It is not unusual to have a good vacation if you planned it. It is not unusual to have a bad vacation with others if you did not plan it. It is rare to have a great vacation, but this past two weeks was just that. We jointly planned the time spent, we did spend some time apart, and I have reached a mellowness in my old age that accepts not getting to see everything or do everything that is in the plans. There are a number of reasons, which I will not go into, that this trip with son and daughter-in-law could have been difficult, but it looks like we were all good and on best behavior and parted with loving hugs and kisses. It will be a cherished memory for me forever. We also had the parents of the daughter-in-law along, and that was a nice event as this trip was more than special for them. They had never traveled to the Hawaiian Islands. We spent one week on Oahu and one week on The Big Island.
I did not take enough photos of the food, because I am not thinking of taking photos when food is put in front of me. I am super thinking of stuffing my face! We ate many different places, but the best eating was in the hole-in-the-wall local places. The hotels offered good food but that was also very expensive. We ate one night at our favorite high-end restaurant, Roys, and were greatly disappointed. As disappointed as we had been with one of its sister restaurants here in the Mid-Atlantic. Gotta look for a new anniversary venue, I guess. But the freshness of the fruits and seafood were never a disappointment no matter where we ate.
And smoothies and shave ice are the perfect treats after a hot and sweaty hike and eating outside is the best!
I am currently downloading the 1000+ photos that will give me something to play with during the cold winter days ahead. Right now the weather outside is a perfect dry fall day and I will not want to miss that in the coming weeks. Such a nice day that a poet could write about it.
Our return was delayed by 4 hours and thus we missed our connection in San Francisco on to the East Coast. This means that an eight hour time on planes and in airports became 18 hours! It seems that a computer problem prevented the air traffic controllers from tracking the majority of planes flying over the Pacific! We were glad that they paused and then seemed to assign planes various altitudes as they left Honolulu airport. At least I 'think' that is how the Captain explained it. I had downloaded a couple of movies to my Kindle and was glad as the United wi-fi was also not working!! United did give each of us a $20 voucher for food at the airport because of the delay. $20 does not go very far if you order yogurt, fresh fruit, granola, coffee, and a pastry?? Blueberries out of San Francisco are really sweet, though.
"Leaving on a jet plane and pretty sure when I will be back again. And no, I don't hate to go." Did John Denver just roll over in his grave or was that a mild earthquake??
We are heading for a week on Oahu and a week on Hawaii (the Big Island.) We will be playing tourist as well as visiting a number of friends. As those who have visited this blog decades ago may remember I went to graduate school at the University of Hawaii as did my husband. We met there and married there and started our careers heading further East toward islands and other countries in the South Pacific.
Anyway, I am going with son and daughter-in-law and hubby this time and hope to get away from all the crappy news, pardon my French, and instead be faced with volcanos and hurricanes in the Pacific which are somehow far more rational than what is happening in the U.S.A. I am up for the challenge and promise photos upon my return...I saw a few of you yawning out there in Internet Land. I will keep it succinct.
October is a month for loading vans and trucks with banners, collapsible tables, brochures and pamphlets, giveaways, game boards, bottled water, and small plants.
I meet up at the museum or the historic grounds with other gray beards and we pretend we can assist others with plant plans, ideas, problems, identification, and ecology and climate issues. We are right maybe 75% of the time and also give them referrals that are more authentic for accuracy. It is something old people do to help ease their retirement days and pretend they are not becoming useless.
One of the men and his wife are recently divorced and they do not come together as a unit but move as very separate entities on opposite sides of the booth and talk to different people at different times. She is what some would say is a challenge. She has hearing issues but would also have an "in your face" personality even if she was not hard of hearing. He is a master at building and repairing and talking about his many projects. He also has an excellent grasp of soil and ecology even though he has no scientific background...he was a mechanic in the Navy for years. This year they have moved into separate homes and she clearly has a need for conversation.
Another man, a handsome, neat as a pin in his mid 70's comes early and assists in a quiet but accurate fashion. Late in the day a nurse wheels in his wife who is in a wheelchair after a severe stroke more than a year ago. He was angry and hard to work with for many months, yelling if you moved a brochure or adjusted a display. Now he has come back to earth and adjusted to the pain in his life. His wife, a delicate lovely lady, looks bright-eyed and interested, even though she does not talk. As I watch them in loving touching, I know they were a really beautiful couple in their wedding photos.
The Matriarch of our group who knows thousands of scientific names of plants has limited patience with those of us who keep using common names. Her husband passed just a little more than a year ago. They were sailing mates around the world for many years and he was a famous physicist. She also was angry and impatient for a while after his death. She still has little patience for our stupidity but smiles more these days.
The Girl Scout of this particular event (and many others) is a decade younger than most of us and keeps us organized. She belongs to several volunteer groups and seems to know many people who come by. She lost her husband a few years ago to Alzheimer's and I think (in her 60's) she is lonely. We, the old timers, were hoping for a matchmaking event with another naturalist in the community, but that was not meant to be.
I smile as I write this because I wonder how these folks above would describe me...and my husband...and our presence in this group. Do you sometimes wonder how other people see you?... Or do you not care? Or do you think you know?
It appears that there are options in user settings for commenting using Google+ on Blogger. Maybe this is why since I have that disabled. I may try to enable and see if it still gives me my privacy...or I could create ANOTHER account on Google+ which is most annoying!
I really, really, wish I could remember who it was that said they could not get into my blog. They posted this on their blog. Instead, when clicking on the URL they got a page where Webroot indicated there was a virus on my page!! This was just a few days ago. Guess what? I had the same thing happen to me yesterday when I tried to see a post I had written on my own blog.
I scanned my PC for viruses with Webroot which is the anti-virus I use and was recommended by an IT person and nothing was found. I emailed Webroot and have not gotten a response as of yet. Luckily, I rebooted my PC and was able to get into my own blog then! Wowie! Something is rotten in nefarious Blog Land. I do remove the spam comments from my blogs before allowing them to post unless they comment immediately. Webroot is not among the top ten virus packages...maybe I should ask my friend who used to work for the Secret Service technology office what virus he/she would recommend.
In another case, I have found that certain blogs I try to comment on after reading default to a Google login with my real name and since I do not use that login, I cannot comment on their blog. I will only log in with Blogger. So, if I have not commented on your blog in months, it means I cannot log in as Tabor.
I read that 50 million users of Facebook had their identities stolen and/or could not log in. That has not happened to me...yet.
These are certainly complicated times.
I try hard to be more sociable. It is not that I dislike people, but on some days I do. I have no patience for their small mindedness, their self-interest, and their righteousness. Of course, I have these same traits some days and have no room to pretend I am better. I do think I am more open-minded than some. And of course as I watched the hearings for the new nominee for the Supreme Court, I realize I am totally prejudiced. I have met this creep/type in my earlier life and my instincts tell me he is scum. I try hard to cram a logical thought and a fair approach into this and it will not fit, only pure raw emotion and hatred. I turn off the TV.
The "other side" tells me that all the "little brown" immigrants are here to take their/our jobs by accepting lower wages and then also living off our social welfare programs and do not see the contradiction in their thinking. They do not have anger for the rich white boss that creates the situation of lower and lower pay. And the same "other side" tells me they knew our current candidate and Republican Sheriff when he was a cop and that he used to give young girls traffic tickets and then tell them he would tear them up for "favors." They think this is amusing.
I saw Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 11/9. Moore is fat, messy, and a tease. The conservatives hate his guts and some liberals are embarrassed by his tenacity. The movie is pretty typical of his prior documentaries and shows his lack of power and finesse. But it links all of this strange political culture under a magnifying lens and he criticizes both Democrats and Republicans with only a fair and very brief nod to Bernie Saunders and a chunk of time to the young veteran from West Virginia that is running for office. Would love to hear or read our last President's response to how he was thrown under the bus in this documentary.
...and women continue to be insulted every single day by those old white guys in power.
I do see a ray of hope in all of this. I watch the advertisements on TV and the characters and lovers and families in them look like the real world. This must drive the racists and misogynists crazy! At least that is my ray of hope.
Sorry, must be the meds I am on. I do feel so much better after vomiting all this bile, though.
