Racoon Tracks or Squirrel?

It snowed while we were in Illinois. We expected and enjoyed it. Luckily, the snowfall was light and pretty. The temperatures were also quite mild, until we left.

Could it be that having lived in Hawaii now for 12 years, we notice and take more delight in the things that we used to take for granted?

One morning we marveled at these tracks. We thought at first that they could be raccoon tracks. However, upon further inspection agreed that it must be a squirrel's.

I think.

The Perfect Traveling Backpack!

Airlines are now giving you less space to store your things in the underseat area in front of you. We usually fly United and the middle section of four seats must now share the middle underseat storage (There are only three spaces for four passengers).

I'm sorry. This is not a good photo. It's from a past trip. I can't store my underseat roller luggage either. It now must go in the overhead compartment even though it's very small and meant for the underseat.

In that middle underseat storage section, Art's backpack is just too big. If he puts much of anything in it, the other middle person would not have any room to store their bag.

I was therefore on the hunt for a smaller slimmer backpack for him. I looked on Amazon but saw too many negative reviews. I felt we needed to look at the actual product.

When we went to the Wisconsin outlet mall I had several criteria.

* Slimmer profile
* Able to hold two water bottles in a deeper pocket
* Space for iPad
* Slimmer width
* Lightweight (not bulky)
* Sturdy
* Front pocket

And we found it. I actually saw another one but both Art and our daughter said it screamed, "Crazy teenager."

So we settled on this Puma backpack on the right.

And you can see here that it fits a lot easier and still leaves room for the other person. Ironically, there was an empty seat next to Art on this trip so he didn't have to worry about leaving room for the other person.

However, we'll be ready for our next trip.

Fun at Culver's

Whenever we go to Illinois to see our daughter, Tiffany and her family, we like to go to Pleasant Prairie Outlet Mall in Wisconsin. I always manage to find a bargain that I just have to buy that I don't really need but end up loving when I bring it home.

After our bargain hunting, we stop at Culvers for lunch. Yes, it's true. I do like their frozen custard. I just looked up what frozen custard is:

"Ice cream is made from milk, cream, or a combination of the two, while frozen custard is made from milk, cream, and egg yolks. Also, while the machine used to make ice cream churns air into it to make it have a light mouth feel, frozen custard is produced in a machine that barely incorporates air into it, which means it’s way more dense."

 Art, who orders much healthier meals than the rest of us ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. Tif and I ordered their crispy chicken sandwich. We ordered just one small package of french fries to share since... yes... we wanted to be a little healthy.

We then sat at our table and waited for our order. What a surprise when the server brought over Art's grilled chicken sandwich along with THREE packages of french fries! The server apologized profusely saying that they'd gotten Tif and my order wrong and were working now to fill our order. They wanted us to have the extra two fries while we waited.

He said he was given the sad job of having to deliver the bad news to us. We laughed and said it was fine, but gosh THREE fries? What to do?

After about 10 minutes, he reappeared again with our sandwiches and ANOTHER package of fries!!! That's FOUR fries!

We burst out laughing, and he must have seen the humor in the situation.

A few minutes later, he stopped by our table again with coupons for three frozen custards.

Oh my gosh!

What did we do?

It was cold outside. Tif and Art decided to just keep the coupons for another time. There was no expiration date.

What did I do?

Ummm... I ate my chocolate custard happily.

And the french fries? We ate a few and brought the rest home for Tif to warm up in their air fryer for our granddaughter and son-in-law to enjoy with dinner.

You know what? They were actually still quite good.

As for granddaughter, KC... she wants to go and get that free frozen custard!

Lindt or Lindor?

Christine of Christine's Blog wrote a post in January about a Lindt dark chocolate bar that she said was "to die for."

After seeing her photos of the dark chocolate bar with the soft truffle center I mentioned it to my daughter.

I try not to eat much candy but gosh! This looked so good.

When we got to Illinois in February, Tiffany surprised me with a little bag of these dark chocolate Lindt Lindors. She said she'd gone to the Lindt Chocolate Store and was told that the Lindor bars are not on sale in the U.S.

She also learned that Lindt is the brand. Lindor is a type of candy that has a chocolate shell with a truffle center. The U.S. has the Lindor balls, but not the bars.

I saved the Lindors to bring home to Hawaii to savor but found that the centers had melted in our warm weather. Tiffany suggested my putting them in the refrigerator which did harden the center. And yes, it was scrumptious just as Christine said.

Art's Weird Dream

While we were in Illinois last month, Art was startled awake by my yelling in my sleep. He said he tried to wake me three times but couldn't rouse me so he spoke directly into my ear asking what was happening. Apparently, I told him the house was burning.

I don't remember any of this, but he says my yelling woke him so he could remember his dream.

Art doesn't seem to get nightmares, but he does get weird dreams. This is what he remembers.

He was jogging along a coastline and noticed that strangely there was a protective railing on the hillside of the track but not on the side dropping off into the ocean. When he looked down, he was disconcerted to see the pounding surf with high waves.

Continuing his jog, a fog started rolling in which made visibility very difficult. Suddenly he heard pounding feet coming toward him from behind. And then he nearly stumbled when a man jolted onto his back.

The runner apologized and Art told him it was rather scary since he couldn't see in the fog.

"Neither can I," said the man. " Because I'm blind."

Have you gotten weird dreams too? What was it about?

Cutting It Off Again

Every so often I'll want a bit of a change and will grow out my hair. Then I discover why I didn't like my hair long and will cut it off. It just gets in my way, will tickle my cheeks, fly in my eyes and seems to fall out faster. In the 12 years we’ve been back to Hawaii, I’ve gone to a professional just twice.

The first time was in 2013 at Macys where gorgeous Luciano cut off my hair after I’d grown it out for year. He was skeptical of my decision and asked me why I’d want such a huge change. Ah well. The result wasn’t exactly what I was envisioning, but I just combed it a different way and it was absolutely fine.

The second time I went to a hairdresser was to get a trim. After cutting my hair by myself for years, Art suggested I have my hair cut again by somebody else. I went to Supercuts. The stylist was very nice, but she cut my hair too short.

Well.... I’ve grown my hair out again, but AGAIN... it was driving me crazy.

I don't like taking care of my hair and at this length, it has a mind of its own.

Then I got a $3 off coupon from Supercuts so I thought I’d try once more. I called first and talked to Mindy who turned out to be the manager. I asked her if there was somebody who could cut my hair, but not too short. She said she would be happy to do it.

I really liked Mindy. She was very friendly and I watched how she carefully made every cut. AND best of all, I’m very pleased with the final product. It's just what I wanted!

I wonder what my friends at Zumba and Tai Chi will say. Maybe they won’t notice?

Polyurethane on Cloth?

My granddaughter, KC had decorated a pen/pencil bag in Arts Camp last year. I wanted to use it, but the material was rather rough and the glitter she put on it kept falling off.

I wondered if it would be all right to coat it with (water base) polyurethane which I'd used to waterproof some baskets a while back.

I looked it up online and found this answer:

Brush a water-based polyurethane on to your fabric.Make sure it's water-based so that your fabric doesn't yellow! This will seal your fabric and protect it from water. ... Once the final coat has dried, lay your mat fabric-side down on the ground.

It worked! The glitter is smooth and sealed and the entire bag feels less scratchy. I brought it to Illinois to show KC. I can now use it with ease and will think of KC everytime I take out my pen.

Keeping Too Warm?

Before leaving for Chicago last month, I told my daughter, Tiffany that I heard they'd had a horrible cold spell and that I was thinking of bringing my warmer packable down jacket.

I'd bought this Lands' End jacket (it was on sale a couple of years ago) but hadn't found a time and place to use it.

I could almost hear Tif sigh... and maybe imagine her rolling her eyes.

It might be nearly 20 years ago that I bought a jacket (it must have been a really huge sale) because I liked the fur trim (I don't know if it's real) and the idea that it would definitely keep me warm. I vaguely remember my kids telling me I might be going overboard despite the fact that Chicago does have very, very cold winters.

I think I thought I could wear it to a Bears football game.

I think I thought I could use it to shovel our driveway.

I think I thought I could use it if I had playground duty.

I think I thought I could use it if we decided to go on a winter hike... at the North Pole.

Heck! I don't know what I thought. I only know I used it just once. I felt like an Inuit hunting a polar bear.

When we moved to Hawaii, I left that jacket in Tif's attic. We needed a large garbage bag to store it.

I told Tif, she could use it too. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

She sent this photo to me.

I guess that means no.

Looks like the jacket will have to be donated to a homeless shelter.

Oh... and about that silver Lands' End jacket...
Sigh...

I must remember to always buy a jacket with a hood. If it's that cold, I need a hood because it's a pain to carry a hat with me all the time.

I guess it's good I live in Hawaii now and don't have to worry about winter wear.

Leap Year 12th Blogaversary!

I started writing my blog 12 years ago on Friday, February 29th which was a Leap Year. Darn! This year, February 29th is tomorrow so I still can't post on my actual Blogaversary. Well... I could... but... I'm sticking to my schedule.

Whenever I reach one of the blog milestones I marvel at how long I've been writing. I have written 3,322 blog posts! It doesn't seem possible.

I just hope people forgive me when I repeat myself. It's hard to remember what I've written about and with my memory lapses, it becomes even more probable that I will.

There are a number of blogger friends like Dina, Linda, DJan, Lin, Michelle, Leona, Christine, Cloudia and others who have supported me from almost the very start and to whom I would like to extend my love and gratitude.

There are more who have left blogging or since passed away who I miss even now. We all get to know and care about each other so well through cyber connections.

And there are even more bloggers who I have met in the last 12 years to whom I would like to send my deepest gratitude for your friendship, kindness and advice.

You are all the BEST! Thank you. Thank you so much!

$10,000 Corningware?

When we had our relatives over last month to welcome in the New Year, someone noticed the Corningware in which I'd placed the teriyaki chicken Art had grilled.

They excitedly told me how amazing it was that I had that old Corningware dish because they'd read it was worth $10,000.

"Nooooooo...." I said. "Not possible. Tons of people must have these old Corningwares."

Then they showed me this website.

Hmmm.... I was starting to dream what I could do with $10,000.

 Wow!

I looked through my cupboard and found these.

Then I saw this on ebay.

Wow! I had something like that too. I was thinking of putting my Corningware in a safety deposit box at the bank. Juuust kidding.

Then I texted my techie son-in-law who wrote back to me almost immediately.

He said he was excited too, buuuuut....

When he checked on it, he discovered a lot of Corningwares being sold online (very cheap) but more desirable ones had to be from a certain time period that you could discover by various markings under the handle or on the bottom. Here is the link to a website I found that explains it all.

So.... well....

It was fun while it lasted.

Recycled Flowers

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

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

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

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

Super Roses

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

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

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

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

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

Do you know how long cut roses usually last?

Leis for My Granddaughter

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

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

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

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

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

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

POSTSCRIPT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flying Home on United Airlines

We returned to Hawaii last week.

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

Tif sent this text to us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arrrrghhhhh....

NOT my kind of movie!

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

I loved Abominable!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you?

POSTSCRIPT 1:

Oh dang it!

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

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

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

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

Diamond Princess

We've sailed on the Diamond Princess twice.

The first time was to Alaska in 2011.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2020 Great Aloha Run #12

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

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

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

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

The line to board the shuttle buses seemed never ending.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There were LONG lines at all the porta potties.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahhhh....

Finally! We could see the Aloha Stadium!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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