. Usually, the other classmates (mostly women) would bring homemade cookies, candies, crocheted items, handcrafts, etc. I ended up baking cupcakes or boiling peanuts for Art to share with the others.

Art got the word that there was another meeting coming up and I imagine he and Maurice probably groaned together trying to figure out what to bring.

Art decided to bring these little mini Lego-like Petite blocks that my granddaughter, KC loves. We used to buy them at Daiso in Japan which is a 100 yen store. However, now that Daiso has opened in Hawaii, they cost about $1.50 for almost everything in the store. Art figured his classmates could give the blocks to their grandchildren.

I told Art he can't just hand out the Petit Block packages. It's all in the presentation. So we got some chocolates and added it to these little gift bags I happened to have along with the Petit Blocks.

I'm confident now that he can hold his head up high when he meets up with his classmates.