Binging Jaws

CAUTION: Spoilers!

I was supposed to go to the Kohala Jodo Mission tonight for the evening activities to welcome the New Year. But at about 7 pm the new neighbors a few houses down started lighting fireworks; a lot of them! Moʻo had a little accident in her crate & had not touched her food. So I brought her in to the living room, let her lie down next to me, & turned on Netflix to get other sounds in the house to distract her. I decided to binge-watch the Jaws movies to pass the time; today was the last day they would be available. She finally calmed down enough to sleep with her head on my foot.

Finally relaxed enough to take a nap.

Obviously I started with the original Jaws; I saw it when it 1st came out but could not remember much about it. About all I could remember was the police chief saying, "You're gonna need a bigger boat!," after he sees the Great White Shark for the 1st time & the crusty old guy being dragged off the end of the boat by the shark & a SCUBA tank being in the shark's mouth. While I got the quote right, I got that part about what the shark had in its mouth wrong; the captain & the SCUBA tank were not in the shark's mouth at the same time. Unfortunately, I was not able to get any screen shots because the video feed was on the monitor & not on both my laptop & the monitor. Except for the captions.

A celestial shark?

 

I had never seen Jaws 2; the original Jaws was so hokey it wasn't worth my time to go out of my way for the 2nd one. This one takes place 4 years after the initial shark interaction. There is the same police chief & his family, the same mayor & his family, & some of the same police personnel. And the same level of disbelief that there is a shark attacking people again & that the Chief is crazy. But this time they fire him. Once again he is vindicated in that there really is a shark out there eating people. And once again he gets rid of the shark in a most unbelievable way; he causes the shark to electrocute itself without taking anyone else out that is within arcing distance.

Obviously, if I did not see Jaws 2, I would not spend time watching Jaws 3. Or Jaws 3-D as the title said. Apparently the movie was made during the 3-D craze so special glasses were handed out at screenings so it would appear like things were coming out of the screen & you would be immersed in them; too bad I am not able to share that with you. This one takes place in Florida at a Sea World marine animal theme park that has direct access to the ocean through large gates. It also has underwater walkways & viewing areas; that turn out not to be shark-resistant. And there are 2 sharks, a small male about 15 feet long & it's much larger 35' long mother; how they know these 2 are related is not mentioned in the movie. The older son of the Chief in the 1st 2 movies works at the theme park as the head of maintenance & his brother, who like his father wants to have nothing to do with the ocean, comes to visit on break from a university in Colorado. This time the large mother shark is killed by a grenade held in the hand of a dead man it has swallowed. Neither son or their girlfriends are eaten.

The sharks in all these movies show very high intelligence; they can reason & come back for revenge. And they want to eat people which are not their normal food source since humans do not have a very high caloric content; seals, sea lions, & other pinnipeds are preferred. Also, real sharks do not go around in family groups planning their attacks on people.

FYI I went to see Jaws with some of my dive buddies; we went diving the very next day without a care in the world about sharks. There are a lot of sharks in Hawaiʻi; most of the ones we saw were Blacktip Reef Sharks. Great Whites occur in Hawaiʻi on rare occasion but have never been recorded as being responsible for an attack on a human here. Tiger sharks are the species most often attacking people in Hawaiʻi & it is almost always a matter of hitting something that they were trying to determine if it was worth eating or going after someone's bloody fish that they were towing too close to themselves. We went diving because we knew not to act like food, not to dive in murky water, not to have a short stringer, had other  precautionary defensive measures available to us since we frequently saw sharks on our research dives, & knew about shark threat & attack behavior. Never had any problems with sharks.

While scanning the Atlas Obscura email in my inbox this morning I was drawn to the article about Lemon Pigs. Apparently the pigs have somehow become a New Year's good luck "tradition" that surfaces every 50 years or so. They use regular lemons, not Meyer lemons like we have, so I didn't make any. (Meyer lemons have very thin skins & no "snouty" end like a regular lemon.)

One thing led to another & I found myself reading the Gastro Obscura article about the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. I was very intrigued by this orchestra started by non-musicians about 25 years ago; obviously, over time, there are now some actual musicians. I like that the concert ends with a soup made of the vegetables used in the concert.

From Gastro Obscura.

Here's a 3-minute video about them. They talk about purchasing the vegetables, building the instruments, the concert, & the meal after the concert.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Susan, Amy, & Trevor da Mouse!

Construction Materials

I went to Waimea to meet with David at HPM Building Supply who provided the quote to Chris for the building materials. I had to make choices on colors for the materials; I also paid for the construction materials. Due to the holidays, the delivery of the wood & decking will arrive 01/08. For the roofing, I chose Mauna Kea White; I wanted something lighter to reflect some of the heat but not something too white. Roofing will arrive around the 15th or so.

This is the usual plantation workers house roofing material.

I had already talked to Chris about using composite material for the decking; I decided to make a small deck & not just a landing for the stairs down to the garden area. I wanted composite rather than wood for the longevity & lower maintenance. I chose a brown color to hide the dirty cat paw prints & also to look more like wood.

Then I met with Jesika for cabinets. I chose the 'Ōhi'a series of Akamai Cabinets. The cabinets will be in the Cat Genie closet so will mainly be seen by the cats, who won't care that these are the cheapest cabinets with the most limited number of colors. I chose gray since blues & grays are what they can distinguish. I now have to talk to Chris about what size to make the cabinets.

The day had started out with a nice rain to water the plants! I did not have to water the ʻōhiʻa like I have been on the days when there was no early morning precipitation. On the rainy days, like the sunny days, the cats like to hang out on the window sills & watch for whatever is going on outside. I hope they will like being able to run around in the cat yard once it is finished.

ʻŌhiʻa outside my bedroom window.

Hoʻokoa waiting for something to happen outside.

Kīlauea is still erupting. The website for the live feed cameras seen below is here.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Bria!

Mochi Making & Hannukah

I started out the morning at the Kohala Jodo Mission, helping make mochi for the gravesites & members & volunteers. All total, Joy had prepared 25 pounds of raw rice; I have no idea how many pieces of mochi we ended up making. Mochi making was followed by a potluck lunch for the members & volunteers. There were 14 of us there to help with the work & enjoy the potluck.

Glenn & Joy setting things up for mochi making.

While at the KJM, I saw the damage that the feral pigs have continued to do to the lawn right in front of the church building. I'm not sure what they are looking for; this area is only grass so there are no tasty tubers underground.

About mid-morning cousin Leilani came by with flowers for the family graves; there are 3 in this cemetery. I gave her hand with cleaning the graves & putting up the flowers.

Leilani at her mother's grave; flowers are from her mother's garden.

I went home briefly to drop off the mochi for my house; the mochi for my ancestors buried at Kohala Jodo Mission will be distributed to the 3 family graves on New Years Eve. After dropping things off, I headed to Motek Bakery. David & Yael were hosting a Hannukah celebration for friends & customers. People were invited to bring their own menorahs which were lit in the window of the new bakery section that is currently under renovation. Later we had potato latkes & sufganiyot, the Jewish version of a malasada. I forgot to take photos of the food. 

Close-up of an oil menorah.

Kīlauea still erupting.

 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jesse, Eric, Sarah, & Ava!

Old Books

I started on the pile of paper bags near the sewing room closet with the intention of tossing old things; the bags turned out to be filled with books. The 1st book I found was a really cool, old, leather-bound book that I decided I should keep. It was Audels Carpenters and Builders Guide #3 & has really nice line drawings; it also had a section on knots that will be useful. Initially printed in 1923, this is a copy from the reprinting in 1943.

I also found a book & several magazines in Japanese. The book looks like some sort of Who's Who, perhaps in Hawaiʻi since the cover art looks kinda like pineapples. The corner of several pages were turned down to mark them. But since I can't read Japanese I have no idea why these people were noted. I don't even know how old the book is.

All I can read is "2nd month" on the right column of characters.

Not sure if person on left or right is the "person if interest".

The magazines look like a Japanese version of Good Housekeeping with articles on recipes, home decor, crafts, sewing patterns, & what looks like a story for kids. All of this, of course, is my inference from the illustrations & photos in the magazine.

Left one is the February issue, right is March.

Looks like recipe for fish.

Looks like a story about a cat for kids.

A pattern for a child's top.

There was also an unabridged dictionary. I faintly remember seeing it around in my grandparents' house. But I don't think I ever opened it up. There was also a regular dictionary.

There was a box of novels, a California fish identification booklet, a kid-oriented book on reptiles, & a book of high school students that has cousin Val listed. 

Cousin Valerie is listed in this book.

As I looked through more of the packages I found other books, magazines, & pamphlets that were interesting; I also found a set of old keys hanging at the back of the door. I think these were things that Mom & her sisters set aside when they were initially thinking about selling the house 20 or 25 years ago. One book I did not find was the veterinary book about livestock & livestock diseases. As a kid I would spend a lot of time reading that book; I think my grandfather used it to help him with keeping his cows, pigs, & chickens healthy. According to Mom, Grandpa only had a 6th grade education; all the rest of it was self-taught or on the job training. By the time we came along, Grandpa had risen to level of "chemist" at the Kohala Sugar Company; he was responsible for figuring out when the boiling vat of cane juice was at the right stage to be ready to crystallize in to sugar.

The last thing I found today was 2 metal horse figurines that used to be standing on the shelves in the front bedroom (that is now the main guest bedroom). Unfortunately each horse has had 2 legs broken off & there were only 2 legs in the bag the bodies were found in; they belong to 1 of the horses. I am hoping I find the 2 legs of the other horse in some of the other boxes & bags in the sewing room.

For lunch I had a mushroom quiche from Motek Bakery. I went there today since tomorrow we are making mochi at Kohala Jodo Mission beginning at 8 am so I will have to miss the breakfast club & I would also be unable to pick up a loaf of sliced bread since it would be too warm for slicing in the morning. I did, however, find out David & Yael will let me pre-order a shakshuka & pick it up tomorrow; I paid for everything today to make things faster & easier for them tomorrow.

Around 6 this evening Kīlauea became more active again. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jennifer & Gulshan!