life in the old lane

Had a nice day. Walk. Swim. Eat breakfast. Ride up road. Crash the Four Seasons hotel. Visit Costco.

December 7th is taken a lot more seriously in Hawai’i than on the Mainland. When I lived here in the ’60s almost everyone “Remembered Pearl Harbor”. My husband worked at Pearl Harbor and many of the people he worked with had worked at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. This all makes me feel very old. I don’t “remember Pearl Harbor” – but – I remember people who did. 

Yesterday, I saw an eel. Whitemouth Moray. But, it wasn’t picture worthy. Just a continuation of my eel experience.

Today’s eel is photo worthy. I think he was maybe 2 feet long – max. 

Strangely – the Four Season’s Hotel wasn’t decorated for Xmas. Maybe folks who spend $1,000 and up (way up) for a room don’t want to rush the season. Or maybe Xmas isn’t one of the Four Seasons? So for today’s Holiday Photo – this fine old car was out front of Four Seasons.

Still in Not my circus, Not my monkeys mode about the upcoming  of administration  nevertheless I am underwhelmed with some (many?) of the appointments. 

Oh, I went to Costco. Because that is where the truck I was riding in was going. Costco is always a vaguely unsettling experience for me. There is SO MUCH. American excess to the max. But, I always enjoy the free samples.  

Gee, here it is dinner time. What will it be? Salad maybe? Or baked potato. Cheese and avocado sandwich? Choices. Make one.

What a difference a day makes in mollusk photography. I can not get to the bottom. My wetsuit makes me too floaty. Which is one of the reasons I wear the wetsuit. I am not an authority on conch shells – I think this one is a Charonia tritonis or Triton Conch.

Nice day today. The sun returned. The FitBit is happy. Swam for about 45 minutes. Lounged around reading this afternoon. Had an early dinner with friends. 

But, I didn’t stop thinking about the next great adventure.

And, it would be whimpy to start or stop the trip in Paris. It should begin/end at St Pancras Station in London. Nothing says I couldn’t stop over in Paris – just long enough to get some great underwear. (Nevermind that I am old and the only person who would see said great undies.) 

So, this is why I wisely didn’t move to Portland or Seattle. Never mind the legal pot and assisted suicide. It is rainy and cloudy for 3 or 4 days and I am going nuts. Reduced to photographing disgusting Giant African Snails slithering around my hotel.

I also started thinking about going back to the Asylum. Like the Asylum is going to be better? I wasn’t thinking about going to the airport and hopping on a plane going east. I was thinking about taking the long way home. Going west. Including taking the Siberian Express from Vladivostok to Paris. 

No fish photos, no holiday photos, no hibiscus photos. Just a Giant African Snail. 

Four Years and Five Days Ago

What to have for dinner? Thinking about chicken, cheese, pineapple sandwich. 

Mr Sun started the morning out with a forgotten promise of things to come. But, not too worry. After grocery shopping, I bundled up in my wetsuit and jumped in for a nice swim. Nevermind that it was cold, murky and rough. I needed some swim time. 

And, I saw “my” flounder. And, another eel. This one was little. That just about does it – the eel is my ‘aumakua. Or maybe it is Carlton’s ‘aumakua come to check up on me. Or maybe we share this ‘aumakua. After all, we were/are a “family”. Albeit small. And some would say dysfunctional family. 

My bar for underwater shots was very low today. It was bumpy, murky and rainy.

The grocery is getting geared up the holidays.

Some of our holiday “necessities” you would recognize. Others – not so much.

And what did I do on this rainy day. Swim, grocery shop, finished reading a serious dead tree book – with footnotes about Kamehameha III, read the Sunday paper – dead tree for West Hawaii Today, iPad Washington Post/NY Times. Now, I am thinking  “what for dinner”?  Maybe lentil soup and salad. With a sliver of cheesecake for dessert? 

Mother nature seems to be getting into the spirit of the season.

The weather was more normal today. But, I didn’t manage to make it out to swim. First the ocean was too “full”. There was a swim contest and canoe races. And, it was pretty choppy. After lunch I suited up and went over to the pier – but by then it was choppy, windy, and the sun had vanished. I didn’t swim. It is supposed to be fun. And cold is not fun.

Took the cheap long slow not very loved lens out late this afternoon. With the monopod. I shot this dog.

Getting hungary. Veggie cheese burger with pineapple maybe? It is either veggie burger or peanut butter sandwich or oatmeal. Hey, 3 choices. Life is good. 

 

That is Mauna Kea – where the snow is. As usual, I didn’t have the “right” lens. But, I sure had the “right” lens for the clouds – which were more impressive than the snow from this vantage point.

And, a foot of snow is on tap for tonight. 

This morning’s walk was through the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) area. Not exactly scenic – but interesting. And, it is smooth and flat. 

Only in Kona would people (well, not visitor people) be happy when the day is “cold” and damp. We put on our long sleeved shirts, hoodies, even socks. Enjoyed hot cocoa and soup. And, got serious about Xmas.

I made Holiday Fish and addressed cards. If we have another wintery day – I’ll be all done. But wait! Time to deploy the Holiday Theme.

It was chilly and damp today. About an hour ago, I put on my swimsuit, went out on the lanai for my towel, and came back in, took off my swimsuit and headed off for a nice hot shower. It was just too chilly for a swim. Even with a 3 mm wetsuit. Rain on the mountains increases the amount of cold fresh water that the springs put into the bay. And snow on the mountain cools the breeze.

Are we 3 weeks out from the election? I have been trying to be a gracious “loser”. Nevermind that my side won the popular vote. And all of you who couldn’t be bothered to vote. Or who didn’t like the choices… Pox on both your houses.

But, I have just been wondering – what is going to happen when the good people who did vote for The Trumpet realize that they have elected the greatest con artist since Charles Ponzi (Or Jefferson Randolph Smith for all you Alaskan types)? Seriously, are they going to get mad? Or are they just going the shrug it off as business as usual?

 

In Hawai’i you can go anywhere you want to along the coast. My accomplice, Billy the Younger, wonders how far can we get down this lava flow. Lava is really tricky to walk on. Especially when it is wet. And a fall nearly always results in lost skin at the very least.

I turned the GPS tracking function in my new camera on and I have sort of figured out what to do with the waypoints that it collects.

We were so happy to escape with no blood or broken bones that we headed up slope for wonderful early lunch of poké. (Poké is Hawaii’s answer to sashimi.)

Back at the Seaside – I decide that a nice swim was in order. And, what was the first thing I saw – an eel. 

And, that is about all the fun this old lady can stand for one day.

This morning, after a brisk walk and nice breakfast – my friend Billy and I decided to go north and check out the Fish Ponds at Mauna Lani Resort. Since this is an upmarket hotel – Billy and I both changed into “respectable adult people clothes” (as opposed to our normal shorts and tee shirts) I even put on “lady clothes”. 

And, the adventure? The wind took my hat and deposited it in the fish pond. I went in after it. Got wet right up to my granny panties. But, I wasn’t about to let anything happen to that pāpale – the man who made it died last month. It is made from hala leaves from Carlton’s Palace. The hat was saved. I made it out of the pond unscathed. 

And why you might ask didn’t my much younger friend Billy go after it – well – Billy had real shoes on – my shoes are water friendly. The pond bottom is slippery lava. It never occurred to me not to go in after my hat. Hopefully, my shoes will be dried out by tomorrow morning when we have another field trip planned. I plan to wear my dorky hat tomorrow! Not my beloved lau hala pāpale.

In keeping with my eel theme of recent days, after I got out of the pond, I saw this sign.

And snow is on the way. Yes, it snows here. 

 

The morning – for no apparent reason – I decided to check on the blog. And “everything” was gone. It was not pretty. Like a panic attack. Because – I don’t back up my blog. I back up everything. But, since I changed hosting services a couple of years ago – I hadn’t backed it up. 

I took myself off for a fast 2 mile walk. When I got back – I figured out what had happened, but not why. And, things are almost all back to normal. I backed everything up to my computer and setup a daily backup script. 

I was surprised at how much this blog means to me. I have had it for almost 17 years. What else have I had for 17 years? Damn little. Lets see: photo albums, some kitchen stuff, my rugs, table, a couple of chairs, my bed, a few pair of earrings. My wedding ring. 

New project. You know I love my “projects”. Figure out how to convert the blog – at least the WordPress part – to a PDF document. Or a dead tree book. It is doable. Just really time consuming when you are talking about 17 years of postings (17 X 365 = 6,205 posts). Maybe, I will just keep it backed up and forget about the dead tree option!

It is good to have you back. It isn’t nice to mess with an old woman. 

Blog Problem – my running notes on the repair. 

What I know –

1. It was working last night
2. I didn’t change anything while I was asleep
3. This morning it says Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.
4. when I go to a permalink I get 404 error.
5. The Pre wordpress stuff is still there

What I did

1. Re installed WP 4.6.1 No help
2. Tried another theme. Nope
3. Looked around my files on server. The image files are there. But, MySQL database?
4. OOPS – it crashed. Wonder why.
5. GOOD – repair worked.
6. Backed everything to The Airness
7. Setup daily backup to Cloud – not on Small Orange servers.
8. Breathed huge sigh of relief. Don’t realize how important this thing is too me. 

Note from Carlton: I figure that all these coins that I found yesterday was your way of checking up on me and telling me that I am doing fine. 

Those of you who know Carlton know that he never let a penny go unpicked up. He would endanger life and limb picking up a penny on a busy street. 

I have been here four weeks. 1/4 of my winter. It has been good. 

The ocean wasn’t too choppy today – but it still wasn’t a great day for photography. But, I took the camera out anyhow.

This fine eel was in about 3 feet of water. It was pretty bouncy – I didn’t want this big boy taking nips out of my fingers. Eels are always opening and closing their mouths – not because they are nipping at you – but it is the way they “breath”. And, they don’t have very good eyesight. So, seems to me – in three feet of water one could get nipped.

Been seeing lots of eels or puhi – especially since I put Carlton in the bay.  Maybe the puhi is my personal ‘aumakua. ‘Aumakua is a Hawaiian concept that I can not explain. It is sort of a household god, fairy godmother, spirit guide, ancestor thing. And, the final job for your ‘aumakua is to help you to the otherside. And that is about it for my spiritual life.