Brother Steps In

About 12 years ago we moved back to Hawaii to take care of mom. She asked us to return since Art and I were both retired by then and could handle the move.

It was a huge undertaking which involved selling our house, buying her house and building on top to make our living space. However sad it was to leave our children and friends in Illinois, it's been a different kind of wonderful to be back in Hawaii again.

When we left town before, our neighbors stepped in to watch over mom and my brother and sister-in-law were on call to help. Good friends who live close by also insisted we leave their numbers with her as well. My brother would call from work to check in twice a day to make sure she was doing well.

Now that mom is 90 and ... hmmm... getting a little forgetful and a little more fragile, my brother will be coming to stay with her at our house whenever we're out of town. He's now retired too and has the time to be available. (Yes, this is me with mom and brother. Hmmm... gee... his head looks big. It's quite normal sized now despite his big artistic, super smart brain.)

A friend of mine was just telling me that her husband's friend lives with his elderly mother and when he goes out of town, his brother who lives on the mainland comes back to Hawaii to stay with her. I was pretty darn impressed by that.

I'm now making a list of what my brother needs to keep in mind while taking care of mom. I'm listing restaurants she likes, the food to order for her, the schedule she likes to keep, her doctors and contact numbers, what she tends to forget, etc. It's an even longer list than what I used to write for babysitters when they watched our children decades ago.

Mom is very excited about my brother coming to stay with her. I know she misses seeing more of him. She used to call him Danny Boy when he was little and has always loved the song. I feel so much more confident now knowing he'll be watching over her.

Mom always called us her treasures when we were growing up. It's now time for us to treasure her.

Suitcases I Love

Yes, we've traveled quite a bit and our suitcases have taken a beating.

We've gone through a number of suitcases.

I can't quite remember what the brands were, but they did survive a lot of flights for many years.

I looked through my photos and saw that I must have gotten that purple Travelpro suitcase in 2014. I know I bought it in Illinois at a T.J. Maxx store.

I was then able to use it when we went to Hokkaido, Japan in June.

Those other two suitcases in the top 2014 photo has held up very well though the seams are are now battered.

I like the Travelpro suitcase because it held more than the other two.

Since that time, we've kept a lookout for another Travelpro at Ross and T.J. Maxx and at long last found a black one a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, I painted a giant K with acrylic paint on my purple one after it was lost in the Netherlands one year. I figured it would be easier to see when it went around the airport baggage carousel.

I really didn't want a black suitcase although Art used to think he preferred a  masculine looking dark suitcase. There are too many black luggage on every flight.

Therefore he agreed to let me do my "K" thing again with the leftover dark gray house paint from this summer.

I went to work.

And here they are, front and back.

I refreshed the K on my suitcase as well.

It's funny how the gray paint looks white against the dark colors.

People have admired our suitcases telling us we're lucky they are now easy to spot.

I'm hoping thieves would also not want to try walking away with such noticeable letters on the suitcases.

Fingers crossed.

(Uh oh... I looked up Travelpro reviews. They do have a 10 year warranty. However, their customer service is apparently terrible if something goes wrong.

Still... they do hold up well.)

Expired Hurricane Water

Every hurricane season, we buy water for consumption in plastic bottles. It's not the best thing for the environment, but the most convenient. We do turn in the bottles for recycling.

Well, sorry to say we had one hurricane scare where everybody went out to buy water and stores began to run out of stock. We ended up with large 1.5 liter bottles of water that expired in 2016. We just totally forgot to use it.

We could have used our supply to water the plants, but Art had an idea to use it to do the laundry. Mom is pretty obsessed about doing the laundry almost everyday that the sun is shining. Art is constantly telling her to hold off until we have a full load.

We carried the heavy bottles to the washing machine and started emptying the water into the tub.

Would you believe it filled only almost half of the tub?

So yes...

We did tell mom to hold off a while and make sure she has enough of a load before doing the laundry.

She's not thrilled, but she understands.

Double Rainbows

Now that it's winter (sort of) in Hawaii, we've been seeing more rainbows since it's actually the rainy season.

The other day I was able to capture this one right out my window!

It was clearly a double rainbow.

Here's an explanation for the double rainbow from the Weather Channel website:

The second and more faint rainbow is called the secondary rainbow. It occurs when refracted light does not escape the raindrop after being reflected the first time. Instead, the refracted light reflects off the raindrop's surface a second time as well, producing a secondary rainbow with its colors reversed compared to the primary rainbow. Unfortunately, fewer light rays are available to undergo the additional refraction process, so the resulting secondary rainbow appears less vivid.

It's fun to see how the colors are reversed in the secondary rainbow.

You know what? No matter how many times I've seen rainbows in Hawaii, it never fails to make me smile and fill me with awe. 

Da Ten Commandments (Hawaiian Pidgin Style)

I've seen this version of the Ten Commandments at tourist shops around the islands and got a chuckle out of it. A friend of mine recently showed me something with the commandments on it. I can't remember what it was though. It's on plaques, wall hangings, cards, etc.

Perhaps I need to give you a little help with understanding the pidgin English although I'll bet you can figure it out.

Moemoe = sleep
Cockaroach = steal
Bumbye = By and by or later
Bachi = retribution, divine punishment (Bachi is actually Japanese but pidgin English has appropriated many languages of the immigrants who came to Hawaii long ago.)

Seeing this now, I can see how some of my mainland friends would have difficulty understanding a local person who is speaking with a thick Hawaiian pidgin English.  Ah well... the main thing is the message in any language.

Magnets From Our Travels

Marcia of  Birds, Blooms, Books, Etc. posted photos of magnets she's bought during her many travels and I loved seeing them so much, I thought I'd share some of ours.

We got these during our Viking Mediterranean Cruise.

Budapest has only been a city for a couple of hundred years, since the cities of Buda, Pest and Obuda united. Today, the city can be distinguished into two: Buda and Pest, divided by the river Danube that splits the city into two.

I just pulled these magnets off my magnet board in no particular order, I'm afraid. We spent 8 days in Paris over the winter school holiday while I was still teaching. I caught a cold, but it was a wonderful experience.

We were in the Netherlands and Brugge (Belgium) on a biking trip. That was Art's idea. I ended up with a sore behind.

Our trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bangkok, Thailand, Vietnam and Bangladesh in 2014 was truly an awesome trip. We timed that journey so we could visit our son who was working in Bangladesh.

Egypt in 2007 was a calmer place when we went there. We were amazed at how the hieroglyphics were so incredibly well preserved. Crossing the streets in Egypt was terrifying!

We went to Turkey in 2005 and always considered it one of our favorite trips. I'm not in any frame of mind to go there now, but it is a very beautiful country filled with so many amazing sights.

And yes, we've been to Japan many times and have taken mom, brother and aunt there several times as well. What can I say? It's one of our favorite places to go back to for family, food and fabulous sights.

If you've seen Indiana Jones, you're familiar with Petra in Jordan. Let me tell you now there are no hidden caverns inside of the mountain temple.

Italy is definitely a fun place to visit. We enjoyed climbing up the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Venice was not flooded then though there was a little water where there shouldn't have been. Rome has so many famous places to visit that you just can't not go there.

I was surprised at how beautiful New Zealand was and how friendly the people were. We were fascinated by all the different kinds of terrain. There are volcanoes, geysers, glaciers, huge caves, wilderness areas, lots of sheep, etc. It's one of the few places we said we'd like to go back to some day. Yes, we went to Australia too. It's HUGE!

We need to go back to China. It's a beautiful country with a long history. 

Our Alaskan cruise was such fun. We took my mom and aunt with us and they loved the food and shows onboard ship and the different towns to explore in Alaska.

Oh Canada! We love Canada and its super friendly people. We've been there many times which was a lot easier when we lived in Illinois. We also took mom to Butchart Gardens which she totally loved.

I was teaching that January when Art went to Africa to visit our son who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali. Together, they went to Kenya and Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro.

I guess I'll stop here. It was fun to reminisce. I did want to show how I do write the country and year on the back of each magnet (when I remember).

I used to collect mugs but had to STOP.  Magnets take up a lot less space. Then again, I really need to limit how many magnets I buy from each country.

What do you collect on your travels?

Hurricane Barriers

With climate change threatening more hurricanes and destructive weather, we decided to bite the bullet and invest in some polycarbon hurricane barriers from the All Island Rollshutter Company who were recommended during the AARP Hurricane Preparedness workshop we attended in June.

Some people (not many) will put up plywood sheets before a storm. However, It's hard to store so much heavy plywood and harder to install, the older we get. I believe these polycarbon barriers are only good for up to a category 2 hurricane. Beyond that, it's anybody's guess. We can't protect the 2nd floor because it's too difficult to reach those windows.

Our first job was to make room in our small tool closet for those panels. I'd organized the tool closet for Art about 10 years ago, but he'd since added a lot more things to it. (He doesn't like to throw things out since he says you can never tell when he might need that particular screw or bolt or hinge or whatever).

I tossed out old paint, old plastic sheets, old caulk, some very old tools, etc. I let him keep his screws and bolts and whatnot.

We also had to have a canvas type fabric for those areas where the stiff polycarbon sheets were not possible because we just didn't have a place to store them.

These canvas type (Astroguard) fabric seemed thin but Art said they are really heavy.

The workers told us that the polycarbon sheets aren’t very difficult for us to put up but the fabric will be somewhat time consuming (and a bit difficult) for us.

The polycarbon panels were measured carefully and screwed in.

Art practiced putting up one panel to make sure he could do it.

And yes, with some adjustment and clearing out we could fit the polycarbon panels at the back of the closet and the hurricane fabric was stored on a couple of shelves.

Unfortunately, we have quite a bit of patch-up work to do. I'll need to get some concrete caulk to fill in spaces. We're also going to have to call them back because they forgot to put some fastening  screw holes for one of the fabric panels.

Still, it gives us a little peace of mind. We could shelter in place more easily although the 2nd floor has to be sacrificed.

I'm just hoping this is all just insurance that we won't have to use.

POSTSCRIPT: Art and I tried to put up one of those Astroguard fabric barriers and it was EXTREMELY,  ridiculously difficult!!! Just trying to pull the fabric to be able to screw it in took us way too long with me getting a black and blue on one finger. The polycarbon panels wasn't hard, but the fabric was near impossible! Arrrghhh!

Becoming Obsolete

We did a massive clean-out of our tool closet over the weekend in order to make room for the  huge hurricane polycarbonate sheets we would have to store there.

I cleaned it out a long time ago and labeled everything for Art. However, he happens to be a bit (or more than a bit) of a packrat so it had gotten crowded again.

While going through the tool closet I found something that had me smiling.

Do you remember these? Art had saved these tiny canisters thinking he could store something small in them. For younger readers, let me explain that these plastic containers used to hold 35 mm camera film.

So I started looking around the house for things that were now becoming obsolete.

I found this old cellphone in the toy closet I keep for the grandkids when they come over.

I wondered if the grandkids would even know what it was since we're all using smart phones now.

I have a memory of my granddaughter not knowing how people used a rotary phone.

We do actually keep a landline for mom, but a lot of my friends have discontinued them in favor of just relying on their smartphones.

And we do have this little boom box for mom because she still listens to taped music.

Yes, tapes. She listens to Japanese musical cassette tapes that my aunt in Japan had recorded for her.

The problem is the tape cassette player keeps breaking so we had two more of these boom boxes in the closet that we took to an e-waste collection. (Art and I use our small Echo Dot to listen to music.)

I think it's great that such amazing technology advances have been made, but concerned about the waste it produces.

Our tool closet?

It's all done. Hopefully, it will fit all the polycarbon sheets now.

And the film canisters? I think they will be great for small pills in my travel bag.

Keeping Marriage Interesting

One morning I left Art reading the paper and went upstairs to our bathroom on the 2nd floor.

While I was sitting and getting on with my business I looked at the Apple Watch and tapped on it. I saw the camera icon. I had never tried taking a photo with my Apple Watch before. (It can actually activate the camera on my iPhone from a distance which is useful for group selfies.)

Granted, I was rather far away from my iphone which I'd left on its stand on the kitchen table.

So.... I thought I'd try taking a photo with my Apple Watch.

I clicked the icon and my watch indicated it took the photo.

Later, as I was washing my hands, I heard Art pounding up the stairs.

A shocked expression on his face, Art stammered, "Your phone just went off.  On its own. I didn't touch it."

I'm sorry. I laughed. I explained what I did.

Needless to say, Art saw the humor in the situation.

You can tell I do try to keep our marriage interesting.

Handy Dandy Wall Adapter

I had to change the surge protector bar for my charging station because one of the outlets had died, but the replacement bar that I happened to have had one of those wall plugs that stick straight out. The replacement surge protector is inside that top enclosure on the charging stand.

I really felt the plug might get banged around by the leg of the stand on which I had my charging station.

And then...
while walking through City Mill (sort of like a small Hawaii Home Depot) I saw a side outlet wall adapter.

Art felt it was unnecessary. He insisted the plug was fine the way it was.

Tsk.

"It's $6.99," I said. "It won't break the bank."

Did I see him roll his eyes? Hmpf. I'm sure not.

Well, I brought it home and plugged it in and was very pleased indeed.

I love it.

And Art? He agrees. I think.

Cans for Charity?

Readers of my blog know that Art walks/jogs almost every morning of the week. During his walks, he had been keeping a look-out for money that people have dropped so he could add it to his charity jar. I guess this adds more excitement to his walks.

I'm afraid we must live in a poorer area because he only finds pennies and sometimes nickels. We have friends in another neighborhood who find bills and larger denominations of coins. Ah well...

Therefore, Art has decided to collect drink cans that people have left on the sidewalks and roadways because they were too lazy to dispose of them properly. There is a 5 cent recycle return for each aluminum can turned in to the city.

Art has been coming home now with quite a few cans and will add the money he gets for the cans into his charity jar. He says he can now fill his jar a lot faster. He figures his charity is also helping our environment.

It's fun to see what keeps my energetic husband happy and motivated.

Sunrise, Sunset.. Swiftly Flow the Days

Art and I are forever taking photos of the skies. We do have  some beautiful skies in Hawaii.

Art takes photos of the sunrise since he's up early doing his morning walks. He's always up at least a couple of hours before me.

I stick to the sunsets although who knows? Someday I might surprise him and take a photo of the sunrise as well.

The skies are different every night and like the rainbows we marvel at, they don't last very long. Therefore we have to enjoy it all while we can.

Black Friday Karma?

Art and I had decided we wouldn't go out into the Black Friday madness. Instead, I went to my regular Zumba class and Art did his normal Meals on Wheels run.

However.... I did have that coupon for 40% off one item at the Ben Franklin craft store. So we headed out there after lunch and bringing our donations to the Goodwill booth.

Unfortunately, Ben Franklin Crafts was crowded and I really couldn't find anything I truly needed. I took out the coupon and decided not to use it after all.

I saw an older woman looking for the longest time at quilting and knitting books.

I went up to her and asked if she had one of the 40% off coupons. She didn't so I gave her mine. She was absolutely ecstatic and told us how she had completely forgotten to bring it with her and was unhappy about driving all the way home.

It was such a good feeling to make someone happy!

We then decided (since we were out anyway) to head out to the outlet mall to pick up something for a grandchild (I won't say which one) since they might be reading my blog. There was a long, long, long traffic flow to just get into the parking lot. Art said he would have to circle the lots while I ran in and picked up the gift we were planning on.

I told him, that since I'd done that one good deed, I should have some good karma.

He shook his head and laughed.

When we finally got into the parking lot we found a space right away... under the shade of a lovely tree, no less. Art could not believe it.  "You see," I told him.

As we were walking through the very crowded outlet mall I noticed something glinting from just under a beverage machine! A dime!

"No," he said, "You've got to be kidding me." I gave him the dime which went into his charity jar.

When we got to the store everybody was as friendly as could be and helped us get exactly what we wanted.

I remembered I had two stamp cards that I'd been holding on to for several years. The sales associate told me I could combine them and with what I was buying, would qualify for a special Black Friday gift. Wow!

We went straight home after that. We didn't want to press our luck.

And do you know what we saw on the way home?

Instead of Black Friday, I'm calling this day Rainbow Friday!

The Insanity of Guns in the U.S.

We now hear about a mass shooting almost once a week yet strong gun control just doesn't get done by Congress even though a huge majority of America supports it. Instead we get nothing but "thoughts and prayers."

Seriously?

However there's been 18 deaths in the U.S. due to vaping with 1,000 cases of related lung illness and almost immediately there was a call to prohibit flavored e-cigarettes with massive attention in the news and by politicians which is good, but...

Earlier this week Art was reading the paper and showed me the front page stating a person in Hawaii was killed by a gun every 8 days.

Every 8 days? This is crazy!

It shocked me further when he said we were the lowest in the nation!

Seriously?

Someone is killed by guns every 8 days and we should be glad it's not worse like the rest of the country?

The article went on to say "Nationally there were 342,000 gun deaths  between 2008 and 2017 while Hawaii had 471 gun deaths, or 1 every 8 days."

In Texas, they have a gun death every nine hours. Florida has one every 10 hours.

This means that across America, a person is killed with a gun every 15 minutes. Doesn't that bother Republicans?

Alaska, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have the highest rates of gun deaths.

The article goes on to state that Hawaii's low numbers of gun deaths are because of some of the strictest gun laws in America and because we're so isolated, guns can't be trafficked in easily.

Illinois and New York have strict laws but they're right next to states with weak laws so guns are brought in easily.

We've had all kinds of protests, marches, appeals but nothing gets done or laws proposed are so watered down to be ineffective. Instead we get admonished by some politicians saying that what we need are better mental health support.

Give me a break!

The NRA has such a strong stranglehold on Congress that politicians are afraid to legislate those needed laws.

I got this from Business Insider about the NRA control of Republican leaders:

"While the group contributes to members of both parties, the lion's share goes to the GOP. Of the top 85 members of Congress with the most career NRA contributions, 82 are Republicans, according to a database from the Center for Responsive Politics."

School shootings have not made Congress move or the president lead the way. Church shootings haven't done anything. What will it take?

What will it take?
What will it take?

POSTSCRIPT:
I just got a comment from someone or some organization calling themselves The Giver of the Law. I looked that up and found that The Giver of the Law is supposed to be Jesus Christ. Whatever the case...

Can you imagine Jesus giving out a law saying everybody should own guns?

This person states that: "The right to bear arms is the MOST important part of the entire constitution, to deny people that vital freedom would make a total nonsense of all the greatness and unparalleled magnificence that Americans have achieved in the last 243 years ! ! !"

This is the 2nd Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

The Constitution was written at a time when we were a new country and needed to protect ourselves from outside aggression. That is no longer the case.

Because of the frightening prevalence of guns in our country, we are a danger onto ourselves.

What did Pogo say?  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I know that I shall be very busy on Thanksgiving so I would like to wish you all a fabulous holiday of togetherness and lots of traditional dishes.

For those of you who are unable to meet with family or friends, know that we here in your blog family are wishing a peaceful day for you.

I'll be adding photos to this post later to show you how we spent our day.

Wednesday:
We started preparing for Thanksgiving yesterday setting up the tables and helping mom cut the gobo (burdock root) into thin strips. I also prepared the lup chong-mochi rice stuffing.

Today:
Art and I got up early this morning, had breakfast and Art began his pumpkin pie. I baked a mint chocolate bundt cake. My bundt wasn't as pretty as his pie.

We then made room in the kitchen for mom to begin her family favorite macaroni salad.

We were able to watch the Macy's parade while helping her peel, cut, dice, chop.

I'm so amazed that since I can't smell anymore, I can now dice onions and squeeze out the liquid for mom without tearing.

I baked small loaves of pumpkin bread with cranberries and mom made her namasu (pickled cucumbers).

And then we rested and waited for everyone to show up at 5:00.

8:30 PM: Everybody generously brought over so many wonderful dishes which we thoroughly enjoyed.

But wow! Art and I are so exhausted. Between all the cooking, hosting, clean up, putting away dishes, remembering where things go, finding containers for people to bring things home, etc....  sigh... we're ready to crash. However, it was truly a wonderful Thanksgiving and so fantastic to be with the whole family again. We really don't see them all often enough and it felt good to catch up on all the happenings since we last saw them.

We'll be looking forward to seeing them next at New Years!

KC's Stuffed Animal Memories

From the time KC was a very little girl, she's loved stuffed animals. She never liked or played with dolls even when relatives gave her rather expensive American Girl dolls, etc.

There was one particular dog she was especially attached too.

She named it Nenne Doggie. Nenne means sleep in Japanese. Nenne Doggie went everywhere with her.

When she came to Hawaii, we got her this little kitty too.

She became Nenne Cat.

Nenne doggie and cat became her comfort friends and would always be nearby.

Through the years, KC started collecting stuffed animals as more and more people gave them to her as gifts.

Yes, we did too.

When we went for our yearly visit last year, we were rather surprised at the quantity of little stuffed friends that were crowding out her bed.

A few weeks ago, 13 year old KC decided it was time to say goodbye to many of her friends.

KC bought this album so that she would always remember the stuffed creatures that were her friends throughout her little girlhood.

She then methodically set up each stuffed friend and took a photo of it.

She wrote how she got each animal at the top and then wrote the name she gave each one in a signature style she thought went with its personality at the bottom.

Gosh! I don't even remember getting her that moose on our Alaskan Cruise.

And this is just a handful of pages. There are many more.

After all the stuffed friends were recorded carefully, almost all of them were put into three bags and given to a teacher friend they knew who will be using them in her classes. Knowing my daughter and granddaughter, all those stuffed animals are in pristine condition... well, except for Nenne Doggie and Nenne Cat, but she didn't give those away.

And at last, KC now has a bed she can truly spread herself out on.

At least until she accumulates more friends, that is.