Next Level

I have been reading Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond by Dr. Stacy Sims with Selene Yeager. My friend & massage therapist Becky loaned me her copy. Over the past few days I have been using the "recipe" for a hydration solution & have felt a positive difference in my everyday hydration level using this 1% solution made by mixing 1 teaspoon maple syrup & 1/16 teaspoon salt with about 10 ounces of water. These proportions are just slightly lower than the osmolality of your blood plasma & activates the sodium-glucose co-transport system to help get fluids into your cells more effectively. It works! It has a better ability than plain water as well as mainstream commercial sports drinks to be absorbed by your body without causing gastrointestinal distress.

 

Dr. Sims is a sports physiologist who specializes in hydration; I am finding her advice very informative. The book also looks at the hormonal differences between women & men & how following the recommendations for men is not in the best interest for the health & endurance of a female athlete since women are not just "small men". She goes further in examining how the normal life changes in hormone levels affects female physiology & its needs in daily life as well as endurance sports & how to adapt to those changes while maintaining the ability to perform in endurance sports. And while I am not an endurance athlete (& never wanted to be one) I am finding the information in her book to be very helpful. I wish I had known about this book earlier when I was just an active woman who worked outdoors! But I can still use the information starting now! Since she has also worked with female Kona Ironman triathletes, she also has recommendations for hydration when having to function in temperatures around 80 degrees F. My next step will be to incorporate her exercise plan for women at the next level.

I started out the day meeting Dane for breakfast in Waimea; he had to take the water tank trailer in for new tires. We went to Hawaiian Style Cafe but I forgot to take a photo of any of the food we ate! I also treated him to breakfast because it was his birthday earlier in the week! Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Dane!

I went to Waimea via the Kohala Mountain Road which is now open. The downed poles & wires at the intersection with Hāwī Road has been cleared. It looks like there were several areas where trees fell across the road, too.

Intersection now clear of poles wires.

Tops of trees removed from roadway.

Wires raised off of road but just barely high enough for tall vehicles to pass under.

Later I went to a meeting of the Kohala Culture & History Advisory Group; there were only 3 of us there. It has become a struggle to keep the group going since the person with the energy & capacity to send out information has had recent health issues along with now having a regular 9 to 5 type of job rather than freelancing. At today's meeting we strategized how to keep people on the email list engaged.

The place that KCHAG met today was also the distribution point for meals during the post-Lālā period when many people did not have power; they also had a hotspot that people could use to get wi-fi access for a couple of hours. One of the things distributed was MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). We were given a packet to try! Going to share it with Kai, who has tried other MREs given to him by one of his tech buddies.

I saw ʻŌhuna on the security camera climbing the fence on the inside tonight. But she did not go over the top. I have yet to see how she actually gets out from the inside of the cat yard which is more difficult than getting back in. Later in the day Hoʻokoa was also up on the fence but he was only trying to catch something that was on the fence.

She just climbed up but not over.

According to the Lingopie dashboard, I have a 2 day streak going. But I do not see that or remember that I got on to Lingopie yesterday. 

Today's Hanzi practice on Duolingo was the word for "some". It is composed of 2 radicals; the 1st on the left is easy. It is 一（yì) which means "one". The 2nd radical is 些 (xiē) which means "a small amount greater than 1".

Tropical Storm Norbert is about 1125 miles easterly of Hilo & moving westerly at about 15 mph. Its maximum sustained winds are at about 40 mph. It is expected to gradually weaken over the next couple of days. Tropical Depression Fifteen-E is not yet in the Central Pacific basin but is headed our way. It is about 785 miles southwesterly of the southern tip of Baja California & moving west-southwesterly at about 9 mph. Its maximum sustained winds are about 35 mph but it is expected to strengthen & become a tropical storm later today.

There has been intermittent burst of spattering at Kīlauea but no pre-cursory flows for a couple of days. 

 Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Norm, Linda, Catherine, & Maria! 

Night Market Bon Odori

A bon odori was held this evening as part of the Kohala Night Market; the Kohala Jodo Mission was the main organizer of the bon odori part of the market. Joy had asked Fran & me to staff the table for the bon odori, handing out water & hachimaki to the dancers. Since I had a meeting for the NKCDP Access group to attend, I showed up to help at around 5:15; it was a short meeting so I was able to get there about a half hour earlier than expected. 

We walked around to see what the vendors had during the night market. Sandra, the leader of the Kohala ʻOno Food Hui, was there with her business Kapanaia Farms. She had a bunch of baked goods; I opted for the Peanut Butter Bites; they are small & easier for me to enforce portion control on myself! Fran treated me to a dinner of chicken hekka.

Chicken hekka.

Temptation!

 

Later, we took all the equipment back to the Kohala Jodo Mission. There was a meal provided by the KJM for the dancers & helpers. 

I started out the day by meeting hoa hānau Leilani at Kohala Rainbow Cafe at 11 for lunch. Fran was supposed to join us but her 2:30 meeting got changed to 9 so she was unable to join us. 

I noticed a feral hen with 6 new chicks wandering around in Jessie's backyard today. But later I heard squawking & saw a hen running around all fluffed out & charging at Moʻo from the other side of the fence. I went out but did not find any downy little bodies so am assuming the chicks were under cover some place & mama hen was trying to drive Moʻo away. I will have to watch for them tomorrow.  

When I went to prepare Moʻo's food this evening, I found a surprise in the laundry tub in the Cat Genie room. It was ʻAlani! He was sleeping in the laundry tub!

He was annoyed with me.

ʻŌhuna, on the other hand, did not surprise me. The security cameras caught her out in the yard on several occasions & for a relatively long period of time.

Looks like 2 or 3 forays starting at about 2:45 am.

Wandering around while I was at the Night Market.

In an earlier post I noted how Lingopie gives you the English translation along with the Hanzi & Pinyin. I should have provided more information about the scene that I used to illustrate what Lingopie provides. SPOILER ALERT - The guy facing the camera is the owner of the house where this gathering is taking place. He is saying, "You all wore your clothes wrong" because he has noticed that the robes of the others have the right side over the left side. As in Japanese culture, the Chinese wear the robes with the left side over the right side; EXCEPT when you are dressing a deceased person. Yes, all the other people in the room are dead! (FYI Helpful hint so you get it right if you are wearing Chinese or Japanese clothing with this type of set up; if you can stick your right hand inside your robe like Napoleon did, then you have it on correctly. And not like you are dead. You're welcome!)

 

Today's lesson on Duolingo was Hanzi practice. On the surface, this looks easy since you are basically tracing where the strokes go. But the tough part is the stroke order; I have not yet figured out if there is a basic principle on where to start or what order to go in. I should probably spend more time on those 2 on-line sites I found on Hanzi. While doing the tracing, I also repeat the pronunciation of the word as well as try to come up with a mnemonic for linking the pronunciation with the ideograph with the English meaning. I think the only way I have been able to do as well as I have been is that my bio brain is used to rote memorization of traits of plants & animals & linking them with the scientific name, common name, & indigenous name.

Earlier today I posted an update on Hurricane Lowell. Not much has changed since then but here is a graphic I though you might find interesting. This is a color-enhanced satellite image of Lowell; the color gradient shows the amount of moisture in that part of the cloud cover, red being a very high level. You can also see the well-defined eye; the higher the wind speed, the more distinctive the eye becomes. This image also gives a better idea of how large an area a hurricane can affect when it passes through or nearby an area. In this case, it would easily wreak havoc on the 8 main islands if its path were to turn right today & head northerly.

The next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea is likely to be between the 7th & the 12th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Dean, Sandra, & Steve! 

The Leeward Planning Commission

The Leeward Planning Commission meeting today ended a little bit later than lunch time. The most contentious project was a request for a time extension on an approved permit for an existing venue that is trying to come in to compliance; no approval for the extension means there is no path for the venue to come in to compliance & be safe. We also had 2 applicants who were coming in for special permits for bed & breakfasts in State Land Use Agriculture areas; this is a requirement of the newly passed codes regarding transient vacation rentals that is needed to be in compliance with the State regulations. The links to the 3 hour long video of the meeting are here & here. (Technical difficulties necessitated a recess between videos while the problem was being corrected.)

During lunch one of the other planners present noted that, should the tropical depression making its way into the Central Pacific basin become a tropical storm, it will be named Moke. The person on the left at the testifiers table seen in the screenshot from the video of the meeting, is a planner who goes by his Hawaiian name Moke when he is not on official business.

I ran my errands after lunch. I have a sequence that I do my errands, starting with the location that is farthest south & working my way closer to home. I usually buy Moʻo's frozen food last. Today I skipped a couple things, like Moʻo's frozen food since she had enough to last until the next planning commission meeting. Unfortunately, I forgot I also needed to find another cat door; looking for new cat doors is not part of my usual list of errands! (And I sure hope it does not become a regular occurrence! Nā pōpoki kolohe!)

I did stop at Sally Beauty to show May the color of my hair with the Blue Smoke dye; she was not working today so Zy took a video to share with her. Although there is enough Blue Smoke dye left for another application, I also picked up another, hopefully darker, color. I will be trying the permanent hair dye by Iroiro in Denim Blue in a couple of months.

My 2nd stop was to get the car washed. I try to do it once a month even if the car does not look dirty. Because of living on an island in the middle of the ocean, air laden with salt particles lands on your car even if you are not right by the shoreline. So I try to wash the car every month to minimize any corrosion that might be caused by the salt air.

I also made a quick stop at Target. The semi-permanent dyes I have been using slowly rub off on things so I currently have my pillow wrapped in a dark blue towel but that is cumbersome. I decided if I am going to continue with the blue hair, I would make it easier on myself & get dark blue sheets & pillow cases.

I also stopped at Patricio's Mexican Taqueria; for the next few days they are donating all their tips to the recovery effort in Kaʻū. They were my favorite Mexican restaurant in Kona before, now even more so! I picked up a Chicken Molé plate to go. (E kala mai! No photos. But I think I will make picking up dinner from them part of my after-planning commission meeting routine so there will likely be photos in the future.)

The power to the grid at the house came on at 1:24 pm according to the Tesla app. By about 6 pm the Powerwall was back up to 50% of its storage capacity. Overall, since the grid went down on the 15th, I did not have power at the house for only about 4 hours due to the ability of the Powerwall to provide back up power for the rest of the time.

They just give you start date of outage & time it finally came back on.

Around 6 pm.

About an hour after the power was back on, Spectrum came back on line. Yay! But I am still considering switching to Hawaiian Telcom. Until, that is, I talked with Kai on the drive home; he suggested I look into Starlink for several reasons. The main one being that in an emergency or disaster situation, like we are currently experiencing, Starlink has the highest chance of still being able to function rather than the landline based systems. That is a strong argument in my book; Karl & Katherine's Starlink is what allowed me to complete all my readings for the planning commission meeting in a timely manner.

After the internet came back on, I checked the security camera feed. Here are security cam photos I collected of cats; mainly ʻŌhuna on the loose, but some of cats in the cat yard. These are thumbnails from the "Find Anything" screen that summarizes the detections made.

ʻĀlani (ʻŌhuna's cousin) in cat yard on 08/17.

ʻŌhuna outside on 08/18 

ʻŌhuna outside on 08/19.

ʻŌhuna outside early this morning.

ʻŌhuna in cat yard today.

While talking to Kai, I also was in very slow traffic. Since I was driving, he looked it up on his traffic app & told me it seemed there might be an accident at the Waikoloa resorts roads because it was mainly red up to there, then green further north. I started the slow trek near the airport & it did continue northerly until the turn offs to the Waikoloa resorts. But there was no accident or remains of an accident visible there. Perhaps it was just that I was leaving a little later than usual & it was a Kona traffic jam? Whatever it was, I spent an extra half hour on the road getting home.

Traffic leaving from Waikoloa resorts area.

Approaching the southerly intersection; no accident here.

Approaching northerly intersection; nothing here either.

I'm not sure what these streak freezes are in Lingopie (the little blue markers on the calendar), how you earn them, or how to use them. They just randomly show up on the calendar. And they don't seem to do anything to extend a streak. Whatever. Using a streak freeze adds nothing to your ability to learn a language. I think I will just listen to a short episode if I do not have time to do a lesson; listening is better than doing nothing at all.

 

In Duolingo, I'm still exploring Beijing. 

The ceiling collapse at the Happy Days Seafood Restaurant is still in the news. From this photo it does not look like something that can be easily & quickly fixed. I guess we will have to look for another dim sum restaurant.

The National Hurricane Center shows 2 storm systems in the Central Pacific basin. The Hawaiʻi County  Civil Defense issued an alert on 1 of them. 

Tropical Depression Two-C formed early this morning after crossing in to the Central Pacific basin; it was 960 miles east-southeast of Hilo at 5 this morning & moving west-northwesterly at about 16 mph. Maximum sustained winds are about 35 mph; it is anticipated to continue on its current path for a few more days. It is anticipated that it could become a tropical storm later today & is expected to pass south of Hawaiʻi Island in a couple of days; k bringing heavy rainfall & flooding. At 5 pm, it was located about 810 miles from Hilo or about 150 miles closer. It is expected to become a tropical storm some time tonight.

At 5 pm this evening Hurricane Lālā was in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Sanctuary with maximum sustained winds of 95 mph & moving northerly at about 9 mph. 

The next episode of the eruption of Kīlauea is anticipated to be between the 22nd & the 26th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Judy & Mick! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻumi kūmamāhā e Andreas & Amy!