Happy Halloween Eve! We are ready here at Casa Aloha for trick-or-treaters tomorrow evening although we have no idea if we’ll get any or how many if we do. YaYu participated in a walk-athon yesterday morning, and was given a big pumpkin, so we will either carve that later today or just set it out as is tomorrow when we turn on our porch light.
We’ve had a somewhat strange week here weather-wise, one of those where I feel genuinely sorry for people who are here on vacation. It’s been very cool (for here), windy and rainy – definitely not beach weather. While I am always grateful for cooler temperatures, my sinuses have not been enjoying it, and my old knee injury has been letting me know it doesn’t appreciate what’s been going on either. It looks like it may be changing today though – I can see blue skies out the window. One bonus is the ceiling fans are currently not operating though (or needed). I hope it stays nice tomorrow for Halloween!
In the meantime I have grown beyond bored with all the resting and inactivity of the past couple of months. Brett has really stepped up his game in the kitchen, and has been keeping up with everything else while I’ve been turning into a butterball over on the sofa. I know the rest is important and required for healing, but I am so eager to get out and start doing things again. My physical therapist has suggested we look into replacing our current spin-style exercise bike (which makes me bend over) for a recumbent style, so I can exercise without aggravating the bursitis in my hip or my back. Our landlord has said he would buy our current bike from us any time we wanted to sell, so we may start by doing that.
The macaroni and cheese debate has been decided! We fix the Paula Deen recipe this past Thursday, and although it didn’t seem to have quite the cheesy flavor of the NY Times recipe, we still preferred it so earned a spot on our election night viewing menu on November 8.
This afternoon I am:
- Reading: I finished the Joyce Carol Oates book yesterday and have picked Truevine back up again. Both books make it clear that real life can be far more terrifying and horrible than anything Hollywood might dream up, that monsters are living among us all the time.
- Listening to: The trees blowing in the wind. It’s blowing hard enough where I can hear the noise from the trees up on the hill across the street. The birds and chickens must be hunkered in as well – there hasn’t been a peep out of them. The neighborhood is eerily quiet as well.
- Watching: Brett and I are still watching Longmire – we’re now in Season 4. The series wrapped up a storyline at the end of Season 3 that we felt was taking a bit too long to resolve, so we’re looking forward to seeing which direction the new season takes. The star of the show, Robert Taylor, is from Australia, but you’d never know it – he sounds like he walked right out of Wyoming. Update: In honor of Halloween, we’ve decided to watch The Haunting tonight, the 1963 version, which remains as scary as when it was first released.
Pumpkin bars! - Cooking/baking: I made pumpkin bars yesterday – they were easy to whip up so I didn’t have to stand too long, although YaYu made the frosting. Brett will be making mabo nasu (nasu means eggplant in Japanese) for our dinner tonight, using crumbled tofu rather than ground pork. Mabo nasu is one of YaYu’s favorite dishes – she will make sure there are no leftovers!
Freshly painted toenails always make me feel better - Happy I accomplished this past week: It’s been another week of resting, but I’ve gotten several blog posts written and banked. I sometimes go through periods of writer’s block when it’s difficult to write anything, so it’s always nice when the muse returns and I can metaphorically put things down on paper. I also was finally able to give myself a small pedicure. I was almost ready to ask Brett to do it for me, but then figured out how to do it without having to bend over too much. There’s something about a pedicure that makes me feel much better all over.
- Looking forward to next week: There’s not a lot happening next week other than more physical therapy and more resting. The therapist has cleared me to go to the beach though, so if the weather improves we might get to do that.
Wai’ale’ale - Thinking of good things that happened this week: Mt. Wai’ale’ale briefly came out of its cloudy hiding place last week – It always gives me a bit of a thrill to see it. Of course a couple of hours later the clouds rolled in and it rained the rest of the day. After seeing last week’s picture of my mom at her craft fair, my good friend Denise ordered three sets of mom’s kitchen towels! It made my mom very happy (me too!). I am getting very close to having 38,000 followers on Pinterest, something I still don’t entirely understand because I’m on it so little these days. I finished ordering YaYu’s Christmas present, so just have Meiling’s left to purchase. She is a very difficult person to shop for, so I requested a wish list to give me some ideas, and she sent that this week. We had no food waste, and put $4.96 into the change/$1 bill jar.
- Grateful for: I love being able to communicate with Meiling and YaYu so easily while they’re away, and am so thankful for all the different ways we have these days to stay in touch and keep up with what’s going on with each other. In this past week we’ve texted as well as used Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter to stay in touch with each other. When our son went to college the only ways we had to communicate were email and by phone (landlines), and it cost $$ to call long distance, so we didn’t get to talk very often.
Cane spider (picture thankfully taken in someone else’s home) - Bonus question: Are you afraid of bugs? Lizards? Frogs? Snakes? I am not afraid of bugs in the least, not cockroaches or even most spiders, which makes it easy for me to take care of them when I do see them (not being afraid though is different from not liking – I still don’t like seeing them). Hawai’i is a very buggy place, but we thankfully get fewer bugs at this house than we did at our first place. The one exception to my lack of fear are cane spiders – they are shockingly HUGE, although mostly harmless. They don’t like humans and will almost always do anything to get away from one. Any lizard beyond a gecko is a problem for me, as are all frogs and snakes – those are the animals of nightmare for me. There are no snakes in Hawai’i though which makes that fear a little bit easier to deal with here. I do like the geckos here – they do a good job of taking care of the bugs, and they’re considered good luck. The reason that I will always tolerate the chickens and their noise is because they also do a great job of keeping the bug population at bay, especially centipedes.
Happy Halloween to everyone tomorrow!
The Occasional Nomads 
I am not a fan of any bugs in the house but I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of them. However I have a deep loathing of common house flies!
Glad you are doing some reading, watching and baking! A recumbent bike sounds like a fine idea – when you are ready, of course.
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My loathing for flies probably matches yours! I’ve seen all of one fly in the 2+ years we lived here – don’t know if that’s a Hawai’t thing or what, but it’s been nice not to have to deal with them.
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HI Laura,
Did the feeling about snakes have anything to do with Miles’ collection? I still remember the day I proudly found a huge snake in our front yard, ran down to get Miles, because I knew he’d have an appropriate cage, and then was crestfallen when we got back, he took one look, and exclaimed “Hilda!! Where have you been?”. Turns out Hilda had gotten away about 10 days prior, and worked her way up the block and across the street to our house!
Happy Halloween!
Greg
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Greg – I HATED those snakes! Did you know that ALL of them escaped once (which is probably when Hilda made it over to your house). We found/caught most of them right away, but the 6-foot boa constrictor was loose in the house for several months before it was found (it was dead). No more snakes after that – Mrs. Ireland lived down the street and she threatened to call the police if we kept them any longer.
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I can take the small spider but the giant ones, no way!! They really freak me out,
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I avoid the big ones too, unless they are outside – then I just give them wide berth. All three of our girls are terrified by spiders of any size though, nothing that”s ever been modeled by me or Brett. I wonder where it comes from?
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