Plastic Sushi

Week of March 30

2014-04-06T09:57:00.003-05:00

March 30

Last night I had a terrible nightmare. It was kind of a women-in-prison type of nightmare (like a bad movie, but not one of those sexy ones that men like). I think I was in prison, but I don't really remember. There was corruption and people being mean to each other, etc. I know that Victoria Rowell was in the movie in my dream!

I woke up around 10:30 this morning. I was so tired! We went to the Ala Moana mall so David could get some clothes for this event on Wednesday. I've been nagging him for awhile to get some really nice "aloha shirts" like from Tommy Bahama or Tori Richards (both very expensive), so he finally decided to get one. First we went to the food court. They don't have too much there I can eat, so I just went to the same burger and fries place as last time. We went to Macy's for his clothes and I also got a black sweater because I only brought one sweater here, and it's not a dressy one. I needed one I can use with a dress or other less informal attire. It was not too expensive, fortunately.

I had forgotten to take my phone out of my purse last night (I do that sometimes!) and so I hadn't charged it, so it was dead...

We stopped at the grocery store on the way back...our week's shopping at Times Supermarket. I had to use the restroom while I was there, but someone else had the key, so I just waited until I got home. I almost didn't make it! LOL! I know, TMI.

After we got home, David took his nap and I worked on my site while I charged my phone. Then I phoned this guy Eddie that I've been emailing back and forth. He wants to get together with me musically. He doesn't have an actual band performs using MIDI sequences. I've heard of this kind of thing. He used to be a guitar player but then hurt one of his major fingers, so he switched to the piano. Very interesting guy and we had a nice phone call. I don't know if we'll get together or not, though, because he doesn't seem to want to share me with the other band. Also, he lives about 16 miles north west of us, and we really don't want to drive all that way just for a rehearsal or possible get-together. We'll see what happens.

I also phoned Larry, but I got his answering machine. He was supposed to email me, but I never got anything from him. He's the guy with the other band. I hope we're able to make that work. I'm very excited with the possibility of being in a band!

I mentioned last week that this guy Jim on SingSnap and I are doing this contest for Phantom of the Opera duets. We're having fun with them. I wish I could do "Phantom of the Opera" but it's just too high for me at the end. I used to be able to hit those notes, but not any more. I would have to really work on it, not sure how long it would take me. Maybe I can do it if I ever take voice lessons again!

Anyway, we did "All I Ask of You" and then today we did "The Point of No Return". I had to really learn the second one. I dressed up and put on lots of make-up for both videos, and he wore a Phantom mask for the second one. It was a lot of fun. The contest prize is no big deal, but still it would be fun to win!

I've been doing lots of duets lately and that's really fun. I'm going to be doing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" with this guy Rik from the other two sites. I was working on that last night, learning it. It's fairly easy, thankfully! That led to me reading about Tammi Terrell, who died young. Such a sad story there. You should check out her great duet video with Marvin Gaye.

David was doing his fantasy baseball draft this afternoon while I recorded songs. In the evening, we went over to Downbeat Cafe for dinner. I had way too much to eat... I had edamame, which was pretty good but too salty! And a chicken quesadilla, and worst of all, a chocolate shake. Bad! They make great food, though. It's really hard to resist.

Otherwise, I've just been spending the evening working on my site, watching TV, and doing the laundry!

The weather here is pretty much always great this time of year, in the 70's and nice, breezy. Last week we had some really humid days. Right now we're having a bit of rain and wind.

March 31

I got up around 11:30, too late still... well, it's better than getting up at 3:30 :) I'm not having coffee today because it's too late.

I've just mostly been working on my site and watching TV today.

I don't know if it's going to work out yet with these guys in the band. The one band changed their rehearsal time and date. I have to call tonight to find out about that. I hope it is still during the day and on the weekend.

The other guy might be just a bit too intense and picky to work with. He wants everything to be his way - rehearse at his place, his time, his day, his songs... and he doesn't want me to be in any other band. He doesn't even have his own band, it's just him with his MIDI. No thanks! I can't stand people like that who are inflexible and demanding.

Tonight we're going to Gordon Biersch for the monthly Science Pub. I hope it's fun and interesting, and I hope the service is good! It's spotty there when they have the large crowds.

I've been really congested the past two days. UGH. I'm so sick of allergies.

I really need to lose this extra weight. It's so annoying. I've just been so lazy.

We went to Gordon Biersch. The speaker was a mathematician who talked about infinity. It was definitely over my head, but interesting. She was very good at her talk. The service was pretty good; that waiter we had is always very knowledgeable about gluten. They have corn tortillas there now so that was helpful. Matthew and Sarah sat near us, with their kids, so we got to talk to them quite a bit. Sarah suggested we all go out to dinner sometime, so we told her that would be great. After the walk, Matthew said he heard that I did karaoke, so we talked a lot about that. Sounds like they might get a group to go sometime. That sure would be fun!

Just been working since we got home. I need to phone the band guy Bobby but I forgot...will call tomorrow.

I've been itching all over, especially on the left side. So annoying.

I went to bed about 2am but then I woke up a few hours later and had trouble getting back to sleep. UGH.

I talked to the guy in charge of the band, Bobby. He sounds great. I just have to wait and find out when the rehearsal is. Originally it was the 12, but I guess their new lead guitarist needs more time...hope it works out! Larry sent me the list of songs they know..

April 1

I woke up around 11:30 when David called for lunch and I was so groggy. Still kinda am and it's only 2pm. We had lunch at Subway. Big things going on at his work that I can't talk about.

I ran into this guy, Dale, while waiting for David. Very nice man and so tall. He teaches some classes at HPU but his "day job" is reverend. We had a nice but brief chat.

I wasn't going to have coffee, but I did because...so tired!!

Just been watching TV and working on my site. If I ever wake up, I need to put away the laundry and do some other stuff.

After trying to go back to sleep twice, and taking a shower, I finally made myself go in and record some songs, which woke me up a bit.

David came home just before 7, and we went to Murphy's for dinner. I had the lamb special. It was pretty good.

I spent the rest of the night listening to songs or working on my site, or watching TV. I finally did put the laundry away!

April 2

I tried to get up early for a call but went right back to sleep instead. It was too early...

I woke up around 12:30 for good. I just had a sandwich here at home.

I'm very disappointed. We were going to go to this party later on tonight, and I was really looking forward to it. It was a fund-raiser for the governor, and we were going along with Matthew and Sarah. It was canceled, for some reason. I had a dress all picked out, and I even bought new shoes. Bummer!

We went to dinner at Epic. I like the place, but there's only a few things they have that I can eat. They have a duck salad that's great, so I had that.

It was super windy here tonight. I usually have the lanai (balcony) door open, but I had to close it partway over because papers kept blowing around. Also, the windows all kept rattling.

I have to get up really early tomorrow...not sure how I'll manage!

There's this thing I've been using for years called a Lapinator. It's a square thing that's cushioned on the bottom. You put your laptop on it and it protects your legs from the heat. Since I gave David my old computer, he uses it now, so I bought a new Lapinator Plus, which is larger, for my newer laptop. I got it today. Yay!

April 3

I got up at 6:40 and had a great conference call. Unfortunately, I stupid forgot I had a second call and missed it completely. I thought it was the next day. D'oh!

I had coffee but then later I got really sleepy. Then I had D. So I went back to sleep around 11 and slept for 2 and a half hours.

I did get a lot of work done today on the site.

I went out around 1:30 to get some snacks and Long's and pick up a soda and ice cream at McDonald's. It was good to get out.

I did a lot of work on singing in the afternoon.

I had more D and tried to go back to sleep, but it didn't work.

David and I went out to dinner around 7. JJ Dolan's was crowded as usual so we went to the Cuban place. It was quite good, but David kept rushing me. I just had a salad that was pretty good. It had really good green olives and candied walnuts. Yum! I also had one glass of sangria.

I did a lot of work tonight... didn't really feel like doing anything else.

I'm tired so I'm going to bed a little earlier than usual, around 1:30 as soon as my transcripts are done.

April 4

I had to get up at 7:30 for another conference call. I went back to sleep afterwards, around 8:30, and slept until 1:30. David did phone me for lunch sometime around noon but I was too tired. Unfortunately, I had been having this great dream about Russell Crowe before he called! Damn! :)

I was pretty groggy when I got up, but didn't want to drink coffee so late. I watched TV and worked on my site, etc. Nothing too interesting.

We went to Waikiki like usual, for dinner and drinks. We were going to go to the Bali restaurant in the Hilton, but it was too long of a wait, so we went to the sushi place there, Hatsuhana. I had a small salad and some scallops. Then we went to Irish Rose, an Irish bar that we both like. I got my usual lava flow.

The wine place near there, the Wine Closet, went out of business! That was shocking because we just went there about a month and a half ago. Too bad!

We just came home and sat around, listening to music.

April 5

We went to lunch at the Moroccan restaurant here called Kan Zaman. The first time we ate there, neither one of us liked it, but this time I did love what I had. It was some kind of lamb sandwich (without the bread), with onions and a spicy sauce and cheese, and french fries. Delicious! I'm also happy to learn that they have gluten free falafel! Yay!

We took a nap after lunch, which was a very bad idea when I'm trying to get up earlier!

For dinner later, we went to Duc's Bistro, the really good Vietnamese restaurant near our house. I love their spring rolls, which are gluten free. We also shared an eggplant dish, which was pretty good.

After that, I had a lot of work to catch on, so it was pretty boring the rest of the night.

I've been doing way too much work and need to do some more singing and recording! I'm hoping we can go out to karaoke next weekend.

Don't forget to read my TV Blog!

Week of March 23

2014-04-06T09:33:00.003-05:00

I accidentally posted this on the wrong blog last week! LOL!

March 23

I got up around noon... still need to get up earlier again... it's so hard!

David and I walked over to Starbucks. I read online that their decaf still has caffeine, so I had a white mocha decaf. Frankly, mine tastes better, and this one didn't wake me up at all.

I finished up my usual Sunday work on the site and then later, we went to Downbeat Cafe. The waiter there asked where we'd been because we didn't go last week. LOL! We go too much. I'm back on my diet as of last week so I just had a greek salad.

I did a lot of recording and having fun with recording and listening to songs in the evening, and watching a little TV. I stayed up way too late.

March 24

I woke up around 6:30 am. My legs were really bothering me. I kept waking up for the next hour or so. I get these bouts of Restless Leg Syndrome every once in a while (no, it's not from a lack of magnesium or potassium etc.) It is partly from not getting enough exercise but also being overweight and not having orthopedic shoes probably doesn't help. Basically, the legs get pains. The muscles get very tight.

I asked David to set the alarm for 11, but I didn't hear it. He called me about 11:15 to see if I wanted to get lunch, but I didn't. Instead I fell back asleep. Then apparently the furniture rental company tried to come back to pick up the bed (we'd forgotten which day they were scheduled to come -I'd planned to call them today). I didn't hear the doorbell, so they called David, who called me. I had just a few minutes to get dressed before they came back. Also, the letter carrier downstairs called me about a postage due package downstairs. So I had to hurry also to get everything off the bed and out of the way, then after he came to get the bed, I had to rush downstairs to get the package. Then I forgot to bring money, so I had to run back upstairs to get the money, and go back downstairs again! LOL! All half-asleep...

I had some coffee after that. Again I mixed it up in the blender with cocoa, Equal, vanilla and milk, then I heated it up in the microwave and put it in the mug along with whipped cream. Yummy! Just that little bit of caffeine really gets me going for the whole day.

I did some more recording after that and then met David over at JJ Dolan's. I had a salad, then we came back to the apartment. I got ready because we were going to go out to karaoke, since David has tomorrow off (for Spring Break). Art's is apparently closed on Monday's, so that was a great disappointment. Then we tried to go over to this new place I saw the other day called Tiana's. It's all the way down by the harbor, so it's quite a walk. It was very disappointing. There was no one singing. There were a bunch of guys playing cards and watching TV. I asked the bartender if there was karaoke, and she replied that they only have a few English songs. I really felt like saying, really? Let me see...I think she was just lying because she didn't want us there. We're too old and white. I think it was one of those places where the sexy waitresses cater to the guys, if you know what I mean! Well, their loss. They should definitely put up a sign that says "Japanese karaoke" or something so we know.

So we headed back to the place across the street from our place, Mambo Cafe, but they were dead. There was just one guy sitting at the bar, and the TV was on with Conan. So we just sat and had a drink. I was really hungry by then, so I had sliders with fries. The cook was sitting out at the bar, too, and fortunately he did know about allergies so he was able to tell me what was in the food. He fixed me up a nice little plate with two burgers, a salad, and some fries. It was really good, too! It took a long time, so I think he made it all from scratch.

David and I did a little singing at home, but I can't really sing too much after 10pm because of the rules here at the Honolulu Tower.

Here I am, still wide awake and it's almost midnight! Not just because of the coffee, just from sleeping too late. SIGH.

We're hoping to get our driver's licenses renewed tomorrow (to finally get our Hawaii licenses), since they will be open but David doesn't have to work the whole day. We just have to go down there and take the written test. David only has tomorrow off for Spring Break, but he also has Wednesday off for Prince Kuhio Day.

He has Good Friday off, so we were talking about maybe flying to one of the islands that weekend.

March 25

I had a really early phone call interview this morning and then I went back to sleep, I think, for a little while.

We tried to go get our licenses renewed, but apparently they require that you bring a passport or social security cards, and he didn't feel like driving all the way home to get them and then all the way back to the offices. We stopped for lunch at the Jack-in-the-Box.

We didn't do too much today...

We went out to dinner at this place called Mezz 127. It's a small bar inside this business building near the Aloha Tower. I guess on weekends it's a jazz bar. They have snacks so we just went there for some light snacks and drinks. The food was ok... nothing special, thought, and the music was really loud so we probably won't go back.

March 26

I got up a bit earlier today. We went to this Vietnamese restaurant for lunch called Tran Le's. We were going to go to Little Village Noodle House, but they were very crowded. Tran Le's makes spring rolls and other stuff that's gluten free, so that was great.

I had coffee, so that gave me lots of energy to record more videos on SingSnap. I've been doing duets, too. Lots of fun!

So right now you can see my videos at SingSnap
and I'm also posting some on youtube (same ones as on Singsnap)
My other recordings are still on Singer's Showcase and on TIK

The videos are "live" recordings so they're not as polished as the other recordings. Don't forget, these are amateur home recordings.

However...I did use one of them to audition for the new singing show "Rising Star" on ABC. You can audition online and there's no age limit. We'll see what happens! :)

Singsnap has these little contests... they're just for fun, no real prizes. So this one guy and I are going to audition for the contest that's for Phantom of the Opera duets. That's really hard singing so I've been working hard on it today.

I can't remember where we went for dinner! :)

March 27

I did more recording today. I do still need to get up earlier, though, and get to the gym.

David was back at work today. We had lunch at Subway. Later, we went to dinner at Gordon Biersch. They're renovating the Aloha Tower, so a lot of it is closed off now. You have to walk around it and go in Gordon Biersch the back way. Even so, though, it was crowded, so I guess it doesn't affect their business.

It's been very warm and humid all week, for this time of year. It does cool off at night, thankfully.

I went to bed a little early, around 2.

March 28

This has been a very exciting week but not so exciting to describe, I'm afraid. I've been doing so much singing and that's been fun. It's been great having David home more, too.

I had placed ads on the net last week about wanting to start a band, including Craigslist. I got a reply from this woman Carole that said to call these two guys, Bobby and Larry. I finally got around to calling them today. They're in a band called The All Natural Band. They've been around for a long time (they're all older than me, it sounds like). They lost some of their players and are regrouping now, so they got a new lead guitar player and they're looking for, among other things, a female vocalist. I spoke to Larry for a while and then later to Bobby. Larry is very chatty and we talked a lot about the band and the songs. Bobby is the leader and we chatted a little. Sounds like I don't have to really "audition" in any real way. The first rehearsal is April 12 so I'm just going to show up and I guess if they don't like me, they'll let me know :) I did send Larry some links to my songs (Bobby doesn't have email). I'm very excited about this. They're an oldies band, sounds like they do pop and rock songs from mostly 50's-70's. They want me to sing 3-4 songs and do backup vocals on the other songs. They're very laid back and open to whatever songs I want to sing. Larry is supposed to send me a list of their songs.

There's this other guy, Edwin, who emailed me as well. If he's amenable, he and I might also do something together musically. The other band just gets together a few times a month, and who knows if it will pan out, so at least I will have something going on. Right now I'm trying to update my list of songs, which is lengthy.

Now I just have a few weeks to lose some more weight...LOL!

We went to 'umeke Market for lunch. It was good like usual. I love their Kahlua pork.

I got up just around lunch time so that's no good!

My glasses fell apart - this tiny little screw fell out, so I had to take it to an eyeglass place today to get fixed. It took about a half hour, so I went to Starbucks for my coffee. It's still not as good as the coffee I make here at home! I told the girl I wanted mostly hot chocolate (sugar free), just a little bit of coffee, and about 1/4 of the cup whipped cream. When I got it, I took the lid off and asked the girl to put in more whipped cream. Then when I tasted it, it still tasted way too much like coffee. I added in some equal so that helped a little. I asked, but they had no gluten free stuff to eat. Bummer! So getting my glasses fixed only cost $2. Yay!

I stopped on the way home to get a diet soda at Subway.... my usual indulgence. I drink a lot of Diet Pepsi and Coke.

I didn't feel like singing today, so I took a day off.

We went to JJ Dolan's for dinner. I just had a salad.

I wish I could say I got stuff done today, but I wasn't very productive.

March 29

I had a weird dream about David's work and some people he works with...it was kind of a nightmare. Yuk! I hate that.

We went to lunch at the Little Village Noodle House, which we'd both liked before. Unfortunately, it was very disappointing this time around. I'd had some rice noodle dish last time that was delicious. This time, they didn't have the same dish, I guess, and what they brought me was very very bland. We went to Starbucks afterwards and I got a coffee (but I still like mine better!).

I got a lot of work done today, making up for some lost time.

In the evening, we went down to Waikiki to our usual place, Kani Ka Pila Grille, which is at the Outrigger. I like their mahi mahi sandwich (they have gluten free bread and the fish is not breaded, so it's good and also healthy). Then we went over to GS Studios, where we sang for a little bit. It has private karaoke.

This coming week should be a lot more interesting!

Don't forget to check out the TV Blog...

Week of March 16!

2014-03-24T03:54:00.003-05:00

Sunday March 16

We went to the Ala Moana mall so Peter could buy some souvenirs and clothes. First we had lunch at the food court there. It's a really big one with many wonderful places, but most of them use soy sauce in their foods. Even the Mexican place! I was so shocked by that. Anyway, I just had a burger and fries, and I think they were ok.

I bought some gourmet chocolates at this one place that has gluten free chocolates. I also got a small lady bug magnet in this golf store.

I tried to nap after we got back, but I wasn't able to go to sleep. I just did work on my site the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening, and the laundry.

Later we walked to Gordon Biersch, which is right on the harbor, to have a drink and show the view to Peter. Then we walked over to Ruth's Chris steakhouse for dinner (it's just a few blocks past there). It's very expensive. The food and service are excellent, but I'm not sure the price is worth it. I think Outback would have been just as good and probably half the price. They did have a gluten free menu, at least. I just had a salad and then a petite filet.

We just hung around at home afterwards. I have been putting snacks out each night. We're all over-eating!

I stayed up until about 5 am, which is not good. I wanted to wait until the laundry was finished. Then I just went to sleep for a few hours.

Monday March 17

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

David woke me up when he left for work, around 7:30 am. The plumber came around 8 to replace the garbage disposal. He only took about an hour, thank goodness. I was so groggy and could barely keep my eyes open. I went back to bed after he left and slept until about 2:30.

Peter went over to David's work and they did some work together. Peter met with someone at the university. David and Peter went out for lunch without me.

I worked on my site and watched some TV. I cut up some strawberries and bananas, and froze them, with toothpicks. Later, I dipped them in melted chocolate. It came out ok, but the bananas gets mushy pretty quick.

We went to dinner at Epic, which is always pretty good. It was a little loud, though. They're having a big St. Patrick's Day thing down at the intersection where the two Irish bars reside, Murphy's and O'Toole's. Peter checked it out earlier, but he said it was not too busy yet. I suggested we go check it out after dinner, but they decided they didn't want to.

I made more snacks, of course...

Now I'm on a late schedule again. UGH. I need to get up earlier tomorrow, that's for sure.

Tuesday March 18

I woke up around 11. Peter and I joined David for lunch again. We went to the nearby Greek place, called Leo's Taverna. I had the gyro plate and loved it, but David said his wasn't nearly as good as last week (he got the moussaka) and Peter didn't like the beef kebabs (I had those last week and they were delicious). Oh, well. I got very sick later with D but don't know if it was from that or not.

I went to 'umeke Market and got some more GF scones, and to Long's for a few things.

Peter came back around 3; I met him downstairs, since he didn't have a key. I got to see a really cute dog while I was down there, and he licked my face. I chatted with this new security person, Colleen, too. After Peter showed up, we went for a walk. I was looking for this place, Walter's Karaoke Shop (they sell machines and karaoke CD's), which was supposed to be on King Street, but there was a big sign on the door that they moved, and a phone number to call. I asked the guy to text me their new address, but it's over in Pearl City, which is not someplace we can walk. Their website still says they're on King St.! So annoyed. It was a nice walk, though. We walked over to the harbor and down the street a bit (found a karaoke bar I hadn't seen before) and we stopped at O'Toole's for some beer for Peter, soda for me.

I was going to make chocolate chip cookies for Peter and David, but I didn't have enough butter. I did make some spicy nuts.

A little while later, we went over to HASR's Bistro and met David after his class. We went to dinner there and it was great like always.

They pooped out on me early, before 10. I ended up staying up until around 3am, mostly working. I had bad allergies and was coughing and itching a lot.

Wednesday March 19

I woke up around 11, coughing myself awake. I was very groggy and it was difficult to wake up. Peter took the bus over to the Pearl Harbor museum. David and I had lunch at Subway. I was sick a lot with D this morning. I went back to sleep for a few hours after lunch.

Today is Peter's birthday. We're taking him over to the luau at the Hilton. Hopefully it will be fun. We went to a luau years ago, not that one. I have to say, the one we went to was very disappointing, so I hope this one is better. I hope they have something I can eat...

It was a fun luau. I'm not sure any of the tourist ones are worth the price. They start at $100 per person. I wanted to get the package that was slightly pricier, but they were sold out by the time I made the reservations (for the extra money, you get a better lei and they seat you closer to the stage). This one is on the rooftop of the Hilton. It's about 500 people, but they do it in a circular fashion so everyone can see the dancers quite well. The food was okay... I tried hard to eat gluten free. It comes with 2 mai tais, either alcoholic or non-alcoholic. They were the weakest ones we've ever had. The other drinks are very expensive. It was a fairly small buffet, but I thought the quality was good. The one we went to years ago was much more disappointing. The food was terrible, and we were seated so far from the dancers that we could barely see them. The only thing better about that one was the setting. It was on the beach, where a luau is supposed to be. They had a lot of interesting acts in that one, including guys who climbed coconut trees, but as I said, we were so far away... You definitely don't want to go to a luau if you don't like sitting next to strangers. We were seated next to some Japanese people who were very quiet and kept to themselves. There was an older lady with them who was very pushy. She was behind me in the buffet line and kept invading my body space and bumping me with her plate. I felt like "accidentally" hitting her with my elbow, but I didn't :) Anyway, if you come to Hawaii you should at least go to one luau as it's an interesting tourist experience. The entertainment is always good. The best part is at the end with the fire dancers. It's a very family -friendly environment, so don't expect the hula dancers to be dressed too skimpy!

I had called ahead to ask about gluten. The woman I spoke with didn't know much but said that if I asked my waiter, he would know which items were gluten free or not. Well, our waiter was mostly busy getting more drinks for people, but I did snag another waiter that was passing by, so I asked him, but he was fairly clueless. The woman on the phone said sushi should be fine, but they didn't have real sushi, just one type of roll. I don't eat sushi, anyway. The kalua pig was good and a couple of people told me there was no soy sauce in it. The man carving the beef said that he thought only the beef and the chicken had soy sauce, so I hope he was right. Of course I stayed away from the obvious things like the macaroni salad and the brownies. I had mostly the pork, some salad and some fruit. They didn't have poi, which is a luau staple, but frankly I think it's gross - it's mushy, grey, bland stuff.

We were there about 3 hours and then came back because it was a work day for David. We got small puka shell necklaces and you can see the photo of us here (but I ordered copies so it wouldn't have the copyright notice on it).

Back at home, we gave Peter some cupcakes and a card, and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. He seemed touched!

Thursday March 20

We had lunch at Zippy's, the coffee shop around the corner. They have pretty good food. I just had a turkey club. Peter doesn't eat much when he flies, so he just sat with us. David took him to the airport, and then he had some meeting to drive to after that. It's sad to see Peter go. He's a very good guest.

However, it's always nice to have the privacy back and be able to go back to just wearing a tank top and underwear around the place again! :)

I did a lot of work on my site this week, trying to catch up on everything. I work way too hard for someone who doesn't get paid, that's for sure. Hard to believe I've been online for 20 years at the end of 2014.

Back to our beautiful weather. I hope it doesn't start getting really hot and humid again any time soon.

David and I tried to go to Dolan's for dinner, but it was too crowded. I forgot that Murphy's was closed all week after St. Patrick's Day, so we walked down there for nothing. We went back and had dinner at Ra Kuen's. There's only a few things I can eat there, though. Plain steak and french fries is not a very healthy dinner. I would eat fish there if only they'd cook it (it's mostly sushi). The rest of their non-sushi dishes are all breaded or have soy sauce.

Friday March 21

Back on my diet today. I think I'll wait until tomorrow to do any real exercise. We had lunch at Subway, so I just had my usual salad. I get it with a double portion of chicken breast, plus bacon, pepper jack cheese, and most of the veggies. I make them put extra lettuce and lots of spinach, too, so it's a fairly large salad. I eat about half and take the rest home for later.

I had to throw away the rest of my gluten free scones - they'd gotten moldy. I guess I'll put them in the fridge from now on.

I get very sleepy sometimes... I never liked the taste of coffee or tea, and coffee upsets my stomach (at least, too much of it does). I want the caffeine benefits, though. I have always drank a lot of diet soda, but it doesn't have that much caffeine. I used to occasionally drink the Starbucks White chocolate mocha drink, but it's made with espresso so even with half a shot, that's a lot of caffeine, and way too much sugar. For Peter's visit, I bought a coffee maker. Now that he's gone, I figured I might try some. Even at 52, I like to try new things :) I just now made a very weak pot of coffee (only one scoop). In a blender I put in lots of cocoa (the kind with no sweetener or fat), a lot of half and half, lots of Splenda, and a little vanilla. I poured in some of the coffee and blended. Then I put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. I added a little more coffee and nuked it a little more (adjusting to my taste). I only want a very slight coffee flavor. I mean, REALLY slight. I don't even like coffee ice cream. I poured this into a cup about 3/4 full and added whipped cream. Delicious!! Low carb, low fat and way more convenient than going to Starbucks (probably cheaper, too). It really woke me up, too. Of course you can omit the coffee and make excellent hot chocolate this way, too. Putting it in the blender really mixes it so well.

I had so much energy after that! Wow! I picked up around the house, did some laundry, and recorded a bunch of songs. Zing!

We went to Murphy's, the Irish restaurant/pub for dinner. We've gone there many times and know the wait staff pretty well. One guy, who's kind of annoying in some ways but always very happy, smiling and whistling, we call him Mr. Happy. I have no idea what his name is. This other guy, who's very nice, I called him Mr. Right On because he always says "Right on". He chatted with us and told us his name is Eric, so I guess we can't use his nickname any more :) He chatted with us about St. Patrick's Day etc. I just had their chicken breast sandwich, minus the bread. I had some potato salad instead of fries.

Later, I finished off the rest of the Subway salad. I got a lot of work done recording songs and some work on my site.

I stayed up really late. It's kind of funny. I had posted in the Sing Snap forum about how they should fix some things on their site. One thing is that they have many duets that are not marked as such, and I mentioned a few, including "You're the Top". So this guy Graham (his username is UKMusic) sent me a message saying that he was glad I said that and also said that if I ever wanted to do that duet with him, he would. So I noticed that the karaoke version on SingSnap has the man starting and then the woman joins in. I went looking on Youtube for the original version, but it's not there. There are many other versions, and in almost everyone one, the woman starts! So that's very odd, but I guess par for the course for karaoke. However, I do think that in the original, it was probably the man that started. So I came across this recording on Youtube of Elaine Paige and John Barrowman singing it on stage when he was younger. She starred in the original London version of "Cats", I believe. You may know him from his many scifi shows like Doctor Who, Torchworld, or Arrow. He got his start on the stage and has done lots of Broadway musicals. I found a clip of him singing "Night and Day" with Kevin Kline, which is from the movie "De-Lovely" about Cole Porter. That's a movie I hadn't seen yet, but it's on my list of movies to watch. After watching some more videos of John Barrowman singing (Love his "Sunset Boulevard") and adding some of his albums to my Amazon wish list, I found that "De-Lovely" is free on Amazon Prime. So I stayed up to watch it, and it was already 2:30 am at this point, so...I stayed up way too late. But it was worth it. I love Cole Porter songs. The movie was ok...kind of depressing. Kevin Kline is great, but he's not right to play Cole Porter. He's too tall, handsome and has a great singing voice. They had him sing quietly and with a lot of force in the movie, which is silly. Since the whole movie is sort of supposed to be a musical-version of his life, they should have just said, Oh, well, he can sing now and had Kevin Kline sing the songs for real. I would love to hear that. It would have made the movie more enjoyable as well as the soundtrack. I would also say that even though Ashley Judd was great in the role, they should have gotten a singing actress to play the part.

Saturday March 22

I slept in pretty late, after 1. David had lunch without me. Oh, well. I did a lot of work on my site today. We also went to the grocery store. Nothing too exciting otherwise. I'm putting off exercise until this little cut on the bottom of my foot is heeled.

By the time it occurred to me that I should have coffee, it was the afternoon, so I decided not to have any.

We went to Waikiki for dinner around 5:30. First we went to Kelley O'Neal's. It's better there if you go earlier in the evening (not so crowded, loud or smoky). Then we went to the Thai restaurant nearby that we'd been to once before. It was really crowded and it took a very long time to get our food. We were starving and grumpy. It was delicious, though, and we gobbled it down.

This is why I have so much trouble eating gluten free while dining out. Last time we came here, I told the waitress I wanted to eat gluten free and she said that this one dish I like there was definitely gluten free. The one last night said it wasn't. So who do I believe? Sheesh. So I got the chicken curry, which was very good. Hopefully she was right about that one being gluten free!

We listened to music quite a it off the TV after we got home. When we were in Colombus, we had DISH Network, and it has a lot of music channels like Sirius Xm and others. They had at least 3 70's channels. I'm fairly sure that when we moved here, our cable system Oceanic Time Warner Cable had 2 or 3 70's channels, but now there's only one. Bummer. So we kept switching around between the 70's and 80's channel, and this one called "Solid Gold Oldies" and the "Classic Country" station for David as well as the Mexican station. Sometimes there are songs on you hate or that you're sick of, so that's why you need more than one station. We used to listen to Casey Kasem's old 70's top 40 countdowns on DISH Saturday nights, and we both miss that. Yes, I know, we could listen online but this is easier and the sound quality from my TV is better (we have laptops so I'd have to go dig out the speakers).

I went to bed a bit earlier, around 3:30, I think. My Spring allergies have been really bad. I've been sneezing a lot and stuffed up a lot. I thought maybe I had a cold because it was so bad last night, but I had no fever or any other symptoms.

Hope you all had a great week! It's beautiful weather here.

Week of March 9

2014-03-18T01:11:00.003-05:00

March 9

I got up a bit later than I have lately, around 10. I'm still not exercising. Hopefully by Tuesday I can get back to the gym. My left knee has been hurting, for one thing, ever since last week when I was on the rowing machine. Also, I've been sick a lot still from the gluten problems.

Our friend Peter is coming out on Thursday, so we're working hard to get the place nice and clean, etc. before he comes.

Today we went to lunch briefly at McDonald's, and then we went to Ross and got a nightstand for the guest bedroom.

Later, we went to the grocery store for the week's groceries and also took out a big pile of boxes that were here, cluttering up our living room, to the trash. We had a box of old mail etc. so David went through that and cleaned it out for me, and he did our taxes, too! Hurray! That's what I call a very productive day.

I did a lot of work today on my site, too, so I'm not too behind for once.

I hope to get up early tomorrow, around 8, and try to get up slightly earlier all week so I'm able to go to the gym etc. before it gets too hot. It was really hot and humid the past two days.

We went to dinner at Downbeat Cafe. I had a salad and chicken quesadilla, like last week. I took part of the quesadilla home and had it later.

The states on the mainland changed their clocks today for Daylight Savings Time... we don't change ours here in Hawaii. It makes it annoying to have to try to remember how many hours we're different from the mainland, especially when it keeps changing.

March 10

I had trouble getting up early... I didn't wake up until almost 11. Blah. I had a lot of trouble sleeping from my legs hurting. I think it's because I haven't been getting enough exercise this week and also because I spent too much time on the computer (sitting). I haven't completely given up caffeine, but I did buy caffeine free Diet Pepsi for the house because I was kinda jittery a few weeks ago. Not sure if that will make much difference, though, since I really do think the problem is too little exercise. I'll definitely have to go to the gym tomorrow.

We went to Subway for lunch. I tried their new Chicken Enchilada sub (of course without the bread). It was pretty good, nice and spicy. I'm not sure if it's gluten free or not. Most of their ingredients seem to be, though, (besides their bread) so it would surprise me if it wasn't. Then I went over to the 'umeke Market and they finally had some gluten free scones. Yay! Then I stopped at Long's and got a few things, and then I went to Ross and bought a lamp for the living room. We have an overhead light in there, but it's too bright and gives off too much heat. We had a desk lamp in there, but it's ugly and still too bright. This new lamp is pretty and only takes a 40 watt bulb, and it has two bulbs so you can make it brighter if you want. It was less than $30 at Ross and just the perfect size.

It's been pretty hot and humid today - got up to 80. It did rain but just a little. At least there are nice breezes and the sun is not too bad this afternoon. I like to sit out here on the Lanai to get the cool air. I think it might rain again.

I'm hard at work this week, trying to get the place ready for Peter's visit. I'm also trying to record some songs since I use the guest room for that and he'll be in it for the next week. It's been difficult because of all the D. It just wears me out.

We tried to go to Epic for dinner, but they were full up. They're normally not even open on Mondays. Comedian/writer David Sedaris was giving a talk in town, so all of the restaurants were really busy from what we could tell. We went to Murphy's but everything took forever. We ran into a nice couple that we know from HPU. I had a steak because it's one of the few things on the menu I'm probably not allergic to.

March 11

I got up after 11 today. I really would like to get up earlier, but its been tough. I took a bunch of packages to the post office and then met David for lunch again. We went to Subway again. I had a nice big salad. Apparently some Subways have gluten free bread, but not ours, of course. I bought some more things at Long's and Ross and also at the chocolate store before heading home.

After relaxing quite a bit and trying to get the house cooler, I did a little bit of recording, but not too much. David had his class as always.

I bought a coffee maker online, so I set that up and ran the water through it to clean it out.

We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I had a pizza (no crust of course), but I put healthy stuff on it like broccoli and spinach. It was actually really good.

I spent a lot of the evening trying to organize things in the kitchen and in the living room. I finally put together the dining room table I bought online. It was super easy. Now the only thing I'm missing is a chair (like an easy chair) and four kitchen chairs, and maybe another side table. Maybe some rugs and another picture on the wall in our bedroom. Perhaps some better patio furniture.

It suddenly occurred to me tonight that we should have put the couch on the other side of the room because the wind comes in on that side, so it would be much cooler. The couch is very heavy, otherwise I'd move it. Even with other people's help, it would be too difficult.

So much to do tomorrow, and I'm already staying up away too late... it's almost 3 am. Blah.

March 12

I decided that going to the gym is not going to work at least until I'm done getting every ready for Peter's visit. I just don't have the time and energy for both.

I woke up before 11, but just barely. I went to return some clothes to Ross that didn't fit, and I got lunch at McDonald's, and I bought some cupcakes, and some flowers. David has a lunch meeting today. I was not really awake when I went to do these things, so I had to be reminded to sign the credit card slips, etc. and then I left my sunglasses at the cupcake place...luckily it was on the way back.

Next I'm heading to the Safeway to buy some things.

On the way to the Safeway, I noticed a man sitting outside the Safeway on the ground, propped up against it. He didn't look too well, but I thought he might just be hung over or something. There are a lot of homeless around here, so it's not unusual to see someone lying or sitting around, looking sick, or drunk, or sleeping. When I came out of the store, the EMT's were there helping him out. I'm glad someone called them! It made me feel guilty, though. I hope none of us ever has a stroke or heart attack and falls down, people might just step right over us, thinking we're homeless. It's such a sad world we live in that people lying on the ground in pain is a common sight.

Speaking of pain... I had a hard time at the store. I was having lots of D and had to visit their bathroom twice. The second time, I left my cell phone in there and didn't even notice until I had checked out and was halfway across the parking lot. Fortunately, someone did turn it in to the customer service desk. My knee really was hurting, too.

I did a lot of cleaning, especially of the living room. I had to dust, sweep and mop the hallway and living room, and vacuum the bedrooms, among other things.

We had to go to this student talent show called Da Freakshow. It was fun, actually. First they had free pizza, popcorn and cotton candy at the nearby park for the students and other attendees. The provost, Matthew, was there with his wife Sarah, and their two girls. Matthew was one of the judges of the talent show, so he went off for that, so I sat next to Sarah and we had a nice chat before the talent show. It was very long but fun. They had a lot of good entertainers (mostly singers). At the end, this comedy magician, Joseph Tran, entertained us briefly. He was great, too. It was just very late for us, so we just went home and hit the hay.

This was the opening act. I thought they were very good and should have gotten at least 3rd place.

March 13

I had to get up very early for a conference call at 8. I just had a brief nap, and then I had to wake up again by ten. The plumber was supposed to come between 10 and 1 to fix the garbage disposal, but the people who told me that on the phone didn't tell him that! So he called me close to 1 and came over, but then he wanted to replace the dish washer, which would have taken two hours. So instead he's coming back Monday morning.

While I was waiting around, I cleaned both of the bathrooms and did a little laundry and other last minute cleaning.

David went to get Peter at the airport around 1:30, and then we went to a late lunch at the French place, Brasserie du Vin. It was good. I'd had a sandwich earlier, so I just had a small salad and this scallops appetizer, plus some kind of sweet rum drink. It was all very good.

David went back to work. Peter and I went into the pool for a little while. We mostly just chatted and caught up, more than did swimming. I tried to take a nap after that, but my knee hurt, so I couldn't.

David has his afternoon class Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we went to JJ Dolan's about 6:30 to grab a table (lately it's been too crowded to sit anywhere when we go there for dinner). David joined us after his class, so we had dinner and they had beer. I had their Caprese salad, which is just a few greens plus tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil (plus dressing). I always ask them to cut it up into bite size pieces and put less basil on it, so it's better.

Then we just went back to our place and sat around and talked. I made a bunch of snacks...it's just what I do when we have company. I put out raw veggies with dressing, and cheeses and crackers, and some little gherkins, and tostitos, and queso dip, and barbecue Pop chips, and some Portuguese sausage (Aloha Brand!). This is what's called light pupus here. Sometimes we have heavy pupus. Seriously, that's what they call it...

We were all really tired and went to bed fairly early. I went to bed at 10.

March 14

I woke up around 9am, but it took me a really long time to fully wake up. It usually does. I considered having some coffee, since Peter made some, but I still think it might be counter-productive to drink caffeine if you're also taking pain killers or muscle relaxers. My knee was really hurting when I woke up, so I took an Aleve.

David came home around 11, and they took me to Kaiser so I could have a doctor look at my knee, since it's been hurting for a few weeks now. My regular doctor is away for a few months, I learned, so I got a new doctor. She seems nice, too. She felt my knee and the surrounding area, but most of it did not hurt. It's just in one spot. She said it's probably just a mild case of tendinitis, so she gave me a prescription for some Aleve (it's stronger than the regular OTC kind) and said not to use the rowing machine or stair master, or do anything that hurts the knee, for a few weeks, until it's all better.

David and Peter went to lunch while I was at the doctor. I went up to the 6th to make an eye doctor appointment so I can get new contacts, but I won't be able to go in until April 2. After I got my prescriptions, Peter and David came back and picked me up. David went back to work. I went to 'umeke market to get lunch. I've only been there to get the gluten free scones before. Turns out they have something like a plate lunch, which is big here. It's like, meat and two sides type of thing. I got the Kalua pork, some brown rice and a small salad. Unfortunately, no scones today! I stopped at Long's to get a couple of things and then went home and ate lunch. It was really good, plus the girl behind the counter knew exactly which dishes had gluten and which didn't. It's kind of a health food type of place, and they have many vegetarian dishes as well, so they know all about different types of eating and they're aware of all of the ingredients. Yay!

Peter went to David's office to do some work with him while I took a little nap.

I was going to run my transcripts today and then realized that I stupidly forgot to make sure I had enough room for the soaps on my DVR. When we have visitors and we're always out doing stuff, I forget about the TV...LOL! Oops.

I did some cleaning and stuff, and then David and Peter came back around 5:30. We went down to Waikiki. First we walked a little on the beach (near the Hilton) and showed it to Peter. He was surprised how crowded the area was with tourists. I took a bunch of photos. We sat and had some drinks, then we went to the Japanese restaurant there. They had sushi and I had scallops. We had a good time and I drank a lot of wine. Then we walked to the Irish bar, Irish Rose, for a few drinks. I had to switch to soda because I'd had plenty of wine.

We went back to the downtown after a while. This place Mercury Bar has been advertising (on Facebook as well as other places) that they have live band karaoke once a month. First they said it was every first Friday, but then they changed it to second Friday. Every time, I've had something to go to. It was supposed to be last night, so we stopped there for one song. However, their band had canceled. I was so annoyed.... instead we went to Mambo Cafe, which is in the Chinese Cultural Center, across the street. We'd tried going there several times before for karaoke, but it never worked out. The place was pretty busy and loud when we got there, but at least we did find an open table. The sound system was not very good. You could barely hear the singers. Everyone was quite drunk and yelling a lot, too. I just stayed for one song, but it was a lot of fun, despite the noise. I did this song I've been working on, "Two More Bottles of Wine" by Emmylou Harris. It went very well!

We had some snacks again when we came back. I'd made guacamole during the day, so I brought that out. They went to bed a little after midnight. I ended up staying up way too late, listening to music.

March 15

I coughed myself awake many times this morning, so that wasn't good. I'm very congested now. We're going to drive around the island a bit, to show it to Peter. I only had 5 hours sleep.

We had a great time. This whole week has been very busy. Having guests can be exhausting, even when it's someone easy-going like Peter.

We're having high winds this week. We drove up to Pali Lookout but it was so bad, I ran right back to the car and didn't even take a photo. The wind was hitting so hard and whipping my clothes and hair around, and it was freezing. We stopped at the Hawaii Loa campus (the other part of David's school, HPU) and it was much better there. We had lunch at this place called Buzz's, which is right off the beach in Kailua. Jack took us there last year when he gave us a tour around the island. It's a good place and they know which foods have gluten. I've been very lucky lately with good restaurants that have knowledgable staff. I had a lamb salad (it was basically a salad with 4 small lamb chops on it - it was delicious, but I kind of wish it didn't have any bones in it and that the meat was cut up already) and we shared some steak fries that had potato skin toppings. Yum yum! Then we walked across the street to the beach for a few minutes.

After we got back, Peter and I walked to the Safeway for a few things. It was nice having him along - he pushed the cart for me and pulled my cart back as well. It was so windy, though, that the windy grabbed a bag of Pop chips out of my cart and they went flying down the street a few blocks! I just wanted to get home, but Peter insisted on chasing after them, which was very nice of him. After we got back, Peter went for a walk. I think I tried to nap but couldn't.

For dinner, we went to Duc's Bistro, which is a really great Vietnamese place down the street. We got the owner, and he seemed to understand me a little better when I asked about gluten. I got some spring rolls made with rice paper, which he assured me didn't have any flour in it. They were so delicious!! We had two orders of them and shared them. I also had the duck, which is slices of duck with a grand marnier sauce. I've had it before and it was delicious. We were all really impressed with the food and service.

We walked down to O'Toole's for beer. It was too crowded and loud for me. A bunch of young people came in with these glow-stick necklaces, so I asked one girls where she got it. She said they were giving them away at some nearby bar, but I didn't catch the name. Then a guy came up and gave me his! Which was really nice of him. We left there and went across the street to Murphy's. They had more beer and I had soda and my favorite dessert, the chocolate pots de creme. It's THE best dessert, ever.

After we got home, I made some snacks for Peter and David, but then I went to bed early because I was exhausted.

Except for the winds, we had perfect weather this week for Peter's visit!

My knee has not hurt once since I went to the doctor...go figure! LOL! I'm grateful, though.

You can see more photos on my Facebook page.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog, too!

Week of March 2

2014-03-10T02:56:00.002-05:00

Sunday March 2

I was determined to go to the gym today. I got dressed and headed out the door. David usually runs 3 miles every day, except on Sundays, when he walks. So I said, hey, why don't I just walk with him instead? So I did. It was a nice day, a little rainy but that's fine as long as it's not HOT. We had a good walk, and boy did I hurt afterwards.

We stopped for lunch on the way back at Subway. We took it home and I scarfed down a huge salad.

I did a lot of work, trying to play catch-up because I did very little the past two days.

We were supposed to meet some friends this weekend, but it got postponed until next weekend.

Later, we went to Downbeat Cafe for dinner. We always love that place. I had a small salad and also their chicken quesadilla. Too much food but David helped me a little with it.

One weird thing about restaurants here seems to be that if you order two things, they bring them all at once. Even if one is an appetizer or salad and the other isn't (aside from a few high end places). You have to tell them, bring the salad first. I hate when they bring both at once because then your food gets cold.

Monday March 3

I didn't go to the gym today, either. I had to spend a lot of last night and and all this morning clearing out the guest bedroom. I had tons of business cards in boxes to move (my collection). I put a lot of them into the main supply closet but also some into the shelves in our bedroom closet and some in the guest bedroom closet. I had hoped to sort through them, but I ran out of time. I had about 5 boxes full or partially full of cards, and they are too heavy to move unless they're only half full.

One good thing - when I was going through the boxes of business cards, I found a box of cookbooks. I thought I had lost them, so I'm happy about that. I knew I had seen a box of them but then couldn't find them. There were some boxes of business cards on top of them, so that's why.

Our bed for the guest bedroom was delivered. I had to be home from noon until 4:30 and of course they showed up at the very last minute. But I was sick a lot today with the gluten problems, anyway, so I couldn't have been doing too much.

We went to this Mexican fast food place for lunch. It's ok. I had a quesadilla, but it wasn't anything like any quesadilla I've ever had. It was more like a fried taco. Normally with quesadillas it's just cheese, and maybe a little meat. He put in tomatoes and way too much meat so it didn't really work. It tasted good, but it was weird and not what I was expecting. I don't know if we'll go back. David doesn't like it much.

I watched the movie "42" that I had recorded on HBO. It was pretty good but a bit heavy-handed. The acting was great but the story really needed work. The characters were very simplistic.

All week I've been shopping and running errands, and I really fell behind on writing the blogs. I hate that because then I forget everything.

For dinner we went to Epic. They have a great duck salad there I love.

Tuesday March 4

Happy Mardi Gras!

I went to the gym today. I probably should have done more stretching before and after. I tried to do the stretches that the personal trainer showed me last week, but I forgot what they were. I did the rowing machine and enjoyed it, for the most part. I only stayed about 20 minutes or so on it. That's a good start.

We went to Subway for lunch and I had my usual salad. Then I did a little bit of shopping at Ross for some household items. I'd asked them about delivering furniture, but they don't do that. Too bad for them because I was going to buy a bunch of things there, but we have no way of lugging it home. I don't even think there's anywhere there to park. It's in the middle of the downtown.

I also stopped at this little chocolate place down the street from us called Madre. It's really good and I always get some good dark chocolate. The coconut pecan is my favorite.

I did a lot of catching up on my work today and also some straightening up stuff here at home. Our good friend Peter from Germany is coming to visit on Thursday next week, so that's why we rented a bed last weekend. I've been getting that room ready, too. I bought a sheet set today and some other stuff, and I organized the closet so he'll have somewhere to hang his clothes.

I noticed on the way home from the gym this morning that they were setting up some tents along the road, so I wondered what it was for, but then I forgot about it. Later on around 4pm, I was about to take a nap and heard this loud music! I was like, WTF? Why is there such loud music!?! Then I suddenly realized after looking up online that today is Fat Tuesday. It was so loud for the next 6 hours.

We went out to dinner like usual. David has a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he gets home around 7. He's always more tired than usual and wants to just get a quick bite and go home. That's the only problem with his job because there are so many fun things to do here, all the time, and he's too tired or busy to do them. I wanted to check out all the festive booths and stuff, but instead we just had a quick bite at J.J. Dolan's and then came home. I did make him go through the fun stuff on the way home, but we didn't stop. SIGH. But to be fair, if I hadn't been so tired and lazy myself in the afternoon, I could have gone there and checked them out.

I can't imagine living near Bourbon Street or Beale Street, though. Just too loud.

Wednesday March 5

I'm sore today, so I didn't go to the gym. Instead, I went in the pool around 10am. It was warm and two older people were in it. I think that's why they keep it warm because the old people like it that way. It wasn't too bad for earlier in the day. After I got out, I was a bit chilled, so I sat in the jacuzzi, which really felt nice, especially on my poor sore muscles. I didn't want to get out.

I met David for lunch and we tried this place we hadn't been to before, called Döner Shack, which serves Turkish food, (which is similar to Greek). It's kebabs. I had the chicken on a salad and it was really good. Unfortunately, the lamb/beef one has bread crumbs. David had it and seemed to enjoy it.

I decided to walk down to the Aloha Tower after lunch. For one thing, it's about 3/4 of a mile, so it's good exercise. Also, the stores there are all leaving, so they're having tons of sales. Aloha Tower is a landmark, but it has a little shopping plaza there, and also cruise ships come in. The plaza was already about half empty of stores. There's a Gordon Biersch and a Hooters - the only restaurants. The little shops are mostly souvenir type places for the tourists that come in from the cruises. HPU bought the plaza and is going to be renovating it, so they can make it into dorms and such. Barnes & Nobles is moving in there. The restaurants are staying, but the stores have to move out, so that's why they're all having these great sales. I bought way too much, and I didn't bring my cart, so lugging it back was difficult.

I also stopped at this cupcake place near out house because they have gluten free cupcakes on Wednesdays, but they'd sold out by the time I got there. D'oh! I'll have to remember to go on Monday or Tuesday and ask them to save me some.

I was very hot and tired when I got home. I sat out on the lanai (balcony) a lot to cool off. Eventually I unpacked the stuff I bought and put it all away, and then I did some cleaning and straightening up, and work on my site. Work work work! :)

All of this exercising, shopping and cleaning has been great fun but has really gotten in the way of my website. It's hard to find time for all of it as well as have the energy.

There's a bunch of stuff I normally do on my site on Saturday and Sunday, but instead I've been playing catch-up all week.

For dinner, we tried this new place called The Pig and the Lady. It's a Vietnamese restaurant but more like an upscale or gourmet place. I really liked it, but David didn't like the food, and we both were not too happy with the service. They took forever to take our drink orders and then later, it was a long time before we got any refills or anyone came to check on us. I had two of the specials and they were gluten free. One of them had noodles and I took it home for leftovers.

I stayed up a bit late tonight, so that's not good. I just had a lot of work to finish and I wanted to finish the laundry and dishes. I was pretty stuffed up, too, so that always makes me stay up later. No sense in going to bed if I'm just going to wake up coughing.

Thursday March 6

I got up just before 10. I don't want to ruin my early schedule. If I can stay at ten, that's fine. I have a tendency to stay up later and later and get up later and later as you know!

I worked for an hour or so before David called about lunch. We went to Jack-in-the-Box. I had a $1 their new Bacon Insider burger (no bun of course). I have no idea if it's gluten free or not. I asked them on Twitter and Facebook, so we'll see if they answer. They have nutritional information on their website, but this burger is too new to be on there. It was ok. I'm not sure if I'd bother getting it again. I don't see it as much of an improvement over their Junior Bacon Cheeseburger.

I stopped at the 'umeki Market but they had no gluten free scones today. I'm just striking out this week on those things. I guess the fates are telling me to stay away from sugar :) I made gluten free blueberry muffins earlier in the week, so I still have those. Of course they're not as good as the kind with sugar! I make mine with Splenda. Actually, I forgot to add the sweetener, like a dummy, so they came out weird. So now I just put splenda on top, and butter, and stick them in the microwave (makes them taste better with the melted butter).

I stopped at Ross to get some coffee mugs for Peter when he comes. He loves coffee. I also ordered a coffee maker on Amazon that should get here on Tuesday. I also got some new blank DVD's and stopped to get a soda, and I bought one more pillow. I still need to get some actual coffee.

After got home, I was sick all afternoon. I don't know if it was from Jack-in-the-Box or from something I ate last night at The Pig & the Lady, or who knows. I looked this up on the net. Normal digestion can take a few days. Regular allergy reaction is immediate, but for the intestinal symptoms I get, it's actually from a food intolerance (I have both the allergy and the intolerance), so that can take up to three weeks! It's crazy. There's no way of knowing which place is making me sick.

They have test strips now that you can buy (at http://www.ezgluten.com/) that test whether the food has gluten or not. That would be very helpful to have. There are two problems with the test strips. First of all, they take ten minutes. By the time you've tested the food, it's cold! Secondly, they are really expensive. Two strips is $25, five is $60. And then the postage to Hawaii is $35! It's not that I can't afford it, but it just seems like a lot of money to spend.

I had planned to go to the gym and also record some songs but didn't do either, since I was sick. I tried to nap but I wasn't sleepy; I was just tired from being sick. UGH.

Later, we were going to go to Dolan's for dinner and I was going to have a salad, but they were too crowded. We just went next door to Rakuen and I had some steak and fries. Everything else they have I'm either allergic to or I don't like. It's mostly a sushi place and I don't like sushi, and most of their other foods are either breaded/deep-fried or have soy sauce. Even their salads either have raw fish or soy sauce or both. Yuk. The steak is good but plain. I had really hoped to have the salad at the other place...so much healthier.

I guess I'll try to go to bed earlier tonight and we'll see if that works. I have an early interview tomorrow.

Friday March 7

Wow, everything has been bad today. I've had the worst luck.

I thought my call this morning was 10, but it was 9, so I got up at 8:50 and then watched TV, and realized too late I had missed my call. Then I was sick all morning and part of the afternoon with gluten poisoning. We had lunch at this Greek place, Leo's, and it was pretty good. We'd never tried it before, so we'll probably go back. I stopped by 'umeki and again, no gluten free scones. Boo! Then I went to the Verizon store. I asked them about this recurring problem my phone has had, but the guy was clueless. I asked when our contract was up - turns out it's next August. I wanted to get an iPhone, but if I buy it now, it's $800! If I wait until August, it's $200. That's messed up. So much for that idea. I was annoyed at this point and feeling sick and sorry for myself, so I stopped at McDonald's and got a hot fudge sundae. I also got a soda at Subway and then stopped at the Madre chocolate store to get a gift for someone and some more chocolate for myself for later in the week.

Then a little later it started pouring rain!! I was sitting outside on the lanai because it's been warm and humid all day. So I came in, and it was fine, but then the rain let up a little, so it got warm again. So I went back outside. I've been in and out all day. It's hard to get the right temperature. But now I look and the weather site says it's 69. It was 79 just a few hours ago!! Dropping ten degrees. Wow!! It doesn't get really cold here, but 69 degrees and rainy or windy can feel pretty cold here. I finally came inside for good and put on socks. I was hoping to go to live band karaoke later tonight, but apparently it's next Friday. At first they had said it was the first Friday of the month, but now they're saying it's the second Friday. So disappointing.

David is having a work event outdoors this afternoon. I hope it's not ruined by the rain.

Anyway, all this being sick all of the time makes it hard to feel like doing anything. I certainly don't want to go to the gym when I'm running to the bathroom constantly. I don't have the energy for singing or recording or even working on my site. It makes it difficult.

We went to dinner at Murphy's. Their specials sounded good, but they all had gluten. I got the turkey dinner which is...not that great. I was feeling a bit down (feeling old and fat), so I convinced him to stop at HASR's for a few more drinks. We sat at the bar and I had wine. We had a great time. This woman that works there is really nice. After saying hi, she gave us a free dish of my favorite dish there (it's eggplant but tastes like lasagna). So nice! We were not hungry at all, but it was so good.

Saturday March 8

We went to lunch at this Thai place nearby that we'd never been to before... someone recommended it, but neither of us liked it. Oh, well! It wasn't bad, just very bland. I don't know why anyone would like it.

I did quite a bit of work and other stuff today. It's been raining a lot the past two days.
In the evening, we went down to Irish Rose, an Irish bar in Waikiki. We'd only been there once before, last week. It was smokier than last week, unfortunately. It's illegal here to smoke in bars, but they don't enforce it in the tourist areas.

We met up with our friends Lena and George at their house right near there. We'd never seen their place before. They have a beautiful condo with a huge lanai that overlooks Waikiki and part of the ocean. The hotels shoot off fireworks on the weekend there, and we had a great view of them. They have a great place. Lena made some really great Greek pasta and it was not only gluten free but delicious (all of us thought so, not just me :) It was very nice of her to go to all that work. They had some friends visiting, Mark and Judy, and they also invited another friend, Bee, who lives here. It was a lovely evening. I drank a lot of wine.

Next week our friend Peter is coming to visit, so I'm looking forward to that.

Don't forget to read my TV Blog, too!

Week of February 23

2014-03-06T19:51:00.000-06:00

Sunday February 23

I had a tough night due to spine pain, and when I woke up, it was better, but it still did hurt. After a while, I took a leftover Tramadol that I got from the dentist a few years ago (it's a great pain pill), and I went back to sleep for a nap. After that, I felt much better. I stayed off the computer as much as I could but later, I was able to finish some work I had to do.

We went to the Times grocery store and got a few things. I was very groggy and it took me a long time to wake up. This was before my nap.

We went to the Downbeat Cafe for dinner, as we have been doing regularly now for a while on Sundays. I had a vegetable plate (veggies with dip) and a chicken quesadilla, both of which I shared with David.

We were supposed to go to karaoke last night, but I let him out of it because I wasn't feeling well. We were also originally supposed to meet with some friends for dinner but I canceled.

Monday February 24

I had an early interview at 8am, so I just stayed up for that and then ended up going to bed around 10am. I had breakfast, eggs and portuguese sausage. The latter is very popular here.

I woke up about 4pm and I met David over at his office. We went to Gordon Biersch for Science Pub, the monthly event where one of the professors talks about his research, using power point presentations and such. It's for the layman more, so it is dumbed down for the rest of us non-academics. Anyway, it was about crowdsourcing. The guy runs this organization http://travel2change.org It was quite interesting. I had a nice salad at Gordon Biersch. David's Associate Dean, Bill, joined us this time. It was nice to chat with him. We saw other people there that I knew, too. It's always fun.

There's this women's chorus that meets down the street in the church. I might join it... not sure yet. For one thing, not sure I want to be in an all-female group. Nothing against it, but I've done all types of choirs and my favorite is the regular SATB kind. The other thing is that it meets Thursdays at 6:30-8:30. David has a class that runs until 6:30, so I'd have to go alone. Now, sunset is at 6:45 so it would still be relatively light out. I don't know. We'll see what I decide :)

I went to bed about 2 am, I think? Earlier than usual. Then I woke up around 6am and couldn't get to sleep.

Tuesday February 25

I have a physical therapist appointment at 11:15. I also have to read our meter and give the office downstairs the info before noon. What a pain.

I took a shower around 9:30 and then I went to McDonald's for a very early lunch.

I got a new stretchy band thing to use for my physical therapy exercises. Woo hoo! :) At one point in today's physical therapy, the PT guy left me there and went to get something, so I was looking around and saw this one woman who was doing some kind of odd walking with her legs, and two other people stretching, and a woman with her legs up on a bright red ball. It struck me that we all looked like kids playing :) It sure wasn't fun, though.

I was very tired when I got home, around noon, so I went to sleep for about 6 hours. Probably not a good idea, but I needed the sleep. I had lots of D earlier. I'm guessing that the salad I had yesterday at Gordon Biersch was not gluten free. That was my fault for forgetting to ask them to make it gluten free.

We went to dinner at this French restaurant, Brasserie Du Vin. We haven't been there very often because, frankly, they're overpriced and their food is iffy, hit or miss. We wanted to go somewhere different, though, and our usual place, J.J. Dolan's was too crowded. Fortunately, the food was pretty good this time. I had a duck leg with some sauce, over lentils.

It was almost cold tonight! I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and I was a bit chilly walking to the restaurant! It's in the high 60's tonight. Brrr! :) Just kidding. It's nice to have cool weather.

I went to bed about 1:30 and slept for about 4 hours...

Wednesday February 26

I'm trying this new software RescueTime. It's supposed to make you keep track of your hours and see how productive you are, and get more so. We'll see!

I've got a call today at 8:30am and then later I think I'm going to finally join the gym. I wonder if they'll let me wear sandals? I don't have any gym shoes. I need to get some but I'm going to have to go to the podiatrist, too. Hmm.

I met David at his office and we went to Subway for lunch. I wasn't terribly hungry. I just had ham and cheese. Then I went to the sandwich place that often has gluten free pastries. I got 4 scones. Bad idea but I can't make my own until I get more eggs!

Then I remembered that I wanted to stop at the 24 Hour Fitness and find out about their pricess. First I stopped at the 7-11, which is on the way, and got a few things. Then I went to the 24 Hour Fitness and asked for a brochure. Well, they don't have a brochure, just a website. That's when I should have said, ok, I'll look on your website, and then turned and left. But I'd only had 4 hours sleep so they suckered me into staying and chatting with them. I got a tour of the place. Now, I don't mind paying for a gym membership, and this place is very close to our house, but they really did a hard sell. I would have LOVED to have paid for personal trainers, but they are too expensive. Even more than the basic monthly gym membership! So I just signed up for the membership. They did their best to try to convince me to go with the trainer, but I just said, it's too much. I said, I'll start on my own, and then if I decide it's not working well enough, I'll think about adding a trainer. They were not too happy about that. But I love how they act like somehow they're trying to help me and doing me a favor, when you know they probably make a commission off it! I kinda felt like I was buying a new car and they were trying to pressure me into paying for extras and options I didn't want or an extended warranty or something. Sheesh. So I signed up and felt a little bit taken but it's not too bad. Tomorrow I'm going at 1pm to chat with one of their trainers, who's going to give me a free orientation. He's going to weight me and measure my body fat (how fun) and help me plan my fitness regime. Here goes nothing! My only worry is that their gym did not seem all that over-air-conditioned and I was kind of hoping it would be. I also bought a multi-vitamin while I was there, but fortunately it was on sale so it wasn't too bad. It was comparable to what I've seen in the grocery store.

They said I had to have closed-toed shoes for the gym, so I stopped at Ross and got some gym shoes. They seem pretty comfy, so we'll see. I have trouble finding comfy shoes because of my high arch and short heel.

Here's the bad news - I found out that there's this great chocolate store two blocks from us. It's organic, gluten free, all natural etc. That's just what I need. :( It's super expensive, too, like $6-$9 for one 1.5 oz. bar! But it's healthy (they say eating 2 oz. of dark chocolate per day is good for your heart) and it's very dark so it's low in sugar, at least. It's locally grown and made, too. There were cocoa pods sitting right up on the counter. I've never seen them before. I was going to stop at the wine store, which is across the street from there, but I didn't bring my cart, and I was tired, so I just went home.

Time for a nap! At first I tried and couldn't sleep, so I started cleaning around the house. I vacuumed half the house and dusted the bedroom, did some laundry. Then I just lay down and eventually went to sleep.

I woke up around 6pm when David phoned me. We went to Epic for dinner, one of our usual places. They have a duck salad there that I love. I had a glass of wine, too. I was actually cold, so I didn't want soda. It was a combination of the wind and the fact that my blood sugar was probably low. If I wake up and my blood sugar is low, I'm cold. There was no cute dog there this time, though!

Last Spring I declared that I would lose weight, exercise, get in shape and then try out for The Voice or one of those programs. Well, I didn't. I had a lot of stressful stuff happen in the past year. Much of it was good, but still, it was stressful and made it difficult for me to get motivated. Excuses, excuses. Moving is very stressful, especially when you only have 2 weeks to go through a whole house full of stuff and get rid of most of it. Also, it injured my spine more. Of course it was great moving here to Hawaii and stopping in San Diego along the way, and taking a short trip to Oklahoma City for our anniversary. But besides the rush of it all, there were some bad stresses as well. I still really miss our dog, and that's hard. We'd had him since 2000 so he was part of our family. Also, I miss my stuff (not nearly as much as I miss my dog, of course). Especially the things that we got rid of and didn't store, like my baker's rack, and all of the bookshelves I'd accumulated over 30 years (not to mention the books!), and records, tapes, all sorts of thing personal items etc. That takes a toll, especially when you're a packrat like me. When I was growing up, I didn't have a lot of stuff, and when my mom died, my dad threw out not only everything of hers, but also he went behind my back and gave away or threw away most of my stuff as well (long story and I'm sure he felt that he had no choice). It really affected me deeply on top of losing my mom, so that's part of why I was a packrat.

Not to say that there aren't upsides to moving here and "starting over". It's been fun to buy furniture and other stuff, and to have a much smaller place, and fewer THINGS to worry about (we do still have our collectibles in storage). Of course one very stressful thing was the post office losing 3 of our boxes, but I've had to let that go. Then there was also getting used to living here. It's very hot and humid most of the year, and our apartment is particularly hot, so that's been an adjustment. It's been mostly nice lately, though. The other thing is that Hawaii is so weird in so many ways, and also my brain still hasn't adjusted to being here. Sometimes it still feels like we're on vacation. Which is fine but it makes it hard to force myself to exercise and diet (let alone work!). So anyway, that's been my life for the past year and I'm hoping now that it's a new year and I've joined the gym, I can be more serious about the diet and exercise. Let's hope it works this time!

I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, and this week I bought a table! I didn't get the chairs, though. I felt they were too expensive and they didn't look that comfortable. I posted an ad on Craigslist so perhaps I'll get something there.

Thursday February 27

I woke up pretty early. I did a lot of work and cleaning. Then David and I went to lunch to this Asian Bistro (mostly Vietnamese, I think). I just had a pork chop, which comes with rice and salad. It's usually good there. Then I bought some sodas at Long's, and then I stopped at the wine store (at Hasr's) and bought 4 different bottles, in case we have company. I had brought my larger cart so it was pretty easy to take it all home. Then, after I got home, I put up my hair and put on my new tennis shoes, that I got yesterday at Ross. I just had a few minutes before I went back out and walked very fast to the 24 Hour Fitness. I had a 1:00 appointment to talk to this guy Josh, who was supposed to give me an orientation of some kind. Well, it was more like a personal training session, except he also did the hard sell about wanting me to pay for his services more often. Sheesh. It's like they try to shame you into doing it. Imagine if you went to church every Sunday and the pastor started pressuring you to also go to a special paid session on Wednesdays? or if you started taking classes and they tried to get you to sign up for even more classes. I mean, it should be good enough that you are going in the first place! AAAAaaaaaa!!!! OK, so it went great. He took me through all these stretching exercises, and then showed me the machines, and I tried out the rowing machine, which is LOTS OF FUN! Yay! And we chatted a lot. The hour went by so quick! I was shocked. I probably only worked out about 30-40 minutes but it wasn't boring at all. I would definitely pay for it if it wasn't $60 an hour. That's just too much, on top of the $45 a month I'm already paying.

When I left the gym, I was aching all over, and I was exhausted. My legs and arms were all rubbery. I took a hot shower, and 2 aleve, and then I took a long nap. I felt pretty good after that.

We went to dinner to the Japanese restaurant near us, Ra-Kuen. I just had a salad.

I didn't too much cleaning last night. I have a lot of boxes that I took part, and I did the dishes, but that's it.

Friday February 28

I woke up really early, about 7:15. I didn't really do much work or anything important. I was groggy.

David and I dropped the rent check off across the street in our realtor's office, which is in the Chinese Cultural Center. I was just walking up the stairs when I felt this sharp pain in my left calf, like a bad charley horse. After that, I was limping painfully, and it was even worse when I had to walk down the stairs. We had lunch at the little Chinese restaurant across the street. It's always good, and I had the Kung Pao chicken. Then we went to the ATM so I could get money for my haircut. I stopped to get a soda at Subway and then I also stopped at the street fair they always have. I got some organic spinach and a new orchid plant. I don't know if my old one is dead or just gone into hibernation, but all of the flowers and leaves have fallen off.

I got my hair cut fairly quickly. My leg was still hurting a lot, so I decided not to go to the gym. Instead, I went in the pool. It felt good. I didn't do anything too rigorous. I just did a few exercises while I was in there and tried to stretch out my calves and a few other sore spots.

I tried to nap, but it really didn't work.

We went out to the Hilton on Waikiki for dinner like usual on Fridays. They have a Japanese restaurant there that we like. It's mostly sushi, but they have a few other dishes I can eat, and they're well aware of what gluten is. I had the scallops appetizer, which was very good, and some pickled veggies. Very healthy but also tasty. We then walked over to find this Irish bar, Irish Rose, that we hadn't been to before. On the way, I saw this place called The Wine Closet that I'd read about. Every Friday from 6-8 they have these beer and wine tastings. So we started that. However, I got some chips and pretzels for David and it turns out that one of the pretzels was filled with peanut butter, so he got sick. We left early, but they said we can come back next week and finish. We went to Irish Rose and had a few more drinks. It's a good place - much better than either O'Toole's or Kelly O'Neal's. It wasn't loud, crowded and smoky. It was a nice big place and had a very friendly bartender. Plus, he made a good lava flow for me (I don't think the others even have a blender). Then we went home. I was very tired and went to bed really early, about 9:30.

Saturday March 1

I can't believe it's March already! Next week we'll have been here 7 months. I woke up for good about 8am. I guess I'm finally on that early schedule I've been talking about for years. I hope I can stick to it.

I've just been doing some work as well as entering sweepstakes. I subscribe to Sweepsheet, which is at sweepsheet.com It's also a paper newsletter they send you in the mail, but I mostly use the online version. I don't win lately because I haven't had much time to enter.

Sadly, another old acquaintance turned out to be a bit crazy so he unfriended me. Oh, well...

We're going to go have lunch and then go to the furniture rental place to look at some beds and other stuff. Our friend Peter is coming out in a few weeks, so he has to have something to sleep on!

We had lunch at this place next door to the Rent-a-Center, Yummy Korean Barbecue, but it had too much soy sauce so I got sick afterwards. We rented the bed and stopped at Costco for a few things.

Since I was sick a lot, I didn't do any exercising. I didn't really do much of anything except play online, and rest...

I think we went to Murphy's for dinner and I had their turkey plate. Nothing too exciting!

I'm posting this so late...I just got really behind on everything this week. Still catching up!

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

Week of February 16

2014-02-25T04:16:00.005-06:00

Sunday February 16

I had a really horrible morning. I stayed up too late and was very tired, but then I somehow injured my neck again and it was throbbing with pain. I took a muscle relaxer and some pain relievers...eventually I could go to sleep, but it took a very long time. The physical therapist said that any radiating pain I have shouldn't last more than a few minutes, but he didn't tell me what it meant if it did, or what I should do in that case. I'll have to make sure and ask next time. I hope to get an appointment for next week...

I woke up late in the afternoon. I did feel much better, but my neck has still been hurting a little.

We need to go to the grocery store, but I wasn't feeling up to it, so we'll go tomorrow. We went to Murphy's for dinner. I just had a cheeseburger.

After working a lot on my site, I tried to go to bed early, but of course it didn't work.

Monday February 17

David was on the radio this morning, HPR, to talk about presidents, since it's Presidents Day. You can hear it here. This is on my site, so please right-click on the link and save it before you listen to it so it won't slow down my website. Thanks!

We had brunch at Jack-in-the-Box and then I slept for a while. We went out to dinner at Downbeat Cafe. I'm trying to do better on my diet, so I just had a very good salad (it has pears and gorgonzola!). They have a very good Greek salad, too. Well, all of their food is great!

I had picked up a daikon radish at the store because I'd read that you can fry them up like potatoes and they're pretty good (yet they're healthy and low carb). I fried them in a pan with some canola oil. They don't really crisp up like potatoes, but they do brown, and they have an interesting taste.

I did a lot of work and my arm has been hurting a lot, so I tried to stay off the computer a bit. I ended up going to bed a little early for a change.

Tuesday February 18

Even though I went to bed around 1, I still didn't wake up for good until David called me for lunch. But at least I got a good night's sleep. My neck has been much better today.

We went to lunch at McDonald's. I really need to stop doing that! At least I didn't have a hot fudge sundae this time. Sheesh.

It was really hot today - it got up to 80. I guess our nice cool weather is gone for now. It looks like it's going to be warm all week.

Something in our apartment keeps beeping occasionally and it's driving me crazy because I can't figure out what it is!! Grrr!

I went into the pool after lunch, but it was very warm, like a very warm bath. It was not fun or refreshing. I only stayed in about 10 minutes. I tried to swim a bit, but my spine problems were hurting me too much. I guess I won't be able to swim until I get those fixed. I mean, I can kick around, but I can't do the arm movements. Too painful.

There were two brown ducks by the pool when I got there! So cute. I'm used to seeing all kinds of weird birds in Hawaii, and I've seen small birds by the pool before, but never ducks! There was a guy lying there in the sun, reading, so I remarked that to him. He said they were actually in the pool earlier and he got a picture! I wish I'd had my camera or phone with me. I was too shy to say, "show me the photo you took, and can you email it to me?" LOL! I feel very vulnerable when I'm in my bathing suit, like I'm half naked... it makes me shyer.

When I got back to our hot apartment, I resisted the urge to put the a/c on. Instead I opened all three doors to the balcony (I usually only open one or two), and eventually it cooled off.

We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner (it's the closest restaurant to our house that serves beer, so we go there quite often). We just had salads. We went home and we were still hungry (they don't have too much there that I'm not allergic to, extra some very fattening stuff) so I fried up the rest of the daikon radish and David had toast.

Later, I baked some of my low carb muffins They usually come out really good. I added chocolate chips and cocoa powder. They came out more like cookies. They didn't rise, even with 4 eggs, and they were just lumpy. They still taste good, but not like muffins at all.

Wednesday February 19

I'm still getting up way too late...

We went to Epic for dinner. I walked over to David's office about 5:45. It was still light outside. In fact, it stayed light out for at least another hour! It's definitely staying light much later. I've mentioned that we have lots of dogs here. I saw lots of them tonight. On the way over, first I saw the resident cat outside. He was just sitting there, and there were birds nearby. I thought it was strange that he just watched them and didn't seem interested in pouncing. Then as I was crossing the street, a lady walking the other way was carrying her dog (I think a dachsund), which was so cute, and I must have grinned at her because she said, "Nice dress!" I didn't hear what she said until after she walked by, so I had to turn and yell, "Thank you!" LOL!

Then as I got down to Bishop, I saw Topher and Bear about to cross the street. Topher works in David's college and he has this huge friendly black dog as his service dog. It's always great to see them, especially Bear! So I got to pet him for a minute before their light changed. Then when we went to dinner, they sat us near the bar. At the bar was this older couple, and below the guy's feet was this little chihuahua! His service dog, too. It was standing there below his feet the whole time, begging for food. (Not begging in a loud or annoying way) I watched it all through dinner. It was so adorable. Then as we were leaving, I told the guy how much I loved his dog and the dog came up to me, so I got to pet him, and he licked me. Such a cute little thing and we both agreed that he was such a good dog. Then we walked home, and this couple that I often see walking their two little dogs was coming in at the same time and got in our elevator. One is a pug, I think, and the other is some kind of fluffy breed (like a pomeranian but not one of those), something like it, though. So both small dogs but not as tiny as the chihuahua. They were very friendly, though, and eager to be pet, and the pug not only licked my hand but my feet! Aw. So it was a great dog night :) We see lots of dogs all the time around here, but I seldom get to pet so many.

Lately I just haven't wanted to do anything. It's been really hot this week - in the 80's and humid. So I'm sure that's part of the reason. I've been using the a/c again. Also, I'm still having D. And having a sporadic sleeping schedule doesn't help. I have a lot of things I need to get done, like dishes and cleaning the house. I keep putting them off.

I think the weird sound I was hearing was these stop watches I bought. I tried setting the time on one and I gave up, but instead I think it's beeping every hour.

Speaking of weird sounds! Last night I was in the kitchen. I had just moved the trash can to the front entryway to remind David to take it out. I heard this sound and I thought maybe the trash had fallen over. But when I went to look, it hadn't. I kept hearing the sound and so I went out to the balcony and you won't believe what I saw! I saw these guys hang-gliding down to the park. We have little park down in front of our place (right across the street). At first I thought they were jumping from an airplane, but then I realized they must have jumped from the high rise building next to us, the Park Place (the one next door that we had looked at before, with all the cool stuff downstairs like a bowling alley). There were 4 of them and the sound was their parachutes hitting the ground. So bizarre! Only in Hawaii, I guess. Now I think I have seen everything!

Thursday February 20

Tomorrow the maintenance is coming by at 9am so I'll probably have to get up around 8am because these guys often come early. The sliding glass door to our patio is getting stuck when we try to open it. I don't know if it's off the track slightly or what the problem is.

All my life, my face has broken out occasionally, like I'm a teen. This month it's been breaking out again on my chin. Very annoying.

I'm thinking of joining the local 24 hour fitness. I hope they have a personal trainer or something like that. I need to get motivated about exercising. The swimming is not working out. It's just too much trouble. The pool has to be cool or I don't like it. It has to not be raining. I have to have a clean swimsuit and bring enough towels. I can't swim in the deep end, anyway. And now it's tough because of my spine (not to mention the ducks! LOL!). So I think the gym will be better.

I have to say my life is going pretty well, though. I can't complain. How often do we take the time to say, you know, I'm pretty happy? I know I don't. I complain a lot. Sure, there's always something to be annoyed about or wish it were different. Right now things are good. We are doing well. I can have pretty much everything I want. Well, not a dog, for right now. But otherwise. We go out to eat and drink a lot. David works too hard, but there's not much we can do about that, and he enjoys it when it's going well. I complain about the heat, but it's nice weather most of the time, especially if I leave the apartment or just go out on the balcony. At least it's not cold and snowy. I just have to get my sleeping schedule more normal, and work on losing weight, and doing my spine exercises, and otherwise things are golden. I'm not bragging here. I know a lot of people have far less. I'm just saying I'm happy and grateful.

Friday February 21

The door was fixed, so that's great!

I ordered some more of these cubes to hold DVD's and stuff in. They are great because they're so easy to put together and hold quite a lot. They're very sturdy, too. I have 8 of them now.

I tried phoning around to get the amounts of our prescriptions, to use for our taxes. I'm less than pleased that Kaiser's mail order pharmacy keeps their records separately from their walk-in pharmacy and requires that you fax or mail them a form. So stupid to have one just give you the amount over the telephone, and the other you have to jump through hoops and then wait.

We went to Waikiki as usual, but we weren't terrible hungry, and we were sick of the places we'd been to a lot. So instead we first went to the Irish bar and contemplated where to go. We decided to just walk around Kuhio and see what we found. We found this really tacky tourist place. We only went in because it said "buffet" and we haven't seen many of those here. The food was very hit or miss. I thought that a few of the things were really good - the fried rice, this Hawaiian chicken, the broccoli, and the meatballs - but the rest was awful. I couldn't eat any of the desserts because they were all cakes or crepes, unless you count the little bit of fruit they had. It was all overpriced. A real tourist rip-off place. They had hula dancers and the guys with the grass skirts that dance with fire...fun if you're a tourist but kind of silly when you live here. Anyway, it was good for a laugh but we won't be going back since it wasn't that great. David had mostly sushi and he said it was not very good.

Then we stopped at this hotel bar Ohana West - it looked like a nice place, and I just wanted a Lava Flow. Well, it was the most tasteless lava flow I've ever had. So we were really batting a thousand.

The past week I felt like my pulse was going fast. I was very conscious of my heartbeat. I was concerned about heart problems or something and kind of been freaking out. But then I figured out that it was just that I've been sleeping too much, eating too much, drinking too much cafeine, and not getting enough exercise! Tonight I just had a ton of energy so I just ran around the apartment, and did some other exercises like sit-ups and stretches, and some jumping jacks, and I swept and mopped the patio. Whew! I plan to cut back on the caffeine and stick to my diet better, too.

Saturday February 22

I slept in really late, so I didn't do much before dinner. We had dinner at Murphy's, which was ok. I wanted to walk around afterwards, but it was raining and I hadn't brought my hat or umbrella, or socks (I always wear sandals, so it's not verygood for rain). So we didn't walk too much. We went to 7-11 briefly. But I was very happy to have found these Kona chocolate bars that I've been looking for all over! I had found them in the airport last summer and then their website said they were sold in Long's but I couldn't find them. They are delicious - dark chocolate with ground macadamia nuts, and a little coffee. I'm not a fan of anything that tastes like coffee, except for these. But I'm cutting back on sugar, so I'll just eat 2 oz. or less per day (it's healthy for your heart).

I was doing a lot of work on my site as well as dishes and laundry. I ended up listening to a lot of music online and then doing singing. I went to Sing Snap and sang a lot, including many duets. It was fun, but I hurt my shoulder/arm/neck (spine) from doing that so long (because of scrolling etc. on the computer). I was in a lot of pain by the time I went to bed the next morning, and even with the muscle relaxer, it took a long time to get to sleep because it was just throbbing in pain.

Don't forget to check out my TV blog!

Week of February 9

2014-02-16T10:00:00.000-06:00

Sunday February 9

We were going to get our car fixed today but didn't get around to it yet...

I got up around 1pm, so I slept about 12 hours. That's too much sleep.

Besides doing a lot of work, we went to the grocery store. We took our 2 little carts and walked over to the Times, which is farther than Safeway but much cheaper. It's less than a mile, though. It was a very humid day and a little warm, so it was quite a haul. I had to take a shower when we got back and I was still hot and sweaty for a long time.

We went to dinner around 5:30 to Downbeat Cafe. I had a chicken quesadilla (they have corn tortillas!), which was quite yummy, and half of a chocolate milkshake. I took the other half home. They were pretty busy, but they're always nice there and have fairly good service.

Apparently, even though the "official" lunar new year was last weekend, the Asians celebrate it for a few weeks. There were lots of things going on this past weekend. We heard lots of drumming and firecrackers.

Just working on my site otherwise. I'll probably do laundry sometime tonight as well. I got a lot done and went to bed about 4:15am.

One item I love getting at the Times supermarket are these delicious healthy nut snacks called 180 Snacks (I think because that's how many calories each package has). I always enjoy the pistachio ones. This time I tried the almond and mango ones and they were so delicious!!

Monday February 10

I got up really early, about 8:15, to do some interview calls. Then I did some work on my site. I ended up going to bed about 11am, and then I slept until after 4:30. So I had my regular 9 hours, just split up into two parts.

I had ordered some more of this Avon cream that goes near your eyes, to help the wrinkles. I think it works pretty well, but I have a hard time remembering to put it on. You put it on after you get up and before you go to bed. I got some more today. I also had ordered a new mic stand and got that.

We were supposed to meet a friend for dinner, but that's been postponed. We went to this place Lucky Belly for dinner. It's a tiny little bar/restaurant. They have a huge list of beer, wine and liquor, and a tiny little food menu. Most of their food is noodles (ramen) and they also have some appetizers and salads. It's not a fancy place but has kind of an upscale air to it. It's not cheap so it appeals to younger people with money, I guess. We went here once before but we didn't like what we had, and it was not a great experience. We decided to give it another try. The only problem with the place is that the tables are so tiny and close to each other. It's hard to carry on a conversation when you feel like the next table can hear you. I can't eat most of the menu items because they're either pasta, or breaded, or have soy sauce. I got this duck appetizer called a Tataki. They cook the heck out of the duck, with spices, and then grind it into a paste. It's kind of like a polenta. Then they put duck slices on top of that. There was also some fruit on it like raisins, and some type of sweet sauce. It was delicious. I also had some kind of orange mixed drink that was very good. And I had a salad, with pomegranate dressing. It was the only one they had that I wasn't allergic to. David had the gnocchi and the pork bao. Very good meal but very expensive, like so many here.

My teeth on the left side of my mouth started hurting tonight. I think it might be due to grinding, but it might also be due to not brushing enough. We'll see. We haven't had time to go to the dentist yet here.

Tuesday February 11

All week I've been sleeping too late. I just can't seem to get out of bed once I get there. I guess that's part of being older, I don't know...

You may recall that our car wouldn't start a few weekends ago. David got a new battery and tried to install it, but he said he didn't have the right tools. He had tried calling a few car repair places that will come to your home, but they all said they were booked up for weeks. So today I phoned some places listed in the phone book, and I got one to come out today. The repair guy just had to get a little bolt to replace the one we had, and he put it in. It didn't take too long, so that was great! That means I can make my physical therapy appointment tomorrow and not have to take a cab.

I've been spending the past few nights out on the lanai with my laptop. We need some more furniture out there, though. There's no light and we could use a comfy couch of some kind plus a table and TV.

We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I just had a salad. My teeth are much better today, but it still hurts a bit to eat. It's just pressure that hurts it, thankfully, not cold or hot.

Wednesday February 12

I had a physical therapy appointment this afternoon. I had the first one in November. I was supposed to go back a week later, but just one thing after another. Now my spine problems are much worse, much more pain. I haven't been good about doing the exercises, either. It was a good session, though.

We went to Epic for dinner. They have a delicious duck salad there now that I love. It's not only great but big enough for a meal. They have a great hoisin dressing, too, and best of all no soy sauce! LOL!

I'm trying to get better about managing my time. I've divided it up into 2 hours here and 2 hours there...very difficult to stick to, though. (So far it hasn't been working)

I ordered some business cards a while back and got them today. They're the same design as I had before, just with the new address.

Thursday February 13

I slept in way too late. I was supposed to have 2 interviews this morning but.... and then I slept until after 3pm. Yuk.

I was very hungry when I got up, so I took my little red cart down to the Fort Street area and did my shopping and then stopped at McDonald's. Salad for dinner, for sure!

We went to the Japanese restaurant Ra-Kuen for dinner. There isn't too much there I can eat. I had a salad and some steak, very plain. David was really in the mood for sushi.

This week it was a bit humid, but cool at night, so I spent quite a bit of time sitting out on our lanai with my laptop. It's been great. I love not using the air conditioner. Maybe one day we'll get some better furniture out there. Right now we just have these cheap chairs and we can't leave them out because the wind blows them around and keeps us awake.

My teeth have been great the rest of the week, so I think I just had some grinding and also not enough brushing. All better now.

I drink a lot of diet soda, and it was annoying me because my drink would get the coaster wet, and then the table, and it was a big mess. So people on Facebook recommended the Thirstystone coasters, and the Tervis tumblers. I got both this week and they do indeed work very well at keeping the condensation off the glass and off my table. Yay!

Friday February 14

I hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day! David had a debate thing to go to down at the Outrigger Reef on Waikiki, so I went with him to that about 2 in the afternoon. Then afterwards we had our Valentine's Day dinner. The debate was a bunch of college students from all over in some kind of competition. It was actually very interesting. I've seen many types of debates on TV but never in real life before. Of course, kids have so much passion, and these particular kids are really good at debate. They're not as shy as I was at that age. I could barely speak up in class, let alone argue in public. Jack Hart, who's the chair of the communications department, was there are the end. David helped judge the debate, and then at the end, he and Jack gave out the trophies. Afterwards, went over to the Trump Tower and they had drinks there. We just had time for a quick drink and hello, goodbye, before our dinner.

When David came home from work, before we left, he had brought me an orchid lei, so that was nice (better than the flowers that go in a vase!). It has little hearts on it, too. He also got me a little stuff dog and a card.

We went to dinner at P.F. Chang's. It wasn't my first choice, but I waited too long to make reservations. It's always ok. I had the beef with broccoli, to try something different. It wasn't all that great, I have to say. Afterwards, we stopped by the Irish bar Kelley O'Neil's as usual. They have this singer there who is not very good. He plays every song way too slow. I think the problem is that he has a hard time singing and playing at the same time, so he slows them all way down. It's very sad in every aspect. Anyway, he started his singing with the horrible song "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". I can't believe anyone would think that's a song you should perform, ever. We were laughing so hard at how ridiculous it was, especially even slower than it normally is!

Then we went to the GS Studios, where we did some fun private karaoke. We just sang for about an hour and then headed home. We had a fun but fairly early night.

We still heard firecrackers and drumming the rest of this week!

I had ordered some pens a few weeks ago. They were cheap but have a little flashlight on them and the name of my site.

Saturday February 15

I got up really early, about 9. We went out to breakfast about 11 to Zippy's, which is just behind our building. They've had a drawing going for a while now, for a trip to Las Vegas. We had entered once already, but last time we were there, I grabbed a stack of entry forms and filled them out at home. So it was good timing to go again and drop them off because the drawing ends today! I hope we win, but I'm not counting on it :) I'm sure all of the Zippy's all over Hawaii are doing it, so the odds are pretty low. Anyway, we had a nice brunch. I just had a club sandwich and fries. Not healthy but it was very good (I didn't eat the bread, of course). Then we stopped at the store for a few things.

When we got home, I was pretty tired, so I had a long nap. We left about 6pm and walked about a mile and a half down to Auntie Pasto's, which is an Italian restaurant we went to once with our friends George and Lena. They have gluten free pasta. I had some wine, and with the pasta, I had sausage and peppers. It was really good. The plan was to walk to this other karaoke bar that we had passed before (after our Christmas concert, which was in a church in that area), but the one I had passed in the cab, called 8 Fat 8, was not the same one that we had gone to before. We had to sort of retrace our steps. We did go to 8 Fat 8, but there were not many people there and it didn't look like a very good place to sing. So we figured out that the other place was on King Street, so we walked over to King street. On the way, we stopped at a sports bar, Champions, and had another drink. Then we eventually found our way over to the real bar, Blue Ribbon.

Turns out they also have the karaoke rooms there, so we might come back another time and try those. The karaoke bar was not too big, and it only had about a dozen people there, but about half of them were singing. The funny thing is that there were only 2 other female customers there, and they weren't singing. Even at the gay bars that we sometimes go to for karaoke, I'm not usually the only woman singer! So that was odd. But I have to say that most of the singers were pretty good. There were about 4 or 5 waitresses or bartenders, all women, and they seemed much more attractive than the usual place, so I guess that's why they get so many guys there. They were very nice, and friendly, too. But not in a weird way, just nice. At the table near us, there was this really old guy who would really sing well, although he was also sort of losing his voice. There was a guy with him who was disabled, who was okay but not that great. Then the other two guys that were singing were very good. The way karaoke works here as in many Hawaiian bars is that you get to sing 2 songs in a row. No one seems to care if you do or not. It's also the type of place where you sit down and they pass the cordless mic around. I prefer standing up, honestly. It's harder to sing sitting down. It was a very laid back kind of place and everyone was singing oldies, and mostly slow songs. I did two songs and we had a lot of drinks (I sort of lost count). Then later I sang one more and we left. It was a fun place. I wish it wasn't almost 3 miles away, but it wasn't a bad walk at all, especially the way we broke it up by stopping along the way.

When we got home, we sang some more, for fun. It was a big singing weekend. LOL! We had fun. David went to bed later than he normally does and then I sang some more and recorded as well.

You may recall that we went to a blues concert last month with blues greats Delbert McClinton, Marcia Ball and some other folks. So I've been learning some of their songs.

I hope you have a great week! David has Monday off except he has some radio interview really early in the morning. I hope if you get President's Day off, you enjoy yourself!

Don't forget to check out my TV blog.

Week of February 3, 2014

2014-02-09T18:53:00.001-06:00

Sunday February 3

I got up late as usual. We couldn't go to our usual grocery store, since our car isn't working. My husband got a battery for it, but it's more advanced than the models he had before, so he couldn't install it. We're going to have to call someone to come do that.

We took my little cart down to Safeway to get some groceries there. It's a much more expensive store, though, than the Times.

For dinner, we tried to go to Murphy's again but they were closed, except for the bar, because of the Super Bowl. I never heard of a restaurant turning away customers to close before. Very strange. We went to the Downbeat Cafe for dinner and I had an omelette.

Monday February 4

It was very cool and rainy all day, and overcast. I woke up in the afternoon and it was very dark out. I even had to put on socks, which is rare.

We went to Murphy's for dinner and finally we could get in! Yay! They had a really good scallops special that I loved. Their specials are usually pretty good.

Nothing too exciting going on this week.

Tuesday February 5

I was supposed to go back to the physical therapist this week, but since our car isn't working, David canceled the appointment and will have to reschedule.

I had a hard time sleeping. I went to bed way too late and then woke up coughing. I didn't get to sleep for good until after noon. Then I woke up after 6pm. UGH.

We went to dinner at Hasr's Bistro, which is overpriced but has great food. I love this eggplant appetizer they have. It tastes just like lasagna except it's gluten free and fairly low carb, very healthy. I wish I could make it. I also had a warm spinach salad that was pretty good.

It's still hard to get used to this new laptop. The keys are all in a different place and I swear I still can't get the touchpad to work sometimes. I can't really describe it, though, so that's why I haven't called Dell support yet. It's only sometimes it doesn't work. Intermittent problems are the worse.

Wednesday February 6

I tried to go to bed around 3 am. I slept for about an hour and then woke up coughing and couldn't go back to sleep. Then I went to sleep finally around 9am and I slept for about 2 hours, although the phone woke me up several times. I had lunch with David over at Jack in the Box. It was busy but didn't take too long. The cashier there is nice but not too bright. She kept messing up my order. Then I went to the 'umeki cafe and got some yummy gluten free blueberry scones! Then went to Long's to get some groceries before heading home.

There's this guy that teachers in David's college named Topher. He lives in the condo high rise next to ours. He has a sweet and kind service dog named Bear. He's a big black dog but just so nice. I often see Topher out and about with Bear and it's great. Sure, Topher is really nice, but it's so great to see Bear and pet him!! Like I did today. LOL!

I had a long nap this afternoon, then we went to Epic for dinner. They changed their menu, which we weren't too happy about. They got rid of one dish that David really likes. They have a new duck salad that I like. It has a hoisin salad dressing. They assured me that it has soy but not soy sauce, so hopefully it was ok. It was very good. I also ordered a burger, that came with fries. I didn't realize that the salad would be so big or that the burger came with fries, or else I wouldn't have ordered the burger. Anyway, the waiter knows me and knows that I have to eat gluten free. So he asked if I wanted regular fries or sweet potato fries, so I chose the latter. When I got them, though, they quite clearly had some kind of flour-based coating. I asked the waiter what the coating was, and he had no answer. That's never good. His reply was that they came in a package! LOL! Ok, so go read the package or ask the cook, you idiot. He offered to bring me the regular fries but I didn't need them, anyway, and didn't feel like waiting for them. So sick of dealing with this type of thing. Oh, and at a fine dining establishment in this day and age, I certainly don't expect them to have packaged fries.

I went to bed about 2 AM and slept for just 3 hours before waking up, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I don't have insomnia so much as I have things that keep me awake, like allergies (coughing or itching) and restless leg syndrome. Yes, it's a real thing. Makes my legs ache they want me to get up and run or walk, even though the rest of me wants to go back to sleep.

Thursday February 7

Since I couldn't sleep, I did get quite a bit of work done. My spine (back/neck/shoulder/arm) was hurting a lot the past two days... I was supposed to go to physical therapy on Tuesday but our car broke down and we haven't had a chance to get it fixed yet. I have a new appointment for next Wednesday.

Also, our bed broke, not sure if I mentioned that, so it's hard to sleep on it now. It's broken just on my side, so it slants down. I just went to sit on it Monday and there was a loud crack and it fell. It's a wooden frame, apparently. It's covered in some kind of cheap black vinyl and then the slats holding up the bed are wooden as well. We got the second cheapest one in the store, basically, so that was probably a mistake. I called the furniture store and they had me send photos. I hope to hear back from them tomorrow about the warranty and getting a replacement! Funny, though, the woman I spoke to on the phone was weird. She asked if we were still sleeping on the bed. I said, well, yeah, of course, it's the only one we have. She said it might make the broken frame worse and suggested we not sleep on it. I again told her that we don't have much choice. What am I supposed to do, go check into a hotel until they figure this out? Sleep on the floor or on the awful air mattress? I don't think so. It's not very comfortable but it's better than those other options. I just have to scoot over to David's side so I don't slide off.

David and I went to this Indian place for lunch. Well, it turns out they grind all their spices in the same place they use flour, so I couldn't eat there. It's in this little strip mall so I just went next door to the Italian places. I just got chicken curry (yes, very authentic Italian, ha ha!) and some kind of salad with peas. Then I went to Ross and bought some clothes, and to Long's to get some more soda, and to Fisher to get some printer paper. I also got another little cheap cart while I was there. I think it's a lot studier than the other one I got there. Anyway, I was still hungry so I stopped for some food and soda at McDonald's. It was so super easy to tote it all home with the new cart. It was quite humid today...a little warm but not too bad.

Then I went to sleep around 2 and slept for about 4 hours. David came home after his class, and we went to Dolan's for dinner. I just had the caprese salad.

Those gluten free scones I got yesterday were great, but I always feel guilty eating them since they're not low carb. So I made some gluten free and low carb muffins. I use this recipe on my site. Of course they're not as good as the bought ones because those have tons of sugar and fat.... But they're still good. I ate about 4 of them.

I'm hoping I can go to bed at a normal hour and sleep for at least 7 hours.

I haven't really felt much like working today... my back feels a lot better after sleeping, though. I took a lot of medication, so I'm glad it worked.

Friday February 8

I got a good night's sleep for a change, 10 hours.

We went to Subway for lunch, and then I went to Ross and bought a large black wicker square container (like a laundry hamper).

The furniture store called. It's going to take a few weeks to get the part of the bed that's broken...

We went to Waikiki as usual for dinner, to Kani Ka Pila Grille at the Outrigger Reef. Unfortunately, they were out of the gluten free bread, so I just had a turkey sandwich without the bread. Then we stopped for 2 songs in the In Between, a karaoke bar near there. It was not very busy and as usual David wanted to get home... hoping we can go next Friday at the Mercury Bar where they have live band karaoke!

When we got home, we were singing together for fun. There are lots of places online where you can sing along with karaoke. We started at Singsnap.com but there are also many karaoke songs on Youtube and also on musicplayon.com Then after he went to bed, I recorded some more songs and spent most of my evening doing that.

I'm starting to go through my business cards again, to sort through them, get rid of extras to my regular traders, categorize them, etc.

Someone recently sent me a batch that had this old card. I was looking at the style of it and thought, wow, this looks old. It's for the Eastgate Motel in Bellevue, WA. Then I noticed, it says "Color T.V." and "Dial Phone"! Some old selling points there...LOL! You can see it.

I've been organizing our guest room, where I keep my cards for now. It was mostly boxes for a long while. I had gradually bought some cheap shelves and drawers to put in there for my DVD's, music, and office supplies. It's also where I do my singing and recording, so I have my karaoke machine to practice with (it's old and doesn't work all that well) as well as an extra laptop that I use for the actual recording. We have someone coming to visit in March so we need to get a small bed in there.

You may recall that I moved here to Honolulu in August. We went from a fairly large 3 bedroom house with garage and yard to a 2-bedroom apartment in a high rise, so I put a lot of stuff in storage, and got rid of a lot. I sent 96 boxes here, including the business cards (3 were lost by the post office). So I'm just now getting around to organizing the cards, so that when we have company, it doesn't look so bad and we can fit a bed in there. I plan to sort the cards a bit and move the ones that are in the large boxes into smaller boxes.
Here are photos of the room as of right now.

The back of the room opens up onto our balcony (what they call a lanai here)

The left side has a closet on the immediate left with a big mirror, and then I have some sets of drawers for office supplies and also my karaoke machine.

On the immediate right are the shelves I got for my DVD's and some DVD's as well as music books etc. I just got the black hamper there. I have a monthly drawing on my site for DVD's, books and assorted other things that the TV companies have sent me. I put everything except the DVD's in the black hamper (looks much nicer than boxes) and I plan to get more of the bookcase "cubes" for the rest of the DVD's that are stacked there.

Then on the right back, near the doors, I have mostly BC's. I would like to put the bed there and move the cards to elsewhere, so that's my current project.

I figure that once I can put the BC's into the smaller boxes, I can put them out of the way in the closets etc. when visitors come and then when they're gone I can always move them back into the room (there's lots of floor space in the middle that you can't see in these photos). For a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom it's actually fairly large and has a lot of closet space, which is nice.

Remember, if you have business cards you don't want, even if they're a little torn or have pinholes, don't throw them out! If you can't get rid of them any other way, I will be happy to take them and pay postage in return.

Saturday February 9

I ended up staying up until around 5:30am. I slept for about 5 hours, but then I woke up coughing from the allergies. We went to lunch at this Chinese place that we hadn't been to before. It's called Little Village Noodle House. Fortunately they have a rice noodle dish with beef that I can eat. It was really good. I only had the meat and a few of noodles because of the carbs. I took the rest home. Fortunately it wasn't the kind of place where no one understands English, like a lot of the ones here in Chinatown. Sometimes it's very hard for me to ask them about whether their foods have flour. I don't even bother saying "gluten" and "wheat" can be confusing if you don't know that white flour has wheat in it, so it's kind of taking a chance. This one actually knew what had wheat or not. It was delicious. The nice thing about Chinese food is that a lot of places use corn starch for thickener instead of flour.

I did some work after lunch and then took a nap for about 3 hours. A little while later, we went to Murphy's for dinner again. They still have the scallops special, so that was good. Nice and healthy.

Thursday is was very humid. Friday less so. Saturday is very windy. So windy the last two night's that the wind comes in and blows things around in our living room. Normally the wind doesn't even go in much past the sliding glass doors (and it's not a great angle, either, for wind). I don't recall if I posted here or not but I have the blow-up mattress in here. We use it to block the sun in the afternoon so it doesn't get too hot. But I had to move it over a bit because the wind keeps knocking it down at night. I got tired of putting it back up. I made the mistake of wearing a dress out to dinner - it was too windy and chilly, kept blowing my dress around.

I haven't felt too much like doing the work on my site this week...lazy I guess. I need to get back to it. My spine problems have made it painful at times so I had to rest.

I went to bed pretty early, about 1, so that was good.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog. Have a great week!

Week of January 26

2014-02-04T10:09:00.002-06:00

Sunday, January 26

I'm still getting up way too late in the afternoon! After posting my blog and reading some stuff, I got a call from our old friend Iram who lives in Temecula. He just retired from U.S. Customs.

Then we went to dinner at Murphy's. I got the lamb shanks special, which was good.

Nothing too exciting going on today, just work work work on my site! And laundry.

Monday January 27

I didn't go to sleep until about 8am today.

The computer repair place called me, so I asked them to come over around 1:30. I set the alarm, but I did it work, so, luckily I woke up at 12:55 anyway.

I straightened up the apartment a bit and the guy came over to bring my new (used) desktop, which has the TV Wonder Pro PCI card in it. He hooked it all up and we got the software going, so now I can run my site's daytime soap transcripts again! Yay!

But then a little later I realized that it had crashed, so I rebooted, and I'm trying again. Hope it works this time.

I bought a cheap tablet from Walmart's site, so we'll see if I like it... it's only $65.

We had Science Pub tonight - that's where one of the professors gives a lecture to anyone who wants to attend, about his/her research or project. It's always at Gordon Biersh. Now, I don't normally mind GB, but when they have Science Pub, they don't seem to add any wait staff, so the service is super slow! It's ridiculous. Takes forever for them to take your order, bring your food, refill your drink, or bring your check. The talk was interesting, though. It was about ornamental fish (the type you put in aquariums). Apparently, when the companies that sell these fish get them from the reefs, it's bad for the reefs as well as the fish, so they are dying out. So these scientists are trying to figure out a way to breed the fish as they used to say, "in captivity". The talk was about some very specific small fish, the Yellow Tang, the Dottyfish and the Angelfish. When they are in egg form, they are really tiny, so it's hard for them to work with them. They've been trying for over a decade how to do it. Most of the fish die. The longest they've had one live now is 26 days. They've poured millions of dollars into this! I'm not sure that these little fishies are worth all that money and effort :)

The transcript thing keeps crashing... I hope I can fix it tomorrow.

It was super windy today and when we were at GB, I was actually getting very cold. I even wore long pants for a change, and still it was too cold. Now it's nice that our apartment is so warm. It was overcast all day, too. I'm not complaining, it's nice to have for a change.

I had some D and was really tired, so I went to bed pretty early, about 1am.

Tuesday January 28

I slept 13 hours! I hope I'm not coming down with something. I wasn't really thinking that way until about 5pm when I felt warm and a bit congested. The thermometer says I don't have a fever, though. Oh, well, I guess we'll see..

I felt fine later on, so I guess it was just allergies. I straightened up around the house, did the dishes and was fine.

Otherwise just been working on my site and catching up on running the transcripts, and copying shows to DVD.

It sure has been raining a lot lately! It's been nice and cool.

We went out to dinner after David's class to J.J. Dolan's. I had pizza (not the crust).

I went to bed at 7 am. I got a lot of done, though.

Wednesday January 29

I made myself get up early today so I can try to get my schedule right again. Early in this case was 2pm, but I only got 6 hours' sleep so if I keep doing that, I will eventually get to an earlier time.

I did a lot of much-needed errands. I got a cheap painting at Ross to hang on the wall (there is a space between our kitchen and front entranceway that has some sort of nail thingy there so I wanted to hang something on it) and also a new welcome mat. I had got a nice one before from Amazon, that I really like, but it wouldn't fit under our door. We're not allowed to have welcome mats on the outside of our doors (because it would get in the way of the person that cleans the floors, I assume), so we have to put inside. I also went to Long's and got a bunch of groceries, and then to Subway for lunch. I had brought my cart, but still it was tough to lug it all home.

I was so annoyed yesterday because I was arguing with idiots online (what else!). I sometimes go to this Facebook group about a computer program called Expression Web, which is a program similar to Frontpage, which is what I use on my site. I had mentioned my site and this one woman started attacking it and saying not only mean things about it but lies. So I defended myself by very nicely pointing out what my site was about and still other people jumped on me and accused me of trying to promote my site, and they were agreeing with her. Then the person in charge deleted the whole conversation. What a horrible group of people. I probably won't be going back there again. I don't care about these people, but I hate it when anyone says criticizes my site, since I put so much work into it.

We went to dinner at Epic. It was good as always, but they always run out of certain dishes we like, which is irritating. They've got a very small menu, so you'd think they would keep it in stock.

I did some singing/recording before and after dinner.

I tried to go to sleep around midnight because I was pretty tired, but then I woke up about two hours later. Ack! Part of it is allergies...very itchy.

Thursday January 30

I slept way too late....

I ordered that aforementioned tablet for a friend who is going to do some work on my site. It's a pretty cool tablet, cheap, too! I spent a lot of time transferring files etc.

We went out to dinner at Downbeat Cafe. I was very sick all afternoon and evening with D. I need to figure out which restaurant is making me so sick. Maybe it's Subway. I had a salad there yesterday.

Friday January 31

I've been spending all my spare time either working with editing songs for the tablet or running transcripts for my site and trying to catch up on TV. The new desktop that runs the transcripts works really well. It's so fast! The software is a bit buggy but mostly works. I just have to reboot when it doesn't work.

Tonight was the real Lunar New Year AKA Chinese New Year, so there were lots of things going on and lots of noise.

We went to Waikiki as usual for dinner. It was raining quite a lot! We tried to go to this one place that I like a lot, that we haven't been to lately, called Rum Fire, which is in the Sheraton, but the rain drove everyone inside, so there was no place to sit. We walked outside and saw this Italian restaurant, Il Lupino, that I'd heard was good, so we went in there. Turns out it's a restaurant by Wolfgang Puck. It was okay food, quality-wise, and not really worth the prices. However, they did have a lot of gluten free stuff, including pasta and pizza, so that was great. I had pasta and it was okay. I think they need to figure out that gluten free pasta is much tougher than regular pasta, so you have to cook it longer! Let's put it this way, I took half home and had it later on, and it was MUCH better after I microwaved it. Fortunately, the rain let up by the time we left and stopped in the Irish bar for a quick drink.

Yes, still eating too much, eating out too much, and not getting enough exercise.

Saturday February 1

Can you believe it's February already? I can't! But then, I say that every month :)

I got up late as usual. We went to this basketball game in the afternoon. It was an HPU Men's game against Azusa Pacific. At the halftime, David and some other faculty members played a 7-minute game against some members of HPU's band. It was just a fun community thing that they do every year. Well, the band members were a lot younger, so they won. We stayed for the whole game and it was pretty fun. HPU beat Azusa, at least. The band played very well, too.

Our car wouldn't start when we went to leave for the game. Probably because we haven't used it much lately. The battery died. So we took a cab to the game and got a ride home with this nice couple. He works for David in the history department and was playing in the game. They were a very nice couple, and we had a nice chat on the way back. Turns out he was at Illinois State, too, and had spent a lot of time in both Georgia and L.A., so we had a lot in common. Also, they live downtown as well.

We went out for dinner pretty soon after that. We tried to go to Murphy's, but they were packed with people. Most of the restaurants we tried were full, which is very unusual. We went to J.J. Dolan's. I just had a salad. Then we stopped in at the Chinese Cultural Center, which is across the street from us. I was going to go to the karaoke bar there, but because of the new year's festivities, they had other stuff going on. A bunch of people were gathered outside of the bar and some people inside were dancing in a dragon costume. Then downstairs, in the big stage area of the center, they were reading off raffle numbers. There were tons of people all over, and booths selling stuff, so we went down there. We got some Thai food at this one booth and took it home. IT was delicious. I've never had pumpkin curry before! It was pretty exciting there, but we were tired, and there was nowhere to really sit, so we just went home and ate our take-out.

I bought some spinach at the grocery store last week, and I finally got around to baking it into crispy spinach. It's very yummy and so healthy!

I'm still struggling to try to get up early and not succeeding. I've been getting up around 4pm. On the plus side, the weather has been great. It's been cool. We're in the rainy season so it rains a lot, but usually at night or it's a very light rain. It's been in the low-mid 70's and really nice.

Don't forget to read my TV Blog!

Anyway, it was a busy week. Hope you enjoy the rest of yours!

Week of January 19

2014-01-26T21:03:00.001-06:00

Sunday January 19

I was up pretty early on Sunday.

I haven't been very good about keeping up the blog this week! Every since I got my new computer, I've been spending a lot of time on it. First I was installing programs, and then I was transferring files over from the old laptop (still am transferring some of the music), and then I was tweaking the settings. That's the thing that's both fun and annoying about getting a new computer - setting it up the way you like it. I had a particularly hard time getting the touchpad settings the way I wanted. I think they're mostly fixed now.

We went out to dinner at Murphy's and then we stopped at the little karaoke bar (that we've walked by a million times but never gone in) called the Hana Hou. It's kind of a dive and a lot of times, no one is singing when we walk by, even at night. I decided to try it out, though, and since David isn't working tomorrow, it was a good night for it. It's really not my kind of place, though. The people are very nice, but there aren't many singers, and the ones that are singing are not very good. They loved me, which was very nice. I hate to sing sitting down, but it's not the kind of place where you can stand up and sing without looking like you're weird. They just pass around the cordless mic from bar to table etc. The funny thing is, their machine is set up so that the bartender actually has to put a dollar bill in for the song! Like a karaoke jukebox. Most of the places here do charge you $1, which I've mentioned before, but I've never seen them actually put the dollar in the machine. I did "At Last" and it went over very well (first time I've ever sung it in public), and then "Ooh Baby Baby". We listened to some other people sing, too, and then we left. We went over to this other place, Cafe Mambo, but they were closed. They usually have karaoke, too, but I haven't tried it yet.

I had a lot of fun this weekend singing, recording and trying out my new laptop.

Monday January 20

I did a ton of work the past two days on my site. Always so much to do! Even though today was a holiday.

I think we went to the Downbeat Diner for dinner. I've been very careful the past two weeks, asking about gluten etc. I think it's finally working - less sick this week so far.

I started cleaning the house, which is my next "project". It hasn't really been cleaned well since before the holidays, so it needs it. It's not a big place, yet somehow it still takes a lot of time and energy to clean it!

Tuesday January 21

I got some very depressing news today. I can't be in the HPU Chorale here any more. I really enjoyed it, too. It has to do with David's job as Dean. Maybe next Fall I will see about joining the University of Hawaii's University Chorus, which is also a choir that will accept community members like me. The only problem is that it's not just a few blocks away like this one was, so I'd have to get a ride (and it's at night, so I don't want to take the bus).

We went out to Epic, my second favorite downtown restaurant, for dinner. They are good about knowing what has gluten. They have a small menu, and it's kind of expensive, so we usually just get two appetizers. I get this strawberry and argula salad (with candied walnuts), and two scallops with bacon jam. They got rid of the scallops dish, but they made it into an entree (more scallops, with ribs), so fortunately they are very kind to still give me the appetizer, even though it's not on their menu any more. That's because I can't eat the ribs, nor most of the other stuff on their menu (due to the gluten allergies).

The last few days, I cleaned the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the front hall, so all I have left is the living room and kitchen.

I've been doing my back exercises, finally... supposed to do them every 1-2 hours but... at least I'm doing them SOME now.

Wednesday January 22

I think I've finally got the Touchpad settings on my new laptop the way I want them. There is still the occasional problem. Sometimes when I click, nothing happens. I have to click multiple times for it to work. Especially on the scroll bar.

I ordered new business cards. My old ones had my old address on them. I'm ordering some pens, too, with the site's name on them. They are pretty cheap. They have a little light on them as well, so you can use it as a mini-flashlight. Pretty cool!

The new laptop crashed on me, so that was not good. Luckily, I had just saved the files I was working on. That almost never happened on my older laptop with XP. I hope it doesn't keep happening.

Today I dusted the living room furniture (I always wet-dust). Working on my site and catching up on TV. Being kind of lazy otherwise!

For a change, we didn't eat out. Instead, we walked over to the Safeway and picked up some food.

Thursday January 23

I tried to go to bed early last night (around midnight) but it was more like a nap, so I didn't stay asleep for long. I ended up staying up until about 10:30 am the next day.

I've been singing a lot this week on Singsnap. It's fun and helps warm up my voice, and learn new songs, so I can then do better recordings for the other karaoke sites.

This past week, I didn't get a lot of exercise. My body is letting me know that with various aches and pains, especially in my legs. Sometimes, even though I'm exhausted, the muscles in my legs are wide awake and screaming at me to get up! This is not my usual restless leg syndrome; I can tell the difference. I always feel better when I get up and walk around. Sometimes it happens when I'm sitting here at the computer too long, too.

So today I was crossing things off my to-do list. First I finished cleaning the house (the kitchen and living room), and I also did the dishes and laundry. The place is spic-and-span now!

David had his class, which he said is going very well (it's about civil liberties). I had plenty of time to clean, and do some recording.

We went to Downbeat Cafe again for dinner. I met the woman that works in the communications department at HPU, and she's also part-owner of the Downbeat. We told her how much we enjoyed it there. I got the Greek salad, which was really good. I had a late lunch, so I just ate half of it and took the rest of it home for later.

Later, since I had to get up and move around again, I decided to finally hook up the RCA big-screen TV. It's the one I bought months ago. It's just like my old one except that it's HD. However, it doesn't have any HDMI inputs so I'm not sure how that would work. But anyway, I hooked up one of the DISH DVR's, and the DVD recorder. I've got some episodes of Days of Our Lives from last summer on there to move to DVD. Besides that, though, I have many programs saved to external hard drive that I need to put back on the DVR and then record to DVD (as well as another DVR that is filled with shows). Then after all that, I can send the boxes back to DISH. Thankfully, they're not charging me to use them. They're not connected to a satellite or anything. If you'll recall, I had hoped to move this TV into the bedroom, but it wouldn't fit around the corner in the hallway. Then I thought maybe I'd replace the smaller TV in here with it, but since the larger one won't take HDMI, not sure if it will work in the living room with the HD cable box/DVR (I mean, it would work with regular A/V cables but then it's not HD). Also, at first, I thought there was something wrong with the picture, but it's just one of those where you have to be sitting or standing a few feet away, at least, to see it clearly. If you're up close, it looks dark. So it's great having another big screen! And once I've gotten all of the shows off the DVR, I can send the DISH DVR's back, and I can use the TV for DVD's, at least, or maybe my ROKU.

So far the only problem is that the DVD recorder I use on that TV, and the one on the other TV, are both Toshiba, and the remotes are almost exactly the same, so I have to be really careful to go over to the DVD recorder and point the remote right at the box, or else it might accidentally mess up the other one's recording. I can't watch 2 shows at once :) so I'm recording on the old TV (to watch later), without taking out commercials. On the newer TV, I'm watching the current soaps and taking out the commercials as I do.

I still really miss having DISH. Time Warner Cable is not bad. but I miss some of the features that DISH has, like the Favorites menu and the Skip-ahead button.

Later, I did my taxes for my work, so it's great to get that done! It's not that hard because I make a little less every year :( Ah, well, I'm not in it for the money, that's for sure!

Friday January 24

Since my sleep schedule has been so messed up, I didn't go to bed last night at all. I finally crashed today after noon.

My allergies were doing really well this week, until last night... UGH. I used my last bit of cough medicine today. I'm expecting a shipment of one of my allergy pills this weekend (Kaiser refills their prescriptions by mail). So I hope that will help. If not, I'm going to have to go back to the doctor.

David and I went to Subway for lunch... it was nice to get out during the day...lately I've just been sleeping during the whole day. I hope to change that this weekend.

I woke up around 4:30pm when the computer repair guy called to say he was coming over. He picked up the PCI Card that they need to install in my used computer with XP. This is the one I will use for my site's transcripts. They're bringing it back on Monday and will set it up for me. Yay!

I stayed up after that and did some more singing/recording. After David came home, we went to Waikiki, like we usually do on Fridays. We found a Thai restaurant, so we went there. I don't know why, but Thai is the only type of Asian food that we don't seem to have downtown! It's weird. Anyway, the food was delicious! I had some kind of chicken with green beans. Cooked perfectly and just the right amount of spice. Yum!! Then we went to the awful Irish bar afterwards, the one he likes there and I hate :) He loves the beer there, but it's always so crowded, loud and smoky there. They often have a horrible singer, too. UGH. Then we went to PF Chang's because we left my credit card there by mistake last week! Fortunately they had it.

After we came back, I did a little more recording....

This weekend they're having a big celebration for Chinese New Year! So there are lots of people, traffic, and noise, but it's all fun. I've heard firecrackers twice already.

The weather has been gorgeous all week. Some nights I don't even have the door open for air. It's just nice. Still hot in the afternoons, but not as bad as before. I have to say that this is the nicest winter I've ever had in my life. I mean, not that the winters have been bad in most of the places I've lived (aside from Illinois and New York), but I mean, even in San Diego, there were chilly days where you have to put on the heat or put on a sweater. I don't even need a long sleeved shirt or long pants here! This is my idea of winter perfection. (And no, I'm not rubbing it in for you poor people who live in real winter)

I had a really hard time getting to sleep tonight because of allergies and because of aches and pains.

Saturday January 25

I woke up around 2 in the afternoon. We saw there were lots of booths set up nearby for the New Year's celebration, so we walked down there and looked around. I had bought a straw hat after we first got here in Honolulu, to protect my face from the sun. When my MIL visited, I gave her the hat because she needed it. So I bought a new one here at the street fair today. When I don't wear it, it hangs on the wall in the front entry way and looks pretty. Most of the booths didn't take credit cards, so we stopped in this little fast-food place that we've never been in before called Farkles. It's in Chinatown, but it's a Chicago hot dog place (the sign says they're moving). Anyway, I had a hot dog, chips and soda. Then we heard that the big parade was starting a bit early, so we went outside and stood near the curb. We had a pretty good view. At first, it was mostly just some kids in dragon costumes (I'll post the pictures later) and some guys drumming, but eventually the rest of the parade started. I guess it's some sort of tradition that you "feed the dragons" with money and other things. Some people had little red cards they were feeding them, which hold money, and some kids near us tried to feed each different colors. The dragons came in red, black, green and white. We forgot to bring our chairs, so it was hard to stand there too long, and people get pushing from behind us, so it was annoying and somewhat claustrophobic. I took lots of photos, but my arm hurt after a while (from my spine problems). They had various groups, like girl scouts, marching along, carrying banners, and bands, and some people riding in cars. I guess Ford was sponsoring it because they were all riding in cool Corvettes. We didn't see any actual floats, so I don't know they don't do those here. We did leave early, though, so maybe there were some later. On the way out, I bought a little panda with a Chinese shirt on. We went over to J.J. Dolan's briefly for drinks, and then we went over to Gordon Biersch for dinner. It was very windy and a little chilly outside by the harbor. Also, I started having D (maybe from the hot dog) and my arm/spine were really killing me.

Here are the photos I took of the parade!

I was very sleepy about 8:30, but when I tried to nap, it didn't work. I didn't feel like sitting too much at the computer, so I watched some movies that I'd ordered but never got around to watching. I saw Star Trek Into Darkness, which was pretty bad. Even worse than the first one. Then I watched Iron Man 3, which was fantastic!! Best movie I've seen in a while. I liked Thor a lot, but this one may even be better. Certainly better than the first 2 Iron Man movies (I liked both, but this one was better). I even loved the retro ending credits. Now I'm watching Man of Steel. I loved the beginning with Krypton (Russell Crowe is always wonderful and he really was great in this). They should make more movies with him.

Have a great week!

Week of December 12, 2013

2014-01-19T18:23:00.002-06:00

Sunday January 12

We went to this concert... the main headliner was blues great Delbert McClinton.

Here are some pics I took with my phone at the concert the other night...

http://tinyurl.com/kpqseut

This is a public folder, so anyone can see it, feel free to share... I have a cheap little camera, so I'm sure someone else got way better pics than I did :)

And a few video clips:

http://tinyurl.com/mt7exzz

http://tinyurl.com/ktf2hvq
http://tinyurl.com/ld3568k

It was set up by Jack Hart, who's Chair of the Communications Department, which is in David's college at HPU. Jack used to be in radio, so he knows a lot of musicians. He heard that Delbert and these other people were going to be in a concert in Maui, so he got them to come here and put on a concert, too. A lot of the ticket sales went to towards a scholarship fund for students who major in Communications. Jack got us tickets and they were close up to the stage. You may recall that when David interviewed here in May, Jack took us around on a tour of the island. Here's a photo of Jack from when he showed us around the island. He also goes by John...

It was a small venue called Hawaiian Brian's. I think it was only a few hundred people. It was so cool and fun! I didn't know most of the acts, and I'd only barely heard of Delbert, but it's always nice to hear great live music. They kept it fun, too. They all had lots of energy.

The first act was this woman Lauren Silva (here's her website) http://laurensilvamusic.com It was just her and this guy with a guitar. Both of them were excellent. She has an amazing voice. Also, she looks a lot like Chrishell Stause, an actress who was on "All My Children" as Amanda and is now on "Days of Our Lives" as Jordan. I mean, they could be sisters. Even their speaking voices are similar. I spoke with her briefly during the intermission. She's from San Diego as it turns out, although she calls Hawaii her home.

Then they brought on this band called Hell Bent. The main singer's name is Johnny Nicholas. He looked very much like a blues musician. He played guitar, and piano, and harmonica, and he sang very well (not a fabulous voice, but it was good for this type of music). They had a slide guitar player, Cindy Cashdollar, who has won 5 Grammys. What's surprising is that Cashdollar is her real name! What a great name. Seems like she should have become a banker or something with a name like that. They brought on this Hawaiian guitar player named Greg to do a song with Cindy, called "Hulu Blues". They did quite a few songs and then stayed on the stage as Marcia Ball came on to play piano and sing. She's quite a renowned blues artist, apparently. She sings and plays really well and puts on a great show.

Then they had an intermission, and I bought two CD's. Another local musician played guitar for us, for two songs. Hell Bent, Cashdollar and Johnny Nicholas returned, along with Delbert McClinton and some other guitar player that works with him. McClinton is very entertaining, but he's in his 70's so his voice is not as good as it used to be, I'm sure. I think they probably should have turned up his microphone a little, too. The others kind of drowned him out. It was still great to hear him, though. He brought back Marcia and also Lauren to sing with. He finished with his minor hit single, "Giving It Up For Your Love" and then they brought him back for an encore. His guitar played sang this song "Fried Chicken and Memphis Women". He is a popular blues guy known as Whitey Johnson. Here's the video. He's a bit older and chubbier, too.

I was hoping to meet Delbert afterwards and get a photo, but we waited around and he didn't come out. Oh, well! We saw Jack and congratulated him on his show. I had quite a lot to drink, but it was fun. David had fun, too, but it went kind of late and he has to get up early, so it was tough on him. We got home after 11. I went to sleep not too long after and then I woke up around 3:30 in the morning.

Monday January 13

I stayed up until after 10 am, then I went back to sleep. I had an interview at noon but canceled it for something I had to go do. Then I went back to sleep until late afternoon.

I heard back from the guy at Pacific Computers; he said the TV Wonder Pro PCI card I got will definitely not fit into the laptop. He said they might have a cheap used pc I can get for that, so I'm waiting to hear about that and how much it will cost.

I've still been having my D problems. I don't know what I'm eating that is causing it. I'm trying to be super careful now when I eat out. It's so easy to forget, but I try to always ask now about the gluten. Waiters and waitresses don't always know what that means, or they're not very good about it.

We went to Gordon Biersch for dinner, like usual. I did ask the waiter to check with the cook about gluten. Then after he brought my salad, another guy came out and took my salad away, saying that the candied walnuts might have gluten. Then he brought it back and told me that it just says they're manufactured on the same equipment as wheat etc. I told him that's fine. This is why it's better to eat at nicer restaurants, though. They would make their own candied nuts, not get them from a package. Chains often have their own packaged food that they send to the franchises so if you eat at a chain, chances are they didn't make too much from scratch. I always have to watch salad dressings but also meats, cheeses, nuts etc. Just about everything except for plain salad. I don't like plain salad :(

For some reason, a lot of the time when I ask about whether the salad dressing is gluten free or not, they'll say, we can bring it on the side. As if somehow that will make me less allergic to it....??? I don't get that one at all.

Anyway, their salads are not that great, but I'm trying to eat healthier. I eat the Harvest Chicken Salad, which has lettuce and other veggies, plus chicken, plus grapes, plus craisins, plus apples, plus candied walnuts, plus dressing. I think next time I'll ask them to leave off the grapes and apples because they are too tart for me.

Tuesday January 14

I've been doing a ton of work for my site and also starting to clean up the place a little. I need to straighten up the guest bedroom and the living room, then I can start actually dusting, vaccuuming, and mopping etc. It will probably take me a few days, though.

I've been watching lots of TV. Of course I do enjoy it, but trying to watch all the shows and review them before the air can be stressful, too. It just goes to show that no matter how fun your job is, it's still a job!

I went out this afternoon to mail something and get lunch. I really need to stay away from McDonald's. Later, we went to dinner at J.J. Dolan's. I just had a salad. I had a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich later on.

Right now I figure it's one of three things making me sick every day. Either McDonald's, or other eating out, or these Hershey's kisses. McDonald's and the kisses are supposed to be wheat free, though, but who knows.

I ordered a new computer today, so I'm very happy about that. This laptop that I've been using for most of my website work, web surfing, email etc. is about 7 years old. I had two others, but one no longer works and the other one was lost in the mail when we moved here (and we had another one that we gave to someone before we left Georgia). They're all Dells. I ordered a new Dell, an Inspiron 17. It has a 17" monitor and Windows 8. I hope Windows 8 is not too hard to learn to use. I never got Vista or Windows 7, so it should be quite a leap. I wanted to get a touch screen, but that almost doubles the price. The new laptop cost just over $400. I remember back when new desktops were over $1000 and laptops were twice that. That wasn't even that long ago, just the early part of the century. Makes you feel old :) I hope it comes by the end of the week! I can hardly wait. This one is so slow.

Wednesday January 15

Nothing too exciting going on today...

We went to Epic, but they were out of the foods we liked (and there's only a few things on the menu I'm not allergic to). It was annoying, so we left. We got there and the only place to sit was the bar. Then the waiter said we would still get in the happy hour, so we ordered drinks, and I ordered my food. Someone David knew came up to talk to him, so he ordered a few minutes later. Then the guy tell us that it was too late and now we have to pay full price, not happy hour. I was pretty annoyed about that, but I didn't say anything. We had both ordered the patty melts. Then he told us they're out of the patty melts. Then they were out of the pork belly appetizer that he ordered. So we just left after paying for our drinks. There's really no excuse for any of that. He said it was because the chef was going on vacation, but I don't buy that as the only reason. We went to Downbeat Diner instead, which we both like. I had an omelette.

I hate to keep repeating myself, but I need to start getting up earlier, work on my back exercises, and exercise in general. SIGH.

I might not be in choir this semester... can't really go into it. Frustrating!

I finally straightened up the guest room and cleaned out the refrigerator, so I can cross those off my to do list! Yay!

I have to start cleaning the place either tomorrow or the next day. It is SO dirty.

I always get these calluses on my feet. I guess it's from wearing sandals all the time. Then the skin gets very dry and itchy, and it's not good. I've always been way too lazy to file down the calluses, though (although once the podiatrist did it for me). So I've started doing that now because I hate having these itchy feet. It's surprisingly easy. D'oh!

Thursday January 16

I got my laptop today. I'm surprised it arrived so quickly! You never know how fast they will bring things, in Hawaii....LOL!

I've been setting up a bit. That's always such a hassle. I hate having to learn Windows 8, but it's pretty cool so far. It's tough going from XP to 8. So many changes! Luckily, it's been out so long that there are plenty of websites online where you can read for help on how to do everything. Still, I hate having to reinstall and move everything to the new computer.

I have to stop here to talk about a pet peeve of mine. As a rule, humans are visual learners. It's probably why most people prefer TV to reading. While it's true that reading is somewhat visual, it's not as visual as pictures. That's why the web, when it first came on, was more about text and now it's all about pictures and videos. As someone who reads really fast, though, I always prefer text over video. That may come as a surprise, since I'm such a TV watcher. But in terms of learning something, whether it's news about a TV show or learning how to use Windows 8, I would much rather read text. Pictures can be helpful, of course, but videos slow you down. I'm not only a very fast reader, I'm a great skimmer. I don't want to have to sit through a video when I can just read down to the part I need to read. Also, I usually have my sound turned off, so it's an extra step to have to turn on the sound first. This is why, you may find some videos or video links on my website, but it's mostly text (and photos). When people post videos on Facebook or Twitter, I almost never click on the link to hear or see the video. Too much trouble and wasting too much of my time. Life is short. I'm old, and busy. :)

I've still been having a lot of gluten issues this week. I was not that hungry for dinner. We went to this Japanese restaurant, Ra Kuen, and I just had some edamame and some fries. It's not a great place and there's very little there I can eat. David likes the sushi.

I've just been spending all my time setting up my new computer, for the most part. Moving files over from the old laptop, installing programs, all that stuff.

I found a temporary solution to a problem I was having. The afternoon sun comes in our apartment and really heats it up. There's no place for curtains, shades, or blinds. Then I remembered that we have this large airbed in the spare bedroom, which I was already leaning up against the wall to make space. So now I move that to the left side of the sliding glass door (where most of the sun comes in). It's not perfect. I'm not sure it makes it cooler so much as just keeps the sun from hitting me in the face. It's definitely cooler in the bedroom, where the windows are covered by blinds. Well, maybe one of these days I'll ask the rental manager about putting in blinds.

Friday January 17

David had an event that went until 7:30. I had some fun recording songs for a change. I use this site Singsnap and for years I haven't been able to record on there without the sound being messed up. With this new laptop, it works much better. It has a great built-in camera and microphone, and wonderful sound. After recording a few songs there, I went to the bedroom and my older laptop to record some more songs on Cool Edit so I could upload some new ones to Singer's Showcase and ThisIsKaroake.com. Then I listened to some of the songs on those sites.

We went to Murphy's for dinner. They had a special that was very good. It was scallops and spinach with a beurre blanc sauce, and pineapples and passion fruit, and mashed potatoes.

I went to bed around midnight for a change and slept 4 or 5 hours.

Saturday January18

I was up about 5 am and couldn't sleep any longer. We went out for lunch to this chain here called Zippy's. When we moved here, it was being remodeled, and then we sort of tend to forget about it because it's behind our building, not in the direction that we go very often. Anyway, it's similar to Denny's. Nothing special. We stopped briefly at Safeway on the way back to get bread and a couple of other things. Then we had a nap.

It's funny here living downtown. My favorite restaurant here, Hasr's Bistro, is about a block away, give or take. They have an outdoor seating area with a band. So if you have your winder open, you can hear their band. It's not right next door, so it's not terribly loud. If you have the window closed and the TV on, you don't hear it at all. Plus the sirens, and the bus that stops right down below, are much louder than the music. Apparently, though, some of the residents were complaining and Hasr's won't do anything about it (not sure what they could do, anyway). There was a sign up in our elevator talking about it and --this is so crazy -- they actually suggested that we call 911 if the noise bothers us! Um, pretty sure that will get you into a lot of trouble. Also, someone had tacked a note up on their sign, saying something to the effect of, You're downtown WTF? Which I agree with. There are going to be noises here and there's no getting around it. I would rather hear their band than the crazy people down there that scream out obscenities occasionally. Not to mention the fire sirens - those are PIERCING and can wake you up. I don't know why anyone would live in a downtown in any real city and expect it to be quiet. I mean, geez, close your windor or door if it bothers you, or put in earplugs.

We're going down to Waikiki tonight, probably to PF Chang's if we can get in. Love their gluten free menu! I usually have the lettuce wraps, and I did tonight, too. Always good!

Lately, I feel like I should get some kind of special LGBT award. I've been arguing on Facebook, defending LGBT people, but not against the usual right-wing people. Against left wingers! Very odd. First I had an argument with this gay guy about bisexuals. I'd heard that there was prejudice against bisexuals among many gay people as well as straight, but I'd never seen it before. This gay actor, Thom, whom I follow on Facebook, posts a lot of off the wall questions for his fans/friends to answer. He had asked how we would reply if our partner or spouse suddenly said that they were bisexual. Well, several people replied in an insulting way about bisexuals, saying essentially that they're promiscuous. Now, besexual just means you can fall in love with or have sex with anyone. It doesn't mean you have to sleep with multiple people or can't be monogamous. Nor does it mean you're undecided or can't make up your mind. Now, sometimes a gay or straight person may go through a bisexual phase before they figure out who they are, but that's different. So this one guy decided to argue back with me, but like so many people online, he can't handle a discussion or disagreement without ending up hurling insults. Also, as is also common, he kept denying what he had said, or side-stepping it alltogether, as well as making it all personal. I stayed very polite and just kept pointing out what he said and that I was not attacking him personally, just his comments. We argued for two days, and he got mad, but eventually he calmed down and even apologized, which is unusual. Still, it was quite shocking that so many people there were saying these things, which are totally based on prejudice.

Tonight I had an argument with an African American actor about gay people. I think he has some hang-ups about them, but he didn't want to admit that. We were actually talking about "The Bachelor". Now, this actor likes to be funny and he often says outrageous things. In this particular case, he was sort of putting down gay people for being upset at The Bachelor's comments. You can read about it here. This particular actor is not all that educated, so his logic skills are really not up to the task of arguing. After awhile I really just sort of gave up, but we ended on a postive note. Hopefully I made him think a little bit about what he said. He's a nice guy, and he appreciates the exchange of ideas. It can just be so frustrating when people can't see that what they said was prejudiced. I don't know how anyone who has been the victim of racist, bigoted or sexist treatment can be that way towards people of another group, but unfortunately it's very common. And I do think that all of us have some prejudice, but it's how we act on it that matters. What we say and do is what matters. (I still do believe that jokes are different, though, but obviously it matters what situation it is, who you are, whether you're really prejudiced, etc.) I feel it's a person's duty to stand up and say that those thoughts and actions are prejudiced. But it can be so frustrating. Now, these are just people online, but I do have a few friends who sometimes say bigoted things (they're all right-wingers, though). I call them on it, too, but they're long-time friends so they don't get mad.

Have a great week!

Week of January 5, 2014!

2014-01-12T09:28:00.002-06:00

Sunday January 5

I got up around 2, which is much later than I wanted to! I had half a sandwich and did some work while David finished his nap.

We walked to the Safeway, which is about two blocks away, for some things that we forgot to get yesterday. The Safeway is very expensive so we don't do our regular shopping there.

Then I did some more work and watched some TV. Later, we went to Downbeat Cafe for dinner. I had an omelette.

Later on, after David had gone to sleep, he was awakened by this weird alarm. It turned out to be a weather alert on his radio, which was turned off! It was for one of the other islands, too. Weird!! He had to take the batteries out to make sure that didn't happen again.

I did the laundry. I really need to put the rest of the Christmas decorations away, but I need to find the energy!

We had beautiful weather all weekend. I hope it continues!

I took all the ornaments and tinsel off the tree, and I started putting the ornaments away. I got really tired, though, so I went to sleep for a few hours.

Monday January 6

David woke me before he went to work because I have 3 interviews this morning. The first one is at 8am my time. I have another one at 9 and one at 11. 3 more tomorrow!

I was worried I would be too tired, but things are going well so far. I'm sure I'll crash after the last call!

They brought my old computer back today, so that was good!

I ended up going to lunch with David after all. We went to McDonald's because Subway was too crowded. They have a new upstairs area at McDonald's now so there are more places to sit.

I went back to sleep after I went home, but I had trouble sleeping. I was just exhausted. I slept until around 5:30.

Went out to dinner as usual, to Gordon Biersch. I had the chicken salad.

I stayed up late again. I did try to go to bed earlier but it was not working. My allergies got in the way so I was sniffling and itching.

I slept for a few hours and then had to wake up about 8:15 for my first call again.

Other than laundry, dishes and a few things on my site, I haven't had much time to do anything.

Tuesday January 7

My last interview was over around 11, and I was very tired, so I just went back to sleep for about 6 hours.

My current schedule seems to be, sleep 2 hours around 4 in the morning, then sleep from about 11 or noon to 6. Split-shift sleeping is not that fun.

We went to Epic for dinner; one of my very favorite places.

I've been going through a pile of papers on my couch and I'm almost done with that, thank goodness!

After that, I need to put those darned decorations away.

Today was my sister-in-law Eileen's birthday! Yay!

I don't care at all about football, but it's always fun to root for the home team. I was glad that the Chargers got into the play-offs and then won a game! It would be great if they went all the way... but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I was appalled to learn about the rapist football player that won the championship. UGH. I know, he's technically innocent since they didn't press charges. It sounds pretty bad, though. I was arguing with some idiot on Twitter who actually implied that this guy couldn't have raped someone because he's a popular football player... He was an idiot, though, so the argument wasn't a fair fight. It's just sad how many people out there are ignorant about rape and have such poor attitudes about women.

Wednesday January 8

I was looking through the cards I got this Christmas... I always love cards, but I sure didn't get as many this year as I usually do. I wonder why? I think I only got about 25 cards, not counting the ones from my volunteers. I send about 3 times as many out, so that's not good. I sent them out early, too, to give people plenty of time to send them to me in case they forgot. Especially appalling is the fact that only one family member sent a card (my SIL Eileen). Only two other family members sent presents (presents are better than cards so that's fine!) and only one friend sent a present. So that's going to change, too, I guess.

I understand that not everyone has a lot of money, but sending a card doesn't cost much. Most of my family didn't even bother to send an e-card or thank me for their cards and gifts. In fact, my own immediate family is much worse about that than my in-laws. Bah Humbug! Next year I'll just keep my cards and gifts to myself aside from a few people. It's not about money or getting gifts, it's about showing people how you feel about them as well as just common courtesy.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping, so I skipped my interviews today and just slept. UGH.

I woke up around 2pm. I just did some work for a while, had some food.

We went to JJ Dolan's for dinner. I was sick before that. I just had a salad.

I haven't felt motivated to do much else! Been arguing with idiots online as usual. I don't even know why I bother. There's a lot of crazy people out there that think they're normal. Scary.

The remote control on my living room TV broke and for a while, I thought maybe it was the whole cable box that was broken! I was so relieved to find out otherwise...

I hate when they send me a TV show to review on DVD and there's no closed-captioning, and everyone mumbles!!! ACK!!

Thursday January 9

For once I was able to get to bed fairly early! I think I finally got to sleep before 1am. Then I got up at 10. I had a one-on-one interview at noon so I had to give myself time to come up with questions. It went well!

Ever since we got here, I've been getting gluten-poisoned more than usual because we eat out too much. If we lived closer to Waikiki or could afford to eat at the really expensive non-Asian restaurants here every night, then it would be somewhat easier. But also I really don't like the money we've been spending on it. I'd rather we pay off our few credit cards and save the rest for retirement. So starting soon we'll be eating more at home and only eating dinner out a few times per week.

A lot of people seem to think that internet friends are the same as real-life friends, and by and large, they're just not. I do have MANY internet friends and I like most of them, but to say they are equal to real life friends, especially ones I've known for decades, is just ridiculous. That would be a slap in the face to real-life friends. People you know in real life know that you're not lying about who you are, to a certain extent, anyway. In real life you generally can't hide your gender, what you look like, your personality, etc. Sure, some people are really good liars, and a sociopath can hide their dark side and pretend to be a nice person. Most people, though, can tell if a person is weird or not a nice person or a bad friend. You can't tell most of that on the internet because it's a lot easier to hide who you are or what kind of person you are. People lie all the time - many people lie who aren't even trying to do anything bad, it's just easier to lie and they want people to like them. If someone is trying to make friends, they'll hide the parts that they think you won't like. Or even if they're not lying, it may take a lot of conversations before you figure out the person is really screwed up. I'll admit that I don't have a lot of real-life friends where I live because we haven't lived here very long and because it's not easy to make new friends once you leave college, especially if you don't go to church or have kids or work in a large office.

I've also found that some people that were school friends or acquaintances that I knew in real life long ago have turned into people I don't like (or maybe they were always that way, and I just didn't know them well enough to figure that out). One high school friend (albeit not a close one) that I liked has become a very conservative guy and he doesn't like anyone to disagree with him, so he unfriended me. I mean, I'm not generally a disagreeable person, but on Facebook if you post something, you have to expect people might disagree with you (unless you tell them not to). What a shame that some people can't take anyone disagreeing with them, even politely. I certainly don't care if someone disagrees with me as long as they're not a jerk about it. I don't know anyone who would, but I keep finding people who can't handle it. Years ago I had encountered another high school guy (both of these guys were in choir) who turned out to be really weird, a control freak, obnoxious, and all sorts of other things. So sad. Maybe we shouldn't get to know people we liked back in school - they may disappoint us? Then recently this woman Leslie that I knew was the same way, she started really getting on my case and being obnoxious to me about something really minor. I just unfriended her because she seemed nuts. It really makes me wonder how many people out there that seem normal are nuts and weirdos!

I've been having a disagreement in email with another online friend... I hope she turns out to be normal. So far she is taking offense at something I said, that I didn't mean bad. Sometimes people have a bad day so I hope that was all it was. But anyway, this is the thing about real-life friends. They don't just turn on you. People you've known a long time generally know your faults, and you know theirs, and you've been friends a long while so that means you're okay with them and know whether they're nice people or not. Real friends value your friendship and don't just unfriend you. If they do, they weren't real friends to begin with. I used to be like these other people that think real life and internet friends are similar, too, and I'd get upset if people online didn't like me or said mean things. Then I realized they aren't real friends. Sure, it is annoying or sad if someone is mean to you online, but you don't have to give them that power over you. Treat online friends like the strangers they are. If you get to know them well, maybe meet them, great. Just don't let them hurt you. Value them as online friends, but until or unless they become real life friends... they're not.

Obviously what is a "friend" or "acquaintance" or "stranger" is not always clear-cut. I have some online friends that I've known for many years, and we've chatted a lot, and some I've spoken on the phone with. Some I've met. There are different levels. A few years back I met Boo, whom had worked on my site with me for a long time. We had spoken on the phone a lot. She and her husband drove from their farm to meet us when we visited in Houston, and we spent a few hours together. She was more like a real-life friend, but of course not as close as, say, someone I knew for years in real life. I've never had a good friend in real life die yet (thank goodness). I've had relatives die. Boo died around Thanksgiving, and it was very sudden and sad. I still think about her sometime as if she's alive and then it's upsetting to remember that she's not. But I didn't cry when she died, like I would if some good friends died like Corrie, Lynn, Mary, Barb, or others. Not nearly how upset I felt when my nephew Jeremiah died.

You have to think to yourself the differences, though. Any of my real life friends are welcome to come visit here in Honolulu. Now, some people may think they're friends when really they're just acquaintances and vice versa because we don't always tell people how we feel about them. (So if you're thinking about coming to visit and sleep on my couch, ask me first! :) Joking aside, real life friends are someone you would have in your home. You would trust them not to molest your kids, not to kick your dog (or vice versa), not to steal from you. You might loan them money, or you might borrow money from them. You know that if you were in an accident, you could call them. They are almost like family. Now, you might be lucky and some of your online friends are nice and you can trust them like this. But you really shouldn't until you know them well because, see above!! You shouldn't trust just anyone online who says they're your friend. Real friendship is a sort of trust. You trust that your friend will be nice to you and you can depend on them, and they aren't going to be a jerk to you. Or if they are a jerk to you, you know you can be a jerk back to you and no hard feelings. I think we've all had fair weather friends and high maintenance friends... hopefully not too many of those. I find that some people online expect way too much of their friends, especially their online friends.

New subject. I had a problem and came up with a solution. It gets hot in this apartment, so I usually just wear a tank top and underwear, nothing else. The problem with that is that if someone delivers a packge to the door, I have to hurry and put pants on. Or if I want to go out to the balcony to cool off, I don't want to be showing the neighbors my underwear :) And yes, even wearing shorts makes it too hot, especially sitting here with the laptop. So I thought, hmm, maybe I should get a really big men's tanktop and it will be long enough to look like a dress. I went to Ross and they didn't have any tank tops (it's not the season for them, I guess). However, they did have some tank top dresses. Perfect!! They are very lightweight and comfortable.

I had quite a few Christmas cookies leftover. I can't eat them because they aren't gluten free or sugar free. David is very picky and only likes certain types of cookies. I had given away all I could give to people we know. So I took them bag to the homeless in the park across the street. The guy I handed them to seemed grateful. I asked him to share them around, so I hope he did! I did my good deed for the day :)

We went out to Hasr's for dinner. It's kind of expensive, but they are good about knowing what has gluten and their food is really good.

The old computer with Windows 98 died again. I think it's unfixable at this point. I have to figure out a way to replace it that will work with the ATI TV Wonder so I can still make transcripts for my site!

The TV Wonder USB is an external device that hooks up to your TV or VCR on one side, and to the compute ron the other side, and it grabs the closed captioning and makes a transcript of it. It only works on computers with Windows 98 or 2000, even though the instructions say it will work on XP. My old computer was 14 years old but that's all I used it for - making transcripts. The company that made the TV Wonder and similar products, ATI, was bought out by AMD, and I think they then went out of business, but regardless, they no longer make the product and they didn't upgrade the software, either. The hardware needs the software (and drivers) to work. There are only two other companies that I know of that made similar products. Hauppage made one (don't think they do any more) and there was another one called Textgrabber, but it's gone, too.

I bought a TV Wonder for $10 online. It's supposed to work with newer versions of Windows, but it connects with a PCI Card, which has to be installed internally. I don't go inside my computer, and I don't know if this could be installed in my laptop or not. I spent hours trying to figure out if I could install that or the other one on my laptop, but they didn't work.

Friday January 10

I finally got all of the Christmas decorations put away! Yay! I did a lot of them last night and the rest today. 25 boxes full of stuff.

I stayed up way too late, until this morning sometime. I emailed the computer repair place, so I hope they can help me.

We went out to Murphy's for dinner. The waitress tried to give me gravy on my potatoes, even though I had asked her to make sure that there was no gluten in the food. She checked and of course there was gluten in the gravy. Apparently she had not checked like I asked her... Tired of having to ask this all the time and dealing with idiots.

I'm very tired, so maybe I can go to bed earlier. We'll see! I did go to bed pretty early, slept for a few hours and then woke up after 11pm. Then I stayed up until about 6am or so. UGH.

Saturday January 11

I still haven't heard back from the computer place. I'm going to have to call them on Monday, I guess.

I had a great dream sometime yesterday where we were at some political science conference, like maybe Chicago... and I learned there was a comic book or scifi conference right there the next day! I was so looking forward to it...then I woke up. Aw... I was regretful in the dream that I hadn't brought a costume to wear and not too many scifi T-shirts, either. That was a funny detail.

Aw, it's so sad about David Cassidy being arrested again. I feel bad for him, although I do think that it's horrible of him to drive drunk. I don't understand that at all. You're rich, hire a limo and driver, for god's sake! Or get a cab. It's just not that difficult.

David had an event this morning. I woke up around 3pm.

I didn't do too much today besides work on my site and watch TV.

Very happy that I got the new cable remote in the mail. I also got these pillows I'd ordered. One is a lumbar pillow for sitting here on the couch, the other is a neck pillow for sleeping. I also got a back scratcher that I ordered. It's a pocket metal one that telescopes so you can put it easily in your purse.

We went to Waikiki around 5, which is a little bit early for us. We first went to the Irish bar, which was good because it's less crowded, noisy and smoky if you go there earlier. We were going to eat at PF Chang's, but it was too crowded. We just went to our usual place, Kani Ka Pila Grille, even though we're both a little tired of it. It turned out to be a bad choice because instead of Hawaiian music their band was playing awful cover songs, and they just weren't very good.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to block the sun from coming in the sliding glass doors... Maybe we'll get this tinting film that you can put on it (it blocks the sun but not the view). We'll see!

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

Have a great week!

Week of December 29

2014-01-05T18:57:00.002-06:00

Sunday December 29

The cough medicine and antibiotics seem to be working, finally! I'm able to sleep much better. I can tell the difference when I sing, too. I was also finally able to record some more songs, which made me very happy.

Tonight was a lot of fun! We went down to Waikiki to Kelley O'Neil's for dinner (we usually only go to Waikiki on the weekends or for special occasions, but David was off for the past week so we had some extra time). They have a really good corned beef sandwich. Anyway, after that, we went to this karaoke bar called the In Between. It's a tiny little place that we've been to a few times. They always love any singers and very friendly and appreciated. It's the type of crowd where you can sing anything. They don't mind. It was mostly young men, and they weren't singing at first. We ordered drinks and eventually the bartender asked if we were going to sing. Apparently they had done some singing already. So I did "Dancing Queen" by ABBA. Immediately, other people started looking for more songs to sing. They were just waiting for an excuse to get this party started, LOL! There was this very drunk Australian guy and he kept singing with me. It was a little uncomfortable at first because he was so drunk and didn't care about personal body space, but he was fine. He wasn't the only one singing along. Some older folks came in, too. There was one lady that sang pretty well and did "Stormy Weather".. Her friend did "Just a Gigolo". There were lots of fun songs, mostly fast and upbeat. For my second song, I did "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves". Then I did "Xanadu" and finished with "I Feel Pretty". They were a great audience. It was a rare karaoke night where we had enough audience and quite a few singers, but there wasn't a long time to wait, and also everyone was a lot of fun. We all sang along with each other. It was just pure fun. One guy who sang very well wanted to do "Suddenly Seymour" with me, but I don't know that one. I wish every night were like that one!

I went to bed relatively early for a change! The alcohol probably helped ;)

Monday December 30

I woke up around 7 am. My right leg was hurting quite a lot. I did work and then went back to sleep for a long while. I got up again around 2pm! Oops.

We went out to Epic for dinner. They treated us very well. I always love their food. They only have a few things I can eat, and I like to stick to the appetizers since they're cheaper. I usually have the strawberry and arugula salad, and then the scallops appetizer. Well, they took the latter off the menu. They have a scallops main course but it comes with ribs, which have a sauce I can't eat, and it's a lot more food than I want. So, fortunately, the waiter talked to the manager, who let me have the scallops appetizer anyway. Yay!

I made more cookies for some people this week. Glad I'm done making them after this! Whew! I have a bunch of extras, though. Not sure what I will do with them since I can't eat them and David doesn't like them. He's very picky and only likes certain types.

Tuesday December 31

The old computer I use to run transcripts for my site is not working again. I just had it fixed in August! I guess I'll have to phone the repair place again.

We went bar-hopping for New Year's Eve. We started out at Hasr's Bistro, which is my favorite place down here. We had great appetizers and wine. Then we went to a number of different places, including Art's Hideaway, where I sang one song. It was a very fun night! I had about 7 drinks altogether. We came home fairly early, though, about 10:20. We had some more drinks and toasted at midnight. I went to sleep pretty early after that...I was so sleepy! I woke up early the next morning and didn't feel very well. I took an Aleve and went back to sleep. This week I had more alcohol than I have in a long time.

We watched quite a lot of TV before midnight...

I spent a lot of time last night on Twitter and Facebook, wishing everyone a Happy New Year's. I was very happy that my favorite singer/composer Paul Williams favorited my tweet to him :)

Wednesday January 1

I slept about 13 hours. I felt pretty good but just very tired and a bit dehydrated.

We went to this Lutheran church about 4pm. David's associate dean, Bill, sings in the choir and they were having a big concert. It was a special service for New Year's, mostly in German. The choir sang Bach's Magnificat as well as a Bach cantata, and a short Handl piece. There was some other short singing, and there was some audience participation in that as well, which I enjoyed (Church karaoke!). It was 2 hours long...a bit long, but I did like the music.

After that, we went out to dinner at Downbeat Cafe. It was one of the few places open. I had this great burger called the Carnivore, wrapped in lettuce. It's a large cheeseburger with bacon, ham, and cooked onions. It was very yummy, and so were the fries. Back on the diet tomorrow!

I'm going to have to start taking down the decorations tomorrow...not looking forward to that!

I learned tonight that an old friend passed away. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but still, it was sad. He was only about 9 years older than me, but he'd been in poor health a long time. He was a good friend of another friend for a long time, and so we saw him a lot when we visited. For the past couple of years, he was a good Facebook friend. It was always good to see him or hear from him. He was very smart, well-read, and educated, and he had a very dry sense of humor. On Facebook, he would often comment whenever the subject of politics or TV came up. He was also very involved with San Diego Democrat politics. He was one of those people that could have really been successful due to his intelligence and education, but for some reason he wasn't. I always thought that was such a shame. It's always hard to see wasted potential. But I know he had a lot of friends, too, so I guess they valued him and his life was full in that way. I would say that matters more, except that I'm fairly sure that if he hadn't been so poverty stricken for such a long time, he probably would still be with us. Unfortunately, chronic diseases are often ones that come up when you don't have much money or good health care, or you have a poor diet. He's not the only person I know with these problems. It's just sad that in this day and age, someone as kind and intelligent as he was couldn't get the kind of help he needed. Please do take care of yourselves! I've had too many friends and acquaintances die this past year.

I went to bed early but then woke up, coughing, and then couldn't get back to sleep. I ended up staying up until around 3:30 and then slept for about 11 hours.

Thursday January 2

I was having really good dreams last night, so I didn't want to wake up, I admit. Also, my back was hurting, so I just kept sleeping in as long as my body and brain would let me. I guess I'm still in "vacation mode". Enough of that!

After I woke up, I walked down to the post office to mail a few things, and then to Long's to buy a couple of things, and then to Subway to get lunch. Then I also took cookies downstairs to the nice lady that is the main manager here. She said that she got lucky when she left Chicago because right after she left O'Hare airport, almost 800 airplanes were grounded. Also, her mother emailed her to say it was very cold (it's 12 there right now), so she's very happy to be back here in Hawaii. She told her mom, I'm going to the pool after work! LOL!

I need to find the energy to get up and put these decorations away!

I started straightening up a little... I always start in the bedroom. I started the laundry and then I just started taking down the decorations. I haven't yet taken the boxes out of the closet, so I'll do that tomorrow. I took down everything except for the Christmas tree and the decorations on it. Everything else is in piles. I was very hot and sweaty when I was done with that, so I took a shower. Whew!

It was humid outdoors today, but not too hot. Later it did rain quite a bit, so it cooled off.

We went to dinner at the sushi restaurant, Ra-Kuen. There isn't much there I can eat, since most of it is sushi and/or has soy sauce on it. I told the waitress right upfront that I can't eat their soy sauce because it has wheat. She seemed to be doing an ok job of keeping out the gluten, but then when she gave me the steak, and I tasted it, it tasted like soy sauce. Turns out, it did. She had no idea that Ponzu sauce has soy. That's a shame. I'm going to have to complain to them about this.

I was watching a DVD, while it was pouring outside. I heard this alarm, and I thought it was part of the DVD, but then I realized it wasn't. It was a fire alarm out in the hall. Wow, very loud. I woke David up, and he didn't think we should walk downstairs. I tried calling down to the security, but their phone was busy. I started gathering my things to prepare to walk down. Then the alarm finally went off, and then I got through on the phone. They said it was a false alarm. Good thing!

Friday January 3

I was sick a lot today from what I ate last night at Ra-Kuen. I didn't get much done because I spent so much time either in the bathroom or feeling awful.

I got up late and then laid around quite a bit.

We went to Waikiki and I thought I would be ok, but I was wrong. We went to Kani Ka Pila Grille, and I had their gluten free bread with a fish sandwich, and fries. I didn't have a lava flow for a change, just soda. I was actually cold! The wind was blowing and there wasn't much humidity. The big storm we had the night before really cooled things off. I don't mean I was really winter cold, just chilly, like I should have brought a sweater. My arms were cold. All the places over-air-condition still, too. I had a hot chocolate at first. It was very good but I was still cold as we left there.

Then we went briefly to Kelly O'Neill's. It was pretty awful, worse than usual. Very crowded, loud and smoky. The singer was not very good, either. To be fair, though, I was just not feeling well.

We went over to the GS Studios (private karaoke rooms) and I was sick a lot there, but I still did sing for fun as much as I could.

I tried to go to sleep early, but since my sleep schedule has been so messed up, I wasn't able to. I spent most of my time watching TV and not much else.

Saturday January 4

I was still a little sick today, but not quite as bad.

I'm on the site Freecycle on Yahoo. I had gotten a free chest of drawers from this one lady through that. Another lady was looking for a VCR, and I had an extra one, so today she came over and I gave it to her. She was very grateful. Now that I'm in a building with 24 hour security, Freecycle works much better. I used it a little when we were in Alabama, but I didn't like giving strangers my address, or worse, trying to meet them somewhere else.

I've had some problems on Craiglist... mostly because of email. I think when I reply to people, they don't see my emails. It goes into their spam folders. I had several people with chairs to sell me when I wanted to buy one a few weeks ago, but I couldn't get them to answer me back with photos. Eventually I just gave up.

I finally did the dishes, which really needed doing. I also baked some delicious brownies for myself. They're gluten free and low carb. I really ate too many though, and felt sick for a while.

I still need to put the decorations away. I got all of the boxes out of the closet but still have to put the actual ornaments etc. in the boxes so I can then put them away. Maybe I can get that done on Sunday!

I got a lot of work done on my site this weekend, at least.

It's still very cool here...not cold but just fine. I haven't had to use the a/c much at all during the evening, just a little during the day. I keep the lanai door open at night.

I'm very tired, must go to bed!

Don't forget to read my TV Blog, too!

Week of December 22

2013-12-30T11:56:00.001-06:00

Sunday December 22

I just slept for a few hours and then woke up around 9:45. We went over to the Kahala Mall. We had lunch there at the food court. Their food court is not that great, actually. I was somewhat disappointed. Anyway, I had a nice salad at Aloha Salads (we have one of those here near us but I hadn't been to it before). The salad was nice and fresh and they were pretty knowledgeable about gluten (especially for fast food employees!). They were really nice and friendly, too. David ate at Taco Bell, which has no gluten free foods. The only other places were Asian ones that I can't eat, and Pizza Hut, and Subway (which I eat at far too much already).

It was very festive, at least, with all of the decorations. Plus, they had some show going on where little kids and teens played Christmas music on the piano. David went shopping in the mall for my Christmas presents while I went to Whole Foods and did some shopping. I was mostly looking for gluten free foods and I found quite a bit!!

It was pretty crowded there, but not as bad as I had worried that it would be. Actually, Whole Foods was much more crowded than the rest of the mall.

I went back to sleep about 1 and slept for 5 hours. David woke me up so we could get dinner. We went to Downbeat Cafe, which we both like. I had pesto scrambled eggs (Green Eggs!) and bacon, and some wonderful home fries. It's a nice little place with good food. It plays 80's music and 80's TV shows or movies, too, but that's not why we go there :)

I recorded some more songs and did the dishes and the laundry. Now I'm considering bed time early for once! We'll see.

I had some gluten free chicken nuggets (with my pills) that I bought at the Whole Foods. They're made by Applegate Farms. They always make good products that are natural, organic and free of bad stuff like GMO's and gluten. I was impressed with the taste of the nuggets. Also, 7 nuggets just has 12 carbs, so they are not high in carbs, either. I had them with some sugar free barbecue sauce. Yummy!

I will be making some more Christmas cookies tomorrow and then hopefully I will be finished for awhile!

I need to also get to the Long's tomorrow to get some containers to put my cookies in!

Then I have a doctor's appointment at 1pm. Hopefully she can help me get rid of my cough at night.

Monday December 23

All this week I've been making tons of cookies! This is my tradition, even though I can't eat them any more. I made some for David's secretary and for some other ladies in his building; and some his boss, and some for Bill, the Associate Dean, and some for the people who work downstairs. It's a lot! I had already made some when my MIL and SIL were visiting, but I needed to make more. I made two types of chocolate chip cookie, two batches of the blondies, two batches of sugar cookies, two batches of gingerbread men, and some chocolate truffles. I might have some more left over...

Even though I took Robitussin last night, I still had trouble sleeping and kept waking up, coughing.

We went to Kaiser about 1 and I saw my doctor. She said I'd pretty much done everything she would have suggested. She listened to my lungs and looked at my nose, and she agreed with me that it doesn't look like I have bronchitis or a sinus infection. She prescribed me some codeine cough medicine and some antibiotics, just in case they help. She also suggested I double up on the Flonase that I take anyway (for allergies). I was very sleepy when I went to the doctor's office, and it sure didn't help that was very cold in there. David got lunch while I was in there.

After we got back, I went down to Long's to get some stuff that I needed for the cookies.

We went to dinner at the Hukilau, which is in the hotel here the Aston hotel (the main downtown hotel). We used to go every Wednesday after chorale practice, but of course no chorale until sometime in January. I had the peppercorn steak, which was pretty good.

I went to bed about 4am but did sleep through the night.

Tuesday December 24

I met David for lunch at Subway, and then we both went to Long's to get some gifts. Then I went to get my hair cut. She cut it too short, but it's my fault. I should have realized from past experience that "shoulder length" is a bad idea because it always bounces up higher and looks way shorter. Oh, well, it'll grow out.

Then I went over to the other Long's, which is near Safeway, and I got more stuff for cookies, and also stocking stuffers.

I also brought cookies to the people who work downstairs. It was an exhausting day. Really, the whole week is kind of a blur.

We got some goodies from other people David works with. His boss gave us some delicious spicy nuts. All mine, ha ha ha!

I think I'm finished making cookies for a while...so tired but I have to force myself to get up and turn off all the Christmas lights so I can go to bed.

Wednesday December 25

Merry Christmas! Woo hoo!! This year is a good Christmas for us, aside from not having any family here. We did have some last week so that made it special.

It was a great Christmas, I have to say. It didn't start out that way. I got up fairly early, and I was not happy about it. Even though I've been taking cough medicine, I had trouble getting to sleep because of coughing. I had breakfast - some Filipino sausage and one slice of toast.

We were going to go to this choir concert at this church, but we got the time around. So, basically, I woke up and got all dressed up, for nothing.

We came back and opened presents, then I went back to sleep. David took a nap, too. About 3pm he woke me up and we phoned his relatives for Christmas. Then we went out to eat lunch, of sorts. We walked around downtown, but nothing was open (we kind of figured that but wanted to make sure). Then we walked over to Chinatown and ate at this Vietnamese restaurant that we liked. I always have the lemon grass beef salad. It's really good, but spicy. Then we went back home for a bit.

I wanted to go see these madrigal singers that I had found out about on my phone - they were performing all week at the Royal Hawaiian down in Waikiki. I thought they started at 6:30 but it was actually 5:30! So we quickly got a cab, and we caught half the concert, which was fine. There was no room to sit because it was in the hotel lobby, in front of their huge Christmas tree. Here's a photo. They were very good, and I enjoyed it.

Then we went over to Kelley O'Neil's, the Irish bar David likes. They had some band there, but not a rock band. They played mostly Christmas songs. There were two flute players and two guitar players, and some singing. It was great and also unexpected. So it was a very musical evening.

We came home and then watching some of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Season 5. We watched most of the show last year but still have some of seasons 5 and 6 to watch.

I always get David a bottle of single malt scotch, so I got this type called Ardbeg. I usually just fine one that's under $100. I spoke with the owner, who helped me pick it out. They had a nice gift box that had the main scotch plus two smaller bottlers of the same brand but different types, and it was a good deal. I also got him these two whisky glasses. Then there were some cheaper presents: a t-shirt and a couple of books; and also some stocking stuffers--candy, cookies, sunglasses, gum, a gift card etc. He got me 2 DVD sets (Babylon 5 and Freaks and Geeks) and a back massager. For stocking stuffers: a magazine with Paul McCartney, a gift card, some makeup and candy.

For the past few years, I've been trying to find a way to save money ahead of time for Christmas. Last year I bought 1 or 2 presents per month, which worked pretty well, but then I still had to mail things from the post office. That wasn't fun. So this year, I thought, I'll just buy Amazon gift cards, and then use those to buy presents at the end of the year. However, it didn't really work out that way. So instead, I mailed gift cards to most people. A few people I sent packages to of Hawaiian cookies, candy etc. That was fun. Sorry that the other gifts were so boring. Next year I'll do better.

I sure can't complain because my life is going very well aside from a health issues and just being overweight and older in general.

I watched the Doctor Who Christmas episode. I always love watching Doctor Who. Just getting lost in the silliness, fun and fantasy is great. Geeking out. Even when the episode, er, doesn't make much sense, like this one.

Thursday December 26

I stayed up way too late, like 5 am. I slept okay until about 9 and then woke up coughing. I did that several times this morning. Also, my stomach was not feeling well. Probably the Vietnamese food I had yesterday. It probably did have soy sauce. Too bad! I guess I can't eat there because that was the only dish that I liked there or that didn't have noodles. I had some stomach pains last night, too, when we were watching the madrigal singers. I hope that's the end of it!

I woke up around 1pm. Later I had a nap. Keeping weird hours again.

This is weird -- I found out that HPU has classes this week. That's so odd to me and I had no idea. The classes ran from December 16 to January 18. So I guess the chorale doesn't start again until January 18! Here I thought that the Spring semester would start soon. What this tells you is how busy we've been. I'm married to the dean and auditing a class, and yet I had no idea whatsoever about the schedule. LOL!!! No wonder the university doesn't normally give anyone the week off for Christmas and New Year's. There are classes! Ha ha!! And even weirder that the president gave the staff off. That would be odd to take classes and there's no staff around. My mind is blown :)

We just went to Murphy's for dinner. It wasn't a very exciting day or night, I'm afraid.

Friday December 27

We went to lunch at Subway, then we tried to get our driver's licenses switched over to Hawaii. They have a satellite DMV right near here. We waited in line over a half hour. They have their counter divided up in half (not sure what the other half does) and only one person working our half, which had a long line. Well, only 4 people in front of us but it got longer behind us. The guy spent a really long time on each person. Then when I got up there, he told us they don't do state transfers here because they don't give the test there. Thanks a lot. A sign would have been nice, to let us know that, so we wouldn't spend so long standing around in line! Grrrr.

It was a beautiful day. It was around 80 (I think it got up to 83), but it was overcast, not very humid, and there was a nice breeze. It would be great if we had that weather all the time. It sure would save us money on electric bills. People think the weather is great here because they come here for a week or two and they stay down in Waikiki where there's a lot more wind and it's very pleasant. Plus back home it's freezing. But I do love it here. I just wish it were that nice year round, down where we live. Although a large part of it is our apartment. I wonder what I can do to block the afternoon sun in the living room? There's no curtains, shades or curtain rods or curtain rod holders. Maybe a tall screen? LOL! We're renting so I don't know if they'll let us put in curtain rod holders or not.

I went back to sleep. I really wanted to stay up but... I don't know. It's been so hard to stay awake. For one thing, I'm taking lots of medication, and especially the cough medicine has codeine in it. Then on top of that, not sleeping all that well, it makes me tired. And then it's not as easy to stay awake when you're tried, when you're in your 50's, compared to being younger.

So far I'm still waking up coughing during the night, after the cough medicine wears off. Today was my last antibiotic.

David has been a little sick this week, but not with the same thing. Hopefully he won't have to go to the doctor.

We took it easy tonight. We went to this little bar called Bambu Two that we've passed many times but never gone in. It's a kind of cool place (probably too cool for us!). They have a tapas menu. Not too expensive. Most of them were $6 apiece. They only had one thing I could eat, though, but it was really good. Some kind of beef on a stick. It tastes like bulgogi (Korean bbq). I had some kind of drink that was good. Geisha-something. Then we went over to the Chinese Cultural Center, which is right across the street. They have a bar there called Club Mambo that has karaoke every night. Well, apparently on some Fridays they have a band instead, so they were setting up. Just my luck, right? LOL! The funnier thing is that the waitress knew what I drink usually, and we've never been there before! Turns out she is the waitress at Art's Hideway, too! As soon as she said that, I recognized her. That was very funny. She was very chatty (bored I guess). Nice lady named Kim. When we left, she hugged us. That's a Hawaiian thing, and frankly, I could do without that. It's hard to get used to if you're not from here. That and the leaving-the-shoes-at-the-door thing. I wonder how long it will take to get used to those? No wonder I caught a cold with all the kissing and hugging! :)

So otherwise just hanging out tonight. I'm trying to get up the energy to do some work or something.

Saturday December 28

We mostly took it easy today. We went over to the Radio Shack to get a few things, then we went to the grocery store. Later, we went to dinner.

I've definitely been eating too much and need to cut back. It's so hard during the holidays. I'm ready for the new year! How about you?

I did quite a bit of work and stayed up way too late. That's nothing new, though.

It's been nice having David home more, and I know he's enjoyed having more free time. It's hard to remember what day it is, though, with all the holidays.

The weather has been pretty cool the past couple of days. Yay!

I hope everyone has a nice new year!

Don't forget to visit my TV blog...

Week of December 15

2013-12-23T01:52:00.001-06:00

Sunday December 15

I got up so late today, after noon. I was exhausted. I even had another nap later on.

We had a big thunderstorm all day. It woke me up several times, briefly, this morning. It started breaking up around 1 or so. We don't have too many big rainstorms like that (at least so far since we've moved here). This is supposed to be the "rainy season", but other than a few slight showers... but anyway, it was really nice because it was only 69 degrees when I woke up. It was cool for a change.

David had a thing to go to in the afternoon over at the other campus (the one closer to the mountains). Then he had another party to go to, briefly, in the evening. After he came back, about 6, we went back to Waikiki to have dinner with my SIL Susan and my MIL. We chose Hula Grill, which is near them and is a nice restaurant, right on the beach. I had a wonderful fish chowder. It was a nice visit.

Then we walked them back to their hotel. David's mom gave me a late birthday present - a beautiful lady bug wallet, where she had it engraved "Happy Birthday, Suzanne!" So that was very sweet.

Unfortunately, we're not going to see them again before they leave. It costs a lot to go back and forth between here and Waikiki, and David has work tomorrow and then another dinner thing at night. They leave on Tuesday.

I spent most of the day working on my site, trying to do some catching up! After we came back from dinner, I did more work.

Speaking of lady bugs... I put them all in storage, but since we moved here, I have about 6 new ones already. They're multiplying!

I had one day last week where I didn't need cough medicine, but otherwise I've still been taking it every night. Otherwise, I wake up coughing.

Tomorrow I plan to do the nasal rinse kit to see if that will fix it. If I don't forget again! Then if that doesn't work, I'll have to make a doctor's appointment.

Monday December 16

I was planning to sleep late, because I woke up coughing this morning even though I took cough medicine last night, but the phone woke me up around 11:30, so I just got up anyway.

I was hoping to take the bus a bit around the island sometime, but now I'm not so sure I can do it. The reason is that I have to have a bathroom nearby at all times. Sorry to gross anyone out, but the gluten allergies give me IBS-like symptoms and they often happen suddenly without much warning. I don't want to be stuck on a long bus ride if that should happen. Even though I've had these allergies for many years, in some ways they have gotten worse, even though I stay away from gluten. That's the weird thing about allergies - if you stop eating the food that you're allergic to, you also get more sensitive to it. It's very hard to completely avoid gluten, especially with all of the eating out we do. I really don't want to give up eating out forever... so it's difficult. That's also one of MANY reasons I work at home instead of in an office or a good-paying job. (The back problems might also be an issue) I hate to sound like an invalid but it's kind of true...

The reason I've been thinking about this is that I would have liked to take the bus down to Waikiki to see my sister-in-law again today, since David is too busy, but in the meantime, I've spent half the day in the bathroom, so.... :-(

I'm hoping it is over for now because I need to go to the post office soon.

I did go around 2:30. There was a really long line. Then I went over to the dry cleaners and picked up a shirt, then to Long's to pick up a few things, and then I stopped at McDonald's to grab lunch. I walked home with too many packages...

Then after eating, I spent the afternoon in the bathroom most of the time. That was not pleasant. Something I ate this week sure did make me sick.

Then I had a huge fight with someone on Facebook, but not the usual type of fight. There is this guy, Mike, that was a friend of our family for a long time. He lived next door to us and became good friends with my brothers. He was almost like a 4th brother for a long time. He married this woman, Leslie, who is very caring and smart. She and Mike helped me out when my dad neglected me and I went into a foster home. I think I saw them maybe twice after that, but not much for the past 30 or 40 years. So this year Leslie joined Facebook and I "friended" her. We have been chatting a lot, here and there. She is really into animal rights activism, particularly in trying to get tougher laws against people who mistreat or torture animals. She's really into petitions and getting people to sign them. So she posts them on my wall and also sends them to me privately. I told her that I would try to sign them, but I was really busy, and I asked her not to post it more than once a day, and not to post any with awful photos (no one wants to see photos of tortured dogs). We had many discussions, and we got along pretty well, but it's pretty clear that she's high strung, full of herself, very opinionated; and also that, since she knew me when I was younger, she sort of talks down to me. But I didn't care. So anyway, she had asked me to read this one post on her wall about this court case where this one woman was facing a judge for torturing the dog. It was not a petition to sign any more. I started reading it, but it was very long and there were lots of gruesome details. So I commented on her post, like she asked me to, that it was terrible and I hope the woman gets punished properly. I sent her a private message saying that I skimmed the letter and hoped that was alright (I never expected her to say it wasn't), but I explained that I don't like reading about people torturing animals. Well, about that time, I went to the bathroom and was sick. Eventually I picked up my phone and saw that she had sent me many replies in the meantime and the last one, quoting her husband, and was very insulting. I'm like, WTF? So I suggested to her that perhaps it was counter-productive for her to insult me when she was asking for my help... then after I was done getting sick, I went back to my computer and read some of the rest of what she said, argued with her some more, and then I just thought, this person is not only insulting but something is wrong with her. She is crazy. No one sane would over-react like she did. She's trying to shame me into reading her post and trying to make me feel guilty about it, and insulting me in the process! So I told her that she expects too much from her acquaintances, and I also said that lots of people, children and animal are abused and killed worldwide, and it's terrible, but I have a life and she can't expect everyone to care as deeply about this as she does and to spend this much time on it. Then when it became obvious that she was just going to argue with everything I said and keep insulting me, I just blocked her. It was very upsetting. I mean, I knew she was a bit of a geek like we all are, and as I said, high strung, but to just fly off the handle at me for no reason, when I had been very supportive of her? That's not normal. She clearly has mental problems. Maybe her husband does, too. I don't know. I thought I had been very nice to her considering I don't even know her any more and haven't seen her in so long. It's so sad and horrible.

I had a bad day, let's put it that way! David had a dinner thing, so he didn't come home until almost 7:30. He was nice enough to take me out to try to get some food. The place we went to, J.J. Dolan's, is close by. I just wanted to get this one salad they have there, but then we found out that they were out of it. Figures, right? So I just had some soda and went home, fixed myself some food. Sheesh.

I did the nasal rinse kit, and I did feel better for a while, but then I was getting all stuffed up again and coughing. I took Sudafed and Mucinex, as well as allergy medicine, and a cough drop now before bed, so hopefully that will help me sleep without coughing.

Tuesday December 17

I had a horrible time getting to sleep last night because of coughing, but eventually I got to sleep. Took a lot of medication to do it :(

I woke up after noon again. I'll try getting up early tomorrow...still recovering from family visiting and all that.

I mailed a couple of late Christmas cards and then got lunch at McDonald's (need to stop doing that) and then came back here, picked up a package from last night that I forgot to get. They deliver packages up here but if you're not home, they usually leave them downstairs with security.

David has to go to graduation tomorrow but we can't find his cap, only his gown, so I guess he's going to get a new one at the campus bookstore. I wonder what happened to it? He was sure it was here, but I looked everywhere. It's not that big of a place! LOL!

I'm considering a nap...

I was very congested all day and did the nasal rinse kit again.

We went to Murphy's for dinner. Nothing very exciting aside from that. I did a lot of work on my site.

My jaw was hurting, but I think it was my gums and teeth for some reason. (It was fine by the next day)

Wednesday December 18

I got up very late because I did too much coughing last night.

I went out about 3:00pm to get some food at Subway for later.

David went to graduation. He got home a little bit earlier than expected, so we ran over to J.J. Dolan's for a quick bite.

They're filming a Cameron Crowe movie nearby, just a few blocks from us. There are big trucks and trailers everywhere, and lots of people. Bradley Cooper stars in the movie. We were sitting in J.J. Dolan's when some bagpipe players came in! They were very loud. There were 3 of them playing bagpipes and one on drums. Then, just like in a movie or something, this guy ran up and said, Hey, we're making a movie, do you want to be in it? Of course, they said, Sure! So they left and then returned not too long later. I had been holding my ears because the pipes were so loud, so the drummer came over and offered me earplugs! That was funny. So anyway, they played some Christmas music. I got some of it on video, which you can see. They were the Celtic Pipes and Drums of Hawaii. I didn't know they had a bagpipe band in Honolulu! The drummer's drum was also decorated with lights and tinsel for Christmas. The whole thing was very surreal. Sorry the video is very dark, but it was a dark place.

We went home and called our friend Barbara, who lives in Fargo. We always exchange presents with her and we phone each other to open them before she goes to visit her family in Missouri. It was great fun. Usually she talks for a long while, but she's driving a long way tomorrow, so we'll talk to her later. We gave her 2 books, a DVD and some stickers. She gave me 2 DVD's (Manions of America, and Wonder Woman Complete Series) and a Christmas ornament (a turtle!). She gave David a Padres shirt, a book, and a Family Guy Christmas ornament set. We all had a good chat.

Here are the videos I took the previous week of the Christmas choir songs I saw at the Sheraton.

We had quite a bit of rain this evening and it did get very cool for a little while.

Thursday December 19

I decided to start singing/recording some songs. I got in the mood for a change. I was also very tired, though, and achy.

We went to dinner at Gordon Biersch. Something irritating happened. I ordered the jambalaya, like I have in the past, and asked the waiter to make sure it's gluten free, like I usually do. He said he thought that the jambalaya had beer in the sauce. He went to check with the cook. He returned and said the sauce is fine, but the andouille sausage is not gluten free. It's so annoying because they told me before that it was! Grrr. I had another dish that was not nearly as good.

I mostly worked on singing songs and then watching TV. Nothing too exciting.

I made an appointment for Monday with my doctor, so she can see if I'm still sick and what can be done to help me sleep and stop coughing.

I had hoped that stopping Sudafed would help and also that the nasal rinse kit would help, but neither did. I still kept coughing through-out the night. If anything, it's gotten worse in the past few days.

Friday December 20

The last two days, I got up after 2pm. Not good. I didn't really want to get up, either time. I don't sleep well with the coughing and the back problems. All I have to do is turn over in bed the wrong way and hurt my neck/back again.

I was surprised to find out that both New Mexico and Utah now allow gay marriage! Especially the latter. Yay!!

I debated whether to go get lunch or not. I don't have much meat left in the house and very little soda. Instead I Just had a cheese sandwich and worked on singing. Today I'm more congested so it's harder. I got a couple of pretty good recordings, though.

We went down to Waikiki like usual, to Kani Ka Pila Grille. I really wanted some fish, but their regular fish dish is almost $30. I didn't want it that bad! We usually have something cheap there like appetizers or salad or sandwiches. I don't like ahi or shrimp, and I'm not all that fond of mahi mahi. Finally I did order the mahi mahi sandwich and asked the server to leave off the bread. Then I asked her to make sure it's gluten free. She told me that they have gluten free bread! I've been coming to this place for 4 months and this is the first I've heard of it! It was really good, too. Then we went to the Irish bar like usual for a few more drinks before heading home.

I did some more singing and then I just messed around online, reading and replying to emails and other stuff. I also listened to some songs on This Is Karaoke.com

I have to get up early, so I hope I can get some sleep!

Saturday December

I couldn't sleep this morning, and by the time I finally was able to sleep without coughing... it was really late. So we decided to go to the mall tomorrow instead. I think tonight I will try to sleep sitting up on the couch (I also got some more Robitussin).

David went to get his hair cut. I stopped in at Radio Shack, which is next door to the Super Cuts, and also went to Walgreen's. Then we went to the grocery store. Very exciting stuff.

After we got home and put the groceries away, we went to Murphy's for dinner.

When we got home, David watched TV while I recorded some more songs. I've just been messing around online, but then I need to make some Christmas cookies and work on the site.

We really are doing very well and lucky to be living here, in Honolulu. I complain a lot, but really I shouldn't. I told David, for Christmas, just to get me things from his heart, things that he puts some thought into. We'll see what I get! LOL! Usually I just give him a list, but, you know, I can buy most of the DVD's and whatnot any time I want. I have most of what I need. I just told him, get cheap stuff so I have something to open, and then take me to a good night of karaoke next week (since he has it off). Also, it looks like we'll finally be getting a new laptop. This one is very old now. I got it in Alabama, before my MIL moved in with us, so it's at least 6 years old. It still has XP. I like XP, but I really would be happy to get a newer, faster laptop with a bigger screen. This one has been great but it freezes up too much, and I'm always running out of room on the hard drive. I think it only has 100 gb and the new ones have at least five times that.

Now if I can just get completely healthy again....

I have been busy making Christmas cookies. I usually give a bunch out to people David works with, and/or the neighbors and anyone else I can think of! I like to make a bunch of different types so that it's more festive.

I'm behind on reading and dealing with emails again, not only work ones this time, but also to friends and other people I know. Please forgive me because I've either been very busy with holiday stuff, sleeping, or working...

Have a great Christmas and New Year's!

Don't forget to read my TV Blog, too...

Week of December 8

2013-12-16T04:48:00.000-06:00

Sunday December 8

I had a really long sleep but for once didn't wake up coughing or anything else, once I got to sleep. David woke me up around 11:30 for lunch. We just went to Subway.

Yesterday the humidity was almost 80%, even at night! It was awful. A little nicer today, thank heavens!

I got a lot of work done on my site the past two days... catching up, always!!

I tried to put up the Christmas tree, but it was still too hot this afternoon. I finally got it up this evening after the sun went down. I still have to finish decorating it, though. I have to do things gradually because it's just too hot and humid, and also these things hurt my back a bit (especially reaching up and down).

I totally forgot why I should have kept my winter gloves instead of putting them in storage - I always use them when putting up the Christmas tree! The branches always need to be bent out and this hurts my hands after awhile. Whoops!

We went to Kmart and we got a new chair... we have these two canvass chairs that we like. They're good for sitting indoors or out, and very lightweight. So of course one of them broke! They are made out of aluminum and canvass, so they break easily if you're not careful when you get out of them. If you lean too much on the aluminum, they break eventually. They look nicer than they are. They only cost about $9! So we had to throw that one out and get a new one. I looked for some other stuff that they didn't have. I wanted to get an ironing board, but they were out of the full-size ones, so I got a table top one. I don't really have a table! Guess I will use it on the bathroom counter or the coffee table. I also got a Christmas tee shirt! I wanted a sparkly one so I found it, a red shirt with a kitty on it, wearing a Christmas hat and lights, etc. They had about 5 different ones, so I was happy to see them! After searching fruitlessly at Ross...

I ended up staying up until about 4 am. I took all of the decorations out of the boxes. That was hot and exhausting. I took 3 showers today. I'm very clean since we moved here :)

I found some stuff that wasn't Christmas decorations, so I'm fairly happy about that. I have a small box of Halloween decorations, and a couple of Halloween costumes, and lots of towels, and a few shirts. Also, I found some of the decorative items (that I bought in Mexico and Belize on our cruise years ago) that I feared I had lost. Unfortunately, it means I definitely lost the others because I wouldn't have put some in storage but not the others.

I still had to take Robitussin to keep from coughing when I slept...

Monday December 9

I had hoped to wake up early, but I got up after 1pm. I went over to the post office to mail a box (only one more left to mail before Christmas!). I went to Long's to get Sudafed. It was kind of a hassle, but at least the line was not long. I wasn't sure which window to stand in and they said "stand in line", but there was no line! LOL! Then I went back over there, and by that time, there was one guy in line, so I let him go first. Anyway, they just scanned my driver's license into the computer - it's nice that you don't have to sign your name and all this BS any more.

Then I went to Ross and bought a few more things for the apartment - a wastebasket and a frame. Then I stopped to get lunch at McDonald's before going back home.

I put the lights up on the tree and outside on our lanai, so that looks nice now. You can see them from down below at the entrance. Only a few other people have lights up so far. You can see our tree through the window, too.

We went to Gordon Biersch for dinner, as we usually do on most Mondays. I just get the chicken salad there. So healthy and boring.

Then we watched TV while I finished putting more decorations up on the tree. I'll have some left over, but that's ok.

I stayed up until almost 4am. I got most of the decorating done! I just have a few things left to do...

Tuesday December 10

I woke up just before 11am for a conference call that was really fun. Then David called, so we went to Subway for lunch. Then he walked with over to the chorale teacher's office so I could slip my music under her door.

Afterwards, I went to Long's and got a poinsettia plant and a few other things. I stopped at this flower store on the way home and got a lei for my mother-in-law (sister-in-law is allergic to flowers). The man was very nice, and we chatted about the family visiting etc. He put a bow on the lei and then when he handed me the bag, he handed me three little boxes as gifts for me and for them! I'm sure he gives them to everyone who buys something, but still, it was very nice and unexpected. They are calendars as it turns out - very pretty ones with tropical fish, the kind of wall-hanging calendar that's made out of wooden cane. It's advertising for their shop at the bottom, but still it's beautiful.

Then on the way to the crosswalk, I ran into Theresa, who runs the music programs here at HPU. She's very nice, and we had a good chat. Then Esther, who runs the chorale, walked up, too! So that was funny and an unexpected pleasure, to see them both.

When I got in the elevator in my building, there was a woman there with this adorable little chihuahua. He was very friendly and his little tail just wagged like crazy when you pet him. We see a lot of little cute dogs in our building, but it's always so great to meet and pet them. Especially the puppies and little dogs because they have so much energy!

Whew, so hot and tired! I went out again to take my last Christmas box to the post office. Thankfully, there was not as much of a line as yesterday. Next year: more gift cards! LOL! They're a lot easier to mail.

I went to Subway again, to get a soda (didn't want to carry it earlier with all of the other stuff). Then I stopped and got David's main present. All done now with shopping and cards, and almost done decorating. Woo hoo!

Wow, I got so hot and sweaty just from putting up the rest of the decorations. I was literally dripping with sweat (sorry to be gross). I had to hang up many things, using the stepladder, and hammer and nails. It looks great, though!

I took a nice shower and then put all the boxes away. Not too long after, David came home early from work. I was still red in the face from all the exercise and heat. I got dressed and we rushed out to catch a cab.

We went down to Waikiki to meet my sister-in-law, Susan, and her mom. They arrived today from San Diego and are staying for a week. They're staying down at the Sheraton Princess on Waikiki. I wanted to go to dinner somewhere near the beach, so they could see the great view. I tried to get a reservation at Duke's, but it was booked, so I got one at this place called The Beachhouse, in the Westin. It's very expensive, but what a great setting. They had a nice band there, too, playing a mixture of Hawaiian and Christmas music. They had such beautiful Xmas lights up, too. The food and service was great. They even brought me some gluten free bread, and of course my food was also gluten free, so that is always nice. I had this chicken with cashews and rice. It was really, really good. Susan was thrilled to try breadfruit for the first time.

I think this is probably my mother-in-law's last trip because it seems too hard on her. She turns 86 in February! I was surprised that they didn't bring her wheelchair. She has her walker, which has wheels, but it's difficult for her to walk for very long. The airplane flight was long and she was kind of not in the best mood. She was pleasant enough to me, though. She loved the lei I got her. Susan went out with us after dinner, briefly, to a bar, so we could talk. It's so great to see them both! It's hard to communicate with my MIL because she has really bad hearing, even with 2 hearing aids, and in any public place like that, it's even worse because the background noise is too much. The band didn't help!

They're going to the Pearl Harbor museum and tour tomorrow, so they should enjoy that. We'll see them on Thursday evening when they come down to the downtown to see our place and have dinner. I can't wait!

We probably won't see them on Friday because we have a holiday party to go to, for David's work. Then we'll probably see them all day on Saturday. Susan wants to see the new Hobbit movie. I hope we can also get a chance to go to the karaoke place and to Teddy Bear World.

Wednesday December 11

I woke up around 11:30, and then David called me for lunch. As usual, we went to Subway. We're so boring! Then we went to Fisher. I had to return a broken frame I had bought there, and he had to get a card for his aunt (one of his uncles died - we hadn't seen him in a long time). Then I went to Long's and got some stuff.

After I got home, I had a list of things to do, like laundry, cleaning etc. I'm trying to get the place ready for my in-laws when they come by tomorrow. I also did some work on my site.

Then we went to Epic for dinner and had our usual stuff there. We are predictable! Ha ha!!

After David went to bed, I made cookies. I just made some chocolate chocolate chip cookies, some sugar cookies and some blondies. That's all I have time, energy and flour for! I made a mess in the kitchen and had to do dishes and clean all the floors.

Today it was very windy and overcast, and it rained a little, so it wasn't quite so hot. Of course I had to ruin it by baking! So the place is hot, anyway...

Thursday December 12

I guess I've just had my brain in the holidays lately. I haven't felt like working much on my site.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were supposed to come over tonight, and see our place, and then we'd go out to dinner. However, David got invited to this work dinner at the last minute, so he had to cancel with his mom and sister. He and I went to lunch at one of the little restaurants near his school called Asian Bistro (it's always good, and it's one of the few that's air-conditioned). So I suggested to him that they should come over anyway, and I could entertain them and cook them dinner. Why do I put myself through these things? LOL! Just kidding. It was a lot of work, but fun. I was already planning on cleaning the place again and getting some snacks for them, so I just added some more stuff to the grocery list.

Part of getting older is that you move slower (especially when you're overweight) and things just take a lot longer than you think they will. From about 1pm when I left David to about 4:30 when they showed up, I was just working non-stop. I had maybe one minute of just sitting down. I took 2 showers, too, one to clean and one to cool off later after I had been running around the place, cleaning, and sweating. UGH.

I took my little red cart and walked the two or three blocks down to the Long's and Safeway. I have quite a few Christmas decorations that light up or move, or make sounds etc. and every year they need batteries. Yesterday I put in most of the batteries, but I needed some of the little tiny watch-like batteries, so I got those at Long's. Then I went to the Safeway and got lots of food, not just for tonight but for other nights as well. I pretty much did our weekly shopping, except that we will need more soda. My SIL is allergic to pork, poultry, and shellfish, and she likes lamb, so I got lamb chops. Pork is really big here in Hawaii, and I didn't see lamb, so I asked the butcher if he had any lamb. He cut me some chops, so that was nice. I got more than I needed, so I will be able to eat them later as well.

I also got some little red new potatoes and roasted them. I pan-fried the lamb chops. I used internet recipes for both and so they were easy. I also made a little salad and I had plenty of snacks. I picked up some spring rolls at the little Filipino market, too. I had some of their favorite crackers and candy out, and drinks, and I had also made the Christmas cookies for dessert. They're not big eaters but seemed to appreciate it and enjoy the condo and all the decorations.

The cooking was pretty easy. I actually put a lot more work into cleaning and making sure everything looked just right. I got some flowers at the grocery store and put them around as well.

David came home a little early and spent some time chatting with us before he had to leave for his dinner. We had a great time visiting. He came back later around 7 or so, and he spent some more time with them.

My SIL and I have a lot in common. We get along pretty well. We're both scifi and fantasy fans. In fact, the Hobbit part 2 opens tomorrow, so we're going to see it on Saturday. She is older than me but just learning to cook, so it's fun to chat with her about that, and she has always appreciated my cooking.

My MIL is nice to chat with for a while. Her hearing is not very good, but we do ok. I'm used to her from when she lived with us. I'm more patient in some ways than her family members...LOL. But then she's not my mom, so it's easier for me.

Anyway, it was nice. I was very tired when they left, but now I'm feeling more awake. It's only 11 so I might try to go to bed a tad early. We'll see.

Tomorrow night we have a party to go to with David's faculty, so we won't see his family again until Saturday.

Friday December 13

When I went to bed last night, my right leg, which had been hurting more and more, really hurt. I guess I did too much running around the previous day. I took some Aleve and then later woke up again, in pain, so I took a muscle relaxer as well. I finally got to sleep for the rest of the night. David called me for lunch, but I didn't feel like going anywhere. I didn't wake up for good until 2:00pm.

I didn't do much during the afternoon besides watch TV and work on my site.

David and I left here about 5:15 to go to this party at the Pacific Club, which is a very ritzy club about a half mile from our place. The food and drinks are great (and free!). I had fun talking to everyone.

After that, we went to Art's Hideaway for karaoke. It was almost empty. There were only about 5 people there, so I just sang a few songs and then left. We were there for just a few hours.

I'm hoping I can go to bed relatively early tonight because the in-laws are coming tomorrow at 8 am! Susan and David are going for a long hike. They don't require me to be up and awake, but I don't want to leave my MIL alone. She could fall and our floor is very hard. I hope I'll be able to get up and stay awake.

Before I try to go to bed, I've got to do the dishes and clean up a few things so I won't have to do them in the morning before they come.

Saturday December 14

I had trouble sleeping, so I didn't really sleep until about 3 or 4am. I got up around 7:15. Fortunately, we were so busy all day, I didn't have TOO much trouble staying awak.

I had sliced some cheeses and some fruit the night before, so I put those out for my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law, Susan, as well as more Christmas cookies, and some crackers.

David and Susan went to the store, since I was out of Diet Pepsi (my MIL drinks it, too). Then they went for a long walk to chat and get exercise, while I stayed with my MIL. I worked on my site a bit and also chatted with her, and we also watched some TV. She also dozed a bit.

After David and Susan returned, we chatted a little bit, and then Susan and I went to see the second Hobbit movie (not David's kind of thing). It was great because I haven't been to a movie for a few years now. I loved it. Susan's a huge Tolkien fan, so she enjoyed it, but she remembers the books way more than I do, so she didn't like the changes. I only read them once, about 40 years ago!

After the movie, we all went out to eat for a late lunch at the Cuban restaurant, Soul de Cuba. It's about 8 blocks away, which is a long walk for my MIL with her walker, but we took it easy and she did ok. It wasn't very hot or anything, thankfully. We had a great meal there, too. I had this appetizer with various meats, cheeses, olives, hummus and roasted chickpeas. Delicious! And also I ordered some fried plantains.

Then, after going back home, we took a cab back to their hotel and took my MIL to her room. When we got to their hotel, I saw a high school choir singing Christmas songs in the lobby, so I stayed and watched those while they all went to the room. Then David and Susan returned, and we went off to GS Studios for private karaoke. That was a lot of fun. I've been very congested the past two days, so my voice was not doing all that well, but it was just for fun. I tried some Christmas songs and some other stuff. It's always fun there. We stayed a few hours, and then we went home.

I didn't stay up too late after that. I was so tired! I just took my medicine, watched a little TV, then went to sleep early.

We should have things a little easier and less busy this coming week...

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

Week of December 1

2013-12-09T00:22:00.003-06:00

Sunday December 1

I slept about 12 hours or so. I was tired all day, still recovering from my cold.

We got our weekly groceries...the little red cart I bought came in handy.

It was raining hard all morning. I woke up several times this morning from the thunder and the sound of the rain sleeting against the windows. Biggest storm I've seen here, that's for sure. It made it very cool here. It was 70 around 4pm. So nice.

We went out to dinner at Downbeat Diner, a little place that just serves regular American food. I had an omelet, and David had a BLT with avocado. My feet got a bit wet, so I was actually cold for a while. Plus all these places crank up the a/c.

I tried to go back to sleep, but I kept coughing. The cough medicine didn't work as it should. Now I'm straightening up the house so I can prepare to clean it (hopefully tomorrow). I'm going slowly and taking many breaks, since I'm still sick.

Monday December 2

I had a horrible night trying to sleep... kept waking up coughing. So tired and I have so many things I want to do, but no energy. Whine whine whine! :)

Today many people wished me a Happy Birthday. So nice...although it's not until tomorrow. LOL! Early birds, I guess.

As many of you may recall, I dream a lot and remember my dreams - both good and bad. So I've had nightmares, or stress dreams, about everything, many times over. One of my common ones is that I'm in my high school chamber singers group, and we're about to have a concert, but I can't find my choir folder, or my shoes, or my dress, or something. Or another one I have had repeatedly is where I'm back in high school and I've missed a lot of classes, so I want to go to choir but I'm not sure if he won't kick me out or whether I'm registered or how many classes I've missed. Sometimes I'm in the class and I realize I already graduated and I don't know anyone there. I used to also have choir dreams about the college choirs I was in. Now of course that I'm in a choir again, I had a nightmare about it. I dreamed we were ready to go on stage and I looked down and realized I was wearing the wrong clothes. We wear all-black and I had a green top on. So silly.

I tried to go back to sleep a few times but kept waking up coughing. I'm just so tired and have no energy. I forced myself to get up and take a shower, then I forced myself to wash the bedclothes and vacuum part of the house. I'm determined to do two things this week: clean the house so I can put up the decorations, and finish my Christmas cards. Between being hot in the apartment and being sick, it's hard, but I'm forcing myself to do it (with frequent rests)...

I will probably have a little bit more energy later tonight when it cools off, but I figured I better get the bedroom stuff done before David goes to sleep!

I did manage to force myself to get up and clean the bedroom and vacuum. I had planned to clean the bathroom but never got around to it. I got most of my Christmas cards done.

We went to dinner at Gordon Biersch as we often do... They have a good salad there with pecans and blue cheese that I like.

This bookcase I ordered arrived. I guess it's technically a "closet organizer" but it's shelves of a sort. I tried to put it together but I ran into a snag. I hope I can figure it out or else I'll have to pay that same guy as before to put it together. I really don't want to do that!

Even though tomorrow is my birthday, the Facebook "Happy Birthday" messages started coming in today! Well, better early than late, I guess!

Tuesday December 3

I was finally able to sleep through most of the night without coughing! I went to be after 4am and got up around 10-something when I did start coughing. Then I went back to sleep until about 11:30 when David called to see if I wanted to have lunch.

First I stopped at the post office to mail my cards. I had a few going to Canada. I took my new little red case on wheels so I could do some shopping. It's so handy. I started feeling very weak when I walked from the post office over to David's building. I don't know if it was the cold or just low blood sugar. I did feel a little better after eating.

We walked over to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch. I still don't have my appetite back. That's been the only good thing about this cold! I don't always lose my appetite when I'm sick but I sure have this time. I wish I could keep just that part of the cold!

I bought some stuff at Long's and Fisher (office supply store), a soda at Subway, and lugged it all home.

Having an okay birthday so far! :) We're going to Hasr's Bistro for dinner tonight. It's my favorite restaurant here. It's very expensive so we normally just get appetizers. But it's my birthday so we're splurging. That is, IF I have any appetite! LOL!

We had a nice dinner... I'm not feeling all that great now, though.

Every year, I wonder which my relatives will remember my birthday. My brother Pat remembered this year. My sisters-in-law always remember and send me cards or gift. My MIL used to remember, but she's too old now..

I got so mad... I had bought these shelves to put up and the instructions were awful, and the wood was cheap. I tried putting it together, but it broke.

Wednesday December 4

I finally did hear from my brothers Stephen and David. David has been sick so he gets a pass :) God forbid I get a card or gift or phone call, or that one of my other relatives remembers.

My chorale had a potluck dinner tonight, but I couldn't go. There was this other dinner for staff and for alumni and people in the community. It was fun, though. It was at the swanky Pacific Club. I've never been there before. Very nice! The food and drink were fantastic. I knew quite a few of the people there from previous events we've been to (mostly staff). It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

I'm feeling a lot better now, just have a bit of congestion left.

I picked up a shirt from the dry cleaners...I have this orange shirt I like, but somehow it got big black splotches all over it. They weren't able to get them out, though.

I finished all of my holiday cards and mailed them, and I've done most of my shopping now, too. I started cleaning the house tonight. I've just got the kitchen, supply room and living room left to clean.

Thursday December 5

I went out a lot today. First I went to have lunch with David, and I went to the post office to get some boxes for mailing some stuff. Then later, I went to the Safeway and Long's to get some stuff. We also went out to dinner as usual. At least I'm getting some exercise!

I need to start getting up earlier so I can get back on that schedule. I was doing so well until I got sick. Now I'm not sick so I have to start getting up earlier. I'm staying up now until 5 am so that's not good.

I have been lazy lately about working on my site... I can do more of that once I am done with all this holiday stuff.

Tomorrow I hope to talk to Cesar the maintenance guy again, so he can hopefully fix those shelves that I messed up so bad. I want to get that room all put together before next Tuesday when the relatives visit.

Friday December 6

I had a hard time sleeping this morning because of waking up coughing and because of pain in my arm and legs - probably from all the walking and cleaning I did.

David called and woke me up, but he didn't have time for lunch. I woke up on my own around 1pm and decided to go get my own lunch. I have 3 big boxes to mail, so I took one of them to the post office. The post office is closed from 12:30 to 1:30, so I got there a few minutes earlier, and of course they didn't open on time!

Then I did some looking around at Ross - I'm looking for a Christmas tee shirt, preferably a sparkly one, but they didn't have anything like that. I went to look for something at Long's, too, that they didn't have, but I did find these cinnamon popcorn things that I love. I just went home after that, but I talked to Ceasar, the maintenance guy. He will be coming over tomorrow or Sunday to try to put these shelves together. I hope he can do it!

David had a work thing from 6-8 so I spent the rest of the day working around the apartment. I dusted, swept and mopped the living room. I was very hot and sweaty, so I took a shower. Later, I had to clean the kitchen, which was pretty dirty, especially the microwave, the floor, and a huge stack of dishes. After all that, and doing some other stuff, I was all hot and sweaty again, so I took a cool shower just to feel better.

Again it's just hot in our apartment. It's nice outside! So when the sun starts going down, I turn off the a/c and open the lanai doors. Usually there is a fairly nice breeze.

David came home, so we went to Murphy's for dinner. Someone in our apartment building had been grilling or cooking burgers or steaks - it smelled great. So I was really hungry by the time he got home. We usually eat by 7. I had a cheeseburger with grilled onions and fries, no bread. It was very good.

The downtown was kind of crowded with people. Apparently, on the first Friday of every month, they have a kind of artsy street fair thing. All of the shops are open and they have other stuff going on. Maybe next month we can make a point to go to it, if David hasn't had another very long day.

When we got back, I finished cleaning. We have a rather large supply closet, so I cleaned that up a bit. I feel like I've really accomplished a lot this week!

Now all I have left to do is to take out all of the Christmas decorations and start putting them up. I'll do that tomorrow.

Once I get those shelves up, I can finish that guest room, and once I get frames for my paintings, I can hang those up. Then the place is almost ready for our guests next week. I've been trying to get a love seat or reclining chair via Craigslist, but so far it hasn't worked out.

Saturday December 7

I tell ya, I'm really tired of things I buy online breaking, or not working, and having to send them back. This time it's this digital picture frame I ordered. I guess you get what you pay for. It was less than $50. I wanted a small one that looked wooden, for my photos. I have about 800 photos of family and friends that I like to use. I used to have them on my small netbook, which I used as a digital frame because it was useless as a laptop (too slow). Then it got lost when we moved, so I got this digital frame. I got it last week but just now got around to loading the photos onto it. It plays about 30 of them and then reboots and starts over with the same photos. It doesn't play most of them so it's very annoying. I hope Amazon can either tell me a way to fix it or I'll have to return it. So annoying. Well, not too much longer after I typed that, Amazon gave me back my money and said I didn't have to return it. Yay!

Caesar came over this morning about 9:45 and put the shelves together, so that was great. I think I got the frame working now...hopefully... I put the photos on an older USB drive so maybe that's why it's working better now. It couldn't handle the newer one, maybe?

We went to lunch over at this Chinese restaurant, Won Kee, that we liked once before. Then I went to Fischer and got some frames and other stuff.

I put my paintings in the frames, but one fell right off the wall and the frame broke. Luckily I did have another frame, so I can put it up anyway. Maybe Fischer will give me my money back...we'll see!

Now I'm just resting and waiting for the sun to go down. It's just so hot in here in the afternoon. I've already taken two showers.

I'm really tired, but I don't want to take a nap, so I can get back to an earlier schedule. Not sure if I'll make it, though.

I did take a short nap, but it was too hot to sleep very long. We went to the Times supermarket for our weekly groceries.

We went to Waikiki for dinner, but it was really crowded on the roads. It took an hour to get a cab and then get through all the traffic! That's very unusual. There was a lot of stuff going on today. They had a big marathon in the morning and then later, they had a lot of Christmas events, including two big parades. I think one of the parades is what jammed up the traffic.

Neither of us was all that hungry, so we went to one of our regular spots, the Kani Ka Pila Grille, in the Outrigger Reef. I had a turkey club sandwich with no bread and no avocado, and fries. The sandwich comes with this yummy cranberry-mayo dressing.

I got so much done after I got home. I took out all of the boxes of Christmas decorations, which is almost 20 boxes. I got the guest bedroom all set up the way I wanted it, more or less.

I went to bed around midnight, very tired. I was very congested all day, so I took cough medicine before bed. If I still need it in a week to go to sleep, I'm going to try the nasal rinse kit. Then if that doesn't work, I'll go back to the doctor to see if she can prescribe a better cough syrup.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

Week of November 24

2013-12-01T21:08:00.001-06:00

Sunday November 24

I had a pretty good night's sleep for a change! Not to much itching or anything. Probably because I finally got my hydroxyzine at the pharmacy (I had run out last week).

I woke up around 11. My goal now is to try to get up around 8 or 9. 11 is still later than I want to get up. It's better than the afternoon, though!

We have a housewarming party to go to, for someone that David works with, around 3pm. It's called an "open house" for some reason. I hope it's fun and the food is good!

It was a lot of fun. It was in this building called The Pinnacle. Quite a bit nicer than ours from what I could tell (but they don't have 24 hour security, which is strange - but then again, they said the building is half empty and the elevators do go right to their rooms, not to a floor, plus they have thumbprint scans etc.). The party was in their building's recreation room, which was very nice. It was a very large room with a nice view, a little kitchen, an exercise room, a pool room, and then they had a small pool and jacuzzi outside. We also got to see their actual home, which was large and beautiful. Much bigger than ours, and I'm sure much more expensive, which makes sense since they're lawyers!

We saw many nice people, many of which we had met through HPU. There was lots of great food and drinks, too.

After the party, we went home. I didn't eat much at the party because I'm trying to lose weight, and also, I didn't want to chance getting sick in case any of it was not gluten free. I had some veggies and dip, some fruit, and some cheese. So at home, I just had some light bologna and some fruit.

Otherwise it's just a regular Sunday - been working on my site and watching TV!

I stayed up pretty late finishing stuff up for my site.

Monday November 25

I had a conference call this morning at 7:30am with 2 actors. It was tough getting up, but I did it. Thankfully, the call was not too long. I went back to sleep not too soon after 8.

David called and woke me up for lunch. We went to this Indian place we hadn't been to before. It's pretty much fast-food, but it was really good. Unfortunately, David got a little sick from it, so we didn't stay too long. I liked what I had, but it was very spicy, so I didn't eat the whole thing.

Then I walked over to the 'umeke market to see if they had any gluten free stuff. They had these little round things she called Spirit Balls, I think? They look like truffles but they're not chocolate. They're made out of almond flour and other stuff. They had run out of the gluten free baked goods, and I didn't feel like hanging around, waiting for them to bring out more. I stopped at this salad place called San Francisco Salad Company. I took it to go and ate some of it later. Here's a Yelp review I wrote so you know what happened!

I wanted to get a large Diet Coke or Pepsi fountain drink to take back. Subway was out of Diet Coke. This little market I sometimes go to, their machine was broken. Sheesh, talk about luck. Then I went to this other place and finally got a soda.

The left lens of my glasses popped out yesterday, so I popped it back in. But then when I was at the last place, the lens fell out, and apparently the screw fell out as well. I just put the glasses back in my purse. Then I went home.

It's a bit cooler the past two days, so instead of putting on the a/c, I just opened the lanai door to get the cool breeze in. It works pretty well!

We went to Gordon Biersch for dinner. I got a yummy cashew chicken salad. All healthy except for those Reese's I ate earlier! LOL!

Things are looking up! That's all I can say for now...

I got most of my DVD's squared away and in the nice boxes and in the wooden cubes I bought. I plan to get some more wooden shelves, though, and then it will look spiffy!

Tuesday November 26

We went to Kaiser so I could get my glasses fixed. We stopped for lunch on the way back at McDonald's. I went back to sleep after lunch for about 3 hours.

When I woke up, it was really hot, even though I had the a/c on. It's just very humid today.

We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I just had their caprese salad. It's always good!

I worked on my holiday cards for my site's volunteers.... tomorrow I'll start on the ones for everyone else. I don't mind doing the cards, but I hate having to double-check the addresses and all that stuff. There's always some that go to the old address and then come back to me! That's one good reason for sending them out so early. That and I get more back :)

Staying up too late tonight, thanks to that nap!

Wednesday November 27

I got up around noon or so.... I had a bunch of packages to take to the post office, then we had lunch at this little Vietnamese restaurant in Fort Street. It was okay. Then I took a shirt to the dry cleaners', and I did some shopping at both Long's and Fisher. I had too much to carry. I bought a little shopping cart thing at Fisher's. That helped a lot.

It was too hot as always. I got together all of my Christmas cards that I send out to my site's volunteers, so those are ready now. I just have to do my real-life friends and family now.

I have an online friend named Boo. She used to help me run my website. She was really invaluable, and it's not the same without her. She really did a lot. She was such a nice person, too, and everyone loved her. She had to quit the site, in part because she was having a lot of pains in her back and stomach. They never did figure out what it was for sure. They did tell her to stop smoking, which she didn't do. The other day Boo was having trouble breathing, so her husband took her to the hospital. She was there the past few days with pancreatis, which I guess was causing her pain all these years? I'm not really sure. Anyway, she also caught pneumonia, and her liver was shutting down, and they had to do CPR and put her on life support. But things sounded like they were doing better yesterday. Her husband said she was off the breathing tube and was speaking normally. But apparently not because she got sicker today and she died. It's very sad. I feel terrible about it. I feel guilty because we hadn't been that much in touch recently. When she was worked on the site, we used to talk all the time, not just in email and chat, but also on the phone. We met her and her husband, Charles, one years, a few years ago, when we went to Houston for a conference. They were nice enough to drive out from their farm to the city, and they joined us for some karaoke. I had hoped one day to see her farm. They have all these animals. Despite the bad economy, and her health problems, they did a lot with the farm and she was managing the local farmer's market, as well as selling eggs, baked goods etc. She will really be missed because she has a lot of friends, family and loved ones. I wish I could have told her one more time how much she was appreciated and beloved by all. It's such a shame. She was only a few years older than me.

When someone dies, there are two things that they say but that are not always true. One is that they don't say anything bad about the person. In Boo's case, there is nothing bad to say. She was truly such a nice, kind, and giving person. She had many friends both online- and offline. One of the ways she was so invaluable to my site was that she was really good at dealing with people, especially our volunteers, even ones who could sometimes by difficult or annoying or unreliable. She always took the time to get to know everyone and could sympathize and empathize, even if she didn't like them or they drove her crazy. They certainly never know that they drove her crazy. She was very tolerant and really nice and everyone could tell that. I don't think she had a mean bone in her body, and that also showed in her love for animals and growing things.

Another thing they always says is "at least she's no longer in pain", and that is definitely true as well. Boo had pain since 2009 at least, which is when she had to stop working for my site because of the pain. I know she did persevere and was never the type to be idle, though. Even though she went to many doctors and they spent so much of their savings on medicines and going to doctors, she never gave up. I wish we all had her spirit, intelligence, energy, kindness, and fortitude. She is already very missed by all.

Thursday November 28

Ever since last night, I've felt like maybe I'm coming down with a cold, but it might just be allergies. I ate some gluten yesterday by accident so it's probably just that. I've been very congestion and my throat has been hurting a little. However, I didn't sleep any more than usual, and I don't have a temperature.

David has a work thing today... they are feeding Thanksgiving dinner to the students and anyone who doesn't have family here that's at the university. He'll be done by this afternoon and then we'll go to dinner around 3:30. We have reservations at this place called Kincaid's at 4pm. It's in the Ward Center, the mall we've been to a few times. We met our friends Lena and George near there at an Italian restaurant. David and I have been to the Z Pizza there a few times, and we got our shoes there recently as well at the Famous Footwear. They're the only place I could find that said they would make a gluten free turkey plate for me. I do prefer buffets but now that I have to watch everything I eat, buffets are just not feasible. Just as well - I don't need to overeat, anyway. The funny thing is, I was chatting with Lena on Facebook and they're going to be there, too, and at the same time! LOL! Such a coincidence because this town has a ton of restaurants. If I didn't have to eat gluten-free, I would have made reservations at the Kani Ka Pila or the Hilton or somewhere else really good with a buffet.

We had a good time at dinner. We took a cab down to the Ward Center. We had a very weird, chatty cab driver. I can't remember what prompted the conversation, but he started telling us all about how he's a vegetarian and has been one since the 70's when he visited India and decided to convert to Hinduism. He lived in San Francisco for a while, where they had a lot of great, cheap vegetarian Indian restaurants. Apparently there are none in Honolulu, and most of the vegetarian places are Vegan. He made it quite clear that he doesn't approve of either Muslims or Vegans. He spoke in a very manic fashion. He claimed that he also owns some sort of other shop. I don't know if he was on drugs or just a little off in the head. We didn't ask any of this, but he just went on and on! He almost didn't stop at our destination, in fact. LOL! Most of the cab drivers here are very nice, calm, and normal.

We walked over another block to where the restaurant was (it's a big mall area and we weren't sure exactly where it was. at first). Most of the stores and fast food places were closed, but the restaurants were open. It's right near the harbor, about half way between the downtown and Waikiki. I was starting to feel really bad, wandering around looking for this place, so I pretty much figured out at that point that I was actually sick. I hoped that I would feel better after dinner, but that didn't happen.

We got there about a quarter to 4, and our reservations were at 4, so we sat at the bar. They didn't seem to have their act together very well. We didn't get seated until after 4:10, and that was only after I went back to the front and asked when we would be seated. We ran into our friends Lena and George, so that was nice, to see them. I was so tired and out of it, though. They made me a turkey plate with LOTS of turkey, mashed potatoes, and some zucchini. Of course there was no gravy or stuffing. I was surprised that there was no cranberry sauce. Actually, it didn't occur to me there, I thought of it later. David had the regular turkey plate. It was good and there was a ton of turkey. He asked for only dark meat and they gave it to him, which was nice. I had lemon sorbet for dessert, and it was delicious. We walked through that part of the Ward Center. They have many interesting shops. It reminded us both a little of the Flower Hill Plaza in San Diego.

Then we went home and I slept a lot! Then I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I ended up staying up until about 3:30am.

Friday November 29

David got me McDonald's for lunch, and I went back to sleep. I was feeling a little better by dinner, so we went to Murphy's. I'm sick of chicken and turkey, so I had a steak for a change. David helped me with it since my appetite was not all that great. I had about a third of the steak, a little mashed potatoes, and some of the veggies. Then some mango sorbet for dessert. I'm trying to diet, but when it's a holiday and I'm sick, it's hard! Plus my throat has been hurting so sorbet feels really good. I've also been eating a lot of sugar free popsicles.

I guess I'm getting better because I was able to walk to Murphy's and back without much problem, and I tried going to sleep but it didn't work.

We're having quite a rainstorm outside! It's very windy, too. It's making it a lot cooler, so that's nice. Normally when it rains here you can't really hear it, but tonight it's really making a lot of noise against the windows.

I just hate being sick. Who doesn't, right? I just have no energy. I have so much to do, though. I have the rest of my cards to do, and my decorations to put up!

It's hard to believe it's only Friday. Four day weekends are funny that way!

Saturday November 30

I had a hard time sleeping again last night... just too much coughing etc. I finally got to sleep sometime after 3am and slept until around noon. I wasn't feeling great, but I was hungry, so we walked across the street to this place, The Empress, a Chinese restaurant. We went there before and liked it, and the waitress had told me that the soup is made with corn starch, not flour, so it's safe for me to eat. I also like the duck, which also doesn't have flour. I really wanted soup because of my throat hurting and everything. It really hit the spot. I wasn't all that hungry, from being sick, so I shared both the soup and the duck with David and brought the rest home. It's literally across the street, in the Chinese Cultural Center.

It's funny because from the outside, the CCC looks just like an apartment building, but you go inside and it's this nice little Chinese mall, bustling with people on the weekends. It has a bunch of restaurants and stores. There's a little bar in there and we've walked by it several times (forget to go there at night when it's open). Well, we walked by today and I notice that they have a sign that says karaoke!! Cool, karaoke right across the street! So I'll have to find out when they have it. Hopefully it will be on a good day and at a good time!

We walked over to Subway afterwards so I could get a fountain soda. That's the closest place we can get one, at least as far as I know. Most of the nearby places just have cans or bottles.

I'm so congested today and taking lots of medicine. Hard to sleep because of coughing. I may try to buy some cough medicine later today...

Today it's a bit overcast, which is good because that means the sun is not beating down on us. It's still humid but not so hot, and the wind is nice.

For some reason, my mother-in-law gets junk mail here, even though she has never lived in Honolulu and hasn't lived with us for quite a few years now. This is not FORWARDED mail, either!! It's address to her, here. Very strange. This one charity keeps sending address labels etc. Such a waste.

Speaking of the mail, I got this funny post card from UPS. It says "We are unable to deliver this package because: APARTMENT NUMBER NEEDED, NOT DELIVERED" but then they sent the card here, with the apartment number right on it! Not only that but it says "your shipment will be held at the above address" and then the UPS office they mention is in Columbus, Georgia!! LOL! So I phoned them and I think it's straightened out now... it's supposedly here in Honolulu and they said I could pick it up...but the stupid thing is, they won't bring it here unless the people who sent me the package call them and tell them to. How stupid!

We went out to Waikiki for dinner to this sushi place, Hatsuhana. I wasn't that hungry, so I just had a salad and a grilled chicken appetizer. Their food is always good. Then we walked quite a few blocks down to the International mall area. I'm still trying to find some inexpensive artwork to hang on the walls as well as some kind of cloth wall hanging for our bedroom. I might have to go buy some paints and paint my own!! I'm half serious. All of the ones I've seen so far are about at least $30 for a small print with frame.

We went to the Irish place as usual, for a few drinks, and then back home. I was not feeling very well but couldn't sleep. I ended up staying up until about 3 am again. I think being sick has messed up my sleeping schedule again! Hard to say because I'm also sleeping 12 or more hours.

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! I can't believe it's already December.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

Week of Sunday, November 17

2013-11-24T17:24:00.006-06:00

Sunday November 17

I woke up around 10:15 and we went to the grocery store. He had a thing in the afternoon to go to. I got a lot of work done on my site and also straightened up the house a bit.

We went to Murphy's for dinner. It was ok as always!

Nothing else too exciting going on today.

Monday November 18

Today we had Science Pub, which is a monthly event where a professor puts on a talk and uses a slide show, etc. This week we had a visiting statistician from Harvard(?) I think. She talked about her Alzheimer's research. It's always held at the Gordon Biersch, which is right on the harbor so it's very pretty. I like their food and they know how to cook gluten free, for the most part. The talk was very interesting. She was a good speaker. Some of it was over my head, but otherwise it was good. I recognized one of the German guys in my choir, so I said hi to him. David's boss, the provost, Matthew, and his wife and kids always go to this, too. There's a few other people I sort of know from HPU. We've been to Gordon Biersch many times, but for some reason the service at the Science Pub night is always very bad. I don't know why. You'd think that since we're bringing in an extra 50 people that they would hire extra help or something. The first one, I had trouble getting them to refill my soda. The second one, it took a really long time to order. This one, my food took forever. Partly because they brought the wrong thing at first. Sheesh.

They had another event going on nearby, a talk by a Jonestown Survivor, Vernon Gosney. We ran into him and some professors after our thing, so I got to meet him and shake his hand. We had just seen a special on TV about Jonestown, and he was one of the people that was speaking on it, so that was funny. I said, I just saw you on TV last night! Kind of surreal. It was CNN or something, not the local news (it's the 35th anniversary).

We went to Subway for lunch. We've been doing that a lot. I'm kind of tired of Subway, but it's healthy. I eat a large salad there.

I did quite a bit of shopping today at Ross and Long's. That was fun! I love getting cheap stuff that looks nice for a low price.

Tuesday November 19

David and I had lunch at this Vietnamese restaurant down near his work. I had pork chops, and they were delicious.

I did a lot of work on my site this week, trying to catch up on things. Today I was kind of down because I missed this one interview last week and I didn't even know it until today. I fell so behind on my emails that I missed it when they scheduled the call for Friday. Then I also was feeling sick today from D. I just felt very down and overwhelmed all day. Blah! Also, it's been so hot and humid for the last week, and just so miserable for me, especially here in the apartment.

We went to dinner at Epic, my favorite restaurant. I always have the strawberry and arugula salad, and the scallops. Delicious!

I'm trying to find a place for Thanksgiving dinner. It's nice living in a big city because we have so many options. The only question is which one to go to, and which ones might have some gluten free food I can eat? It's tough because they're usually either buffets or pre-made food, and there's usually only a little bit I can eat. Of course I can't usually have stuffing, or gravy, or pie...

The last 3 nights have been hard for me when I'm trying to sleep. I've had lots of itching. This happens every year due to my allergies. So I've been getting up a little bit later than I wanted, about 10 or 10:30 every day.

Wednesday November 20

I got up pretty late today, about 11 something. We went to Subway again for lunch.

I had bought some pork chops at the store, and some chicken, so I cooked up the pork chops and pounded the chicken flat so I could freeze it (before they both went bad!) It's crazy how little I do in the kitchen nowadays.

My chorale had our dress rehearsal tonight. I got a ride over to the church with Bill, who is in the choir and also works with David. This church was much larger than the one we were in last week. We're doing two other songs and one involves an orchestra, so the sound was strange. I think it should be a good concert, though.

David and I went over to J.J. Dolan's afterwards. I had a salad and a few fries.

I bought some wooden cubes online, so I put them together tonight. They were pretty easy, which is why I got them. I didn't want to have to pay someone to put together a whole bookcase, so I figured cubes would be way easier as well as cheaper.

Thursday November 21

Today was a really awful day in many ways. I can't really comment on why because it involves other people who like their privacy.

We went to dinner at Murphy's. I had a salad and that was very good, but since I was having a bad day, I also had the pots de creme. It was really good but I shouldn't have had it.

We've been going to Murphy's often for almost 3 months now. It's your standard Irish pub and the decor is what you normally see in one of those. I JUST yesterday noticed the booths have little pineapples all over them!! LOL! A little touch of Hawaii. Cute. Shows how I don't notice much. :)

I did get a lot of work done today, though. During the afternoon, I straightened up the house, did some laundry, etc. I have been organizing my DVD's in the guest room. There are piles all over as I'm sorting them. I have many from soaps going back to 2006, and also quite a few primetime ones. These are all the ones I recorded off TV, not the type you buy. I do a little bit at a time because that room has no a/c so it gets very hot. I want to get the room looking nice and more organized before we have any company.

I worked on my choir music, too. Then later, I did a bunch of work on my site.

I tried to go to sleep around 1. I was very tired. Then I woke up itching and couldn't get back to sleep. It was awful. One of my allergy medicines, Clarinex, the insurance won't pay for, and it's very expensive, so I'm using Claritin instead. It doesn't work as well for me. My other allergy pill ran out and I can't get to Kaiser to pick up the refill until Saturday. So the itching has been really bad this week. It's horrible when your whole body itches, literally from head to toe. Scratching doesn't really help because it's not a skin problem. It's the blood underneath the skin that itches. I took some Benadryl but that only helps a little bit.

Since I couldn't sleep, I finished reading a book that I got to review for my site.

Friday November 22

I finally did go to sleep for a few hours...

We walked over to Jack-in-the-box for lunch. My stomach hasn't been feeling too well this morning. I don't think that pots de creme is gluten free. There's usually a white pigeon in the Jack-in-the-Box. Today one of the employees was trying to shoo it out! I don't think minimum wage is enough to have to deal with that. I ordered 2 Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers, but instead they gave me regular cheeseburgers. It's not like I need the bacon, but it does make them taste a whole lot better. I hope that McDonald's opens again soon (it's closed due to construction on the street outside).

I had planned to maybe get my nails or hair done before the concert tonight, but I'm feeling too lazy.

I'm almost through the huge pile of DVD's that I have to watch to review for my site. Hurrah! Maybe I'll finally get to watch the ones I ordered for fun, like Iron Man 3, Star Trek ITD and Man of Steel!

It's been really hot and humid all week. The afternoons are particularly bad. I hear it gets cooler so hopefully that will be soon.

I did more work on my music and had it pretty well memorized.

I went over to HPU at 4pm. I got a ride with Bill again over to the church. We were very early, but traffic can be bad here, particularly at rush hour. We left about 4:20 and got there fairly early. We helped set up in the church.

The concert went very well and it was a lot of fun. We had lots of time to sit around, chat, look at our music, etc. It was a huge holiday concert. First we sang "In Dulci Jubilo" with a full orchestra. Then we left and the orchestra played some songs. Then the IVE (the scholarship choir) sang 3 songs. Then we returned and sang 4 songs, and then the band played some songs, and then we sang two well-known Hawaiian songs with the band to end the concert.

The only drawbacks were the heat and my very uncomfortable shoes. I was really thirsty (I think in part because of all the medications I take), and I had trouble getting much sound out when we were rehearsing. I wasn't warmed up, either, so that was part of the problem. But once the concert came, it went much better than rehearsal. I had to have closed-toe black shoes for the concert, so I got some cheap ones, and they cut into my heel, so I have blisters.

Matthew, David's boss (the provost) was also there, and some other people we knew from the college. Matthew gave a little speech, and we chatted with him for quite a while after the concert as well as with other people. I was so exhausted, and hungry, so we left and found this restaurant, Alan Wong's. I'd heard of it somewhere, and it was really good. A bit expensive, like most of the places here. I just had a salad and an appetizer, but the appetizer was HUGE. It's called "The Bag" and it comes in this big foil tent that looks like giant Jiffy Pop (it looks so weird that people were staring!) It had tiny littleneck clams, and some kind of pork, and spinach and some delicious local mushrooms. I don't normally like mushrooms, but these were very good. I would have enjoyed it more, but I was having terrible bursitis pain in my right knee from all the walking and standing around. I also had a lava flow, like I normally do on the weekends. I didn't want to order dessert, but they gave us 2 little coconut truffle chocolates that were really delicious. It was a great place and we will want to come there again. The service was fantastic. We had a very short wait at the bar. Their menu is on an iPad for you to peruse while you wait at the bar, so that was kind of cool.

I had hoped to go to bed right away, after I took my pills and put up the transcripts for my site, but my other left was hurting! I put Ben Gay on my legs and took some aleve, so hopefully I can go back to sleep soon. So tired!

Saturday November 23

I stayed up really late because of various things... mostly allergies and also my legs were hurting a lot. I finally got some sleep and then David woke me up around 11. We went over to Kaiser so I could pick up my allergy prescription, and then we drove through McDonald's on the way back. It's much cooler today and not so humid. Yay! It's about time.

We'll probably just take it easy today and then go to Waikiki later tonight.

Later, we drove to the grocery store. We go to the Times Supermarket because it's cheaper than the others.

A little bit later, we did go to Waikiki. We went to Rum Fire, which I usually like a lot. They have a delicious root beer float drink that is alcoholic but still yummy. I also love their fish tacos, which come lettuce-wrapped for those of us who can't eat the tortillas. It was all good, but not quite as good as usual. They have the best view, though, and that was lovely. The sun was going down when we got there. Then we stopped at the Irish bar as usual, and then we went to GS Studios for some private karaoke, which we do sometimes, for about an hour.

Nothing too exciting otherwise, just been working on my site and watching DVD's that I have to review.

I hope I can sleep a little better tonight!

Week of November 10

2013-11-17T16:23:00.000-06:00

Sunday November 10

I woke up really early, like 3:30 am. I worked quite a bit on my site after that.

When David got up, I let him have the computer (we still need another one for him!) and I did some laundry and other stuff, straightening up the place.

Since we moved here, our "guest bedroom" has been a mess, with boxes just everywhere. I tried organizing them a little, but without furniture or something, it's hard. I didn't want to just keep everything in boxes. Mostly it is 6 types of things: computer stuff, office stuff, music stuff, DVD's, prizes, and business cards.

Now we have a small chest of drawers in there, so I put my karaoke machine and TV on the top (also a VCR between them or else it won't work). I put all the office and most of the music stuff away. I had also bought this large plastic thing with drawers (kind of like a dresser but plastic). So things are looking much better! I put some stuff away in the closets, and now I just have to get some bookshelves or more drawers, mostly for the DVD's.

We went out to have lunch around 11. It's been a bit rainy all day. Rain here is usually very light or very short, or both. It was also very windy. Across the street from our building is the Chinese Cultural Center, which has a few restaurants, so we tried one we hadn't been to before. It was excellent. Most of the Chinese places have dim sum, especially on Sundays, but they will also let you order off the regular menu if you want. Most dim sum has flour, so I can't eat it. I got this dish called Sizzling Chicken Satay. Now, if you've ever had satay before, it usually means chicken strips, broiled on a stick, and then there's a peanut-flavored sauce to dip the chicken in. I do love that dish, but this one was nothing like that. It arrived in a very hot dish (sizzling). The chicken was cut up, not on sticks. It had some kind of green pepper (slightly spicy), pineapple, and maybe peanuts. I don't know, but it was so good!!! They made sure there was no flour in it for me, too. It's funny because when I asked her about being allergic to flour, she said, "A little bit's okay, yeah?", so I replied, um, not really....LOL!

It was very windy and rainy when we left there. However, I'm so glad that I have my glasses now so I can actually see when walking around. We stopped in at this one Hawaiian store, but they didn't have much that I wanted or could afford (they had some nice Hawaiian dresses I liked, but they were $80). I was looking for some kind of wall hanging or painting, and I also wanted to go to the little stores where they sell fresh fruit and vegetables, but David wasn't feeling very well. We just stopped in one other little store, but they didn't have what I was looking for, either. We'll probably go back tomorrow.

On the way back, we stopped at Subway so I could get a soda, and then we ran into Jack, who works with David. He's the guy that gave us a tour of the island, or some of it, anyway, back in May when we were here for David's job interview. Nice guy!

I'm very tired but I can't sleep...tried twice now. I might try again...

I never did get to sleep. We went to Kmart and got a few things. I wanted to get this storage cube but it was about $65.

Later, we went for fast food dinner at this local fast food chain called L&L. They have pretty good burgers. I was going to go to McDonald's, but they're doing some construction there, so they're closed for a week or so. Then we stopped at J.J. Dolan's briefly.

I was very sleepy and went to bed super early, around 8pm.

Monday November 11

Happy Veterans' Day!

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, 1 or 2am. I had something to eat and watched TV, and then I went back to sleep until 8am. For once, I had a pretty good night's sleep and got up early.

I did some work this morning and then went for a short swim in the pool. I haven't gone for a while, so I only went for about 15 minutes because I'm so out of shape. It was a very good work out, though. It's been cooler and very windy, so it was actually kind of cold. It got warmer after I started exercising, of course, but it was still chilly when I got out of the pool. Seemed more like San Diego for a change. It's 80 but feels a lot cooler because of the wind. It was a lot better than when I tried to go swimming in the afternoon and it was 87! That was way too warm. Now I just need to keep this schedule and exercise going every day.

David spent some of the morning at work, even though he has the day off. He came home for lunch. We walked over to Jack-in-the-Box. About half of the places are closed. It's kind of empty without the students.

We stopped at the little store called Local Fever. They have long black skirts for only $8, so that was great. For our choir concerts, we need to wear a long black dress, skirt, or pants, and black top, and black shoes. I already have the top and got the shoes the other day. Now I'm all set!

We walked around Chinatown a little bit. We had bought a Maneki-neko figure before, but it's a large gold one and the arm doesn't move because batteries don't fit in it (it was cheap). I had really wanted a smaller white one, so we got one of those, and it's solar-powered, so the arm does move!

I was planning to get some fruits and veggies (they have tons of stands there), but we didn't bring any cash, and most of them probably don't take credit cards. We'll have to come back another time.

Later, we went to the grocery store. I bought this Thai watermelon...we'll have to see how that tastes. It is much smaller than a regular watermelon.

I did a lot of work on my site, and then we went to Waikiki to meet our friends George and Lena. I may have mentioned them before... they are retired and moved here just before we did. They're friends with Tim and Lauren. Tim is the president of Columbus State University (David's former job), and he and Lauren are super nice people. When Tim heard we were moving here, he suggested we get together with George and Lena. They are super nice, too. We have met up with them about once a month at a different restaurant. Last night we met them at The Hula Grill, which is in the Outrigger (not the Outrigger Reef that we sometimes go to, but a different hotel on the water). I had some yummy scallops with macadamia nuts, and David had gnocchi. The view was great, right on the beach! Good drinks, too. It's always fun to see them and chat with them. I was so tired, though, and started conking out. When we came home, I watched a little TV and then went to bed. I was out like a light.

I pulled my hamstring a little in the pool...hurts when I walk.

Tuesday November 12

I woke up around 8:30. I was actually a little cold! David said it was in the high 60's when he went running this morning. Woo hoo, finally some less-hot weather. I even had to put socks on because my feet were cold.

We went to lunch at Subway. I like their salads.

Near the Ross, they have an open-air market type thing every Tuesday and Friday. It's mostly vegetables and fruit, but they have one stand that sells bread and another one that sells plants, another one sells sandwiches etc. I have been there before, but without my glasses, it was difficult. It's so nice to see again! I got a few bananas, some cherry tomatoes, and a plant. They have these tiny bananas here - about half the size of a regular one. I'm curious as to whether it tastes like a regular banana or not (it does!).

I wanted to get a plant for the little table in our front hallway. Here's a picture! If that link doesn't work, then go to the album. I wonder how long it will take me to kill this plant? LOL! I don't mind watering it, but when it comes to putting them in bigger pots, that's where I get lost... I love it, though, and I will have to get some other plants to put around, definitely. They did have some poinsettias as well, but I think I'll wait until I decorate for Xmas to get one of those.

Speaking of Xmas... I can't believe it's already almost halfway through November. I need to start working on planning my cards, at the very least. Sometime before Thanksgiving I want to put up the decorations, too. I have to clean first!

No pool today...not feeling well due to D.

David hid my Halloween candy like I asked him to, but then when I asked him to get me a piece of it, he dropped a few Snickers on the floor below where he was hiding it, and didn't pick them up! So now I know where they are, and he needs to hide them again... been eating too much chocolate.

I have a blister on the side of my noise because of my new glasses...that's what I get for losing them for 2 months!

Sometimes I think I have some sort of phobia or anxiety, maybe like this. I mean, I don't mind social situations, like going to a party. But if I have any kind of ongoing appointment that's not pure fun, I dread going. Anything from a doctor's appointment to my weekly chorale. I do enjoy chorale, but it's somewhat stressful as well. I think because 1) I'm older than most of the people there, and 2) it's a fairly small group so I can be heard (I used to have stage fright but have largely overcome that). I fear messing up or embarrassing myself, I guess. I do enjoy when I go out shopping, etc. but I also sometimes just talk myself into staying home instead. I think partly it's because I've been largely home-bound for the last 13 years. I mean, I went out, but not too often by myself. I sort of became more dependent on David. All this stuff is intertwined. It's Tuesday, so I'm thinking, Oh, no, choir is tomorrow. Even though I like going to choir, and I could quit it any time if I wanted to! It's not like I'm getting a grade or anything. Yet I find myself dreading it. So stupid. Also with the phone calls, conference calls I do, I really dread those. Yet I always enjoy them, but I feel very nervous doing them, and I'm so relieved when they're over - even though I've done hundreds of them. I wish I knew why and could control these feelings better.

I made myself stay up until 11 so I wouldn't get up quite so early.

Wednesday November 13

That didn't work too well! I woke up around 7:30am. It's almost chilly at 69 degrees! I know that's silly, but my feet are cold. We've had weather in the 80's ever since we moved here, so it's nice that the temperature has dropped 10-15 degrees.

I went out about 9:30 and got breakfast at Subway. It was not very good. I won't be going there for breakfast again! Yuk. Then I went to that little clothing store Local Fever again and bought a shirt. Then I walked over to the 'umeke market to see if they had any gluten free bakery items, but they didn't. I stopped at a little stationery store there and bought some Pop chips. I love the Pop chips, but the grocery store we go to doesn't always have them. Then I had to use the bathroom, so I had to walk all the way back over to David's building to use the restroom. Then I went to the HPU bookstore and bought a few souvenir items there, and then I backtracked and went to Fischer, which is mostly an office supply store. I needed to get some blank disks and some other things. I had way too much to carry, but I somehow managed to lug it all home. My arms were killing me. Most people who live around here have a little shopping cart for these type of things. I really need to get one.

I tried to go back to sleep, but I'm not sleepy, just tired.

I have an appointment at 2:15 this afternoon with the physical therapist. I hope she is able to help me feel better!

Well, my physical therapist was a "he", not a she, but that's okay. He has a very different method than the one I had in Columbus. She was amazing - she physically manipulated my body with hers and made me better. I didn't even have to do the exercises she gave me, or go back to her, because everything was much better. I guess that was a short-term fix. This guy is more of the traditional type where he has me do exercises and then tells me to do them at home. Also, all of the doctors I saw in Georgia- I asked them if my posture was affecting my back or if it needed adjusting, and they all told me that my posture is fine. But I was doubtful because I do slump and there's a big curve in my lower back, and my butt sticks out. This guy here did say that my posture needs work, to help my back. So I'm supposed to always sit or stand up straight and keep reminding myself, as well as use a pillow for support when sitting on the couch.

I had choir as always. I was a bit tired and my back hurt, but it was a good rehearsal. She really worked us hard, and my voice hurt afterwards. I'm sure I'm over-singing and not breathing properly, but I think that 2 straight hours of singing is not a good idea.

We went to the Hukilau afterwards for dinner. I haven't been eating very healthy like I should.

I was so tired and went to bed about 10pm.

Thursday November 14

I woke up at 7:30 this morning. It was not cold like it has been. I did a lot of work on my site today. It was much needed.

I met David for lunch at Subway around noon, then I went to the 'umeke Market to get some gluten free scones. They were yummy. I also got a few things at Long's. Nothing too exciting!

I had a little sewing to do, and I've also got laundry and some other stuff to do this evening. David has an event to go to this evening, so I'll be by myself. Awwww..

I didn't go to the pool...feeling lazy. I might do some singing and recording, though. I've got to look over my choir music again, anyway!

I couldn't muster the energy to sing much. I worked on my choir music and sang a little with the karaoke machine.

David came home late, poor thing. I watched a lot of TV and worked on my site. I also did my nails (badly) and some ironing.

Friday November 15

I woke up late, almost 10 am! I had awakened many times this morning but didn't want to get out of bed yet, but I finally had to.

I was feeling anxious about this concert. Silly, I know, but she wanted us to memorize the music and I felt like I hadn't done a very good job of that. It's a small choir, so if I blew it, you would probably hear it.

I had to rush over to Fischer to pick up a black binder because the red one I had bought before was not the right color. David came home around 11, and I fixed him a sandwich. I got dressed up in the concert attire: long black dress, black blouse, and black shoes.

It was super hot and humid today, of course....and we had to walk 3 blocks over to the church where the concert was. The church was very hot, too, but there were some cool spots to sit under some ceiling fans. It was really hot on the risers, though. I was melting.

I had bought this mini-recorder so that David could record the concert, but I didn't learn it well enough. I thought it was like the older one I have, where you just press record, but apparently you also have to turn it on first. So it didn't record... hopefully I can get the concert recorded next week.

The concert went great, so my worrying was needless. There weren't too many mistakes :) We listened to the other choir, IVE (which is the better, smaller, more elite scholarship choir), and then we went up there (IVE is in our group as well). Our 3 songs went by really fast. I was surprised by that, and also by how full of adrenaline I was after the concert!

Since David is the dean, he went over to say hello to our choir director and congratulated her, and then we said hi to some other professors there that we know, before walking home.

After I changed out of the hot concert attire and cooled off (and David went back to work), I walked over to Subway and got a salad and soda.

After eating, I did a bunch of cleaning up around the house and worked on my site some more.

David came home, and we went to Waikiki as we usually do on Fridays. We were going to go to Rum Fire, but we told the driver the wrong hotel. We went instead to the Royal Hawaiian and tried out their bar, which is called Mai Tai Bar (very original, LOL!). The bar is right on the beach, so it was great in that way. They had nice Hawaiian music and delicious drinks. However, it was very expensive and the food was just so-so. We probably won't go back there again unless we are in a splurging mood. $26 for a hamburger. They had a fruit and cheese plate that sounded good, but it was $34. No thanks! At least they did have some gluten free bread, which is rare.

We then went to the Irish bar. We tried to go to the Yard House, but it was too crowded. They had a pretty good singer at Kelley O'Neal's. We were both pretty tired by then.

I'm just barely staying awake to finish something, then I'm off to bed! It's already 11.

Saturday November 16

David woke me a little after 10:30 like I asked him to... I phoned about my prescription, but it won't be ready until Monday. It's not important, though.

We walked over to Jack-in-the-Box. I had breakfast and he had lunch. I think their eggs and bacon are better than McDonald's or Subway. Then we walked over to my post office box, which is not nearly as far as Google Maps led me to believe. Now that I've got the stuff that was in that box, I can open one in the post office nearer to our place and close that one. Yay! We briefly stopped at the ATM, and Subway so I could get a soda. Now I've just been working, etc. We have a play to go to tonight put on by HPU, Moliere's "Tartuffe". I hope it's fun! There's a reception first. It's over at the other campus, nearer to the mountains, very pretty. I haven't seen it at night, though, so that should be interesting.

It's not as hot and humid as the past two days, thankfully!

There's a big cruise ship in the harbor that I can see out my window. They are out there often, I guess, but this is the first time I've really seen one, or noticed one, during the day. Although since I didn't have my glasses...could be I just thought it was a building!

So this week I put up my Thanksgiving decorations (not too many). Now I need to start working on my Christmas cards so I can send them out at Thanksgiving. Then I will need to clean the place again (it needs it, anyway!) and put up the Christmas decorations. Hopefully next weekend we can get some shelves for the guest bedroom so I can finish organizing in there.

I haven't been doing the physical therapy exercises etc. like I'm supposed to. I tried them last night and it kind of hurt, but I think that's because when we were out last night, I tried scratching my back without thinking and that really hurt my neck.

We went to the play, and it was very enjoyable. I wore a dress that I bought new after we first got here but hadn't had a chance to wear yet. First there was a reception with other university people. This performance was for a lot of university staff and faculty, and just a few people in the community. I couldn't eat much at the reception, though, just some fruit and cheese. I got to chat with some faculty and had a good time, and then the play itself was really funny. Afterwards, we went to J.J. Dolan's. I had the caprese salad and he had pizza.

We somehow misplaced the remote control for our living room a/c. Luckily, it does have an on/off switch in the wall as well.

I went to bed about 1am but had a lot of trouble sleeping due to itching (from allergies).

Have a good week!

Week of November 3!

2013-11-10T08:51:00.000-06:00

Sunday November 3

I slept in very late on Sunday and then we went to the grocery store. After we came back, we went to dinner. We were going to go to this Moroccan restaurant, but it was closed on Sundays, so instead we went to Murphy's, which I'm kind of sick of.

The rest of the time was spent working, mostly. I made a list of the shows I watch so I could figure out which episodes I'm missing (see my TV blog for more information on that). Other than that, I just worked on my site and watched TV. Nothing too exciting!

Monday November 4

Again, I slept in too late. I did wake up around 11 and was up for a little while, but my back was really hurting, so I went back to sleep. My schedule's just totally screwed up now.

I had a really hard time waking up, too. I wasn't feeling very well all day and then later I had my usual D.

We went out to dinner to the Moroccan restaurant. The service was kind of slow, but the main thing was that the food was not that great. It was okay, just mediocre. Not very flavorful at all. I had the chicken tangine, which kind of reminded me of chicken adobo, but it wasn't very good. I would expect any type of middle-eastern or African food to be very flavorful, but this just wasn't at all. What a shame. And not too expensive, but more than we'd want to pay for food that was not that great. We stopped by the other Irish bar, O'Toole's, for a brief drink afterwards.

I spent most of the rest of the night watching DVD's and working a little on my site. I did spend some more time arguing with idiots, but I made sure to get out of the arguments when they went nowhere. Why bother!

The only other useful thing I did was laundry.

Tuesday November 5

I stayed up until almost 8 am...

We went to Gordon Biersch for dinner. I had a salad and the fish tacos. The tacos were way too spicy, though, but David helped me eat them. The server was surprised that my name is Suzanne because hers is, too! We got one of their rewards cards.

Somehow I went to bed around 1am and was actually sleepy enough to make it work.

Wednesday November 6

I woke up around 8:30 am! I don't know what I did, but my back near my ribs area on the right really hurt. I had to take the muscle relaxer pills because it really hurt all day.

I went to McDonald's around 10:30 for lunch. I also went to Ross and got a couple of things.

I did a lot of work on my site the past two days, getting through emails and such. I also did some laundry and dishes.

I got very tired and went back to sleep around 1pm and slept for 3 hours. I was so tired!

I went to choir and it was quite a work-out as usual. I hope I can memorize the music because next Friday we have a concert, and she's said that she expects us to memorize a few pieces.

Then, as always, we went to the Hukilau afterwards. I got a chicken salad. I've been trying to eat healthier, but I've also been eating way too much leftover Halloween candy. We are trying now to hide the candy from each other. I hide the candy that he likes that I'm allergic to, and he hides the candy I like (which includes some that he's allergic to). It's a lot harder in this smaller apartment to hide stuff.

Of course then I stayed up too late again, 5 am.

Thursday November 7

I woke up around 4:30pm again...

We were going to go to JJ Dolan's, the pizza place, but it was too crowded. We finally settled on this place called Downbeat, which just serves regular food like hamburgers, sandwiches, salads, etc. We both thought it was pretty good. It's so handy that I can go on my phone and look for nearby restaurants in a pinch! I love that.

My shoulder is really hurting me tonight. I'm waiting for the Aleve to kick in. Otherwise I'll have to use one of the muscle relaxer pills. I was doing fine until I changed my shirt. It doesn't take much to hurt it. I had a physical therapy appointment on Wednesday, but we had to postpone it because David was too busy to take me, and I didn't want to take a cab. I have one next Wednesday now.

I went to sleep around 1:30 because I was so tired. I had taken two of the muscle relaxers, so that probably made me sleepy, too. I slept for about 3 hours and then woke up itching! Darned allergies. I take 3 different medications for allergies but they only do so much.

I made a chocolate-banana smoothie. Yum! I just combined milk, cocoa powder, equal, ice, and banana yogurt in the blender.

Friday November 8

I finally got around to hooking up my Roku again so I can watch Hulu and other online channels.

I'm all caught up on laundry for a change, including our sheets! :) Such a small victory...

For breakfast, I just had some canned peaches, some bologna, and some almonds.

David is supposed to call me for lunch in about a half an hour. I hope I can stay awake that long!

I did somehow manage to stay awake, watching TV. We just went to Subway as we often do, for lunch. I had a nice salad. I went to Ross to look for a dress for our chorale concert next week, but they didn't have anything suitable. It has to be a long black dress, skirt or pants, and a black top that is not low cut or sleeveless. I do have a good black shirt I can use, but I didn't bring any black skirt or black pants (they're in storage). I tried on one dress, but it didn't work. We're going to have to go shopping this weekend to look for that. I need close-toed black shoes as well. I did find this one little store called Local Fever that has black skirts. I was giong to try it on, but I had to go find a bathroom (most of the stores and restaurants in the downtown have no bathrooms, as I may have mentioned), so I just went home after that. I can always buy it there next week if I have to.

After I came back home, I was tired, so I had a long nap.

David came home after 6:30 and we tried again to go to Dolan's, but it was too crowded again, so we went to Duc's Bistro, a Vietnamese restaurant. The food there is great, but too expensive. I got the duck and he likes this one fish dish there. Trouble is, too, the portions are too small for a meal. We paid over $50 just for those two entrees and a couple of beers!

After we got back, I had some more food and tried to go to sleep early, but I only slept for a few hours and now I'm up again!

Saturday November 9

An old acquaintance/friend died yesterday. Joan Harrison was in David's class, 1976. She hung around with my SIL Susan back in high school and some thereafter. She was in STAR with us and often dressed up as Princess Leia, like me. She had beautiful long red hair. She gave me one of her old Princess Leia costumes a long time ago. I think I still have it. It had much nicer material than the one I'd been using before that, and it had a more authentic belt as well. She was only 55 and died of a brain tumor. So sad. She was a really nice person. I guess we're getting old because I know another person who is getting a brain tumor operation, and one who had a stroke as well. Sheesh!

It's 1 am and I'm wide awake. My right arm and shoulder have been hurting a lot more the past few days. I just took some Aleve and Ben Gay. I really don't want to keep taking the darned muscle relaxers! But it's hard with upper spine pain because it affects not just your back but also your neck, shoulder, arms and hands.

Yesterday I stopped downstairs at the security station to ask if the guy there knew anyone that I could pay a small sum to put together the dresser that I bought. I expected him to maybe give me a name and/or phone number, but instead he went to get this maintenance guy, Ceasar. So Ceasar went with me up to our place to take a look at the dresser. He's coming back this morning around 8:30 to see if he can put it together and maybe the other 3 small tables I have. I hope he gets it done in good time because I have to go get my glasses today before they close at noon. It will be nice to have all that put together! The two tables are end tables for the living room and the other one is for the entranceway (more decoration than anything). We still need to get more containers with drawers for the guest bedroom and probably a loveseat or chair for the living room. Eventually, a dining room set. I want to get a new laptop before any of that, though.

Ceasar arrived around 9 or so. He put together the four pieces of furniture and was done before 11. Yay! The two "end tables" I bought are too small and cheap to be living room end tables. I'll find some use for them. The "coffee table" that I wanted to use for the entryway looks really nice and is a bit small for that - I should have bought 2 and used THOSE for end tables instead. The dresser looks great.

It was very rainy today, more than just the usual sprinkling we get. I put on my old orthopedic shoes/boots instead of sandals (first time since we moved here). I forgot they have holes in them, though, so my feet got wet. It was kind of chilly for me...just a little...I should have worn a long sleeve shirt or brought a sweater. First time since we've moved here that I was cold, too!

We went to Kaiser to get my new glasses. It's so nice to see again! We had to wait a while, but once they called me in, it didn't take long, and they didn't charge me! I was surprised because I thought the woman there had said it would cost me about $30 or so. Great!!

After that, we drove over to Ward Center and ate at Z pizza. I got a small gluten free pizza. I just had 2 pieces and took the rest home. We had planned to go to Payless to get shoes, but we saw a Famous Footwear while we were walking to the car, so we just stopped in there instead. It's not as cheap as Payless, but it was ok. I got some black close-toed flat shoes for the concerts. They're not all that comfortable but they'll do.

Then I took a long nap. I was so tired!! David woke me up around 5:30 for dinner. We went down to Waikiki to our usual place, Kani Ka Pila Grille. It was very good as always. We also went to Kelley O'Neil's for a bit. I was still very tired.

When we got the mail today, there was a wedding photo from Monty and Paul! Glad they could tie the knot.

I'm going to try to go back to sleep even though it's only just after 10.

Of course, I woke up around 2:30 am....LOL!

I decided to use the end tables I got after all, even though they're a little small and ugly. I put them in place, moved the couch a little and it works out pretty well. I've never cared about design or anything when it comes to my house, but now I think the coffee table is not matching the rest of the furniture, which is mostly black. LOL! Oh, well.

I'm so glad to have my glasses back. Now I can watch TV from the couch! Seems like such a little thing, but believe me, it's huge to me.

Have a great week! I hope you have a 3 day weekend due to Veteran's Day like we do.

Don't forget to read my TV Blog!

Week of October 27

2013-11-03T23:35:00.003-06:00

Sunday October 27

I mostly worked today on my site. So behind on everything!

We went to China Town for lunch. We found this little Chinese restaurant there. The service was really slow, but the food was delicious. I had the best Kung Pao Chicken that I've ever had. We did a lot of walking all over. Chinatown is much larger than I thought. After I get my glasses, we'll have to walk around more and check out the stores. Right now it's just too hard for me to see stuff when shopping. They have tons and tons of little markets with fresh food.

For dinner later on, we went to Murphy's, the Irish pub. I like their blackened chicken, cole slaw and fries. It's an appetizer but huge. It's more than enough for a meal.

I know it seems like all we do is eat out and shop, but it's just that the rest of the stuff is really boring and mostly not worth mentioning: Working on my site, watching TV, cleaning, doing laundry, etc.

Monday October 28

I ordered a costume online...I was happy it got here on time. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit. :( It's way too small.) Now I don't know what I'll do!! Darn it.

Oh, yeah, I think I forgot to mention that last week on the 22nd was the anniversary of our meeting, in 1977. That was the night we went out to get Cuban food, I think.

I had a phone interview around 10, and I actually only slept for about an hour and a half before I woke up, before the alarm. Then I couldn't sleep for quite a while after that. I finally did get to sleep and then slept until after 5pm. I felt kind of sick, like maybe I was coming down with a cold, but I think it was just a combination of things, like I may have poked the back of my mouth with some food that made it hurt, plus being very tired, and congested from allergies. I felt fine later. Hopefully that's all there was to that!

David and I went to this Japanese restaurant called Ra-Kuen that's next to JJ Dolan's. It's mostly a sushi place but kind of upscale, not like your typical Japanese restaurant. We usually just get appetizers, or he gets sushi. He got some sushi rolls, and I got steak, which was not all that expensive, surprisingly. It wasn't the largest steak in the world, nor the best, but it was ok. Since it had to be gluten free, though, they had to take off the side dish that came with it. I was a bit peeved because I kind of hinted to the waitress that they should substitute something else, but she didn't take the hint, and I didn't feel like pushing it. So we just went home and I had some other food.

I've been trying not to eat desserts, so I don't buy any, but then I have a terrible chocolate craving. I bought these new Nutrigrain bars that are called protein bars, they have chocolate but no wheat, but they do have oats. They're not "certified gluten free", but they don't seem to make me sick. However, they're not all that tasty, so I won't bother buying them again. They have chocolate, but not enough chocolate to make up for the rest of the taste. I'll stick to KIND bars! When I can find them...

I was very tired all evening and tried to go to bed around midnight, but alas, I just had a nap and woke up a few hours later.

Tuesday October 29

,I kept trying to go back to sleep, but it didn't work. I was very tired all morning. I mostly just sat around, posted on Facebook, etc. I finally got back to sleep for a while in the afternoon.

I met David for lunch and we went to Subway. I really like their salads here. In Georgia, they would just put the meat and other stuff on top of the lettuce, which I don't like because then you have to mix it in yourself, and everything was in big chunks. Here because of the Asian traditions, I guess, they put it in a big bowl and use a slicing thing to cut everything up together. I think it's a Mezzaluna. Very handy tool and it chops everything up nicely! I need to buy one of those.

I went looking at some stores for a Halloween costume, but I didn't find anything. After I came home, I did go back to sleep, finally, and I slept until about 5:30 when David called and woke me up.

We went to dinner at Gordon Biersch, which I'll remind you, is in the Aloha Tower mall, right on the harbor. Gorgeous view, especially at sunset. They have jambalaya there, which is really good and also gluten free. We're still eating out too much! I wanted to look at the nearby shops, but they were all closed for the day.

I did a little work when we came back, but I was really tired and could barely stay awake.

I went to bed fairly early and slept for just a few hours, then I was up again. Then I slept a few more hours. I was just really tired all day and I kept trying to sleep more!

Wednesday October 30

I woke up around 3am. It may be for good, but we'll see. I sure wouldn't mind trying to go back to sleep a little more.

Yesterday I tried on the lady bug costume again to see if I could get it to fit at all, and it did. I can't zip it up, but it just sort of looks like it's supposed to be open in the back, and very short. The wings go on the back, anyway, so it will cover a lot of that up. I hurt my arm muscles a bit getting it on and off, so I'll probably use David's help on Thursday. I'm going to need to get some blank pants to go with it, but otherwise I think it looks okay. If I can't find anything else later today, I'll just go with that. I thought of getting David to sew me in to the costume, so we'll see if I need that or not. I can already tell, though, that it's going to be way too hot! Oh, well.

I'm going to try hard today and tomorrow not to eat much so I can fit in it a little better. And if you believe that one....LOL!

I met David for lunch. We went to Art's Hideaway. This is the place we've gone a few times for karaoke. They serve good food at lunch. I asked if they're doing anything special for Halloween, but they're not. I had a really good cheeseburger and fries, and he had meatloaf.

Then I picked up some gluten free muffins and cookies at that little 'Umeke market. So glad they had some! I checked 2 other times and they had none.

I did a little shopping at Ross...I like that we have a fairly cheap department store nearby, but I wish they had more stuff. The one down on Waikiki is way better.

I took a nap in the afternoon. My back has been hurting me a lot the past few days (from the 2 degenerative disks in my spine). It was already bad, then yesterday I just turned slightly wrong in bed and I had excruciating pain. I have muscle relaxers, but even they weren't totally helping. I woke up an hour or so before choir, but my back was still hurting a lot, and the idea of trying to stand a lot, as well as holding up music, sounded too painful, so I skipped it this week. I feel very guilty about missing choir, but after going back to sleep for a while, I felt much better.

Later, we just went to Dolan's for dinner. It's mostly pizza, but I just had a small salad, and he had some calamari. We had a huge lunch at Art's, so we didn't want pizza.

Now I'm just tired but not that sleepy...trying to get some energy, but it's not really happening yet.

You may recall that I remember my dreams a lot and that they are often very vivid. I had a great one the other day, just before I woke up. I was eating some kind of delicious chocolate wafers (similar to Kit Kat bars or some kind of French pastry). Even though it was only a dream, I could actually taste it. It was wonderful. If only I could have that dream every night! Then I could lose weight easily!! Ha ha!

They already are working on software that can read images from your dreams. The next step, I think, is being able to influence your dreams, so you can dream about whatever you want. That will be cool! Better than the Holodeck.

It's a bit cooler today, or at least it felt like it. Very nice! I didn't need the a/c quite as much. Outside was very windy as well as cool. Some people were wearing sweaters and jackets! I was laughing at them because seriously, it was not cold. People here are even worse weather wimps than Californians.

My arm was really hurting, and sitting at the computer was kind of hurting it more, so instead I found other things around the house to do. Our guest bedroom is full of boxes. I've gone through them a little, but not completely, so I started going through and organizing them a bit better. I found my boxes of magnets, so I decided to go through them and pick out some good ones to put up on my fridge, especially some zombie ones I always put up for Halloween. Much to my surprise, one of the boxes was not magnets as I thought, but my missing flatware! Yay!!! I wish I had found it sooner, before I bought more flatware, but oh, well....

I also did the dishes and gathered the trash. Other than going through boxes, I just sat and watched GH on TV; I didn't do much work because it hurt too much. Eventually, I felt a little better. I went to bed around 1am and amazingly, I slept all the way through to 5:30. That's almost a whole night's sleep.

Thursday October 31

Happy Halloween!

Since I was up early, I washed all the flatware and some other dishes, then I spent a little time on the computer. Around 8, I decided to take a bunch of flattened empty boxes downstairs to the dumpster. I got the grocery cart from downstairs first, otherwise it would have taken me at least 5 trips. I fit most of them in the cart and then carried two more separately on a second trip. So glad that's done!

I saw this adorable fluffy little friendly dog in the elevator, named Stella. A little cute whiney dog! And there was a mom and her little girl, who was dressed up as some sort of superhero. It was fun to watch her with the little dog. I love seeing all the dogs in this building.

Fortunately, I remembered to take the Halloween candy out of the freezer! LOL! Here's a pic of the candy. I hope we have enough.

I may go down to get some breakfast in a little while, and maybe go to the other Long's to see what they have. I mostly have gone to the one in the Fort Street area (that's the pedestrian mall that is mostly Asian fast food as well as a big church and David's university). It's a really small Long's, though. There is another one next to our Safeway. I've only gone there before with David, so this is kind of an adventure for me! Ha ha!!

I got my little end tables yesterday that I bought off Ebay very cheap. It's funny because they came in a DVD/VCR box so I thought it was the DVD recorder I had bought and that I'm also waiting for!! So now I have 4 pieces of furniture to put together... I might try that later today.

I post often on Twitter and Facebook, and not all the same stuff I post here on the blog so make sure to check it out! The twitter feed is public https://twitter.com/SuzanneLan

I didn't get breakfast. Instead, I walked to Long's, which is about 3 blocks away, but it seems much further. It's 81 degrees out, which is hot. Not as nice as yesterday when it seemed so cool and breezy. I was hoping it would be cool again, so I won't roast in my costume. Oh, well...

Normally I avoid eye contact with everyone, especially the homeless, because I don't want to be bothered. There was this one guy leaning against the side of the Long's, so I smiled and say "morning". Then he asked me if I had any money for water. I said, sorry, I don't, and kept walking. (I only carry credit cards most of the time.) So I bought a water in Long's and gave it to him on the way back. He seemed pretty thirsty and grateful. I'm sure it's very hot sitting out there on the sidewalk, even in the shade. I would have bought him a sandwich or something, but I didn't think of it until after I left. Oh, well. City living is so fun! Ha ha! I grew up in the city, but back then, there were no homeless people. Maybe there were a few in some areas but nothing like today. That didn't start until the 80's. One more thing to thank Reagan for.

We had a very busy day. I tried to take a nap but couldn't. I started getting ready for Halloween about 3:30pm. I took a shower, then blow-dried my hair, then curled it with the curling hair (I hate doing that because it's tedious, but it looks good). Then I put in my contacts and did my makeup. I waited until the very last minute to put my costume on because I knew it would be hot. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, though, even though I had a couple of layers on.

The trick-or-treating was supposed to go 5-8, but I sat there for 2 hours and only got 2 families coming by. That was very disappointing. David came home and we went down to Waikiki. There were tons of people there dressed up! We saw so many great costumes. One couple were dressed as a Samurai and Geisha, I guess, but both of their outfits were made out of aluminum cans! The samurai's was all beer cans, and hers was all soda cans. And yet they looked amazing!! Clearly a lot of work into it. We saw every kind of costume you can imagine: superheroes, witches, insects, animals, Star Trek, Star Wars, Elvis, everything. One woman was a bunch of grapes; she was covered in purple balloons!

We tried to go to this beer garden thing they had at the Royal Hawaiian Center, but it was very loud and crowded. We walked around, trying to decide where to eat. We finally settled on this Japanese restaurant, Kimukatsu. It serves mainly "katsu", which is breaded and fried meats. They didn't have sushi or any of the other foods we're used to seeing. They didn't have too much I could eat, but it turns out their fried chicken was made with potato starch instead of flour. It had a very unusual taste, though. David didn't like what he got, either. I did like some fried taro, but it was so greasy! We probably won't go back there. That's the first bad restaurant we've ever encountered here! I didn't realize that it's a chain. The people there were very nice, and the service was great. Everyone who worked there was dressed up in costume.

You can see a photo of me dressed up as a lady bug. If that link doesn't work, please let me know!

Then we went next door to the bar Moose McCillycuddy's to get a drink. I had a lava flow there, my favorite drink! We went home after that. I was pretty sleepy and didn't stay up too long. I had forgotten that I took one of the muscle relaxers in the afternoon, so I shouldn't have had that lava flow!

Friday, November 1

I woke up really late, sometime after noon, which is weird considering how early I went to sleep. I was very tired and it took me a long time to wake up. I even tried to go back to sleep, but it was too hot. I took a shower and forced myself to do the laundry and take down all of the Halloween decorations.

We went to dinner at Murphy's. We had pretty good service. There's this one waiter there that we can't stand because he's very slow and overly-enthusiastic. He's always smiling, laughing, and joking around, but it doesn't seem real. I call him "Mr. Happy". Thankfully we didn't have him tonight.

I spent a few hours sorting through stuff in our second bedroom. My goal was to sort stuff into better piles to organize better and also to make more room so that I have room to put together furniture in there. Most of the back wall is the door/window to the lanai, but in front of that I have about 4 boxes with office supplies. One box is nothing but envelopes of various sizes, another one has notebooks and notepads, etc. I also have there some decorative items that I usually have in the second bedroom, but there's no other surface to put them on yet. Against the right wall, I have 10 medium boxes of business cards stacked. To the right of them, I have about 6 boxes of contest prizes for my site (mostly DVD's and books), plus two small shoeboxes, and one small bag, of magnets. In front of those, I have a box of stuff to put into scrapbooks (we have fallen behind on scrapbooking), and also a box of music books and sheet music. Against the front wall, where the entry door is, we have a blow-up mattress leaning against the wall (we used it when we first got here, before we bought a bed), and I have many boxes of DVD's, plus one box of plastic DVD/CD cases. Next to that is my karaoke machine, two vcr's, a small TV to use with the karaoke machine, my casio, and boxes of karaoke CD's. In front of that, I have a boxes full of various cords, power supplies and cables (I sorted through those tonight, which took a while). I also have a stack of external hard drives. In front of the closet, for now, I have a small box with some of David's cassette tapes, and some other items on top of that. I think that's it! I still have one dresser and 3 tables to put together, so I have enough room now to sit on the carpeted floor to put them together. We only have carpeting in the bedrooms, and the other floors are tiled - way too hard to sit on. I will try to put the dresser together sometime this weekend (that's the larger item, so I want to get that one done first). I also have a large plastic set of drawers that I will put some of that office stuff in. The dresser will have stuff in it, too, although we will also use it for guests if/when they stay with us.

Otherwise, today I've just been working on my site and watching DVD's that I need to review.

Saturday, November 2

I stayed up last night until 5am and woke up around 1:30pm this afternoon.

I had a mammogram appointment at 2:20. It wasn't too bad. Quick, at least. It hurt my right shoulder a bit, though. That's the one that's been hurting a lot due to my upper spine problems. I have a physical therapy appointment on Wednesday, thank goodness. I had hoped to pick up my glasses today, but I stupidly forgot that they close at noon on Saturdays...and they're closed on Sunday. D'oh! I hope we can get there during the week.

We stopped at Jiffylube to get the oil and filters changed on our car. We walked over to this Korean place while we waited so I could have food. I just had a burger and fries. The burger was great. The fries were soggy and under-cooked. I only ate a few, anyway.

Later on, we went to Waikiki for dinner and drinks. First we went to our usual place in the Outrigger, Kani Ka Pila Grille, for dinner. I was not that hungry, so I just had a turkey sandwich and small salad. I couldn't even finish the sandwich (no bread, of course), but it was very good. They always have a Hawaiian band playing there, every night. Then we went to the Irish pub that David likes, Kelley O'Neil's. It was too loud, crowded, and smoky for me. We went to GS Studios, the private karaoke box place, and took turns singing for about an hour. Then we walked over to this little bar called The In Between, which is right next door, practically. We had been to it in 2005 with some friends, but it was located somewhere else then. It's a gay bar but has karaoke every night. It's very small and its name is from the fact that it was a tiny bar in between two other larger buildings. Last time, it was packed with people and we were clearly the only straight people in the place (although, they were very accepting), and we were practically the only women there, too, aside from one lesbian and the KJ. This time it was not as packed and had a very mixed (and very drunk) crowd. They no longer have a KJ, which is a shame. They have iPads set up with the songs, and you just find the number, write it down on paper, and give it to the bartender, who puts your number in. They don't call your name or anything, you just have to grab the mic when your number comes up. Kind of a weird but ultra-modern set up, I guess. I don't have my glasses yet and wasn't wearing my contacts, so I picked a song I know well (in case I couldn't see the words on the screens), "I Will Survive". They loved it and everyone sang along! That was fun and they seemed to love my singing. I wasn't the only good singer there, though. It was nice and had it been a little less crowded and loud, we might have stayed longer. We just stayed about 40 minutes, for the one song.

I spend way too much on Facebook, especially arguing with right wing idiots. I'm trying to stop the arguing because it's just pointless. I belong to this group on there called Annettes Debates where people submit questions and then the rest of try to answer them. The questions can be about anything, but they mostly tend to be political or religious. They range from the very serious to the silly. I've spent way too much time on there arguing, defending Obama or the ACA, and it's like banging your head against the wall. As I said to someone on there yesterday, "The funny thing is, there are plenty of things I don't like about Obama or what he's done, but when I come on here and the right-wing-crazies are calling him a gay, socialist, muslim, kenyan-born, nazi, racist, anti-christ, who's spending 800 billion dollars on ACA and going to send troops into our homes to take our guns and/or put a chip in our heads....I end up defending him."

I stayed up really late, to 5am, to finish my weekly news/schedule page.

I can't believe it's November already! Have to start thinking about Christmas soon.

Don't forget to read my TV Blog!

Week of October 20

2013-10-29T04:41:00.002-05:00

Sunday October 20

I got up around 3pm, way too late. We went to the Times grocery store as has been our habit lately. It was surprisingly not very crowded. It's the cheapest one we've found so far. The prices are not that different from what we had in Georgia.

Then we went to the J.J. Dolan's pizza place so he could watch football. They only serve pizza on Sundays, so we just split a large pepperoni, but I don't eat the crust.

Now just working on my site as always! I also have to do dishes and laundry.

I wasn't really thinking about it, but people who walk into our building and look up can see our Halloween lights! David pointed this out to me. I don't tend to look up much. We're the only one with lights on our lanai. So far at least!

Monday October 21

I got up around 3:30pm and did some work before getting ready. We had an event to go to down at Gordon Biersch. It's a monthly thing called Science Pub where one of the college scientists gives a speech. This week it was this anthropologist, Ayesha http://www.hpu.edu/CHSS/SocialSciences/Faculty/FacultyBios/A.Nibbe.html She gave a talk about Cuba's medical care. It was interesting. A woman from Cuba that had fled there many years ago showed up, and she was ready for a fight. They tried to speak with her before the talk, but she worked herself up pretty well. She was sitting near us so I could tell. At the beginning of each talk, they have us fill out these trivia question sheets, and then they give a prize to whomever gets them all right (usually a shirt or cup). Before they even got very far in the quiz, this woman jumped up on the stage and started complaining about the pro-Fidel "propaganda". She should have at least waited until the end of the talk when the question/answer session happened! They let her have her say and then escorted her off the stage. Well, it livened things up. It was an interesting talk, though, even after that.

I don't know why, but they never have enough help at Gordon Biersch during these talks. They know we're coming ahead of time, so it's kind of stupid not to have extra waiters....you don't want customers to wait around when they could be ordering more food and drink!

I've been catching up on the DVD's I'm supposed to review for my site. It'll probably take me the rest of the week. I'm also trying to catch up on hundreds of emails!

Tuesday October 22

Still getting up way too late!

I've still be having a lot of D. Something I'm eating out is still making me sick. There's just no way of knowing what it is, since I can't go back in the kitchen and read all of the ingredients of all of the products they use.

Today is the anniversary of the day we met, in 1977! We went out for dinner to the Cuban restaurant. It was very good, but the pork dish I got was not as good as the chicken dishes I got there before. Also, not to be too gross, but I was burping it the rest of the night so it kind of upset my stomach (even though it wasn't even spicy).

Nothing much too exciting aside from just working a lot...

Wednesday October 23

I got up late and went to McDonald's before choir.

Choir started at 5:30 this week (our usual time instead of starting later). It was a grueling 2 hours but always fun. It's hard work and I always come out of there sounding very hoarse. I'm just not used to singing so much any more. I worked so much on my site this week that I didn't even have time to look at the music. I need to make sure to sing every day and to try to memorize the music so I know it better.

We went to Hukilau afterwards like usual. I had the prime rib sliders appetizer, no bread. It was delicious! I didn't have any alcohol this time, even though I normally get their Huki punch.

Thursday October 24

I was very tired and tried to go to bed early, but then I woke up after about 2 hours, itching, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I went back to sleep around 5:30 and slept a bit but it was not a very restful sleep. I kept having weird dreams and waking up. Then I woke up about a half hour before the alarm went off. Oh, also, my back/neck/shoulder kept hurting, especially on the right side. It was so bad that eventually I did take my last muscle relaxer pill.

I have an interview around 1:30, so that probably didn't help me sleep well... I always get nervous before those, especially the one-on-one interviews.

At least I got up kind of early today, so that's a plus!

I did a lot today... My interview went great, then I went to run errands. I picked up a shirt at the dry cleaners, I had lunch, and I did some shopping at Ross, and picked up some snacks at another store, before heading home.

I did a lot of laundry the last two days. Today I got new sheets so I put those on and washed the old one. I dusted and vacuumed the whole house, and I hooked up the DVD recorder in the other room so I can transfer those shows to DVD and watch them in here. I've been recording shows all day.

Next I'm going to do the dishes, and then I think that will probably be it... I'm exhausted!

We went to the pizza place for dinner...it was pretty cheap.

He helped me re-hang some of my decorations. I didn't know you shouldn't hang anything from the indoor sprinklers! LOL!

I tried to go to bed early, but every time I tried, it wouldn't work. I don't think I got more than an hour's sleep all night, even though I was very tired.

Friday October 25

I'm so very tired. The plumber is coming in about an hour to fix the water line to the fridge. Then around 10 I'm meeting David downstairs and he's going to drive me to my eye doctor appointment. I wish I could just sleep instead!

He didn't stay too long, thankfully, less than an hour. Then we went to the eye doctor and I got my regular checkup and exam for glasses. David had to get back to work, so I'm going back tomorrow to go to the eyeglasses place. I also hope to see a regular doctor - have to call the number at 7:30am to try to get an appointment tomorrow morning. They're both in the same building.

I finally got to sleep around 1pm and slept like a log for about 3 hours. The eye doctor had put drops in my eyes so I couldn't see very well, anyway! But I was so exhausted. I woke up very stuffed up and couldn't get back to sleep.

David has a dinner right now with his colleagues and then he'll come home and hopefully, we can go out, so that I can get dinner and we can get drinks.

I've been arguing with idiots again online. It's astounding how ignorant some people are and also how so many people see things in black and white only. Here are some facts. Democrat does not equal liberal. We've never had a liberal president and most congressman are not liberal. The problems you think we have - liberals are not to blame. If liberals were in charge, the rich people and their corporations would all be taxes much higher (they're the lowest they've been in a very long time). There would be more accountability in Washington stronger laws against lobbyists and donations (and possibly term limits). There would be no shutdown. There would be no "Obamacare" - we'd have a single payer system (like Canada or Britain). Liberals do no want to just spend spend spend, nor do they want to tax the middle class, nor do they just want to throw money at problems without any oversight or rational thinking. The majority of the people in this country are moderates. The people in power are conservatives and moderates, not liberals. The system we have is the one we're stuck with. Politics is not simple, and it's not a black and white situation with easy solutions. It's not about making great changes - the system of government we have prevents large changes. Everything is about compromise and making small changes, even if that means a lot of people are unhappy with the changes. If you don't like the people in charge or what they're doing, there are two things you can do that will help. 1) Get involved in local politics and work to elect people you like. 2) Vote. It's a democracy. That's all you can do! Grumbling to people on Facebook will not help. And yes, I'm guilty of that, too.

We went out to Epic, which is probably my favorite restaurant down here that we can afford regularly. They have a pretty good arugula-and-strawberry salad, and a great scallops appetizer. I've liked everything I've had there, already their happy hour menu is not as good as their regular menu. They are pretty knowledgeable about gluten, too, and have a good wine list.

I was so tired after dinner. I just took my pills and went to sleep. I think it was about 10. Then I woke up at 2am. Hopefully I can get back to sleep at some point.

I ordered a Halloween costume online, but I'm not sure if it'll get here on time or not. We'll see! I still have to find out if the karaoke bar down the street is doing anything for Halloween or not.

Saturday October 26

We were so busy all weekend! And of course as usual, my sleep schedule is all messed up.

Saturday morning, I phoned the doctor's office to make an appointment. We went to the Kaiser building around 10 for my appointment. It's nice that they have everything in one place. I didn't have to fill out many forms, which shocked me. I had to wait a little while but it wasn't too bad. I was just really tired, and kind of hungry. I spoke with the doctor, and she got a list of all my ongoing problems, and my prescriptions, which she put into the computer. She's referring me to a physical therapist for my back, and she refilled my prescription for the muscle relaxer. She and I chatted a bit - she's only been here a year but really likes it. We talked about the difficulties of sticking to my diet etc. Then I got the flu shot. Then I went down to the first floor to give them fluids for my regular tests. Then I picked out my frames for my new glasses - the insurance is covering most of it, thank goodness. Then I picked up two of my prescriptions at the pharmacy - the rest they're going to mail to me, and it will cost less as well. It was all pretty efficient and quick. Very surprised!

The only thing that is annoying is that one of my allergy meds, Clarinex, is not covered at all by Kaiser. I've been taking Claritin instead, so I'll just have to stick to that. Clarinex is $500 otherwise.

Then we went over to Z Pizza, which is the only chain in town, I think, that has gluten free pizza. It was really good - the best gluten free pizza I've ever had. Very expensive, though. A small one is $17 and a large one is about $28. They don't deliver to our area, which is probably a good thing.

I went back to sleep for a while after that, so that's how my sleep schedule got messed up again.

Later, we went out to dinner to Waikiki. We tried Todai, which is a chain place that we sued to go to a lot in San Diego. We'd gone to the one here once, a long time ago. The one in San Diego went out of business. The one here was very disappointing. It was super expensive and the quality of food, and choices, were not nearly as good. Last time I recall it was very good and David was very happy with the sushi. This time, only the salads were good. Even the desserts were not that great. They were mostly cakes so I couldn't eat them. We sure won't go there again.

I did a lot of sleeping this week, and a lot of working on my site. Somehow, though, I still ended up very behind on everything this weekend.

Have a Happy Halloween!

Week of October 13

2013-10-20T23:52:00.004-05:00

Sunday October 13

I woke up around 11am and made lunch for David and some breakfast for myself.

Lots of work to do today! So much to catch up on.

We went to Walmart briefly. I had to pick up a prescription and a few other things. I got a plastic thing on wheels to put some office supplies in.

We went out to dinner later to Murphy's, the Irish pub. The food was good, but there was a party going on in part of it, so it was very noisy.

I was very tired and did sleep for a bit but then woke up, itching, so I went back to work. Then I stayed up way too late.

Monday October 14

Yesterday's events really messed up my sleeping schedule. Now I'm staying up until 5 or 6 am and getting up in the afternoon. Not what I want! Agggh!

I went out to find this 'umeke Market that someone had told me about. He said it had gluten free stuff. I was hoping it would have bread or maybe even pizza, but all they had was some gluten free scones. Oh, well. I bought a couple and they were DELICIOUS!! I had a hard time finding the place because Google maps was not quite accurate about where it was, for one thing. Then when I finally found it, it turns out it's in Bishop Square, which is right across from where I go for choir! Not only that, but there are other little shops and food places in there. I had lunch at Jack-in-the-box (A very popular burger chain in California), and I looked in this little gift shop. Then I went back and stopped at this little market near David's work to get him some lumpia for dinner, and I also got myself some chocolate tapioca, and some POP chips. They had the cheddar kind, which I've been looking for.

I wanted to find this other store, I think it's called the Fighting Eel? It supposedly has women's "Aloha wear" but it was designer stuff and very expensive.

So we just ate at home for a change, and I worked a lot on my site.

Later, I dragged out my 3 boxes of Halloween decorations and started putting them up around the apartment.

Tuesday October 15

I went again down to the stores. I bought some hooks (the kind with adhesive) and some Fall things (they didn't have much Halloween stuff), and some snacks. The checkout woman at Ross asked me if I wanted the senior discount. :( That was annoying. It's 55, but still, I'm not that old yet.

I stopped downstairs and chatted with the manager to find out what we could put on our lanais (as far as decorations) and also to ask about Halloween here. There are a lot of kids here, apparently, not just that live here but that visit their relatives, so they come here for trick-or-treating. They ask us to sign up if we want to give out candy. That's convenient!

I put up the rest of the Halloween decorations, including some orange lights out on the lanai. I have this big witch winsock so I put that up on the fire sprinkler that's outdoors. They wouldn't let me attach it to the railing, so it was either that, or put up another hook. I put a hook on our door to hang a sign there. It looks very festive! Photos will be posted on my Facebook.

I worked a little on my choir songs... I thought about recording but was not really into it today.

We're trying to cut down on how often we go out to dinner, to 3 days, so we went out to night and the other nights will be Fridays and Saturdays. We went to Epic, a little gourmet place here. They were having happy hour so it was a little cheaper than usual. I should have stuck with the salad... I didn't really like the two appetizers I had from the happy hour menu (with wine - that was good).

Wednesday October 16

I went to bed last night around 4am, then the phone woke me up today about 10:30. It was Jack-in-the-Box. I had emailed them to ask them about gluten in their burgers, so they phoned to tell me that their burgers have no gluten, except for the bun, and including the bacon and cheese. Yay!

I woke up around 11:30 when David called about lunch, but I was tired and went back to sleep. I woke up at 3:00. UGH! I hate when I do that.

I just had a Kind bar for breakfast. I bought some this past weekend at Walmart. It's the only place I've seen them here so far. I'm sure Whole Foods has them, too, but we haven't been there yet. I love the chocolate peanut butter ones.

I made a mammogram appointment for November 2nd - way overdue on that. I don't even remember when I got one last and if it was in Georgia or Alabama. My regular doctor, whom I also need to see, has Saturday appointments, which are more convenient for me, but you have to call the same day. So I'm hoping to see her on October 26. I just have to phone them at 7:30am that day. I have to see her regularly because I'm diabetic and because I need refills on my prescriptions.

Choir is at the regular time today, 5:30. I'm going to go a little early and take in a shirt to the dry cleaners and maybe eat some real food...

The dry cleaners was closed, but we went to Jack-in-the-Box for a quick dinner. I had to tell them a few times about how I wanted my burger (wrapped in lettuce, no bun), but they eventually got it.

Choir was tough, but great and fun like always. She put us in a circle to sing (to have us listen to each other better), and she also made us divide up into small groups and then sing this bach chorale. Then, each group had to sing by itself in front of the rest of the choir. This is a bit nerve-wracking, even for those of us who are experienced singers, since we were singing a song that we just learned. I sang out, though - didn't want to sound timid or anything. Karaoke has really helped me with things like that. The only problem at all was that, without my glasses (and I didn't wear my contacts), I had a hard time seeing and hearing the director. Usually, our chairs are in three rows, and I sit right in front. With the circle, we were farther away from her and sometimes her back was turned.

We stopped at Hukilau again even though we had said we would eat at home more...SIGH! So tempting, too many great restaurants. I found out that their chicken ceasar salad is not gluten free after all, so no wonder I was getting sick. Apparently they put soy sauce in the dressing! This crazy island, they put soy sauce on everything. I wouldn't mind, if they'd just use the kind without wheat. Anyway, the chef made a different dressing for me (garlic, I think), but it wasn't very good. I just had some of the salad and finished the rest later on. I always love their Huki punch!

Thursday October 17

I spent part of Thursday cleaning up the house and putting up the rest of the Halloween decorations! It's amazing that I was able to find room for everything since I had a much bigger house before (not to mention yard).

I got up really late and didn't go anywhere during the day. At night we went out again. Tsk tsk. We were going to go to the pizza place, J.J. Dolan's, but it was too crowded, so we went to Murphy's.

We found a different little grocery to stop at, and I got a 2 liter of Diet Pepsi. However, when I tried it later, it tasted yucky, so I threw it out.

I saw another cockroach! I had bought some roach traps but hadn't gotten around to putting them out, so I did that, too. Both live roaches I saw were in the living room, which is weird because the roach trap package says to put them in the kitchen and bathroom.

Friday October 18

The plumber arrived about 9 am. The building management was supposed to turn off the water in both the kitchen and bathroom, but they only turned it off in the bathroom. The plumber was supposed to replace the line to the fridge, but he couldn't do that without the water being turned off. He changed out a valve in the bathroom, where we got a leak, but it was difficult for him at first because he couldn't test it with the water off. However, once we got the realty company guy to come over and talk to him about it, and they turned the water back on, he could do that.

The plumber, Ben, was a very funny guy. He made jokes, admired my decorations, and showed me some magic tricks. He liked to talk a lot, too :)

After he left, I had lunch with David. We went to Jack-in-the-Box again and I finally took this shirt to the cleaners that has a stain I hope they can get out. I tried to get more gluten free stuff at 'umeke Market but they didn't have any. So disappointed!

I bought some new little wicker drawers that I'm using for nightstands in our bedroom. I love the way they look.

We went to Waikiki for dinner, to this Japanese restaurant in the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Then we spent about an hour at GS Studios, singing in their private karaoke rooms.

There were some very stressful personal issues as well this week that I'm not going to go into.

I spent way too much time tonight arguing with idiots on Facebook!

Saturday October 19

We had a fairly lazy day and didn't do much.

We went to Hasr's Bistro for dinner. It's this really great restaurant, but expensive. I just had 2 appetizers (one of them was pretty big) and David had soup and an entree. I'll probably go there for my birthday, but we'll see...

The house is finally coming along pretty well as far as the furniture. Hopefully I can find some time this week to start on the guest room to get that in shape. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law are coming to visit around December 10, so I want the place to look nice by then. They're not staying with us, but still...

If sleeping a lot is an accomplishment, then I accomplished a lot this week! Otherwise, it was a failure in doing things I really want to do, such as sticking to an early schedule, exercising, and eating healthy at home. Oh, and vacuuming the house.

Make sure to visit my TV Blog, too!

Have a great week!