Good Little Children

Our daughter-in-law sent a video of our little grandson discovering a new toy.

Little RK was having the grandest time pulling tissues out of a box with happy abandon.

When I showed the video to mom, she laughed and said that my brother, Dennis and I never did anything bad. She said we were perfect children.

No, seriously...

She said that.

Obviously her memory is failing her.

Then she returned a moment later and said, "But there was that time with the icebox..."

Yes, the infamous icebox. My grandchildren would never understand what an icebox was.

Actually, when my brother and I were little, refrigerators had already replaced iceboxes. That's why my grandparents' icebox was discarded outside the house.

The icebox looked something like this. Shelving on the right had been removed so it made a fun place for good little curious children to play in. Dennis and I were having fun locking each other in the icebox. I think he was about 3 years old and I must have been 6. Anyway, that would explain his short attention span.

After locking me in, he wandered away. Yes, he did. Luckily, there was an open slat to the other side of the icebox which let air in.

I don't know how long I was in there, but mom says she eventually found me and let me out. As young as I was, I remember that incident really well and I haven't let my brother forget it.

This is us around that time.

Just look at his innocent face.

A couple of years later, it was me getting in trouble. I was playing on my mother's sewing machine and not letting Dennis have his turn.

Wouldn't you know he would stick his finger right under the needle? Good grief! The needle pierced his finger.

That is the only time my mother spanked me. Actually it was just one little swat on my bottom, but yes she did spank me that one time.

This is the infamous sewing machine. Mom sent me to get sewing lessons when I was a little older and I never sewed Dennis' finger again.

So... were we good little children?

Maybe.

Hawaii is #1 in Cyber Attacks

It was surprising to see the front page of the Star Advertiser reporting that Hawaii was #1 in cyber attacks.

They cited that the probable reason was the high number of senior citizens in Hawaii as well as many locals for which English is a second language.

My cousin just told me that a scammer was able to mimic their name and phone number! The most upsetting thing is that their phone number is UNlisted!

We already have one friend who thought he was getting a call from his nephew who didn't want to upset his parents so was asking him for help. The scammer wanted our elderly friend to send him $3,000 by Western Union. He said his voice was funny because he got in an accident and was in the hospital.

Our friend actually went down to the Western Union, but the manager was suspicious and told our friend to call his nephew first. He did and his nephew told him he was fine and never called him.

That was a close call.

We've gotten letters and emails saying we've won millions of dollars. We've gotten phone calls saying we owed money, etc. I'm just sad for those people who don't understand what kind of scams are happening and are bilked of thousands of dollars of their hard earned savings. It's a scary world at times and it looks like Hawaii is the scariest place to be.

Yellowed Photographs

I've been boxing my old photos that I'd already scanned and noticed something interesting.

Here are the photos from 1975 when our daughter was born. All the photos had turned this sepia color.

Luckily, my Epson Perfection V500 scanner has a color correction.

It's like magic!

1977 photos had turned brown also. My brother did warn me then to make sure I took some black and white photos. I did, but I mostly shot color film.

Luckily, the scanner worked again.

Around 1981 or 82, things changed. No more yellowed, brownish photos. I wondered why and checked online. One explanation is that companies changed the chemical they used.

All I can say is thank goodness for magical scanners!

Art and the Belly Dancer

As I'm reviewing photos I've scanned, I came across this one that made me laugh out loud again.

It was 2005 and we'd gone to Turkey and taken the optional excursion to the Uranos Restaurant in Cappadocia. It was billed as an All-You-Can-Eat-and-Drink dinner with folk dancing. Sounded good to me.

When we got there with several tour friends, we discovered that there would also be belly dancing. Art was suspicious that this was the sort of thing where they might pull somebody out of the audience to participate so he made sure he sat on the inside of the bench seating.

It was fun and we got to see what a Turkish wedding might look like.

Art had to go to the bathroom and snuck out during the rather long program. While he was gone everybody moved down so he was forced to sit next to the aisle.

Since it was a rather large place...what's the chance of any belly dancer dragging him onstage from an audience of over a hundred people?

OK... Art has never had an elevated sense of rhythm but he's a good sport. He tried his best.

Me? I was laughing so hard I couldn't get a good photo. This one gives you an idea of what it was like.

Oh gosh... I have to smile just thinking about it.

Remembering Donald

No, it's not the Donald everybody thinks about these days. This Donald was a high school classmate.

I scanned most of our family photos several years ago. Now I've been taking apart albums and carefully boxing the photos in the last couple of weeks, making sure that I've scanned everything, listing information in the properties. I came across this 1987 photo that haunted me.

To this day I can remember Donald's laugh. I can hear his teasing voice. I can see his smile. No, he wasn't a boyfriend. He was a good friend who made me and everyone around him laugh. He was honest, kind and always cheerful.

The photo was taken at our 20th high school reunion. Art and I happened to be back in Hawaii visiting from Illinois.

It was nice to see some familiar faces.

As I sat at our table, Donald came up to us and asked if he could take a photo with me. I thought that was a lot of fun and was touched that he wanted a photo of me.

We stood together and someone took the photo for us with Donald's Polaroid camera.

Instead of keeping it, he handed me the photo and said, "Remember me."

A few months later, I was stunned to hear that he'd passed away. He'd known his time was short at that reunion.

Donald wanted us to remember him and here I am, 30 years later, doing just that.

Backing Up Photos AGAIN!

I guess it must be the whole Marie Kondo/Organizing business that suddenly consumed me. With my bad memory getting worse by the week, I'm wanting to preserve all our memories and organizing what I can.

I've already scanned almost all of our family photos. But then I looked at all the albums and felt sorry for our children who would have to deal with this burden.

These are just some of the albums and they're heavy. So I decided to go through the crumbling albums and transferred the photos to storage boxes.

Yes, I know it looks like it takes almost the same amount of space, but it's a LOT lighter and there's still more room in the boxes. I could throw the photos away, but I can't bring myself to do it.

I was also able to again go through the photos I scanned to make sure I had information inputted into the properties of each scanned photo.

AND then my 2 TB external hard drive died. Just DIED! Arrrghhh! Luckily I don't trust my storage in just one hard drive so I'd bought a second 4 TB hard drive. I'm sometimes lazy so I didn't always save things in both drives which was a mistake.

When I explained my consternation to my techie son-in-law, he laughed and said there was no point in worrying about it because once the hard drive is dead it would cost way too much to get someone to try to access what's in it.

My techie brother said CDs will die, DVDs will die, hard drives die, computers can die, flash drives can die. Arrrrghhhh....

I know there's the cloud, but I don't trust it. My techie son-in-law said he doesn't trust it either and his company backs up their information on multiple hard drives. He advised me to buy two more external hard drives.

So that's what I've done.  Once they arrive, I will back up what I can in both of them.

And speaking of DVDs that will die...

Sigh...

I'm going to upload most of this to my new hard drives when they arrive in a couple of days.

And then there's all this to back up that I just found on my shelf.

Is it necessary to do all this? I don't know. But I'm doing it anyway and my children are grateful for it. And that's the important thing.

COLD Weather

I know people on the mainland think Hawaii is always warm. Not true. We do have those rare occasions when the temperatures actually dip quite low.

Last week my clock/barometer showed me I needed to add a thicker blanket.

And it's been cool all week which frankly, I really liked.

Art checked the thermometer outside the house which confirmed what the clock said.

It was 69 degrees inside the house which is actually quite cool because we don't have heaters or wall insulation in Hawaii.

Mom covered herself with a down lap comforter that my daughter, Tiffany had sent a while ago.

No, mom is not suffering. She knows that in just a little while the weather will change and we could be sweltering again.

Tiffany tells me I can just count my blessings that we're not having to deal with snow and ice.

So true.

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.