Panini Anyone?

I did not know that Mom had a panini grill. I found it as I was continuing with the cleaning of the dining room. I am taking it in small chunks since I no longer need to ship the car in 10 days.

It's brand new!

Funny story about panini. The first time I had heard of a panini sandwich was as a 40-something adult in Washington; I was intrigued and wondering what my friend was going to show up with. Up until then I had only known panini to be the fruit of the Opuntia cactus.

I gave the Bronco Dude a ride to the airport this morning; on the way back I went past the part of Moanalua Freeway where they were working on the water main break. It looked like it is fixed since traffic was moving along in all lanes. But I was wrong; they were just not closing lanes of traffic during the weekday. They only do that at nights & on the weekends. Apparently the break is on the underside of a 42" main that is 30 feet below the surface and also below the water table, which means the hole is constantly being dewatered.

Luggage carts at the airport.

Heading for the westbound lanes.

BWS equipment is still there working.

When I got back I continued working on decluttering the dining room. Besides the panini maker, I also found the dish that Mom used to put out candy, a couple of mummified Mandarin oranges, & a non-stick bakeware liner that I set aside for The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes. Since the non-stick sheet is reusable he can use it instead of parchment paper. Or waxed paper. I also got rid of a lot of disposable plastic food containers that Mom had stacked in that area; there is still more that I have to go through.

Leaning tower of recyclables.

Candy dish.

Mummified fruit.

No more smoke alarms!

In the evening we had another rain garden meeting over Zoom. I had sent Wai the photos that I had annotated; he added them to the Google folder for the project. He also used them as the basis for discussion which was great; everyone could now get a better idea of what we were proposing and be on the same page. But I will need to take a couple more photos to provide some details on what we are proposing to do; they weren't that clear on the photos I had. I committed to having a new set of photos by Sunday evening. 

Today S'mores was out in the open; she was sleeping in the cat bed at the end of the hallway.

Keala in one of her favorite spots.

Luna on The Roommates' bed.

S'mores in one of the many cat beds in the house.

I did a screen grab of the Aix weather app a couple hours later than usual; it forecast partly cloudy with some precip before lunch that did not accumulate. And it was right! As I was returning from the airport there was a very light drizzle that didn't even run off the pavement. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast precipitation through most of the day; the web cams did not show any precipitation.

Looking westerly from Waikoloa at 8:20 a.m.

Looking northwesterly from CFHT at 8:19 p.m.

Looking at Hilo Bay at 8:20 a.m.

Looking easterly at light drizzle on Kilauea Avenue at 10:09 a.m.

Looking westerly from Waikoloa at 7:18 p.m.

Looking northwesterly from CFHT at 7:17 p.m.

Looking at Hilo Bay at 7:18 p.m.

In Dr. Ron's COVIDEO #4 he discusses Emotional Suppression, Cytokines, & Inflammation. Basically, if you suppress your emotions about what is going on your body produces more cytokines than if you change the way you think about the stressor you can reduce the level of cytokines in your system. As an example, Dr. Ron says you might reframe your thoughts from, "I might get sick and die" to "I'll acquire the knowledge and survival skills to help me and my loved ones not only survive, but thrive." I think I tend to be a cognitive reappraiser rather than an emotional suppressor.

The Delta variant is spreading here, it was only a matter of time. Since results of the genetic testing take 3 weeks to be completed, the 1st case of the Delta variant arrived here in mid- to late May. Before anyone knew it was or could take extra precautions. 

There were 42 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases to 37,429. We had a low of 14 on Monday, the lowest since last spring, and it has inched up each day; it will be interesting to see if it continues to increase in spite of the vaccination rate going up. There were no new deaths reported so the death toll remains at 513; currently 620 cases are considered active. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 22 with a positivity rate of 1.2%. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Mrs. Shibuya, Jim, & Kyle!