life in the old lane

After a busy day of relaxing, I decided to take another crack at the icosahedron origami.

The Holland America Volendam showed up this morning. This is good. The village could use a few shoppers. 

I decided to do my monthly report for the hospital this morning. It didn’t take long. Just one cup of coffee and it was done.

Before doing a little work, I went for an early walk for bananas and paperclips. Well. There were no paper clips. Not at CVS or the grocery. There were spots where the paperclips should be – nicely labeled “Paperclips $3.19”. I am not going to lose any nap time over this problem. 

I have been trying to “harden” my passwords. And to delete old junk or no longer used accounts. It is seriously tedious work. And I usually enjoy tedious projects. Hey being an actual computer programmer back in the day – that was nothing but tedious. With a lot of crappy coffee and cheese crackers from vending machines. That was the worst part. Vending machine coffee and cheese crackers at 2 AM. 

The Palace was unlocked this morning, so, I wandered over to the seawall to say howdy to Carlton.

OK. If you watched as many bad sci-fi films as I have, you would be scared shitless by this machine. It resides on full public display in a “salon” across the street.

Today a person was outside. Trying to lure people into the “salon”.  Obviously, I am not their target customer. But, there wasn’t anybody nearby. So, in my best little old lady manner, I politely ask: WTF is that contraption? Well, apparently it is a “light therapy treatment module”. Right. And people are actually going to pay you money and get into that machine?  Answer: We hope so. 

This year it was mostly elephants.  We didn’t really get the process started in a timely manner this year, so some non-pacyderms were used. But, I doubt that anyone will care.

My origami project. No progress today. I think I need paper clips to stabilize  what I have done while I am trying to figure out what to do next. 

Today was the Kona version of a “snow day”. Not a big ass blizzard, just a nice snow that you would just as soon not go out into. A by-the-fire coffee and brandy and book day.

What better way to spend the day than by attempting the 30-unit icosahedron? How hard can it be? Right.

I also cleaned the kitchen and had pumpkin pie.

Now, Dinner?

It start out rainy.

Then the sun came out. So I went out for a walk. It was hot.

Finished my  2nd 12-unit Sonobe Kusudama. And I started on a 30-unit version. Time will tell if I can finish it. 

But wait. There might be a nice sunset across the street.

Pretty good. Really cool clouds.

Made myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner and thus another day in exciting downtown Kailua-Kona comes to a close.

My RSV shot and very early morning yoga class left me exhausted by 9:30 this morning. Fortunately, by a little after one this afternoon, I perked up enough to go for a swim. The ocean was delightful.

And a humuhumunukunukuapua’a came a swimming by.

And I took myself out for an early dinner. You know, old people don’t like to drive after dark. Well, this old person has gotten so I’m not particularly eager to walk after dark. I am not afraid of being robbed assaulted or otherwise violated. I am afraid of tripping on our not too even sidewalks!

Not a really exciting Monday so far. And, hey, that’s OK. Today’s major accomplishment was to get my RSV shot. At Safeway. Because you get a coupon for 10% off your grocery bill. Groceries. Not booze or ciggies.  And, it may prevent me from getting RSV, which I am not in the least bit worried about getting. But, I am sure I’ll need additional groceries before heading back to the mainland. The shot cost me zero. So, why not go for 10% off groceries?

So. What do I, the great complainer about the food back at the asylum, actually eat while I am here?

Papaya and cottage cheese may seem pretty lame. But, I love it. Of course, the papaya has to be perfect. But, that’s the way Hawaiian papayas are. Perfect. Papayas are not perfect in Northern Virginia. In fact, they aren’t even edible. 

So I steamed some shrimp and fried some bacon and an egg. How hard is that? I don’t really cook. I sorta assemble things on a plate or in a bowl.

Stopped by the pier on my way back from the grocery early this morning. 

But by the time I decided to go for a swim… there was rather a lot of chop and the really protected side of the pier was otherwise occupied.

That’s Waimau and an unrelated juvenile male. Waimau is the largest female  monk seal on Big Island. She is at least 200 pounds overweight. And how did this happen? She’s one smart seal.

Off the Kona coastline, there is a Kempachi fish farm to grow and harvest fish for the markets and restaurants of Big Island. Waimau was the first seal to figure out how to get fish out of the nets. (Other seals learned from her. She must have learned by watching dolphins.)

Waimau is so good at getting fish from the nets that she has become rather large. She is now estimated to weigh over 600 pounds, which is more than double the average weight of a female monk seal.

Despite her weight, Waimau is a healthy seal. She is able to swim and dive for long periods of time, and she frequently goes out to visit with groups who dive at night from the harbor. (Which isn’t far from the fish farm!) 

Hey Hey Hey. Beautiful Sunday. 

Billy calls up wanting an early walk and breakfast. I’m in. And he shows up with a quart of lobster bisque from the remains of Thanksgiving.

We drink our coffee and head off on a little walk. We see the Anawa’s helicopter heading to the airport. Either picking up or delivering people to the private plane departure lounge at our airport. Our airport runs an excellent private big jet operation. Some years ago there was a bit of a stink because it cost more to park a car at the airport than it did a plane. Don’t know if that is still the case.

Then we head off to our favorite breakfast joint.

We have an excellent view of the ‘copter returning. It made several other trips to the airport and back while we were eating.  

The rest of the day I read, rested, cataloged photos, and thought about working on origami. It’s only 16:15 so, I still might get origami in. 

Black and white photo is my only contribution to Black Friday. I never really understood how one was actually saving money by buying something that was “on-sale”.  One saves money by not spending it in the first place. 

Speaking of spending money. Jorge Paulo Lemann knows how to spend money. His yacht,  Anawa is parked out front today.

Anawa was launched in 2020 and is 203 feet long. (The ship I went to the Arctic on was 456 feet.) It cost about $100 million to build and outfit and another $10 million per year to operate. It has space for a crew of 20 and 12 passengers. 

And what did I see later but the matching helicopter flying by.  Our little village really loves seeing a mega yacht show up. 

I have sweet potato, avocado pie and kabocha pie in my to-go bag. In Hawai’i you are always sent home with a “plate”. 

And you gotta love it. MaryEllen extended an invite for next year. Never mind that I am 79 and she is 89. 

Thankful for my extended ohana. Everywhere. 

 

Walked quickly to Tiki’s early this morning and made it back home quickly as well. Trying to increase my walking speed to get more cardio. Got 2.5 good quick miles in before 7 AM this morning. 

I decided that brisk walking is for exercise. But swimming is for fun. So, for fun, I went to the pier for a little swim. A very little swim, I didn’t even take my fins. Spent the last 15 minutes swimming around with this guy. He/she is a 3-4 foot cornetfish

The video is the last couple of minutes of our swim. This is unedited. Just me swimming around. Without fins. But, it was fun and he/she did the only color trick our cornetfish know how to do.  

It was a fine day here in exciting downtown Kailua-Kona. 

Finalized my San Franciso plans last night. After much consultation with Google maps.