In Memoriam

Since Monday is Veterans Day in the United States, this post on the Arizona Memorial and Pearl Harbor Park seem appropriate a few days early.  It would be more appropriate for Memorial Day, but it is what it is since I just visited there.  We spent over 4 hours at the Pearl Harbor Memorial Park before the hunger for lunch forced us to walk out of the park to a nearby restaurant.  I had visited this site decades ago as a poor graduate student and was a bit overwhelmed at that time before it had become so instructive.  This was a time before the lengthy audio tour by Jamie Curtis which takes you around the outside grounds and before the Road to War Museum and the Attack Museum had been built. Both museums are extensive and well done if such tragedy of man against man can be "well done".  Some say the memorial is Oahu's biggest tourist destination with 1.5 million visitors a year.  You will not regret a visit.

Once you have cleared security ( no bags allowed), you see the Tree of Life standing tall across the plaza. This was a sculpture designed by architect Alfred Preis to symbolize rebirth, renewal and a reminder that we are all interconnected.  It is near the entrance to the tour area and museums and duplicated at the far end of the actual Arizona Memorial letting light into the inside.

We could not go into the Arizona Memorial as it is sinking and needs repair.  The USS Arizona Memorial is located in Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu. "The USS Arizona is the final resting place for many of the 1,177 service members who lost their lives on December 7, 1941. The 184- foot-long (56-m) memorial spans the midportion of the sunken battleship. The memorial consists of three sections: the entry and assembly rooms; a central area designed for ceremonies and general observation; and the shrine room, where the names of those killed on the USS Arizona are engraved on the marble wall. The USS Arizona Memorial is only accessible by boat, which departs from the visitor center." 

"Originally built on a landfill designed to settle 18 inches, the museum and

the visitor center has settled 30 inches in some areas, far exceeding expectations. As a result, the lower level of the facility is nearing the water table. Repeated leveling projects to maintain the facility’s support structure has created cracks in the concrete. This deterioration has allowed moisture to permeate the concrete and sometimes reach the rebar. Engineers have assessed that the deterioration must be addressed and have given the current building a five to ten-year life expectancy. The building has settled more than expected and, as a result, some support columns are close to being over-extended. The National Park Service is dedicated to keeping the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center open and to provide a safe environment for the public. However, future planning must be done to ensure the Pearl Harbor legacy is secure for future generations."

There is a fee to get in and you can reserve tickets online to ease the long lines that are sometimes there.  It was busy during our visit, but not super crowded, and I am thankful for that.  The Arizona is still leaking oil (black tears) from her hull and the men still lie in state at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.  You get to meet the survivors through video and reprints of news stories which makes it much more meaningful.  It is a very powerful tour.

Thank you to all who serve now and who have served in the past.  We will not forget.

What Would You Do?

 

Pineapple flavored pretzels...no we did not buy any.

Today is Election Day and much of our County is shut down for voting. I hired a carpet cleaning company (for the first time in many years as I usually do it on my own) to come clean some area rugs and a few wall-to-wall carpets and they scheduled this day! I forgot to ask the two huge black men who came if they had found time to vote. I swear one was football build and about 6.5 feet tall with lovely dreadlocks falling onto this shoulders.  They could have moved all the furniture without a sigh. They had to be Blue voters!

Anyway, this post is not about them or about how the house smells a little like a dog caught in the rain right now.

I had not slept well last night worrying about not getting the furniture moved before they arrived. I should have played the helpless gray-haired lady, because they came a half hour late and I was exhausted. Once they left I ate a quick lunch and turned on fans in the rooms to help with the drying and retreated to my bedroom where the carpets were dry and soon I felt sleepy and had drifted into a deep restful sleep.

After a half hour, the phone rang and I put the pillow over my head and ignored it. Then ten minutes later the doorbell rang. I had not closed our gate and wondered if the carpet cleaners had forgotten something so I gave up on the nap.

I opened the door to find a thin white teenage boy standing near his bike in the driveway. When I ask if I could help him he explained he was looking for some type of work (like laying sod? he suggested) so that he could make some money. His explanation was that his mother told him to get some money to get some food for the house. He worked this into the conversation a couple of times.

I am an old fart but not a soft fart and for some reason I was leery of just handing him some money. I told him it was late fall and we had no yard work to do and all the wood for the rack had been split and filled, as it had.  I asked for his name and number and he handed my a torn piece of paper onto which he had written Clyde and a phone number.  When I asked where he lived he said it was down our main road and into another, etc. about a mile from here.

I told him I would ask my husband if he had any chores to be done and bid him adieu.  Maybe he was really looking for work for food.  We are always taking fresh produce to the food pantry, although there is nothing fresh this late in the fall.  I doubt we will have something for him...and I am not sure that I feel safe in helping him.

As an addendum he did pull out a small box with a heart-shaped necklace that he said his mother would let him sell for half price.  There was a sticker with $100 in the bottom  corner.

Am I just a cynic?  What would you do?

Experiment and a Hike

Changed a few settings to see if readers find it easier to comment. I do not know why Blogger prevented some from commenting, but that has happened to me on other blogs that I read. If this does not work, I am going to see if the browser used is the issue? I have used Google Chrome since the beginning, but will try Internet Explorer and Mozilla and maybe Bing next!! Anyway, below are photos of how I attempted to keep up with the younger ones on our two weeks in Hawaii.

Our AirBNB was close to Diamond Head, so that was the first workout we chose. It is a park with a 560-foot climb that can be done in 30 minutes if you are in shape and do not care what you see on the way up or down. The last 99 steps are straight up concrete stairs to a tunnel which lead you inside. While it is described as easy for children and golden agers, I paid my dues!! I think it was the heat and sun that were killers for me. There were also medium-sized groups of young Japanese tourists that insist on moving in sync both up and down the hill at a fairly good pace making passing hard on the narrow path. 

It costs $5 per car and $1 per person if you walk in. Parking can be tough if you arrive between the changing waves of people hiking. We only waited 5 minutes for space!

It is not so nicely paved the whole way.

Diamond Head is a volcanic crater first called Le'Ahi or Leahi for the "tuna fish brow." It was named Diamond Head by British Sailors who thought they discovered diamonds but instead found calcite crystals. It was a former volcano so we can forgive them. It was also used as a military lookout, Ft. Rutger, by the American Military. The DOD always gets the best spots first.

There are several places to stop for "vista photos" along the way.

Can you see the trail of people all the way from the left down below to the far right?

And of course, the views at the end are worth it.

It took me longer to go back down because I was stopping to take plant, vista, and bird photos since I no longer had to 'work it.'

And for some money, there is a reward at the end!!

Now, back to my experiment...feel free to test and leave a comment!!

The Vistas

There are places that you can travel to and you find your mind and heart working hard to grasp the essence of the place. It may seem crazy and crowded like Tokyo or filled with ancient ghosts like Italy or that make you question man's inhumanity like poorer places in Asia. One of the places where I have never felt I was a stranger was Hawaii. This may be due to having lived there for a year and passing through the islands many times during the years I live in the South Pacific and in Asia. But I think it is because the geography is generous to the mind and the people are generous to the heart. Yes, there is prejudice against the tourists, but you have to go deep into the bowels of Hawaii to find it.

The first day we adjusted easily to the sunshine falling during our normal night time and took the rental car around Oahu to familiar and popular places which we showed to my son and his wife. We probably bored them with tales of our youth having met there and getting graduate degrees there, but they were patient and willing to listen as they saw the jaw dropping scenery.

In the distance is the famous Diamond Head of movie and TV fame.

Then you turn to the other side of the vista.  That flat place in the middle distance of the photo above is the airport. Islands in the Pacific build their airports on coral reefs as there is little land for such a venture. Of course, now environmental issues prevent such careless construction.  Pearl Harbor is near there and to the right, but not clearly visible in this photo.  All of that precious air flowing over the ocean is so pure.  Take a deep breath.

In the photo above to the center is the distant Honolulu with the overused Waikiki Beach and the luxury hotels and the luxury shopping and the free regular evening hula show which we attended at sunset. It was not corny even though they had done it so many times before.

The next day we put the rental car in gear and headed half-way around the island for even more gorgeous vistas.

Above is the famous Hanauma Bay, a pocket beach, which has been loved to death and is now suffering the effects of that. I had one of my first dates there decades ago and it was just a small beach with about a dozen people sunning themselves and lots of lovely fish. Now there are parking lots, places to drive down and if you do not get there early enough you are turned away. Much of the coral is stressed or dead and that is so sad.

Ever-present to the North side of Oahu, behind the mountains were rain clouds that tried to make it over the scraggy tops clinging like foam. This was the beginning of the rainy season and there were heavy afternoon rains on that side of the island almost every day.

The Second Day Back

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.

Jet Planes

"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.

The Group

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?

Quick Follow UP

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!

Nefarious Stuff

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.

My Ray of Hope

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.

Foggy

I am on a cocktail of decongestants, antihistamines, antibiotics, etc. I take them all each day wondering what all this chemistry is doing to my body's chemical balance. How do I feel.  Pretty good, actually.   I am not facing serious illness right now, just a few nagging symptoms.   I am sleeping like a baby each evening even after having an afternoon nap...drugs are wonderful. (I am also having lots of dreams of me working on projects...house shopping or room decorating or trip planning...weird.)

No one knows why I have  this nagging cough and next week it may be an x-ray that I take.  I feel pressured because in two weeks I am  leaving for  Hawaii for a trip planned months ago with my son and DIL.  I lived in Hawaii for a year and look forward to seeing old friends and showing the state to my son and DIL.  We will also visit the big island, but with my health, not going near the volcano due to the  gases.

Now I will go an read your recent posts  using my foggy brain.

Not Florence, But a Flashback

Since Mage asked and others may have missed this post from so long ago...this is the story of when my house flooded. 

And She Turns

Florence was met with great fanfare in our neighborhood and we did not ignore that. We moved the benches from the dock where the tides have been very high for days.

We tied the plastic benches to the deck supports and cleared the deck of all the other patio furniture... which may or may not get moved back out in the coming weeks.

Hubby has been working hard in the humidity to get the widowmaker that finally came down across the path to the dock cut into firewood for this winter even though cozy wood fires seem such a long way away.

I froze several gallon jugs of water and put them in the freezer in the event we lose electricity.  I also inventoried the small freezer and we have been trying to eat as much of that as we can.  While families are hungry in this country we have an embarrassing abundance of food tucked away.

Now we see that the storm is moving south of us. We will just get some bands of heavy rains. Our soils are very wet and we may lose a tree or two, but it looks like we dodged the bullet on this one.

Stay safe, ya'll!

Superfluous or Tabor Who?

Yes, I have been absent. No, not on travel. I have been lying in bed and coughing my head off for weeks. I did not get a cold, or flu...no fever, joint aches, sinus problems. I had loss of appetite, but seemed to be eating well!  No one seems to know (or care?) what is making me cough and cough. Finally, it did morph into a virus thing in the lungs and I sounded as if I had been smoking my whole life. I could not get in to see my doctor, but saw a backup and got some meds to ease symptoms. Needless to write, I was not getting much sleep. Then a few days ago it all started to heal maybe due to the meds and helping me sleep regularly and soundly. Very slowly, I might add, the symptoms diminished.

Yes, I have an appointment with an ENT specialist, but I am not optimistic or even pessimistic that he will find a solution even if he does cram some camera object down my throat.  I am just glad to be up and walking around and on the mend.  Going shopping today for food and supplies in the event we lose electricity with this impending storm.

Anyway...just if you missed me.  If you did not, that is OK also.  I am not the center of my own attention, even.

I did a photo painting this morning for the first time in days...taken back in mid-August.

Disjointed

My life has become disjointed.  It seems to be full of disparate themes these days that make me feel just a bit off kilter.

I saw Mama Mia Part II recently and various ABBA songs keep running through my head at odd times of the day. I like ABBA so there could be worse songs drilling a beat in my brain.  Is it a premonition that the phrases "take a chance on me" and "SOS" are the constants?

I cut myself (again) while chopping garden veggies the other day and now two tips of my fingers are sore when I use the keyboard to type. I try to keep the knives sharpened, but they are getting old.

I am reading "The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever Happiness." It is a well-written story, but the kind of story that haunts you with sadness as you finish each chapter.

I have mixed a weed-killer formula of vinegar, Epsom salts and dish soap to kill my weeds while protecting the river. I spray this along paths and where crabgrass has grown over the drains or into the bricks. It took me all day to find where I had left the large bag of salts. I looked in the garage, the laundry room and even under the bathroom sink until eventually finding the bag under the kitchen sink of all places!

I washed all the windows on the outside with one of those Windex spraying tools resulting in a sore shoulder and stiff neck.  It also helped me see more clearly how the inside of the windows is covered in a pale film of dirt. I guess I have to start on those next and do the "wash on-wash off" Karate dance.  The whole time I did this I kept thinking of rain against the windows of friends in Hawaii as the hurricane just missed them.

We lost our large fig tree and now the new ones we planted a few years ago are just starting to come into figs.  Hubby is eating most of them as snacks when he mows the lawn so there will not be much of a harvest this year. They are Celeste figs and seem to taste better than the other ones we had.

John McCain lost his battle this week and I am struggling with the sadness of losing his balanced and fair voice in the Congress. He was one of the few that admitted he made mistakes. The Republicans are now free to fully lose their way.

The DNC, on the other hand, have changed their rules in dealing with Superdelegates in order to appeal to Millennials.    Time will tell.

I have tried to be more regular with my exercise (elliptical and free weights) which results in my Fitbit telling me I am not meeting the 10,000 steps each day.  Nothing more annoying than wiping the sweat from your brow and your Fitbit asking if you are up for a stroll!  I wonder if I will be alive when this technology really tells us how we are doing.

And perhaps the most annoying is that it is 2:59 in the morning as I write this.  A full moon usually means insomnia for me.  I  do not have to be anywhere today, so may take a nap after lunch.  Here is hoping I get back on track sooner rather than later.  Maybe some meditation and breathing exercises?

The Quiet Evenings Return

It is mid-August and the osprey have left their nest which sits so empty and quiet on the water. The mother osprey no longer scolds me when I cross the dock. I can see the family of three some evenings teaching their single offspring how to soar above the river and then dip their talons across the mirrored surface before surging up into the blue once again and perching on an overhanging snag. Soon they will be heading south for the winter.

The wren nest is also empty as they must have learned to fly while we were visiting in the city. Grandchildren are back home wrapping up the last few weeks of summer camp. Our company have all finished with their vacations and are now back home across the Pacific ocean. The house is now quiet of much activity and busy meal preparation. Children's games and toys are slowly being returned to their cupboards, sheets are washed. We have some leftovers to finish eating and that leaves me time to wander to the water's edge for sunsets once again at days end as the sun moves around into a center stage position. We can even catch a sunset down in the village when it crosses the bridge.

Sighing with gratitude.

Just Pondering the Near Time Ahead

It has been a long three weeks of August. The first week I had company, caught a cold, and got the oldest grandson for a few days. The second week I got the youngest grandson who kept us busy with wanting to do something most of the day including kayaking and a 10 mile bike  ride. Although, I will admit we binge-watched "Merlin" on Netflix and he did make it through two seasons and loved it. The characters were uplifting and real. I always like how Britain uses all ages in its series. 

That week was followed by three days with granddaughter  at our house where we played with photography a bit (she says she loves photography but not sure she loves the patience and details required. )  I also supervised her  exercises to get ready for Cheer leading  Camp.  She did 250 jumping jacks and high knee runs interrupted by push-ups for another count of  250.  I got  tired just counting!  She has a really lovely well-muscled body.   We also binge watched the new season of  "Anne With an  E...Anne of  Green Gables."  That is so  well done that she was completely enthralled  and  truly upset when the character, Cole, left. Avon Lea..and we left home had to head up here.  (Her parents have Netflix, so she can watch the ending.)  Then we drove her back home to here in the suburbs outside  the city.  We are being chauffeurs  in taking her to cheer leading  sessions the rest of this week while  also sitting the  oldest grandson  who now has a  little  cold.  The busy life of a  family!

We will  celebrate a birthday of the grand-girl and our  48th wedding anniversary on Thursday evening, and then, hopefully, head home on Friday evening after doing some more chauffeuring during the  day.

It will  be a strange time in the coming week with no child obligations  and only gardening  and housecleaning to do.   It is always like a mini-childless time similar to when my children  headed  off to college and I had  only a job to distract and fill  my days followed by quiet evenings  and  an even  quieter dinner.  Like everything in this world it requires some adjustment.  It just seems in  retirement you have more  time to ponder over the  adjustments being made and less to  distract you.  It seems to bring a magnifying glass  to the  ever creeping end of times ahead.

I am not saying this with huge sadness, but more a realistic view as to how  to adjust so  these final years are more carefully planned.

Kayak Lessons

We have the youngest of the grands for a week and I become somewhat bipolar in making sure they have something fun with which to build a memory and also making sure they are left alone to just vegetate as their summer weeks are usually filled with travel and camps and heavy scheduled time. Yesterday was Kayak lesson day which put Grandpa in his sweet spot. I guess the photographer also enjoyed this!

He is a bit of a water bug, so not afraid to get out on the river.

He practiced strokes while we held the kayak by rope. Then we got into the canoe and he stroked around us while we held on to the rope, then we let him go.

We paddled just around the point and found our selected beach was a bit gone at high tide.  It was still walkable and they got out to rest for a while.

I stayed in the canoe and took photos of the late summer fruited trees against the setting sunlight.

And I watched the kayak bob on the colored water.

The older male taught the younger male how to cast and as luck would have it we got a nice 8-inch perch to add to our crab dinner that night!

It is always a miracle when everything goes perfectly!

Some Days It Is Like Walking Through the Looking Glass

I have my HVAC annually maintained, but this year I skipped the winter check and when spring arrived the spring maintenance team found several issues.  The company explained they could replace some parts but with no guarantees as to how long this 12-year-old unit would continue to function.  I agreed and weeks later they sent us a repairman.

We are old people and my husband loves chatting.  So, as we showed this pearshaped 40-year-old to the basement we talked about house structure, property taxes, maintaining yards.  The man worked for about an hour on both the inside unit and the outside unit and then he told us that the concern for the loss of Freon was not an issue and we would at least not have to pay for that expensive replacement.

As he was preparing the bill at the kitchen table, the man brought the subject around to how divided our country was over politics.  We agreed but left it at that.  Then he began to talk about conspiracy theories.  We smiled and said that many people were easy to dupe if they wanted to believe something was true, but as a former librarian researcher (me) and a former science researcher (Hubby) we felt comfortable in finding the facts we needed to make decisions.

He continued talking and brought up the moon landing and how he wondered how it could possibly be true if that flag was flying in the photos where there is no atmosphere.  My mouth fell open briefly and then I said I had never considered that and I thought it was unrolled stiff plastic because scientists knew it would be limp---NASA knows more about the atmosphere than anyone I know. ( I had to later Google this flag issue to realize that there are people who think the whole moon landing was fake!)  Then he went on about flat-earthers' arguments and I began to get a creepy feeling that he was one of them.  

As he was collecting his tools he went on to tell us a story about his grade-school stepson who was being bullied in school and how he was teaching him martial arts at home.  When I asked why he did not bring the bullying to the Principal's attention, he said the bully was a black kid and they would not do anything because they were afraid of it being a racial call.  I had to take his word for it but was suspicious since he had been so strange in his deductive reasoning in all the prior conversations.

At least you do not have to be smart about conspiracy theories to fix the AC because he must have done what was needed since we have had cool air inside all this month!  (Yes, I do live in one of "those" counties, lord help me.)

A Long Weekend and We All Survived.

This was one of the best days the whole time!!

A man and his wife came to visit us from Hawaii these last few days. We have known the man for decades and his wife (second) for a little less than that. (His first wife died of cancer and we knew her quite well.) My husband hired the man as a graduate student years ago on a grant. They lived together on a boat in the harbor in Hawaii before their marriages, dived together, did lab research together and my husband probably even saved his life when he had an appendix attack in the middle of the night by carrying him to the car and carrying him into the emergency room. Together they were a good team. The man is a big practical joker and hubby went along on some of the actions including re-editing the Science Building calendar announcements to more risque messages for a few months until the University finally got a lock on the glass-encased board.   I write this just to give you an idea of how close the guys were.

This couple, after moving to Texas, now live in Hawaii and we visited them once a long time ago.  The man has recently retired and they are now doing some travel.  The man, let us call him Joel, is a tall thin cowboy type.  His wife is more the shorter wider version of a country girl (woman).  They came to spend four nights at our house as their first stop heading down the coast to Florida.

Since I had visited them many years ago in Hawaii and hubby had also reminded me of their quirks, I was somewhat prepared.  Quirks?  We all have quirks, right?  Well, on the first dinner I served chicken and rice.  The wife, Molly, said she really liked rice, but they don't eat it much anymore.  When I asked "why", she explained that you had to buy such large bags of rice in the big box discount store that they decided they never could get through them before the rice got too old.  (?)  Yeah, I know.  I did not say anything but watched her plow through her second serving with gusto.  She really liked my coffee and I wondered if they also did not buy coffee because it came in such large bags at the discount store.  (Kona coffee is marvelous.)

They brought in big boxes of cereal, a cooler of food, etc. since they were touring the entire southeastern U.S. via rental car, visiting friends and relatives.  I stowed it away for them.  While they ate most of what I cooked, they did eat cereal for both breakfast and dinner some days.  My husband who had stayed with them a few years ago said that Joel would eat nothing but cereal at every meal while hubby was there.

Joel and his wife liked to go to the local large hotel in Hawaii when they had live bands to dance.  He said they did not go for dinner because it was too expensive, but they did order dessert and then danced.  They stopped going dancing a while back for two reasons last year.  The dance floor got too crowded and they started an annoying $10.00 cover charge.  (Joel has over a million dollars in stocks for retirement.)

Hubby also cautioned me that they were very conservative in their political views and so we had to keep the TV off most of the time.  The only news channel they watch is Fox.  Hubby explained that we watch a number of news channels, but mostly Public Television and BBC since they are the most balanced in news.  Thus, we watched the weather channel and few detective shows.

To further complicate this visit my grandson was due to come stay two nights before they left.  This actually worked out really well, because grandson taught them card tricks and Joel had some good card tricks in his repertoire that he taught grandson.  

To further complicate the visit we had 5 inches of rain the first day, 2.5 the second day and rain off and on the entire rest of their visit!  We did take a few day trips, but they were carefully arranged around the many storms.

To further complicate the visit, Molly came down with a cold the first morning and Joel came down with it a day and half later.  They were brave to soldier on with a few trips, but we actually let them sleep most of the time.

Molly acted like a good-old-girl, but she was smart as a tack and I think she knew where we stood regarding our illustrious leader.  She kept complimenting me on food, the house, our letting them sleep in and I kept wondering if she thought liberals were usually not this "nice."

They left today, and we hugged and smiled and proved that people can get along when we admit we cannot change each other's mind.  I did wonder if they were thinking about how blind we were to the truth, because that was what I was thinking about them.

Oh, you can catch a cold from a conservative, because I am now soothing a scratchy throat with tea.

Some Electrical Stimulation

Air travel is less complicated these days in that we can actually check in online before we leave the house, but packing seems to be more complicated. The photo below includes less than half of the electronics we took on this last trip.

Hubby has been aging like fine wine and has the back problems to prove it. We had to take an electrotherapy unit to ease his lower back pain as well as a heating pad. Then there are the phones that need to be charged using the charging units we take. This photo fails to include the two e-readers and their chargers that we own as well as my various battery chargers for at least two cameras that I took on the trip. I did not take a laptop but I thought about it.  I now leave the Fitbit and its charger at home because it is too hard to take care of near pools and in tropical rainstorms.  Hubby has a headlamp that he sometimes brings, but it requires regular batteries.

These intricate items all have to be carefully put into net bags or Ziplocks when packing so that we can keep them together and so that we don't mix them up with the grandkids and kids various electronic devices.

I was just wondering if we could take a trip to a place that had few electric outlets and would we survive?

Or do we just need a cold beer?