Prepping for Kaiʻs Arrival

As part of the clean up today in preparation for Kai's arrival tomorrow, I boiled the ulu, cut it up in chunks & put it in the freezer. I had a couple pieces with dinner before I froze it. I like it! I can't wait for the national food preservers group to figure out a safe recipe for canning ulu. Right now the only verified safe way to keep it is to freeze it.

While I was checking Moʻoʻs water bowl, I spotted part of a broken shell. Someone recently hatched out of an egg.

I also saw a lone jaboticaba berry. The trunk was bare; but the higher branches had fruit!  

I finished watching Guardians of the Ancient Oath this evening. SPOILER ALERT - Hou Zhengze was a piece of rotted wood (that was somewhat human-shaped) that Baili Hongshou as the Water deity unknowingly brought to life after keeping it with him for 1000 years. Hou Zhengze was half human, half wood, both god & demon; a complicated guy! Like Princess Jin Yang aka Zhen Bird, he also sacrifices himself to help with the cause of the Five Deities. The demon Ling Jun sacrifices herself so her lover (& demon hunter) the Metal deity An Tingfeng can absorb her spiritual energy to become stronger. During the final battle, the Demon Empress Jiuying reveals herself as Baili Hongyi whom she has infested & stabs Water deity Baili Hongshou, who then pulls himself along the sword to get close enough to Baili Hongyi to place the necklace with the white tiger tooth & obsidian around her neck, embraces her, & encases all of them in a block of ice to seal off Jiuying & prevent her from destroying everything. In the end, An Tingfeng is once again the only survivor, waiting for his friends (the other deities) to be resurrected. The thing I don't understand is why does the main demon always want to destroy everything? Because if they do, that means there is nothing for them either. Doesn't make any sense to me. I guess I could not be the quintessential demon! 

L-R: An Tingfeng, Baili Hongshou, Ming Yefeng, & Baili Hongxuan.

They try to vaporize the Demon Empress Jiuyang.

Baili Hongshou embraces Baili Hongyi whom Demon Jiuying has infested & seals them all in block of ice.

An Tingfeng toasts his departed friends.

Wu Zhen, one of the Ten Wizards of Spirit Mountain, seems to feel the same as I do about the romance thread in a lot of these Chinese TV series I have been watching.

For my Lingopie homework today, I reviewed the transcript for Good Morning, Breakfast as recommended by LanguageJones. It was somewhat distracting! I now want to go to China to eat! It looked like a dim sum place, which here is more a lunch thing than a breakfast thing. Interestingly, they had a pineapple bao that was made with what they call tree pineapple; it is known here as jackfruit. There was a huge tree that grew across the road from my grandparents house in Hālawa Camp; I enjoyed eating it. 

There was also a portion of the video where they were milking camels in the Gobi Desert & making camel milk liquor. And naan. Really savory, yummy looking naan! I need to go to China to eat! I will have to check out the Gastro Obscura tours to see if they have any in China. I will likely be viewing this particular video quite a number of times. 😋

The window for the next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea has moved to between the 11th & the 15th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jessica, Zsofia, Jill, & Molly Mahalo! 

I Took the Plunge

I committed to also doing Lingopie. They had a great 4th of July sale that was still available; so I signed up for a lifetime subscription ($229 vs $763) which also gives me access to anything new that they add for the rest of my life! (My family is fairly long-lived, with many lasting in to their 80's & 90's. Yay for great genes!) Based on how I am currently feeling about learning another language, & hoping some day they will also have ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, I think it is worth the investment for me. When you come for a visit, ask me about it & we can check out something in a language you might want to learn. I will probably use Lingopie to learn the language & Rakuten Viki just so my brain hears more of the language. (Currently, there is no Arabic. But it does have Japanese, German & Spanish that I have also dabbled in over the years. FYI Lingopie has both Mandarin & Cantonese.)

As part of sign-up process you tell them language you are interested in.

Obviously shows here are not in Mandarin!

Neither is this one, but these are intro ads.

These are 3 themes I said I was interested in.

There is more in full catalog.

There is also good set of tutorials.

I am starting with the Lingopie video Good Morning, Breakfast. How can I go wrong with food? And within the 1st 5 minutes I learned the Mandarin phrase for "fermentation" (发酵的, fā jiào de)! I am already liking Lingopie!

And there were even horses in this 1st episode that I watched! Very, very briefly as they galloped across the screen; but still horses. FYI Since Lingopie's shows are modern, I can continue to watch the historical dramas & still be learning modern language, culture, etc. Hūlō! I'll just watch the historical ones for entertainment. Which is what I started out watching them for. But Lingopie does have some historical dramas, too; just not as many as Rakuten Viki or Netflix. I had watched linguist LanguageJones' review of Lingopie earlier & will follow what he recommends to get the most out of Lingopie.

Because Lingopie uses videos & you can click on things to get explanations, I feel it is better if I do it on a larger screen. So I will continue Mandarin (& ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) on Duolingo on my phone since I can take that with me & keep my brain active. 

Interesting story - When I was in Washington learning Japanese from a private teacher who was born & raised in Japan until she emigrated to the US as an adult, I used a word that I had learned as a child from my grandparents. She laughed heartily! Then she asked if I was raised in Hawaiʻi, I said, "Hai". (Yes.) She told me the Japanese taught by families in Hawaiʻi is old Japanese; after emigrating to work in the sugar cane fields the people did not want to lose their language so taught the next generations the language that they knew. It was frozen in time. However, back in Japan, the language evolved as times changed as all languages do. I had never heard this but it makes sense. So the word I used was from the early 1900's & she had only ever heard her grandparents say it & it was really hilarious coming out of the mouth of a young person!  

Remember that kukui branch the goats had eaten all the bark off of? It died.  

I found something else I can add to the anything-but-boiled-vegetables plan to make sure I get enough lipids!

SPOILER ALERT - In Episode 40 of Guardians of the Ancient Oath the Earth deity is finally revealed! It is Baili Hongyi aka Second Young Master aka Princess Li Ruo of the Wolf Tribe. Things are complicated, however, since a demon has invaded her body & takes it over at sunset causing her to kill people around her. At sunrise the demon retreats & she has no memory of what she did while the demon was active within her. And, of course, it greatly complicates her relationship with Ming Yefeng.

Demon-infested Princess Li Ruo wipes out You Wu tribesmen who were guarding her.

Ming Yefeng watches as his suspicions are confirmed about demon-infestation.

Maybe the people reading this blog whom I don't know are using it like a verbal mukbang? They get vicarious enjoyment out of reading my inconsequential ramblings? Dunno. Just a thought.

Speaking of mukbang, I could have done it back when I was eating to stay warm! And not have had to spit things out off camera like some mukbangers apparently do. I would totally clean up the plate, also eating the garnish & still getting side dishes. And I would add peanut butter to the breakfast meal carbs. Here is a mukbang compilation for those not familiar with this activity. FYI I am not in to watching mukbang, I would rather do the eating IRL. And I probably would not have actually done mukbang because I don't like being on camera!

The window for the next eruption at Kīlauea has shifted to be a day later than yesterday's prediction.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Uncle Howie & Bill!

I Need More Fat

I had a very unusual craving today; a peanut butter & cream cheese sandwich! I allowed myself to eat it since a quick review of what I have been eating showed I was only getting about 11g of fat each day. About 1/2 to 1/3 of what I need to be healthy; you need fats in your diet even if you are trying to lose weight because they are necessary for your health. For example, the walls of your cells are made of lipids (fats)! And you need fats so you can retain fat-soluble vitamins. So if you don't have enough fat in your diet, your health will suffer. That is why I pay attention to what my body is telling me it needs. For my current weight, I need about 19 to 34g per day which will allow me to lose about 1 lb a week. If I was maintaining my current weight, I would need about 31 to 54g, per day. I could do this by eating 2 tablespoons of peanut butter each day but I have decided instead to use a combination of peanut butter & dark chocolate; my 2 favorite forms of lipids! (That's why I have them add peanut butter & chocolate chips to my Met Rx meal replacement smoothie! Yay! It is now a valid part of my weight loss journey! Same for ice cream on Fridays! Yay!) Obviously I will also add more fish to my diet for the necessary oils that are more readily available in fish.

This morning, I saw Moʻo tossing something around in the leaves under the lychee tree. It was another bird. I think it is a young saffron finch that fell out of the nest.

I kinda got sucked in to Guardians of the Ancient Oath this afternoon, ended up watching 3 episodes in a row! This show is in the xuanhuan (玄幻）genre, meaning "mysterious fantasy." It blends Chinese folklore, mythology, and supernatural elements with a fictional setting. A number of things started coming together at about Episode 33 making it more interesting than just plain old palace politics; glad I was able to endure the bratty kid sister & get to the better parts of the series. SPOILER ALERT - Each of these characters finds out their real identity, Baili Hongxuan is the Fire deity, Baili Hongshou is the Water deity, An Tingfeng is the Metal deity, & Ming Yefeng is the Wood deity. Still haven't seen the Earth deity but I've got 9 more episodes before the finale. I hope they maintain this level of intrigue, mystery, & action.

L-R: Fire deity Baili Hongxuan, Water deity Baili Hongshuo, & Metal deity An Tingfeng vaporize Ironstone Demon. 

I saw Julia at the NKCDP Advisory Group meeting this evening. I met her a couple years ago at the South Kohala CDP Action Committee that she has served on for a number of years. We have stayed in touch; she wanted to know how we ran our advisory group meetings. We are not an official county-sponsored group. North Kohala used to have an official action committee, but dissolved it because nothing was getting accomplished; Julia is feeling the same way about their action committee. We had talked last month, but she wasn't able to attend. This morning she texted me because she could attend; I forwarded the agenda to her. This evening, Moʻo was well-behaved as she usually is but she started out being alert & looking around. She relaxed towards the latter half & went to sleep.

At start of meeting.

About half way through, starting to nod off.

I saw the hen this evening. She now has only 1 chick with her. 

I have now advanced to Level 10 in Mandarin! They say I can now introduce myself, but I don't think so. The last few lessons have been about sports & which ones I liked, not, "Hello, my name is ___." It has taken me about 7 weeks to get here. I am about 40% of the way to Level 25 which is where I stopped in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi since this is as far as it has been developed for now. If I maintain this rate, I will reach Level 25 in around 10 weeks or about mid-September! We shall see.

真的吗? (zhēn de ma?, Really?)

The window for the next eruption at Kīlauea remains from the 9th to the 13th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Vonita, Donnie, John, & Kaʻohe!