January 25, 2014, thru February 2, 2014

This was my first trip after being approved for FMLA. After I received the forms, I sent the paperwork to Mom's primary care physician, who completed her portion and returned it to me. It was approved by the management and I made my plans! (I was flying standby courtesy of my friend Ty.) This is a good time of the year for me to be away from work since it is after most of my reports are in and before spring qualitative monitoring begins.

Aunty Elsie

Since I had to go to the amphibian monitoring training to recruit volunteers on Saturday morning, I was originally going to fly out on Sunday morning, arriving in Honolulu in the afternoon. However, after looking at the schedules more closely, I realized I could make it to an early Saturday evening flight and arrive in Honolulu before midnight. (It also had more open seats making it more likely for me to get on standby.) I'm glad I chose that option. Aunty Elsie passed away in mid-January and her service was on Sunday afternoon, it was the same time that I would have been arriving and I would have missed it and my brother would also miss it in order to pick me up from the airport. As it turned out, we were both able to attend. And my cousins were very happily surprised to see me there. Aunty Elsie was 93 years old; she was Mom's father's youngest sister, the last of her generation in the family.

Pantry

During my last trip I saw that Mom was not really cooking, she was mainly heating things up (except for rice, which she made in the rice cooker). My sister-in-law, Lori, and Mom and Dad's neighbor, Fumi-chan, would cook extra and put it up in 2-serving containers, providing them with meals they could just heat up in the microwave. Sort of an informal Meals On Wheels. My main goal for this short trip was to make some additional meals for them. But first, I had to organize the pantry, freezer, and refrigerator so I knew what I was working with.

Among other things I found 14 boxes Vermont Curry mix (from Japan, go figure, each box makes 12 servings), 5 cans SPAM, 11 cans corned beef, 12 cans sardines, 16 cans Vienna sausage, lots of dried persimmons, 12 lbs raw chicken, 10 lbs ready-to-eat chicken of various flavors (from Costco), 3 lbs pork spare ribs, and 2 lbs corned beef brisket. I decided to start by making chicken curry, lots of chicken curry. I sent an electronic copy of the lists to Lori to help her with meal planning. She quickly homed in on the corned beef brisket and planned to make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day.

Mom and Dad always start the day with a big bowl of fruit, usually papaya and pineapple with whatever is in season. Someone had given them starfruit, so we added that.

Starfruit (Averrhola carambola)

I let Mom and Curt know that I was interested in buying the Kohala house from the trust. Mom said I would have to talk to all the sisters and sisters-in-law and if it was OK with all of them, she would sell it to me. She would then split the money up equally and give each their share. I sent an e-mail to the 5 of them and got a big surprise. Aunty Florence said the house was not in a trust, it was given solely to Mom, and Mom just treated it like it was in a trust for all the siblings. She and Aunty Judy felt that Mom should just give the house to me because I was interested in it and she knew that I would take care of it well since I had built a house previously. Mom's biggest concern was that whomever had the house had to also take care of the butsudan and go hakamairi. I can do that, but more importantly, Kai also knows how to do that. But Mom still insisted I buy the house, so I told her I would work on getting a loan to do so.

During my 7 day trip I ate at Zippy's four times; it's a good thing they have a large and varied menu! It's a local restaurant chain that has been around since 1966. Their original claim to fame was their saimin lanai. Now they are known for their chili, which is widely used as a fundraiser. The Napoleon's Bakery is also part of each Zippy's Restaurant and Dad's favorite one also includes Kahala Sushi.

Towards the end of my visit Dad said he wanted to get a cat. I told him I would bring him one on the next trip and showed him photos of Xander, the most people-habituated of all our cats. He was born into a house and has lived all his life with people, unlike our other cats who had varying lengths of time living in the wild.

Xander

I left on Superbowl Sunday. When they boarded the plane, they started with people who needed help or extra time, then military personnel, then anyone wearing Seahawk gear (there were quite a few), then Bronco gear (only 1 person), then everyone else. As we walked through the terminal at Sea-Tac cheers erupted as the Seahawks made a touchdown. At the baggage carousel, every so often a baggage handler would poke his head out of the office and announce the score. Kai picked me up just as the Seahawks won and the baggage claim area went wild. On our way north on I-5 we saw fireworks all over the city!