We came across this news article in the Star Advertiser the other day that blew us away.
Seriously?
They also claimed that unvaccinated women had gotten miscarriages and other reproductive problems by standing next to a vaccinated person.
My daughter told me she’d heard about some Minnesota parents who don’t want their children to be tested for COVID because they could miss a game.
I'm sitting here just shaking my head and sighing.
What can you do?
I wrote earlier about not being able to make up my mind about which shower curtain I wanted to buy. There were too many choices on Amazon.
We've not been to the dentist in a year and a half since our teeth could obviously not be checked while we were wearing our masks.
Now that we are all fully vaccinated we are visiting all the health professionals we have not seen in over a year. April has been filled with several appointments every week for the three of us. May will have a few more.
We went to the dentist last week and saw that a LOT of safety measures were in place. We had to wait outside on benches with people spaced 6 feet apart. There were hand sanitizers that you were to use as soon as you entered. A receptionist took your temperature and asked the usual COVID questions about fever, symptoms, travel, etc.
What used to be open doorways to separate rooms now had clear vinyl curtains. You were required to wear your mask at all times, except when they were working in your mouth.
This was a little air sucker-upper thingy that was placed next to you to suck up any aerosols you might be exhaling while the dentist or dental hygienist was working on your teeth.
It was really nice to see everybody again. The dentist said my teeth were doing OK for now though she thought I might be grinding my teeth. She also said this has been a time of teeth grinding so she understood.
Asked if Art might hear me grinding my teeth at night, I burst out laughing. She laughed also when I told her that wasn't possible since he falls asleep in 5 minutes or less.
I gave the dentist, the hygienist and the X-ray technician a mask I made to thank them for working through the pandemic although I was told they had to close for three months while safety mechanisms were put into effect.
They were all thrilled to get the masks which definitely made me feel extra happy.
I've been giving masks to many of the health care professionals we've been seeing this month. It feels like our way to say, "We're back, but safely."
I love spring! It's been my favorite season ever since we moved to Illinois. I was surprised when my granddaughter told me a couple of years ago that her favorite season is winter. She loves the snow which means she can go skiing.
Once our kids were grown Art wanted to really see more of the world. It's his passion to visit all the places he's heard about. We generally traveled during the winter because that's when I had my 2 week holiday break from school. The year 2000 was the only time we traveled during spring break. Barcelona and Madrid was just beginning to leave winter behind.
Generally speaking, I didn't want to travel during spring because I liked seeing it burst forth at home.
I loved my sour cherry tree with its beautiful white blossoms that then turned into wonderful fruit that you could make cherry cobblers with.
Then there were my two lilac bushes along with forsythia and honeysuckle that welcomed spring every year.
In 2007, just before our final move back to Hawaii, Art wanted to do a bike trip in the Netherlands.
Art jogs once a week for about 5 miles. That's what he tells me. I suspect it's farther and he's just keeping it from me. The cardiologist once recommended he only do 3 miles and no longer do marathons or even half marathons. We also walk every morning when it's not raining or drizzling or threatening to rain.
Since I am basically lazy, I can't understand why he likes to run so much. He talks about a Runner's High. Seriously?
Anyway.... here I am going off on a tangent again. Where was I? Oh yes...
For the last year or so he's been dealing with a hard lump of skin under the ball of his foot. Since he is not as flexible as I am, he can't see the bottom of his foot so I was in charge of dealing with it. Our primary care physician had recommended salicylic acid (Compound W). Therefore I've been applying it and peeling off the dead skin regularly. However, it just keeps recurring over and over again. We suspected it was actually a wart because it had a little dot in the center.
Finally, Art was referred to a podiatrist. I went also since I am the primary foot caretaker and it was quite interesting. We learned a number of things.
* It's not a wart. Warts have a cauliflower look to it. It's actually a callus.
* The callus should continue to be treated with the Compound W, but I should stop applying and peeling off the dead skin when it gets too close to the more sensitive layer (I don't know what you'd call it).
* Art needs to change his running shoes every 500 miles.
The doctor then cut off more of the skin on the callus and it looked quite nice.
Art will now be on the market to look for more running shoes. He usually has a tough time of it because he's got super wide feet.
Hmmmm... you know I haven't had this problem with my feet and I don't have to change shoes so often. For some reason I don't get these calluses.
Art is rolling his eyes. 🙄
Did you see that 49% of Republican men do not want to get vaccinated. Compare this to 6% of Democratic men. Pretty interesting.
Why would Republicans not want it as opposed to Democrats? How do Republicans hope to gain herd immunity so we can open up businesses and help the economy if we don't get more people vaccinated?
Well one thing that doesn't help, I think, are the videos we see on TV constantly of people getting their shots.
Every time they show a news segment about the vaccine, you see at least 3-4 views of those needles puncturing skin on arms.
Puh-leeease... Is that really necessary? Do you think that will make people say, "Oh goodie! I want to have that done to me?"
I never look.
I was even surprised after getting the first shot that I hardly felt it.
Granted there was a little arm ache later, but that's fine. I didn't mind the ache.
However, I still feel squeamish when I see that needle going in during the news.
Weird thing is I'm perfectly fine watching medical shows where they show fake surgeries, etc.
Anyway, maybe if they stopped showing those needles poking arms so much, those Republican men would be more willing to get those shots.
Just kidding.
OK. We admit we lost the first battle with the mynah birds. They insist on building a nest on our precarious roof ledge dropping tons of dead leaves, branches, weeds, flowers, etc. on the ground and aggravating my mother who has to pick them up every morning.
The stainless steel bird spikes (similar to what Costco uses) worked for just one week and then the nest building started again. Incredibly, they started weaving long grass stems around the spikes.
What the heck!
Quite a while ago, my mother's youngest sister in Sendai, Japan gave me a book of poems for children written by a poet named Kaneko Teru. I think the poems have a different feel than those written for children in the west.
I noticed the book again while rearranging my bookshelf and read through it. This one made me smile.
A Little Bird, a Bell, and Me
"Misuzu Kaneko (金子 みすゞ, Kaneko Misuzu, April 11, 1903 – March 10, 1930) was a Japanese poet, known for her poetry for children. She was born Teru Kaneko (金子 テル, Kaneko Teru) in the fishing village of Senzaki, now part of Nagato, Yamaguchi prefecture. Motifs of fishing and the sea often make appearances in her poems. Celebrated during her lifetime, her works fell into obscurity after her death, until being rediscovered in the 1980s. Since then, she has been regarded as one of Japan's most beloved children's poets."
I wanted to know why she died so young and found this on the same Wikipedia page:
"Kaneko's private life was not as fortunate, however. In 1926, she entered into a marriage arranged by her uncle, with a clerk in the family bookstore. A daughter, Fusae, was born in November. Her new husband was unfaithful and contracted a venereal disease, which he passed on to Kaneko, causing her lifelong physical pain. He also forced her to stop writing, while putting the family through the strain of four moves within two years to pursue failing business ventures. She finally divorced him in 1930, but this meant also losing custody of her daughter to her husband. Japanese law at the time automatically granted the father indisputable custody to the child.
On March 9, 1930, the day before her husband was due to take custody, Kaneko felt no recourse except to commit suicide in protest. After bathing Fusae and sharing a sakuramochi, Kaneko wrote a letter to her husband asking that he let her mother raise the girl instead, and overdosed on sedatives, dying the next day, only a month before her 27th birthday. Her daughter was ultimately raised by the grandmother."
I found more information about her on the website, World Literature Today.
Somehow knowing about her life history brings more poignancy to her poetry. She had such sadness in her life, but she left a gift of beauty for the children that came after her.
We used to try to convince mom to use Bacitracin for her burns and wounds but she insisted the liquid from the aloe leaves were much better. Well, she recently had several wounds on her arm that healed really nicely so I thought I'd try it out.
When I fell a couple of weeks ago, I scratched my knee and figured it would form another big scar.
I decided to try mom's method with the aloe juice.
I applied the aloe leaf liquid morning and night and even in between.
Art had actually already tried mom's method a while ago when he sliced his hand.
He told me the main thing was to make sure whatever scab forms is not accidentally ripped off.
Since I didn't have much to write about, I figured I could do a blog post sequence about how the wound heals.
It started out with one spot showing a deeper gouge, therefore forming a harder darker colored scab.
Gradually the lesser scabs fell off.
I kept applying the aloe about three times a day.
I cut the edges of the big scab as it disengaged from the skin along the edges so it wouldn't get snagged off.
And then one day the big darker colored scab dropped off and there was a lighter scab underneath.
OK. Now that was interesting.
I've always had this deep compulsion to peel sunburns, labels, paint, whatever. It took self control not to peel the scabs off.
So maybe mom was right.
We always buy a (small) case of Vienna sausages each year in case of a hurricane. We then donate them to the food drive once the threat is gone. We donated to the food drive several times this past year, but it was always monetary/online.
So now I was noticing that I had these cans of Vienna sausages which we normally don't eat.
I know they're not healthy and I know what I'm going to tell you is even worse. If you want to eat healthy, please stop reading and come back tomorrow.
I don't know where I learned to do this. I'm thinking mom must have made it this way when we were kids. She'll probably deny it. I think it's a Hawaii thing. Maybe it was my brother who showed me. He used to fry bacon in sugar. Totally, totally decadent. Don't do it!
I then dropped in the 3 small cans of Vienna sausages and simmered it again in the thick sauce.
Yes, it's bad for you, I'm sure.
But maybe once in a blue moon, it wouldn't cause too much damage? It's got to be better than sugar coated bacon, right?
We do love birds. Honest. We really do. We even had a bird feeder in Illinois that we set out every winter. However, here in Hawaii, they can be a problem.
And the other day, Art was looking out our window and saw this in our gutter. Apparently, it must have been there a long time.
Sigh.
I was out working on some yard clean-up when Art came over to get my help moving a rock.
"A rock? What rock?" I asked.
"The landscaping rock," he replied. "Mom pushed over the rock."
When I walked over I was surprised to see the rock had indeed been pushed over. The previous owners of our house had put ornamental rocks here and there like in a Japanese garden.
(It wasn't until after we moved the rock back in place that I realized I should have taken a BEFORE and AFTER photo. I had to dig this out of our archives.)
It is a very HEAVY rock, a very, very heavy rock. It definitely took both of us to stand it up.
Then I had this idea to reposition it.
The reason it fell was that the rock was just placed there and not sunk into the ground; probably because it's so heavy that nobody thought someone could tip it over.
The bottom of rock surface that sits on the ground is also angled a bit.
So we turned it onto another side that was more level and sank it into the ground a bit to secure it. It took both of us and a LOT of huffing and puffing to move that rock. 😅 Why the heck is it so heavy anyway? I know it's not made of lead.
Art doesn't buy clothing much at all. He's had a hard time finding PJs that he likes to wear in Hawaii. I've bought him several when I've been lucky to spot them on Amazon. However, he tends to wear them until they're virtually falling off of him. 🙄
His latest favorite is really in great condition EXCEPT for the waist band elastic.
Did you see this in the news?
This was in the New York Times:
"Caron Nazario, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, was driving to Petersburg, Va., from a drill weekend the night of Dec. 5 when he saw police lights flashing behind him.
Too nervous to stop on a darkened road, Lieutenant Nazario, who is Black and Latino, drove about a mile to a gas station, pulled over and placed his cellphone on his dashboard, according to a lawsuit and video footage of the encounter."
No, he wasn't killed. But he was pepper sprayed point blank, kicked, forced on the ground and handcuffed despite the fact that he wasn't fighting or being violent.
I watched this on the news this past Friday evening and it flabbergasted me. I know about the problems African Americans keep suffering at the hands of law enforcement, but this really hit me with visceral punch.
This is what is happening in America. This is what has been happening. Yes, racism is thriving.
What we're all learning from this is to be sure you video record whenever you see something happening that is criminal either by criminals or police.
It seems to be almost the only protection you can have and that is frightening.
Perhaps it's hitting me extra hard because I've just heard from a friend traveling to the mainland that her daughter-in-law who lives there is afraid to venture out very much because of the incidences of Asian hate crimes.
I know they say racial prejudice has always been there... but it really does sound much worse now.
I worry.
For quite a while now we've been getting these weird insect bites on the weirdest part of our body. Thigh, tummy, under the chin, under arm. We wondered if we had bed bugs. We checked our sheets carefully, washed them regularly with no sign of insect infestation.
I started getting these bites first and Art felt sorry for me, but he thought it was something to do with me. Oh ho! But now he's getting them and it's really confounded him.
But how can it be a mosquito? It's too tiny. Is it a gnat?
I learned online that Hawaii has eight species of mosquitoes. Six of them bite humans. Two are active only at night. This is the reason I don't like to hike in the rain forests here unless I have some kind of repellent on me.
I got this following on the Maui Maui website:
"Yes, all of the Hawaiian islands have mosquitoes. They were most likely introduced from bilge water carried in whaling ships in the early 19th century. Aedes aegypti is one of the most common species noted by black and white spots. It is very invasive and found on all the islands."
I've sent a photo by email to the Department of Health since I can't find an email for the Vector Control Branch. We'll see what they say.
If it turns out that the insect I swatted isn't a mosquito or that it's one of the two that don't bite, we'll have to keep hunting for this elusive, aggravating, mysterious bug lurking in some corner of our house.
I can't believe Hawaii has SIX different kinds of biting mosquitoes. One would have been too many, BUT SIX!!! Arrrghhh! 😫
Art and I agree on a LOT of things, but sometimes... it takes us forever to see eye to eye.
This brings me to the monumental decision of choosing (you won't believe this) a shower curtain.
The thing is... the toilet is right in front of that shower curtain. So when you're sitting there minding your business, you stare at that curtain day in and day out.
Well, my sister-in-law gave me a monetary gift so I decided this might be a time to check out Amazon.
You know... if you don't have much of a choice, it's sometimes easier.
