Puffballs!

Oh, wait. Never mind. It's just some manapua. Found these on my afternoon walk and those were my thoughts as I walked up to them. I wonder what was wrong with the manapua? It has been raining heavily in the evening for the last few days; that's why I found the Lepiota/Chlorophyllum the other day. So I was not surprised to see "puffballs", though I'm not sure if Giant Puffballs grow here.

Puffballs!

Oh, wait, its just manapua.

During my mid-morning walk I found a Jackson's Chameleon! At least, that's what I think it was; it was a little flat. I am pretty sure of my identification since the 3 horns and its funky toe configuration are visible even though its head is flattened. This is an invasive species; I reported it on the 643-PEST website operated by the Hawai'i Invasive Species Council.

Jackson's Chameleon (Trioceros jacksonii).

On my morning walk, I checked out the work that the Board of Water Supply crews were doing yesterday. They are pouring concrete around the new hydrants & meter boxes that they have been installing. They have a few more to finish off on Sierra Drive but it looks like there may be more on Maunalani Circle since the metal plates are still in the road.



I also saw a crafty Kolea at the park this morning. There was a dog & a human at the far end of the field when I arrived; the Kolea was at my end of the field. I almost missed it since it was standing still, blending in with the grass even though it was a different color! Because of the angle of the sun, even with color vision, everything seemed somewhat yellowy-gray. That Kolea had nerves of steel, even with the dog running around & me walking by, it hardly moved. When it did, it was a few quick steps, then standing still to blend in again.

Dad was complaining this morning that his left hand  was hurting. I looked it over, it was red & swollen & very warm. His right hand was not. Dr. Gries looked at it this afternoon; the swelling had gone down, it was less swollen, & not very red. He said the concern would be an infection & to keep an eye on it for that.


Lunch today was Pork fried rice, Pacific vegetable mix, Tossed salad, Fresh strawberries, and Egg drop soup; my tray was missing the salad. I got Dad to eat 2 pieces of strawberry along with his liquid supplements.


My new shorts from Columbia Sportswear arrived today! Now I can get rid of those 6 pairs that are a pain to wear because I need to keep pulling them up. When I took the 1st photo, it came out an off color; the 2nd one was normal.

Not sure why the red spectrum colors came out blue.

Here are the real colors.

I took some photos of backlit clouds today for use as reference photos for artwork.


My cousin Tomiko bought a house! She got the keys today! Congratulations!

The happy homeowner! (Photo by realtor)

At 5 a.m. this morning Miriam was still a hurricane & still on a path to miss the islands; it has remained that way throughout the day. At 90 mph it is a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. During hurricane season I have reminders on my phone to check the Central Pacific Hurricane Center's website once a day; if there is an incoming hurricane I check 3 times a day. If I was consistently watching the news on TV, I probably wouldn't check at all; I would leave it up to the weather person to let me know when something is coming.

5 p.m.

Happy Birthday to Uncle Danny, Lillian, & Heather!

Surinam Cherry Hedge

This morning I saw a not quite ripe Surinam cherry on the shrub that I saw the other day. Today I realized that it was part of a hedge all along the easterly edge of the property. There will be a lot of fruit in a couple months.

Surinam cherry (Eugenia uniflora).

I saw a Kolea at the park on my morning walk & also a Cattle Egret. I got to play with Mei-mei for a few minutes while Ariel went chasing after Rocco who ran off to greet another dog. Later when Ariel let Mei-mei off leash she came racing over to me for more playtime. It's nice to be appreciated! I didn't see any Kolea on my mid-morning walk. During my afternoon walk I saw another Kolea, it was hiding in the shadows near the fence, but I didn't take a photo. I figured people are getting tired of seeing blurred photos of Kolea now that it seems like they are back until their breeding migration next year.

Kolea (Pacific Golden Plover, Pluvialis fluvia).

Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis).

Today's lunch menu was Beef stew, Steamed rice, Garden salad, Tapioca pudding, and Cream of broccoli soup; though my tray didn't have any soup. I think they have realized that I hardly ever drink the soup. During lunch we saw a Gold Dust Day Gecko basking in the sun along the edge of the lanai.

Gold Dust Day Gecko (Phelsuma laticauda).

When I got home I checked out some of the plants in the back yard. The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes had planted 2 butterhead lettuce seedlings; they were growing well. The basil sprigs that I got to root, then later planted, were also doing well.

Butterhead lettuce (Lactuca sativa).

Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum).

Hurricane Miriam is now a Category 1. It is heading northerly about 900 miles easterly of the Big Island. It is predicted to lose speed over the next few days as it heads north across cooler water; it should not be a problem for us.

It

5 p.m.

Happy Birthday to Wendy & cousin Yvonne! And Happy 33rd Anniversary to Pam & Gene!

Glad I Thought of This!

I have been thinking about my walking routes. When I first put together my schedule of increasing distances, I was only looking at which bits would equal the distance I was aiming for. After the 1st walk with a new segment I realized that it wasn't totally additive; I needed to also figure out how I was going to physically connect the segments. Duh! One of the ones that has been really bothering me is the segment I call Lurline-Matsonia; which is scheduled to start on Sunday. I named it that because I envisioned walking down Lurline & up Matsonia; I was also cringing because Matsonia looks really steep where it comes up to Sierra. This morning a light bulb went off: What if I walk DOWN Matsonia and UP Lurline? It looks much more doable now! I hope there's no steep surprise on Lurline that I have conveniently forgotten; I'll find out soon enough.

If I walk down Matsonia ...

... and up Lurline, I should be able to make it!

During my morning walk the workers for the Board of Water Supply were just setting up for the work for today. They have 2 open ditches on Maunalani Circle and 1 on Sierra Drive near the park. It makes for creative walking. The lawn was being mowed at the park so there were no Kolea but the Cattle Egret was there catching prey injured by the mower & weed eater. I saw one of the Kolea during my mid-morning walk. I also took another photo of the shower tree flowers that had collected in the swales along the road.



Lunch today was Pork tofu, Steamed rice, Peas and carrots, Garden salad, Macaroon bar, & Chicken gumbo. That's what the menu said but it wasn't peas & carrots and there was no gumbo on my tray.


I saw more Kolea on my afternoon walk. There was one Kolea in the forested area and one down on the field. I also saw a mushroom on the lawn near the lower parking lot; its either a Lepiota rachodes or a Chlorophyllum molybdites, you can only tell by doing a spore print.

Kolea in the forest.

Kolea on the field.

Lepiota or Chlorophyllum?

Today was the first day this week that I was able to do all 3 of the walks as I had scheduled for this week. They totaled 2.88 miles or 0.12 mile less than what I am aiming for this week. I think if I leave from the upper parking lot and end at the lower parking lot on the 3rd walk it should be 3.0 miles.     

With the windfall of avocados that we got from the wind preceding Hurricane Lane, I decided to make guacamole last night. I cubed 3 avocados & sprinkled them with lime juice. This evening I completed the America's Test Kitchen guacamole; it has a secret ingredient.

The secret ingredient: Bacon!

Avocado chunks (L), guacamole mixture (R).

ATK Guacamole. Yum!

While we were waiting for Hurricane Lane to make landfall (or veer away) I was taking photos of the waves to show how the storm surge was creating larger waves. But at that time I did not have a "before" photo; I have one now.

Waves on a normal day.

On 08/24 at 7 a.m.

Hurricane Miriam crossed over into the Central North Pacific today; at 75 mph Miriam is just barely a hurricane. At this time Miriam is not expected to cause any problems for us.

5 p.m.

Happy Birthday to Diana!

Back in the Saddle

I finally felt well enough this morning to go to Maunalani. But I'm all better now; though I had questioned my sanity when I first started my walk this morning. That first few hundred feet going up Maunalani Circle seemed really steep, but I kept going. I saw the pair of Kolea at the park again; I am pretty sure these are the ones I saw earlier since they are in the parking lot & along that edge of the field again.


Dad ate all his lunch today! Which means he ate 1/2 a peanut butter & jelly sandwich; he also had 3 bites of a red velvet cake. For lunch I had Korean BBQ chicken, Brown rice, Sesame broccoli, Garden salad, Red velvet cake, & New England clam chowder.

Dad finishing off his peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

I skipped my mid-morning walk today; Dad did not want to go to massage & I was still a little tired so I took a nap. But I did do my afternoon walk. I am working on doing 3.0 miles a day this week, with the 2 walks I did I covered only 2.38 miles today. I plan to do the full 3.0 miles tomorrow.

I picked up my replacement shirt from West Marine today. While there I checked out some of the other Columbia Sportswear PFG shirts as well as shorts; primarily to see what size I would need for the various styles of clothes. The Columbia Sportswear website has a sale going on and I needed some new shorts. I came here with 3 pairs of shorts; Mom gave me 2 more pairs. After Mom passed away I started to use 6 of her shorts. Because I have been losing weight I am now unable to keep those 6 pairs up, much like my original pair of long jeans. In addition, 2 pairs are getting loose enough that in a couple of weeks I may not be able to wear them either. So, even though I wanted to wait until I got near my target weight, I bought 3 new pairs at 55% off and free shipping! (Interestingly, the 3 pairs of shorts that I brought with me still fit well.) Hopefully, I can continue to use the new shorts at my target weight. (I selected styles with drawstrings.)

While I was sick & lying around in bed, I was thinking about how much percent body fat I am at now. I had my body fat calculated by the YMCA using the skinfold method when I weighed in at 90 pounds; they said I had 12% body fat. Doing the math that would mean I had about 10.8 pounds of body fat at that time. My back injury & the limited amount of physical activity due to fibromyalgia that caused me to gain weight occurred after that. Based on the following assumptions:
1) All my weight gain since I was 90# has been as fat;
2) None of my muscle mass since I was 90# has turned in to fat,
3) All my current weight loss has been of fat, and
4) My current weight is 111.8#.
That would mean I now have 32.6 pounds of body fat and am around 29% body fat. When I was at 12% I was told that women on average have 25 to 31% body fat; which means I am at the average right now. I was appalled when I 1st learned this statistic; I am still appalled. I felt strong & healthy when I was at 12%, right now at 29% I feel very sluggish. I must admit, when I was at 12%, my menstrual cycles were irregular and my doctor was surprised I was able to get pregnant; he allowed me to gain 55 pounds so that I would be able to carry to term & also breastfeed. (I retained 5 of those baby pounds which brought me up to 90 pounds, so I was probably below 12% when I started my pregnancy.)

On Saturday I had mentioned that there was a disturbance in the Eastern North Pacific that was predicted to have a 90% chance of becoming a tropical storm. Well it did, meet Tropical Storm Miriam! As you can see, this storm is not predicted to be anywhere near us; that's the way it is for most storms that develop in both the Eastern & Central North Pacific. This is due to the effect of the tradewinds and the shear; that's what kept Hurricane Lane from becoming a big disaster here.

2 p.m.

This is also Tropical Depression 16-E; that means it is the 16th depression that formed in the Eastern North Pacific region in 2018. It is predicted to have a 30% chance of reaching hurricane status winds in the next 5 days. You probably won't start hearing about either of these unless they cross the 140W Longitude, which is the eastern edge of the Central Pacific region that Hawai'i is in, and is predicted to come close to Hawai'i as a hurricane. (Or if they do something weird like head back to the west coast of Central or North America.) On a normal year, we will be dealing with these through the end of November.

3 p.m.

Happy Birthday to Arden! Happy 25th Anniversary to Sili & Taliga!

Catching Up

It's been a couple days since I've posted, so this post will cover Sunday & Monday; later tonight I will do a separate post for what's happened today. I was coughing so much on Saturday and Sunday night I didn't sleep well & was tired the following days. We have a totally non-science-based term we use called "nursing home sick"; this is when you are sick but not sick enough that you would stay home from a job where you aren't around people (like in the middle of a wetland) but you are still a bit under the weather and you think you still might be a disease vector to kupuna (or others) with compromised immune systems. I was feeling nursing home sick so I stayed home; on Sunday I made myself an avocado & peanut butter sandwich for breakfast (which I ate at lunch time). Quick, easy, yummy!

Peanut butter & avocado sandwich with very dark chocolate shavings.

I slept most of the day or lay in bed listening to the Harry Dresden audiobook White Night, I only had a couple chapters to complete it. When that was done I listened to It's My Birthday Too and Heorot; they're in the Side Jobs  collection of Harry Dresden short stories.

Lori dropped Curtis off at the house in the afternoon; today was shower day for Dad. I took Curtis up to Maunalani & dropped him off so he could oversee that activity. Then I decided to do a short walk to get the blood in my legs back in to circulation; I was only going to go around Maunalani Circle. I was feeling so good by the time I got around to Sierra Drive I decided to go down to the park & back! Along the way I saw a Surinam cherry hedge; I had noticed it earlier & thought it looked like the acerola but had not stopped to check it out. Saturday I did and found both flowers and small green fruit. Later I picked Curtis up and took him to the airport for his trip to Las Vegas.

Surinam cherry (Eugenia uniflora).

On Saturday a package arrived from Patagonia; the outdoor gear company not the geographic region. I had ordered a new backpack since my old one was starting to tear at the internal divider between the small & large pocket areas; the rest of the backpack is in great condition. The new backpack is purple, not my preferred color, but it was about $50 cheaper than the blue one; when choosing color over savings I'll go with savings especially when its 50% off! The tracking texts said it was supposed to arrive on Monday so I was pleasantly surprised!



The new backpack has a 28 l capacity, "Main compartment features a padded and lined tablet sleeve and plenty of space for everything else ... Laptop pocket is padded and features separate access from the main compartment; fits most 15" laptops ... Stash pocket is perfect for sunglasses or small electronics ... Two large water-bottle pockets stretch to fit your favorite vessel ... Ultrasoft yet highly breathable mesh at back panel and shoulder harness" It is, "[m]ade from 630-denier 100% nylon (50% recycled/50% high-tenacity) plain weave; lined with 200-denier 100% recycled polyester. Both treated with a polyurethane coating and a DWR (durable water repellent) finish for water-resistance." It is also, "fit specifically for a woman with a modified harness and back panel for comfort" I'm not so sure about that last part, I think the harness on my old backpack was more comfortable because it spread the weight of the pack over a larger area; my old pack also has a hip belt to transfer the weight to the .pelvic girdle.

I heard some birds calling outside my bedroom window. I found out that there is a flock the Common Waxbills that come to the backyard to eat the grass seeds. I was able to get a better view of them than at the park since they weren't aware of me being so close to them. The window screen prevented me from getting a really clear photo of them.

Common waxbill (Estrilda astrild).

On Sunday I sauteed the old poke with some eggs to make an omelet. It was yummy but no photos. For dinner I heated up a very red hotdog that The Roommates brought home from a barbecue on Saturday & sliced up one of the windfall avocados.


I didn't do much else except start a new Harry Dresden audiobook, Small Favor.

I had mentioned on Friday that I got an email from Aikane Nursery that a tree had come down at the Kohala house; Greg sent me photos. It was a portion of the macadamia nut tree that broke off in the wind and rainstorm from the edges of the Hurricane Lane system.

Macadamia nut tree. (Photo by Greg)

Happy Belated Birthday to Vidya, Teena, Kyle & Deb! Happy Belated 50th Anniversary to Diann & Bob! Happy Belated 28th Anniversary to Lorna & Darrell!

In the Clear

At the 8 a.m. forecast this morning, Tropical Storm Lane was about 115 miles southwesterly of Honolulu and was continuing northwesterly. It was predicted to miss all the main islands.


Last night I told Dad that I would stay at Maunalani; I would be sleeping in the Orchid Dining Room again. The previous night; it had cleared out about 9 p.m. Last night it was still occupied till after 10 p.m. Mr. Gephardt was first watching football, then was later watching reality law enforcement shows. No one came to take him to bed, even though they usually did by 9 pm. It turns out the commotion a couple hours earlier was because his roommate, Mr. Chau, had died; they were waiting for his family & hospice to arrive to make his final arrangements and let Mr. Gephardt watch TV for as long as he wanted, so he would not be in the room as they removed Mr. Chau. The hospice nurse & Mr. Chau's family arrived about 15 minutes before I left.

I was not feeling so hot when I left; my throat was a little scratchy & I had a little cough starting. Since The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes had come down with a sore throat & cough on Wednesday and The Potential Most Favorite Roommate had the same thing develop on Thursday, I decided perhaps I should go home since there were no big winds to upset Dad; so I did. This morning I woke up with a very sore throat (which responded well to a salt water gargle) and an intermittent cough. I skipped all the walks today so I could concentrate my energy on getting over this faster since Curtis will be in Las Vegas for the next week.

Later in the evening Tropical Storm Lane had moved further westerly and was about 180 miles southerly of Kaua'i. Winds have decreased to 50 mph as Lane continues to move westerly. It looks like we're in the clear. There are no other storms in the Central or Eastern North Pacific at this time; though there is a 90% chance of one forming from a current disturbance in the Eastern North Pacific within the next 5 days. (Systems forming in the Eastern North Pacific, such as Lane, frequently cross in to the Central North Pacific & head towards Hawai'i. When systems forming in the Eastern North Pacific reach tropical storm speeds they are given English or Latino names, those that formed in the Central North Pacific are given Hawaiian names. Prior to reaching tropical storm speeds they are given alphanumeric identifiers.)


I spent the day either napping or listening to a Harry Dresden audiobook, White Night, while doing laundry & sorting photos of Dad for a slide show.

Happy Birthday to Curtis! Also Happy Birthday to Penny & Corinna!