Lunch with Uncle Kazu

Sometimes it is difficult for Uncle Kazu to get in to the car to go places with me, so I pick up plate lunches for us and we eat at the hospital. Today we ate at the hospital. I went to the L & L Hawaiian Barbecue place in Kapa'au and picked up a Seafood Trio plate and a Teriyaki Combo plate to go. Uncle Kazu chose the seafood plate so I had the teriyaki plate.

The L & L order window and menu.

Uncle Kazu with the Seafood Trio lunch and a Passion Orange drink. No he's not sleeping, not sure why I seem to frequently get photos of him with his eyes closed.

The out-of-focus Teriyaki Combination plate.

Of course we had to have ice cream! So after lunch I went to Kings View Cafe to get some Roselani ice cream; Uncle Kazu just wanted plain Chocolate, I tried the Cherry Truffle. When I returned there was a man and a little girl also arriving with a bag and a box of Krispy Kreme donuts; they came & sat with us for lunch. It turns out that was David, the husband of nurse Sadie who is in charge of the day room and a good friend of Uncle Kazu's. The little girl was their niece Kira. Their lunch was from a fundraiser that was going on to raise money to help a community member who is having some health challenges. I found out there is no Krispy Kreme location on the island; they are flown in from Maui for fundraisers. Apparently Kahului is the only place in Hawai'i that has a Krispy Kreme; the next closest store is in Daly City, 2334.8 miles away.

This morning started out bright and early with a phone call to Alamo Roadside Assistance. Nicky, the woman I talked to this morning, was much more helpful than the woman I talked to last night. She said there was a spare tire and also that it would cost me $70 for them to come and change it! I said I had AAA and she said it would much better for me to call AAA, so I did. I gave them the info and they said someone would be there in an hour. I asked where they were coming from and the guy said Waimea, I told him that was 45 minutes away; he corrected himself and said the contractor is in Waimea but had workers all over the island. When the contractor called I told him to make sure the driver had my phone number since the driveway might be difficult to find if the person was unfamiliar with the area; he said his driver lived in Kapa'au. Winner! Blaine & Cecily were here in about 15 minutes and had the tire changed in another 10 minutes. And it turns out Blaine knows Jessie, he used to work Security at Mauna Kea Resort with Jessie!

On the first evening that I arrived here, I forgot to take photos of the omiyage that Jody, Ron & Joy brought for me. So I did it this morning. The smoked salmon is from Jody; the teas and Seahawk cookies are from Ron & Joy.



I picked the ripe Meyer lemons on my way out the door today. I gave them to Joy & Arlene; Joy is going to make lemon bars with them. They live near the Hawai'i Wildlife Center, I stopped there on my way back to see if there was anything they wanted me to take back for them. Linda, the executive director, said everything was coming together for the Seabird Response Team to be operational in November. They will be shipping their transport van over to O'ahu; turns out it is cheaper to ship it over than to rent a van for 3 weeks. It will also be easier since they can load all the necessary supplies in the van before it leaves. I am looking forward to helping them with the project.

Lem, Jessie, & Arlene came over after dinner tonight for Holy's Bakery apple pie & Tropical Dreams ice cream; Joy was too tired from working to set up a yard sale and stayed home. We also tried a couple of the new teas and the Seahawk cookies. We had a great time talking about a number of different things; the evening ended too early.

L to R: Lem, Jessie, & Arlene.

Jessie with a Seahawks cookie.

I took a bunch of before photos of the kitchen. Before the end of the year Chris will replace the termite-eaten pieces, fix sagging doors so they close properly, and replace the wooden sliding doors on the spice cabinets with translucent sliding panels.

Looking at the cabinets on the north side of the kitchen.

Looking at the cabinets on the east side of the kitchen (the ones under the sink).

Looking at the upper cabinets on the south side of the kitchen.

I also changed the light bulbs in the fixture over the kitchen sink. They previous bulbs were very cool, very high wattage CFLs; they were 23 watts which is equivalent to 100 watts in an incandescent bulb. I changed them for one 13 watt CFL and one 10 watt LED, both provide 800 lumens of brightness & are 2700 K bulbs so they give off a warmer color. The LED is estimated to use $1.20 per year & is supposed to last 25,000 hours, the CFL uses $1.57 per year & is supposed to last for 10,000 hours; since they are in the same fixture and will be turned on and off at the same time it will be a good test.

L to R: CFL, LED. I should have taken a photo of the previous bulbs so you could see the difference.

Happy Birthday to Sandy & Michael!