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In Which I Record Kauaian Adventures
Jan. 12th, 2020 10:21 pmWe must be starting to settle in a little bit, because I didn't feel the need to obsessively journal for the 11th day in a row on Friday (or yesterday for that matter).
That might be because we'd come upon the blesséd weekend, which though there were things to do, felt like the first break I'd had since Christmas.
And of course, there are still things to write about:
The Rain in Kauai Falls Mainly on the Lanai. It has been raining since we got here! Every morning, every day, and for the last few days, most of the day. I've walked in the rain. I've driven in the rain. My dad says it's the rainiest winter he remembers (though obviously we're not having the extreme rainfall in a day or two that caused several flooding a few years ago). It's wet, wet, wet.
And it's amazing to watch in our house, because we're at the top of a ridge, so we just see the rain thundering now out of the sky, plunging into the valley behind us and pummeling all of the houses.
(And today it finally cleared up a little, though there's expected to be more rain all next week.)
Centipede, Leave My Heart Alone. When we were here last April, we learned that the house had centipede problems, to the tune of one a week or something like that, which seriously unthrilled us. Mary told the renters that of course she'd be happy to take care of it, and so they talked about spraying when the renter's children were away ... but the tenant apparently never contacted Mary to make that happen. But for 12 days now, we've been centipede free. I'm guessing that the rain is washing them all away (seriously), but at least it's a respite while we settle in.
When I heard about the centipede problem, I imagined that we'd have to have an expert in, to carefully scour the house for ways they might be getting in. And that may still have to happen. But, while working in my office last week, I was shocked to discover the screen behind the middle louvre window in my office was easily ripped enough to let a centipede in. This was in the very room where our renter had complained about a centipede crawling across his face while sleeping. So, I walked the downstairs and found a similarly ripped window in Kimberly's office, and later when I went outside, I found one more that wasn't as bad, but was probably big enough for a centipede to get in (and a few more that aren't quite there yet). There are also a few screens in the mud room where the seal doesn't look perfect.
So, there are all kinds of obvious things to do as a first step to reducing centipede infestation.
You Make Me Feel Like (A Natural Homeowner). I've been a homeowner since 2000, but I've never felt as much like a homeowner as I have since we moved to Hawaii. That's in part because I'm assembling all of our furniture. (Including great designs from CostCo/Bay Designs and Wayfair, plus a really badly made design from Choo Choo that I bought on Amazon: never again.) But that's really about a house, not a home. I feel like a homeowner primarily because of my dad, who's been over here frequently, teaching me how to do things (supplying expertise and tools and maybe just a little bit of elbow grease here and there.) So last Friday, after work, we he showed me how to fill a huge hole in our bathroom wall and also rebuild screens. (The same screens that were open to centipede infestation.) He rebuilt about half of the first screen, and left me to finish it, and then I rebuilt two more. I mean, it's pretty easy: pull out the spline, pull out the screen, lay the new screen over the frame, lay in the spline using a handy tool, and cut the screen against the spline. But back in Berkeley I would have just bought new screens or had someone build them. Instead, here, I got the extreme satisfaction of seeing these pristine looking screens that I rebuilt. (And perhaps we should have rebuilt a few more, but I was tired after three. Anyhow, I'm hopefully that none of the remaining ones will let in centipedes yet.)
My dad said that we might built some or all of the bookshelves that we're interested getting built-into the house: we'll see if we're really up to the scope of that project.
La Vie Boheme. Moving into this house that my parents had rented out for almost two decades, I've discovered that I just don't understand renters (and I say that having been a renter from 1989-2000). On the one hand, you have mysterious damage. The hole in our bathroom wall was behind where a mirror had literally been ripped off the wall, based on the how all of its holders were broken, but which the renters said "fell down". Similarly, I dunno what was done to the light in my office (which we did finally get working, but it's the one overhead light which just isn't bright enough for the room: we think renters might have changed it out at some point). Meanwhile, we have the things that they just ignored, like those centipede-big holes in windows in a house where they were complaining about centipedes, or the dripping pipe in our master bathroom (which just needed to be tightened or ...). I mean, my parents are the nicest landlords around, so if the tenants had asked for anything to be fixed, it would have been, but it apparently wasn't even worth asking. As I said, I don't understand.
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream ... On Saturday, looking for somewhere to drive to, I chose Lappert's ice cream in Koloa. It was my first drive out to Koloa, and it was largely successful (other than the fact that Koloa Road is filled with awful potholes, which my dad says is due to the really bad rainy season). As usual, I had problems parking Julie the Benz, but afterward I watched videos and discovered that my main problem in those 90-degree parking spaces was probably not getting far enough to the other side (and that if I thought about them as left-hand turns they might feel less intimidating).
Kimberly says there are several rites of passage to becoming citizens of Kauai and that getting our Lappert's frequent-customer card was one of them.
Walking on Sunshine. I have long imagined how things might be here in Kauai. Some things have fallen down, like my dream that I'd walk the loop trail every morning before work. But today I did something else I'd long dreamed of: I walked over to my Dad and Mary's house to visit in the afternoon. It's just more than a mile: 25 minutes there (downhill), 30 minutes back (uphill). Both my dad and Mary were surprised that I walked, and tried to give me a ride back, which tells me they don't understand how much I walked everywhere back in Berkeley. But I partook of a bit of their late lunch, and then we talked for a while. It was very nice. Although I haven't done much hiking or biking or swimming yet, this was another one of the advantages I saw from living in Hawaii, and I'm glad to see it taking form.
Heigh-Ho, Heigh Ho. And even with the weekend, it feels like I'm not getting enough time for everything. I haven't had time to do most of my personal writing (though I finally produced a new Mechanics & Meeples article tonight, for publication .. momentarily), and I haven't given a lot of time to Bitmark writing. But that may be because this weekend I mostly relaxed. There was computer game playing (Dresden Files Card Game on my Mac; thanks Eric!), there was reading, there was napping.
So maybe I'm a little more ready now for a new week of work, and the usual busyness (and maybe also catching up on some more of that writing and of course doing more building and unpacking, which were also minor parts of this weekend).
The advemture continues ...
That might be because we'd come upon the blesséd weekend, which though there were things to do, felt like the first break I'd had since Christmas.
And of course, there are still things to write about:
The Rain in Kauai Falls Mainly on the Lanai. It has been raining since we got here! Every morning, every day, and for the last few days, most of the day. I've walked in the rain. I've driven in the rain. My dad says it's the rainiest winter he remembers (though obviously we're not having the extreme rainfall in a day or two that caused several flooding a few years ago). It's wet, wet, wet.
And it's amazing to watch in our house, because we're at the top of a ridge, so we just see the rain thundering now out of the sky, plunging into the valley behind us and pummeling all of the houses.
(And today it finally cleared up a little, though there's expected to be more rain all next week.)
Centipede, Leave My Heart Alone. When we were here last April, we learned that the house had centipede problems, to the tune of one a week or something like that, which seriously unthrilled us. Mary told the renters that of course she'd be happy to take care of it, and so they talked about spraying when the renter's children were away ... but the tenant apparently never contacted Mary to make that happen. But for 12 days now, we've been centipede free. I'm guessing that the rain is washing them all away (seriously), but at least it's a respite while we settle in.
When I heard about the centipede problem, I imagined that we'd have to have an expert in, to carefully scour the house for ways they might be getting in. And that may still have to happen. But, while working in my office last week, I was shocked to discover the screen behind the middle louvre window in my office was easily ripped enough to let a centipede in. This was in the very room where our renter had complained about a centipede crawling across his face while sleeping. So, I walked the downstairs and found a similarly ripped window in Kimberly's office, and later when I went outside, I found one more that wasn't as bad, but was probably big enough for a centipede to get in (and a few more that aren't quite there yet). There are also a few screens in the mud room where the seal doesn't look perfect.
So, there are all kinds of obvious things to do as a first step to reducing centipede infestation.
You Make Me Feel Like (A Natural Homeowner). I've been a homeowner since 2000, but I've never felt as much like a homeowner as I have since we moved to Hawaii. That's in part because I'm assembling all of our furniture. (Including great designs from CostCo/Bay Designs and Wayfair, plus a really badly made design from Choo Choo that I bought on Amazon: never again.) But that's really about a house, not a home. I feel like a homeowner primarily because of my dad, who's been over here frequently, teaching me how to do things (supplying expertise and tools and maybe just a little bit of elbow grease here and there.) So last Friday, after work, we he showed me how to fill a huge hole in our bathroom wall and also rebuild screens. (The same screens that were open to centipede infestation.) He rebuilt about half of the first screen, and left me to finish it, and then I rebuilt two more. I mean, it's pretty easy: pull out the spline, pull out the screen, lay the new screen over the frame, lay in the spline using a handy tool, and cut the screen against the spline. But back in Berkeley I would have just bought new screens or had someone build them. Instead, here, I got the extreme satisfaction of seeing these pristine looking screens that I rebuilt. (And perhaps we should have rebuilt a few more, but I was tired after three. Anyhow, I'm hopefully that none of the remaining ones will let in centipedes yet.)
My dad said that we might built some or all of the bookshelves that we're interested getting built-into the house: we'll see if we're really up to the scope of that project.
La Vie Boheme. Moving into this house that my parents had rented out for almost two decades, I've discovered that I just don't understand renters (and I say that having been a renter from 1989-2000). On the one hand, you have mysterious damage. The hole in our bathroom wall was behind where a mirror had literally been ripped off the wall, based on the how all of its holders were broken, but which the renters said "fell down". Similarly, I dunno what was done to the light in my office (which we did finally get working, but it's the one overhead light which just isn't bright enough for the room: we think renters might have changed it out at some point). Meanwhile, we have the things that they just ignored, like those centipede-big holes in windows in a house where they were complaining about centipedes, or the dripping pipe in our master bathroom (which just needed to be tightened or ...). I mean, my parents are the nicest landlords around, so if the tenants had asked for anything to be fixed, it would have been, but it apparently wasn't even worth asking. As I said, I don't understand.
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream ... On Saturday, looking for somewhere to drive to, I chose Lappert's ice cream in Koloa. It was my first drive out to Koloa, and it was largely successful (other than the fact that Koloa Road is filled with awful potholes, which my dad says is due to the really bad rainy season). As usual, I had problems parking Julie the Benz, but afterward I watched videos and discovered that my main problem in those 90-degree parking spaces was probably not getting far enough to the other side (and that if I thought about them as left-hand turns they might feel less intimidating).
Kimberly says there are several rites of passage to becoming citizens of Kauai and that getting our Lappert's frequent-customer card was one of them.
Walking on Sunshine. I have long imagined how things might be here in Kauai. Some things have fallen down, like my dream that I'd walk the loop trail every morning before work. But today I did something else I'd long dreamed of: I walked over to my Dad and Mary's house to visit in the afternoon. It's just more than a mile: 25 minutes there (downhill), 30 minutes back (uphill). Both my dad and Mary were surprised that I walked, and tried to give me a ride back, which tells me they don't understand how much I walked everywhere back in Berkeley. But I partook of a bit of their late lunch, and then we talked for a while. It was very nice. Although I haven't done much hiking or biking or swimming yet, this was another one of the advantages I saw from living in Hawaii, and I'm glad to see it taking form.
Heigh-Ho, Heigh Ho. And even with the weekend, it feels like I'm not getting enough time for everything. I haven't had time to do most of my personal writing (though I finally produced a new Mechanics & Meeples article tonight, for publication .. momentarily), and I haven't given a lot of time to Bitmark writing. But that may be because this weekend I mostly relaxed. There was computer game playing (Dresden Files Card Game on my Mac; thanks Eric!), there was reading, there was napping.
So maybe I'm a little more ready now for a new week of work, and the usual busyness (and maybe also catching up on some more of that writing and of course doing more building and unpacking, which were also minor parts of this weekend).
The advemture continues ...