Big Brother?

This morning as I was hanging laundry I felt like I was being watched. It turns out I WAS being watched. But it wasn't Big Brother, it was this guy.

Brown anole, Anolis sangrei

I went to Anita & Gordon's house last night for a Good Friday dinner with their family, Curtis & Lori & their family, and Debbie & Clyde (their daughter is in WA at Seattle University). Anita and Debbie are Curtis & Lori's neighbors; usually Curtis & Lori host the events, but last night Anita wanted to host because she wanted to decorate her house; she did a spectacular job. Same with the Easter egg hunt which took place in Debbie's back yard since they have a lot of landscaping unlike the others who only have lawn. Unfortunately my phone was being tempermental and I was unable to take any photos.

On Friday Curtis & I went out to lunch at Big City Diner with cousin Baron who will be doing the eulogy for Mom. We had a great time sharing stories about Mom. We also told him how it seemed her time since she was diagnosed with the leukemia actually was of a higher quality than it might have been if she had not had the diagnosis so early. Because she was predicted to have 6 months she was able to put her financial affairs in order and go to Las Vegas. Twice. It also allowed people time to visit with her when she was still in good health; especially since she actually outlived the prediction by about 3 months. I also showed them the new program on purple paper plus what I have completed of the PowerPoint version of the slide show. Baron and I had the Loco Moco with Kim Chee Fried Rice, Curtis had the Hamburger Steak. My camera started being tempermental on Friday so I didn't get a photo of lunch.

I didn't post on Friday due to lunch and cooking for the dinner at Anita's. I took a salmon fillet, whole wheat fluffy dinner rolls, and hot crab dip. The crab dip was from the mix sent to me in the goodie box from my friends from work. It was excellent! The crab dip is from the Canadian company Gourmet du Village so it has directions in both English & French. Although I don't know French, it seems that the French directions are different than the English directions. For example, one of the ingredients it calls for in French is "90 ml (1/3 tasse) de fromage Asiago ou Parmesan rape". In English it calls for "1 1/2 pkg (250 g/8 oz) of softened cream cheese"; I'm pretty sure the French directions are telling you to use either Asiago or Parmesan cheese instead of cream cheese. Perhaps French speakers and English speakers have different preferences for their crab dip.


During the last 3 or 4 months, every time we went somewhere Mom would tell me I needed to go to the bank and get money for her since she didn't have any. I would tell her she should have at least $200 in her purse, but she would say she had only a couple of dollars and show me a few $1 and $5 bills. Since I had already given her $200, and I knew she hadn't spent any since I am always with her when she goes out and pay for everything from the house money or by credit card, I would tell her I would give her money when I got more house money. But she would forget before that happened. Today I was looking through her purse for the pass book for one of her accounts and found that missing $200. And more. All total Mom had $416 in her purse spread between several envelopes in different pockets. It will be used to pay for the reverend and church that will be presiding over Mom's memorial service.


I forgot to mention that I got my IRS refund on 04/12. When H & R Block did my Federal submittal electronically on 03/29, Nancy told me it would take about 3 weeks for it to be automatically deposited in to my account. It took exactly 2 weeks. Yay! I think I shall do it this way every year. (I had no taxes due to the State of Hawai'i since I did not work in the state in 2016 and all my income was from retirement or deferred compensation.)

I found 4 more photos of Mom from before she left the Big Island. One was taken just before her 1st birthday, one looked like it was taken when she first went to Hilo to help Hilo Aunty take care of the kids, another looked like it was taken early in her high school years; here's the final one which appears to be her graduation photo.

Happy Birthday to Jim, RuthAlice, David, & Mackenzie! Happy 17th Anniversary to Linda! Happy Belated Birthday to Lois, Brenda, & Maia!