Chocolate Poison

There was a Valentine's Day comic last month that recalled for Art what seemed to be a peculiar and almost funny incident for a little kid.

Art and his family had 3 dogs one after another. They were named Finnegan #1, Finnegan #2 and Finnegan #3. Art loves dogs and especially loved #1 and #2. #3 was actually adopted by his dad after Art left for college.

Here's the comic we saw in the newspaper.

Art says someone had given his family a box of chocolate macadamia nuts. He was in elementary school back then.  

Well... since Finnegan wanted one he gave a piece to him. It was a cluster of 3 macadamia nuts dipped in chocolate.

They were all surprised to find a regurgitated mess left at the front door the following morning with 3 undigested macadamia nuts very visible.

Now, everyone knows that chocolate is poison to dogs and even cats, but back then it wasn't commonly known.

I wonder if there's anything else pets should not have.

Donating Blood

I think the last time I donated blood was perhaps 25 years ago. Art’s last donation was probably about 15 years ago. He’d had a bad experience then and wasn’t inclined to repeat it. 

However, the news recently spotlighted the crucial shortage of blood supply in Hawaii so we decided it was probably time for us to step up again. 

My first blood donation experience in Illinois was successful. However the 2nd time I volunteered was during a school blood drive. They looked at me skeptically and asked what I weighed. I said 115. The cut off is 110. They were still unconvinced and brought out a scale which proved I was indeed 115. However, that still didn’t reassure them and I never got to donate my blood then. I gave up after that although (ahem) I did gain more weight since.

Our daughter, Tiffany has been donating blood every 6 months (even though I think she’s at the border of 110) since Illinois has been struggling with their blood supply also. She’s been texting us photos of her arm as she donated her blood. Eventually, it motivated us to join her in this cause.

I checked online for the Blood Bank of Hawaii and signed us up. 

I then looked online to see if there was anything that might disqualify us from donating our blood. 

One website mentioned osteoporosis and its treatment which could disqualify me. It also said we needed to drink a lot of water and eat healthy meals which we tried to do.

As it turned out, they never asked me those questions. I asked about the osteoporosis and the Reclast Infusion I was given. He said he thought it was OK. They never asked specific questions about what medications we were given either.

I guess they must be really desperate or there must be a way to filter out medication from our blood.

I was surprised that it really was an easy draw. It wasn’t very painful at all and I’m squeamish. You know I’m squeamish because when they took my normally low blood pressure reading prior to the blood draw it was 140/92! I was shocked. Art who has high blood pressure was 94/52!!! I told the attendant that they now knew who was the gutless one.

We went to Mountain Magic after the blood draw as our reward. They have one of the smoothest shave ice on the island and it hit the spot.

We were feeling quite good, but when we got home... tiredness set in.

The following morning, Art was perfectly fine and did our morning walk on his own.

Not me.

I was very lethargic for almost the entire day following the blood draw, but was fine and back to normal by the evening.

Then I read online that you shouldn't have fatty foods before a blood draw because they might discard your blood donation. What? What? 

Could this be true? We did a quick peanut butter, apple and potato chip lunch before heading out for the Bloodmobile. I hope that wasn't too fatty. Doggone it! I wish they'd give us more information before we go in.

I'm certainly going to ask more questions the next time, before I even consider doing this again. I'm just hoping the pandemic will be an endemic before the year is out. 🤞

POSTSCRIPT:

I was just checking my Spam File and found messages from the Blood Bank. I have no idea why it should have gone into my Spam File.

Anyway... there was information about medications.

As for weight requirements, there appears to be a cut off if you are under 18. I think that's what it means.

OK... I'm older than 18. However although I'm perhaps 1/8" of an inch shorter than 5'3", I weigh between 115 to 120 depending on the time of day and my daughter is a lot lighter than that.

Ah well... I didn't see anything about peanut butter sandwiches so I guess I'm OK.

Recalled Test Kits?

Linda in Kansas notified me yesterday that she'd heard on Fox Business News that the test kits distributed by the government was being recalled for a high number of false positive results.

She said that the test kits she received were manufactured in the Republic of Korea. I checked Fox Business News and it does state:

"On Wednesday, the FDA also announced the recall of the SD Biosensor STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test, stating the test is not approved by the FDA for marketing or distribution in the United States."

I looked at all the test kits we've received. I didn't realize we were getting different kits.

The first one we got was sent only to a few states last year as sort of a test run, I think.

However the next two was this orange box and it's manufactured in China for iHealth Labs, Incorporated.

When I looked online for more information, I found the above on ABC news. It states that the recall does NOT apply to those distributed by Roche Diagnostics.

Linda sent me photos of the front and back of the test kits she received from the Federal Government. 

You can see that her kit was indeed distributed by Roche Diagnostics.

I asked my daughter in Illinois and sister-in-law in California what test kit they got. I was surprised that they also got the blue SD Biosensor kits from Roche Diagnostics since we got the orange boxes which says Antigen Rapid Test.

So anyway.... it's all good.

Phew!

POSTSCRIPT:

When you think about it, IF there was anything wrong with the test kids sent to everyone in the U.S. who requested it, wouldn’t they let us know?

What’s a Blind Mullet?

The other day I was looking for something that just happened to be right in front of me. 😕 (This happens more often than I like to admit.)

Art laughed and said, "Blind mullet, hunh?" 

And it occurred to me that I remember that pidgin comment from when I was growing up. Pidgin is often slightly different from island to island.  e.g. What Oahu (where I grew up) calls shave ice, Art (who grew up on the Big Island) calls ice shave. He is obviously wrong. 😁

Never mind mainlanders calling it snow cones.

So how did blind mullet come to be?

I looked the term up in my Pidgin to the Max books and didn't see it there.

However, I did find the term on the e-Hawaii website.

Are mullets blind?

And if Art heard it when he was growing up and I heard it on Oahu, it must be everywhere in Hawaii.

I think.

WHIPPED by WORDLE

I heard in the news about a game called WORDLE that was created by some (obviously) brilliant guy for his girlfriend which became such a success that the New York Times bought it. I don't know if this is true.

I wasn't interested because I already struggle with the JUMBLE puzzle in the morning newspaper.

However.... a few mornings later, my daughter sent our family text chat group a link to WORDLE.

https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

OK...

Here are the rules.

Green: Correct letter in the correct spot. 😄

Yellow: Correct letter, wrong spot.

Dark Gray: Wrong letter anywhere 😝 (It's actually more like a black color.)

On the keyboard at the bottom, the light gray are the possible letters.

Well... OK. I figured I'd give it a try and add more aggravation to my day.

I figured I was pretty clever to make sure I put in a word at the start that had the most vowels. Just remember that sometimes y is a vowel too.

So there you see what happened on the left. I got two correct letters, but in the wrong space, and the letter e in the right place. This is good. 😁

Eventually, I got SHA__E. Arrrghhhh....  Do you realize how many words you can make with that combination? SHARE, SHAME, SHADE, SHAPE, SHAVE. Holy smokes! 😝

Dang it! The correct answer was SHAKE. Arrrghhhh!  😖

I figured Tif and KC would have problems with this word too and I shared my above-disaster (pictured on the right) with them.

I got this back from Tiffany and I sent my reply.

A few moments later... my granddaughter, KC shared her success.

Sigh....... 😫

POSTSCRIPT 1:

Uh oh... Our son has started doing it. The pressure is on! And he's even timing himself!!! The last one took him 37 seconds. Seriously???

I refuse to let anyone know how long it takes me. And I won't tell them that Art is occasionally helping me, too.

POSTSCRIPT 2: I was looking online what the best start word would be (no, I don't consider that cheating 🤭) and it said that according to AI, it's SOARE. But then my good friend, Dave said he'd heard ADIEU was best because it's got 4 vowels. 

I looked on the cnet website and that person suggested throwing in ADIEU first and then STORY to maximize your chances. Oho! They also mentioned AUDIO. Hmmm.... what shall I try tomorrow?

Message to my son: And NO, I won't time myself. 

Remembering a Time I Could Smell a Flower

We were taking our morning walk when we noticed that the Kinmokusei flower bush that neighbors had planted were in bloom. It reminded me of our fall trip to Japan with mom and my brother in 2008. I'd never seen that flower before. Mom was thrilled to see it and told us of the beautiful and strong fragrance. The interesting thing for me is that I now know that in 2008, I was able to smell. I've never been able to pinpoint when I lost my sense of smell.

I found this Japan Info website that explained this fall flower. 

"The little flower is called kinmokusei (金木犀), the fragrant olive flowers, or Osmanthus fragrans. It said to have originated in China (usually used for tea, jam, soup, and other cooking), and was introduced to Japan in the beginning of the Edo period (1600-1868), mainly as a standard for air freshening sprays for your toilet. However nowadays, people don’t think of a toilet when they smell kinmokusei, rather it makes them feel that autumn is definitely coming soon, yay!"

These are photos from that trip.

It's interesting that it's a fall flower but the flowers here in Hawaii are blooming right now. I guess flowers don't know the seasons in Hawaii.

This is the only place we've seen the kinmokusei in Hawaii, and the tiny flowers are white instead of the orange we saw in Japan.

I found this information on Wikipedia:

Osmanthus is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. Most of the species are native to eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea,  Indochina, the Himalayas, etc.) with a few species from the Caucasus, New Caledonia, and Sumatra.

Osmanthus range in size from shrubs to small trees, 2–12 m (7–39 ft) tall. The leaves are opposite, evergreen, and simple, with an entire, serrated or coarsely toothed margin. The flowers are produced in spring, summer or autumn, each flower being about 1 cm long, white, with a four-lobed tubular-based corolla ('petals'). The flowers grow in small panicles, and in several species have a strong fragrance. The fruit is a small (10–15 mm), hard-skinned dark blue to purple drupe containing a single seed.

Art says this kinmokusei does have a strong fragrance. Perhaps one day I'll be able to smell it. too. Maybe.

Fake News in Russia

I was scanning the news quickly when I came across a CNN video of a fellow in Ukraine who hadn't heard from his father who was living in Russia and wondered why his dad wasn't concerned about his son.

He called his father and told him about the Russian invasion and how the people of Ukraine were suffering. His father refused to believe him no matter what he said. His father was getting the Putin propaganda that the Russian military was helping Ukraine and trying to rid the country of Nazis. 

Apparently this is happening to many Ukrainians calling their families in Russia.  Russians just won't believe the horrors their family member or friends are experiencing.

You wonder how they can be so misled by Kremlin misinformation even though loved  ones are telling them the truth.

And yet...

Look at our country. People here don't have the excuse of having a government restricting different avenues of information. And yet, FOX news is able to keep a hold on a huge segment of our population.

I know some people who are avid Trump supporters, refuse the vaccine and even sent away to Canada for ivermectin. No matter what we said, those people would not budge from their convictions. Some people forget that Trump initially held up arms assistance to Ukraine unless they provided dirt on Biden. They also forget that Trump was trying to pull out and defund NATO and wanted to selfishly focus only on the U.S. 

I'm sorry. This is turning into a rant. I'm just sitting here feeling frustrated. I'm glad President Biden was able to work with other nations to try to help a country being terrorized and attacked by an evil megalomaniac. 

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that a miracle can happen.

Feeling Grateful

It's true that I'm grateful for technology. I'm grateful for cars, boats and planes. There are so many modern conveniences that we can be grateful for. My cellphone and computer allow me to keep in company with my friends and family on the mainland and around the world anytime I want. I can text my cousins on Kauai all day long as well as everyone on Oahu. Someday, I'll be able to fly again to visit my children and grandchildren in Illinois and Maryland.

But the other day, I stood in the kitchen and was just feeling grateful for some things we take for granted.

I was washing dishes and just looked at the faucet and thought... wow....

I can get hot or cold water with a flick of the handle.

I don't have to pump it out of a well. It's just there whenever I want it.

And the refrigerator...

It holds ice cream, iced coffee, vegetables and all kinds of food to keep us happy and healthy.

How awesome is that?

But you know what else I love?

Yup. Ice cubes.

Have I pandemically lost my mind?

But yes, ice cubes. 

I love my ice cubes. I don't have to go to a lake and chop ice cubes to keep in my cellar during the winter. I think that's what they did before.

Ummm.... Oh right.... I do live in Hawaii so no frozen lakes in winter.

Aaah... even more reason to be grateful for ice cubes. I need it for my morning mochas.

And right now... I'm also grateful for vaccinations!!! And masks! Yes, masks. And doctors and nurses and hospitals (in case you get sick despite the vaccination) and so many other things. 

Isn't it wonderful?

POSTSCRIPT 1:

I'm just checking the posts I scheduled for this month and the above (which I wrote last month ) hit me even harder when  I thought of the Ukrainian people who are suddenly losing their homes, country and lives.

And then I saw this in the Letters to the Editor page of the Star Advertiser.

"Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is an inspirational leader and modern-day version of Braveheart. He has shown much courage and leadership in the midst of Russia’s senseless invasion of his country.

He was given a chance to leave for his personal safety but instead chose to stand with his people to fight until the end against a far superior army. He opted for more weapons and not a ride out.

It immediately made me think of what our former president would have done if faced with a similar situation. I remember when protesters were at the gates of the White House. He did not even have the courage to face them, and instead hid in the bunker for his safety — but later denied it. When he gave his rousing speech to the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, he promised that he would walk with them, but in fact stayed safely inside to watch the insurrection on TV.

He does not instill true leadership as Zelenskyy does. Even worse, giving sick praise to Russian President Vladimir Putin (calling him a genius) to invade Ukraine reveals his poor judgment and total disregard for human life. I hope we never have him as president again.

Gary ------

Waipahu"

I just read this post to Art and he laughed saying..."Uuumm... that Letter to the Editor doesn't quite tie in with your post."

OK fine. Maybe not. I don't care. But I do care about what is happening to Ukraine. 

POSTSCRIPT 2:

Just a reminder. Did you all (in the U.S.) order your second set of free test kits?

https://www.covidtests.gov/

I did. 😁 ...Just in case.

Is Life Beginning Again?

With COVID restrictions limiting the number of participants in any indoor or outdoor activity lifted in Hawaii, our Thursday tai chi classes began again after starting up and then postponing two or three times during the pandemic.

Everyone was required to be vaccinated and we all had to wear masks. I would have worn one anyway even if it wasn't required.

Even with masks on (photo taken before pandemic) I could identify some people from two years ago and we greeted each other happily...almost tearfully. We're so used to social distancing and not hugging, that people would come up and reach out to touch lightly and then back off with a smile.

I have not practiced tai chi in two years. And yet, when we started the exercise... it was like some invisible force was pushing my arms and body to move into a familiar rhythm  (for the first few seconds anyway). It was the weirdest muscle memory feeling.

And then on Friday we went walking again with friends at the mall after stopping for almost three months when the Omicron infection and fatality numbers in Hawaii jumped.

It was like we'd been living in a transparent bubble all this time and suddenly coming through into our almost normal lives. 

Will it last?

We're even considering flying to visit our children and their families in fall. 🤞 Oh gosh... I hope so.

Puzzled Apart

 I don't know if anybody remembers the Advent puzzle my daughter, Tiffany created in Illinois and sent to us in November. She bought a 1,000 piece puzzle, put it together and then divided it into 24 parts. My granddaughter, KC then decorated each bag into which they put the puzzle pieces.

Art and I would do one little section after our lunch everyday and it was a lot of fun.

After completing it, we put all the sections together and admired it. Then we divided it again and repackaged all of them. We are planning to send the advent puzzle next year to our grandsons in Maryland. It amazed us to think of all the work that went into creating this fun project for us.

Well, after Art completed that massive 3,000 piece Beatles puzzle that our son sent Art in February which took 9 months to complete and took up a lot of space in our dining room, we decided to do a modified version of what Tiffany did.

We separated the puzzle into 6 sections with 500 pieces in each...

... and bagged them.

We offered it to several friends here on Oahu, but they have laughingly declined. 

Art is therefore planning to send it to a fun cousin on the Big Island who happens to love doing puzzles and has done huge puzzles before. At least we've made it a little easier for her. 😁

Lost Cellphone

It all started after lunch when Art called me downstairs to say he couldn't find his cellphone. He'd pinged it with his Apple watch, but just couldn't locate it. Since... ummm... his hearing isn't the best I told him to ping it again and I would locate it with my more fine tuned 😁 hearing ability... I can't taste or smell, but I can definitely hear things.

So he pinged it. It sounded far away so I went back upstairs to look for it, but I could tell it wasn't there. It sounded much farther away. It had to be downstairs.

I suspected it was somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen so I told him to ping it once more. When he did, it sounded like it was on the other side of the kitchen. When we moved there and had him ping it again, it sounded like it was where we'd come from. He even looked in the fridge. We looked in all the drawers and cabinets. 

It sounded rather like it was on the other side of something so I wondered if it was outside on the patio. However, when he pinged it again while outside, it sounded like it was inside.

At this point I told him I should call him from my iPhone because it would be louder which I did. I called his phone and it still sounded far away. We kept walking around and around the kitchen. 

He then went upstairs to get his hearing aid which he'd put away because he thought at one point that it was pinging his hearing aids and making it harder to hear his phone.

Well... While he was gone, I called his phone again and then wondered where else it could be that would cause it to be muffled. I looked at the trash can in front of me.

No......

It couldn't be.

No.....😆

I opened the lid and called the phone again.

Dang! It was ringing loud and clear. 

I started emptying the trash knowing he'd thrown away his broken blood pressure monitor earlier in the day. 

Art came down then and I had to tell him to get another trash bag so I could carefully remove the trash and transfer it. 

Well... of course, I ended up taking out all the trash before finding it at the very, very bottom. I almost didn't see it because I'm farsighted and can't see things that are up close very well and his cellphone is black like the trash liner. Art, on the other hand is near sighted and saw it before I did.

Sheesh! 🙄

Don't we make a pair? 

14th Blogaversary!

Oh gosh! I almost missed my 14th Blogaversary!

I began this blog on February 29, 2008 which was a leap year.

I wrote:

"It's another snowy day in Illinois. Once again my husband was out there shoveling his way out the door to get the morning newspaper. It does make us think about what it will be like next winter when we have made our move back to Hawaii after 33 years. It's a move we do with some melancholy because we hate leaving behind our daughter, son in law and precious granddaughter who is the light of our eyes."

And that was all.

There were no comments since I hadn't met any other bloggers except my Israeli friend, Dina who started me on this journey for which I'll always be grateful.  

So much has happened in those 14 years and it's all documented on this blog. It's rather amazing that when I forget when something happened, I just have to do a search and it's there.

The most wonderful thing about having this blog is that I have met so many wonderful, brilliant, innovative, talented, fun, friendly, loving people who have become part of my cyber family. Thank you for always being there for me and thank you especially for keeping me company during this pandemic. 

I've been writing occasional posts this past month which I scheduled to start posting on March 2nd while I continue working on my magnum opus family project. I'm on 2019. And then comes the editing. Sigh...

Madness!

One of my teacher friends sent our chat group an incredulous message that she saw a Harris poll indicating 62% of Americans think Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president. 85% of Republicans and 38% Democrats think this! They think Putin sensed a weakness in Biden. 41% felt it wasn't what contributed to Putin's aggression. New York Post is just one of the websites that reported it.

Did they forget that Trump is the one who wanted Putin to be part of the G7?

Did they forget that Trump wanted to leave NATO?

Have they seen how Trump called Putin a genius about invading Ukraine and is very cozy with him and other dictators?

I'm seeing the horrific photos coming out of Ukraine and my heart weeps for them. Just imagine if this was happening in the U.S. Imagine if you were Ukrainian hiding in the subway station with few bathrooms, water or other supplies. Imagine the terror of knowing a megalomaniac was wanting to come in and destroy your country and put you under his dictatorship.

I'm remembering the poem by John  Donne, No Man Is An Island.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, 
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, 
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; 
any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls;
it tolls for thee. 

Just Dropping in Again: A Potpourri of Free Masks

One morning, I got an excited message from a good friend. She said she'd been to Longs Drug Store (CVS) and discovered they were giving away free N95 masks.

I really didn't need more N95s. A friend had told me about some very comfortable Honeywell (DF300 H910 Plus) N95s she'd gotten so I'd ordered them a while ago. When I texted my kids about how our infection, hospitalization and COVID deaths had suddenly gone up in Hawaii, my son (not knowing about the Honeywells I'd bought earlier) sent us a box of 3M N95 masks.

So yes, I suddenly had enough. When I tried the 3M N95s, I found they were very tight. I should have read the instructions first. You're supposed to stretch them before putting them on.

Did you see how easily Nathan Chen put them on before and after going on the Olympic ice?

However, I was curious to see what kind of N95s stores were giving out so we stopped by on the way home from grocery shopping.

Longs CVS was passing out the same N95s I already had.

Walmart had these fish shaped ones which were rather tight also, but yes, I should stretch them and see what it's like.

And then... a couple of days later a friend sent me a photo of another kind of mask that was given her.

Wow! This was a new one. I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask like this one.

Would you believe the following day Art's classmate sent him a photo of a mask that was given him at Sam's Club.

Wait a minute. I thought you weren't supposed to use a mask with a exhalation valve! I looked it up on the CDC website. Nope. They changed the rules on it. This is what I found:

Yes, an N95 filtering facepiece respirator will protect you and provide source control to protect others. A NIOSH-approved N95 filtering facepiece respirator with an exhalation valve offers the same protection to the wearer as one that does not have a valve. As source control, findings from NIOSH research suggest that, even without covering the valve, N95 respirators with exhalation valves provide the same or better source control than surgical masks, procedure masks, cloth masks, or fabric coverings. In general, people wearing NIOSH-approved N95s with an exhalation valve should not be asked to use one without an exhalation valve or to cover it with a face covering or mask. However, an N95 filtering facepiece respirator with a valve may not provide the same level of source control as an N95 without a valve. To make an N95 have similar source control to one without a valve, follow the manufacturer’s instructions to cover the valve.

Oh my gosh!

From not having enough masks they are all over the place just as states are easing their masking rules.

But do you think for one minute, I'm going to stop wearing masks when I go out? 

Nope... because here's another statistic that just came out.

Good grief! Why? I've heard one source saying it's because there are more older Japanese and Asians in Hawaii.

Sigh...

I'm wearing my mask.

Just Popping In...

I'm still on a blogging hiatus, but I couldn't resist posting this.

Very, very early on Saturday mornings, Art goes for a long jog on the Pearl Harbor bike path. I'm asleep when he goes out and often still asleep when he gets back. When he got home today, there was a text message from our worried son asking if he was OK.

Art had sent our kids in Illinois and Maryland a photo of the beautiful moon he was seeing during his run. For much of the run, the water line is within a few feet of him.

When I woke up, Alexa on my Echo Dot sounded a notification that our area was under a tsunami watch from the undersea volcanic eruption near Tonga. This photo was taken by a Japanese weather satellite. 

The tsunami alert has since been cancelled. 

But sheesh! There's Art jogging next to the beach area and there was a tsunami alert? 😱 No sirens? No warning? Good grief! He had no clue that anything was amiss.

I hope everyone in Tonga is OK. Wow!

Blog Hiatus

Happy New Year, everyone!

I'm afraid I will be taking a hiatus from blogging. I don't know why, but suddenly I find myself unable to keep up with everything. 

Twice a week now, I'm on FaceTime with my grandsons for a couple of hours reading stories and going over some academic enrichment concepts. Yes, they're both very bright, but I still love enhancing their knowledge. 

Well, the real reason is that my son and daughter-in-law have to work from home and I just want to spend quality time with these very excited, amazingly cheerful, adorable boys to enable their parents to concentrate on what they need to do.

Since I don't have any teaching materials anymore, I'm having to create them from some office/art supplies I have at home. I'm also spending time writing lesson plans again. It's tricky since one grandson is barely 4 and the other is 6. On days when both are there it's not always easy to keep them engaged at the same time. And yet, they are almost always very focused and interested which makes things easier.

And so although I'll drop in every so often if something pops up, I'll be taking this little hiatus. Just know... as the Terminator used to say, "I'll be back!"

Damaged Mail

I recently saw a blog post on ApacheDug's Teepee about a Christmas card that came to him partially torn off.

I thought at the time that it was quite unusual. Art remembers something like that happening to us many, many moons ago, but I couldn't. 

I wondered why the postal department didn't include the other broken piece of mail so he could at least tape it together to read the entire card.

AND THEN....

Would you believe?

My sister-in-law and brother sent a thank you card to us last week and WOW! There it is! A huge hunk was torn off. And again, we didn't get the side that was broken off.

So now I'm wondering about mail we send out. Should I use shipping tape and wrap it around the letter?

Have any of you seen this problem?

I must tell you that our mail carrier is the absolute BEST!!! I've seen her doing extra trips to deliver packages and she's told us how they're all struggling to keep up with everything.

Have any of you had your mail damaged this way recently?

Cauliflower Rice?

Art's goal for me in the past few months has been to reduce my glucose levels. On one of our grocery shopping trips to Sam's Club, he noticed Riced Cauliflower.

"Since you're avoiding rice to reduce your carb levels, I'll bet this will help," he said.

Hmmmm.... I was not thrilled with the idea but he put it in our cart.

And he made it a point to serve it to me at dinner that night. 😏

Riced cauliflower is merely chopped up cauliflower that looks sorta kinda like rice. But you know what? Since I've lost a lot of my ability to taste much, it wasn't bad at all. In fact, Art is now starting to eat it too. 

Mom? Nope. Rice is rice to her. She says she's 92 and will eat rice. And that is that.

Guns at the High School

A few weeks ago we got a call from our daughter that guns at my granddaughter’s Illinois high school had been found. The police were there and the school was on lockdown until students were eventually sent home. School would be closed for 3 weeks and there would be remote learning again while they figured out how to keep guns out of the school and also what to do about the recent COVID surge.

This brought memories back for me when Laurie Dann went into an elementary school, shot and killed a boy and shot several other students before killing herself.

All the schools in the area went on high alert trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again. We ended up with a buzzer system so you’d have to buzz the office to let you in. But nothing is foolproof. 

I remember one (sort of) funny thing where we were briefly told that the code phrase “There will be a volley ball game for all teachers after school,” would be the alert that there was a shooter or whatever in the school. Well… when the code phrase was used as a drill, some teachers came out of their classroom asking, “What volleyball game?”

I had to prepare my 1st grade class for the remote possibility that should something like that happen to us, they would have to hunker down, hide and do what I say immediately. I assured them that I would lock the door so nobody could come in.

One very bright student asked, “But we have glass windows on our door. They could break the glass, stick their hand in and open the door...couldn't they?” 

Hmmmm…. So…. I said, “Well, you really don’t have to worry. I’m a grown up and I will always take care of you and protect you so you will be safe.” 

Amazingly, they believed me and were reassured. But would children be reassured these days? This happened about 30 years ago. Since then, how many school shootings have there been? How many children have died? Do we have better gun control laws? 

Nope. Guns have only proliferated.  

And then there's Omicron running rampant everywhere and we still have too many leaders who keep fighting mandating vaccines or mask wearing. 

It’s an insane world we are living in. Here’s hoping and hoping that 2022 shows more improvement.

Puzzling into the New Year

One of the things we like to do is finish as many projects as we can before going into a new year. This includes putting away Christmas decorations, cleaning out the fridge/freezer, organizing our office, paying our bills, etc. Granted we still have a number of projects we just haven't been able to finish. I'm still working on our 5 volume photobook of family photos and I think Art might clean the windows later.

BUT one thing Art DID manage to finish was that 3,000 piece Beatles puzzle our son sent in February to insure he stayed safe at home.

Art began the puzzle in March and started out by putting it on a huge cardboard sheet he happened to have.

He soon discovered that cardboard wasn't big enough.

Soooo... He took out another folding buffet table and another cardboard sheet.

And in April and several months after that, he made painstaking progress.

Every time mom went past him she would shake her head sadly and tell him how painful it looked.

Eventually, he forced himself to sit in front of the puzzle and spend a LOT of time on it.

He finally had to get a magnifying glass to see the details on the tiny pieces.

Sometimes, it was difficult for me to see that progress had actually been made.

If there's one thing about Art you have to know, he just doesn't give up. He also did not want to bring this project into the New Year so he sat and sat and sat for about a week while mom continued to shake her head sadly.

On Tuesday that big day came and he let mom put in the final puzzle piece since she had... as Art put it, "faithfully monitored my progress these past nine months."

Art was feeling such relief at finally being done that I didn't want to remind him about what our daughter had sent a couple of months ago.

Happy New Year, everybody!