Being Safe

Yes, seniors in Hawaii tend to be very vulnerable in their kind heartedness. I know that mom let a strange woman into the house a long time ago because the woman said she was pregnant and needed to use the bathroom. Mom let her in. I was horrified. It's a common ploy to stake out a place for robbery.

This is why we installed a rather hard to open screen door so that if she opens the front door, she'll have time to think before opening the screen door to let anyone in.

On another one of Art's walks with his buddies, he saw a scruffy looking fellow with no shirt on ride up on a bicycle to a couple of elderly ladies who were getting ready to go into McDonalds. The biker apparently asked them for money. One of the women took out her wallet to hand him a bill.

This had all the earmarks of what could have been a very dangerous thing for the ladies to do.

It reminded me of a time when I was leaving the dentist's office in Chicago when my daughter called on my cellphone. I was talking to her as I walked down the street to my car.

While going into my car a man on a bicycle stopped me and asked if I could give him some money. My daughter, hearing all this started shouting into the cellphone, "Mom, close the door! Lock it! Stop talking to him. Drive!"

So I locked the door, told him I was sorry and drove off. So there you have it. I wasn't being safe there either and this was about 20 years ago. I wasn't a senior then.

But then you wonder...

Do you always have to be so suspicious of everyone who stops you for help? Sadly, I'm afraid we do.

Taking Advantage

Art and his buddies walk together a couple of mornings a week and stop at McDonalds for a senior drink (and perhaps a treat) and a fun chat before returning home.

One morning, they watched a couple of well dressed people (probably on their way to work) park their car, walk into McDonalds, grab a huge wad of napkins, fill their water bottle with iced tea, walk out and drive away without buying anything.

There's actually a sign posted there that states "For sanitary reasons we kindly ask that drink bottles and coolers not be filled here."

When you think about it, isn't this almost the same as shoplifting?

Ankle Clicking

I was walking with Art when he mentioned his ankle clicking. I hadn't been paying close attention. I thought it might be his shoes. I certainly didn't think it was coming from his feet or ankles.

Well, I looked it up. I guess it's an ankle condition after all. I got this from this Foot & Ankle website:

"Snapping sound in the ankle is most commonly caused by a tendon slipping over the bone. When this happens, it is common to hear a snapping or clicking sound."

The site also goes on to say that unless the condition is causing pain, it can be ignored.

Otherwise there are orthotics such as ankle braces and arch supports that could be used.

Art says it doesn't bother him so he'll just go clicking away. I guess this way, he can never surprise me from the back.

Paperwhite Covers

I bought my first Paperwhite in 2014 and loved it. It was lighter and less cumbersome than my original Kindle e-reader.

That Paperwhite was a Generation 2. I had to buy a cover for it which cost $38.99.

Would you believe that expensive Paperwhite cover is melting/crumbling away?

That's so irritating.

I bought a new Paperwhite Generation 10 a few weeks ago since my Generation 2 seemed to be slowing down a little.

Besides, I was going to pass down that Paperwhite Generation 2 to Art.

He had a Kindle Fire that died on him long ago.

My Paperwhite Generation 10 needed a cover too, but I didn't want to spend almost $40 from Amazon for something that would come apart again so I bought one for just $8.99 from Walmart!

So now I need another cover for the Paperwhite Generation 2 also since it's melting and falling apart, right?

Turns out they changed the size of the Paperwhites last year with the Generation 10s. The top picture has the Generation 10 on top of the Generation 2.

The Generation 10 is supposed to be a lot lighter. I could hardly tell the difference between the two.

Ah well.

I went back to the Walmart site and bought another cover from them for the Generation 2. Fingers crossed that it doesn't deteriorate too quickly. At least it's not $40.

POSTSCRIPT:  Aha! I see Amazon is now selling the cheaper covers too.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everybody!

I imagine we won't have any trick-or-treaters tonight. We've noticed that there were fewer and fewer children stopping by with their fun costumes here in our Hawaiian neighborhood.

I've also seen a change since those Halloween days of my children's youth.

Along with other parents in the past we often helped the kids make their own costumes.

Nowadays, costumes are store bought and a whole lot fancier.

I admit my attempts were pretty homemade looking, but it was fun anyway.

Since I had not yet gone back to teaching until a few years later, I guess I also had the gift of time to play with costumes.

Have you seen the elaborate costumes in stores these days? I wonder if my granddaughter will go trick or treating now that she's a middle schooler. I hope she can enjoy the fun of the holiday one more year. I know my little grandsons will be out there. Have a fun evening everybody!

POSTSCRIPT:

Our son sent this photo of the jack-o-lanterns they carved with our two little grandsons. I wish we were there for the fun of it all.

Do Mosquitoes Like You?

Here is another little something you might like to know that I found online.

Hmmmm...

As it so happens, my brother is an O and he does get bit more often than I do. I'm a B.

Art gets bit the least and yes, he is an A.

I checked the Smithsonian website and found some added information.

Apparently people who exhale more will get bit more. So bigger people get bit more often than children.

They also love the smell of sweat so if you're exercising, be careful.

Mosquitoes also use vision to locate humans and wearing black, dark blue or red is supposed to make you easier to see. Really? More than... say.... yellow? Or orange?

My granddaughter is the mosquito magnet. Last time she got bit badly, she was wearing white. I wonder what blood type she is. And no, she never drinks beer which apparently mosquitoes also like!

Pepper Plants and Birds

Mom uses peppers to cook her burdock root to make kinpira gobo.

She tends to make it more spicy which isn't good for Art, but you need at least a bit of red chili pepper or it has no kick to it.

My Aunt Grace used to give mom the chili peppers, but after she passed away, mom relied on the plant auntie had given her earlier.

Mom was upset when that plant died because she liked to make this dish for the family.

Soooo....

I took my brown thumb to Home Depot and bought a Thai pepper plant. I bought this particular plant because it already had a LOT of peppers on it. I just needed to keep it alive until they all ripened.

Friends all warned me that birds LOVE to eat the peppers as soon as they ripened even though they were extremely spicy.  I found that hard to believe.

However, eventually the peppers did ripen and I picked them as quickly as I could and froze them all. Still, birds did manage to get some before I got up. I guess the early bird gets the peppers. I still couldn't understand how they could stand the hot spicy taste. Didn't it burn their tongue?

Then I saw this on a website.

Well...

I guess that explains it.

However, I have enough frozen peppers to keep mom happy for a good long while.

Ummm....

The birds have given up on my plant. My brown thumb has done the job again.

Friends told me white flies will also kill the pepper plant.

Nope... it's just me.

Gigantic Blueberries

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Sam's Club and bought some blueberries. We've been really surprised that we could buy blueberries all summer and now into fall.

We were running out of blueberries to add to our cereal for breakfast so we went out to get more. They were quite inexpensive.

Look at the difference in size. I was also using blueberries to make muffins. These monster berries are too big for muffins. The label says they came from Peru! I wonder what they put in their soil.

I bought strawberries too, but they were normal size.

Rice for My Eyes?

My new (young) optometrist put me through a battery of tests and told me that my far vision had actually improved and my near vision remained about the same. I was a little nervous seeing someone new since I really liked my other doctor. However her schedule was too full so we were asked if we wouldn't mind seeing the new partner.

He carefully explained each procedure and told us what he was looking for. When I mentioned how I did occasionally suffer from dry eyes he suggested something that sounded a little odd. He said I should put some rice in a sock and microwave it for a few seconds. Then I should test the warmth and put it on my eyes for about 5 minutes, twice a day.

I got this definition for dry eyes from the Oasis Eye Care website:

"The following is the definition of Dry Eye Disease according to 150 of the world’s leading experts in the Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society or TFOS.  “Dry eye is a multifactorial disease of the ocular surface characterized by a loss of homeostasis of the tear film, and accompanied by ocular symptoms, in which tear film instability and hyperosmolarity, ocular surface inflammation and damage, and neurosensory abnormalities play etiological roles.”

This is awfully, crazy complicated. Basically, he said some of my tear ducts were a little clogged so the warmth could help to unclog them.

I thought that if I stuck the sock on my eyes, it would get dirty eventually. I wanted to be able to wash it. Therefore I got some scrap material and sewed a sack in which I poured some raw rice. I sewed the middle to keep the rice in place for both eyes. Then I put the rice sack in a sock which I can now wash without getting the rice wet.

After doing it once, I looked online to find that this really was an acceptable practice. One website called Wholefully did a tutorial on it. That website said you could put the rice sack in the freezer too and have a useful cold pack. (I didn't do as neat a job with my rice sack. I'll do a better job if my son-in-law tells me he'd like one too.)

Well, I shall try applying the warmth to my eyes and hope it does some good. Otherwise, there's always the Refresh eye lubricant to fall back on.

POSTSCRIPT 1:
Gosh... I don't know. After a couple of days of doing this, I developed a tiny red bump on my left eye lid. Did I make the rice pads too hot? Keep it on too long? Sheesh! I don't know. Maybe I'll try again much later.

We'll see.

POSTSCRIPT 2:
My wonderful blogger buddy, DrumMajor sent some fabulous advice (via comments) all the way from Kansas. She sent this photo to accompany her comment.

Something Only a Retired Person Would Have Time to Do

People sometimes ask me how I spend my time since we are now both retired. I hope those people don't read my post today.

One morning, I actually stopped what I was doing to gaze at a bubble. (I know. I know. I've written about seeing a bubble before, but this one was bigger and stranger.)

I just thought it was so pretty with its soapy rainbow of colors that I watched it for a few moments. Then I noticed that it was changing its shape. Or was it?

I've seen a small bubble form on my reusable straw before, but it usually just popped. This, however, was a big bubble. I soon discovered that it wasn't really changing its shape. Instead, a lot of the thicker soap film was just sinking to the bottom of the bubble which gave the illusion of it being more egg shaped.

When I looked back at the bubble a little later, I thought it had popped. I leaned over closely for a better look and I saw that .... wow! It was still there!

I left the dishes for a while after that because I couldn't bear to pop it. I just felt something that worked so hard to live should go on its own time.

Left Over Paint!

Yes, it's true that we were very happy with the paint job that was done on our house this summer. Our painting contractor caulked up all the spaces that the original painter had not done and did an excellent, neat job.

We were very pleased.

However, we were dismayed when he asked us to get a lot more additional, rather expensive paint and then didn't use most of it.

We were left with about 10 gallons of Sherwin Williams tinted primer and 7 gallons of Duration paint.

Every time we looked at those containers, we fretted about that wasted additional cost and what to do with the paint.

It occurred to me then that we've seen a LOT of graffiti around the island that the City and County has had to constantly paint over. It's really disgusting and I wish they could apprehend all those miscreants.

I wondered if we could donate our paint to the city.

I checked into opala@honolulu.gov. Opala is Hawaiian for garbage or trash. That's the website where you can find out things like where to toss or recycle your garbage or when your trash pick-up is.

Recycling specialist, Dorreann Kaehuae'a for the City and County of Honolulu answered my email and said there was a church that could use the paint donation to cover graffiti in the neighborhood. This is her contact information.

Dorreann High School

Recycling Specialist

City & County of Honolulu

Department of Environmental Services

Refuse Division/Recycling Branch

1000 Uluohia Street, Ste. 201

Kapolei, HI 96707

(808) 768-3426

Dorreann said her boss, Recycling Branch head, Henry Gabriel (808-768-3427) is also a good contact person.

A few days later, Dorreann very kindly came to our house (she must have figured out that we were seniors) and picked up the paint herself to deliver to the church.

She mentioned that painting contractors often miscalculate how much paint is needed and then would tell homeowners that they could probably use the leftover paint to paint parts of the house later. Of course, that usually doesn't happen and after several years, homeowners are stuck trying to find out what to do with all this paint they stored.

Aggravating as it was to look at the big 5 gallon containers of paint all the time, we are so very grateful to Dorreann for finding an organization who could put our paint to worthwhile use. It really made us feel so much better.

Big sigh of relief! Yay!

Packages Arriving Early

We've been noticing items we ordered arriving a bit earlier than stated. I wonder if this is done on purpose.

I ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite that was supposed to arrive in 14-21 days. It arrived in 4 days!

OK... That was a pleasant surprise.

Then I ordered the Paperwhite cover from Walmart. which was supposed to arrive in 7 days. I got it in 3 days! Now that was a surprise too!

I know it sounds like I order a lot of things, but I don't. It's just that I happened to want these things after my old 4 year old Paperwhite was slowing down and I had my optometrist appointment which showed I needed new glasses.

I ordered it from Zenni. It was going to take 14-21 days. It arrived in 8 days.

And then there are those air flights you take...

I'm beginning to think they pad the duration they tell you at the beginning of the flight because they always seem to arrive about a half hour early.

But you know what? It works because I'm so happy when things arrive earlier than expected or if we land at our destination before the expected time.

Memories of Fall in Illinois

For several years after we moved back to Hawaii from Illinois after 35 years, we would return in fall or spring to enjoy the changing colors.

I'm missing those colors and cool temperatures now. Hawaii has suffered through a very hot and very humid summer.

We would always go into the woods with our daughter, Tiffany and her family.

I loved seeing the wonderful palette of colors all around us.

Hearing the crunch of leaves beneath our feet and loving that cool breeze was healing.

Our granddaughter, KC enjoyed exploring everything around her.

It's fun to see KC growing as I look through our photos.

After 2015, we were always traveling during the fall season so we were experiencing fall in different countries or in Maryland (with our son and his family) which was quite wonderful too.

This year, we'll be home in Hawaii and hopefully it will start cooling down soon.

Does Amazon Always Have the Best Price?

I have had a Kindle Paperwhite for several years now and have taken it everywhere with me. I started out with a regular Kindle and moved on to the lighter Paperwhite after a while. I have loved it. I use the bigger font so that I don't need to wear my reading glasses when I read it bed.

Well... my Paperwhite (Generation 2) is getting sluggish lately. The pages don't swipe quickly to the next and doesn't turn on easily either.

Art insisted that I go ahead and get the newest Paperwhite (Generation 10). So I did and it arrived quickly. Yay! However, I'd rather not start using it until I get a cover for it.

I had the hardest time finding a cover I liked on Amazon. I've gotten pretty used to just getting things on Amazon assuming that it would give me the cheapest price.

However, this time I thought I'd just check out some other websites.

What a surprise to find the same Paperwhite cover on Walmart.

It was $17.99 at Amazon and $9.99 from Walmart which they listed as originally $24.99.

Yup.

I ordered it from Walmart. It's taught me that I need to really look around (the Web) before purchasing anything and not take things for granted.

Art and I used to always go to several stores before locating where we would find the best price. Nowadays, you can let your fingers do the walking.

Isn't it amazing?

Help From a Blogger Friend

When I wrote about my new Apple Watch that the kids gave me for my birthday, Christine of Christine's Blog from Canada emailed me to show how helpful the Apple Watch could be for fall detection. 

She sent me this video about a man who was rescued when his Apple Watch sent an emergency notice to his son telling him he'd taken a fall from his bicycle.

Then a friend of mine told me that she was chopping some meat when her Apple Watch asked if she was OK. She needed to respond or the Apple Watch could have called 911 for her. I wondered why I'd never gotten any of those inquiries.

Hmmmm...

Those who have been reading my blog KNOW that I've had falls and I've broken bones. Tsk.

However, I wasn't sure my Apple Watch 4 was turned on to fall detection as the video that Christine sent me indicated.

So...

I looked it up and saw that I needed to set up my Medical ID for my Apple Watch and input my emergency contacts. I also turned on Fall Detection.

Since my son-in-law set up my Apple Watch quickly after they'd given it to me, he didn't know to add in all that information.

Now, because of Christine, I'm all set up. Isn't it great how we all help each other?

Thank you, Christine.

Apple Watch vs. Fitbit: Sleep Monitor

I've always liked my Fitbit to inform me of the quality of sleep I'd been getting. Granted, I've also read that over monitoring your sleep can be causing some added stress that could affect your sleep. I like to monitor my rest time so I can be sure to either go to sleep earlier or whatever.

When the kids got me the Apple Watch, I found the Apple Watch sleep monitor didn't record my sleep in the same way as Fitbit. So then I decided to try sleeping with both the Fitbit and the Apple Watch to compare how they recorded my sleep.

Here's what I got from Fitbit. I usually get a Fair. You have to get 80 or above to get a Good.

Then I checked my Apple Watch data.

Apple Watch is telling me I got almost an hour more of sleep and 29% of Deep Sleep whereas Fitbit only gave me only 11%.

Sooooo.... as usual, Apple Watch gave me more sleep and deep sleep time.

On the other hand Apple Watch always records less steps than my Fitbit.

I mentioned this to Art and he showed me what he got.

This is what his Fitbit recorded. He ALWAYS gets more sleep than me. He says it's because he has a clearer conscience.

Since he slept with both the Fitbit and Apple Watch like I did to do this test, this is what his Apple Watch recorded.

Unlike Fitbit which gave him 8 hours of sleep, the Apple Watch gave him less sleep at 7 hours 39 minutes. So in my case Apple Watch gave me more sleep while Art got more sleep with Fitbit.

Sighhhh....

Art laughed and said, "A person with two watches is never sure what time it is."

Young at Heart (Senior Fair)

We go to the Senior Fair each year so that mom can get her high dose flu shot at the Kaiser booth. This year, the Senior Fair went by a different name. It's now called the Young at Heart Expo. I rather like it.

I wanted to bring the wheelchair, but mom insisted she was fine and didn't need it.

Sigh...

I wish I'd brought it because it was too difficult for her to walk for very long. Her leg is more or less healed, but she thinks she is capable of doing more than she should. Therefore, we didn't stay as long this year, but it was fun anyway.

This year, Art and I also got our high dose flu shots at the Expo, but at the CVS booth (we don't belong to Kaiser) because Medicare covers the cost. The Tripler Army hospital does not carry the high dose shots so our doctor advised us to go to CVS (Longs Drugs-Hawaii) instead since it wouldn't be an additional cost. They advise seniors to get the high dose version.

I looked it up online and it said that October was the optimum time to get the flu shot, but we decided to do it in September anyway. According to the website, the most important thing is to get it.

Have you gotten your flu shot yet?

Dragon Fruit vs. Night Blooming Cereus

When Art goes for his early morning runs, he often sees what he thought was night blooming cereus.

He saw some beautiful flowers as he ran past and stopped to take a photo. As the sun came up on his way home, he saw honey bees swarming over them so he took another photo.

That's when he noticed what looked like dragon fruit on the vines.

I looked up dragon fruit on the Internet and saw photos that seemed to show that night blooming cereus really did produce the dragon fruit.

However, when I researched it more carefully, I discovered that the Chinese night blooming cereus does not provide fruit.

A relative of the night blooming cereus is the pitahaya plant that produces the dragon fruit. They both bloom at night and fade in the sunlight.

There is the white flesh and red flesh type of fruit. Apparently, if you're going to grow it, it's a good idea to get both kinds of plants.

I got this from the Edible Landscape website.

"It is also a good idea to get at least one each of the Hylocereus undatus and Hylocerus Polyrhizus (red flesh) so that cross pollination is possible." 

When our grandson went with us to the farmers market, one of the vendors gave him a dragon fruit to try.

It turned out to be the red flesh type.

Actually, although it's supposed to have strong health benefits, there wasn't much flavor to it. The color is beautiful though and would probably look pretty in a salad.

Ah well... now we know that all those cactus like plants our neighbors are growing are not the night blooming cereus, but the pitahaya. You learn something new everyday.

POSTSCRIPT:

Art passed by the pitahaya plant a couple of weeks later and saw this.

I wonder how they prepare the fruit.

What Women Talk About

I went to lunch with six of my Zumba friends on a Friday recently and had a fabulous time. Since there was a very small crowd at the Big City Diner, the wait staff was content with us sitting there for two and a half hours.

It occurred to me later that we covered a wide selection of topics and I loved every minute of it.

TMT: (Thirty Meter Telescope) is an international telescope that was supposed to be built on Mauna Kea (Big Island). It has become controversial because some Native Hawaiians feel the mountain is sacred. People who support  the telescope feel ancient Hawaiians believed in learning about the skies. The ladies in our group all supported the building of the telescope because we felt that not building the telescope wouldn't correct the wrong done to the Hawaiian people. It has become a very contentious issue.

Democratic Debate: We discussed who we thought would be the most viable candidate to go against Trump.

Trump: None of us understood why anyone could possibly support Trump.

Candy Crush: This is a very popular video game you can play on your cellphone or iPad. Half of our group plays it and really enjoys it. The other half knew next to nothing about it.

Insomnia: It seems just about all my friends at the luncheon were having some form of insomnia and we shared our frustration. I sent them all a link to the 4-7-8 breathing exercise.

Big Skinny wallet: I told everybody about my new Big Skinny wallet. It turned out that most people had the Vera Bradley wallet because we have an Outlet store here on Oahu. We admired everybody's wallets.

Grandchildren: Yup! We talked about our wonderful grandchildren and shared photos of them.

Health: Discussed knee surgeries and other health issues of which there were many.

Korean Dramas:  Yup. Yup. We did talk about Korean dramas. Granted only a couple of us in our Zumba group don't watch Korean dramas. I'm one of them. I'm too busy writing my blogs. I'm afraid that if I start watching even one, I'll become addicted to them.

Recipes for fried saimin: I loved learning some really easy recipes for making Hawaiian style fried saimin. Actually four of us ordered fried saimin while two of us ordered a portobello sandwich. I was wishing I ordered the fried saimin noodles too.

Reparation for war crimes: How did we get on that topic? But we did.

Weather:  It's been super hot and humid in Hawaii for a couple of months now. We've had several weeks of straight uncomfortable 90 degree weather which makes Zumba quite difficult to do.

Bathrooms during travel: We all had funny stories about looking for bathrooms during our travels.

And that's about all I can remember (I wasn't taking notes), but there was more. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised we were only there for two and a half hours.

I wonder what the guys talk about.

A Real ID?

In 13 months, you must have a "REAL ID" to travel. The Real ID is sometimes called a Star Card because of the gold or black star that is printed on the right hand corner of your drivers license or state ID. States are now doing enhanced security checks for people renewing their IDs.

If you aren't due to renew your drivers license to get that all important star, you can still use your passport or GOES (Global Entry card) from the Trusted Traveler Program.

We had to renew mom's state ID this summer because she doesn't drive. It was a definite pain, first because of all security check materials we had to bring in and second because I misread the instructions.

• Legal Name (birth certificate, US passport, marriage certificate)
• Date of Birth (birth certificate, US passport, driver license)
• Legal Presence that proves you are legally in the US (birth certificate, US passport)
• Social Security Number (Social Security Card, W-2, 1099 Form)
• Hawaiʻi Principal Residence (2 documents required: voter registration card, pay statement, utility bill, bank statement)

I had her birth certificate but I didn't have a government issued marriage certificate to prove her name change. I just had the marriage form given by the temple.

We had her Medicare card.  It was difficult to find two documents from a government authority because all mail comes to us.

I should have remembered to bring her passport! Darn!

Sigh... They are not lenient. We had to go back to the bank when they opened to get her passport from the safety deposit box, find something else with her name and address on (voter registration), drive back to the satellite city hall and try again.

This time, we went through with flying colors and got her temporary card. Her actual card came a few weeks later.

I tried to renew my GOES card from the Trusted Traveler website and ARRRRGHHH.... it wouldn't recognize my information.

Siiiiighhhhh.....

POSTSCRIPT: I called the Hawaii Customs and Border Protection Office and the kind officer there helped me straighten out my problem. I discovered that my name was spelled incorrectly on my GOES ID card when I applied for it 3 years ago. I'd never noticed it.