Secrets of Kaimukī's Parks

This morning I watched the Secrets of Kaimukī's Parks video. I learned about the 7 parks within the Kaimukī neighborhood area; I knew about all of them but have only been to 3 of them and driven past the others. 

The Maunalani Community Park is where I would go when I started my daily walks while I would sit with Dad. In the beginning, I would walk down to the park along the northerly edge, enter & go around the field, then back up to Maunalani which was about a 0.5 mile loop. Now I walk past the northerly and southerly borders as part of my 1.6 mile loop.

The nursing home is at the top edge near the center of the photo.

 

Kapaolono Park is the park closest to the house; Mom & her walking buddies used to walk up alongside the southerly edge of the block the park is in, go around the easterly edge, then come back down the northerly edge of the block for their morning exercise. As kids we used to go there for Summer Fun activities. Now DT walks a similar route after dinner for exercise.

These are the trees along the upper edge of the park.

I drive by Kaimukī Community Park on my way up to Maunalani. Usually there is a lot of activity there, especially on the basketball court.

Street at far edge is Waiʻalae Aveune; I drive by on street out of photo to his left.

All Summer Fun & other activities are now online only.

I went to Kaimukī Intermediate School, which is immediately adjacent to Kilauea District Park. I always thought the play field we exercised on as part of our physical education classes was part of the school, but based on what I learned from this video, it looks like it was actually part of the park!

My intermediate school is off to the left, behind the building.

I have never been to Petrie Park. But I drive by it on the southerly side every time I pick up our CSA box. it is on my return route from the Kahala Mall area.

Looks like there are nice play structures for kids here.

I have driven by Mauʻumae Nature Park with the intention of one day stopping and exploring; that has not happened yet. I discovered it standing on the lānaʻi up at Maunalani. I wondered what that natural area was where there were no houses. I need to figure out where to park. According to what I read earlier, there is a nice trail through the park, which has been confirmed by this video.

A small piece of Puʻu o Kaimukī Park comes down to the road northerly of the park, near the fire station. That is the part I have driven past; I knew it was up there, but never visited. After listening to this video, I really want to check it out! Apparently parking is on the easterly side of the park. There is an old heiau that was used by Kamehameha I there as well as spectacular views of the volcanos that make up this part of the island. It is also home to the Kaimukī Christmas tree!

Dr. Sinton looks over towards the base of the Christmas tree.

Jake helped keep the Christmas tree lit.

The video includes a quiz. For the people who viewed this live, they were able to win small prizes for answering the most questions correctly.

Today is a Feast Day so I made and avocado proothie. But I had not remembered that last night so I forgot to take the avocado out to defrost it. I had to blend the proothie for about twice as long today.

The avocado is under the protein powder.

Here is the protein powder I am trying now.

The soymilk looks a whole lot better today!

For lunch I had leftover Curried Rice with Cranberries covered with leftover turkey gravy and a green salad with bacon bits. 

 

The cats spent a lot of the day sleeping in their favorite places. Except for S'mores; she got up and was ready to bolt if I got to near while taking photos. Her behavior has been schizophrenic lately; sometime she meows & comes up to you and wants to be pet. The next minute she is frantically running off because you moved too fast when you went to pet her.

Cats snoozing in their favorite places.

Keala.

Luna.

Sʻmores.

I stopped to pick up cheesecake at Otto Cake about 5 this evening. Their parking spot was taken and the store looked closed. As I circled past the 2nd time I noticed another car had pulled up and parked in the private parking spot next to the Otto Cake parking spot; the driver had gotten out and was peering in through the doors to see if there was cheesecake in the display case. Apparently there was none since that car was gone but the other car in the Otto Cake spot was still there when I came around the last time. I went to Pipeline Bakeshop & Creamery instead. I got one of everything in their refrigerated case plus a piece of Malasada Bread Pudding and a Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownie.

Salty passed away this past Sunday. He had been having occasional short seizures over the past couple of years. On Sunday he had a long seizure and when it ended he appeared to be in distress & was almost continually barking. They took him to the vet who said the barking was probably a result of the part of the brain the seizure had affected. It did not look hopeful that Salty would recover from this latest seizure so they had him euthanized. He was 19 years old, deaf and nearly blind; earlier seizures had left his hindquarters weaker so he kind of wobbled when he slowly walked around. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of the room and it seemed like he didn't know what he was doing; dogs can develop dementia, too.

For dinner Lori had invited me over since The Roommates and DT were there; they had gone over to help put up the holiday decorations. We had Hawaiian food for dinner with cupcakes from Sugarlina Bakeshop that The Potential Most Favorite Roommate picked up and the desserts from Pipeline.

The flowers are from the Ikaika, Rivera, & Gennett ʻohana.

When I got back I read a message from Lori that came in while I was driving; she said, "...got this message from Anita. She was here for lunch and stuck around for couple hours. No mask. ... Lori, our contractor told Gordon that his drywall sub contractor employee tested positive for covid. Gordon was not near the employee, but he was near the sub contractor boss, short time 5-10 min each time, on Wed and Fri. They both wore masks, but mask not 100% guarantee. We are both going to quarantine for the next 5 days to monitor for any symptoms." 

The important questions to ask when something like this happens to you are, 1) When did the Employee start showing symptoms? or if the Employee is asymptomatic, What day was the Employee tested? 2) What days was the Boss around the Employee? For how long? How far apart were they? The important time frame is 2 days prior to showing symptoms to how long after symptoms started. Or if the Employee is asymptomatic, 2 days prior to getting tested through time after test came back positive. And for how long a time, how frequently, how far apart they were, & whether the exposure was indoors or outside. 3) For Gordon, you need to know was the exposure to the Boss indoor or outside and how far apart they were plus the length of time as noted in the text.

Because we got the info tonight, my guess is that the Employee was tested either on Friday or today; last week results from 90% of tests done in local labs were returned within 1 day, 9% within 2 days. If the This moEmployee went in for testing because he was having symptoms, and he didn't wait around for them to get really bad, he was probably showing signs on Thursday or Friday. If we assume the Employee was conscientious and stayed home when he started showing symptoms, in the worst case scenario, if we assume the Boss was around the Employee all day from Monday through Wednesday, the Boss would be a close contact. If we assume the Boss was infected on Tuesday or Wednesday, he could become infectious as early as Thursday or as late as 12/13, but most likely by next Tuesday. If Gordon got infected on Friday, he could become infectious as early as tomorrow or as late as 12/18, but most likely by next Friday. So it is highly unlikely that Anita was infectious and passed it on to Lori. And it is not likely at all that Lori passed it on to any of us.

As I was finishing off the last paragraph, Lori called; she had questions about her exposure. I asked if she knew if the Employee was symptomatic; she did not know. I asked if she knew when he was tested; she did not know. She called Anita but was only able to find out that the Employee was tested today. As noted in her original text, Anita & Gordon have decided to stay in quarantine for 5 days to see if anything develops. Hopefully, they will ask the Boss more questions to get a clearer idea of their potential exposure.

The Aix weather app was fairly accutate for Honolulu, but it was way off for Kapaʻau. It said it would be relatively sunny today or at least not rainy. But the Tesla app showed a different story.

 

Last weekend, a local couple flying from San Francisco to Kauaʻi knew they had COVID-19 and were told they needed to remain in San Fransisco for isolation, but got on the plane anyway. They were arrested when they landed on Kauaʻi; they have been charged with 2nd degree reckless endangering. I hope they get a large enough a fine and/or long enough jail time to make it a deterrent to other people thinking about doing the same thing.

 

Yesterday a man and his son who are visiting came without a pre-arrival test and had no reservations for a place to isolate in. They said they didn't know about the quarantine; they were sent back to California. It has now been over 8 months that we have had the 14-day quarantine in place and the pre-arrival test program has been going for about 1&1/2 months. How can you not know what is required if you don't want to do the quarantine? May be they thought if they flew in to Maui it would be easier to bypass the quarantine; I think it is actually harder to sneak by on the outer islands because there are less amenities so you can be tracked more easily. 

The State put in a test order for 4875 doses of the Pfizer vaccine; this is not meant to provide vaccinations for all nā kupuna, nursing home staff, & hospital staff caring for COVID-19 patients. In the meanwhile there have been mock shipments to train hospital staff on handling of the vaccine; this is the one that needs to be kept frozen at -70 degrees F until it is administered. Recipients also need to have 2 doses before it becomes effective.

There were 133 new COVID-19 infections reported today bringing the total up to 18,423. Of these, 82 occurred on Oʻahu; judging by the new case files we got on Friday this means there were 25 cases on Thursday that were either military personnel or prison inmates. There were 5 new deaths reported, raising the death toll to 261; currently there are 1258 active cases. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 68 with a 2.3% positivity rate.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Dr. McD & Dave?