Catching Up

It's been so long since I've posted here that some of you are beginning to worry, and I'm getting those , "Are you still alive?" emails and phone calls.  

I appreciate your love and concern.  Here's the story.

• I am still a volunteer with the History Resource Center at the Groveland Museum, working with the genealogy database and writing articles for the (very) local newspaper and (less frequently) the historical society newsletter.
• Meanwhile, I had a brilliant idea for Daughters of Hawaii -- digitize the membership files, which have all been on paper, using a genealogical database.  That means someone  needs to monitor, edit, and integrate the data entry process.  Big job.  I'm behind on that deadline. 
• My high school graduation was that magic 5-0 years ago.  We were a tiny class -- less than 60 of us actually paraded in caps and gowns across the amphitheater stage at the University of Hawaii that day. But out of that handful, some are head-spinningly successful.  The kind of people who are justifiably described as "world class" in their chosen professions.  Others have achieved considerable financial success and are reasonably well-known locally.  Naturally, all of those folks have stepped up and are volunteers with the reunion planning committee.  A plea came from another member of said committee that she needed another voice for the rest of the class.    So here I sit, trying to find caterers who will go to a place that is seen as almost as remote from Honolulu as Groveland is from the rest of the world, with a budget-fitting menu that will be supported by our day's activities.  White tablecloths and elegant food somehow doesn't follow well after a day spent in outdoor fun and capped by an afternoon beach party!  
• I did manage to turn down the annual offer for a vestry seat at church (the governing body of the congregation) on the basis that I can only do justice to one board at a time, and Daughters of Hawaii has already staked their claim.  
• My mother's needs get greater  by the day as we find new tasks she is either unable or unwilling to do for herself.  The yard, for example, which she loves,  is turning into a disaster, as no adult is willing to do what she wants done for the wage she is willing to pay.  She has someone who mows the lawn every 4-5 weeks, but it needs cutting every 2-3 weeks.  I cannot start my dad's lawnmower (it is a pull start, and I cannot pull hard enough to get the fussy engine to catch) and she won't replace it with an electric mower that I can use.  
• I also need to make time for activities that please my mom.  The Academy of Arts is good.  Distances are short and she can use her walker.  We tried a commercial gallery last week, one located in a small shopping mall.  She enjoyed it once we got to the gallery, but it was a very long walk for her -- although distances for a younger person are short.  So our outings are usually limited to market-pharmacy-Longs Drugs, with an occasional longer trek to Barnes&Noble or the Hallmark Store or one of her favorite thrift shops.  
• Then there's nights like tonight, when the phone rings and it is my priest announcing he has the flu, there are no available supply priests available on the island, and could I please, please, PLEASE read Morning Prayer at both services tomorrow morning.  ....  and the high school boy who works in the yard a couple of Sundays a month cannot come this week, the green waste garbage cans need to be filled, and guess who gets to do some heavy bush pruning to fill up said cans?  Three large ones, currently empty ..............  

Onward to another day!  Give thanks for the things you can do, large or small, that make a difference to someone.  Don't forget to pray.

Turning Technie

As it turns out, my mother is not imagining her hearing loss.  There is a measurable loss in both ears since her last test.  As the technician pointed out, "When you are in the mid-to-profound loss range, any additional loss is significant."

We came home with a new toy, a device called TV Ears.  It's earphones with a volume control, drawing its signal off a connected TV.  You can change the volume to your ears without changing the volume on the set itself, thereby saving the ears of those of use who don't (yet!) need the additional amplification.

Connecting external devices to a TV set became old hat years ago.  I used to laughingly claim that I should get tech wages at work (nearly double my actual salary) for all the times I had to wire cables into a Superintendent's TV set, or my own video editing system.  After the multiple decks, multiple sound sources, multiple image sources, and multiple monitors all hooked together into a single coherent editing system, adding a listening device like TV Ears ought to have been a piece of cake.

Until I discovered that my parents' TV, made in 2000, has NO audio out ports.  No familiar little red/white/yellow places to plug in the correspondingly colored wires that come with every device purchased these days.  Just solid plastic coverings where I'd expect to find the connectors.

Think, Bonnie, think!

What should, in theory, have provided a work-around -- didn't.  At least not for several hours.  A mad dash to nearby Radio Shack only confirmed the theory.  Even replacing the TV set would not solve the problem.  New TVs have lots of computer, iPod, and other digital connections.  Most have no more than one RCA outlet, one usually dedicated to another device.

Several hours later, after much cable moving, connection jiggling, channel changing,  powering equipment on and off -- and frustration -- the whole package came together.  Both the TV and the Ears now work.  

Mother's judgement?  "It is louder, but it is not any clearer."  I suspect the Ears will be returned before the end of the 30-day trial.

Give thanks for technology that works the way it is intended!
Don't forget to pray.......

A Reality Check

It's just after 10:00 p.m., the house is quiet, and I'm hearing the telltale sound of raindrops of the aluminum roof of the lanai.  For you non-Hawaiians, read "patio roof".   It sounds kinda' like lah-NIGH.   It has been threatening all day -- overcast skies, temperatures cool enough that long sleeves were comfortable today.   It's supposed to rain for the next several days.

Last week brought several days of torrential rain.  The plover who makes our yard his (her?) winter home was dancing around the puddles, remembering that he really is a shore bird.   Yesterday I found him exploring the carport.  Silly bird.  No bugs there, just 70 years of cars parked there night after night.

My mom had wanted to attend a real estate presentation this evening dealing with property values in this neighborhood.  I think the sponsoring real estate office wants to expand its client base.  But by mid-afternoon she announced that her hearing has deteriorated so much in the last week that she didn't think she could hear anything even if she sat in the front row.   I don't know that her hearing has gotten significantly worse in the last week -- she couldn't hear the dialog  in a commercial movie theater last summer.   We didn't go to the presentation tonight; we are going to the hearing clinic tomorrow.

Give thanks for the health you have.    Don't forget to pray!

Honoring our Ali'i

Mauna 'Ala is not just another cemetery.    It is not a part of the State of Hawai'i, nor is it part of the Untied States.  Here, one stands in the Kingdom of Hawaii.  Here many of our Ali'i, our royalty, are buried.

Here members of the four Royal Societies and Daughters of Hawai'i (we are not a royal society, i.e., not founded by one of the ali'i) gather on specific days to honor one or more of those ali'i.  On New Year's Eve we gathered to remember Queen Kapiolani, wife of our last king, Kalakaua.   On January 2 we gathered again, this time to honor Queen Emma, wife of Kamehameha IV, on her birthday.

We are reminded of the contributions the ali'i made to society.  Most were writers and musicians, poets and composers.  They were social reformers in a world of change.  They were fierce champions of their people and their nation.

Queens Emma and Kapi'olani are each credited with founding a hospital -- Emma, the Queens Hospital opened originally to combat the western diseases decimating the Hawaiian population; and Kapiolani the hospital which bears her name, serving specifically women and children. My mother, my brother and I were all born at Kapi'olani Hospital.  Today Kapi'olani provides the only 24-hour pediatric emergency care and the only pediatric and neo-natal  Intensive Care Units in the state.

Emma petitioned the Anglican Church to come to Hawaii, and to establish a school for girls in Honolulu.  In my own line, I am the first in five generations not to attend St. Andrew's Priory.

The photo above shows a portion of the procession entering the chapel at Mauna 'Ala.  The ladies in black with golden lei are members of the Ka'ahumanu Society.  Daughters of Hawai'i, similarly garbed in white with golden lei, follow them.  Ahead, with capes, are members of the Royal Order of Kamehameha.  The processional order may change depending on the ali'i being honored, but it is always single file, always silent, always a reminder of who we are as part of the Hawaiian community.

Give thanks for the contributions of our ali'i, especially the Queens Medical Center,  St. Andrew's Priory , and the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children.

Don't forget to pray.

Signs of the New Year

Hawaii is one of those places where cultural diversity is -- and has been for a long time -- the rule rather than the exception.  Absence of diversity is one of the things local folks notice when we move away from Hawaii.

These views, taken just inside the entrance of the neighborhood grocery store, are typical.

Kadomatsu are a Japanese tradition.  They are displays of bamboo, evergreen and sometimes flowers.  Their composition, arrangement and placement at or near the front door are traditional, and steeped with religious symbolism and significance.

Next to the Kadomatsu is the tray of bamboo leaves, another of oranges, or tangerines with a leaf attached, and boxes of mochi. 

Making mochi at the New Year is as tradition in the Japanese community as making ravioli is to my Italian friends, and tamales to those from Mexico.  

Give thanks for the diversity that adds spice, breadth and awareness to our lives.

Don't forget to pray....

Not Quite Christmas

It's not the Christmas of storybooks and the more northern climates.

Christmas in Hawaii is warm -- high 70's, and this year it is very rainy.  I am reminded of the last major flood in northern California, right at this time of year in 1996, when warm rains at high elevations melted most of a significant snow pack in the space of just a few days.    Pineapple Express, they called it.  But that's a story for another day.

It's not the Christmas Eve of bean soup and bread fresh from the breadmaker, shared with good friends, then bundling into coat and hat and gloves (for warmth, not fashion!) and of heading off to church.

It's not the Christmas morning of celebratory breakfast, basking in the warmth of shared family.  Neither my mother or my brother and sister-in-law celebrate a Christ-centered Christmas.  It's just another one of those obligatory family days with gift exchange.

It's not the very Scottish Christmas dinner we shared with Mark and Andrea in the years they lived in Groveland.  Nor is it the Christmas of leftovers and football on the TV, and leisurely visits with friends and family.  

Instead, I shared a breakfast of out-of-season strawberries with my mother at a table stacked with the special china and silver waiting to be returned to cupboards and drawers after making an appearance for Christmas Eve dinner.  Then slipped off to church.  Even there, it was clear that the main service of Christmas had happened the evening before.  Very small attendance.  No music.  But Christmas, never-the-less.

How, I wonder, did I drift so far from the rest of my family in our ways of celebrating this particular holiday?  Why is it so important this year?

Give thanks for memories, for friends and family.  Give thanks for Christmas.   Don't forget to pray.

Spending on a Rainy Day

The Honolulu Academy of Arts is just wrapping up their annual buying spree -- just in time for Christmas. If I didn't go now, I'd miss it altogether.  So off I trudged, alone, since it was cold and rainy out and Mother didn't feel like fighting the weather.  My intention was Christmas shopping.  For other people.  Turned out to be self-gifting.  Found what is becoming an annual treat -- a lovely Celtic cross in delicate silver.  Quite different from the James Avery Celtic cross found so many years ago at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.  Found a fascinating bead necklace.  It looks like wood, feels like pearls.  It is neither.  The beads are Indonesian, cut from tree resin, each about 8 mm.  

Found at least one gift for someone else, but not at the Academy.  Also found a second needlepoint shop in Honolulu while looking for a yarn shop.  No wonder I can't find the yarn shop; it has closed.

Robert Who Listens still doesn't have enough magic in his bag of tricks.  He was able to confirm that whatever this computer is doing, it's the computer -- not me.  The fix-or-replace will have to wait until January.  It's gone on this long; it can wait a bit longer.

It is cool and rainy and dark outside, with no hint of the dawn.  Sunday is the Honolulu Marathon.  Weather reports say it will rain tomorrow, too.

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply motto says When the heavens weep, the earth rejoices.  Give thanks for the rain that nourishes the earth.