How Does She Know?

When I walked through the family room to go to the kitchen first thing this morning, I discovered that Keala had peed on my chair! She does this all the time when I am coming back from a trip. But how does she know I am leaving? I haven't even started to pack my suitcase yet!

Since I will be traveling, I weighed myself this morning to get my 'before' weight. I am hoping the outside work projects plus having my bike on a trainer will motivate me to lose some weight!

Auē! I seemed to have gained some weight since my last trip!

I made a lau ʻuala proothie this morning. I still had a bunch of nā lau left. I have a desiccant packet taped to the lid of the container so the air will be cold & dry, we shall see what they look like in a week.

My morning chore was to pack. As in pack for my trip to Hawaiʻi Island that I would be leaving the house for around 12:30 p.m. or so. I wouldn't call it procrastination; I had almost everything that would be going already in the suitcase. It just wasn't in an organized manner. It took me about an hour to unpack everything, then repack it efficiently. 

There's some extra stuff that is not going that I piled on top, 8:40 a.m.

Emptied & ready for repacking; 9:00 a.m.

Pau! 9:45 a.m.

I weighed my bag after I packed it; my scale said it was 48.5 pounds. I had also strategically weighed some of the items in my bag so I had a 3 pound stack of stuff & a 5 pound stack of stuff; just in case I needed to move some things to my carry on. At the airport my suitcase weighed in at 49 pounds; my scale was only off by 1/2 pound.

On the way to the airport we saw a HECO truck doing some repair work on the power lines right near the on-ramp.  

 

When I arrived at Gate B2 there were only a handful of people there. It slowly started to fill up but I did not see a lot of people going up for standby tickets.

When I got to my seat, there was someone sitting in it! But they had not read the signs right and thought they were in 11. I chose well; my row was empty. And except for the 2 ladies that were erroneously in my seat, most of the seats shown as empty in front & behind me were as the seating chart showed yesterday. I hope my return flight is similarly uncrowded. 

The seats in front of me.

The seats behind me.

Arlene picked me up from the airport; she comes in to Kona to do her Costco shopping once a week so I try to time my arrival to her shopping day. When we got to the house, I had a bit of trouble with the gate lock; it is sticking more than it was in July. I'm glad I got a new lock. It is one recommended by Kai's friend as a good corrosion-resistant lock that will last longer in air that has some salt in it. The current lock is only 2 year's old!

After we unloaded my bags, Arlene dropped me off at Glenn's house to pick up the Tahoe. I am still unable to get a rental car. Unless I want one in October! Auē!

When I got back with the Tahoe, I did a quick walk about to see what was happening. I could find no sign of pigs in the yard! Hulõ! I did find 3 ripe dragon fruit, a couple of ripe tangerines way on the top of the tree, & a lot of calamansi as usual. The maia look like they are ripening well & may be ready for harvesting. Not much else is ready.

Dragon fruit.

Orange.

Maia.

Lychee.

Tangerines at the bottom of the tree.

Tangerines at top of the same tree.

Olena.

Close up of olena flowers; they're the little yellow things.

Edible ginger to left of olena is just starting to come up.

Iris.

Meyer lemons.

Calamansi.

I also checked on the anthurium bed & the anthuriums I had bought when we went to Hilo in July; the ones I did not have time to plant since we were busy trying to keep Sarah & Kaia safe. Planting the anthuriums is one of the reasons I made this trip; I did not think they would be able to survive nearly 6 months squeezed in a pot with just water. Right now they are looking fine & some are even blooming!

Looking fairly good.

The big hole where Evan dug out several pounds of blue ginger tubers!

The old anthuriums are looking good.

The new anthuriums are still alive! Hulō!

I have a lot of clean up to do; basically I have been gone for 1 month. I left on July 20th & I am returning on August 19th. I have a huge pile of laundry that I was not able to do before I left because we spent a good part of the next to last day on call in case Sarah had a meltdown at the airport or on the plane. Which also meant I was not able to clean out the refrigerator as well as I like to or cover up all the furniture, etc. I'm glad I came back now instead of waiting until January; there would have been a whole lot more cleaning up to do of the things that did not get covered & food that was not removed.   

This is only part of the laundry pile.

 

When I went to put senco on the butsudan I discovered that the mouse thorn was still alive! That is a pretty tenacious plant! This particular piece of mouse thorn is from the Mothers' Day bouquet that Sarah got at the Parker Ranch Center when she & Kaia arrived on May 8th!  

The anthuriums have died but the mouse thorn is still alive!

When I went to unpack my suitcase I discovered that TSA searched it. The last time they searched my bag was April 16, 2020. I do not lock my suitcase; I only use a strap to keep it closed & keep the zipper pulls protected so they are not ripped off by the machinery or rough handling. It is also easier for TSA to get in & search; I have nothing to hide.

I did not see any of the cats today.

Dinner was a bag of Microwave Pork Rinds; there was nothing else really quick & easy to fix. It provides 10g of protein, 2g fat, & <1g carbs. The Best By Date on the bag was December 2021 so I thought I had better use it this trip since its ability to puff up when heated might deteriorate after the best buy date.

The Aix weather app forecast rain all day for Kapaʻau; Arlene said it had rained in the morning, then started to clear up by midday. It was dry and sunny when I arrived, though it did start to drizzle after dark. The Honomū weather site said there had been an accumulation of 0.07 inches of rain by the time of the mid-morning photo; at the time of the later photo the rain amount for the day had not changed. Aix said Honolulu would be partly cloudy throughout the day & that was true before I left. For Marysville Aix forecast the same partly cloudy throughout the day; that appeared to be true.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 10:36 a.m.

Honomū looking northeasterly at 10:36 a.m.

Kaimukī at 12:55 p.m.

A brief sprinkle in Kaimukī at 12:58 p.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 2:20 p.m.

Honomū looking northeasterly at 2:21 p.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 2:21 p.m. HST.

Kapaʻau looking northeasterly at 6:23 p.m.

Hurricane Linda has apparently hit a stretch of cool water & has lost a lot of speed; it now has winds with sustained speeds of 50 mph. Which means Linda is now a Tropical Storm rather than a hurricane. It is currently about 1015 miles easterly of Hilo & moving westerly at about 17 mph. It is expected to dissipate over night; if so, this will be my last note about Linda. The rains that accompany this weather system are expected to reach us over the weekend.

There were 752 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 53,798. There were also 4 new deaths reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 558; currently 8662 cases are considered active. As of yesterday, 1,815,801 doses of vaccine making 61.6% of the population fully vaccinated and providing one dose to 69.7% of the population. A record high of 352 patients are currently hospitalized with 71 in intensive care & 55 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 497 with a positivity rate of 8.7%. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jacque! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo e Roger & Mai!