Early Morning with Dr. Zenker

I had an early morning appointment with my dermatologist, Dr. Zenker. I talked to her about my check-up in another year when I will most likely be on the Big Island; will I have to return to Oʻahu or do they have dermatologists there? She said there is a dermatologist there, but she is also scheduled to be traveling to the Big Island once a month beginning in January. Since it already takes about 6 months to get an appointment with her I will be calling in June or July to get a dermatology appointment and I will be trying to get one with her. I asked Dr. Zenker where I am on the Photonumeric Grading Scale; she said I was probably a Grade 4 because I have some sunspots but few wrinkles. She said my liberal use of sunscreen when I was doing a lot of diving has probably played a large role in reducing sun damage to my skin.

The view from Dr. Zenker's exam room.

After my appointment with Dr. Zenker, I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for a nail fungus. The line was shorter than when I first signed in for my appointment. They have changed the pharmacy line area; they have replaced the carpet with a surface that is easier to disinfect & added signs for where to stand. There were also humorous mask signs around.

 

This morning I made a proothie with the kale from the CSA box from last month. I think I will be able to make 2 more proothies with them. After that I will be able to move on to the greens from the CSA box from 2 weeks ago.  

There was no police activity at the neighbor's house when I got in the car this morning. But the sun was pretty bright! 

Thirty-eight minutes after sunrise.

When I returned from my dermatology appointment I made another batch of soymilk. I make a new batch about once every 5 days.

Soymilk extracted from the okara.

I tried to eat my lunch while I was making the soymilk; wasn't quite able to do it. I had to finish it off after I had completed the soymilk. I also signed in to Day 5 of Kwanzaa with Eleta; today's principle is Nia, Purpose.

Yes, I have used this photo before.

For dinner I had what has seemingly become my standard for the past week or so; 3 mozzarella chicken meatballs (which the nutritional information says is 1 serving) and salad with bacon bits.  

It's quick, easy, &tasty!

Keala was running around in the cat run again this evening as I was preparing my dinner. I think she really likes having free access to the cat run. I think all the cats like it; they're in and out all night.

The Aix weather app forecast that there would be a little precipitation here in the morning, then clear up for the rest of the day. It was a little off, it was pretty much clear for the whole day. For Kapaʻau it said it would be drizzly all day; according to the graph from Tesla it appeared to be fairly sunny until just before noon when things clouded up and there may also have been some precipitation.

Today was the last day of the First Responders Vax PODs that I have been volunteering at. It appears there were 770 vaccines administered today; all total there appear to have been 3880 vaccines administered. I have not seen any information yet about how many doses have been administered overall in the state.

The LG gave his weekly update today. He says we are not seeing a surge from Christmas yet; the hospitalizations are showing a rise due to the Thanksgiving surge. He is urging people to not gather in large groups for New Years' Eve. He noted that Group 1a is currently being vaccinated & that 1b will be starting soon; he did not mention how many vaccinations had been administered.

 

There were 108 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total up to 21,209. There were no new deaths reported, so the death toll remains at 285; currently 1578 cases are considered active. The 7-day new case average is 72 with a positivity rate of 3.2%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Bria!

Paleoart

I got sidetracked this afternoon; I was watching You Tube videos again. This time it was the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's unofficial Paleoart Conference Session. It was pretty cool.

I started out the morning making a proothie; but I had forgotten to wash up some greens. I ended up using some salad from Christmas dinner.

 

I opened up a new container of protein powder this morning. And got a big surprise; it was already half empty! I don't think I am going to buy this brand again. When I first got it I liked that the container made use of storage space by being square rather than cylindrical, but being only half full negates the space savings.

While checking emails on my phone this morning I found one from Dictionary.com; it was talking about the chipmunk emoji. I did not know that Dictionary.com had definitions for different emojis. 

They have a lot more to define!

I also found out that Dictionary.com also has a Pop Culture dictionary!

They have a lot of categories.

I guess I should start checking this out.

I had a nice surprise when I walked in to the family room this afternoon. Someone threw up; most likely S'mores who tends to wolf down her food, then throw it up fairly whole.

I did finally wash the greens for proothies in the morning as well as butterhead lettuce for salads. Tonight I had a very simple salad with bacon bits as well as chicken meatballs.

The Aix weather app forecast it would be dry but a little cloudy until about mid afternoon; then it forecast precipitation. There was none. The Tesla graph shows that it wasn't totally sunny throughout the morning and looked like it might have rained in the afternoon.

I also checked out some memes about COVID-19.

There were 76 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 21,103. There were no new deaths reported today, keeping the death toll at 285; currently there are 1577 cases considered active. The 7-day new case average on Oʻahu is 69 with a positivity rate of 3.0%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jesse, Eric, Sarah, & Ava!

Vax POD Day4

Marjorie texted in the early evening yesterday asking if I could do data entry again today; so here I am. Jean & Bob and Monica & Gerald, whom I worked with last week Tuesday & Wednesday, were back. And so was Patrick from the Thursday group; everyone else was new. Except, of course, Alicia & Audrey who are running the data entry group. Today 640 vaccinations were administered for a total of 2490, after I corrected the numbers; this is about 0.17% of the state population. I don't know how many people have been vaccinated in the healthcare system or at long-term care facilities but the general consensus is that 70% of the population needs to be properly vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19. We still have a long way to go.

Lunch today was from a different place than lunch last week. The 1st 2 days lunch was from Zippy's; I'm not sure where the 3rd day's lunch was from. And I am not sure whether it is one of the partners in the PODs that is paying for it or whether it is from CARES Act funds. But it does look like it is the HPD that picks up & distributes the lunches. The 1st day they delivered it to us; after that we had to go to a central place where they handed them out. On Day 2 they just gave them out; after that you had to identify yourself & they checked you off a copy of the sign-in sheet. On Day 3 I almost didn't get my lunch; since Data Entry comes in 2 hours later than the rest of the volunteers someone had photocopied all the other sign-in sheets but hand wrote the Data Entry sheet. They did not write my whole name; they just put the first 2 letters of my last name. The guy with the list wasn't going to let me have a lunch even though I had my MRC ID badge & volunteer t-shirt! The other officer looked up the photo of the sign-in sheet he had and found my name so I was able to get a lunch. Today I specifically told them what happened when I signed in; at lunch I found they had waited to photocopy the sign-in sheet today to avoid that!

The view as I wait in line to pick up lunch.

Today's lunch.

My proothie this morning used the last of the fennel from the previous CSA box. I wish they would leave the ferny tops, they have a stronger taste than the bulbs; I think it must be partly from the chlorophyll.

As I was getting ready to leave the house this morning, Keala was playing in the cat run. I was unable to get a photo of her climbng to the top of the westerly wall; she stayed still long enough for me to catch her attention and look up at me before she raced off again.

As I was getting in to the car a police car pulled in to the front yard of a house on the other side of the street, joining one that was already there. Then, as I was pulling out another one pulled up for a total of 3 cars. I never did find out what was going on.

The first 2 HPD cars.

As I parked at the vax POD location, I noticed my car was parked in the next row over! It was another hybrid Crosstrek in the same color! It was gone by the time I got back later in the day; in fact, most people were gone by then. I did see fellow data entry person Patrick getting in to his car further down the row.

Today was Day 3 of Kwanzaa; I signed in to Eleta's Zoom celebration as soon as I got back to the car. Yesterday we had talked about me using my laptop & hotspot to catch the last half of the event but we got out around 4:30 today rather than at 4 so I was signing in right at the end. I had set up the laptop to look out the front & gave them a tour of the freeway as I drove back to the house! Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the set up.

The Aix weather app forecast clear skies all day here & that looked fairly accurate. It did show clouds & precipitation moving in around mid-afternoon in Kapaʻau; the Tesla graph showed that started about mid-morning & got heavier in the mid-afternoon.

There was a Magnitude 5.7 earthquake off the coast of Oregon this evening. The earthquake occurred 7 miles below the surface and did not trigger a tsunami.

There were 46 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total number of known cases to 21.028. There were no new deaths so the death toll remains at 285; currently there are 1558 cases that are considered to be active. The 7-day new case average is 69 with a positivity rate of 3.0%.

 

The Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative has changed significantly in the types of data and how they are presented; for the most part I am only including their general overview since I like it's presentation the best. Today I noticed they now also have a Rate of Transmission (Rt). But when I clicked on it for a closer look, I could not find it. Auē! 

The graph on the right is what I was interested in.

This is what I got; none of the tabs contained the information.

Hau'oli lā Hānau e Jennifer!