My Summer Vacation: End of Week 3 at Tier 1

Here's how we're doing so far on Oʻahu. If we can keep the 7-day average of new cases at 100 or lower with a positivity rate at 5% or lower, we can advance to Tier 2. As I have written before, a big concern is that the pre-travel testing program goes in to effect tomorrow. What it means is if travelers take a COVID-19 test 72 hours before they arrive here and it is negative, they do not need to do the 14-day quarantine. If they choose not to do the test, they have to quarantine. If they are showing symptoms when they step off the plane, they will be tested; if they are positive they will be quarantined. It is hope that people who begin showing symptoms before they step on the plane will postpone their trip. We shall see.

I was sore when I woke up this morning; not sure if it was from yesterday's kettlebell workout or not. But I decided to rest. Because Day 3 of the Unicorn Challenge is a rest day anyway; well, an active rest day. Which means yoga or a walk in the woods or similar low level of activity. It is also a low cal day because it is a rest day.

I got a call from fellow MRC volunteer Joyce just after lunch time. She was wondering if I had heard from Casey since the 1st of the month; I had not. But I told her I had not signed up for any times because I was trying to sort our the contact tracer training, the Unicorn Challenge, and now the lack of ID for a job. I discovered she has no computer to sign up on the spreadsheet that Casey (& Daniel, the other dispatcher) would be using to contact people. So I went in to add her and found that both of us were already listed on various days! I verified that she was fine with the days her name was on and we added a couple more days. For now I am going to leave my name on the schedule until I find out for sure what is happening with me. I'm really glad Joyce called!

I also got an email from Hawaiʻi Island MRC; theyʻre going to go out and do a mask survey! I had suspicions that the Dashboard mask wearing information was the old July data, but could not check because they were no longer listing that information. Now MRC will be collecting the data on a weekly basis. Yay for Big Island MRC! I still wonder who is doing that on Oʻahu; I have not seen anything from MRC asking for volunteers for this.

Later in the afternoon Elijah from Terminix came by to do an inside inspection; The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes had found a termite flying around in his home office a couple weeks ago and The Potential Most Favorite Roommate had found termite frass on the dresser near his fish tank about a month ago. Elijah checked out both rooms; he could find no signs of termite damage or infestation in the home office and determined that the frass was from an old run. Keala reacted very differently to Elijah than she did to Anthony on Monday; she followed him in to the bedroom to see what he was doing, got bored, and went back to the living room and napped for the rest of the time he was there. Luna followed Elijah and kept an eye on him from under the bed!

One of the requirements of the Unicorn Challenge is to get on Facebook everyday and post something in the private Unicorn Challenge group. And I get why they do that; you can see what else is going on, the answers to other womens' questions, and be accountable for your progress. Or lack of. The problem for me is I sometimes get sidetracked; like today. When I opened it up the Almond Cow was the first post I saw. I ended reading more about it, then getting in a live chat with a customer service rep. Kaitlin was great! I wanted to find out if it could do soy milk but could not find any information on making soy milk on the website. It turns out you can, Kaitlin sent me a recipe, then she answered a bunch of my questions about making soy milk with the Almond Cow. I ended buying one; I will let you know how it works. If you are interested, I have a $10 of "coupon" can send you. They have a 30-day money back guarantee. I hope it works well; I am feeling somewhat guilty of the 3 aseptic boxes I am throwing out each week. Because of the proothie in the morning, I am going through twice as much almond milk every day. Since this is a 1 year program, and the daily proothie is part of the program, being able to make my own almond milk, or soy or coconut or oat milk, will be both a money saver as well as reduce how much waste I am generating.

I can send you this coupon for $10 off if you're interested in ordering one.

FYI I am considering switching back to soy milk because of its higher protein content; 9g vs 1g in almond milk. I will need to make sure I get more protein as I increase the reps and the weights. I had switched to almond milk since a lot of soy milk products use GMO soy, but if I am making my own and getting the raw soybeans from Kokua, I can buy the organically grown soy. Making it from scratch also allows me to avoid any fillers or thickeners as well as added sugar or artificial sweeteners.

My schedule for the whole day was thrown out of kilter since I did not go for a walk this morning. I ended up sleeping in a little longer, which meant I drank the proothie a little later. Which meant I wasnʻt as hungry and skipped my lunch alarm. I ended up only really eating dinner; good thing it was a rest day! I ate the last piece of roasted chicken I got from Kokua and had another serving of No-Cook Courgetti; but I cooked the marinara sauce this time to take the bite off of the onions.

I realized today that I missed 3 ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi classes this week! Auē! I missed the Duolingo Hui ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi class on Sunday, UH Mānoa Papa ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi on Monday, and the ʻAʻa i ka ʻŌlelo class on Tuesday. Only Papa ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi is recorded so I can go back and watch that later this week. I saw all the missed appointments on my Google calendar on my laptop when I went in to check on another appointment. I must have just ignored the dinging on my phone or maybe I was out of the room when it was charging. Iʻll have to pay more attention next week!

Hereʻs the fun part of post from my friend Michael! Click here to see the hamster in action.

Smartest rodent in the lab!

Another funny one from my friend Christina:

This is a sign that more businesses need to put up.

Yes, there will be different rules about testing & quarantine on each island. If visitors aren't willing to take the time to find out what they are, that is their own fault. Or perhaps they are coming from a place of privilege so they don't think it applies to them. Whatever the reason, if they can't understand why we want to keep our community safe and aren't willing to help, the loss of their visit is not really a great loss to us.

Today there were 101 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total up to 13,674. There were also 10 new deaths reported, with 7 of them coming from several weeks ago from the veterans home on Hawaiʻi Island; the total is now 183 deaths. There are now 1267 active cases with a 81% recovery rate.