Immunity is the Answer

I started out the morning watching a video of 2 doctors discussing immunity & COVID-19. The bottom line is that immunity is the key to COVID-19 becoming an endemic respiratory virus that does not cause severe illness, much like the seasonal cold. And that natural immunity is as important as immunity conferred by vaccinations in getting to the final goal of endemism; however, in vaccinated people the immune response attacks SARS-CoV2 quicker & neutralizes it quicker without the suffering & death that comes with natural immunity. It is worth listening to this nearly 1 hour long video to get a better understanding of how vaccines elicit the immune response in your body. They also go in depth in to some of the studies you may have heard about regarding booster shots, etc. They also discuss the issues of the privileged vs the poor.

I put the blanched lau ʻuala into my proothie today while it was still frozen. It is a lot easier to handle, but I need to break it in to quarters while it is still in the bag to make it easier to add to the blending cup. Other than that, it worked much better to keep it frozen. Plus it also keeps the final product colder during the blending.

Quart bag of frozen lau ʻuala.

Half of the bag of frozen lau ʻuala.

Half folded in half.

For those readers who do not live in maiʻa growing regions of the world, you were probably wondering why the maiʻa that I harvested in Kohala & that we got in our CSA box does not look like the only type of maiʻa you have ever eaten. Here's a great article that summarizes why that is.

I thought this was pretty cool. Students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Harvard College created a topographical model of Mount Rainier in chocolate. It kinda reminds me of the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the Richard Dreyfuss character sculpts Devilʻs Tower in mashed potatoes. Fun with food!

For lunch I made a simple quesadilla with the whole wheat tortillas & the sharp cheddar cheese. Then I watched my one episode of Lucifer for today. In today's episode SPOILER ALERT: it is discovered when God is around people break out in to song & dance! He arrives at a crime scene with Lucifer and basically it becomes Lucifer: The Musical. It seems like it might have been fun to have been one of the main characters & have a change of pace for the filming of this episode.

I got another text about Kai's meds that he needs to pick up at the pharmacy. I called & found out he was prioritizing getting an appointment for a colonoscopy to determine why he has blood in his stool. On the plus side, he was able to get online & access his initial lab results that showed no markers for colon cancer. He thinks he has an ulcer caused by his work schedule which affects his ability to get a good night's sleep. 

I used my phone call with Kai to figure out how to connect my noise-cancelling wireless headset to my phone. I had already figured out how to pair it with my laptop.

For dinner I ate the venison chili I got from Kokua a couple weeks ago. I had it with an andagi. When I was in college at UW, they served their chili with cinnamon rolls; I was pleasantly surprised at how the tastes complimented each other even more than corn bread which had been my previous favorite carb to eat with chili.

The Aix weather app forecast a light drizzle here with no accumulation becoming partly cloudy; in actuality it was mainly sunny with patchy clouds. Aix forecast rain all day in Kapaʻau; the live cam from Honomū showed cloud cover but recorded no precipitation during the daylight hours. For Marysville, Aix forecast partly cloudy all day & appeared to be accurate.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:53 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 7:54 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 7:57 a.m. HST.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 4:47 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 4:47 p.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 4:47 p.m. HST.

I have now found live web cams on the east and west shores that show some surf. So here is the run down on the cameras. For the north shore Surfline has a camera at Chun's Reef. The Pacific Tsunami Museum has a camera that faces Hilo Bay & the east facing shoreline; I just need to clip out the portion that focuses on the shoreline. For the south shore the Sheraton Princess Kaʻiulani web cam is the best one I have found; it is the main one I have been including here. For the west shore, I will be using the Earth Cam at  Waikoloa & like the Hilo Bay web cam, I will be focusing on the surf portion. The Waikoloa area is the only one that is not a surf area; it's just the only camera I could find that showed the water.

Chun's Reef (N) at 7:58 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 7:59 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 7:59 a.m.

Waikoloa (W) at 8:01 a.m.

There were 756 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 68,265. There were also 2 new deaths reported, raising the death toll to 626; currently 11,293 cases are considered active. As of yesterday there were 1,898,536 doses of vaccine administered providing 64.3% of the population with full vaccination and 72.6% with at least 1 dose. The 7-day new case average on Oʻahu is 493 with a positivity rate of 8.0%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e hoa hānau Lem & Rosario!