My Summer Vacation: 2nd Round Clean-up, Days #5 & #6

On Day #5 I woke up and found a little lizard watching me from the wall. Now I am sure that the egg I found the other day was from a house gecko. Later in the morning I also found a pair of hatched out eggs in the bathroom closet.

It really is a baby house gecko, it wouldn't come down off the wall so I could get a better photo.

At breakfast I was treated to an anuenue that I could see from the kitchen window.

Here are the options that are available to me on the Jeep. I guess that is why they thought I would be happy with the free upgrade. I only use it in "Auto", I have no need for the others. Or the free upgrade.

While I was going through boxes on Day #5, I found an old HeaterMeal 3. I got it at an emergency management informational event a while ago. The Red Cross was handing them out to the volunteers for lunch; they were close to the "Best By" date so they wanted to use them up. HeaterMeals is just one of several emergency hot pre-packaged meal companies. I decided, even though it was past the "Best By" date by several years, it might not taste as good or have as good a mouth feel, but it wouldn't kill me. So that's what I had for dinner!

This one has a 3 year shelf life, hence the 3.

This is what's in the box. Clockwise from upper left: fancy fruit mix, iced tea drink mix, M&Ms, heater bag, meal pouch, utensils & seasonings, salt water packet, & Squeezers chocolate peanut butter.

Here's the bag where all the magic happens. Add the salt water packet to this bag & 10 minutes later you have a hot meal.

Here is the actual meal (plate not included) and it really is hot. It comes with a stryofoam tray to put the meal on, but it was cracked from all the moving trauma so I opted for a real plate. One of the problems is getting it out of the bag without burning yourself; it doesn't quite look like the photo on the box. And the taste could have been better, but that was probably because it was 6 years past the "Best By" date. But it was definitely better than the Omni Air coach class and Reeve Aleutian lunches!

HeaterMeal 3 Chicken Pasta Italiana

As I mentioned earlier, I picked up ulu chips & bittermelon pickles at the Hawi Farmers Market. At that time I neglected to post a photo. I am correcting that oversight below. (Ulu = breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis; bittermelon = Momordica charantia)

L to R: ulu chips, bittermelon pickles. The coin in the photo for scale is a quarter.

One of my tasks today was putting the metal shelving together. It will be put up in the kitchen, currently to hold boxes while the cabinets are being repaired. Ultimately I will have small appliances stored here so that they are accessible yet off the limited counter space. These are the pieces that ingeniously hold up the corners of the shelves. The 2-piece clip snaps in to place in the grooves of the uprights. When the weight of the shelf pushes down, it tightens the grip of the black plastic pieces on the uprights. But the black plastic pieces are a snap to remove once the weight is taken off of them.

L to R: assembled piece, 1/2 of unit on upright, inside of piece, outside of piece.

Here's what things looked like at the end of Day #5.

Kitchen, Day #5; 4 out of 6 shelves installed.

Counter, Day #5.

Back bedroom, Day #5.

Sewing room, Day #5.

Sewing room artwork, Day #5.

Day #6 was packed with activities! It started out talking to Chris about the painting of the ramp and porch. His helper Mike started with the intent of priming then painting everything. He primed the railings and posts and then it began to drizzle. So he switched to priming the porch which was sheltered from the weather. The drizzle continued so he had to stop before the painting was completed.

A couple hours late Jennifer & Travis showed up for a visit. They are the first official former co-worker visitors! Chris & Ernie were the first to see the outside of the house last year but repairs to the house had not even been started yet. I gave Jennifer & Travis a tour of both the house and the yard (in the drizzle), then we went to lunch at Minnie's. We ended up at King's View Cafe to get ice cream. I took mine to go for Uncle Kazu. He wanted me to surprise him, I got a cherry truffle and a macnut crunch; he chose the cherry truffle.

Jennifer & Travis getting ice cream at King's View Cafe.

Although I spent a bunch of time doing other things besides organizing & unpacking, Chris came by in the evening to help move furniture so there was a lot going on today. Here are photos of today's activity in the house.