My Summer Vacation: A Visit with Harold

Harold is my financial planner; I met him through Curtis. Frequently when its time to check out what's happening with our portfolio, we go in together. We did that today. I think Harold is amazing! Even with the pandemic, under Harold's guidance my retirement funds portfolio YTD is up about 25%. Dad's portfolio is up about the same and Curtis had a similar increase.

That huge dip is the lockdown; the peak at the right is this past week.

As Curtis was backing in to the parking spot at Harold's he was watching his back up camera and I noticed a little too late that his mirror was going to hit the column next to him. He just barely nicked the column but his mirror popped out. Since its the type of mirror that can fold in we were hoping the that give in the unit was enough to protect the mechanism inside the unit. The mirror was unharmed because the wires attaching it to the car kept it from crashing to the concrete floor; he was able to pop it back in to place. Then he checked the controls for the mirror; they worked! He ended up with a couple white paint scratches on his black mirror housing.

Saved by the wires!

Looking good.

That's the only way you can tell something happened.

On the way out of the garage we saw several Manu-o-Ku in a few of the trees alongside the building. Then as we were driving down the road we saw more in the trees and flying overhead.

We went to Zippy's in Kapahulu to pick up lunch after we left Harold's place. Like other restaurants, Zippy's has made a lot of changes such as online ordering and pickup. After we ordered, they asked us to go back to the car and they would bring the order out to us.

Zippy's also has a rather ingenious hurricane preparedness pack; besides a 14-day supply of their frozen chili and Portuguese bean soup packets, which freeze nice and flat, they also had hand sanitizer and masks which emergency management has been asking people to include in their hurricane supplies. They also had toilet paper. You can get the Zippy's branded mask online, too! (You can tell this is for hurricane season prep and not for COVID lock down; it includes a bag of ice.)

Ingenious!

After lunch I went up to see Dad for the Aloha from 10 Feet Away drive through visits. Marissa was off today, so Jazmine brought Dad out for the visit. In the beginning I was parked in the normal traffic flow pattern, which would allow a passenger to be dropped off without having to cross in front of the car. Which makes it difficult to talk to someone because you have to yell through the car for them to hear you; which would also spew more virus particles! Auē! I had to park that way because there was a guy there, I'm not exactly sure what he was doing, but he was outside of his car talking to staff. Originally he was parked right in front of the door so I could not get in to see Dad at all; Jazmine asked him to move a couple car lengths away and he did. After he left I repositioned tha car so it was going against the normal flow pattern but the driver's side was now near closer to the building and I could more easily talk to Dad.

Earlier in the morning I had talked to Mariana, the Maunalani staff person doing most of the scheduling. What we worked out was that I would call first thing in the morning during the week and see what was available; she said she comes in at 7:30 so that works well for me. If all the times are filled, and someone calls at the last minutes, I told her if I have already been in several days just call me and let me know someone else needs that time slot. From talking with staff, I know that the weekday slots have never been all filled. But since the weekends are almost always filled, I told Mariana I decided not to ask for weekends since I can come during the work week.

Before I left to see Harold I was checking on things in the back yard; I had seen some mynas on the neighbor's roof eating what looked like papaya. It was; there are 3 ripe ones that are just out of reach of the extension ladder. While I was in the back yard I saw that one of The Potential Most Favorite Roommate's cactus was in bloom. I'm not sure what it is.

I had been wondering why the shark's tongue was not sitting very well in the shark sometimes. Today I saw Keala go in to the shark and grab the tongue and pull it all the way out! Auē!

Checking out the shark.

She has pulled its tongue out.

The disturbance is now about 1000 miles southeast of us. It has about a 30% chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next 5 days.

Last night there was a special live interview, called "Back to Square One", with the Lt. Governor and 3 other doctors on the Coronavirus pandemic. It was very interesting to hear what they had to say. I think it was Dr. Ireland who said COVID-19, like H1N1, was never going to go away. It would get knocked down to more manageable levels but, like H1N1, would flare up every so often. Their best guess at when the vaccine trials would be completed is either late this year or early next year; but unlike most of the talking heads out there, they cautioned that it would not mean life would get back to normal at that time since enough doses would need to be produced and administered to enough people to begin to build herd immunity and it wouldn't come overnight.

On the news last night they also talked about emergency management's estimate that 1 in 50 residents has had COVID-19 but most don't know it. All the more reason to wear a mask, practice physical distancing, and stay away from crowds to minimize your chance of getting it! They also estimate at the current rate there will be over 7,500 cases by the end of August.

In the news tonight there was speculation that the Honolulu Hale outbreak was due to a retirement party. It was later refuted because the "party" for the retiree was outside under a canopy where people came and said Aloha, grabbed a commercially prepared bento, and went back to their cubicles; also all of the people who participated had negative tests. More positive cases are turning up at the jail; it's now up to 16 total. The military released information today saying that the military accounts for 7% of cases in the state. And finally, people traveling from Hawai'i must quarantine in New York state.