Momo?

Kira e-mailed me this evening. She saw a cat that she thinks might be Momo. I looked at the photo she sent, but because the cat won't let her get very close it's not clear enough to rule it out as being Momo. I noticed the photos were taken about 15 minutes earlier so I called Kira. When I talked to her, she said the cat was emaciated and very wary; which could be Momo since he has a thyroid condition and without his medication he would become emaciated. I went over and met Kira. She's been putting food out for the cat and has seen it 4 days in a row; tomorrow night I will be there about an hour before the cat usually shows up to see if I can get a better look at it. Or maybe even get it to come to me. (I sent the photos to Char to see if she thinks this might be her cat. Char contacted me about 2 weeks ago to let me know it might have been her cat that had been mistaken for Momo.) In the morning I plan on going to the Hawaiian Humane Society to borrow a trap so if it looks like Momo, but I can't get it to come to me, we can put the trap out. We'll "bait" it with a shirt that I am wearing tonight; the area where we can leave the trap will be in the shade.

This is as close as the cat would allow Kira to come to it.

Three guys had some early fireworks this afternoon. A small plane landed in a stream bed and burst in to flames! The pilot did an amazing landing; the pilot & 2 passengers survived with only serious injuries. Witnesses said it looked like the pilot was trying to land at the Moanalua Gardens but then the plane started dropping; the pilot lined up with the stream bed and landed under the Moanalua Freeway! Where he landed is a couple miles from the Kaiser Permanente facility where I would take Mom for her transfusions.

Plane on fire under the Moanalua Freeway. (Screen shot from TV)

The plane crash is at the red dot, the Kaiser facility is about an equal distance up to the left on H-201. (Screen shot from TV)

I didn't walk this morning; it was raining. A lot. There is a weather front to the north of the islands that is sending moisture our way. By the time things cleared up it was starting to get hot again. Hopefully it's drier tomorrow morning.

I took Dad to sign the papers at Edward Jones today. Keoki actually brought the papers down to the car to make it easier on Dad. After that we went to Kaiser for Dad's blood test; he's finished his Vitamin D so Dr. Nakano wanted to see what the Vitamin D level is in his blood, she also had his potassium level tested again. So far only the potassium results have come back, they're a the low end of normal; need to feed Dad more bananas! I'll have to check for the Vitamin D results tomorrow.

I think cutting Dad's fingernail yesterday so that he could sign the electronic contract started something. Dad cut one of his other fingernails after dinner. This morning when he came to breakfast I noticed that he had cut all the rest of his nails some time last night. He also washed his face and combed his hair before he came to breakfast; he hasn't done that for a while now. He was also talking about shaving his beard off!

Happy Birthday to Amanda! Again. I mistakenly wished Amanda "Happy Birthday" yesterday, but was a day early; I got confused by the reminder my computer gave me about her birthday. Today is actually Amanda's birthday.

Rats!

Two people from Terminex came by today; it was expected. On Tuesday I got a call about Aaron coming to do the quarterly termite inspection in the morning; I asked if he could also inspect for rats. I was told I would need someone else to do that; it turns out Mom only had a contract for termites and other insects, not pests (which would have covered rats). So Travis came to inspect for rats, develop a rat exclusion plan, and determine what else the contract should include. He showed me where rats are most likely entering the house between the loose metal roof tiles. He also saw rat droppings and places the rats were gnawing on in the attic. He wrote up the contract and explained what it would cover. Rat clean-up & exclusion day is now scheduled for July 12th; the cats will have to stay out in the cat run that day.

Travis' diagram of rat signs in the attic

One of the side effects of Travis' visit was that Dad needed to sign the contract. Terminex uses a tablet and you sign with your finger. Specifically, with the fleshy part of your finger. Which meant that Dad was unable to do the signing without cutting the fingernail of his right index finger. We have been trying unsuccessfully to cut Dad's nails for a while now. He wouldn't let me cut the rest of them, but later he cut one of his other fingernails; it would be great if he would cut even one each day! He's getting to look like an Asian Howard Hughes with his long fingernails and beard. It's interesting how the dementia is affecting Dad's personal hygiene differently than it did Mom.


I walked by the 2 houses being demolished again today. There was no activity at House #1 today; I think they must be done with collecting all the debris. House #2 is now completely taken down and it appears that all the debris is also gone. House #2 was smaller than House #1.

House #1. Without the house there it looks like you get a nice view of the city.

House #2. The temporary power pole can be seen in the center of the photo.

I also noticed that people are borrowing books from the Little Free Library. Or at least, I hope that's why I'm seeing less books there. I wonder how frequently the steward checks on it?

June 18th.

June 29th. Looks like someone's taken Love, Groucho, but no one's interested in Stephen King's The Long Walk.

Happy Birthday to Amanda!

Xander Goes to the Vet Again

Over the last 4 or 5 days Xander has started to sneeze again. And when he sneezed on me it was very wet. He also threw up at least 3 times over the last week; I found some other stuff but am not sure who the culprit was. The last time he went to the Cat Clinic was about 3 weeks ago; so he's become more relaxed about going to the vet.

Relaxing in the carrier on the way to the vet.

Xander has an upper respiratory infection again. Because he's come down with it again, I asked them to test him for FIV, Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. When we adopted Chibi 10 years ago we found out she was FIV-positive. She was tested 3 times; since she was young we wanted to make sure the 1st positive was not a false positive from maternal antibodies, and 2 more times with the ELISA and Western Blot tests. At that time FIV-positive cats were assumed to have a limited life span and owners of FIV-negative cats were advised to not have an FIV-positive cat in the household. We decided to keep her anyway. We kept Chibi separated from the other cats at night and only allowed her to play with them when we were home and closely supervising them since biting is how FIV is transmitted. Every year we tested Xander, Shiro, & Momo to see if they had FIV; each year they came back FIV-negative. After about 5 years we let Chibi mingle with the rest of the cats with less supervision and stopped testing them every year for FIV. The good news is that Xander is still FIV-negative, so living with Chibi for 10 years has not affected him. But he will have to take clavamox twice a day for 10 days for the respiratory infection; plus prednisolone every other day for his asthma.

During my walk this morning I saw another house being demolished. This one is about a block away, near the school. Because of the restricted size of the property they don't have the screening around the property up yet. The other house is about half a block away from us; they put the screening up at least a week before they demolished the house, which happened on Monday. I'll try to get a photo of the 1st house tomorrow; there was too much activity blocking my view today.


Curtis & Lori landed in Skagway this morning. They boarded a train for a tour through the area. More photos of the tour tomorrow.

The Norwegian Pearl berthed at Skagway. (Photo by Lori)

Getting on the train at Skagway. (Photo b Lori)

More Paperwork

Dad got up for lunch today, so after lunch we went to HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union to close Mom's account there. Things were going well, but then one of the senior financial people said we needed to have an Acceptance of Trusteeship form for Dad before we could close the account. So I have to contact Rowen to have that done. In the meanwhile I got a couple photos of loan officer Rob's tattoos. In Hawai'i tattoos are very common and also more visible than they would be in Washington.

While at the credit union, I got a bunch of photos from Lori. They had turned their phones off to avoid roaming charges while going from Seattle to Juneau. There were complimentary chocolate-dipped strawberries waiting for them in their room. When room service leaves new towels, they make different animals out of them. And Curtis & Lori got to take a picture with KSSK's Perry & the Posse in exchange for being interviewed for the radio show. It will be aired on Thursday morning between 5 and 10 a.m. (KSSK AM590 or FM92.3)

Lori with complimentary chocolate-dipped strawberries. (Photo by Curtis)

Towel bunny. (Photo by Lori)

L to R: Karen, Curtis, Lori, Sweetie, & Perry. (Photo by ???)

I spent some time today doing some of my own paperwork. I had the old Subaru's insurance payments put on an electronic funds transfer; today I used the DocuSign app to electronically sign the forms and send them back to the insurance company. I have also organized a spreadsheet, like I did for Mom & Dad, showing my liquid assets. I also added my other assets as well as debts to find my net worth; I needed to provide this information to take over the investment account for the Kohala house. I also created a table of the direct deposits and auto-pays for my 3 credit union accounts; one for each geographic area I have lived in. I'm worth a lot more than I thought I was!

Happy Birthday to Anne!

Careful What You Click

As I mentioned on Saturday, we need to get a Tax Identification Number for Mom's estate; the main office of one of the investment companies doesn't care that the account is going to be closed and everything is going to be put under Dad's social security number, they still want a TIN. I went on-line on Saturday but discovered I needed to do it when someone was in the office on the East coast, so I got on this morning as soon as I got back from my morning walk. If you have to do this, be really careful what you click on. When you enter "Taxpayer Identification Number" in the on-line search box you will come up with a bunch of sites, with the ones at the top of the list looking very official. The correct one is Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN) irs.gov, which is near the middle of the page. This morning I clicked on this one, Tax ID (EIN) Number - Step-by-step Online Application. It was going well until I got near the end ... when it asked for money. Specifically $247 in order to get the TIN in about 2 weeks. I should have known it wasn't the official website; the eagle in the upper left corner of the first page looked sort of like the Third Reich eagle. The real website gives you a TIN for free, it arrives at your computer about 1 minute after you click on "Submit".

Today was another productive day for getting things resolved with Mom's estate. However, none of it is photogenic. I got Mom's name removed from 2 of their credit cards. Both times I had to wake Dad up so he could tell the customer service rep that I had his permission to talk to them. How Master Card takes care of this is rather convoluted. I called the customer service number and started with Daniel, who connected me with Zach. Zach said he removed Mom's name from the account and that the card would still work for Dad; he wanted to confirm with Dad. When Zach found out Dad was 92 and asleep, Zach said we could call back later when Dad was awake. Later, when Dad was awake, I called and talked to Megan; we went through the same things that Zach did, Mom was still on the account so Megan had to remove her. Again. Megan then directed me to take a copy of the Death Certificate to the local branch, who would then make a copy and send it to the credit card group. So an hour later I went to First Hawaiian, explained why I was there, and gave Lucy the Death Certificate. It turns out Mom's name was still on the account and Lucy had to remove it for the 3rd time! She also gave me a form for Dad to sign. So Master Card took talking to 5 people, having someone remove Mom's name 3 times, a trip to the local branch, and a form that needs to be signed and returned. Discover took a call with 1 person to do it. Okay, so maybe today wasn't so productive; I just spent a lot of time doing stuff.

I'm hoping Dad will wake up earlier tomorrow so that we can go to the HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union to close Mom's account there. We'll be depositing the money from that account in to Mom & Dad's Territorial Savings account; that one has the highest interest rate at 0.025%. It's not much, definitely not as much as investing, but Dad doesn't want to deal with Mom's investments so we're helping him move things to the savings account, as well as consolidating the many bank accounts that Mom had. The HawaiiUSA and Edward Jones accounts are the last ones that we need to close.

Happy Birthday to cousin Val & Mariah!

No Bul

...bul. That's right, no bulbul. Another one tried to get at the strawberries again today. That's 3 times in 3 days. So I was ready to get a photo when it happened.

I clicked. But wait! Where's the bulbul? They're too fast!

Curtis & Lori got on the boat to Alaska this afternoon. They will be out of phone contact until Tuesday.

The Norwegian Pearl. (Photo by Curtis)

Boarding the Norwegian Pearl. (Photo by Curtis)

I talked to Kai this morning. He had asked me to see if there were any special events going on for the few days he was going to be on O'ahu; he's coming to Honolulu so we can replace Mom's name with his on the account for the Kohala house. I called to let him know I couldn't find any special events at the Pacific Aviation Museum, Pearl Harbor, Waikiki Aquarium, Honolulu Zoo, or Foster Botanical Garden. He asked me if he could go to see Doris Duke's Shangri La while he's in Honolulu; there are tickets available for 3 of the 4 days he'll be here. He wants to go to the morning tour since there is walking involved and he doesn't like the heat. I need to talk to Jane and Aunty Judy to see when we'll be getting together with them for lunch before I reserve the tickets for Shangri La.

Two hours later Kai IM'ed me. Looks like he won't be able to go to Shangri La. In fact, it looks like he won't be making it to Honolulu. For a short period it looked like he wouldn't be coming to Hawai'i at all. Apparently his dad and stepmom are going to Wisconsin during the same period as Kai was going to be here for Obon; they assumed he would be there to take care of all the animals while they were gone and found out otherwise when he let them know he needed to be in Seattle the night before his flight. I'll find out more tomorrow about whether he will really be able to be here at all.

Apparently Kai's dad forgot when the Obon was happening and when Kai was going to be gone; now he's stuck between a rock and his wife. After being around Mom and seeing how she was over the last few years, Kai is concerned that his dad has early-onset dementia. I told him it also might be just a lot of stress. I told him how to get to the St. Louis University Mental Status test on-line so he can check out what types of things people with dementia would have trouble with.

Happy Birthday to Felipe, Ellen, & Susan!

Meanwhile, Back in Washington ...

I got a text early this morning with a photo. Curtis & Lori met up with Bick & Ron for breakfast at their house. They also got to see how much progress Ron has made on restoring Dad's old Bronco.

Ron & Bick. (Photo by Lori)

Ron & Bick played tour guide and took Curtis & Lori to Safeco Field. When he can, Curtis takes a photo in front of the stadium for major league baseball teams.

Curtis & Lori in front of Safeco Field with Ken Griffey, Jr. (Photo by Bick)

While in the neighborhood, they also went to the flea market where Bick's friend has a stall. Curtis bought an Ichiro bobblehead figurine for $2! Lori found a necklace for $5 and a leather wallet for $3.

(Photo by Lori)

After that it was off to cousin Karen's house for a late lunch. During our lunch, I showed Dad the morning photos, he got a kick out of them!

L to R: Ron, Aunty Flo, Bick, Karen, David, & Curtis. (Photo by Lori)

Like his previous trip to Washington, Curtis is eating his way along! They had dinner at cousin Scott's house and got to meet his new wife, Wakana.

L to R: Aunty Daisy, Curtis, Bick, Ron, & Scott. (Photo by Lori)

Here at home, Adelia, one of Mom's financial advisors, called. She got a call from the main AssetMark office; they won't let us close Mom's account without a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN). Adelia said it could be done on-line, so I went on-line as soon as I got off the phone to go and do that. Specifically, we needed an Employer Identification Number. Guess what! You can only use it Monday through Friday, from 7 am to 10 pm ET. In other words you can't apply on-line unless the office on the East Coast is open! How does that help? Oh well, guess it goes on to my list of Things To Do for Monday.

Yesterday was the 2 month planting anniversary for the strawberries. They're doing great! This morning there was a red-vented bulbul hopping along the top of the wall, trying to find a way through the netting to get to the ripe berries. I saw another bulbul doing the same thing yesterday also. Putting the strawberries in the fully enclosed cat run was a brilliant idea!

I picked the ripe berries before I took the photo.

I talked to cousin Jane today also. We're going to try to get together right after Obon when Kai is here. She's going to do a lunch for a bunch of us and maybe we can convince Dad to come along with us.

Happy Birthday to Allis!

Total Solar Eclipse Coming

I finished putting all the labels on the thank you cards last night. Today I went to the post office to get stamps for the cards, 111 of them. While I was there I also picked up a sheet of the Total Solar Eclipse stamps; they're amazing! Under cooler conditions the moon is obscured in totality, as the paper warms up the moon becomes visible again. In order to see this today I had to start by putting the sheet of stamps in the refrigerator since it was 89 degrees F in the house. The series of photos below were taken about a second apart.







The solar eclipse will be on August 21st and will be seen across the continental US; there will be a band of totality starting in Oregon and ending in South Carolina. In Hawaii we'll be able to see a partial eclipse; here it will begin around 5:45 a.m. and end about 7:30 a.m; maybe I'll see it during my morning walk.

Speaking of my morning walk, after my walk yesterday I noticed that the sprinkler in the backyard was no longer oscillating. I fiddled with it for about 15 minutes then gave up, deciding it was time to invest in another drip irrigation system for the garden. As I headed in the door I noticed that it was oscillating again; I'm still going to design a drip system for the garden.

At least the sprinkler was stuck in a good position to water the plants.

Here's a close up of that white box by the lettuce planters. It's the mountain apple seeds!


Here's the volunteer papaya in the front yard. Monday was its 2 month planting anniversary; it's doing well. I no longer think the viney thing is bitter melon, the leaves have not gotten any larger and its vines are very skinny. But it does have a flower so I will be watching it closely to see what develops.


Today was the 2nd of 3 days of king tides in June and the highest for the year, so far. Today's high level was a combination of the king tide, sea level rise caused by climate change, and south swells. There were king tides last month when I was in Washington. There will be another set of king tides in July.

King tides in Waikiki, no lying in the sun on the beach this afternoon. (screen shot from KGMB)

Curtis & Lori are in Washington right now. They just checked in to the Tulalip Resort. They're on their way to Alaska on a cruise. Here's a photo Lori sent of their hotel room.

Photo by Lori.

Happy Birthday to Sam, Jim, Jeannie, & Kyle!

Thank You Cards Have Arrived

Lori made all the labels; I'm working on putting the labels on the envelopes tonight. So not posting much tonight. Stay tuned tomorrow!


Happy 35th Anniversary to John & Ruth!

Wet Okole

The seat covers I ordered from Wet Okole were installed this morning. They're a little pricey but I think they'll be worth it. Their website says, "Wet Okole neoprene waterproof car seat covers are designed for those with an active life style." I won't have to worry about getting in to the car in a bathing suit damp with saltwater or in rain-soaked clothes. Kai from Aikane Nursery has had his for about 5 years, he says they're great. He gets in his truck after working on tree clearing; when they get dirty, he throws them in the washer, then hangs them out to air dry.

The blue matches the color of the car body, the black matches the interior; the original seats were white.

Curtis and I went to Mom's Edward Jones financial advisor to close out her accounts there; this is the last investment account we need to work on. We met with Keoki and his assistant Genese. Unlike Mom's other financial advisors, they want Dad to come in to sign the paperwork; Vaughn and Adelia knew Mom and us well enough they were okay with sending the paperwork home with us. On our way out of the parking garage we looked for disabled parking and didn't see any; we asked the parking attendents, they had no idea what we were talking about. I will have to ask Genese about it tomorrow morning when I call her. If they have none, they will have to come to the house to get Dad's signature.

After meeting with them we went to lunch at the Zippy's Restaurant on King Street near their administration building. I decided to try the Pastrami Sandwich, Curtis had the Zip Dog with Pastrami. We had been talking about Barney's Pastrami Dip in Everett so we had a craving for pastrami.

Pastrami sandwich with fries; Barney's is better.

Zip dog with pastrami. It includes chili and cabbage.

Happy Birthday to Shannen, Vi, & Rylee!

Happy Summer Solstice!

This evening at 6:24 pm HST, summer arrived! Yesterday and today it has started at 85 degrees F in the morning and got up to 89 by the late afternoon. And Dad said he was cold until it got up to about 88! I hope it doesn't get any hotter. Or if it does, I hope the trade winds keep blowing steadily.

For breakfast today we went to Like Like Drive-Inn. Warning: If you go there, the parking lot is now one way only; the entrance is from Keeaumoku Street only. Curt had the 2 meat omelette, but I can't remember which 2 meats he chose. I had the Ahi & Eggs special; I will order this one again! I think this must be the local equivalent of steak & eggs.

For you non-locals that's pronounced "lee-kay lee-kay".

L to R; Ahi & Eggs Special, toast, 2 Meat Omelette with Brown Rice, Coffee (with free refills).

After breakfast we went to Don Quijote so Curtis could buy omiyage. On Friday he and Lori are leaving for a cruise to Alaska. They start in Seattle; they'll be staying at the Tulalip Inn for a couple of days at the beginning and one day at the end of their trip. We both bought a bunch stuff.

After that we went to the bank to get the medallion stamp for 2 of the forms that we need to turn in. We learned a bunch of things about medallion stamps. First, a medallion stamp is like a high-powered notary stamp. It is used for things like transfer of stocks and annuities in the case of the death of the owner when there is no beneficiary named, as is the case with 2 of Mom's investments that slipped through the cracks when we were trying to clean everything up. Second, only 1 or 2 people at a financial institution are qualified to issue a medallion stamp so you need to make an appointment to get one. Third, you need to do it at the financial institution that the person signing the document does business with, not the institution that the decedent did business with so that if there is a problem they can get the money out of the people that know the signer. Now that we have all that information we are moving forward with getting the medallion stamp.

On the way to the bank we saw a sign that explained how Kaimuki came to be named. Much like that oven, it gets very hot here, even when it's not summer.


Happy Birthday to Alika & Tristen!

Happy Father's Day & Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth, which is basically a celebration that came about due to slavery. While the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1862 and went in to effect on January 1st, 1863, Texas was not affected since it was not part of the Confederate South. So on June 19, 1865, Union General Granger announced General Order No. 3, freeing the slaves. Hence Juneteenth. I couldn't find any Juneteenth celebrations on O'ahu, but there was one on Maui. It is celebrated the most by African-Americans in Texas. I will have to check with the African American Diversity Cultural Center Hawai'i to see what events they sponsor here.

Yesterday was Father's Day. Curtis & Lori had a small dinner at their house; Dad didn't feel like going, he slept most of the day. I brought back some food and found him awake and watching TV at about 8:30. He said he wasn't hungry; I'm sure it was because he had filled up on Nutter Butters. He had his Father's Day dinner tonight and enjoyed it.

Before I went over to Curtis' house, I went to visit BJ; he said he had some things for Dad. The most important was the video monitor system, but they also gave us a bunch of incontinence supplies. Since Dad doesn't need these now, but Lori's mom needs them, they said to take the supplies over to Curt & Lori's. Before I left BJ also gave me a big pan of mango bread pudding. Onolicious!

I set the monitors up after I got home from Curt's house. Camera 2 is in the family room by the TV, facing towards the chair Dad sits in and the kitchen. I set up the other camera to test by focusing it on where Shiro likes to sleep at night. The flat thing on the chair in the photo below is a sleeping Shiro. As you can see, it also monitors the temperature; if it goes over 85 degrees F it gives you a high temperature warning. It was doing that for most of the day today in the family room, where it said the temperature got up to 88F. It started cooling down to 85F about 8 pm. This evening I set Camera 1 up in Dad's bedroom so I can see when he gets out of bed; I can also see about half the floor so if he falls I can see him on the floor. (It's aimed at the part of the room where he spends more of his time so is more likely to fall.) I also found a bunch of dust that needs cleaning

Shiro at around 11 pm.

Lots of dust here.

As I mentioned on Friday, I started walking again in the morning for exercise. Today was my 3rd day. (I skipped Saturday to go to the Hokule'a homecoming.) Yesterday I saw a Little Free Library on Maunaloa Avenue, across from Liholiho School. It must have been there the 1st day I was walking but I just didn't notice it. I'll have to keep an eye on it and see what shows up; I might donate some of Mom's books. Interestingly, in the Honolulu area there are only 4 registered Little Free Libraries. And 2 of them are within walking distance for me, the other is about 5 blocks away on 12th Avenue between Alohea & Maunalei. (There are only 2 on the Big Island, one in Captain Cook, the other in Pahoa. None in the north end, perhaps I will be the steward for one.)

I love avocados! Here's a new variety that showed up at the co-op the other day. I picked one up to see how it compares to the others I have been sampling.

The thank you notes for Mom's service were ready so I went to pick them up today. Last night on the news they mentioned that the corpse flower at the Foster Botanical Garden was blooming! So I decied to stop in there before I went to Hosoi since it was just a couple blocks away. Well, I must not have been listening well, the one at Foster is not blooming. But I got an annual membership anyway, so when it is blooming I will have a faster time getting though the entrance. I got some brochures and discovered that there are 5 botanical gardens in Honolulu, including one nearby, the Koko Crater Botanical Garden.


I also checked out the Nu'uanu Stream which runs alongside the parking lot for the Foster Botanical Garden; I was parked right next to it. There was a bunch of ducks hanging out in the stream.


As I left Hosoi I noticed a building with a bunch of antennae on its roof. In a weird way it reminded me of the Hokule'a or another sailing vessel. Not sure what the white structure below the antennae were for.

Happy Birthday to Tom & Alan!