I started out the day getting my teeth cleaned at the periodontist's in preparation for oral surgery in April. Normally, it would be closer to the surgery but my upcoming trip back to Hawai'i forced me to reschedule and today was the only day. The view out the window from the periodontist's chair is not as interesting as from the dentist's chair (there is a road on the other side of the tree). But there is a colorful fish mobile in the corner. (The oral surgery is what is delaying my departure from Washington.)
On the way back I got a chiropractic adjustment, a BEMER treatment, and a massage. Sad news, Kirsten, my massage therapist, is going on hiatus. Her husband has a new job and new schedule so she won't have the time to do massage. She will concentrate on her kids and her DIY decorating page, Bright Yellow Door.
As I was heading down the sidewalk towards the back door, admiring the blueberry buds, Susan called! She and Jen were in town for a date night and invited me to join them for dinner. We decided on Hawaiian food (Susan is from Kona). We went to Bobby's Hawaiian Style Restaurant in Lynnwood only to find it closed on Tuesdays. So we headed to Kona Kitchen in Seattle! The food was so 'ono, but we made sure we checked that dessert was available first so we could save room. Jen had the kalbi, Susan had the mochiko chicken, and I had the tonkatsu. (Susan's and my first choice was the Hawaiian plate with laulau, kalua pork and cabbage, lomi salmon, and mac salad; but they were all sold out.) For dessert we had guava cake and chantilly cake.
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| Jen with kalbi, Susan with mochiko chicken, my tonkatsu, and a lonely spring roll |
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| The dessert remains, chantilly cake (top), guava cake (bottom) |
Mom still hasn't found her cell phone. She thinks the battery is dead. I think she is just forgetting to go from room to room while she calls from the land line to find it. If the battery was fully charged when she misplaced it, I should be able to get it to ring next week when I get there. (It's a flip phone. She has gone a whole week on the Big Island without her charger and still been able to make calls at the end of the week. Score one point for dementia not allowing her to get a Smart phone!)
The Germans make waiting for traffic lights to change fun! How come we don't have these?
Happy World Water Day! And Happy Birthday to Kirk!
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12/02/2015 Day 18 Bathtub Replacement
Wednesday started with a visit from Diamond Head Plumbing because the other company took so long to get an answer back to us for an estimate to fix Mom’s bathroom. Joel was very nice and efficient and suggested we go to the showroom to see what type of system they would be installing and also to select a color.
After that, Mom and I went to lunch with Wesley her banker; he was helping decorate the lobby tree when we arrived. He has been a great help to her in keeping track of what’s going on with her accounts at his bank.
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| Mom and Wesley |
After lunch we went to the showroom to look at shower options. Mom also picked out the color of the shower stall that she wanted. The glare off of the whiter ones hurt her eyes; she chose one called Old Smoke. Before we got back from the showroom, Joel had sent me the estimate! The showroom was located in a building on Sand Island, I had not been there for almost 40 years, its really changed. The Anuenue Fisheries Research Station (now Center) that I did part of my thesis work at is located on Sand Island. I used to bike there from Kaimuki in about 30 minutes, by car it took 25 due to gridlock.
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| Shower display |
I made mole poblano for dinner; neither Mom nor Dad had ever tried it before. They liked it so I will be freezing some of it in 2-person batches for them to eat after I leave. And hopefully it will get eaten, unlike one of the spaghetti sauces that I froze for them in 2014 and discovered hidden in the back of the freezer on this trip. It was behind the ice cream and waffles.
12/03/2015 Day 19 New Bathroom in the New Year!
Forgot to mention that the WonderBowl arrived yesterday after dinner. I had ordered it on Tuesday morning from Hammacher Schlemmer so was pleasantly surprised that it arrived so quickly (the original order was on Cyber Monday, but that seller was out of stock, I Googled for other sources). Shiro is now in training to use it, currently it is turned off in the open position and he is just eating from it to learn that is where he goes to get food now. I hope the Wireless Whiskers feeder arrives on the 4th and not the 11th as noted on their website.
Took Mom to sign the contract to get the walk-in shower to replace her old tub. I had to translate the contract for her in to less legalese so she could understand it. They will begin the work on Monday, December 28th. Normally they would finish by the Friday of the week, however, because of the holiday, it will be done by January 6th. Hope Mom can hold out that long. I think she will be pleased with the new shower. While the work is being done they have asked the installation crew to send me photos, we will also have Curt check in on the weekend since they will not have finished it yet. I will also have to remove things from the shower before I leave and call Mom as the time gets closer and make sure she is prepped for them to arrive. Then I will be calling daily to ease any fears she might have.
Talked to Mom’s doctor, she will make a referral for a home health nurse to come by for an evaluation so we can get some help to get Mom to take her medications on time and every day.
The door with the pet screen and pet door is ready for pick-up! I will get it on Friday since it was too late to get down there today. This means I will have about 1 & 1/2 days to train the cats to use it.
In the afternoon I continued with the ‘ohai ali’i removal. Mom helped me when I moved on to the removal of the Mickey Mouse plant. I cut, she put the branches in the green waste bin. I will be trying to train one of them in to a tree, don’t know if it can be done. I will also try to do the same with a Hawaiian mock orange. I’ve seen one of those trained as a tree on our morning walk, just don’t know how long it took to get to that point.
12/04/2015 Day 20 Nitrogenie
The sliding door is back! The pet screen looks like it can handle a lot of abuse. The pet door looks good, too. I started training the cats to use it; I pushed all of them out through it. Close to their feeding time I held it slightly open and had them push it the rest of the way to get in. I pushed them back out again. The next time they had to push it open all by themselves, which they did; hunger is a powerful motivation.
I went to lunch with some of my dive buddies. We met at Makers and Tasters a food truck court near Ala Moana Center. There were 6 trucks there but only 5 were ready for business when we got there. Although the food sounded good, today the options were limited; half of them served barbecue and one only had different types of lemonade. We ended up going to the nearby Highway Inn, known for their Hawaiian and local food; I had poi and limu poke. Check out the Hawaiian food guide on their website; it gives the local pronunciation for all words. The Hawaiian food guide gives you access to “Da Kine Words”, a dictionary of some local pidgin terms. Highway Inn also runs the concession at the Bishop Museum.
After lunch I took Mom and her good friend, Mrs. Vea, to Nitrogenie. Its an ice cream place where they make the ice cream while you wait. Cream and the flavoring ingredients are added to a metal bowl of a Kitchenaid-style mixer, while its rotating liquid nitrogen is poured in, creating the ice cream; their tag line is “Ice cream from magic”. It was really good! Hawai’i is the only U.S. location for Nitrogenie, which originated in Australia; I’m sure Kai would love to work here, it would be like chemistry lab class every day!
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| Mom and Mrs. Vea |
My nephew Brent likes to try different types of food but doesn’t make enough money with his part time job to do it. So I took him to dinner tonight at Jawaiian Irie Jerk Restaurant, the Jamaican restaurant I tried last week with my high school friends. I invited Curt and Mom and Dad to join us; we had a great time and everyone enjoyed the food. We decided the next time Sarah is in town we will take her out to dinner here; last year she taught a yoga workshop in Jamaica a couple months before showing up for Dad’s 90th birthday.
Today was the first day that the Wireless Whiskers feeder could show up. It didn’t. :( Hopefully it will show up tomorrow so that I can start getting the cats used to it. I ordered it from Amazon on 11/30, after 4 days its still not here; unfortunately it could show up as late as 12/11. I ordered the WonderBowl from Hammacher Schlemmer on 12/01, it arrived on 12/02; it was faster than Amazon!
12/05/2015 Day 21 Last Day
Today was the last full day of my vacation. Tomorrow I leave on a 9 am flight back to Seattle, then back to work on Monday.
If you like purple food you should try poi English muffins. As the name implies, it is made with poi, but I think they must add food coloring because I have never had poi that was this vibrantly purple!
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| Poi English muffins |
We spent much of the day visiting with Mom’s cousin Doreen; she also has dementia but is much farther along. She is in a private home care facility that is helping with her rehabilitation after a serious fall she had almost 2 years ago; they have 2 other patients so she has fairly personalized care. Her daughter Fran visited with us while we were there; the caregiver also made lunch for all of us when it was time for Doreen’s lunch. Fran says this caregiver is much better than the previous facility they had her at. Mom was sad when we left since she was unable to say good bye to Doreen, who now gets very agitated when people leave so we had to sneak out while she was in the bathroom. Apparently when visitors sneak out she does not realize that they have gone and is fine.
For the final night, Dad’s ritual is to take visitors out to dinner at Zippy’s. If they are on a flight that does not include meals as part of the package (i.e., any airline other than Hawaiian), Mom insists on getting sushi or something else for bento to be taken on the plane. So we went to Zippy’s for dinner and got inari sushi for bento. And hopefully I will remember to take it out of the refrigerator tomorrow, not like cousin Tomiko who forgot hers last year. Mom and her mother ended having it for their lunch!
The Boys are thoroughly enjoying the shelves in the cat run. And all the kitties are getting the hang of the pet door. But Shiro has not yet gotten comfortable with his feeder. The Wireless Whiskers feeder has not arrived yet, which is annoying after hearing about how Amazon was making faster deliveries. I guess that doesn’t apply to Hawai’i; there was only one shipping choice when I checked out. Is it even a choice if it is the only thing available?
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| Momo and Shiro |
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| Cat door (green "X" is on the glass door & will be over the flap when it is closed) |
12/06/2015 Day 22 Last Minute Changes
All seemed fine this morning. Curtis came over last night since we had to leave by 6:30 am. So this morning he made breakfast for all of us: rice with eggs and Portuguese sausage. The Boys knew something was up and were very attentive to all the activity; Xander and Chibi were no where to be found, its as if there are only 2 cats in the household not 4. We left the house on time, had no traffic since it was Sunday, and I got dropped off at 7 a.m. Went up to the kiosk to get my bag tag and got the message, “Your flight has been cancelled. Please see a ticket agent.” But I didn’t get the e-mail!
The agent said they were notified about 15 minutes earlier, probably about the time Curt was dropping me off. I had 2 options: a direct flight leaving in the evening and getting me to Seattle at 6:15 Monday morning - I took that one in July when they cancelled my flight that time and it was horrible, I missed a day of work. Or a flight to Los Angeles with a 3-hour layover, then to Seattle by 9:30 pm; so I took that one, perhaps I could get in a quick visit with the cousins while I was there. But what to do about a ride home? (Kai was having sleep issues and was not feeling safe enough to drive at night, especially with all the rain.) I left a message at the Wood house, with all those drivers surely one of them would be available; I asked them to text me if anyone could help out and I would get it in LA. if all else failed it would be Shuttle Express.
The first flight was on American; I would avoid them if you have a choice. On a 5&1/2 hour flight they had only 1 beverage/snack service. And they don’t even give you the 1 tablespoon snack bag that other airlines give you. You must buy all your food; there did not appear to be a hot entree option either (unless you were in first class). But there was a blanket that you could use without paying for it. Glad I had my bento.
It turned out the layover was 1&1/2 hours not 3 and the Los Angeles airport is a maze of tunnels. It would be a good setting for a zombie or monster movie. At one point I felt like I was in an endless tunnel that was not leading to any gates. At least the walls had interesting factoids on them. Did you know the Dutch are the tallest people, men average 6' and women 5’9”? Or that Pike Place Market opened in 1907 and is the longest continuously running farmers market in the U.S? And they have encouraging signs, “Terminal 6, Almost there.”
The second half of the flight was on Alaska, where they do give you the tablespoon sized snack bag for free. Plus they planned 2 beverage/snack services for a 3 hour flight. They actually only got 1&1/2 in because the turbulence in the last half was so bad. They also seemed friendlier than the attendants on American.
Because of the change in the layover time, that meant I was coming in at 8 pm not 9:30 as I said in my message to the Woods. So I had to text/call and ask it 8 would be OK. Many thanks to Mary Ellen and Louie for cheerfully coming to pick me up on this rainy night. Traffic on I-5 was actually slowing down due to the amount of water on the roads. (During the layover I also got a text from Alaska saying I would receive a $400 travel voucher due to the late cancellation. Yay! I will use it in January to go back and set up the automatic feeders. Although Curt could program it OK he would not be able to catch Chibi and get the RFID tag on her so that she could be fed.)
After 14&1/2 hours of traveling I am finally back in my own bed. Good Night!
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