Dis Couch Ain't Very Comfy

Tuesday night. If something's gonna happen, it'll be on Tuesday night. Because I plan to go out in service on Wednesday. That's my sleepless night. No, I don't get nervous, it's just the way it is. So last night I was sleeping quite soundly, for a change, when I felt something.

It must have been my buddy on Maui's story of waking up and finding a centipede on his back that made me instantly aware of the crawling I felt through the sheet. It was large, fast moving but not heavy like a mouse - it was a centipede.

I was instantly awake and aware of what was going on. I quickly slithered out from under the sheet in the opposite direction from the big bug's movement, flicked on a light and began hunting. I found the 5- incher right away but he moved so fast I knew I wouldn't be able to catch him. I grabbed my pillow and sheet and attempted to sleep on that little couch - ouch!

So I missed another morning in service. I was glad I stayed home, though, because once the folks were up I began tearing my "nook" apart and found the nasty thing on the floor. I went and grabbed some tongs and got him! He was twisting around in the tongs and I had planned to flush him but the bathroom was occupied! WHAT DO I DO WITH IT!?!? The answer was out in the yard - throw it to the chickens! They love the yummy things. So I chucked it and a big rooster ran after it and cleaned it up for us...

After all that I researched what attracts them and found out that they're considered beneficial insects - they eat other bugs. That's too bad, they're not welcome here!

A New Pastime...

You've been seeing it on my Facebook posts - my new friends have a routine of going "swimming". I wondered what exactly that meant and now that I know I'm all for it! What we do is go to our favorite, fairly calm, reef-free area and stand out in the water, talk and fight the current!

I've been invited to walk down to the beach with some of the friends that live right nearby. I've turned down their invitations, though, because the walk first heads away from the ocean, then leads down a dark, narrow, curvy road with barely any shoulder on one side, a hill on the other and is riddled with potholes. It's downhill so once we're all relaxed and maybe tired from all that "swimming" it's a long walk uphill. I used my asthma as an excuse. What I should have said was "Ain't gonna happen!"

So there's 4 of us most of the time:

Kathy Gay is a recent transplant from the mainland, a stage 4 breast cancer survivor, has outlived 2 husbands and is a great-grandma already at 60! She has crazy energy and has sunk a ton of money into the funhouse so she'll be living off her investment for the next couple years.

Leslie Fabiana is a local girl who lives on her family's Hawaiian homestead land with her husband and lots of relatives in neighboring houses. She's been on Kauai for something like 30 years and knows everyone and every place on the island. She's the oldest of our group, is a grandma and one of her sons is a photographer.

Leslie Proffitt is an adorable southern belle from Kentucky, also recently transplanted here. She has a husband back home, selling their property there, and a 39 year old son here that she's living with. She also has custody of her grandson, Lachlan (sp?). She found a property here with 2 houses on it that her family will be living in and it's nearby, less than a mile away!

Every now and then Diana Mahi joins us. She and Leslie F have been close for decades. She's a recent widow, has 3 kids and a few grandkids. She lives on her land with rental properties (one that I stayed in ten years ago) and a tree farm or something like that, a beautiful property where a previous blog "Aloha Donny" took place.

So we like to go and stand in the water and, if it's late enough, we bring drinks and pupus (snacks), usually hummus and nori and chips. After we got out of the water they all drink wine and I bring a beer or 2. Diana's been bringing battery-powered candles so we have a nice glow after dark. Last week I left around 8 and after I was gone some people showed up to lobster hunt using snorkels and underwater flashlights!

We had a full moon party a few weeks back, the full moon was supposed to be huge, orange and coming up at sunset. We had a real nice group that included some kids, I think there were 10 all together. One girl had just been at her ballet lessons so she ended up dancing on the beach in the moonlight.

So I have a new pastime to spend with my new friends! When it's time for me to leave the beach (when I'm getting chilled) they promise to bring a jacket for me so I can stay longer the next time. What a great bunch!

Kapa'a Nightlife!

Here on Kauai they have lots of monthly or weekly "Art walks" in various towns around the island. From what I can tell the one in nearby Kapa'a is one of the largest, held on the first Saturday of the month. Stores stay open late and there are vendors set up all along the street and on church grounds, in parking lots, etc. 

I've wanted to attend some of these art walks to do research to try to sell some of my own "art" and when I mentioned it to my friends they all wanted to go too! So it got put off for a bit. Last night we finally made it.

We parked at the library on the north end of town and headed south. The street was packed with cars and the vendors were EVERYWHERE! I had no idea this would be so large. One of the first tables we passed was kids selling Hawaiian sweet bread. The table right next to them had some kind of meat, I don't recall exactly what. It was served in a bowl, probably on top of rice, for $5. There were tons of jewelry, wood art, fabric goods (Aloha dresses, sarongs, etc), glass art and wares of all sorts.


As we walked on one of my friends suggested we stop and have a beer. So we found a place that advertised draft beer for $2.50. That's our kind of price! Unfortunately, they had no draft beer, only bottles. So we bought our drinks and sat RIGHT NEXT to the big speaker that the guitar players were pumping their music through. They were very good musicians but it was a little on the overpowering side for me, with my hard of hearing ears... Then a little local lady joined them for a couple songs and did the hula. She looked nothing like a hula dancer, her salt and pepper hair was cut short and she had a cute sundress on. But she was very graceful, she'd obviously been doing the hula for decades.

There were musicians and food vendors everywhere, so the sounds and smells added to the sensory overload!  We perused a few jewelry vendors and one friend found a beautiful hand tied bracelet made with fresh water pearls for $10, it's beautiful!

We came near to the end of the vendors on one side of the street so crossed over and started down the other side. By this time we all needed to use the restroom and so that became a priority but the sounds coming from the Eastside Cafe pulled us close. It sounded like James Brown was singing, I was looking for his jumpin' and jivin'! The band was called The Quake and they were fantastic! Then as we're trying to look in and see the band another friend from the hall spotted us from inside and dragged us in and bought us drinks. Unfortunately we were once again parked right in front of the speakers. It was a lot of fun but personally, I think next time I'd rather enjoy it from the other side of the glass, along with many others doing that very thing last night.

I did get to do some research along with all the fun. Now I just need to find out how to get a spot.

Aloha Donny

On my first visit back to Hawaii back on '04 we stayed in a beautiful house across the street from my folks', a place called Mahinani. The Mahis are friends of my parents, members of their congregation and they had vacation homes and a tree farm. It was a beautiful visit, a beautiful house. One night Joanna (my friend who came along) made a fantastic chicken curry dinner and we had Don join us, since his wife was working on Oahu. He was a very nice guy, we enjoyed visiting with him.  At one point I remember he was riding his big mower around and I discovered the cattle egret following in the freshly mowed grass, cleaning up the bugs.

About 2 1/2 years ago Don was diagnosed with cancer and began a long battle, which he recently lost. He was loved by very many people here in the islands and on the mainland. He was 64 years old, the youngest of 4 siblings, all of them having survived him. He has 2 daughters, a son and a loving wife. 

Knowing that his memorial would draw a massive crowd the family opted to have a "private" event on Saturday 8/23. They rented a big white tent (same style as the wedding 2 blogs back), invited our whole congregation as well as probably 100 other special, close friends and family. So even though this was meant to be a small memorial it was still rather large. 

One of his closest friends locally gave his memorial talk. A soft-spoken man who seems to have a shortage of self-confidence and was probably fighting back the tears through much of the talk. But he did a fantastic job, his talk was very clear and touching. The family members then took turns telling stories of Don as a child and young adult. 

Per normal Hawaiian tradition there was once again live Hawaiian music, a Hawaiian feast of finger foods (pupus) and late in the evening the hulas began. Unfortunately I didn't stay long enough to see the hulas. Next time I'm sticking around!

Something that was different from the way it's done back home on the mainland - they had his ashes there. They were in a beautiful hand made wooden box draped with leis. Very classy.

Don was quite the fellow and is missed by throngs. We're all looking forward to reuniting with him in the future paradise and he'll be more like the vibrant man I met back in '04.

"Free" Day

Without the parents at home, anyway...

So, what did I do?






I washed all the noni juice containers

Did a load of dishes










Did a load of laundry (that includes hanging it!)

Painted half the kitchen ceiling and caulked a crack in the plywood

Painted some of the strips that will go on the kitchen ceiling

Filled 10 noni juice bottles

And now - - - - 


It's time for a BEER!



Oh yeah - I wrote this blog!

Ku'uipo...

...is Hawaiian for sweetheart. That would be these two, Bryan and Rebecca.

I got to attend my first Hawaiian wedding, or rather, the reception, last Saturday. It was quite refreshing.

It was, as far as I know, 100% witnesses and was in a beautiful setting, one of the many botanical gardens here on Kauai, Na Aina Kai. Everyone was nicely dressed and polite. The kids were well behaved. Although they did serve beer and wine there was no bad behavior or drunkenness. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. I'm sure the young couple were extremely pleased with the way things had turned out.

I enjoyed the total Hawaiianness of the whole thing, the decorations were gorgeous and the food was perfect. They had pupus ready almost immediately. So we all nibbled until the very native meal was ready. We had all the dishes I recall from my youth. All that I loved and those I didn't! At least I already knew what to enjoy and what to avoid!

I'm going to let the pictures tell most of this story.


The decorations were made with ferns, orchids, heleconia and gingers.

A father and two of his offspring were our live entertainment.





Pupus included fried wonton, kalamari, edamame, sushi and salted local fish.



Dinner was massive. What I had (my favs) included poi and lomi salmon, kalua pork, plain old salad, rice and that thing wrapped in a ti leaf, lau lau. Unwrap it and you'll find that blob. It's pork and/or fish salted, then wrapped in spinach leaves, then cooked in the ti leaves. Yum!

Everyone looked so nice and look at how good these potential juvenile delinquents are behaving! The party carried on til after dark (which is only about 7:30) but us old folks called it a night early. Good party!

A New Chapter

Wow - who'd a thunk? I'm 57 and living with my parents again! But it's nothing like being young and living with them, I mean, I'm a GRANDMA now!

I have my little nook in the corner of the house between the bathroom and the carport. It's about 5x6 and I have a bed (futon), dresser, mirror, cabinet, table/lamp combo, all divided from the rest of the house with a folding screen and standing fan. What more could I need?

The day I got here my mom visited the doctor and was told that she needed to put some salt back into her diet. She did and her dizziness and fainting is virtually gone. The day after I got here was another doctor visit and they finally figured out what caused her stroke - it was her racing heart! Now they just have to decide to put in a pacemaker, they're still not determined that that's what she needs.

So mom is getting stronger every day, many of her problems are under control and we're even getting to the beach for exercise, a little swim a couple times a week. Personally, I could do it every day! It's a nice way to end the day! Dad's coming too so he's getting to enjoy his Hawaii and getting exercise too, not that he doesn't get any like mom. He's the lawn man at 2 houses, he gets plenty of exercise!

While I have my nook we're still looking into building a guest room that I could use while I'm here and then the folks can have actual guests stay in it. I like the idea of a room at the same level as the rest of the house, with an ocean view and breeze. Much more appealing for guests (and I'm the first guest!).

I got my car on Friday and it feels so good to have my own wheels. Yesterday mom and I went running errands while dad worked on the corolla, getting it ready to sell. While we were out dad had us stop and pick up a tool at NAPA. All this wasn't possible before me and my toaster got here - that's called progress! Dad was having to do all that by himself.

I haven't done a ton of work around here yet, it's a bit on the warm side and hard to work in. I did get all the bottles for their noni juice sales cleaned, fixed their vacuum, cleaned the deck, installed some drywall and taped some of the ceiling in the kitchen to help eliminate "visitors" from outside. Oh yeah, can't forget the spider sucking!

All in all a lot of improvement around here, some due to my presence, others due to doctors finally making diagnoses.

BUT - I do miss my kids and grandkids. Thank goodness I have a ticket to go home for a visit!