Curtis & Lori hosted a Halloween gathering this evening, almost like in pre-pandemic times. They set up tables in their garage for the food along with plastic gloves for people to use while serving themselves. Tables for eating & socializing were set out on the front lawn; the candy distribution crew sat along the sidewalk & in the driveway at least 6 feet apart. Four households get together so kids coming by get a big haul from just one stop. There was just so much going on I forgot to get photos of the potluck & the people.
Today was a Fast Day so I drank a lot of water while I was doing things before dinner.
I started the screaming snails shortly after lunch. Iʻm glad I made these before so I had some idea how to put them together. A couple things I need to remember, though. Buy candy eyes early; they sell out quickly. Roll the dough out evenly thin for its entire length even if it was cut into a triangle for crescent rolls. Grease cream horn mold well so dough releases easily. Spiral dough around cream horn mold until 2/3 of mold is covered so opening is large enough for Lil Smokie; put end of spiral-side down & draw end out a little to make floor of mouth. Carefully twist dough shell off cream horn mold, pay attention to seams on molds.
Ingredients & supplies.
Need to be more even & longer.
Right mold is higher quality & it shows!
Shells before baking.
Shells after baking.
Shells with as many eyes as I had this year.
The finished product. I hid the eyeless ones on the bottom.
While I was just getting started on making the screaming snails, The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes texted me. He forgot a bag of Halloween favors & asked me to bring it tonight. The bag was hanging on the door knob of his room.
The Department of Educationʻs Office of Hawaiian Education just started its Hawaiian distance learning program. A little late. Understandable but not excusable. DOE apparently has always had difficulty finding & retaining certified teachers of Hawaiian language; shifting to online learning made it even more difficult to have enough qualified staff. But its up & running now; I hope they can sustain it at a level that is necessary to provide students with a good education.
Because of all the preparation for tonightʻs potluck I did not pay attention to my ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi reminders; I have been demoted in the Duolingo leader boards. Iʻll have to work harder this coming week to get myself back up again.
The local newspaper has a great column called Skywatch about the upcoming astronomical events. I will try to catch the lunar eclipse, though that is a couple weeks away & I might forget. There is too much light here to make watching for meteor showers a viable activity. On Hawaiʻi Island there is more opportunity for astronomical observation as well as local groups that hold weekly viewing sessions where they set up telescopes & allow others to view things. This sounds cool: AstroDay in Kona. Next year I will be able to take advantage of these opportunities.
Here is the last part of the Kīlauea volcano virtual walk throughs. Heʻs kinda nerdy but I really enjoyed the videos, I hope you did, too.
At 7:20 a.m.
At 9:18 p.m.
At 7:20 a.m.
At 9:18 p.m.
The Aix weather app forecast partly cloudy skies for Honolulu throughout the day; that appeared to be correct. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast partly cloudy skies until about mid-afternoon when drizzles would begin until the evening; Big Island Now forecast a sunny morning then becoming mostly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain. That appeared to be accurate with the Honomū weather station recorded no precipitation for today. For Marysville, Aix forecast sunny skies in the morning becoming partly cloudy in the evening; at least for the morning it appeared to be accurate.
Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:13 a.m.
Honomū looking northerly at 7:13 a.m.
Marysville looking northerly at 7:13 a.m. HST.
CFHT looking northwesterly at 7:22 a.m. at Kohala Mountain with Haleakala in background.
Kaimukī looking northerly at 3:30 p.m.
The surf remained similar to yesterday's conditions but is expected to increase to near advisory levels.
Laniakea (N) at 7:15 a.m.
Hilo Bay (E) at 7:15 a.m.
Waikīkī (S) at 7:18 a.m.
Banyans (W) at 7:19 a.m.
There was a magnitude 5.2 earthquake 80 miles southeast of Sand Point, Alaska. The 26 mile deep temblor did not create a tsunami.
*The wi-fi was glitchy today so I was not able to get screen shots of the data so there are no graphics on COVID-19 statistics. I had difficulty getting on the internet to do the screen shots; I also had difficulty composing text for the blog & having it save properly. It was a mess all around.
There were 152 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, increasing the total known cases to 84,295. There were also 10 new deaths reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 916; currently there are 1704 cases considered to be active. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 60 with a positivity rate of 1.7%.
Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Dean, Cheech, Geoffrey, & Sho! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻumi kumamālua e Judy & Keith!
And the verdict is ... negative! I was pretty sure it would be negative since my sore throat went away. But I wanted to be 100% sure since I am going to Curtis & Lori's on Sunday for Halloween so I would be around Grandma Maui who, at 97 years old, is in the age group with the highest percent of fatal outcomes. (Even though she is fully vaccinated, a breakthrough case could still have dire consequences for her.)
It's a Feast Day! I made a blueberry proothie, using the last of the old bag of blueberries. It looks like it is more ice crystals than blueberries but that's okay; I usually throw in a couple of ice cubes to keep the proothie from warming up too much as I blend it.
This morning I finished publishing the last of the 4 posts for September that I was working on when the laptop crashed about 3 weeks ago. To read those posts go to the Archive on the right hand side of this page & click on the drop down arrow next to September. A list of all the posts for September should open up; the posts you have read will be grayed out. The new posts will be the colorful ones. I will now be moving on to finish the 6 posts for August that I missed; I have all the photos for those. I also need to work on the 19 posts for July; we were so busy trying to keep Sarah & Kaia safe I was not able to even get close to keeping up with the blog during that period!
I went to Kokua Market just before lunch; I wanted to try a different one of the Makana Provisions barbecue sandwiches. They had 3 today; I got to see what all looked like because I bought 1 each. I ate the Kalua Pork Sandwich; the other 2 are for The Roommates. I also picked up some fern salad.
The grilled items menu.
L to R: Kalua Pork BBQ Sandwich, Char Siu Sandqich, & Hapa Burger.
I got the Fern Salad.
I also spent some time examining one of the trees in the courtyard at Kokua. I am pretty sure it is a Hong Kong Orchid (Bauhinia x blakeana). The leaves are quite distinctive because they are lobed making it look somewhat like a butterfly. And the flowers could look like orchids way up there in the tree & if you did not know that nearly all orchids have a modified labellum. I think it looks more like an Alstroemeria blossom.
Hong Kong Orchid (Bauhinia x blakeana)
On the way back I stopped at Foodland to pick up supplies to make the screaming snails. I originally called them screaming worms but because of the way they need to be made in order to be more durable after baking they look like they have shells like a periwinkle; a long, skinny spiral shell.So more snail-like than worm-like.
When I got back I went looking for the candy eyes for the screaming snails; I was pretty sure they were in one of the drawers on the shelf in the kitchen cabinet next to the refrigerator. I ended up cleaning out the drawers that Mom had packed full of miscellaneous stuff. I had been kinda stuffing other things into those shelves & never really cleaned them up; I did that today. I ended up throwing out about 2/3 of the things I found on those shelves. But in the end, I was successful; I found the candy eyes! But it looks like I should get some new ones also; there are only 21 so only 10 of the snails would have eyes. Or I could get some black frosting & make a couple of pirate snails with eye patches! Or a couple of unconscious snails with eyes like this: X X
The candy eyes.
Forgot to get the before photo; just imagine these drawers ...
... packed with all this stuff. And more.
Emptied drawer ready for cleaning.
All pau! My 2 supply shelves.
The stuff I threw out; the rubbish can was empty when I started the clean-up.
For dinner I added some riced cauliflower to the marinara sauce I enhanced yesterday. The cauliflower give it more bulk. I also ate the last 2 slices of sourdough bread that i had picked up for The Potential Most Favorite Roommate a cou0ple days ago when he was not feeling like eating much.
My friend Lois sent me a Halloween ecard. Here are some screenshots of this Jacquie Lawson ecard. (The animated version is much cooler.)
As usual, in the morning, Keala was the only one of the cats that was visible; she was enjoying rolling around in the sun in the cat run. Later in the afternoon all the cats were visible.
Keala enjoying the sun at 9:53 a.m.
Keala snoozing at 2:50 p.m.
Luna doing her Pompeii dog impersonation at 2:51 p.m.
S'mores remains ever alert at 2:51 p.ml.
The local paper has a column called Kauakūkalahale that is written in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi; it uses both the ʻokina as well as kahakō. I don't know exactly what the title means, but my guess is "placewhere we stand tomake announcements". The column starts out with a synopsis in English, before the full text is presented. Right now I can only pick out familiar words; one day I hope to be able to read the entire column. Today's article is called, Ua ʻike au he Hawaiʻi e paio ana i ka pono.
Apparently there is quite a large building permit backlog in Hawaiʻi County right now. For any applications submitted before October 1, 2021, they will be expediting the review; it seems there are over 1500! I guess I can submit my application & plans now & maybe the construction material prices might come back down to reasonable levels at about the same time the permit is issued! I had been concerned about submitting too early & having the approval expire before I got started as I waited for prices to go back down.
I responded to an email I received from Ken a couple days ago; I am glad I do not need a permit for the work he is doing for me! I told Ken to go ahead with the soft-close hardware & rebuild the face of the drawers to match the existing cabinetry. I also asked him to use the higher quality paint.
The USGS released a video yesterday that was a compilation of shots taken over the last year from their webcam at Kīlauea volcano.
At 5:53 p.m.
At 5:53 p.m.
The Aix weather app forecast sunn skies for Honolulu becoing partly cloudy in the mid-afternoon. It bedame partly cloudy earlier but never lost the sunny portions. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast partly cloudy skies until mid-afternoon, then drizzle for the remainder of the day; Big Island Now forecast partly sunny skies becoming mostly sunny with isolated showers & a 20% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station recorded no precitpitation for today. For Marysville, Aix forecast clear & sunny skies all day & in to the evening; the traffic cams supported that.
Kaimukī looking westerly at 6:35 a.m.
Honomū looking westerly at 6:35 a.m.
Marysville lookihng northerly at 6:36 a.m. HST.
Nā Koʻolau at 11:45 a.m.
Kaimukī looking westerly at 5:44 p.m.
Honomū looking northerly at 5:44 p.m.
Marysville lookibng northerly at 5:46 p.m. HST.
The surf on north fading shores was large but surrfable in the morning but heights increased throughout the day, beoming advisory level sized waves in the evening. West facing shores had decent-sized waves but waves on south & east facing shores wer small.
Usually there is a photo of the ocean with the surf forecast; not sure why this is here.
Laniakea (N) at 6:40 a.m.
Hilo Bay (E) at 6:41 a.m.
Waikīkī (S) at 6:44 a.m.
Banyans (W) at 6:44 a.m.
Laniakea (N) at 5:49 p.m.
Hilo Bay (E) at 5:50 p.m.
Waikīkī (S) at 5:50 p.m.
Banyans (W) at 5:52 p.m.
There were 156 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 84,143. There were also 10 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 906; currently there are 1724 cases considered active. As of yesterday, there were 2,176,537 doses of vaccine administered providing 71.2% of the state population with full vaccination & 80.4% with at least one dose. There are 81 cases that are currently hospitalized with 20 in the ICU &16 on ventilators.
