Plastic Sushi

Week of September 1

2014-09-08T13:13:00.000-05:00

Tuesday September 2

I was very tired in the morning and tried to get back to sleep, but for some reason, I couldn't. I'm kind of brain dead now, so hopefully I can get to sleep at some point...

I know a lot of people online... some are real -life friends that I've known for years, some I've just known briefly, some were acquaintances in high school years ago, some are people online that I've known for many years, and some are people online that I've only known for a while. All different sorts. I "Friend" all sorts of people on Facebook because I don't mind having lots of friends, and with my site using volunteer power, it's good to know lots of different people. I rarely unfriend or block anyone. Usually, they have to really insult me. More often than not, someone unfriends me because they take offense at something I said politically or religiously. That person is never a real-life friend because most of them know me well enough not to take offense (However, I did have a family member do that--but whatever, that's his perogative). Anyway, online people don't really know you. People you took classes with back in high school probably don't know you, either. Those are the type that sometime get offended. It's too bad, but oh, well. I'm probably better off without them, and they're the ones who are missing out on being my friend. :) I don't invest much emotionally in these people because otherwise it would be too much and I'd get upset. Only real-life friends and family matter. I do have some very good online friends that I like and it would probably bother me if they unfriended me, but then again, I'd have to say, well, I just didn't know that person as well as I thought, so again, it's their loss. There's a few online friends I've met in real life, so they're more like real-life acquaintances. They're in that grey area between online and real life, I guess. Like my friend Boo that passed away last year. It still really saddens me that she died because she worked with me on my site for years, and we used to talk a lot on the phone as well as online.

Anyhow, there's this girl that I've been online friends with for a couple of years now. She clearly has trouble with relating to people (bad social skills), and I tried to help her because she was always complaining that she didn't have many friends. I felt bad for her because she has many health problems as well. However, she was very annoying, so I just this week unfriended her. I really hated to do it, but when someone doesn't want help and is unwilling to change, and all they do is complain, then what else can you do? Every time I'd say something, she would use it as an opportunity to say that I had a lot more friends than her. I'm sorry, but that's pathetic as well as annoying. She's very needy and plays these games. I'm sorry for anyone who's lonely, but a lot of times, there's a reason when someone has no friends. They can't relate to other human beings and don't want to fix that. Like any other mental or emotional problem, you have to want to get help and be willing to work at it. You can't just make excuses and whine. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true. Your real life friends may understand, but you can't expect people you barely know to put up with that sort of behavior. I've also heard from a few other people since then that had the same problem with her, which doesn't surprise me. Ah, well. It's too bad..

I kept trying to get to sleep but couldn't do it until 3:30pm. Blah. I woke up at 5:50pm when David called. We went to the place he likes, J.J. Dolan's, for dinner. I just had a salad.

My DVR was messing up, but rebooting it seems to have helped! Yay! So glad.

I took my last antibiotic today! Hopefully that's the last

I went to bed before 9pm.

Wednesday September 3

I woke up around 1:30 am! It was very hot, and I'm just so itchy. :(

I thought I had a concert next weekend, but it's the weekend after that. D'oh!

I went back to sleep for awhile. I had some pretty good dreams, but then the last one turned into a nightmare that I woke up from. It was about my band. UGH!

I've still been having some occasional painful twinges in my ears. I made an appointment with my doctor for next Monday.

I went over to the post office to mail some things, and then I went to Fisher to look for something, but they didn't have it, so I went to Ross instead.

Today was a very busy day. I spoke with Ronn, our band's drummer, for quite a long time on the phone. It was very productive and interesting.

For a brief time, my computer wasn't working, and I called Dell in a panic! Frontpage froze, as it sometimes does, so I decided to reboot (it had been a while since I rebooted, anyway). The computer said I should install Windows updates before rebooting, so I did. Then it didn't start up again. The lights on the front were on, but no matter how much I pressed the power button, it wouldn't come on. I also tried unplugging it. Well, apparently it just went into hibernation mode and I just had to hold the power button down until it turned off again. Sometimes we forget the easy or obvious answers! LOL! My laptop's only 6 months old, but I've had computers die before, after that length of time (although admittedly, not a Dell, which is why I keep buying them). I was in a panic because I haven't backed up my files for quite a while. The tech support person helped me figure it out.

Then I asked him for help on fixing my touchpad problem, but he had no answer. He said he would look to see what he could find, though. It's a weird thing, but when I tap on the right side of the touchpad, nothing happens. I can move the mouse cursor but not tap. So it's probably not a hardware problem because if it were, I wouldn't be able to move the cursor at all. The software says that I have the option turned off that causes this problem, so it's not that. I've updated the drivers and also deleted it and re-added it, but nothing has helped. It's darned annoying, since I'm right-handed.

Anyway, despite problems people have had recently with "the cloud", I backed up my files there, for now... I still have to find my external hard drive to back up to that. It's packed in one of the boxes I haven't unpacked yet. I'm not worried because I have no naked selfies!

I had GF cupcakes today...bad! They were delicious, though. We went to Epic for dinner.

Otherwise, just been working on my site.

Thursday September 4

The past two days, I've been getting up really early. I hope to continue getting up before 10am, at least.

I had a conference call this morning and that went well. David and I ate at the Mexican fast food place near his work and then I got a few things at Walmart.

I did the laundry and dishes...been putting everything off while I work on my site and sleep a lot!

I'm still hoping to get an all-girl rock band together...we'll see. I need to find a drummer and a keyboard player still. I posted another ad on Craigslist and on social media.

Friday September 5

I had a few hours' sleep last night and then woke up too early, so I'm sure I'll need another nap.

I can't believe it's Friday already! Where did the week go? I really need to finish unpacking so I can get the house cleaned because it's gotten pretty dirty.

I've been having a hard time getting comfortable here while I work. Our couch is very comfy, but it doesn't provide much back support. I kept getting pillows etc. but nothing helped for very long. So I've been sitting on one of my new glider/rocker chairs, which has great back support. However, my butt hurts after sitting for a while (which is never does on the couch). I bought a cushion for the chair, but it only helps a little. SIGH. Maybe it has something to do with the way I'm sitting or something. I don't want to have to get an office chair.

Our old place had a built in microwave above the stove (there was no stove hood, so it was fairly low enough for me to reach). The new place has none. It has a shelve above the stove hood, but it's far too high for anyone to reach for microwaving without a stepstool or being a giant! So I wanted to get a small one for the counter, but when I went to Walmart, they only had them in white. I wanted one in black or green. So I went on Amazon and it was actually cheaper to get a larger one. I didn't want to spend more than $60, which was about the price of the one at Walmart. So I had to get this huge .09 cubit feet one that barely fits on my kitchen counter...but oh well, at least it was cheap and I'm sure it will work fine since it's an Oster.

I got a phone call around 9:30 from James, the guy who was the manager of our old condo here. Apparently Fedex had left a package for me at the door of our old place, and he had gotten it. I was irritated to have to talk over there to get it. It's not far, but I was in bed. I asked him to please just leave it at the security downstairs if he sees any more. CBS has sent me a lot of videos this summer, which is great, but I've told them 3 times now to send it to 709 instead of 1609! And Fedex should know better because a) they're not supposed to just leave packages at the door, and b) I get tons of packages here, so the guy who delivers them should know I'm in 709 by now. Very annoying. I phoned Fedex, but the guy I spoke with there was both an idiot and hard to understand. I tried to get him to give me a local number to call or put me through to the local office, but that was beyond him. He said he would put some kind of message through, and I finally gave up after explaining the problem 3 times. Then I get a call from the Fedex office in Columbus! He had put it through there, to my old address. SMH! I'll have to talk to the security people downstairs and see if I can get them to let the Fedex people know not to leave packages at 1609. What a PITA.

Did I say nap? wow, I slept most of the day and night!

David had a late work thing. He came home around 8pm, and we went to HASR so I could get dinner. I always love their wonderful eggplant souffle, and we also shared some ribs. It was "First Friday" downtown so there were lots of people all over. We ran into Sara and her girls as they were getting take-out, too, so that was nice.

I've been itching a lot. I have some twinges still in my ears. Stupid allergies.

Saturday September 6

I woke up around 5am. A bit too early!

David had a work thing for most of the day. I spent half the day working on my site and then quite a bit of time unpacking. Almost done! I can actually close the guest bedroom door now.

I went to McDonald's for lunch. Yes, it was unhealthy, but I really enjoyed it. Sometimes you gotta.

I resisted the urge to have a nap in the afternoon, so I ended up going to bed before 9pm.

We went to Waikiki for dinner, to Hatsuhana, the Japanese place he likes, in the Hilton. It was ok. Usually I like their chicken, but it was not as good as usual - too dry. I don't know, my stomach was kind of turning in the evening. We went briefly to the Irish bar, but it was way too smoky so we didn't stay long. I went to bed super-early again.

Sunday September 7

I had a nice long sleep and woke up around 7 am. That's more like it! I'm surprised I'm not hungrier, since I didn't eat much yesterday.

We went to Zippy's for breakfast about 9, and then we walked 3 miles. David does this every Sunday, but it's rare that I'm awake and have the energy to join him. It was pretty hot, but at least it wasn't too humid. Parts were in the sun, but a lot of it was in the shade or had a nice breeze. So glad that's over with!

Then we went to the grocery store, and then he took down all of the empty boxes we had to the dumpster (it was a LOT). We went to lunch, and he watched some football. Then I did some work while he napped. I'm really trying not to nap so I can make sure to keep to a good schedule.

We went to dinner at Downbeat. Neither of us was very hungry, so we both just had Greek salads.

Not much else going on besides working.... tomorrow I'll finish unpacking if I can. Too tired today!

My ears haven't hurt since Friday, so I canceled my doctor's appointment. Yay!

I ended up staying up until almost midnight. I slept very well.

Have a great week and don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of August 25

2014-09-02T12:49:00.000-05:00

Monday 8/25/14

I stayed up really late last night, and I decided to sleep in today, for a change. I didn't wake up until after 3:30!

My right ear started hurting again yesterday. I hope it's not more of the ear infection. I'm also been grinding my teeth a bit on that side, so maybe it's just that. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between ear pain and jaw pain.

We went to Epic for dinner.... one of our usual spots. I love their scallops, but they're very expensive (you only get 2 for $10). That's Hawaii, though. I usually get that and then a salad, which is really big, and I take half of it home for later.

Just working on my site tonight and maybe I'll do a little unpacking, too....

There are some black spots on the underside of my shower curtain rod, so I'm wondering if it's mold or not. I hope not! I was able to scrub about half of it off. I'll have to get David to take it down for me this weekend...too difficult to reach up and scrub.

Tuesday 8/26/14

I wanted to wake up a bit earlier, but I didn't...have to set the alarm tomorrow.

I've been doing a little bit of unpacking. I'm so tired of looking at all of this mess! It's hard to find time and energy, though.

David had an early evening thing to go to, so we didn't go out for dinner. I went to Safeway in the afternoon and finally got some groceries. We've been so busy lately that we haven't had any time to do real grocery shopping.

Wednesday 8/27/14

The internet stopped working around 1am, and they said they were working on it, and I was tired, anyway, so I tried to go to bed for a few hours. (By the time I got up again, it was working)

Our bed is kind of broken right now. It's a cheap frame and this is the second time it's broken. What happens is the outer part gets broken, bends outward, so the slats underneath fall and then the bed slants and it's hard to sleep on. When it happened last year on my side, it was only a little slanted, so I could still sleep on it just fine. It was under warranty then, so they ordered the new part and although it took months, it did get fixed. Now it's been over a year, so it's not under warranty. It broke on David's side this time, and much worse, so that it really slants a lot. Very uncomfortable. We keep lifting up the mattress and putting the slats back, but they keep falling off. So he sleeps on my side, but then when I want to sleep, I have to either push him over or sleep on the bad side. We looked into what we could do to buy boards to shore, but we don't think it would work. We really need to just get a new bed. I'll call around next week to see where the cheapest frame would be.

My ear was hurting a bit the past two days, so I made an appointment to go back to the doctor on Friday to see if I still have an ear infection. Today it's been okay, though. Of course!

I was up very late because of being sick with a stomach ache, so I didn't go to bed again until 11am the next day.

I stopped sitting on the couch and have been instead sitting on one of the glider rockers I bought a few months ago. It's way better on my back, but it's not as comfortable on my butt. The couch is very comfy, but it doesn't have good back support. I even have a pillow there (one of those that helps you sit up in bed), but it's not good enough. I need a hard back behind me and not as much area to slump in.

I woke up after 5pm! Leon was supposed to come today and fix the closet doors, but I guess he's coming tomorrow.

I sent David's old phone to a data recovery service, but they were unable to save the photos he'd taken in Taiwan. Bummer. I was really hoping I would have good news for him. It was fried and corroded after going through the laundry.

I didn't think it was very hot today, but now it seems very warm...but I can't complain too much because this place is way cooler than the old one.

I went to bed around midnight for a change. I slept until about 6am, so that was good. Even though the bed is not very comfortable!

I dreamed that I died (not sure how) and then I was ushered to "the other side" and then they said it was okay for me to go back. I had some of my stuff with me as well. I was relieved, but surprised that it was so easy. And then I kept having this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something they told me, or a sense of impending doom. After awhile, I woke up. Weird!

Thursday 8/28/14

Yesterday my ear felt better, but today it's hurting again. :(

I had a conference call at 9 this morning, and then Leon came over around 10:45. He's the guy who runs Elite Cleaning, but he's also a handyman. He couldn't find the right size or type of track for our closet doors, but when he looked at them again today, he figured out that it's probably the wheels on the bottom of the doors that are the problem, not the tracks. The doors are so old (like everything else in this place!) that it might be difficult to find those particular wheels, he said (and there's no visible part number). So he just cleaned the wheels and put WD40 on them, and they're fine for now. As long as they don't come off the tracks again, and I can open and close them, then it's fine.

David and I went to the Chinese restaurant across the street. I used to get the Kung Pao Chicken, but last time they said it had soy sauce (previously, they said it didn't), so I got the Beef and Broccoli instead. It tasted ok, but it was in this gross, slimy, viscous sauce. Probably they used too much corn starch, but it was kind of a gross texture. Hard to eat, hard to get past that texture.

Then I went to Long's and got a few things. I should have brought my cart - it was a bit too heavy. Ah, well.

I took a little nap for a while after that. I just slept for a few hours. We went back to Downbeat for dinner because there wasn't any other place that we could both agree on. There are a ton of restaurants here, but I can only eat at ones that are not risky for gluten, and he's very picky about where he eats, so it's difficult for us to find one we both will go to, especially since we're very familiar with all of them now. There are tons of other places further away, but he doesn't have time to go to them during the week. It would be fine if only I stuck to my diet :) because I can eat salads almost anywhere.

I did the laundry today, and the dishes last night. I've been trying to straighten up and keep things neat, and finish unpacking. I hope to have it done very soon. Most of what I have left is in the guest bedroom now. I just have about 6 boxes out in the hallway.

I'm falling asleep here tonight, even though it's only 10pm. I just have to eat something and take my pills, then we'll see. I have a lot of work to do!

I think I'll post this next week instead of on Thursday since I started it late. I think Monday or Tuesday might be a better night for posting my blogs, anyway.

There was an internet meme I saw that asked, if someone paid you $3million, would you stop using computers, cell phones, and TV's etc.? Unless you're filthy rich or a real addicted idiot, the answer is "Yes, of course"! I wouldn't like it, but of course I'd do it for that much money. I'd probably do it for even less. Maybe $100,000. For that, I could pay someone to run my site for 3 months. It would definitely be difficult. But on the other hand, I kind of wish I could unplug for a while (not for too long). It would force me to unpack everything else, read some books, clean the place, maybe sort my business cards and hey, maybe I'd actually go exercise and go to the beach! I don't want to unplug, but it would certainly be good for me if I was forced to (if I had a good excuse). There are just too many ways to waste time between all of these electronic devices! :) I'm sure it would be more difficult to completely unplug if we had kids, though.

I went to bed about 10pm...I was very tired! I just woke up, around 2:30am. Crazy hours. Oh, well.

Friday 8/29/14

I have a doctor's appointment at 9am. David's going to drive me over there and pick me up sometime later, probably after 11. I'll bring my Kindle and wait. Otherwise I'd have to bother with a cab or walk home. It's only about a mile but since I haven't had enough sleep, I probably won't feel like it. Being lazy!

They took so long at Kaiser that I didn't even have to wait for David to pick me up (I was there over 2 1/2 hours total). I was in the doctor's office about an hour. Mostly waiting! First I was sitting out in the area where they take your blood pressure and weigh you, for a very long time. I was really tired and falling asleep. She took my blood pressure about 5 times. She wasn't happy with the readings. I told her that I've been taking Sudafed a lot lately, and it always raises my bp. She ignored me and kept taking it, anyway, until she got a reading she liked better. I hate that bp thing - I have very sensitive upper arms. Then I had to wait a very long time before they finally put me in a room...to wait more! Then I saw the doctor for a few minutes. She's nice, but they always try to talk you into trying different meds because stupid Kaiser wants you to only buy the ones they like. The nasal spray I use, Flonase, is not one they have a special deal with, I guess, so they'd rather you take Nasocort. Well, I had tried that one a long time ago and, either it didn't work, or it made my nose bleed, so that's why I use the other one now. Fortunately they'll still let me get it... but I'll bet this is not the last time she asks me. Anyway, I still have the ear infection so she gave me a different antibiotic. Hope it works! She said my inner ear is a little swollen, and the inside of my nose is a bit inflamed, too. She also suggested I take Aleve or some other kind of anti-inflammatory for it. Then going down to the pharmacy, it took 50 minutes to get the antibiotic! They never take less than a half hour there. It's ridiculous. They need to hire more people or something. Also, they need to hire smarter people. They first told me it would be 20 minutes. Ha!

When I saw the doctor, I also told her that my blood sugar monitor wasn't working right. When I try using it, it keeps saying the strips aren't working. Yet, I tried it with 3 different boxes of test strips. So the doctor said to just get a new one at the pharmacy. Well, since I just got this monitor in July, they said the insurance won't cover it. So I told them that the other one doesn't work. So first the question, did they show you how to use it? I felt like saying, no, I'm stupid...they make these things for idiots, and they also come with very specific instructions. I said, yes, I know how to use it. It's easy, you just prick your finger, put the strip in, and put the blood on it. Duh! So then she said they need to test it (they can't just take my word for it). I didn't feel like waiting another hour, so I just said never mind, I'll call the 800 number... Jeez. And this woman, who was nice but really stupid, every time I said something to her, she had to run off to her supervisor for help, making it take twice as long. Grrrr! No wonder my blood pressure was high! LOL!

I went home and made some lunch for dinner. I'd had a snack at Kaiser while I was waiting. Then I went back to sleep for about 6 hours. I was so tired and groggy when I woke up. Not from the drugs, just having such an erratic sleeping schedule lately. Feeling stuffed up all of the time doesn't help make me feel better, either.

David had an event with students, so he came home after 7, and then we went to Duc's Bistro, which is just down the street. We don't go too often because it's very expensive (even compared to all of the other expensive places here, and also for the amount of food you get). I love it, though. It's Vietnamese food, but in a fine dining setting. The food is great, and I particularly love their crispy spring rolls, which use rice wraps.

It'll be nice to have a 3 day weekend with David off on Monday! We haven't had a "free" weekend in over 2 months. We've either had visitors, or trips, or concerts, or rehearsals, or meeting up with friends, or moving. Not that we mind most of that, but sometimes it's nice to just have a relaxing weekend and be able to run errands that you don't have time to do during the week. David needs to get new work shoes; and we need to go to the Times Supermarket. Hmm, wonder if I can talk him into going to see Guardians of the Galaxy? Oh, yes, we also have a ton of boxes to take downstairs, from the unpacking. Well, looks like we are probably going to have one evening out with friends, after all, but that's fine :)

Just working on my site now. It's very warm in here tonight, even with the fans going. I want to do some more unpacking, but it's hard when it's so warm.

It's funny, but when we say "sense of humor" it can mean a lot of different things. For instance, David has a great sense of humor and always has. What this means, though, is that he's very funny. He makes me, and many others, laugh. But as far as laughing himself, he is very picky and only finds certain things funny. Whereas, I'm not the funniest person around, and I'm not good at telling jokes, but I find lots of things funny. More than he does. For instance, I think the show "Vicious" is hilarious. I showed him two episodes and he thought they were boring. So go figure! I do have to say that I'm funnier than I used to be. I think that comes with being more confident. I can make some pretty good jokes in a situation. I probably learned that from him! Also, I'm a lot pickier than I used to be. I don't find most sitcoms today funny. I think that unless you're not too bright, as you get older, you do get pickier. If nothing else, you've heard a lot more jokes, so your expectations are higher and you can see jokes coming a lot sooner.

I'm getting a little tired...I might have to take a nap. It's almost midnight, which is not that late for me...

Saturday 8/30/14

I woke up around 4:30am and stayed up. I got a lot of work done. We went to breakfast at Zippy's around 8:30 and then I went back to sleep for about an hour. Then we went to lunch and David watched some of the Bama game (they won). Then we stopped at Walmart and got a few things. I wanted to get a microwave, but they only had them in white (the small ones), so I will buy it online instead.

Then I came back and found out that I'm still going through peri-menopause...UGH. I thought I was done with all that. Oh, well. I can't complain too much because it's been pretty easy so far. I know a lot of women who have terrible hot flashes, insomnia etc. Thankfully, I've had none of that! But now this is just making me very sleepy this week. It always has - I'd forgotten that.

Now it's nap time! Later, we went to dinner on Waikiki. We went to Kani Ka Pila Grille..more out of habit than anything. They have GF bread, which I like, but their food is just okay. If you get the more expensive dishes or eat things I can't, then it tastes better. LOL! But they always play nice music, and it's very pleasant.

Then we went to the Irish bar that David likes, Kelley O'Neil's. One of the patrons had a tiny cute little white Pomeranian. It was very friendly and liked to lick. He really kept me entertained while David watched football.

I was very tired when we got home, and I went to sleep pretty early. My arms were hurting a lot all day, from the shots I got at the doctor! Between that, and the allergies, and being really tired, I felt awful. I slept until about 2am.

Sunday 8/31/14

I was very sick this morning, perhaps from eating gluten somewhere...

I went back to sleep around 4:30 and slept for about 3 more hours. Blah. Then I was up for a while, and then I started getting a migraine. I only get these once or twice a year at most. My vision starts getting blurry and then I see these zig-zaggy shapes in front of my vision. I have to go lie down and then I get a headache, and my eyes are sensitive to the light and sound. Today the headache was pretty bad, and I always had sinus pain. It was awful, and all day I've been sleeping more.

We went to lunch around noon, to Gordon Biersch. It was ok. I just had a cheeseburger and fries. They overcooked the burger, which they tend to do here with most meat. It was beautiful on the water, though, and we had nice breezes. Then we stopped at Ross so David could get some shoes. Then I was sick again, and then I did some work for a while and went back to sleep for a few hours. I really wish I could go back to sleep, but we're meeting our friends dinner. That should be fun - if I can stay awake! :)

I had a nap and then we walked over to where Matthew and Sara live. We all drove over to this place called Pint & Jigger, but it was very crowded and loud, so instead we drove to the mall and ate at Mariposa, which is a nice restaurant in the Neiman Marcus store in Ala Moana. It was really delicious and we all enjoyed it. They have foods marked on there with GF, so that was helpful. I had an appetizer that was pretty good - pork belly and scallops. The entree was ok. It was chilean sea bass, which was okay but not worth the price. We had some great wine and delicious sorbet for dessert. We all had a really good time chatting, though. It was very humid and we sat outside, so that was difficult. After you've had enough wine, though, it doesn't matter! :)

I went to bed pretty early and slept a lot. I guess I needed it! I woke up around 7am.

Monday 9/1/14

Happy Labor Day!

I went back to sleep and have been sleeping off and on all day. UGH. Probably from the female thing.

We drove to the Times grocery store around 10. It's been a long while! We got everything we needed.

We went to lunch at Tram Le's, a Vietnamese restaurant that we've been to a few times. They have excellent fried rice.

Later, we found that most of the restaurants were closed due to the holiday. I got take-out from Brasserie du Vin, the French restaurant. I always like their food, although it's super-expensive for what you get. I think I might have to find a good recipe for pear walnut salad that's as good as theirs.

The rest of the night was un-eventful! I took a little nap and then worked on my site, and I also did quite a bit of unpacking. Only a little bit left! Yay!

I phoned Verio, the company that makes my blood sugar monitor, and they took me through some tests and determined that it's not working right (duh!), so they're sending me a new one.

I hope you had a great Labor Day three day weekend!

Have a great week and don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of August 17

2014-08-25T08:08:00.000-05:00

Friday August 15

Today is Admissions Day! Hawaii became a state August 21, 1959, but they celebrate it on the 3rd Friday in August. David's at a private school now, so he didn't get the day off.

I stayed up pretty late last night, so today I slept in until almost 1pm. Leon, the guy who runs the cleaning service we used last week, also does other handyman/repair type of things, so he came over to look at our window air conditioners. He looked at both and they are very old (2000) so he's going to find us some cheap ones and install them, and dispose of the old ones. I emailed the condo's owner to make sure it's okay with him, and then on Thursday Leon is returning to install the a/c. Yay! I hope it all works out ok.

We got most of our deposit back from our old place...they did charge us for staying 3 extra days, even though we were pretty sure they said they wouldn't...whatever, it's not a big deal. Not worth arguing about.

I was sick with my usual D problems today and I was also very tired and slept a lot.

I had a late lunch, so I went with David to Ra Kuen, the sushi place he likes, for dinner, and I watched him eat. Then we went over to the French restaurant, Brasserie Du Vin, that I like but he's not too fond of. He had some soup and I had a really good salad, plus some flourless chocolate cake. The salad had candied walnuts, pears, blue cheese and proscuitto. Yum!

I got a lot of work done on my site but haven't done any unpacking at all today...

Saturday August 16

I've been so busy all week that I haven't had much time to keep track of what I'm doing, and my blog is late! LOL!

After lunch, I had another rehearsal with my band. It was a lot of fun. We're starting to feel more like a band now, playing off each other. A band, or any kind of performance group, doesn't really work until they're playing ONE rather than as individuals.

After a short rest, we went over to our friends' Tom and Cynthia's place for dinner. They live in a high rise near Ala Moana Center. They have an awesome view of the beach and the city, and their home is beautiful. Bigger than ours, with a really nice balcony. Tom is a retired professor and she currently teaches still in Texas but does a lot of the teaching online, so she can go back and forth. She made a wonderful dinner that was delicious. It was gluten free, low carb, and low salt for Tom. We had a nice time, sitting around and chatting.

We had a lot of wine, and I went to bed pretty early after we got home. I was exhausted!

Sunday August 17

Today I mostly worked on my site and did some unpacking... nothing too exciting.

Monday August 18

I called Verizon to see why we had gone through so much data usage so far this month, and they gave us an extra gig for free for a year! So that was cool.

All week I've just been really busy with errands and stuff, and fixing up the house, and also just getting more and more antsy before our concert on Friday. I was very nervous, I guess.

Tuesday August 19

We went out to karaoke with one of David's colleagues, Jack, who's chair of the communications department. He's the guy who took us around the islands for a tour when we came out for the job interview, and he also went with us to karaoke. Jack used to work in radio and knows lots of musicians. We met his girlfriend at GS Studios, the karaoke box place down on Waikiki that we've been to quite often. It has private karaoke. Frankly, I would have preferred a public karaoke place, but ended up being pretty fun. I sang a lot and they were a nice audience. I don't know how to spell Jack's girlfriend's name, it's something like Mei or Mai. She and her friend are Vietnamese. He just moved here. Anyway, everyone sang but her friend. He only wanted to sing Vietnamese songs, and they didn't have any. It was fun, though. We ate a lot of snacks and had many drinks. We were there a few hours.

Wednesday August 20

Nothing exciting happened! As I recall, anyway...

Thursday August 21

The service that cleaned our last place is called Elite Cleaners and it's run by a guy named Leon. He's also a handyman, so he's the one I asked to look into our broken a/c's. He called around the island, but they don't sell the ones we need anywhere here. The Honolulu Tower requires a particular type of window a/c unit, and you have to order it somewhere else. Many people here have ordered it from China, apparently. So instead of replacing the a/c, Leon came and cleaned out the one in the bedroom (the one that worked but leaked). He brought a friend to help him with it, and they cleaned it out on the lanai, inside and out, getting lots of crud out of it. It's about 14 years old and probably has been sitting up there for that long, too. Anyway, he got it working, so that's good. I really wanted the one in the living room to work, too, but it sounds like it would be way too expensive. Leon also came back on Friday and fixed the blinds in our bedroom (they're also old and come down very easily), and he somewhat fixed the sliding glass closet doors in the bedroom. The track is really old and worn, so he's going to come back next week and replace it. He did a really good job on all of it, but he or his friend did leave some black marks on the wall, so they need to clean that.

A guy came to fix the washing machine today, too, but the small problem it has really can't be fixed. It's an old machine, so he can't get parts. It's ok, it's a minor problem.

Friday August 22

Leon was here for quite a while and I was getting hungry, and testy! :)

Tom picked David and me up around 5:20 and drove us to Wahiawa, which is a long way, out near the military base. We had originally planned to take a cab, or stay at a hotel nearby, since we don't like to drive at night, or drink and drive, but Tom kindly offered. Otherwise the cab would have cost us a few hundred dollars, and there are no nearby motels or hotels! Cynthia suggested that he drive us, thankfully, and he was glad to do it. He saved us a lot of money and trouble. He and David ate dinner when we got there (traffic was terrible, took us an hour in the rush hour traffic to get the 20 miles). I set up my stuff...not too much for me to set up, since they already have the mic there.

We did pretty well in our concert, but some things need to be ironed out, or worked out. We still take too much time between songs, and the first break was only supposed to be about 15 minutes and it was twice that. There were some other things, but those were the main problems. Some of us need to make sure we learn the music or words a little better. I need to make sure all of my songs are memorized or not do them. I had most memorized, but one song "Electric Slide", I had a notecard with the words, and I still messed up...! David said the notecard looked bad so next time I need to either write it on my hand or not do it at all. One of the other guys still plays from music on a music stand, and that's not good. He needs to be right there with the rest of us. He's the other new guy besides me.. The crowd really liked dancing, so they danced through all of our songs, and even asked for encore. I wish we'd had more people there, though. It was a pretty big place, but I think it was about, I don't know, half full? Maybe slightly more than that. I knew people who said they might come, but no one did, aside from our ride, Tom, and this woman Deborah that lives next to Ron, our drummer (she's also a professor in the English department at David's school). I think she and Ron both live nearby. I was disappointed that none of our other friends were there, but I understand that it's quite a long drive. Maybe we can get a gig closer to the downtown.

I meant to record our concert, but I forgot to bring the little recorder that I had. David took a few video clips on his phone, but they're pretty bad quality. Still, if you want to see them, they're at http://suzann.com/music/clips/august22/ Right-click on each clip to download it and then please view it on your computer. Don't stream it unless you have to as that may slow down my site's server.

Saturday August 23

I spent most of the weekend just sleeping, eating, and watching TV, not much else. I need to get back to unpacking the house!

The weather hasn't been too bad, thank goodness! Much cooler than last year, I think.

I usually buy Cascade powdered dishwasher detergent, but the last two boxes I bought were all clumped, like in one large solid block. After asking friends for help online, the best option seemed to be to cut it into smaller blocks and put it in the food processor. I was loathe to do that, until I remembered that I have this really good Japanese knife that's super sharp and cuts almost anything. That did the trick!

I think I'm finally over the ear infection I got last week. I was supposed to take the antibiotics three times a day, but I kept forgetting, so I just took my last one. Sometimes my ears still feel plugged up, but at least they're not hurting.

I posted on Craigslist and some other places to try to get together an all-female band. I'm staying with the band I have now, but I think it would be fun to have a second one, to do more female rock songs from the 70's and 80's. So far I got two replies from women who sing and play the guitar. We really need a keyboard player and a drummer. I may post a second ad next week...

Earlier in the week, since I was antsy about the concert, I didn't feel like doing any work around the house...just seemed too taxing. So I did work a lot on my site instead. That's something, anyway! Always more to do, of course.

Have a great week and don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of August 10

2014-08-16T06:08:00.000-05:00

Thursday August 7

It was a super busy day! I got up early, even though I was very tired. The cleaning service was supposed to come by around 9. It was supposed to be this guy Leon, who's the boss, as well as the maid Jacquie (she cleaned our place last month). A move-out cleaning is a big job and needs at least 2 people. I waited until 9:20am at our old place, and I emailed them both, and I called her, but no one came or called me back, so I went back to our new place because I was very tired and there was nowhere comfortable to sit in the old place (all the furniture was gone, and the rugs were not that clean). I checked my email when I got back and saw one from Leon from an hour earlier, saying he'd had trouble finding a place to park. I wasn't sure what that meant.... then he finally did call me and gave me an excuse about why Jacquie couldn't make it and that he phoned me and waited for me. Well, I didn't buy it at first, but there was a record that he did call and leave a message, and he had asked me a question about my answering machine message. However, my phone had no record of his call or that I had missed any calls, and it sure hadn't rung. So weird. Anyway, I got him to come back to the place, and he started cleaning around 11. I gave him my key in case he needed to go anywhere because it locks automatically.

David and I had lunch at the Mexican fast food place near his office. It was pretty good. I think we've only eaten there once before because it usually has a really long line. We got lucky.

After lunch, I did some shopping. I had bought water earlier in the week, but we also needed some non-perishable food in case the hurricane hit us. They were predicting that we would get a tropical storm that would have 50 mph winds! That could easily knock out power. I also looked for flashlights, first aid kit, and batteries so we would have them handy.

Later, Jacquie called me about cleaning the place -- apparently she didn't know that Leon had already started! They need to communicate better. Anyway, it took them a really long time. They weren't done until around 6pm, and they had to bring in two other ladies to help! Thankfully, we had already settled on a price, so we weren't paying by the hour or by the person. We paid about $250, which coincidentally is also the same price we paid the movers the day before! I know that sounds expensive, but I had called around, and all of the other cleaning services were much more.

I did quite a bit of work at home. I did some on my site, and I also unpacked our bedroom and most of my bathroom.

I called around to ask about air conditioning repair, too - that seems very expensive. The A/C unit in the living room just blows regular air, not cold air. The one in the bedroom works fine. Our landlord won't pay to fix or replace them, so we might have to. Seems like getting a new one might be cheaper, not sure yet.

I had a short nap while we were waiting for them to finish cleaning. David's school was closed at 3:30 because of the impending weather, so he came home and helped me out.

We went to dinner at Murphy's. I had one of their specials, broiled Opah. Opah is a really good local fish - not dry like a lot of them. I just had it plain and it was still really good. It was raining when we walked home.

The nap helped me out. I ended up staying up pretty late doing unpacking and other stuff.

Friday August 8

The storm last night was loud with lots of wind and rain, but it was not too bad, and we didn't lose power or anything. So glad! But I really didn't expect it to be too bad, either.

I woke up around 11:30, and we went to breakfast at Zippy's (delicious!). We were both pretty tired from all of the stress from moving. I did some work on my site and my blogs, and then I took a short nap.

I really need to get some groceries as well as a new microwave and a new phone (landline, not cell). The phones were already cheap and old, and they didn't work all that well, then I knocked one off the shelf when we were moving, so....time to get a new one.

For dinner, we went to J.J. Dolan's, which is nearby. We're boring and always go to the same places, LOL!

I did more unpacking and work on the site in the evening. I finished unpacking my bathroom stuff, and David's, and I've done quite a bit in the living room as well.

I need to test some of the appliances and stuff around the house so I can send the checklist to the landlord.

Tomorrow is our primary, so we're voting for Schatz, Takai, and Abercrombie. Those are the main races.

I have a rehearsal with my band tomorrow, too. New rehearsal place (I think this one is actually closer). I haven't had a chance yet to look for my music or sing or anything. I don't even know where my lyrics are packed!

Going to have print out new lyrics, watch a little more TV, and then go to bed early. Big weekend!

Saturday August 9

Wow, things have been really hectic this week and it's not getting any better for a few weeks.

This morning, we went to vote in our state's primary and then had a quick lunch. They had misspelled my name on the sign-in sheet, so I had to fill out some forms and wait a bit...that was annoying.

Then we went to my rehearsal, which was in a slightly difference place than previous rehearsals. I don't know why they switched. This place was not nearly as good. It was much smaller and had few chairs, and the a/c wasn't working right. The rehearsal was 4 hours long, which is about 1 hour too long, especially in the heat and with all that standing. We were mostly sitting on the floor, half-asleep by the time it was done. It went okay but was somewhat frustrating. Hopefully next week will go better!

We just had a brief rest and then went to Waikiki to meet our friends Lena and George for dinner at this restaurant in the Trump Hotel called BLT Steak. It was really good food, and the service was fantastic. They treated us like royalty and were very good about gluten. The chef even came out to speak to me, and apparently he doesn't do that very often. It was also super expensive! We were both really tired... we enjoyed the company but we were probably a little too tired to really be very sociable.

Sunday August 10

I don't really remember what we did on this day besides working on my site and unpacking (I wasn't very good about keeping track this week) but my right ear started hurting and felt plugged up.

Our governor lost his primary...that's too bad...not that I care all that much, but he was very good to David's university.

David's phone accidentally went through the wash, which is not a good idea - especially if you have an old, cheap phone. It's a shame because he lost the photos he took on his last two trips. He's pretty upset about it.

Monday August 11

In the morning, I had a work conference call, and then I met with the realtor of our old place. He checked everything out and then I gave him the keys. He's a nice guy, and we always enjoy chatting in email etc. He works right across the street at the Chinese Cultural Center.

While I was waiting for James, I stood on the lanai for awhile and admired the view for the last time. I took this pic. I miss that view!

I was very tired all day from not having enough sleep the night before. I had trouble sleeping due to my ear hurting, and allergies making me cough and itch, and also, I think, from having a nap the day before.

I walked over to Verizon and got David a new phone. Unfortunately, the old one is fried and they couldn't retrieve anything from it. The phone is supposed to automatically back up everything, but it stopped sometime in 2013. He probably accidentally took that feature off. I got him one almost exactly the same as the last one he got. He wanted another cheap one. It's LG something or other.

I got us lunch at Subway, which we quickly ate in his office, and then I went to the doctor (well, physician's assistant). I have fluid in my ears, and the right one has an ear infection. This is just from allergies. I didn't even know you could get an ear infection from allergies! UGH. She gave me antibiotics and told me to take Sudafed on top of the other allergy medicine I'm already taking.

I wanted to go to bed when I got home, but I had scheduled the computer repair guy to come over. Nice kid and he fixed it right up. This was not my main laptop or even the slightly older one that David uses. It's the XP desktop that I use just for making transcripts on my site. When we moved, I tried plugging in the ATI card thingy and I messed it up somehow so the pins got bent. He had to straighten them for me. Only cost $152! Yikes. But that's how much things cost around here. I know because last time I had to have them help me out, it was expensive, too. I called around and they were the cheapest.

It was a depressing and stressful week. Soap opera actor Charles Keating passed away (I saw him once in person) and of course Robin Williams, one of my favorite actors, and others.

The plumber came briefly to look at our toilet. It's a new one he had installed, and the seat is smaller than the rest of the toilet, so it sort of slides you off....anyway, he said he'd have to find a bigger one and get back to me. Hmm.... haven't heard back yet.

I did quite a lot of unpacking this weekend.

Tuesday August 12

I got up very early and gathered all the empty boxes together after dismantling them. I got a cart from downstairs and took the boxes down. A woman from Freecycle is moving and wanted them, so I met her downstairs around 8:15. I was pretty tired. The manager downstairs, Jennifer, is very nice. She has a cute little girl and an even cuter medium sized dog named Flowers. Flowers is very friendly and likes to lick. The little girl came out to walk him while I was waiting there, so I was very glad to see them and get a friendly greeting from Flowers!

I went to sleep and then later, after I woke up, I saw I had a voice mail. I checked it and it was the security downstairs, telling me to turn off the a/c because it was dripping down and causing problems. What next! Very annoying.

It's hot here, especially at night. I don't know if we'll be able to live without any A/C. We do have the blinds and the ceiling fans etc. but still...

I did a lot of unpacking this week, when I wasn't resting and trying to recover from my ear infection, or working on my site. I unpacked the kitchen and quite a lot of the living room, but there's still plenty left. I can only do so much at a time. Moving boxes and such really hurts my back.

Wednesday August 13

I looked at microwaves at Walmart. We need to buy a new one because this place doesn't have one. Looks like I can get a small one for slightly less than $60. I did buy a new phone, a landline with answering machine. We're not getting any phone service turned on until Monday, though.

Thursday August 14

The movers weren't very gentle with our furniture. The mattress of our bed keeps falling down (on David's side this time) due to the slats falling off. I think his side was already slightly damaged before we moved, though. It kind of bulges a little there like mine did before that part of the frame got replaced (not as bad as mine did). We'll probably have to get a new bed frame.

They also damaged a chest of drawers that I use for office supplies in our guest bedroom. It was in fine condition and now it's almost falling apart. I called the moving company and they gave me a number and person to call about it...so tired of dealing with all this stuff.

I have to call Fedex as well because they keep delivering packages to my old address.

I decided I want to try to get a "girl band" together to sing rock and roll songs (this would be in addition to my other band). I don't know if I can or not, but I put a Craigslist ad out.

All week my allergies have still been really bad, with a sore throat that comes and goes, and ears aching, and itching. Blah.

I phone Ronn last night (the drummer of my band) to discuss last week's rehearsal etc.

The closet doors in our bedroom slide and they keep coming off the runner. Also, some of the slats in the blinds have come off and keep coming off. The towel rack in David's bathroom also fell off. Place is falling apart! LOL! Fortunately it seems to be minor repairs for the most part. I think I will enjoy this new place once all of the problems are fixed. I'm already enjoying having carpeting, blinds and ceiling fans!

I have tons of photos I need to upload, but I haven't had time yet!

Have a great week and don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of August 4

2014-08-08T21:13:00.000-05:00

Thursday July 31

I woke up at 4:45 am, about a half hour before the alarm went off. I guess I had plenty of sleep yesterday. I had weird dreams all night about TV and other stuff.

The cab came for us about 6:15. There weren't too many people around at that hour. We got a brown towncar, not a real cab. The woman driving it had a thick Kentucky accent. She was short and stocky and kept talking to us during the ride. She was hard to hear and understand. I don't know why cab drivers don't understand that it's hard to hear them in their back seat! We chatted about the area and us visiting from Hawaii. She asked if we'd been to the Creation Museum, but we hadn't. I didn't want to have an argument, so I didn't tell her that there's no way I'd ever go there. Maybe I'd go if it were free, just to laugh at it, but I'm sure not going to pay those people any money! She went on and on about it, and we just nodded politely, as if we were interested...

Going through security was pretty easy that early in the morning. Since it was so cold all week, and I only brought one sweater, I bought a Cincinnati sweatshirt. It was on sale for only $20, at least. I also bought some socks. I'm happy to be warm and toasty right now because the airport is freezing, too.

We had a so-so breakfast at this little coffee shop. I heard someone mention "General Hospital", so I wonder if they're going to the GH Weekend. It was definitely the TV show they were mentioning because we heard someone else reply that they didn't watch it. Our flight is going to L.A. first, so it's a possibility, since the GH weekend is on right now until Monday. Wish we were going there! I really should have planned better and tried to convince David to go. Maybe next year. It wouldn't have been hard to first go to Comic-Con, then somewhere for our anniversary, and then to the GH Weekend. A little exhausting, maybe, but still.

I'm not very tired, but I hope at some point I can sleep on the plane. I think we have slightly wider seats for the first leg of the flight because that was all that were left.

We fly from L.A. to Seattle, and then from Seattle to Hawaii. Long day! We arrive around 11pm or so at home.

Well, this is annoying. The Wifi here at the airport isn't working...

We had a long flight. I had a window seat but couldn't sleep. My back was hurting and it was just too uncomfortable. I watched some DVD's, but then my battery ran out. My legs tend to get really cramped on long flights, too. I feel bad for the poor guy that was sitting in the aisle seat because we got up so many times to use the restroom...ah, well.

When we got to L.A., we checked into the Alaskan Airlines "Board Room", which is their special VIP lounge. They have a deal where you can just pay $35 for a day pass, so we did that. It's a pretty small one, actually, not really worth the price. Drinks and snacks are free. At first we sat by the window because most of the other seats were taken or too close to other people. (We went to the American Airlines one last year and it was way bigger and better but also cost more) Then we realized it's very hot by the window, so eventually we moved to other seats that are more comfortable.

I was very thrilled because one of my favorite actors, Mark Sheppard, is sitting here in the lounge! I went and told him that he was one of my favorites and asked if he minded taking a photo. He was very nice and gracious about it. I was so nervous and now I'm giddy, excited, and it's hard to concentrate on anything else. Yes, I'm a geek. I can't help it. He's been on almost all of my favorite shows for the past decade or so and he's always so wonderful.

Our next flight is to Seattle in a few hours... I'll probably collapse on that plane from exhaustion and trying to recover my nerves :)

That flight was pretty short... the one from Seattle to Honolulu was endless. I had the window seat and it was just very cramped after awhile. When we first got on the plane, David and I both had to use the restroom. Coming back, I was standing behind the flight attendant, who was standing behind an older man, and in front of him, someone was putting their bag up. Then that guy turned to go forward, so everyone backed up. Well, I didn't do it fast enough, and the flight attendant didn't bother to look behind her, so she stepped on my toe. She had on big spike heels and I was wearing my usual sandals so it really hurt! Good thing she was skinny, but it was still pretty bad. She actually drew blood. She got me a bandage but wasn't very nice about the whole thing. She said I shouldn't stand behind her. WTF! If you're working around people in close quarters, you really shouldn't wear big spike heels, and especially you shouldn't back up without looking first.

We had screaming kids near us, but they quieted down once they got movie players and food, thank goodness. We both slept quite a bit. I was so tired. What a long day. When we got our suitcases, the airline had busted the pull handle on one of them. :(

I just watched a little TV and then went to sleep.

Friday, August 1

I woke up after 11am. I had a lot of sleep! David had meetings all day. I had opened a post office box, and they called to say it's ready, so I went there to get the number and key. Then I got lunch at McDonald's.

I've been just going going going all day! I unpacked all of our stuff from our trip, did laundry, straightened up the house, caught up on some work on my site, etc. I also cleaned some of our new apartment downstairs in 709. Tomorrow I plan to vacuum it.

They replaced the master bathroom toilet while we were gone because it had a leak. Now I find that the other one never filled up after I flushed it last week! David's going to take a look at it and see if he can figure it out. If not, I'll have to let our new landlords know. They'll think I'm some kind of plumbing jinx! :)

I was very happy to find that after such a long, hot day, the new apartment is pretty cool compared to our current one. It's lower, and it has trees outside, and shades, so it keeps the afternoon sun from making it so hot.

I'm very annoyed because I phoned Oceanic Time Warner Cable to find out when we can switch our phone/net/cable service to the new place. They can't do it until 8/21! WTF!!! Probably the latest we'll leave here is next Saturday, 8/9, so that means about 9 days without TV or internet. At least I'll have my cell phone, but still... it really annoys me. They did call me back with one of those automated calls that asks you about their service, so I did let them know how unhappy I am! Plus posted it on Twitter and Facebook. They obviously need to hire more people to install cable. I thought we had a high unemployment rate here in Hawaii? Jeez. Here it is late summer, almost Fall, when people are moving, and they don't have enough people.

We went to Ra-Kuen for dinner. It's not my favorite place, but David likes it. It's mostly sushi and there's only really one thing I like there or can eat due to all the soy sauce.

Saturday August 2

I complained about Oceanic Time Warner Cable on Twitter and Facebook, so they replied immediately that they would see what they could do. Then they phoned me this morning to say that I could definitely get my service right away. I just have to hook it up and then phone them to get my internet and cable going. They can do activate it remotely (I kind of figured that...). The phone service will take a few more days. So that's excellent!

I've been so extremely busy lately and very tired, and achy from all of it. Saturday we went to lunch at Gordon Biersch. It was very hot -- too hot for such a long walk! And although their restaurant is on the water, there was very little breeze. I had their buffalo burger, and it comes with fries. It was all very good, although they cooked it too much. I asked for medium well and got well done instead. Oh, well. Then we stopped for a cold drink at O'Toole's. The bartender there is very nice and they always have a little free lunch there with hot dogs, chili and chips for the customers on the weekend. We're still on vacation, kinda. LOL! It's hard not to be when you live in Hawaii. Sounds like a cliché, but it's true.

I vacuumed our new apartment on the 7th floor and then started doing a little packing with the few boxes I had. I don't mind packing too much, but I hate that I only have a week to do it. I feel very rushed.

I'm happy to report that my plants didn't die while we were gone. The cactus is fine and the other one is just a little wilted. I hope it'll recover....

We've started running the a/c because it's hot and because I'm doing so much activity in the house. Having the doors open works fine if you're just sitting around, but it gets too hot otherwise this time of year. The a/c window units aren't bad if I close the extra doors and put them both on 67. I also still have my fan running. The a/c is very noisy, though, and it gets very dry in the house from it. Especially at night, but it's too hot to not have it on while sleeping.

Saturday night we went to Murphy's. I had their Asian chicken salad as usual... back to our usual routine! No Waikiki this week for us, though.

Sunday August 3

My back and legs have been hurting a lot due to the packing and moving. Today we had a lot to do. David went to get his hair cut, and then we went to pick up a bunch of boxes from this woman I met through Freecycle. Then we stopped briefly at McDonald's to eat lunch, and then we went to Times for groceries. Even though we got a big cart from downstairs, we had a hard time taking all of the boxes and groceries back to our place. It was very stressful because the elevator doors were not wide enough and stuff kept falling off. UGH.

Then we went down to apartment 909 to get a lot more boxes. The woman there had just moved in, so she had a lot of them to get rid of. I think we have more than enough boxes now, but we'll see... We were very hot and sweaty at this point. We went out again, though, to get a cool drink in the a/c. I spent a lot of time today packing. We took a bunch of packed boxes down to our apartment as well. We thought the guest bathroom had a problem because the toilet wasn't filling up, but it turns out the water was just turned off. That's a relief!

It was a long and tiring day! I went to bed about 2:30am. I was so exhausted and it was still pretty hot in our place.

Monday August 4

I got up around 11. David and I just had lunch at Subway. I bought more tape and then headed home. Something else happened that I'm very happy about, but I'm not going to mention what it is :) Sorry, it's personal!

I've been doing a lot of packing. That's mostly what I'm doing this week. I hope to be done by Wednesday so the movers can come. I called the ones again that I had phoned last week, but so far I haven't heard back. I hope I got the right ones. If they don't call me back, I'll have to try again tomorrow. Very irritating. Also, the women that does cleaning was supposed to come by around 2, and she didn't. Then I got an email from her boss saying she's in the hospital and hopes to meet with me later this week. I need her to come on Thursday, so I'm waiting to hear back whether she'll be able to make it or not, or whether I should call someone else. SIGH. I hope I don't sound too callous. Obviously it's not too dire or they wouldn't say she can come later this week.

We took more boxes down to our new place..other than that, not a very exciting evening :) We had dinner at Epic. They had a delicious lobster bisque special (and no flour! Yay!). I had that and also some caprese. They put far too much basil and garlic on it. I hope they make that lobster bisque a regular menu item. However, they need to learn to keep out the inedible parts, like shells.

Tuesday August 5

I spent a lot of time on the phone today, and running around. I finished most of the packing, and we moved a lot of boxes downstairs. I got some water at Walmart because there are tropical storms headed this way. I'm not too worried, though.

David came home for lunch, so I went out later myself and got McDonald's.

We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I had pizza (not crust) and a salad later on. Eh, doing what I can... not as bad as it sounds.

Otherwise, just packing and moving boxes, and resting as much as I can. I wanted to go to bed early, but I just had too much to do. I stayed up until around 4am.

Wednesday August 6

I had to wake up early today because I hired a guy to patch the few holes in the wall, and he said he'd be here around 8 after he dropped off his kids at school. He didn't come until about 10:30. :( He did a good job, though. He was young and very cute :) He told me that the parking lot here was full. It took a lot of restraint for me not to point out that if he had come on time, it probably wouldn't have been full...LOL!

I had hoped to go back to sleep or take a shower, but I just had too much packing and other stuff to do before the movers came at 1pm. They were very punctual, thankfully.

I hired this company, Johnny the Movers. They're very low budget. Fine for moving inside the building but not sure I'd trust them to move me anyplace farther. It was just two guys, both very nice but dumb as bags of rocks. They just had two small flatbed dollies. Usually movers have much larger ones or they take everything with one of those tiny ones that will hold a lot. They kept over-filling the dolly and it was a bit worrisome. I went with them to the new place and already they dropped one of the boxes. I didn't pack for that. Only some of the very fragile items were bubble-wrapped. Hopefully they didn't drop anything else. They were very good about doing what I wanted. At first they put the TV's slightly in the wrong place, so they moved them around for me, as well as some other furniture in the bedrooms. I also asked them to move our bed because I had forgotten to mention that I wanted it in a different place than in the old apartment. They were very good to move it for me because it's pretty large and heavy. Anyway, they were fast. It only took about 3 hours and only cost $252.

I was so exhausted and had to keep pushing myself to finish getting everything done. Running back and forth all day between the 16th and 7th floors was tough, too. I kept getting confused about which floor I was on and whether I wanted to press 7 or 16.

The a/c unit in the living room of the new place doesn't seem to be blowing cold air. The landlord won't pay to get it fixed and there's no remote control, and I can't see the controls even with a step ladder. Both of the a/c units are window units and are on shelves way up near the ceiling. I was able to see the bedroom one, but not the living room one. I might have to pay someone to come clean it or even replace it, depending on how much that costs. It's a shame because it's way quieter than the one we had in the old place.

We had dinner at HASR, which we haven't been to in a while. I enjoy that place. The food is good and the people are so nice. I just had the eggplant dish that I love so much. I'd had some leftover pizza earlier, so I wasn't starving. Then the waitress, who is always so nice to us, gave us free guava sorbet to share. I'm not going to pass that up, even when I'm on a diet, but we only ate half of it. It was wonderful!

When we got home, I just had to find a few things, like towels and phone cords. I'm going to unpack tomorrow.

Have a great week and don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of 7/21/14

2014-07-30T23:34:00.002-05:00

Thursday 7/24

I woke up around 6:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep for a long time! I keep having weird dreams about Barbara and us going to various parts of Hawaii. They're not exactly fun dreams but not nightmares, either. They just have a sense of urgency and stress, for some reason, so I don't sleep well and keep waking up.

I finally got back to sleep and woke up around 9 when the alarm went off, then I slept for another 20 minutes. UGH! I picked up around the house a little and took a shower. My (fairly new) friend Cynthia arrived, bringing us boxes and plastic tubs! Yay!! So grateful. We parked her car across the street in the Chinese Cultural Center and then we went to lunch.

We had a nice lunch at 'umeke Market, which we both like. It was nice to hang out with her for a while. We had a good chat. Then I took her over to show her HASR Bistro and the wine store there before we went back to my building.

Then I went back out and did some shopping at Walmart (some stuff I forgot yesterday) and got a soda, and stopped at the post office. Oh, we got the apartment on the 7th floor, so I had to get a check from David for the deposit.

I went home, and it was pretty hot. I was very tired, too. I took a cold soda out to the lanai and laid on the patio chair awhile, and I fell asleep. The rental agent for our new place phoned, and I met him down on the 7th floor. He had his daughter with them, and they both seem like nice people. I was a little bit giddy, I guess, between getting a new place to live and just waking up. I gave him our check and he phoned the owner while I looked around.

It's exactly like our current place in the way it's laid out because it's exactly 9 floors below ours. However, it has wall-to-wall carpeting (which I love), and it's a dark color so it won't show dirt so much. It has nice brown wooden cabinets etc. instead of the ugly white ones we have. The front door is in better condition (ours is peeling), and it has ceiling fans and blinds in the whole house. I'm hoping this will mean it's cooler, especially during the day. The bathroom fixtures are in much better shape.

Now the drawbacks, which are minor. We lost our beautiful view! It's on the 7th floor and there are trees blocking the view. You can only see a little bit of the ocean, even though we're only 4 or 5 blocks from it! The view is not that big of a deal, though. The a/c units are old and don't seem to have any remote controls. Hopefully we won't have to use them very often, anyway. The kitchen has beautiful countertops, but the appliances look old. I hope they work well. There's no microwave, but that's no biggie. We can buy a small, cheap one. The master bedroom closet is a little different. Ours has nice shelves in it-- a sort of rack system. This one just has a pole, and it looks old. I think we'll have to get another dresser and then we'll have to go through the clothes and weed some out. Again, no big deal. The only other drawback is that they seem more serious about us not hanging anything on the walls. :( I'll have to find another way to display our art. I'm thinking maybe an etagere...

Oh, and one of the toilets doesn't flush right, but they'll get that fixed. This building is all old.

I wish I could do some packing for the move tonight, but I've got many other things to do. We're flying to Indiana Saturday morning for our anniversary, so I have to plan for that first.

Tomorrow I have to call Oceanic Time Warner about changing over our internet, phone and cable to the new place. I hope it all goes easily. There are just so many things to think about! I also have to contact the cleaners.

We went to Downbeat for dinner... I had a Greek salad, but I was dying for ice cream. Later, I had a smoothie, with cherry yogurt, milk, strawberries, blueberries, spinach, equal and ice. Yummy!

I plan to go to bed early tonight if my body will let me sleep :)

I forgot to mention that something weird happened yesterday when we went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I just had been drinking a soda and then all of a sudden, I felt something in the back of my throat when I swallowed. Like something that hadn't quite swallowed, or a sore throat. It was very weird. I went in the bathroom and tried to spit out whatever it was. It was very unpleasant, but eventually it went away. Thank goodness! That was awful. Maybe a bug flew in my mouth? I don't know...

Last year I bought a Tablemate II for my laptop and it worked great. Then I got a new laptop in March, but it kept slipping off the Tablemate II. For a while, I used a baking rack that worked to keep the laptop there, but it no longer worked. Then I bought some rubber thing that tapes on the sides of furniture to make it child proof. It worked for a while, but it kept coming off, from the weight of the laptop. So yesterday I super-glued the rubber thing to the Tablemate II and it works again! Hope it stays this time. I'm running out of ideas!

My band's drummer, Ronn, phoned me today, and we had a nice chat. We have a major gig August 22. He's good for my ego. He said that this was my first professional gig, and then he asked, wait a minute, is this really your first? Did you have some professional gigs on the mainland? No, just karaoke, but that make me feel good. Of course I did sing in college recitals, and a few times with live bands, but not paid. It's very exciting that I'll finally be able to call myself a professional singer! Woo hoo!!

See the info at http://www.dotswahiawa.com/announcements/friday-night-live-the-mule-barn-september-28 We have 2 rehearsals, August 9 and 16.
Two more concerts: Sept. 13 4pm-7pm Hale Mohalu Senior Apartments and
Sept. 28 NAMI Walkathon Honolulu Hale Civic Grounds

Happy Birthday to my brother Pat!

Friday July 25

I was really really tired last night and went to bed around midnight. Then some really loud sirens woke me up about 5:30 am, and I had trouble getting back to sleep. I got up for a little while and then went back to bed...

I had hoped to get up before 10, but I was awakened by the phone from a dead sleep around 10:30. I was annoyed that I slept so long.

After being sick some more from the usual problems :( I went out and got my hair cut at the little place across the street, then I went to Long's and bought some snacks and trial size stuff for our trip, and then I stopped at David's building. I used the restroom and stopped by to see if he could have lunch, but he was busy with meetings. I went to Subway and got a large salad and soda, then went home. It was pretty hot, but not as bad as yesterday.

I've just been really busy all day doing laundry, packing, getting ready for our trip and other things. I sent everyone an email about our new address. I had a long list of things to do and still working on it!

David came home around 5:30, and we went to Waikiki for dinner and drinks. We went to the Japanese restaurant that he likes. He has sushi and I usually either get scallops or fish or this chicken dish. Thank goodness it's not just sushi there. They know about gluten, too. All the tourist places are much more knowledgeable about gluten than the ones down here in the downtown area. Anyway, I had the chicken and it was very good. They leave the skin on and just broil it with salt and some kind of oil. I don't know why, but it's always really delicious. I think it's because, unlike some restaurants, they cook it just right. Not under- or over-cooked. So even though it's "plain", it's very flavorful. I'm sure it's a much better cut of meat than what you'd get in the supermarket, too. Still, most chicken that you get in restaurants is either overcooked/dry or only the skin tastes good. Not at Hatsuhana! As always, we went to the Irish bar afterwards (the one near there is Irish Rose). It's a big place, so normally it's not too smoky, or if it is, you can go find a corner where no smokers are sitting. Which is great, since they don't enforce the no smoking laws...

Yesterday I made a really great smoothie with some fruit, yogurt, milk, spinach, Equal and ice. I only had half of it, and today I added some more to it and also a little rum. Very good!! I'm not a big fan of rum, in general, but spiced rum is much smoother and blends really well with anything.

Tonight I'm just doing last minute stuff before our trip tomorrow!

Although I'm very happy to be going on a trip to Cincinnati, I wish I were in Southern California instead to go to Comic-Con or the GH Weekend. I used to go to Comic-Con when I was a kid, and I went a few times later on, but it had not yet turned into the great media frenzy that it is now. Now there are not only lots of TV stars but movie stars as well. Because of my site, I get invited now to tons of press events there, that I can't attend. It's very depressing. But they schedule both of these events right around the time of our anniversary, and we have our usual annual trip to a different state. I hope my husband knows how much I love him and what I sacrifice every year! :) Maybe one year, if the schedule works better, we'll see...

I have two plants that I bought before Barbara arrived, and I haven't killed them yet! However, since we'll be gone for 10 days, they'll probably be dead. I put water in the sink and a rack over it, and put the plants there. I watered them before we left, but I doubt it will be enough. We have friends, but no one I felt like imposing on to babysit the plants. One is some kind of cactus and the other one is a "Cryptanthus bivittatus, Earth Star, Starfish Plant". A useful site called flowerchecker.com helped me out on that one, when I asked on Twitter!

Saturday July 26

I woke up around 9am, took a shower, and did just a few last minute things before finishing packing. We left around 10 am for the airport. Our flight was about 2-3 hours later.

I always hate the Honolulu airport because it's open to the air, which means it's hot and humid, and it's annoying to have to drag luggage through that kind of weather. Parts of it are very beautiful, but it's still too hot.

We had breakfast at the little restaurant there, PGA Grill. It was very delicious and they had gluten free foods marked, which shocked me (very rare at an airport). I ordered too much food, but David helped me with it. I had a salad, but it was huge. I had also ordered some chicken skewers, which were also wonderful. It was very expensive, though, like going out to one of the pricier places on Waikiki. We had lots of time to eat, drink, and buy whatever we needed before the flight.

The first leg of the flight went fine, and it flew by (pardon the pun!). David and I both had aisle seats across from each other. I was seated next to this 19 year old Dutch girl. You wouldn't know that she was 19. She looked much older. I don't mean that in a bad way. She carried herself in a very mature fashion. That's because she's been traveling by herself and working for the last 3 years! She travels around doing jobs as a nanny or ski instructor, and her customers pay for her travel expenses. Must be nice! Since she's Dutch, but also speaks German, English, and French, she gets a lot of jobs. She had been in a job in the Yukon, and she had some time before flying back to Holland, so she decided to take a trip to Hawaii. I didn't catch her name, unfortunately. She was a very interesting person and we chatted for hours about our respective countries, and the differences... and about traveling, movies, all sorts of things. Before we knew it, the flight was over. I even got a sore back from turning to talk to her. David said she was very pretty, too, so I guess that doesn't hurt with her jobs. I've always wanted to visit Italy, and to go back to Germany and France. Now I kind of want to visit Holland and some of those other countries there, too.

Usually I like to watch the movie on these long flights, but they gave out these little iPad-like things for watching movies, so I didn't see the point of that. I could have just gotten my laptop down from the overheard compartment if I wanted to do that! LOL! I did try to sleep a little, but it didn't work.

We had a layover in Seattle. Pretty nice airport. We stopped at this one place and had food. I can't remember what the name was, but I had a burger, and some fries. Mostly I'm trying to eat healthier, but I did "cheat" and have some fries. Oh, well. I did bring snacks on the plane, but we'd had such a big lunch at the airport, I wasn't very hungry until we landed in Seattle.

We were both pretty tired at this point. Neither of us had slept much (he more than I). The second leg of the flight was AWFUL! I had a window seat, but I couldn't sleep. For one thing, I couldn't find my good neck pillows before we left the house, so I bought one at the airport. Well, it was not comfortable. It was too soft, so it didn't support my neck. My back was really hurting, too, from chatting with the Dutch woman. I was really tired and cranky. Then the plane was super dark. For instance, we got up to use the restroom and it was so dark, I could barely find my seat because the numbers were not lit up, either. The last straw was that I spilled my diet coke all over my lap! All because it was so dark, I couldn't see anything. UGH. That was awful, being wet on top of everything else. I was going to watch a movie. It had the same system as the previous flight that we'd had back in June, with the TV's in the seat in front of you, and choice of movies, TV shows, games, music, etc. Well, in THIS one, you had to pay for each movie! Ridiculous. So I didn't bother. I just kept trying to sleep, but couldn't much. Finally I just listened to my iPod. Oh, and the plane was freezing, too, even though I had my sweater on.

Sunday July 27

We arrived in Cincinnati around 6am. Nothing like a whole day of flying. Blah. We were both so tired. We got to our hotel, but of course it was way too early to check in. They didn't have any rooms available because they'd been sold out the night before. First we checked our bags and had breakfast at this place down the street called First Watch. It has really great food. Then we just sat around the hotel lobby for hours. David napped in a chair, but it was still too uncomfortable for me to sleep. The light was on, and there was both music and a lot of noise. I tried doing some work on the laptop, but their Wifi connection in the lobby was very spotty. I went back to listening to music on the iPod.

The hotel, called The Cincinnatian, is pretty nice. It's really old. David booked it on Priceline and it's supposed to be a 4 star hotel, but it's more like 3. It's fine.... the lobby and bedroom are both pretty small, and there's no gift shop. The bed's comfy, but let's just say it's definitely not a 4 star, like a Hyatt or Westin. The people here are very nice, though.

We finally got a room sometime later, and we both went to sleep. David went to the afternoon baseball game, but I just kept sleeping. He came back after the game and persuaded me to go out to dinner. We went to a nearby place called Rock Bottom Cafe. We shared a bison burger, and it was really good. More fries. SIGH. It started raining just as we left, so we got just a little rained on. They'd had a woman singing and playing the guitar in the plaza nearby while we were eating, so that was fun. She was really good and liked Beatles.

This hotel and a lot of the other places here are FREEZING. Normally it's hot here in July, but it's been cool, and the places over-air-condition like crazy. I've been cold most of the time since we arrived here. So weird. We sat outside at Rock Bottom and I *NEVER* like to sit outside, but it was too cold inside. David took a short nap after that, and then we went to karaoke at a place I found called Mainstay. We were both pretty tired, so we just stay a couple of hours. It was less than a mile walk from our hotel to Mainstay, and I was lucky to find one that had karaoke on Sunday nights. The place was great. The KJ was really nice, and he sang great. Many of the other singers were good, too. Most of them were, I would guess, under 30, with some probably slightly over. A lot of them were doing songs from the 80's, so they dubbed it 80's night. Which was funny because I saw "young people" so I did more recent songs. LOL! So they sang my songs, and I sang theirs. Anyway, my first song was "There She Goes" by Sixpence None the Richer. I did it very well and it was surprisingly easy to sing. Songs are much easier since last summer when I had those voice lessons. Then for my second song, I did a duet with the KJ "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence. He was fabulous and again it was easy to sing. It was a fun night.

It was almost midnight by the time we got back. I stayed up a few more hours.

Monday July 28

I woke up around 10:30. We walked over to the Horseshoe casino and ate lunch at their buffet, which was really good. I was careful not to eat anything that obviously had gluten, like macaroni and cheese, but I didn't know about the other things I ate. I didn't feel like asking about the entire buffet! I stayed away from the dessert table, too. I haven't gotten sick so far, so we'll see! It was a really good buffet - even better than most Vegas ones we've eaten at. Not as big as they usually are but certainly the food was tastier. We just played a little while in the casino, but we had fun. After going to Vegas last month, it was not all that interesting. At least the place is mostly smoke-free. It was also mostly empty. We just got a couple of things in the gift shop and then left. We walked over to O'Malley's so David could get his Irish beer that he likes, Smithwick's. They were out of it, so he just had Guinness. Neither of us felt like going anywhere else. The bartender was very nice. My feet and back were so tired. The casino was pretty cold, too, by the way. I was chilly all day.

After more napping, we went to the baseball game. The Reds were playing the Diamondbacks. We didn't care who won. He just likes baseball. I had my phone, so I just did Facebook and Twitter while we were there. I do watch the game a little, but it's too boring to just do that and nothing else. I like it when there are lots of hits and runs, but the game was tied 1-1 for 15 innings. We only got to see 2 runs - at least one was a home run. The Reds hit it, so they shot off fireworks, which is always fun. Otherwise, not too exciting. They didn't have a gluten free area, at least that I could find, so I just got two hot dogs and didn't eat the buns, and I got some fruit as well. I was very tempted but stayed away from all of the yummy treats at the stadium.

It was a little warm when we first got there, but it was also very windy, and it got chilly in the stadium. By the end of the game, though it was cold. It was 66 degrees! I was not too thrilled about that.

We wanted to get some more food after the game, but most of the bars and restaurants were closed. We found this one place near our hotel called Madonna's Bar & Grill. It looks like a dive, and inside it's very loud, but the food was surprisingly good. I had a small salad, and David and I shared some barbecue chicken wings.

We went back home to the room and watched a little TV. I've been doing work on my site. Time to go to bed - it's almost 5am! Oops!!

Tuesday July 29

I couldn't sleep and stayed up quite late. We went to lunch around noon, and I was still very groggy. We walked across the bridge, over to Kentucky, to eat at this great German chain restaurant called Hofbrau Haus. We've been to the others in Munich (the original), in Las Vegas, this one in Newport, and I think we also went to the one in Cleveland. They have very good German food, like sausages and schnitzel. Beer, too, of course!

We also stopped at this little mall there called Newport on the Levee. There used to be a great Turkish restaurant there that we liked, but it's gone now. Too bad! It's a nice little upscale mall. we stopped at this store called Rainbow Hugs that sells lots of stuffed animals. It's like one of those Build-a-Bear places where you can stuff your own bear and dress it in clothes. They had some ladybugs, so I got a nice one for my collection. We also stopped briefly at the Irish bar there, The Claddaugh. The bartender was a bit bored, I guess. He kept talking to us and making us laugh. He said he'd been working 10 straight days and then he was off in two hours.

We walked back over a different bridge. It was hot, and we were tired, so we stopped at the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company, another bar. Mostly I wanted to stop and rest, and go to the bathroom. We used to buy Christian Moerlein at Trader Joe's back when we lived in Riverside.

By the time we got back to our room, we figured that we walked over 3 1/2 miles! I guess I walked off that sausage! I went back to sleep after that.

David left in the early evening for another Reds game, but I stayed asleep. I had enough baseball yesterday. He never gets enough. It's like me and karaoke - he never gets enough MLB games.

I'm hoping we can go out to karaoke after his game.

I've been emailing the owner of our new condo back and forth. He lives in California. I had told him that when I went to look through the unit, one of the toilets didn't flush right, so he's been trying to get a plumber to go there and fix it, since it's wasting water and costing him money. I also got a phone call from the lady in 909 because she has boxes I can use for packing. Colleen, who works downstairs in our building for security, had told me that the tenant in 909 just moved in and might have boxes, so I left a note on her door that I needed them if she has any. That worked out nicely!

I've also been in touch with the guy who owns the cleaning service we used last week. He had tried to charge me about $175 just to clean the place, but then when I said never mind, he went down to $80. We need a lot more cleaning for moving out, but then again, there's no furniture to dust or move, so we'll see. I think he wants me to haggle, but I'm not good at that.

Wednesday July 30

I woke up around 10:30. We packed up our stuff and took a cab over to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. We stayed at the Hollywood Casino hotel. It's a nice room, more modern and in some ways nicer than the other hotel we stayed in. No mini-bar but otherwise better; not as much character.

We got players' club cards and that gave us a two-for-one discount for the lunch buffet, so that was helpful. They also have a discount on the other places if you're 50 or over. It was an ok buffet, but not nearly as good as the one at the Horseshoe Casino buffet in Cincy. It was just okay. However, they did mark each item that "contains gluten" so that was very helpful. A few were marked "contains almonds" or "contains pecans", too, for those allergic to nuts. They only had one dessert I could eat, a Crème Brûlée, but it wasn't very good, so I only had a spoonful.

We did some gambling after that. We didn't win big but just enough to keep us going a bit. Then I got really sick, in my usual way... Oh, well, too bad. I had been well for the past 7 days. So much for that! Probably something I ate this week was not GF like they said.

Then we took a long nap. We went to their steakhouse for dinner, but we were still pretty full from the buffet. We each had appetizers and then shared an entree, but the appetizers were HUGE. He had lobster risotto and I had a salad. It was very good, with pecans and goat cheese. Then we had bacon-wrapped tournedos; these came with a little potato and some fruit. It was pretty good. Tournedos are "small round pieces of beef cut from the end portion of beef tenderloin, often cooked with bacon or lard." The steak was very good but had too many peppercorns, so we just scraped those off. No room for dessert!

We gambled a bit more and had drinks. David arranged for transportation in the morning to the airport. We got to our room before 10, but we have to leave really early in the morning.

Thankfully, our hotel room is not as cold as the last one, but the rest of the hotel, the casino, restaurants and bars are FREEZING.

I really wouldn't recommend coming here unless you live nearby, then it's a nice little getaway. The casino is very cold and smoky. They have mostly dollar and penny slots (the newer computerized kind, where you're really playing at least $2.50 per time if you hit max bet). They hide the quarter slots in the back, and downstairs in the non-smoking casino. The casinos are all open air, though, so the non-smoking casino is not exactly smoke free, either. There's no bathroom or bars down there, so it's pretty pointless. We didn't play any table games; we probably would have if we'd won more on the slots. The casino in downtown Cincy is much better.

I'm going to try not to stay up too late...

I posted this list 2 years ago, but here it is, updated:

Here's a list of states we have visited and which we have left to visit, if you are interested. We had been married 5 years before we realized that we had spent every year in a different place, so we decided to continue it as a tradition. The rule we set up for ourselves is that we must eat dinner and spend the night in the state on our anniversary. We like cities a lot, so we tend to visit those whenever possible. He likes baseball games, and I like karaoke and staying in nice hotels, and we both like going out to good restaurants and bars. We usually do sight-seeing, too, if it's a place we haven't been before.

Right after we got married in Vista, California, we moved to Long Island so that David could go to grad school at SUNY Stony Brook. We stayed our first night there in Stamford, Connecticut, so that was kind of like our "honeymoon" :) but it doesn't count for our anniversary.

The city before the slash is dinner; the other is where we slept.

1983 South Attleboro, Massachusetts
1984 Ann Arbor, Michigan (David had to take some classes there in the summer)
1985 Lake Grove/Port Jefferson, New York (lived there)
1986 Long Beach/Oceanside, California (visiting family)
1987 Normal, Illinois (lived there)
1988 Bettendorf, Iowa
1989 El Paso, Texas (lived there)
1990 Port Angeles, Washington
1991 New Orleans, Louisiana
1992 Honolulu, Hawaii
1993 Las Vegas, Nevada
1994 Boise, Idaho
1995 Bullhead, City, Arizona (really a trip to Vegas, which is nearby)
1996 St. George, Utah (really a trip to Vegas, which is nearby)
1997 Albuquerque, New Mexico
1998 Fargo, North Dakota (visiting our friend Barbara)
1999 Portland, Oregon
2000 Moorhead/Minneapolis (another trip to see Barbara)
2001 Birmingham, Alabama (lived near there)
2002 Anchorage, Alaska
2003 Newport/Covington, Kentucky (near Cincinnati)
2004 Secaucus/East Rutherford, New Jersey
2005 New Haven, Connecticut
2006 Ft. Lauderdale/Dania Beach, Florida (took a cruise after)
2007 Nashville, Tennessee
2008 Cleveland, Ohio
2009 Baltimore, Maryland
2010 Columbus, Georgia (live there)
2011 Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2012 Denver, Colorado
2013 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
2014 Lawrenceburg, Indiana (really a trip to Cincinnati, which is nearby)

Have left (roughly in order of preference):

Rhode Island (we might save this one for last)
New Hampshire
Mississippi
Pennsylvania*
Vermont
Virginia*
Missouri*
Maine
Arkansas
North Carolina
South Carolina
Kansas*
South Dakota
West Virginia
Delaware
Montana
Nebraska
Wyoming

The order of preference is somewhat dependent on whether it has a big city, or a friend is living there, or it's nearby to something we like, or we have been there before and liked it, etc.

*Only states with baseball or nearby

Have a great week! Don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of July 17

2014-07-24T06:29:00.003-05:00

Thursday July 17

I slept in until my alarm went off at 11. Barb, who was still visiting, got up early and walked down to the Bishop Museum (which is quite a ways). It sounds interesting. I might need to check that out some time.

After I got up and showered, and Barb came home, we went to lunch. I gave her some choices and she picked going back to 'Umeke Market because she wanted to try their Buffalo Burger. She enjoyed it. I always love their food. I had the Kalua Pig, which is always delicious and gluten free there. It comes with brown rice and salad, and I also got a wonderful gluten free scones.

Since I had a doctor's appointment at Kaiser a little bit later, we walked down toward it (it's about a mile) and stopped on the way at the Honolulu Art Museum, which I've never been to before. We didn't have a lot of time, so we just went to the gift shop and looked at a few exhibits before leaving for my appointment. Barb was very kind to walk down there with me because I'd never walked it before and wasn't sure how far or how safe it was. Turns out, it's not too bad at all. She was very tired, though, since she had done the other museum that morning.

I went in for my checkup and it took 2 hours! Poor Barb. The pharmacy alone took a half hour. UGH. We walked back to the museum, took a few photos, and then called a cab to take us home. It was not a hard walk, but she was really tired, poor thing! She purposely tried to tire herself out since she was taking a plane in the evening and wanted to sleep on it.

After she packed, we went to dinner at Epic. She had wanted to go back to the Cuban place but wasn't sure if it would be fast enough. She was concerned about getting back in time for her cab at 6:30. Epic was crowded but they did a good job at getting our food to us in plenty of time. We just had appetizers, but that was fine. They're pretty big there. They have a scallops appetizer that I like, and I also got a salad. I ate half of that and took the rest home. Barb had fish tacos. She had them sometime during the trip for the first time and really loved them.

It was very sad to see her go! It's so quiet here now.

I've decided that I don't like the iPhone and I hope that Verizone will let me trade it back in and get a Samsung Galaxy instead. Tomorrow will be 14 days since I signed up with it. It's just that I miss one very important feature of my old Android phone, the predictive text feature. Also, the screen on the Galaxy is much bigger.

I've started to look at condos to move to again. There was one showing today, but the guy never called me back, so I missed it.

I wish we'd had more time to visit. I wish we'd done more on Waikiki, done more karaoke, and watched more movies!

I stayed up until 4 am....it was weirdly quiet. I ate way too much chocolate to cap off my busy week :)

Friday July 18

David called and woke me up about 11:30am. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't.

I was a little sick today...hope it wasn't from Epic. Not really sure what else it could be unless some of the chocolate I ate has gluten.

I miss Barb (and of course, David) but I don't mind being alone for a couple of days. It's not like I'm not used to it, since David works such long hours. In fact, I keep thinking he's at work or sleeping in the bedroom. I'm very happy, though, to be able to sit around in my underwear again! I couldn't really do that when Barb was here, until after she went to bed. It was really hot today so it was nice. I even put on the a/c for a little while. This evening was pretty cool, though.

I went down to the Verizon store to see if I could trade in my new iPhone for an Android phone. I just really couldn't take it any more. It was July 4th when I bought it, and they give you 14 days to return it. Well, apparently they usually count it starting that day you get it, so the salesman was told "no" by Verizon when he phoned in to ask about it. However, I guess he found a way around it. I only brought in the phone, the box, and the USB power cord, so I had to go home and find the earpods and the power plug, which I did. I was all ready to fight about it, but they were kind enough to help me out. Good thing because I would have raised quite a fuss! We've been with Verizon for over a decade. We're good customers and always pay our bill on time, and if they hadn't let me trade it in, I would have paid off the phone and canceled the service, and David would not have renewed his contract when his phone came up in August, and we would have switched to Sprint. Also, I would have gone on here, and Twitter, and Facebook, and told everyone I know how bad they are. But thankfully, they were not bad, they were good, and it worked out. Whew! I generally do like them and they have good coverage, especially when we travel.

I had stopped at Walmart to buy some more Diet Pepsi, some band-aids, and some Neosporin, and then I stopped at McDonald's to get lunch. On the way home, the soda leaked all over. Apparently it had a hole in it or something. UGH. What a mess! So when I went back to return my phone accessories, I stopped at Subway and got another soda.

I'm very happy with my new Samsung Galaxy S5! It has all of the stuff I liked on my old phone, especially the predictive text, and it has a huge screen. About the only thing I think I will miss on iPhone is that it had 64 gb so it could hold all of my songs. Hopefully they will come out with the 32gb version at least, so I can upgrade to that when it comes out. They have this new program now where you don't have to actually buy the whole phone, but you also don't have to sign a 3 year contract. You pay a little extra for the phone each month, and then if they come out with a new one, you upgrade to that one. So you don't necessarily have to pay off the phone unless you switch to another service or something, or don't upgrade. I wish they had explained that to me when I got the iPhone because I would have waited another month to get the phone and saved some money. Oh, well. What's done is done. At least this phone is cheaper.

I have a little cut on the bottom of my left foot, and I also have a blister on my big toe, so that's why I needed more band-aids and Neosporin. The cut is from my own stupidity...when I get calluses and dry skin on my foot, I have a bad habit of scratching at it and pulling the dead skin off, and that's how I got the cut. I do wash it out and all but it makes it hard to walk. The blister is from my shoes because I've been walking so much the past few weeks! The doctor checked my foot yesterday, but I have an appointment for a podiatrist later this month.

Speaking of the doctor, she took a bunch of tests of my bodily fluids yesterday, and wow, they are fast - got them back by email already. My a1c is not as good as it should (blood sugar) so I've got to give up the carbs again. I've been doing badly on that lately. I got rid of all of the chocolate...as soon as my foot is heeled, I'll start exercising again. Blah.

I was looking at places to rent again but so far...I haven't heard back from any of the realtors yet.

I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but it didn't work. However, I did start cleaning up around here, so that's something.

Wow, I can't remember the last time I was home on a Friday night! So strange.... I can't wait for David to come home on Monday.

I went to bed about 1:30. Early for me!

Saturday July 19

I was awakened by a realtor calling me. I'm going to view a place on Monday at 1. It's a really nice place, probably out of our price range, but I want to check it out.

I've spent most of the day lollygagging around. I wasn't feeling well - the usual problem.

It's funny, David is a day behind us, so he's going to lose a day when he flies back. He leaves Taiwan on Monday and returns Monday morning! Time traveler :)

I went to Subway and got lunch around 1:30. I'm trying to eat healthy!

I didn't go out again all day. I was really tired. I tried taking a little nap but it was difficult.

I got a lot done today. I put away the laundry, ran the dishes and picked up most of the house as well as lots of work on my site.

Funny, there's a lot less laundry with David gone, but I don't like having to take out my own trash! :)

There was a lot of rain, wind, thunder and lightening tonight - we had a tropical storm. I'm not used to seeing that flash of lightening any more, since we left the south. It made things very hot and muggy for awhile.

I'm going to bed around 2:30 tonight.

Sunday July 20

I was sick again this morning, so either it was from eating the rest of the Epic salad or from eating at Subway. I was very careful yesterday and only ate the sandwich for lunch (without the bread) and had the salad for dinner but with no bacon and with my own dressing, so if it is Subway, I have no idea what's making me sick in it. I'll try it again today and see what happens. I just love being a human guinea pig - not!

I woke up around 11:30. I tried going back to sleep but couldn't. The wind is fierce today and rattling the windows a lot.

I ate lunch at home and then later went out about 4:30 to get dinner. I was going to Subway, but they were closed, so I went to L&L for a large soda (they have HUGE cups but I don't eat there because I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to their food). I called in a take-out order to Downbeat Diner. When I went there, the waiter that we often see on Sundays was happy to see me but wondered why I did a call-in order, so I told him about David being out of town. We had a nice chat; he's a very nice fellow. They're all nice there, really.

I spent the rest of the day working on my site and watching DVD's. So much work to do! I also finished cleaning up the house a bit.

David's coming home tomorrow morning (well, in about 8 or 9 hours). I can hardly wait! We've been texting, and talking on the phone, but of course it's not the same. I really miss him. It's been nice to have a lot of time to work, though, and rest, and recover from Barb's visit. She was a great guest, but we did a lot of sight-seeing - wore me out! :) It was so much fun...

I'm afraid my blog is pretty boring now that we don't have a visitor...

It's about 3:30. Going to bed now!

Monday July 21

David called and woke me up after 10. I had awakened many times before that, so I was surprised he called so late. His plane was late and it took him a long time to get through customs and all that. I got dressed, just in case he needed help getting in downstairs, but he didn't, so I just had to let him in when he arrived. He was very tired, and we both went back to sleep.

I was going to go look at a condo in Capitol Place, even though it was a bit too expensive, but I decided not to go and canceled it.

Later, I looked some more at Craig's List and found some new places.

Downstairs there's a bulletin board, and there was a listing on there that's been there since at least June, so I emailed them. Then I was surprised to find that they were also listed today in Craigslist, so I phoned them as well. The guy put me in touch with his agent, so we're looking at this place tomorrow that's right here in Honolulu Tower. In fact, it's the same exact floor plan as this one. The kitchen looks nicer from the pictures, though, and it looks like it may have curatains. Also, the rent is lower. So I hope it works out.

I had lunch here while David went into work for a little while. I went to Subway in the afternoon and got a salad. Then when David got off work, we went to Murphy's because that's where he wanted to go. However, I didn't eat because I'd had an early dinner. I'm trying to stick to my diet now. Hopefully I can start exercising soon.

We had a lot to talk about since he went on a trip (a conference to Taiwan) and I stayed here but Barb visited, and we did a lot of sight-seeing. It was nice for a change to have so much to talk about. That's the one drawback to us seeing each other every day and spending so much time together. But we both do prefer being together and not apart.

I wanted to go to bed around 2:30 but ended up staying up a bit later due to having to finish the laundry so that David's work clothes wouldn't be all wrinkled.

Tuesday July 22

I kept waking up all morning, itching, and so now I'm up at 7 in the morning. UGH. I've been eating less, too, so I'm also very hungry.

I went back to sleep around 8:30 and woke up at 11, but I woke up MANY times before the alarm went off. I was very hungry and also itchy.

I took a shower and then met David and the realtor downstairs. We went up to the 7th floor to see an apartment that's for rent. I really like it because the layout is exactly like this one, but the apartment's much nicer (and the rent is cheaper!). It's completely carpeted, and it has blinds/curtains and ceiling fans in every room, so it would be much cooler. Also, the kitchen looks much nicer. The countertop is nice granite and the cabinets are all wood. The stove is not as new or nice, but that's no big deal. Also, the wood on the bottom of our front door has been peeling badly, and this one isn't. The only drawback is that we won't have nearly as nice a view, since it's only on the 7th floor. We don't really care about the view that much, though. It's possible there are other unforeseen drawbacks. Perhaps being closer the ground, it will be noisier and we'll have more insects. But anyway, we both liked it and would love to have such an easy move, so we filled out the application back at our place and emailed it to the owner. Now we're just waiting to hear back from him on how to send him the $25 application fee. Apparently he lives in California. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

We went to Subway for lunch after that. I was starving! I just had a turkey sandwich and some chips. I'm still very hungry. I had 2 small sugar free chocolates, and I'm thinking of scrounging in the kitchen to see what else I can eat. Or I might take a nap. I haven't decided yet.

I have a lot of things I should do, but I don't feel like doing any of them. I have work on my site, and dishes, and putting away the laundry. I'm just feeling very lazy today. Also, it's very hot and humid.

I wasn't feeling well in the afternoon, being sick again, so I took a long nap. I heard back from the guy whose apartment we looked at, so I was able to send him the $25 application fee via Paypal. I hope we get it!

David and I went to Ra-Kuen for dinner. I just had some steak. Later, I had a half turkey sandwich.

Later, a giant moth flew in my window. I'm not exaggerating. It was the biggest one I'd ever seen. It's about 5 inches long in its wingspan. I figured out that it's a Black Witch moth. Beautiful, really, and I took some photos of it. I tried to shoo it out, but I couldn't, so I just left it alone. It's perched on the wall! Poor thing. Moths usually die once they go indoors. These particular moths only last a few weeks, anyway... It finally did fly out again around 2:30! Then I went to bed.

Wednesday July 23

I woke up around 6 in the morning, and my back was hurting a lot. I took some Aleve and eventually got back to sleep. This was my lower back and legs, so I think it's probably from these shoes, that are not the best for my particular feet, for walking.

David called me for lunch about 11:15. I took my little cart as I'd planned to go to the store after. However, in the meantime, we heard back from the guy who owns that other condo, and he said our credit checked out fine and he just needed a few more documents and info. So we went to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch, and then I rushed back home to scan in the documents and send them to him. Things are looking good.

Of course, now that it looks like we have this place, two others contacted me, in the buildings I'd rather live! Ha ha! Isn't that always the way it goes? David is very happy, of course, and we're both relieved, since it means moving will be a lot cheaper, staying in the same building. No moving truck needed!

Then I was going to mail some boxes at the post office, but I forgot that they're closed for lunch until 1:30, so I had to come all the way back home. Thank goodness the post office is only a block away. I also plan to open a new post office box.

I'm going to need to get some empty boxes, too, for packing.... maybe I'll check at Walmart. I'm going there after I go to the post office.

I didn't get a chance to check for boxes...too much stuff to get and lug back. Even with a cart, it's very heavy if you fill it with too much heavy stuff. I had to stop at the bathroom, sick again :( but otherwise it went fine. It's so much cheaper to get groceries at Walmart. Almost half as much as buying them at Times. I got almost everything I needed and it was only $86. Wow.

So now we're just waiting to hear back from our new landlord. He wanted our fax number, but we don't have one. I asked him if he could email it instead, so we'll see... it would be great if we could get our new place this week.

Sure is a lot easier and less stressful than last year, that's for sure. Moving downstairs 9 flights to an apartment of the exact same size is great, and then of course we don't have nearly as much stuff, either. We really only need the movers for the couch, bed and a few other pieces of furniture. All I really need to pack is the dishes and a few other things. Most of the stuff in the closets are already packed. My "bookshelves" are cubes so they're already packed and should be easy to move.

We got the lease, so we just have to sign it and send it back...stay tuned! :)

For some reason, I forgot that we're leaving on a vacation in 2 days. I was originally thinking that we could move this weekend, but...oops! We're spending this year's trip in Indiana (mostly in nearby Cincinnati).

I spent quite a bit of time today straightening up the house and cleaning it a little. I had to unpack David's stuff, too, from his trip to Taiwan. Sounds like he had a pretty good time, for the most part. His was a conference, so it wasn't a vacation.

I'm going to bed soon, around 2 am. Our new friend Cynthia is coming by tomorrow to bring some boxes, and we might go out to lunch.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of July 11-16

2014-07-18T06:30:00.000-05:00

Friday July 11

While Barb was out looking at the Pearl Harbor Memorial stuff, I slept it and then went out about 3 in the afternoon for lunch. I was planning to go to Long's, but then I remembered that the Wal-Mart was open, so I went there instead. I only went in the first floor, but they had lots of great stuff, especially gluten free products. I know that many people feel Wal-Mart is the worst corporation in the world, and sure, they have done a lot of bad things. However, I tend to think that any business, especially large corporations, will only do what we let them do, or what the law allows them to do. Of course they'll only pay minimum wage and get away with whatever they can. Sure, some corporations treat their employers and customers better, and that's great. They choose to do that; but you can't expect all corporations to do that because money and power corrupt. If I want to save money, I will go to Wal-mart, and I don't feel all that guilty about it. Safeway is over-priced and Hawaii is super expensive, so I'd rather save as much money as I can. Not to mention, Wal-Mart is the only big store that I can walk to. The Costco and Kmart are not close. I would have to walk about a mile through a sleazy area to get to them.

I went to McDonald's for lunch, too. I used my ATM card for the first time! LOL! I usually use credit cards, but since David is gone and I might need cash, I used the ATM. Glad it worked! I had to dig up the paper where my ATM code was listed.

After lunch, I went back to sleep for a few hours. Barb was home when I got up. We went out about 6:30 for dinner at Duc's Bistro, the Vietnamese restaurant that's almost across the street from our place. It's always great. Wonderful food and service. Then we went back home and got ready for karaoke.

We went to Art's Hideaway, which is about 5 blocks away. The people there are very nice and friendly. It wasn't too crowded, even for a Friday, so I got to sing about 7 or 8 songs in the 3 hours we were there. It was a lot of fun! Our new friends Tom and Cynthia showed up. I wish others had, too, but we still enjoyed it. They are all nice and don't mind listening to me sing :) At the end, I sang a duet with this guy that was there, who sings really well and can sit great high notes. We did "Summer Nights" from Grease. He's the only one I've done this with that actually sang the super high part ("We got friendly down in the sand") instead of singing it down an octave, and also knew the harmony. It went great!

Barb was pooped, so we left around ,and she went to bed pretty soon. I'm only a little tired. I've been catching up things and might do the dishes. The kitchen is still a mess, since last Tuesday!

I finally cleaned it up and I went to bed pretty late, after 3 am.

I got quite a sunburn from walking around the other day. It just hurts when I touch it.

Saturday July 12

I woke up around 11am. Barbara is still asleep! I hope she wakes up soon... I'm getting hungry.

Last night I was tearing some dry skin off my foot (a bad habit!), and I tore too far so I have a cut on the bottom of my foot. I put multiple bandages on it, but it hurts to walk around, so I'm limping. Stupid!

We went over to the Cuban restaurant for lunch. It was very good as always. Barb had never had Cuban food, so she loved it.

I have a bunch of saved change, so we went over to the Wal-mart to dump it into the CoinStar machine, and Barb was going to buy some stuff there, but surprisingly, Wal-Mart was closed! They had some incident in their store. So we went to Long's instead. Then we stopped on the way back, and she got a smoothie, and I got a soda.

We watched "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" on TV (on my Roku) because I hadn't seen it yet. Then later we took a cab over to the Ward Warehouse to have lunch at Kinkaid's (which was so-so), and then we did some shopping, and finally we went to see "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes". It was really good and much better than the other one.

It was very hot, so we had the a/c on as well as used the fan. It was 88 degrees or so and very humid.

Later, we watched some TV at home. I went to bed about 3 or 4, but I didn't sleep well. My back and legs were hurting a lot, and even taking medicine didn't help all that much.

Sunday July 13

I had set the alarm for 8 but woke up at 7:15. I got up and waited for Barbara to wake up, then I asked her if she minded if I didn't go sight-seeing with her today. Fortunately, she didn't mind. I went back to sleep after taking some more medicine, and I slept until 3 in the afternoon. I only woke up a few more times. It was also hot in our room, so I kept turning the a/c off and on. It gets too cold after a while. I felt much better after I woke up and took a shower. Then Barbara texted me to say she was heading back to Waikiki. She went out on a boat to go snorkeling and see dolphins. I'm sure it was a lot of fun, but I'm glad I slept instead. I really needed it! I don't swim that well, anyway...

I took a cab down to the Hilton Hawaiian Village about 4pm and met her at the Tapa Bar. I ordered a drink while I waited. She had a soda, and then we walked around and did some shopping. We walked down to the Top of Waikiki, where I'd made reservations. We were a little late, but it was okay, anyway. We got a nice table and had a great view! I had a salad and the chorizo nachos that I'd had there before. Very yummy. We walked around some more to look at shops, and then we went over to Rum Fire. It was still light out and looked beautiful. I love the root beer float drink they have there (it's got liquor), but they were out of ice cream (like they often are - even though there's a freakin' Baskin-Robbins right next door!!). We had other rum drinks. The waiter was very funny. Not too long after the sun went down, we took a cab home.

Barb made a list of places we want to go tomorrow. We're taking a personalized tour around the island, so we're going to show the list to the tour guide tomorrow morning and then he can tell us which things are feasible or not. We have the whole day, apparently. I hope it's interesting. I think there will be a lot of time riding in the car. I hope I can get up in time. I slept so late...not sure I can go to bed too early. It's already 1 am.

I spent quite a bit of time today working on my site, at least! Got something done for a change.

Monday July 14

We had a very long day. We took a tour of the island with a guy in a van. It was a personal tour with this guy who knew quite a lot about the island. I will say, though, that even though he was very nice, he lacked some knowledge and also disappointed us a bit. The whole reason we did this tour instead of one of the other ones is that the others said that you could only go to set places and only spend about 15 minutes at each. The main place we wanted to see was Hanauma Bay, and we wanted to swim there and possibly go snorkeling, which is something I had done years ago with David. You go to the visitor center and watch a video, then you walk or take a tram down to the bay where you can swim in the very clear water and see lots of tropical fish. Well, the guy said that he could only spend 15 minutes there because his was a commercial van. Now, if we'd wanted to push it, we could have said, drop us off and come back in an hour or so, but we didn't bother. There were a couple of other places we also wanted to visit, like Punchbowl Cemetery and Pali Lookout. He said he wasn't sure if could park at the first (apparently you need a particular license to park a commercial van at these places), so he just didn't go, rather than phoning his boss. Then he said Pali Lookout was way out of our way, even though I've been there 3 times and know it's not far away. However, we didn't bother arguing. Also, I had asked about seeing the island that they used as the exterior for Gilligan's Island, and not only didn't he know where it was, he thought that someone had lied to me about it or pulled my leg. I texted David about it and he said it was Coconut Island. The guy didn't want to find it, clearly. He also said that the Polynesian Cultural Center was closed, which it isn't.

One thing I was really disappointed about was that he took some pics of us in front of Hanauma Bay that didn't come out. However, Barb told me that the camera is confusing and she should have told him that, and checked to make sure the picture was there before we left, so we won't blame him for that one.

But it was a good day, and we saw lots of great things. I'm not saying we didn't have fun or that the trip was disappointing. He was very nice and knew a lot of stuff. It was just a little irritating for part of the tour because they'd said we could personalize it and go where we wanted, and he wasn't interested in letting us totally do that. We paid $300 for the tour including tip, for both of us. That was a good deal compared to the other tours, where we would have had NO control at all over where we went or how long we stayed.

We went to a lot of different places. He picked us up right outside our building, which was great, and took us first to Diamond Head lookout. Then we went to: Hanauma Bay, Halona Cove Lookout (“Here to Eternity” Beach, which had a blowhole, and we saw Sandy’s Beach in the distance, too), Maka Pu’u Lookout; Rabbit Island; we saw Pele’s Chair; the “Crocodile” islands; Lunch at Serg’s Mexican Restaurant in Waimanolo (delicious!); Oulupo Heia (for god of fertility for growing crops--i.e. bunch of rocks); Tropical Farms Macadamia Nut Outlet (tourist trap); Laie Point; Kohuku (going to North Shore beaches); Bonzai Pipeline beach (‘Ehukai) and Hale‘iwa Beach.

The best part was seeing the turtles at that last beach, in Hale'iwa. It was really cool. The turtles swim in from the ocean and lie on the beach, basking in the sun, napping. We saw 4 of them on the land, including one that swam in, and we saw plenty out in the ocean, with their little heads bobbing up and down. It was very cute and enjoyable. The second best was Laie Point (I think that was the one), where they had a large interesting nearby island with a big hole in the middle, and the wind was very intense, and you could walk out to this area with lots of rocks. It was just very pretty there.

After we got back, I was exhausted. We had spent 9 hours out in this van and walking around. Barb tripped as she was getting out of the van. It was a bit of a jump from the van, and he put out this step, but it was not that sturdy. It was easy to trip or fall. So instead of us both walking over to Downbeat Diner to get dinner, I just got take-out there for both of us (it's only 2 and a half blocks away). It was very good, and I went to bed before 7pm and before the sun set! I was very tired and slept about 11 hours.

Tuesday July 15

I woke up several times this morning but didn't want to get up. I finally did around 6am. I had something to eat and then went back to sleep around 9 for awhile...

I was sick for a little bit; I guess the Mexican restaurant we went to yesterday, Serge's, was not gluten free. Barb's ankle was much better today.

It seems very hot and humid today. We were going to go to the beach early, but neither of us got up very early, so we decided against it.

We're going to take a cab down to Ala Moana Center, have lunch and do some shopping, then walk over to the Ala Moana Hotel. Then at 2pm a bus is picking us up so we can go to the Polynesian Cultural Center for the Luau.

We had a good time. We had lunch at the food court in Ala Moana. There's only one place I can eat there, the Cheeseburger Factory, but it has pretty good burgers and fries. Barb had some Thai food. We went to the chocolate store I love there, Big Island Candies. We walked around and looked at tons of stores, including the Disney Store, Hilo Hattie's, and something called Animation Station. We both found the mall very confusingly laid out. It has a lot of interesting stores, but it was hard to figure out what was where, even with the directories. It might have helped if I wasn't feeling sick, and it wasn't so hot, and we didn't only have a few hours. However, we both like Ward Warehouse a lot better. It's smaller and has a lot more character (more original stores). Both are outdoor malls, so they're very hot.

After all that, we walked next door to the Ala Moana Hotel, which is where the tour bus was picking us up. I had never been to that particular hotel before. We were relieved to find it so easily because the stupid map app on my phone said it was 6 minutes by car from the mall! But it was right next door! LOL! The hotel was nice and cool. We got cool drinks and sat down for a few minutes before boarding the bus.

Our bus drive was named Ken. After we boarded the bus, and others did, too, he explained to us that the people at the Polynesian Cultural Center (AKA the Mormons) call everyone "cousin" so he is "Cousin Ken". Very nice man, but he also fancied himself a tour guide and liked to point out some things we passed. We had seen many of them yesterday. Also, he told us that this one lagoon was where the "Fantasy Island" opening sequence was filmed, where Tatu says "De Plane, De Plane!" but that isn't true. That was filmed in L.A. at the Botanical Gardens, as one of my friends pointed out. Some of the opening was filmed in Kauai, but not Oahu at all. Oops!

There were other tours we could have taken that would have meant spending the whole day there, but we didn't want to do that. We didn't see many of the Polynesian "villages", but it doesn't look like we really missed that much. We watched an Imax film that was about a half hour long called "Hawaiian Adventure". It was pretty cool. Certain chairs have "special effects" so your seats moved around as the camera zoomed to show waterfalls, mountains etc. and also you would sometimes get sprayed as the blowholes or other things sprayed on screen. It was not quite like one of those simulated rides. Better than 3D, though.

We did a lot of shopping while there, and then we went to the Luau dinner, which was not only pretty good but a woman was very helpful to tell me which foods were gluten free. There were a few dancers and singers that entertained us there. Afterwards, we walked around a bit, and then we went to the show, called "Ha: Breath of Life", which is where there was a lot more music and dancing. It was in a large outdoor arena/auditorium. They wouldn't let us take photos or film. I have to say that it was pretty good and very well done. Compared to the other luaus I've been, this one was definitely the best. There were only 3 things not as good as the other luaus. 1) There was no alcohol, since the center is owned and run by Mormons. 2) It was not on the beach like the first luau we went to in Paradise Cove. That is a much better venue. And 3), the dancers wore a lot more clothing. I guess because the Mormons are conservative and modest, they make the dancers wear more. Not many skimpy clothes here, for either gender. I have no idea how authentic the show was, but it was very entertaining and better than the other luau entertainment we've seen. There was lots of singing and dancing. They told a kind of story, which was also different. The only thing we wish they had changed is telling us when they switched from one Polynesian culture to another. They did a little bit in the second half, but not the first.

Ken had said he would take us back to downtown after he dropped off the others on Waikiki, but due to traffic, he dropped us off first! So that was great. We were home just after 10pm. Woo hoo! He got a nice tip.

We just watched some TV and Barb went to bed around midnight. I've been doing online stuff. We have some more things planned tomorrow! I kind of feel like I've been on vacation, too.

My sunburn has turned to tan, which I knew it would. Yay!

Wednesday July 16

I'll be sad when Barbara leaves. It's been so much fun! Tonight is her last night and then she's leaving tomorrow evening, so we'll only have part of a day.

I got up after only about 4 hours' sleep. This morning, we got up pretty early and took a taxi to the airport. We took a helicopter tour of the island! It was so fantastic. I mean, words cannot express how we felt. We were both giddy with excitement and then glee. It was that much fun. The views were breathtaking, of course, and just flying up there was very cool. Our pilot was a very nice woman and played music throughout as well as chatted with us (we had headphones on, as well as a microphone- so we could ask questions) and pointed out which areas were which, and areas of interest. I took lots of photos, and so did Barb. I made sure to have plenty of time to just stare out the window. In awe!! It was truly magnificent. Not only was the scenery and view magnificent, but seeing the areas that normally you can't see, because no one can walk there, like the tops of trees, and these valleys where no one is allowed...those are just fantastic. In the end, I bought souvenirs and also we each bought an SD card with the tour on it. They record the whole thing, from different views. Pretty cool!!

We were very tired afterwards, partly from just coming down from the excitement. We had lunch across the street at one of the Chinese restaurants; one I'd never tried before called Legends. It was pretty good. Barbara got dim sum and I got this dish with rice noodles and duck. Then we walked over to Walmart because I had a lot of coins to turn in (about $28 worth of mostly dimes, nickels and pennies). They have a Coinstar machine. I didn't buy anything; at that point, I was really exhausted. We stopped at the student bookstore, where Barb bought an HPU hat. I got a soda and ice cream. It was really hot. Then we went home, and we both relaxed for a few minutes before going back to sleep.

I slept for about 4 more hours. Barbara took a nap, too. After she woke up, we went to Grondin for dinner. I love that place, and they have great food, but they let us down big time tonight! I usually get these crepes with duck, which are delicious. Apparently they ran out of the corn flour or what it is they usually use to make it gluten free. So I couldn't have it, and that bummed me out. Barbara ordered it, though, and then they took forever to bring it. Apparently another waiter took it for another customer so hers was delayed. Then I had to keep bugging them for more soda. They were slow about everything. And then I ordered some sorbet and asked them to bring it with Barbara's dish, but then I was told they were out of it. This is not good and doesn't bode well for their restaurant. Also, these are minor things, but their chairs are fairly uncomfortable and the place tends to be very loud. It's small and crowded, and they turn up the music. I know it sounds terrible and like I hate it, but I actually do love the place because the food is really good and the staff is very nice.

We just hung around after that..Barb went to bed fairly early and I stayed up until about 2:30. I'll be very sad when she's gone!

Here are lots of photos I took while Barb was here and here are other pics from this summer.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, too!

Week of July 4th

2014-07-11T19:30:00.000-05:00

Friday July 4th

I was hoping to talk David into go on the dinner cruise tonight, so we could see the fireworks, but he really didn't want to go. He was off from work today, so that was nice.

My iPhone arrived, so we went down to the Verizon store to get it. Also, David wanted to talk to them about getting a special rate for his phone when he's visiting Taiwan. It usually takes a long time when you get a new phone and try to get all of the info switched over, etc. We went to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch, and then came back. It didn't take too much longer to get the phone processed! I'm enjoying the phone so far, but I have to go back there and ask a few questions about how to do certain things. No matter what technology you're using, if you switch to another one, there are things to get used to that are different and irritating!

I was playing with my iPhone a lot, especially the karaoke app. I was going to record some songs, but I ran out of time.

We met Matthew and Sara at the Ward Center for dinner and drinks. We were supposed to meet at this place called the Real Gastropub, which has all these different types of beers. However, they were closed for the holiday, so we went next door to Buca Di Beppo, which is a pretty good Italian restaurant. We went there once before. They have a GF menu, so I'm happy. They have huge portions, so I had a salad, which had pepperoni, salami, cheese and lots of great stuff. I also ordered a side of sausage and peppers, but it was way too hot for me to eat. They have huge drinks there that you can get in souvenir glasses, so of course I had to get one for our glasses collection. It was not only a huge plastic souvenir glass, but lights up! So fun. The drink was really good but not very strong. We had a great time visiting with them, and we also had our picture taken with the photographer who came to the table. You can see this and other photos this summer here. It has all of the new photos of the house, too.

We walked there and back, so it was over 3 miles. A nice walk! It was good weather, too.

I ended up staying up way too late, till almost 5:30 am.

Saturday July 5th

David woke me up about 10:30 am. We went to Lowe's and got some boards to put on the guest bedroom bed frame, to support the mattress. Matthew and Sara had done this before, so it works. The guy at Lowe's was very helpful. You just tell them what you need, and they'll cut it whatever size you need, which is really convenient.

We had lunch at J.J. Dolan's. I just had a salad. We walked around a little. I'm trying to find some heavy ornamental things to weigh down the rugs on the lanai because the wind keeps whipping them around. I did order some carpet tape, but it hasn't arrived yet. We went into this one store that sells lots of Asian decorations, but they only had a few things that were heavy enough to work, and they were very expensive. Funny thing is, no one there spoke any English. We were looking at something on the shelf, and the store clerk stood nearby (almost invading our space). I told her what we needed, but she didn't say anything, just showed us the price on her little price-reading device. Clearly she didn't understand a word I said but was just telling us how much it cost. Then she kept lurking nearby, like she thought we might be stealing something! It was very weird. We left pretty quickly.

We both took naps this afternoon. I napped on the guest bed to make sure it's comfortable, and it is.

We met up with Tom and Cynthia down in Waikiki at this restaurant called Top of Waikiki. It has a revolving restaurant and bar at the top, with a great view. It was kind of a like a blind date because we'd never met with them before. They're friends of our other friends, Monty and Paul. Monty used to work with David at Texas Tech. He later got a job at Cal State San Bernardino, and they bought a house in Riverside, right around the corner from our good friends Shaun and Jadie! Whom we met back when we lived in Riverside. David and Shaun were colleagues early in their careers. So it's just such a funny coincidence. Monty and Paul are really great people, and they love parties and are really good at entertaining and hosting guests. Tom and Cynthia just moved here a month or so ago. They own a place in Mexico that Monty and Paul have visited. They're in the same field as Monty is, Public Administration. Anyway, it was great to meet them and we had a fun time at dinner. We all drank way too much wine! I know I did :)

I'm hoping that Barb and I can go to karaoke on Friday, and that Tom and Cynthia and possibly others, will meet us there, too. Should be fun. Too bad David will be in Taiwan!

Now I'm printing out my list of karaoke songs so we can have those if we need them while Barb is visiting. I spent a lot of time last night organizing my disks. They had gotten out of order when we moved.

Tomorrow I have to organize/clean out some of the closets; we have to go to the grocery store; I need to do laundry and dishes; and work on my site. I have a ton of errands to run, too.

It's almost 2:30 am and I'm up way too late again. Where does the time go?

Sunday July 6

I woke up around 11. We went to lunch at this Chinese restaurant across the street. It's always iffy to eat at these places because we have to be lucky to find someone who speaks and understands English enough to know about allergies. David was the one who got sick this time (just a little). He's only allergic to nuts, so they may have had some nuts in the dim sum he ate, even though he asked about nuts and they said it didn't have any. He's more sensitive to that than I am to wheat, so even if they just prepared the food where nuts had been, or accidentally dropped a nut in it, that would be enough. I was disappointed because the dish I'd had there before has soy sauce in it, and I had been told it was gluten free previously. I had the crispy chicken, which was ok, kinda bland. I took it to go and ate it at home, since David wasn't feeling that great and wanted to leave. He shared some of my chicken at home.

We went out again and I looked around for something at the shops in Chinatown, but I didn't find what I was looking for.

My right leg is hurting a lot today. I think it's probably from all of the walking I did on Friday. When I overdo the exercise, it sometimes doesn't hurt for a day or so.

I don't remember if I said this already or not, but I'm really enjoying our new fan. It makes a huge difference with the heat. I'm going to try not to use the a/c much this summer.

I've been working all day on trying to get things done on my to-do list for today as much as possible. We went to the grocery store as usual and then to Downbeat for dinner. It's always good there.

I ran into someone I sort of know, the wife of one of the band members. She was upset because she felt that one of the other band members was being rude at the birthday party (I didn't see what she was talking about). She was implying that we could do without him in the band (we can't because he's very important to the group's success and dynamic). I just said, well, let him know (that he was rude). I said I really didn't want to get in the middle of it. I'm sure she wanted me to agree with her, but...

I found a little time to record some more songs, so that was good.

I cleaned out the main closet and straightened out the chest of drawers, and the towels in the bathroom closet. Then I spent a lot of time getting the food ready for Tuesday. I made two new recipes from scratch. One is a corn salad and the other is sour cream onion dip.

Otherwise, just been working on my site. I need to go to bed soon!

Monday July 7

I woke up around 10 or 11 and then from there I was just going, going, going all day! I had to straighten up the house, clean some of the mirrors, and the front door, and do laundry, quite a few last minute things. Then I met David for lunch, and we went to Subway.

Then I went to Fisher to get a couple of binders for my lists of karaoke songs; to Long's to get Hawaiian candies, nuts and cookies for Barb, and a few other things. Then I stopped at the flower shop next to David's office to get a couple of plants and a lei for Barb. I went home and rested a bit, and then I went to the chocolate store down the street (Madres) and then to HASR's wine store to get some wine, and some scotch. They also had the great Japanese rice beer I'd sampled last week, so that was exciting to discover. Then I took all that home.

On the way home, about 4 hippie-looking guys were walking down the street in front of me, passing a joint back and forth. Then one said, "Let this lady pass...unless she wants a hit." So I chuckled and said, "No thanks" as I walked past.

After I got home, I had to go out once again, to the Safeway to pick up some things that the Times supermarket was lacking. I was so glad to finally get home again and relax a little and cool off. I still had lots to do and then I took a shower about 4:30. David came home around 5, and we went to the airport to pick up Barb. She was already here, but she still had to get her bag. Fortunately, the traffic was not bad! She was very glad to see us and to be in Hawaii. It's always great to see her!

We dropped her bags at our place, and she took a look around, and at the view. Then we walked over to Gordon Biersch for dinner because it's near the water. The food was pretty good and we had a great time chatting.

We chatted some more after we got home, and Barb and I talked about some of the things we planned to do. Should be fun!

I've spent most of the evening preparing food for tomorrow. I'm so tired and need to get to sleep! It's almost 4am. Unfortunately, I started boiling some eggs, so I can make deviled eggs. They're taking FOREVER!

Tuesday June 8

For tonight's dinner, I'm making what they call here "heavy pu pu's". It's buffet style food. I'm having:
cut-up veggies-green pepper, red pepper, celery, carrots, cucumber, zucchini and little tomatoes
three types of dip: homemade onion dip, guacamole and cheese dip (the last is not home-made)
lots of chips
fresh corn salad
spicy pecans
two types of olives
portuguese sausage
parmesan cheese chips
rolled up beef and turkey with cream cheese
deviled eggs
And for dessert, fruit dipped in chocolate (and maybe cupcakes if I get around to buying them). I have cherries, apples, bananas, mango and strawberries. Yum!
We also have lots of wine, beer, and some scotch...

I set the alarm for 11. I slept fine, but I have a little cut right on the side of my mouth. I hate that!

I overcooked my deviled eggs :( Apparently one of the burners is not working right so instead of boiling, they simmered to death. UGH.

Barbara and I walked over to see David's office, and she met his secretary and some other people. We went over to 'umeke Market. I had lunch and bought some scones while Barb just snacked. We stopped at Verizon so I could ask them some questions, and then Long's for a few things, where we saw a nice, funny old lady (also coincidentally named Barb). We then stopped at Subway for me to get a soda and then at the cupcake place to get some cupcakes for my dinner.

Once we got home, I had to finish cooking and preparing food (I did make more deviled eggs). I finally was able to take a shower and relax for a few minutes.

The cast iron doorstop things I ordered arrived, so I put them on the rugs on the lanai. The carpet tape I bought didn't work at all. I think it's more the kind for putting a rug on top of carpeting, not for putting it on a hard tile floor. The doorstops work, though.

Matthew and Sara came by around 6:30. The food went over well and everyone had a great time. They couldn't stay TOO late because they all had to get up for work tomorrow except for me and Barb. I totally forgot that I was also going to cook some frozen shumai that I bought. We had enough food, though.

I was so exhausted and went to bed before midnight.

Wednesday June 9

I woke up after 10...I was so tired!

We're going to have lunch at Zippy's so Barb can see the very-Hawaiian menu and then we're heading to Waikiki for some fun shopping and sight-seeing.

We had a nice lunch there, then stopped home again for a couple of things before heading to Waikiki. I had told her that we usually use TheCab or sometimes EcoCab. She phoned EcoCab, and we waited downstairs for them for 15 minutes (which is really a long time here) and then they called back and still weren't sure where we were, and they said it would be another 10 minutes! So we called them off and called TheCab as we walked toward the Aston Executive Center down on Bishop, and they got there before we did! Fortunately, they waited for us as we rushed there.

We went first to this moped rental place that she had found online. She's probably going to use the moped to go around to some places I don't care about seeing. Then we walked over to see one of the statues of the legendary Duke, and she took photos. We stopped along the way to get sodas and air-conditioning. I had part of a shave ice near the beach. I've heard of these as they're very popular here. They're kind of like a sno cone, only way better. Also, it was way too big, so I only had a little bit. She had another local favorite, the Plantation Tea. Then I held on to her stuff while she dipped her feet into the ocean, and we took more pictures. You can see all of Barb's photos here.

We walked around and stopped in a lot of stores as we bought stuff. It was pretty hot out. Neither of us spent too much money, though, or got over-heated.

After a while, we went to Kani Ka Pila Grille at the Outrigger Reef, to meet up with David for dinner. He was a little late but showed up around 5:45. We were pretty tired and hungry. We did a lot of walking around, shopping etc.

I have been eating way too much food, especially sugar, lately.

I had to do laundry because David's going on his trip tomorrow. I sure will miss him... it's hard to be apart when we've only been apart a few days in the last 32 years!

Friday night, Barb and I are going to karaoke at Art's, and I've invited many people. I hope some of them show up!

Monday we're taking a private tour around the island. Its surprisingly affordable. We have a list of things to do and only 7 days while she's here, so we'll see what happens.

Thursday June 10

We finally sent in our voter registration so we can vote in the primary.

Oh, my, what a long day, but fun!

I woke up around 9:30, so I only had 6 hours sleep. David left for the airport not too long after that. So sad to see him go! I miss him already.

Barb and I walked down to the area where the 'Iolani Palace is. It's across the street from where my post office box is. I don't go there very often as it's a little outside the general area downtown here where I usually go. First I went to the post office and closed my box and got my mail. I didn't want to carry the mail around, so I mailed it back to my home address :)

We took the audio tour at the palace. It's pretty cool. They have these little touchpad devices that you plug headphones in, and it takes you through the palace. It dings and tells you to press play if you want to go on to the next spot, plus you can pause, rewind, and fast forward. Very cool. We bought tickets at the little house next to it (I think it used to be a schoolhouse or church). Thankfully, both places were air-conditioned. It was pretty hot. They had us put on little booties to go in to the tour. It has a lot of the old carpets and other furnishings, so they don't want you tracking dirt in. This is especially true here where they have a lot of lava ash in the air. It makes the carpets black, as I learned the hard way!

So we walked around, and Barb took plenty of photos. She's got a very nice digital camera and takes lots of photos, so I don't have to take any while she's here. She just gives me copies at the end of each day. Sweet! It was a very interesting tour. I wasn't sure if I would find it all that fascinating, but I did. I like looking at old houses and furniture, and learning about the people in it, so that worked out great. There was a lot of standing around and walking. Barb estimated we walked about 5 hours today, all told. I'm sure it was at least 4.

We were thirsty and getting hungry. We took a few pictures of the statue across the street of King Kamehameha, and some of an old church (the first Christian church here). Then we walked down to the first place we saw, Jack-in-the-Box, and had a soda before continuing on.

We used the maps on our phone pretty heavily, but I'm proud to say that I knew generally how to get to where we were going. David and I have walked it a few times, but I tend not to pay that much attention to my surroundings if someone else is in charge of where we're going. We walked down King Street, which eventually turns into Kapiolani. I wasn't sure about that, but I ended up being right.

Our next stop was the Ward Warehouse. Ward Center and that area has lots of stores and shops. David and I have been to the Zpizza there a few times (they have good gluten free pizza), and to various other stores. When we went to Kincaid's for Thanksgiving, we saw lots of interesting shops around it, but they were closed. So first Barb and I went to get lunch at Zpizza. She had pineapple and ham pizza, since she was in Hawaii. It looked pretty good. I had pepperoni and sausage. It was really yummy. We then had to figure out how to get over to the Kincaid's, which was a bit tricky, but we figured it out. There is some major construction going on next to that part, so it momentarily confused us. Fortunately, I remembered that when we were at Kincaid's, we sat by the window and saw the pier, so I knew that it was facing the ocean. We went to Kincaid's to use the restroom, so we sat and got a cool drink and had some dessert. They have yummy desserts - I had excellent Crème brûlée. We walked around and looked at the interesting stores for a while, and then we took a cab home. We were pretty exhausted, otherwise we would have walked. Barb and I both have damaged spines, which is a common problem with people over a certain age, apparently.

After we got home, I was really pooped, so I had a nap for about an hour, and then a shower. It really refreshed me. We then walked the other direction to the Dole Cannery, where the movie theater is. This is the old Dole Cannery, not where they give the tour. It's about a mile from our place. You go through some pretty scuzzy areas to get there, though, so we took a cab back, since it was dark after we left. Anyway, we went to see the X-Men movie, which was great. Barb had already seen it but didn't mind seeing it again. We were the only ones in the theater when the movie started, but a few other people came in. The movie's been out quite a while. We might go see a double feature later; they're showing the last Planet of the Apes movie as well as the current one. I haven't seen the last one.

Even though I was exhausted, I still stayed up quite a while. Barb and I talked a lot. She went to bed a little early because she has stuff to do tomorrow. I think it was after 2 am when I finally hit the sack. So tired! It was really windy, almost cold. I had to turn off the fan and shut the lanai door long before going to bed. I did a bit of work on my site, but not too much - too tired!

Friday June 11

I slept in until almost 12:30. David phoned me from his first hotel in Taiwan. We've been texting a lot. He couldn't figure out at first how to phone from his cell, but I helped him. Still, it's $2 a minute... It was nice to hear his voice! So glad he got there safely.

My back is hurting a lot from all the walking yesterday. I've been catching up on things online a little, and doing laundry, straightening up etc. It's almost 2 so I'm going to go get some lunch.

We'll be going to karaoke tonight at Art's Hideaway. I hope some of the people I invited show up! But if not, we'll still have fun.

I'll be updating my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu blog and my TV Blog in a little while, so make sure to check them out!

Week of June 29

2014-07-06T03:56:00.002-05:00

Friday June 27

I forgot to mention that last night I vacuumed the bedrooms (not very exciting, I know!). We're having the carpets cleaned, but I figure it can't hurt. Also, I wanted to clean it for when we put the furniture together in the guest bedroom - we have to sit down on the floor to do it.

I slept in a little late, so I went later to 'umeke Market to get lunch. They are very knowledgeable about gluten, and they have great food. I also bought some stuff at Long's.

In the afternoon, I worked on recording more songs, for fun, and also because I was working on some of them for the band. I brought the new fan in to the guest room, where I record, which I really needed. I get very hot and sweaty when I sing, for some reason. I asked my last voice teacher, and my doctor, and neither one knew why that happens. Hmmm!

David came home around 5:30 and we walked over to the Pacific Club. I wore a new dress that is not only very comfortable but looks pretty good on me. We met Matthew and Sara for this special beer- and sake-tasting they have there on certain Fridays. They didn't have wine, but it turned out that they did have some Japanese rice lager, which is gluten free. So that was great! It tasted pretty good, too. I don't like strong tasting beer, so it was perfect. There was food, but I'm not a sushi fan. I just had this salmon dish with an orange sauce, and rice, and then there were good desserts I could eat. They had a yummy fruit salad and some flan. Delicious! We had a great time out and stayed out until after 10, talking to them. It looks like they're going to come over on the 8th for dinner, when Barb is here, so that should be fun.

I ended up staying up way too late, until after 3 am, working on my site.

Saturday June 28

I woke up around 6 am and my legs were really hurting. I think in part it was from standing too long yesterday while I was singing. Then I woke up for good around 10. I was SO tired, very groggy, so we walked over to the Starbucks and I got coffee. It did help quite a bit.

We went to my rehearsal around 11:30, but most of the band showed up after noon... it went very well. We went over most of the songs. They did tell me that two of the songs I've been working on, we're not doing tomorrow, so I don't have to worry about them. There were several confusing moments during the rehearsal, but otherwise it went great. We even had some fun jamming with some songs that are not currently on our list, from The Carpenters, Beatles, Herman's Hermits and The Monkees. My voice was a bit hoarse, though, at the end of the rehearsal, so I have to be careful to rest it. I enjoyed it and also getting to know the guys better.

Tomorrow should be great! I'm psyched.
David and I are going to dinner around 4:30 because Barb is calling us at 6.

We had a nice chat with her. I was exhausted and went to bed early, around 7.

Sunday June 29

I woke up around 4 am! I'd had 9 hours sleep. I was still tired, though. I did a little work and then went back to bed briefly. I had to get up to take a shower and do some laundry.

Here's how our first gig went....NAMES ABBREVIATED FOR PRIVACY! I'm not trying to embarrass anyone or hurt feelings. I'm just being honest about what happened.

It was quite an experience! It was both fun and a little awful. :) This was a surprise birthday party for our keyboard player, B.'s brother-in-law, who was turning 70. There were probably a few hundred (?) people there in this huge place, I don't know what you'd call it, but kind of a garage almost? So it was open to the sun and wind on either side but covered by the building. Kind of hard to explain. Anyway, there were lots of nice people and tons of great food. I was very nervous at first and my stomach was doing flip-flops. I knew it would be fine once I started singing...

I kind of stood out, being one of the few white people there! LOL! This was real Hawaiian, not the touristy kind of gathering. (I used to think that "haole" meant white people, like honky or gringo, but it actually refers to anyone who's not a native ethnic Hawaiian, so it's a lot of people, not just white people--in fact, most of my band, even though they're from here, are Japanese-American, so we're all haoles except for one guy)

Anyway, B. said, the band should show up at 9 or 10 (me at 11) and then we'll start playing around noon, probably go for two hours. So I said, 3 at the latest? And he said yes. So I told my husband, pick me up at 3. I mentioned it to R. and he said, naw, I doubt we'll do more than an hour.

I get there and I'm told, it's pushed back to 12:30. There was a guy playing acoustic first. Then we get on the stage, and the microphones are not working. They're going in and out. Something wrong with the sound board? They work on it for a half hour or more. Finally they get it sort of working. Basically, we have one good mic for singing. Three of us share most of the singing duties, so that's not good at all.

We've only had 3 rehearsals together (most of them have been doing this together for a long time, so I'm the newbie along with P., who plays backup guitar and is still learning). I was given a list of about 30 songs, and we ran through about half of them on Saturday. I only sing lead on 7 songs, and I was told we're not doing two of them in this concert, so that was fine. I sing background on all the others, but it's not necessary in the sense that they already have it covered. I'm just extra background singing and shaking the tambourine, smiling, dancing etc. Just looking pretty, ha ha!

So when I get there today, I'm told by R. the drummer, we only have about 45 minutes of songs to do, so let's just do the first 7 or 8 songs. I notice that the last song is a slow one, so I suggest, let's just do the first 10 songs so we can end with the fast ones, and then if they want an encore, we'll do Twist and Shout. Good thinking, I'm told. But then we start late due to the mic problems. So we only do four songs. We do the first one on the list, "The Twist" and that goes fine. S., the lead singer and guitar player, does that one and the rest of us do background singing "round and round and round" etc.

The second song on the list is "Under the Boardwalk", so I turn around and ask everyone, "Under the Boardwalk", right? And S. is telling everyone "Stand by Me", confusing me and others. And L., who does background singing and trumpet, and some lead vocals, says, "what key?" even though yesterday we all were given the list of songs and told to write the keys down. This happened each time we went to sing a song. Very unprofessional, all this chatter between us when we should just launch into the next song as planned.

So we do "Stand by Me'" and then my first lead song, "Crazy". Well, L. says, switch mics with S. because he has the good one. So foolishly I listen to L. That mic is not good! LOL! Now, every time we practice this song, B. has trouble with the intro. Then yesterday they added P. to the intro to make it sound better, but now they have trouble just being on time and together. So that sounded awful. Then you can't hear me when I start singing because that's the bad mic. And as always, L. and S. don't do the background vocals like they're supposed to, but that's fine. About halfway through, I switch mics with S. so they can actually hear me. Then it sounds much better.

The next song is supposed to be my "Just My Imagination", but then S. once again changed the song. And so on it went. They said, take a break after the 4th song. So we waited and waited, like 2 hours. They had other "entertainment". Some hula dancers of various ages. They had some grandmas doing an old Filipina dance in beautiful outfits. They had some little girls singing songs from "Frozen". They had some mentally challenged teens dancing. This went on forever. I was getting very antsy. It was both hot and very windy. At least I was no longer nervous! Just annoyed.

I said to myself, oh, well, it's just a public rehearsal, not a real concert....

So we came back on finally, about quarter till 3, and sang the rest of our songs. They're used to doing "Blue Bayou" in A, but that's way too low for me, so we'd changed it to C. But they forgot and started playing in A, so it was awful. S. also did harmony in places that don't have harmony, even though I had said, it doesn't have harmony there. We messed up "Barbara Ann" a bit, but it sounded okay. The wind was whipping through and not only throwing my hair in my face but turning my lyrics pages (I don't quite have them all memorized yet - haven't had time). So I was trying to keep one hand on the lyrics and still smile, sing, and all that. They had changed it so that we repeated the first verse, and I had marked that down, but with the wind and all, I didn't see my mark and forgot. Then after I messed up, L. messed up, too, which caused me to mess up again as well :)

Of course David came at 3 to pick me up, but we still had 3 or 4 songs left to sing.... but he didn't mind or anything.... I even saw him dancing during one of the songs, one of the little kids was dancing with him...really cute. There were a lot of cute little kids there.

We did "Just My Imagination" very well, but you couldn't hear me too well due to the mic problems. We had fun, though, that was the main thing. We did fine versions of "Good Lovin'", "Wooly Bully", "Twist and Shout" etc. I didn't think "Mustang Sally" was great, but all I had to do was shake the tambourine and sing "Ride Sally Ride".

The audience started leaving before we did our last two songs...guess they'd had enough! LOL! I don't think it was personal...it had been a long day. Like I said, everyone was very nice, and I got a lot of compliments and hugs, and the birthday guy came over to thank us.

When the wind whipped through, it blew poor P.'s notes and music all over the place, too! I think he and I have both learned now that we need to have that stuff pinned down, especially if it's outdoors.

Apparently, no one in the band could hear very well. We couldn't hear ourselves, and we couldn't hear each other, and none of us is sure if the audience, especially in the back, could hear us. So that was all very odd. Hopefully future performances will be better!

We're getting better equipment... the guy who owns the studio where we rehearsal is going to rent it to us. I just have to have a talk with them, especially S. and L. about picking the songs ahead of time and sticking to the set list. None of this changing at the last minute stuff unless it's a request by the people paying us. It's just frustrating and doesn't look good when we don't know what we're doing. Also, we need to get more fast songs and fewer slow ones. By the way, I didn't pick ANY of my songs so I'm hoping they will do some of the ones I like better. It's not "my" band, so I've just been letting them tell me what they want, for the most part. Oh, and also this was not a paying gig...

Anyway, it was fun, like I said, for the most part. I just enjoyed it. I have to admit that I enjoyed the backup singing even more than my own songs. It was fun to just relax, sing background, bang the tambourine, smile, dance etc. Much less pressure. Especially with the mics not working well and the problems with keys.

There's another, smaller, concert July 19, but I can't make that one. Then we're playing for some hospital(?) July 25, and then our big concert is August 22, so we'll have some time to polish things up. Hopefully! Ha ha!!

I feel like I kind of had a trial by fire and now I'm ready for anything...Woo hoo!

I was starving when we left the party because I'd only had a few chips to eat and not much else. They had long lines for the food and I didn't feel like standing in them. Also I was worried about the possibility of gluten.

We went to Murphy's for dinner. I had the lamb chops special, which are always good. I was in a self indulgent mood, so I also had the dessert. Bad idea. I really over-ate and upset my stomach for a little while. I went to bed again about 7 but then woke up at an hour later, with an upset stomach. Then I decided to just relax and listen to music for a while before finally going to bed around 11.

Monday July 30

I woke up really early, like 4 am. I went back to bed for a while and then woke up for an early conference call. Then I was up all day, tired. UGH.

I was looking forward to all of the hectic stuff coming up, but then we found out that we have to move in 45 days! The guy who owns our apartment is selling it. I went to look at a place next door in the Park Place (which is a way better building than ours), but there were many other applicants. Also, we need to wait a while before we can move in so we don't have to pay two rents. We're both hoping we can stay in one of these two buildings or at least in the area downtown here in one of the high rises. I sure wish we known this before I bought all of this furniture! Oh, well...

I caught up on a lot of work today otherwise, and did some shopping as well. We went to Subway for lunch and it didn't make me sick, knock on wood! Later on for dinner, we went to Epic. We were going to go to HASR's, but it was closed. I hope it was just closed for a private party or something! There was no sign on the door but the door was locked. (Found out later that it's closed on Mondays, which we had never realized before)

I had to move most of the furniture out of the bedrooms because the carpet cleaners are coming tomorrow. Whew!

It's pretty hot nowadays, but our new fan is helping a lot. It kind of looks like a mess right now in our place, but that will get better.

I put together the metal bed frame for the twin bed in the guest bedroom. It was surprisingly easy.

I went to the Verizon store to talk about getting a new phone. I'm getting an iPhone. Can't wait!

Tuesday July 1

I had trouble sleeping last night, woke up several times.... I had to get up around 8:15 because the building management is cleaning the air and dryer vents, so they said we have to be around for access to those. They came this morning and covered the air vents in the bathrooms. Tomorrow they're coming to clean our dryer vents. I hope they don't take too long.

I had more furniture moving to do, and then I dozed for a while in the living room (so I could hear the door). The carpet cleaners came around 9:30 and they did a great job. The carpets look cleaner than they did when we moved in. No more black marks. I can't move the stuff back until tomorrow. Since it's so humid here, we have to worry about mold, so we have to make sure it's all dry before we move anything back. I hate everything being in such disarray, though.

I got the new mattress and the big rug for the living room. Just waiting on one more rug, I believe.

I kept trying to go back to sleep all day, but then people kept phoning for one thing or another.

We went to lunch at Subway again. After I got home, a few hours later, I went to Safeway with my little cart and got groceries. We didn't go to Times market this weekend. Too busy!

I called some local moving companies about costs. Hard to say yet since we don't know when or where we're moving. Sounds like it won't cost more than $1000 and possibly much less.

I wish we didn't have to move, but if we get into a better place, or a larger place, then it will be worth the hassle.

I can't believe it's July already! Where is the summer going?

We got our new chaise lounge chair for the patio yesterday, so I've been enjoying sitting on that outside. It's very comfy and looks really nice.

We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I just had a salad. Later I had gluten free Udi's pizza. The Safeway is finally carrying it. It's not great pizza, but better than nothing. I wish we could get the Foods by George pizza instead.

I stayed up a bit too late, until about 1am. I was tired but not sleepy.

Wednesday July 2

I woke up around 7:30am, a half hour before the alarm went off! :( I had to get up and get dressed because the dryer vent cleaning people were coming sometime, and also I had an interview at 8:30.

I went down to the cupcake place about 9am, but they were already out of gluten free cupcakes! I should have suggested that they make more...

Oh, yeah, and when I went down to the lobby, I almost slipped and fell. I was half asleep still, and they had been mopping the floor. I saw the maintenance person mopping, I saw the yellow signs, but my brain was not awake, so it didn't register. So I was rushing and turned the corner, started slipping. I grabbed the wall, which is very rough, and there was nothing to really grab on to, so I scraped my hand, but fortunately I was able to keep from falling. Boy, did I feel stupid.

About 10, I was very tired and put a note on the door saying to knock loudly because I was sleeping or to call my phone. But before I could make it to bed, I was very sick from the BBQ Baked lays I ate the last two days (the ones sold at the Subway don't have any ingredient information, so I thought they were safe since they didn't say "contains: wheat"). Then the guys came right after that to clean the dryer vents. Fortunately, they didn't take too long, and I went back to sleep about 11:30. I slept until after 4.

After I woke up, I started putting the furniture and other stuff back into the bedrooms... I was hot and sweaty, so I took a shower. Then we went to HASR's Bistro for dinner. The waiter was very slow. The eggplant souffle was delicious as ever, but we ordered ribs and they were not nearly as good as the last two times I ordered them. Not good when you're paying so much.

Tomorrow the maid is coming, so I'll have to get things ready for her. I don't like them to have to my knick knacks and such to dust because they'll just pick it up, wipe it, wipe the shelf and put it back down. I'd prefer to move my stuff so they can really dust well, with a wet rag, and then later I can wipe my own stuff and put it back. Also, some in the past have dropped my stuff and even broken something. I was going to cancel the maid service, but then they said they'd give me a 50% discount, so that's great. Only $90. It's pretty dirty, especially the living room, but then again she doesn't have to vacuum the rugs, since they were already cleaned yesterday!

I got a bunch of these runners (long rectangular rugs) for our bedroom so that we don't mess up the carpet again before we leave. They're pretty and have butterflies on them. I put those down today but I think I'm going to iron them and some other things. They were folded up so they have big wrinkles. I have four more to put in the front hallway after the maid cleans it.

I was looking up tourist stuff online so I could send it to Barb. I'm very bummed because I found out that Teddy Bear World is closed. This was a silly tourist attraction, but I really had hoped to go. It had lots of stuffed animatronic, singing bears in different costumes, kind of like the Small World ride in Disneyland. I love bears and collect them, and I really wanted to go. Last year, we went there but just to check it out, and David didn't want to go. I had hoped to go. They closed last October! Big bummer. They had a great gift shop, too. So sad. :(

Maybe I'll get to swim with a dolphin...that would be cool.

Geez, what a bad day. On top of all that other stuff... I went to sit down on the mattress we got for the guest room and I fell right through. Apparently, I should have also bought a bed foundation or box spring. You know, I've never bought a bed before except with David, and the kind we got always came with a frame that was sturdy, and you didn't need box springs. Or it came with box springs. So I had no idea you have to get those separately. So I went online to order it and guess what - no one will ship one here. At least that I've found so far. It's so irritating that Hawaii is apparently so difficult to ship larger items to. It makes no sense, though, since Sears shipped me a matress and frame but won't ship me the foundation/box springs??? WTF? So we're probably going to have to go on the weekend and get something at Kmart or something if we can find one. Hopefully it will be delivered by Monday. At least we still have the blow-up mattress, just in case. I'm going to have to call the furniture places tomorrow to see what I can get. What a pain.

One bit of good news - I heard back from one of the realtors I phoned yesterday. The one that has a 3 bedroom condo here in Honolulu Tower, so I'm meeting with her tomorrow at noon. I hope it's nice! 13th floor so it will not be nearly as good of a view.

Thursday July 3

The maid came a little before 9 and it took her 4 hours to clean the place! Honestly, I just cleaned it about a month ago. To be fair, I didn't mop, but still...! They should have sent more people to clean it. She was great, very nice and did a good thorough job. Their company is called Elite Commercial Cleaning. The company that cleaned the rugs is called Clean Carpet RX.

I was supposed to look at another apartment, but the realtor didn't show up at as scheduled. Oh, well. I'm sure there will be lots of place available as we get closer to the end of July.

We went to Murphy's for dinner again. I was in a mood for steak.

I was really exhausted today after moving furniture and putting everything back...I had trouble sleeping because my legs and back were hurting.

Hope you have a great 4th of July!

Don't forget to check out my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog and my TV Blog.

Week of June 23

2014-06-28T07:34:00.001-05:00

Friday June 20

This was a very busy weekend, and I'm typing this on Monday!

Don't forget, you can read my Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/SuzanneLan It's probably a bit more interesting...

I had an early morning conference call and then went back to sleep. We went back to the local Indian restaurant, Lani's Kitchen, for lunch. They only have a small menu to choose from, so we both got the chicken tikka, which was that day's special. David liked it. To me it didn't taste like the chicken tikka I've gotten at other places (not as good). Also, it was WAY too hot for me. The salad that came with it was very good.

We went to dinner with David's assistant deans, Bill and Trish. They invited us to eat with them at Nico's, a fish place on the pier. We've heard it's good, and it was. Lots of food! I stuffed myself way too much. We had a great chatting with them. They went to see the Mikado after that. I think David and I went to the bar briefly after that and then home.

Saturday June 21

I woke up pretty early... I think I just had breakfast at home.

My band's rehearsal was at 2... no one ever comes on time... but also, traffic can be bad here. Anyway, the guy who ran the place forgot to unlock the studio door for us, so we started late. Which was annoying because I had to leave early, at 4 instead of 5, so we only had about an hour and a half to work. There was a little confusion here and there, so we spent most of the time on one song, which was a bit frustrating. We went over two other songs briefly at the end, and then I had to leave. Don't get me wrong, I love having a band!! It's a lot of fun and way better than karaoke. I could tell that I had over-sung a bit on Thursday when recording, though, so I kind of was hoarse at the end of the rehearsal. This week, I'm just going to sing a little bit each day as I work on learning some of these songs better.

We have another rehearsal next Saturday, and then my first gig on Sunday! That should be great. It's just an informal thing... a birthday party for one of their friends, who's turning 70. So if we mess up or don't sound great, it'll be okay... which is good, trust me! LOL!

We went home briefly after that, so we could change and relax for a few minutes, and then David had to go to a luau at his university. Beautiful weather. Luau just means a party here, generally... usually outdoors and sometimes on the beach. This one was on the other part of HPU's campus, a place called Hawaii Loa (it used to be a junior college before HPU bought it out). It's near the mountains and very pretty, always cooler there than here. Not that it's super-hot here yet. They had tents set up in case it rained. There were many tables and chairs, so it was mostly like being indoors, not like you might picture a more traditional luau. Most people were just standing around chatting. They had a silent auction, but we only bid on a few things and didn't win. Geico had a table there, and they gave away little stuffed gekkos. They also took your picture with this little machine that put the gekko in the photo with us. There were many people we knew there from the university, and we also met some of the alumni. They had free wine, so that was good. :) I couldn't eat most of the food because it mostly had soy sauce or wheat. At least I was able to chat with the cook and we went through each dish, and determined there were a few things there I could eat. We all sat down before the buffet, and some guy sang and played Hawaiian music on his guitar. Then, after the food, they had some speeches and there was a short movie. We were both very tired and ready to leave, so we rushed out around 7:30. We went to Ra Kuen, a Japanese restaurant, so I could have more food to eat (they have gluten free soy sauce now!). I was really exhausted when we finally got home, so I went to bed before 11 and I slept until about 10. I might have slept longer if the phone hadn't rung.

Sunday June 22

I'm just feeling very overwhelmed today because there's so much to do! My place is a mess again.

I got up very early, about 9:30. Then we went to the grocery store. We then went for lunch at Downbeat Cafe. It's really good, but they took a really long time. Normally the service there is not so slow. Then we went to O'Toole's, which is usually not crowded, but there were a ton of people there watching the World Cup. It was smoky and loud, and we couldn't get a comfortable seat. Bleccchhh!

We didn't really do very much after that... later on, we went to Murphy's for dinner. I gave them another chance. I just had a salad, and it was very good.

I ordered a whole bunch of furniture and other stuff online. I wanted to shop locally, but David's always busy, so this is the only way I would get it before Barbara came to visit! I bought dining room chairs, living room chairs, and patio chairs; and lots of rugs; and two end tables; a twin bed, and frame; a floor lamp; and a fan... a few other things, but those were the main furniture items. I was considering buying a desk for my laptop, but instead I bought some foam/tape stuff that's used for padding corners of desks (to protect kids), so I'm hoping that will work instead, to keep my laptop on my little Tablemate II.

After that, I did do a lot of work on my site and also did laundry. I went to bed after 2am.

Monday June 23

I was supposed to get up early for a conference call, but I went back to bed instead. I was too tired. I woke up for good around 10:35. We went to Subway again for lunch. I had the same thing as last week and this time, I got sick. Who knows why.... but anyway, I noticed that they put 4 slices of meat on your sandwich, and the same amount of cheese, whether you eat a 6 inch or a 12" sub! That doesn't seem right. Plus, for me, since I don't eat the bread, what a waste of money! I stopped at 'umeke Market and got some more GF scones.

I phoned to make some doctor's appointments, which are long overdue. I also went downstairs and asked them to recommend a carpet cleaner as well as a maid service, which they did. The maid was going to come this afternoon to give me an estimate, so I rushed to pick up the place (it was a complete mess). Then they phoned back to say it would be tomorrow! Whew. The carpet cleaner never called back... hopefully they will tomorrow. We have big black marks on the bedroom carpets, so hopefully they can get those out. I think some of them were already there before we moved in, but the rest are from our shoes. Also, for some reason our lanai is always filthy, no matter how much I sweep and mop it, so it's easy to track black marks in from that. Anyway, at least the house is more in shape now and the dishes are done.

I also worked a bit on the songs we're doing this weekend...

Later, we went to Epic for dinner. We ate with Lorraine, who works with David. She's the chair of social work. A really nice and FUNNY lady from South Africa. She's another one that lives nearby in one of the high rises. We had a great dinner and the company was even better. Yay for flourless chocolate cake!

Tuesday June 24

I had a nice long conversation with Ron, the drummer for my band, on the phone today.

I finished straightening up the place so that it would be neat and orderly when the cleaning service comes to check it out.

Two of the chairs I ordered arrived. They're rocker/gliders, wooden but with padding. They were very easy to put together, thank goodness! I wanted to get real recliners, but they wouldn't ship here. Sears has some for only $147! That's really cheap. Recliners usually go for twice that.

This maid service is going to come clean next week or so. The lady that's doing the actual cleaning came by to take a look and ask what I wanted done. I still don't know a price, just that it'll be under $200. I know that seems expensive for a two bedroom place, but it's Hawaii, so everything's more here. We paid about $175 to have our 3 bedroom house cleaned in Georgia last year. They sent 3 or 4 workers and got it done in just a few hours.

David and I went to lunch at the Greek place. They're pretty good about knowing which of their food is gluten free, so that was helpful. I love their gyro plate. On the way back, I ran into Sara, so that was nice.

Later, we went to JJ Dolan's for dinner, and we shared a pizza. Too much food. I was stupid and forgot to take Pepcid beforehand, so I woke up during the night with really bad heartburn. Pepperoni is one of the few foods that does that to me. Wine sometimes does, and coffee.

I should have worked on the songs today but just had too much else going on. I did some work on my site, at least.

Wednesday June 25

Today has just been so HECTIC and busy!! First my SIL Eileen woke me up (which is fine, I needed to get up anyway) around 10:30 or so. We had a nice long chat. She called in part because it's David's birthday, so I gave her his number.

David's secretary figured out that it's his birthday, so they made him two cakes, one apple and one lemon! Yum. He said they were great, too. They also gave him a flower lei, which is pretty common around here. He met me for lunch at the Chinese restaurant across the street. I tried to ask about the food again, but the waitress didn't speak enough English.

Lenny, who I know from the karaoke sites, and Facebook, gave me a call, so that was a nice surprise. I had been helping him on FB and he also wished me well on my first gig on Sunday.

David went with me to the cupcake place, but they were once again out of gluten free cupcakes. Oh, well... then I went to Fisher and got some frames and other stuff, then I went to Ross and got a dress, a painting, and a pretty box. They were all very cheap. I love that place!

On the way to Ross, I ran into Bill, and on the way home, I ran into Theresa. It's so nice to know people here and run into them, and be able to chat. They're both FB friends of mine now, too. I have to say that is a first for me because we never knew too many people in real life, living nearby, that were also FB friends. Most of my FB friends are real life friends who live elsewhere, or people I've never met.

After I got home, UPS delivered a bunch of boxes. I got the twin bed frames, some mattress tops, and our dining room chairs, and some of the rugs, among other things.

The guy who runs the cleaning service came by to see for himself what we needed cleaning, and it sounds like it's going to cost $180. I said ok, and he said, "Aren't you going to negotiate?" I guess that's something they do here. I felt like saying, "No, because we're not in Tijuana", but I didn't. I told him if he wanted to charge me less, I was fine with that. He should get his act together and have a set hourly rate like most maid services.

Now I'm doing laundry and working. Later on I'll put the other stuff together.

I'm very happy to be living here, and enjoying it, and having friends, and a band, and getting new furniture, and having our friend Barb visit soon. No offense to any of my friends who live in places we've lived before, but we lived in a lot of awful places before finally getting here to a place I love, where most people would love to live. Of course we grew up in San Diego, which is a great place! And we both loved Long Island, but that was marred by the fact that we were poor starving students and couldn't properly afford to enjoy it. El Paso was nice, but really boring, and not a great city considering the size. Normal, IL was way too cold, snowy and icy and had mostly bad restaurants (and just way too small and in the middle of nowhere). Riverside at least was in SoCal but very smoggy and not a great city in most ways (it's gotten better although has worse traffic now). I enjoyed Lubbock, but it has a lot of drawbacks.It's flat and ugly, and in the middle of nowhere. It's also improved in terms of restaurants and shopping, I think. Tuscaloosa was my least favorite of all of the places we've lived. Too small, for one thing. Columbus was nice, a little bigger but still too small for me. Living on that side of the country made it difficult for us to visit California or Vegas. I definitely don't like living in red states as much as blue. Of course, we made many great friends in all of these places and had a lot of fabulous experiences! Most of the schools were great and David enjoyed his job in them.

Now, if only I can lose that last 60 lbs., my life will be almost perfect!!

We were going to have dinner at Murphy's, but instead we decided to go to Ra Kuen. I need to stop eating their steak and french fries! Gosh, I wonder why I can't lose the weight...

David seemed to enjoy the presents I got for him. I got him two shirts (for work), a George Carlin DVD, and a Padres book. The main present, was a type of soda that he used to drink back in Alabama and Georgia, Grapico-- they don't have it here. I found it on sodafinder.com

I put a bunch of furniture etc. together. First I assembled a fan...it was mostly already assembled, but I had to put together the base part and put the cord through it. That was only difficult for a short period because the directions were not in great English, but eventually I figured it out. There isn't a lot of light in that bedroom, so once I got a flashlight, I could see that it had arrows that line up. Then I put together two parson's tables - super easy. Then I tried the dining room chairs...they looked easy, but when it came to putting on the seats, there are no holes there where it says to screw in the screws, and also it would be difficult to do without a second person. I also opened the box with the bed frame, but I was too tired and didn't finish.

Thursday June 26

I got up way too late today, after noon. My brother Stephen had called me, but I missed his call. He saw a Beatles book at the Del Mar Fair and wondered if I wanted it. That was nice of him. I texted him back later than I didn't need it. I wish I had gotten to go to the fair this year, but we ran out of time.

David and I went to the Greek place again for lunch, since we both enjoyed it yesterday. However, I got very sick after eating there, so who knows... I'm going to eat at home more.

When I got home to our building, there was a Fedex notice on the door with my apartment number on it! That was very weird. There are 30 floors in our building with hundreds of people. The Fedex guy was obviously too lazy to go around to the other door and then take the elevator up here. I had to phone Fedex, but they had no record of that door tag number. I have to sign for it. Talk about incompetence. Hopefully he can try again and get it right tomorrow.

After being very sick, I talked to Cesar, one of the maintenance guys, about helping me put together the rest of the furniture. I have his number, so I can call him Saturday morning to see if he's free or not.

After I relaxed for a while, I scrubbed the lanai and then put the rug I got on it. It's not as big as I'd hoped, so I ordered a second outdoor rug, so I can cover the whole lanai.

I decided to just clean the house myself instead of paying for a maid...still having the carpets cleaned, though. I vacuumed the rugs in both bedrooms, anyway... figured it would be a better place for sitting and assembling furniture, at least.

Don't forget to read my TV blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu blog.

Week of June 15

2014-06-23T07:16:00.004-05:00

June 13

David woke me up around noon. We went out to lunch to El Torito. It was okay....we probably should have looked for a more authentic place to eat at. Truth is, we didn't use to eat at too many Mexican places growing up in San Diego, and the ones we did eat at are mostly gone. We used to love Anita's in the Oceanside area.

After that, we visited his mom in her place again, then we drove around to do some errands, with her as company. We had a bunch of stuff my brothers gave me, so we sent it back in a box via USPS flat rate.

David tried to nap, and I did a little computer stuff plus laundry, and I packed up our suitcases. We met George and Beth for dinner at Souplantation with their twins. It was great to see them, and very fun. Their kids have grown so much in the two years since we last saw them! Wow!! I love Souplantation. Wish we had one here!

Then we got all of our stuff together and took a cab to the Wyndham downtown. Our room is pretty nice. It's right by the water. We have to take an early airplane home tomorrow.

I'm very tired, but I couldn't sleep, so I'm hoping I can get to sleep soon!

I had some wet clothes, so I went to hang them up on the shower curtain rod, and the whole thing fell down! And I couldn't get it back up. So I had to call downstairs, and it took a half hour for their engineering guy to finally show up and fix it for me. After that, David came back and he had trouble setting the alarm clock (it was very quiet and the buttons were confusing). I had some more trouble getting to sleep but finally did a little after midnight.

They had free Internet but it was super-slow.

June 14

We woke up really early, about 3:30 in the morning. Our flight was 6:17. The shuttle was at 5 am. We got there about quarter till, but it took quite a while for the shuttle driver to figure out who was going where and to load the luggage.Our boarding pass said "commuter terminal 1", but when we got there, a woman said that it had been changed as of June 5th and now all of the Delta flights were in another terminal. So we had to get back on the shuttle bus and go to terminal 2. The hotel told us that they didn't open the airport terminal until 5 am, but we're pretty sure they were wrong about that, since there were already long lines by the time we got there. Fortunately, the woman at the commuter terminal had told us to go in the first class boarding line, so we did, but then that one took a very long time-- even though the line wasn't very long! Just a really irritating morning, but it ended up ok. We didn't have time for much by the time we got to our gate, but I was able to go to this little counter place and get some sandwiches, and they even had a gluten free chocolate chip muffin, which was very yummy! And the roast beef sandwich was delicious, even without the bread.

We just had a short trip to LAX, where we changed planes. We didn't have a lot of time there, just enough for me to go to the bathroom before boarding. There was another long line there, but fortunately, they had plenty of room to put our carry-ons up above. We've been on flights where space is quite limited, and it's especially a worry now that so many people take the huge carry-ons because they're too cheap to pay the $25 to check their bags. We're not light travelers. I would rather pack too much then not enough. So we had two large suitcases that we checked as well as 1 carry-on bag each. We put the computer bag and a leather bag up above and then I have a large purse-like bag that contains all of my necessary stuff, like wallet, medicines, ipod, Kindle et al. as well as snacks. We don't want to have to put other bags down at our feet if we can help it!

We had pretty good seats. The flight to LAX was in the front row of the plane (behind first class) so there was LOTS of leg room. Perfect seats, really. Then in the longer flight, we had what Delta calls Economy Comfort. Not as nice as first class or business class, but you get more leg room, and I think the seats are a little wider.

Just like the plane that brought us out, this one had the little TV's on the back of the seats, so you could watch movies, TV, play games etc. I wasn't that tired, so I didn't sleep. Instead I first watched this great documentary, about the Beatles' secretary, called "Good Ol' Freda". It was very cool and interesting. Then I also watched the new Robocop movie. I enjoyed it a lot. I had forgotten that Joel Kinnaman from "The Killing" starred in it, among others (Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, Gary Oldman, Jackie Earle Haley and Marianne Jean-Baptiste--from "Without a Trace"). The ending was a little too pat, but otherwise it was really good. I also watched a few episodes of the sitcom "Ground Floor", which was okay...

It was a fairly uneventful flight and didn't seem to go on too long. It helps if you've had some adequate sleep. I hate when I can't sleep on the plane. David slept quite a bit, and then he played video games.

We arrived in Honolulu just after noon. We were both so tired. The "taxi" ride home was actually a stretch limo, so that was fun. The driver was not too bright or friendly, and he had trouble understanding English. The limo was comfortable, but the air conditioning was not so great. There was a bar but nothing to drink. Aw.... It had beautiful glassware, though.

We went to lunch at Gordon Biersch. I just had a cheeseburger and some fruit. Then we both took a long nap at home. It was pretty hot, too, and humid.

Friday I started noticing that the skin on my face, near my eyes, was really dry, but I didn't have any lotion with me, so I forgot about it. Then in the hotel room, I put some of their lotion on it. Then on the plane, I didn't have anything except Chapstick, so I put that on it. I don't normally have dry skin at all, but Honolulu is very humid, so flying to San Diego, it seemed really dry there. Which is crazy because I used to live there and I never had skin problems there, either. It's by the ocean, too! Of course we did stay at my SIL's house in El Cajon, which is slightly east of San Diego, and all of the air plane rides and the air conditioning don't help the dryness. Still, it was very strange. My lips were chapped the whole time, too. It's like we went to the desert or something. There is lots of desert in San Diego, but we were not in those parts! As soon as I got home, I started putting Eucerin on my face. That's a great medicated lotion for healing sensitive skin. My SIL uses it; she has very dry and sensitive skin.

Later on, we went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. I had pizza, but I forgot ask if the sausage was gluten free (I have asked before about the pepperoni). So I got a little sick later on. I went to bed really early, like around 8:30pm.

June 15

I woke up quite a few times this morning, but I kept going back to bed. I finally woke up for good around 7:30am.

I have a lot of work to catch up on, so I did a lot of that today.

We also went to the Times grocery store, since it's been quite a few weeks since we last went.

I made reservations for lunch at P.F. Chang's, which is in Waikiki. We went over there and had a good, GF lunch.

My face was really dry today, and red, and the "wrinkles" under my eyes were really strong. Not normal at all. Also, the Eucerin was bothering my eyes and making them sting and water. At the store and lunch, it was like I was crying. So after lunch, I started putting Vaseline on the dry spots. It's very oily (but in a good way) and it only has one ingredient, so there's not much in it that would make my eyes water.

I was going to go back to sleep but decided against it. I did work instead.

We went to dinner later at Murphy's. I had some great lamb chops there, with mashed potatoes and grilled veggies.

I stayed up until almost 1am catching up on work. I also ironed some of David's work clothes and did a tiny bit of unpacking.

June 16

I woke up at 7 am, coughing, and then I went back to sleep for about a half hour. Then I woke up again and stayed up for a while, doing work. I'm considering going back to bed at 9am.

I didn't go back to sleep because I kept getting sick, probably from eating at Murphy's last night. I'm going to have to stop eating there or SOMETHING.

David and I went to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch. The woman at the counter was really rude. That was quite unusual because most people here are very nice.

I stopped at 'umeki Cafe again and got some GF scones again. Then I went back to sleep after I got home and slept until about 5:30.

I met David at Epic. I just had a salad for dinner there.

It wasn't too warm or humid earlier, but this evening it was raining, so it made the house very humid for a while. I sat out on the lanai for a while to cool off. I've just been working and watching TV since then.

I can't seem to get too motivated to do work. My brain is still on vacation!

I did unpack a little bit more and organize some stuff, empty the trash and write a few things. Not enough, though! I'm so far behind on everything.

June 17

I woke up around 9:30, which is a perfect time.

Yesterday I got my new karaoke machine, and it's ok for just singing and having fun, but it doesn't record very well. Too bad.... I spent a little time this afternoon, testing it out. The backing is too loud, no matter how I adjust the volume. The previous cheap karaoke machine I had did the same thing. Also, I think there's something wrong with the mic inputs because my voice keeps going in and out during the song. I tried it with different mics, too. I may not bother returning it, though, and just keep using it for fun. It's not worth packing it up again and sending it back. I want one to use while Barb is visiting!

The little table that I've been using for my laptop doesn't work right any more. The Tablemate II was perfect for my old laptop, but the new one doesn't fit on it right and keeps sliding off. Now, I had rigged it up with an upside-down kitchen rack to keep it there, but now it doesn't work, it keeps sliding off anyway. I'm going to have to go look for a different type of laptop table. :( In the meantime, I'm using this one, still, but just being careful to always hold on to it or balance it again something so the laptop doesn't slide off. UGH.

It took me a while to wake up. I did take this IQ test at iqtest.com and it said I got 115. That's above average, and I'm pretty sure that's just about where I scored in high school. Makes sense, I guess! I wasn't quite awake when I took it, though, so perhaps I should take it again when I'm more alert and see if I get a better score. I doubt it, though. There's a lot of doing math in your head and things like that, that I've never been great at. However, it is a true or false test, so I guess I have a 50/50 chance of guessing right! LOL!

David had a working lunch today, so about 1:30 I walked over to McDonald's for lunch. I've been really craving McDonald's cheeseburgers lately. Plus, although there are many better places around, at least I know it won't make me sick like so many do.

I was tired after lunch and tried to nap, but it didn't work. I felt really lazy, so I forced myself to start putting away all of our stuff from the trip (finishing unpacking), doing laundry, etc. That helped a lot and gave me a LITTLE more energy!

Now I'm resting a bit before I go back to straightening things up!

I finished unpacking everything and I'm doing laundry now. I have so much work to do on my site, I'm so behind...it's not even funny.

David had a big lunch, so he wasn't hungry, so we went to HASR's Bistro for dinner. I just had their eggplant dish that I love, and one of their salads. I only ate part of the salad and took the rest home. I'll eat it later tonight. I didn't really like their dressing. I love their food, but most of it is not GF so I'm trying to be really careful.

It's very warm and humid here tonight. Often, if I don't go out to the lanai, I just sit near the door and that way I get the cool breeze but without having to go outside where it's darker and it may get TOO breezy. I need to get a tall lamp so we can have some light out there. One of the many things I need to get. Hopefully starting this weekend if we can find the time...

I'm using this cool program now for Facebook called Social Fixer. It lets you set up FB the way you want. You can get a "theme", or set it up to ignore games and all sorts of stuff. I'm enjoying it.

I stayed up pretty late, working on my site, watching TV and, strangely enough, ironing.... I usually don't iron, but.... since David wears these aloha shirts, they tend to get pretty wrinkled, especially around the front of the shirts, near the buttons and button holes. I was going to take them in to be pressed, but it costs like $4 per shirt and twice as much for pants. Sure, we could afford it, but that's a lot of money... figured that ironing a little won't kill me. I need to get a good ironing board, though. In the meantime, I just use our kitchen table. I do have a table-top ironing board, but it's not very useful.

June 18

I woke up around 5:30, and I was itching a lot. It was horrible. I finally got back to sleep and then woke up at 7am. I had a conference call interview at 7:15. I went back to sleep about 9, I guess? And then I woke up again about 12:20.

David and I went to lunch at the Chinese restaurant across the street, Hunan. Then I ran a bunch of errands. I bought some clothes at Ross, then I bought something at Long's, then I stopped at Fisher, the office supply store. I was hoping they would have a little computer desk, but they didn't. Then I stopped at the Subway to get a soda, and then I stopped at the cupcake place to get gluten free cupcakes, but...they were all out. Fooey!

I just did work and watching more TV when I got home. I have no energy! I still feel like I'm on vacation...

Interesting, Googling information from a video I saw on FB...a video interview of Bill Maher by Peta about how he thinks that the carriage horses in NYC are mistreated, and he's mad at Liam Neeson for advocating it. To another article where the NYC carriage horse people insist that the animals are well taken care of and given a thumbs up by vets. Then noticed a comment by someone that PETA kills animals... I looked that up but didn't find any actual proof or anything that would say PETA does this or why they would (aside from perhaps euthanizing injured or dying animals that can't be saved). Although these comments were interesting, but I couldn't find any information about whether it's true or not: "Harvesting of grain kills thousands of animals, maybe even millions. Shrews, moles and rabbits are all shredded to death evey year, every harvest. Doing it by hand is the only way to ensure that no animal dies in harvesting, and that method is inadequate to meet the world's food needs. So, not even a vegetarian diet is bloodless. You might not ingest the meat yourself, but many animals still died." None of this altered by opinions about Bill Maher, PETA, or vegetarianism. :) Maher's funny but a bit extreme in some of his beliefs; PETA does some good work but they're a bit extreme, too. Vegetarians are fine, but I couldn't be one.

It's funny because I was never really into wearing dresses too often before. I think because "dressing up" meant you had wear something pretty (i.e. uncomfortable) and a slip, and stockings, and fancy (i.e. uncomfortable) shoes. But it's different today, and here in Hawaii, wearing a casual dress. I wear the same sandals I wear all of the time, Teva sandals with support. I could also wear flip flops if I wanted. The dresses are very casual, most of them are just like long tank tops. If I was thinner, I would just make sure I had a bra that was covered by the dress and that's it, but since I have very fat and flabby upper arms, I usually do wear a shirt over it as well. But it can just be a light t-shirt. So now I wear dresses all of the time. No slip or nylons needed. It's just very nice--casual and fun. Loving it! Oh, and I was never really a "hat person", either, but I love my little sun hat.

I got very sleepy around 11pm, which is unusual for me. I just couldn't keep my eyes open! Then I woke up around 3:15. My legs were hurting (usually that's from not having enough exercise), so I stretched them a lot and took some Aleve, then went back to bed. Some telemarketer called me about an hour later and woke me up again! I went back to sleep and then woke up again around 7. ACK. I had breakfast and then stayed up for awhile; I finally went back to sleep. I slept until 11:15 when David called me for lunch.

June 19

I'm still having sort of post-vacation blues. I'm just tired, lazy, don't feel like doing anything.

I didn't feel much like eating because most of the places around here are either too fattening or make me sick. I went with David to Subway and decided to just have a turkey sandwich (no bread of course) and some baked chips. It was ok. Their meat is sort of tasteless without the bread. I had stopped going there because when I ate their salads, it made me sick. So far, so good, not sick today. It's warm today but cloudy and windy, so it's not too bad.

I had the most enjoyable dream this morning. If only we could always have those. I was in Paris, waiting for David by myself for some reason, at a cafe. I was drinking wonderful wine and eating great food, and there were many nice people there that were talking to me, laughing, having fun, and sharing food. At first I was suspicious and thought they were out to steal from me or scam me, but eventually I relaxed and realized they were just being friendly. The dream went on for a long time, and eventually I had to leave, but when I went to pay the bill, it was only $11! I was so shocked. It was just a happy, happy dream.

My friend Mary's daughter Marshalla is trying to raise money for cheerleading camp, please donate!

Facebook was down for a bit tonight...so shocking! That doesn't happen very often. There were lots of jokes about it on Twitter.

I can't remember where we went for dinner, but I'm sure it was good. I haven't been sick too much lately. I've been a lot more careful about eating gluten free.

Big weekend coming up!

Don't forget to read my TV Blog and my other blog Living Gluten Free in Honolulu!

Week of June 6

2014-06-14T01:14:00.002-05:00

June 6

I went to bed pretty early last night, a little after 1 am, and then I woke up about 5 hours later. I'd hoped to sleep until 9, but oh well....

I've been packing and getting things ready for our trip. I always forget something!

I went to the gym around 8. First I went to Starbucks and had a frappucino. It was raining both ways! Good thing I had a towel, at least. I worked out about a half hour, mostly on the treadmill. I spent a little time on the rowing machine, but I just wasn't into it. Then I stopped at 7-11 for a soda before coming home.

I was considering getting my hair cut, but I decided I like it the length it is, for now. I'll probably go get lunch soon and then pick up some stuff at Long's.

David and I went to the Chinese restaurant across the street from our place. They make good Kung Pao chicken without any wheat. Then I did some quick shopping at Long's and went home.

I worked a lot on packing and other stuff, then I took a short nap in the afternoon. David came home around 5; we finished packing and then caught a cab to the airport. We ate a terrible dinner at one of the restaurants there. Jack, who's chair of the Communications department, and a friend, was also flying on our plane, so we said hi to him as well.

June 7

We took Delta Airlines to Salt Lake City, then changed planes and flew to San Diego. We left our house at 6pm, took the flight about 3 hours later. It was a long flight, but the time did go sort of fast even though I didn't sleep much on the plane. They have these screens on the back of the seats, so you can watch movies, or TV, listen to music, or play games etc. I was thrilled to watch the Veronica Mars movie. It was really good, and I need to see it again because I missed some of the dialogue due to noise on the plane as well as lack of closed-captioning. None of the other TV shows or movies were all that interesting. I slept for a few hours. There was a crying baby nearby, so I listened to their easy listening channel with the headphones on while I slept. That helped a lot, blocked out the baby and other noises. I was very tired for most of the day, and also cold. The planes were freezing even though I put on socks and had a sweater. The Salt Lake Airport was also pretty cold (all from A/C). The airport was ok, though. I got a sandwich during our brief stop there. The second leg of the flight was short, less than 2 hours. We got to San Diego around 9am and we were both exhausted.

Thankfully, our hotel let us check in way early, so we could rest a little. We're staying at the Westin on Broadway. It's a pretty nice hotel. Very comfortable room and bed. We met Susan and my MIL for lunch down at Horton Plaza, at the Panda Inn-- a place we've all been many times. I had a duck and mango salad. It was ok. At least they knew what gluten was. Bummed that I can't eat their white-chocolate coated fortune cookies any more, though. It was a very nice visit with them. Mostly with Susan because their mom is not really able to engage in conversation much, due to her hearing and memory problems. I brought my MIL some chocolate-macadamia nut candies and a print/copy of the photo we had taken back in March with Peter at the luau, and I brought taro chips for Susan.

We're only a few blocks away from Horton Plaza, so after we walked back, we went back to sleep again. David went to the Padres game while I kept sleeping. I wouldn't have minded going, except I was just so exhausted. I woke up after 10pm, right before his game was over. It sounds like it was a good game, and they won.

We went downstairs, but they weren't serving any food any more. We had a few drinks and then came back to the room to get room service. We just got some sandwiches and fruit. The sandwiches were pretty good. The fruit is very bland. I was a bit annoyed because they didn't bring any glass, ice or straw for my soda, and I had ordered two bottles of water, but they came room temperature. Good thing I wasn't that thirsty. We do have a fridge, so I put the water in there for later.

I worked on my site and had a few hours sleep until I woke up again. Jet lag! UGH.

June 8

David woke up around 8:30am, and we went downstairs. I got a coffee, and he got some juice. Then we went to the gym and used the treadmills for about a half hour. Nice gym and pool here on the third floor.

We're meeting our friends Steve and Val at the Padres game around noon, so that should be fun. I might have to take another nap first.

I didn't take a nap...probably should have! Instead I took a shower and phoned my brothers to try to make plans for later in the week.

The game was fun, but we mostly just talked. Steve and David watched the game more, but it was a blow-out and pretty boring. Val is so sweet and asks a lot of question, so I babbled on a lot and talked her ear off. It feels so dry here! We both definitely got used to living in the tropical climate. It's so humid in Honolulu that coming here feels super dry, like the desert. Our seats were in the sun, but it didn't feel hot at all to me because it's not humid at all. A year ago, I would have been complaining about the heat! And I have a sore throat (partly from talking too much but also just from the dryness), and I'm just perpetually thirsty and lips are chapped. Crazy! I hope if we ever go to Vegas that we don't just shrivel up, like mummies, dry as dust, and blow away with the wind. Our eyes will pop right out of their sockets, too...it will be gross to see. :) Good thing I'm not singing tonight.

Apropos of nothing, I have a bump or some kind of painful thing on my tongue...makes it painful to eat. It's always something!

David and I first went to The Field and shared an omelet. It was pretty good. At the stadium, I tried some tacos, but they were very dry. The hot sauce was good, though. They got seats by the Western Metal Supply building...very interesting seats. It was really great to see them and catch up! Not enough time, though.

We might meet up with Ira this evening. We're taking a nap now. So tired! I didn't get to sleep, even though I was very tired. Some family drama stressed me out.

We met Ira at Horton Plaza and had dinner at this really great Persian restaurant, Bandar. It was delicious. I had some kind of eggplant and lamb dinner. They both had the salmon and said that it was very good. We stopped briefly at Hard Rock for some drinks. David and I crashed sometime after 11.

June 9

We both woke up around 5:30 am, about a half hour before our wake-up call. We went and had more fun somewhere else. Sorry to be mysterious, but some people don't want to tell everyone what they're doing or whom they're meeting, I guess, so they asked me not to share it with the world. Honoring those wishes, even though it's tough!

June 11

Wednesday night we moved to my SIL Susan's house. We had a nap and then went to visit my MIL for a little while. She's 86 and in assisted living; she has problems with her mobility, hearing, eyesight, and memory, so communication with her can be difficult, but she enjoys visits. For instance, even though she lived with us from about 2004-2009, she was surprised when I told her that I have a job and what it is. She also tries to make her kids feel guilty for the fact that she's living alone in the facility, even though it's the best thing for her because she needs a lot of assistance that we can't give (nor can we afford to provide her with full time chauffeur, friends, or care somewhere else).

David and I walked from his mom's place over to Grossmont Center. We ate at an Irish pub, Hooley's, which has great food. Then we just went back to Susan's place and had a fairly early night of it. We visited briefly with Susan; we were all tired. I stayed up until about midnight, I think. I did some laundry and then had a nice chat with Susan's husband, John, about TV.

June 12

We got up early and met my friend Nina for breakfast at DZ Akin's. She and I were great friends in Junior High and then kept in touch for a long time, but I think we last saw each other in the 80's. We've re-connected on Facebook, but this was the first face-to-face meeting since then. It was nice to see her and catch up. She really hasn't changed all that much, personality-wise, aside from being more mature. That's a good thing!

David and I went to a Supercuts and each got our hair trimmed. I tried to take a nap, but it didn't really work.

We went to dinner with Susan and their mom (Nicolosi's). It was a great visit.

Then another old friend, Mary, picked us up and we went to karaoke at Second Wind Santee at 8pm. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately it was a little too loud, hot and crowded, and so I didn't sing much. They had a college graduation party there, with a band, before we got there, and so the karaoke didn't really start until about 8:45. The drinks were cheap, but the chairs were not very comfortable. We had about ten friends there, including my brothers Stephen and David; Stephen's wife Zina; Mary and her friend Marty, and her two oldest sons, Jake and Karl; and Jake's girlfriend; and our friends Martin and Jamie, and a friend of Martin's, Sianna (pronounced Shawna). I sang one song by myself, which went over great. Later, Martin and I sang a duet, and that was fine. Jamie didn't stay long, but it was nice to see him. Mary's kids are all great, and they're all so smart and talented. Jake sang a Phil Collins song very well and his girlfriend sang a Led Zeppelin song and it was ASTONISHING. Sianna sang very well, too. The rest were just there to have fun. I think most of the singers were pretty good and we didn't have too many slow and boring songs. We stayed until about 11:45. It was great fun!

We might try to have a private party next time.... that way more people can come and we don't have to worry about how long the rotation is, and we can make the music quieter if we need to. Maybe at Christmas time...

I stayed up way too late, about 4 in the morning.

My brothers always give me business cards they've collected, comics and other stuff, but David gave me a Kindle Fire HD so that is way cool!

Don't forget to read my TV blog!

Week of June 1

2014-06-06T03:15:00.000-05:00

May 31

I only had 2 hours sleep last night (just couldn't sleep due to itching, and shoulders hurting). I tried to go back to sleep, but it just didn't work.

David was sick this morning. Possibly from some bad crab cakes the night before...

We went to Downbeat for lunch. I had a ham and cheese omelet and some home fries. I'm not eating very healthy this weekend.

I took a 4-hour nap this afternoon, which was probably a bad thing. I should have been working more on my site, but I just wasn't into it today.

We just had a very light dinner at home for a change, since he wasn't up to going out. I went to bed early, around 10 or 11. I woke up again about 1am and just couldn't get back to sleep.

I know, it's a very boring day. It was really hot today, but not humid.

We were supposed to meet some new friends for dinner tonight but had to cancel. Hopefully we can reschedule soon!

June 1

Wow, I can't believe it's already June.

I got a lot of sleep last night..didn't wake up until after 11. I had awakened around 8 with terrible pain in my right arm and shoulder, because of my spine problems. I had to wait until the medicine kicked in before I could get back to sleep.

I'm feeling much better now, but my shoulders are still hurting me a little, especially when I'm on the computer. I have a lot of work to do today, though, so it's tough.

We went to Gordon Biersch for lunch. I had their Baja tacos (spicy fish tacos). They've always told me before that none of the stuff on their dessert menu is gluten free, but the waiter checked with the chef and he said the strawberry cheesecake is GF. I hope he's right! It was very delicious. They don't have full-size desserts, just these little mini-desserts in a shot glass. Just enough for a little taste :)

It's very hot again today. Blah. And I stupidly had a long nap.

We went to Murphy's for dinner. I had their chicken special, which was really good but way too much food. It'll be another meal later.

Hopefully this week will be a better one for us and things will work out okay. Hopefully we can go to San Diego next Saturday.

I did a lot of work tonight as well as laundry. I'm going to try to get to bed by 4am.

June 2

I slept in very late, around 4:30. We went to dinner at JJ Dolan's. I just had a salad but had them add some pepperoni and cheese to it. That definitely made it tastier!

I watched a lot of TV and also sorted some business cards for my collection! I didn't even try to go to bed because I knew it wouldn't work.

I did talk to Ron, the drummer of our band and de facto leader, on the phone. He's the most, shall we say, reliable member, so he schedules our rehearsals and keeps us on track. We had a very long chat on the phone.

June 3

I had a lot of energy this morning, even though I hadn't slept, so as soon as the sun came up, I got dressed in my exercise clothes and went to Starbucks for a pick-me-up, and then I went to the gym (they're right next to each other - how convenient!). I was on the rowing machine for about 15 minutes. Until I get in better shape, I can't do more than that. It was a good start, though. I made sure to keep my knees straight so I wouldn't hurt anything, like I did last time.

I took a shower and did some stuff on the computer. After David left for work, and then a little later, I worked on recording a duet for the online singing sites. I had to stop eventually because I was getting tired. The duet was "With You I'm Born Again". The guy I did it with lowered the key substantially, so I had to sort of re-learn it, since it's in a very different place in my voice, to get it to sound good. I think it came out okay! You can hear it here on my profile on TIK.

I had stopped at 7-11 on the way home from the gym, so I got, among other things, some breakfast sandwiches. I didn't eat the bread, and I didn't see anything gluten-like on the ingredients, but I don't know...I was very sick all day, so it might have been from that.

I was still wide awake until about 11:30, and then I crashed and didn't wake up until after 5.

We went to dinner at HASR's Bistro. I had a great spinach salad and their delicious eggplant appetizer.

Other than some TV and doing the dishes, I listened to music online. I need to do more work when I'm not sick all of the time.

I'm going to bed around 1 am, so hopefully I won't sleep too much tomorrow and can go to the gym again.

June 4

Lately I just can't seem to get on an early schedule for more than one day. I slept for almost 12 hours! And my shoulders/arms are hurting a lot today. It's been a bad week for my spine and for getting glutenized, that's for sure.

It really hasn't been a very good day. I slept in the afternoon after being sick again. I don't know, I'm just feeling very tense and grumpy today.

I went to McDonald's for lunch and also stopped at the cupcake place to get some GF cupcakes.

We went to Murphy's for dinner, and I just had a salad.

I didn't get too much done today...being lazy. Did laundry but not much else. I ended up staying up very late, though, and got a little more done.

June 5

We're flying out at 9:40 tomorrow night... whew, quickest reservation we've ever made, that's for sure. At least Alaskan Airlines is giving us our money back for the flight we had to cancel, so that's good. However, we'll have to use that later because they didn't have any flights at the time we wanted. I think we're taking Delta now. UGH. They're not my favorite airline. We're taking a really late, long flight to Salt Lake City and then another shorter flight for 2 and a half hours to San Diego. We'll arrive early Saturday morning and have to check our bags at the hotel, then kill time for a while. We'll probably head to the mall and then maybe have lunch with Susan and her mom.

I wonder if the flight will have Wifi? I'm taking lots of work to do but I'll probably sleep a lot of it. We haven't been anywhere in almost a year, but I'm not looking forward to the flight. I'm not nervous or anything, it's just so uncomfortable and boring. I have to worry the whole time, too, about whether I'll have a bathroom emergency...hopefully not.

I started recording some songs this morning and got quite a few recorded, which should hold me for a while.

I didn't go to bed until about 1pm and then woke up a few times... woke up around 3:30 itching a lot. Then finally woke up around 6:45 when David called about dinner. He had an early evening meeting. We went to dinner at Epic but ran into Sarah and the kids on the way. That was nice. We chatted for a few minutes. I just had the strawberry arugula salad there, which is always good. I just eat all of the candied walnuts and the goat cheese, and as much of the greens as I can eat. I really don't like veggies very much, and I really hate when they don't take the stems off the baby spinach or other greens. They stab me in the throat and make it hard to eat. Mark my words, one day I'll choke to death and it will be on a stem!!

So tired but have to finish a few things and then I'm going to try to get to bed at a somewhat decent hour. In the morning, I need to get up fairly early so I can shop for snacks for our trip, and pack, etc.

I'll end this here and post it while I can! Busy busy busy :) So glad to be getting away.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu blog.

Week of May 22

2014-05-31T11:13:00.002-05:00

May 22

I got up around 10:30am. We went to lunch around 11:15 to this Indian restaurant, Lani's Kitchen. It's a tiny little place, mostly take-out, somewhat fast-food-like. They used to have a sign up that said none of their products were gluten-free or nut-free, but Sara told us that they took the sign down and it was no longer true. So we went there and had a nice lunch. We both had tandoori chicken and curried lentils. The tandoori was good, but it had a sauce, unlike most tandoori chicken I've had, so it was very messy. The lentils were great but way too spicy for me. I also ordered the little dessert they have, little balls made out of milk powder and soaked in honey. They were okay - not as good as the ones I've had at other places. It was a nice change from the places we normally eat at. Then I went to 'umeki Market and got some GF scones. It's very hot out today, so when I got back, I put on the a/c. I need to go out to the grocery store, too, but I'm gong to wait and cool off a bit first.

I napped for about 3 hours. I don't know why my body felt like that when I had 9 or 10 hours' sleep yesterday! I dreamed that in order to get to David's campus, you had to take a boat from here and it only went twice a day, was very crowded. On the plus side, there was a mall and a casino next door here. :) Also, I took the elevator to a different floor and the beach was right there. A little too near, though--the water was very close and I was worried about slipping and falling in. Silly dreams! :)

I finally went to the grocery store about 4. I don't know why it always seems like such a chore. It's only 2 blocks away, and I have my handy-dandy cart! It's very hot today, though, so that's not fun. There was a guy sitting outside the Safeway and Longs again, begging, so I got him a sandwich, chips and water. I didn't have any spare change, so I figured he wouldn't mind a meal. He thanked me. I think he's the same guy I bought for months ago, but it's hard to say. I sure feel bad for anyone who has to be outside in this weather.

I was SO hot when I got back. After I put away the few groceries, I took a shower. I just had a little time to relax before David called me. We went to dinner at Epic. They had a special caprese salad, so I had that. It was pretty good. I told them that it needed more cheese, though, because the mozzarella was a little skimpy. We ran into some people that David works with, who are very nice We just chatted with them briefly because they were having a working dinner.

Looks like we might not be going on vacation tomorrow after all. Very disappointed. David has a work crisis so he might have to cancel it.

I had a horrible night. I always leave the lanai doors open because it gets too hot and stuffy in here. It was very muggy the past two days, but no rain. Anyway, I saw one of the large flying cockroaches come in (at first I thought it was a moth). UGH. So gross. Well, I chased it around the room for a while, tried killing it. Turned out there were 4 of them. One went back out the door, so once I saw another one and realized there was more than one, I shut the lanai door so no more could come in. Too late, apparently! UGH. I don't know how I'll avoid having nightmares now.

Now David is really stressed out about some work thing and is saying we're canceling our trip so he can deal with it. I don't agree with that, but not much I can do about it. I'm not going by myself.

May 23

I got up around 2pm. Poor David had a tough work day, but I think things are better. We'll know for sure next week, I think.

We went to dinner at HASR's Bistro. I had my favorite, the eggplant dish, and then the barbecue ribs. Last time they brought them plain with some sauce on the side. This time they had a different sauce, more of a barbecue sauce, and it was all over the ribs. I asked several times to make sure it was GF and was told it was. After we got back home, my stomach felt funny. Matthew and Sarah called us about meeting up with them, so we met them at Grondin's. We just had some appetizers and lots of wine. Too much wine! But it was fun.

Then David and I stopped at Art's for one song and another drink. When I got home, I just had some food with my pills and went to sleep.

May 24

I woke up around 2am. I had some GF macaroons I'd bought online, and then a little later went to the bathroom. I thought I was just having my usual gluten problems, but it was much worse. Very painful, took a long time and I was nauseous as well. I was afraid it was going to be like one of those times where I got a norovirus and was very sick, vomiting and had to go to the ER. Fortunately, it was not that bad, and I was able to keep myself from throwing up. I ate some peppermints and then the nausea was bearable. I felt terrible, but at least I didn't get much sicker or too dehydrated. After taking some medicine, I went back to sleep a little later and slept like a log until about 1pm. I wonder if this was all from eating at HASR's? I hope not.

I was feeling a little better, so we walked over to Murphy's for lunch, but they were closed. We went across the street to O'Toole's. They gave us some snacks (mostly Fritos) with our drinks. After we went back home, I tried going back to sleep, but I wasn't sleepy enough, just tired. David took a nap. I've just been watching TV and relaxing. My stomach feels better, but it's just a bit delicate. I had one of the GF scones and it's settling okay, along with some diet 7-up. I'm still very tired, though! I wish I knew whether I was gluten poisoned or if it was a food-borne virus or what.

I finished cleaning the house finally this weekend! I've been finding more and more of the tiny little flying bugs (I think they're roaches, but not the same as the huge ones). I found lots of them near the window, both dead and alive. I keep swatting them away when they're flying around, and squishing them when they crawl on me or my computer. I see them on the walls, the counters etc. Those pest control guys can't come soon enough!

For dinner we went to Downbeat, and I just ate a quesadilla. The place was practically empty, aside from a few people sitting at the bar. I guess since the semester is over, they won't get too many younger people on the weekend now.

I stayed up way too late as always. I haven't been singing at all, but I want to do more of that. I've mostly just been working on my site, watching TV and cleaning.

May 25

It's not our normal Sunday since tomorrow is a holiday!

It was raining a lot today. We went down to Waikiki for dinner. We tried out this Mexican restaurant called La Cucaracha (fitting name, given todas las cucarachas I've killed this week!). I thought it was pretty good, and they have GF food. Their carnitas are wonderful. We stopped at The Beach Bar for a drink, too. It's near there, right on the ocean. I got my usual lava flow. It was a pretty mellow night.

We watched the "Mad Men" mid-season finale and enjoyed it....

I stayed up way too late and got caught up on the pile of DVD's. There was lots of rain, thunder and lightning!

May 26

I woke up with tooth pain, probably from grinding my teeth. It's happened before. It should get better tomorrow. It was pretty painful today, even though I have prescription pain medication. I had some leftover Tramadol from the last time I went to the dentist.

We considered going to the grocery store, but we don't need too much, so we decided not to go. I did dishes and laundry today.

Since it was Memorial Day, only a few restaurants were open. We went to Downbeat. We ran into one of David's professors, Topher. He lives in the building next to us, so I run into him quite often. He's a really nice guy and has a service dog, Behr, who is this sweet medium-size black dog. It's always great to see Behr! Downbeat is owned by another professor (in the communications department) and she stopped by briefly to chat with David. I ordered a salad, but it hurt too much to eat it, so I ordered a cheese omelet to eat and got the salad to go. It was delicious.

There's not too much on TV right now, since most shows that David and I watch are in re-runs. We watched some episodes of "The Simpsons" that we had missed the past two weeks.

Tomorrow they're coming to spray for insects, so they sent me an email about how we have to put all of the food away and take all of the dishes out of the cabinets. I discovered something distressing and thoroughly disgusting. The tiny roaches are all over the kitchen and in all of the open food in the cabinets. UGH!!! I had to throw out tons of stuff - 5 small garbage bags worth of food. I had to pull up some of the shelf liner, too. It was all so disgusting.

My tooth felt better later on. I was able to eat the salad eventually.

I tried going to bed a little earlier (around 1am) but it was not to be. I got up again, ate, and watched some TV, did some work.

May 27

I only had about 3 hours' sleep. My tooth still hurts a little, but it's way better than yesterday.

I have an interview this morning at 8 am, and then the pest control people are coming at 10. Then I have to leave the house for 4 hours. I'll probably go to David's office.

I had to finish getting the house ready (just a little bit) and then they came around 10:45. So he said there was no way of knowing why so many of the 3 inch long cockroaches invaded our place the other night; he agreed that insects rarely come in up here on the 16th floor. The insects in the kitchen were mostly those little flour beetles, although we definitely found some small cockroaches as well throughout the place. So hopefully that spraying will take care of it all!

We had some of those flour beetles invade our pantry in Tuscaloosa. Most of my flour products were in large plastic Ziplock bags, but I had spilled some flour and forgotten to clean it up, and I hadn't shut some of the bags, and some of the newer packages were open, so.... that's why it got so bad. I'll try to be more careful now.

David and I had lunch at McDonald's. He has a big meeting at 3pm. I sure hope it goes okay! I'm here in his office until 3 and then I'll go home and sleep.

The people here are very nice, and I'm getting to quite a few of David's colleagues. Bill is his Assistant Dean (or is that Associate? I can never remember the differences in the rankings and titles). He's very nice; he's in the HPU choir every year, so I got to know him last semester through that. Just a super nice guy, and he's got a great voice. Then there's Joan, David's secretary, who's very sweet, and beautiful! Then there's Jack, who's the Chair of the Communications Department. He gave us a tour around the island when David interviewed here. He used to work in radio and knows a lot of musicians all over the country. A very nice guy. I think between him and Bill, they know everyone on the island, and all of the history as well. I also saw Russell and Dale. Russell is chair of... okay, I forget which department, but he's nice, and from the UK. Then Dale is a professor and is also a reverend. Trisha is the other assistant or associate dean, and she's just really great. She and I are Facebook friends. I know I keep saying everyone is nice or whatever, but it's true :) If there were any less-than-nice people, I probably wouldn't mention them. I haven't met any, at least that I recall. I'm sure there are some people that David are less fond off, but if there are, I wouldn't know, and I know they're not the ones I'm mentioning here.

I had a little nap in his office...he has a really nice comfortable couch. Then I woke up because the a/c is really cold in here. Brrr.

I just looked at the battery power icon and it says "134 hr 40 min (77%) remaining". Wow, 134 hours! That's some great battery :)

I went home and the place still smelled like bug spray a bit. I kept all of the doors open and also opened up the vent in the kitchen (where the smell was strongest). Then I went to take a nap. However, the smell still was pretty bad when I got up.

David and I went to Murphy's for dinner, but he was very preoccupied with work. That's really all I can say. It's been a very stressful month for him. I ordered their chicken curry special, which was gluten free, but it didn't taste very good. The sauce was okay (kind of bland for curry), but the chicken was really overcooked (a common problem there - remind me never to order chicken there again!) and it had a lot of carrots that were UNDERcooked! And then I was hungry and a bit stressed out, so I got their wonderful pots de creme.

After we got home, I started the long process of cleaning up the dead insects and putting back all of the dishes, food and other stuff in the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Once I wiped out the shelves and drawers, the smell got better. Thank goodness!

Back in March, when I got my new laptop, I copied over all of my songs from my old laptop. iTunes does this annoying thing where they duplicate songs (not really sure how or why). I also don't like how they put the songs in individual folders by the artists' name, so I went through and put everything in one of a few categories: Me, fromnet (from the internet), fromdisk (from CD's) and fromcassette (from cassettes) and deleted all of the extra folders. I did this before I installed iTunes on here so that when I added all of the songs in iTunes, they would be in the places I want them, but somehow it still made a bunch of duplicates. Some of my songs had 4 or 5 dupes and some had up to 9! So this week I went through and deleted a ton of duplicates in iTunes as well. Now I can start rebuilding my playlists and ranking the songs. A long process, but I like to be organized. I have about 11,000 songs.

May 28

At the risk of constantly repeating myself, I've been staying in bed way too late, until well into the afternoon.

I met David over at his office and we went to J.J. Dolan's again for dinner. I got their spinach, garlic and ricotta pizza, but I added pepperoni after making sure it's gluten free! Delicious (I don't eat the crust of course). The waitress was very helpful. I had half of the pizza and then ate the other half later on.

After we got home, I spent a little time recording more songs. We can't make noise in our building after 10 pm. I was able to record 4 or 5 songs, so that was great.

Nothing too exciting otherwise, just work work work! :)

I think I do need to get to the dentist and get one of those mouth guards to prevent the grinding.

May 29

We didn't go to the grocery store last week, and I've been getting up too late to go anywhere, so we're low on food, soda, everything!! Good for my diet, though. No tempting snacks!

We went to the French restaurant that I like, Brasserie Du Vin, for dinner. I love their food and they're pretty good about gluten. I didn't ask about all of the food I ordered, though, so that was pretty dumb, and I think it made me very sick later on.

I've been very lazy about work this week and still have tons of email to go through and catch up on. I've mostly been dealing with songs on iTunes.

Ron scheduled some new rehearsals for our band in June, but I probably can't make one of them. Too bad! We may be going to San Diego and Vegas next Saturday for our postponed trip, but we'll see.

May 30

My stomach was sick and still sore for a lot of today. I slept in until well after 4pm.

David came home for a change after work (usually I meet him at his office). Tomorrow night we have plans with some friends on Waikiki, so tonight we stayed downtown. First we went for dinner at Epic. I had their pork loin special. It was not very tasty, I have to say. Usually their food is pretty good. It might be due to the fact that my stomach wasn't feeling well, though. I wasn't exactly starving. Then we had some drinks at J.J. Dolan's. Then about 7:30 we went to Art's Hideaway for karaoke. There were only about 6 people there. Most of them were singing, but still, it was pretty dead. We stayed there for an hour and a half, and it didn't get any busier. I was planning to order more food, but they had already shut down the kitchen. It was fun and I sang a lot. I tried to do a duet with Art, but it was not a good version of the song. The other songs went well, though.

I was hungry after we left, so I ordered some delivery food from PF Chang's. There's a service here that will deliver for many different restaurants. I've never bothered to try it before. It's kind of expensive. I just ordered some chicken lettuce wraps and some chicken fried rice, and it was almost $50, NOT including tip. Yikes. Plus they brought the wrong dish. They brought the spicy chicken instead of the lettuce wraps. It was delicious, but I was kind of trying to eat healthier. Still, at least it was gluten free.

Later, I saw another of those 3 inch flying roaches...but he was very slow moving, so I think the poison got to him after he came in, like the pest control guy said it would. Still, I didn't want to have to kill more, so I closed the doors and put on the A/C.

I went to bed about 11. I was so tired. Then I woke up about 1:30 am, so I'll probably go back to sleep in a little while.

Don't forget to read my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog!

Have a great week...I sure hope next week will be less stressful for us!

Week of May 17

2014-05-22T20:40:00.004-05:00

May 17

In case you missed it last week, I'm posting at the end of the week now instead of on Sundays or Mondays.

Our friends Monty and Paul have some other friends that are moving here on Tuesday, so we're exchanging email and other information. Hopefully they will be nice and normal people to add to our small-but-growing collection of friends here. One more thing to love about Honolulu! It's been much easier for us to make friends here (not to mention, easier to find a band to join).

I wonder if we'll see anyone famous this weekend? :) For the past 3 weekends, we've seen someone famous. First it was Eric Cantor, then the governor, and then Jim Nabors! My guess is that we won't continue that streak :)

I got up really late, after 3:30pm. About 5, we went down to Waikiki for dinner at Hatsuhana (David likes the sushi there) and drinks at Irish Rose.

I don't know what I did, but my arm/shoulder/neck is really killing me today (worse than usual), so I'm mostly staying off the computer...

Very warm and humid here tonight! I'll probably just complain about that now until next November.

May 18

I just slept too much yesterday, over 12 hours, so even though I was tired and tried to go to sleep, it didn't work... now I'm up at 5:30 am after 3 attempts to go to sleep. UGH.

I had a dream Friday night about Todd on "One Life to Live"! Great dream...

I never did get back to sleep. We went to Starbucks so I could get a mocha, and then I went with David for his 3 mile walk. So glad that's over! I'll see if I can stay up for another 2 hours or not, to go to lunch. For some reason, the Starbucks person thought I had asked for an iced mocha! I didn't bother having him re-do it. It was ok, but not as good as the hot kind. The walk was nice, but it was a bit too hot for me. There was some triathalon going on, so we saw many bike riders, riding down Nimitz. After we got home, I took a shower, but now I'm already hot and sweaty again. Yuk. I'm trying to stay awake so we can go to lunch.

I have to talk about these great Teva sandals I wear all of the time. I got them for Christmas and I wear them almost every day. Not only are they super comfortable, but they never smell bad. Even though I walked 3 miles and sweat a lot in them, they don't smell bad. Amazing! It's a good thing, since I don't think they're washable.

We went to Downbeat for lunch. I had a great omelette. Then I went to sleep. I was so tired! I only slept about 3 hours.

Then we went to the grocery store as usual on Sundays, and then we looked for a place to eat dinner.. we were going to go to J.J. Dolan's, but they were closed, so we went down to Murphy's again. They had a great special, chicken stuffed with goat cheese. It was delicious.

I think I'm probably going to go back to sleep early...kind of fading here! After the laundry is done.

May 19

I went to bed a little after 10 pm and slept for about 13 hours! My back is hurting a lot - not only the usual spine problems but also my lower back, all on the right side. I don't know if it's from the walk yesterday, or sleeping on it funny, or what.

We went to lunch at Jack-in-the-Box, and then I stopped at 'umeki Market to get some gluten free scones. My back is feeling much better. It's very muggy today; looks like rain.

We headed to Gordon Biersch for dinner because they had the last Science Pub for the semester. It was a lot of fun. We sat with Sara and the two kids. It was overcast and I was afraid it would rain, but it didn't, thankfully. It looked at first like no one would be in attendance, but eventully people did show up. I was worried, since classes are over (although summer school has started). The idea was a good one, but the speaker was not very prepared and didn't really hold anyone's attention. I know I was not in the right mood to hear anything as I was not awake yet. It had something to do with "Hawaii A'ina", which I gather means something like "protect the people". Then after she talked a lot, her husband came up and sang Hawaiian songs and played the guitar. I ordered a mai tai because if I'm going to listen to Hawaiian songs, I have to have a tropical drink! :) Matthew showed up a little late from another meeting he had.

Later that night, I had some leftover chicken and veggies from Murphy's... leftovers are usually good :)

I did quite a bit of singing/recording in the afternoon, and then I decided to get more organized about posting my songs on the two singing sites, to figure out which songs I had posted at one site but not the other, and which songs I need to re-record. That took a long time. I ended up staying up until 5am.

May 20

David phoned me to tell me he couldn't get lunch with me, so I went back to sleep. Then he called me again about 1:20, about something else. Then I got up, and I was very sick with my usual problems. It must have been the salad I had at Gordon Biersch. I didn't ask them to make sure the salad was GF like usual. My fault, I guess. It was much more painful than usual and took me a long time to feel better.

It was pouring rain here in the afternoon! That's not too new, though. It rains here a lot. Usually it's not too heavy, nor does it last long. This time of year is the worst for rain. You get used to bringing an umbrella.

David had to come home in the afternoon and move the car. They're painting the lines and numbers on the parking spaces in our parking garage, so he had to move it this morning to a pay lot and then move it back in the afternoon. What a pain.

He's having a very stressful week.....he really needs this vacation!

I didn't do much during the day. We went to J.J. Dolan's for dinner. We had a really awful waitress. Usually they're pretty nice there. I can't eat most of their foods. I asked for the caprese salad and asked her to check to see if the dressing is gluten free or not. She looked doubtful, right away, and it seemed like she thought it was too much trouble to ask. I know I'm picky, ok... I asked her to have them chop up the caprese salad and not to put on too much basil because it's too strong for me and they put these huge slices of tomato and mozzarella on the plate. Makes it very hard to eat. So she came back and said something about the dressing...let's put it this way, it didn't make too much sense. So I asked her to go back and ask what they meant. She was really giving me attitude at that point. Like she couldn't bear to go back and talk to the cook (it was more the expression on her face than anything she said). Maybe he intimidated her, I don't know, but she wasn't very nice about it. So eventually the cook came out with a salad (not the one I asked for) and he had one cup of oil and vinegar, and he explained that this, not their regular vinaigrette, is gluten free (I don't know why she had a hard time with that concept). Then I very politely pointed out that was not the salad I ordered, so he brought me the right one. I didn't bother telling him that it wasn't cut up or the other things I'd asked for. I just lived with it. Then the rest of the time, she barely acknowledged us. We had to really flag her down to get refills on our drinks or the check, and even though we smiled and said thank you, etc. she didn't smile or say anything. Then, here's the capper, our bill was $14. Now, the food alone was $14, so she had forgotten to charge us for all of the drinks. Now that is one bad waitress.... I'm guessing that if she doesn't shape up, she won't have that job long! Next time I'll ask about their pizza toppings. Hopefully it won't be so inconvenient.

The rest of the night I did the laundry, worked a little on my site, and listened to music. I'm tired and going to try to go to bed a little earlier tonight.

Since we're leaving in a few days for our trip to San Diego, I'm trying to get as much stuff copied off my DVR as possible, so it won't run out of space while we're gone. I'm also still trying to organize my songs on iTunes so I can update my iPod.

May 21

I appreciate any of you who actually read my boring blog! :)

I'm annoyed because David was supposed to wake me up at 6:30 and didn't. Luckily, I did wake up at 7:30. I had two conference calls this morning but I missed one. :( He's got a lot going on at work and just forgot. That's not like him at all!

I went back to sleep and didn't get up until after 2:30pm. I didn't go out because I was afraid if I did, that I would get some of the GF cupcakes! Also, I knew if I ate that late, I wouldn't be hungry for dinner.

We went to the new restaurant again, Grondin's. It's a French/Latin place with delicious food. Most of their menu is gluten free. I had the duck entree, and it was very good. I also tasted David's, the market fish, which was even better. Yum! He was in a hurry to get home, so we didn't order appetizers or dessert.

I did quite a bit of straightening up this afternoon. I washed the bedclothes and some other laundry, cleaned up the front area of the place and some of the area around the couch. I just need to clean the guest bedroom, where I've been just putting things in randomly, making a mess; and the kitchen, which is not too bad; and dust the living room; then just do the floors. I hope I can get it done before I leave so that it's pretty clean when we come back. I hate coming back to a messy or dirty house. Then I won't have to really clean it thoroughly again until before Barbara visits in July.

I'm seriously considering going to bed early tonight, even though it's not even midnight. I wonder if I'm tired enough? Or just tired of working :) I think my brain is already on vacation...

Well, Here it is after 1 am, but I'm still going to try to get to sleep. It's very hot and humid tonight. Lately I put on the A/C in the bedroom a little while before I go to bed, then I turn it off when I get in there.

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog and my Living Gluten Free in Honolulu Blog, and have a great week!

Week of May 11

2014-05-17T04:56:00.000-05:00

May 11

I was so exhausted from last night's festivities... I woke up around noon and then after lunch, I went back to sleep!

We went to lunch at the Cuban restaurant, Soul de Cuba. I had a really great omelette. They said it was gluten free, but I did get really sick in the afternoon, so I'm not so sure they were right about that. They only get one more chance!

We went to the grocery store as we usually do on Sunday.... it was pouring rain most of the day! It got better after we came back. We went to dinner at Downbeat as we almost always do on Sundays. My stomach was not feeling well, so I only ate a little and took the rest home.

I've been trying to catch up on work all evening, but my brain is not really into it. I'm still sort of recuperating from Saturday!

I was supposed to have a conference call with FOX at 3am my time, but for some reason I didn't get their reply with the call-in info. It was sent to my other mailbox, so I didn't see it. D'oh! I went to bed really late, like 4am.

I can't seem to motivate myself lately to clean the house. I did gather the trash today, but that's it.

Ron from our band called me today to congratulate me for being in the band... so that's good! Not that I really had any doubts at this point.

May 12

I didn't go out at all today, which is really rare for me.

I woke up around 2:30pm; I mostly worked on the site all day, although I did also straighten up a bit and put away the laundry. I have some ironing to do, too. I hate ironing...

I just ate at home today, so hopefully I won't be sick any time soon. I just had some of the GF toast for breakfast, then later I had some pork chops and some GF pop chips. Not very healthy, I know.

Tonight my stomach is feeling kind of blah still from yesterday, so I don't feel like eating very much.

David had a lot of work stuff today, including an evening event. At the end of the semester, he has a lot of these parties and things to go to. I'm not invited to all of them. Which is unfortunate because I probably enjoy them far more than he does!

Otherwise, just watching TV a lot today. Perhaps I'll do the dishes after the ironing.

I got a mosquito bite today. I guess that's the first one for the summer.

I tried to go to bed a little early, but it didn't work out. Eventually I got to bed around 3:30 or 4? I don't quite remember. I had to get up at 5:30 for my first call at 6. Way too many calls this month!

May 13

The calls went fine, and I went back to sleep around 10:45. I woke up about 4pm. David came home briefly around 2:30 to get something for work, but I was very groggy and out of it.

I went to McDonald's for lunch. Apparently if you ask for the burger without the bun, they do like Jack-in-the-Box does - put it in a special box, with lettuce. That surprised me. This is the first time I asked for it without bread. I usually just peel the bun off. I wanted to make sure that I didn't get sick. So far, it did work!

I did some more laundry and also cleaned one of the bathrooms. I'll probably clean the other bathroom in a little while... Otherwise, just working on my site!

Poor David has been so busy. This is the second night in a row that he had an evening event to go to! He didn't get home until after 9, which is really unusual.

I did clean the other bathroom, plus did some dishes, and swept the entrance-way. I think I'll need to get the place professionally cleaned in July before Barbara comes because there are some stains I'm having trouble getting out. In general, I'm not quite wasteful enough to hire a cleaning service to come in and clean my small, two bedroom apartment! I don't mind spending money, but that just seems like too much. It did my lazy butt good to do some physical work for a change.

I got Dell chat tech support to help me with an ongoing problem. Looks like it's fixed! When I first got the laptop, any swipes I made on the right side of the touchpad would make the Charms bar come up. I took that off in the settings and did a few other changes, too, to make it more like the way I like it. However, the right side of the touchpad then had some sort of problem. When I tapped on it, it wouldn't do anything. I could move the cursor, but tapping didn't work. The Dell tech support person had me download a touchpad driver upgrade, and it fixed the problem! Yay!

May 14

Lately I've been sleeping on a split shift again. I went to bed before 1 am last night, set the alarm for 5:45 but woke up around 5:20 and couldn't get back to sleep! I had some conference calls and then went back to sleep around 11am. The window washers were out there today and woke me up around 12:30. UGH. Then I finally woke up for good about 2:30.

I walked over to the cupcake place and got some GF strawberry cupcakes. Yum! They also had a GF chocolate bar pastry, with sea salt. Very yummy. Then I went to Long's to get a few things, and then I stopped at Subway to get a salad and soda. Today I'm testing out Subway to see if it makes me sick. It shouldn't...I double-checked their website and supposedly most of their stuff is gluten, except for the bread, croutons, the meatballs and a few other obvious things. All of the things I get in my salad, like the veggies, the dressing, the bacon, the chicken, and the cheese, should all be safe. So we'll see! I hope I can still keep eating at Subway.

I ordered these gluten test strips, so I can test out food in places I'm not too sure about in the future. They're kind of expensive, but I figure it's worth it to help me figure out where I can safely eat and where I can't. The only annoying thing is that they don't ship to Hawaii, so I had to have them sent to Gisele, and she's shipping them here to me, and I'll pay her back. Where would we be without good friends?

It's warm and humid today! Definitely starting to feel like summer weather is coming. 83 degrees! Yikes.

Well, I just got sick with D, so I'm going to have to assume that the local Subway is not gluten free. Bummer. I sent them an email...maybe they can fix it.

I made a third blog, about living gluten free in Honolulu. I must be crazy! I already have way too much to do. Check it out.

I've just been very lazy tonight and done very little.

David made our reservations for Las Vegas. We're flying to San Diego a week from Friday, May 23. We're staying in downtown San Diego until Monday morning, then flying to Vegas for 2 days, then back to San Diego until the following Sunday. Quick trip. For some reason, Vegas is really cheap right now. They had a place downtown that's $11 per night! That's really cheap. We're taking advantage of this opportunity to stay at the Bellagio. It's not cheap, but it's way cheaper it normally is. We used to try to stay in every single casino, but we had stayed at all except for the 3 most expensive casinos-- the Bellagio, the Wynn, and the Venetian. At that time, we didn't want to pay to stay in the really expensive ones, so we did some repeating on the casino/hotels. Then we didn't go to Vegas for the past 3 years! Really unusual for us because we used to go 2 or 3 times per year. Moving to the East Coast didn't help - such a long flight and very expensive. Now there are all sorts of new casinos there that we haven't been to. We probably won't go there again for at least a year, though. David doesn't get too much time off any more. Should be a fun trip but very exhausting. I can't wait to see everyone, though!

Looks like I'll be going to bed a little before 5am...just took me too long to get around to finishing up the transcripts. So tired!

May 15

I woke up around 3pm. I feel like I might be coming down with a cold, but I can't tell yet. I feel warm, but I don't have a fever. My throat feels a little scratchy, but not sore yet. I hope it's just allergies!

I was a little sick with my usual problems...I hope it's just leftover from yesterday's Subway and not from Epic or worse, from something I'm eating here at home.

David has another late night! I hope it's the last one for a while. It's graduation tonight. What's cool is that I'm watching it on live stream right now. Here are some photos I took.

I love these tank top dresses I've bought here at Ross...they're very comfy and nice for the hot weather. I wear them at home, and when I go out, I just put a bra and shirt on over them (I don't wear tank tops in public otherwise! Plus two of them have horizontal stripes). Anyway, one of them is long in the back and shorter in the front. I just read that's called a "mullet dress". LOL!!

We went to J.J. Dolan's after he came home. I had pizza, (without the crust of course). I've been eating bad all week. I don't have a cold, though, thankfully. Just bad allergies.

I went to bed about 3:30 am...

May 16

I had a conference call about 8am. so I got up for that about 7:30. I tried to go back to sleep after that but couldn't. David was going to meet me for lunch, but his meeting ran late, so he couldn't. I went to the 'umeke market and then stopped at McDonald's. I got the salad, kahlua pork and rice for later, and I had McD's for lunch.

I'm sick of being fat. My brain really wants to diet and exercise, but my body says, naw, you want some cheeseburgers... I kind of feel like I'm hibernating because all I seem to do is eat and sleep. I feel like a fat pig. I hope no one thinks so when they see me in San Diego. I'm not over 200 lbs. or anything, but I just feel so fat. I hate the arm fat and the side-boob fat, LOL! Seriously, though, it's very uncomfortable.

I keep trying to get a reply from my brother David, but he's not answering me, so I tried phoning him, but his number was not working. So I phoned my other brother, Stephen, and got David's new number. It was nice to talk to Stephen, although brief. When I tried calling David, it just rang, and then I got a message that he hadn't yet set up his voice mailbox. ARGH!!

After that, I did finally get to sleep, although I kept waking up. I don't know why. David called and woke me up at 5:30. We went to Murphy's for dinner. I'm being extra nice to him because it's the end of his school year and things are very tough at work. Hopefully it will be easier for him in a few weeks, after we come back from our trip. I say this because I'm not only sick of Murphy's but I don't trust them not to make me sick. I had their Asian chicken salad and the waitress checked carefully...she said there was no wheat or soy sauce in it. Even though all of the other waiters have been telling me for the past year that it's not gluten free! Who knows. .. It's not the best salad; they always really over cook the chicken.

We're flying to San Diego late on May 23rd and will be arriving on the 24th. We're staying near the downtown in the Chinatown/Little Italy area. It was a lot cheaper than staying in the Gaslamp. We're going to a baseball game that night. David's going to the day game on Sunday as well. Then Monday we're flying to Vegas and staying at the Bellagio for two nights. We'll fly back on Wednesday. Then we're there at Susan's house in El Cajon until Saturday or Sunday, I believe. I hope we got to see lots of our friends!

I don't know which addiction of mine is worse - Facebook or McDonald's! LOL!

It's getting pretty warm here. Right now I'm sitting out on the lanai because it's too hot in the condo. I really need to get a fan.

I think I'm going to post this now and then start the next blog for next week. Have a great week and weekend, everyone!

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

Week of May 4

2014-05-12T05:43:00.003-05:00

May 4

I forgot to mention last week that I went to get my hair cut Friday during the day. I actually got up pretty early and did run a lot of errands. I went to get coffee at Starbucks, then went to get my hair cut. This nice Vietnamese lady cuts my hair. There was a Hawaiian guy in there with us, and he kept complaining about Hawaii and how it's not good any more (like a lot of Californians do about how it's gotten too crowded, too much traffic, too expensive to live in, etc.)...he was quite a character. Then I went to the post office to mail a bunch of packages. There was a woman there who started chatting with me, and it helped pass the time in line very well. People are pretty friendly here. Then it started raining quite hard, and I rushed home because I had bought a large box to mail something in, and I didn't want to get it wet. The post office woman suggested I cover it with a Priority Mail box (they didn't have any bags), so I tried, but it wasn't very big. After I got back home, I realized that the Priority Mail box was missing - it had apparently blown out of my cart. It was pretty windy as well as rainy. After that, I met David for lunch, and the rain was coming down pretty hard, so I did see the Priority Mail box out in front of our building. I was in a rush but moved it out of the way onto the grass. After lunch, I saw it, but my hands were full, and I was in a rush to get in to the apartment because I really had to go to the bathroom! So then I spent quite a while in the bathroom and didn't feel well, so I forgot to go back down as I'd planned to pick up the box. Fortunately, someone did pick it up because later it was gone. I hope no one saw me and thought I was a litter bug! :) OK, at least not on purpose.

Today, I got up around noon, and we went to Celebrity Tuxedo near Ala Moana mall so David could rent a tux for this event we have on Saturday night. It sure took a long while! We also drove by where the studio is on Queen street, where I'm supposed to meet up with the new band guys that same day. Lots of graffitti in that area, but there isn't much crime in Hawaii, so it's probably okay, at least during the day.

We went back home and then out to lunch at Gordon Biersch. I had the yummy baja tacos (gluten free!). Later on, we went out again with the car, to the grocery store (Times). Then later we went to dinner at Downbeat Cafe as usual (such great food). I had the greek wrap (in a gluten free corn tortilla just like Gordon Biersch) and their delicious home fries.

We watched a lot of TV, and I worked some on my site as well as did the laundry and dishes.

I was going to make some coffee earlier, but the coffee pot was cracked! I haven't even had it that long. Amazon is going to send me a replacement, so that's good. I have some Maxwell House International Suisse Mocha Cafe, so I mixed that with hot chocolate, hot water and milk. It was very yummy and much lower in sugar than if I had gone to Starbucks.

May 5

Happy Cinco de Mayo! There aren't too many Mexican restaurants around here (not too many Mexicans, either, for that matter) so I doubt we will do very much. They did have a big celebration near the downtown on Saturday, but we didn't go to it.

I haven't heard from my brother David for a while, so I hope he's ok. Sometimes people in my family are very bad at keeping in touch!

I had a terrible morning...heartburn again. I guess it's from the coffee I had, plus some spicy food. I didn't get up until almost noon.

I haven't done much today except for email and that kind of thing. I did finally hear back from my brother David, so that's good. Apparently my brother Stephen and his wife are divorcing, so that's too bad. I always thought they were pretty good for each other. I hope he can find a cheap place to live.

I had a lot of D this morning but feeling better now. I have to go to the post office now and mail off a box to my SIL.

Oh, boy, that was a mistake! LOL! There was a long and slow line. There was a guy behind me who was sucking on something...I don't know what, but it was GROSS. I finally got up to the counter, and they announced that their credit card machine just went down so you could only pay cash. Grrr! So I walked all the way over to the UPS place instead. Thankfully, they're nice there and there was no line. Then I went to Subway and got a sandwich for later, and a salad. I was so hungry! I only ate half the salad because it's pretty big. I make them put lots of lettuce and spinach in it and double meat, plus bacon and cheese. Then when I get it home, I also add in nuts on top. So it's like a whole meal. Very proud of myself for not going to McDonald's!

I had a brief nap, but otherwise I've just been working on my site. David has some event tonight from 6 to 7, so he's going to call when he's done, so we can meet up for dinner.

We just went to Epic and I had their strawberry arugula salad. I'm trying to be good and eat mostly salads, staying away from things like french fries and desserts.

I was doing so well on my diet, but then I ate a lot of Pop Chips... I just can't have ANYTHING like that in the house.

May 6

This is why I have so much trouble getting in shape or getting anything done... I tried going to sleep around 3am, but it took me a really long time to get to sleep. I woke up around 6:30am. Then the alarm went off at 9:00am, but I went back to sleep. Then I woke up about 10:10 but fell back asleep. Finally, David called me for lunch about 11:30. After lunch, I had D, and now I feel like going back to bed. It's almost 2pm. I have no energy and don't feel like doing anything except sleeping. So you know I'll be wide awake and not able to sleep at 4am! :(

We went to Subway and I had a turkey sub (no bread, of course). I'm getting tired of Subway. Their veggies are not great quality, and their bacon sucks.

Afterwards, I went to Ross and got some shoes and a bag to match that dress I got Sunday for the big black tie event we're going to on Saturday.

It was raining all morning, but now the sun is up and it's hot and shining brightly. It's getting pretty hot this week. 84 degrees now and very humid. It's supposed to stay that way all week and then on Sunday drop a little and be rainier. Looking forward to cooler weather!

I was feeling very tired, but I feel better now after taking a shower. Now I'm hungry! The neighbors cook such wonderful-smelling things, drives me crazy!

We went to Murphy's for dinner, but none of their specials were gluten free. I just had a salad. Blah. My knee starting hurting during dinner. I wonder what I did to it?

I had three leftover salads from various restaurants the last 2 days! One was turkey, cheese and bacon from Subway; one was strawberry argula from Epic; and the third was a chicken oriental salad from Murphy's (with oil and vinegar, and peanuts). I put them in the food processor, added some mayo, and some salt. It makes a kind of spread or dip. I had it on some toasted gluten free bread, and it was very yummy. It would be good with chips, too, or mixed in with scrambled eggs. If you don't have meat, cheese, onions, olives or mayo in the salad like I did, then it might be good mixed in with fruit for a smoothie as well.

David likes to eat out every night, and we have wine or beer as well. Frankly, I would rather eat at home, but I do hate cooking, so I'm not going to argue too much. I'm trying to lose weight, so I'm trying to stick to salads, or chicken and fish dishes. That's why I had so many leftover salads. I can't usually eat the whole salad unless I'm starving, anyway. I like my own salads better than most restaurants, but it's a lot of work, chopping, and you have to have fresh veggies, so it means going to the store more often. So I don't bother, since we're eating out anyway.

I had bought a brand new coffee maker in March before Peter came to visit. I bought it on Amazon because I wanted a green one to match my kitchen decor. It works very well and has a nice timer, etc. Peter is a big coffee drinker, but I never have been, and David doesn't drink it at all, so I've only used it a few times. More often then not, I hate cleaning it so I go to Starbucks. But the other day I went to use it, and the pot was broken! I had just washed it, too, by hand. I have no idea why or how it broke. Thankfully, Amazon sent me a completely new coffee maker (and offered me a choice of that or a refund). So it's already here! That sure was quick. Fresh coffee tomorrow :)

I slept way too much today, so I probably won't go to sleep until about 4 or 5. I thought I had an early interview, but it was pushed back until Friday. Now I just found out that there's another one at 11am. Not too early, at least.

May 7

I had trouble sleeping again, and I was supposed to get up for this 11am interview, but I was just feeling really tired and sick, so I emailed them to say I couldn't make it. I'm sure they had plenty of people, anyway... but now I feel very guilty for going back to bed and also for getting up so late - 2:30am! UGH.

This time of year is tough with my job, too many interviews, news, reviews etc. I've been overwhelmed.

I was sick a lot today with D...I think I'm going to stop eating out so much, even though I hate cooking.

We did go out to this new place called Grondin that is very good. It's French and Latin food, whatever that means :) I wasn't feeling well, plus I had a late lunch, so I just had this appetizer, but it was really good, and gluten free. It was crepes of all things, made from corn and I guess almond flour? They had duck and some kind of really good spicy sauce. Really yummy. David had escargot and he said it was really good, too. We'll definitely go back when we're hungrier.

I spent a large part of the past 2 days, going through my emails and got about half of it done!

Went to bad about 4.

May 8

I was not sick since eating at Grondin, so I guess it really is gluten free. Yay! I stopped eating the leftover salad in case that was doing it.

David called me just after noon for lunch, and we went to Jack-in-the-Box. I double-checked their menu online to see what's gluten free. I had the grilled chicken strips, which aren't bad. Then I stopped at 'umeki Market, but they only had one gluten free scone. I don't know what weird flavor it was, but it was kinda yukky.

I stopped at Long's on the way home, then I went out again to take the coffee maker to the UPS store (Amazon let me return it, and they're paying for the shipping as well). Luckily, it just fit into my little cart. I stopped at Subway for a soda and ran into David again. He was heading home anyway. We got the car and went to Celebrity Tuxedo to pick up his tux. I just went along for the ride and the company. Plus our car has good a/c and it's very hot today! He tried it on and they made a few minor adjustments.

I tried to take a nap, but not sleepy enough, I guess. I sure feel tired, though!

After doing a little email and such, I decided to work on some more songs..I had a couple to learn for my band, and I recorded a few others as well.

David's class had its final today, so he came home late, around 7:30, and it was raining out, so we just ate at home for a change. What a shock! :) I just made David some frozen shu-mei and I had a sandwich.

May 9

I had to get up early for 3 interviews this morning. I was so tired, then I got very hungry. I went over to McDonald's around 9:30 for breakfast. I checked their website first and was so disappointed to learn that the hash browns are not gluten free like I thought they were. I had 2 sausage, egg and cheese biscuits, but I took off the biscuits. I got sick a little later, so it may be that there was a bit too much biscuit that stuck to the cheese. I don't know that I'm quite that sensitive, though, so it could be from something else...although I mostly ate at home yesterday.

I went back to sleep after that and woke up at 3:30. I've been doing work ever since. Disappointed again that Mercury Bar doesn't have live band karaoke. I'm officially giving up on them.

We went out to dinner at Murphy's...I didn't really want to go there, but the other places were full. I ordered their chicken sandwich without bread. I asked the waitress to make sure they don't overcook it (because they tend to do that) and also ask them to cut it up for me. She said they might be too busy to do that, so I explained that I have a problem with my neck that makes it hard to cut food (which is true, although also it's because their knives are not very sharp and their chicken is overcooked!). So of course the chicken was overcooked and they just sliced it into strips. Also, they changed the sauce that comes with it. They still call it the same thing - something like, chive mayo - but it was a weird color and tasted like honey mustard. So I asked her to ask the cook what was in it because also, it had a thicker texture, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't something with wheat. And lastly, another of their waiters has told me in the past that they didn't have any salad dressings that were gluten free, and this sure tasted like honey mustard salad dressing. So she claimed that it just had added mayo and sugar, but I didn't finish eating it. It was awful, anyway, being overcooked. We stopped at Hasr's afterwards and sat at the bar, so I could get more food. They have this great eggplant dish. They are much more trustworthy about gluten, too.

I was a little down tonight because I found a lot of grey flecks in my hair. Not just grey hairs but this weird salt-and-pepper thing. I thought at first that it was paint or something had somehow gotten into my hair, but it didn't wash out. I don't know.. so weird that I never noticed it before. But when I pulled on my hair, the stuff did come out, so it wasn't just "grey hairs". So I took another shower and washed it more vigorously, especially in the bangs, and most of it went away. There may also have been some dried hairspray or something. So strange!

I went to bed a little early for me, about 1am.

May 10

Wow, today was so busy and it's all kind of a blur. I woke up about 6-something AM and I couldn't get back to sleep. I did some work, and after David went running, we went over to Zippy's for breakfast. I got really sick later on, so I probably won't eat there any more. Their breakfasts are supposed to be gluten free, so I don't know. I'm going to cut down on going out to eat, in general.

I worked in the morning, and then I was very sick for a while, which was not fun.

I had my first band rehearsal at noon. Even though I wasn't feeling well, and my nasal allergies were not good, either, it was a lot of fun. It was technically an audition as well, but I was fairly confident that they were fine with me because I do sing pretty well. My only real worry was that they might be picky about my looks or age, but they weren't. There are 6 other people in the band, and the rehearsal space was pretty small, but we made it work. The drummer is Ron, and he's the one that I've spoken with the most on the phone (and some emails). He's sort of the leader..not officially, but he's the one that's pretty good about getting in contact with everyone and pushing us along a bit. We really do need him for that. Then there's Larry, whom I also spoke with. He used to be a guitar player, but he was in an accident, and now he's disabled, so he plays the trumpet. I think he plays other instruments, too. He's also a very good backup singer. Then there's Bobby, the third one I spoke to on the phone. He plays keyboards. He brought a woman along (I can't remember if he said that she was his wife or daughter), and there was also a little boy, whose name I forget, too. He was a cute kid and brought his ukelele. I'm bad at guessing ages, but I'd guess he's somewhere between 8 and 10. He's Bobby's grandson, but Bobby doesn't look that old. Then there is JJ, who is, I think, Bobby's son-in-law, who plays guitar (perhaps bass guitar?), and Phillip, who plays lead guitar, and finally Sonny, another guitar player (either bass or rhythm guitar). They were all very nice guys and played well, I thought. Not that I'm much of a judge! I was standing next to JJ, so I chatted with him the most. He's in his 40's, so he's probably the youngest in the band. I think most of them are from Hawaii, although I don't know for sure. Frankly, I have some trouble understanding them all because of their accents. There's a local Hawaiian accent, and I guess language as well, that a lot of people speak, it's some sort of pidgin. So I'm the only Haolie in the group as well as the only woman. Anyway, we had a blast. We first tried "Blue Bayou" and then "Crazy". I don't remember all of the rest, or the order we did them in, but we also did "Barbara Ann" and "Electric Boogie". The other songs, I sang back-up on, and also I played the tambourine, which was a lot of fun. We did "My Girl" and "Hang on Sloopy" and "Good Lovin'", among others.

The rehearsal room, which they referred to as a studio, is pretty cheap. It's only $35 for two hours or $50 for three hours. We all chipped in. I was chatting a little with the guy who ran it afterwards. He's from Connecticut. I wonder if he can record us and how much that would cost? I need to ask him that next time. I don't like to sit down and sing, and so I was exhausted afterwards. I mean, I'd been up since 6 and was excited while playing, but then I sort of collapsed after that, especially from standing for 3 hours. We were supposed to start at noon, but there was an accident on the freeway, so some of them were late, so we stayed until 3 instead of 2 as planned. I recorded the songs on my phone, but I haven't had a chance to listen to them yet. Here are some pics I took of the band; they're kind of blurry, though. I'll take better ones next time. I didn't get a shot of Ron yet. He was outside having a smoke.

I was starving when we were done, so I went to McDonald's. David had of course driven me to the rehearsal, and then he took off because he had an event at the other part of his college, the Hawaii Loa campus. He said he thought he'd be done at 3:30, but he came back before that, so he got to hear us a little. Then he had another event at the downtown campus after we went back home. Very busy day for both of us!

I only had about an hour to relax, take a shower etc. then we were off to another event around 5:30. The big theater downtown here is the Hawaii Theater. HPU has a lot of events there, and the president bought a table for their fund-raising event down at the swanky Waikiki hotel, the Halekulani. He couldn't attend, so he told David to fill the table with HPU people. So it was us, Matthew and Sara, the Business dean, and some other faculty people, including Teresa, who conducts the orchestra and is always so nice. Well, they're all nice, really, but I've seen her the most. Anyway, the theme for the event was Casablanca, and it said black tie, but also you could dress up for the theme. So there was a real variety of people, ones like us that just dressed up fancy, and others who were more "in costume". Matthew wore a white jacket and this history professor Justin wore an old air force cap. Some of the male guests wore fezzes or other interesting hats and attire. It was great fun. You can see the pics I took.

Also, I finally put up the photos I took from the April 26th concert with the HPU chorales, symphony orchestra and the singer Makana.
I hope you enjoy them!

Anyway, it was quite a festive gathering. Since it was a fund-raiser, I guess it was probably mostly rich people there. One of them was Jim Nabors, who lives here and supports the theater. I went up to his table later on and shook his hand and took a photo. He was very gracious.

They first had a cocktail reception on a grassy area, and there were belly dancers and this guy playing some kind of stringed instrument. There was lots of champagne! Then we all went upstairs where they were having a silent auction. We didn't bid on anything. Then we went into the dining room. David and I snuck in before it was time because my feet were killing me, and I was just so tired. Also, it was very humid and the room had nice air conditioning. I wore flat shoes but I have bad feet that need more support. I got these cheap slipper-like shoes. They were very pretty but not comfortable after a while standing. I'm not sure my feet wouldn't hurt in ANY shoe after that long day!

They had a nice little band and some singers. Dinner was great, and they had prepare special gluten free food for people like me. They had a pastry chef who made wonderful bread, so when I complimented them, they gave me extra to take home! There was lots of great wine (and other liquor), and also they had a roulette table and gave us fake free money to play with. The ballroom where we were having dinner was done up like "Rick's Café Américain". They also had a guy in costume who was pretending to be Captain Louis Renault. He was very funny. We all enjoyed ourselves quite a lot. We finally left around 10, I think?

After we got home, I only stayed up long enough to take my evening pills with a snack and then I went to bed.

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Week of April 27

2014-05-05T03:30:00.001-05:00

April 27

I woke up a bit later than I wanted to, around noon. David went with me to McDonald's. I went to one of the stores here downtown that sells long fancy dresses for things like weddings and proms. I got a gown for this fundraising event that we're going to May 10. It's a sort of light-green-blue dress with sequins. Thankfully, it was on sale! David's going to rent a tux, too.

He had a nap while I worked on my site.

Later, we went to this big concert at the Hawaii Theater. The HPU choirs and the orchestra had their concert there featuring this singer/composter/musician named Makana. I'd never heard of him, but he's fabulous. What a great voice. They performed a lot of his music, and he played and sang as well. It was great fun.

We saw with Matthew and Sara, and their girls, so it was fun to see them. We saw other people David works with as well. David had to go on stage after the intermission and say a few words. The concert was great but went on until after 9, so it was pretty late for a Sunday.

We have a lot of things coming up. We're probably going out Friday night with Matthew and Sara to dinner and to walk around downtown. They have this thing First Friday with art, music, shopping, etc. The following Friday is when they're supposed to have the live band karaoke at Mercury Bar, so we'll see if it happens this time. Then my band rehearsal is that Saturday, May 10, and then we have the fundraiser that night. So, lots of stuff happening!

I'm staying up too late...have to finish the laundry.

April 28

I did a terrible job of keeping up the blog this week. I've been getting a lot done at work, though.

They sure had some terrible tornadoes today! One of the volunteers on my site lost her power in Mississippi, but otherwise, she's okay...

I'm very annoyed at Time Warner Cable. They sent some kind of software or firmware upgrade to the DVR's. Previously, when I would fast-forward through the commercials, then hit Play, it would stop exactly where I wanted it to. Now it jumps back a minute or so. It's very hard to get used to after 8 months, I'll tell ya that. I hate when they change things for no reason. They do have a skip back button, but no skip ahead button, which I dearly loved when we had DISH. And then worse, if you watch On Demand it works like the old way so it's very confusing.

We went to Gordon Biersch for the monthly Science Pub. This talk had something to do with the US relationship with Asia and India. The guy giving the talk is a political science professor. Although I have no interest in the topic, he was a good speaker. They usually have a trivia quiz beforehand, and he had two Star Trek references in his! Also, he mentioned Diana Rigg in passing during the talk. My kinda dude! We were both tired, so we didn't socialize all that much, but I chatted some with Matthew and Sara. We're meeting them on Friday for dinner. I hope they're not going to get sick of us! LOL!

This is Star Wars week. I can't wait for the new movie that they're finally filming! I hope JJ Abrams does a much better job with it than he did with the last two Star Trek movies. I think the "old farts" look pretty good, especially Mark Hamill. He looks like he's lost weight since last year when he guest-starred on "The Neighbors". They're having a little Star Wars celebrating down here on Sunday, but it's at night so I doubt we'll go. It doesn't sound like the most interesting thing in the world, though, and I don't have any of my Star Wars t-shirts here, let alone my Prince Leia costumes!

April 29

4 major things I still need to do... 1) get up and go to bed earlier, 2) exercise, 3) eat healthier, 4) finish cleaning the house!

Because we were so busy this weekend, we didn't get to the store. I'm out of Cascade and really need to run the dishwasher. I looked at Long's, but they didn't have any of the powder kind. Safeway is not that far away, but it's kind of in the wrong direction, so it's out of the way.

It's been cool and windy, very nice weather. No complaints!

We went to Epic for dinner. I like the place, but I'm kind of sick of their menu. I used to get the strawberry arugula salad and then I'd get the scallops appetizer. They did away with the scallops. I'm allergic to most everything else on their menu, or it's sushi, which I don't like. I've been eating their duck salad, but I'm kind of sick of it. I had the strawberry and arugula salad again, and they've doubled the size of it, which is good!! But I'd already ordered the cheeseburger and fries as well. They took a long time on that, so I just got it to go and had it later on in the evening.

April 30

David had to drive to the other side of the island today for some event at the local BYU campus.

We went to dinner at Murphy's. I'd had a late lunch, so I just had half of a salad there and took the other half home.

Sad that Bob Hoskins died. Funny coincidence, but I was just thinking about him last night. I had been thinking about "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and I was thinking that Jessica Rabbit reminds me of another TV character (can't remember who now--maybe Betty on "Mad Men"?). Then I thought, I think this is the first movie where I saw and recognized Bob Hoskins, even though he had done a lot of movies before that.

May 1

It's May already! I hope the weather stays nice. Last year when we came out here last year for the interview, it was pretty hot in May.

We had lunch at the Chinese restaurant across the street, Hunan. I always have the kung pao chicken, which is gluten free (I think). It was a bit too spicy for me, though, but good.

I stayed up all night and then went to sleep about 1pm, then slept for 5 hours. Then I went to JJ Dolan's to wait for David (he has his class), but it was too crowded, so we went next door to the Ra Kuen. They are always nice there, but they only have one thing I'm not allergic to, the steak and fries. The steak is not even that great quality, it's kind of grisly. I have to have both very plain, so they're not so good, and definitely not healthy. David loves the sushi there, though. I'm glad that his class will be over now because it's tough when he gets out so late and doesn't want to walk very far for dinner.

I put up with a lot of strange people online (I'm sure there are people who think I'm strange, too). There's this one girl that I think is very nice, and she's fairly smart, but she has a lot of physical and mental health problems. The problem is that she complains all of the time. Even when she's not outright complaining, her comments reek of self-pity. Then she wonders why she has no friends. It's very sad. I tried explaining this to her, but of course there's no nice way of saying these things and she just got annoyed. She can't see past her own problems. I've thought of unfriending her, but I feel bad for her...We all have hang-ups. We all have problems. We all like to complain. You can't let those feelings dominate your life or things will just get worse and you'll feel worse. I know that it may seem like that's easy for me to say because I have a pretty great life right now, but I had a pretty awful life for the first 25 years of my life, but I didn't let it get me down. You just have to do the best you can and not dwell on it. Try to improve yourself or your situation, and otherwise just do things that you enjoy. If you can't find anything you enjoy, then find something else. Try new things. You might surprise yourself. Or if not, then get some help. Get mental help. If nothing else, find a mental health forum online and get advice. But you have to be open to advice and help. You have to want to change your own life. No one else can make you happy, only you. It sounds like a cliche, but it sure is true. Don't be annoying to people and they will like you better. Don't be "high maintenance". Don't expect more from people than they can give (especially online friends). We really do have just one short life on Earth (there's no afterlife, sorry), so you want to get the most out of it you can, even if that's just enjoyment of simple pleasures. Don't waste it with too much fretting, worry, stress, and self-pity.

May 2

We're meeting Matthew and Sarah for dinner tonight at 6, at Duc's Bistro, so that should be good. They have great food there. You may recall that Matthew is provost, so he's technically David's boss. They're very nice and laid back people, and a lot of fun.

It was great, but I drank way too much wine! :) We had a delicious dinner and lots of nice conversation. We stayed until the restaurant closed and then walked around a little. I went to bed pretty early, for me, around 1 or 2.

May 3

I woke up around 6:20am. My legs were hurting like they often do, but worse, my stomach really hurt. Too much wine, and I should have taken some Pepcid before. What a dummy! I took Pepcid and some Aleve, walked around a bit to get my legs feeling better, then eventually went back to sleep. Not fun!

We went to lunch at JJ Dolan's. I just had a small salad. I did a lot of work on my site today!

We took a cab down to Waikiki and had dinner at this Australian restaurant called Bill's. It was pretty good. I expected it might be like Outback, but it really was not at all like Outback. It was more upscale and very expensive. The food was pretty good, though. I had this delicious watermelon spritzer, and I had an appetizer, some cassava fries with a romesco sauce. It wasn't bad but was more interesting than good. My dinner was very good, though. It was a fried rice dish with Spanish chorizo, crab, and kimchee. The waiter was really nice and very chatty. He'd just recently moved here from Atlanta, so we had something in common. At least they were very knowledgable about gluten.

This is a good site I found (it's an Amazon site) where you can make a little extra money doing some work on your computer.

Nothing much else interesting happened this week!

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

Week of April 20

2014-04-27T06:18:00.003-05:00

April 20

Happy Easter! Well, it was just another day to us... if you're not religious and don't have kids, and no nearby family... not a big deal. I wouldn't have minded going to an Easter brunch, but I couldn't find one nearby and we didn't feel like going anywhere else just for that.

I got up around 1 or so, too late. I did a lot of work on my site. It was a great weekend for me getting work done. I felt very productive. However, I'm still getting up way too late, so I'm not getting anything else done, such as housework, singing/recording or exercising.

We went to the Times grocery store. They finally got in the cheddar pop chips! Yay! Since we live on the 16th floor of a high-rise, and we park on the 6th floor of our garage, we don't carry all the groceries all that way. David lets me off at the front of the parking garage while he parks, and I get one of the grocery carts that our building security has. I take it up the elevator, and we bring the groceries down, again in the elevator, then we push it over to the lobby, and take our regular elevator up to our 16th floor. We unload it and then David takes it back down to the security people. Kind of a pain, but it's either that or take our own carts, which are much smaller. Certainly not as easy as when we would just drive up to our house, park, get out, and take the groceries in! LOL!! Then again, I do like not having to carry the groceries in any more. A cart is much better. Especially with my bad spine.

After a while, we went to Downbeat like usual. I had the breakfast burrito again, but it wasn't nearly as good as last week. It was fine, just not fantastic like last week.

Then I stayed up really late because I just wasn't tired. It was hot but very windy in the morning when I went to bed finally. I had to put the a/c on for a while before I went in there.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I watched "Wolverine". It was so good!! Then tonight I watched "Frozen" which was pretty good. Cute!

I was hoping to go see the new "Captain America" movie this weekend, but I decided to wait for a few weeks.

April 21

David called me for lunch, but he said that he didn't have much time today, so I just went back to sleep. I slept until after 2:30.

I spent a lot of time on email today and managerial stuff for our site. Very rare. I caught up on many things on my site this week but then fell behind on the blogs, so I've been playing catch-up.

We had dinner over at Murphy's. I usually eat their chicken sandwich (no bread), unless they have a good special that I like. I asked them not to over-cook it this time, and they didn't, so it was pretty good. One thing I would like to do is find and kill the chef who decided that your entree meat should be served as one large piece instead of cut up into bite-sized pieces. I really resent having to cut up the chicken or other meat myself (especially in a salad). Especially now with my spine issues, it can hurt, especially if all I have is a butter knife. I keep forgetting to ask them to cut it up for me (which they will, no problem).

While we were walking back from dinner, I got a phone call from Ron, the drummer with my band, which is called the All Natural Band (I didn't make up that name). I had previously spoken with Bobby and Larry, but they hadn't called me in a while, so I was planning to call them back. Ron said that he is scheduling a rehearsal May 10, so that's great. Not only that, but it's at a studio much closer to my house. Yay!! I can't wait. I do have a couple of songs I need to learn, though, like the Electric Slide and Achy Breaky Heart. I'm very excited! Sounds like so much fun.

April 22

I still got up too late! Someone needs to come boot my butt out of bed! :)

We went to dinner at Epic, which is one of our regular places. They only have a few things on the menu I can eat because of the gluten. I used to get their small strawberry and arugula salad, and then their scallop appetizer. It was just perfect. Then they got rid of the scallops dish. I've been eating their duck salad, which is ok, but I'm kind of tired of it now (and last week, there was a tiny bone in it, so that put me off it). So this week I had just a bacon cheeseburger, no bun. I asked for it to be well done because I don't like any pink in the middle of my hamburger. It's gross and unsafe. So anyway, it was only cooked medium rare, with lots of pink. I was going to eat it anyway because I didn't feel like waiting for them to fix it. I poured this aoli sauce on it. Aoli is a garlicky mayo. Well, that made the burger unedible. It tasted like the chef had put two- or three-times as much salt in that aoli! Yuk. So when the waiter came by, I told him about it, and he did offer to make me a new one, but I just said, no, David will eat it, and he did eat most of it. They really should have taken it off the bill, or at least cut the price down... anyway, we probably won't go back there for a while because it's just too hard for me to eat there and I'm sick of the duck salad. I don't really need to be paying $14 for a hamburger, either.

Later, I made some soup (I found a good, gluten free, organic tomato soup) with added grated cheese. It was really yummy. I also baked some spinach chips.

I'm a bit bored and tired tonight. I mean, I have lots to do, but I don't feel like doing any of it. I would try sleeping, but I'm pretty sure that it's way too early, so I'd probably just nap for a little while.

I finally did get around to doing more work. I straightened up the living room a little, watched some TV, did some work on my site.

I read the scifi novella "The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold. Good read, although a bit over my head. I'm shocked that it came out in the 70's. I wish I'd read it back then because it might have caused me to rethink some ideas I had back then and made me a better person a little sooner.

April 23

Still getting up too late... Tomorrow I have a conference call at 7 so that will do, but I know I'll just go back to sleep afterwards.

I spent way too much time on the computer the past few days. I know because my shoulders are hurting quite a lot. I'm going to have rest up today.

I've tried not to go on the PC too much today and to take many breaks!

We went to dinner at HASR's, which I always love. We had this same waiter as last time, but he was better this time (he was super slow last time). Glad that he's learning! I always have this eggplant dish that is so yummy, and I usually have some other appetizer or entree. I had their barbecue ribs, but without the sauce because it has soy sauce in it. Instead, they brought me a Veal Demi-Glacé, which was very good. There was a lot of food, though, so David shared it with me. There's a woman that works there, I don't know if she's manager or owner, but she always stops by to say hi, and she's very nice (knows we're regulars). She gave us a free dessert! It was some kind of strawberry daquiri sorbet. Very yummy! It was truly a wonderful meal and we had a great time.

Their band plays inside now. I feel bad because I know it's because some of the people in our apartment building have complained about the music coming from their building. It's completely ridiculous. They're a block away, and even with the lanai door open you can barely hear them, even when they're singing and playing very loudly. And of course they're not nearly as loud as the sirens and other noises around here.

I spent some time tonight working on learning this song "Electric Boogie (Electric Slide)" for my new band. It's not a bad song and right in my range. I also spent some time listening to people's songs on Singer's Showcase, which I haven't done in a while.

I've been doing this one thing for months, since I got the new laptop, and now I'm finally finished! Yay! I moved all of my songs over to the new laptop, but from years of using iTunes and moving stuff around, I've had tons of duplicates, and iTunes puts everything in a separate folder by artist, which I find really annoying. So I went through all of the folders in iTunes and moved the files etc. and now I'm reloading it. I hope it works out the way I want it to. It's something I've wanted to do for a while. Now the second hard part is having to go through and delete all of the duplicates, then rebuild my playlists etc. It's going to take awhile to finish. I've got 13,000 songs...

I was really dying for some chocolate, and I thought I had found some. Some old Toblerone, but it was too old, tasted yukky. Sad!

April 24

I ended up staying up all night because I had a conference call at 8 am. I finally went to sleep around 10 and slept until just after 4.

I went to JJ Dolan's so that we could make sure to get a table while David got out of his class. I had some pizza (didn't eat the crust). It was a really good one with spinach, garlic, ricotta and pepperoni.

I did some singing and recording today.. I'm still resting my shoulders and not going on the PC too much.

I was very tired, so I went to bed relatively early, before 1 am.

April 25

I got up around 11 and had lunch with David at Subway. I'm very sleepy today and having trouble waking up. I went to Long's and then got a hot chocolate/coffee at Starbucks. It helped a little... I'll be going to bed early tonight, that's for sure.

It's so nice this time of year, although a bit more windy still than I'd like. I wish it stayed this way all year. It's almost May and I know it will get too warm in May. It's already pretty humid and warmer sometimes than I'd like. When I went to get lunch, though, I was cold! First because of the wind and then they over-aircondition all of the stores. So that coffee was great for warming me up as well.

It doesn't feel like Friday. I don't know why! Where did the week go?

I think I may have said this before, but it seems like in today's world, once you hit 50, then every day you wake up, go on Facebook and DON'T learn that someone you know has died, it's a good day!

I used to belong to this science fiction club, S.T.A.R. San Diego. A few of those people have died. Last year we lost Scott, and I knew him (not well), so it was sad that he died. He'd been sickly and had a life time of not taking care of himself. Now Walter Hedges has passed away. I barely knew him, but everyone said he's very nice. He was even less healthier than Scott. He'd been very overweight a long time and had heart and vascular problems, as well as diabetes, and worse - he smoked. It's so sad when people just throw their life away. I'm determined not to be one of those people. It's very hard to get healthy once you have health issues and have bad life long habits.

I started cleaning the place today...it really needs it! I dusted and vacuumed our bedroom, and vacuumed our bathroom and part of the hall. Now I have to do the dishes. It's amazing what you can get done with plenty of sleep and caffeine!

We went to Waikiki for dinner. I made reservations at PF Chang's because the last two times we've tried to go there, it was too crowded and had a long wait. Planning ahead! Yay! :) It was very good. I was starving so it hit the spot.

I haven't gotten a lot of work done today. Oh, well!

I was moving my little desk that I put my computer on, and I accidentally stubbed my toe on a part of it that is somewhat sharp. It hit the area right next to the big toenail and it was bleeding a little.

I was sitting here as usual, in our place with the lanai door open, and I heard some big noises outside. I mean, it's often noisy here. We live downtown, so there's always police and fire sirens, people yelling (drunks and crazy people), the bus pulling up, car alarms going off and more. I don't even notice it any more, most of the time. This was not the usual. I heard a lot of screeching of tires, I think a crashing sound, and then a lot of people screaming, like they were scared or angry. So I jumped up and ran over to the balcony, but whatever was happening was behind this big building (a theater next to the park), on Nuuanu. Then two police motorcycles drove on the sidewalk in front of the park (on the other side of the road from our building), towards Nuuanu (probably because the big road, Beretania, is one-way). Then right after that, I heard lots of police sirens and a bunch of them came up. One turned the corner at Nuuanu and two others circled around on Smith street. I couldn't see what happened, but it continued to be loud with sirens and shouting for quite a while. When I went to bed around 2am, there were still two police cars sitting at the corner.

April 26

There was nothing on the news about what happened, but when we walked over to the Nuuanu area, we saw skid marks and they led into the parking lot. There was some sort of barrier that had been up before, and it was knocked down. I hope no one was hurt or killed!

Wow, very busy day! David woke me up at 9:30. We walked over to the hair cutting place so he could get his hair cut. I went to Radio Shack next door and then to the Walgreens. Afterwards, we stopped at Zippy's for lunch. I just had the turkey club sandwich with no bread, and fries (I only ate a few fries). We stopped briefly at home and then we stopped at Starbucks so I could get some coffee, then we went to O'Toole's for some drinks. My stomach wasn't feeling well, so we went home and I took a nap for a few hours (the coffee had not helped me stay awake!).

Later, we walked down to Pier 38, where there are some restaurants. We had originally wanted to eat at Nico's, but they don't take reservations, so instead we went to a place called Uncle's Fish. We met our friends Lena and George there. They're retired and moved here about the same time we did, so we meet up with them about once a month to have dinner. Very nice people, and Lena is on Facebook, too. We had a nice dinner and fun like always!

At the table behind us was House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. We all recognized him, but of course David, being the political science major, knew for sure who he was. Well, none of us are Republicans, but George went over and said hi to him. I have to say, Cantor was kind of a dick. He seemed kind of cold and not very friendly. I offered to take a picture, and George demurred, and Cantor just sat down. Most celebrities I've seen would have said, oh, sure, let's take a photo! Not too surprising that the guy who's probably to be the next Republican Speaker of the House is a jerk. I wish I could have told him that he represents everything I hate in the world, but it's not like he would have cared..

Anyway, I wouldn't say it's a great restaurant. The food was nothing special. I had scallops, which were pretty bland. I think David had clam chowder and salmon, and he said his was mediocre, too. Oh, well! We'll have to try a different and new one next time and hope it's good. The desserts and drinks were good, though.

I just worked the rest of the evening...catching up as usual!

I bought a new photo frame online. Hopefully it will work better than the other one I got. The one I have for myself is a Coby brand, and it restarts periodically... this new one is a Philips, which is a better brand, I think? I want to get it for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day and put lots of photos on it for her.

I had hoped to do more cleaning today, but I was just too busy!

I was doing pretty well on my diet but blew it a bit today by eating some mini-Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Have a great week and don't forget to check out my TV Blog...

Week of April 13

2014-04-22T03:32:00.001-05:00

April 13

I got up way too late... I didn't eat much for lunch. We went to the grocery store as usual.

They almost killed me at the Times Supermarket! I usually buy spinach in the plastic package. They didn't have any, so I went over to where the greens are, like kale etc. I picked up a bag of what I thought was spinach. When we got to the check-out stand, I noticed that it said something different when they rang it up. The bagger said they're Luau Leaves and offered to take them back, but we didn't feel like waiting around, so I just said, no, it's okay, I'll try them. I asked if you could cook them like spinach, but he didn't think so. I said I would figure it out, and he said if I wanted to bring them back with the receipt, it would be ok. So I wanted to make my baked spinach like I always make from my site. I went online to see if I could find anything that said you could use the luau leaves like spinach. Turns out, they're toxic! You shouldn't eat them raw because they can kill you. Good thing I didn't make a salad out of them! Sheesh. Why would you put that on the shelves, with all of the other greens, unmarked (they were in a plastic bag, so they could EASILY have labeled them and also put a warning about not eating them raw). Apparently, if you cook them or soak them overnight, they're okay. But frankly, I threw them out because I don't want to take that chance. Someone on Facebook said they sounded similar to rhubarb leaves, but from what I could read, most people don't eat rhubarb leaves. The Luau leaves are very popular here. They're actually the leaves of the taro plant. They're called Luau Leaves because they're used all of the time in luaus. It sounds like rhubarb leaves are only toxic if you eat a lot of it, and yet still most people avoid it. Anyway, I wrote a complaint letter to the Times Supermarket. Later I did hear back from them and they were somewhat apologetic....

I had asked them to order this frozen pizza that David likes, but apparently they stopped making that particular type. Bummer!

We went to the Downbeat Diner as we often do on Sundays. I had a breakfast burrito (they sell breakfast all day). As I've said before, they can put any of their sandwiches or wraps in a corn tortilla that's gluten free. This is the first breakfast burrito I've had in many years! It was really good, too, very spicy. Their home fries are great, too.

I was a little hyper after dinner, so we walked around the block a little bit, but it was too windy for me. This time of year gets very windy and often rainy. I've never liked wind. Of course I didn't think to bring any scarves when I moved here!

I did laundry and lots of work on my site. I stayed up until after 5am. I didn't want to, but I wasn't tired, plus I had a lot of work to do.

April 14

I got up around 1pm. After awhile, I took a shower and then went over to get lunch at McDonald's. Not good to eat there but too tempting! I just did work at home after that.

David and I went to Epic for dinner around 6. I had their duck salad, which is always good. We ran into two of his colleagues, whom I've met many times, two very nice ladies, so we chatted with them briefly. One is Theresa, who runs the music programs, and the other works in History but she's also a musician on the side...I can't remember her name... I could never do David's job because he has so many people and things to remember.

We watched a little TV but otherwise, nothing too exciting after we came home. I've just been trying to catch up on the work as always!

April 15

I got up a bit earlier for a change, around 11:30. David and I went to the little Greek place for lunch. It was delicious, but I think it may have had gluten in it. I don't know, but I was very sick most of the rest of the day. After lunch, I just stopped briefly at Long's to get a few things, and at Starbucks to get a coffee.

The Discount Furniture Warehouse delivery guy came around 2 and brought the replacement part for our bed. Finally! We've been sleeping on a slant for months. It's so nice to have a flat, level bed. I took a short nap this afternoon.

David had his class, so I went to J.J. Dolan's around 6:40 to get a table (because lately it's been so crowded). It's mostly a pizza place, but he usually has the calamari and I usually have the caprese salad.

I got a lot of work done earlier today. I'm hoping I can get to bed somewhat earlier. We'll see!

It's been very rainy and windy. I bought a second umbrella because at lunch I got very wet. I'm finally trying to remember to always take an umbrella and/or hat, and sweater, out with me. April showers! I'm not thrilled with wind and rain, but it's not that bad.. it's not like living in other places where it really rains a lot, or you have to worry about bad thunderstorms, or tornadoes, or hurricanes.

April 16

I went to bed last night around 3 and I was supposed to get up for a call, but I wasn't feeling well, so I went back to sleep and didn't wake up until after 1:30. Not good. I woke up earlier very itchy all over and with achy legs.

We have this event we're going to tonight, a play of some kind. You can read about it at http://www.honolulupulse.com/2014/04/review-heritage-hpu/

Wow, I got really busy after this and did not keep up with my blog. The play was a lot of fun. We spoke with many people there from the faculty, and I met this one guy who's also sometimes an actor at the Diamondhead theater. He's got a small role in "Showboat" which is going on right now.
The play was very good and way better than I thought it would be. They did an awesome job with it. It was great to chat some with Matthew and Sara, and everyone else.

We got home pretty late for us, after 10.

April 17

I felt sick today, like maybe I was coming down with a cold. I woke up all stuffed up and it just got worse from there. But apparently I'm not sick because nothing else came of it. It was just really bad allergies.

David has tomorrow off, so he did offer to go to karaoke tonight, but I wasn't feeling up to it.

April 18

I've been getting a lot done this week on the site. Not much else!

We went to Zippy's for lunch, which is like Denny's but better, and two blocks near us. We went to Waikiki for dinner as usual. We tried to get into PF Chang's, but it was too crowded. Instead, we went to Top of Waikiki. It's a very nice restaurant at the top of some building. It revolves very slowly. We sat in the bar because otherwise there was a long wait. The view was great, even though it was a bit drizzly. The food was excellent!

Looks like our friend Barbara is coming out to visit in July, so that's very exciting. David has a dean's conference in Taiwan, so she'll keep me company for part of that time. I hope she can go with me to Teddy Bear World and some of the other fun places that David doesn't like! I'm sure we'll have lots of fun going to movies and karaoke, seeing the sites, etc.

I finally watched the second Thor movie, on Blu-ray. It was awesome!! I can't wait for the next one, or the next Aveners or X-Men movie. I thought this one was even better than the first one. The extras were good, too.

April 19

We walked to the karaoke bar, Blue Ribbon, which is about 2 miles away. We stopped at some other bars first and also at this Japanes restaurant called Sakura Terrace. It was very good. I couldn't eat most of the food on their menu because of the gluten, but I did eat some steak and some delicious panna cotta with berries. The service was a bit slow but otherwise ok. We enjoyed the food. We were surprised by just how many restaurants were there along King street. It's between the downtown and Waikiki, so it's more of a locals area, not a tourist area. It's hard to believe so many places can stay in business. Anyway, stopping to eat was a nice half way point to break up the long walk. Good exercise for me, too.

Blue Ribbon is a nice little locals place with generally good singers. Almost everyone sits down to sing with the cordless mic. The KJ and the waitresses are very nice. Even though the place was packed, there were only about 6 or 7 people singing, so I got to sing quite a bit in the hour and a half we were there. It was a lot of fun and they definitely love the oldies there. We took a cab back.

If you have a little extra money to spend, this charity No Kids Hungry is a good one for helping kids eat. It's so sad that it's even an issue in today's world, such a great and rich country as ours. I gave $50, but give whatever you can! They also have a place where you can set up some kind of thing like a bake sale to raise money for them. I read all about it in Good Housekeeping.

I was just working so much this week and concentrating on that, so I didn't get much else done. I really need to clean the house!

We have some fun events coming up. Next weekend we're going to see our friends Lena and George. They're coming down here to Chinatown so we can look around at that and then have dinner. Then on Sunday is the big concert for the HPU music ensembles. I'm sure there are other events, too, that I don't know about yet. My band is finally having its rehearsal May 10 during the day, so I'm excited about that! I have to learn some more songs, though. Then that night, there's this big fund-raiser for the Hawaii Theater (which is downtown here). It's a fancy party so I'm going to buy a gown and David's going to rent a tux. Looking forward to that!

Hope you all had a great Easter!

Don't forget to read my TV Blog all about TV and about my site/work.

Week of April 6

2014-04-15T02:48:00.004-05:00

April 6

I hope we get more visitors! Please do come visit! If you can't afford it, then please enter online sweepstakes. There are MANY for trips to Hawaii! Sweepstakes in the US are not scams. They pick real people, every time. They have real laws they have to follow. I used to enter them and I won a lot. I try to enter sometimes now, but I just don't have the time necessary to do it. But if you concentrate on just entering the sweeps for Hawaii trips and enter every day, you might win. Sure, the odds might be low, but you won't win if you don't try. When I do enter, I usually use a site and newsletter called Sweepsheet. It's not free, though.

Speaking of which, don't forget my site has a monthly drawing for DVD's and other things. I choose 2 people every month, and they get to pick which prize they want, and I send it to them. The TV show PR people send me the prizes in order to promote their shows, and I give them away.

I stayed up way too late last night because I had a long nap, so I didn't wake up until after 1pm. (SIGH!) My never-ending struggle to get up early and keep getting up early is very frustrating.

It's funny... I kept thinking that today was Monday because I actually got a lot of work done ahead of time this weekend! Instead of scrambling to do it at the last minute on Sunday....

I didn't do anything too interesting today besides work on my site and do the dishes and laundry!

I got a call from our old friend LC in Tuscaloosa. He was our cab driver there, but also a friend. We keep in touch periodically by phone and/or email. It was great to catch up with him!

We went to the Times grocery store as usual. It sprinkled a little, but not too much. We get what's called "Hawaii rain" here, it just sprinkles a little and doesn't last long.

We went to Downbeat Cafe for dinner as usual. They were very busy and the poor waiter/bartender guy was overworked, but we didn't have to wait too long. He's really good. They have these great corn tortillas here so I can get any sandwich or wrap in that if I want. I had a gyro, which was pretty good. Their french fries are great, too.

April 7

I wanted to get up early but again, I slept in late until about 3. It's been later and later again. All my hard work from this past year of getting up earlier, out the window. It sure didn't take much, just one nap this weekend and poof, that's it.

I haven't been drinking coffee because I don't want to stay up even later. I have an early call tomorrow, so maybe I'll just stay up all night and use coffee for that...we'll see!

It's after 5 now and I haven't eaten... hopefully I can just wait an hour or so until dinner.

I tested my blood sugar and it was fine, so I waited until dinner to eat anything. I really want to eat less. We went to Murphy's, and I had a great scallops dish there.

Later I just had some nuts, and a lot of baked spinach, and half a yogurt.

I tried going to bed about 5 am, but I wasn't sleepy enough yet. UGH.

April 8

I have a conference call at 10:30am... hopefully I can get a LITTLE sleep before that.

This comedian I liked died...he was only 50 but very overweight. Also, I learned that my brother's friend Dave also died. I guess when you get older, every day you go on Facebook, Twitter, or email is another day someone you know or like might have died. :(

Something else they don't tell you, when you're younger, is that after a certain age (50?) you will probably always have some kind of pain, almost every day. If you're one of those amazing people who stays thin and in-shape...if you exercise and eat regularly your whole life, and you don't have any nasty habits like smoking, drinking or drugs, eating disorders, etc. then you'll probably have fewer aches and pains. However, at some point, you do have pain anyway because of all that exercising. Depending on your family history, of course, you could start having knee or other problems that cause you pain. Now, if you DON'T eat right or DON'T exercise regularly, or worse, like me, do both, then you're going to have even more pain and more physical problems. If you try exercising after you've already been in this bad shape for years, then it's even more painful. And if you get a bad back or something, then it's worse. So no matter what you do, you have pain of some kind. However, you do want to exercise and eat right on a regular basis because then the odds are definitely in your favor that you'll feel better, look better, and live longer, and have less pain than those of us who didn't.

Sorry to be so morbid! Feeling lazy and fat today.

David and I went out for lunch to Subway. I tried to buy some stuff at Ross, but I forgot it was Tuesday - discount day! So it was crowded and the lines were long. I ended up eating more at McDonald's, which is a bad idea. I felt bloated and sick the rest of the day just from eating too much.

I went back to sleep after lunch and had a long nap.

Later, we went to dinner at HASR's Bistro. The food is always good there, but we had a waiter who was probably new...he was very slow.

I tried to register my business with the state. I was really supposed to register it (AKA get a business license) in the last two states we were in, but I didn't ever get around to it. Well, that's because they were antiquated. You couldn't do it online in those places. You had to go to a specific office downtown, and I didn't drive, so I kept putting it off... I know it wasn't a good thing, but at least it's done now. I think I did it right - I hope so! I sent them an email to make sure because there was nothing in the forms I filled out online about telling them that my site was an Alabama Corporation, since that's where it was formed, and also there was nowhere to tell them that it was an internet website. If those things matter. So I heard back and it looks like I filled out the wrong forms. Now I have to wait for them to tell me what's what.

I watched some DVD's and otherwise didn't get too much done.

I tried to go to bed just a tad earlier than usual, but it didn't work, so I got up for a while. I think I finally got back to bed about 5.

April 9

I had to wake up at 6:30 for a 7 AM call. I was so tired and groggy! But the call went well, so I'm glad I stayed awake.

I went back to sleep around 9:30 and woke up around 2:30pm. I can't remember my dream but it had something to do with choir. That's all I remember!

I haven't done much all day, just wasted time on Facebook etc. It was a lazy day.

We went to dinner at Epic. I had a cheeseburger and fries. I really should have had their salad, but I just wasn't in the mood. There's only a few things I can eat there that don't make me sick or that wouldn't cost over $20 per entree. There were only 2 places David seemed to want to go, so I went for him.

I was sick a lot today with D, so that's why I was so hungry.

I've been putting off work a bit, so now I have a lot to catch up on and no energy! UGH. Honestly, it's almost 10pm and I feel like taking a nap, so that's really screwed up.

I had this great idea for a website, but I don't know if I will do it because it might take a lot of time, effort, and expense.

This is funny, turns out one of the guys from my band lives next door to this woman who is an English professor at David's college. I had a lengthy conversation with her a few months ago when we went to see a play at HPU. Nice lady. Such a funny coincidence! She came up to David and told him about living next door to this guy and how she heard I was going to be in a band. This is the second one like that, in a few months. The mathematician that we saw last week at Science Pub, I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but she is my foster sister Tami's sister-in-law. Tami lives in Oregon. I remember when we moved here, she mentioned it, but at that point we had a lot going on, and David didn't know anyone yet, so I forgot about it. Small island, I guess!

Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear about the band. Hopefully soon!

I wrote this up: My singing and musical history!

I was so tired and feeling so stuffed up from allergies that I actually went to sleep before 11pm. I didn't think I would sleep, or not that much, and I ended up sleeping all night! Wow!

April 10

I got up at 6:30 because I had another 7 am call. Last one this week, thank goodness! It went great. I also had another call at 9:30, a one-on-one call. Those are more work because I have to come up with a lot more questions and record it, then transcribe it. It went well, too, though!

I did the dishes (the kitchen was a mess!) and made some mocha-coffee, then I took some more of the coffee and made a mocha smoothie. I only had a little bit of it and I'm saving the rest for tomorrow and possibly the next day. It's really too hot here to drink coffee most of the time, anyway.

It was very cool and windy the rest of the week. I wouldn't say it was hot today, but was not very windy.

I did a lot of work, and I was tired, but I decided to force myself to stay up and not take a nap, so that I can go to sleep early again tonight and hopefully stay on a good schedule.

I have this idea about a website that will try to use an algorithm to rank celebrities' fame... I have some people working on it and some with whom I'm bouncing ideas. It's just for fun, but who knows? Maybe it will get some money.

David and I went to Ra Kuen, the Japanese place, for dinner. I really can't eat too many things because most of their food uses soy sauce or is raw fish. They only have a few cooked dishes, and they're either breaded or use soy. I usually just have this steak dish, which is ok, but I have to have it plain because their usual way of making it uses soy sauce. Turns out the guy who owns it also owns the Mercury Bar (he mentioned that they might be getting gluten free pizza). I had hoped to go there tomorrow night for live band karaoke, but again their band canceled. Apparently their members keep getting sick. Bummer! Then later I realized, I should have suggested to the owner that he get more gluten free dishes at Ra Kuen. D'oh! Well, hopefully next time I talk to him. I mean, either get some gluten free soy sauce or at least some oil and vinegar so I can have a salad...

As soon as I finish my laundry tonight, I'm going to bed! So tired. How did it get to me almost 1 am already? YUK!

April 11

Sirens woke me up about 8:20, but I went back to sleep. David phoned and woke me up about 10:30. We went to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch, and I stopped at 'umeke Market to get some gluten free scones. Then we went to this noontime concert they have over at a nearby church. This one was the two choirs from his school, the IVE and the Chorale (the latter is the one I was in last semester). It was weird watching them when I was just one of them! Some of the girls that sat near me were not there, so I guess they left, too. I recognized one of the songs; I think our high school Chamber Singers did it (not the year I was in). There was another one "Sure on this shining night" - I did a song in my voice lessons that was the same title and words, but completely different tune. I was surprised that at least 8 of the people I remembered from the choir were not in it this semester.

David came back around 4:30 and got ready because we had some more stuff to go to. First, he had a party for the people in his college, so we went to Gordon Biersch for that, for a little while. I only knew a few of the people but everyone was very nice. Then we went to the Plaza Club, which is where we went to the fancy Christmas party this past December. We met up with his boss, Matthew, and his wife, Sara, for dinner there. The club had a special Friday night Spanish food tapas thing. It was pretty good. They had some cool flamenco dancers, lots of food (most of it gluten free!) and a lot of wines. We mostly talked. It was a lot of fun! They're both very nice people. We stayed out there after ten so it was a while, but it was fun! I think we'll probably be doing some other stuff together as well. We'll see them next month at another event, at the very least.

I just found out that you should change your Google and other passwords because of this security problem, so I changed my passwords for Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter. What a big pain. Read about it at http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/

I need to get more work done, but today kind of set me back... I'm already sleepy and stuffed up. We'll see how it goes!

April 12

I got up fairly early. David had a work thing around noon. I was going to go get lunch, but when I went out, it was raining quite a bit, so I went back up and just made myself lunch. I was being lazy because I would have had to change my clothes and shoes completely. I just worked on my site after that.

In the evening, we took a cab down to Waikiki. It was raining again (was all day, off and on). We tried to get into PF Chang's, but it was too crowded. We had gotten there later than usual because David's phone was not working when he went to call the cab, so we spent about a half hour trying to get that to work (it finally rebooted and installed some software upgrade that seemed to fix the problem).

We went over to the Irish bar that he likes, Kelley O'Neill's, since it was a short walk and I didn't want to get any more wet. I had worn socks but forgot to bring an umbrella or hat. They had this Irish band that we'd seen many times there before. It's not the kind of loud Irish rock band that you hear in these places. It's a little instrumental group with flutes and such. There were some drunk and loud tourists sitting next to us. There was another guy with a cute little puppy that he bought over to the woman in that group to hold. It was so adorable and slept most of the time.

We tried to go to the In Between (karaoke bar) but there was nowhere to sit, and no one was singing, either. That's a shame. Since it was still a bit rainy, I decided we should go back to our area instead of going to another karaoke bar down in Waikiki. That was a mistake because the only one there that's open on Saturdays (and not a dive), Mambo Cafe, was also too crowded and had nowhere to sit, and also no one was singing. So that was very disappointing. We'll probably go next week and hopefully have better luck.

I did get a lot of work done, though!

I'm about 2000 emails behind, and it's making me stressed out! Most of it is work related email.

Things I've learned about Honolulu
---------------------------------------------
First, the weather. It's very hot and humid May through November (especially July through September). Similar to Florida weather. If you're around Waikiki, there is more wind, which helps with the heat. If you're closer to the mountains, it's cooler and rainier. It's very hot in other parts of the island. Even when it turns cooler, it stays humid for quite a while. In March and April, it rains a lot and gets very windy. It can feel cold even if it's 80 degrees out, just because of the wind. If you move here, make sure you don't get rid of all of your winter clothes because you will need long pants, socks, real shoes, sweaters, scarves (and possibly jackets). I mostly enjoy the weather here, but I don't like wind, and I hate the heat and humidity in the summer.

Downtown is similar to other city's downtown, but safer. There isn't much crime here at all. You'll hear lots of sirens from the fire and police stations. You won't hear too much car horn honking, either. There's lots of homeless, but they don't bother you much; they are largely not aggressive and most won't even ask you for money. There are quite a few right near where we live. It's still jarring to see someone lying on the sidewalk as you pass by. I always think, is he dead? But you do learn to not make eye contact and not look too closely as it's sad.

People are very friendly and polite, although sometimes they can be physically pushy, especially in the store. Certain cultures that live here don't seem to know the words for "excuse me". They'll just push into you or past you. Also, a lot of people ride bicycles or skateboards on the sidewalk so you learn to walk carefully...

White people are in the minority here. You won't see too many African Americans or Latinos, either. You may see people that look African-American, but they're islanders who are very dark from the sun. I love any kind of multi-ethnic or multi-cultural setting, so it doesn't bother me. It's just very unusual compared to other places I've lived. It makes Hawaii seem even more exotic.

There are many great restaurants. If you love Asian food, there is tons of that. It's hard to find good Mexican food or Indian food. The quality of most of the restaurants varies, though, from visit to visit. You will get addicted to chocolate covered macadamia nuts!

People here use a lot of Hawaiian words that you won't understand. Not just for tourists, but all over the island in every-day life. They give each other leis at any type of special meeting or ceremony. There are tons of flower and lei shops.

Since it is Hawaii, you do see lots of exotic animals, birds, fish, and flowers, as well as palm trees and other unusual-looking things. Even downtown, where it looks largely like any city. Flowers are very cheap here, even orchids.

People love pets here and it's a very dog-friendly city. You see people taking dogs into any and every establishment.

If you live in a high-rise, it has a lot of advantage, but the wind will rattle the windows and doors if you're on a high floor, and it will be too windy to go out on your lanai (balcony) much. There are some days where you might not want to open up the lanai door, even though it's warm.

Some people refer to Hawaii as a Southern state because sometimes it seems like there's a lot of corruption in the government and people move at their own pace. I can't speak for any corruption, but I don't think the pace is nearly as bad as when we lived in Alabama or Georgia. However, if a company has to order parts or anything, it comes from the mainland, so that can take a long time. If you're the impatient sort, you might not like the island pace. Some of the stop lights here take a really long time and I've heard that the traffic can be bad if you're a commuter.

Don't eat the Luau (taro) leaves as they're poisonous! Even though they sell them in the grocery store. Apparently if you cook or soak them, they're ok, but I'm not taking any chances.

Most of the apartments, buildings or clubs with pools heat their pools, even when it's very hot outside. People here are wimps when it comes to the weather, so they don't want to go into "cold" water even if it's in the mid 80's and humid.

There is a lot of karaoke here, but you may find that you have to drive to different places to find good karaoke, depending on which day you go and how picky you are. Usually, it costs a dollar or two per song. Everyone is very nice and friendly. Some places may be Asian-only or Japanese-only karaoke.

The Japanese culture has had a huge influence over the culture here. For instance, people expect you to take off your shoes when you enter their home. Japanese foods like edamame, gyoza, sushi and seared ahi is everywhere. Not just in sushi or Japanese restaurants.

It's pretty expensive to live here if you don't have a six figure income. Housing is particularly expensive. A lot of people have roommates, not just in college, or they share their house or it's split off into more than one apartment.

Groceries, furniture, dining out, electricity and other things can also be expensive, but there are places to shop that have cheaper stuff. There are Walmarts, Good Will, Costco, Kmart, Target, etc. if you need them. There's a Sears, but no JC Penney's, and no 99cent or dollar stores. You will also find many great bargains on Craigslist and Freecycle.

We've found that the Times supermarket is the cheapest, although we've also heard that one called Don Quixote is cheaper. Don't shop at Safeway unless money is no object. However, Times is not great for gluten free foods. Safeway has quite a few gluten free items, as does Whole Foods.

Most of the restaurants are pretty good about knowing what gluten is and how to cook without it. Just call ahead and ask if you're not sure. They really don't want to poison you if you're allergic to gluten, nuts etc. so they try to be helpful.

I love living here.... everyone should come visit and live here! LOL!

Well that's all for now. Aloha!

Don't forget to check out my TV Blog!

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.